Night Train

by Thom Jones

  Koestler was a loner, and preferred his own company to that of anyone else after long, hard days of bonhomie with the junior physicians and the in-your-face contact with patients—patients not only deprived of basic necessities but lacking such amenities as soap, mouthwash, and deodorant. Koestler found that it was useful, and even necessary, to remain remote—to cultivate the image of the chief—since an aspect of tribalism invaded the compound in spite of the artificial structure of the church, which was imposed on it and which never seemed to take very well in the bush. The newfangled wet blanket of civilization was thrown over ancient customs to almost no avail. But there were ways to get things done out here, and Koestler embodied those most notable characteristics of the New Zealander: resourcefulness, individualism, and self-reliance. In fact, Koestler carried self-containment to a high art. He had a lust for the rough-and-tumble, and preferred the hardships of Africa to the pleasant climate and easygoing customs of his homeland. As Koestler was fond of thinking, if Sir Edmund Hillary had a mountain to conquer when he climbed Everest in 1953 and breathed the rarefied air there, Koestler had baboons to tame and tropical diseases to vanquish in the here and now of Zaire. Koestler modestly considered himself New Zealand’s gift to equatorial Africa.

  Now Babbitt was high up another tree, raising so much hell that the majority of the Africans—workers and convalescents—had assembled to watch. Babbitt scrambled back and forth along a limb with a pencil-size twig in his fingers, mimicking the manner in which Koestler smoked his Dunhill menthols à la Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Babbitt’s imitation was so precise that it seemed uncannily human. Then, having established his character, he did something far worse: he imitated the way Koestler sat on the toilet during his bowel movements, which were excruciatingly painful because of Koestler’s piles.

  This was all much to the delight of the Africans, who roared and fell to the ground and pounded it or simply held their sides and hooted hysterically. Babbitt, who was so often reviled, feared, and despised, now gave the Africans enormous pleasure. They roared anew each time Babbitt bared his teeth and shook his fist like evil incarnate, once nearly toppling from his limb before abruptly grabbing hold of it again. Babbitt’s flair for the dramatic had roused the Africans to a fever pitch. Some of the natives began to dance as if invaded by unseen spirits, and this frightened Koestler marginally, as it had during his first days in Africa. Koestler thought that when the Africans were dancing—especially when they got out the drums and palm wine—they were as mesmerized by unreason as the mobs who once clamored to hear the irrational, primitive, but dangerously soul-satisfying ravings of Hitler and other megalomaniacs and Antichrists of his ilk.

  The doctor retained his composure throughout the episode and, speaking to his pet in reasonable tones, attempted to persuade him to come down. Koestler knew that baboons did not climb trees as a rule, and while Babbitt was not an ordinary baboon, he was very unsteady up in a tree, even when sober. But the more sweetly Koestler coaxed, the more Babbitt raged at him. Koestler instructed Johnson—the only African who was not holding his sides with laughter—to run back to the compound and obtain a stretcher to use as a safety net in case Babbitt passed out and fell from the tree, but as the doctor was intently giving Johnson these instructions, a wedge of smile cracked the African’s face and he fell to howling as well.

  “So, Cornelius, this is how it is with you,” Koestler said with a certain amount of amusement. “You have betrayed me as well.” As the others continued to hoot and wail, Koestler remembered that his friend Jules Hartman, the bush pilot, would be flying a pair of new American docs in later that day, and considered what a marvelous story this would make. He wanted to join in the fun, but as Babbitt began to masturbate, Koestler’s impulse to laugh and give in to the moment was quickly vanquished by feelings of shame, anger, and real concern at the possibility of Babbitt’s falling. Furthermore, it was his job to see that things didn’t get out of control. An inch freely given around here quickly became the proverbial mile. The doctor raised his voice just slightly, insisting that the audience make a pile of leaves underneath the tree to break Babbitt’s fall, which seemed all but inevitable. “Mister Johnson, see that this is done immediately,” Koestler said. “I had better see heel-clicking service, do you hear me?”

  Johnson wiped the smile from his face and began abusing the Africans. Soon a formidable pile of leaves had been gathered, but then Koestler, who was plotting the trajectory of the possible fall, was distracted when a small boy charged onto the scene and summoned the doctor to the clinic. A child had been bitten by a snake and was dying, the boy said. Koestler hastened back, the heavily laden pockets of his bush shorts jingling against his legs as he trotted alongside the young messenger, trying to get the boy to identify the type of snake responsible for the bite so he would be able to respond immediately with the appropriate dosage of antivenin, based on the victim’s body weight, the bite pattern and location, the amount of edema present, and a number of other factors, including the possibility of shock. His alcohol-benumbed mind was soon clicking like a computer.

