Night Calypso (7 page)

They talked about the report which had come through on the BBC, again reported in the local papers. A high-ranking remember
of the German embassy in Paris had been shot. A seventeen-year-old young man had been detained for questioning. He was a Polish Jew, Hershel Grynzpan. The man was reported to have said that he shot the official, Ernst Von Rath, to call attention to the fate of Polish Jews in Germany. He died on the afternoon of November 9th.

Vincent and Sister Thérèse exchanged these facts. Between their exchanges were long silences.

‘There were riots by the National Socialists right across Germany,’ she continued to read from her father’s letter.

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘Acts of revenge.’

Vincent remembered Theo glued to the radio, fiddling with the knobs to try and tune in the reception more clearly. ‘“
Kristallnacht
”, new vocabulary, Doctor.’ Words excited the boy.

‘
It’s been reported that SA men in uniform, some in civilian clothes, rioted in the streets of many German towns across the country, destroying Jewish shops, synagogues, attacking Jewish citizens. Many are seeing these riots as a direct result of the killing of Ernst Von Rath in Paris, but others are seeing it as a pretext for what is now National Socialist policy, as expressed recently by Herman Goring. He has called for all available resources to be brought to bear on a final solution to the Jewish question. They have no place in our economy
.’

Sister Thérèse folded her father’s letter over and over till it was as slender as a needle, which she then again inserted into her sleeve, as if she were administering herself an injection. She looked up. ‘They’ll kill my father.’

Vincent listened.

As if to distract herself from her real pain, she spoke quickly of other reports in her father’s letter. ‘News coming through says that the riots were supposed to appear as a spontaneous outbreak by the
Volk
. Leaders of the Jewish community are calling the attacks a
Pogrom
.’

‘Your father is very detailed.’

‘Witnesses in the city of Aachen have reported that the firemen, responsible for putting out the flames to the burning synagogue in the city, were seen spraying chemicals which contributed to the destruction.’

‘I can believe it.’

‘He says the smashing of windows with bars, sledgehammers and picks have inspired commentators on major newspapers to call the night of destruction,
Kristallnacht
, describing the broken glass in the streets, in many cities, across the country.’

By now, Sister Thérèse had unfolded the letter once more, like some piece of espionage.

‘Sister, I’m sorry, try not to disturb yourself.’

Tears wet her cheeks. She paid no attention to Vincent’s caution.

‘“It is reported that there are thousands wounded, and a hundred people have been killed. The events are said to have caused concern in many European capitals, though there are no official statements, which other commentators are seeing as the delicate caution with which the government of the National Socialist Party is being treated.”’

‘It’s terrible. You’re not helping yourself.’ He put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Come, sit. Don’t read anymore.’

But now, as if to heed Doctor’s advice, she switched to the news of developments in Sudetenland since the recent agreement in Munich between France, Britain, Germany and Italy to concede the province in north-west Czechoslovakia to the Germans. She read blandly, emptied of emotion.

Sister Thérèse’s hands were full of the sodden bandages taken off from Ma Cowey, whose feet were worse than ever. She and Vincent were both thankful for the sea breeze. The stench of putrefaction and ulcerous sores was overwhelming.

‘Ma Cowey, you are not using the crutches we made for you. That was a good piece of cyp that Singh cut for you from the forest.
Bon Bois
.’ Vincent registered Ma Cowey’s name in his ledger. Two hundred injections this week.

‘Docta, you know how it is. I not accustom to crutches. And I not feel nothing. I not feel nothing happening. I surprise myself to see it so.’

Sister Thérèse helped Ma Cowey down the steps to the yard after completing her bandages. ‘Come again tomorrow at the same time.’

She returned, wiping her hands on her apron. She went to the
sink and scrubbed with carbolic soap. ‘Scrub hard, Sister.’ Vincent tried to clear the air of emotion.

