Flowers for Trudy

by Eva Bell

The shrill, ominous ringing of the telephone in the wee hours made me jump out of bed with a start. "This must be bad news from home," I thought, as my trembling hand picked up the receiver.

"Eva, are you there?" asked a feeble voice. "What a hassle getting connected! Still, I couldn't leave before I said goodbye."

Icy fingers squeezed the breath out of me. What had happened to Trudy? What had choked that warm exuberant voice into almost a whisper?

"Oh my God!" I thought. "She's very ill, and I didn't even know."

Only two days ago I had received her weekly missive, bulging with news of friends and happenings. I could actually visualize the twinkle in her eyes as she packed humor, suspense, drama and friendship into those pages, with the sole intent of bringing cheer into my claustrophobic existence in a Saudi Arabian hospital.

"Trudy, what's wrong with you? I never even knew you were ill," I cried.

"I didn't want you worrying about me, especially when there was no way you could come to see me, in the middle of your contract. I must assure you that I'm not afraid. I'm all set to meet my God. Now you be brave, and don't mourn for me. My last letter will reach you after I've gone."

"No Trudy, don't say that," I begged.

"Come on, be realistic. I'm sure my voice will tell you that I'm struggling for breath. It must be goodbye, my dearest friend."

I don't know how long I sat there cradling the receiver and weeping my heart out as my mind traveled back over an incredibly beautiful friendship that had spanned seventeen years.

She was 65 years old when I met her, and I was twenty years her junior. She was Swiss and I am Indian. We were temperamentally different, and though we concurred on most things, we had our differences. But she taught me that "friendship is going out of one's self and appreciating whatever is noble and loving in another."

Trudy Hunziker was a little over twenty-five when she arrived in India from Basel. It was 1944 and the end of World War II was nowhere in sight. Tall and sylph-like, with a beguiling smile and laughing blue eyes, this trained nurse/midwife had come to India under a missionary banner. She confessed that this was her escape from an insufferable father and a love affair that had gone sour. She had planned to stay for a year or two, until the bruise in her heart mended, but had stayed on for life--something she attributed to her karma!

Life was anything but beatific for this bright young woman. The mission hospital to which she was assigned was a small dilapidated bungalow that functioned on a shoe-string budget. In those days Udupi was a primitive village on the south-west coast of India, steeped in superstition, with a rigid caste hierarchy and a non-negotiable boundary between Brahmins and lower castes. The German missionaries had already established themselves along the coast with their schools, dispensaries, factories and churches.

For company, Trudy had four dowdy matrons, two from her own country and two from Germany. Staid and prudish, they were wrapped in an aura of "other-worldliness." Their attitude to the locals was at best patronizing. But Trudy was determined that she would not fit into their mold.

"I've come here to forget my own miseries, and no matter what, I'm going to enjoy myself."

I met Trudy long after she had retired from service. By then the hospital where she had worked had grown into a premier multi-disciplinary health facility, one of the best in the District. I had just returned from England with a postgraduate degree in Gynecology and Obstetrics and was planning to set up my own practice in my hometown, sixty miles away, but the hospital needed a Director cum Consultant Gyne/Obstetrician, and everyone including Trudy thought I was the best choice. By then all the missionaries had left the country, but Trudy had married an Indian so she stayed on.

I had been forewarned that Trudy had a domineering personality and could prove to be a thorn in my flesh through constant interference in the administration. She would try to influence me on important issues, and prejudice me in favor of or against staff members. These warnings made me wary and determined not to play into her hands.

But when I met her at the house of a mutual friend, I was clean bowled over. Her humor was irrepressible, her conversation lively and unaffected. There were interesting flashbacks of her life and work in the community. She talked of the early days when she struggled on a salary of sixteen rupees per month, which was barely sufficient for toiletry and postage.

"You won't believe this," she said laughingly, as she refused a helping of beans. "For weeks, all we had for lunch and dinner was string beans or aubergines. We were constantly falling ill, as there was hardly any protein in our diet, and meat was served just once a week."

Though I wanted very much to know her better, I was reluctant to make the first move.

One day I had had a particularly trying day at the hospital. The out-patient department was heavy, and the wards were full. With just two inexperienced house surgeons for help, I was literally working around the clock. But it was not the medical work that got me down so much as that my predecessors had left the administration in shambles. As I was inexperienced in that direction, it was driving me round the bend. One evening when I was almost tearing my hair out, Trudy arrived in her car.

"All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl," she said. "I'm taking you to the beach, even if I have to carry you away."

Lazing on the beach, with the breakers rolling at our feet and the sky a beautiful orange-gold, I realized that Trudy was very lonely. She desperately needed a friend, someone whom she could talk to as an equal, to discuss and argue, to laugh with or just let off steam.

