Jean-Marc spotted his wife, the vibrant woman he’d crossed an ocean with in order to save the world, her blue skirt flapping in the stiff breeze. They oftentimes met out here when they coordinated their breaks. And sometimes they just ran into each other. Sharon laughed as she held a lively baby. Her fair skin seemed even more out of place than his freckles here in the African desert. The villagers affectionately called her Bahdria, the full moon, a nickname she privately adored.
Jean-Marc still couldn’t believe his good luck. Sharon Stewart had paid many times over for choosing to be his wife, casting her lot with a man who had no desire to amass fortunes. In the process she had shunned the immense wealth and comfort that had surrounded her since birth. Sharon was, for good or bad, William Stewart’s daughter, and it didn’t take Jean-Marc long to understand why she so desperately wanted to escape her life of privilege and start giving back to the world: his father-in-law had a reputation for being a ruthless businessman, someone capable of the worst fraud and trickery to get what he wanted.
And that, of course, made William’s motive to help their humanitarian efforts in Africa so easy to understand, because the only reason SharGro-Pharm agreed to bankroll any part of Jean-Marc and Sharon’s trip was in exchange for the necessary field-testing of new experimental drugs that would pad the products’ R&D and streamline the FDA’s necessary approval in order to put the medication in drugstores back home. But, no matter how bad Jean-Marc felt about his role in this deceit, all the other Big Pharma corporations had the same practices in place. At least this way, he told himself, he had some control over the supplier.
But in exchange for getting access to all this medication, and being the envy of many other doctors, Jean-Marc’s complicity sullied his soul, if not his reputation.
Wikipedia explained how William Stewart was a genius chemist who built the Canadian pharmaceutical corporation out of nothing, twenty years earlier with the business acumen of his college friend Stephen Damiano, and that he still maintained tight-fisted control over the day-to-day operations. Beyond that, internet rumors also detailed some of the craziness associated with William, labeling him a demon that could destroy a researcher if a project didn’t pan out into marketable products.
Jean-Marc could vouch for this from first-hand experience: the rumors were all too painfully true.
William Stewart had the distinction of being the only man able to embarrass Jean-Marc about his pedestrian background and therefore his unworthiness of Sharon’s love. According to his father-in-law, if Sharon absolutely had to get married, which she hadn’t, William would have wanted her to marry someone more ambitious—definitely somebody more blue-blooded than this working-class Québecois medical student who did the unspeakable by eloping with his daughter—and if she had to be drawn to medical types, only a Robert Jarvik would do as a potential suitor, an innovator and pioneer in the field of medicine, just as William thought himself to be.
Father and son-in-law had experienced their share of heated arguments and Jean-Marc had to admit the intimidating entrepreneur had almost convinced him that he wasn’t good enough for his daughter. “With that mountain of student debt still to be paid back, how do you think you’ll ever finance a private practice and be able to meet all of Sharon’s needs?” William had challenged him one night over brandies. “She grew up with everything. What can you give her?”
“Just my love, sir,” Jean-Marc replied, his face burning with anger and shame.
Still, he had taken William’s words to heart and, on the eve of their first wedding anniversary, Jean-Marc had almost left Sharon. That is, until she’d put a stop to her father’s foolish bullying.
She revealed her plan.
With Sharon acting as mediator, they reached a tentative truce: Jean-Marc would do what he loved doing, which was healing people. And Sharon, with her Political Science and Business degrees, would help others re-build their war-torn lives. William would do his part and supply the couple with shipments of free SharGro-Pharm non-FDA approved experimental medicines. Stephen, William’s partner, would go along and oversee the delivery and distribution systems. The extra long-distance relationship with William turned out to be icing on the cake for both Sharon and Jean-Marc.
His reverie broken, Jean-Marc realized that he had crossed most of the compound. Sharon handed the grouchy baby back to its mother. He watched in horror as Sharon then leaned over the mortared edge of the well. He ran up and grabbed her arm, eliciting a yelp that echoed down the confined space.
