Devil-Devil (9 page)

13

PRAYING MARY

The queue of women and children outside the Sulufou clinic already snaked around the island, although it was only ten o'clock in the morning. The news that the Praying Mary had reopened the island clinic had spread all over the lagoon. Across the water, canoes were heading for Sulufou from most of the other artificial islands.

The government rural health clinic consisted of a concrete floor and a tin roof, balanced on betel-wood posts. The walls were constructed of interwoven sago-palm leaves. The interior was divided into a large room used for medical inspections, and several small empty wards, each with a bed and a mattress.

On one of the exterior walls was pinned a poster issued by the Agriculture Department. In cartoon form it showed the amount of copra needed in order to purchase different items. The average amount produced after a day's work should earn the labourer enough to buy a bicycle, while seventy-five filled sacks were sufficient for the purchase of a motorcycle.

Sister Conchita stood at a table in the centre of the main room of the clinic, the sleeves of her habit rolled up, as she did her best to deal with the endless line of patients before her. After each one had left she entered the details of her diagnosis and treatment into a logbook.

She had come across the clinic on one of her earlier perambulations of the island. She had been informed that it was only opened for one day approximately every three weeks, sometimes not that often, when a government launch would deliver a medical orderly for a few hours, and then take him back to Auki, the district centre.

Sister Conchita had also noticed that the key to the main medicine cabinet had been deposited trustingly on a hook on the wall. Furthermore, the box was plentifully supplied with ointments, bandages, plasters, gauze, ether, tweezers, a magnifying glass and even several phials of aspirins and bottles of medicine.

Admittedly there were also handwritten warnings in pidgin, ordering the villagers not to touch any of the medical supplies. Sister Conchita consoled herself with the thought that she was not a villager and that she had ministered to plenty of patients at Ruvabi mission; it would be a shame not to offer her services to the islanders while she happened to be in the area. In any case, it had always been her philosophy that it was better to apologize profusely after the event than to neglect an opportunity when it arose. Besides which, she thought, the islanders had told her that it had been at least a month since a medical orderly had visited Sulufou.

There were no men in the queue outside the clinic, and no one at all from the bush villages. It was against the custom of the pagan mountain dwellers to adopt the white man's medicine, while the saltwater men would accept no help from a white woman. Even so, there was plenty to be done with the women and children who had come to be attended at the newly opened medical centre. Sister Conchita's morning passed in a whirl of bandaging and prescribing. She attended to pregnancies, doled out chloroquine to malarial patients and sulfa tablets for abdominal pains, massaged and put compresses on strains, and applied pressure to bleeding wounds.

At one o'clock in the afternoon, she took a short break and carried a bottle of water to the door. Shyly a village woman brought her a plate of taro. The queue waiting patiently outside seemed to extend as far as ever. As she watched, a small flotilla of canoes headed out from the mainland and pulled in at the artificial island's wharf. Half a dozen male malaria eradication sprayers, on a periodic anti-mosquito tour of the artificial islands, leapt out of the canoes and advanced cheerfully on the houses. They wore khaki shorts and shirts and were carrying backpacks, jets and nozzles.

The old village men gossiping lethargically in the shade of a canoe shelter glared at the noisy new arrivals. The itinerant sprayers, trained and dispatched in groups by the Department of Health, had a not undeserved reputation for routinely trying to seduce local girls on their travels. Oblivious to the disapproval of the elders, the sprayers carried on with their work, leering and calling out licentiously to the younger women in the line for the clinic.

Sister Conchita looked on idly, preparing to go back inside the clinic. She became aware that one of the malaria sprayers was looking at her with some intensity. He was the biggest member of the team, broad-shouldered and tall. The nun recognized his stare. It was one that she had encountered a number of times since she had come to the Solomons. Most of the islanders were perfectly prepared to welcome expatriates, or at the very least ignore them as alien beings beyond their comprehension. A few, however, especially the better educated, actively resented the presence of the white strangers in their land. The big worker was plainly one of these. He was glowering at her, making no effort to disguise his antagonism.

