CAPTURED
BY MOONLIGHT
By Christine Lindsay
ONE
Amritsar, Northern India, Late October, 1921
If the head
woman from the temple looked in her direction, Laine Harkness wouldn’t give two
squashed mangoes for her life, or Eshana’s. Laine could never be confused for
an Indian, but with the tail end of this cotton sari covering half her face,
and her brown eyes peeking over, she simply had to blend in. Still, any minute
now that hatchet-faced female standing guard to the girls’ quarters could let
out a pulse-freezing yell.
A sudden blare
of a conch shell from within the Hindu temple stretched Laine’s nerves. She and
Eshana must be mad to risk this exploit again. The Principal Matron at Laine’s
hospital would give her a severe reprimand if she ever found out. More likely
sack her. If either she or Eshana had any sense at all, they’d turn around, go
back to the mission, and mind their own business.
But a line from
Wordsworth, one of Adam’s favorites, ran through her mind . . . little, nameless, unremembered acts of
kindness and of love . . . .
Blast! She
wouldn’t call what she and Eshana were about to do little, but please let it be
unremembered. Unnoticed would be better still.
Nudging Eshana
in the side and closing her mind to the writhing creatures in the burlap bags
they carried, she hissed into Eshana’s ear. “Well off you go. You’ve got yours
to dispose of, and I’ve got mine. Just please keep that guard distracted.”
Laine jutted her chin toward the obese head woman waddling around in a sari
stained down the front with betel juice. Every once in a while she would take
her long wooden club and rap on the doors of the hovels.
Eshana hurried
through the narrow alleyway toward the guardian of the temple girls, carrying a
similar burlap sack to Laine’s.
On the opposite
side of the bazaar, the globelike spires of a temple devoted to a Hindu goddess
poked above nearby rooftops. Like a multi-tiered cake decorated in a variety of
colored icings—pinks, blues, orange—the temple enticed like a sugary
concoction.
But from there
the loveliness ended. In these alleyways behind the temple, the pervasive scent
of incense and stale flowers mixed with the reek of human misery. Girls who
should still be playing with toys, and some a little older, chatted with each
other. Many of the paint-chipped doors were closed, imprisoning within those adolescent girls forced into ritual marriages to a Hindu deity.
Laine flattened
herself against the peeling plaster wall to watch Eshana shake out the contents
of her sack at the base of a cluster of clay pots. Now she waved her hands
about, talking in rapid Hindi to the older woman. Good girl, Eshana, that’s
the ticket. Laine’s stomach writhed in rhythm to the creature in the bag
she carried. She strengthened her grip at the top of the sack though the
drawstring had been tightly pulled.
Sure enough the
head woman stomped off with Eshana and began to clatter around the pots with
her club, giving Laine the moment she waited for. Sixth door from the end on
this side, Eshana had told her. Eshana had been visiting the inhabitants of
this alley on a regular basis in an attempt to give them some sort of medical
aid.
Laine hunched
down at the correct threshold. A gap of five or so inches between the door and
the mud floor of the girl’s hovel afforded her the needed space.
The low voice of
the so-called midwife seeped out. Midwife, my eye. Nothing more than
witch doctors with their foolish notions that no water should be given to those
giving birth and that the mothers be kept in dark rooms with filthy concoctions
of ash smeared over them. Laine shut her mind to the atrocities of how they
forced a baby out if it took too long to be delivered.
She kneeled at
the bottom of the closed door. With a deep swallow and shudder, she slotted the
top of the sack into the gap below the door. With her other hand she eased the
drawstring, loosened the bag’s opening, and jumped back to flatten against the
wall.
Another shudder
rippled through her as she waited. Nothing. Her gaze flitted from the ground to
the flat rooftops of this rancid boil of a place. Where had the horrible,
disgusting creature gone? Oh please don’t come out at me.
At last, screams
from inside room number six shattered the sleepy deadness of the afternoon.
“A snake!”
screeched one woman in Hindi.
Another cry
pierced the air. “A cobra!”
They tumbled
from the room, and with a gulp Laine slipped inside. “It’s not poisonous. It’s
not poisonous,” she repeated to bolster her flagging courage. But she had no
time to worry where the rat snake had wriggled off to.
She went still.
There lay the girl.
