Oasis

by "An Oxford Punter"

"Well, how are the friends of Mahmoud and Ali Hazr this morning, hmm?" Channah Goldsmit's cheerful greeting from the doorway opened my eyes to brightening sunlight, and I unfolded myself with difficulty from the chair where I had spent the last several hours. It was early yet, I noticed; beyond our window I could hear the first stirrings of activity around us as daily life resumed in the kivutz.

"Better, I think," I said, answering her in Hebrew. "Your patient sleeps, at least."

"That is very good. And how is it with you, child? Have you slept as well?" She entered, bearing with her the bandages and medicines she had used before, now significantly depleted, and reached up to pat my cheek in passing.

"It appears I have." I stretched cramped, stiff muscles, then knelt at the bedside to examine its sleeping occupant. For Holmes, fortunately, there appeared to have been no nightmares, no dreams of any kind. Mahmoud and Ali had removed his clothes when we arrived at the kivutz the previous day so Channah could clean and cover his many wounds, and he still slept in the same exhausted sprawl with only a thin blanket to cover him to his hips.

I was not so fortunate. It had been a long night for me, full of abrupt awakenings at every imagined sound or movement from him, and dark disjointed dreams in between. My particular nighttime nemesis, the demon of so many sleepless hours in the past did not come to torment me but I found myself instead visited by several of its distant cousins, often just as harrowing. In them I returned again and again to that room, to the horror of seeing Holmes trussed, helpless and bleeding, like a cut of meat in a butcher's shop. I had never seen him brought so low before; I had never witnessed him so severely incapacitated in all the years of our association. The thought of what could have happened to him in that room, even beyond what did happen there, frightened me more than I cared to contemplate; he admitted to me he would have lasted one more round of 'interrogation', two at the most before telling them everything they wanted to know. Once that happened he would have been of no further use to them. It was highly unlikely they would have stayed there once they got what they wanted from him, more unlikely still that they would have taken him with them. If they had known his true identity that might have been one thing; he could have been valuable to bargain with had we eventually put them in a position where bargaining was their only hope of freedom. On the other hand, having a man in their midst known throughout the civilized world for his uncanny ability to track and find the authors of acts ranging from the merely unsavory to the utterly unspeakable was just as likely to prompt them to inflict things upon him which would make him wish for death.

If, that is, they had not done so already. I stared at the patchwork of gauze and ointment and plaster on his back but saw in my mind what it all covered; the marks of the whip, so enthusiastically wielded. The burns. No, all in all I thought perhaps we had reached him just in time.

"Have Mahmoud and Ali left the kivutz?" I asked, remembering something I had heard the older of the two mention to her during the previous afternoon when Holmes was all I could think coherently about.

"Yes, many hours ago." Her hands did not falter as they laid out the things she would need for the task ahead. "They do what they must. We will not see them again until they are successful or can do nothing more. There are concerns enough for us here; we must be sure this one has come to no lasting harm at the hands of such godless men. Later he must eat and drink and sleep some more--you both must--but now I will apply more ointment to his wounds and cover them again." Having arranged the supplies to her satisfaction, she bent to study Holmes herself and then turned to me. "Do you believe he is strong enough to endure it without Mahmoud's medicine?"

I thought about Holmes, about the strength of the man, about all he'd been through over the last two days. "I think so, if it is not prolonged."

"Good. We shall see." She studied me with the same profound attention she had just given Holmes. "There will be pain. It may be great. You must be here for him, so that he will know he is not being tortured again. Do you understand?"

I did. Positioning myself at the head of the narrow bed upon which he lay, I put my hands on his arms to ready both of us for what I knew was ahead and to be certain he would see me when he awoke. She studied me for perhaps a minute more and what she saw evidently satisfied her. Nodding to herself, she went briskly and efficiently to work.

He came fully to consciousness as she was still removing the old bandages, fighting feebly for his freedom with whatever strength he still possessed. It was an effort which must have cost him dearly.

"No, Holmes!" I held him down with my hands on his arms. "It's Russell. You're all right. You're safe. Lie still; we're only tending to the wounds on your back."

His eyes cleared slowly and focused on me, and after a moment he relaxed his trembling muscles. "Russell?" It came out in a ragged whisper. "Where are we?"

"A kivutz many miles away from where you were... being held. Ali and Mahmoud have friends here, it appears. Trustworthy friends." I relaxed my grip but did not remove my hands. Conscious of the old woman's eyes upon us, I nodded at her and then returned my attention to Holmes. "There is someone here who is going to help you, but you must let her. The midwife I told you about. Do you remember?"

He nodded, a bare movement of his head. He was shivering slightly, I noticed, with reaction. "I understand."

"We have nothing to give you to make the pain better, I'm afraid." I said it slowly and carefully. "Mahmoud has the opium paste and he and Ali are gone. I don't know when they will be back and this cannot wait."