"I've been very lonely since my colleagues went back home. You must wonder why I didn't go back myself. Well, that's another story, but just for your information, my husband is semi-literate and I have no intellectual stimulation of any kind. When I was employed, there just wasn't time to cultivate friends outside the hospital. All one could think of, at the end of the day, was sleep. As I grow older, I feel the need for a friend."

"Then we must meet as often as my work permits," I replied. "Running a hospital is no joke, and you with your vast experience can teach me a thing or two. I see that you've poured your life and soul into the hospital. This atmosphere is stifling, and I must confess that the thought of going back to the city has crossed my mind several times."

"You must stay," she said. "If only you knew the pioneering work that has gone into the making of this hospital! The sickness; the hunger pangs! Sometimes, I'd take my bicycle and ride furiously down to a village. A tribe lived there, in a cluster of huts. They were basket weavers, and on the pretext of learning how to weave, I'd visit them. Poor as they were, their hospitality could not be faulted. One of the men would scramble up a coconut tree and bring down a tender coconut. Making a hole on the top, he'd hand it to me and say, 'Nectar of the Gods, Ma'am! For you.' The juice was reviving, and the kernel, out of this world. It would ease the rumbling of my belly," she said, tears springing to her eyes.

Apart from her work at the hospital, Trudy was in charge of Community Health Care in six villages. Medical help was non-existent. No self-respecting doctor would venture into these ghettos. With her band of community nurses, Trudy trudged from hut to hut, teaching hygiene, delivering babies, immunizing them, laughing with the villagers in their happiness, comforting them in their grief.

On one such field visit, she was called to the bedside of a woman in labor. She was writhing in pain on her mat and a child of two was bringing down the roof with her screams. Trudy picked up and comforted the child as her assistants got ready for the delivery. A bouncing baby boy was born, but the woman began to hemorrhage badly. Not all the drugs in Trudy's emergency bag could save the woman.

The woman's husband, a carpenter, was two miles away at the hospital, repairing the rafters of the house in which the missionaries lived. His sorrow at losing his wife and desperation over the care of his children went straight to Trudy's heart. The children were temporarily kept in the creche at the hospital, but they couldn't stay there indefinitely. The children needed a mother, and the carpenter a wife.

"Don't shock me by telling me you offered to play surrogate mother," I said. By now, I knew that anything was possible with Trudy.

"I went one better. I offered to be his wife," she said nonchalantly.

"Oh no, you didn't!"

"We're celebrating our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary on Sunday," she said. "Why don't you come and meet the family?"

"You have a large family?"

"Just two step-children, and I swear I'm not a wicked step-mother."

I met Karkada, her husband, at their silver wedding anniversary celebrations. He was good-looking and soft-spoken, and his speech sounded genuine.

"She's been a wonderful wife to me," he said, "and our love has stood the test of time. Twenty-five years ago, there was not a soul who believed that it would last out even a year. Though I had my own fears and insecurities, I thought if a woman like her could take the risk, why shouldn't I? I can truly say that marriages are made in heaven, and God has blessed our union."

Later that evening, Trudy told me how she had wooed and won her husband. It was a scandal that rocked the entire community. Neither the Indians nor the missionaries forgave them. She was struck off the missionary list and he was boycotted by the village. The priest who solemnized their wedding was shifted out in a hurry.

The major part of Trudy's monthly salary had been retained in Switzerland. Now she withdrew the whole amount and Karkada had his timber depot and furniture shop. He was a good workman and engraver, and business picked up fast. They soon had the largest house in the village. Friends and relatives trickled back. The couple was generous to a fault.

"Sounds like a fairy tale to me," I said.

"It wasn't easy," she said. "But problems were not insurmountable."

Karkada died of a heart attack soon after their anniversary. Once again, people expected Trudy to pack up and leave. She stuck it out, though, despite her step-daughter's ill treatment and her son-in-law's lavish lifestyle. In her 76th year, she completed a course in Homeopathy, so that she could treat poor people.

Our friendship grew over the years. The age gap didn't matter. Our discussions were lively and covered a whole range of subjects. We were soulmates. After I retired from the Mission Hospital, I took up a job in distant Saudi Arabia. Trudy was once again alone.

She passed away two days after our last telephone talk. I could visit her grave only after a year. I took the long route to the cemetery, via the village. Her imprints were everywhere. The beneficiaries of her largesse were many.

Though she had gone ahead, I could still feel the nearness of her friendship. I placed the bunch of white gladioli on her grave and whispered, "Farewell dear friend!'

The Author

A gynecologist/obstetrician, Eva Bell is a long-time freelance writer. Her short stories and articles are published regularly in newspapers and magazines in India. She has a special interest in women's issues.

Publications:
Novels: Silver Amulet
  When Shadows Flee
Non-fiction: Grace Abounding
Children's story: Lost on the Beach

Short stories and articles have been included in several anthologies.