She returned with her hands in a towel, then unbuttoned her sleeves and rolled them up her arm. She wiped her naked arms. ‘
Il
fait chaud.
’

‘You’re right, Sister. It making hot, as the old people say.’

She smiled. Then she became serious again. ‘She’s not using the crutches.’

‘What do you deduce from that?’ Vincent interrogated his assistant.

‘She talks almost as if she doesn’t see the need for them.’

‘Why?’

‘She doesn’t realise what’s happening. She forgets she needs them, because nothing reminds her that she does.’

‘Nothing? Why?’

‘She cannot feel. She cannot feel pain.’

‘Exactly. Pain should remind her. Pain is the message that we hurt. Pain tells us that we need healing. They’re not getting that message. I was looking at you limping this morning. Even after I’d taken out the stitches, you had patterned yourself to limp, just in case. You were getting compensatory messages.’

‘Pain is a gift.’

‘Well, it’s our protection. We’re wired that way. Something has gone wrong with their wiring. I want to carry out those nerve experiments. But I need a cadaver. I need the conditions in which to work on it.’

They completed their rounds by seeing how a new boy had settled in. Christiana, the new girl, had shown no signs of the disease so far.

Already, Ti-Jean had taken the boy off to school, to play football, getting himself another holiday from the classroom by being legitimately let off by the doctor, but having to avoid Mother Superior nonetheless.

Suddenly, it was overcast. Coming up from the gulf was a hard rain. A dark gloom settled over the yards. There was a serrated flash, followed by deep thunder and a downpour which had everyone scuttling for shelter under verandahs and doorways as rain, like
rock stones clattered on galvanise roofs. Children bawled with excitement and fear on the wards. The drains gargled and pelted down the hills to the sea, in runnels of brown water. Then it was over. The clouds had blown off to the Atlantic. The sun baked the wet yards dry. The scent of hot steam filtered through the humid air, like on ironing day. Children played in the water-filled drains.

From the path, going up to the huts, there was a wide view of Chac Chac Bay and the gulf beyond. It was strangely empty. Recently, they had become accustomed to seeing the trading ships which came up from Brazil and Argentina. They sailed along the coast of Cayenne and the Guyanas, sheltering and refuelling in the safe embrace of the Golfo de Ballena.

A lone frigate bird soared high above the island. There always seemed to be this crucifixion in the sky.

The breeze lifted Sister Thérèse’s veil. It wrapped her white cotton habit around her legs and hips. She laughed, disentangling herself, bowing her head to her knees, keeping her skirts down over her ankles. She was like a giggling schoolgirl.

Vincent and Sister Thérèse stood and surveyed the bay. They looked at each other and smiled and then continued on their walk. He remembered to respect the sisters’ silence, their proper decorum.

They reached the very last of the huts, calling in and checking on patients who had not managed to get down to the clinic. Neither of them had come this far in their rounds before. There was still much of the island that they both had to explore, and there were stories that some patients had escaped from the compound, and were hiding in the hills like maroons.

At the end of the track, they could see a hut set apart from the rest. As they walked towards it, a bent figure covered in rags crossed from the bush to the hut. Vincent was immediately reminded of such a figure shuffling away from behind the stores, near the jetty one afternoon, when he was leaving Saint Damian’s. He had meant to inquire the next day, but it had slipped his memory. There were, periodically, reports of food stuffs missing from the stores, depleting the already meagre rations.

Vincent and Sister Thérèse approached the hut into which the figure had disappeared, then recoiled from the retching smell which they recognised from their work on the wards with the most deteriorating patients. Dead flesh!

They dreaded the worst. The door of the hut was jammed. They had to push hard, at the same time calling out, if anyone was there.

In the gloom of the hut, the smell was so intense, that Sister Thérèse turned away. She had to go outside and bend down at the side of the track and vomit.

Vincent noticed several figures who had retreated far into the corners of the hut, covering themselves, hiding in the gloom, not wanting to show themselves. He steeled himself, holding back his feelings, his instinct to be sick.

