CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Iawoke in a daze, unsure of where I was until the events of the previous night crashed down around me. Daliah’s labor. The baby boy’s cries. The infant who did not cry. I looked around the sparsely-filled room, noting a few empty beds where other Hundi women slept last night.
I flexed my hand. While my fingers were stiff, moving without extreme pain meant I was probably in the clear from a broken hand. I lay against the burlap as sunlight filtered through the cracks of the thatch hut.
My thoughts flashed too eager, recalling the little blue body of the infant I’d held in my hands last night, and with a languid heaviness, I rose and drifted to the porch, squinting against the brightness of the sun.
Jahnu was nowhere in sight. But on the bench I noticed a cloth filled with fruit and nuts, and what looked like some kind of jerky meat. I smiled softly at the thoughtfulness.
I sat and ate, and wished momentarily for the bliss of coffee—a creamy cortado from Coffee Trends. The thought brought an unwelcome ache to my heart. The day to day life in my old world felt a million miles away. I would return eventually, wouldn’t I?
A few Hundi women passed by with curious stares to the newcomer, waking me from my thoughts. I waved, but they hurried past me.
I allowed the vibration of jungle life to swallow the feelings of loss. There were other feelings too, but I didn’t know what to do with them.
Jahnu’s face.
Jahnu’s fiery eyes.
Jahnu’s breath on my skin.
I felt a longing for him that left me embarrassed at my own thoughts.
I wanted to reach for his head and bring it to rest on my chest, just to comfort him from the raging emotions I saw tearing at his face.
I wanted to take his rough hands and place them on my hips.
Wanted him to draw me close to his body.
The desire ripped through me, sending an aching feeling that closed around my heart and squeezed.
After relieving myself and splashing cold river water on my face, I entered the hut where the birth took place last night, wanting to check on my patients.
Sali stood in the kitchen area, muddling something in a pestle. Daliah looked peaceful, sitting on her bed of burlap, nursing her tiny son. She heard me come in, smiled, and spoke something I didn’t understand.
“She says t’ank you for saving her life,” Sali said, approaching us with an unidentified mug of liquid she gave to Daliah. “I t’ank you, too. Perhaps t’ings not go as well if you were not here.”
“I have no doubt you would’ve done fine,” I said, automatically pulling the old woman into a side hug, surprising myself.
I was caught up in the tranquility of the moment—all seemed well for now.
“But I am glad I was here to help.” After getting the update on the infant, named Tobia, I checked on Daliah’s healing.
Then, Sali whisked me away to another hut, claiming she needed my opinion on another matter.
The one-room dwelling was small and cramped—four beds lining the walls and a cook station squeezed into the corner.
A young boy, not much older than nine or ten, lay on his bed, his foot elevated and bandaged.
Shirtless and lean, hair a ratted mess, his coal black eyes observed me with suspicion.
His restlessness revealed he wasn’t used to staying put in once place, and rattled something off to his mother in childlike frustration.
“Hello, there,” I said, sitting upon the bed. The boy just eyed me, suspicious. “May I?” I asked, slowly unwrapping the the dirty bandage under his watchful eye. Upon inspection I found the unmistakable infection of a tropical foot ulcer.
Sali, or whomever had cared for him, had done the right thing by bandaging it, but it needed surgical debridement to help stop the spread of infection.
How I wished I had my supplies from Makia!
A shot of antibiotics would help clear this thing the quickest, but I worked with what I had.
I sanitized a knife that was produced for me and began the painful task of removing the dead cells and cleaning the wound, while trying to keep the boy still.
I rewrapped it with the honey and herbs for which Sali was known.
When finished, I noticed a second mother had arrived at her neighbor’s hut with her gaggle of children, seeking advice from the ‘medical woman’. We could not fit one more person inside this house—I needed air.
Evidently, rumor spread quickly that Sali and I were here, and soon we found ourselves hosting an informational clinic with a crowd of fifty or more women on the porch of the longhouse where I had spent the night.
The people were hungry for knowledge about all manner of things from headaches, to back pain, menstrual cramps, preventing pregnancy, and treatment for lesions.
My knowledge of jungle medicine paled in comparison to Sali’s, but she allowed me to tell her of the modern advances in medicine, and I secretly vowed to bring what supplies I could to Hundi, when, and if, I thought ironically, I ever got to go home.
