Red Jacket

by Mordecai, Pamela;

  “That makes no sense, Alleme.”

  “Then you tell me what makes sense. He just wanted a whore every now and then, the way you feel you’d like a nice mango?”

  “That’s probably closer to it.”

  He leaves her at about nine o’clock, having coaxed from her a promise that she will not stay up all night. He undertakes to call when he reaches the priests’ house, but he is glad there is no answer when he does, and after a few rings he hangs up.

  What the personable, aristocratic, educated man married to his sister might want from prostitutes defies Jimmy’s understanding. He thinks this lack of imagination must be a serious failing on his part. How is it that a clairvoyant whose dreams can assume epic dimensions has such difficulty in figuring out why Munti would, as some American movie star put it, dally with hamburger when he can dine on steak at home?

  He isn’t quoting verbatim, just delivering the movie star’s dictum.

  D for delivering. D for dictum.

  D for dally. D for dine.

  D for disease.

  D for done. D for dead. D for “done dead,” like they say in St. Chris.

  He is playing Mapome’s dictionary game. Or rather, it is playing him.

  Mapome loved words, language, stories. She taught him his first rhymes, taught him to read, to pore over the dictionary, and see it as a game board, storybook, history book, sacred text. She showed him as a ten-year-old how to play the game, which had many purposes: to teach him vocabulary, word derivations, memory gems, to impart values, and to tune his ear to sounds.

  “You don’t go looking for words. Just follow them as they come. The letter that chooses you first is the leader. If you find yourself straining for a word, it’s time to stop.”

  Desire. Danger. Death. He’s done some disputing with the Deity about desire and death.

  Debility. Disablement.

  Doubt.

  Debate. About divine decrees, destiny, pre-destiny. About determination, whether he’ll have dead sisters, whether their descendants will die.

  Dearth of doctors. Dominicans. Devotion.

  Dolour. Dame des Douleurs.

  In whose domain, he’s done the deed, become a designate of the devotees of Melchisedech.

  Designate? Devotees? He is reaching for words. Time to stop.

  He eases up out of the armchair. These last days he is fatter. There was a lot of eating during and after the ordination celebrations and at Munti’s wake. He pats his stomach, recalling Bagbelly in St. Chris, a fat teenager who befriended, and fiercely defended him, and then the Watsons, Aston, Rita Rose. She would be the perfect person to talk to right that minute. Since Munti died, he’s been doing research in every kind of library in Benke and by now has pretty much exhausted what there is on HIV/AIDS. Rita Rose is in obstetrics and gynecology as well as pediatrics, and he is seeing a lot in his reading about the problem of mother-to-child transmission of the disease. For sure she’s up on that.

  He slips a bookmark into the book he’s been reading. He needs to find Levi. The priest has just returned from Bamako. Maybe he is still in the chapel, for he often reads there until quite late at night. He has to ask him about Alleme, if he’ll have time for a chat with her. He is no doctor but a jackass would know she is depressed, although she is refusing to see a psychiatrist.

  “I’m not taking drugs so I can deal with life, Jimmy. That’s crazy.”

  Also, having had another change of heart and direction, he has to explore it with the superior. He is to leave for Georgetown University, soon, to do postgraduate work in education. He isn’t sure he wants to do that any longer.

  The next morning, Jimmy goes to see Alleme just after breakfast. She says she will talk to a sensible person, if he can find one. She has a parish priest, of course, a very dry, very old, very deaf man from Bamako who has been their pastor since they’ve been in Benke. What would result from a session between him and Alleme, Jimmy doesn’t wish to consider. The idea has some virtue because when he suggests it, she laughs out loud. He is glad when she agrees to see Levi, who is a trained spiritual director. There aren’t that many of them around and they are good listeners. He was also a journalist in his layman days. Alleme and the superior will have things in common.

  “There’s something else, little brother.”

  “What is that, Alleme?”

  “What about the others?”

  “What others?”

  “What about Ansile and Aisha? What about Angélique? Shouldn’t they be tested?”