“Sharon! Que fais-tu? Are you trying to kill yourself?” He spun her around, struck once again by the beauty of her gray eyes, shades darker when fueled by shock, or anger.
“Let go of me you—” When she recognized him, her eyes softened and she smiled. “Don’t be crazy, Jean-Marc! I’m just looking.”
“Well, be careful,” he scolded. His fingers still gripping her elbow, he pulled her away from the well.
She peeled his hand off. “I’m always careful. You know that. You worry too much about me.”
“I can’t help it,” he admitted as he looked into her fiery eyes. Were they glazed? Her hand felt warm, but in this 104-degree heat, it would.
“Why not?” she asked. She tore herself away from his clinical scrutiny.
“Because, madame Lalonde, I don’t have time today to fish you out of the well.”
“No?” Sharon raked her fingers through his hair and peeled a matted curl from his forehead. “Then tell me, doctor, what do you have time for?” She tilted her head to one side.
“Careful, chérie,” he whispered, resisting the temptation to wrap his arms around his wife and hold her close. Islamic modesty applied equally to foreigners as well as to the Sudanese. “You’ll have to wait until later to find out.”
“Mm . . . It’s a shame though, we can’t be up late tonight.”
“Why not? You’re not still feeling tired, are you? You look a bit feverish.”
“Not really,” she shrugged and turned away again.
Her reaction to his inquiry concerned him. He’d expected outright denial. Jean-Marc assumed a professional demeanor. “Look at me, Sharon. Are you experiencing any symptoms? Aches? Pains in your joints? Bleeding gums? You have to tell me if—”
“Jean-Marc, I’m fine,” she quipped. “Why do we have to keep going over this?”
“Well, then what—”
“Joseph Jean-Marc Lalonde! Don’t tell me that this blazing sun has baked your brain and you’ve forgotten what today is.”
The infant girl that Sharon had returned to her mother had taken an interest in him. He shrugged, scratched his head and made googly eyes. The mother ignored the wriggling baby as she talked with another woman. The child giggled and reached for Jean-Marc. He let her grasp a finger and she attempted to put it in her mouth.
“It’s Christmas Eve. Santa’s coming tonight,” Sharon cooed.
Jean-Marc retrieved his finger, grinned, and brushed his lips against his wife’s forehead. “Is it? Well, that’s great because I’ve been a very good boy this year.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” she said, laughing under her breath. She pressed her hands against his chest to push him back a step. “I love you, you know.” From her serious tone Jean-Marc could tell that the flirting, innocent as it had been, had reached an end.
He contemplated his wife’s distracted frown. “I’m sorry ma belle. We don’t have much time to be alone these days, do we?”
She tucked an errant strand of hair back under the head wrap. “It’s not that. This is what we signed up for. You know I’m perfectly happy being here with you, helping in any way we can. Besides, we have the nights to ourselves, mostly.”
“Yes, mostly.” He glanced at the crowd gathered around them. How many of them would be camping outside their tent? The patients’ moans and cries often kept him awake late into the night, rendering him too guilty to sleep and too tired to help. Risking censure by the local Taliban officials, he kissed the t
op of Sharon’s scarf-covered head again. “So what’s going on here?”
She sighed. “It’s like a bad comedy. We finally got the crank working but then we lowered the bucket and discovered the rope wasn’t long enough anymore for the bucket to reach the water. And then Tahoor . . . “ her glance led to the skinny pre-teen hiding among a group of boys some distance away, his red and white checkered shirt flapping in the wind, “ . . . thought he could get the bucket to reach the water by untying it from the crank. But then he leaned in too far, lost his balance, and dropped the rope.” Sharon retrieved the gurgling baby from its mother and patted the infant’s back as she gently swayed.
“You look good holding one of those,” Jean-Marc observed. He met the mother’s tired smile. Motherly pride transcended all cultural differences.
He peered back into the well. The sun, stuck directly overhead in the cloudless sky, sent bright rays into the darkness and he thought he spied the wooden pail floating on the water’s surface.
