Afterworld

by Lynnette Lounsbury

  ‘Boys?’

  She threw back her head and laughed. ‘I think you mean “men” don’t you? And you really don’t want to know!’

  He shook his head, opened his scuffed backpack and pulled out his game console to see if it had survived being used as a weapon. It had. He flicked it open and saw the same screen that had flashed at him on the aeroplane before he had flipped it shut. ‘You are dead,’ it mocked him.

  ‘You’re not still wasting time on that stupid game are you?’ Kaide smirked.

  ‘Not much, just seeing if it still works.’ It wasn’t exactly the truth; he had played his favourite game Windward for most of the flight. Windward followed a Greek sailor who accidentally found the door to the Underworld and had to navigate through without being claimed as dead. Touted as one of the most difficult computer games of all time, he had only managed to get about a quarter of the way through.

  He sat staring at the screen again as it continued to flash: ‘You are dead’. Frowning, he wondered how many times he had seen those words.

  ‘I could bottle the amount of energy you spend on that and sell it for millions.’ She nodded in front of them. ‘We’re here. And you have a . . .’ she laughed, ‘welcoming committee?’

  2

  Dom looked up to see the new clinic in front of him, a compact wooden structure with a roof so shiny it spun the struggling morning sun into pale rainbows across the two black Mercedes parked neatly in front of it.

  ‘They came in separate cars?’ He shook his head. It was so like his parents. If they had come in one car there would have been the inconvenience of waiting a few minutes while his father was taken to the embassy before his mother could go wherever she wanted. His sister just shrugged and smirked. His mother sat in the passenger seat of one car, her long and noticeably slim legs thrust out the open door. Dust was creeping up the sides of her expensive shoes. Through the open window of the other car he could see his father reading on his tablet.

  Dom took a deep breath which made his sister laugh again.

  ‘Get out there, Domdom. Let them coo over you. They’ll be gone in a few minutes when the locals start arriving.’

  Dom climbed out the car and noticed his head was still sore from his encounter at the airport. The thought of it gave him another adrenaline rush and he stood still for a moment to let it pass.

  ‘Dominic, darling.’ His mother slid elegantly out of the car and came towards him, placing her skeletal, manicured hands on each side of his face. She was even thinner than she was on his last visit, so much so that he felt uncomfortable looking at her. It made her face less soft, less pretty and very sad. Her skin always seemed pale next to his, but this time it was sallow, greyish. Like a corpse. Her tightly cropped hair didn’t help either. Dom felt the rapid pumping of his heart.

  ‘Hello, darling. Those clothes suit your skin.’ His mother glanced at neither his clothes nor his skin as she kissed his cheek, gripping the back of his neck a little desperately. She didn’t have to bend to kiss him anymore. They were the same height.

  ‘Mum.’ She was still holding his face. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Of course, why wouldn’t I be?’ Her smile was forced.

  ‘Oh, you just seem . . . you seem . . .’ He knew there was no polite way of describing her.

  She huffed at him and pulled her hands away. ‘Old? Well, that’s what happens, Dominic, while you are off at school, having fun. I’m getting old. You don’t need to remind me.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to say old,’ he jumped in, ‘just . . .’

  ‘Dominic!’ His father’s voice boomed as the tall man unfolded himself from the car to greet his son. He had been in Pakistan during his last visit so Dom hadn’t seen him in over a year. Dom took his father’s proffered hand and shook it self-consciously.

  ‘Good gods, Dom, you’re a man! Last time I saw you, I swear you were up to my knees.’ He patted his son awkwardly on the shoulder and Dom noticed that his father had also aged in the last year. He no longer looked like a fit and powerful man in his prime. He just appeared tired. Wrinkles that used to appear only when he smiled were now permanently etched into his cheeks and forehead. ‘Look! The clinic, Dom, it’s finally done.’ He gestured proudly towards the small, shiny building. Dom glanced sideways at his mother and saw her face tighten.

  Kaide grinned. ‘He’s going to help me give injections today.’

  Dom watched his mother grimace and he spoke quickly.

  ‘Sure. I had to give Michael one of those adrenaline shots.’

