“I’m sorry no one was here to greet you when you arrived.”
“It was a somewhat unusual reception.”
“So André isn’t with you?”
Shit. The end of a joint and a packet of rolling papers with a square torn out lay in an ashtray on the table.
“No, he has gone up to the port.”
I put my hand over the roach and the rolling papers and picked up the ashtray. Had he seen? He showed no sign.
“Oh, really? What’s he doing there? Why don’t you sit down? I’ll just have another scout around for that kettle!”
The drug paraphernalia disappeared into the bin. The kettle had not returned. Unaccountably I picked up a grapefruit and took it back to Gunter, who was now sitting down. He looked at me oddly. We had a somewhat strained conversation. He appeared to be on a whistle-stop morale-boosting tour. I started to tell him about the problem. Then there was the sound of a vehicle again. I prayed it would be O’Rourke or, at least, not Betty.
“So, you see,” I was saying to Gunter, “we’re really only OK for three more weeks as we are.” There were slamming doors. A female voice. A male voice. O’Rourke’s voice. Good. Except that the female voice sounded angry. They were heading for the cabana, getting louder. I realized that if Debbie had missed them while she was at the store, nobody would know that I was still up here.
“You’re sleeping with Rosie, I just know you are.”
It was Linda. They were outside the cabana. I looked at Gunter with horror. He was staring straight ahead.
O’Rourke’s voice came again: quiet, reasonable; but what he was saying was indistinct. “Just because . . . Kefti with Rosie . . . sleeping with Rosie.”
“I don’t know how you can say this. I don’t know how you dare!” shouted Linda.
“But . . . what . . . to do with you?” I still couldn’t quite make out what he was saying.
“Everything.” They were heading into the cabana, now. I was frozen to the spot.
“But you’re not my girlfriend. I don’t have a relationship with you. I never said I was coming here to be with you. This isn’t right.” My mind was racing. They were entering the kitchen area.
“You’ve slept with her, haven’t you? Admit it. You have.”
“Linda. Don’t do this.”
“All my instincts tell me that you have been fucking our administrator on your reconnaissance trip to Kefti, and given my past relationship with you, and given that I have to work with both of you, I have a right to know whether or not this is true.”
“You don’t.” They were heading for the sitting area, where we were.
“You’ve slept with Rosie. I know you have. When did you do it? Where?”
“All right. Have it your way. Yes, I slept with Rosie. I slept with Rosie, two nights ago. In the desert. On a piece of tarpaulin,” he said, as they appeared in the doorway, to find Gunter and me staring at them, open-mouthed.
O’Rourke tried to get us out of the situation by pretending it hadn’t happened. It wasn’t a bad try.
“Hey, a visitor. Hi! Pleased to meet you. My name is Robert O’Rourke, I’m in the process of taking over as MO for Safila. This is Linda Bryant, nurse and nutritionist.”
“O’Rourke. Linda. This is Gunter Brand,” I joined in valiantly. “The UN High Commissioner for Refugees for Nambula.” O’Rourke’s eyes met mine, horrified. “Gunter, this is Robert O’Rourke, our new doctor, fresh from the States, and Linda Bryant. Linda’s been with us for two years now. Has anyone seen the kettle?”
I was trying to get either Linda or O’Rourke to follow me into the kitchen so that I could tell them to get rid of the UN pickup, but Linda seemed on the verge of bursting into tears and was rooted to the spot, and O’Rourke was doing some sort of maniacal old boy’s act with Gunter. I had never heard him talk so much. He was holding the keys in his hand, jangling them. I brought them drinks. I wondered if Gunter was going to go berserk. I went back to the kitchen. Did this mean there was nothing going on between them, after all? Were we still going to be able to work together? I came back to the living room. Suddenly I heard another vehicle. Henry was out of it and in the cabana bellowing before I could do a thing. “Hi. I’ve brought the UN pickup up as ordered pronto. Is this our visitor? Bloody nice of you to lend us the truck. Bloody good of you. Thanks a lot.”
It was O’Rourke who took the initiative and told Gunter the truth about Kefti. Funnily enough, he seemed more impressed than angry. He listened to us, looked at the photographs and the figures with some concern and asked a lot of questions. He clung to the view that the locusts were in limited areas and disputed our estimate of the numbers heading for Safila. But the very fact of his presence showed that he was acknowledging a problem on some scale.
*
Down in the camp Gunter’s tour was going well. We were in the feeding center. The mothers were sitting in ordered lines spooning something into their children’s mouths out of orange plastic cups. We were standing at the back, behind the cooking pots, when I heard a voice behind us, clear as a bell. “Are you sleeping with Rosie?”
It was Sian, on the other side of the rush matting wall.
“Are you?” she said.
I was flabbergasted. What on earth had got into everyone today?
“Of course I’m not bloody well sleeping with Rosie, you madwoman,” said Henry’s voice. “Old as the bloody hills.”
“You seem to spend all your time with her.”
“Sian, old girl, I am Rosie’s assistant.”
“Why can’t I move into your tukul?”
“No room, old girl.”
“It’s because of what’s happening with Rosie, isn’t it?”
Gunter was looking at me very hard.
