Cry of the Firebird

by T. M. Clark

‘Pneumonia? I’ve seen the same thing in the notes from the adult ward, but they seem to have stopped a few months ago. Any recent cases?’

  Sister Thengi Manyuchi shook her head. ‘Not pneumonia, but we also have had many children come in with infected sores that shouldn’t be infected, almost like something you would see in the tropics. We’re not tropical, yet these kids, who have never been outside of Kimberley, are showing tropical abscesses on their legs and arms.’

  ‘What race were they?’

  ‘Black, white, yellow—it makes no difference. It’s not discriminating against any one colour within the community.’

  ‘Were they HIV infected?’

  ‘Only a couple were. At first, I thought it was just black kids, but then we had Indians and coloureds. And a few weeks ago, I had four white kids come in with tropical sores that had turned nasty and the parents could no longer treat them through their doctors. It’s all children.’

  ‘Can you provide me the names so that we can look them up and see what medication they were on?’ Lily asked. ‘It might save me a lot of time searching on the hospital system myself, if you can recall them and help me out here.’

  ‘I can call the files up on the computer system. I’m guessing it isn’t a coincidence that Ian and I had discussed just this before his death, and now you are asking almost the identical questions?’

  ‘Do you care to elaborate?’ Lily asked.

  ‘It made no sense to me why the children died from the infections they had. The medications they took should have cleared them up in no time at all,’ she said. ‘I have looked at their files multiple times but can’t find where we went wrong.’

  A call button buzzed as the last of the files on the children she remembered printed out, and Sister Manyuchi gave them to Lily. ‘I need to go. Bad timing. If you have any questions, you are welcome to call me or come talk on the floor again. I too would like to know why we are having angels grow their wings too soon.’

  Lily nodded and watched as the nurse walked away. The information she’d just gained didn’t shock her as much as it should have. What worried her was that this sister had already spoken to Ian about the same things, and Ian had turned up dead not long afterwards.

  She had so much to catch up Piet and Natalie on, and yet from the look of Ian’s files, she was still behind where he was in his investigation.

  Shaking her head, she began to walk back towards the lifts, her new files tucked securely under her arm. She wouldn’t stop digging and investigating until she caught up with him.

  CHAPTER

  17

  Platfontein Clinic

  The following Monday, Lily stood next to her examination table with a thermometer in her hand and a stethoscope around her neck. Michael sat at the door of her clinic in the little house in Platfontein. That was the only way Lily was allowed to visit her outreach clinic, according to the insurance documents she had read at the office. With Michael and his weapon as part of the deal, or she didn’t visit them at all.

  Quintin was also with her. She shouldn’t have been surprised that both Quintin and June Kilborne had ganged up on her on that one. She hated it. The reminder of having an armed guard present all the time dug a needle into her side. The fact that Hawthorne’s killer had still not been found didn’t help. Nor did the fact that they didn’t know why he had been killed.

  Today, Quintin sat at the table, acting as her administration secretary, like he often did at outreach clinics, and he was blowing raspberries at her patient and getting no response, which was unusual for him, because kids loved Quintin. He would’ve been an awesome father if they had wanted children.

  David, a boy of about twelve, with big, round brown eyes, stood in front of her with his older sister of eighteen, Elise, and the youngest of the siblings, a toddler, Diamond, sat on the examination table. She was plump as a baby should be, and her hair had been decorated with little strips of coloured fabric. Diamond smiled a lot and was as alert as any two-year-old, even if she didn’t respond to Quintin’s raspberry blowing.

  ‘Elise, do you know if your mother was sick when she was pregnant with your sister?’ Lily asked.

  ‘She didn’t have the thinnings disease. My sister is not HIV,’ Elise said. ‘The dokotela took her blood and checked after my mother died at the end of last year.’

  ‘Do you know what sickness she died from?’

