The calypsonians kept their commentary going on the time; words for an era. The Doctor’s House was a buzz of humming and singing, replacing the ban on carnival by the governor. Theo kept up with the calypsos of the day. ‘Hand me the papers let me read the news, because ah puzzle and I’m so confused.’

A month later, the first rains stitching the sky, veiling the hills, bringing the pouis’ flowers to the ground, the almonds dropping fast, thudding on the sand along the beach at Saint Damian’s, they heard the news on the BBC, that the Germans had entered Paris.

‘France after fighting desperately, Got retarded and surrendered to Germany.’ The fishermen were the calypsonians.

Over at the convent, the nuns processed to the chapel for special prayers. ‘Custodi me Domine, de manu pecatoris.’ Keep me, O Lord, from the hand of the wicked.

The younger sisters cried openly at the hospital for days after the news of the invasion of France, and then after the fall of Paris. The patients now tried to comfort their nurses.

 

The advance of armies had the fourteen-year-old Theo racing up to his room. The black Swastika crayoned in its white circle, on its red background, was pinned to the wall, stuck in the centre of Paris.

Theo had a way of showing which countries had fallen under the Germans, by laying out their flags flat against the wall. The Swastika and Union Jack were erect. ‘Blutfahne,’ he whispered adjusting the pin. Vincent could not believe, sometimes, the words he came out with. ‘Blood banner.’

Instead of filling the night with his own stories, Vincent found him awake, torch under the blanket and earphones on, attached to his crystal set, absorbed by the language of war, the crackle of Morse. Then the tricolore was lain flat.

‘Run your run, Adolph Hitler, run your run…’ he whistled and buzzed about.

‘Come Theo, we need to get off. Remember you promised to go by Singh today. You mustn’t ride Cervantes hard. He’s only a small donkey.’ Vincent watched him flying about the house.

He would not leave till he had done his chores. He busied himself while talking to Vincent. ‘Who go clean this place, tell me.’ He had refused to give up his household work, even on the days he was over at Saint Damian’s.

Vincent had overheard him last week. ‘We don’t need servant here, Miss Beatrice.’

A lot of his time was taken up with the maintenance of the vast theatre of war in his room which was taking the place of the 1937 Riots. A collage of newspaper cuttings could be seen between the cracks of maps with intriguing juxtapositions: Marcus Garvey and Jesse Owens disappearing behind Abyssinia, while a boatload of Jewish refugees landed on the jetty at Nelson Island, on a torn photograph from the Porta España Gazette.

The clinic, where Vincent and Thérèse worked at their research, was quiet, except for the rain dripping into the drain below. She could see him out on the verandah smoking. His khaki figure stood, looking away from her, blowing the cigarette smoke out to the bay. They were embarrassed to meet each other.

She bent her head to the microscope, examining her latest cultures of mycrobacterium leprae. She worked now to forget their kiss at Salt Pond. She worked not to imagine what was happening to herself. She lost herself in the secret life of the bacillii which created so much havoc in her patients’ lives.

A macabre silence surrounded her.

Vincent came in off the verandah.

‘I expect there’ll be no more letters now,’ she said abruptly.

He looked at her, unable to offer reassurance, and at a loss about their newly declared feelings. She did not meet his eyes.

‘I don’t know what to say. I don’t know.’ He could not hold her now.

‘Everything has changed,’ she declared.

‘Everything?’ He was unsure whether she was referring to them or to her father.

Then she was distracted again. She continued with her research. ‘Look.’ She pointed far out into the gulf where there was a glimpse of Nelson Island. ‘History, odd, called after a British Admiral, now a camp for my people. You, know what the calypsonians have been saying. The way they are coming all of them, Will make Trinidad a new Jerusalem.’ Vincent smiled at her rendition of the calypso.

‘You’re still kept awake by the fishermen?’ Vincent tried to catch her eye.

‘I take my doctor’s remedy. I take aconitum nappellus and sleep.’

‘No matter the ships that pass in the night?’ he asked.

Vincent’s question reminded her of their intimacy. She pulled away. Could not allow herself to be reminded. He was the doctor, and she was again his research assistant.

Neither of them recalled their time at the edge of Salt Pond. That, too, became part of the present silence. She had not taken his hand. He had not folded his over hers.

The present silence became part of the darkness which descended with the monsoon. It became part of the great silence of the sea. ‘Le silence de la mer,’ Thérèse said to herself.

‘What?’ Vincent asked, looking across from his desk. ‘Did you say something?’ Thérèse looked up. They both looked sad with longing.

