Tidings of Comfort and Joy (17 page)
Doctor Taft gave the first two children a cursory inspection, then declared flatly, "Infectious hepatitis. No question."
Rachel was unsure how to take this abrupt young man in his flashy naval uniform. "But you haven't seen the others."
"No need." Even so, he moved to the next bed, inspected tongue and eyes and felt for the lymph nodes, then flipped back the blanket and kneaded the belly just below the rib cage. Then he looked up at Rachel. "I've seen enough of these cases to know them in my sleep. Boats are perfect breeding grounds for hepatitis. You'll notice the jaundiced eyes, the swollen livers, the physical apathy. How many cases are there?"
"One hundred and eight," Rachel replied instantly. Another two had come down the day before, and three had been recently released.
"A hundred children?" He took in the chamber with an impatient sweep of his arm. "You mean to tell me that all of these children are down with the same ailment?"
A warning light glimmered in Rachel's eyes. "That is correct."
The doctor looked positively incensed. "Then why in heaven's name have you waited so long to inoculate them?"
She drew herself up, and brandished her cane in the doctor's face. "Because we haven't had any choice!"
The children did not like this tone at all. Frightened wails rose from several of the nearby beds. Rachel flashed a furious glance at the doctor, then moved off to help the other women soothe them. I stepped forward and said quietly, "We've been trying to get the doses for over a month, ever since the local doctors finally decided it was most likely hepatitis."
"There shouldn't have been any question from the beginning, " the doctor huffed.
"The Ministry has dragged its feet over everything," Colin Albright said, moving up beside me. "Plus there are shortages of almost all medicines. I suppose they think there are other cases more urgent than these children."
"Not in my book," he said, rising to his feet. "All right, let's get started."
But it was not that simple. The children remained tense and skittish, as they were toward everything new. Years of survival had honed their apprehension toward anything out of the ordinary. They hid themselves, peeking out, racing away whenever we came to gather them together. It did not help that the friction between Rachel and the doctor was evident to all who saw them together.
The change began the instant it finally sank in to the Americans that we could not communicate with the children.
The implications of this hit with such force that the doctor stopped in the front hallway, an expression of utter bewilderment on his face, as he watched Colin coax out a pair of little girls from the front hall's broom closet. He did so with gentle tones and kind eyes, since the words meant nothing.
Slowly the doctor turned to where Rachel was standing defiantly upon the bottom stair. "You haven't had any help at all," he said quietly. "Have you?"
"From the Ministry?" She humphed. "A great heaping lot of misery and very little else."
"All right," Colin said, walking over, his arms full of a young girl who clutched tightly to his neck. "I suppose we can start with this one."
"No, not like this. It won't do," the doctor said absendy. Then to Rachel, "I owe you an apology."
"Yes," she replied, still working on her head of steam. " You certainly do."
"I had no idea." He turned back to where I was standing beside Colin and Bob. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "If this is going to work, we need to do it in an orderly fashion."
"Not a hope," the American pilot declared. "These kids are spooked."
"I don't know about that," Brad countered, moving up behind us. He asked Bob, "You pack those boxes of chocolate like I told you?"
"All we had room for."
"Chocolate?" Colin's eyes lit up. "You have chocolate?"
"Six boxes' worth of Hershey's," Bob confirmed.
"What we need," Brad said, "is for a few of the kids who are leaders to come out and get the goodies. We can give them the shots while their minds are occupied."
"Make a game of it," Colin said. "Splendid idea."
"I know just the one to start with," I said. "Can one of you gentlemen help me?"
In the end, it was Colin who came upstairs with me. I chose him because the children already knew him. We walked down the sickroom hall to where Annique lay in her little bed. As soon as she was certain that I was coming to her, she raised her arms and cried out, "Andiel Emily!" It was the same thing she said every time I approached.
I accepted her embrace, then showed in sign language that I wanted Colin to lift her up. She made no objection, but she did not let go of my hand for an instant.
Together the three of us made our way back downstairs.