  ‘She got cancer in her tummy. I was finishing school—and working at people’s houses—making enough money to feed everybody,’ Elise said. ‘Dokotela Ian and Medicine Man Piet helped her deliver Diamond early because she couldn’t take the drugs when she was pregnant. She was scheduled to have her cut out, but Diamond came early, and my mother could start treatment for the cancer. She was very sick but she lived to see Diamond turn one year old before she passed over. Piet, he made sure my mother had a nice burial, and Dokotela Ian, he gave me Diamond and told me to look after her as if she was my baby. I found out then that I was HIV positive, and I know that she is not. She and David both got tested by the clinic here. Both of them are clear.’

  ‘I’m sorry. And I apologise for all these questions, but I need to know if I’m to treat Diamond properly because I have no previous file on her.’

  ‘It is okay, but I do not know all the answers. You are the new dokotela, and you need to know all these things. Can you fix Diamond’s ears? She’s in pain.’

  ‘She has an inner-ear infection. You need to put these drops in three times a day. If you take her swimming or give her a bath, don’t let her put her head under the water for at least a week,’ Lily said, administering the first lot of drops into Diamond’s ears. ‘She needs to take this antibiotic.’ She put some in a syringe. ‘Come on, Diamond, this is nice, taste.’ She put a drop on the little girl’s lip and Diamond licked it, then reached for the syringe. Lily said, ‘Open your mouth,’ and she squirted the banana-flavoured medicine in.

  Diamond swallowed the medicine as if it was a sweet.

  Lily passed both bottles to Elise.

  ‘How do I pay you for today?’

  ‘There is no charge. It’s a research clinic.’ Lily frowned. ‘Why would you think you need to pay me?’

  ‘Dokotela Ian always said nothing is for free.’

  ‘What did you pay him?’ Quintin asked.

  Lily was scared to hear the answer. Taking payment for these clinics was against the organisation’s rules of research. Sadly, Lily wasn’t surprised to hear that Hawthorne had been charging these poor people just to put some extra cash in his pocket. She’d need to speak to Piet and Natalie to see if they knew anything about it through looking into his finances. She thought of his over-the-top decorated home and wondered if that was where he had hidden the money. In antiques.

  ‘Whatever I could at the time, but today I have nothing. I’m only eighteen, and I already have the social workers on my back all the time telling me that I need to keep my house tidy, I need to do this and do that for my brother and sister. Piet sometimes helps in the house when I don’t know how to fix something. Sometimes we can’t even pay the electricity bill to Eskom. Billy from two houses down, he offered to disconnect our home from the grid and then reconnect us at the pole, like everybody else and not pay. I wanted to say yes because I put so much money into the machine and we don’t get much lights or hot water from it at all.’

  ‘That’s good that you didn’t illegally connect, it’s really dangerous.’

  ‘Sometimes I want to run away—go to a big city where I can get a better job in a bigger house, and it will pay me more, but that means I’d have to be away, and I can’t do that to Diamond and David. I need to look after them.’ Elise nodded to her siblings with her head. ‘I promised my mother I would look after my family.’

  ‘And your social worker? You’ve spoken to them about this?’ Lily asked.

  ‘No, Dokotela.’ Elise shook her head. ‘Social workers come here to take children away, they are not sent to help. I can’t tell her that it’s
all too much.’

  Lily frowned. ‘I think I need to speak with a social worker here. It seems their roles have changed since I qualified in Durban many years ago. In the meantime, I’ll find you some books you can read to Diamond. It might help her settle at night.’

  ‘I can give you one of my chickens,’ Elise said.

  Quintin grunted. ‘We have enough chickens already. And a rooster that crows. Who on earth still keeps roosters around to wake anyone up at four in the morning? Give her our rooster, Lily, free to a good home if she has chickens.’

  Lily saw Elise put her hand over her mouth to cover her smile even as she shook her head.

  ‘Diamond needs the protein from the eggs laid by your chickens. And you don’t need to take our rooster unless you want him to get more chickens. Quintin is just tired because the rooster somehow got left out of its coop last night, and decided to crow outside our window extremely early this morning. There’s no charge for coming in to see me, no one in Platfontein will pay for this clinic while I’m here. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, Dokotela. Thank you. I do not want your rooster: he will crow and wake me up instead.’

