The Memory of Love

by Forna, Aminatta

  Now, standing in the corridor, in the sickly shadows of the fluorescent light, he returns to that place. The night of the bittern, the place of solitude and mortality. He knows nothing about how this will all end, except that it will surely end. He tries to imagine himself into a future, somewhere past this point, but he cannot. There is nothing to do but to keep on existing, in this exact time and place. This is what hell must be like. Waiting without knowing. Not hell, but purgatory. Worse than hell.

  A nurse comes to him and asks him his blood group. Adrian doesn’t know. She pricks his finger, swabs the blood on to a glass slide and departs. Adrian sucks hard at his finger, forcing out the drops, is reminded momentarily of standing outside his mother’s house on the half-finished deck with a splinter in his finger. It feels more like a dream than a memory.

  People pass him, going in and out of the operating theatre. At some point he is asked to move, by whom he cannot remember, told he is standing in what is strictly speaking a sterile area. He is shown into a small room, given a cup of coffee. He has made few friends at the hospital, did not think his relationship with Mamakay was well known. He is considerably older than most of them. And yet here they are, showing him kindness. At some point in those hours Mrs Mara comes by and tries to coax him to wait in her office. Adrian shakes his head. He can barely focus on her words. His body is numb, his brain a vortex of half-formed thoughts. At moments he paces the room unable to sit, at others he slumps, suddenly inert, as though the bones have been sucked out of his body. Everybody around him seems to walk with speed and purpose. There is no one to talk to, no one to ask what is happening. He wants to catch one of them by the arm, but he is afraid of becoming a distraction, aware of how irrelevant he is to all of this, how purposeless his presence.

  It is so quiet. None of the whisper and murmur of other hospitals he has been inside: the cushioned floors and draped curtains, the breathing of air conditioning and electronic heartbeat of monitors. Only the slap of rubber shoes on cement, the banging of doors. Hard, comfortless sounds. Even the light is hard, shines so bright it hurts the eyes and yet barely illuminates.

  Another time he steps out of the waiting room. He realises he has no idea how much time has passed. An hour? A minute? He thinks it must be past midnight. He sees the nurse who swabbed blood from his finger. ‘What about the blood?’ he asks. ‘Shouldn’t I go somewhere to give blood?’ But she shakes her head and tells him he is not a match, not the right blood group. She smiles at him, and he tries to read her smile for whatever information it might contain. He returns to the room and sits down on the bench upon which has been placed a thin mattress, leans his back against the wall, feels the palpitations of his heart.

  Sounds in the hallway. A commotion. Adrian stands and then sits back down, stands again and opens the door. The corridor is empty, the hard light reflecting on the painted floor. Suddenly sound and movement burst upon the emptiness. A gurney appears wheeled by a pair of orderlies. A man, awake and moaning in pain, lies upon it. The man’s leg is exposed, his trousers have been cut away. There is a bloodstained dressing. Nurses appear. The door to the operating theatre opens, to the theatre where Mamakay is. A surgeon comes out – what’s his name, Seligmann? Yes, Seligmann. Now he is looking at the man on the gurney, giving a rapid series of instructions to a nurse as he inspects the man’s wounds. The nurse is fitting a strap to the man’s arm. Adrian feels the tension rising in his chest. He has stopped breathing. Who is the man upon the gurney? He wishes the man away, wishes he would vanish or die, he just wants Seligmann to go back inside the theatre. This man, this new patient, is an unwanted diversion.

  He made a mistake in staying here, in letting her stay here. He sees it now. Too wrapped in love, seduced by the beauty of this broken country, this was his failure. This is not a place to live one’s life. It is his fault, not Mamakay’s, for she knows no other life. He should have known better, he let things go to his head, let the place seep through his pores and into his soul. When this is over he will take her away. They will go together to Britain. He will take care of her. She will be fine with the idea, because it is for the best. There will be none of this. There will be order. There will be quiet. There will be people to explain. There will be understanding. Everything will be clear. She has waved away suggestions of leaving, but she will see it now. Here there is nothing, they are both at the mercy of this place, like everybody else. At home, his home, it will be different. She will be happy, for what is there not to be happy about living beyond the shadow of disaster. Her anger will be calmed, her restlessness stilled, once she is far from the events of her past.

