Old Lovers Don't Die (3 page)

The paramedics, in their rush to get the victims to hospital, had not cut any of the victim’s clothes off. Christian reached for the scissors on the emergency trolley as well as the surgical gloves. He was about to cut through the shirt when Sister Maxwell walked past and, with a look of feigned horror, handed him the protective glasses from the trolley.

He attempted to quickly cut through the blood-soaked shirt, but the scissors were old and blunt, and kept catching and locking on the matted blood and denim. Christian discarded them and ripped the blood-soaked shirt so that he could see most of the upper body.

Underneath the shirt was black hair that any primate would have been proud of. It covered most of the torso, making any identification of a potential wound difficult. The lower abdomen by contrast was covered in a myriad of tattoos. Swastikas, tridents, tattooed words venerating the Hells Angels, death, and the devil. Some words were indiscriminately tattooed where there was available skin: Touch Me I Will Kill You/Death To All Spades and one tattoo which was centred on his belly button, Fuck All Pigs. As Christian scanned for a possible bleeding site, he remembered what Bolt had always said about tattoos. The number of tattoos on any body was inversely proportional to the intelligence of the tattooed. The more tattoos that you had, the less intelligent you were. Bolt would often quote many a sports star known to be covered in tattoos, as hard evidence that this was a not theory but scientific fact. He also constantly reminded medical students that one in five of any tattoos that they saw would possibly be hepatitis C positive; such was the lack of sterile control in tattoo parlours. Christian looked at the bikie and his tattoos, thinking the first part of Bolt’s theory would remain unproven unless the bikie regained consciousness.

Checking to see whether he could see a small stab wound beneath one of the ribs, he glanced up to see a growing pool of blood gathering beneath the beard.

“Sister, we going to need to remove that beard. Can you give me the electric shaver?”

“We may need a scrub cutter to deal with that piece of undergrowth.”

“No Sister,” said Christian looking up and smiling. “I'm sure the battery-operated razor will be fine.”

Christian positioned himself so that he could remove a significant part of the beard from the right neck and jaw. As he applied the battery razor to the beard, it was no match for the congealed blood and quickly seized. Christian tugged at it trying to dislodge both hair and clotted blood. Clumps of blood and hair came away with the razor as he pulled, which caused two immediate reactions.

A gush of bright red arterial blood, powerful enough to reach his eyes, splashed on his protective glasses. Thank you, Sister Maxwell, he quietly said to himself. He quickly put his gloved finger onto the spurting vessel, which stopped the flow. Then he looked round for an intern to continue the pressure while he finished the examination. Whether it was the pressure that he applied to stop the bleeding or tearing of the blood-soaked beard, the bikie suddenly opened his eyes. Coal black, chillingly dispassionate eyes turned and fixated on Christian. Without warning, his massive hand reached up with the speed of a giant cobra and grabbed Christian roughly around the throat.

“You cut off my beard and I will fucking kill you. I know your fucking name now, dipshit, shave that off and you will die.”

Christian was startled but immediately pulled back breaking the grip and looked at the bikie, feeling evil and hatred emanating in a continuous deathly stare. It was like confronting some alien life form. How someone be that close to death, weakened by significant blood loss and yet could retain such physical power, defied basic physiology. Such power seemed to have some kind of evil supernatural component. Christian briefly wondered whether this was what he had trained eight years for, and whether the world would be a better place if he released his finger from the carotid artery. Despite the attractiveness of the thought, his training was to preserve life, irrespective of whom the life belonged to and no matter how evil they seemed.

“Let's go with another litre of Haemacell, Sister. Cross match blood and notify theatre that we need to do an exploration of his neck.”

As Christian looked up, he noticed Bolt standing behind him. He had obviously heard the threats from the bikie.

“Have you done your second examination yet?” Bolt asked. “And he won't remember your name. Hypnovel, which he will get in theatre, takes away the memory. He won't remember your name if he wakes up.”

Bolt's comment took Christian by surprise; it was the first time that he had said anything to Christian that was not belittling.

“No, I have not done a second examination yet, so he may have another gunshot or stab wound; I was about to do that now.”

“Let's get to theatre. You can do the second examination in there while I'm scrubbing up. Sister Maxwell, make sure security knows, in case some of the other gang come looking to try to finish off what they started. Now where is that bloody intern when you need her? She can apply pressure to the neck.”

