A Sister in White

A Sister in White

Miriam Zakon

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A Sister in White

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Book Excerpt from A Sister in White

The New Schvester

Jerusalem, 1916

For the first two weeks in Jerusalem, Selma became the doctor's white-clad shadow. She went from bed to bed, from ward to ward, a pad in her hand. Patients saw a short, quiet woman with kind eyes. What they didn't see was the despair and shock that gripped her heart as she realized just what she'd taken on in this new assignment.

As Dr. Wallach had told her, Schvester Selma had arrived at the height of a terrible epidemic. On one of her first days in Jerusalem, Selma, feeling almost dizzy from the fumes of the kerosene heaters, stepped out for a little winter sunshine. Leaving the hospital grounds to take a walk on Jaffa Road, she tread her way carefully. She'd already lost one pair of boots in the thick, unyielding mud of the unpaved street! Selma walked out the door and noticed a crowd of people lined up noisily in front of the building. Some were pushing. Others, too tired to shove, had plopped down wearily right onto the muddy ground. Mothers, their faces pale with worry, held crying babies in their arms. Old men leaned on sticks or on the arms of their children.

Selma approached a woman wearing a ragged black dress, far too thin for the winter's chill. She asked what the crowd wanted. The woman stared, but she didn't understand Selma's crisp German. A man standing next to her answered in accented Yiddish, "We're waiting to get into Wallach's Hospital."

"But why?" Selma was puzzled.

"Sick. All of us, sick. We need Dr. Wallach to help us."

Selma's gaze ran over the long, curving line of suffering people. She gasped. The mob reached back, back, as far as the city's shuk, its market, over five blocks away! All these people needed help. All these people needed Dr. Wallach. All these people needed her.

She rushed back into the hospital to continue her work.

So this was the state of the city she was to call home for the next three years. Three years! And the state of the hospital she'd joined was even worse. For nursing staff she had several untrained young girls and one jolly Persian who smelled of garlic. There had been a few trained nurses from Germany, Dr. Wallach told her. "But they couldn't bear the conditions here," he said grimly.

I will bear the conditions here, Selma thought to herself. And I will create a wonderful hospital.

After two weeks spent seeing all that was to be seen, Schvester Selma was ready to start on the difficult task she had chosen for herself. She called together all the hospital workers. They had already met their new head nurse. They thought she was a pleasant little lady. A bit quiet. Not at all like Dr. Wallach, who was always shouting at them. Not what one would call a powerful woman, it seemed.

It seemed that they were wrong.

"First of all," she said, "let me congratulate you on the job you've done until now. You've worked very hard, under terribly difficult conditions."

The workers nodded at each other. They were pleased to hear this. Dr. Wallach always demanded perfection and always found things they'd done wrong. Here was a woman who appreciated them!

"I have come from Germany and there have learned some new things that we will be putting into place here."

The workers exchanged glances. Changes? They didn't like the sound of this.

"I have ordered white clothing for all of you. They will arrive next week. You will wear them."

Dudu was a large, brown-skinned woman with flashing eyes who worked in the hospital's laundry room. She hooted with laughter. "What's wrong with our clothing, may I ask, madam?"

Schvester Selma spoke quietly. "I am not 'madam.' I am Schvester Selma. The head nurse in this hospital."

"So, Schvester," Dudu laughed again, "I repeat, what's wrong with our clothing?"

"There is nothing wrong with your clothing. They are fine - for when you are in your homes. In a hospital, all workers wear white. This hospital will be kept clean and professional. That includes white uniforms."

Schvester Selma continued her crisp lecture. "Patients will be washed every day. Those who can bathe will do so themselves. Those who cannot will be bathed by our workers."

Tzipa, a young girl training to be a nurse, looked at Schvester Selma, shocked. "Bathed every day? In the winter? They will die of cold!"

Schvester Selma gave the girl a kind look. "No, they will not die of cold. They will be bathed and dried, and they will grow strong and healthy and clean."

On and on it went. Schvester Selma, the quiet little head nurse, demanded even more of the workers than Dr. Wallach did. She wanted the hospital to be kept clean. Slowly, they learned to keep it clean. She wanted every patient to be treated well, even the very poor, even the very nasty. They learned to treat everyone well, no matter who he or she was.

One Tuesday morning, Schvester Selma again called together the hospital workers. "When a patient comes in with a contagious disease such as typhoid, he or she must be bathed immediately. Whoever does so must wear special clothing, which will then be sent to be washed in boiling hot water."

"More washing! She's going to kill us, this new schvester," muttered Dudu. But she complained quietly. She had no wish to get into open warfare with Schvester Selma. But she didn't like it. All these changes meant more and more work.

"It's easy for Schvester Selma to come up with crazy ideas like changing the sheets every day," Dudu said angrily after the head nurse had returned to the ward to check on her patients. "After all, she doesn't have to get her hands red and wrinkled in the hot water!"

"That's not true, Dudu!" Tzippy, the young nurse trainee, stepped up to Schvester Selma's defense. "You know that Schvester Selma works harder than all of us! Nothing is too small for her to do. When it comes to a patient -"

"Patients, yes! I admit that she's like a little mother to the sick," Dudu answered grudgingly. "But clean, clean, clean! It's making me crazy, all this clean!"

"She's got eagle eyes," Tzippy admitted. "Last night I saw her bend down to pick up a pin - a tiny pin - from the floor. Nothing escapes her!"

Suddenly Schvester Selma came in. The two grew silent.

"By the way, Dudu, the towels in the supply cabinet are running low. Do you have more ready for me?"

"More? More?" The washerwoman's dark eyes flashed. "I have no more! They're all gone! Every sick person comes here to get well and thinks he can take home a load of linens as a remembrance of his lovely stay in Wallach's Hospital! You want to know where your towels are? Talk to your beloved patients."

Schvester Selma's eyes twinkled. "Perhaps I will."

Later that day, as Dudu trudged back to the two-room apartment she shared with her husband and five children, she noticed a pair of very straight, white-clad shoulders in front of her. Impossible to mistake that small figure. It was Schvester Selma, walking through the impoverished neighborhood behind the city's vegetable market.

Dudu was intrigued. What did the strange schvester from Germany do during her free time? And what was she doing here?

She watched as Schvester Selma walked slowly, her head turned up. She seemed to be staring at something above her. The sky? The birds?

Schvester Selma came to a stop. Immediately above her, a load of white laundry flapped in the winter's breeze.

In the darkness of the building's stairway, it was easy for Dudu to follow Schvester Selma as she walked up to a second-floor apartment. Dudu hung around in the shadowy corners, watching.

Schvester Selma knocked. A pale, tired-looking woman wearing a black kerchief on her head answered the door.

"Hello." Schvester Selma gave her a pleasant smile. "I'm from Dr. Wallach's hospital."

The woman stared at her. She didn't say a word.

"Our hospital is running out of sheets and towels. I happened to notice that you have some of our towels on your line. Do you think I could possibly have them back?"

Dudu watched as the tired woman shyly handed Schvester Selma two white towels. The woman looked as if she was afraid. Perhaps she thought the head nurse would scream at her for having taking hospital property. But Schvester Selma simply smiled, shook her hand warmly, and left.

Again and again Schvester Selma stopped to knock at shabby doors, enter poor apartments, and reclaim hospital towels. Always, behind her, was the shadow of Dudu following her.

The next day, Schvester Selma announced that the nurse's uniforms had to be washed every day. Everyone looked at Dudu, waiting for her to complain. Dudu simply nodded. "It's a good idea, Schvester," she said loudly. "Everyone's got to work to make this a better hospital."