Namibia - The difficult Years. Helmut Lauschke

one leg only and the contracted scars. I asked the astronomic question, though I had no knowledge of ‘far-visual’ science where Kristofina was ‘walking’ now after having left the planet and having crossed the ‘bridge’ to the universe three hours ago. I ‘saw’ her soul flying like a bird flapping powerfully the wings, while she passed one sun after the other deeper into the galaxy. I looked into ‘The Book of the Praises’ and sent her the best wishes for her ‘flight’.

      Some cars drove through the standing water to and from the ‘International Guest House’ opposite to the flat. Broad tyres on the big wheels of the passing Casspirs splashed the mud up to the treetops and against the mosquito mesh of the veranda. Dark clouds drew up when I had the wish to visit Dr Witthuhn. I put on trousers and rolled the trouser legs up to the knees and left the flat closing the veranda door with the sandals in my hand. Mud and standing water went up to the ankles or higher when he stepped into a pothole. The rain started when I reached with mud spots on the trousers the house of Dr Witthuhn who carried a twelve-set of ‘Guinness’-dumpies from the car into the house. He trudged with shoes through ankle-high water in the front garden without rolled-up trouser legs. Gate and boot shutter were open. I closed the boot and followed the friend. “That was a night spectacle. It was not far that the water had flooded the sitting room”, Witthuhn said on the way from the car to the house, while I washed the mud from the feet and rolled down the trouser legs. I put the sandals behind the main door and entered the sitting room. There I greeted Dr Bernhard who was accommodated in the small sleeping room packed with cardboards and other things. It was the room where I have slept or lain sleeplessly a couple of weeks before.

      “Take a seat I bring a beer”, Witthuhn said. I took a seat on one of the upholstered chairs next to the club table. Dr Bernhard had occupied the two-seater and leafed in a glossy magazine forward and backward. Witthuhn put three dumpies on the glass plate of the table. He went back to the kitchen and brought the glasses and put them on the table as well. He filled his glass and took a seat on the other upholstered chair and said cheers and emptied the half of the glass. “How was your duty?”, he asked with some beer froth on the upper lip. When he heard the story of Kristofina with the charred shin bone and the tachycardia with extrasystoles and that the girl passed away after a few hours, he said that he has not seen a human hit by a lightning. Dr Bernhard leafed in the magazine forward and backward and read passages on one and the other page. The fatal fate of the girl seemed not to touch him. He was busy with himself. I was wondering about the colleague’s indifferent attitude. It revealed a personality outside normal range. Dr Bernhard was close to fifty. He was not married and had no family. His character was reserved. He did not speak about his private affairs. It was in contrast to the openness of other colleagues who had exchanged their life experiences under the seal of confidentiality. When Dr Bernhard opened himself to a small gap, he spoke of his mother, but not of his father. His behaviour was of an introverted loner, though he could be a charming person as well. He was sporting, played tennis after working hours and was a dedicated mountain climber of the Swiss Alps.

      The telephone rang. Dr Witthuhn went to his sleeping room and took the call. He came back and told that two patients were brought to hospital, who needed urgent attention. The overture of the ‘Magic Flute’ had ended. I emptied the bottle, wished the colleagues a restful afternoon and rolled up the trouser legs to the knees and left with sandals in my hand the friend’s house. I stalked through ankle-high water in the front garden. It was raining when walked barefoot on the muddy road to the hospital. The guards at the checkpoint were in a relaxed Sunday mood. They let the mud-walker pass without requesting the permit. I walked and crossed the square and washed the mud under the outside tap from the legs. The sandals were put on and the trouser legs were rolled down when I entered the waiting hall of the outpatient department. Two trolleys were standing with patients. A circa forty-year-old man lay on the first trolley with a broken right ankle. He had slipped off and had bent the foot.

