TRIAL BY FIRE

TRIAL BY FIRE
C 1998 JoJo

Father was an Englishman. He arrived in Recife, the capital of Pernambuco, Brazil, on a small cargo boat circa 1927, having previously received his missionary training in London. His first assignment was to make his way to the small and remote village of Belo Jardim, in the interior of Pernambuco.

Belo Jardim means “Beautiful Garden” and it was wishful thinking on the part of the people living there to have given it this name. The village was located in the “Sertão”, an arid and inhospitable section of the interior of Pernambuco, where it seldom rains.

People who live in the Sertão are called “Sertanejos.” They are a small and unique segment of Brazilian society; homesteaders who eke out a bare existence in an inhospitable land. Their main preoccupation is – rain. Eyes constantly look upwards, trying to catch sight of a cloud, no matter how wispy and small, which could possibly develop into a rain shower. People greet each other every day with “I think today we will get rain” or “It looks like a good day for rain today”. Most of the time it doesn’t happen. Each day that goes by without rain leaves the people more worried and anxious about their crops, and growing enough food to feed their families.

When it rains in the Sertão, the entire family rushes outdoors to the vegetable patch. Father leads the way with a hoe in hand with which he digs a row of carefully spaced out holes. Mother follows behind, with a bag filled with grain slung around her neck. She dips into the bag and carefully drops a few precious kernels into each hole. The children come last, and they cover up the holes by pushing dirt into them with their bare toes. They all get soaking wet, but no one minds. The rain is tropical, warm and cooling and, above all, life giving. If they get enough of it, the crops will flourish and they will ward off hunger and starvation for another year.

On the years when there is no rain, the suffering of the Sertanejos is terrible. Crops die, the few cattle in the village die and, worst of all, the children die. Surviving Sertanejos reluctantly abandon their small holdings and carrying their meagre possessions on their backs, they walk the many miles down to the cities in search of jobs. On their long, arduous journey they rely entirely on the generosity of people along the way, begging for food and water in towns less stricken by the drought. Sadly many die.

Sertanejos would only work in the cities until they received word that it had rained in the Sertão. Rejoicing, they would instantly drop tools and with their families, make the arduous trek back to their beloved homesteads.

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When Father arrived in Belo Jardim, he was greeted by a joyous throng of excited Sertanejos. They noticed that he wore a large and very colourful straw hat which he’d purchased in London, believing this was the head gear worn in Brazil. Among themselves the Sertanejos smiled and had a little joke at his expense. They could never afford to purchase such an expensive hat. Even if they owned such a glorious piece of head wear, it would be reserved for special occasions like weddings and funerals and, of course, going to church on Sundays.

They also noticed the small black doctor’s bag he carried and this produced cries of joy. “Veja so, o missionario e doutor tambem” – “Look everyone, the missionary is also a doctor”. Like most villages in the interior, Belo Jardim only boasted a “Curandeiro” – a witch doctor/herbalist. The nearest medical doctor would be literally hundreds of miles away.

People marvelled at Father’s clothes. Friendly hands reached out to touch the fabric and some even came close enough to sniff it. Their curiosity was childlike and innocent. Father warmed to them immediately.

The Mayor made a long speech welcoming Father to Belo Jardim. Although Father had taken a crash course in Portuguese before leaving London, it wasn’t enough to enable him to understand a word that was being said. But he nodded from time-to-time and smiled a great deal and this pleased everyone who thought he was taking it all in. The Mayor finally ground to a halt, and it became obvious to Father that he was expected to respond. And respond he did. “Muito obrigado e que Deus lhes abencoe” (Thank you and God bless you all). Evidently this was adequate as the crowd cheered lustily.

Eager hands picked up all his luggage and a large procession accompanied him to his house. When they arrived, to Father’s astonishment, the crowd surged into the house. SAMS (South American Missionary Society) had built it specifically for father’s use. It was basic, stark and plain by western standards. But in comparison to the humble wooden shacks and mud huts in the village it stood out like a magnificent castle.

To a man, the villagers had been dying of curiosity to see inside it. They now marvelled at its luxury and opulence: the wooden floors (their homes had earthen floors), an indoor chemical toilet, a sink and a bathtub. My goodness, they whispered to each other – how clean does a person need to be? The women exclaimed over the wood burning stove in the kitchen with a vent so that cooking could be done indoors. Que maravilha! They mostly cooked outdoors on small charcoal stoves. The kitchen cabinets were greatly admired – an unheard of luxury to them. Wooden crates were all the storage they had. However, what really caught everyone’s attention and admiration was the water catchments on the roof to harvest the rain water. Just imagine being able to garner all that extra water in your own house, they murmured among themselves. It was all extraordinario!

The last sertanejo departed many hours later. Finally, Father found himself alone in his new home. It had been a long journey by bus on badly potholed roads from Recife. He’d been hurled around his seat for six long hours leaving him drained and exhausted.

A local lady, Maria de Lourdes, had been hired to “do” for him. She was a large, warm-hearted lady with a big smile. As a result of her new job, her status in the village had risen dramatically. She was very conscious of this high honour and was determined that the “Senhor Missionario” would want for nothing. She’d prepared a sumptuous meal of “feijoada completada com arroz” black turtle beans laced with various spicy sausages, carne seca, salted beef jerky and salted pork (the staple food throughout Brazil) served on a bed of rice. Father had never eaten “feijoada”, and he viewed it with suspicion. It didn’t look appetising, resembling lumpy mud with bits of unknown things poking out of it. However, he was hungry and found to his surprise that it was both tasty and filling.

