Sylvia was being presented with a dozen possibilities for her future. She was a doctor, people knew she had created a hospital in the bush where none had existed. She had fallen foul of the government, too bad, but Zimlia was not the only country in Africa.
A sentence in our textbooks goes something like this: 'In the latter part of the nineteenth century, and until the First World War, the Great Powers fought over Africa like dogs over a bone. ‘What we read less often is that Africa, considered as a bone, was not less fought over for the rest of the twentieth century, though the dog packs were not the same.
A youngish doctor, a native of Zimlia (white), had returned recently from the wars in Somalia. He sat on the hard upright chair in Sylvia's room and listened while she talked compulsively (Sister Molly said this was a self-cure) of the fate of the people at St Luke's Mission, dying of AIDS, and apparently invisible to the government. She talked for hours and he listened. And then he talked, as compulsively, and she listened.
Somalia had been part of the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union, which set up its usual apparatus of prisons, torture chambers and death squads. Then by a smart little piece of international legerdemain, Somalia became American, swapped for another bit of Africa. Naive citizens hoped and expected that the Americans would dismantle the apparatus for Security and set them free, but they had not learned that lesson, so essential for our times, that there is nothing more stable than this apparatus. Marxists and communists of various persuasions who had flourished under the Russians, torturing and imprisoning and killing their enemies, now found themselves being tortured and imprisoned and killed. The once reasonable enough State of Somalia, was as if boiling water had been poured into an ants' nest. The structure of decent living was destroyed. Warlords and bandits, tribal chiefs and family bosses, criminals and thieves, now ruled. The international aid organisations, stretched to their limits, could not cope, particularly because large parts of the country were barred to them by war.
The doctor sat for hours on his hard chair and talked, because he had been watching people kill each other for months. Just before he left he had stood on the side of a track through a landscape dried to dust, watching refugees from famine file past. It is one thing to see it on television, as he said (trying to excuse his garrulousness), while he stared at her, but not seeing her, seeing only what he was describing, and it was another thing to be there. Perhaps Sylvia was as equipped as most to visualise what he was telling her, because she had only to set in her mind along that dusty track two thousand miles to the north people from the dying village in Kwadere. But he had watched, too, refugees fleeing from the killing troops of Mengistu, some of them hacked and bleeding, some dying, some carrying murdered children: he had watched that for days, and Sylvia's experience did not match with it and so it was hard to see it. And besides there was no television in Father McGuire's house.
He was a doctor, and he had watched, helpless, people in need of medicines, a refuge, surgery, and all he had had to aid them had been a few cartons of antibiotics which had disappeared in a few minutes.
The world is now full of people who have survived wars, genocide, drought, floods, and none of them will forget what they have experienced, but there are, too, the people who have watched: to stand for days seeing a people stream past in thousands, hundreds of thousands, a million, with nothing in your hands, well, this doctor had been there and done that, and his eyes were haunted and his face was stricken, and he could not stop talking.
A woman doctor from the States wanted Sylvia for Zaire, but asked was Sylvia up to it – it was pretty tough up there, and Sylvia said she was fine, she was very strong. She also said that she had performed an operation without being a surgeon but both doctors were amused: in the field, doctors not surgeons did what they could. 'Short of transplant operations, and I wouldn't actually go in for a by-pass.'
In the end she agreed to go to Somalia, as part of a team financed by France. Meanwhile she had to go back to the Mission to see Zebedee and Clever, whose voices when she spoke to them over the telephone sounded like the cries of birds caught in a storm. She did not know what to do. She described these two boys, now no longer children, but adolescents, to Sister Molly and to the doctors, and knew that one, who saw children like these every day of her working life, thought that both were destined for future unemployment (but she would keep a look out, perhaps they could be found work as servants?), and the others, with their minds full of starving thousands, endless lines of poor victims, could only with difficulty bend their imaginations to think of two unfortunates who had dreamed of being doctors but now... So what's new?
Sister Molly had to drive out fifty miles beyond Kwadere to resume work interrupted by Sylvia's illness. She had arranged that Aaron would collect Sylvia from the turn-off. Her complaints about the Pope and the churchly male hierarchy were interrupted by the sight of six great grain silos along the road whose contents – last season's maize – had been sold off by a senior Minister to another drought-ridden African country, the proceeds pocketed by himself. They were driving through hungry country; for miles in every direction stretched bush dry and starved because of the overdue rainy season.
'I wouldn't like to have his conscience,' said Sylvia, and Sister Molly said that it seemed some people had not yet understood that there were people born without consciences. This set Sylvia off on her monologue about the village at the Mission, and Sister Molly listened, saying, ‘Yes, that is so, ' and, ‘You are in the right of it there.' At the turn-off Aaron was waiting in the Mission car. Sister Molly said to Sylvia, ‘Well, that's it, then. I expect I'll see you around.’And Sylvia said, 'Fine. And I'll never forget what you've done for me.' 'Forget it.’And off she drove with a wave of the hand that was like a door shutting.
