Angel of Mercy Read online

  Heather listened with her heart. Here were people doing what she wanted to do. Here were people who were realizing their dream, in spite of the sacrifices they had to make. And by now, she understood what a sacrifice it was to leave family, friends, and country and come halfway around the world to help better the lives of strangers.

  Paul continued. “We came here with a different philosophy. We base it on the old proverb. ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.’ It wasn’t enough to just take in orphans and care for them. We wanted to return the concept of fatherhood to these children’s lives. First, we wanted them to see God as their heavenly father. To do that, they need an earthly father as a role model. Most of these kids don’t even remember their parents or village life.

  “Our goal is to train the oldest young men to become heads of families. The younger children are placed in these family groups, where they learn to live together much as they may have before they lost everything. With our supervision, the ‘father’ of these families is taught how to be responsible for his unit. Under his headship, his family learns to farm and raise livestock, which we supply; they learn a trade, such as carpentry or ornamental ironworking, sewing, or basket making—all the trades that their Ugandan forefathers learned and taught before the wars came. Eventually, the family members will grow up, move out, and create new villages. And, ultimately, marry and give birth and train up another generation.

  “Everyone attends school daily here on the grounds, then spends time gardening or doing assigned chores. Our goal is to teach the youth skills and leave them self-sufficient and self-governing and able to fend for themselves once we return stateside.

  “No one is forced to stay against his or her will. The door is always open for residents to leave. But if they stay, then they must obey the rules, which are mainly to work and go to school and live within one of our families.”

  Paul paused. “In the past three years, not one person has left.” He looked over his audience. “Your being here is a blessing. Some of you will help build a new classroom. Some of you will begin teaching in our school. Others will work at the hospital on the other side of the road. None of you will be idle. You will never work harder, but you will never feel more useful.

  “Now, if you want to ask questions, come to me during dinner. Right now, it’s time to eat. That is, if you’re hungry.”

  A deafening cheer went up. Heather stood, found Ian’s gaze, and smiled. He winked, and she blew him a kiss.

  Early the next morning, Heather showed up at the hospital along with Dr. Henry, Ian, and her roommate Cynthia. The hospital grounds were neat and well kept, the flower beds ablaze with pink and red blossoms. Patients who were ambulatory sat outside under banana trees in old-fashioned wooden wheelchairs and on benches positioned along the porch. They played cards, read newspapers, or talked with family and friends. Heather saw none of the high-tech equipment she was used to in American hospitals. IV stands held glass bottles rather than soft plastic bags, and rubber rather than plastic tubing. Traction for a man with multiple broken bones was a system of ropes and wooden pulleys instead of stainless steel and slim cables.

  Inside, the hospital smelled of antiseptic and soap. The walls were painted yellow; the floors were bare concrete, still damp and shiny after being mopped. Banks of windows allowed morning sunlight to flood the wards, where white metal beds lined the walls. The beds reminded Heather of ones she’d seen in old war movies.

  She learned that she and Cynthia would work with the nurses, while Dr. Henry and Ian would see patients and help in the operating room. The doctor in charge, Dr. Gallagher, was Irish, and he and his family lived in a small house on hospital property. The other two doctors were Ugandan—second-year residents on loan from hospitals in England, where they were getting their medical training. There were also six full-time nurses, three of them nuns, all of them Ugandans. Dr. Gallagher’s wife was also a nurse, but she worked only when there was a crisis.

  Dr. Gallagher walked them through the facility, showing them the women’s and men’s wards—two wings of the building, connected by a central receiving area. Rooms off the central area contained the lab, the clinic, a small lounge where cots were set up for night personnel, and a room for sick infants. The babies were kept not in plastic Isolettes, but in hand-carved wooden cradles. There was no neonatal intensive care unit.

  “The operating and recovery room is off the men’s ward,” Dr. Gallagher explained in his heavy Irish accent. “The building out back is the isolation wing. That’s where we keep the tuberculosis patients, the contagious cases that come in, and AIDS victims in the final stages of their disease.”

