Gwennie's Girl Page 7

  Finally, the men headed back to the truck. But not to the cabin. They went to the back and began to pull open the big double doors. ‘This is it!’ hissed Johnny. ‘Get down! Get down!’ He had the gun pointed at the two old men.

  Lizzie and Hester watched as the driver (the linguist) pulled out a large flat box and came back to them. He bowed and handed it to Lizzie saying, in the most courtly fashion, ‘Jane has a cat,’ with another smile. Then he and his friend got back into the truck and waved pointedly to Johnny, who, yes, was still crouched, almost half-hidden behind the car, and they slowly drove past in the direction of Armenia and Yerevan.

  ‘Smugglers,’ said Johnny as he put his gun away.

  ‘Nougat,’ said Lizzie as she looked into the box. ‘Great nougat.’

  She passed the box to Hester, and they chomped their way happily through the delicious honey and pistachio cubes. Johnny’s eyes lit up greedily. He took three pieces and got back into the car, where he demolished most of the contents within the next fifteen minutes.

  They made their way through the rest of the Corridor with no shelling and no snipers. Johnny assured them that his “intelligence” had informed him this would be a good time to travel. Whether this were true or not, he had certainly brought them through safely. Their papers were finally passed by the soldiers at the barriers, and they made their way through the streets of small towns and villages. Everywhere there was massive destruction. A small crowd cried and prayed at a fresh grave in a tiny cemetery. In one street, there were a few stalls with women trying to sell old clothes and shoes. One young boy offered a few medical supplies, almost certainly from pilfered aid packages. There were a few vegetables. Three potatoes here. A turnip there, with a handful of carrots. Two jars of preserved beetroot nearby.

  They visited a church where some aid was stored and distributed. They went to what had been a city hall where again, some aid was stored and distributed but they were very small amounts out of the plane loads that had been dispatched by outside agencies. Johnny talked about the difficulties involved in moving supplies from Armenia into Ngoro-Karabagh and of how it was only possible because he had such good friends in the military, because he knew how to handle them, how to get what was needed so supply trucks were not taken by the bandits. That all sounded reasonable. There were always some pay-offs in situations of war in order to get aid to those who really needed it, usually the women, children and old people. But, so far, they had seen very little getting to those groups. Where was the rest going?

  Johnny took them to a hospital. Here, he was welcomed with lots of backslapping and “good-old-boy” camaraderie. All the patients were men and most of the staff was men, some of whom wore military clothing. Lizzie and Hester were told over and over what a great man Johnny was, how much he helped the hospital, how he could get them supplies when no one else could and Johnny was given a list of things needed most urgently.

  Lizzie did not like the feel of this situation, and from the look on Hester’s face, she was sharing the same disquiet. Johnny talked excitedly to the senior staff, while there were looks at the two women and some laughter, until they were shown into a room with a video recorder and screen set in one corner. ‘We shall show you our work.’ Johnny and the medical director (that’s what he seemed to be) exchanged grins as the film began to roll.

  Bloody hell! It’s an operation, all blood and guts. He is picking up a saw. Amputation. Bloody, bloody hell! These bastards are showing us a very-not-prettied-up amputation in a field hospital. Look at those grins. Bastards. Shit Bastards. They expect us to be squeamish and faint or throw up. And they could be right. I can’t look away. But I can’t look. If I close my eyes, they will know. Oh bugger! Bugger! What can I do? Stare below the screen. That’s it. Glaze your eyes a bit and focus on the button of the VCR underneath the screen. Gotcha! Now there is a technicolour blur of blood and bones just out of focus. Don’t think about it. Stay cool. Stay calm. Keep your face expressionless. Focus on the button. Focus on the button. I wonder what Hester is doing? Break concentration just for a flash. The boys are grinning and just about dribbling at the sight of all that gore. Hester seems to be fascinated. She must have found that button too. Back to it, Lizzie. Do not, do not, let your eyes drift up to that screen.

  ‘You see what is happening, ladies?’

  Johnny, you are an arse-hole.

  ‘Hmmm…’

  ‘It is interesting, isn’t it, ladies?’

  ‘Hmmm…’

  Bloody hell again! Hester is asking questions. How long does the procedure take? What is the success rate? How many patients? What sorts of wounds? Is it possible she is actually watching this stuff? It was possible.

  She said later that she had always been interested in watching things like that. She did find it fascinating.

  Once outside again, Lizzie was able to concentrate too as she just closed her mind to the images she had glimpsed. Of course, it was a military hospital. Johnny was so anxious to play the big man that he had given the game away. At first, he answered all the questions about number of wounded, location of field hospitals, transport etc. Then, it dawned on him and, hurriedly, he said the hospital also treated civilians, which was why he provided supplies. There were no civilians in sight. Certainly no women or children. Those people went to another hospital, Johnny assured them, ‘Of course, that hospital gets help too, lots and lots of help.’

  Could they visit that other hospital?

  ‘Maybe. It was late now. It would not be good to spend all their time just visiting hospitals.’