  He has indeed thought that his other sisters and their spouses should be tested. He’s not sure about approaching Angélique, but Alleme reminds him that sexual contact isn’t the only way to contract AIDS and that Angélique is a woman of the world.

  “Besides, Jimmy, she may be sexually active. Do you want her to be at risk because we are too delicate to raise the matter?”

  “Of course not, Alleme. Don’t be foolish.”

  “I don’t think I’m the foolish one here. I will talk to the others if you want. Their chances are better if they find out early. And ideally both spouses should be tested. I know I’m pretty far-gone, but I’d feel better if this at least served some purpose. And the children, they should have the tests as well.”

  When Jimmy speaks to his father, he is not surprised that Andri has been busy, investigating the behaviours of his other sons-in-law, and getting in touch with a friend who knows a woman at the World Health Organization. When the elder Atule contacts her, she strongly recommends that they all be tested as Alleme recommends.

  “Though I am unsure of how this matter should best be handled,” his father says, “I propose to speak plainly. I won’t hide my anger.”

  “Alleme says she’ll speak to her sisters. She makes the point that sexual transmission isn’t the only way the disease spreads, so no one need be offended.”

  “Yes, yes. The woman in Geneva said that also.”

  So it is arranged. Alleme speaks to them the next Sunday after Mass, as Makda Atule serves orange juice, bissape, and coffee laced with her own palm wine liqueur to fortify fearful spirits. Ansile and Angélique are concerned about costs, but agree it should be done. Aisha sulks at the impugning of her virtue, a quarrel to which Alleme puts paid. “Has my virtue has been compromised? I’m ill, my dear, not evil.”

  In the end, it is decided that the screening should be done as soon as possible. For now, Andri Atule will cover the expenses. He doesn’t speak at length, but it is clear he is on the warpath, and that the matter is not by any means done with.

  Calamity befalls swiftly. Both the husbands test positive. Ansile’s test is negative, but Aisha is HIV-positive, and when the children are tested, her one-year-old daughter also has the disease. Angélique is fine.

  Andri Atule alters like the desert reconfigured by a violent sandstorm. Jimmy tries to persuade him of their good fortune in having everyone tested early, being able to send them for treatment, having the resources to pay for expensive drugs. The elder Atule is beyond consolation. His sons-in-law are from powerful families, but it is his children who have been violated, his grandchildren despoiled. Often he cries out as if in physical pain. He summons the parents of his sons-in-law. There are lawyers and accountants. Negotiations are conducted and binding agreements made. Monies are paid into medical funds, trusts set up for wives and children. Elders guarantee the behaviour of their sons — much too little, far too late.

  Jimmy has no trouble persuading Leviticus Kitendi that Georgetown should be postponed. He can honestly say it is not only what has happened in his family that weighs on him, but the plight of his country, of Mabulians. When Levi asks what he feels immediately called to do, he says he wishes to do something about HIV/AIDS.

  “What do you think that might be, Jimmy?”

  “Can I take that one step at a time, for a while, anyway?”

  Jimmy’s research into how the disease spreads takes him to shanty-bars in Benke where he sips sappi and watches wome
n service men in the cabs of trucks, hopping up to check them in turn, like customs inspectors or border police. Truckers from the west via Bamako, the east via Kano and Niamey heading north through the desert to the Mediterranean and those making the journey back mostly pause to rest overnight in Gao, but they come to Benke often enough. So it isn’t just to Gao that the disease, dubbed “the Skinny” in Mabuli, comes with the truckers. No doubt it also comes with tourists or traders, but truckers are obvious culprits, always coming and going, promiscuous on the road. Sex traders collect it from them, and pass it on to Mabuli farmers, tradesmen, itinerant workers who “suck a sweetie” while they are away from their wives. And to his distinguished brothers-in-law!

