by Aaron Barlow
Tapping
Eric Stone
Being away, with the patience that can bring and the examples one comes across, can teach us for our return.
I am in a subway car in Manhattan at 8:30 in the morning on a Monday. People squeeze themselves into a narrow boxcar like cattle, pressing and pushing. Eyes are cast downward. Nobody speaks. With furtive glares they eye one another, but do not speak. Tension, annoyance, determination. There is a single-mindedness and focus which I find striking. This focus makes me feel lost. Newspapers begin to quickly unfold, headphones are turned to the highest volume, eyes are closed, hands grasp the bar tightly, with tension. A man bumps me and apologizes twice. They all look ambitious. A young teenager girl steps on an older man’s foot. She immediately apologizes and moves backward.
Before Africa I, too, was an ambitious busy American. I thought myself and my existence quite important. I had so much to prove and do and become. So I traveled to Africa in a flurry of excitement, deluded in a maze of self-centered ambition. I departed a real New Yorker with a real New York attitude.
Thankfully, I was not foolish enough to think I could make much of a difference. But one dark night I found myself staring out a window into the endless black landmass of rural Kenya, its darkness going as far as the moon hidden behind hills, and ambition oozed away. Instead a need to nurture, a desire to be there in the life of a child, became the only thing that mattered.
I am in a doctor’s office waiting room on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I am alone. On the radio plays a light FM song that makes me want to cry in horror. These types of songs make me feel cheap and manipulated like a tool. Overly produced instrumentals, tampered vocals, swelling strings to make one feel gushy and nostalgic. The secretary, a large-framed, attractive African-American woman, clicks her long pink fingernails on the desk without looking up.
“Sign these papers and make sure to give your insurance number.” I fumble through my wallet, flipping small plastic cards. The insurance card is missing. I start becoming anxious. “I cannot find the card,” I say. She still is not looking up and now seems annoyed. She makes a gesture with her eyebrows and purses her lips together sarcastically. “If you don’t have the card you’ll have to pay the full fee. If you can’t pay the full fee, you can’t be seen.” She did not make eye contact and appeared disgusted.
“How much is the visit.”
She snaps back, “Four hundred dollars.”
“I found it,” I say, feeling the card in my side pocket.
A white older male with a large protruding stomach walks out of an office in the back. He walks toward me, is serious, direct.
“I am Doctor Devins. Come back. Where is the pain?”
“Since October I began feeling…”
“I said where is the pain, not when did it start.”
“I feel a pressure like I want to have a bowel movement. It sometimes feels sore. Then I found blood.”
“Lie down.” He is firm, appears harried, humorless, mildly irritated. He behaves as though he is being put out, bothered, doing somebody a favor he wishes not to do.
“You waited a long time to see somebody,” he states, sounding accusatory.
“I am not normally in a rush to have totally strange people stick objects up my ass,” I say. His attitude provokes me. And it was also the truth. “I mean would you like to be in this position?”
He chuckles sarcastically. “Oh, I do this all the time,” he says.
“Yes, but I don’t,” I say.
“O.K. You’re really really tense. You need to relax.” I am curled up on a cold steel table with my pants down as he prods me.
“You must be joking,” I say. “If there is a time to be tense this is the time,” I say. I tried to make awkward conversation. “I like this building a lot,” I say.
“Good, you can buy it,” he says.
Although he tells me what he is going to do before he does it, he is cold in his affect and manner. “I will put a tube in and pump some air. I will gently put in a small scope, which you will not feel. It is one centimeter in length and has a small camera on it. The good news is it will not hurt, but will feel uncomfortable.”
The examination is done relatively quickly but without any further conversation. At one point, he walks out of the room and I feel ridiculous, vulnerable, and confused; flattened out in such a strange position like a slab of beef on a butcher’s block.
At the end of the day, we are really just bodies of water and blood. In moments like this it becomes clear and obvious. He comes back in with jelly. “This will be cold, and this may hurt because this will be my finger this time which is fatter than the other instruments.”