  Quintin laughed, but Lily was distracted as she heard raised voices outside, where people waited for the clinic. In Australia, she would have assumed it was anger, but here in Africa, she knew it could just be excitement, too. People right next to each other talked loudly to ensure that their neighbours knew they were not talking about them. It was a courtesy that was practised in a number of the traditions among the uBuntu people. She waited to see which one it was this time.

  Piet put his head in. ‘Howzit, Quintin, Lily? I know you are busy with the clinic so I will not stop here long. I wanted to let you know, the flamingos arrived at the dam last night in their thousands. This weekend would be a good one to go look for those plants if you guys want to. The sight will be spectacular.’

  ‘Thanks, Piet,’ Lily said.

  ‘Sounds good,’ Quintin said.

  ‘I will be at your place on Sunday bright and early, then?’

  ‘Meaning what time exactly?’ Lily asked.

  ‘Sixish.’

  Quintin let out a low groan.

  Lily laughed. ‘Hey, Piet, I found something that we need to talk about.’

  ‘Can it wait? I am swamped today, and just got a call into the office.’

  ‘It can,’ Lily said. She wasn’t sure how Piet juggled all the different duties pulling him in all directions in his life.

  ‘Great, if we do not speak on the phone before, see you on Sunday,’ Piet said as he waved and had gone before Lily could say anything more.

  ‘You and Piet are good friends?’ Elise asked.

  ‘We have become friends, yes. He seems like a good man to many people.’

  ‘He is. Here in Platfontein, we rely on Piet the medicine man but also Piet the policeman,’ Elise said as she picked up Diamond and strapped her to her back with a towel.

  ‘I’m beginning to understand that more and more, the longer I’m here,’ Lily said as she looked at Elise. ‘Make sure you give Diamond her medicines, and I’ll see you back here at the clinic next week to make sure her ear is clear. We don’t want to damage her hearing permanently. I’ll be in touch about the social worker; someone needs to help you.’

  ‘Thank you, Dokotela Lily.’

  CHAPTER

  18

  Quintin reached for Lily’s hand to help her down from the Land Cruiser.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, climbing out and onto the brown grass underfoot.

  Piet stood to the side. ‘We need to walk to the dam from here. You can hear the flamingos already. Not good to get too close. Perhaps we find a log you can use to make your violins while we are looking for the plants.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Quintin said, although he didn’t hold out much hope. He looked around. They appeared to be on somebody’s property, but there was not a soul around, just a few fever and camel thorn trees that the area was famous for. He grabbed the safari hat that Lily had bought him so many years ago when they first came to Africa, and he put it on. After slamming the door, he turned on the alarm. ‘Come on, then, let’s go,’ he said, picking up his walking stick that he’d rested against the bonnet. Taking Lily’s hand in his, they followed Piet.

  ‘I cannot wait for you to see Kamfers Dam,’ Piet said. ‘We’ll walk around the side and work our way back to here. This part of the dam doesn’t belong to Sol Plaatje Municipality. Aiden van Niekerk, the farmer, he knows we are coming. His son Elbie is only eight years old, and he already has to use the CBD oil.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Lily.

  ‘He has cancer. We think he’s doing okay now he’s using the oil, and also some plants from the Kalahari. The big city specialist said the family must get ready to bury him because they could do nothing more. When Aiden was told that, he started to treat Elbie with the oil, and I gave him some bush medicines to try. That was three years ago now and Elbie, he’s running around. That one plant, we also can look for today, I use for cancer patients to make the feelings of being so sick go away. I will show you.’

  ‘So many things for us to learn,’ Lily said.

  ‘These plants and what they can do fascinate me,’ Quintin said. ‘But I think I’m more taken with the food plants. There seems to be so much “bush tucker” that could help so many people if it was cultivated.’

  Lily snorted. ‘You were never interested in plants. What gives?’

