A Drop of Rain Read online

We begin our work as doctors.

  Eva

  Naomi seems to have “adopted” this boy Curtis, as well as Doctor Kowalska. Curtis is a nice boy, but I wish Naomi weren’t so sudden and passionate in her likes and dislikes. I suppose she’ll outgrow this wild intensity.

  You can be “adopted” at any age, according to Hanna. Hanna adopted me in 1979, when I was a bit older than Naomi is now. She adopted me emotionally, not legally.

  When Hanna adopted me, I was an emotional orphan. My father had ignored me, my mother had never wanted me, and Grandmother Goralski had been severe and narrow-minded. I thought I had no feelings at all.

  Actually, I had feelings of guilt, anger and despair. Only at that time, I didn’t know I had those feelings. During Hanna’s first few years in Canada, she stayed with my grandmother and me in Edmonton. One day Hanna and I learned that our father had died suddenly, before either of us had met him. (We had been intending to visit him in Colorado, where he lived. We were waiting until my Grandmother Goralski did not need constant care.) Typically, Hanna was more concerned with my feelings than with her own.

  Several times I cried on and on, while Hanna sat beside me silently.

  Then I talked, while Hanna listened, commenting rarely and briefly. I said that I was angry at my parents for abandoning me. She said that my anger was understandable.

  I insisted that Hanna would abandon me too. She promised she would stay with me, as long as I needed her.

  She also said that, when she was my age, she herself felt angry at the world. She was angry because her mother was alone, except for Hanna, and burdened by enormous problems.

  To discover what emotions Hanna felt in the present, I had to be very observant, because normally her face was an impassive mask. One day, she and I were strolling through an exhibition at an art gallery. Suddenly we came upon a picture of a coffin. On Hanna’s face I noticed a flash of surprised recognition. This is meaningful! Had I not been watching her closely, I would have missed a valuable clue. The expression disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

  The clue indicated that Hanna was still affected by her mother’s suicide. Hanna was in her final year of university when her mother killed herself. Hanna came home after an absence of a few hours, and she found her mother dead.

  Hanna did explain to me why her mother had ended her life, but never how. Her mother had been exhausted from her own illness, tuberculosis, and from the illnesses of other family members whom she was nursing. Also, she had been depressed. A psychiatrist had told Hanna that this depression was a result of the terrible experiences her mother had endured during the Second World War in Poland.

  Although Hanna could explain her mother’s suicide, ultimately she could not overcome its devastating effect on her psyche. Once Hanna told me that I had “freed” her. I think she meant by this that I had freed her from the bonds of guilt she felt about her mother. She still identified with her mother, however, and finally wanted to demonstrate that her mother had not been wrong to despair. Her mother was not wrong, she was ill.

  So was Hanna in these last years. Yet she was also far-seeing and heroic.

  Joe

  Naomi brought an interesting young man home for supper. The kid could use more self-confidence, but he’s got a strong, original character. He is artistic, humorous and bright. But not keen on school. He seems to think I’m half decent—for an old guy.

  There’s hope! (No fool like an old fool?)

  The grind continues. I think one reason I’m losing interest is because the level of psychology and sociology taught at the college is relatively elementary. Eva’s technology courses seem more sophisticated. Or do I think this because I am ignorant about hard science?

  I asked Eva to live with me, even marry me. I said in one household we could help each other more than we do now.

  Of course, Eva said: “Wait!”

  Hanna is failing rapidly. I was selfish to pressure Eva now. What’s the hurry? Is the frantic “Y2K” hype getting to me?

  Making conversation with Naomi’s admirer, Curtis, I told him about getting a lesson on predicting weather when I was a boy in elementary school. All the other children looked at the barometer and predicted sunshine and fair weather. Only I predicted rain. And I was right! Why? Because the next day was Wednesday. My Mom always did her laundry on Wednesday, and she hung it out to dry.

  Curtis actually laughed aloud at my silly story. Naomi was shocked!

  Of course when I told the story to my own boys, they said: “Da-ad! That is so du-umb!”

  Week Eleven

  Naomi

  Saturday, November 20, 1999

  Today as Mary and I were finishing our shift, her chest pains got very bad, and suddenly she told me calmly, “Call emergency!”

  I ran to the red telephone on the wall beside the swimming pool and lifted the receiver. That automatically calls an ambulance. The paramedics came in four minutes, put Mary on a stretcher and took her to the emergency department of the Mapleville hospital. I went with her. She didn’t have to wait. She was put on a bed right away. She was constantly monitored by the nurses and doctors.

  I called Mom from the hospital to tell her I wouldn’t be home for dinner. Mom came to the hospital right away. She sat with me in the emergency waiting room. “Joe will stay with Hanna and give her some dinner,” she said.

  “That’s nice of him,” I said.

  “He is nice, darling, and I hope some day you’ll see that,” said Mom. “But I remember how I hated my stepfather George, so I don’t want to force anything on you.”

  “You’re not forcing anything on me,” I said. Then I started crying. “Everybody seems to be dying. Aunt Hanna, and now Mary.”

  “Doctor Kowalska is in good physical condition,” said Mom. “And she’s not very old. She’ll survive.”