So small for
fourteen, lying on a heap of rags stained with water and blood. She peered at
Laine with eyes soaked with pain. There was no time to waste. Laine picked up
the girl, and, cradling her in her arms, she ran from the hovel. The young
mother weighed no more than a ten-year-old. All skin and bones except for the
mound that was a baby in her womb. The girl batted at Laine’s arm as
ineffectually as a wounded bird against a tiger.
Eshana, having
heard the screams, scurried away from the women who were beating the bushes,
searching through the earthen pots for the harmless snakes. Eshana ran ahead to
help Laine lift the girl into the closed Purdah cart they had hired. As soon as
the three of them were in the cart, Eshana yelled, “Drive, juldi, juldi! Hurry.”
Their Sikh
driver flicked a whip, and his startled horse bolted down the cobblestoned
bazaar. No one followed them as stalls full of wares, bolts of silk, fruits and
vegetables, copper pots of steaming food, and a multitude of people flashed
past in a blur of color.
Laine placed her
fingers on the girl’s pulse. “She’s dehydrated. Feel her skin, her fingertips.”
She pulled back the girl’s eyelids. “Eyes dull.”
The patient
pushed Laine’s hands away and moaned.
“It’s all right
now, little one.” Laine spoke in Hindi. Lifting the girl’s wrist, she planted a
kiss against the weakening pulse. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
The girl’s gaze
tracked from Eshana to Laine’s while the Purdah cart wound through the streets
to the other side of Amritsar. Her eyelids drooped and closed by the time the
cart stopped outside the narrow, four-story mission close to the Jallianwalla
Bagh.
Mala and Tikah
thrust the front doors open and carried out a cot. Within minutes they
transported the patient into the surgery where they were met with the clean
smell of carbolic soap. As Eshana and Laine washed their hands, Mala hooked the
girl up to a saline drip while Tikah bathed her with a warm soapy cloth
allowing them to see her pallid skin beneath its applied layer of ash. Laine
pinned her nursing veil to her hair.
Eshana tightened
the blood pressure cuff on the patient’s arm. “Her pressure is dangerously
low.”
The girl
fluttered her eyes open to see the sterile clinic and instruments. With a pleading
look she tried to speak. Laine brushed the girl’s hair from her forehead. “We
only want to help you and your baby. Just tell me your name.”
“Chandrabha,”
the girl choked out.
“All right then,
I’m going to call you Chandra for short, and now I’m going to examine you.
Don’t be afraid.”
###
Half an hour
later, as the last of the afternoon sun faded, so too did Eshana’s hope.
Drenched in sweat and the girl’s blood, she watched Laine step away from the
examining table.
“No use, Eshana.
The pelvis is too small. We have to get a doctor.”
Eshana sank her
head into her hand. “There is only Dr. Kaur. He is very kind, but I do not wish
to involve him.”
“If we don’t
involve him she’ll die. If she does die, then we’ll need him to record her
death properly.” Laine’s matter-of-fact tone matched the steadiness in her
gaze. “And you and I could go to jail.”
Eshana gave a
firm jut of her chin. “What of it? If Miriam still lived, she would do all she
could for the life of this girl. I will go.”
Tikah glanced up
from bathing the girl’s brow. “It will be well, my sister. Go, and bring the
doctor. Mala and I will assist the nursing sahiba.”
Chandra gave a
weak moan. The saline had rehydrated her body so that she had gained only
enough strength to communicate her pain. There was no time to lose. Eshana
rushed from the room and quickly changed into a clean garment. Whipping the end
of her cotton sari over her head, she raced out of the mission. Lord Yeshu, keep the temple woman from remembering
my face. Do not let them come here to hurt the people of this house.
Dr. Jai Kaur’s office
lay two streets away, and Eshana’s thin-soled chappals pounded the cobblestones. She bumped into several people
and pushed her way through the crowded bazaar. Her chest burned as she tried to
catch her breath and opened the door to his clinic.
Patients sat
cross-legged or hunched down against the walls waiting, but Jai Kaur shot her a
glance as she stumbled into the room.
He left the
patient he had been examining behind a curtain, strode toward Eshana, and
towered over her. “What is it?”
“A girl in
labor. She is dying.” Eshana’s hand crept to her throat to settle her
breathing.
Jai turned away
to wash his hands and spoke to someone behind another curtain. “Father, I will
leave you to see the rest of the patients. I must attend an emergency
birthing.”