Between the two of us, Sali and I fielded their questions, with Sali as my interpreter.
However, I was pleasantly surprised to find a few who did speak English, and chatting and getting to know more Hundi filled me with as much enjoyment as giving them care. Obviously, I hadn’t realized how lonely I’d become.
I was in the middle of a conversation with a woman, Fuanita, about her child’s inability to sleep during the night, when an angry Hundi man thrust himself between us and forcefully shoved her back toward the stairs.
“You are not to speak to this woman, Faunita!” The command was thrown out in English from a young Hundi man who glared back at me. His height was not menacing. In fact, we were about the same height, his dusky eyes like slits against his ebony skin.
“We were just having a conversation, which we did not get to finish!” I spat back, undeterred by his anger. From the corner of my eye Jahnu step from the crowd, which had quieted as soon as the scene unfolded.
“Back away, Hani. We do not want trouble here,” he said, gently.
“I am not trouble! She is trouble!” He brought his finger close to my face. “You bring the enemy to our camp, Jahnu?”
“I am not the enemy,” I said, offended. Jahnu gave me a pained look, like he wished I would stay out of this. I bit my tongue as the tension continued to rise.
“She is here to help, that is all.”
“How do you know that, Jahnu?”
“Because I know,” he said softly.
“How do you know she is not sent here by Makia? Finding our weaknesses…casting her spells…filling our women’s minds wit’ her lies.”
I rolled my eyes. Unable to help myself, I answered back, “I was brought here by one of you! And just because you don’t understand the knowledge doesn’t make it lies.”
And then a blinding pain seared across my face and burst through my brain as Hani’s hand made contact with my cheek. I fell back with the force of his hit, toppling a chair on my way down when chaos ensued.
Jahnu leaped for him and they tumbled down the steps to the shrieks of the women. Several women and children ran off in different directions while they wrestled. Then at some point, Hani pulled a knife. They separated, circling one another, gauging the threat of their opponent.
“I do not want to fight you, Hani,” Jahnu said in measured tones.
“Who do you want to fight, huh?”
“We have the same enemy. It only helps them if we turn on ourselves.”
Hani lunged with the knife, but Jahnu jerked away.
“Put down the knife, or I will take it from you!” he yelled through gritted teeth. His anger surprised me. My head filled with dizziness and my eyes with tears at the pain, but I watched as Jahnu did just as he’d said.
Within seconds, Jahnu had Hani on his back, and the knife had traded owners in the tousle. Jahnu held it against Hani’s throat until the young man stopped struggling, and realized he was beaten.
“Are we done here?” Jahnu asked, just as a few other Hundi men came running onto the scene. Hani nodded meekly, and Jahnu released him.
“Take him somewhere he can cool off,” he told the men, handing the knife to one of them.
“This is not over, Chief,” Hani said, as the men urged him to retreat. “Our fight with Makia…it is not enough and you know it. You have a thousand men at your command. Call them to arms and we will avenge the blood that has been spilled, even if we die trying.”
“Go home, Hani,” Jahnu said evenly.
Hani yanked away from his fellow tribesmen who were still holding him. He took hold of Faunita by the upper arm, stalked down the road, tugging her with him. His broken pride was the only wound Jahnu had inflicted.
The air in the yard was charged with a palpable tension. A few of the men who held Hani back stood around like they wanted to speak, but seemed to think better of it and slowly, the men, as well as the women, began to dissipate from the gathering.
Jahnu’s breath began to slow after the excitement of the grapple. He turned toward me, concern etched his face.
“You ok?” He ascended the steps, closing the distance between us, and reached a hand to cup my face. “You are bleeding,” his thumb caressed my lip and I closed my eyes at the intimate touch, trying to regain a semblance of control.
I had just registered the pain of my busted lip when I opened my eyes and blurted, “You are bleeding!” We looked down at the gash on his arm, probably a foot in length, blood dripping on the porch.
The rest of the crowd dispersed, including Sali who announced she would fetch supplies to bandage him.
We moved inside the longhouse where Sali stayed only long enough to help set everything up and then disappeared, inconspicuously. I barely noticed. My mind was split in two, one side barely functioning as nurse to a patient, while the other railed against the longing his intimacy had stirred.