Dr. Schweitzer of Lambaréné by Norman Cousins

Author:Norman Cousins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2016-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

VIII

THERE IS ONLY one place at the Schweitzer Hospital where electricity is available. This is the operating room, where there are modern overhead surgical theater lights. The electricity is furnished by a generator. When the motor is turned on, the throbbing noise alerts everyone that the operating room is going into action. During the night, an African medical orderly is assigned to the river landing. When an emergency case arrives and it appears that surgery may be necessary, he switches on the noisy generator. The effect is that of a gong in a fire station. Doctors and nurses swing out of their beds like firemen, jump into their clothes, and do everything except slide down a brass pole.

Not long after midnight on the day Dr. Margaret came to Clara’s room to tell Dr. Schweitzer about the woman with the extrauterine pregnancy, the generator started up. Instantly, I could hear activity in some of the rooms. There were hurried footsteps on the porch. The steady throb of the generator continued for perhaps an hour and a half, or two. Then the motor stopped and after a while I could hear the shuffling footsteps on the porch of the doctors and nurses trudging back to their rooms. I didn’t need the sounds to tell me how exhausted they must have been. It was 4:30 A.M. In another two hours the Hospital would be starting on another day. I wondered how many on the staff were too tired even to sleep. The air was heavy and the act of breathing was almost a conscious one. Little wonder that Dr. Margaret, for all her loveliness, showed darkness under her eyes and at times seemed to walk with a stoop. She was no different from the others; fatigue was their constant companion.

About a half hour after the doctors and nurses returned to their quarters, I heard strange voices coming up the hill. At first, the sound was a low rumble. Then, all at once, the voices, now sharp and insistent, seemed to be collected at the end of the porch. These were African voices and they were angry. I got out of bed quickly, put on my khaki pants, and went out on the porch. Not far away in the dim light I could make out some two dozen people in a cluster.

I walked toward the group and perceived the small, slight form of a person who was apparently saying something to the Africans in subdued tones. It was Clara. One of the Africans had stepped forward and said that the group wanted La Doctoresse to produce the body of the woman who had just died on the operating table. They had been instructed by the witch doctor to obtain the body in accordance with their customs.

In a voice that indicated understanding but also strength, Clara said that La Doctoresse was sleeping; she was exhausted from her night’s work. Under no circumstances should she be awakened. Then Clara stepped down from the porch and approached the tall African who was spokesman for the group.

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