      On the second trolley lay a five-year-old emaciated girl with a bloated abdomen. The girl had no bowel movement since a couple of days and vomited since two days. The palpation of the abdomen was painful especially in the upper part beneath the xiphoid of the breastbone. The examination resulted in the suspicion of an obstruction at the exit of the stomach. The X-rays confirmed the fracture of the upper ankle joint on the man and a couple of hazelnut-sized stones in the girl’s stomach. The mother told that the girl had not eaten since two days. The stones had to be removed. The mother followed the nurse who brought the trolley with the child to the ward to prepare the child for theatre. I informed the theatre staff and the army doctor who worked in the paediatric ward to give the anaesthetics. The operation was set for five o’clock. In the meantime I reduced the ankle fracture on the man and immobilized the foot by putting on a padded leg cast. After this, the patient was brought to the orthopaedic ward. Other small surgical procedures on other patients were done as well.

      It was close to six o’clock. I hurried to theatre and changed clothes in the dressing room. The young army doctor who was a dedicated and friendly colleague, had started the introduction of the anaesthesia. The young instrumenting nurse put the instruments on the instrument table in systematic order, while I washed hands and forearms and dried them in some sterilized sheets of blotting paper. A young nurse pulled the operating coat over me and tied the laces on the back, when I pulled the gloves over the hands. I entered the operating room when the nurse had cleaned and covered the sleeping girl with sterile green sheets. The girl had no fat tissue under her skin. I did a midline incision from the xiphoid to the umbilicus. After dividing the fascial and peritoneal sheets the abdominal cavity was opened. I examined the stomach and palpated the stones. An incision was done before the pylorus and eleven stones were removed. The incision on the stomach and the layers of the abdominal wall were closed by sutures. The wound dressing was fixed with some plaster stripes and the girl was brought to the recovery room where a nurse put the oxygen mask on her face and measured blood pressure and pulse rate in short intervals. Here the girl regained consciousness. I put the eleven stones into a small plastic bag and left the theatre room to change clothes in the dressing room. I gave the plastic bag with the stones to the mother who was worried outside the theatre building. She looked at the plastic bag in her hand and thanked for his work done. This I read from her face. The mother could not understand that the daughter had swallowed so many stones. Since the daughter did not show signs of any mental disorder, to swallow stones had to do with hunger. Girl and trolley left the recovery room. A nurse carried the trolley to the surgical children’s ward, when I followed the trolley and the mother followed me. Both were reflecting on the question why the girl had swallowed the stones. I helped to put the girl from the trolley on the bed and gave some instructions to the nurses. I made my notes in the file and left the ward for the outpatient department where no patient was waiting.

      I left the department and rolled up the trouser legs and took the sandals in my hand. I walked barefoot through the mud of the square, passed the gate and kept the walking feet on the middle of the soggy road. A heavy rain came down. I was wet to the skin when I arrived at the checkpoint where two guards stood under the tin roof of the small control building. The guards let me pass with the sandals in my hand when a Casspir passed by and threw the mud in a high arc in my face that the sand stuck in the hair and eyes and ears. I put off the wet and dirty clothes on the veranda and stood naked behind the mosquito mesh and looked on the lake in front in the twilight of the Sunday evening. It was raining when he went into the shower and washed the sand from the hair and face and body. I went to the kitchen in underpants and cut two slices from the tasteless mixed-grain bread and spread some margarine on and ate the slices with appetite, since I had not eaten the whole day. I emptied the cup with cold coffee from the morning and looked over the place with the pouring rain and trees standing in the lake. Voices came from the guest house on the other side. A women giggled that two men started laughing.

      I reflected on the day’s events, while I lit up a cigarette and again I experienced the old phenomenon that answers got shorter the deeper the questions went. I stood up and switched on the light. I took a seat on the hard veranda chair at the veranda table in the small sitting room and started writing a letter. The letter was not finished when I laid the sheet aside and took another sheet to write a poem addressed to myself about loneliness of a stranger and of strangely looking people with a strange language I could not understand and about poverty and faces of fear and