  At about eight o’clock this evening, a nurse came and said that Mary has to stay in intensive care overnight and maybe for a few days. So Mary might not survive.

  Sorry this is so short, Mrs. Henderson. I’m sure you will understand. I will now fill up more pages by printing out some interviews and other objective information from my history project and sticking them here in my journal.

  What The Breakup of the Soviet Union by B. Harbor said about the Hungarian Revolution: “23 October 1956. Soviet tanks sent in to aid Hungarian communist government in dealing with demonstrations. Soviet troops leave, but return on 4 November when new Hungarian government declares neutrality. Hungarians rebel against Soviet army, but Soviets overwhelm resistance. 30,000 Hungarians die in uprising.”

  What a Hungarian said when interviewed by Naomi at her high school where he teaches music:

  I was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1948. Of course, Hungary was one of the “satellite” countries behind the so-called “Iron Curtain”. I wasn’t very old when I learned what Stalinism meant. We were Jewish, although we didn’t actually practice our religion. One Saturday when I was in kindergarten, my father took me to see a synagogue.

  We didn’t go inside. We just looked at the outside. But I was pretty excited about this experience, so I told my kindergarten teacher about it. The next day my father was picked up by the secret police and beaten severely.

  Although my mother worked as a secretary for a member of the communist party, my father had always refused to become a communist. Anyway, another night in 1956, a black car with black windows took my father away. They beat him again. They kept him all night.

  We left Hungary pretty soon after this. As our car drove through the streets of Budapest that night, I saw the bodies of revolutionaries hanging on telephone poles.

  We boarded a train that took us near the Austrian border. When we got off the train, we ran for the border. Eventually, we got to Vienna. We stayed in a refugee camp.

  Our plane landed at Gander, Newfoundland, on Christmas Eve, 1956. It was dark and, except for the runway, the airport tarmac was covered with deep snow. My father had to carry my little sister over to
the terminal. We ate hotdogs and french fries with ketchup.

  My mother started crying. She didn’t stop crying for about two years. She always hated Canada.

  My father did not hate Canada. He was grateful for the opportunities this country had offered him and his children. For example, my sister and I could go to university. When he was a young man in Hungary, no Jew was allowed to attend university.

  What a Polish lifeguard said when Naomi interviewed him at the Recreation Centre:

  I’m from Wroclaw. I have been here in Canada four years. It’s good here because there are so many economic opportunities. Right now I have three jobs, plus I go to university. None of the jobs pays that good, but still I can get ahead pretty quick, and in a few years I’ll have a high-paying job. I want to be maybe a high school teacher or an athletics coach. At the same time, I can help my mother back in Poland. She’s on pension now, but she does not have enough to live on.

  What a young Polish woman said when Naomi interviewed her at her delicatessan:

  I have only been in Canada eight years, but already I have my own shop. It’s not much. I’m not getting rich. With my husband’s salary, we just make enough to live on. We support our baby daughter and make our mortgage payments, and already we’ve sent enough money so my parents can come for a visit. My husband is Polish too. He has a construction job. We came at the same time. We were teenagers still. But already we were in love.

  I took English lessons for a while, but I quit. I don’t need perfect English to do what I’m doing. My customers understand me. I worked in a meat shop back home, so I know about selling Polish meats and sausages. When I first came here, I worked in someone else’s shop, so I know Canadian business. Yeah, Canada is a good place. Our best friends now are some English Canadians. They are our neighbours. They are Newfoundlanders. I’m glad we came.

  Grandma just phoned me from Edmonton and invited me to go to Hawaii for Christmas with her and George, all expenses paid! I said I’d phone her back next weekend and let her know. I explained that my best friend was seriously ill in the hospital. I didn’t tell Grandma that Mary is older than she is. She might get jealous. I also didn’t tell Grandma that I was working as a cleaner. She would not approve. I just said I was really busy.

  Curtis

  Mom got back with Steve today while I was at school. Also, she found my diary and read it out loud to Steve. She said that Steve did not appreciate how I had described him. She told me these interesting facts while she was making dinner, and I was helping her.

  Luckily, she said this before Steve got back from fetching his stuff to move in with us again. Otherwise, I might have killed someone.

  Instead, I told my mother: (1) She has no right to invade my privacy. (2) She is crazy to get back with Steve. (3) I’m leaving.

  She started screaming at me that she absolutely had to read my diary to find out what was going on with me. She absolutely had to find this out, because I never tell her anything. Just like Dad never told her anything. She also screamed that I have absolutely no right to tell her what to do, or what not to do.

  Before she screamed any more hysterical drivel, I left the house. I walked around for a couple of hours, and then I went to see Joe Dekkers. Joe had told me to drop in some time and see his photos and dark room.

  Joe shook hands with me, invited me in and made us a couple of his and Eva’s “famous Sloppy Joe sandwiches”. We talked for a couple of hours.

  In the end, we made a deal that I can live at Joe’s house for a while. I can sleep on an old couch in his basement. I can also eat at his house. In return for my room and board, I will help Joe cook and clean up around his place, shovel all the snow at his and Eva’s houses, babysit his boys on the weekends sometimes, and generally make myself useful.