  His mother turned, mildly interested. ‘Michael who came with you last year?’

  ‘Yeah. The cafeteria put real milk in the soy machine and he drank it. His throat closed up. I had to run to the dorm, get the pen and inject it into his leg. He was out for over a minute, but as soon as I pressed the button, he was fine. It was amazing. Back from the dead.’

  ‘Oh that’s insane!’ His sister loved anything dramatic. ‘Did he have a near-death experience or anything?’

  ‘He said everything got brighter and brighter and then went white, but the paramedic said that was just the lack of oxygen.’

  His mother was less impressed. ‘He should carry the injection with him.’

  ‘He’s put a few in the cafeteria fridge for next time. And he got a fifty-thousand-dollar payout for the mistake.’

  ‘No way!’

  Dom laughed. ‘Yeah, they just took it off his tuition bill though. He never actually got any of it.’

  ‘And that’s why we don’t live in America,’ his father interjected sarcastically, surreptitiously checking his watch.

  ‘Everyone is out for whatever they can get.’

  ‘Oh, as opposed to India! The selfless country.’ Kaide laughed.

  ‘He could have just accepted it was an accident,’ her father added.

  Before Kaide could explode with righteous indignation, her mother waved it all off with a bored sweep of her hand.

  ‘I brought coffee, do you two want coffee?’ She went back to the car and her driver handed her a tray of coffees, which Dominic almost fell over himself trying to reach.

  ‘Aw, thank you. So tired.’ He gulped it down. The coffee in India was completely different in taste and style to that in America, but he loved it.

  ‘Well, do you want to come in to the embassy with me this morning? I don’t have too much on, one meeting and a press conference.’ His father liked to show him off whenever he was home. Dom didn’t mind the embassy. It was always busy and everyone had interesting things to talk about.

  ‘Or you could come to croquet with me. We always need a spare on our team,’ his mother piped in.

  ‘Croquet? I don’t even know how to play croquet. All those horrible women? No thanks.’ When she wasn’t shopping, his mother spent most of her time with a gaggle of foreigners, who gossiped about the other expats in whispers and with sidelong glances.

  ‘Those are my friends, Dominic,’ she replied without real feeling. ‘We could shop, or watch a movie or something afterwards.’

  ‘I think I’ll stay with Kaide today, guys.’ He ignored the dirty look his mother shot at his father. ‘I’m here for three months, Mum, I’ll hang with you and Dad, I promise.’

  She finished her coffee. ‘Your vaccinations aren’t even up to date.’

  He started to reply, ‘Yes they are . . .’ but trailed off as she gave him another kiss on the cheek and climbed back into her car, nodding to her driver.

  ‘The club, Suresh, thank you.’ She sat back, exhausted. Dom smiled and waved. She gave him a tight smile as her car moved back down the tiny laneway.

  His father was a little apologetic. ‘It’s . . . it’s been a rough year. And the clinic was her thing, you know. She’s been a little upset about it.’ That seemed to be all he was going to say. He nodded at his children in a stiff, formal way before he climbed into his own car and was chauffeured away. As he was pulling away the window slid down. ‘Where is your driver, Kaide? You didn’t d
rive yourself did you?’ His voice faded as the car sped up and Kaide waved cheerfully after him.

  ‘Wow. At least they used to pretend to be happy.’ Dom frowned.

  ‘Yeah.’ Kaide shrugged. ‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself and come help in here.’ She hooked his arm and they headed up the small steps to the new clinic.

  ‘Hang on.’ She turned back and locked the car, even though they both knew nobody would steal it. Thievery was limited to things that could be eaten or sold for food. Nobody had any use for a luxury car, let alone the ability to sell it. But she locked it anyway. The kids would climb all through it if she left the doors open.

  As they walked up the stairs, kids appeared and ran to Kaide like magnets, holding her hands, pulling on her shirt and jeans. Hands went out to him too, asking for money in a half-hearted way that was habit more than expectation.

