Anyush (6 page)

Two more TB patients arrived at the hospital today. They were both children, so I’ve put them on the female ward which is almost empty, but this is a situation which cannot continue. An isolation unit was included in the original hospital plan, and I haven’t given up hope on finding some way to fund it. Elias Riggs is slow to respond to my letters, but his answer is always the same: we will have to make do. Since the hospital opened there is more pressure than ever to bring in income, especially now that we have our first member of staff. Manon Girardeau is Matron and Head Nurse, the only nurse in fact. She arrived to my office from Trebizond one morning, a substantial presence blocking my exit through the doorway. She’s of French Lebanese background and came originally to Constantinople with her mother’s family. Roughly the same height as myself and with the frame and physique of a blacksmith, she’s an imposing figure and commands instant respect. It was Paul who told me she was looking for a position and that she had worked with him in the Municipal Hospital as a theatre nurse for many years. I knew he thought a lot of her, but I wondered why she would move to a small, badly equipped, underfunded hospital in the sticks.

Yesterday, during a visit to the Vali to extract one of his teeth, I happened to mention our new arrival and he grinned knowingly, saying there had been an incident.

‘
Un scandale
,’ he told me.

I pressed him for details, but he would say no more. Paul knows something but is clearly uncomfortable talking about it, so I let it go. I did however decide to interview Manon, before taking her on, and she left me in no doubt as to which of us would be in charge.

‘The hospital is run by me and the staff they will answer to me. You are told only if there is a
problème
.’

‘Well, I
am
the–’

‘We choose new staff together and all must have my agreement before a decision is made.’

‘I haven’t actually decided–’

‘
Alors
, the roster is written at the beginning of the week, and if there is a change, you talk to me.’

‘I see.’

‘I am paid every Thursday and in full before my
vacances
of six weeks to France.’

‘Six weeks …!’

‘Otherwise, I work all days, except Friday.’

I chose not to tell her that aside from Hetty and myself there was no other staff, and hired her immediately.

Manon, it turns out, is exactly what the hospital needs. She’s taciturn and sometimes brusque to the point of rudeness, but a better commander-in-chief I cannot imagine. The wards are running like clockwork, and, best of all, she has put manners on our more difficult patients. Even the Circassians bow before her impressive bulk. It means I have more time to devote to my neglected research, and Hetty has reopened the school, which has been closed since Jane Kent’s time. I’m also discovering that Manon has very definite opinions about this country, and is not reticent when it comes to sharing them. Hetty was telling her recently about how I’ve increased the number of calls to patients a distance away because of
ayak teri
or ‘foot-sweat’, one gold lira for every hour of caravan time, which all goes into the hospital coffers. Manon expressed surprise, saying that the hills are full of bandits waiting to rob me and slit my throat. I don’t think she appreciates how these people have accepted me, bandits included, and that I am in no danger. In fact, I look forward to these outings away from my normal routine, and with Mahmoud Agha at my side I have taken to this country as my own.

Two evenings ago the subject arose again with Manon over dinner.

‘Do not fool yourself, Dr Stewart. You may like this country and it may like you, but it will never be your home. It is foolish to become sentimental about it.’

‘I am not in the least sentimental,’ I said. ‘You are forgetting that your experience and mine may be quite different. As a woman that is.’

‘The village is not Paradise, Dr Stewart. You think you are accepted here?
Non
. You will always be a giaour in this country, an unbeliever and a foreigner. For the Turks you will always be so,
rien de plus
.’

‘My children know no other home,’ I protested. ‘What about them? You think America is their home? A place they have never seen?’

‘Missionary children are not the same. You do not like to think so, but your children will not belong here
or
there.
Pas de problème
, they are young. They will adapt. But you … you, Dr Stewart, should be careful.’

I told her I thought the Turkish opinion of women had left her rather biased, at which point Manon changed tack.

‘For Jane Kent the village was home,’ she said, looking at me over the top of her glass.

‘Yes, but she didn’t stay. We’ve no intention of leaving.’

