The Sweetest Dream

  Next morning, while Rebecca’s wash dried again after its dousing by the storm, Sylvia asked Aaron if he would ransack the bush for wrigglers, but he said he was afraid he had to read his books for Father McGuire.

  She walked to the village, found some youths–who should have been at school–and said she would give them money to search the bush. ‘How much?’–and she told them, ‘I’ll give you a lump sum and you can share it.’ ‘How much?’ In the end they were demanding bicycles, textbooks for school, and new T-shirts. This was because they saw every white person as rich and with access to anything they wanted. She began to laugh, then they did, and it was settled they should have what she held in her hand, a clutch of Zimlia dollars, enough for some sweets at the store. Off they went, laughing in to the bush, and playing the fool: the search would be a desultory one. Then she went to the hospital where she found Joshua sewing up a long quite deep cut.

  ‘You were not here, Doctor Sylvia.’

  ‘I would have been here in five minutes.’

  ‘How was I to know that?’

  This was an issue between them. He now did sew up wounds, and did it well. But he was attempting wounds that needed more skill than he had, and she had told him to stop. They were both watching the face of the boy, who was staring down at his arm where the needle slid through wincing flesh. He was brave, biting his lips. Joshua finished the stitching clumsily–Sylvia took the needle from him and did it herself. Then she went to the lock-up shed to measure out medicines. He followed her, leaving the reek of dagga on the air. ‘Comrade Sylvia, I want to be a doctor. All my life, that is what I wanted.’

  ‘No one is going to accept a man who uses dagga, for training.’

  ‘If I was training, I would stop smoking.’

  ‘And who is going to pay for it?’

  ‘You can pay for it. Yes, you must pay for me.’

  He knew–and so everyone did–that Sylvia had paid for the new buildings, was paying for the medicines, and for his wages. It was believed that behind her was one of the international donors, an aid organisation. She had told Joshua that no, it was her money, but he did not want to believe her.

  On an old kitchen tray, relinquished by Rebecca, Sylvia arranged mugs of medicine, little piles of pills, many of them vitamins. She went with the tray to the tree where most of the patients lay, or sat, and began handing out mugs, and the pills, with water.

  ‘I want to be a doctor,’ said Joshua, roughly.

  ‘Do you know what it costs to train someone to be a doctor?’ she said to him, over her shoulder. ‘Look, show this boy how to swallow this, I know it doesn’t taste nice.’

  Joshua spoke, the boy protested, but he took the potion. He was about twelve, undernourished, but he had worms, several varieties of them.

  ‘Then, tell me how much it costs?’

  ‘Well, at a rough guess, with everything, probably a hundred thousand pounds.’

  ‘Then you pay, for me.’

  ‘I do not have that kind of money.’

  ‘Then, who paid for you? Perhaps the government? Was it Caring International?’

  ‘My grandmother paid for me.’

  ‘You must tell our government to let me be a doctor and tell them I will be a good doctor.’

  ‘Why should your black government listen to this terrible white woman, Joshua?’

  ‘President Matthew said we could all have an education. That is the education I want. He promised us when the comrades were still fighting in the bush, our Comrade President promised us all a secondary education and training. So you go to the President and tell him to do what he promised us.’

  ‘I see that you have faith in the promises of politicians,’ she remarked, kneeling to lift up a woman who was weak from childbirth and who had lost the baby. She held her, feeling the black skin that should have been warm and smooth, rough and chilly under her hands.

  ‘Politicians,’ said Joshua. ‘You call them politicians?’

  She saw that the Comrade President, and the black government–his–were in a different place in his mind from politicians, who were white. ‘If I made a list of promises your Comrade Mungozi made when the comrades were in the bush fighting, then we could all have a good laugh,’ said Sylvia. She gently laid the woman’s head down, on a folded bit of cloth that kept it from the earth, muddy from the rain, and said, ‘This woman, does she have some relative to give her food?’

  ‘No. She is living alone. Her husband died.’

  ‘What did he die of?’

