The Cinnamon Tree (8 page)

A
nun, just like Sister Martha but much younger and dressed in a neat suit, had met her at the airport. She
introduced
herself as Sister Attracta. She had a funny sing-song accent. She said she was from Cork so proudly that Yola didn’t like to ask where Cork was. Yola was amazed to find the car parked on the roof of the airport. Sister Attracta wanted to hear all about her flight and how she had managed in Brussels. Yola told her of her confrontation with Knutt and she laughed.

‘Poor boy, he probably felt pretty awful if he’d had malaria,’ she said. The traffic was getting thicker and she changed the subject. ‘We wanted to bring you to our house here in Dublin Yola, so you could rest, but it is getting close to the beginning of term and it would be nice to get you fixed up with your new leg before the autumn term starts. I hope that is all right; I’ll be taking you straight to the clinic. They are expecting you there.’

A huge articulated lorry crowded them against the
pavement
and Sister Attracta leaned on the horn. Yola noticed her lips moving as they ground to a halt at the curb.

‘Ought I confess what I
nearly
said?’ she said with a sheepish grin. But Yola didn’t smile, she was beginning to panic.

‘So many people, so many cars!’ she said as a flow of office girls and young men in suits and jackets surrounded them. She
wanted to shrink. The journey and the new sights were
beginning
to tell. Her stump felt hot, which was often a prelude to it hurting. All these confident young people who knew where they were going intimidated her.

‘You must be dying to get rid of those old crutches,’ said
Sister
Attracta. For no reason that Yola could think of, tears started flooding into her eyes. She liked her crutches, they were part of her and of home. Uncle Banda had made them for her. She didn’t want anyone messing around with her leg; it was throbbing and sore. She wanted to see the sea again and then go home exactly as she was. They crossed a bridge; they must be near a harbour because there were ships. She turned to stare at them. Perhaps one of them was going to Africa.
Homesickness
flooded over her. Sister Attracta paid money at a kiosk while Yola managed a surreptitious wipe of her face.

When they had arrived at the clinic, Yola was walked for miles down corridors, crutches slipping on polished floors. Finally, they had turned into a bright, clean ward with four empty beds that looked so comfortable, Yola would gladly have climbed in, clothes and all. A nurse helped her undress and then pulled the curtains around her bed, but Yola was already asleep.

She was woken by someone peering at her between the
curtains
. It was a girl, but she was so fair and fuzzy that Yola found herself blinking at her in disbelief.

‘Oh, hello. Are you awake?’

She was younger than Yola, but it was difficult for Yola to tell how old Europeans were. The girl slipped in through the curtains.

‘I’m Catherine. I can’t shake hands because I don’t have my arms on. I was in physio when you arrived. You must have
been tired. I’ve looked in on you a couple of times and you were asleep. Wasn’t I good not to wake you? It gets boring in here sometimes.’ She plonked down on the edge of Yola’s bed. ‘You don’t mind, do you. Sister gets furious when I sit on
people’s
beds. There’s three of us in here, and now you. Susan’s only little. She’s got callipers ’cos her leg’s all shrunk. Then there’s Brigid the Hump. Lots of trauma – car accident – lost a foot, I think; she spends a lot of time with the shrink.’

‘Sorry,’ interrupted Yola, hitching herself up in the bed, hoping to slow the flow of talk, ‘what is a shrink?’

An anxious look crossed the girl’s face; she was very pretty. ‘Sorry, me speak quickly. You speak English? You African?’ Yola had to laugh.

‘Yes I speak English, but there are words I don’t understand like, well, shrink?’

Her new friend looked relieved and patted Yola reassuringly on the knee. ‘Oh good, I’d die if I couldn’t talk to you. A shrink is a psychiatrist or psy… something, at any rate poor Brigid’s head’s all messed up after her accident. Trauma, like I said. That’s why I call her The Hump – not to her face, of course. When she sees me coming she pretends she’s asleep and hunches up. I know when I’m not wanted. I wouldn’t know about trauma, see, I’m congenital – born like this.’

She waved her arms in front of Yola, only the vestiges of
fingers
remained on the shortened forearms. Yola felt sorry for her, but felt more than a pang of sympathy for poor Brigid. She didn’t understand half of what the girl was saying, but decided it was easier to let the flow of talk run on. Anyway, she was
fascinated
by the girl’s bright, bright blue eyes. Catherine seemed to know all about the clinic and what was going to happen to Yola.

‘They’ll measure you up tomorrow. You’re an above-
the-knee
amputation, aren’t you?’ Yola nodded. ‘See! I told you so,
I could tell from the blankets. Then they’ll X-ray you. You might need surgery,’ she said with relish. ‘The physiotherapists are the ones that knock you about, Pummel and Poke we call them. They will give you all sorts of exercises to do. It’s fun really. They wear blue; the occupational therapists are the ones in green. I was told they’d try to make me knit or weave
baskets
, but it’s sensibler things like learning to tie your shoelaces.