‘Jane and Paul were lovers. You knew this?’

Hetty said we’d guessed, and Manon proceeded to fill us in on the passionate and sometimes foolhardy nature of the affair.

‘Are we to presume,’ I asked, ‘that since Jane is no longer here they were discovered?’

‘Discovered?
Non
. Jane was attacked. Beaten very badly and … the worst kind of attack.’

I was deeply shocked. Seeing my phlegmatic nurse on the verge of tears was as shocking as the story itself.

‘Jane would not see anybody,’ she said. ‘Not me. Not her friends. Paul once … twice
peut-être
.’

‘Poor Paul,’ Hetty said, looking through the dining-room window as though he
was standing beneath the fig tree. ‘And poor Jane. But are you saying this man assaulted her because he knew about their affair?’

‘Of course not. He was evil, that is all.
Un criminel
! In this country there must be two witnesses to a crime. Two witnesses who are men. No witness …
Alors! Le crime n’existe pas
.’

I remembered then the day of the hospital opening and the wistful look I had seen on Paul’s face. I begin to wonder if what I saw was not so much a longing for my wife as a yearning for someone else.

I missed Thomas’s birthday, and the boy will not speak to me. For the eldest of five children he sometimes behaves like the youngest, but then Hetty has always indulged him too much. She claims he’s a sensitive soul and needs a little understanding. I tell her the local children would never have that luxury, but she doesn’t listen. Robert and Milly are hardy creatures, although Robert has become a little wild of late. He and his older brother are returning to America in the Fall to finish their schooling, which will be something of a shock. Grandmother Fincklater will not tolerate sensitivity, or any other eccentricity they may have acquired. Privately, I am happy the girls are staying. Hetty of course believes it is unfair to educate our sons when the girls are just as clever, but I couldn’t bear to be parted from them, especially Lottie. I suppose every father reserves a corner of his heart for his baby daughter, and I am no exception. Eleanor tends to whinge, and Milly only ever wants to be with Robert, but Lottie’s smile would gladden the weariest of hearts.

Odd to think how time has passed. Hetty and I are now the old hands, veterans like Elias Riggs, who is still running the mission in Constantinople at the grand old age of eighty-two. It is difficult to believe we’ve been living in the Empire so long, and yet, at times, it feels like an eternity. I find myself thinking about it a lot these days. In fact, I can hardly think of anything else. My research has ground to a halt, and I can’t seem to concentrate on anything to do with trachoma. Every evening I go to write up the patients I’ve seen that day, but my mind wanders. The smallest things distract me. Birds sound like foghorns and the noise of the schoolchildren across the road irritates me beyond belief. I went back to making slides and tried to concentrate on titration of sulphonamide, but it is no use. Hour after hour, day after day, I sit staring at pages written only in my head. Hetty thinks I’m tired and
that I’m doing too much.

‘Take Mahmoud Agha and go to the hills. A change is what you need.’

But I’m wary of the hills, fearful of what might come under an empty blue sky. I
am
tired though and it worries me. Trachoma research is the work of a lifetime, and if I fail at this juncture then what am I doing here? For the first time since coming to Turkey I’m wondering about the wisdom of what I’ve done. Marvelling at the casual manner in which I threw over my career for an idea I had never given much thought to. And Hetty’s career. It bothers me most of all to think of it. She doesn’t begrudge the missed opportunities, or the loss of family and friends. I know she forgives my impatience with the children and intervenes on my behalf with them, but there are times I feel she’s watching me. At her sewing, or reading a book, her eyes come to rest on my face, and I have to be careful not to look at her. I busy myself with whatever I’m doing because I’m afraid of what I might see. Worried that I’m pushing her away but incapable of doing anything about it. To avoid these wordless confrontations, I stay longer at the hospital. I’ve doubled the number of operations and have taken on two extra clinics in the week. Manon thinks I’ve lost my reason, but she remains by my side and never leaves the hospital before me. Work has become my mistress and my obsession. My days are filled so completely that I have no time for introspection, or indeed anything else. Only my patients occupy my thoughts and a couple of hours of dreamless sleep.

