The young mother stood and wandered out of the room. They cleaned the clinic at the end of the day. They wiped the surfaces with bleach, and Jonathan brought the yellow plastic water tanks to the village pump on an old rickety wheelbarrow so he could fill them, so they would have water to wash their hands at the next day’s clinic. Then Jonathan swept the floor as Julia made her last notes in patients’ charts. He filed the charts in the file room as the last light left and the clinic slipped into darkness.
As he swept the porch, Jonathan found the baby, not breathing, still and cool but not yet cold on one of the shiny wooden benches on the porch.
There was a shovel next to the cookhouse that they used to turn over ground in the vegetable garden and to dig a hole for the latrine that they moved from place to place. Jonathan lifted the baby as if she were still alive and held her to his chest as he carried her to the cookhouse; as if she had been his own child. And then he placed the baby on the ground and walked twenty paces to the edge of the forest. He dug a hole for her that was three feet deep.
Julia came out to the cookhouse as he was carrying the child to the hole he had dug. She watched as he placed the baby in the hole and filled it with dirt.
It was not that night, and it was not the next night, but it was the night after that Julia came into the examination room in which Jonathan slept and joined him as he slept on the low bed that was used during the day as a place for women to lie down when they were being examined, although there was not really room for two people in the bed. And it was perhaps a week later that Jonathan found himself thinking about how the clinic could run better, which for them meant how they could stop running out of malaria medication and antibiotics and oral rehydration solution—supplies that Jonathan should have been able to command with the flick of a finger, an order to an underling, or an agitated phone call, but now he had to think through the process more carefully, as it was wiser to extract promises and then the supplies themselves without making clear who was who, who was here and who was there, and who was steering this ship after all.
White people come and white people go. The Americans are here one week and gone the next. The white guy who knew Julia worked with them for a few days and talked to Julia long into the night, but he would soon realize that there was no work for him here, not really. Julia was covering the work. They could take care of their own. The people would come in from the bush too late. The clinic needed supplies, which were always short. There are plenty-plenty people to do the work once those people remember to pitch in and get the work done together.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Yvonne Evans-Smith, Naomi Goldman, Julia Richmond, MD, William Levin, MD, John Goh, and Jonathan Crossman. District #4 Health Center. May 2007
NO GOODS LORRY CAME AS FAR AS THE DISTRICT #4 HEALTH CENTER. EVERY FEW DAYS A car or a small beat-up pickup truck came down the road. The County Health Department sent out a Land Cruiser with supplies once a month now that they didn’t need to send a doctor every week or two. The Health Department could have carried the Americans back to Buchanan, but it was against regulations for its Land Cruiser to carry passengers, so Jonathan ordered a tire and wheel, a hand pump, and a red five-gallon gasoline can filled with diesel fuel to be sent on the next trip of the Land Cruiser. Those things arrived about a week after the Americans hobbled out of the jungle on the red dirt road. Jonathan lent them his solar battery recharger, which they jerry-rigged to the terminals of the extended-cab white Dodge Ram. John and Levin spent the better part of a morning putting the new tire on the truck, inflating the other tires, filling the tank with diesel fuel. No one was more surprised than the two men when Levin turned the key and the truck turned over very slowly twice, paused, and then caught, its engine rumbling back to life, as thick black smoke poured out of its tailpipe.
They had spent their evenings together on the porch that week, and it felt to them like being at summer camp or at an extended family’s once-a-year week at the lake cabin built by their grandparents and inherited by five cousins. They sprayed themselves with mosquito repellant, sat on the benches, and talked.
Levin and Julia talked most. “I don’t understand you staying here,” Levin said.
“It’s good work, the work we always talked about me doing,” Julia said.
“But Julia, you’re in the middle of no place. No colleagues. No new ideas. No journals or meetings. We’ve finally given up treating otitis media, for God’s sake. You’re going to wither and rot.”
What Levin knew but didn’t say was that the light had gone out in Julia’s eyes. Same shell. Same skin. Same hair. Same face. But no hope and no spark now. Africa and the damned war had done to Julia what eighteen years of growing up in America, four years of college, four years of medical school, and four years of residency had failed to do. Julia’s soul had disappeared, and all she could do was see patients all day long, one sad story after another.
When Julia heard Levin say come home now, she didn’t think, this is my home. She didn’t think about Jonathan and whether or not she loved or even liked him, though she had started to trust him a little at last. She didn’t think about the calling of the pepper-birds or the murmured voices from the village in the morning or the backyard barbeque smell of the charcoal fires or the cleansing beauty of the evening rains or even about the feel of washing herself under the village pump after dark when the village had gone to sleep. In some hidden place, Julia thought only about Carl, about her own awkwardness and failures that had brought her here, where she probably deserved to be, the awkwardness that had killed Carl, because she had been careless and made something happen between them that brought Carl back to Africa to die, and now all she wanted was to stay here where no one could see her or her mistakes. There was no value in going anywhere. The world is as the world is. It cannot be repaired. If you lift your head up, someone will certainly cut it off. If you hope, those hopes can only be dashed. If you let yourself feel, you will make a mistake and only feel heartbreak and shame.