"Perhaps it is just as well. I have no desire to take home a taste for opium to remind me of our time here. There will be reminders enough as it is." He set his jaw. "Proceed."

Altogether, it was not as bad as the previous morning, but it was bad enough. When Channah was finished, Holmes lay limp and grey with fatigue. He had not moved while she worked, had not so much as flinched. But his arms under my hands became iron, and his whole lean frame vibrated subtlely as if an electrical current passed through it.

I stood with Channah after she had retrieved the litter left from the morning's ministrations and together we studied the silent figure on the bed. He hardly seemed to breathe, so still was he.

"He is near the end of his strength," she pronounced at last, softly. "He needs simple comfort now, something that will soothe instead of punish. Ah, I have it." She smiled and left the room.

I knelt once more beside the bed, needing... something. To see him move at least, to acknowledge in some way that he had not left me after all. "Holmes?"

But he did not stir and I thought perhaps he had fallen asleep or, more likely, slipped once more into unconsciousness. At last however he twitched and his eyes opened.

Empty. For a moment I saw no sign of him there; he had gone far away inside himself where pain could not follow. And then he was back, but slowly and with obvious reluctance. "Russell." His lips formed my name, but there was no sound.

"Here, drink some of this. It's water. Can you?" I tried to help him raise his head to at least wet his lips, but he made no effort on his own and he did not drink. After a moment, I settled him back where he was, frightened in spite of myself. It was very unlike him to be so passive, to simply abandon himself to whatever was happening to and around him. When he put the full force of his will behind it, he had made some truly remarkable recoveries from illness and injury in the past. But I also knew the reverse was true; if he chose not to do so, he was likewise quite capable of allowing himself to simply slip away. Had his tormentors so abused him that he had lost the will to continue to fight, and thus to live?

Channah's entrance interrupted my thoughts. This time she carried a basin of water and several clean cloths which she set down on the table beside the bed.

"We must wash this blood away," she said, gesturing at the portion of him covered by the blanket. "It is not good for him to wear it or for you to see it. Such a simple thing may help cleanse from him the horror of what he has been through, yes?"

And, reaching out, she carefully flipped back the blanket.

My eyes flew to her face, finding nothing there beyond wisdom and compassion for him... and for me. "It will help him," she insisted again gently. "And it will help you as well, I think. I must go for a time to see to others in my care, but I will return soon. There is more water in the next room if you need it."

I nodded to show I'd understood her, though for the moment conversation--polite or otherwise--was beyond me. She nodded once again and withdrew, leaving me alone with my unexpected dilemma.

I had done my share of nursing during the war as had others left behind by the men who fought, had cared for countless soldiers and seen to some extent (although admittedly not to the extent currently presented to me) various portions of the male anatomy not mentioned in polite society. There was, understandably, no time on the part of those in charge to consider the proprieties involved, and as many of the other nurses were older women, married and therefore beyond blush at an untoward sight or two, my age and inexperience tended to be forgotten. The result was that, at nineteen, I considered myself to be remarkably sophisticated and matter-of-fact when it came to matters biological. Had it been a stranger stretched out on the bed before me, I should not have hesitated to do whatever was necessary to insure his immediate comfort and eventual recovery.

But this was no stranger. I was proposing to lay hands upon the naked body of no less than my mentor and friend, a man of strictly Victorian morals and manners to whom such intimacy--such vulnerability--would be nearly as welcome as a vulgar love affair. His pride, his self-respect and air of invincibility were all to him; to be revealed to anyone else to be weak and incapable of caring for himself, even temporarily and under conditions which might have killed others less strong, would be anathema to him. To have me see him as such, let alone be the one to care for him in his incapacity, would be unbearable. I knew this man as well as I knew myself, had been his close companion for the last four years, and could easily imagine what he would say concerning what I proposed to undertake if he were able to. The fact that he was not, that he was incapable of objecting only made the matter worse. He had already suffered enough physically at the hands of strangers. Must he endure a loss of face at my hands as well?

It seemed he must. There was no help for it. As Channah said, it would be good for him, and in her absence I was his only alternative.

Sunlight slanted full into the room while I stood deliberating and the air shimmered with heat. I reached up absently to wipe perspiration from my forehead, then stopped; if this room seemed stifling and oppressive to me, how must it seem to Holmes, weak and injured and suffering as he was?

The thought decided me. Taking my courage and fortitude in hand, I paused only long enough to slow the sudden pounding of my heart with a deep breath or two, then deliberately lowered my eyes to the bed and beheld him.

He hadn't moved at all since Channah left, though the light falling directly onto his abused body must have been unpleasant to say the least. The pristine brilliance of the bandages against his bruised and darkened skin was the first thing that struck me.

