A medieval
hospital in France
[Preface:
Excerpted from a speech titled “My Favorite Year” by Katja L. to the Contemporary
Club, Cincinnati, Jan. 23, 2012]
Dear George,
After meeting my two friends
in Geneva [in August, 1958], we began our travels by hitchhiking and hostelling
along the Riviera – learning that being a student tourist is hard work. Our
plans involved going from Nice to Marseille and then on to Spain. We arrived in
Marseille, the third largest city in France. It appeared to be a drab, dirty, sprawling seaport of a
town. After finding a hostel where we could park our luggage, we set out to
find the tourist sight that we all agreed was absolutely at the top of our “to
see and to do” list – take the harbor ride to the Chateau d’If – Devil’s
Island- the supposed prison where the Count of Monte Cristo had been
incarcerated for almost twenty
years. What absolute folly!
This search can best be described as the idiocy akin to the search for Sherlock
Holmes’ Baker St. home or the search for Harry Potter’s room at Hogwart’s
Academy.
What a silly bunch of girls
we were! There were signs all over the wharves advertising trips to the fabled
Chateau d’If. We walked around the wharves, looking for the best deal in motor
boat rides to an island a mere mile and a half away. When we finally found our
ride, we soon realized that this was nothing more than a tourist trap and that
the real Devil’s Island was far off in the Indian ocean and that this so-called
island in Marseille’s harbor was nothing more than a nesting and resting
station for seagulls.
It had been a long day and we
were all exhausted as the motor boat turned back to shore. As we approached
land, it suddenly became very cold and rain poured down. By the time we
scrambled onto shore, I was feeling sick, nauseated, and feverish. We went back
to our hostel and within an hour the fever had skyrocketed and I was barely
able to walk. The hostel owner hailed a taxi for us, and my friends asked him
to take me to a hospital. The driver said he would take us to L’Hopital de la
Crucifixione. He explained that
L’Hopital de la Crucifixione was the general hospital in Marseille, and he
dropped us off at the main entrance.
At this point, a description
of the building is important for an understanding of the situation in which we
found ourselves. L’Hopital de la Crucifixione was a large, two story building.
The first story consisted of a series of open air arcades that extended all
around the four sides of the building. The second story was really the first
floor of the hospital, and luckily the patients were housed on that floor. The
building took up a square block. It had been built during the Napoleonic era
(1815), and I was to learn later that I was the first American to be admitted
to L’Hopital de la Crucifixione since 1941! It was during the admission process
that we learned the word hopital in French referred to a public hospital where
people went as a last resource, whereas clinique signified a private hospital where one went when
one was sick and had money .
Luckily, the admitting staff
realized the gravity of my condition and admitted me immediately. My friends left me with a nurse and promised to
return the next day.
The nurse put me in a private
room and said something about Typhus, at which point I passed out and
remembered nothing.
I was awakened in the dark by
the sound of scampering, scratchy noises. I felt light drop-ping sounds on my
sheets and blankets – as if rice was being thrown around the room and on my
bed. I leapt out of bed and flicked on the light. To my horror I saw the cause
of the sounds. The entire room – ceiling, floor and walls were covered in a
moving carpet of cockroaches. I screamed. A nurse came running. She took one
look at the situation and pointed at the light switch. I did not understand
enough French or comprehend her repeated gestures with the light switch. I was
too sick and scared by the hypnotic waves of roaches. Finally, I realized that
she was telling me that as long as there was light, the roaches would retreat.
As soon as the light was off, back they would come. In bright light, the
rolling waves of insects scurried off into invisible escape passages. From that moment, the light never went
off or out in that room.
I learned a great deal about
the French health care system during the eight days I spent in L’Hopital de la
Crucifixione. It turned out that the blood tests they had taken did not come
back from their lab for a week and by that time they decided I did not have
Typhus. Since I had been hiking and hostelling along the Riviera, they felt I
had caught some kind of “bug” from the ice I had insisted on having in my
Coca-Cola in Nice. Although they
didn’t believe I had Typhus, they treated me as if I did which meant for eight
days I was fed boiled potatoes and apricot jam. I later learned from my mother
(a therapeutic dietitian) that this was probably the best treatment I could
have received. However, at the
time, the menu seemed hugely unimaginative and tiresome.
I learned that my hospital
had one private room (in which I slept) and several public rooms. These huge
rooms were more like giant dormitories with twenty beds in each room – ten beds
on each side of a wide aisle, with a chair next to each bed.
Most of the patients were
immigrants from North Africa: Algeria; Tunisia; Libya and Morocco. They were
very sick and their families brought them food and drink. The small kitchen
across the hall from my room was manned by a cook who shared her space with
Kamikaze cockroaches. As she prepared individual orders for those patients who
had no family, the cockroaches would jump into the flames – making popping
noises and causing the flames to shoot up and out.
Being the first American
since 1941 to come to this hospital, I became somewhat of a curiosity to the
medical staff. They would arrive every morning in two groups of six, introduce
themselves, thump on my stomach, practice their English, confer with each other
in rapid-fire French and exit – smiling. They seemed happy with my progress and
would say encouraging things like “Soon. Soon!”
As mentioned previously, the
hospital was built on a series of open air arcades. Around the fourth or fifth
day of my stay, a volunteer arrived at my room. She was the equivalent of a “
candy-striper” in the states . I was surprised to learn that she “worked” in
the arcades. By day, she pushed her cart around the hospital selling things like
candy and cigarettes to the diabetics and heart patients in the large,
dormitory style rooms. At night she plied her trade as a “lady of the evening”
in the arcades under the hospital. Soon, I met several other friends of that
original candy-striper. They were fascinated by the story of how I, as an
American, had ended up in their hospital. They were amused by my account of our
search for the Chateau d’If and
our confusion about the difference between the clinique and l’hopital. These
women were so warm hearted and generous that when my stay in the hospital
ended, they insisted on taking me to the railroad station and put me on the
train for Barcelona.
When I was discharged from
the hospital after eight days, I was told the bill would be sent to my parents
in Philadelphia. The hospital
informed me that they had contacted the American consulate in Marseille to let
them know that an American was in their hospital . In turn, the consulate had
called my parents to reassure them that their daughter was not lost nor had she
been sold into the white slave trade.
I was allowed to call home using the consulate telephone, and my parents
were so excited about getting an overseas phone call that most of the three
minutes allotted were squandered with useless phrases like ”Are you Ok? Are you
sure? “ and “Come home soon”. I gave them my itinerary and told them to write
in care of the American Express office in Barcelona, Madrid, Segovia, and
Paris….
After a recent stay in the
hospital. I found myself wondering if the Hopital de la Crucifixione remained
standing in Marseille and if healthcare services in France still included
candy-stripers who moonlighted as prostitutes. When Cincinnati was named the
bedbug capital of the nation, I wondered if my old hospital had conquered its
cockroach problems or whether they still continued to keep on the lights as
their primary remedy.
As touchstones, these
memories are vivid, but more importantly, they are the events which formed my
character and continue to influence the choices and behaviors of my life – and
oh! by the way – remember that hospital bill that was sent home after my
discharge ? – the total cost for eight days came to twenty four dollars!
Love,
Katja
G-mail Comments
-Ami G
(7-10): This is such a well
written and heart felt tale. And, what did it do for your character?
Thanks.
Love. Ami
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