Sister Conchita wondered whether she should try to talk to the big islander, but decided against it. There was something forbidding about his lowering presence that made it seem likely that he would resent any overtures made to him by one of the outsiders he so clearly disliked. In any case, she had work to do. She went back inside the clinic.

The first part of the afternoon was as busy as the morning had been. Sister Conchita continued to attend as best she could to fractures and dislocations. She dabbed arnica on bruises and placed cold compresses on skin rashes, weighed babies and stitched wounds. She was in the process of making a paste of water and soda bicarbonate powder to apply to a sea-urchin sting suffered by an eight-year-old boy, when the clinic door was flung open and a flustered middle-aged woman thrust her head into the room.

‘Come hurry-up, sister,' she begged.

Sister Conchita ran through the crowded huts to a space in front of the island church. There the malaria sprayers were huddled in consternation around one of their number, who was screaming in agony next to a large fire. On the ground, upside down next to the fire, lay a large wooden bowl. Desperately Sister Conchita tried to muster enough of her scanty pidgin to find out what was happening.

‘Whichway now thisfella—' she began haltingly.

‘I speak English,' said the large sprayer with whom earlier she had made eye contact, turning away from the others towards her. Impatiently he indicated the stricken man writhing on the ground. ‘We were boiling water for tea. Isaac knocked the bowl over and the boiling water has scalded him.'

Isaac screamed again. The sprayers looked at him helplessly. ‘Bring him to the clinic!' ordered Sister Conchita. The men did not move. Of course, thought the sister. They would never allow a woman to look after a man. To do so would go against tradition. Yet the stricken man was in urgent need of attention. She looked across at the big sprayer. His command of English was excellent; he must have been educated overseas. Had that taken him sufficiently far from the constraints of custom? Would he have the moral courage to allow her to help?

‘Do you know how to help your friend?' she asked. The big man shook his head. Sister Conchita pounced. ‘Well, I do!' she said. ‘Bring him to the clinic quickly. It's the only chance he's got.'

The big man hesitated. Then, after what seemed to the sister a very long time, he nodded and turned to the other sprayers, talking urgently to them. The men shuffled their feet, plainly unwilling to move. The big man spoke again vehemently, waving his hands in the direction of the clinic. Finally two of the sprayers ran to the clinic and came back with one of the stretchers piled in a corner. Under Sister Conchita's supervision they lifted the groaning man on to the stretcher and carried him into the clinic.

‘Put him on the table,' ordered Sister Conchita. She waited until the men had done so and then made shooing motions with her hands. ‘All right, leave him with me now.'

The sprayers looked at their leader. He nodded and said something in dialect. Dragging their feet the men left the room. The big sprayer remained. When Sister Conchita glanced at him he shrugged. ‘I must stay,' he said. ‘They do not like leaving one of their own with a mary — a woman. I cannot leave him.'

‘Very well,' said Sister Conchita. ‘If you must, you must. Perhaps you can make yourself useful. What's your name?'

‘Jimmy.'

‘Stand over by the door while I examine him, Jimmy.'

Bracing herself, Sister Conchita bent over Isaac. Carefully she cut away part of the sprayer's sodden shirt, taking care not to remove any of the cloth adhering to his skin. It was plain that most of the water had been spilled over the man's chest area and stomach. Already angry blisters were forming on his blotched skin.

‘We've got to cool his wounds,' announced the sister. ‘That means training a constant flow of cold water over the afflicted parts.'

‘There aren't any taps on the island,' Jimmy pointed out. ‘How can we keep a steady supply of water coming?'

‘This way,' said Sister Conchita, and told him exactly what she wanted done.

Five minutes later a long line of islanders was extending from the large concrete freshwater stand in the centre of the island to the medical centre. A variety of slopping containers of all sizes, from buckets to gourds, were being passed, hand to hand, from the stand to the door of the clinic, where Jimmy seized each one in turn and hurried over to Sister Conchita where he emptied it carefully into a small funnel held by the sister.