Aaron was vivacious, eager, on the verge of a new life: he was going to the Old Mission to continue his studies to become a priest. Father McGuire was leaving. Everyone was leaving. And the library? ‘I am afraid the books are not many now, because you see, with Tenderai dead, and Rebecca dead and you not here, who was to look after them?'
‘And Clever and Zebedee?'
Aaron had never liked them, nor they him, and all he said was, ' Okay. '
He parked the car under the gum trees and went off. It was late afternoon, the light going fast from gold and pink clouds. On the other side of the sky a half moon, a mere whitish smear, was waiting to acquire dignity when the dark came.
As she arrived on the verandah the two lads came running. They stopped. They stared. Sylvia did not know what was wrong.
While ill she had lost her sunburn, had become white as milk, and her hair, cut offbecause of the sweats, was in wisps and fronds of yellow. They had only known her as a friendly and comfortable brown. 'It is so wonderful to see you' – and they came rushing at her, and she put her arms around them. There was much less substance to them than she was used to.
' Isn't anyone feeding you?'
‘Yes, yes. Doctor Sylvia, ' they hugged her and wept. But she knew they had fed badly. And the bright white shirts were dingy with dirt because Rebecca was not there to do them. Their eyes through the tears said, Please, please.
Father McGuire arrived, asked if they had eaten and they said yes. But he took a loaf from the sideboard, and they tore it in half and ate hungrily as they went down to the village: they would return at sunrise.
Sylvia and the priest sat in their places at the table, the single electric lightbulb telling him how sick she had been, and she that he was an old man.
‘You'll see the new graves on the hill, and there are new orphans. I and Father Thomas – he's the black priest at the Old Mission – we' re going to set up a refuge for the AIDS orphans. We've got funding from Canada, God reward them, but Sylvia, have you thought that there will be perhaps a million children without parents, the way we are going?'
' The Black Death destroyed whole villages. When they take pictures of England from the air they can see where the villages
were.'
' This village will not be here soon. They are leaving because they say the place is cursed. '
‘And do you tell them what they should be thinking, Father?'
‘I do. '
The electric light suddenly failed. The priest lit a couple of emergency candles, and they ate their supper by their light, served by Rebecca's niece, a strong and healthy young woman – well, she was now – who had come to help her dying aunt, and she would leave when the priest left.
'And I hear there's a new headmaster at last?'
'Yes, but you see, Sylvia, they don't like coming out to these far-out places, and this one's already had his problems with the drink. '
‘I see. '
'But he has a big family and he will have this house.'
They both knew there was more to be said, and at last he asked, ‘And now, what are you going to do with those boys?'
‘I should not have set up their expectations and I did. Though I never actually promised them anything. '
‘Ah, but it is the great wonderful rich world there that is the promise.'
‘And so, what should I do?'
‘You must take them with you to London. Send them to a real school. Let them learn doctoring. God knows this poor country will be needing its doctors. '
She was silent.
' Sylvia, they are healthy. Their father died before there was AIDS. Joshua's real children will die, but not these two. He's waiting to see you, by the way. '
‘I am surprised he is still alive. '
' He is alive only to see you. And he is quite mad now. You must be prepared for that. '
Before giving her a candle to take to her room, he held his high to look into her face, and said, ' Sylvia, I know you very well, my child. I know you are blaming yourself for everything.'
'Yes.'
' It is a long time since you have asked me to confess you, but I do not need to hear what you have to say. In the state of mind you are in, when you are low from the illness, you must not trust what you are thinking about yourself. '
'The devil lurks in the absence of red corpuscles.'
'The devil lurks where there is bad health – I hope you are taking your iron pills.'
'And I am trusting you to take yours.'
They embraced, both needing to weep, and turned away to go to their rooms. He was leaving early, and said he probably wouldn't see her, meaning he didn't want to go through another parting. He was not going to say, like Sister Molly: See you around.
Next morning he was gone: Aaron had taken him to the turn-off where he would be picked up by the Old Mission's car.
Zebedee and Clever were waiting for Sylvia on the path to the village. Half the huts were empty. A starving dog was nosing about in the dust. The hut where Tenderai had looked after the books stood open, and the books had gone.
‘We tried to look after them, we tried. '
' Never mind. '
The village before she had left had been afflicted, it had been threatened, but it had been alive: now its spirit had gone. It was Rebecca who had gone. In institutions and villages, in hospitals and in schools, often it is one person who is the soul of the place, though he or she may be the janitor, a chairman, or a priest's servant. When Rebecca died, the village died.
The three went up through the bush to where the graves were, getting on for fifty of them now, Rebecca's and her son Tenderai's among the newest, two oblongs of red dust under a big tree. Sylvia stood, looking, and the lads, seeing her face, came to her and she held them close and now she did weep, their faces on her head: they were taller than she was.