It was a little awkward, but I stayed close so that Annique could both keep hold of my hand and watch me with her solemn-eyed gaze from her place on Colin's chest. Those children who saw our little procession eased up, releasing a bit of their tension, and followed a few steps behind us.
We moved into the back hallway, where the doctor was using a long trestle table as his stall. Hastily he had spread a clean white sheet on it, and was showing Bob how to prepare the syringes and needles and vials of gamma globulin. The pilot's movements were awkward in his long rubber gloves.
Rachel sat at the table's end, paper and pencil ready to note the children as they were inoculated. Brad was busy bringing in boxes and stacking them by the back door. Sunlight streamed through the tall glass doors, glinting upon the two metal sterilizers set up behind the table. One of the autoclave doors was open, revealing a further pile of needles and glass syringes.
"We'll show them everything right out front," the doctor decided. "Let them see we are hiding nothing at all."
Colin demanded, "Are you going to inoculate the sick ones as well?"
"Can't hurt, long as we have enough to go around. In any case I had planned to give them an injection of vitamins." He spun about, searching among the unopened boxes. "What did we do with the Hershey's?"
"Right here," Bob said, reaching down and coming up with an armful of the black-and-silver slabs.
Colin watched with round eyes as the candy spilled onto the table. "Not in my wildest dreams have I imagined so much chocolate in one place."
"Take that scalpel and start cutting them in two," the doctor ordered. "We need to make sure there's enough to go around."
With my free hand, I accepted the first half and clumsily unwrapped the candy. Then I offered it to Annique. She hesitated a moment, until she caught the first whiff. I could see it happen, because her nostrils flared, and her eyes flew open wide. Timidly she accepted the black slab, and took a tiny bite. Then she whispered a question, as though she could not believe what she was tasting.
"Chokolada?"
"It's for you," I said, smiling at her astonishment.
She looked up at where a half-dozen little faces were peering through the stair railing.
"Chokolada!"
she cried, taking another bite. She raised the bar over her head and shrilled again,
"Chokolada!"
The cry was taken up by a myriad of high-pitched voices up and down the length of the house. Overhead we heard the quick scurrying of feet.
"This is one for the books," Bob declared.
The doctor lifted up a syringe, holding it directly in front of Annique's face. Solemnly she watched him, and me, and the syringe. But she did not move, not even when the spot on her arm was swabbed with alcohol, and the needle was inserted. She winced, but did not cry out as the plunger was pushed and the needle removed. With my free hand I stroked her face and whispered, "I'm so proud of you I could burst."
Annique rewarded me with her first smile since she had become ill. She took another bite, watched as the doctor fitted a Band-Aid on her arm, then gave me another smile and cooed,
"Chokolada."
"Okay," the doctor said, "let's try another one."
When Marissa awoke, the bedside clock's illuminated dial read just after midnight. In the far corner, Gran was turned away from her and breathing softly. As quietly as she could, she slid from her bed. Carrying her robe in one hand and her slippers in the other, she tiptoed from the room and closed the door behind her.
The entire house seemed illuminated, softly glowing with the same warm light that filled her mind and heart. For several days now, she had wanted to do something for Gran. Something special, something that would show in more than words how grateful Marissa was for Gran sharing her story.
The times of sitting and listening to her grandmother had taken on a timeless air, as though she was lifted beyond herself and her illness. Not even the concerns of her outside world could touch her then, neither the worries she had about growing up, nor how she looked, nor how things were at school, nor if her friends really liked her, nor if she would ever grow into someone even halfway beautiful. None of that mattered while her grandmother spoke. Not even that she had been denied her dream of traveling to Hawaii. Not even that.
During their times of sharing, Marissa was free, truly able to expand beyond herself. It was an astonishing discovery, the first time she could ever remember something like that happening. Her grandmother's open honesty was showing her not just a new place and time, but an entirely new way of looking at the world.
