He was hoping to get to her house in time, willing himself to walk faster, which wasn’t easy, as the muddy path was slippery and steep. In his big gladstone bag, which he held tight, the precious cargo was carefully wrapped in a linen piece of material, held in place with a piece of coarse string.

In the distance, he could see a single flicker of a candle in the window, and quickened his pace.

His thoughts wondered to the time when he first saw her. The farm was small, white lime on the walls, in contrast with sparse, dark wooden furniture. That afternoon, she went to collect the potatoes from the field above the house, and gave birth to her seventh daughter, right there, on the side of the field. She squatted, and a small, perfectly shaped baby girl slid out of her, while she bit on the hem of her shawl to prevent the loud, guttural sound from escaping her throat. Relieved at the baby’s healthy cry, she quickly wrapped the small wriggly body into her apron, and she came home with a basket of potatoes in one and a new sister to the many siblings in the other hand.

She fell ill that same evening and he was called to her bedside by the village midwife. He checked her all over, gave her large dose of antibiotics and told her to rest, at which point she unwittingly smiled a little.

“I’ll be just fine doctor, I will be just fine”, she weakly assured him, and brought the baby’s head to her chest.

He knew she would be; he saw the steely determination in her eyes.

From then on, he was hardly called to their farm, but they met on Sundays in the church. 

He knew Anton, her husband, as he sat on the Parish Council and was known to sell good stock and traded fairly in corn, always the man of his words and with a firm handshake. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, firm with the children and kind to his wife. The family was religiously devoted and their children respectful, clean and well behaved.

So, when one of the children timidly knocked on the door that day and asked him to visit their mother, he was surprised and hurried through the village and up the hill.

She said she wasn’t well, clutching at her belly, seated at the big kitchen table, pale and lethargic, the pain searing through her whole body, her face withered and her motions painfully slow.

He pressed the stethoscope onto her clammy, grey skin and immediately knew that something wasn’t right. He hoped she can’t see the worry in his eyes, with children milling all around the kitchen table.

“Is Mummy going to be all right, doctor?” finally one of them interrupted the stifling silence.

He didn’t answer, reaching for her left wrist to measure her weak pulse. He asked her to go to the bedroom and lie down, and starting to examine her stomach. She unwittingly let out the gasp and bit her lip. He pressed, and she bit, and he skilfully felt things and her bite made her bottom lip bleed. 

She knew she will not be all right, and she also knew that he knew that. No words needed to be exchanged. She didn’t want to cry, thinking of the children, but she was screaming inside, for those bright, lovely children.

She grabbed at the white sheets of her bed, trying to get up, and beckoned him over. Her voice, only a whisper by now, she breathed into his ear:
“I know what I need. I know there is only one medicine for me…I will have that and I will be better…”

Her eyes were closed and just for a moment he noticed the porcelain forearm, and the blue veins protruding from her skin.

The children, all twelve of them by now, sadly stood outside in a small queue, overwhelmed by the worry for their beautiful, vulnerable mother. 

The next morning, he stepped into the house and there she was, laying on her bed, exhausted, doubled in two from the pain. All the hope was gone, and all the children stared. Their world will never be the same, he knew it, and somehow, they all knew it. 

He gave her a week. A week to say goodbye, a week to sort her affairs, only one week to live. The cancer was everywhere and she felt it and he felt for her, knowing that the pain must’ve been horrendous.

And yet, she weakly beckoned him over.

“I know what will cure me, doctor. The only medicine that will help me, and I need it. Please help me get it and I will be all right, I promise…”

He knew there was no medicine, and Anton knew there was no medicine, and the children knew it and the treetops swaying in the wind knew and all the birds in this glorious autumnal day knew it.

“The cherries”, she whispered with enormous effort.

“In the orchard, just above the house, the cherries are my only medicine…” she slumped back on the bed, but begged him with her beautiful brown eyes.

“Please doctor, just get me some cherries…”.

Anton had tears in his eyes, the reality uncomprehensible to him. The children were completely stunned into silence. And the doctor… just looking at those faces, felt the most humbling sensation in his life. They are about to lose so much and there he stood, completely, utterly helpless, feeling her pain, absorbing their emotions and yet he couldn’t give them any assurance, nor mutter any platitudes.

“I will be back,’” he finally said and left the house. At that moment he promised her and doubted himself, but knew he will get her the cherries she so craved.

For four days he rode his bike, and stopped at every household, looked in every shop he could find, visited all the grocers and spoke to all the Jewish shop owners; but of course, there were no cherries anywhere. He never gave up, and on a fourth day, exhausted and muddy from the road, he knocked on a large wooden door of a nunnery. A small, old nun in her habit came to open the door, a heavy set of keys of all shapes and sizes hanging loosely from the chain around her skinny waist.

“Cherries?” she repeated after him, in disbelief.

“Now, in October, cherries?”

She measured him up and down, his respected figure still holding the authority with his presence.

“You know what, I may just have some in our cellar.” With that, she scuttled into the body of a nunnery, leaving him on that bench, crumpled and on the verge of despair.

When she returned, she held a jar of cherry compote in her wrinkled hands, and to him, she may just be holding the Holy Grail.

“Thank you, sister, God bless, sister,” he kept repeating as he mounted his bike with that shiny jar, neatly wrapped in his bag.

The evening was approaching, and the black clouds shrouded the night and he could hear the first thunder bolts in the distance. Finally, the village was in sight.

He dismounted the bike, knowing that it will not be able to carry him and the invaluable medicine up that steep hill, guided by the flicker of a single candle in the distance.

He knocked on the door, drained physically and emotionally. The door opened and he barged in the bedroom. She was barely alive and couldn’t even open her eyes anymore.

“Cherries…I brought you cherries, Francesca,” he exclaimed and for a moment she opened up her eyes enough to look at him. He removed the linen cloth quickly and the coarse string impatiently. One of the children offered him a spoon and he hastily but with precision stuck it into a jar of thick red syrup. A small, perfectly rounded cherry from the compote rolled onto the spoon and he carried it to her mouth, gently, patiently, like only doctors can. At that moment, she parted her lips ever so slightly, and he pushed the cherry into her parched mouth. Before she could even swallow, she smiled a little, and died, the cherry still in her mouth.

THE END

                                                                                                                                                              WORD COUNT: 1382