‘And now you must see our father. '
‘Yes, I know. '
' Please do not be cross with us. The police came and took away the medicines and the bandages. We told them you paid for them, with your money. '
'It doesn't matter.'
'We told them it was stealing, they were your medicines.'
'Really, it doesn't matter.'
'And the grandmothers are using the hospital for the sick children.'
Everywhere in Zimlia old women and sometimes old men whose grown-up children had died were left trying to feed and keep young children.
‘How are they feeding them?'
'The new headmaster said he will give them food. '
‘But they are too many, how can he feed them all?'
They stood on a small rise, opposite the one where the priest's house stood, looking down into Sylvia's hospital. Three old women sat in the shade under the grass roofs, with about twenty small children. Old, that is, by third world standards: in luckier countries these fifty-year-old women would be dieting and finding lovers.
Under Joshua's big tree lay a heap of rags, or something like a big python, mottled with shadow. Sylvia knelt beside him and said, ' Joshua. ' He did not move. There are people who, before they die, look as they will after they are dead: the skeleton is so close under the skin. Joshua's face was all bone, with dry skin sunk into the hollows. He opened his eyes and licked scummy lips with a cracked tongue. ‘Is there water?' asked Sylvia, and Zebedee ran to the old women, who seemed to be protesting, why waste water on the nearly dead? But Zebedee scooped a plastic cup through water that stood in a plastic pail open to dust and any blown leaves, and brought it to his father, knelt, and held the cup to the cracked lips. Suddenly the ancient man (in late middle age by other standards) came alive and drank desperately, the cords of his throat working. Then he shot out a hand like a skeleton's and grasped Sylvia's wrist. It was like being held in a circlet of bone. He could not sit up, but he raised his head and began mumbling what she knew must be curses, imprecations, his deep-sunk eyes burning with hatred.
'He doesn't mean it,' said Clever. 'No, he doesn't,' pleaded Zebedee.
Then Joshua mumbled, 'You take my children. You must take them to England. '
Her wrist was aching because of the tight bone bracelet. ' Joshua, let me go, you' re hurting me. '
His grip tightened, ‘You must promise me, now-now, you must promise. ' His head was lifted up off his nearly-dead body as a snake lifts its head when its back is broken.
' Joshua, let my wrist go. '
‘You will promise me. You will...’And he mumbled his curses, his eyes hard on hers, and his head fell back. But his eyes did not close, nor did he stop his mumbled hatred.
' Very well, I promise, Joshua. Now let me go. ' His grip did not relax: she was wildly thinking that he would die and she would be handcuffed to a skeleton.
' Don't believe what he says, Doctor Sylvia, ' whispered Zebedee. ' He doesn't mean what he says,’ said Clever.
' Perhaps it is just as well I don't know what he's saying. '
The bone handcuff fell off her wrist. Her hand was numb. She squatted beside the near-corpse, shaking her hand.
‘Who is going to look after him?'
' The old women are looking after him. '
Sylvia went to the women and gave them money, nearly all she had, leaving enough to get back to Senga. It would keep these children fed for a month, perhaps.
‘And now get your things, we' re leaving. '
‘Now?' They fell back from her, with the shock of it; what they had longed for was here, was close – and it was a separation from everything they knew.
‘I’ll get you clothes, in Senga. '
They went running down to the village, and she walked up the hill between the oleanders and the plumbago to the house, where everything she was going to take was already in her little hold-all. To Rebecca's niece she said that if she wanted her books, she could take them. She could take anything she wanted. But what the girl asked for was the picture of the women on the wall. She liked those faces, she said.
The lads appeared, each with a carrier bag – their possessions.
'Have you had anything to eat?’No, clearly they had not. She sat them at the table, and cut bread and set the jam-jar between them. She and Rebecca's niece stood watching them fumble with the
knives, spreading the jam. All that had to be learned. Sylvia's heart was as heavy with dismay as it was going to be: these two
orphans, for it was what they were – were going to have to take on London, learn everything, from how to use knives and forks, to how to be doctors.
Sylvia rang Edna Pyne, who said that Cedric was sick, she couldn't leave him – she thought bilharzia.
'Never mind, we'll take the bus into Senga.'
‘You can't go on those native buses, they' re lethal. '
' People do. '
' Rather you than me. '
‘I’m saying goodbye, Edna. '
' Okay. Don't fret. In this continent our deeds are writ in water. Oh dear, what am I saying, in sand then. That's what Cedric is saying, he's got the blues, he's got my black dog. ' ' Our deeds are writ in water, ' ' he says. He's getting religion. Well, that's all it needed. Goodbye, then. See you around. '
The three were where the road to the Pynes and the Mission joined one of the main roads north. It was a single belt of tarmac, much potholed, and as eaten away at the edges as the poster Rebecca's niece had taken off the wall that morning. The bus was due, but would be late: it always was. They stood waiting and then sat waiting, on stones placed there for that purpose under a tree.
The Sweetest Dream Page 48