  When all things are equal, water from the Mabenke’s few tributaries allows farmers like the Atules once were to plough and be assured of reaping, but for much of the seventies the drought that parched the Sahel brought farming to a halt. Benke swelled as refugees from stricken holdings came to the city to find jobs, ply trades they knew, or learn new ones, or, in desperation, fall into the oldest trade. So maybe the drought is to blame for HIV?

  “Blame the sun, the moon, the Milky Way!” Mapome often said. “But there’s no millet to be had from that!” She is right. One needs to assign a useful blame. It comes down to how you apply the word: as censure, or as verdict, diagnostic, with a view to improving things. Sometimes it is hard to figure which is which. Something else keeps bothering him: why didn’t he have the slightest inkling about Munti’s death or the disaster that was to overtake his sisters and their children? Or is it that his gift is indeed a curse and his having no warning of this scourge on the Atules is a kind of inverted payback? Shouldn’t he have foreseen what was going to befall his family?

  Ansile and he are having a cup of tea on the verandah of the family house. They are both visiting. When the Atules moved north, Alleme and Aisha were already married and set up in their own households, but Ansile and Angélique still lived at home. Now, only Angélique, who made bold to be born after Jimmy, still lives with their parents.

  “What am I to do, Jimmy?” Ansile asks. “How can I have sex with Raphael? It’s suicide!”

  “I can see it might be a problem, Ansile.”

  “It’s no time for irony, Jimmy. Should I divorce him?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps.”

  “That’s not helpful, esteemed little brother!”

  “Do you want to divorce Raphael?”

  “I don’t know what I want, except that I don’t want to get AIDS.”

  “Well, you do know something you want.”

  “He says he’s never been with anyone else.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “I don’t know what to believe, so I tell myself to deal with the facts. And he is HIV-positive. So what are my options? There’s no way this marriage is going to proceed in a state of celibacy, so the only solution to us staying married is his using a condom.”

  “That seems logical enough.”

  “But the Church says we can’t.”

  “The Church isn’t married to a man who is HIV-positive. Besides which, you have a conscience. In the end, it’s your conscience that you answer to.”

  “You mean that?”

  “I do. It’s ethically sound, as far as I know.”

  “Well, that’s reassuring.”

  “You could talk to Father Kitendi.”

  “And run the risk of his trotting out the church’s line? I think I’ll just hang on to the leeway you’ve given me, and obey my conscience, thank you.”

  “Why don’t you pray about it?”

  “What’s that going to do?”

  “You won’t know till you do it, will you?”

  Jimmy is glad that Ansile goes home feeling better. For days he thinks about her dilemma, and the advice he has given her. His work clearly has to be twofold: to assist with stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS and to minister to those with the disease and their loved ones. Perhaps Rita Rose will come, and help. They need scores of her. The supply of nurses in Mabuli is each day more depleted. They keep falling ill, but nobody knows what ails them. The Skinny is like rumour: say nothing, and it doesn’t exist.

  MARK

  20

  Doublespeak

  En route to the council meeting on Thursday morning, the first letter Mark wrote Grace comes to mind, word for word. He knows the text perfectly because he’d drafted and redrafted it until he was satisfied.

  Dear Grace,

  It was a pleasure to see you after so long and to work with you on a matter that, though not on the agenda, proved an important one for our consideration.

  I must admit that I’m not aware of all the parameters surrounding the issue in question, and so precisely what we are faced with. Never-theless, we made such excellent progress at our first meeting, despite time constraints, that I’m optimistic about what we might accomplish with steady and consistent application. Thus, I’m suggesting that we meet soon again, or at least find a way to discuss concerns that I’m sure are paramount in both our minds.

  I’d be glad if you could call me as soon as you can. You could be anywhere between Venice and Vladivostok, so over to you!

  All good wishes,

  Mark Blackman

  The second letter was shorter; he’s pretty sure of its wording too. He’d been annoyed at not having heard from her, and in two minds about writing. He tells himself now that he was equally careful, never mind his irritation.

  Dear Grace,

  I am concerned at not having had a reply to my recent letter. I hope it’s the burden of work that has delayed your response and not ill health.

