MAMista

by Len Deighton

  There were no more patients after Ramón departed. He was always the last one they saw; he insisted that it should be so. Inez took the glass chimney from the lamp and blew out the flame. Fuel was precious and she could tidy up by the light that still came in through the windows. She divided the boiling water into two jugs: one for Lucas and one for herself.

  It had been a gruelling day. Foremost in her mind stood the frightening scene with Paz and Singer. The fallout from that one was still to come. She had been present when Lucas inspected Singer’s ankle. He’d asked no questions about how the accident happened but she knew enough about Lucas to know how well he could disguise his feelings. For the time being, all concerned were prepared to forget it. But suppose Singer, or Santos, or some troublemaker, told Lucas that she was having an affair with Angel Paz? Or even that Angel Paz had made a grab for her? That would create a complication that she dreaded to think about.

  The confrontation between Paz and Singer had happened when she was already dispirited. She’d become depressed by her work treating the endless boils, running sores, ulcers and fungus conditions. The previous evening they’d done an emergency amputation. It had not turned out well. Alone afterwards she had cried. Inez was not a trained nurse. The tasks she did, and the grim bloody sights she saw, lowered her spirits to a point where at the end of the day she wanted to scream and scream.

  She took of her nylon coat and washed herself in the cubicle that provided water to the surgery. Tapped water was a luxury. This supply came from a tank on the roof. She had bought a dozen bars of good soap in Tepilo to avoid the camp soap and its smell of animal fat, but her work in surgery meant using a great deal of it.

  Many of the troubles they treated each day could have been avoided by means of soap and water: eye troubles, sores, septic wounds and dirty cuts. She would be content to go somewhere else. She’d be glad to play an active part in a real revolution instead of ministering to this parade of the sick. She looked at her reflection. She didn’t look her best in her ill-fitting trousers and the bra she wore under the nylon coat. She hated cheap cotton underwear but the camp laundry had shredded all her silk lingerie.

  ‘Could you spare me a little of your precious soap, Inez?’ She wrapped a towel around herself and went to see Lucas at the ladder. He was worn down too. He hated to show it but it was all too evident to those close to him.

  ‘I have put some upstairs beside the bowl.’

  There was something in her voice that he did not recognize. ‘Have I done something wrong?’

  ‘No, Lucas. You have done nothing wrong.’ She moved away from him.

  He looked at her, trying to see what might be troubling her, but she could not meet his scrutiny and turned away. ‘You spoil me,’ he said.

  She didn’t reply. She was standing in the shadows now. Had it been some other woman he might have suspected she was about to weep.

  Getting possession of a ladder had enabled Lucas to claim a large upstairs room of the match factory. In it he’d put some battered chairs, a metal bed and an old table where he wrote up his notes each day. Bundled up in the corner was a large mattress. ‘That’s all right then,’ Lucas said. He picked up his jug of boiling water and went up the steep ladder. He opened the trap-door and climbed into his secret parlour. On the table Inez had arranged a wash bowl and a jug of cold water. He mixed some warm water, took his shaving brush, and lathered his face.

  From this window he could look back to see one side of the camp. He could see the thatched huts where the disabled slept, and the place where the ‘hospital’ had been until he made them burn it down. Beyond that lay the women’s compound, the hut where they made the candles and the kitchens where they made ‘Lucas stew’. Lucas made them put all the hunted animals, from monkeys to rodents, into the pot with the vegetables. They served the stew once a day with a chunk of cassava pancake. Perhaps it was wishful thinking but the stew seemed to be improving the wellbeing of the Northerners who’d been eating the tinned food. The Indians got enough protein. They grabbed a handful of insects – ants and caterpillars – whenever they came across them, but even the hungriest Northerners resisted the offer of such snacks.

  From here Lucas could smell the stew. He also could smell the laundry, an opensided building always enveloped in steamy mist. The men and women guerrillas were not dressed like an army. Here in the jungle they wore any old clothes they could get hold of: straw hats, shorts and T-shirts. Many women wore bright clothes. Their skirts and blouses had the faded reds and greens that came from vegetable dyes and the simple striped patterns that were all that the crude looms of the villagers could produce.