“I am thrilled,” I say.
The examination is now over. “Put your pants back on.”
“I feel like a cheap whore,” I say, trying to be funny, trying to soothe both him and myself. He did not laugh. He laughed at nothing. I struggle to pull the pants up quickly.
“I am worried,” I say. He is nonreactive.
“We’re going to check things out with another doctor.” This makes me worry even more. “I found a small growth, either a tumor or a polyp. Could be anything.”
Theses are the scenes one dreads in life: You on a table sitting in front of a doctor. The doctor looks at you and directly, with little emotion, says words like “tumor” and then refers you to a specialist. You see the patient, or yourself, deflate like a balloon. “What are the chances it could be cancer?” I ask. The second line of dialogue and dread.
He does not look concerned; his voice doesn’t become soothing or softer; he does not lean into me or touch my hand like I would naturally do for somebody else in such a position. There is not a single thing he says or does that is assuring, convincing ,or comforting. He seems unmoved and unaware that I am nervous, scared and confused. He speaks to me like a child, scolding and accusatory. “You really waited too long. Really unwise. You really did yourself a disservice. You’ll have to have a surgical procedure, a colonoscopy, and have a biopsy. Then we will know more.”
I left the examination flustered, perplexed, and terrified. I was angry at the insensitivity of the secretary, the doctor, the cold and clinical inhuman feeling of the overall experience. He told me nothing. He made me feel bad. I knew that night I would go home to a Manhattan hovel with nobody to talk to, home with my thoughts, a tight New York existence, pressured and detached. No girl holding a plastic pitcher above my hands, no empty bowl beneath them. No warm water to gently caress my palms. No mother setting plates in front of me. No cramped, lightless house to sit in for hours with neighbors and mamas and children. No shaky fence to climb. No flickering lantern light to guide me. No moon to hope to see.
Seven large African mamas are sitting on old wooden benches. These ladies are enormous, sturdy and steely, as tough as tanks. In a sweltering room, they fan themselves and their offspring diligently with close attention. Their breasts hang out freely as babies suck heartily. Sick African children. Toddlers curled up against the gargantuan, assuring frames of their mothers. The babies and children look sullen, exhausted, defeated. The air is stiff and miserably uncomfortable. The sun blasts through a small window heating the room into a fiery furnace. Sweat pours off all our faces; women wipe their cheeks with pretty white cloths. They dab the heads of their babies. A door creaks open but nobody is behind it. A mama slowly stands, enters the door. Two toddlers follow her. I have a fever and am coughing. I hunch forward. The women notice.
In Luo, one says, “You have a touch of malaria. You must see doctor first. You are sicker than us. You are a sickly white man. Your body cannot take what we can take. Please, you must see doctor before us all.”
The other women shake their heads and hum, yes. Children’s eyes never stop staring at me. Children’s eyes fixated, obsessed, fascinated. Sick children’s
eyes, so lovely and so wide. “Yes, the mzungu has a touch of malaria. Please see doctor first.” They seem to have a consultation then come to a mutual consensus. I am defensive and silly. “I have a flu! I am not stricken with malaria. You Africans, you say everything is a touch of malaria. You cannot have a touch of malaria. You either have malaria or you don’t. You don’t have a touch of it! Can you be a touch pregnant? Imagine? Imagine being a touch pregnant?”
They laugh and are highly embarrassed. In Africa the word pregnant is never uttered. A woman could be bursting with twins in her ninth month and will not admit she is pregnant. The word shall never form and fall from her lips. The babies could be hanging out in labor and she will not utter the word.
I like teasing them. “Imagine being a touch pregnant.” They are howling now, cackling and embarrassed. Sick mamas carrying sick babies, having walked for ten or twenty miles from the fields and villages, seeking medical treatment from a town Indian woman with colorful medicines in glass jars—they are laughing. “Mzungu you are stricken with malaria. You must see doctor first. We are stronger than you.” One emerges, walks toward me and puts her hand on my head. She begins humming, then moaning loudly. The other woman follows her, chanting, humming, then moaning.