  I phoned my mother about ten o’clock that evening. I told her where I was, and what I was doing. I told her I needed my own space. She started screaming more drivel, so I hung up.

  I went home the next day while Mom and Steve were out. I packed a duffle bag and garbage bag with my stuff, took them over to Joe’s and officially moved in.

  Joe started as a bouncer, then became a cop. He picked up a couple of university degrees, worked with young offenders, then started teaching. Now he wants to be “downwardly mobile”. He wants to drive trucks and do photography.

  I’m going to check out Joe’s T’ai Chi class tomorrow.

  Mary

  Country Doctor

  Elizabeth is a nurse. She is already married. She has a baby girl. Johnny is already an engineer, working on huge construction projects. Finally, I have my first job. I am a country doctor. I am far from the big-city hospital where I interned. I am also far from my brother, sister and mother. I am on my own.

  I am a pretty good doctor, but sometimes I make mistakes. The first mistake is with a three-year-old girl. She is very sick. She has a high temperature. Her neck is as rigid as though she has swallowed a stick, and she is unconscious. I diagnose meningitis, but, at the city hospital where I send her, the more experienced doctor diagnoses severe bronchitis.

  The second mistake is with a woman who has pain in her lower back and whose urine is abnormal. I diagnose kidney trouble. But not long after I send her to the city hospital, her legs become paralyzed. She has polio.

  The third mistake is with a man whose symptoms indicate typhus. Or so I think. When the doctors in the city hospital operate, they find that he has an ulcerated bowel.

  Yes, I do make mistakes, but usually I diagnose correctly. The city doctors ask me how I can be right so often. Out in the country, I don’t have sophisticated equipment and tests.

  “I use my eyes and my fingers, and I listen carefully to my patient,” I say. “I ask many questions. And I always tell the patient to return to me, if he is not feeling better in one or two days.”

  One patient comes back in two days.

  He says: “Doctor, I am taking the medicine you gave me, but I don’t feel any better.”

  I ask: “How often do you take the medicine?”

  “One in the morning, one at noon, and one at night,” he replies.

  “But that is not enough!” I exclaim. “I prescribed four pills right away, then two every four hours, and all through the night too. You should have taken twenty pills by now, and you’ve only taken six.”

  I show the patient the directions I wrote on his bottle of pills. He goes home and does as he was told.

  A farmer comes and asks me to cure his sheep. His sheep has a broken leg.

  “I am not an animal doctor!” I protest. “I’m a people doctor!”

  “Please help!” he pleads. “There is no one else.”

  “Oh, all right,” I sigh. “But I make no promises.”

  I treat the sheep as though it is a human being: I put its leg in a cast. I have no idea whether the sheep’s leg will get better, but it does. The leg heals perfectly.

  Then another farmer comes and asks me to cure his cow.

  “I am not an animal doctor!” I protest again. “I am a people doctor!”

  But the farmer will not listen to my protests, and finally I go and help his cow. And for the rest of the years that I remain in the country, that farmer supplies me with fresh milk every morning—for free. The bottle of milk is on my doorstep when I open the door.

  One day as I am doing my rounds, someone asks me to visit a very old woman who is very ill. The woman must be ninety years old. She has pneumonia. I give her medicine, and she gets better. Because she is very poor, I say, “Don’t worry about my fee.” But she shows up at my house a few weeks later with sorrel leaves she has picked by the roadside for making soup.

  Because I know how far she has walked with those leaves, I begin to cry.

  One day I am visiting the reform school. The reception room is filled with young offenders waiting for inoculations. Suddenly, someone runs into the room and tells me that a child at the school is so sick he may die at any moment. I grab my medical bag and start
running too. I forget to lock the medicine cabinet that sits in one corner of the reception room.

  One hour later, when I return to the reception room after treating the sick child, I remember about the medicine cabinet. I almost panic. I know these young offenders, who have been waiting all this time in the reception room, have committed all sorts of crimes. Surely, they discovered that the cabinet is unlocked! Surely, they stole some drugs!

  But when I check the drugs in the cabinet that evening, I find nothing missing. The next day I tell the young offenders how well they behaved. That Christmas, I invite them to a party at my house.

  Most country people are poor. Often, I do not allow my patients to give me money, for if they do, they will not be able to afford medicine. I tell them: “You must not pay for my services, but pray for my health.” Many people must have prayed for my health, because for a long time I was very healthy.

  As well as milk, sorrel and prayers, the country people give me a free house and free vegetables and fruit. I ask them to donate some food to the reform school, instead of to me. And they do.

  Eva

  When she first came to Canada, Hanna attended mass more often than she had in Poland. Later, she became alienated from the Catholic Church. She decided the church was “detached from social reality.” Now, when she is dying, she refuses to see a priest.

  She has asked only for communion wafers. When I went to the church to get the wafers, the priest said he had never received such a request, but he sent a full bag of wafers. She ate only one. I left the rest in the backyard for the squirrels.

  Then one day Hanna asked to hear a recording she gave me long ago: Penderecki’s Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to St. Luke.

  She spent hours listening to the long piece.