Photo by Gabriel Almanzar on Unsplash. Image description: street view of the facade of an Episcopal church in Harlem, New York City. A few folks are gathered outside. Cars are parked perpendicular to the church. A tree covers most of the left side of the building.
The nurse left work at five o'clock. If she walked briskly the few
long blocks from the hospital to the church, she would be in time for
the early evening service. She kept her eyes lowered as she moved, as
friends told her to do when she came here. Don't make eye contact or
smile, things opposite from her training to comfort patients.
Along the way she glanced at the fresh patches of asphalt, as black as the
volcanic sand on the beaches of the former sugar colony where she was
born. But she had not been home in the years after nursing school. It
was the church, a Gothic revival building, and the cadences of the
English prayers that gave her a feeling of being home. Here the
priests reminded her of those who presided under the red roof of St.
George's with its solid hurricane shutters on the island.
This was a safe house. During the Depression the church kitchen supplied soup and
bread for the lines that snaked around the whole block. And in the
last world war servicemen shipping overseas lined up in the garden
with their brides to be married in the oak-paneled chapel where the
daily service was celebrated.
It was here that the nurse felt herself nursed, comforted, and nurtured after her exhausting shift, with all
its frustrations and regrets. It was as though she had entered,
wearing her pure white uniform, the gate of heaven, with its odd
towers and pinnacles, set against the backdrop of indifferent
skyscrapers filled with people far from their real homes.
As she left at the final blessing, she heard a wailing cry coming from the
direction of the lych-gate. The church sexton pointed and said to her
in his heavy slavic accent: "Crazy lady! Crazy!" And what sounded
like: "please come," but then she realized was "police come" as she
hurried across the garden.
An old woman, clutching three black plastic
bags, crouched at the feet of the statue of Christ whose crown
slightly obscured the inscription: "I will give you rest." The nurse
knelt and repeated in a soft voice: "You will be okay."
"Will they hurt me?" the woman whispered, as her eyes widened. "No one will hurt
you. I'm a nurse. I'm here to help you." The woman turned her head
towards her as the nurse held her hand and moved closer. The old woman
reached her dirty hand to the nurse's face and said, "It's okay.
You're home now."
