Dr. Alan Miller and his wife Ruth sat in rockers on their screened-in porch early one Saturday morning. Everyone who knew the doctor, including his wife, simply referred to him as Doc. The pair was easily in their mid-thirties and were people you would like to know and be around.
Their rocking chairs squeaked but the Millers didn’t care, the chairs were their favorite luxury. Mrs. Ruth had found them in a small carpentry shop on one of their supply runs. Doc and his wife rocked noisily, sipped steaming-hot coffee (which was their second favorite luxury) and watched the sun rise.
Though many of their peers had thought their career choice a bit odd, the Millers had believed that they would do reasonably well in their field. They had been miserably wrong, which was why Doc and his wife looked slightly defeated even this early in the morning as they watched the jungle come to life around them.
The Millers were missionaries in the back-country of
They had quite a lovely little home, which they had built and fondly referred to as the Hospital. It had a decent sized bedroom for the couple, a small office, a kitchen, a bath, a spacious area with several cots for treating patients, and a screened-in porch on the front. The Millers had running water, though it was usually cold unless they turned on their generator which was housed in a shed out back. The generator was seldom used—gasoline was a precious commodity in their part of the jungle.
Just at the edge of the little clearing the Millers called home, visible from their front porch, was a small foot path that led to the only near-by settlement. The people living here were the reason they had left friends and family behind, the reason they had scrimped and saved to move here five years ago. Doc and Ruth Miller had come to a new hemisphere with the dream of reaching out to people who had no knowledge of the Creator.
Yet these people wanted absolutely nothing to do with the strange white doctor and his wife. Of course there were exceptions—snake-bites, broken limbs and troubled pregnancies sent the natives running to the Hospital. But no matter how kind the Millers were, no matter how many the doctor helped, the villagers always slipped away without a word once they were well again.
So the Millers had tried to go to them, to meet the people on their own terms. But the elders had made it quite clear that the Millers were unwelcome in the village. Quite clear.
Doc and his wife had prayed together, cried together, hoped together, and had come up with nothing in five years time. It seemed that they were clearly the wrong people to reach out to this village, so early this Saturday morning they sat together, admitted defeat, and began drafting a letter back to the mission board requesting that more suitable replacements be found.
“They’re just so stubborn,” sighed Ruth.
“I hate to leave here though,” said Doc, laying his hand on his wife’s.
“We could sit here treating snake-bites for twenty years,” she said, “do you think they’d ever open up?”
“I don’t know,” he said, shoving the letter aside. “Look, here comes someone now.”
Her eyes darted down the path. Someone very tall was moving through the trees, carrying something in his arms. As the man stepped into the clearing, both the Millers jumped to their feet.
“Ruth, go and get a bed ready,” said Doc.
With another glimpse at the stranger, Mrs. Miller disappeared into the house.
The man was very tall—at least seven feet—and very tan with dark hair. In his arms was a small girl with long blond hair. Blood dripped from a fresh wound on her forehead and her wrists were bound tightly with ropes. She hung limp in the man’s arms.
“Doctor Miller?” asked the stranger.
“Yes, yes,” nodded Doc, “quickly, bring her inside.” He swung the porch door open, and the stranger ducked in. The man ducked again as they headed into the main room where Ruth was gathering clean water and supplies. As Doc followed them into the house he caught sight of some villagers lingering in the jungle.
Turning his attention to the wounded girl Doc saw that she was about ten years old, and probably had not eaten in a while. The child was clothed in a linen shift that looked as if it had once been white—now it was filthy and beginning to fray. Her feet were bare, her skin was smudged with dirt and her long hair was in tangles. In sharp contrast to her ragged appearance, a silver pendant hung on a thin, fine chain around her neck. Her skin was scratched as though someone had tried to remove the necklace and failed.
“Put her here,” motioned the Doc.
“You are Alan and Ruth Miller, are you not?” questioned the stranger. He did not lay the girl down until after they answered him.
“Yes, yes, of course. But what happened to her? Where did you find her?” asked Doc in alarm. If he seemed a little impatient, you will have to excuse the doctor, he was a tad bit concerned for the girl. What did it matter what his name was?
The tall man bent over the little girl. Loosening the chain he gently lifted her necklace and held the pendant out to Ruth. She took it and the man closed his hands tightly over hers, pressing the pendant into her palm.