Hooks screeched
along the metal rod as Jai’s father, Dr. Kaur Senior, pushed aside the curtain.
Beneath his red turban, the man’s heavy-lidded gaze swept Eshana then rested on
Jai. “Your responsibilities, my son, are with our own patients.” He modulated
his voice low for the sake of the people filling the room.
Jai met the
older man’s gaze. Like his father, in the custom of the Sikhs he had combed his
un-cut black beard and rolled it beneath his chin. He had meticulously tied his
royal blue turban around his head, adding several more inches to his imposing
height. “Father, I have already ascertained that no one in this room is
requiring emergency care. I will return as soon as this other life is out of
danger. Is that not why you had me follow in your footsteps? To give aid to
those who are suffering, no matter what their faith?”
The senior Dr.
Kaur slashed a hand in the air. “Go then. But hurry back. It is most likely
this woman is trying to save the life of another of those temple girls, who are
no more than harlots. Disgusting, this Devadasi, a Hindu practice that is a terrible
blight on India.”
Eshana
understood his Sikh revulsion for this particular Hindu custom, but felt that
his distaste included her too. Jai did not waste another moment. He picked up
his medical valise and strode from the clinic. She had to run to catch up with
his long strides as he struck out for the mission.
Unlike her, Jai
breathed normally in spite of his pace. “Is this patient a temple girl?”
“The suffering
of this human being is no different than any other.”
He stopped
suddenly so that she had to turn back to face him. People filed past them in
the bee-hive of a bazaar. “So it is true. I can see it in your eyes. You were
never meant for subterfuge, Eshana.” He picked up his pace again. “I have no
qualms about helping anyone who needs my services. But you must take a care for
yourself. I am worrying about you and the other women of your mission. It has
been a year and a half since your founder, Miriam, died, with still no
administrator to fill her place.”
She pushed her
chin out in a way her beloved Miriam would have recognized. “I have written to
the mission headquarters. I see no reason why they should not consider me as
administrator to carry on Miriam’s work.”
Jai must have
seen something in the unbending set of her neck. He softened his tone. “The
mission headquarters would do wisely to place you in that role. But do you not
still desire to become a physician?”
Memories of
sitting with Miriam at the top of the four-story house pulled at the strings of
her heart. Many times they had sat mending clothing in the evenings while the
houseful of orphans and patients slept. Many nights they had discussed Eshana’s
desire to become a doctor, and prayed for that. But her beloved Miriam had
died. Eshana shook off the memories. “I cannot be leaving the mission to study
medicine. Besides, the women of our house have learned much from Laine
Harkness. And if we need a doctor you have been gracious to come to our aid.”
His eyes as
black as agates grew somber. “I cannot always come, Eshana. Someone in your
mission needs to gain proper medical training.”
“As I have said,
I must keep the mission running.” She turned her back to him, straight as a
ruler, as her mother so long ago had taught her, and renewed her steps.
His swift paces
caught up to her. “What will you do, Eshana, if the Hindu priests and certain
high-caste people learn of what you are doing, that this is not the first
untouchable female you have taken away, but the second? Your charitable work
could come under scrutiny.”
She let her gaze
drop from his piercing one. Jai was right, of course. Miriam’s beloved mission
could come under scrutiny. Did she have the right to place the mission . . .
the children in such danger? Or worse than scrutiny, what if one night a Hindu
fanatic who believed her actions showed no respect for their religion entered
the house as the children slept?
TWO
Laine could
hardly wait for a soak in a hot tub. That and a decent cup of tea. She
straightened up from washing her hands and arms under the tap in the surgery
sink.
Her neck ached
after assisting Jai Kaur in the caesarean he had performed on Chandra. Shortly
after she’d brought Chandra to the mission she’d known the baby would never
take its first breath of life. Though the mother—a child herself—lived was a
miracle, the whole wretched situation bore down on Laine. She ran a hand around
her neck to massage it. Unlike Eshana, she didn’t believe she could change the
world. But in the face of such suffering, one simply had to do their bit.
She needed to
unwind these tired muscles though if she was going to be any good to her
patients at the hospital tomorrow. More likely her neck screamed from the
strain of kidnapping that poor girl this afternoon. She pursed her lips
together to hold back a laugh. It wasn’t the lead temple woman that had scared
her. It was the terror of releasing those two snakes.