Her grandmother's words were reshaping even the way she saw herself. As though everything was being brought into a sharper, better focus. As though she was really growing up. And Marissa wanted to do something to thank Gran for this incredible gift.
She waited until she was downstairs before she slipped on her robe and turned on a light. She entered the kitchen, opened the drawer beside the phone, and pulled out Gran's personal telephone book. Try as she might, she could not remember their last name. Only that it was something unpronounceable.
Page by page, she ran her finger down the names. The closer she came to the end, the more she feared that she had somehow missed them. Which would mean trying to move the conversation around so that she could get the name from Gran. That would be very risky, for her grandmother was too sharp to be easily fooled. If she suspected something, she would demand to know what Marissa had in mind. And Marissa knew she could not lie to her grandmother. Even if telling the truth meant having Gran order her to forget the idea and not mention it again.
The book was very hard to read, especially where the names and numbers had been penciled in years ago, then erased and the addresses changed time after time. Marissa's eyes began burning from the effort of reading her grandmother's jerky scrawl. Then her finger stopped, and her eyes opened wide. There it was. Hank and Annique Rygalchyk. She lifted the telephone receiver and dialed the number.
When a sleepy voice answered, she said, "Uncle Hank? I don't know if you remember me, but this is Marissa. I'm Gran's, I mean Emily's granddaughter." The voice on the other end came to instant alert.
Marissa responded with, "No sir, she's fine. And I'm better. Really. That was why I was calling. I'm sorry it's so late, but I needed to wait until Gran was asleep. Is Aunt Annique there?"
A moment's pause, then a softly accented voice came on the phone. Marissa had to take a long breath, because all the stories Gran had been telling suddenly pulled tightly together. The years and the distance dividing her from them had abruptly disappeared. "Aunt Annique? This is Marissa. Yes ma'am, I'm a whole lot better. Really. But that's not why I'm calling. Gran has been telling me about, well, stories when you were younger." Another long breath, then, "And I've had this idea."
GRAN'S SLEEPY VOICE greeted her with, "Did I just hear your voice, dear?"
"I talked with Daddy and George." Which was true. She had called them after she talked with Aunt Annique. "Buddy is off somewhere with Momma."
"You were on the phone a long time."
Marissa glanced at the clock. It was twenty minutes to one. She had only spoken to her family for ten minutes. But there had been a lot to discuss with Annique. A whole lot. "I'll call collect next time."
"Don't be silly. It's two days till Christmas, and your family is on the other side of the world. Call them as much as you like." Gran rolled over and sat up. "How is everyone?"
"Fine. They told me to give you a hug and wish you Merry Christmas again."
"Thank you." A smile flitted across Gran's features. "Would you just take a look at yourself?"
Marissa was seated with her legs dangling over the side of the bed, bouncing up and down. "I'm feeling a whole lot better, Gran."
"Yes, so I notice. You mustn't push yourself too hard, mind. We don't want you suffering a relapse." She stood and slipped on a robe. "I suppose you'll be wanting another midnight cup of cocoa."
"And some more of the story," Marissa added, far too excited to sleep. She slipped from her bed and followed her grandmother from the room. "I can't wait to find out what happens next."
It froze again that night. But we did not have time to notice. We continued with the inoculations until all of us were stumbling with fatigue. The more tired the children became, the easier it was to handle them. We did not stop until well after midnight, and then we collapsed in exhausted heaps. Soon after dawn we were up and running once more.
By now, the children had accepted the men and the picture-taking and the shots. I was no longer required to sit and hold the younger ones. So I positioned them, Colin took their pictures, then they were hustled back for an injection and a chocolate.
As soon as the sun melted away the worst of the frost, some of the other children went out to clamber around the helicopter. Just after lunch, we finished off the serum while injecting the last children in the sick-hall. There was more chocolate to go around, which created a near riot when the children realized we were giving out seconds. Then it was time to see off the three Americans. It felt as though we were saying farewell to lifelong friends. Even Rachel, exhausted as she was, unwound enough to give the doctor a long hug.