Obstetrix(23)

In the snow, with the sun setting and lamps glowing through the curtains over the windows, and small children in heavy coats skipping home ahead of their mothers, the compound looked picturesque. It looked like a village scene in a painting. For a moment, I saw it as I thought Emma probably saw it: welcoming, peaceful, intimate. An idyllic place to be a child.

“Do you know any stories, Dr. Elizabeth?” a voice asked. It was Bethany, standing at my elbow.

“Oh, yes,” I said. “Would you like to hear one?”

A hesitation, and the light in her face dimmed a fraction. “I shouldn’t ask for a story Pastor wouldn’t like for you to tell,” she said. “That wouldn’t be good for me.”

“Did you like reading, when there were books?”

She sighed. “I think it might have been my fault Pastor decided they were a distraction,” she confessed in a low voice. “I used to sneak off to read instead of doing my work. It was right after I got another thrashing for it that Pastor decided all the books had to be put away. And I think he was right. I’d read anything right now, if I could. Even The Blossoms of Morality, if that’s all I had.”

“Do you ever pray that God will send Pastor a new revelation and give everyone their books back?”

She leaned in and whispered, “Praying for things against Pastor’s will isn’t a good idea.”

I was going to ask her about her favorite book when she pulled away. “I’m supposed to be setting the tables,” she gasped, and darted back inside.

The compound was now in deep twilight. I walked down to my house to put on dry clothes before dinner. I opened the door and then recoiled with a gasp: the light was on, and Pastor John was standing inside.

“Come in, Dr. Elizabeth,” he said.

I glanced over my shoulder; two of the men were lurking down on the path between the houses. I hadn’t noticed anyone following me, and they weren’t moving any closer, they were just there. I went in.

“All the way in,” Pastor John added. “Shut the door, don’t let the heat out.”

I closed the door and leaned against it.

Pastor John was sitting on my bed, which had been pulled out from the wall. The hash marks I’d made to track days were visible, and the pen I’d stuffed under my mattress was in his hand.

I felt myself starting to shake, wondering if I’d be beaten, or worse.

“I came by to see how you were settling in,” Pastor John said. “How would you say you’re settling in, Doctor?”

The question hung in the air. He was waiting for an answer.

“I—you kidnapped me.”

“We rescued you,” he said, gravely. “The Tribulation is underway—body and soul, you were forfeit to Satan’s minions, for your past sins. But as it transpired, you were chosen. Chosen by God to live in the haven among the righteous, blessed to deliver the blessed children.”

I reject everything you’re saying warred with I need to cooperate. I said nothing, and lowered my eyes.

“Now.” He stood. I couldn’t back away from him; my back was already against my door. “Clean those up.” He pulled a rag out of his pocket and pointed at the marks, like I was a child who’d drawn on the wall. I went to the bathroom and wet the rag, came out and cleaned them away. When the last trace of the marks was gone, he said, “I understand why you feel you need to know the date; you’re a doctor. Your job is to know whether it’s time for a baby to come yet, or not. So I have brought you a calendar.” He set down a tiny month-by-month desk calendar, along with a blue gel-ink pen with a cap. “Today is circled.”

He paused, expectantly, and it took me a couple of seconds to realize what he was waiting for.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome. Don’t draw on the walls again. No dinner for you tonight.” He paused on his way out, looked back, and said, “No one wants you to get a thrashing, Doctor.” He closed the door behind him, and I sat down on the bed, shaking.





CHAPTER 5




WEEKS PASSED.

Every morning I drew an X through the date on my calendar. Every night, I told myself some fragment of The Onyx Dagger. I visualized the yellowed pages of my paperback copy, the one I’d read over and over as a teen, that I’d been too sentimental to throw away even once I had a less battered copy. There was a splash of tea on the corner of the page where they first met the dragon. A badly creased page where Isabelle comes back to herself, finally, after her rescue. Blue ballpoint pen where I’d underlined there must be a way.

On Mondays, I was told I’d be seeing women for prenatal and postnatal care, but since nearly every adult woman on the compound was pregnant, trying to become pregnant, or recently pregnant, that encompassed a lot. My first week, in addition to checking postnatal women for healing, I gave a pregnant woman fluconazole for a yeast infection and drained another woman’s massive, painful Bartholin’s cyst while reassuring her that these were something that could just happen. A lot of women wonder if they’re something sexually transmitted. (And, they can be caused by STDs, but most of the time they aren’t.)

Again, despite the fact that these women seemed to be entirely on board with a kidnapped doctor, in the moments that I was providing them with care, I found myself unable to do less than my best for any of them, just as back in Minot I’d sometimes stayed up past midnight doing charting, even when I knew I’d have to be up at six. At least charting here was just a matter of Sarah jotting down in a notebook that it was Sister Brianna who had the cyst I’d drained, and I’d told her to use a sitz bath at least twice a day, and that she couldn’t have sex for a while. She seemed very uncertain about that instruction, and I looked at Sarah. “She really cannot have sex until she’s healed,” I said. “This isn’t going to heal otherwise.” Sarah said she would talk to Pastor John and have him talk to Brianna’s husband.