‘There’s no need to be afraid. I want to help you.’ He repeated this phrase. ‘Help you, help you.’

Sister Thérèse, now recovered, echoed her doctor antiphonally.

There was heavy breathing, but no words came from the gloom.

The figures began to stir. They moved towards Vincent together. When they were on their knees they extended what was left of their arms. Some, who still had fingers, clasped them in a prayer. Claw hands were raised in the gloom.

‘This is the bad leprosy,’ Sister Thérèse whispered as Vincent knelt to be at the same level as the patients in front of him. The sight which met his eyes at such close range was horrifying because of the disintegrating faces. He had to fight against his revulsion. This was
Lepromatus
Leprosy at its worst, unattended kind.

These people had retreated here out of shame. It was a shame which had started in some village when they were first detected with the disease. They had had to come on the enforced journey to El Caracol. It was a paradox. Some had wanted to come because of the pain of being shunned. They welcomed their exile. Others wanted to hide.

‘This has to change,’ Vincent whispered to Sister Thérèse, trying to observe all the worse signs of the deteriorating condition before him. Then he spoke to the patients in front of him again. He had now worked out that there were at least six of them. He was not
sure, as yet, who were men and who were women. ‘We want to help you. We will help you. You mustn’t stay here.’

They unlatched the wooden shutters of the hut and secured the door open. Light shone in like a searchlight, and frightened the huddled mass of six back into the corner, with their backs turned, their faces against the walls.

The wind moved dry leaves and newspaper on the floor. ‘You must allow air into the room. You must wash yourselves at the stand pipe. Later, we’ll bring up new clothes, as well as dressings for your wounds.’ Vincent could see that one of the patients was only a torso in a bundle of rags. This person was being carried by two others. He thought it was a man, but could not really tell. He hated to think how this situation had arisen. How had this been allowed to continue?

Dr Escalier had grown old and not been able to cope. That was clear. But also Vincent continually found, in the older religious, a resignation which depended on prayer, not on science, as he was fond of repeating. He looked at the young sister at his side and hoped that she was the beginning of new blood among the nursing nuns. He hated to think of the worse stories of the marooned groups in the hills. He had his work cut out for him, as Jonah was so keen to remind him.

Coming down the stairs, to the clinic, Vincent turned towards where the light poured through an open window onto the counter. Sister Thérèse was standing with her back to him, preparing
medicines, so that all he saw of her was the white cotton veil which fell wide over her shoulders, halfway down her back. It was as if she was behind a screen. She turned, as the staircase creaked. He suddenly saw her differently.

He concentrated on her face, her dark eyes peering out of the tight under-veil, taut beneath her chin and stretched over her forehead. It was damp with perspiration. The full veil fell from the crown of her head over her shoulders forming a tight cocoon. Her face peered out of a hole, as if cut in a sheet. Her skirts fell to below her ankles, just above her sandals and stockinged feet. Her arms were covered in full sleeves to her wrists. A scapular fell loose from her shoulders, over her flat chest and down her back. She was girdled with a leather belt and a black string of rosary beads, the Fifteen Mysteries, hung at her side. The sleeves were folded back from her wrists, to prepare the drugs on the counter. But, beneath these full sleeves, and cuffs, were other tighter sleeves and cuffs, buttoned down at her wrist. Her face and her hands were her only exposed skin. Her eyes were black. They shone.

All of her presence came up into those two eyes, peering out of that face. Her skin was creamy, but cinnamon with the sun. Her cheeks were raddled, like rouge. She smiled. Her skin was pulled back by the tight veil. There was nothing to distract from her face, her eyes, except her hands which she wiped on a blue apron. She put her arms away, folding down her sleeves, hiding her hands. She lowered her head as Vincent stood at the bottom of the stairs staring at her. He noticed the slightest wisps of jet black hair escaping from beneath her taut veil near her temples.