Chapter 15
CADENCE
THANKSGIVING
Istrip my latex gloves off and toss them in the receptacle.
Same with the plastic apron. I swipe the surgical cap off my head, along with the PPE glasses.
Gasping, every muscle aching, I stagger out of the makeshift OR and beeline for the nearest marked exit.
I had quite forgotten that it was day, still.
I have been in that OR for six hours, trying valiantly but in vain to save the life of a young girl not even old enough to have her menses.
My hands shake. They always do, after. Never before, never during. Only after an operation. That was my third such effort in the last twenty-four hours. I hardly remember the last time I slept more than two hours in a row. A week since, at least.
I find myself in a tiny outdoor space created by the layout of the hospital—it is just barely big enough to host a few native flowers and a bench, but it is fresh air and sunlight.
As I do a dozen times every day, I mourn the loss of my phone—it fell out of my scrubs when I was helping transfer a victim from a truck to a gurney.
I did not notice until much later, but by then it had been run over by who knows how many vehicles.
There is no way to get a new one, not here. I hardly have the time, anyway.
I just miss him.
I would love nothing more than to be able to call him right now. Hear his voice. Perhaps he would say something amusing. Tell me a crude joke which I would playfully scold him for.
I hear the door open and close, and soft footfalls behind me.
I sigh, knowing I am being summoned. "Yes, I am coming." I start to rise, already reaching for my scrub cap.
A soft hand on my shoulder keeps me in my seat. “No, please, Dr. Creswell. Stay as you are." The speaker has the distinct rhythm of a Sudanese individual—I know the voice, as well: Nurse Duwana.
I sink back down onto the bench and toy with the cap. "Duwana." She comes around the bench and stands facing me. "Is there something I can do for you?"
She smiles, showing even, white teeth. She is a lovely, wonderful soul, Duwana.
The very image of compassion. Tireless. Fierce when need be.
She is beautiful, with very dark black skin.
Tall and slender, always wearing a colorful toub and hijab pairing.
I rely on her—she is my translator here at the hospital as well as my liaison with the other Sudanese nurses, many of whom still do not entirely trust me and certainly do not like me.
They recognize my skill, however, and as long as I go through Duwana, they heed me.
This hospital would run into ruin without her.
So would I, for that matter.
She sits beside me, hands folded on her lap. I expect her to say something or do something, but she does not. She merely sits in silence with me; her spirit is one of calm, of healing reassurance, despite the violence of her world in which I am merely a visitor.
I feel my weary, aching, troubled soul soaking up her calm, and I realize the subtlety of what she is doing—giving me the few moments of peace and quiet I need, the comfort of companionship without the burden of conversation.
Exactly what I need, without having to ask.
I reach for hands and fold them in mine. "Thank you, Duwana."
She smiles. A hint of mischief glitters in her eyes. "Come, please. I have a thing to show you. A surprise." She rises and gently urges me to my feet as well.
"A surprise? For me?"
Her only answer is to lead me back into the hospital and down crowded, overflowing corridors, past moaning patients and weeping family members and walking wounded with thousand-yard stares.
She brings me to the stairwell and we ascend, ascend, all the way to the rooftop.
She presses the crash bar delicately, ushers me out into the blinding African sun and oppressive heat.
A helicopter thuds in the distance; faintly, so distant as to make you question your hearing, there is the soft chatter of automatic weapons, the occasional crump of an explosion.
We are, supposedly, rather far from the nearest hotspots of fighting, but whenever I come outside, it seems the sounds of war have drawn incrementally closer.
I am assured it will not come here, but I am not sure I believe that claim. The gnawing pit of dread in my gut feels like a premonition, a warning.
I shake my morbid thoughts off as Duwana leads the way across the roof and around the stairwell structure, around the revolving silver domes. I hear voices, an eruption of laughter.
I halt, puzzled: a handful of off-duty nurses, the ones who dislike me the least, are clustered around something, their bodies hiding whatever it is. They look eager—pleased, excited.
I cannot fathom why, or about what. It is not my birthday, so I cannot imagine what surprise they could have for me.