  ‘Here they have a purpose. Food. Medicine. Remember at Zam Zam, the moringa trees? They were trying to plant a grove of them to provide food, but the people kept stealing all the plants out of the ground, not letting them become established because they were so hungry for some greens in their diet.’

  ‘I remember that,’ Lily said.

  ‘They stole the whole plants? But then they will not have food tomorrow. It is better to leave some of the plant behind,’ Piet said.

  ‘Yes, but when they began the project, they didn’t educate the population as to why it was being done, just that they needed their help. If they had spent time educating everyone, there might have been a marked difference. Hindsight is a wonderful gift created to haunt us, isn’t it?’

  ‘Ja, like our flamingos here. Before the Flamingo Warrior people came and told us about them, we did not understand that they were a threatened species, and that we could have a way to look after them. Education helps plenty,’ Piet said.

  They walked in silence together through the tawny and dry grass that was knee-high, except where it had been grazed low by the wildlife. Scattered trees dotted the landscape as Piet followed what appeared to be a game path through the bush. Eventually, they crested a slight hill and saw Kamfers Dam. The grassy-green colour of the water was clearly visible on the vast expanse before them.

  They could see a few small islands filled with reeds on the south side—to the north, the water stretched off into the distance.

  ‘Do you know if the dam is deep?’ asked Quintin.

  Piet shook his head. ‘I am a San—I do not go into water. But this place used to dry up after the rains. No one except the birds swim here. The other animals do not drink here either. The Sol Plaatje Municipality use it as their sewage and stormwater overflow, and now there is water all the time. Except in the drought, then who knows what will happen then. But the flamingos learned to breed here. Especially after Ekapa Mining made the island for them in the middle. And they multiplied.’

  ‘I read about that: didn’t they win some huge environmental award?’ Quintin said.

  ‘Ja man. Everything was a success, until last year, when that island went underneath the water. They did not account for the Sol Plaatje Municipality’s incompetence in not diverting water away if big rains came. They knew the levels in Kamfers were to be kept below a certain level, but you know municipalities in South Africa, they just do their own thing.’

  ‘I read in the newspapers that they are expecting big rain again this summer. Do you think we’re
going to have the same problem?’ Lily asked.

  ‘Ja. Most likely, Kimberley will always suffer. As long as this municipality and the men involved there are still in charge of the water, they will always expect money in their back pockets in exchange for who to assign it to or not. That is simply how they operate. It does not affect my harvest today though. So, we can be thankful for that.’

  ‘And the flamingos? What happens to them when it floods?’ Quintin asked.

  ‘No one did anything when the water rose up and the eggs and the little ones who had just hatched and could not swim yet were drowned.’

  ‘That’s so sad,’ Lily said.

  ‘It is, and in the papers, they kept saying that they do not interfere with nature. To me it was madness.’

  ‘I take it you don’t have any traditional stories about flamingos from others who had seen them before?’ asked Quintin.

  Piet shook his head. ‘I used to live far away in Angola, then we moved south to the Caprivi Strip. There wasn’t a lot of water where we came from.’

  ‘Sounds like a different life. Must have been a difficult decision to move?’

  Piet smiled. ‘No, it was a choice for life. I was on the South African side of that war. I believed that the South Africans were a lesser evil than the communists, even if it meant I had to become a second-class citizen and be called a coloured because my skin is not black. My skin is not white either because I am a San. But at least my family and I would be alive.’

  ‘I can’t imagine having to give up my identity simply to stay alive,’ Quintin said.

  Piet grimaced. ‘It was not a choice of identity; it was a choice of dying in the bush or living as a South African citizen, which is what they promised us. It just took them many years after everything that happened for us as a tribe to even get given a home.

  ‘We did not care about what country passports we carried back then, we could always walk through the bush. This is how it has always been done. Out there in the Kalahari, where our ancestors came from, all the San tribes once knew each other. In essence, we are all one people. Even with all the different languages, inside our hearts we are the same. Now governments have put up big fences and country borders, and we are told we as a people are not allowed in the Kalahari anymore. In Botswana, they found diamonds, and they sealed the wells and moved the San away to displaced villages.’