Red Jacket

by Mordecai, Pamela;

  “I’m very sorry about your family, Jimmy.”

  “Thank you. As I’ve said, Alleme died. The others are doing well.”

  “So your focus on person-centred therapy arises from your family’s encounter with the disease?”

  “I’ve not thought of it that way, but for sure it’s influenced my approach.”

  “What about prevalence? How do you keep track?”

  “Our systems are basic. Many come to the centre, but many others ignore their symptoms for as long as they can, so we like to use Amitié and her daughter as examples of the advantage of early diagnosis, especially for pregnant mothers. Even health workers, ashamed or in denial, fail to come forward. My father had to ride roughshod over our family.”

  “I’d like to meet your father.”

  “Don’t be so sure!” He pats his knees, rocking his upper body from side to side. “Aisha’s a nurse, and she was hardest of all to persuade. She told me that she was a medical professional and would know if she were ill.”

  “Taciturn health workers? That’s a severe setback.”

  “I’d say. Plus, where prevalence is concerned, things look different bottom up, from top down.”

  “Meaning?”

  “We don’t have resources for testing at the centres. There’s now an excellent facility in Benke, but it’s overworked, and in some ways, in the worst possible location. We diagnose from symptoms, and then we try to have persons encourage their sexual partners to come to MATE too. Like my father with his sons-in-law, though we use a lighter hand.”

  “A light hand with HIV/AIDS, huh?”

  “The disease is heavy-handed enough. While we’re talking to people about who they’ve had sex with, agencies consider prevalence. It’s not that data isn’t crucial, but it’s individuals who have the disease. We teach people to be alert to symptoms, aware of their health, and the health of those around them.”

  “So your method is incremental, beginning with the individual, building out from there?”

  “Yes.”

  “And is your emphasis on treatment? Or education?”

  “The treatment par excellence is education, whether to prevent or to live with the disease. You need to come to one of our sessions, see the twins do their ‘Pat-a-Cake, Take Your Pills’ handclapping song!”

  “What about money, Jimmy? Where would it be most useful?”

  “Well, God forgive me, but maybe some well-greased palms here and there, to make gatekeepers do the right thing!”

  “You mean, bribe governments to come on board?”

  “No. Bribe executives in corporate boardrooms so they vote to make drugs available and affordable.”

  Something alters just then, she isn’t sure what. It has nothing to do with what the priest is saying. Almost everyone agrees about the need for affordable drugs. It’s as if she is suddenly aware of the vulnerability of every person, a weight so heavy the struggle to keep going seems pointless.

  “Jimmy, this is to switch direction for a moment. What actual medical training do you have?”

  “Some.”

  “In what?”

  “CPR.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Bit of bush medicine.” He is teasing her.

  “Is that it?”

  “I’m a certified midwife.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “I can show you my diplomas. On top of which I’ve delivered scores of babies. I’m especially trained to deliver babies at risk for HIV/AIDS, and to teach other midwives. You must have read the background documents?”

  “We probably mislaid some pages.”

  “It’s hard to believe that you put your well-being and that of your child into my hands without being satisfied that I knew what I was doing.”

  “You said you’d have to do when I asked for a specialist, remember? What choice did I have? No offence, but we’re somewhere behind God’s back. I arrive, fall flat on my face, and the next day you inform me that I’m pregnant and that I could lose the baby. The evidence supports this, so I assume you know what you’re doing.”

  “You might have asked me to show you my bona fides.”

  “I was half-awake a lot of the time. Plus, you might have laughed in my face.”

  “May I take your hand?”

  “Of course. You needn’t ask. You’re my … doctor.”

  “You’re in my care but you’re also clearly in excellent health. You probably don’t realize how rare it is to see a pregnant woman thriving. That guarantees nothing, where AIDS is concerned, but still. It’s not for me to ask if you’re at risk for the disease, although I’d be lying if I said I’ve not thought of it. But just seeing you hearty reminds us of what we work for each day.”

  “Well ... that’s good, Jimmy. I’m glad to be here, then, and pregnant, if only for that reason.”

  “One more thing. Have you decided about telling the baby’s father? I’m interfering, I know, but I think you should.”