April 11th

Stayed up most of the night trying to make the accounts balance. This hospital is like an amorphous beast, rabidly devouring whatever money we make. Even the staff seems to grow in a manner I have little control over. Manon has taken on two student nurses, Mari and Patil, on secondment from the Municipal Hospital. She had previously employed Anyush Charcoudian as an assistant nurse and Husik Tashjian as an orderly. I was committed to taking on two medical students, Bedros
Bezjian and Professor Levonian’s son, Grigor, for training in eye surgery, and we’ve had Malik Zornakian running the dispensary since last year. All excellent staff, all needing to be paid. Malik is constantly in my office complaining about supplies. Because of the war, thirty cases of medicine on their way from America were taken by the government in Alexandretta, and a second shipment could not get beyond Egypt. All new shipments have been grounded at the ports because every available horse and wagon has been commandeered by the army. Even Mahmoud Agha is afraid to leave his village in case his horses are requisitioned. And if that wasn’t trouble enough, the country is experiencing the worst famine in years. It is depressing to see this once fertile land look as desolate as the Sahara. The grain withers from the root, as if it has been burnt by fire, and people are subsisting on wild mustard and turnip. Whole populations have deserted the outlying villages, looking to us for help. Hetty’s soup kitchen is working to the limit of its capabilities, but food supplies are dwindling. Most of it we are growing ourselves, or try to on the mission farm, bought with money Hetty’s parents sent. Arshen Nalbandian lost the farm when he couldn’t pay the taxes on it, and I persuaded him and his two sons to stay and run it for me. A small herd of Guernsey cows arrived last year from England and we were managing well enough, but we’ve since lost one of the calves, and Arshen is finding it difficult to keep the herd watered now that his boys have gone to war. This morning he arrived at my door, wide-eyed and agitated, saying that soldiers had come to take the cattle. I went to see their commanding officer, a Captain Orfalea, whom I found stationed at the old grain store on top of the hill overlooking the village.

‘My apologies, Dr Stewart,’ he said, shaking my hand. ‘I can only offer you bad coffee.’

The captain was a young, good-looking fellow who spoke excellent English and was obviously not from these parts. His assessment of the coffee was accurate, but we both tossed it off as though it was the finest brew. We spoke about my work and local matters generally before he asked the question I am in dread of hearing.

‘I’ve heard you’re a missionary, Dr Stewart. Is it true?’

I attempted a non-committal gesture.

‘I’m always fascinated by the Western urge to impose Christianity on the heathen Turk,’ the captain smiled. ‘During my training I spent time in the Military Academy in Paris and saw more godlessness on the streets there than in the slums of Constantinople.’

‘Captain Orfalea,’ I said wearily, ‘a number of years ago I might have attempted to convince you of my missionary credentials but not any more. My interest lies in saving lives, not souls, and I’m under no illusion that your countrymen had the measure of me before ever I stepped off the boat.’

‘I like your honesty, Dr Stewart,’ the captain smiled. ‘Now let me be honest with you. You’ve come about the cattle I presume?’

I told him that I had, and that they were missionary property.

‘I’m under orders, Dr Stewart. Soldiers must be fed or they cannot fight.’

‘Even if it means the villagers starve?’

‘There are other sources of food. The sea is full of fish.’

‘The fishermen are gone and their boats with them. You’ve been here for some time, Captain. You’ve seen the failed crops and dead animals in the fields. The cow’s milk is the only nourishment some of the children have in the entire day.’

He listened without comment, and I pressed on. ‘If you take the cattle, they will probably die of starvation anyway. It won’t make a huge difference to you, but it could mean the life or death of a child. For many of the villagers. Think about it, Captain. Do the people here seem well nourished to you?’

He looked out through the small barred window set into the stone wall. Through it the spire of the Armenian church was just visible over the tops of the trees.

‘Very well, Dr Stewart,’ he said. ‘I will not requisition the cattle. But if I discover you’re hiding food or animals from me, I will take the lot.’