Suddenly they are singing beautifully and melodiously. I am chilled with goosebumps. The children’s eyes, wide as saucers, never flinch away from me. They are as still as statues. Waving their large arms to the heavens, they are now praying to God to heal my sick and stricken malaria-infected self. The tiny door creaks open again. The singing comes to an abrupt halt. “Go. Get the malaria treated. Your touch of malaria.” They scream laughing.
Behind a small desk held up with skinny legs sits an Indian woman of about fifty. She has large, black-framed glasses perched at the end of her nose. Her hair is poofed out, with slim, neatly trimmed sideburns that look painted on. She has gold rings on her fingers. Streaks of white shoot through certain parts of her hair, embellishing her already striking and refined bone structure, an extra flair of dramatic exoticism. Her long nails are manicured into perfect triangles and painted a bright purple. Her eyes are wide and green and almond-shaped like a doe’s. They are glistening and seem too large for her delicate features.
“I want you to know I make my own medicine,” she said. “You see those?” She points to dozens of glass jars lined in neat rows on shelves. “I made all those myself. Aren’t they beautiful? How colorful they are, right? I imagine you might want to take one or two home because they are just so beautiful, can’t you tell?” She is smiling like she just told a joke. The jars look more like sweet candied syrups for children than medicines. I wanted to drink a whole one myself.
“They look so sweet,” I say.
“Now tell me,” she says softly, making direct eye contact. “How are you feeling?”
I tell her I am vomiting, feverish, exhausted, aching. She writes these things down on a little pad, like a waitress taking an order. She shakes her head “yes” silently. “Very typical. This is Africa you know? Everybody feels this way.” She laughs. “I am joking. You must laugh in life in the midst of our struggle or you will be crying day and night, no?” She is smiling, waiting for my reaction, listening. “Tell me about yourself? How are you feeling in Africa? You come from so far away. This is a different life, hee?”
“It is difficult.”
She shakes her head in agreement. “You see those taps over there?” she asks, pointing to a small porcelain sink and a spigot. “Water has not come out of those taps since 1969. It is a decoration piece. The sink is used for storage. And you see that light switch behind you? Hasn’t turned on since the Emergency in India probably before you were born, 1975 or so.”
“I was born in 1975,” I said, proudly, but not sure why.
“Imagine. Life is fascinating and so complex and mysterious, is it not?”
I agree.
“You will be checked for malaria, and for other things through a blood test. Don’t worry. But in order to assess your condition I must know about your soul. Who is this man sitting here? Where did he come from? Why is he in Africa? How has this place affected him? Have you given any of this much thought?”
Before I could answer she said, “I have seen many whites. I have been sitting behind this desk talking to sick and dying people for over thirty-five years. Imagine that? Imagine that in thirty-five years behind this desk I have never gotten bored one time? Interesting and fascinating, hee? Life is so mysterious like that, do you not agree? I see in your body, in your face, you are not dying. In three, four days you will be O.K. Although you will have a blood test, I am sure you are fine. I am able to see things, things almost instantly now. I now see things other people do not see. It is a sad and blessed gift I have received. Imagine I see so much suffering daily and nightly. I cannot tell you how many I have treated for no pay. In thirty-five years I have only been paid about half of what most owe me. They are so poor here, as you know and as I know. I just accept it. I accept that they cannot pay. I love to help people. I really love it so much, and I never get bored.”
She told me about a white man who stayed in Africa for several years blowing bubbles. Another one developed a fever of 103° for three years, but had nothing wrong with him. Another slept for weeks after consuming too many potatoes.