  40

  More Wordplay

  Gatekeepers. Their visitor misunderstood about the gatekeepers and the palm greasing. G words — gatekeepers, grease. Is it narrow, western, stupid? Why is the greed always in African governments, never in the European lust for gold, oil, diamonds? Why is it never in the foreign letch for immoral local partners in depredation? Perish the thought! That’s good business, not greed.

  God. The G word of g words. Word of words. G force. Gravitation. Gravity. The Gravitas of God.

  He is playing Mapome’s dictionary game again.

  She wasn’t the gushing type, but they galloped along from the get-go.

  “When you were about three months old, James, your ears used to wiggle when you heard singing.”

  “But ears don’t wiggle, Mapome.”

  Her wiggling ears opened up a new world for him.

  “Don’t assume, James. Don’t swallow anything because someone says so. Never behave as though the world is a small place. It isn’t. Never be scared if someone is different or something is new. That’s the whole point of creation. It would be very boring if all grass were green.”

  “But all grass is green, Mapome.”

  “Go outside now into the garden and bring me back grass in six colours.”

  Go. Garden. Grass. Green.

  Some philosopher says that if you call a man a communist, killing him becomes easy. What names are people calling Africans so that they die in droves without anyone lifting a hand … well … a glove, for the sake of the game? (He is playing well. It is the first time he’s deliberately chosen a g word.) Gorillas? Gibbons? Goons?

  God grant to Simeon, his graceful, God-fearing brother in Christ whose life of generous service was gutted, God grant him rest, and in good time, glorification. Simeon Lubonli would not have harmed a gecko. He shudders to think of AIDS drawing down Simeon’s body, already starving so there was not a spare ounce on it, rendering it ghastly, ghostly. He was a skeleton when they found him, barely alive, in his tiny, isolated, God-forsaken parish in the Gambisi — another G! He’d thrown himself into work, but some monster, no good Muslim for sure, put it about that he was a giaour, infidel, threat to the community. Abandoned by his small flock and bereft of their modest support, Simeon sweated it out in his lonely Gethsemane, he who never did ill to anyone. Even Jesus had the three to keep him company in his grim garden. There are gibbets and gibbets: Simeon’s cross was a grass mat on the tamped-down ground that constituted the floor of his tiny rectory.

  G for Gethsemane, grim, gibbet, ground. G for Gospel, the good news, the spreading of which constitutes the reason for his life and Simeon’s.

  Enough! Mapome’s game sometimes makes him dizzy. Dizzy! He is running out of Diazepam. He must get some on their next trip to Benke. Anyway, time to leave the game and address the dilemma of what to do about his special patient.

  It is as well they talk easily. Not that he is intimidated, never mind she is an important bureaucrat who might prove enormously valuable to their w
ork at MATE. Sometimes in their conversation, he is reminded of his first interview with J.J. Perhaps it is a matter of cultural difference.

  He grew up in a household where New World black folks were regarded with cynicism. His father had no patience with so-called Afro-Americans who claimed pride in Africa, but were unapologetic about their ignorance of the continent’s history, geography, languages, weather, cultures, and customs. One October, talking to a businessman from Atlanta, his father remarked that Harmattan was just round the corner. He was stunned when the man asked if there were good roads to get there.

  Is the xenophobia about which Mapome warned him dictating his reaction to their visitor? Or are his feelings not at all what they seem? Why had she suddenly ended the conversation, saying she was tired when she’d assured him she was fine? He prayed for her, prayed for all those under their care. MATE stood for Mabuli AIDS Treatment and Education. Angélique thought of the name, a perfect fit, since much of the success of any HIV/AIDS intervention depended on mates, whether they were partners, friends, brothers or sisters, grandmothers or grandfathers. He hopes Grace Carpenter has a mate.

  G. For Grace.

  41

  Offspring

  There was nothing untoward in his manner, nothing suggestive in how he held her hand, so Grace is alarmed that she finds Jimmy Atule’s touch erotic. She puts it down to the fact that her hormones are doing strange things. He is cool, solicitous, and delicious eye candy, to be sure, but she meets many sensitive, attractive men in her work. She is here on business, he is a person dedicated to God, she’s caused trouble enough, arriving pregnant and unwell, making a call on his time and creating extra work for the staff.