Another shiver
slid like ice down her back. She hated snakes. Vile, despicable, malevolent
things. She would never understand why God created them. If she ever got to
Heaven she’d ask the good Lord about that. That was if the Lord let her through
the pearly gates, which she sorely doubted. Not with her bad temper and
irreverent manner of speaking. Her father had told her often enough her
sauciness would bring her to a bad end. Good thing her parents had passed on
and couldn’t see her father’s prediction coming true.
Jai Kaur had
finished suturing the mother, while Tikah wrapped the poor little scrap of
humanity in a white cloth and took the baby girl away. Laine held in a sigh. She’d
learned early in The Great War to hide her pain when one of her patients died.
And there’d been so many.
The doctor gave
Chandra a shot of morphine for the pain she would have when she came out of her
anesthetic. He sat waiting at the girl’s bedside for this to happen, tapping
her cheek and rubbing her hands. Eshana stood next to him, putting the final
touches to the patient’s bandages.
Laine listened
to the two of them talking in low tones, and her ears perked.
Eshana had never
shown the slightest interest in any man except Geoff Richards, and he filled
the role of big brother in her life. She treated every other man who came to
the mission simply as patients. The grown-up boys from the mission who returned
home every once in a while to visit, she treated like brothers.
But today Eshana
didn’t bustle about the surgery, mildly ordering the other girls about, or
setting things right the way she normally would. She, who never wasted a minute
of any day that could be used to aid another, stood gazing up into the doctor’s
almost black eyes. Little Eshana was hanging on the words of this tall, slender
Sikh as he gave instructions for the patient’s care.
And his gaze
frequently returned to Eshana’s for much longer than necessary.
Laine didn’t
bother to hide her grin and sent a pointed glance to Eshana.
Not
surprisingly, Eshana refused to acknowledge her. But when the patient gave a
small moan, simultaneously as if they were two halves of the same person, Jai
and Eshana turned to the girl. A moment later doctor and devoted nurse breathed
the same breath of satisfaction at the girl’s status.
Oh .
. . my . . . goodness. Laine’s
laughter threatened to erupt. About time someone fell in love. Certainly never
again for her. Once burned was enough in that department, thank you very much.
It was the life of spinsterhood for her. But really, she ought to take up
something a little safer these days to help out the populace. Slipping snakes
under doors and kidnapping distressed temple girls was getting a bit risky.
Perhaps instead she should take up knitting.
Jai readied
himself to leave and nodded in Laine’s direction. “It was good to work with you
again, Matron. Although I desire to give you the same word of caution I gave to
Eshana. As soon as this child is well you must return her to the temple. She is
their property, and they are legally in their rights to have her back.”
Laine removed
the pins that attached her nursing veil to her hair and let her hand holding
the veil flop to her side. “Where of course her syphilis will flare up, and
she’ll die in a few years. I thought you as a Sikh did not approve of girls
from the untouchable class being used as Hindu temple prostitutes.”
“As a Sikh I
abhor the caste system and the way Hindus treat those lowest in their sight.
But I am speaking of the danger in which you and Eshana place yourselves. If
caught, the Hindus have every right to have you prosecuted. We can only hope
the British courts will give you a mere slap on the wrist for interfering, but
Eshana, being an Indian woman, would be punished severely for any such crimes.”
He moved to the
door of the surgery. “I beg of you . . . .” His gaze dismissed Laine and sought
Eshana’s. “I beg of you to be taking my words to heart.”
As if drawn by a
magnet, Eshana went with him to the front of the house to see him out, and
Laine trudged up the four flights of stairs to the room at the top. Miriam had
been dead almost two years, and still the household referred to this floor as
her room.
The glass panel doors
stood open to let in the evening air. Scents from the city below
invaded—spices, dust, the smoke from cooking fires carried on the breeze along
with the fragrance of Miriam’s roses and lilies on the balcony. The last wash
of sunset outlined the shapes of the city, the minaret of a mosque, the gopuram of a Hindu temple, and the
spires and domes of the Golden Temple of the Sikhs.
Inside, a
smoking lamp in the corner lit portions of the room that glowed like warm
marble. Miriam’s single, rope-strung bed still took up the corner. And on a
reed table next to the bed, her Bible written in Hindustani lay open where the
girls gathered each morning and evening to read.
Eshana and the
other young women used to be Miriam’s girls, like the rest of the inhabitants of
this house—poor children or newborn girls discarded by their families, cast-off
child Hindu widows like Eshana. Or like Tikah the Muslim woman whom Eshana had
brought to this house during the recent trouble between England and Afghanistan.
