The Hospital Room

by Brooke Maddison (Australia)

Making a local connection Nepal

Gita had a particularly vivid dream one night, cocooned within the walls of the hospital room. Maybe it was because of all the medication she was on. She woke, her body criss-crossed with tubes, as the sunshine slanted through the tiny window. Beyond the limits of the tiny room Kathmandu was busy unfurling with the dawn. Phlegm was hacked gracelessly from throats and spat into gutters. Buses rumbled to life at the neighbouring bus station and snatches of conversation lingered in doorways. Oil was slicked over eager faces and pressed down upon thick black hair as crumpled collars were made ready for school. Temple bells rang out, deities were invoked. Safe passage was granted: roads scurried across, rivers transgressed, paths taken. ‘Chai, chai, garam chai.’ The chai wallah did the rounds of the ward, exchanging plastic cups of sickly-sweet tea for a few rupees. The routine of his monotonous chant was soothing. I held the milky scum in my mouth, letting it burn my tongue. Before the hospital, Gita had been living in a crumbling orphanage nestled on the banks of the Bishnumati River. Kathmandu was a city of orphanages, if you knew where to look – they were scattered amongst the labyrinth laneways like the weeds that sprouted up when the rains rolled in from the mountains. I was a wide-eyed bideshi, returning to Nepal as a volunteer. I sought out the familiar path next to the river, a slick of debris that snaked its way through the city's western arc, remembering to cover my face like a local when I crossed the bridge. The rusty orphanage gate groaned on its hinges as I crossed the threshold and I noticed the new girl straight away. The staff told me she didn’t play or talk with the other kids. That she refused to eat or go to school. They told me that she was difficult and too proud for her own good. Slowly she began to speak, and her story unravelled thread by thread. Born into a poor family in the far eastern cleave of Nepal, Gita had been cast out when her mother remarried. Her father had already disappeared from her life – remarried, missing, dead – she wasn’t sure which. At seven she climbed aboard a bus, hid under the seats and ended up in Kathmandu eight hours later. The next few years were hazy – that or they were years she tried hard to forget. She worked as a servant for a wealthy family, then in a hotel on the city’s northern limits before ending up homeless and sleeping under the watchful eyes of Buddha at Swayambhunath Stupa. The orphanage took her in, but there was no respite. She was neglected and abused by the staff, her weight plummeting below 30 kilograms. She suffered from night blindness, tuberculosis and an STI. She was 13 years old. Friends were enlisted and Gita was spirited away to a secret hotel room. Police headquarters were visited and accusations of human trafficking were thrown in all directions. A police report was filed: Gita was to be permanently removed from the orphanage and placed in the care of our motley group. She was admitted to hospital almost immediately, hooked up to oxygen tanks and transfused with blood. Salvation seemed imminent. In the hospital room I swallowed my chai. It was one of those fleeting moments that felt expansive. She would be okay. She would get out of this stifling hospital room, escape this city full of broken dreams and faded promises. She would go to school, find a home, have a life. The monsoon rains would come, and the city would be washed clean. ‘Tell me about your dream?’ ‘Ma biraalo thiyen.’ I was a cat. ‘And then?’ ‘I went home to Jhapa. Then I found my old house.’ I closed my eyes, stilling my mind so I could map out the expanse of her life – her family, her village, her losses, her hopes, her fears and wild imaginings. Would she ever make it back home? ‘My dad was there so I curled up on his lap and he told me how much he had missed me.’ She smiled. ‘I was so happy in my dream.’