by Minot, Susan
That man is a saint, Jane said.
Pierre? Don looked disgusted.
No, you idiot, Lana said. Her voice had too much earth in it to sound harsh. Our doctor.
They all went outside and sat on a small wooden deck off the kitchen. Pierre pulled out the tab from the square carton and poured wine into paper cups. Harry refused a drink.
His wife, Jane said.
I know, Lana said. One dark painted toe pushed around the anklet on her leg.
Don was watching the toe. So what’s the boy girl separation about? he said, sort of yawning.
Harry gave him a half-look and jumped off the porch to disappear in the dark garden.
You are not worrying about this, Pierre said.
Don, Lana said.
Jane remained quiet, having been thinking along the same lines and mortified to be aligned in any way with Don.
What’s everyone so fucking touchy about? Don said.
Jane went down into the gathered darkness and found Harry on a bench swing suspended beneath a spreading tree by two thick ropes. Her feet kicked through papery leaves. Can I sit? she said.
He made a neutral noise in the back of his throat, gazing toward the Toyota in the driveway, as if at a ghostly sign that he would eventually get out of here. Jane had a familiar superfluous feeling.
We travel all the way here to fight with each other, he said.
I know. She sat beside him, feeling a wall between them. Longing to connect, she searched for something direct, but only managed a complaint. I do wish we could stay together, though.
His face jerked in her direction but he didn’t look at her. There are other ways to be with a person, he said. Sex isn’t the only one.
She felt it as a slap.
Look at us, he went on. People don’t know how to get along with each other. He was picking apart a seed or a leaf, barely addressing her. No wonder there are wars. It’s why I’d rather be on my own.
The alarm of his rejection vibrated through her body, rousing her. It was nearly refreshing it was so straightforward.
Aren’t you a little young to decide that already? she said.
I’m older than all of you. Harry half smiled.
Must get lonely, she said.
It’s always lonely. Either way.
A ball of fury gathered in her, with both pain and energy in it. She had the urge to argue him out of this. He had to believe people could save each other. If she could convince him of that, then he wouldn’t have this power to cancel her out. It seemed crucial that he be on her side.
Harry looked up. Jane did, too. The sky showed between the scalloped trees. They’re coming in, he said.
She saw clouds blowing, lit by a weak moon, blotting out tiny stars. The clouds?
The people. Hear them?
She heard wind. Then realized no leaves or trees were moving.
They must be coming in for the night.
Harry nudged her and stood. His touch with the back of his knuckle was quick and unthinking, but she was grateful for it. It meant, Follow me. You. Follow me. She did, behind him to a thin bank of trees that separated the doctor’s property from the main road. Through spaces in the black leaves they could see a topaz light from the hospital gates and the topaz-colored road. Harry pushed forward, holding back branches for Jane. His arm near her filled her with a sharp longing. She wanted to give him something. No, she wanted him to give her something. But what and where? She scanned herself internally. In her body, of course. The longing seemed lodged there. But, as he’d just now pointed out, that wasn’t the only way. The desire to keep him close, to be near his confidence was overwhelming.
There must be something the matter with her.
She followed him, feeling thoroughly unwelcome. His back was to her. She’d hardly even had him and already he was going. He was pretty nearly gone. She had expected it. Hell, she had probably engineered it.
Would he ever again lift her off the floor? Had he ever even done it? It seemed a vision now, hardly real. She wished to be back there, forever lifted, instead of being here now, with irritable people, in a world where steel shrapnel cut the fingers of good doctors and killed them.
Harry parted some saplings to reveal a crowd of figures moving quietly toward the hospital gates. There were hundreds of people. They carried bedrolls under arms or bundles balanced on heads. Children walked quickly, holding plastic bags. Jane felt a sort of vertigo. The people showed no outward signs of distress. In fact, funneling through the white gates at the entrance, they looked not unlike workers arriving for night shift at a factory, or a crowd heading into the stadium for a Saturday evening baseball game. It was a daily activity to vacate their villages to sleep in the safety of the hospital walls. The windy sound Jane heard was the sound of their feet, scores of bare feet and flip-flops and sneakers shuffling over the dirt.