They’d all found peace for their troubled hearts in this house. Even Abby
Richards had.
But not Laine.
No, definitely not her.
If she hurried
though, she might make it to the going-away party for Abby and Geoff. Have a
few laughs, throw off this millstone hanging about her heart.
She had planned
on going home to the nurses’ residence to change into party duds, but her
no-nonsense tailored skirt and white shirt suited her mood better than a
dancing frock. A cloudy mirror on Miriam’s armoire afforded her a glimpse of
her hair caught in a roll at the back of her neck. She patted the bobbed waves
she’d worked so hard to shape out of her long, straight tresses. Well, that was
as good as it was going to get.
But the grin she
flashed at her reflection died. There would be no one at the party tonight to
look at good old Laine Harkness as if he’d swallowed the moon and it shone out
of his eyes, like Dr. Jai Kaur when he looked at Eshana.
Laine slung the
strap of her nursing bag over her shoulder and took the stairs down to the main
floor. At each landing the sound of splashing water, the squealing laughter of
children, and a few sorrowful wails at having to go to bed filled the narrow house.
Tikah and Mala, assisted by the older orphans, strode through the rooms lined
with cots and dealt with each tiny mite.
One little tot
darted out of a room and almost made it to the stairs before Laine nabbed her.
It was the little girl who’d been born shortly before Miriam had died. They’d
called her that deplorably long biblical name, Hadassah. At three she was a
nimble little thing and wiggled to be released, until she realized who held
her. The child’s silk lashes fluttered as she laughed into Laine’s face. “Where
is Cam?” she asked in Hindi.
“With his mother.
I’ll be seeing him tonight.”
“I want him to
come and play cricket with me.”
Tikah raced out,
laughing herself, and whisked the giggling Hadassah from Laine to take her back
to the room and finish preparing her for supper and bed.
No doubt Harmindar,
in the kitchen with her crew of older children, had begun to cook the evening
meal. Evidence of that came with the aroma of garlic, onions, and cardamom that
wafted up the stairs.
Laine pushed
through the doors to the surgery. Their patient slept in a room off to the
side, while Eshana placed the instruments they’d used today into the autoclave
for sterilization. She’d not heard Laine’s entrance. A sigh escaped from her,
but the shine in her eyes seemed at variance with that laden breath. No doubt she
savored the doctor’s visit.
Laine couldn’t
hold back her grin. “Are you coming to the party tonight? We won’t see them for
a year.”
Eshana turned to
scrub the examining table. “Geoff and Abby came this morning to say their
goodbyes. I would have gone tonight, but I cannot be leaving the burden of such
an ill patient for the younger girls.”
“What utter rot.
In the last year and a half, Tikah with no official training has developed into
a fine practical nurse. It’s more likely you don’t want to go because he’s entrusted Chandra to your care.”
Eshana’s lowered
eyelashes were her answer.
“Oh, my dear
Eshana, do take a page from Abby’s book. Fall in love. Get married and have
twenty children. For my sake, please, let the man know you like him.”
Eshana’s eyes flickered
wide. By her willowy shape she was as compliant as bamboo. Oh she’d bend all
right, given enough pressure. But that glint of fire in her eyes proved that
like a shaft of bamboo she’d snap right back, and the answering thwack would be
decidedly painful for anyone who dared interfere with her charitable work.
Laine pretended
to take a cautious step backward.
Eshana’s
laughter tinkled like the silver anklets at her feet. “You are speaking such
foolishness. Dr. Kaur is a Sikh and would never marry anyone but a Sikh. I as a
follower of Yeshu could not be happy unless I married a man who also loved
Yeshu. But it is God’s will for me to take care of Miriam’s mission. There will
be no such marital bliss for me as our friend Abby enjoys. So please give to
Geoff and Abby my love, and especially to my young princeling, Cam.”
Laine adjusted
the strap of her shoulder bag. “In that regard we’re united. There’ll be no
such bliss for me either.” She held the surgery door ajar and let out a laugh.
“I for one never wish to go through the torture of love again.”
She left the
mission and hailed a rickshaw. And if she ever did meet up again with the man
who’d made her so gun-shy of romance, she’d give him a good, swift kick in the
shins. It was the least he deserved.
