The Three knocks in the night-PART II

It was late at night and Ida was in her room  reading a letter from her friend  when she  heard  a discreet cough from the verandah. She opened the door and  a young Indian stood there,tall and grave and dignified. Even if she had not recognized him as one of the town’s leading Brahmins, she would have known he belonged to this highest priestly caste by his dress.

“What is it?”asked Ida."Can I do anything for you?”

So agitated was the young man that when he lifted his hands in a gesture of greeting she could see that they were trembling.

“Oh,yes ammal!”The voice too,well modulated and speaking in cultured English ,was unsteady."I desperately need your help. My wife, a young girl of 14, is dying in childbirth. The barber woman can do nothing for her and says she must die. And, ammal, she is such  a lovely girl! I heard that you had come to India from America and thought you might help her.”

“Oh!”exclaimed Ida in swift sympathy."I’m so sorry .But it’s my father you want, not I .He’s the doctor. He’s right next door in his study. Come, I’ll take you to him.”About to lead the way, she found passage to the verandah blocked by  a shape as unyielding as one of its square white posts. The anxious young husband had vanished. In his place stood a haughty  and outraged Brahmin.

“What! Take  a man into my house to care for my wife? No man other than those of her family has ever looked upon her. You don’t know what you say!”

“B-but”, stammered Ida,” surely ,to –to save her life-"

“It is better that she should die," returned the young man, “than that another man should look on her face.”

Ida stared at him."You- you can’t mean that." But she could see that he did. She tried again."I’ll go with my father", she promised."He’ll tell me just what to do, and I’ll do it. He wouldn’t even have to touch her.”

The young man turned without answering and started away."Wait!"cried Ida."Don’t go yet –please!"She had to find a way to stop him."You-you said she was young and beautiful. And she’s suffering, maybe even dying. You said so yourself. Don’t you-don’t you care?”

The young Brahmin turned-“Then you will not come ammal?”His eyes looked out at her through the mask, tortured and somehow accusing.She shook her head miserably."It would do no good .I-I don’t know anything. I’d be no better than-than  the barber’s wife."Nor as good, she added to herself silently. For, crude and unsanitary though they might be ,the barber woman ,traditional midwife,had her instruments and her techniques. She had nothing.She watched him turn away and go down the steps, into the darkness."Why?" she demanded fiercely, turning to her father."Why?"

He patted her shoulder."Because," he said gently, “it’s the rule, the custom.It would violate the caste law.”

"Custom –law-"She choked on the words.But always before, she understood suddenly, these had seemed quaint and at times amusing customs, not-not matters of life and death.

“Our friend,” comforted her father, “is  a deeply religious man. We must respect him for it.”

“Respect!”She backed away from him,eyes flashing."When he’s letting her suffer, maybe die,a-a girl not much more than  a child!”

“Perhaps,”said Dr.John gently “he’s sacrificing more for his conviction than we are for ours.He looked to me as if he really loves his little wife.Go back to your room now ,child, and forget it.”

"Forget-"

“Yes. It’s a lesson I learned long ago. If I hadn’t I couldn’t have borne it to live in a country where there is so much suffering and despair. If there is nothing you can do to remedy a bad matter ,it’s the part of wisdom to forget it.”

Ida went back to her room .Her father was right,ofcourse.If there was nothing you could do ,it was better to forget.She began writing furiously,telling Annie,her friend,all the reasons she could think of for not wanting to live in India and not wanting to be a missionary. Her pen fairly flew over her pages.

When the sound of footsteps came again,she sprang up to her feet.Perhaps the young Brahmin had changed his mind and had come back for her father.

“I thought you’d come back”,she began eagerly,before the figure in the shadows had  a chance to speak."I was sure you really cared-"

She stopped abruptly.It was not the young Brahmin.

"Salaam Madam.May Allah give you peace.If you could help me-"

The voice was hesitant ,diffident,the face of a dark blur between the long tightly buttoned coat and the white brocaded cap .

“Of course”,said Ida automatically."What can I do for you,sir?"

"It’s my wife ",said the man gently."She has had other children ,but this time the little one does not come. There is no one to help her but an ignorant ,untrained woman.I am afraid she is dying .Please forgive me for troubling you."

Ida could not believe her ears.It was just in stories that such coincidences occurred, not in real life.

“I have heard there is a doctor here”, he continued hesitantly, “one not long since come from America.”

“Oh,yes!”Ida’s dismay evaporated. God was being good.He was giving them a chance to make up for failing the little 14 year old girl. If one must die, another should live. This man was a Muslim.He would be bound by no laws of caste."Wait!" she told him impetuously, brushing past him and running along the verandah.

"Here’s my father",she explained breathlessly, returning a moment later with Dr.John."He’s the doctor you are looking for. But if you like, I’ll be glad to go with him and help."

“Madam, you do not understand our ways. Only the men of her immediate family even enter a Muslim women’s apartment. It is you, a woman, whose help I came seeking, not a man.”His voice was apologetic but firm.