“I was to bring her here, to the two of you. You must keep this for her,” he squeezed Ruth’s hand around the necklace. “She must have it when I return for them. Do you understand?”
Ruth nodded feebly, watching her husband try to untie the cords at the girl’s wrists.
“Yes, sure…”muttered Doc. He grabbed a knife and began to slice through the ropes. A shadow fell on him and he looked up. Villagers were gathering at the window, staring at the stranger and the girl.
“Who is she?” asked Ruth.
“Nani val Dynia,” said the stranger.
“Val Dynia?” repeated Ruth. The couple looked down at the tattered little girl. Ruth looked up to ask the man where he had found Nani, but he was gone. Suddenly the Millers realized they couldn’t have described the stranger very well if they needed to. Neither one could even recollect what he had been wearing. They brushed these details from their minds, ignored the villagers blatantly staring through the window and began caring for the girl.
Suddenly her green eyes snapped open and she gasped at the strangers, then began speaking and yelling in a rush. The words all came out gibberish to the Millers, like a toddler babbling on incoherently. If they had not been convinced that Nani was in some kind of malnourished delirium, the pair might have noticed that the gibberish had a musical quality to it.
But they did not notice. They attempted to calm her and check her wounds. She was clearly underfed, her wrists were raw from the cords that had bound them, but the wound on her head wasn’t very deep. It stopped bleeding soon after Doc put a little pressure on it.
As Doc wiped the blood from Nani’s face with a wet cloth and continued trying to reassure her that she was safe, the villagers continued to stare at them through the window. One of the elders even came into the hospital, rapidly questioning the Doc in Portuguese.
Ruth patted the girl on the hand and smiled warmly, then went to the kitchen and sat the kettle on the stove to make the girl some strong tea, then realized she was still clutching the necklace. There were no locals staring through the kitchen windows, and Ruth glanced around the room until her eyes fell on the flour jar. Dumping all the flour onto a clean towel, Ruth sat the necklace in the bottom of the jar, then scooped the flour back in and rinsed her hands off. Peeking through the doorframe she saw the girl lying in her cot, staring at the ceiling and rubbing her wrists. The elder was studying her, still questioning Doc and repeating the word “Medjai” over and over again, which Ruth found odd—the word was not Portuguese.
The tea made, Ruth filled a mug and added sugar and milk and returned to Nani’s bedside. The elder smiled at Ruth, bowing as he left the Hospital. She stared after him for a moment, then shook her head. The doctor and his wife watched as the villagers slowly faded from sight, following the elder back to their homes, all talking excitedly.
The Millers propped Nani up with several pillows and sat with her as she drank the tea. The child ate and drank enough to convince them that she had been given very little to eat for some time. Doc began to wonder if she had been held captive somewhere, perhaps rescued by the man who had brought her to the Hospital, though he was careful to say none of this within the girl’s hearing.
Days passed and the gibberish faded. Within a week of her arrival, Nani val Dynia was babbling fluently in both English and Portuguese. The Millers questioned her gently, but she had no knowledge of where she had been, how she had been rescued, or even her own age. Soon the Millers realized that she had no memory of anything before waking at their house, not even of the tall man who had rescued her.
Her necklace lay quiet and forgotten at the bottom of the flour jar; new clothes were found for her and her dingy shift was discarded. The villagers began to frequent the Hospital, even without medical need. The women came to visit Ruth and Nani played with their babies (they had no children her age). Doc was invited to meet with the elders, and the young men took him hunting. The entire village fussed over Nani as though she were one of their own. Ruth burned the resignation letter.
Quietly the doctor checked the Brazilian birth records and found nothing on the girl. He had a friend in the local government who checked to see if there were any visas issued to a little girl by the name of Nani val Dynia, but nothing came of it.
After several months the Millers came to the conclusion that they simply were not intended to know where this child had come from, nor why she had been the key to being accepted by the villagers. Doc cleared out his office and gave the room to Nani. He flew to the States to visit with an old friend on the mission board, quietly explaining their situation. The two men decided that, for Nani’s sake, the information be kept as quiet as possible.
Doc Miller returned to
Copyright 2007 - A.L. Travis.