The nun stood over the prostrate Isaac, carefully pouring a constant stream of cool water over him through the funnel. Jimmy ran to and from the door, taking the new, filled pots and returning the empty ones, to be passed back along the line to the concrete water stand.

For a quarter of an hour Sister Conchita stood over Isaac, emptying the water over his quivering body, concentrating only on maintaining an even flow. The concrete floor of the clinic was awash, but gradually her ministrations seemed to be having an effect. Isaac had stopped whimpering and was gazing dazedly at the roof. After a time he made no sound at all, although he was still conscious.

‘I think we've done it,' said Sister Conchita, with relief, conscious of the aching of her arms. ‘At least Isaac's not in so much pain now. I'll cover his wounds with a dry dressing and give him some aspirins. Then we've got to find a way of getting him to a hospital.'

She wrapped bandages around the sprayer's body and placed a blanket over his unaffected legs.

‘You've done good work,' said Jimmy grudgingly, standing next to her.

‘Not too bad for a mary,' agreed Sister Conchita.

Jimmy walked to the doorway and ordered the villagers to send no more water across. Suddenly it seemed as if he did not want to leave. He loitered in the doorway, avoiding the nun's gaze. When he spoke it was in a rush of words.

‘You are a good woman, Sister Conchita. Everyone says that the Praying Mary is here to help us.'

‘If I'm allowed to.'

The islander shrugged. ‘It is not easy. We must find our own way, not depend on others. All the same, this afternoon you saved Isaac because you were the only one who knew what to do.'

‘I was only able to help because you convinced the others that a mary was capable of taking charge,' said Sister Conchita. ‘That's the way it should be — working together.'

‘Soon, I think, it will be too late for that,' said Jimmy, shaking his head. ‘Whitey must leave and give us a chance on our own.' He raised a hand to forestall her reply. ‘This is not the time to speak of such things. Today you helped my team and I am grateful. It is custom that I must now do something to help you.'

‘I don't expect—'

‘It is custom,' repeated Jimmy in a tone that brooked no argument. ‘Would you shame me in front of my men?' Sister Conchita forced herself to shake her head. ‘Good,' said the malaria sprayer approvingly. ‘You are learning, Praying Mary. Listen to me. This week we have been working along the coast. We visited Ruvabi mission and Deacon's copra plantation. There has been much gossip about you in both places.'

‘I bet there has,' agreed Sister Conchita with feeling.

‘And,' went on Jimmy inexorably, ‘there has been talk that you are in danger.'

‘If you consider getting shot at in the swamp dangerous, I'll go along with that.'

Jimmy did not respond to the sister's attempt at flippancy. ‘That was only a part of it. You have got involved in the smuggling. You will find it difficult to shake yourself free. Custom is involved, as well as theft. Be very careful. Do what your
aofia
tells you. He is the only one who can help you.'

She should never have got involved with John Deacon's attempts to take the glory shells out of the islands, thought Sister Conchita. Before she could question Jimmy, one of the other malaria sprayers poked his head around the door.

‘Boat come!' he said excitedly

Leaving the sprayer with Isaac, Sister Conchita and Jimmy ran down to the wharf. A government launch had anchored just outside the lagoon. A small rowing boat was pulling through the rocks of the reef, heading for Sulufou. Two uniformed seamen of the Marine Department were rowing, while a third sat in the prow, with several canisters at his feet. Most of the women, children and old men still left on the artificial island were streaming down to the wharf to greet the newcomers.

‘It's Kovara, the medical orderly,' said Jimmy as the rowing boat drew closer. ‘He's come to take his monthly sick-call at the clinic.'

Sister Conchita's heart sank at the news. She looked back at the open door of the clinic and thought of the medical supplies she had appropriated and used so freely that day, without permission, and of the diagnoses she had made without consultation. It had all seemed so right and proper at the time, helpful even. Now, with the bespectacled and rather prim-looking medical orderly being dragged in the dinghy up the beach by the two seamen from the government launch, the nun wondered if he would take the same free-spirited attitude as she had done to her random use of government medical supplies. Somehow she doubted it. It looked as if she was in trouble again.