Duwana stops and faces me. "Dr. Creswell," she says, and then gestures at the surrounding nurses, “we have talked for weeks about how we can show you how thankful we are for you. You are here, fighting for the lives of our people, when this is not your war and not your people."
"I feel called to help," I say.
"I know. Few others would risk and sacrifice all that you have to come to a place like this." She takes my hands in hers. "It is not very much, I know, but hopefully this will give you even a small taste of your homeland."
She steps aside, and so do the others. Behind them is a small folding card table laden with dishes of food. I see a whole roasted chicken, rice, sweet potatoes, flatbread, roasted vegetables…
"I…" I shake my head. "This is…why? This is so much food, and there is so little to go around as it is. Why, Duwana?"
She frowns in confusion. "Perhaps you are unaware?
Today is your country's Thanksgiving holiday.
I read a book long ago, before all this began, about your holiday of giving thanks, and I remember the foods it is said you enjoy on that day.
We do not have turkey, I am afraid, but I hope a chicken will do. "
"Thanksgiving?" My eyes burn, water. "You…you made all this…for me?"
"You have done more than anyone could ask, Dr. Creswell.
" I have tried a dozen times to get her to call me Cadence, but she always seems to forget.
"This is but a small gesture of our thanks to you.
" She guides me to the table, which has but one plate, one tarnished, bent-tined fork, and one butter knife. “Please sit. Enjoy."
I shake my head, fighting back tears. "But…
ohhh, Duwana." I look at the others. "My friends.
In my country, Thanksgiving is…it isn't really about the food. We are thankful for that, of course, but really, it is a day to be thankful for the people in your life. For the good things you have, the good things you have experienced. It would not be a proper Thanksgiving if I did not share this bounty with my friends.”
They seem confused.
I set the place settings aside and take Duwana's hand on one side and another nurse’s on the other—slowly, the rest join hands in a circle around the table.
"There is precious little to be thankful for, in times like these," I say.
"But today, I am thankful for you all. I am touched beyond words at your gesture, which is just so thoughtful.
It is my most fervent wish that you join me in this celebration.
We are alive, this day. We have breath in our lungs.
We are here. We are together. And that, indeed, is something to be thankful for.
" Duwana translates my words for the others who do not speak English well or at all.
We eat with our hands, and for a few blessed, wonderful minutes, there is feasting and laughter.
My heart is lightened. Sometimes, you just have to take a few minutes and simply be grateful that you are alive.
Sirens howl nearby. Engines roar and brakes squeal, and orderlies shout.
Duty calls.
DECEMBER 2nd
We are inundated with victims. The fighting has drawn closer by the day: the once-faint chatter and crump is no longer quite so faint.
My friends here at the hospital and the men hired to protect me have tried repeatedly to get me to leave while I can.
But how can I? When they need me the most, I leave to save my own skin? I think not.
Truck after truck full of dying soldiers and civilians arrive, one after the other. The hallways are nearly impassable. We have run out of the best pain medication and are now using old stockpiles of morphine. Old bedsheets are torn into strips to extend our rapidly dwindling stores of bandages.
I have not left the floor in seventy-two hours. There is no time to think, to breathe, to miss home or even Riley. There is only blood and death and the next patient.
An explosion shakes me out of a dead sleep, so close and so loud it rattles the windows and the bones inside me. I sit up, gasping. Another explosion rocks the floor under me, this one even closer.
A barrage of gunfire crackles like Fourth of July firecrackers—this, too, sounds like it is right outside the window. I creep to the window and peer out; I know not the time, but it is night and the shadows are long and the sky is lit by tracers and muzzle-flash and explosions.
It is here.
The war is here at my very doorstep.
For a moment, I am frozen in terror. I cannot breathe. The overwhelm I have suppressed and ignored and buried and refused to give into and fought as ferociously as I can for so many months now threatens to suffocate me.
The door to the closet-sized office which functions as a makeshift place to catch a few hours of sleep slams open. "Dr. Creswell!" Duwana hustles in, toub flowing around her. "Come! Come! Quickly!"
She shoves PPE at me—mask, glasses, gloves, gown. I don everything as we jog, and she next hands me a small paper cup sloshing with cold, strong black tea which I drink like a shot of alcohol.