BANA CASTRO FINDS A FRIEND

Doctor Jones' bushy eyebrows bristled in a questioning glare, first at the patient then at the yellow apron dressed nurse.

A minute passed. Then the doctor found his tongue; “what is her name?” he asked pointing at the patient with the tip of his pen.

“She is Stembile,” Juliet was relieved that the doctor was finally talking. However, she waggled her eyes impatiently, using a time-honored paralanguage to tell the Doctor he needed to act more urgently.

‘Stembile who?” he asked while flipping a pen on the notepad, flippantly taking more time to react than would be considered necessary.

“I don’t know, doctor,’ Juliet answered while looking at the patient with pain straining her eyes. “She was brought in by fellow pupils a while ago.”

“Damn it, Juliet!” the good doctor dropped some notches on the professional code of conduct by injecting an unhealthy dosage of emotional gangrene into his voice. And, the inappropriate use of a curse word. “Haven’t you read the new regulations? Only critical cases, it says.”

“With due respect doctor,” Juliet persisted, pleading more with eyes than her mouth, “this girl needs urgent help. She is down today; we don’t who will be tomorrow.”

“That is clear enough,” Doctor Jones said haughtily,” but I don’t know of any Stembile above the watermark. What makes her case different from the others?”

“I don’t know of any Stembile either,” Juliet said hurriedly giving every indication that time to save the girl’s life was being wasted.

“Then why not discard her like the rest of the scum?”The doctor twisted his nose disdainfully, at both the patient and his junior.

“I have a hunch, call it a gut feeling if you like, that this one must be helped, Doctor Jones,” Juliet emphasized every word politely but firmly.

“Everybody has a hunch about something, it is normal. But imagine what rules would survive if we respected every damn thing,” Doctor Jones said pointing at Juliet with a pen in a warning manner. “Stick to the rules Juliet, it is a safer way of doing things than following superstitious sentiments,” he was saying as he started walking away.

“Doctor, I am asking for permission to help this girl,” Juliet pleaded, “just this once…I beg you.”

“Do you know her or something?”The Doctor halted in mid-stride. Something started encroaching to his heart, like a cockroach touching the skin. It was a feeling of fear. No, it was a premonition of danger.

“No!”Juliet blurted out and cursed her lack of initiative. “Maybe a lie would have helped,” she was left wondering as the doctor proceeded to the next level of disagreement.

“That is quite strange,” Doctor Jones battled with the nurse’s strange act. He wrinkled his brow as indecision claimed the little that remained of his mind, his eyes were squeezed to tiny glittering slits; “but why waste time on a stranger?”

“It is just a feeling I can’t explain, Doctor, “Juliet confessed her lack of tangible grounds for the irrational zeal to trash the new rules and help a schoolgirl who didn’t fit the new criteria of critical cases.

“Then dump her for the good of everyone here,” the doctor waved his free hand towards the gate and started walking away. “Use your skills on what the hospital pays you for; the critical cases,” he said with finality, like a judge delivering a death sentence.

Juliet remained standing; her mouth split agape like a sliced watermelon. She watched the doctor’s feet pound the floors going away, toward his office.

Just then, Stembile shivered and sneezed convulsively. Her breath started coming in short gasps of wheezes like a cow with a throat that has just been slit open. Her temperature was climbing dangerously and the green mask covering her face became dump, polluted with endless jets of mucus.

Juliet’s nurse instincts screamed for quick action; dump the girl or save her, but she had to do either remarkably fast. But what would she do? The doctor had said no. That ended it.

But another thought sprung up. A different one. The no was in doctor’s Jones’ hospital, what about other hospitals? A rebellious spark raised a surge of adrenaline propelling her towards a decision.

She looked at Stembile. The pool of dark hair, with teenage-style curls, reminded Juliet of her own fads during school days. Those were days, saturated with dreams. Perhaps the little girl also had similar dreams. The same dreams that this beastly disease was racing to curtail unless it was stopped. Nooooo! A thousand nos. She would save Stembile, with or without Doctor Jones.