  A patrol marched across the flat space they used as a parade ground. Angel Paz, wearing a camouflaged suit and a pack, was leading it. Sergeant Santos was in attendance. Lucas recognized other faces too. The man carrying the enormous old machine gun was Novillo. The one with the tripod was Tito, his number two. Both had been treated by Lucas but he could no longer remember the less serious cases. There were so many.

  Paz was suffering in the heat but trying not to show it. A fresh bruise had darkened his face, Lucas noticed. He had no reason to associate it with Singer’s sprained ankle and decided it was probably the result of some mishap in the jungle. The rest of them were mostly Indians: tough young fellows with wiry strength and impassive faces. The whitest faces were the two identical twins: cheerful kids, absurdly proud of the shape of their heads and their features which distinguished them as of European descent. These would be the ones accompanying Lucas next day. He looked at them curiously, wondering if they would be up to such a journey.

  Lucas began to shave. Looking back at him from an irregular-shaped piece of mirror was a red-eyed fellow with unkempt hair and tender skin that hurt as he dragged the blade across it. Downstairs he heard Inez sorting through the surgical instruments. She would take them across to the laundry and boil them there. He had objected at first that it was unhygienic, but the big stoves enabled her to do the job in a fraction of the time it took to do it here. And she would not be using valuable kerosene.

  The bugle sounded. The jungle fowl scattered, fluttering up into the air. Some of them got to the low branches of trees. ‘Flag parade!’ Inez called. ‘Won’t be long.’ She would let the instruments boil while she attended the ceremony.

  ‘Okay,’ Lucas said. On the other side of the compound he saw René taking a bowl of hot soup to the hut where Singer slept. There was no guard there. It had been accepted that Singer would not run away. Especially now that he had a twisted ankle.

  Lucas began to prepare for the journey. Using his bed as a table he piled up his shirts, trousers and underwear that Inez had brought from the laundry. They were ironed and that surprised him. He hadn’t known there was an iron here anywhere. And socks; lots of socks.

  He put some firelighters – blocks of paraffin wax – into a plastic bag and sealed it with medical tape. He put the bag into a tin and sealed that with tape too. Making a fire could mean the difference between life and death. Then he made another package to protect five boxes of matches and wedged his last six cheroots into it too. He sorted through a few oddments he’d found when exploring the derelict factory. There were brass buttons, some twine pieces knotted carefully into a whole length, a fragment of oilskin torn from a packing case lining, a half-used tube of machine grease, a bootlace and some old coins. He placed the assortment into the oilskin and tied it with the bootlace.

  He sorted through the instruments that he’d brought from London; a tourniquet, rubber tube, catgut and needles: all the basic plumber’s tools. He’d used all of them and shown the ‘nurse’ how to do it. What he didn’t need he would leave behind: laundered bandages, burn dressings and antiseptic ointment. He put these discarded things into a big canvas bag, with some clips and a crudely made tourniquet. The bag with the red cross on it served little more use than to give a measure of reassurance to the poor devils who went out patrolling, but it was better than nothing. He fastened t
he bag and cleared the rest of the things off his bed. As he finished he heard footsteps on the ladder. ‘Is that you, Inez?’

  ‘I was too late for the flag parade.’

  The bugle sounded again and he heard the shouted commands that preceded the lowering of the plain red rectangle. It was the end of the working day except for the discussions, political lectures and the study groups who read Marx aloud each evening.

  Inez came to the top of the ladder, stepped off and sank down into the chair watching him. ‘You are going with us tomorrow?’ she asked.

  ‘Is there a choice?’

  ‘You could talk Ramón round. He has a high opinion of you.’

  ‘Talk him round? For what reason?’

  ‘For you there would be no danger on the highway.’

  ‘And for you?’