  Suddenly aware of the pointlessness of it all, she changed tack, then ended the chat, after his interfering advice to inform the baby’s father. He was so sweetly apologetic.

  “Can we finish this some other time, Jimmy? I’m suddenly weary.”

  “You’re sure it’s tiredness, not anything else?”

  “Just tired.”

  They got up. He reached over and made the sign of the cross on her forehead, saying as he did it, “You don’t mind?” She shook her head, no.

  “Good night, Grace.”

  “Good night, Jimmy.” She stood watching him as he went, one hand sliding across her stomach. She’s still heard nothing from Mark. Fine baby-father, never mind he’s no idea she is pregnant. She is increasingly coming to the conclusion that she isn’t going to tell him, whether he gets in touch or no. Charlie said when they first made love, “If you get pregnant, Grace Carpenter, I’ll be over the moon.” She’d been daftly oblivious about contraception that time too.

  In her room, she undresses, lies down, turns out the light, and settles into the sheets, preparing again to consider this lunatic attraction to — she rehearses the litany — her professional colleague, her host, her doctor for all intents and purposes, a man vowed to celibacy and a life dedicated to God. Jesus! Then the enormity of what he said hits her. She doesn’t know a thing about Mark, has no clue about his personal life, let alone his lovemaking habits, so she and her baby can well be as risk-prone as any Mabuli woman having sex with a mate who frequents prostitutes.

  “Oh my God!” she says aloud. “Oh my sweet Lord Jesus. What is this foolishness I’ve done?” She opens her mouth to scream, then she realizes where she is, who she is. Screaming would be selfish and silly, but she needs at least to talk to someone. Maybe she can wake the priest, or that nice Sœur Monique. She jumps up, starts to dress, almost falling over her feet as they search on the floor for her shoes.

  “Turn on the light, stupid!” Having turned it on, she lies back on the bed again, her mind going back to conversations in Geneva. They all take it for granted that since any new sexual partner might be HIV-positive, everybody insists on a condom. She knows it is neither the case that new sexual partners are mostly HIV-positive nor that everyone makes that assumption and so uses a condom. Otherwise AIDS wouldn’t be epidemic. Still, she has no excuse, she, of all people!

  Up on her feet again, no shoes on, she walks end to end of the small room. She sneezes and, too agitated to search her bag for tissues, uses the sleeve of her nightgown to wipe her nose. Maybe it is better in this kind of situation to be dirt poor and have no prospects. Then it is less of a big deal.

  She is immediately ashamed. The thought is selfish, supremacist. Sinful.

  There must be some sensible thing to do. She remembers an Outward-Bound-type program Steph coaxed her to join one Canada Day weekend in the second year she was at U of Toronto. She tried at length to explain to her roommate why she didn’t want to participate, reasons having to do with bears and the icy water in rivers and lakes, but Steph, indomitable, prevailed. She learned some useful things, one being what to do in states of panic. She tries to remember. Take long deep breaths. She does. Check vital signs. She is all there, maybe losing a baby but still, all there. Sum up the danger. Right. If she has AIDS, there is nothing to do about it, not immediately, anyway. If she doesn’t, there is nothing to worry about. Either way, panic will achieve nothing.

  It doesn’t work. She is going to the priest. She doesn’t care if he is terminally exhausted. She doesn’t care about anything except the fact that she has to talk. She gathers the blanket round her shoulders because she is freezing and is turning the doorknob when she hears Gramps, clear as a bell. “You’re a big girl now, Grace.” A big girl who’s done something superbly stupid! Just then Jimmy Atule’s celibacy strikes her as a mighty shrewd choice. She decides she will talk to him in the morning.

  Next day she sleeps until eight. She doesn’t know exactly when the priest gets up, but she knows that he says Mass quite early in the chapel. Since she’s been better, he’s given up passing by her room in the morning and now leaves by nine most days, the time at which she’s been waking up. She has to speak to him before he leaves for the day.

