The Memory of Love

by Forna, Aminatta

‘Julius was a fool. He refused to see the change coming even though it was in the sky. Perhaps he imagined he could alter the weather. He riled Johnson, just as he riled the university authorities.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder, if he had lived, who would he have become? Would he be Dean of his faculty? Not likely. He was a dreamer. He dreamt of building cities, bridges, raising towers up to the sky, flying to the moon, for God’s sake!

  ‘That night, the first night I was in Johnson’s power, was the worst of my life. I told you what happened. He stole my cake, duped me into believing he was coming back, left me there and never returned. I banged on the door and nobody came.

  ‘Nobody came for one, two, I don’t recall how many hours. I was left alone. But in the end somebody did come. Not Johnson, for he had gone home, one of his guards. I was taken from that place and led downstairs to another room. It was much cooler there, I was grateful for it at first. But gradually it turned cold, and the cold bored through me. I tried to sleep. At some point in the night I had that image of myself, a dark, untidy shape. A shape devoid of detail and yet unmistakably mine, the shadow of me. I slept again and was woken, I think, by a cry somewhere in the building. I sat and listened. Silence. The cry, if that was what I had heard, did not come again. Instead I heard something else, a sound like a tiny spinning top, a whirr and a clatter. It came regularly, at intervals. The same sound, but with enough variance to suggest human agency rather than the sound of a machine. In time I thought I recognised it. You remember I told you Julius almost always carried something in his pocket, something to fiddle with. A screw, a bolt and washer. Julius’s worry beads. The sound was coming from the other side of the wall. I heard coughing. Julius. I listened. I knocked. The coughing stopped. The knock came back to me. I was sure, then, it was Julius. I did not dare speak, for fear of attracting the guards. But Julius had no such fear. “Hello,” he said. “Hello? Who’s there?” He had no way of knowing it was me. I’m not certain he even knew I’d been arrested, unless Johnson had told him. I hesitated. I opened my mouth to reply and then I heard someone coming. A sharp rap on Julius’s door. The rest of the night passed in silence. Silence, save for the sound of Julius’s worry beads, the spinning top wearing itself out over and over again. At some point even that stopped.

  ‘The next night, after a day of enduring Johnson’s torment, I was returned to the same cell. I lay with my face pressed into the grit of the floor. I did not hear Julius’s worry beads. It occurred to me he’d been moved, possibly even released, though I doubted that. He was, after all, the main object of Johnson’s interest. I was afraid for myself. Johnson had succeeded in constructing such a case against me I was almost convinced of my own involvement. I did not see how I was going to get out of this. And even if I did, my career, my reputation, these things were sullied for ever. It was Saturday night and nobody in the world knew where I was. I feared the night and I feared the next day.

  ‘At some point I slept and woke. An insect crawled over my face.

  Too dark to see the hands of my watch. I guessed it was somewhere between two and four o’clock in the morning. I stared into the darkness. I listened, desperate for a sound to assure me I was alive. In the room upstairs I’d at least been able to hear something of the outside world. Down here there was no window, nothing. As I listened I became aware of a sound. I crawled over to the wall on the side next to where I thought Julius was being held. I pressed my ear against the wall. Yes, I could hear it clearly now. A wheezing. No, it was somehow a more desperate sound than mere wheezing. A gulping noise, is how I would describe it. I tapped. Once, twice. But this time nobody tapped back. In my heart I had no doubt it was Julius.

  ‘What should I do? If I called for a guard, I doubted very much anybody would come, and if they did they were equally likely to become heavy-handed with me. We were in an unforgiving place. I could end up making more trouble for myself, for Julius. I pressed my ear against the wall. I leant back and considered matters. Surely Julius had his medication. I struggled to decide what was best. I told myself he didn’t sound so bad. That he was surely capable of calling for aid himself if he was indeed in trouble. At other times I worried how long he had been in this condition. I reasoned the guards must have been in and out of his cell in the course of the day. In this way my thoughts moved back and forth. At one point I heard a cough. I read that as a good sign. Somehow I fell asleep. When I woke it was dawn and I was still living in the nightmare.

