Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese [82]
At the steps of the Missing outpatient department the bougainvillea was in full bloom, concealing the pillars of the carport so that the roof appeared to be cantilevered.
A man hurried by, bundled in a heavy white wrap over a ragged military overcoat. His white turban and the monkey-mane fly-swish in his hand made him stand out.
“That's the very Gebrew we were talking about,” Matron said as Gebrew spotted them and stopped and bowed. “Servant of God. And watchman. And … one of our bereaved.”
Harris was surprised at Gebrew's relative youth. In one of her letters, Matron wrote of a Harrari girl of twelve or thirteen who had been brought in, moribund, a cut umbilical cord trailing out from between her legs. She had given birth a few days before, but there had been no afterbirth; the placenta wouldn't budge. The family had traveled by mule and bus for two days to get to Missing. And as Gebrew, in his compassion, lifted the poor girl out of the gharry, she screamed. Gebrew, instrument of God, had inadvertently stepped on the trailing umbilical cord, causing the placenta to break free. The little girl was cured even before she crossed the threshold of the casualty room.
Harris shivered in a sleeveless cotton shirt, his eyeballs oscillating, his fingers tugging at his collar, then adjusting a pith helmet which Matron didn't realize he had with him.
Matron walked him through the children's ward, which was no more than a room painted bright lavender with infants on high beds with metal rails. The mothers camped out on the floor beside the beds. They jumped up at the sight of Matron and bowed. “That child has tetanus and will die. This one has meningitis, and if he lives he might well be deaf or blind. And its mother”—she said, affectionately putting her arm around a waiflike woman—”by staying at Missing night and day is neglecting her three other children. Lord, we've had a child back home fall into a well, get gored by a bull, and even kidnapped while the mother was here. The humane thing is to tell her to go home, to take the child home.”
“Then why is she here?”
“Look at how anemic she is! We are feeding her. We give her the child's portions, which the child can't eat, as well as her portion, and I've asked them to give her an egg every day, and she is getting an iron injection and medicine for hookworm. In a few days we'll find her bus fare and then send her home with this child if he is alive. But at least she'll be healthier, better able to look after the other children … Now this child is awaiting surgery …”
In the male ward, which was long and narrow and held forty people, she kept up her recitation. The patients who could tried to sit up to greet them. One man was comatose, his mouth open, his eyes unseeing. Another sat leaning forward on a special pillow, struggling mightily to breathe. Two men, side by side, had bellies swollen to the size of ripe pregnancy.
“Rheumatic heart valve damage, nothing we can do … and these two fellows have cirrhosis,” Matron explained.
Harris was struck by how little it took to nurture and sustain life. A huge chunk of bread in a chipped basin and a giant battered tin cup of sweetened tea—that was breakfast and lunch. Very often, as he could see, this feast was being shared with the family members squatting by the bed.
When they emerged from the ward, Matron stopped to catch her breath. “Do you know that at this moment we have funds for three days,