Bolt looked around, annoyed that that the intern was now helping another registrar with the third bikie to be wheeled in. Walking over to her, he tapped her on the shoulder, turned and pointed at Christian and said,

“That's where you need to be. And don't take your finger off that bloody neck until we get him into theatre.”

Christian signalled to the orderlies. Rupert, the older orderly with grey hair and a limp, quickly took control of the trolley and propelled the bikie towards the first emergency theatre. Christian walked ahead, guiding the head of the trolley and as they neared theatre, he pushed in the access code to open the double doors. Inside through the glass window, he could see Bolt scrubbing and beyond, Peter Jones the anaesthetist drawing up drugs.

“He has a small stab wound to his abdomen.” Christian said to Bolt as he walked into theatre

“I will do the neck first.” Said Bolt from the scrub bay. “Then you can open the abdomen, de Villiers.”

“Shit, he's losing pressure,” was the shout from Peter Jones as he struggled to get an arterial line positioned.

“I think you're going to have to do the abdomen first.”

“De Villiers, get scrubbed. I am going to open the abdomen and you can fix whatever is inside. What's the intern's name—Donna?”

“Yes,” replied Christian

Christian, from the scrub bay, could see the scrub sister rapidly applying a mix of alcohol and iodine skin preparation as an antiseptic to the abdomen. As it dried, it created a surreal yellow backdrop for the mosaic of tattoos, which now appeared two-dimensional. By the time drapes were flung into position, he was standing opposite Bolt.

“You guys better hurry. His pulse rate is up to 160 and his blood pressure is down to 80/40. He must be bleeding inside his abdomen.”

“Sister, give de Villiers the scalpel.”

Christian looked at the abdomen; it was now significantly distended and rapidly filling with blood. He had made incisions on the abdomen for trauma so he knew that once they entered the abdominal cavity, the bleeding would no longer be contained. Blood would flow all over the operating table and they would need to be able to quickly contain the bleeding. He would need to place a large number of abdominal packs inside the abdomen and very quickly stem the flow. As he looked down to see how far below the umbilicus he would make his incision, he saw the words tattooed just above the belly button. Fuck All Pigs
,
in old English script.

“How quaint is that.” Bolt said sarcastically looking at the Fuck All Pigs tattoo. “See whether you can curve your incision to go through the F.”

Christian made the incision starting high up on the abdomen and curving slightly through the F as requested by Bolt. It meant deviating from the midline, which was unusual, but he was not about to question Bolt at this point. On entering the abdominal cavity, fresh blood rushed up to greet them as predicted.

“Suction, Sister,” said Bolt as Christian placed one large abdominal pack after another into both sides of the abdomen. The bleeding finally slowed after the placement of seven large white abdominal packs. Bolt applied the suction and Christian could see there was a tear in one of the larger veins.

“You repair that and I'll retract for you.” Bolt said taking the metal retractor, which allowed Christian to see the bleeding vein.

Christian repaired the vein with fine sutures and then checked to see if whether there were any other bleeding sites. The stab wound had been quite lateral but there was no other bleeding from the entry wound.

“Well, that was an easy fix. We will have a quick look around, then we can close up his abdomen and fix his neck.”

Christian sutured up the first layer of the abdomen with a heavy nylon suture and was surprised when Bolt said he would do the skin layer. That was usually the junior surgeon’s job. He was also surprised when Bolt moved to his side of the operating table and rejected the skin stapler and insisted on a continuous suture. A continuous suture would take much longer than just stapling the skin together. Bolt, who was not renowned for his patience, made using the suture even more of an unusual request. Christian watched and assisted as Bolt slowly sutured the top half of the wound, then paused at the point of the tattoo where Christian had partly incised the F of the tattoo Fuck All Pigs. With a few small deft sutures, Bolt turned the F into an S. Then he completed the lower half of the wound, neatly tucking the suture in after tying his surgical knot. Looking over his surgical mask at Christian, he laughed and said.

“That should make for more interesting reading in the future.”