  AIDS was just entering the general consciousness, and Sylvia suspected that some of the deaths she saw were not what they seemed.

  ‘He got sores, and he was too thin, and then he died.’

  ‘Someone should feed this woman,’ said Sylvia.

  ‘Perhaps Rebecca could bring her some soup that she is making for the Father.’

  Sylvia was silent. This was the worst of her problems. In her experience hospitals fed their patients but here if there were no relatives, then no food. And if Rebecca brought down soup or anything else from the priest’s table there would be bad feeling. If Rebecca would agree to bring it: a struggle went on between her and Joshua about who should do what. And, thought Sylvia, this woman was going to die. In a decent hospital, she would almost certainly live. If she were put in a car and taken to the hospital twenty miles away she would be dead before she got there. Sylvia had in her store some Complan, which she did not describe as food but as medicine. She asked Joshua to go and mix up some for the woman, thinking, I am wasting precious resources on a dying woman.

  ‘Why?’ said Joshua. ‘She will be dead soon.’

  Sylvia, without a word, went to the shed, which she had incautiously not locked, and found an old woman reaching up to a shelf to fetch down a bottle of medicine. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want muti, doctor. I need muti.’

  Sylvia heard those words oftener than any others. I want medicine. I want muti. ‘Then, come to where the others are waiting for me to examine them.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, thank you, doctor,’ giggled the old woman and she ran out of the shed and into the bush.

  ‘She’s a bad skellum,’ said Joshua. ‘She wants to sell the medicine in the village.’

  ‘I didn’t lock the dispensary.’ She called it that, with an inward mock at herself.

  ‘Why are you crying? Are you sorry for me because I can’t be a doctor?’

  ‘That too,’ said Sylvia.

  ‘I know what you know. I watch you and I learn what you do. Perhaps I would not need much training.’

  She mixed the Complan and carried it to the woman who had gone past the need for it: she was nearly dead, her breath fluttering away in little gasps.

  Joshua spoke to a little boy sitting with his sick mother, and said, ‘Go back to the village and tell Clever to dig a grave for this woman. The doctor will pay him.’ The child ran off. To Sylvia he said, ‘I want you to teach my son Clever, teach him, he can learn here.’

  ‘Clever? Is that his name?’

  ‘When he was born his mother said his name must be Clever so that he will be clever. And he is, she was right.’

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Six years old.’

  ‘He should be at school.’

  ‘What is the good of going to school, when there is no headmaster and no books to learn from?’

  ‘The headmaster will be replaced.’

  ‘But there are no books at the school.’ This was true. Sylvia hesitated and Joshua attacked with, ‘He can come here and learn what you know. I can teach him what I know. We can both be doctors.’

  ‘Joshua, you don’t understand. I don’t use more than just a little part of what I know here. Don’t you see? This isn’t a proper hospital. A proper hospital has . . .’ She despaired, turning away, shaking her head from the enormity of it, in exactly the same way as Joshua would, it was an African gesture; then squatted down and picked up a bit of twig, and began drawing a building in
the soft wet earth. She was wondering, What would Julia say if she could see me now? She was squatting, knees apart, opposite squatting Joshua, but he sat lightly and easily on his thigh muscles, while she was balancing herself with one hand down beside her. With the other she drew a building of many storeys, and looked at Joshua and said, ‘This is what a hospital is like. And it has X-rays–do you know what X-ray is? It has . . .’ She was thinking of the hospital she had trained in, while she looked out at grass roofs over the reed mats, the dispensary shed, the hut where women gave birth, on mats. She was crying again.

  ‘You are crying because this is a bad hospital, but it should be me, it should be Joshua crying.’

  ‘Yes, you are right.’

  ‘And you must tell Clever he can come here.’

  ‘But he must go to school. He cannot be a doctor or even a nurse without getting his exams.’

  ‘I cannot pay for him at school.’

  Sylvia was paying fees for four of his children, and for three of Rebecca’s. Father McGuire paid for two of Rebecca’s, but he did not get much money, as a priest.