The second was, unexpectedly, his utter need; it wrenched at my heart and brought the tears I had been too preoccupied to shed the day before brimming to my eyes. I tended to be more immune than most to the myth of his invincibility--certainly more immune to it than Holmes himself--but even I succumbed occasionally to the belief that I should never be without him. To be presented so forcefully with proof to the contrary made me almost physically ill, and I could only think with a sort of dull horror what unspeakable loss this most recent automobile wreck I escaped had so very nearly left me with.

The third thing I saw was what galvanized me to action, swift and instinctive. Channah had spoken of blood and blood there was; it had run freely down the contours of his body in red rivulets from the wounds in his back and dried there. He might not be aware of the discomfort yet--there were others more numerous and immediate to be endured--but soon I knew it would bother him greatly, more perhaps in some ways than the wounds themselves.

Cleanse away the horror of what he had been through, Channah said, and truly she had spoken. It was little enough I could do for him, but do it I would without cavil or qualm as he would do for me if our positions had been reversed. Moving to the table and the basin of water, I moistened the first of the cloths and began. At the touch of the damp rag on his face, he opened his eyes briefly and then subsided again without a word, but I thought that perhaps he appreciated the promise of cleanliness it offered as much as its coolness. Laying one of the spare cloths beneath each arm to soak up the excess as I worked, I dribbled water over them and then slid the cloth back and forth along their long lengths, avoiding the bandage bracelets on his wrists where the ropes binding him had bitten into his skin during his struggles.

From there the task became more difficult for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was his continued immobility. His ravaged back I did not have to concern myself with; Channah had cleansed it thoroughly. But that still left the front of him, and without his participation it would not be an easy task to get to, much less wash. After contemplating the problem for a moment, fists on hips, I rolled up the sleeves of my abayya and set about wrestling his left arm beneath him. Then, still keeping a hold on that, I tilted him up onto his side and bent his long legs to act as a natural brace. His brows knotted at the treatment and I sensed a protest. He began slowly to stretch his legs out again.

"No, Holmes." My left hand went instinctively to the jut of his hip bone to prevent his roll forward. "I know it hurts your back, but I won't be long. Stay where you are and I'll work as quickly as I can."

Still he pushed against my hand, and suddenly I understood what he was actually objecting to. The color rushed unexpectedly to my face, but I kept my hold on him and leaned close to his ear.

"Allow me to do this, O Wise One," I said softly in Arabic. "It is the duty of an apprentice to see to the needs of her teacher and thus learn humility and obedience. Grant me this humble wish, I beg you, that I may be worthy."

I waited with his pelvic bone pressing into my palm, watching him closely to see if he'd understood not only my words but their complete content, spoken and hidden. Then it came; unbelievably after a moment I saw one corner of his mouth twitch up in a ghost of a smile. The pressure on my palm eased. After a moment I removed it.

It went more easily after that, except for a flinch of his thigh muscle when I scrubbed where I was not meant to be so industrious. The knowledge that if he was conscious enough to interpret the subtleties of my previous request, he was in all probability conscious enough to be aware of my every movement and touch did nothing to ease my discomfiture. But he made no further protest, spoken or otherwise, and even laboriously rolled himself back onto his stomach when I had finally worked my way down to his toes.

The water in the basin quickly turned red after that, and I was forced to fetch more. The first time I did so, his shudder when I used it warned me that it was too cold, and I had to let the basin stand in the sun for several minutes to warm sufficiently. I remembered to warm each subsequent one however and worked without thinking, my hands following the geography beneath them, respected and beloved if unfamiliar, scrubbing gently or pouring water to soothe and revive.

And then, above the ripple of water in the basin and my own easy, rhythmic movements, I heard him sigh. Just a single sigh, deep and relieved, a giving up in one breath of all he'd been through for the simple luxury of coolness on fevered flesh.

He was asleep when I finished and once more carefully covered him, a healing sleep without cares or concerns. His even breathing was reassuringly slow and deep, and his pulse had improved. I would give him two or three hours, then find a way to get some food into him. After that, as Channah said, we would see.

She returned within the hour to find me once more in the chair at his bedside, wiser if more thoughtful than when she left. A glance at my face confirmed it for her and she smiled.

"Come," she said. "We will make something light to wake a forgotten appetite or two, and then perhaps later we may even help him to leave his bed for a little while. But now it is time to eat and give thanks to God for His generosity in all things."

"Yes, it is." I rose, and was about to leave the room in her wake when I heard, remarkably, a string of soft Arabic spoken behind me. It took me a moment to translate it, but when I had it at last I smiled and gave up a silent thanks of my own.

"It is a good thing sometimes for a master to learn humility as well as an apprentice," he had said, adding an unfamiliar phrase which I could only translate as "O Cherished One", though I doubted my interpretation.

"Many thanks, effendi," I murmured, just as softly. "We will bring food to you very soon. Practice your humility and deign to take some from my most unworthy hand, if you would be so kind."

"Insh'allah," he replied. And with a final sigh full of tenuous contentment, he slept again.