In the Company of Men

by Véronique Tadjo

  I can’t say exactly how it happened. How it was that my colleagues and I slowly, gradually, let our standards slip. We started to compromise. We began turning a blind eye to negligence. We had no choice but to let our patients know there was no more cotton wool, no more alcohol disinfectant, no more syringes, no more suturing thread. It was up to them to buy those things, to send their family members to the nearest pharmacy in order to get what was needed. At the same time, we knew perfectly well just by looking at them that they’d never be able to pay for even half of it. They’d go to the pharmacy, but once they got to the cash register, they’d end up buying just the minimum, or just the cheapest items.

  We took to the streets, staging public protests in order to force the government to adopt reforms. All in vain. Too often, our demands turned into negotiations with our trade union about a salary increase or overtime pay. And, of course, there were some scandals. Money went missing from the health minister’s coffers; millions just vanished, stolen from the international aid budget, funds that were earmarked for hospital renovations, for better or more modern equipment, for training more competent staff, for improving hygiene. Government reshuffles all played themselves out in the same way. Each and every new nomination brought new hope, but it never took very long for things to slip back to where they’d been before. How did it happen, for example, that slowly but surely we got used to the fact that senior government officials receive their medical treatment abroad? Isn’t that proof that they have no faith in the health system of their own country? These days it seems generally accepted for the President of the Republic to leave the country in his private plane as soon as he feels the slightest twinge of pain. When I finally understood that everything was a sham, I learned to harden myself so that I could continue my work. I could have moved into private medicine, like so many of my colleagues. But no, I never had any doubts about the fact that I would feel more useful working in the public sector, despite my premonition that disaster was about to strike.

  * * *

  —

  Nobody was ready when the Ebola outbreak burst into our lives.

  Government ministers talked regularly about the economic problems our country was experiencing. They condemned the falling prices of raw materials on the global markets. They blamed the repercussions of the war and the ruin of our infrastructure.

  We humans die in a variety of ways. In the fetal position. With our arms crossed. With our torso propped up against a wall. Lying flat, our arms and legs neatly positioned on the bed. While some of us look perfectly calm, others grimace in pain. Our heart is a clock whose mechanism we don’t understand. Our veins are blood vessels that can swell and burst. Our flesh can be destroyed by cells gone mad.

  One day, a poet said to me, “It’s no use our knowing that all paths lead to death, that life is but a stage, that eternity’s the road to nowhere, that Man must die in order to ripen in the memory of his descendants; the evidence is nonetheless irrefutable: Death is not pretty.”*2

  * * *

  —

  However much I resent our failure to get this crisis under control, we have to admit that our present needs have grown so great that a solution seems far out of reach today. Every man and woman of goodwill, all those who want to assist us, are welcome. Without exception. They take enormous risks for our sake. For several months now, I’ve been working with volunteers who have come from far and wide to join us in the struggle. I can see them battling, unhesitatingly. I can see how much they give of themselves. I’ve formed my opinion by being around them. They’re my colleagues, my friends. When I see solidarity, it makes me want to work even harder. Because I ask myself, what would the others think of us if we weren’t on the front line? What one does is never enough. I don’t want this challenge we’re facing to defeat us. I want to do my bit, I want future generations to understand how hard we fought to stop the triumph of the unacceptable. We’ve struggled like soldiers on the battlefield, in the knowledge that every minute counts. And in the knowledge, too, that any one of those minutes might mark the end of our existence. We’ve done our duty here on earth.

  *1 Nsah Mala, “Marché mondial des maladies,” 2015.

  *2 Gabriel Okoundji, Apprendre à donner, apprendre à recevoir, 2014

  VI

  Death accompanies life on its rocky road.

  A bridge connects them till the end of time.

  When you’re fighting Ebola, you can’t do anything else. You have to concentrate exclusively on your task. You’re focused on the present, and that’s it. If you want to survive, you had best not think about anything else. You had best not think about your home, about your normal life. You have to give everything you have; otherwise, the terrible scenes you will witness may completely unhinge you. It’s not about you. You’re there to defeat the epidemic, and you have your work cut out for you. So you have to leave all your personal problems at home. When burying a body, you need to be as calm as possible. Your mind must be clear.

  Some patients are so terrified that they run away at the last minute. The virus attacks the brain to make its victims more vulnerable. One man left his bed to lie down next to a woman who had died during the night. Were they friends? Maybe he didn’t want to go on his journey alone.

  * * *

  —

  When a patient dies, he’s immediately disinfected with chlorine. Then he’s placed inside two plastic body bags. Each bag gets disinfected as well. Once this is done, he’s taken to the morgue. That’s the moment when I can deal with him. We have to wear masks, plastic suits, goggles, and gloves. There may be as many as ten in our team, carrying the body on a stretcher. The graveyard is located directly behind the treatment center. The soil is reddish and hard.