  ‘Is he one of yours I am paying for now?’

  ‘No. You are not paying for him yet.’

  In theory, schools were free. And they had been, at the beginning. Parents all over the country, promised education for their children, helped to build schools, their labour free, their most heartfelt devotion building schools where no schools had been. But now there were fees, and every term they were higher.

  ‘I hope you aren’t going to have any more children, Joshua. It’s just silly.’

  ‘We know it is a plot by the whites, to stop us having children, so that we become weak and you can do as you like.’

  ‘That’s so ridiculous. Why do you believe that nonsense?’

  ‘I believe what I see with my own eyes.’

  ‘The same way you see a plot by the whites to kill you with AIDS’–he called it Slim. ‘He’s got Slim,’ people might say; he, she, has the disease that makes you lose weight. Joshua had taken in all she knew about AIDS, and was probably better informed than members of the government who were still denying its existence. But he was sure that AIDS had been deliberately introduced by the whites, from some laboratory in the States, a disease created to weaken Africans.

  • • •

  The Selous Hotel in Senga had been inter-racial, earning much obloquy, long before Liberation, and now it was a comfortable old-fashioned place, often used for sentimental reunions of people who had been imprisoned under the whites–whites by whites–or been banned, or Prohibited or just harassed and made miserable. It was still one of the best hotels, but the new ones, of an international standard, were already racing up into the sky like arrows into the future–a remark by President Matthew often quoted in promotion brochures.

  Tonight a table of twenty or so people stood prominently in the centre of the dining-room, where lesser guests told each other, ‘Look, there’s Global Money.’ ‘And there’s the Caring International people.’ At the head one end was Cyrus B. Johnson, who was boss of the section of Global Money that deal with that Oliver Twist, Africa, a silver-haired much-groomed man with the habit of authority. Next to him sat Andrew Lennox, and on the other side Geoffrey Bone, Global Money and Caring International respectively. Geoffrey had been an expert on Africa for some years. His enterprise had caused hundreds of the latest most elaborate tractors donated to an ex-colony up north to lie rotting and rusting around the edges of as many fields: spare parts, know-how and fuel had been lacking, quite apart from the agreement of the local people, who would have liked something less grandiose. He had also caused coffee to be planted in parts of Zimlia where it instantly failed. In Kenya millions of pounds disbursed by him had vanished into greedy pockets. He was disbursing millions here, in Zimlia, which were suffering the same fate. These errors had in no way set back his career, as might have happened in less sophisticated times. He was deputy head of CI, in constant discussion with GM. Next to him was his ever-faithful admirer Daniel whose shock of red hair was as much of a beacon as it ever was: Daniel was rewarded for his decades of devotion by a starry job as Geoffrey’s secretary. James Patton, now Labour MP for Shortlands in the Midlands, was here on a fact-finding trip, but really because Comrade Mo, visiting London, had run into him at Johnny’s, and said, ‘Why don’t you come and visit us?’ This did not mean that Comrade Mo was now a Zimlian, more than a citizen of any other part of Africa. But he knew Comrade Matthew–of course, as he seemed to know every new president–and when he was at Johnny’s he would issue invitations as from some generic Africa, a benevolent burgeoning place with ever-open arms. It was because of Comrade Mo and his contacts that Geoffrey had reached his eminence; because of Comrade Mo’s remark to some powerful person that Andrew Lennox was a clever up-and-coming lawyer, and he knew him well, ‘had known him since he was a child’, Global Money had headhunted him from some rival enterprise. Other people around that table, among them Comrade Mo, had been habitués of Johnny’s: international aid was the legitimate spiritual heir of the Comrades. At the other end of the table from Cyrus B.–as he was affectionately known by half the world–sat Comrade Franklin Tichafa, Minister for Health, a large public man with a capacious stomach and a spare chin or two, always affable, always smiling, but his eyes these days had a tendency to wander away from questions. He and Cyrus B. were more splendidly attired than anyone else here, but not more pleased with themselves. These people, with an assortment of representatives of other charity organisations, scattered tonight around other hotels, had spent some days driving all over Zimlia, staying at towns that had acceptable hotels, and fitting in visits to beauty spots and some famous game parks. They had all agreed at lunches, dinners and on coach trips–which is where the decisions that affect nations are really made–that what Zimlia needed was a rapid development of secondary industry, already established if sometimes only in embryo, but there were problems with President Matthew who was still in his Marxist phase, which was thwarting all attempts to make a modern country of Zimlia, and a great many people were manoeuvring themselves into positions where they could be nourished by the lively flood.