  “Father Jimmy!” she shouts from the verandah when he’s riding by on his bicycle, heading for the centre.

  “Morning, Dr. Grace!” he shouts back, “Comment ça va?” When he sees her running for the steps, he directs the bike towards the building and brings it to a stop near where she is standing.

  “Look, you can still lose that child. Rushing to and fro isn’t a good idea.”

  “I’m sorry,” she doesn’t quite hang her head. “I must talk to you. Please.”

  “You’re not hemorrhaging again?” He is off the bike, up the stairs, ushering her back into her room. She sits on the bed while he pulls up a stool. “Something wrong?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Absolutely for sure?”

  “Absolutely.” Get on with it, idiot. “This isn’t professional, Jimmy. It’s personal. It will take fifteen minutes. I know you’re busy.”

  “Why don’t you just tell me?”

  “Suppose I have AIDS? Suppose I give it to the baby? I couldn’t bear that. The child doesn’t deserve that. I don’t know what I’d do.” She is looking at him, hands over her belly, hugging herself, starting to cry.

  “Chances are that you and the baby are fine.”

  “How can you say that? You can’t know. I can’t know till I’m tested. And that’s not possible here. Right?” She wipes her face with the back of her hand.

  “Yes. Benke is too far for you to travel to, in your condition. Abortion is an option, but I can’t advise it, of course, nor could you do it here. And you’d still be at risk.”

  “But you just said I’m probably fine.”

  “That’s true. And the baby too.”

  “But you can say anything. You’re not pregnant. You’re not at risk for HIV/AIDS.”

  “I’m not pregnant, that’s true.” He hands her a big blue kerchief. “But nobody who works with HIV/AIDS patients avoids being at some risk.”

  “Makes you very brave, doesn’t it?” She is being horrid, but she doesn’t care.

  “Grace, life is hard, even if you’re rich as the King of the A
shanti and healthy as a hippo. When you come down the hill to the centre, you’ll see women, children, and men who embarrass us all by their courage.”

  “I’m sorry. I’d no right.”

  “It’s okay. As you said, I’m not pregnant.”

  “I just feel stupid and powerless and responsible.”

  “What do you know about the baby’s father?”

  “You mean do I know if he sleeps around?”

  “Is he someone you just met? Or someone you have a relationship with?”

  “I knew him a long time ago. We worked together at the university in St. Chris. He was dean of my faculty. I hadn’t seen him for ages.”

  He sighs. “Is there anything to be done to help you to feel better?”

  “Well, maybe I could call him. You know, ask him the questions I ought to have asked before I slept with him.”

  “So this is a new relationship?”

  “New, yes, but I wouldn’t call it a relationship.”

  “Well, what with recent sandstorms, we don’t have the best phone connections in the world, but we can usually put a call through. You’ll have to come to the centre, though. And we’ll have to know the destination of the call to figure out when to make it, given time constraints.”

  “It’s Washington, and they’re six hours behind us, so if we called at about three, I should be able to get him.”

  “I’ll ask Sœur Tekawitha, then. Do you have a number? And we’ll need his name of course.”

  “His name is Mark Blackman. He’s Executive Director of the Caribbean Inter-American Development Bank. I’ll find his number and bring it with me.”

  “Good. We’ll organize it, then. Have you had breakfast?”

  She shakes her head.

  “I’ll ask Amitié to hurry it up.”

  42

  One Night with You

  Grace is taking her evening stroll down the verandah at about nine o’clock. It runs the length of the building, meeting the chapel at one end and the dining room and kitchen at the other. If she walks back and forth a few times, it amounts to exercise. She is encouraged to do that, taking it slow. She passes Jimmy’s room going and coming. There is no light in his room when she first goes by. She presumes he is still working at Tindi or out at one of the other MATE Centres, so when she walks past his door again, she is surprised to hear something crash and shatter, followed by a regular, violent thumping. She waits a few moments, knocks, hears no answer, and opens the door. In the dimness she sees the priest lying on the ground in his pajama bottoms. His body is vibrating like an old wind-up car engine refusing to start. It hammers the hard wood boards. His eyes show only the whites, brilliant in the half-dark.