Ida stared at him incredulously.“But I can’t help you”, she replied."It’s you who don’t understand. I’m not even a nurse. I know nothing about midwifery, absolutely nothing. I’d be glad to help you if I could."

“Then my wife must die",returned the Muslim with stolid resignation.”It is the will of Allah.”

The girl watched him go down the steps and disappear. Then, without even glancing at her father, she fled into her room and shut the door.

It was then that the third call came.

“Ammal?”a diffident voice murmured.

She moved mechanically toward the door ,not daring to hope. But if it should be one of them, let it be the tall Brahmin, with the tortured eyes and the little wife who was just fourteen and so very beautiful. She lifted the lamp from the desk as she passed.

It was neither the Brahmin nor the grave Muslim. She recognized this man as the father of one of her pupils in the Hindu girls’ school, a respected member of the Mudaliar caste.

“Kamla?”The child’s name sprang to her lips in response to the urgency in the man’s face."Is she sick? Has anything happened?"

“Illai, no. Not Kamla, Missy Ammal.” The man spoke in stilted, halting English."But I have trouble. Much trouble."He lifted his hands palm to palm as his eyes implored her."I beg Missy, come to my house. I need much help."

Her eyes widened in horror. Her lips felt dry."Not—not your wife-"

"Amma,yes."He returned her look with wonder."How did Missy know? She is sick, much sick."Suddenly he was prostrating himself before her on the verandah floor, touching her feet."I beg Missy Ammal to come.If she come not,my wife dies."

"Please –don’t kneel to me!"Ida drew back so swiftly that the lamp flared.

"The Missy Ammal will come?"

"But –it would do no good for me to come!"she repeated the words tonelessly."I’m not  a doctor.It’s my father who is the doctor.Let me call him.I’m sure he can do something for your wife.If-if you’ll just let him-"

She knew the answer even before he lifted himself to his feet, revealing the outraged dignity, the bitterness of disappointment. No need even to listen to his words of shocked protest. She had heard them all twice before. But she did listen.

“The Missy Ammal will come? “he pleaded again finally.

"I’m sorry. I’d go with you if it would do any good .But it wouldn’t. Can’t you understand? The voice rose to a higher pitch, held suddenly a hint of hysteria."There’s nothing-nothing at all-that I could do!".This time she did not tell her father. After the man had turned and gone away, she shut the door tightly and bolted it.

As she lay on her bed, somewhere in the distance a nightjar began his restless hawking.

Chuck-chuk-chuk-r-r-r!            Chuck-chuk-chuk-r-r-r   !      Chuck-chuk-chuk-r-r-r!

Funny how often things seemed to come in threes, even the call of birds!Temptations.The crowing of cocks.A voice speaking to  a young boy as he lay wakeful, like this, on his bed. Samuel had known just what to do when he heard his name called three times. He had not only known just what to do. He had wanted to do it.There had been only one Samuel lying on his bed waiting, listening.But here there were two Idas, one tremulously aware, the other rebelling with every fiber of her taunt body. As the night wore on they struggled ,one with the other.

“It’s nonsense!God doesn’t speak to people these days.”

No? You have eyes to see things, haven’t you, like children lying by the roadside? Ears to hear people coming to your door?

"But –it’s not my fault if they’re foolish enough to let their wives die!It’s nothing to me!"

Isn’t it? Women like yourself ,loving life, one of them only fourteen-

"Stop! Didn’t  my father tell me it’s better to forget  a bad matter?"

If there is nothing you can do to remedy it.

“But there is nothing.”

Nothing? With three women dying less than a mile away for want of a woman doctor? With millions more-

“No,no,I couldn’t do that!Not if God himself were to ask me!”

Can’t you understand,Ida Scudder?It’s God himself who is asking.

Morning came. Rising with sudden urgency, she slipped her feet into her sandals and stepped out on the verandah only to be met by a funeral procession. She caught sight of a servant and called him. She asked him to find out what had happened to the three women. It was less than an hour when he returned.

“You did what I asked you,Souri?”

“Amma ,I did so Missy.”

“And the three women who were sick?”

“Dead”,replied Souri.

She gasped,"You- you don’t mean –all three of them?"

“Amma.All three of them,Missy.”

She shut the door and fled back into her room. Throwing herself on the bed ,she buried her head in the pillow and cried.

It wasn’t fair.Life wasn’t supposed to be like this. And death. She had thought it was necessary to die only once. But already today she had died thrice. Must it be so everyday to the end of life,not just three times but as many times as there were dying women within the possible reach of one’s hands?

“No,no!”This time the cry was too deep within her to be spoken aloud, “I-I can’t,I tell you! How –how can you ask it of me?

Minutes..hours..years..

She rose finally from her bed, opened the door ,and walked briskly along the verandah. She found her father and mother together  in the bedroom study.

“I’m going to America and study to be a doctor,” she announced steadily, “so I can come back here and help the women of India.”

And that decision, friends, of a young teenager, gave rise to one of the biggest hospitals in the country-The Christian Medical College and Hospital,Vellore founded by Dr.Ida Sophia Scudder.