  ‘The others will need someone to interpret to the Indians. And Ramón is not sure that Angel Paz will be able to command the men.’

  ‘Is Angel Paz in command?’ Lucas asked.

  ‘Who else? You? Singer is a prisoner.’

  ‘We will have Sergeant Santos with us,’ Lucas said.

  ‘You keep saying “Sergeant Santos” but we do not have ranks in the revolutionary army.’

  ‘We will fortunately have with us the equal, but experienced and much respected, comrade Santos.’

  She said, ‘The men with him will be mostly veterans. They will not readily take orders from Paz.’

  ‘So why put Paz in command? Put Santos in command.’

  ‘Paz must lead. The leader will have to read a map and take compass bearings. He must make decisions and perhaps speak in English.’

  ‘And the MAMista is not yet ready for a woman to command?’

  She smiled ruefully. ‘For another route perhaps.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’ Lucas asked.

  ‘Our route north will cross the Sierra Sombra, and then, beyond, it will cross the Sierra Serpiente. If a man suddenly decided to join Big Jorge and his Pekinistas it would not be a difficult journey west into the provincia de la Villareal. Men live well on the income from the coca crop.’

  ‘So not all your comrades are politically committed?’

  ‘If something went badly wrong. If a man were sick. If the leadership was less than determined. Then perhaps a man would be tempted.’

  ‘Determined? Well, Paz answers that description all right.’

  She looked at her watch. ‘I must go to collect the instruments.’

  ‘I want to take some medical bits and pieces with me. We might need them on the march. You can bring them back.’

  She nodded. ‘And Singer is fit enough for such a journey?’ She was still trying to see if there was danger there.

  ‘He’s just getting older, Inez.’

  ‘But he’s all right?’

  ‘A sprain as far as I can see but without an X-ray it’s only a guess. We have to depend upon what a patient tells us about the pain and so on.’

  ‘And you believe Singer?’

  ‘If I were examining him in a hospital in Tepilo I would discharge him. But he is not in Tepilo, he’s about to undertake a gruelling journey through the rain forest.’

  ‘Ramón has arranged for him to be carried for the first two days.’

  Lucas made a face. He reached for a tin of tablets and swallowed one.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Are you not taking them? Vitamin B complex. I told you to start last week. One a day, together with the Paludrine tablets.’

  ‘You take them every day?’

  ‘I do while I’m on this trip.’

  ‘Do you never think of giving them to others?’

  ‘I’m giving them to others now: take one.’

  ‘Not to me, Ralph: to Ramón.’

  He looked up. Until now she’d never used his first name. He wasn’t even certain that she knew what it was. Lucas said, ‘If Ramón gets sick, I’m here to look after him. If I go down with one of a long list of things, I’m dead.’

  ‘No, Ralph. You would have me.’

  ‘What would you do, Inez?’

  She was hurt and angry. ‘For you it is funny. I intended no joke.’ He was surprised at her sudden rage and looked up to find her eyes brimming with tears. She got up from the chair and went to the ladder.

  ‘Would you light a candle for me, Inez? Is that it?’ He’d teased her before about the way she illogically reconciled her Marxism and her religion. Once he had looked inside the smart leather Gucci case, thinking it might hold photos of family or lovers. Instead it held a home-made triptych of coloured postcards: a little portable shrine that she could set up anywhere.

  ‘You know very well,’ she said. He heard her reach the bottom of the ladder. She stumbled on the last step to make a hollow clatter against the warped plankwood floor.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he called but she went out without another word, banging the door behind her. Usually she would laugh and not take offence at such jokes but today was different.

  Lucas continued with his packing. Her moodiness did not come as a surprise to him. It was a strain. Any man, and almost any woman, working together over a body that is poised between life and death must establish a bond. There were no words needed beyond the cryptic instructions of the surgeon. Surgeons and nurses; such love affairs were … well, notorious he would have said until now. This had caught him without warning. He’d been unprepared for the mortal despair that suddenly hit the badly injured, and the desperately sick, in this chaos and filth. So was he unprepared for the hysteria of resuscitation. It was an elation to which he’d not proved immune. The heady cycle of despair and joy had brought Lucas and Inez very close.