“Hey! Juliet,” Bana Castro protested, “why bring a corona patient here?”Juliet was still staying in her mother’s home even if she was working. Houses were hard to come by and even when one was found, rentals tended to be very expensive.

“Ma, the hospitals are rejecting all patients except the military and the rich,” Juliet was trying to explain; “She is neither of those.”

“Believe they are right,” Ma Castro said hurriedly, turning an eye in a sardonic wink before continuing, “they have better reasons for doing that, don’t they?”

“Ma, please...”

“Don’t Ma me, just take that corpse away from here, now,” Bana Castro’s eyes swirled in their sockets like small dots. She contorted her face into a grotesque mask of an unreal puppet.

“Alright Ma, Juliet carried her patient and pretended she had left the house but than turned into a poultry house. There, she lay the patient Stembile, down.

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Meanwhile, at the Hospital, someone called the Doctor on a cell phone.

“Who is calling?” doctor Jones answered in a bored, throaty voice. He almost smashed a fist on the table in anger, but he miraculously climbed down from the wavelength of violence just in time. The change was remarkable. Like the sausage pie which had lain on his table, a few seconds back.

“It is me, Pauline,” someone was saying on the other side.

“Oh, sorry sissy,” The sudden change in tone was noticeable, now that he was trying to talk and chew all at once. He wiped his mouth with a table napkin before continuing, “How is every one that side?”

“We are all fine except my Stacy,” Pauline had started saying, almost in tears.

“You don’t mean Stacy, my little niece, do you?” instantly Doctor Jones became alert, he hurled the napkin into the bin with needless violence. Every paternal instinct sprung to life violently, clogging his system like a warrior facing a despicable enemy.

“Yes, the same Stacey!” Pauline answered immediately.

 “What is the matter with my little niece?”Doctor Jones asked now perplexed.

 “She contracted this beast corona at her school this morning.”

“Why didn’t you bring her here quickly,” Doctor Jones asked in a rebuking way, “that disease is terrible.”

“She is already at your hospital,” Pauline declared with certainty.

 “No, I have no news of such a name being admitted here,” Doctor Jones wrinkled his dark forehead in what would be described as serious meditation.

“But her friends said they brought her there, at ten hours,” Pauline persisted. “Now where could she have gone?”

“Which friends are those?” doctor Jones asked, his stomach was suddenly invaded by a swarm of butterflies. 

“Her fellow pupils,” Pauline was getting agitated, “They rushed her to the nearest Hospital before the situation worsened.”

“A pupil, did you say?”Doctor Jones was having breathing problems. The whole video of the morning bust-up with Nurse Juliet over some non-critical case started playing clearly, and he could see his arm brushing aside her desperate pleas with some not-so- inchoate megalomania.

“Yes. She had gone to school for exams.”

“We only had one pupil brought here,” he said trying to sound normal, though every fiber in his chest by now had snapped under severe strain, “but if my memory serves me right, her name was not Stacey.”

“Sometimes she is called Stembile by her friends,” Pauline threw the cruel spear right into the right ventricle of the doctor’s heart. “Please check for her in the wards, maybe she is admitted there, bro...”

“What?” the doctor’s chest had decreased significantly in size, squeezing his heart into a small mass of useless flesh. The next minute his cell phone clattered to the floor from a hand spread out in paralysis. The shock had led to a heart condition. He crashed to the floor and had fainted, but his cell phone was still buzzing. Mable, the cleaner saw the big man crash to the floor.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Madam! Madam!” Mable rushed quickly to pick the cell phone. She was now shouting into the gadget with the zeal of a hungry pig.

“I didn’t call you,” Pauline screamed into the phone, “I want to talk to Doctor Jones, my brother.”

“But madam…” Mable was cut off by a volley of deprecating words from the other end as if Pauline was reading from a script.