  Please God, let it not be too late.

  It could be that simple. It is that simple.

  It is never that simple.

  He knows what he is doing. He’s already bartering with God, making offerings. It is for just such times humankind invented gods, while hope still exists. When hope disappears, men don’t call for God, they call for their mothers.

  Adrian sits down on the bench, his elbows on his knees, his face covered by his hands, feels his breath hot in his cupped hands. He is aware of a scent of her upon his fingers. He inhales deeply and holds his breath for as long as he can. The longer they are in there, the more serious it becomes. He stares into the darkness he has created. He prays.

  Once, twice, he hears the sound of footsteps, the sound of the OR doors swinging back upon themselves. Each time he rises and goes to the door, but by the time he looks out whoever it was has passed by and disappeared.

  He wishes he could sleep simply in order to wake up and find all this had never happened. The moment of his arrival home, the bloodstains on Mamakay’s skirts, watching her face collapse in pain, her fear for the child, the drive to the hospital, the hideous traffic.

  He tries to smell her again upon his fingers, but the scent eludes him. Perhaps he imagined it.

  Two o’clock. A moth is banging itself against the ceiling and the bare, bright bulb. Silvery, dark smudges upon the white paint. Adrian’s body aches, the sweat in his armpits has dried and grown damp several times over. He needs air. He rises and exits the room and then the building. He stands in the courtyard. People are sitting huddled on a mat spread in the corridor – the family of the man they brought in, presumably, one of them a woman nursing a baby. Adrian turns away from them, stands and stares at the sky. He feels tears well and subside. He takes a deep breath of the warm air. He closes his eyes. A sound rises in his throat, a long low sigh, of which he is entirely unaware. He is desolate.

  After a few moments he turns and walks back into the building, down towards the room where he has waited out half the night. As he approaches the last of the doors, he sees, through the square pane of glass, that the doors of the operating theatre are open. They are coming out. He starts to run, sees the first person appear. It is Kai. Kai!

  But Kai doesn’t hear him, doesn’t turn or look up, is pulling his mask from his face, and as he walks his feet barely clear the floor. He does not hear Adrian because the sound of Adrian’s call, before it began, died in his throat. Something in the set of Kai’s shoulders. Why is he walking like that? It is all wrong. Adrian pushes through the door, begins to run down the corridor.

  ‘Kai!’

  At the sound of him Kai lifts his head. Suddenly he no longer looks defeated but very alert. He turns square to Adrian, begins to move towards him down the corridor. He walks fast, very fast indeed. It crosses Adrian’s mind how strange it is: Kai walking towards him, his head lowered, arms by his sides, fists clenched, at such a pace. Now he is lifting his arms. Adrian stops and waits, puzzled, unmoving. Standing thus, he takes the full force of the push, feels the heels of Kai’s hands hard against his chest. Out of his mouth is expelled all the air in his lungs. Winded, he doubles over, sees Seligmann hurrying towards them. A nurse, eyes round above her mask. Kai’s face above his, Kai’s voice ringing in the empty corridor, calling Adrian a bastard. Now Seligmann is there. A hand on each man, on Ka
i’s arm and Adrian’s shoulder. Seligmann is pushing Adrian back against the wall, peering into Adrian’s face.

  Adrian wants to speak, to ask Seligmann about Mamakay, for Seligmann surely knows and will tell him. He tries to take a breath, to form the words, but he cannot.

  Four o’clock. Adrian places the glass back on the table. He watches the movement of his hand, listens to the knock of the glass against the table surface. Opposite him sits Kai. They are in the old apartment, now returned to its former use as a place for on-duty staff to rest. Salt has dried on Adrian’s cheek, his skin is dry and tight. He feels the contractions in his empty stomach, but they come without the accompanying desire for food and he mutes the pangs with shots of whisky. They sit in silence. Seligmann is long gone, knowing he was neither needed nor wanted. The whisky is courtesy of him. They are, neither of them, drunk. Though Adrian longs to be.