The next morning Christian took the lift up to the eighth floor where all post-operative patients were sent. The previous night they had not finished surgery until 2:30 am. Christian did not mind the tiredness this morning; it was his last ward round before he had a year off. He had successfully negotiated with the College of Surgeons to have a year off before starting formal training. He felt deep inside he needed to see some of the world to expand his medical and surgical horizons beyond Adelaide. There was also the other factor, which was the uncertainty in his love life. He had never been able to match the chemistry he had found with Isabella. Over the years, he had wondered whether it was impossible to recreate the chemistry with her. There had been a few other girlfriends but the intensity had not matched what he had had with Isabella. He needed to resolve that crisis with time away or possibly finding her again

As he walked out of the lift and down the corridor to S Ward, he was grateful that the bikie, whom he now knew as Anton Kauffman, had only a puncture wound to a vein, not an artery in his neck. That had been a relatively easy suture repair as well. Unfortunately, the other bikie had died on the operating table, a 9 mm bullet shredding his aorta and spinal cord. There was no way they could repair the aorta, despite the intervention of one of the best vascular surgeons in Adelaide, Rupert McKnee.

Christian punched in the code 911E for the last time and opened the door to the ward. Sally, whom he thought was the most attractive nurse on the ward, looked up and smiled at him from the nurses’ station as he walked in. Sally was a second-year nurse with an infectious amount of enthusiasm and a blonde ponytail, which she loved to twirl as she talked to you. He had been tempted to ask her out several times. Nevertheless, despite her obvious interest in him and her attractiveness, there was something missing which he could not quite define. He knew he needed to work out the Isabella legacy in his life; otherwise, he might never find someone to share his life with.

“Late night I hear,” Sally said, twirling her ponytail as Christian approached.

“Yes, it was and all a bit dramatic in the end.”

“We have moved Mr Kauffman into a private room. I have to warn you that there are four of his gang in there refusing to leave.”

“Probably ensuring that one of the rival Bandito’s gang doesn't come back to finish off. How come we have no police up here?”

“No one is saying anything; you know what it's like with gangs, if no one says anything, then charges can't be laid.”

Christian pulled the small table out from the side of the ward and retrieved Kauffman’s notes from the pigeonhole above. He read quickly through Sally's notes; there had been no change in Kauffman’s condition overnight, which was gratifying to see. He could report to Bolt that everything was stable and that would be his last action on the ward.

“Do you want me to change his dressings?” Sally interrupted his thoughts.

“No, you can leave that for forty-eight hours,” said Christian remembering Bolt’s handiwork and that any gratitude that might be coming, should be Bolt’s alone. As he closed the folder his mind turned to the discussion he had had with his mother about where he was going to spend the next year.

“So Dr. de Villiers, now that you have done two years as a trainee surgeon, you are going to leave Adelaide and explore the world. Four more weeks to go, have you finalised all the possible destinations yet?” Renata enquired, standing in the doorway of Christian’s study.

Christian turned from the computer screen to see his mother standing in the doorway smiling. She had her hair pulled back into a tight bun with a nine-carat gold hair clip holding it tightly in place, her fine Flemish features freshly burnished with a cream that he remembered cost almost as much as his monthly iPhone plan. Most of his friends could not believe that she was forty-six years
of age, as she looked so much younger. Perhaps there was something special about the Retinoic acid in the cream she used, a fact she would often refer to with no little hubris, whenever he teased her about the cost of the moisturising cream.

Christian looked at his mother, a beautiful picture framed by the doorway and wondered how much different her life could have been, had his father survived and not been murdered. There was a persistent sadness surrounding his mother, which he could not explain other than in some way it related to his father's death. Her sadness detracted from a natural beauty; her almond-shaped blue grey eyes were never really smiling. He wished on many occasion he could find the key to alleviate her personal darkness.

Once all the details of his father's involvement with the Bureau of State Security in South Africa had been revealed, he thought she might find greater peace. Christian knew that he was relieved to discover that his father's involvement with the apartheid government had not been entirely corrupt. His father had been more a victim of his own pride and ego, than an active supporter of the regime that brutally enforced racial segregation. In the end his father had seen the immorality of the government and tried to rectify some of his mistakes. For Christian, that made his actions a little easier to accept. Strangely, the discovery seemed to have the opposite effect on his mother and she now refused to talk about his father at all. That was difficult to understand; there had to be something else that he did not understand about his father.

“You know you don't have to decide on which specialty you want to follow straight away. In actual fact it would be quite a good idea just to gain experience in some other specialties before you make up your mind.”

“That's what I was thinking about doing when I first decided to go overseas, and it would also give me a different perspective on medicine before I finally committed to surgical training.”