  They walked through the back entrance of the clinic, which opened into a tiny courtyard surrounded by ramshackle slum houses. This was where the patients waited for their treatment and even though the sun was still only peeping over the tin roofs there were a couple of dozen people waiting patiently. Dom was always amazed at how polite people here were. Back home people would have been whinging and complaining about the wait, but here even the smallest babies were leaning quietly against their mothers in the stinking warm air.

  A woman in a white coat walked out of a small office to the side of the main room, wiping her gloved hands on a towel. She smiled when she saw Kaide.

  ‘Hello, love!’ She had a rich British accent and brown hair tied up under a white headscarf. For a moment Dom wondered how she managed to keep everything so clean in all this dirt and sweat, and then she looked at him and he was struck speechless by the dark, deep sadness in her eyes. She was haunted. He could barely drag his eyes from hers, but managed to glance at Kaide to see if she was as affected by the doctor as he was. Kaide was already laughing and playing with some of the waiting children. The doctor was still watching him intensely. A smiled crossed her mouth, a very beautiful one, but it failed to light up her eyes. She was about forty-five, the same age as his mother, but much more vibrant. Even so, he had a sudden fear that some time in his life he might feel as much grief as he could see in her eyes.

  ‘I’m Angie.’ She smiled again and held out a hand. ‘You must be Dominic.’

  He shook it gently. ‘Dom.’

  There was a small silence between them, the rest of the slums continued to clatter and chatter, but he felt the moment.

  ‘The strong, silent type I see.’ She ushered him into one of the treatment rooms. ‘Come see what your father finally built down here. I saw him out there, apparently too busy to come in.’ Dom heard the irony in her voice and couldn’t help smirking back at her. ‘Can you wash up and go into Room Two, Kaide? There is a man with a bad cut to his calf. It’s infected and full of maggots. Can you wash it out with the saline pump I’ve left there?’

  Kaide grinned at Dom as she left them. ‘Yum.’

  The building was clean and bright with plenty of new equipment and supplies, something that rarely happened in a medical facility in this part of town.

  ‘Wow. It looks good.’ He touched a metal surface.

  ‘It’s new. Let’s hope it’s still this useful in a decade.’ She pointed him into a little cubicle where a mother and child were waiting. ‘Kaide said you might help with some vaccinations. Not scared of needles are you?’

  He shook his head. His family had travelled far too much for him to be worried about injections.

  Angie spoke softly to the family in a dialect he didn’t understand and then quietly jabbed the baby in the arm. He saw the baby’s eyes widen abruptly in surprise and then her bottom lip quivered while she whimpered softly.

  ‘What a brave girl!’ Angie crooned, stroking her hair. ‘I have a present for brave girls.’ She handed her a small lollipop and all pain was forgotten. The girl was rapturous. Angie also handed the mother a tin of formula.

  ‘This is to help her put on a little weight,’ she told Dom. ‘She looks malnourished. They only eat rice, and sometimes just the water used to boil the rice.’ She explained the instructions to the girl’s mother who nodded and bowed slightly in thanks and left.

  ‘Now, here’s what to do.’ She handed him a box full of syringes. ‘These are already primed. So, all you need to do is unwrap them, pinch up the arm skin a little and inject it close to the surface. You have to be quick or they will squirm and then it will really hurt. Can you manage it?’

  He was a little shocked that this was his only education. ‘Uh, yeah, I guess so.’

  And she was gone. A moment later she popped her head back around the door. ‘Occasionally people can get angry. They wait patiently for the most part, but they are poor, hungry and some are very sick. If there is trouble, just walk away and come and find me.’

  Before he had a chance to speak, a young girl and her brother stepped through the door. They were only about four or five years old and gazed up at him expectantly. Dom realised he was going to have to actually do something.

  ‘Um, sit down on the chair.’ They were uncomprehending. His Hindi was terrible so he resorted to pointing. They understood and sat quietly, clearly scared.

  ‘Roll up your sleeve.’ He pretended to do it himself until they followed his instructions. ‘This will hurt a bit.’ He pulled a face and said ‘Ow!’ The boy grimaced and turned to his sister, but she was grinning at Dom’s acting and she nodded.