  A sigh from Kai, who sits with his fist clenched, shakes his head as he stares at the floor. For the last three hours his mood has swung the short distance between grief and rage. Adrian has wept, but so far Kai has remained dry-eyed. ‘Sometimes I kid myself into believing it might be over, finally,’ he says.

  ‘That what might be over?’

  ‘The dying, the killing. That perhaps the bloodthirsty bastard up there might have had enough for the day. Or might pick on someone else for a change.’

  Adrian is silent.

  ‘Why? Why the fuck?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Adrian.

  ‘She survived everything else, survived the war. She was never afraid, you know. I never saw her afraid in all that time. There were times I was afraid, Jesus, yes – but not her. Even when they brought her here tonight. Fear equals defeat in her vocabulary. Fear of what, it doesn’t matter. The trick is – you didn’t give in.’ He changes tense as he speaks of Mamakay, from present to past, to present. ‘Like death was a big dog or something. You should never show it you are afraid. I told her that once. She liked it. Death the dog. Or perhaps it was fate. Yes, fate – you must never show fate you’re afraid.’

  ‘I believe that,’ says Adrian.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That she treated fate like a big dog.’

  Kai laughs, as if remembering something else. A moment later the smile drops off his face and he clenches his fist again. They sit in silence for several minutes more.

  ‘I wish I knew what to do,’ says Adrian.

  ‘Go home.’

  Adrian blinks and looks up at Kai.

  ‘Go home,’ repeats Kai. ‘What in the hell did you ever come here for, anyway?’ He speaks tiredly and does not raise his voice.

  Adrian looks down.

  ‘Well?’ Louder this time.

  Still Adrian doesn’t answer.

  Kai continues, ‘I’m serious. It’s a genuine question. Why did you come here and have you found whatever it was you were looking for?’ He is slipping back towards anger of which Adrian has seen plenty that night.

  To Adrian a memory of their first meeting, here in this room. Kai had called Adrian a tourist, had always questioned his right to be here, even once they’d become friends. ‘What makes you think I was looking for something?’

  Kai shrugs, continues to stare at the floor. ‘Everybody who comes here wants something, my friend. You came here because you wanted to be a hero is my guess. So do you feel like one now?’

  To Adrian, Kai’s anger is understandable. If Adrian had never come here, these events would never have taken place. Mamakay would be alive. It is the logic of grief. Equally, thinks Adrian, if he had taken her away from here, back to England – she would be alive, too. He replies levelly, ‘You know already why I came here. I was sent as part of a medical team. I came back to help. That’s the sum of it.’

  Now Adrian looks back on the past it seems disordered, a tangle of days, weeks and months. Looking forward, he sees nothing, only the narrow walls of the tunnel of his existence and the thought that he will never see Mamakay again. The thought is too enormous for his mind to hold on to. He lets it go. He should go home, but he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to be alone. Being with Kai is as close as he can get to Mamakay, even though Kai is angry.

  ‘And have you?’

  Adrian has forgotten what they were talking about. He looks up. ‘Have I what?’

  ‘Helped? Have you helped?’

  Now Adrian feels a small starburst of anger. ‘Yes,’ he says, to put an end to it. He looks directly at Kai at the same time as Kai looks up. Their eyes meet. In Kai’s face there is cold rage. Adrian opens his mouth. He could give Kai the names of men at the hospital, talk about the group meetings, the sessions with Adecali. Attila’s smiling scepticism. He drops his eyes, rubs his eyelids. He offers none of this. It is not the point. And anyway, everything he has done here is worthless. He says, ‘You have nightmares.’

  Another shrug. ‘Who doesn’t?’

  ‘Plenty of people. The occasional bad dream, perhaps. But not recurrent nightmares. Not nightmares that stop you sleeping for nights on end. Not nightmares that result in insomnia – chronic insomnia, that is – so that your functions are impaired the next day.’

  ‘I see,’ says Kai. He is leaning back now, regarding Adrian through hooded lids. ‘And you’re sure of this?’