She checked herself and repeated, ‘Le silence de la mer.’ They both looked out over the bay, into the gulf.

She retreated, he guessed, into her worry about her father. He could almost imagine her reverie.

‘Do you believe in evil?’ Thérèse broke her silence, looking up from her microscope and the notes she was making on the pad beside her.

‘Evil?’ Vincent questioned. Where was this leading?

‘Yes, an absolute source of evil, as there is an absolute source of good,’ she elaborated.

‘I’m not sure I understand that. If, as you argue, God is all powerful then he must be powerful over evil. Anyway, without getting into metaphysical tangles, no, I don’t. Not sure I believe in an absolute source of good, anyway.’ He did not want to be talking about this.

‘How do you explain?’

Vincent moved to the door of the pharmacy and lit a cigarette. He felt he had to go out. He drew deeply, inhaled and blew the smoke into the distance. He turned at the door.

‘I observe and believe that people commit bad acts, wrong acts. If we call them evil and monsters we give up the chance to understand why it is that people like ourselves commit these acts.’ He could hear himself lecturing. What were they doing? Why was he saying all of this? ‘We need to understand history. We need to understand nature. Charles Darwin, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud? They describe Nature and there’s no God and no Devil in Nature. We need to understand why we commit bad acts ourselves.’

‘What is a bad act?’ She was facing him now.

‘What do you mean? One that harms ourselves and others.’ He was impatient with this conversation.

‘You’re thinking of the children?’ Thérèse looked to see the reaction on his face.

‘I wasn’t actually, at that moment. I was thinking… What were you thinking about anyway?

She blushed. ‘A bad act could be…’ she hesitated.

‘But I’ve wondered,’ he cut her off. ‘Of course, of course, I’ve wondered more than once. How possibly even Ti-Jean could’ve stoked the fire.’

‘There are other kinds of bad acts.’

‘I thought you might be thinking of the war. Of your father.’

‘I wasn’t then. I was… I was earlier. Sounds like you think we’re left to ourselves to sort things out.’

‘Ourselves? Sort things out?’ He looked at her. She lowered her eyes. They were skirting around each other. ‘Pretty well. With history and nature and, of course, reason and science.’

‘Yes. I know about all of that, but I also meant us.’ She looked directly at him.

He stood next to her desk. He reached out to anchor some papers which were fluttering in the breeze. He could smell her. She put her hands into her sleeves.

Vincent started his lecture again. ‘We need to find the reasons in history, in personal history, in political history. Science and nature guide us there. Not comfort ourselves with hypothetical absolutes which are responsible for how things are.’ He could hear himself again. He wanted to kiss her.

‘Personal history?’ Thérèse broke off from her work abruptly. They were both feeling they did not know how to talk to each other.

The Angelus sounded. She stood and prayed. Vincent continued with his work, impatient. The bell for the sisters’ lunch summoned her. She tidied her papers.

‘Such order.’ She turned at the door and looked at him.

‘There’s so much disorder.’ There was longing in her eyes.

‘Or it is just how things are?’ he differed.

‘We don’t agree,’ she said emphatically.

‘We might? Will you be back after lunch?’ He checked his wooing tone.

She smiled, brushing her veil from her face.

‘This Chaulmoogra Oil, more headache than it worth.’ Vincent had a view through the window from the verandah into the pharmacy. He waited for a moment before entering. Singh and Theo were sitting at the work counter. They had their backs to him. ‘This have side effects.’ Theo was looking on intently as Singh prepared the tray to be used for the afternoon’s treatment.

‘The skin get pulpy and inflamed, yes?’ Theo repeated.

‘That’s right. You listen well.’

‘You think the patients get some help, because it work like a placebo.’ Theo went over his lesson.

‘You have the correct terminology. You learning quick,’ Singh praised the boy.

‘I does pick up vocabulary fast.’

Vincent smiled at Theo’s eagerness. He did not want to eavesdrop, but he did not want to interrupt the science lesson.

‘What we want is new medicine.’

‘I frighten when I look at them, you know. When they have sores, and deformed hands and feet.’

‘You mustn’t fear that, man.’ Singh was talking as an equal to the boy. ‘They will feel bad if you show that. As I tell you, you have to understand what you seeing.’

‘So, if this not really helping them…’ Theo pointed to the Chaulmoogra Oil preparations.

‘Well, is what the doctor say. Hygiene and care. Clean bandages.’