“Sian, I am not sleeping with Henry. Henry, I am not as old as the hills,” I said through the wall, then smiled graciously, in queenly manner. “Shall we move on, Gunter?”
As a grand finale, while Gunter and I stood watching the dry ration distribution, Abdul Gerbil appeared, djellaba flapping, sunglasses askew. Popping with rage, he ran through the whole story of Kefti: the dead soldiers, the wrecked Toyota, Muhammad’s leg, and my total irresponsibility, recklessness, willfulness, disrespect for authority, and unsuitability for my post.
Henry drove Gunter back up to the compound, and I said I would follow. I had a couple of things to sort out. As I was walking back to the jeep, Linda was coming the other way, heading for the hospital. “I hope you’re feeling pleased with yourself,” she said.
“I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean that to happen. It was a very extreme situation.”
She looked at me. “I don’t entirely blame you,” she said. “He is irresistible.”
“I didn’t intend to do it.”
“It’s him I blame. The bastard.”
“But is he a bastard? Were you going out with him?”
She looked as if she was going to cry. “Apparently not.”
“But you used to?”
“We did have a sort, of, well, an affair, I suppose, in Chad. It ended after a few weeks, and then I left and went to Niger. But, then, when I heard he was coming here, you know how it is some-times. You imagine that—”
“I know,” I said, “believe me.”
“Do you?”
I nodded, feeling shitty.
“And what about you and him? What’s going to happen?”
“It was just— It’s not going to continue,” I said firmly.
“Good,” she said. “Thanks.”
And then I thought, Oh, shit, did I really mean that?
Back in the compound, Gunter asked if he could speak to me in private.
“Of course, I’ll be with you in a moment.”
I went back to my hut and hit myself hard on the forehead. Everything was in tatters. Gunter wouldn’t give us special help now. Gunter could get me fired.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” I said.
There was a rattle at the d
oor and Sian appeared. “I’m so sorry about what I said to Henry. I don’t know what got into me—”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry I can’t . . . I’ve got to—”
She had sat herself down on the bed. “It’s just with all this happening I feel so insecure, I—”
“I understand, it’s just— right now I can’t talk. But why on earth did you think that—”
“Well, you two are so close, and he’s so odd sometimes.”
“But he’s my assistant. I’m sorry, I really have got to go. Can we talk later?”
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry. It’s just . . . everything’s so worrying at the moment.”
“I know. I feel the same. Look, I’ve got to go and be disciplined by Gunter.”
“Oh, no. I’m so sorry. I just—”
“Don’t give it a second thought. I’ll talk to you later.”
Gunter was standing staring at my hut as I came out, flicking his thumb against his finger, irritated. I hoped he hadn’t heard.
“Shall we go talk at the edge of the hill?” I said, walking towards him. “It’s quiet there.”
We walked in silence till we reached the spot. I knew what was coming. I stopped and looked him straight in the eye.
“I have several things to say to you,” he said.
“Yes?”
“I have worked in relief camps too, you know, for many, many years. Once, in Cambodia, I was sleeping with three nurses at once and not one of them knew about the others.” He threw his great horse head back and roared with laughter. “Now, your mission to Kefti was ill-advised, and may cause us some great diplomatic problem in El Daman, as I am sure you realize. You will not be able to claim for the vehicle on the insurance.”
“I know.”
“But you showed initiative. And you showed your commitment. And you were brave. You have taken photographs and gathered data?”
“Yes.”
“So, now we will go and look at this information.” He put his hand on my arm. “Your operation here is extremely intelligent and efficient. And I am most impressed with the, er, energy of you and your staff.”
He threw his head back and roared again. He had got one over me and he knew it.
CHAPTER
Seventeen
Before he left, Gunter looked at the photographs of Kefti and listened to what we told him with ostentatious gravitas. I hoped he would be convinced now, and promise to get something done. Instead, he reassured us that the UN in Abouti knew all about the situation, and did not consider it serious. It was nothing we couldn’t deal with in Nambula, he said, since the ship was due to arrive at any moment. I was frantic. I argued that if the ship didn’t arrive, it would be disastrous, and we needed extra supplies anyway. Gunter promised to look into it. Henry and I spent the afternoon reorganizing the reception center, and starting up a new cemetery.
At five o’clock, Sian came over to find me. She couldn’t look at me. “I think you should come to the hospital. Hazawi and Liben Alye are there.”
I cursed myself for not singling them out, and asking someone to make sure they were all right when I was away.
Hazawi was a heap of skin and bone in Liben’s arms. She had severe diarrhea, vomiting and fever. He was wiping her bottom with a piece of rag. Two lines of tears were flowing down the furrows in his face. He looked up and saw me, and for one second there was accusation in his eyes. It was enough.
Hazawi died at eight o’clock. Liben would not accept that she had died. He became impervious to everything around him. He washed the small body and dressed her in the green frock she had always worn. Then he placed her on his shoulder and walked very slowly out of the hospital, playing with her cheek as he always had done. I walked with him, but he did not know I was there. It was dark, and there were high mourning cries coming from the hospital. Liben suddenly squatted down at the side of the path and placed her in the crook of his arm like a baby, straightening her dress, smoothing what was left of her hair.