“I want Doctor Jones, not the madam nonsense you are spewing out, idiot,” she shouted hysterically.

“I don’t ….,” again Mable was cut off.

“I know you don’t know anything, you bitch,” Pauline shouted with her heart screaming for the mind to churn out new witty words, “that is why I want you to step aside for Doctor Jones.”She almost slammed the phone down on the floor, but a strange nagging feeling kept her hand posted for now.

“Doctor Jones has just fainted..,” Mable managed to sneak in her message, her own heart suppressing angry emotions to ignore the madam’s insults on the other side.

“What!” Pauline’s heart had absorbed enough within the last two hours. In fact, it was too much for the tiny chambers of her heart, already stretched to bursting capacity.

Her mind equally had struggled with numerous scenarios; too many for her small layers of cerebral sensors within too short a time. What is this about her Daughter contracting corona, a disease that had already wrecked thousands of lives?

And now the only hope of saving Stacey had collapsed, what was happening?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Meanwhile, at Juliet’s home, Stembile’s condition was deteriorating fast. She was fast losing all her ability to breath and her pulse was becoming imperceptible as minutes hauled out seconds from the time chart.

An idea suddenly entered Juliet’s mind. She didn’t have breathing tubes like at the hospital. She got a foot-driven bicycle pump and scuba face masks she had used for shallow water swimming eons back. There she connected to Stembile’s face making her look like a mollusk. Than she started pumping air into Stembile’s lungs. It was crude, definitely not ingenious, but utilitarian.

As the pump pushed the air into Stembile’s lungs, her chest heaved upwards before she suddenly sneezed out a stormy shower. And then to everyone’s relief, she opened her eyes wide like someone in shock.

Quickly Juliet diluted some Dettol and used it to sterilize her hands and nose. She then soaked a face cloth with the Dettol solution and covered Stembile on the face forcing her to inhale the disinfectant.

The battle continued until twenty-three hours. Juliet was tired but was gratified when her patient flopped helplessly on the pillow and started breathing normally.

She was just finishing her undressing when her phone buzzed; it was an unknown number... She ignored it three times. But the fourth time she picked it with a grumpy voice of someone not interested.

“Yes, what is it please?” she was sleepy and even her eyes were heavy. Politeness had long vanished from her book of virtues.

“Juliet,” Doctor Jones’ voice smashed her heart like a sledgehammer. He decided to call her immediately after he recovered from his shock.

“Oh Doctor, I am so sorry,” Juliet instantly became alert. She had left work without permission but this was not going to be the way her superior would reprimand her. Hey, at twenty-three hours. “I was asleep.”

“Yes, I know that,” the Doctor was wondering how to break the ice barrier, “I am sorry to call you this time, Juliet.”

“It is alright, Doctor,” Juliet answered trying to reassure the boss that no offense was taken, “but what is the matter now, you?”

“That girl I chased from the hospital ………,” Doctor Jones was having problems putting words properly.

“You mean Stembile?” Juliet supplied the information, “What about her, Doctor?”

“Do you know where she is, Juliet?”

“Why would I know where a patient below your water mark would be, Doctor?” Juliet asked.

“Please Juliet…” the Doctor was now pleading, earnestly.

Deliberately Juliet cut the line, without letting him finish talking.

Alot of questions now buzzed her computers. Why ask about a patient he had chased away? What does he want to do with her? Has he told the police that some junior nurse had dared to disobey clear instructions?

She had no answers to the questions and knowing that the Doctor would continue calling, she removed the battery from the cell phone and quickly got into the blankets to sleep. She did not sleep a wink.

Doctor Jones could not be defeated that easily. He checked for Juliet’s residence from the Hospital database and located it almost immediately, ACACIA AVENUE, No.14 AVONDALE.

Doctor Joes engaged gears like a race car driver. Hell should have frozen if it guessed what he would do next. Grinding through all the gears to come, he came to settle on the fourth gear embarrassing the hundred yards distance just outside the gates. The car jerked in angry protest at the ungentlemanly treatment and howled like an abandoned baby. It was a miracle that he was not hauled into the Devil’s bosom a bit earlier, as he completed the marathon of five-kilometer in ten minutes.