“Well, I know that’s certainly what many young doctors are doing now, although I think, like your father, you are suited towards a surgical specialty. So where are you going to spend all this time; let me guess... South Africa?”

Christian looked at his mother and smiled, thinking that she knew him so well, loving the way that her intuition on occasions manifested. Moreover, she had refrained from mentioning Isabella, which she nearly always did whenever South Africa came up in the conversation.

“In actual fact you are in this instance right but only about the continent not the country.”

Christian deliberately shortened the sentence so that it did not give the full amount of information, knowing that it would cause his mother, in that very familiar way of hers, to scrobiculate her brow. It was her distinctive way of indicating that she wanted more information but did not know whether it was polite to ask. They stood for a few minutes looking at each other smiling; understanding each other so well. Christian knew she wanted more information, and Renata knew that if she waited long enough, Christian would tell her what she wanted to know. They had played this game among themselves on many occasions over the years.

“Okay, I give in this time,” said Renata. “So where is it that my adventurer son is intending to go?”

“Rwanda.”

Christian looked at his mother, trying to anticipate her reaction. He had been uncertain as to whether she would approve and knew that he would have to give her more details as to his decision. Nevertheless, it was always the initial reaction from his mother which was an indication of approval or otherwise.

“Having two parents who are doctors and who have a need to both achieve and help people often means that the children of those parents may inherit some of those characteristics. Not always, and in many instances, children with achieving parents feel that they are not a priority. Those children end up with a determination within their own lives to be more family centric. You clearly are the former, and it would be impossible I think for anyone to distract someone as focused as you on what they want to achieve. I am delighted that you are now an independent achieving young man. I was incredibly impressed with the way that you dealt with the discoveries about your father in South Africa. I know that any decision you now make will have much thought behind it, great sensitivity, and maturity as well as having a remarkable chance of being both successful and enriching.”

Christian got up out of his chair and walked towards his mother. Renata hardly ever used long sentences; her inclination was to be short and to the point. He had heard her lecture during his pathology course in third year. Always succinct, almost surgical in the way that she ensured the information was presented, amongst the forest of histology, she made sure everyone could see clearly the pathological trees. That is how she had always been as a mother, direct and to the point.

“You know you are a pretty cool mum,” he said as he stood in front of her and took in a bear hug. “You have never said anything like that to me before. That really means a lot to me.”

Christian rested on his chin on the top of her head: he was now a full head and shoulders taller than his mother and her head fitted perfectly on his shoulder. Although when he hugged her it now, with their height differences, it felt a little awkward, as he looked straight down on the changing colour of her hair. He momentarily thought about playfully lifting her off the floor when he felt a dampness seeping through the top of his shirt.

“Are you okay, mum?” he said as he disentangled himself and held her at arm’s length.

Renata wiped her eyes before turning and heading towards the kitchen.

“Yes, I’m fine; sometimes I forget how grown-up you have become and how capable you are of dealing with life.”

Christian followed her into the kitchen. Cook books, mostly Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson, lay open at various pages at the far end of the bench. Next to them were multi-coloured chopping boards, green for vegetables, red for meat, yellow for chicken, and white for fish. The colour coding was part of his mother’s belief that cooking needed science; colour separation was a memory aid, which she argued reduced cross contamination of the bacteria in foods. His mother loved cooking and Christian had been the recipient of many of her wonderful cooking experiments throughout his life. Garlic was an ever-present smell in the house, and there were few dishes that garlic did not find its way into. Christian, however, was not certain from the large amount of garlic that his mother used, whether it was added to each dish purely for flavour, or because she believed that it had certain medicinal properties. Garlic was one of those strange quirks, which was his mother. Her training was in evidence-based medicine, which she normally insisted on if he was to convince her of his argument. Moreover, being the Gradgrind that she mostly was, it fascinated him that she would put her faith in the medicinal properties of things like Echinacea and garlic for which he could find no evidence. When he had started studying medicine, he had done Medline searches to try to convince her. Quoting the research to her in this instance had made little difference. After a while, he no longer puzzled as to how that exception worked and just accepted that is how it was with his mostly scientific mother, and no one was perfect.

