THREE WISE WOMEN- a Christmas Story

Leith was fed up. It did not matter how careful she was Olga always found something wrong. As if it mattered the bandages were folded incorrectly.  They barely had enough so often they had to tear them in half to make them last.

Yesterday they ran out of clean syringes so they had no choice  

 but to re-use the ones they would normally have discarded.

It was scary to think that in curing one disease

they were also spreading another even more deadly one.

Helen told her yesterday that it would be a miracle

if a child were born in the camp free of HIV.

She liked Helen even though she was not exactly Einstein. She knew Helen had lied about her qualifications to get this job. But the HELP Foundation did not care. Most nurses with those fancy new degrees would not want to work here. No high desks to hide behind. No endless notes to write just the choking dust, the putrid atmosphere and worse the unrelenting despair. Helen just accepted it like it was nothing out of the ordinary to be surrounded by all this pain, dirt and fear.

 Olga on the other hand refused to face the fact that there was little they could do. Provided they followed her stupid routines she was happy. How she hated Olga’s scrubbed pink skin and straw-like hair pulled back severely into a roll at the back of her head. She had insisted Leith cover her curly red hair the one thing she liked about herself. Her mother used to say it was her crowning glory which was just as well as her skin was freckled, her limbs too long and her breasts hardly more than a pair of nipples.                                                  

Helen somehow managed to look pretty even here.

Her short punk hair framed a perfect oval of a face and

her skin was milky like a healthy baby. She was tiny too.

 Not fat like Olga or awkward like her.

You hardly even noticed that one leg was shorter than the other.

Olga came bustling into the tent. ‘We have another birth in Sector 4. I’ll get there later if I can. You know the routine. Let’s see if we can save this one.’    She wanted to scream at her, ‘All of the babies in Sector 4 who have survived have developed AIDS. What is the point of saving a child for that?’

 But she did not. She was a coward and as the youngest aide in the camp no-one ever expected her to have an opinion on anything. She had attended deliveries here already. They mostly did little except ensure the baby was not strangled by its cord or by the mother or someone else. All the women here had been infected with the AIDS virus because they had been forced into prostitution by their parents in exchange for food. They knew that if they were ever allowed to return to their villages they could not take a sick child with them.

 Not like the time back home when she had assisted in  the maternity ward of the district hospital.

There all the mothers were from the local town and

even the single ones and those who had undergone

 the most gruesome labour greeted their babies with delight.

They were so proud of their achievement, feted and celebrated by family and friends.

 Leith walked slowly towards the tent. No one would greet this child with joy.

Their death would be a relief, their life a painful burden.

 She could hear whimpering sounds from within. Not full-bodied screams like you would expect.

 Just a low-grade, simmering sob. She reluctantly bent down to enter and was shocked at what she saw.

 The mother was hardly more than a child herself. She was alone except for the baby, which she cradled in her arms.

She had delivered it herself. 

 Gently Leith checked that she was not still bleeding, took the baby from her

and went about the post-natal routine she had been taught.Carefully cleaning the wound where the cord had been bitten off, and freeing the baby’s face from the membranes, which hid it.

The child on the ground rocked back and forth crying quietly.

Leith tried to put the baby girl back in her arms but instead she grabbed hold of Leith and hid her face in her chest.

 When Helen and Olga peered inside the tent they saw three children.

Leith was sitting on the ground nursing the mother and the baby.

Mother and baby made the same whimpering sound.

Leith’s tears bathed them equally.

 Olga was about to speak when Helen shook her head to stop her. 

They sat down beside Leith, dried her tears,

 then uncurled the  tiny fingers that clasped hers so tightly

and began to wash the little body.

 (This story is a work of fiction originally published in the 2001 Spring edition of Gowanus, the award-winning literary journal)

 

WHAT DOES CHRISTMAS MEAN IN 2010?

Our Lucky Land

How can I write anything meaningful about Christmas when thirty desperate people have lost their lives trying to come to our  so-called lucky  land.

A land that unlike most places that these people have escaped from is peaceful, prosperous and supposedly welcoming and inclusive.

How have we so easily forgotten that we all came to this country as refugees or even prisoners and occasionally free settlers but usually escaping from persecution, or class hatred or poverty or the harsh winters of Britain or Europe in which our babies died.

As I walk along my street in Leichhardt I often pass a woman on her way back from  the shops. She walks lopsided, gripping plastic shopping bags and I notice her unsuitable shoes, her sad eyes, her dropped face and her thinning dyed black hair, and I wonder about her.

I usually try to make eye contact and say Hello, but mostly she does not see me, or if she does she gives a hardly perceptible nod of her head.

A part of my professional mind thinks she must be depressed, another part of me gets annoyed at her avoidance and concerned that she doesn’t seem to know how to look after herself, or as I think she should, by using a trolley, or wearing a hat and more suitable shoes for her shopping trip.

Last week I looked towards her house to see if she was coming down the street.

I could see her outside her gate because she was wearing a bright orange pants suit so different from her usual dark attire. As I approached her, I smiled and said, ‘I love your orange pants suit, the colour really suits you.’

Her face lit up like she was a young woman again, standing in the moonlight with her sweetheart, and she smiled at me.

 ‘I bought it at Millers. I buy all my clothes there..so cheap.. my daughter buys me other things not necessary…

And so she started to talk and tell me her story.                                         

‘ We came here from Italy in the 50’s,  a village north of  Roma,                        

my husband he was a good man, he worked for the big builders

in the city, he built Australia Square, we had a good life here,

then he has the head thing and he nearly died, he was only 45,

I nursed him for ten years but he was good man,

and the neighbours here very kind people, I have lived here 50 years, 

I have two daughters they work in the city they do well,

we very lucky, I have been robbed three times in this street,

once they knocked me down and took my bag,

and I fell on my leg, I’m ok now, I have a 26 year old grandson,                                                      Village in Italy

I say to him you can put me in the place in Marion St but he says no,

you don’t need that, Nona, I’m lucky I know people here,

the woman in your house was my friend she died of  cancer long time ago….’

 The rain is starting to spot her lovely orange jacket but still she continues to talk.

So much history and so much to be thankful for despite all she has gone through.

No wonder some days she looks grim and does not see me. Now, however she will see me, I know her name and I  have welcomed her into my world without judgment.  And we can at last be true neighbours.

What a pity we don’t do this more often.

My Bella in Tuscan Village