“There’s not much water in there.”
“We figure maybe about five feet, at best, to supply the whole village until either the water trucks arrive or the rains come,” Sharon replied.
He nodded. The villagers might pray to Allah for rain but they pinned their hopes on the NGO-sponsored water trucks.
“Well, I have to get back to that oven I call a clinic.” He straightened up and stretched his back, wincing at the popping of vertebrae.
“So soon?”
“Yes, so soon. I’ve got a million patients waiting for me.” He ran a finger across Sharon’s dirt-smudged forehead. “Get out of the sun before you burn, Bahdria.”
“But can’t you help fix this?”
“How? What do you want me to do? Dive down there?”
“No, but can’t you think of something? Anything?”
Jean-Marc turned the crank until it stuck on something and stopped. He released the wooden arm and stared into the well again. “First of all, the crank’s not fixed and I’m not a mechanical engineer so I can’t fix it. Secondly, I’m part Acadian, not Cherokee, so I can’t perform a rain dance, either. I’m at the mercy of the water trucks just like everybody else. I’m sorry Sharon, but I don’t know what you want me to do here.”
A look of disappointment darkened her face.
He gave the matter some thought and asked, “Can you get any longer lengths of rope?”
She shook her head. “Nope. Why does everything happen the minute Stephen leaves?”
“Murphy’s Law. No, make that Stephen’s Law. I suspect he plans it that way, so that he can return to save the day, just like a hero.”
She humored him. “Seems that way, doesn’t it? It’s so frustrating. It’s just a two-minute job to retrieve the rope. We’ll need water soon and who knows when he’ll get back with the supplies.”
Jean-Marc pulled a dirty handkerchief from the back pocket of his shorts. He wiped his brow, refolded the square cloth and returned it to his pocket. “Have you tried snatching the bucket with a pole and a hook?”
“Yes, but it couldn’t be done. The poles weren’t long enough or something.”
“Well, it’s not a two-minute job to go down there.” He sighed, reached for the handkerchief and wiped his brow again. “Listen, if Stephen and the others aren’t back in a few hours, I’ll do something about it.”
“No, you’re right. You have too much work,” Sharon admitted, her shoulders slumping. “And anyway, I don’t want you going down there. It’s not like the rock climbing wall at the gym.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I could do it, if I had to.”
“I don’t care. I said I don’t want you going down there.” Her eyes teared up and she looked away again.
“And you call me the worrier? Besides, you know I won’t stand by and let the village go without water. Even rationed water is better than no water, right?” He gave her cheek a chaste peck and took the opportunity to once again examine her glazed eyes. “Right now, you need to go get some water from the refugee base and get out of the sun. I’m sure you have plenty of paperwork to keep you busy until the sun goes down. If you can’t behave and listen to the doctor, he’ll be forced to leave Santa a letter itemizing all your naughtiness this year. You know Santa will trust the word of The People’s Doctor over that of a social worker.”
“Ha. Ha. Just go back to work!” Sharon smirked good-naturedly before turning around and immersing herself again in the group of women.
His broad steps led him across the compound and back to the lineup of restless patients. Before reentering the tent, he took one last look at Sharon, laughing as she now cradled two babies in her arms. He turned and helped the next patient enter the makeshift examination room: a bright-eyed teen who had lost his right leg in a machete attack and now faced a rabid infection.
* * *
A familiar metallic bleat announced the Jeep’s arrival in the village. Sharon completed the documentation of a haggard widow with three restless children in tow and rushed out of the Refugee Processing Center, eager to greet the crew and Stephen upon their return.
A rag-tag group of children raced past her to meet the white-haired man emerging from the dust-covered vehicle.
Although she eagerly wanted to see her godfather and best friend, Sharon slowed her pace to allow the man his fanfare. The children adored him as much as they loved Jean-Marc but Stephen always managed to do the impossible, like find some small treasure to bring back from his journeys. He had done the same for her when she’d been their age. If fairy godfathers existed, Stephen Damiano would be their king and role model. She would never understand how a good man like Stephen had ever teamed up with someone as ruthless as her father.