They watched in silence. Abruptly Harry stepped around her. I’m turning in, he said, and little twigs sprung out poking her as he left and headed back to the house.
Jane’s mattress was narrow and hard, made with a clean sheet and a thin blanket tucked in tight. Lana, on the other bed, was already asleep on her side, a still silhouette with a dip at the waist. Jane kicked her sheets down in the humid air.
She felt a tightness in her throat. She could still hear the rustling sound through the screen windows and the image of the upright figures casting long shadows in the gate’s light made the ache in her throat suddenly burst and thin tears pour down her temples. Her breath was shallow and silent. She did not cry easily, she had not cried here till now. With these tears came an ominous alert to a further sadness it seemed she would never reach. At least she was feeling the top layer. Then the faces of the girls at St. Mary’s came to her again—was that only yesterday?—in the chairs under the tree with their soft voices saying, They beat him until he stopped moving and nodding mildly, That girl is dead now. She imagined the girls tied in a line with rope, a young boy firing an automatic gun he could barely lift. Superimposed over all of it, or behind it, was the image of Harry sleeping, arms embracing a pillow, somewhere nearby in the house. Even thinking of these things, she could still be thinking of him. All thoughts, however, led at this hour of the night to the same conclusion: the world was a messed-up place and one was powerless to make it right and she, Jane, was just one more hopeless thing in it.
Then the image came of Dr. Marciano standing at his clean counter, shaking water from a tea bag before handing a cup to Lana. She pictured him in an examination room, focusing on a patient with his dutiful profile. She pictured him sitting in bed beside his wife, discussing something in the cool low tones of people with mutual respect, and her hot tears stopped and a trapdoor closed against the bottomless feeling.
She saw the wind blowing by Harry’s arm in the car window and remembered, oddly, a moment in a short story by Chekhov when the narrator, traveling in a carriage, sees how life is after all truly beautiful and only painful when we forget, as he puts it, our human dignity and the higher aims of our existence. Her tears had loosened the strap across her throat and in its place was a band of warmth.
All was still. The rustling outside had stopped. She did not have peace of mind but some relief had descended over her, so exhaustion could take hold and sleep finally come.
The sun had not risen and the road was dark red. In the deep rosy light Jane felt as if she were still dreaming. She and Pierre had gotten up early to film the crowd departing.
The first few figures appeared between the pale columns of the gate. Maybe they wore a change of clothes, maybe they wore what they had slept in. Very soon more figures emerged, till a stream of people were kicking up a low cloud of dust, splitting in two directions, one toward town, the other to the bush. No one spoke; it was a silent departure. Now and then a rooster crowed. As the light came up, faces showed, some fresh and washed, some puffy with sleep. Some faces regarded Jane with suspicion, or curiosity. Most ignored her altogether. An old woman move
d slowly, leaning on a young girl in a pinafore.
There were women in neat skirts carrying handbags, headed to jobs; a sideburned man, bare-chested, his yellow shirt flapping. A muscular man swung by on an aluminum crutch. Some boys threw stones, arching their backs as they dodged away. A thin woman in a long kanga balanced a mat on her head, and held the hands of two children. Girls in blue uniforms walked four abreast. A woman smacked a boy’s head as he ran by, both continuing without expression.
The sky was light pink over the black bank of trees. When the sun appeared it threw long shadows behind the stragglers heading east to town. The air lightened, there was a cloudless sky and everyone was gone.
That was beautiful, Pierre said, lowering his camera.
And terrible.
Yes, terrible, too.
You want to see my mama? A boy of about nine or ten stood in front of Jane, thumb up as if hitching a ride. His black T-shirt fell off one shoulder and in white letters was printed Bad to the Bone.
Your mama? Where is she?
In my village.
Where’s that?
Just here. He pointed beside them, to a field where the sun picked up stiff tufts of yellow hay and a narrow path wobbled through it.
Jane looked for Pierre. He was already coming forward, unsurprised. All right, she said.