  The child’s father, tall, lean, but regal in a pair of ragged khaki shorts—his ebony skin shiny with oily beads of perspiration and covered with a number of pinkish-white keloid scars—stood impassively outside the clinic with a hoe in one hand and a dead cobra in the other. The man muttered something about how the snake had killed his cow, how quickly the animal had fallen stone dead. In fact, he seemed more concerned about the dead animal than about his child, which, after all, was only a girl.

  Inside the surgery, Sister Doris was already at work on the girl, who had been bitten twice on the left leg. Koestler assumed that the snake had deposited most of its neurotoxic venom in the cow; if the girl had not been bitten second she would have been as dead as the cow, since the snake was large and the girl was small and frail.

  Koestler cautiously administered a moderate dose of antivenin, antibiotics, and Demerol for pain. Then he auscultated the child’s chest. Her lungs sounded fine, but since the natives were enamored by hypodermic needles, he gave her a B12 shot—the magic bullet he used on himself to relieve hangovers. Before long the child’s color improved, and only then did Koestler’s thoughts return to Babbitt’s latest caper. It seemed like an event that had happened in the distant past.

  Mopping perspiration from his face, Koestler stepped outside and told the girl’s father that his daughter was very strong, that the bite had been one of the worst Koestler had ever seen, and that the daughter was very special to have survived it. Actually, the little girl would probably have survived with no intervention whatever. But to survive a serious snakebite gave the victim unique status among the natives. Koestler hoped the father would now see his child in a new light, and that she would in fact have a better life from here on out. Sister Doris picked up on this and embellished the story until the crowd that had gone to witness Babbitt’s debauchery had gathered outside the surgery to examine the dead snake and catch a glimpse of the young girl who would have unspecified powers and privileges for the rest of her life.

  Koestler returned to the office in his small brick duplex—a mere hundred square feet cluttered with a large desk, five filing cabinets, books, whiskey bottles, medical paraphernalia, ashtrays, and a tricolored, fully assembled human skeleton. Koestler shook the last Dunhill from his pack and lit it. How long had it been since he had eaten last? He had a full-blown hangover now, and the cigarette, which tasted like Vicks VapoRub and cardboard, practically wasted him. He heard Johnson’s feet flip-flopping along in an oversized pair of Clarks which Koestler had handed down to him, and looked out to see Johnson rushing toward the office, anxiously followed by a couple of boys who were carrying Babbitt toward the gazebo on a stretcher.

  Koestler was not pleased. In the first place, Johnson had let the chickens burn in all the excitement, and now Koestler’s fears about Babbitt were realized as he listened to the story of how the baboon had passed out and dropped from the tree wit
h his arms tucked to his sides. He pictured the monkey falling like a black leaden weight, an oversized version of the Maltese Falcon. He would not tell Hartman of the incident after all, since if he did he would never hear the end of the pilot’s ridicule about Koestler’s misplaced love for the absurd animal. Absurdity was a very big part of his life, even as he strove to attain a kind of nobility in spite of it. Koestler became completely fed up with Babbitt as Johnson explained that the animal was basically unhurt. Koestler wondered if he should get himself a dog for a pet, since every other creature on the planet seemed inclined to shun him. It must be some vibe he gave off, he thought. Beyond superficial relationships, he was alone. Even Hartman, once you got past the fun and games, did not really care one whit about him. Not really. My God, he felt vile! Koestler suddenly realized how his devotion to the monkey must have seemed to the staff: as inexplicable as he had found Philip Carey’s pathetic, masochistic attachment to Mildred, the green-skinned waitress in Of Human Bondage, a book he had read many years ago as a kid in Auckland, the very book that had pushed him into medicine and off to faraway tropical climes.

  To be this much alone offered a vantage point from which he might look into the pit of his soul, but what good was that? How much truth could you bear to look at? Particularly if it left you a drunken sot. Koestler forked down a can of pink salmon; then, to clear his palate of fish, he chewed on stale twists of fried bread dusted with cinnamon and sugar while from his window he watched Johnson and the boys lift Babbitt onto the veranda of the gazebo, out of the sun. In a moment, Johnson was back in Koestler’s office in his floppy pair of Clarks, so large on him they were like clown shoes.

  “Him falling hard. Missing the falling nest altogether,” Johnson exclaimed.

  “Well,” Koestler said with satisfaction, “you know how it is—God looks out after drunks and such. Maybe it will teach the bugger a lesson.” Koestler fixed a Cuba libre and asked Johnson to salvage some of the overroasted chicken or run over to the kitchen and rustle up something else, depending on what the staff had been eating. According to Johnson, it had been hartebeest, which Koestler, as a rule, found too stringy. He told Johnson to smother some of it in horseradish and bring it anyway. That was about all you could do. There was a tinned rum cake he had been saving since Christmas. He could have that for dessert.