  ‘What? That other people don’t suffer recurrent nightmares? Yes. I am sure. Though I am also sure there are a lot of people in this country who do, people who have survived a trauma. It would be extraordinary if it was otherwise.’

  ‘No, I mean about me.’

  ‘I know you suffer nightmares. The rest is an educated guess. I know you’re afraid to cross the bridge. The one over to the peninsula. You always drive the long way around.’

  ‘Yup, you’re right. I dream. I dream about the same thing. I dream about something that happened. I could tell you, but it wouldn’t make any difference. You can’t undo it. And how could you ever understand? Unless you were here how could you ever understand? The truth is none of you wanted to know then, so why do you care now?’ Kai is not looking at Adrian but staring into his glass, swirling the liquid around and around. He stops, raises the glass to his lips and drinks, recommences the same circular movement.

  On the table lies a small red paper fan. Adrian recognises it as Mamakay’s. Left behind during one of her visits when he still lived here, maybe even the same day they saw Kai. Adrian reaches for it. ‘You loved her, I know,’ he says.

  ‘Yes,’ Kai replies. ‘I loved her. I love her.’ He snorts softly again and shakes his head. Silence. Then, ‘There was never anyone else.’

  Adrian rises and goes to the window. A cat moves in and out of the moon shadows, its mouth closed around a small animal, a mouse. Death everywhere. Death so ordinary. Still with his back to Kai, he says, ‘I don’t think she ever lost her feelings for you.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘It matters. Not for me. You hate me right now, I understand that. But for her, it matters. And for you.’

  ‘I don’t hate you.’

  ‘I think she still loved you,’ says Adrian. There, he has said it now, the one thing he never let himself think, which had nevertheless tormented him. Kai and Mamakay were so much the same in so many ways; perhaps that is why Adrian had cared for both of them. He remembers his jealousy of Kai. He is jealous no longer. The feeling is gone, obliterated by everything that has happened.

  A hospital porter, arriving for work, moves like a shadow along the far wall. Adrian watches him until he rounds the corner. Life going on as normal. Isn’t that what the bereaved always say? How everything seemed so normal, the day their lives were changed. The blue sky, the falling leaves, the song on the car radio, the car crash.

  Nothing to do but pour more whisky.

  ‘She wanted the baby raised here,’ Adrian says, still with his face to the window.

  ‘I know,’ says Kai. I know.

  ‘She was happy here.’

  ‘We all were happy here once.’r />
  Adrian stands at the window and does not move or say anything more. Behind him he can hear the swirl of liquid in Kai’s glass. After perhaps ten minutes he goes and sits down again. ‘There are ways, you know, of controlling the nightmares,’ he says.

  Kai shrugs. The gesture sits oddly on him.

  ‘One day. Whenever you’re ready,’ offers Adrian. ‘There’s no hurry.’

  Silence again. Suddenly Kai straightens and places his glass hard on the table.

  ‘Now.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Let’s do it now. Come on.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  That awful shrug again. ‘Sure, I’m serious.’

  Adrian takes a deep breath. ‘If you want, we’ll do it some other time.’

  ‘Ah,’ says Kai. ‘Come back when it’s more convenient.’

  Adrian feels the inaudible snapping of one strand of his self-control. He stands and goes into the kitchen, where he leans against the worktop breathing deeply. He helps himself to a drink of water. Outside the dark has turned to grey, shifting in shades towards dawn. Adrian stands and lifts the edge of the curtain to look out of the window. An orderly is sweeping the walkways. He can hear the swish of the brush, oddly disconnected from the movements of the man, like a badly dubbed film. Kai is right. For years nobody wanted to know about the killings, the rapes. The outside world shifted its gaze, by a fraction, it was sufficient. The fragmentation of the conscience. What indeed did Adrian think he was doing here? The truth – he had never known for sure. Times he had come close to touching a kind of conviction, only to lose it again. He’d found something, finally, in Mamakay. Something else, something better. He wants to sob and scream, to ram his fist through the glass of the window. Attila is right, Kai is right. What people want is hope and last night Adrian learned what it is like to lose it. He presses his forehead against the glass.