  His words sent a chill through Heather. In America, AIDS victims had an arsenal of drugs that often kept their disease at bay; here there was no such hope. The treatments were simply too costly. Dr. Gallagher explained that the best they could do was to keep the patient as comfortable as possible until he or she died.

  Heather recalled what Patrick had told her on the ship—multiple wives, multiple sex partners had spread the disease quickly through the population. And when Dr. Gallagher explained that part of their work as aides would include counseling women in the clinic on family planning and HIV awareness, Heather realized that her job was going to be more than cleaning bedpans and keeping track of paperwork.

  She and Cynthia went straight to work with Sister Della, tackling a maze of jobs that included changing patients’ bandages and dispensing medications. The morning passed so quickly that Heather was shocked when Ian stuck his head in the door and reminded her that it was time for a lunch break. “I don’t know if I can take a break,” she told him.

  “You must. We can’t have you dropping over the first day on the job.”

  He took her outside to a bench beneath a graceful old tree and spread a white napkin between them. He opened a small canvas bag and took out two bottles of water, a few bananas, a pile of cooked rice wrapped in a banana leaf, two boiled eggs, and a baked sweet potato.

  Heather hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she smelled the food. “Tastes good,” she said, eating a sweet, finger-sized banana in one bite. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Jodene sent it over. She knew none of us had thought about lunch. I gave a bag to Cynthia and Dr. Henry, too.”

  “I guess there’s no cafeteria or vending machines around here,” Heather said. “When I worked in the hospital back home, food was never a problem.”

  “They prepare food in a cookhouse out back for the patients. For some, it’s the only time they eat regular.” He took a bite of sweet potato. “How was your morning?”

  “Busy. How about yours?”

  “Stitched up a man who’d fallen in a ditch, and assisted Dr. Henry in the OR, setting a broken leg. Greenstick fracture—bone came clear through the skin.”

  She grimaced.

  She saw that a bandage had been taped to the inside of Ian’s elbow and asked about it.

  “Gave blood. I’m O negative, the universal donor. The man needed a transfusion, and the lab had no blood, so I rolled up my sleeve.”

  “You gave blood right there in the OR?” She couldn’t imagine her parents stopping an operation to give blood to one of their patients, although she knew that her father donated blood on occasion to the hospital’s blood bank.

  “A person does what he has to,” Ian said matter-of-factly.

  The news unsettled her, making her wonder if the man would have died if Ian hadn’t been there. “I guess I could give blood too,” she said.

  “If you can spare a pint, the lab can use it. Dr. Gallagher said some should be coming next week, but in the meantime, we may have an emergency. All the doctors and nurses give blood regularly. It’s part of the job.”

  “I have some syringes my dad made me bring.”

  “Smart thinking,” Ian said. “Dr. Gallagher runs a good hospital. He never reuses needles.”

  She was glad o
f that—she didn’t want Ian running any unnecessary risks.

  “Lass, I believe lunch is over,” he said looking past her shoulder. “Here comes an ambulance.”

  Surprised because she hadn’t heard a siren, Heather turned. She saw no vehicle, just four men carrying a litter attached to long poles that rested on their shoulders. A woman covered by a blanket lay on the stretcher. A man and a small child tagged along behind. “ That’s the ambulance?”

  Ian stood, scooping up the debris from their lunch. “Yes. They probably walked all night from the bush to bring her. I’d better go see to her problem.”

  She watched him trot toward the stretcher bearers, move alongside, and take the woman’s wrist, feeling for a pulse.

  Something bad had happened to the woman, of that Heather was certain. But there had been no 911 emergency service to call for help. For her there had only been the men of her village to carry her to the nearest hospital. For her there had been hours, maybe days of pain. And maybe, like the baby Heather had held in Kenya, the woman was already beyond help.

