by Mike Resnick
At last he reached the mess tent and came to a stop before Elizabeth, who was writing meticulous notes in a journal while her tea sat, untouched and cooling, right next to the Coleman lamp on the breakfast table.
“Is that you, Jeremy?” she asked without looking up.
Dr. Elizabeth Umurungi’s enunciation always sounded like an upper-class Englishwoman—one who spoke perfect French—rather than a convent-educated Achole who had fled to Britain with her parents when Idi Amin started decimating the countryside.
“No, it’s Father Damian,” he told her, wrapping his sweater about his narrow shoulders. It was strange: every evening he went to sleep sweating and wondering if he’d ever be cool again, and every morning he woke up shivering and wondering if he’d ever be warm again. That was Africa for you.
“All things considered, you’d hardly qualify as a saint,” she retorted. “Pity. We could use a miracle or two.”
She’d been finishing up her residency about the time he’d done his MBA: they had friends, or at least contacts, in common, and in what felt like another life, they’d skiied the same hills in Switzerland. One of the few people he had confided in, she monitored his T-cell status along with those of the Ugandans whose long defeats she fought.
She poured him a battered mug of tea that he eyed suspiciously. “So it’s not that designer herbal muck you used to buy. It won’t kill you. Dehydration and hunger will. Sit.”
He would have liked to eat by the fire, preferring the chilly air and the smoke to the cramped, dark interior and endless medical conversation of the mess hall—but as much as he was bored by such talk, he was even more bored with his own company, so he decided to eat at Elizabeth’s table. His meal consisted not of the meticulously chosen, weighed, and cooked health foods that he had considered a matter of the merest survival, but rather of posho and banana mash which, even here, wasn’t much.
“Think I ought to make a supply run?” he asked.
She shrugged.
“I got a dividend check,” he volunteered. “Be nice to buy chickens. We could use the carcasses for soup.” (“Money!” Raymond had spat. “It’s all you ever think about! Well, let’s see you try to take it with you!”)
She finally looked up at him. “Homesick for Manhattan? Chicken soup isn’t that magic. As long as we can feed everyone in camp, fine. But I do need you to drive me somewhere.”
He bowed elaborately. With him, she wouldn’t have to worry about assault—or about getting back to the compound safely.
“You want to track down the villagers that left this morning? Jabito told me about them when he woke me up.”
“Jabito gossips too much. Old head; young shoulders.”
“What do you expect?”
“I expect people not to slip away from doctors who are trying to help them,” said Elizabeth with the hauteur acquired in a childhood spent commuting between Paris, London, and Kampala. Elizabeth might have learned patience and compassion in her self-appointed mission to help rebuild the country that had exiled her family, but the airs of the grande dame still clung to her. Though Jeremy had to admit that on her, even a tattered lab coat and old crew T-shirt looked chic. She’d been a model in Paris. Not the type he’d pretended to drool over as a nervous teenager reading Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue every year, but the sort of model who turned up in Vogue and had designers fighting each other over who would have the privilege this season of draping thousands of dollars of silk over her arrogant, elegant bones. Once and future stars were always chucking careers and going back to school, so the story on her in People—“Supermodel Abandons Runways for Med School”—produced a raised eyebrow or two before everyone in Jeremy’s study group went back to being cool. And working their asses off.
While that might impress the locals, it also intimidated them, and they kept her at a distance that saddened her. For all the darkness of her skin, she was as much a foreigner here as Jeremy. Maybe even more of one. “I’ve got their medical records, such as they are,” she added.
“You got a Land Rover?”
She smiled at him. “Better than that. I’ve got a flatbed truck with an almost-new spare tire.”
“Where’d you get it?” he asked excitedly. “I thought you told me you were just about out of money.”
“I am. We got it from a donor.” She paused, then amended her statement. “I got it from a donor. You’re not the only financial wizard around here.”