‘How that go help that look in their face. Those stumps? What you call it? Claw hands?’ Theo began to bend his fingers to illustrate his horror. ‘Short short fingers. The way they hand bend so. No thumb, bones sticking out. Septic wounds! You hear that! More vocabulary I learn.’

Vincent did not have the heart to walk in and interrupt. He left the verandah. As he did so, he heard Singh. ‘Colonial contempt and religious superstition, too many documents and prayers.’ He stopped in his tracks. He had to wait to hear what Theo was going to make of this first lesson in politics.

‘Oh gawd! What’s the time? I suppose to meet Doctor in the clinic for lunch,’ Theo shouted.

‘Go then. Come back after your lunch. I go teach you some more.’

Vincent returned to the door of the pharmacy and met Theo as he came out onto the verandah. ‘Eh, eh, I was just coming to see what you were up to.’

Singh followed Theo out. ‘Checking up on your boy. In case I lead him astray.’ He put his hand on Theo’s shoulder. ‘Bright, you know?’

‘I learn science and thing, you know,’ Theo enthused.

‘Good, good. Thought you must be starving.’

Theo went down into the yard.

‘Easy on the politics, eh?’ Vincent said to Singh as he walked off, following Theo.

‘So you was really checking up on me.’

Vincent smiled. ‘Keep to the science.’

‘That alone not going to save us. You know that.’

‘He’s a vulnerable boy, Singh. Young.’

‘You know what I was doing at fourteen. Lighting fire in the cane. Sabotage on the estate. Golconda had the record in the riots.’

Vincent looked to see if Theo was within earshot. ‘You know what I mean. Take it easy. I’ll deliver him safely after lunch.’

‘You still have a lot to learn, Doc.’ Singh looked at Vincent searchingly. ‘I have more story.’

After lunch, Vincent and Thérèse were back in the clinic and Theo had rejoined Singh in the pharmacy.

Gertrude Palmer, one of the very needy patients, entered the clinic. Vincent could not contain himself as he saw her walking in. ‘Gertrude, Gertrude! What’re you doing?’ He checked his irritable tone. Gertrude had walked in on the end of her tibia. When he examined her he found bits of gravel and leaves wedged in the marrow cavity. ‘Gertrude, Gertrude!’ His voice was more sympathetic.

He and Thérèse exchanged looks and smiled. Gertrude left happier for her new dressing. Vincent and Thérèse threw up their arms in despair.

‘Totally anaesthetised!’ Vincent screamed.

‘A kind of amnesia, isn’t it?’

‘Those messages just not getting through.’ Vincent paced the clinic.

‘She sauntered in completely indifferent to pain.’

‘Seemingly without any instinct for self-preservation.’

‘Nerves, the peripheral nerves all gone!’

‘He jests at scars who never felt a wound,’ Vincent said.

Thérèse looked up, inquiringly. ‘Yes?’

‘Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.’

‘Doctor,’ she said teasingly. ‘A literature scholar?’

‘We’ve got to understand how these channels of transmission, how that wiring has been impaired. Otherwise, we’re doomed to sores, ulcers, leaking blisters, sepsis, and necrotic tissue! A nursing and doctoring of bandages and more bandages. Chaulmoogra Oil for another century!’ They both collapsed laughing into their chairs.

‘Madeleine,’ he leant over to take her hand. ‘Sorry.’

‘No, no, Vincent. What are we going to do?’ She took his hand. They heard a sister passing in the corridor outside.

‘We’ll think of something,’ they said together, encouraging each other.

‘Something?’ Thérèse, more serious, asked. ‘Something?’

‘You’re the one with the faith, Sister.’ Vincent smiled. They were talking about themselves and their research. ‘We’ll experiment. Science will work with nature.’

‘Where has reason and science brought us?’ she asked another kind of question.

Vincent knew that Thérèse had moved onto the war. She didn’t really believe that. ‘That’s lunacy.’

‘Yes, we think so. My father thought that. But look. A lot of science and culture, and philosophers of reason, are brought into the service of this vision, their lunatic vision.’

Vincent could see that Thérèse was getting sad again. ‘Thérèse.’ He was going to put his hand over hers, but restrained himself.

‘I know.’

‘Let’s get back to work.’

‘Where were we?’

The afternoon had disappeared. ‘I need to get Theo back. We’ll continue later. Can you work late?’

‘I’ll see what Mother Superior says.’ Her eyes said what her heart was telling her.