  He could assure them it got lots of supplies. ‘Right now, Johnny.’ Lizzie wanted to see that other hospital, now. ‘I would like to see it too,’ said Hester.

  There was more prevarication from Johnny and more insistence from Lizzie. Sulkily, he slammed back into the car and drove to another building. Even from the outside, the contrast was marked. Both places had washing out but here it was threadbare and discoloured. There were no vehicles in these grounds. Women, children and old men sat quietly as though they had been waiting for hours. Most of the staff (but not all) were women, and there were no shiny uniforms, shoes were old and worn. The visitors were taken to the Director’s office.

  Later, Lizzie wrote:

  The hospital had been bombarded fourteen times—with extensive damage sustained. The director, who was a doctor, shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘Every time we start again from scratch.’ Staff worked, delivering babies and caring for patients in the basement. They “came up” when attacks seemed to have stopped. Equipment is limited because much has been destroyed in the bombings. There have been numerous caesarean deliveries, “sometimes in the mud”. Staff have to use lamps—and kerosene is urgently needed. As always, many babies choose darkness hours to enter the world.

  The doctor continued, ’There is an Azeri woman here. We are treating her like one of us. What is the guilt of the woman? When villages were cleared out, they did everything—rape, cutting out babies from wombs, cutting off hands and ears. One woman was covered in every part of her body with cigarette burns. The Red Cross deals with those things. It is bad. It is war.’

  During goodbyes, Lizzie remarked on some little wild flowers on the desk in the midst of obvious struggle and suffering, and the director smiled, ‘It was Women’s Day yesterday.’

  As they left the building, Lizzie and Hester exchanged glances behind Johnny. From now on, they would be watchful of this smart little operator who seemed to like playing toy soldier.

  The light was beginning to fade as they drove to another section of the city. They arrived at a three-storied building that had obviously been shelled but was still reasonably intact. They climbed over rubble and found a staircase that led to the second floor where a man and a woman greeted them. Johnny handed over a small parcel, and the woman kissed his hand gratefully. She smiled at Lizzie and Hester and showed them to a room that still had an unbroken window and a door that went out to a small balcony. In the twilight,
it was possible to imagine what this community must once have been like. There was a church half-built which had not been shelled, just not been finished at the time when fighting broke out. Now, it stood waiting. In the debris, were broken flowerpots and an old clotheshorse probably used for drying washing on another balcony. There were no lights and darkness came quickly.

  Lizzie returned to the room to see an old kerosene tin in which a small fire was now smoking, and on the floor were three straw mattresses that looked and smelled damp. The woman had boiled some water on the fire, and she now handed Lizzie a cup of gritty black tea. There was a slice of bread and a chunk of dry cheese for each of them. The woman looked apologetic. Lizzie tried to smile her thanks and understanding, because although it had been a long time since Lizzie and Hester had eaten, she guessed it was longer for the woman. The woman’s eyes filled with tears, and she shrugged hopelessly.

  A little later, she showed Lizzie and Hester another room with a bucket. There was no running water, just a small bowl on the floor beside the bucket, and the woman was vehement in miming that they must not drink it nor put it near their mouths. Lizzie managed as best she could in the darkness with her tiny pencil torch and then groped her way back to the first room.

  This was also completely dark except for the last embers of the smoking fire. It was very smoky because the man had just put another piece of wood into the tin and it must have been damp too. Lizzie and Hester looked at each other. ‘Do we freeze or get smoked?’

  They decided to take the smoke. They each chose a mattress, kicked off their shoes and settled down to try and get some sleep. Quiet settled in the room, a quiet that was soon shattered. Not by bombs or screaming. It was shattered by Johnny’s snoring. Never before or since had Lizzie ever, ever experienced snoring like Johnny’s snoring. The old floorboards running from beneath his mattress to beneath Lizzie’s seemed to vibrate. In fact, Lizzie would not have been surprised if the walls had not finally tumbled down upon them. Never, never, had a man, woman or creature snored like Johnny snored. And it went on and on and on until she thought she would scream. On and on and on. Lizzie groped for her torch and shone it on the sleeping, snoring figure. Bloody hell! He had his gun in his hand and was clutching it to his chest. What if it went off? It was possible with the force of those snores. Bloody, bloody Hell! He could kill one of them and it probably wouldn’t be himself, more’s the pity. What in the name of all things holy, should she do? Could she do?

  Lizzie switched off the torch and lay in the darkness. The snoring continued. Radar was probable picking up the vibrations. Did radar pick up vibrations? They wouldn’t need radar. They could trace them with the naked ear. What was the opposite of a naked ear? A dressed ear? The snoring went on and on and on, and Lizzie could feel herself getting slightly hysterical. She was hungry, cold and tired. What the fuck was she doing here? Why was she not sitting on a couch somewhere with Sam, eating chocolates and watching television? The snoring went on and on and on. What the hell could she do to that man with his gun?

  Out of the darkness came a very civilised voice, ‘Lizzie, you’re an Australian. Why don’t you just thump him?’

  So Lizzie did.

  He didn’t shoot anyone. There was a brief lull, and then the snoring started again. It was a long cold night.