  With a shaking hand, Dom unwrapped the first needle and turned to the girl. Pinching up a piece of her tiny arm he hesitated. Looking into her huge brown eyes made him almost unable to do it. Then he figured he didn’t want to be as useless as his mother, so he aimed, closed his eyes and jabbed, squeezing down on the needle.

  There was silence. He opened an eye and the girl was pulling a face. Then she grinned at her little brother and said something that made him laugh. Dom shrugged and pulled out another needle, it wasn’t as hard as he’d thought. It didn’t take long for him to realise that he was wrong. Her brother squirmed and squealed and in the end he had to wedge the boy between his knees to keep him still and, in the struggle, accidentally scratched the boy up the arm before he finally managed to inject the serum. The boy had huge tears rolling down his cheeks as he left the clinic and Dom’s brief sense of playing God evaporated. He realised it would be a long and draining day. A smile plastered on his face, he led the next terrified child and wary mother into the room.

  His sister was certainly right about the repetitive pain; his wrist and thumb were aching. He tried switching hands, but couldn’t push the needle in quick enough and after a whimper of pain from a two-year-old, he switched back. Just when the pain was almost so bad he could think of nothing else, Angie walked in with a can of soft drink and said, ‘Break time. We’re halfway through the line.’

  He wasn’t sure whether to groan or be relieved.

  She smiled. ‘It’s okay. We all switch jobs when we can. You can take over weighing the babies from Kaide. Put the baby on the scales, write down their weight on the chart, try not to be horrified at how far they fall below normal and give the mothers two cans of formula.’ She was still smiling, but only met his eyes after she had finished speaking. The sadness hit him again when he caught her gaze, this time so powerfully he took a step back. Her eyes were almost bottomless wells of brown grief. She watched him silently, unblinking until the sadness threatened to overwhelm him. He felt a sense of panic, as though he was going to lose something.

  ‘You are very different to your sister,’ she finally said. Dom didn’t know what to say. ‘Does it ever make your life hard?’ She paused. ‘Feeling so deeply?’

  He had a sudden sense of being understood and for a horrible moment thought he might cry. He fought it off and nodded slightly.

  ‘You take everything to heart, I can tell. My daughter was the same way. Living here, working here . . . it must kill you.’

  ‘Yes.’
It was just a whisper, but it was all he could manage.

  ‘Some people let the harsh parts of life wash over them – like Kaide. They just see the good; feel the good. It’s not that they don’t want to help – she works here nearly every day. Some of us see all the poverty and illness and despair. Kaide sees smiling kids and vaccines and new buildings.’ She sipped from a cup that, despite the steamy weather, seemed to contain hot coffee. ‘When you feel deeply, life can kill you.’

  Dom thought suddenly of his mother, the living corpse, and wondered if, even without any biological connection, he had inherited more than he had thought from her. He was afraid Angie might go, might stop this conversation and return to her job so he asked quickly, ‘Who is your daughter? Does she live here?’

  Her eyes were again naked, grieving, angry and raw. ‘No. She doesn’t live. Here.’

  Dom understood immediately and wished he had never asked the question. But it was too late to take it back and they sat staring at each other.

  ‘She was seventeen when she finished high school and decided that before she went to college she would work in Argentina for a year, in an orphanage and clinic, very similar to this one.’ She sipped her coffee again slowly as though the words needed to be coaxed out. ‘She wrote every week. I’d get pictures and letters, but then the emails stopped. I wasn’t worried at first, the internet went down randomly over there, but after two weeks I called the orphanage and got no response. I called the police a few days later and discovered that they already knew what had happened, they just didn’t have an identification on the American girl.’

  Dom cringed inside, knowing the story was not going to end well.

  Angie read his thoughts. ‘She wasn’t dead. Just missing. There had been a raid by some local rebels, stealing medicines, some computers I had sent over for the clinic. The place was burned to the ground, fourteen children shot and the six Catholic nuns who worked there were missing. So was she. I flew over and did everything I could for six months. My marriage ended over it. My husband insisted she was dead and we had to grieve and bury her, but I was sure she was still alive. That was two years ago. She could still be alive. That’s what haunts me. With some gang out in the jungle somewhere. A captive. They do that. Keep hostages for years.’