“If you’re a financial wizard, how did you manage to run through all those millions you made modeling?” he asked with a smile that was almost smug.
She sighed. “I bribed a lot of the wrong people when I decided to set up the camp. Then I had to go back and bribe the right ones. Our equipment cost a fortune to import. We’re on our fifth Land Rover; do you know how much they cost, and how quickly they die out here?” She paused, then added ruefully: “And then there were my little blunders, like one hundred tents nobody wants to sleep in. They were more than eight hundred dollars apiece, and I can’t get a single patient to spend a night in one.”
He wanted to teasingly say, “Well, they’re your people,”—but he bit the words off just in time. They were no longer her people, and in fact distrusted this Westernized woman, this “black European,” even more than they distrusted Jeremy, who in their eyes was just another well-intentioned, bumbling American, a typical Two-Year Wonder who was working out his guilt at his parents’ expense.
“Of course they won’t sleep in them,” said Jeremy. “Tents have corners, and demons live in corners. Much better to live in nice round huts.”
“Did they tell you that?”
He nodded.
“Why didn’t they tell me?”
“You’re a Ugandan,” he said. “They probably assumed you knew.”
“I left when I was a child,” she said irritably. “I can’t remember every little superstition they…we…have.” She paused. “I wish I knew why they confide in you and not in me.”
“Us subordinates know not to trust the big chief,” he said with a smile.
For a moment he thought she would explode with anger, but finally she laughed. “Anyway,” she added, “I’ve actually got two jerrycans of petrol and a radio. We’ll travel in style.”
And with enough room to bring back the villagers, whether they want to come or not. Assuming we don’t find them dead by the side of the road—or such parts of them as the hyenas leave.
“What happens to the children?” countered Elizabeth. “The old lady can’t do it all. It’s sad: Two daughters-in-law, both with children. Under normal circumstances, she’d have all the makings of an easy, honored old age. The daughters-in-law would do all the work for her.” She sighed deeply. “But now she’ll be tending them and bringing up the children until they get sick too.”
“Does she test positive?”
“She’s negative. But that’s not surprising. She lives a traditional lifestyle, and in her culture, women don’t have sex once they reach menopause. Besides, her husband died years ago. The son must have picked it up from his circumcision group, or maybe from some whore in Kampala or Entebbe.” She gestured to a beat-up flatbed truck at the far side of the compound. “Get your gear and let’s get this show on the road. I’ll wait for you at the truck.”
He joined her a few minutes later, climbed into the driver’s seat, put the vehicle in gear, and they were on their way.
The road wound in and out of the bush, passing through dozens of villages, many of them totally deserted, though it was impossible at first glance to determine whether they were empty due to war or AIDS.
“God, I hate these potholes!” muttered Jeremy, as the ride began doing painful things to his spine and kidneys.
“The locals play games, trying to figure out whose they are,” said Elizabeth with a bitter smile.
“Whose what are?” repeated Jeremy uncomprehendingly.
“The potholes,” she explained. “They try to guess whether they were made by
Amin’s troops, or Nyerere’s, or Obote’s, or Okello’s, or Musaveti’s.”
“What a delightful way to spend your childhood,” said Jeremy wryly. “Trying to guess which homicidal monster destroyed the road through your village.”
“Musaveti’s a good man,” said Elizabeth adamantly. “And Nyerere is a saint.”
“Three out of five still isn’t good odds,” replied Jeremy. “Especially when you have to live through it all.”
Elizabeth quickly grabbed her hat as another bump sent it flying toward her window. “We should reach the end of the tarmac pretty soon,” she said.
“It gets better then?”
“It’s much better right after the long rains. You can’t repair tarmac out here, but if it’s just holes in a dirt road, the rains will have leveled it out.”