  This comes simply to reiterate my earlier sentiments. As I said previously, I feel that the project we worked on together is important and has a great deal of potential, never mind the considerable challenges it presents. I would like to pursue it and to meet with you soon, to that end.

  If you feel the same way (and I must assume, given the enthusiasm you displayed, that you do), I’d be glad to hear from you as soon as possible, so that we can make appropriate plans.

  All good wishes,

  Mark Blackman

  People busily on the move greet him as they pass. He nods, noblesse oblige, holding course for the council room.

  Grace hadn’t replied to the second letter either. Why had he written at all? Why not phone? The cloak and dagger appeal of coded messages? The sweet angst of anticipating a response? Fear of rejection, better delivered on paper he could crush and throw away? Whatever, it hadn’t occurred to him to call. He’d left his home number with his personal assistant, though, so if she called, she could get him.

  GRACE

  21

  Back to St. Chris

  Ma at the door of the barracks hut, her hair just now starting to grey, but her stance solid as ever, bosom thrust out, shoulders thrown back, legs straight and firm as the sides of Hogman Gorge. She watches as the Half-a-Million, a fast, new bus named for its price, sets her daughter down, and Grace collects her backpack and starts walking up the path. The cosmos, purple, yellow, and mauve, wave welcome right and left, their green eyelash leaves making a low forest of shade to cool her dusty feet.

  Up the wooden steps, backpack just inside the door, and then Grace gives her mother a long, tight-tight hug. It feels strange for now her head is not as usual on Ma’s shoulder, but they are nearly jaw-by-jaw. Either she has grown taller since she went to foreign, or Ma is growing down, the way old people do. But Ma is not old. Gramps is old, but not Ma, neither Pa.

  When finally they come apart, Grace asks, “How you stay, Ma? And Pa? Gramps? Sam and Princess? And the boys?”

  “Everybody fine, Grace. Well as can be expected. The young ones is at school and your Pa at work. Gramps taking some shut-eye just now, but he soon wake. Doctor put him in bed for a week, say he have a touch of pneumonia.”

  Gracie hugs her mother again, smelling carbolic soap, sweat, and the faint odour of seasoning, thyme and
pimento.

  “You must be dead beat. Sun hot already, and the year just start!” Ma smiles, lifts up Grace’s backpack and takes it inside. “Come sit down and drink a glass of lemonade and eat something. I have the escoveitched fish that you like, hard-dough bread and pickles from the last batch Gramps make.”

  Grace sits at the table. Ma disappears for one minute, comes back with a basin of water, a spotless white washrag, and some sweet soap. Grace nods thanks, washes her hands, and then takes Ma’s hand and holds it against her cheek. She smiles as Ma retrieves the hand, puts ice from a Styrofoam container on the table into a tall glass that she takes from a small curio cabinet, and pours out lemonade. Grace bows her head and blesses the food, mostly a concession to Ma, Pa, and Gramps, but also because here in Wentley, God is already nearer. She takes a long suck on the lemonade and starts with her fingers on the fish and hard-dough bread.

  Ma talks as she watches Grace eat, filling her in on all the news “Pansy expecting again. This one make four, and she lose one. That girl don’t even allow a good year between making those babies. I tell her, ‘Pansy, if you take the pikni off the breast so soon, you going to start a next one in no time.’ But you know Pansy. Say she don’t want no baby to drag down her breast. I don’t know how she work that out, for each new baby is another breast-feeding and more dragging down!”

  “So they doing okay? The children? She? Mortimer?”

  Ma shrugs, eyebrows and shoulders lifting up one time. “Give him his due, Grace, he treat her with respect, and he is a good provider. And he don’t oblige her to wear locks nor cover herself from neck to foot. The ital food, yes, he insist on that, but that not such a bad thing. We pretty much eating ital.”

  Grace examines this room where she has perhaps spent most of her waking life. On a bookshelf are books she has sent home, second-hand books on health, nutrition, house repairs. They are from her exile, a way to keep connected.