Renata simmered the chopped garlic and onion for a few minutes in the frying pan. As she added the pasta sauce and basil leaves, the aroma again changed. The new smell distracted Christian from the discussion and reminded him of when he came home late from university. Opening the backdoor, the various aromas would envelop him stimulating his hunger. He watched as his mother fiddled with the arms of the pasta maker, sensing her uncertainty about how to proceed after his question. Throughout his life, she had never been comfortable with emotional statements. Any small emotional discussion that they had had over the years was usually followed by an uncomfortable silence. It was like a compensatory pause after an irregular heartbeat, a pause required to overcome the natural disinclination to talk about things emotional. He felt that tonight, would be no different; she would busy herself with the pasta and then with her composure regained, would initiate the conversation around another topic. On this occasion, he decided that he had more to talk to her about and venturing into the refractory period would be acceptable. Before he had a chance to speak, his mother surprised him and broke with tradition. Without turning to look at him, she said,

“I think I know why you want to go to Rwanda,” she said. “You found out that your father once went there.”

Christian had realised for some time following his intern year that he had a decision to make. It was now nine years since he had been back to South Africa looking for information on his father. He had mostly closed the book on that in his own mind, although he did still wonder what had happened with his father being in Rwanda.

“That’s partly true, mum, which is something that I wanted to ask you about. It wasn’t clear when we came back from South Africa. I know looking through dad’s papers that he visited Rwanda and went down to a small town on the border of the Congo called Garanyi. I just thought it would be interesting to go back to a place where he had been which has not been tainted by all the issues of apartheid and corruption that we discovered in South Africa. And when I looked it up on the Internet, the hospital there has 300 beds and serves a catchment area of one million people on both sides of the border which would give me heaps of experience in medicine and surgery.”

Renata listened, not turning to face Christian, part of her not really wanting to hear what he was saying, hoping that the chapter, which was Africa, had truly gone from their lives forever. In her heart of hearts, she understood that Christian was truly his father’s son, and that part of his father which she had loved, the desire to help the less fortunate, was present in Christian. That desire needed to be fulfilled. She put down the sheet of pasta and turned to face him.

“I can understand your desire to go somewhere where your father has been. However, there are certain things that you should consider in making that decision. Your father was only there two weeks, I seem to recall, and it was on some kind of government business, therefore it might not have been medically related. He was never specific about why he was there, only suggesting that it had to do with his genetic research. Nevertheless, at the time, and with the information that we now have, it might have been related to trying to obtain some of the rare minerals from the eastern Congo, for the nuclear development programme in apartheid South Africa. Even if he did work at the hospital, which I cannot recall him talking about, I doubt that they would remember him. Going there with your limited experience in medicine and surgery may not be regarded as a useful experience with regards to a future specialty.”

“I realise that my experience is not great, but I do have two years surgical experience now and my time in the Trauma unit, which will be helpful, and certainly I will learn a lot. Also it would just complete things in so far as I’m concerned, being in a place where my dad was, in trying to imagine that he was there helping people.”

Christian looked at his mother and could see that she was not entirely convinced.

“Christian, you can probably sense that I am not happy. There has been genocide there and there are still countless reports of rebels in that region. I think you would be better going to South Africa. However, I know that being the person that you are, trying to stop you would be counter-productive. My underlying concern as a mother will always be for your safety. There has been ongoing conflict on the border between Congo and Rwanda and I don’t want you caught up in anything.”

“I do understand that, mum, and I have already been in contact with the Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra. There are no travel advisory notices for that area; it is regarded as a safe region to travel to. Besides which, you know me after the South African adventures, I now have an intuition that hopefully allows me to avoid dangerous situations.”

Christian finished the last sentence with a smile and winked at his mother hoping that his humour would break the impasse, as it normally did. Renata looked back at him understanding his strategy and holding his gaze to let him know that she understood he was using his youthful charm to try to win her over.

They looked at each other for what seemed to Christian like an age. It was on occasions like this that he wished his father were still alive. His mother had tried to bridge the gap; but at times, he just longed for a true male perspective. In some strange way, he felt the last nine years of medicine in Adelaide was something that his father would have approved of. On more than one occasion, he had wondered whether his father was out there watching somewhere with a sense of pride. He would have loved to discuss many things with his father and particularly to try to have understood how he felt about the new South Africa. He wondered whether his father would have adapted to a country where legal separation no longer existed. However, from what he had observed, it was a long way from the rainbow nation that everyone now claimed it was. From what he had seen, there were still only three primary colours: black, brown and white, a long way from a multi-coloured carefully integrated rainbow.