  ‘That morning the Dean came to see me. A deal with Johnson was suggested. I gave him my notebooks in return for my freedom. I never returned to the cell in the basement. In those first few minutes I was so relieved to be free I forgot all about Julius. The Dean accompanied me to my office in the faculty building to collect the notebooks. He was irritable, angry at being called out to attend to me when he should have been in church. I could tell my odour offended him, for I had spent two days under duress without washing.

  ‘If Johnson was in any way pleased to receive my notebooks he chose not to show it. Why was I not surprised? Because by then I knew the man had all sorts of tricks and power games of his own making. He merely thanked me and asked one of his men to take us to the entrance of the building. It was then I remembered Julius. I stopped and turned at the door. The Dean saw me hesitate. I looked at Johnson, who looked straight back at me. The Dean looked at us both. “For heaven’s sake, what is it now?” Johnson was silent, but continued to look at me with a calm regard. And I saw in that moment that Johnson knew. I could tell it from his eyes. Johnson knew everything. I was within seconds of walking out of that building for ever. I had everything to lose. I closed my mouth. We turned to leave. And that was the last view I had of Johnson: standing behind his desk, the books held to his chest, a black-suited figure, a devilish pastor.

  ‘So you see what happened? I did nothing. Johnson was the one who let Julius die. But the truth, the truth if you want to know – and I have thought about this for many years. The truth is Julius brought it upon himself. He never knew what was good for him. He presumed too much.’

  So this is how the entire course of a life, of history, is changed.

  A day later Adrian stands at the window and watches the men rake the grass. They are nearly finished now and the work has done much to raise their spirits.

  A life, a history, whole patterns of existence altered, simply by doing nothing. The silent lie. The act of omission. Whatever you like to call it. Adrian collects his briefcase from its place by the door, steps out and locks the door behind him. Elias Cole would never take responsibility for his hand in Julius’s fate. The fragmentation of the conscience. Cole absolved himself the moment he handed responsibility for Julius to Johnson, in the same way he handed the list of students to Johnson knowing and yet refusing to acknowledge the likely outcome. He absolved himself of responsibility for the greater crime and yet it could not have occurred without him. There are millions of Elias Coles the world over. Suddenly Adrian is tired.

  One or two of the men nod to Adrian as he passes by. They do not smile or speak, but he knows that now he is held high in their regard. Salia is there and raises a hand. The fragmentation of the conscience. Adecali, tortured by those acts he had committed. Elias Cole unperturbed by the many he had not. Adecali was made to feel shame, was held culpable. Cole was venerated. Yet where does the greater evil lie, if evil is what you call it? Somewhere in the place he calls a soul, Elias Cole knows. Adrian has been his last attempt at absolution, his last attempt to convince himself of his own cleanliness.

  Adrian drives slowly home. Though the roads are heavy with cars and minibuses, the traffic keeps moving. At a junction he stops and watches a man with matted dreadlocks feed crumbs of cake to a skinny dog lying curled against him. Both dog and man look entirely content. He crosses each of three bridges. The first, which divides the west of the city from the east. He reaches the junction where the traffic policeman with the wheeling arms stands. There he turns right over the peninsula bridge, wher
e Julius as a boy was once lowered over the side by the men who built it, in order that he might write all their initials in the wet cement on the side. The boy had watched them every day for months as they built the bridge. Julius’s bridge. The final and smallest bridge is the one over the river next to his new home. Adrian turns down the track.

  He is early. He knows Mamakay likes to sleep in the heat of the afternoon those days she is able, for the baby keeps her awake at night. There are times he has returned home to find her asleep on the cane sofa on the verandah. For some reason it embarrasses her to be caught sleeping. The thought makes him smile. He will surprise her. There she is. His footsteps must sound in her dreams for she begins to stir as he mounts the last few steps. He walks towards her, she opens her eyes.

  He smiles.

  She blinks, looks up at him, her eyes wide, frowning slightly.

  ‘What is it?’ he says.

  She half rises. Her hand is feeling among her skirts, patting the cushions of the old sofa as though searching for a lost ring. Adrian follows the movements of her hand, until he sees the wide, dark stain spread out upon her skirt and the covers of the chair.