  Toward the end, the man I’m going to bury today lost his mind. He no longer knew who he was and what he was doing. He was completely confused. The path ahead of us has been doused with chlorine. It makes the grass shiny; one might even say it lights up our procession. I didn’t want to be with the dead, but that’s where I was most urgently needed. After the epidemic was officially declared, burials were undertaken by teams from both the government and the Red Cross. But there was never enough manpower. Sometimes it took several days before the bodies were picked up, increasing the risk of infection for the family members. I heard that staff was being recruited and trained. When the center opened in this neighborhood, I didn’t hesitate, I applied and got the job. My mother didn’t approve. I reminded her that I was available because the university had closed. I explained to her that if we young people didn’t answer the call, the epidemic would never end. I made it clear that it wasn’t because of the money I’d be earning that I had offered my services. I love my country.

  Many people say that Ebola is going to kill us all. But be that as it may, I’d rather join the fight than stay in my corner doing nothing. In the end, my mother supported my decision.

  Before we lower a body into its freshly dug grave, chlorine is sprayed into the hole and onto the soil all around it. No prayers. No tears. Just a white wooden cross.

  Even on the way back, the chlorine sprayer follows us closely. The first time I saw a dead body, it was in such an awful state that I almost quit on the spot. I was told that since I had accepted the job, I was obliged to carry it out. And so I understood that this was a necessary sacrifice. I’m determined to do my duty until the last patient infected with Ebola has left this center, completely cured. In actual fact, I had no idea that the day would come when I would have the courage to take charge of corpses and bury them. I’m an ordinary young guy, I’ve never looked for specific challenges or tried to show that I was more capable than anybody else. I was rather on the shy side, someone who stayed in the background while others acted.

  During the day, the sun fires its scorching rays at us as though it means to punish us. Is that because we keep burying people, sometimes even at night, by generator-produced ligh
t? The heat drives me crazy. After half an hour, I can’t take it, and my only thought is how to get out of my suit. The plastic traps the heat, it’s like a steam room in there. During the burial process, every move I make, however slight, increases the sweating. I have to be extremely careful when lowering a body into its grave with the assistance of my colleagues. A single abrupt gesture, and the bag containing the body begins to leak.

  Pouring with sweat and impatient to undress, we return to the center. The hitch is that this, precisely this, is the most dangerous moment. My gloves have touched some of the body fluids, and if I make the smallest error while removing them, I risk contamination.

  The chlorine sprayer comes to my aid and helps me disinfect myself completely. I’m reassured by the thought that should I get sick, the doctors will look after me, because I’m one of their own.

  Ghosts are what I fear more than anything. The other day, I had to go out and bury a young girl. On the way back, I saw her again. She was blocking my path, so I said to her, “Let me pass, please.” When she didn’t budge, I asked one of my colleagues to help me, but he replied that he didn’t see anybody. Luckily, after a short time, she moved out of the way. I don’t understand. I didn’t do anything bad. Quite the contrary: we’ve been instructed in how to bury the dead with dignity. It wasn’t I who put an end to their lives. I’m just a helper. Do they want their family members and their friends to become infected as well? Surely not, but they simply can’t stop harassing the living who, like me, are tasked with burying their bodies. Actually, they’re lost souls, reluctant to leave the earth, hoping we’ll help them to return. Their attempts to intimidate us are nothing but distress signals. So if a ghost comes to visit me one of these days—or nights—I simply tell it to leave me alone. Some of the burial teams have to walk a long way to remote villages in order to help the people there bury their dead safely. They show them what they must do and not do; they explain the ways in which things are no longer as they were in the past; and they make it clear that bidding farewell to the deceased according to their traditional customs is no longer allowed.

  The key member in each of these teams is the chlorine sprayer. Nothing can happen without him. I get on very well with ours. Although he’s older than me, we often go and drink beer together after work. Once, I remember, he was drinking much more than normal. His eyes were bloodshot, and he seemed totally exhausted. Insomnia, he said. I didn’t ask him why, I knew the answer already. Just recently, he had been obliged to disinfect the body of one of his childhood friends, someone he used to play soccer with when they were little. As teenagers, they went to the same high school and flirted with the same girls. But his childhood friend’s family committed the grave error of keeping his father at home after he fell ill. The whole lot of them got infected. To comfort my colleague, I talk about all sorts of trivial stuff, I make up some harmless jokes. I manage to cheer him up a bit that way. But he’s still very upset and keeps repeating, “We’ve been fighting the virus for months now, and yet I can’t really see much progress. Yes, we’re putting up resistance, and our common goal unites us, but so far we haven’t succeeded in putting a stop to it. Will this war ever end?”

  I’ve spent a lot of time talking to him. He’s like a brother to me. I listen very carefully to his words, since whether we live or die really depends on him. He alone can fend off the virus. A warrior in plastic armor. He explains that Ebola is much more resistant than many other viruses: in a contaminated area, it can remain active for two weeks or more. “Do you realize what that means?” he asks. “This is the reason why I have to be vigilant at all times. If I lose my concentration for a single moment, it could be fatal. Every day I have to start all over again with the spraying and the disinfecting. The chlorine solution is my best friend. It knows where Ebola is hiding. It can see it easily, whereas for us humans, it’s invisible. Our eyes aren’t strong enough to detect it. Yes, chlorine really is my best friend. I know everything about it. It’s the chemical element with the atomic number 17 and the symbol Cl, and it’s the most common halogen. It’s a yellow gas with tinges of green. It has a much higher density than air. It gives off a suffocating odor and is very toxic.”