“I’m going to stay here and keeping working.” That’s what she told Levin. The need is great. There’s nothing left of me to try again, she told herself. These people were good to come, but Julia was anxious for them to go so she could crawl back inside herself again.
It was about the middle of the day and hot-hot when the Dodge Ram roared back to life. The Americans and John had been at the health center a week, each sleeping in an examination room or in the records room. They had all gone through their changes of clothes and had washed their things out once in a big plastic tub with water from the village pump, and then left their clothes hanging on the benches of the health center overnight to dry. It was time to go home. They could easily make Buchanan by nightfall if they left soon after Levin and John got the truck running again. Julia could come in after the next Health Department Land Cruiser visit and drive the truck back to the health center. They’d be in Buchanan by nightfall. Monrovia the following day. The twice a week flight out through Freetown, Casablanca, and London two nights later, and then home two days after that. They would be back in Rhode Island before the end of the week.
When the truck started, the growl of its engine alerted the village to an event happening in their community. The white truck was running. It would move from its place next to the health center, where it had rested for a number of years. The Americans and John went to pack their things.
Julia was in big belly clinic when she heard the truck turn over. Her spirit soared for an instant, and then fell back. There was something inside her that still hoped for escape, a part that was formed when she was imprisoned at The Club and resisted, a part that wanted to preserve her own life and make it better, a part that had been buried for years but hadn’t quite died. There is a way out, she thought for a moment. But then her reality set back in. I cannot leave this place, she told herself. This is the life I deserve.
So when Levin, Naomi and Yvonne came to stand outside her examination room waiting for her, Julia was rea
dy to push back against them. They aren’t carrying their bags, she told herself. They are going today but not quite yet. There is more business to transact. Jonathan was sitting at his desk, a pencil behind his ear. Julia didn’t know what he thought about the Americans, and frankly she didn’t care. This was her fight not his.
“It’s time,” Levin said. “Truck’s running.”
“I heard,” Julia said. “Safe travels.”
“Why don’t you come?” Levin said. “There’s room for five. The back seat is tight but we can squeeze.”
“Don’t be silly,” Julia said. “My work is here.”
“Call it time off,” Yvonne said. “Everyone deserves a little vacation now and then.”
The sun was high but light in the main clinic room was muted. Jonathan sat next to a window across the room. Sunlight fell on Jonathan’s back as he tipped his chair backward on its two rear legs to listen.
There was little sound coming from the village. The people and animals knew to rest in the midday heat. The smells in the room were human smells—sweat and a hint of baby’s urine and the sweet smell of seedy yellow newborn stool, which smells like apricots, set against the tang of rubbing alcohol, which was strongest in the examination rooms, and the dry powdery pharmaceutical smell and taste of antibiotics and acetaminophen, which was strongest in the drug room.
Jonathan did not think these people were trouble. They were unable to get a car across a bridge, and then they stranded themselves in the village and had to beg for car parts. For a day or two Jonathan wondered if they were something different then they appeared, if they were after information, if someone had heard a rumor and wanted to quietly check it out. But no, these people where exactly who they appeared to be, which was next to nothing.
Jonathan learned from Julia, little by little. She kept his bed warm at night, and she didn’t challenge him when he began to build again, little by very little in the clinic and the village, not that there was very much yet. Julia taught Jonathan to listen and that got the village to trust him, and Jonathan for himself found a kind of place and a kind of trust in the village and in village life. They were his people. They shared food with Jonathan and Julia. He enjoyed walking to the village with them and squatting with the men to hear stories about the headmen of other villages, their sons and their wives, about feats of strength performed in the jungle, and about the amazing abilities of men with only one arm or only one leg or of one man with no legs at all.
No one talked about the war, about what they did in the war or what was done to them.
Julia taught him to lift the children into the air, and she taught him how to tickle them. He was amazed to discover that the delight those children exuded brought delight to him as well.
But there wasn’t anything between Jonathan and Julia, not really. She was cold to him, even when they were together. She tolerated him. To a certain extent, she used him for protection, for warmth, and for release. There was nothing beyond that. Jonathan used her as well. She had been his life preserver, his ticket out. They understood one another, and both understood the rules of the game. There was nothing beyond that for him either. So when the Americans cornered Julia, Jonathan knew the game was over. No regrets. They had gotten plenty of mileage out of each other. Jonathan was still alive, which was more than he thought would happen. The men in the white trucks had never come to take him away, shoot him in the jungle, and leave his body to rot. Know when to hold them and know when to fold them.
“Just a little R and R,” the white man said.
“I don’t need anything,” Julia said. “Send us antibiotics and aspirin. Ship them over once a month.”
“Julia pack your things and get into the truck with us. Do it now,” the white man said.