“Nothing can level this road out,” said Jeremy devoutly. He looked out the side window just as the tarmac ended. The thornbush, which had been rapidly encroaching on both the savannah and the roadside shambas, had triumphed totally. The grass, which was green and endless a few miles back, now existed only in isolated pockets, and was dotted by the bones of dead wildebeest and kob. The red dust from the road obscured his vision, but he could see troops of vervet monkeys, plus an occasional red colobus, scampering through the trees and observing the strange-sounding foul-smelling vehicle from the safety of the branches.
As the truck slowed down to cross a lugga—a dry riverbed—Jeremy saw a figure disappearing into the thornscrub some fifty yards off to his right.
“What is it?” asked Elizabeth as Jeremy brought the truck to a halt.
“There’s something back there.”
“What?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.” He paused and frowned. “I think it was a woman or a child; it was too small to be a man.”
She shrugged. “Nothing unusual about that. Uganda’s got a lot of people and a lot of bush. You tend to find the one in the other.”
“Stop patronizing me,” he said irritably.
“Then stop belaboring the obvious,” she replied. “You saw a woman in the bush.”
“There was something funny, though.”
“Funny ha-ha, or funny strange?” she asked.
“Funny strange.”
“What?”
He paused uncomfortably. “I only caught a quick glimpse of her—or him—but…”
“But what?” she persisted.
“She walked like her feet hurt, and nobody in Africa walks like that.”
“Maybe she cut her foot.”
“The average African spends his whole life walking barefoot on rocks and in thornbush country. I don’t think you could cut his foot open with a knife.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “I cut my own foot just two days ago.”
“You’re not the average African,” he retorted. “You spent most your life in Europe and America.”
She ignored his comment, picked up the binoculars, and held them to her eyes. “There’s nothing out there. Probably it was a heat mirage. Or maybe the glare on the windshield made you think you saw a woman instead of a tree.”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
Or maybe his eyes could be starting to go—except that it was way too early in the disease cycle for him to hallucinate. And besides, he didn’t have the disease yet.
Jeremy continued looking out the window as he started driving again. He spotted a pair of silver-backed jackals, and a few minutes later he had to swerve to avoid a family of hyenas that were fighting over the remains of a small duiker, but there was no sign of the small figure he had seen. Or thought he had seen.
He noticed that sweat was starting to pour down his body, and he transferred the letter to another pocket to keep it dry.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing,” he replied. “Just a letter from an old friend.”
“You haven’t opened it yet.”
“I’ll get around to it.”
“Would you like me to read it to you while you’re driving?” she offered.
“Not necessary,” he said.
“It’s no trouble.”
“No.”
They came to another village. There were sixteen thatched huts falling to ruin. Nearby was a large thorn boma for the cattle; next to it were four deserted shambas, the mango and banana trees fighting a losing battle for survival against the encroaching bush. The village had a well so that the people would not have to drink contaminated water. (Fat chance, thought Jeremy. The water in the nearby bilharzia-infested stream was crystal clear. The people would take one look at the safe brown water coming up from the borehole and opt for the stream every time.) There was only one problem: no people. Like so many other villages, it was completely deserted.
“I get so sick of seeing this,” remarked Elizabeth, gesturing toward the empty huts.
“Where to now?” asked Jeremy, staring ahead to where the road forked and went off in two directions.
“I’m not quite sure, but I seem to think we go to the northwest.”
* * *
She saw a strange beast, growling constantly and belching a foul-smelling smoke. It was like nothing she had ever experienced, strange and terrifying even for this strange and terrifying land. She quickly hid behind a thornbush and waited for it to gallop off.
The beast had a most unusual means of enticing its victims. Instead of stealthily creeping up and then pouncing, like the great cats and canines, it showed her an image of a human very similar to herself. Doubtless she was expected to approach it out of curiosity, and it would open its slavering jaws and swallow her whole.
She would have to be prepared for this beast in the future, for she had much to do, and would doubtless encounter it again.