The children strafed her on their way back to the compound, their excited cries overlapping as they kicked a brand new soccer ball back and forth.
“Keep them out of trouble, Tahoor,” Sharon cautioned their leader. Her smile faded as she searched the horizon for the dust plumes of the other two trucks that had left the village to accompany Stephen on his errand. Nothing. What new hell could this be?
“Welcome home,” she said, approaching the vehicle. Stephen had returned with only his driver and, she peered into the back of the Jeep, two boxes.
Stephen forced a smile on his weary, unshaved face, and for the first time since the trio had landed in Africa a year earlier, he looked every day of his sixty-two years. Dressed in matching khaki shirt and shorts that revealed tanned, muscular calves, and wearing a pith helmet, he reminded Sharon of a stodgy British explorer, or a handsome movie actor playing the part of an explorer. She kissed his sunburned cheek and hugged him. “I’m glad you’re finally back. What happened to the rest of your motley crew?”
He gave her a dark look as he pulled off his hat and slapped it against his thigh, sending a puff of red dust into the wind. “I sent them off to track down the rest of the supplies which somehow managed to take an unexpected detour en route from the airport.” Anger clipped his words.
Sharon groaned. She knew well enough what had happened to the supplies. Everyone knew, but to publicly accuse the local government of corruption could be a foolish and dangerous act. “That’s two shipments now. Did they take all the meds again?”
He nodded as he stroked the white goatee and mustache framing his thin lips. “I’m sorry, Sharon. William will be livid when I tell him.”
“Hah! You know as well as I do that Dad could care less about the lost supplies. He’ll just write the whole shipment off as a business loss. In fact, he’ll probably make a tidy profit once his bloodsucking accountants are done reporting the theft to the insurance company.”
Stephen chuckled. He reached for one of the boxes in the back of the jeep. “Now, that’s not true, Sharon.”
“You’re right. There’s always a chance hell will freeze over before he can submit the claim.” She took the light box from him.
“You’re just like your mother,” he noted with his usual fondness.<
br />
“Really? I don’t remember her as well as I used to. She died so long ago.”
“Trust me, you are. You don’t just look like her, with all that dark hair and fair skin, you act and talk like her, too.”
She made no comment, and wondered yet again how she felt about growing up and becoming someone so familiar to others and so unknown to herself.
“So, what’s new here?” he asked.
“What do you want to know about first? The broken crank or the rope and bucket at the bottom of the well?”
Stephen squinted toward the compound some fifty yards away. “Give me a minute to clean up and then we’ll see what magic this old man can do,” he said, lifting up the other box from the back of the Jeep.
“This old man? You’re my superhero,” Sharon replied, thinking how Stephen regularly stood up to the raiding bands of rebels that threatened to steal U.N. food supplies. If anyone could set the world right, Stephen Damiano could. She’d bet a million of her trust-fund dollars on it. Heck, she’d bet the whole thing, down to the last penny.
* * *
Time in the Sudanese desert could be measured in a variety of ways. For Jean-Marc, he counted the hours by the number of patients he treated. The AIDS afflicted teen and her dying baby girl, his twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth patients of the day, equaled about three hours of work since his last break.
The girl left just as a hysterical woman barged into the tent. Jean-marc recognized her as the mother with the baby talking to Sharon earlier. The people in line raised their voices in unified outrage.
“Come! Come!” she cried. Grabbing Jean-Marc by the arm, she pulled him out of the tent and pointed at a crowd of animated bystanders surrounding the well.
Sharon! His heart skipped a beat as the memory of his wife leaning against the well brought him to a dead stop. He breathed more easily once he spotted her standing at the edge of the crowd, but the stricken look on her face hurried his steps.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“He’s going to drown!” Sharon cried. Frustration twisted her face.
Adrenalin spiked through his limbs. It wasn’t like his normally levelheaded wife to lose control of her emotions. He scanned the gathering. “Who’s going to drown?”