  A chill ran through Heather as she watched the men walk into the hospital, followed closely by the other man and the child, who began to cry for his mother.

  13

  Heather’s days quickly fell into a routine. Six days a week, she worked at the hospital. On Sunday, she joined everyone in the compound for church services, where Miguel’s guitar music was added to the African flute and drums. Sunday afternoon was free time, and Sunday evening, the entire camp came together for dinner and prayer.

  She loved her work. She and Cynthia shared stories from the hospital with Ingrid and Debbie, who had their own stories about teaching in the school. “The children are bright,” Ingrid often said. “And so eager to learn. At the end of the day, I feel like a dried-out sponge.”

  Under Bob Hoover’s direction, the construction project took shape, and by the middle of October, a concrete slab had been poured and cinder blocks had risen to form walls. Boyce, Miguel—all the kids working on the building had turned nut brown under the African sun, and their bodies bulged with well-toned muscles.

  Ian spent long hours in the OR or sitting by the bedsides of critical patients, adjusting IVs and doling out pain medications, always in short supply. Once every two weeks, a Red Cross truck arrived with supplies, but the hospital never knew if it would be the supplies they desperately needed or an overabundance of something they didn’t. Every day was an adventure.

  One Saturday evening, Paul and Jodene invited Dr. Henry, Bob, and Ian to the house for dinner. Ian asked Heather to join them, and she found herself frantically sorting through her duffel bags for something pretty to wear.

  “Wear my silver hoops,” Ingrid offered, dangling the pretty earrings under Heather’s nose.

  “How about my long skirt?” Cynthia said, shaking out a lovely aqua skirt with lace insets.

  “I have one unstained white blouse,” Debbie said. “It’s yours for the night.”

  “I love you all,” Heather said, tying up her hair with a white ribbon and dabbing a few drops of perfume behind her ears.

  Just before she was to leave, Ingrid pulled her to one side. “You are very pretty. Ian will be moved.”

  Heather blushed. Was it that obvious that she was dressing for him and not for dinner? She’d told no one except Amber, thousands of miles away, how she felt about Ian, and even then she hadn’t expressed the depth of her feelings. “He’s been nice to me,” Heather said to Ingrid. “But I know I shouldn’t read too much into it.”

  Ingrid shrugged. “He is a fine person, and yes, handsome too. It is not hard to see why you care for him.”

  “It’s not a dumb crush. It—It’s different.”

  “Ja,” Ingrid said with a matter-of-fact nod. “This I can see by the look on your face.”

  “Oh, great,” Heather moaned. “Don’t tell me that.”

  “But it is true. And tonight you are beautiful for him.” Ingrid smiled and patted Heather’s arm. “He will be—how do you say it?—bowled over.”

  When Ian arrived to fetch Heather, the look on his face told her that Ingrid had made a good call.

  Jodene served dinner at a long, narrow table that had been hewn from a single log. The underside was still rough and curved, the top sanded smooth. Kerosene lamps and candles lit the room. “We have a gas generator,” Paul explained, “but we try and make do without it because gasoline is so expensive.”

  Heather didn’t mind. She found the atmosphere charming.

  Jodene served an egg “pizza,” the crust formed from crackers. There was a bowl of pilau—rice mixed with spices—and the ever-plentiful matoke, which Heather had never developed a taste for. But she found the conversation wonderful, surprised at how hungry her ears were for sounds of English words pronounced with American accents.

  She was helping herself to a dessert of pineapple and mango when she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. On the other side of the room, peeking from under a cot beside the sofa, she saw the dark face of a child. Startled, Heather set down her fork and turned for a better look. “Who’s that?” she asked.

  Jodene gently pushed back her chair and crossed to the cot, knelt down, and held out her hand. “Kia, would you like to come out and meet our friends?”

  The child crawled farther under the cot.

  “They won’t hurt you, Kia.” The child refused to budge, and Jodene returned to the table. “Sorry, she’s not coming out.”

  “Who is she?” Heather asked.