* * *
They managed to get lost, of course. After three days of punctured tires (five), false paths (eleven), bug bites (three million), and fraying tempers (beyond computation), the truck crashed out of the underbrush a scant twenty-six miles from where it had entered, and turned onto the narrow, almost overgrown track that was the best road Jeremy could find with sweat, map, frequently profane radio exchanges, and the occasional shout to any people they passed on the road.
“Look up ahead,” said Elizabeth, pointing.
As they approached a village, a thread of smoke curled upward, and a flock of birds flew overhead. Jeremy was used to children spotting his Land Rover and running ahead or alongside with wild shouts—but for some reason the inhabitants of this village, even the children, silently watched the truck and then went about their business.
“What do you make of that?” asked Jeremy, frowning, as the truck crunched over the rough road.
“I don’t know,” said Elizabeth. “They know we’re bringing food and medicine. They should be swarming out to greet us.”
“Have you ever seen a reaction like this?”
“No,” she said, frowning. “Not even when I was a little girl.”
“They don’t act afraid,” he noted. “Just…I don’t know…wary.”
Next to one of the huts was a mound of heaped dirt. Even though it had been encircled by a crude fence that must have caused someone a lot of trouble to construct and erect, the ground was trampled, the clods scattered in places, as if something had tried to dig it up. Jeremy felt a muscle along his jaw jerk. They wouldn’t have had a whole lot of strength to spare to dig the man’s grave deep enough—and there was always the problem of how to get out of the pit once it had been dug.
Two children squatted by the roadside, waving at him. When he waved back, they rose slowly. He thought he recognized them. They’d been fed in the camp for almost a week, but the long walk home had sweated the newly-gained weight off of them. Already their ribs were showing above their bellies, which, thank God, had at least not started to swell out in severe malnutrition’s dreadful parody of fat. Squatting outside the nearest hut, the healthier—or rather, the least sick—of the dead man’s young wives tended a
few scrawny chickens. Beyond the huts, an emaciated ox raised its head at the newcomers, then went back to the all-important business of grazing the near-grassless land. The oldest child pushed at the ox, driving it toward two cows in equally poor condition.
Still, concluded Jeremy, these villagers were better off than a lot he had seen. They had posho from the relief center. They would have milk. They might even have eggs and meat. It was a wonder they had anything left at all. For years, this entire country had been little more than the scene of a crime that called itself a government—and now, hardly a step up, it had become a plague site.
God help them all.
Tall and thin, her head high, the mother of the dead man appeared in a doorway. She had an infant in her arms, two others clinging to her legs. She walked over to the squatting woman and handed her the child. The younger woman opened her dress, and the child began to nurse—or to try to.
“That’ll infect the baby!” Jeremy muttered.
“You want them to talk to us? Then be quiet!” Elizabeth got out of the truck, raised a hand in greeting and spoke in a formal Swahili, totally different from the “kitchen Swahili” Jeremy had learned.
Jeremy killed the motor, opened the door, stepped down, and joined Elizabeth just as the woman raised a hand. Greetings should have gone on ceremoniously, with an invitation to a meal to follow, but there was little food and less time to spare, as her apologetic gestures seemed to indicate. Abruptly, she clapped her hands. The children scattered, disappearing into various huts to emerge wearing the ragged Michael Jordan T-shirts they had received—each decorated with a loop of red ribbon. Jeremy grinned. He remembered giving out those ribbons and slipping a dime to one of the kids, who had lost a front tooth the day before. The Tooth Fairy comes to Uganda. Right. I’d grant you three wishes, kid, if I could.
“We know you mean well, Memsaab,” the old woman was saying, “but we have no faith in your magic. We prefer our own. That is why we came home.”
“But who will help you?” asked Elizabeth, trying to ignore the word “Memsaab,” which was only offered to whites and outsiders, never from one black Ugandan to another. “Your grandchildren are too young. Your son is dead, and his wives are sick.” She paused. “It is not right that you live alone, without family to share your burdens.”