  Next day was the Celebration of the Heroes of the Liberation, and Comrade Franklin wanted them all to come. ‘It would please our Comrade President,’ he said. ‘I will see that you all have good seats.’

  ‘I’m booked to leave for Mozambique tomorrow morning,’ said Cyrus B.

  ‘Cancel it! I’ll get you a good seat on the plane the day after.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I have an appointment with the President.’

  ‘You won’t say no,’ Franklin ordered Andrew, his voice rough because of some unpleasantness that he couldn’t quite remember.

  ‘I have to say no. I am driving out to visit Sylvia–do you remember Sylvia?’

  Franklin was silent. His eyes moved aside. ‘I think I remember. Yes, I seem to remember she was some kind of relative?’

  ‘And she is working as a doctor in Kwadere. I hope I pronounce that right.’

  Franklin sat smiling. ‘Kwadere? I did not know there was a hospital there yet. It is not a developed part of Zimlia.’

  ‘But I am going to see her and so I can’t come to your wonderful ceremony.’

  A sombreness had dashed Franklin’s sparkle, he sat silent, his brows puckering. Then he threw it off and cried, ‘But I am sure our good friend Geoffrey will be there.’

  Geoffrey was now a solid handsome man, who drew eyes as he had done as a boy, and the millions he had at his command had given him an almost visible silvery sheen, the glisten of self-approval. ‘I will certainly be there, Minister, I wouldn’t miss it.’

  ‘But such an old friend ought not to be calling me Minister,’ said Franklin, offering Geoffrey dispensation in his smile.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Geoffrey, with a little bow. ‘Minister Franklin, perhaps?’

  Franklin laughed, a big satisfied laugh. ‘And before you leave, Geoffrey, I want you to come
to my office and I will show you around.’

  ‘I was hoping you might invite me to meet your wife and children. I hear you have six children now?’

  ‘Yes, six, and soon there will be seven. Children and money troubles,’ said Franklin, looking hard at Geoffrey. But he did not invite him to his home.

  Laughter, understanding laughter. More wine was called for. But Cyrus B. said he was an old man needing his sleep, and went off, remarking that he expected to see them at the conference in Bermuda next month.

  ‘I believe that our old friend Rose Trimble has done very well,’ said Franklin. ‘Our President likes her work very much.’

  ‘Rose is certainly doing well,’ said Andrew, with a delightful smile, which Franklin misread.

  ‘And you are all such good friends,’ he cried. ‘That is so good to hear. And when you see her, please give her my warmest regards.’

  ‘When I do, I shall,’ said Andrew, even more pleasantly.

  ‘And so we may soon expect generous aid,’ said Franklin, who was slightly drunk. ‘Generous, generous aid for our poor exploited country.’

  Here Comrade Mo, who had not yet contributed, said, ‘In my view there should be no aid at all. Africa should be standing on her own two feet.’

  He might just as well have thrown a bomb on to the table. He sat blinking a little, his teeth showing in an abashed grin, withstanding stares of surprise. He and all his coevals had overlooked or applauded every bit of news from the Soviet Union, and, with far fewer comrades, had celebrated every new massacre in China, he and still fewer had ruined the agriculture of his country by forcing unfortunate farmers into collective farms, the State’s bully boys beating up and harrying any who resisted–few of the Causes he had encouraged or promoted had turned out anything but scandalous, but here, at this moment, at this table, in this company, what he was saying was inspired, was the truth, and for saying it, surely, he should have been forgiven all the rest.