of mine who had told her to“call Dr. Lombardi. He knows a lot about very weird things.” She arranged a conference call, and in ten minutes I was transported through the telephone wires to a small hospital in Calcutta, India, where I found out for the first time that the patient was Mother Teresa.
On the line were her two main Indian doctors. We chatted and discussed the details of the case for about an hour, and though those details are now hazy to me, what came through the staticky wires was their deep abiding concern for their patient—these guys were worried.
I wished them well as I got off the line, and I went back to unpack some boxes. She called again an hour later. She said, “They were very impressed by what you had to say, and they’d like you to go to Calcutta. I’m making the arrangements. I can get you out tomorrow afternoon on the Concorde for the first leg.”
I said, “This is impossible,” as I had just found my passport in one of these boxes, and I told her it expired three months before.
She said, “That’s a minor detail. Meet me in front of your building tomorrow morning, Sunday, at 7 A.M .”
Well as you can probably surmise, I’m somebody who pretty much does what he’s told. So seven o’clock the next morning she comes careening down the block in a wood-paneled station wagon with bad shock absorbers. I jump in. The next stop’s the passport office at Rockefeller Center, where on a Sunday morning a State Department official came, let us in, took my picture, and in fifteen minutes handed me a brand-new passport. The next stop was the Indian Consulate, where, again on a Sunday morning, the entire staff came in full dress uniform to give me an honor guard procession, which I walked past as they usheredme in to the consulate general himself, who affixed the visa to my passport.
He leaned in towards me and said, “We bestow our blessings on you. The eyes of the world are upon you.”
Now I knew who Mother Teresa was, of course, but this was the first moment I realized what she meant, not just to the Indian people, but to the world.
I get back in the car. I’m getting into this.
“Where next?”
She says, “We’re ahead of schedule. I’m going to drop you off at your home; I’ll be back at 11 A.M . I’ll meet you downstairs.” Sure enough, 11 A.M. , tires squealing, she pulls up with one addition: in the backseat of this station wagon are wedged five Sisters of Charity—five nuns—as if sitting on a perch. They start handing me letters in envelopes and small packages wrapped in burlap and tied with twine, saying, “Well if you see Sister Narita and Sister Rafael, please give them this from me.” I’m a courier. This is all before Homeland Security.
We barrel off to JFK, and when we get there I ask, sotto voce, “Why are they here? They could have just given you these things. I don’t understand why they had to come to the airport.”
And I was told, “Well, I didn’t know how to tell you this, but you don’t have a confirmed seat on the Concorde—you’re flying standby.” My eyes widened. “Well, the sisters are going to go up and down the line of ticketed passengers and beg until someone gives up their seat.” I stood off to the side, just out of earshot, as I watched the scene unfold.
The five nuns surround this first New York City businessman. He’s listening to them, he’s looking over at me, he’s looking back at them, he shakes his head no, he’s sorry, he can’t help. They move on to the next one. And now I can hear theirvoices, which obviously have been raised, and in about fifteen seconds this businessman realizes that resistance is futile, and he hands over his ticket. The sisters come towards me, and they hand me this ticket as an offering, and there is a small triumphal grin on each of their faces—the nun equivalent of a high five.
I wag my finger at them. I say, “You sisters are little devils! I’m going to tell Mother Teresa what you
Richard Ellis Preston Jr.