  I have seen the sprayer use his apparatus with great skill and precision, ensuring that all surfaces are evenly covered and not a single little corner is left out. With his wand, he disinfects the tents, the treatment rooms, the toilets, the garbage bins, the ambulances, the suits, and the corpses. He disinfects everything that Ebola has touched. When he has to go inside the houses of the sick, he sprays the walls, the furniture, and the floor. He picks up objects that are lying around. No one likes to see him. He never looks anyone in the eye when he arrives to do his spraying, because he’s too afraid of detecting the confusion, the fear, and the hatred he inspires. Sometimes he’s no longer sure whether he’s working for or against society. He has repeatedly told me that he just wants to get back to the land and plant yams, manioc, and red tomatoes.

  I hear him muttering that he’s lost his illusions. One morning, he went into a house. For days, a young girl had been waiting there for someone to come and remove her parents’ bodies. They were lying lifeless in the empty house. She had called the emergency number many times, asking for an ambulance to come and pick them up. But no one came. All the ambulances were busy. She’d kept calling them, again and again. By the time the emergency team finally got there, the young girl was in a state of extreme distress and feeling ill. It was too late; she was already infected.

  There are no certainties. We were so sure that all we had to do to defeat Ebola was join forces. But the sprayer is right. The virus takes a few steps backward only so it can charge forward even harder. I envy the people who live elsewhere, far away from this country. They can still believe in happiness. They make plans for their future and that of their children. Their sleep is undisturbed by nightmares. I envy those lucky enough to find a certain measure of fulfillment in their lives. For them, obstacles aren’t insurmountable.

  What saddens me most of all is the utter humiliation of the sick in the face of death. They become unrecognizable, they lose their identity and their past. And yet, they’ve been loved, and they themselves have loved. I’ve seen many of them, emaciated bodies that Ebola already had in its grip. Nothing human was left of them. I’ve realized that we’re born with a “reverse calendar” inside us. Like a ticking clock that counts the number of our days on earth—but backwards. How I wish I knew who winds up that clock! Because I myself can see no logic in all this horror. I’ve never been enthusiastic about churchgoing. Even when I was small, my mother didn’t take me along because I asked too many embarrassing questions. All I know is that my brother goes to mass—but he has steadfastly refused to work at the center. He prefers listening to what the priest tells the believers: “Ebola is Evil incarnate. It has come to punish you for your sins. Those who have stopped following God’s Word will perish; the rest have nothing to fear.”

  If only my brother understood the importance of what we do! When all the precautions are precisely followed at a burial, for example, no one catches the disease.

  During our training, we were told the story of a female traditional healer who was so famous that people from all over the region came to see her. She knew where to find the best medicinal herbs in the forest, and she knew how to prepare the most effective remedies. It was said that her hands had extraordinary healing power when she laid them on a sick person’s body. And yet, despite all her knowledge, this woman didn’t suspect the danger that lay in store for her. Or maybe she was aware of it, but still she absolutely wanted to find a cure for this disease. She caught Ebola from one of her patients and died of it. Hundreds of mourners came from far and wide to attend her funeral. Wanting to pay their last respects, the procession accompanied her mortal remains all the way to the grave. Today, experts estimate that this funeral was responsible for over three hundred deaths. It really taught us a lesson. At the same
time, it hasn’t prevented people from trying to bury their dead with a measure of dignity. So, since we don’t want them to hide their dead or refuse to hand them over to us, we’re prepared to make some concessions. If the family insists on having the body placed in a coffin, we don’t oppose it. If they provide ceremonial garments to clothe the deceased, we respect their wishes. And if the relatives want to come to the cemetery, we just ask them to keep a four-meter distance. There are those who want to dig the grave with their own hands, and there’s no reason whatsoever for not allowing that. We explain the procedure to them. All we really want from them is their cooperation.

  It will take years for us to recover from what we’ve lived through. And also to forget. I tell myself that life is incomprehensible. We need death to bring us back together.

  VII

  A mother’s love carries death away on its wings across a turbulent sky.

  A mother is dying. Her body is giving up on her, and the end is near. Her spirit is dispersing. It collides with the walls of her house and tries to dissolve into space. The mother is scared, she’d rather stay in her narrow little world. She wouldn’t ask for much: the flowers in her garden, the song of a bird on her windowsill, or her cat’s soft fur. She doesn’t want to leave her house, where every nook and cranny is familiar. The walls talk to her. The furniture knows all about her. The pieces bear the imprint of those former days when she was happy, or to be more precise, when she could live a worry-free life. Her thoughts are engraved in the house’s bricks and mortar. It’s imbued with her scent. Just go inside and her presence is everywhere, from the carpet to the ornaments. Everything is reminiscent of her.