‘Let me see, what next? Oh yes, next they will make a cast of your stump. That’s fun. There’s this cute boy working in the labs. I fancy him. He’s learning. They are working on my new arm at this very moment. It will look great. Oh hell!’ she
exclaimed
suddenly. ‘You know what? I can’t catch you out now! Pity, ’cos what I really like is shaking hands with someone new and watching their face! It’s really gas when they suddenly feel this dead thing in their hand. You see them longing to drop it –
Yuck
!
– but then they realise that would be rude, so they begin to shake it, not a normal shake but like they were shaking a dog’s paw. It will be great though, with my new hand I will be able to grip them like Frankenstein. Come to meet thy doom,’ she intoned in a sepulchral voice. At that moment there was a clatter at the door. ‘Great! The shop trolley – want anything? – see you,’ and she was gone.

Feeling slightly battered, Yola lay back and digested what Catherine had said. It was all so nice here. She thought of the rough and ready conditions at the hospital in Nopani. Through the gap in the curtains left by Catherine’s sudden exit, she could see a vase of yellow flowers on the windowsill. The only place she’d seen flowers in a vase before had been in a magazine. For all Catherine’s gruesome delight, Yola wasn’t frightened, not even of surgery. Her tears in the car yesterday seemed ridiculous now. She had come all this way to get a new leg. Of course she wanted it!

It all happened much as Catherine had outlined. The X-rays of Yola’s leg were excellent, there were no ‘spurs’, as they called them, growing on the bone, which meant she wouldn’t need another operation. The doctor was full of praise for her
surgeon
in Nopani, especially when he heard about the power cut during the operation. A technician in a white coat, called Mr Dwyer, explained how they would cover her stump with cling film before making the cast. Yola had never heard of cling film, so he showed her a roll. Then they would cover this over with a thick layer of plaster of Paris, a sort of cement that would set in a few minutes. It might get a little warm as it set, but that was all. Then they would slide the plaster shell off and make a soft plastic socket for her stump from that.

Catherine was waiting for her at the door as she set out for the fitting-room.

‘Goodbye Yola, be brave, it’s been nice knowing you.’ She flicked a mock tear from her eye. ‘My hand in friendship before you depart.’

Yola, who had grown very fond of the child, put out her hand without thinking. Her yip of surprise echoed down the corridor. It was bad enough when she gripped this dead-
but-alive
thing Catherine offered, but when it began to tighten around her own hand it was just too much. A nurse looked out to see what was going on and shouted at the otherwise
delighted
Catherine.

‘Catherine Maloney, if you scare one more person with that hand of yours I’ll have it off you!’

Yola was still smiling when she got to the fitting-room. So that was Catherine’s Frankenstein grip!

Mr Dwyer, the technician, kept up an easy flow of
conversation
as he worked, covering her stump with cling film. She
hardly noticed the boy who was working nearby, mixing something, plaster of Paris she presumed, in a plastic bucket. She was still smiling to herself, thinking about Catherine, when she looked up and found him looking at her. It was rather like her first meeting with Hans – she hadn’t meant to smile at Hans either. The boy smiled back, but then looked away.

She looked down at her leg. It glistened ultra black under the cling film. A memory, vaguely disturbing, was forming in her mind; a smell, familiar but frightening, was teasing her nostrils. Apprehension pricked: what did her leg remind her of? Then she had it – it was that time when Hans had taken Gabbin and her up to see the demining on the hill. Hans had opened a mine like the one that had wounded her and it had lain in his hand like an oyster. She felt panic growing in her like a sneeze, it was rising … rising. She tried to hold her breath against the cinnamon scent. A bell was ringing down the
corridor
– Managu’s, perhaps? Mr Dwyer moulded the first dollop of plaster about her leg. Then suddenly she knew! That was not her leg, it was a detonator, black and shiny, and the white stuff was the explosive.

‘Hans! Gabbin! Get away! Don’t press the trigger! Don’t press it! It will go off …’

The scent of cinnamon exploded in her nostrils and she was screaming. Her head was pressed against the white coat of Mr Dwyer, who was holding her and shouting to the boy to strip the plaster and the cling film from her leg. People were
running
. The whole hospital seemed to be focussed on her. Yola screamed and screamed. Suddenly she wanted these nice
complaisant
people to know what it was like to suffer. She lifted her head and filled her lungs – she was enjoying herself, but then she was aware of someone watching her, someone who knew
what she was doing. The boy had staggered back, his hands white, cling film hanging in streamers, and she was staring into his eyes. Something in the boy’s expression reminded her of Father. She opened her mouth to scream again, but the power seemed to have gone from her lungs. Against her will she saw herself as the boy was seeing her – a small girl looking for
attention
– and her scream died to a sob; she dropped her head.

Mr Dwyer moved back; concerned hands helped Yola to stand. A rainbow of coloured uniforms had swirled to her aid. She heard Mr Dwyer saying, ‘Don’t worry, there’s no hurry. We’ll try again some other time.’