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“No, I took a year off after the boom, in a military hospital in Brussels. I’m trying to figure out the rest now.”

“Will you go back to modeling?” She looked anxious for her.

“Not with this.” She pointed to her face. “It looks better than it did, but it won’t go away. So here I am. It sounds crazy, but I like it here,” she said, smiling at Prudence.

“It is crazy, but we all do. That’s why we stay. They need the help so badly. You go to bed at night knowing you’ve made a difference. I didn’t feel that way in the army, or in a hospital in London afterward. Our doctors at Saint Matthew’s do a great job. It makes you proud to work here, although we don’t have much to work with. We wing it a lot.”

“I can see why you love it,” Véronique said, as they walked toward the dining room together.

“I hope you stay for a while. We can always use a spare pair of hands.”

“That’s why I’m here.” They walked back to the hospital together, and Véronique went to volunteer her services to the nurses in the wards. They put her to work bringing trays of bandages while they changed dressings. She was all too familiar with what they used. She had seen it all in Belgium.

After that, she helped make beds, and colored with crayons with two little girls. Her little friend from the morning waved at her across the ward and shouted “Boom!” and then laughed uproariously, and Véronique laughed too.

By the end of the day, she didn’t know how she would have described what she’d done all day, mostly menial tasks, making things easier for the nuns and nurses, but the day went by, and many days like it. She rapidly settled into a routine of making herself available to all of them. She was the only non-medical volunteer around for the moment, and everyone was grateful for her help, her willingness, and her good humor. She was happy there. She felt as though she had found a niche and she belonged. Dr. Dennis observed her and crossed her in the halls frequently. She looked happy and at ease. The discomforts and primitive conditions didn’t bother her, and she got along with everyone. She had made friends among the nuns and nurses. The children loved her. She had never thought she was good with children, nor was particularly interested in them. But here it was different. She liked being around them, and helping wherever she could. She felt comfortable in her own skin for the first time in a year. She was in the right place at the right time. Even six months before would have been too soon. She wasn’t ready then, but she was now. She felt competent, useful, and connected.

She’d been there for a month when she asked Dick Dennis if anyone had ever made a film here, showing what they did and the children they cared for. It could help them raise money. He thought about it for a minute. There was film of Princess Diana when she came out there, but that was a long time ago.

“No one here has ever had the expertise to do that, the time, the interest, the funds, or the connections.”

“Would that be helpful to you?” Véronique asked him.

“Of course. It’s hard describing what it’s like here. It’s so foreign to people back home, they really don’t understand and can’t visualize it.” She reminded him about the French TV documentary she’d been part of, about the victims and survivors of Zaventem.

“It was on French television, but you could send copies of a show like that to fundraise elsewhere, if they were to do something like it here. Do you want me to call the producer?”

“I’d love it. We can use all the publicity we can get, to raise interest, in Europe or the States.”

“I’ll call the producer,” she promised, and did the next day. Olivier Berger, the producer of the Zaventem show, was intrigued by her suggestion to come and do a documentary in Angola to show the hospital and the patients and the villages they served, and the eclectic international medical staff, some of whom were even French. And the issue of still active land mines was an important one.

“I’m committed for the rest of the month,” he said, “but if I get the go-ahead, we could come out with a crew in early June. Would that work for you?”

“I’d have to ask. I’m just a visitor here, a volunteer. I know the doctor who’s running it right now. He’s here for three months a year. He’s American. But they rotate British and French doctors too.”

“I’ll check it out here with my bosses and get back to you. They might like it. We’re trying to do more of these real-life documentaries, and they can’t all be tragedies. This might be a very interesting story.” And the children made it upbeat and very poignant.

“I think you’d be impressed,” she told him, and told Dick Dennis about the call and he thanked her.

Olivier called her back a week later. “They love it. They gave me permission to go ahead and do it with a small crew. How do I set it up?” She had him call Dick Dennis, and they organized everything. The French crew was coming on the first of June, and Dick would still be there then. Véronique was pleased that it had worked. They were going to put Saint Matthew’s Hospital on the map. They needed help so desperately, and it was a wonderful feeling doing whatever she could, for all the right reasons.





Chapter 16


A week after Véronique had spoken to Olivier Berger about a documentary about Saint Matthew’s, a British journalist, Patrick Weston, showed up on his own. He was a friend of one of the other doctors on the rotation, a British doctor, and he had come to write an article about the work they were doing there. He spoke to Dick Dennis, who liked him, and was impressed by his credentials. He had written for some very prestigious publications. After talking to him, Dick gave him carte blanche to look around. He was going to take some photographs to go with the story. He was a freelancer, and planned to sell the piece when he got back to London.