They followed a path as thin and curving as a fat snake. Were you sleeping at the hospital? she asked him.
Yes, the boy said. We fear the rebels.
What’s your name?
It is Jonathan.
After five minutes’ walking through thin trees and low bush, Jane asked how far away it was.
Just here, he said.
Jane looked back at Pierre. Was he worried?
Motivated fellow, he said and shrugged.
After ten more minutes, We are close?
Just this way.
What is the name of your village?
It is Rusalem.
They walked fifteen more minutes till they arrived at a hut—a proper village never appeared—with the usual smooth dirt in front. A pantless child sat spread-legged against a log, gazing up at the strangers with the serenity of one meditating on a mountaintop. Trees encroached as if listening in.
My sis-tah, Jonathan said. Another child stepped into the clearing. That one, too, he said, and waved her off dismissively. I will find my mother.
He vanished into the dark entryway beneath a thatched roof. A woman appeared with him in the doorway; she was very small, hardly larger than her son. She wore an ankle-length kanga so faded the pattern was gone, and a buttoned-up green sweater. Her head scarf was rolled at the crown.
Hello, Jane said. Jambo.
Jambo, the woman whispered. She looked at her son, not at the strangers.
She has made eleven children, Jonathan said.
Really, Jane said. The woman looked fifteen years old.
Nine are still alive.
Pierre beamed at the woman as if she were greeting them at a large party. Would she mind if he took some pictures of her house? he said. Of her? Jane saw that the camera’s red light was already lit, filming. The woman shook her head.
Please. This is okay, Jonathan said with a solemn tone. You are welcome.
Jane and Pierre ducked into the hut. It was dark and smelled of smoke. The floor space was the size of a large round table and the mud walls nubbly with bark and twigs. A tall person could stand only in the center where Pierre now stooped. An oval of light lit the threshold, but the rest of the hut was dark.
Here is where we cook. Jonathan indicated an ashy smudge at his bare feet. His mother was sitting outside, knees sideways, face turned away, murmuring in another language. We have been finding flies to cook, he said.
Flies?
In the frying pan.
Is that what she’s saying?
No. She says, I do not find food for my children today. He shrugged dismissively.
Sometimes we eat dirt, he added brightly, and urged them back outside. Another boy appeared and kicked the stick the little girl was grinding into the dirt. The stick flew off and she crawled after it. The boy kicked her.
This is my brother. Jonathan wedged himself between his siblings. Stop now.
Where did you learn such good English, Jonathan?
I learn it at school.
No school today?
His arms spread out. I am with my mother today.
And your father?
He is not alive. He was killed in a rebel attack.
Oh. Jane was again at a loss.
I was hiding just there, he said, jerking his head in no particular direction. My father would not do as they told him, so they cut him with a panga. When we got to him he was dead.
That’s terrible, she said. What could one say?
The rebels also abducted my brothers, Jonathan went on in a bland voice. The other children, we were hiding with my mother. He paused to say something in an impatient tone to his brother, who was straddling a log. The brother turned his shoulder away, frowning.
When was that?
Three years ago. We have heard my brothers are alive, he said.
I hope they escape, Jane said.
Yes. He crossed his arms thoughtfully. We hope it. Keith is very strong. He would be making a good soldier now. He has probably killed many people. The other one, Paul, maybe he is not such a good soldier.
Jane noticed Pierre in the doorway, folding something and jamming it into a gap of sticks. Money. Pierre’s gaze dropped to the side, the signal to go.
Jane thanked Jonathan. If you wanted to walk back with us, we could give you some food, she said.
Asante, he said. I stay with my mother. Perhaps if the rebels come then I am here.
Jane wondered what she could leave them with. Pierre had left money. She had only jewelry, her hoop earrings worth nothing, her necklace, no. The dragonfly was from her sister, a family thing. She needed her watch. There was the Maasai bracelet from Harry. He’d given it to her so recently she’d hardly owned it yet. She unsnapped the leather with the red and green beads. There were bracelets like this all over the place. She could get another.
Here, she said, handing it to Jonathan’s mother. I think it is an old one.