  As the light came up, they dragged themselves out from under their coats and back into their boots. They took it in turns to visit the bucket as the man and the woman were rekindling the fire. There was no tea this morning. The man handed round a small bottle of brown liquid. Johnny gulped it quickly. Hester took a few sips. Lizzie swallowed. She choked. It was firewater.

  Johnny grabbed the bottle again. ‘It’s brandy. Something like brandy. They make it locally. Drink up. It will get you going.’

  It certainly did. Lizzie was known as the cheapest drunk in Australia because she simply could not hold much alcohol and this was almost straight spirit she figured. She had hesitated but then she saw breakfast. The woman had put a piece of metal over the top of the can where the fire smouldered, and on to the metal, she broke three eggs. Eggs were like gold in this situation so it was a very generous gesture. But Lizzie’s stomach heaved. She hated eggs that were not well cooked, that had even a hint of white “slime” around them and these were just warm, no sign of cooking, as the woman scraped them onto three tin plates. She was looking pleased that she had this luxury to offer the guests. Lizzie offered hers back signalling that the woman might like it. Bad move. The woman looked hurt. This was a valuable offering. On an empty stomach, with another mouthful of “brandy” to help it along, Lizzie ate the slimy warm, raw egg. She smiled her thanks then silently told herself, Do not throw up. Do you hear? Do not throw up. I know this is a war zone with important things happening, but please, please, please Lizzie do not throw up.

  As the day progressed, she was glad she had eaten something. That egg was probably better than the grubby bread that was the only other thing on offer. Or maybe, the “brandy” wasn’t such a bad idea.

  For that day and the next, they visited refugees and distribution points. Everywhere people were in dire need. The contents of aid parcels were being eked out. With no electricity, urban dwellers were having to gather what wood they could find and use that for a little warmth and, at least, boiling water. Blocks of apartments had no running water. Even the luckiest people still had to carry buckets or cans up the flights of stairs. Water is heavy. The elderly suffered most. One old lady explained that she could only get a little bread every now and then and it became very hard and stale as she tried to make it last. She had no teeth, a fact which she demonstrated by slapping her gums so the only way to eat the hard, dry bread was to soak it in water, which had to be carried and boiled over a fire of wood that also had to be carried.

  For many of the women, lice were a problem as they had no soaps or medication to control what was brought back by their sons, husbands and brothers who occasionally had leave or who came back for nursing when they had been wounded. Caring for the sick men-folk was a major burden. Apart from the practical issues of how to feed them and keep them warm, there was the emotional burden of watching them suffer without the means to help them.

  The irony was, as Lizzie had often found it, the soldiers were, at least, reasonably well dressed and well shod. But men who had lost limbs could often not even get crutches let alone prosthetics or counselling and in cramped, hungry, cold quarters family groups suffered bitterness and anger as well as physical privation. Young teenaged girls and boys who were not yet old enough to go to the army were often sullen and rebellious. They couldn’t study, they were burdened with carrying and working all day, and they had little or no concept that anything would ever change. They wanted more than war. They wanted their futures. Some, at least, wanted the glamour and excitement they thought the soldiers experienced and few understood the realities of fear and pain in the actual fighting. ‘That would be nothing’, they often shrugged, ‘compared to living here with nothing and only the children and the old people.’

  They were children themselves, and Lizzie could see the fear in the eyes of their mothers and grandmothers. No one spoke much about AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases but they were there among the women whose men came home even for visits. Condoms were a luxury in communities where just surviving from one day to the next was the main challenge.

  In the middle of all this, of making lists of what could be most usefully brought in to help, of finding how to reach those most in need, Lizzie saw many women who kept themselves and their families going by maintaining whatever order was possible in the chaos. In a partially destroyed apartment, the remaining inhabited rooms would be swept and neat. One very young woman with two sons had a piece of plastic over a three-legged table propped on a pile of bricks. She kept wiping the piece of plastic as she talked. She would break off sometimes and comb her fingers through the children’s hair, pushing the too long strands back behind their ears. She too pleaded for so
ap and powder for the lice. On the windowsill, there was an old tin can filled with soil, and growing in it was one gloriously golden tulip. Please someone let her get some relief before that strand of hopefulness fades.

  In one building, a small crowd gathered around them and yelled, almost screamed, their desperation. They had received one aid parcel each but that was months ago. Didn’t people care about them? Had everyone forgotten them? Johnny tried to hurry them away, but Lizzie and Hester stayed to listen. Where was all the aid going if not to people such as these? One woman on the edge of the crowd stood silent with her arms folded tightly against her chest, and as Lizzie moved towards her, the woman began to talk in simple English. The woman’s face was stern and grim as she explained that there were old people who could not even leave their beds and others were caring for them as well as their own families. But people’s kindness was becoming as strained as their resources and these old folk might just be left to die alone. Lizzie could see the woman’s strength, could see her exhaustion, see tears. The woman held out her hands and Lizzie took them. And then the tears really flowed in a pool of silence that spread out from them to the surrounding group. The woman leant closer and put her head next to Lizzie’s. Saying nothing, they stood, just two women together.