“You are Indian,” I say, as though she does not know it. “I love Indian food.” The very idea of tasty spicy Indian food seems intoxicating and extremely appealing in a country devoid of such delicacies. The contrast between the mouth-watering complexities of Indian cuisine with the tasteless Kenyan staple diet of dry, heavy, plain food is striking. Kenyan cuisine that merely fills the stomach, food that convinces a person he or she is full and satisfied, survival food, food that sits in your stomach like an ancient brick.
“I am so happy to hear it that you love Indian food. You are multicultural, hee?” She laughs. “A most fascinating word, hee? ‘Multicultural,’” she says again. “Isn’t that a beautiful word? It means the soul is not alone, the soul mixes with many, many cultures being shared and experienced.” She shook her head, seeming pleasantly surprised and astonished by this concept and by her own description.
“A wonderful word. And Indian food is wonderful,” I say. “I love motto paneer.”
“I make a wonderful paneer. I will make it for you one day,” she tells me.
When would she make it for me? A doctor, a foreign Indian woman who knew me for all of three minutes, offering to serve me her home-cooked paneer. The idea of it, the gesture of it, the notion of it, was almost more appealing than the actual act of it.
“Now tell me your life story,” she says.
“From 1975?” I ask.
“As I examine your body, you talk. How are you feeling in Africa? You must miss your mother so much. And I can assure you that people get maladies and sickness when they are sad and alone.”
“Sometimes they mock me,” I say. “The teenagers mostly. They make fun of me. They modulate their voices trying to sound very nasal. They think whites talk like this. They make fun of me.” I tell her this like a schoolboy on the playground tattle-telling to a principal or teacher. I am surprised by the sound of wound in my voice. When verbalized, this sounds absurd, even embarrassing, and I am immediately ashamed for having told her. Wounded, stabbed in the very heart, by shoeless hungry African teenagers, hurt by young women who will become middle-aged women who will become old women, always without rights, without options; women dominated by men, men in poverty. I am wounded by their silly mocking, mocking which is not mocking at all.
The doctor chuckles, leans forward and takes both of my hands into her hands. I feel the rings on all her fingers, and the softness of her skin. She pats and squeezes my hands firmly, then holds them for long minutes. I did not expect this gesture, how I longed for this gesture without knowing until this moment. “They mean no harm,�
�� she says. “That I am certain of. One cannot be certain of so many things in this life, but this I am certain of. It is merely ignorance. It is fear. It is fascination. It is a powerful desire to make you feel seen and appreciated. In fact, believe this or not, it is a great honor. They are giving you the time of day. In Africa this is the biggest compliment—seeing somebody, really seeing them. If they knew you were wounded they would be devastated, they may even cry. An African has many faults, many just like everybody. But an African would almost never deliberately hurt the soul of another, honestly. They are reaching out to you. You have much, so very much, to offer them. Open your soul to these ignorant and vulnerable young people.”
I struggle to contain wells of tears in my eyes, tears I know she can see.
“Children can be cruel, but these children are not cruel. They are deprived and depraved. They know so little of the world. You have given them hope. The white man stirs up so many emotions in people here. There is so much history. But the teenagers. They are in awe, they honor you.”
“I understand now,” I say, and mean it.
She pulls my shirt up. “An enviably flat stomach,” she says patting it. “Breathe deeply.”
“Where do you get your water?” I ask. “You have no water in your taps.”
“The women bring it. I pay them something small. They enjoy working for something small rather than handouts. Handouts are what ruined this country.”
“You must be frustrated to have a sink in front of you that hasn’t worked in decades,” I say.
“One accepts things. You see it as corruption. It is all corruption. You can see the young people walking around here. They get a few shillings, and they are trying to save for a radio, a television. But yet they live in a grass house. They build their homes out of cow dung and yet they have a television inside it? What is this sense? It is the thinking of corruption. Our politicians have billions and mostly everybody in this country is dirt poor, dying of diseases from hundreds of years ago? Does it make one ounce of sense that people here are dying of typhoid? Imagine! Typhoid. This is a disease from the Middle Ages you know. This is life in corruption. Breathe deeply. I am now going to feel your neck and look down your throat.”