  Koestler looked out his window as the sun flared on the horizon and sank behind a curtain of black clouds, plunging the landscape into darkness just as his generator kicked in and the bright lights in his office came on and his powerful air conditioner began to churn lugubriously. He took a long pull on his drink, found another pack of cigarettes and lit one with a wooden match, and waited for the liquor to do its job. Johnson was slow on the draw. An African glacier. It was just as well. Koestler would have time to eradicate his hangover and establish a pleasant alcoholic glow by the time Johnson returned with the food. In the meantime, he got busy with paperwork—stuff that was so dull it could only be done under the influence. Hartman and the green docs were already overdue, and he knew he would be tied up with them once they got in. In the beginning, new physicians were always more trouble than they were worth, and then, when they finally knew what they were doing, they lost heart and returned to lucrative practices back home. The altruism of most volunteers, Koestler thought, was pretty thin. Those who stayed seemed to do so for reasons that were buried deep in the soul.

  Koestler woke up at dawn feeling very fit, while Babbitt spent the morning in abject misery. He would retreat to the corner of the doctor’s office and hold his head in his hands; then he would approach Koestler (who was busy at his desk), pull on the doctor’s pant leg, and implore him for help. Koestler cheerfully abused the animal by uttering such clichés as “If you want to dance, Georgie, you have to pay the fiddler. Now stop pestering me,” and “You’ve sold your soul to the Devil, and there’s not a thing I can do for you! Are you happy with yourself now?”

  When Koestler finished his paperwork, he showed the baboon some Polaroids he had taken of it vomiting in the night. “Look at you,” he said. “This is utterly disgraceful. What would your mother think of this? I’ve got a good mind to send them to her.”

  Babbitt abruptly left the room to guzzle water from a rain puddle but quickly returned when some Africans outside, who had witnessed the folly of the previous afternoon, began laughing derisively. He fled to his corner and held his head and, to Koestler’s amazement, he was still there when the doctor came back to the room for a wash before dinner. The animal presented himself to Koestler like the prodigal son.

  “I could fix it all with a shot, Georgie, but then you’ll never learn, will you? Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah and out drunk again.”

  Babbitt buried his head in his hand and groaned mournfully.

  Koestler finally took pity on him and gave him a B12 injection with five milligrams of amphetamine sulfate. In a half hour, Babbitt seemed as good as new, apart from a sore neck. The doctor took care of this by fixing Babbitt up with a small cervical collar cinched with Velcro. Koestler expected Babbitt to rip it off, but the animal was glad for the relief it provided. Koestler watched as Babbitt retreated to a hammock that hung in the gazebo under the baobab tree. In almost no time, he was sleeping peacefully. At the sight of Babbitt snoring in the absurd cervical collar, Koestler began to laugh, and he forgave his pet for most of the nonsense he had pulled during his drunken spree.

  After Johnson served breakfast, Koestler took a stroll around the compound, barking orders at everyone in sight. The Africans ducked their heads submissively in his presence. Good, he had them cowed. He would ride them hard for a few weeks to reestablish his absolute power. If he had given them their inch, he would get a yard back from them. When he stuck his head into the mission school for a minute, Brother Cole, who was demonstrating to the children how to write the letter “e” in cursive, took one look at the doctor and dropped his chalk. Koestler imagined that he saw the man’s knees buckle. No doubt Father Stuart, with all his carping, had blown Koestler up into a bogeyman. He rarely showed himself at the school. The children whipped their heads around, and when they caught sight of the “big boss,” their heads just as quickly whirled back. Koestler tersely barked, “Good morning, please continue. I’m just checking on things. Don’t mind me.” Ha! Feared by all.

  By the time Koestler completed his Gestapo stroll, the compound was as quiet as a ghost town. He went into the clinic at nine, and with the help of the nurses completed over forty-five procedures by four-thirty. No record by any means, but a good day’s work.

  Late that afternoon, Koestler took his dinner in the gazebo as usual and got drunk with Hartman and the two new young docs, who had spent the greater part of the day with the mission’s administrator. Both Americans were shocked by the heat, the long flight, and, no doubt, by the interminable introductions to the staff and the singsong ramblings of that repetitive bore Father Stuart, who delighted in giving visitors a guided tour of the compound. The doctors seemed happy to be knocking back high-proof alcohol, and when Koestler fixed the usual bowl of banana mash and Canadian Mist before bridge, a number of rhesus monkeys rushed in from the jungle to accept the magical paste and soon were drunk and rushing around the compound fighting and copulating. Babbitt, who had ditched his cervical collar, was having none of the paste. The baboon seemed chastened and wiser. Koestler noted this with satisfaction and felt completely reconciled with his pet.

  One of the newbies, a wide-eyed young doctor from Hammond, Indiana, said, “I see that the whole fabric of the social structure breaks down when they drink. It’s like some grotesque parody of humans, but with none of the subtleties—just the elementals.”