The woman took the bracelet and held it limply, barely looking at it. Immediately Jane saw it had little value and immediately regretted letting it go. But what did it matter in the larger scheme of things?
Returning on the worn path with Pierre, Jane felt a dullness in her forehead, as if something were shut off. On the driveway they ran into Dr. Marciano in short white shirtsleeves on the way to work.
Come to the hospital and we’ll give you a tour, he said, not stopping.
No one at the house was up yet. Jane extracted a crushed cereal box from the back of the truck, and she and Pierre ate bowls of cornflakes, leaning against the counter in the kitchen. It occurred to Jane how little she knew about Pierre. She asked him where he grew up. Algeria, he said. She could feel it as a physical change, to be talking about something not here. He told her he’d lived down the street from a bordello, not a particularly seedy one, it looked like a neighborhood hotel where he watched men coming and going, and women sitting in the windows by curtains.
That’s how, Pierre said, I was initiated into voyeurism, and women. Women still appear that way to me now, inviting in their windows, creating an atmosphere in the space around them. Men are always charging forward, hurrying. But women seem to cultivate the space they are in. It’s very appealing. It makes you want to join them.
Makes me wish I were a woman. Jane laughed.
Certainly better than being a man, he said.
Don entered the kitchen like the punch line of a joke. Jane and Pierre avoided each other’s eyes.
Anyone else sleep like shit? he said. He opened the fridge, then closed it immediately remembering where he was. So what horrors are we subjecting ourselves to today? he said.
Inside the whitewashed wal
ls was a sprawling complex of buildings. A nurse in a pink lab uniform and a small paper-cup hat introduced herself as Bridget and told them Dr. Marciano was operating all morning. You are most welcome to see our hospital, she said.
The five visitors followed her white sandals snapping her heels lazily. Her hands swung around her wide hips as if trailing in water. They passed doorways open to empty rooms with no beds, to rooms with empty beds, then to rooms filled with beds and patients in them. Jane walked beside Harry, feeling love. They stepped outside under a tin roof to a walkway which extended past a courtyard to a structure with a massive pink façade of flaking paint. The old hospital we do not use, Bridget said. It is in need of repairs.
She steered them back inside, down another hallway, green on the lower half, beige on the upper. Lana hung back, pulling Pierre’s arm. Jane watched her stroll down the cracked walkway beside a rusted turquoise railing as Pierre, who had his camera up, filmed her from behind.
The others continued behind Bridget till she stopped at a doorway. Here there are sisters, she said. They looked in. In one bed sat two girls of about eleven, looking back at them without surprise.
What’s the matter with them? Don said, forever subtle.
This one is healing, Bridget said. She pulled back the sheet of the girl nearest her. One leg was a stump, bandaged, with a rusty stain at its rounded end.
That’s okay. Jane put up her hand. Bridget looked perplexed.
We don’t need to see it, Harry explained.
Is her sister hurt too? Jane said.
No, her sister stays to keep her company.
The tour continued. Jane was mesmerized by everything. Each step seemed to take her deeper into a true life she had not known before. Each detail was savored.
Where’re Lana and Pierre? Don said, moving impatiently, nodding at the doorways. He swiveled his head to see if Lana had returned. The trip had long ago stopped being what he expected.
Through a door at the end of the hall they exited to a courtyard blinding in the morning sun. The air smelled of burning wood. Some families had set up small camps in shaded areas and were tending fires inside rings of rocks. A pregnant woman wafted by in a filmy white robe. Men with bandages sat in low chairs beside women stirring pots. Children ran, looping. A woman in a yellow turban chopped orange fruit on a hubcap. The ground was a white dust, fine as powder in a compact. There was little sign that the night before this ground had been covered with a lumpy rug of hundreds of sleeping people, curved against each other, lying side by side. On rainy nights, Bridget told them, they slept on the walkways or in the halls, and the hospital handed out plastic sheets to cover them or make lean-tos with. A small girl in a shredded purple dress stood frozen, watching Jane and Harry, her face opening like a flower as they passed.