“Screw you, Bill. I’m not your resident. This is my life now. You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore,” Julia said. She stepped through them to clear a path for the patient, a thin dark woman standing behind her.
“My boy came to see you home,” the older woman said. Jonathan knew her type. That woman had gotten out. She built herself a new life in the U.S. Now she was better than Liberia. She had come back to teach Liberians, and everyone else, how to live.
“I’m so sorry about Terrance,” Julia said. “I know I am responsible for his death. But I’m part of something here. I can’t just walk out on these people. They depend on me.”
“That something survived for thousands of years without you,” the older woman said. “And people will get by whether you are here or not.”
Julia walked onto the porch and the Americans followed her. She wanted to lead them away from the place that she felt was hers, the place they were invading, and closer to the truck that would take them away from her and the health center and her village, to help them put this silliness to rest.
“You’re not thinking straight,” Bill Levin said.
“I’m a consenting adult,” Julia said. “I’m a free woman, and I can make my own choices, thank you very much.”
It’s not working, Naomi thought. Nothing Dr. Levin says will get her to come home with us. It was all for nothing. Our coming here. Carl and Terrance. The whole thing. Julia will never move. She’s hiding. Carl died, and she blames herself, and she’s buried her life. This place lets her live without feeling, without love, without risk, without herself. I know this place. I used to live here myself.
What did Carl say about Julia? Pie in the sky. Likes saving little kids. Who was going to save this woman from herself? And what did Carl say about Naomi? About her sitting inside of him as if she were a part of him? If Julia was a part of Carl and Carl was dead and Carl was a part of Naomi that made Julia a part of Naomi, and Naomi couldn’t live with being split up any more. No more hiding in trees. Not more hiding. We are one people, Naomi thought. One body.
“Come in the truck with us,” Levin said. “You can always change your mind when we get to Buchanan.”
“No. I’m staying here. That’s final,” Julia said. “Have a safe trip.”
“We’re done here,” Levin said. “I’m going to get my things.” He nodded at John. “Let’s get the things and pack the truck. Luggage in the bed. Back seat is going to be tight, and I think we can make Buchanan before the rain, if we haul some ass.” Levin paused. John was a churchgoing man. “Sorry man. If we get a move on.”
John stood and began to walk with Levin back inside.
“No, we’re not done yet,” Naomi said. She stepped next to Julia and put her arm around Julia’s waist.
“We’re taking you home, hon,” Naomi said, and she held Julia tight to her, Naomi’s body warm and strong. Carl.
“Don’t call me hon,” Julia said and she started to twist away.
Yvonne came and stood on the other side of Julia. She put her arm around Julia’s waist so they were standing arm in arm. Julia was angry and proud and twisted away as she turned to look at Naomi who she was going to tell to go fuck herself.
“Go loose. Let us carry you,” Naomi said.
It was Naomi next to Julia, not Carl.
Suddenly Julia was under water. Couldn’t breathe. Sucked away by the current. No air. Drowning. Cold. She didn’t know which way was up.
Then she felt was something warm and strong. A body. Bodies. They were holding her. They lifted her. Carl was there. Then he wasn’t.
Then Julia was Kim, bending over in the garden, hoeing someone else’s farm. Let me swim for you, Carl said. Go limp. All Julia wanted was Carl, who was strong and warm and good and now was gone because she was awkward and disconnected. Naomi and Yvonne held Julia around the waist as they walked her down the steps. Jonathan came down the steps and opened the rear doors of the truck’s cab. He lifted her into the rear seat.
“Farewell,” Julia said to Jonathan just before he closed the door.
“Take care of yourself,” Jonathan said. “No one else will.”
“You not even close on that score, brother,” Naomi said. “We take care of our
own.”
John and Levin got in and slammed their doors. The big engine turned over three times, and then caught. John backed the truck up a few feet and put it into first.
They drove down the little hill to where it meets the red road in the jungle, and they drove off down the red road they had come on a little more than a week before.
The truck raised a cloud of red dust, which settled on the grass of the field and the leaves of the trees adjoining the road, and which would be washed away by the evening rains.
The sun was strong and hot, and the hot air wavered under the green trees.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Naomi Goldman
IT WAS GOOD TO BE IN AFRICA, TO FADE INTO THE BACKGROUND AND LET THE BOUNDARIES dissolve, to be part of all that is great and pulsing.
But Naomi still came home to Rhode Island, because it was the only home she knew. Home with its racism. Home with its greed. Home with its commercialism, the bright colors dancing on billboards and across the television screens in all the living rooms in America, as people sat before them, transfixed, all day long and late into the night.
Julia came to live with Naomi in West Providence, near Broadway, where all sorts of people live, where you could hear the car radios and the boom boxes blaring late into the night. Julia stayed in the extra bedroom Naomi thought would be Carl’s. Naomi thought about it that way even though Carl had never seen this house, and she kept thinking it was Carl’s even after she knew Carl was never coming home, because even though she knew Carl was dead, a part of her never believed it.
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