I sat down beside him and took his hand, but it was limp and cold. I sat there for a long time. Eventually I went to find the home visitor for Liben’s village, and she brought some Keftians who knew him. They lifted him to his feet and took him back to their hut. Liben would have to be made to bury Hazawi in the morning.
There was no communal comfort that night. We all got back from the camp at different times, late, grabbed what we could from pots in the kitchen, and went straight to bed. O’Rourke was still down at the hospital. Everyone else was in bed. I lay face down, unsleeping, stretched out, crucified, feeling as if a stave were being driven through my back. I had seen what was about to happen and there was nothing I could do about it. I felt as if we were surrounded by brick walls. It was the blackest night.
When, eventually, I got to sleep, I dreamed of high dark mountains all around, and Jacob Stone shining a big blond light, such as you get on movie sets, at the mountains, and a glass staircase with lights at the side, and then I woke up. I shone my torch at my watch. It was four o’clock. The mice were rattling. They were in the ceiling, but they sounded as if they were on the floor. I got up and lit the hurricane lamp, lay back on the pillow and thought about the dream. I thought about what Jacob Stone had suggested, after Patterson’s embassy party in El Daman.
I sat up all night, thinking.
As soon as it was light I drove down to the camp. The mist was still hanging around the river. A cock was crowing. People were just beginning to emerge from the huts, women in white shifts with mussed-up hair, children clinging to their legs, rubbing their eyes, bewildered.
Muhammad was lying on his bed, reading.
“So, at last we can talk.”
“I’m so sorry. I—”
“No, but do not apologize, of course.”
“Don’t get up.”
“But I must make the tea.”
He already moved well with his stick.
“You will find the tea slower than ever now,” he said, turning round with a sly grin. “But you see, you cannot complain, because I am disabled.”
The tea was even more disgusting than usual.
“I came to tell you I’m going back to London,” I said.
He didn’t react.
“I’m leaving the camp this afternoon.”
“Really?” he said casually, after a pause.
“Yes.” There was another pause.
“Might I ask why?”
I told him my plan: there was a flight from El Daman the next morning. I was going to go back, try to get the story in the press and persuade some famous people to do an appeal. I was aiming for a slot on TV. That way, I could raise enough money or find sponsorship to airlift some food out immediately.
“And do you really think this is possible in so short a space of time? Will the famous people do as you ask?”
“Oh, I dunno.” I stared glumly into my tea. “I used to know some of these people. It does happen sometimes. It’s the only way I can think of to get the food quickly. What have I got to lose?”
“Forgive my many questions. Is it wise to leave the camp now?”
I would be sacked, of course, if I did that. So, I told him, I would resign instead. If the plan worked, maybe SUSTAIN would take me back. We had, perhaps, three weeks till the big influx arrived. The camp was organized now, and I thought Henry could cope if Muhammad helped. If I could get the appeal up and running in London, then I could come back in time with the food.
Muhammad stared into the embers, thinking.
“What do you reckon?”
“This ship is not going to come in ten days,” he said.
“No.”
He thought some more. His cheeks were very drawn now. “I think you are right, you should try.”
I relaxed. “Thanks.”
But Muhammad still gazed into the fire and suddenly I remembered about his friend, Huda Letay. I should have made time to talk properly before.
“You remember asking me about Huda
when you were ill?” I said.
“You did not find her.”
“No.”
He got up miserably, and took the sugar back to the shelves.
“They said there was no one from Esareb amongst the refugees. They said the locusts are not affecting the towns yet. I’m sorry.”
“No. That is good.” He turned, his face composed now. “She will be safe. And now you must press on hard with your plan.”
“Would you like me to bring something back?”
“Yes—about five hundred tons of food.”
“I mean for you.”
He thought for a while. “I would like a copy of Hamlet.”
“Are you planning to perform in this TV spectacular?”
Out came the throaty laugh. “Perhaps. I must think of my public.”
*
Everyone was gathered for breakfast, looking white and shattered. I told them what I was going to do.
“It’s the UN that’s got to sort it out,” said Debbie. “It’s good that you’re trying, but you’re not going to do much with a few sacks of grain and some stars hugging babies.”
“Fewer people will die if we get some food here quickly,” I said.
“We can’t have celebrities crawling all over the camp at a time like this.” Debbie pulled a face: “Just imagine it. It’ll be a bloody nightmare.”
“I think it’s worth having a go,” said Linda.
“What have I got to lose?”
“We need you here,” said Sian.
“How long would you be away?” said Linda, eagerly.
“Maybe three weeks. You can manage without me, can’t you?”
“Course we can, old sock,” said Henry. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll make sure they all die in an organized manner.”
This was unexpectedly grim from Henry. “Well, that’s what’ll happen when we run out of food and drugs,” he said.
“Exactly,” I said. “Doesn’t it make more sense at least to have a go at getting some supplies?”
“What are SUSTAIN going to say?” said Debbie. “You’ll lose your job, and then what if these celebrities won’t listen to you?”
“I’ll have to risk it.”
O’Rourke was conspicuously silent, staring into his tea.