He had barely eaten his meal, when there was a knock on the door. A small boy stood on the doorstep chattering excitedly and pointing towards the village. Maria de Lourdes managed to convey the gist of his conversation to Father. The Doutor was urgently needed in the village.

Weary though he was, Father picked up his black bag and accompanied the boy into the village. After walking a considerable distance along dusty dirt roads bordered by shanty town shacks, he realised that he was being led into what was undoubtedly the red light district of town. He noticed prostitutes lolling around and there was active soliciting going on, accompanied by some keen bargaining. A dusky beauty even approached him and smiled seductively. The small boy leapt into action, pushing her away. “Vai embora mulher burra – este homem e o missionario” he screamed (go away you stupid woman, this man is the missionary). Her smile instantly disappeared, and shrugging her shoulders apologetically, she turned away.

As a raw newly fledged missionary, Father had never been exposed to the seamier side of life, and he was both amused and bemused by it.

The boy led him up some wooden steps into a squalid shack. It was extremely crowded and they had to fight their way into it. Willing hands ushered them to a small bedroom located at the back. On entering the room, Father was led to a bed in the corner of the room where a gruesome sight met his eyes. A young prostitute lay there, no more than 15 years of age. Father’s horrified eyes saw that her abdomen had been sliced open from one side to the other. Her abdominal wall had been split, causing her intestines to spill out onto a filthy bed. There were flies swarming on them. Someone had had the foresight to jam some filthy rags into the wound which had staunched the bleeding. The prostitute’s mother stood by wailing, while waving a plaited straw fan, trying ineffectively to keep the flies at bay. Although Father could speak very little Portuguese, he gathered that his patient had engaged in a professional fight with another prostitute over a freguez customer, and her adversary had used a sharp razor to settle the argument.

Father was appalled. He’d spent six weeks working in the emergency department of St. James’s Hospital in London in order to learn first aid, but nothing had prepared him for the situation he was confronting. He thought the young girl’s chances of survival were just a shade beyond impossible. Her intestines had been exposed to filth and flies – peritonitis was sure to ensue, and back in 1927, there were no antibiotics. When she died (and Father had no doubt she would), his reputation would be totally and irretrievably lost. However, he had to do his best to help the poor creature who lay before him, her dark eyes looking up at him, filled with pain and despair.

His first act was to evict all the gawkers, allowing just the patient’s mother to remain in order to carry on her mission of keeping the flies at bay. Father set to and put back the patient’s intestines into her abdominal cavity (in his words) “as tidily as I could, hopefully without flies”, and proceeded to stitch her up. First he stitched the muscle comprising the abdominal wall, then the fat and finally the skin. All this was done without the benefit of an anaesthetic, but his patient didn’t make a sound. He surmised that she was beyond feeling pain, for which he was deeply grateful. He covered the wound with sulphur powder, put a dressing on it and advised the patient’s mother with gestures, that her daughter must remain in bed and that he’d be back in a week to remove the stitches.

He went home with a heavy heart; he was certain his young patient was doomed to a slow and excruciating death, and agonised over his inability to do anything about it. He felt very downhearted and despondent.

A week later, he slowly made his way back to the prostitute’s house. He felt certain he was wasting his time. There was no doubt in his mind that the girl would have died, and doubtless he’d be blamed for it. He expected a hostile and unfriendly reception. Bracing his shoulders, he walked up the steps and timidly knocked on the door. After a while, it was opened by the mother. To his overwhelming relief, she was smiling. Father thought she must be blessed with an incredibly kind and generous nature because she evidently wasn’t blaming him for her daughter’s untimely demise.

“Entra, entra” go in, go in, she said, pointing towards the bedroom.

Hesitantly Father pushed open the bedroom door, expecting the worst. And there lay his patient, alive and well. She wore a big smile and eagerly lifted her dress to show him the results of his handiwork. In stunned disbelief, Dad examined her abdomen carefully. There was no sign of inflammation or peritonitis. Her scar was clean and well healed. In bewilderment, Father removed her stitches and advised her to rest for at least six weeks so as to allow herself to fully heal. He doubted that she would follow his advice and would be back at her trade the minute he left. He went home in a daze.

Father’s reputation was solidly and firmly established, but not for the obvious reason. No one had expected the prostitute to survive; as far as the Sertanejos were concerned, the fact that she’d done so was not so much Father’s work as a miracle straight from God. No, what had impressed them deeply was the fact that the Missionario Doutor had been so calm and nonchalant about the situation that he’d actually whistled as he stitched her up. Both the patient and her mother had been dumbfounded by this and believed that if the “Doutor” whistled, it was because he was supremely confident about the outcome of his ministrations and that there was no cause for concern. Stitching up a badly lacerated prostitute was obviously small potatoes to him. They marvelled at his self-assurance and composure, finding it extremely reassuring.

What they didn’t know (and Father never told them) was that whenever he was scared out of his mind and desperately unsure of himself, Father tried to disguise the fact by – whistling!

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Note The fact that Father’s patient survived is remarkable. However, there is an explanation of sorts for her extraordinary recovery. Due to the complete lack of medical care, atrocious hygiene, malnutrition, poverty and above all ignorance, child mortality was extremely high in the Sertão. Those who did survive had been exposed to every sort of disease, resulting in an unusually strong constitution and immunity to just about everything. In the Sertão, the law of the jungle applied with a vengeance – only the fittest survived.