  CHAPTER 53

  In front of Kai, Zainab behaved demurely, just as she appeared to be in her photograph, a girl possessed of the manners of the village. She regarded his footwear when she spoke to him, giggled behind her hand and smiled with her lips held together. In Kai’s opinion she nevertheless succeeded in giving the impression of being in possession of some impertinent secret, some item of unwholesome knowledge about him. Foday gazed at her with open admiration. And Kai too had taken a liking to Zainab, despite scarcely succeeding in pressing a word out of her. It was in the clarity of her gaze that Kai saw a young woman who knew exactly who she was in this world.

  Later, passing by the window next to Foday’s bed, Kai hears Zainab’s giggle transformed into laughter: full-throated and rebellious.

  Kai retires to update Foday’s records. The main consequence of the infection is to delay what comes next: removal of the cast, physiotherapy, the final operation on the right foot. He closes his eyes, leans back in the chair and immediately is drawn towards sleep, sliding backwards only to be jerked forward. There are times the desire for sleep became so urgent it is the very thing that keeps him awake. Somewhere a door slams. Kai opens his eyes and sits up straight, shakes his head and opens his eyes wide. The light in the room seems to fracture and fragment, particles of bright light appear and disappear. He rubs his eyelids. The long nights of sleeplessness always return in the end. As a child he’d been afraid of the creatures that lived under his bed, though somehow the fear never prevented him sleeping. Well, now he’d take back the monsters any time.

  Yesterday he had gone into town to an Internet café and sent an email to Tejani, then sat and waited for the email to go. Everything was done, he told Tejani, the process complete. Andrea Fernandez Mount had called with the news herself. Kai’s application had been accepted. His visa had come through. Afterwards he’d walked the whole way home, moving through the heat, traffic, dust and crowds as though contained inside his own invisible tunnel.

  He rises and makes a tour of the hospital: emergency, the wards, intensive care, the labs.

  Eight o’clock. He is in the laboratory checking on the results of a blood sample when he sees Seligmann pass by, propelled forwards by the speed of his gait, a half-doughnut in one hand. Kai hands the slide he is holding back to the lab assistant and follows Seligmann to the operating theatre. By the first door he sees Adrian, wonders briefly at his presence there. Kai does not nod or call or wave. It is dark. Most likely Adrian, who is standing under the light, cannot see Kai crossing the quadrangle, for he does not wave or call either. It is months since they last spoke. Adrian is not looking his way, but talking to Mrs Mara. Kai is in a hurry. He walks past them, hears Mrs Mara call his name. He doesn’t want to stop now. Because of Adrian, because of Seligmann. He’ll deal with whatever she wants later. He looks around for Seligmann.

  Afterwards he will remember the faces. Not Seligmann’s, for Seligmann was the only one who didn’t realise what was happening, but the faces of the others. The eyes. Some following him. Others downcast. The silence. None of the banter of the OR. At the time he had thought nothing of it. He was tired, relieved not to be forced into a jocularity he didn’t feel. A memory of Mrs Mara reaching out for him as he went by, as if to touch him on the shoulder. He had walked quickly past them all. All except Seligmann, whom he went to assist.

  At first he does not recognise her. Seligmann is talking to him. Kai is listening to the older man. But Kai is the kind of doctor who looks into the faces of his patients and surely, soon enough, he looks.

  She is conscious, still. She smiles to see him. There is no sign of fear in her eyes. She tells him she is glad he is here, because she had asked for him. Before she can say any more the pain comes. He can see the power in it as it builds, a mighty surge. It is awesome. Her fingernails press into his forearm. He feels the pressure in his arm turn to pain, wishes he could transfer all that she is feeling from her body to his own. He watches the pain take her, like a dam bursting.

  ‘Go on,’ he tells her. For God’s sake, go on. Shout. Scream. It doesn’t matter to me. But she does not hear him and no longer sees him. The breath leaves her in a long shuddering groan.

  ‘Somebody you know?’ asks Seligmann.

  Kai nods.

  Seligmann’s eyes are upon Kai’s face. For once the older man is not whistling. ‘We have to get the child out of there. She may have ruptured. Are you up for this? I can bring someone else in.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Then let’s get going.’