On the way back to the clinic. Vincent looked in on Singh. He entered the pharmacy without knocking. ‘Oh, sorry, I forgot Theo said you had another student.’ Singh and Christiana leapt to their feet as he entered. They had been sitting close to each other reading from a pharmaceutical manual. The girl hurried from the room. ‘You don’t have to go,’ he called as she ran along the verandah.

‘Come back later,’ Singh called after her. ‘She shy.’ Singh stood at the door.

‘I see. Well. How did it go with Theo?’

‘Good man. He does learn fast.’

‘Christiana? Not sure why she’s still here. I haven’t found any signs of the illness,’ Vincent commented.

‘She herself knows that, and is scared now.’

‘Maybe we need to get her back home. How old is she?’

‘Sixteen.’ Singh looked embarrassed.

‘Must get back to the clinic. Sister Thérèse is waiting.’

‘Good. I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said, relieved.

Back at the clinic Vincent and Thérèse picked up where they had left off. The evening came on quickly. The kerosene lamp hummed and spluttered, as moths torpedoed themselves at the glass lantern unable to learn a lesson in injury. ‘We need to operate. I need to do an autopsy. I need hands,’ Vincent was saying.

‘Where’ll we operate?’

‘Here. Maybe in Porta España.’

‘Will they let you take the body there? Will they bring the operating theatre here?’

‘We could. I don’t see why not. What a memorial to life if a patient’s hands gave us the evidence we need.’

‘It’ll need to be a day on which the ice arrives. When we have plenty ice.’

‘If I’m called right away, we can operate quickly, before putrefaction. But we’re running before we can walk.’ Vincent slowed himself down.

‘What do you mean?’

‘We need to look at hands. We need to examine many hands, before we can think of operating. What are we looking for?’

They were both exhausted. The night ticked outside beyond the hum of the kerosene lantern. Vincent watched Thérèse’s hands on the desk. Then she put them under her scapular like a good nun. They sat in silence.

‘Hmm,’ Vincent sighed.

Thérèse looked up. Their eyes found each other’s. They smiled. Thérèse got up and started tidying her desk.

Vincent went out the screen door onto the verandah and lit a cigarette. It glowed like a firefly. Thérèse could see his face in the glow when he pulled on it. It went dark again, as he flicked the ash on the zinnia beds.

They were both thinking that they should not find themselves like this, alone, alone at night with each other.

At the end of the verandah was the night sister in her cubicle, where Thérèse would be sleeping.

When Thérèse came onto the verandah, Vincent was almost in total darkness. She bumped into him.

‘Off to bed?’ he asked.

‘Yes. I don’t like not being at the convent. In my own cell.’

‘Yes, I understand. I like to get home too.’ He did not sound convincing.

‘How long does it take?’

‘Depends on Cervantes.’

‘My father’s favourite author.’

‘He’s a good donkey. Not sure how he got his name.’

‘Take care.’ She put her hand on the bannister of the verandah, and inadvertently touched his. ‘Sorry.’

But she did not move it. Vincent removed his hand and placed it on top of hers. They stood like that for what seemed an eternity to both of them. They could hardly see themselves in the darkness.

Vincent had thrown away his cigarette. It smouldered on the ground. She smelt the tobacco on his breath.

Further away, they could hear the surf on the beach below.

Where was she? Vincent thought. As he pulled Thérèse towards him, he felt her voluminous sleeves, her scapular, her veil and the rosary hard at her side. His hands moved up to her face. He wanted to touch her body. The wildest thought was to get his hands under her skirt. She was running her hands up his arms.

She was giving into her passion, as she broke through the buttons of his shirt to his chest, running her hands through the hair there. Resting her head on his chest, smelling him. It made it easier for her that she could hardly see him. They could both pretend that it wasn’t happening, because they could not see each other.

‘Madeleine,’ Vincent whispered as he found her lips which were wet, and not cracked as they had been at Salt Pond.

‘Vincent…’

A screen door opened at the end of the verandah, throwing a shaft of light along the floor. A ward nurse came out and stood in the light. Vincent and Thérèse could see her, but she could not see them. They remained absolutely still, in each others’ arms. To break from each other would have disturbed the gloom, and the ward nurse might have seen the movement of shadows. She had come out for air. She returned and the screen door banged shut behind her.

‘I must go,’ said Thérèse.

‘Yes, me too. I must go home.’ He watched her disappear along the verandah. For how long could they continue with these kisses, this holding of hands? To talk about it would be to let it take a place alongside their work and the rest of their lives.

Mounting Cervantes, Vincent thought he saw Singh in the shadows behind the stores with someone else. He could not see who it was.