  “It’s a sad story,” Paul said, hunching over the table. “She came here about three months ago with her mother. They were Sudanese and somehow had made it out of a refugee camp into Uganda. Problem was, Kia’s mother was desperately sick. She died within a couple of weeks, and we took in Kia.”

  “Poor little girl! How old is she?”

  “We’re guessing four or five. Poor nutrition has left her small for her age, but Dr. Gallagher checked her over and that was his guess. The boys have tried to befriend her, but she won’t have anything to do with them. She’s fascinated with Amie, however.”

  At this point, Jodene took up the story. “Her mother had a photograph with her. Here.” She fished in a desk drawer and pulled out a Polaroid snapshot of little Kia and a woman holding a baby—a baby whose face was tragically deformed.

  “Cleft palate,” Dr. Henry said studying the picture. “We can correct that with surgery. Where’s the infant now?”

  “A health worker took the photo. It helps keep relatives together when they come into the camp. According to the mother’s story, a worker took the baby to the infirmary. Somehow, she was able to get herself and Kia out of the country, but in the turmoil, she had to leave the baby. By the time she arrived here, she was sick and delirious. Still, she kept pleading with us to go get her daughter in Sudan.”

  “Can’t you go to the camp and get the baby?”

  Paul shook his head. “Not legally. You can’t just walk in and take a child, and going through the proper channels is almost impossible. Red tape five miles long. Why, she’d be half grown if we went that route.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Heather. “She needs surgery. I mean, my parents fix that kind of defect all the time.”

  Dr. Henry spoke up. “We can certainly repair her face back on the ship.”

  But Heather knew that the ship had sailed on by now and wouldn’t return for another year. It was too long for the baby to wait. “Are you saying the baby’s case is hopeless?” she asked.

  “Not totally,” Paul answered. “We have a friend, Dr. Ed Wilson. He’s just come over as a volunteer to do medical service in the Sudanese camps. He’s on the lookout for the baby.”

  “This kind of deformity makes it difficult for babies to suckle,” Dr. Henry said. “And it’s hard to say if someone is even going to the trouble of feeding her in the camps. Did the mother say anything about any other family members?”

  Paul shook his head. “We
surmise that hers was one of hundreds of small villages destroyed by the rebels. What’s happening over there is pretty brutal stuff and not dinner conversation, but thousands have fled and are packed into these camps. Relief and health workers are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of displaced survivors.”

  “How will you know if he finds her?” Ian asked.

  “Ham radio,” Paul said. “It’s the only way we have to communicate around here. Our families in the U.S. have ham radios, and that’s how we keep in touch. Ed is supposed to notify us if he turns up anything.” Paul cut his eyes toward Kia, still crouched under the cot. “If she’s still alive,” he added in a lowered voice.

  Heather felt such pity for Kia that tears welled in her eyes. “Doesn’t she ever come out from under the cot?”

  Jodene shook her head. “Hardly ever. She runs outside to go to the bathroom. She eats when I put food beside the cot. She won’t sleep on top of the cot, either. She sleeps under it, like a frightened animal. We tried to put her into one of the family units, but she ran away and came straight back here. Maybe because it was the place she last saw her mother alive.”

  Jodene chewed on her lip reflectively. “We’ll never know what really happened to Kia and her family, but whatever happened totally traumatized her. And in all the time she’s been here, she’s never spoken a word. I know she understand us. Sometimes she sits and rocks and wails, so we know she can make sound, but she never speaks. Not one single word since her mother died. The only other person she has in the world is her baby sister. I would give anything if we could reunite them.”

  Once dinner was over, Ian and Heather went for a walk on the grounds, where the fronds of banana trees rustled, lending a kind of music to the night. Under the star-studded sky, the full moon floated above them like a ghost ship, adrift on an inky sea, and lit the landscape with a pale light.

  “Thanks for inviting me tonight,” she told Ian. “Except for hearing about Kia, the evening was perfect.”