  Kai doesn’t want her awake for this. He doesn’t want her asleep either. He wants her conscious, so he can talk to her, comfort her. Now that he has her again, he does not want to let her go. He goes to her and takes her hand.

  ‘I’m here. I love you,’ he whispers. He wants to reach her.

  She smiles. ‘I know. Didn’t you say you’d deliver all my babies? Or did you refuse? I can’t remember.’ She opens her mouth: ‘Alph …’

  Then she is in pain again.

  Kai nods to the anaesthetist, who depresses the syringe, releasing the fluid into the plastic line. He holds Nenebah’s hand and watches her face. Feels her fingers tighten in his, and then relax. Sees his reflection in her eyes, the theatre lights above him, watches the light shimmer and still, the eyelids close.

  On a hillside. When? Five, six, a thousand years ago, before a war came along and blew them all in different directions. They were students sitting in their favourite place in the hills above the university. He proposed to her and she accepted him in return for a ring of plaited grass. See here. She shows her finger off to Tejani. Kai sets about weaving her a necklace and a crown of grass, entwined with flowers. Ants, drunk on nectar, crawl from the blossoms. An ant crawls across her bare stomach, merging briefly with the two moles below her navel. Kai blows the ant away. Hey. She slaps him softly. That was our firstborn. You blew away our son. He buries his face in her stomach, bites the flesh. There’ll be more. Millions more, you’ll see. She hits him with her crown of flowers, showering him with ants and petals.

  For a month they made up names for the ant babies, until they had a list of twenty names memorised by heart. Then, because it was altogether more practical, they decided to use those twenty names in alphabetical order for the millions of ant babies to come. Alpha, Brima, Chernor …

  For some reason they were all boys.

  * * *

  Kai watches the blade of Seligmann’s scalpel slip between the two moles.

  Behind him, through the double doors, a nurse enters with a message. Adrian is outside in the corridor wanting to speak to him. But Kai cannot speak to Adrian now.

  ‘Tell me what I should say?’ asks the young nurse.

  ‘Tell him to stand by to give blood.’ He glances at her, notices how her eyes do not meet his.
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br />   CHAPTER 54

  As a boy, Adrian loved many things. He loved the freedom of cycling the roads around his house. He loved the water, swimming, the icy pull of the North Sea. He loved to lie on the lawn and feel the sun upon his eyelids. He loved birds in all their varieties. For days one summer he watched as a wren built her nest in the vines which grew against his bedroom window, watched her as if on a screen, warming her eggs and feeding her young, unaware of Adrian on the other side of the glass. Another summer, spent by the sea, he had sat up all night listening out for the bittern’s echoing call. When it came his companions were all asleep and Adrian hadn’t woken them, but instead stayed awake alone through the long night waiting to hear it again. During those hours, as he sat hugging his knees in the cold clear night, surrounded by sleeping bodies, the flat land and immense bowl of the sky, the dark water slipping through the reeds, listening for the call of a bird so rare as to be all but extinct, he had for the first time in his life become deeply aware of his own mortality. It was, he thought later, the first time he had seen himself as a finite being, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Up until then he’d never imagined death could touch him. He had no idea why it should happen on that night, whether it was connected to the disappearing bittern, or prompted by some change in the circumstances of his life, his father’s illness, perhaps, or whether he had simply come to an age when he could remember there being a past, and when the future seemed for the first time visible instead of hazy, consisting of more than just the afternoon or the day ahead. He was sixteen.

  In the months and years that followed he left behind the lives of birds and immersed himself in the world of humans, qualifying one decade later as a psychologist. Several years afterwards, in a street in Norwich, he had bumped into one of his companions from the camping trip, now a father of three running a dry-cleaning business. The other man had been unable to recall any of the trip. Pressed by Adrian, he shook his head and shrugged. Adrian had spoken of the bittern’s cry. Not me, said the fellow. I’ve lived here all my life and never heard a bittern. And Adrian remembered that nobody had heard the bird but him, and so he had no way of knowing whether it had ever truly occurred. There were days, some, when he imagined the night was nothing but a dream.