  Often he told himself about the disparity in their ages, their lack of common interests, the difference of nationality, religion, politics and culture. He reminded himself about the sentries she’d killed. No matter: he still wanted her. Wanted her so much that it pained him.

  When she returned with the sterilized instruments, he’d already decided which ones he wanted. He wrapped them in a clean handkerchief. He also selected a dagger. It had a very sharp edge and a wicked point; he’d used it as a last-resort probe in the surgery. Now he put it into the sheath that he’d fitted to his belt.

  ‘I have lost weight,’ he said, patting the belt buckle.

  ‘Yes, I noticed.’

  ‘Did you?’ She was standing alongside him. Her arms were bare. He could smell the expensive soap she’d used. And he could smell the woodsmoke – from the laundry – in her hair. He moved his hand to place it firmly upon hers. She did not move.

  They stood there silent for a long time, listening to the sound of the river driving savagely against the wooden supports. On days like this, after the up-country rains, the whole building trembled.

  ‘So that is where you sleep?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’ It was an old straw mattress in the corner. ‘I put new filling in it but sometimes insects crawl out and fly around in the night.’

  ‘I am not frightened of insects,’ she said.

  She pulled her hand from his and went across the room to close the shutters. She made sure the mosquito net was across the window and that another one was snugly arranged over the closed trap-door.

  Lucas pulled down the net that hung from the roof. ‘That’s the trouble with being on the river,’ he said. ‘It is plagued with mosquitoes.’

  The room was dark now. She went to where he was waiting for her on the lumpy old mattress. He was about to speak again but she put her hand against his lips. There was nothing to say.

  Even afterwards she didn’t talk. She closed her eyes and sank into a deep slumber. Lucas heard her breathing become deep and regular, as she sank into that coma-like sleep that comes when both mental and physical weariness combine.

  Lucas remained awake. His mind was too active to submit to sleep. He loved her, but was this the right time to make everything more complicated? He reproached himself for his weakness and his stupidit
y. He heard the loud noises of the jungle, and a boatful of drunken locals who hit a patch of mud and spent a long time stuck in mid-river. He heard the sentries pacing and eventually heard them go to the gate of the women’s compound and send word to wake the cooks. The cooks’ voices were low and sleepy. They cursed the stove and the fuel and the matches. He heard them as they pulled the damp wood from the stoves and tried again with another lot.

  ‘Lucas, Lucas, Lucas.’ Inez mumbled in her sleep and reached out for him. She slid a hand into his shirt and held him. Then, still in that curious grey world of being half-awake, she began to cry silent tears that rolled down her face and racked her in spasms of despair.

  Lucas put his arms round her and held her close, murmuring any sort of foolishness in order to comfort her. They stayed like that for a long time. Then the cicadas began the waaa, waaa, waaa, that accompanies every dawn, and enough light came through the shutters for him to see her face still shiny wet with tears. Her eyes did not open.

  She sniffed and snuffled and clung tightly to him. ‘Will we ever get there, Lucas?’ she asked again and again. Not Ralph now, he noticed. Ralph belonged to another woman in some other world she might never see. She was not awake. He tasted the saltiness of her tears and pulled the edge of the blanket up around her head. The cold winds that followed the river came. They made the structure of the old factory creak and groan and shift its weight alarmingly.

  ‘Tomorrow will be a long hard day,’ he told her, and kissed her gently so that she did not awake.

  17

  THE TREK BEGINS.

  ‘… ol’ man river he just keep rollin’ along.’

  In the first light of morning no landscape beckons the traveller more seductively than the mysterious prospect of the jungle. From the outer rim of sentry posts, on a hilltop to the north of the winter camp, the party could see for many miles. The nearest peaks were purple, the next ones mauve, then there were blue ones and light blue ones until the horizon blurred into pink haze.