When Doctor Jones ground the brakes, the car spun around and came to face where it had come from. He was already out even before the engine switched off completely. Dogs were his least worry as he pounded the door labeled No. 14.

“How many devils will I see today?” Bana Castro cursed violently from inside. Juliet had left her watching a TV opera in the sitting room.

 “Nkooonkooonko!”The sound persisted at the door.

“Who is that?” she shouted with little patience.

“I am sorry madam,” Doctor Jones answered, “it is me, Doctor Jones, Juliet’s workmate.”

“What do you want, at this time, Doctor Jones?” Bana Castro jerked the door open with a masculine level of violence.

However, as soon as her wide dark pupils studied the wide shoulders on the doctor’s athletic body, other thoughts, oh no, not thoughts, but feeling took charge.

“Did Juliet come with a patient here, madam?”The doctor was also having his own Vietnam, The woman’s twinkling eyes, the wide fleshy lips, and the flat nose were like sniper shots of emotions striking his heart from hidden tree lines in the jungle.

Bana Castro immediately snapped out of her uncouth conduct. Here was someone to relieve her of this unwanted baggage. She had seen the savage massacre this corona disease was doing out there. Why would Juliet bring death into the home? She had taken too long to answer because corona was no longer a motivation.

“Madam?” Doctor Jones tried to prompt her towards a faster response.

“But why didn’t you ask Juliet yourself,” Bana Castro had serious problems controlling her galloping heart. A widow is always uncomfortable in the presence of a virile man. She was a widow of ten years.  And Doctor Jones was not just any man. He was a man possessed of dangerous endowments. She tried to prolong the chat; “and I didn’t even get your name, sir?”

She had heard the name alright, but now she wanted to prod the man to see the dark night the way it really was; mischievous. However, like the American marines, fate quickly sprung a desperate intervention.

The sound of a car stopping noisily in her yard stabbed into Juliet’s mind like a real spear. It hauled her back to consciousness, far more quickly than a pail of cold water would have done. Her exhaustion evaporated like morning dew. The knock was enough to throw her out of bed and make her start racing towards the door, to monitor things. Was it the police?

She was relieved to hear Doctor Jones’ voice as he introduced himself.

“Doctor Jones, come in please?” she said as she reached the door. She talked to him politely. The smug swellings around her eyes clearly indicated that she needed to sleep badly.

“I am sorry again, within thirty minutes, Juliet,” the Doctor had started speaking, “but my sister…”

“What about your sister?” Juliet asked almost impudently. She was confused by the Doctor’s manners. He was talking to her but his eyes were spread like marmalade on her Mom, Bana Castro.

“Stembile is her daughter,” the Doctor declared, “and now she is lost.”

“She is not lost,” Bana Castro could not stand the pain on the man’s face any longer, or Juliet’s presence for that matter, “we have stolen her.”

“Ma! You …..”

“Good Gracious!” the Doctor unwisely revealed his emotions again, cutting Juliet off. But this time he could be forgiven because they were emotions of relief, not hate. “But how is she?”

“Stable, very stable,” Bana Castro ignored her daughter completely, who was now looking at her with shock.”You can come and see for yourself. I kept her very well.”Maybe by keeping her well she was referring to advising Juliet to tractor her from the poultry house to the servants’ quarters.

Juliet was mortified. She wanted to follow the two but her mom looked at her with enough gangrene to chock the Central Nervous System. She remained standing, in front of an open door, at twenty- three forty -five hours.

The next thing she heard was a belly laugh from Doctor Jones; “you are indeed a darling woman, I want to know more about you.”

And suddenly, Juliet’s Ma was such a minx; “the reverse compliments must be painted deeper blue.”

Juliet didn’t wait to hear more. She dashed into her room to sleep.