“Hi, plumpkin. It’s podge-o here.”
It was no use, I loved him. I loved the texture of his voice. I loved his posh vowels. I loved his funny little ways.
“Podge-o,” I whispered. Contact, warmth, friendliness, relief: an end to enforced feelings of hatred.
“Are you all right, plumpkin? I’ve missed you. I’ve told everyone that line:‘I finally turned into a pizza.’ You’re so sweet. Listen, guess where I am?”
“Where?” I said, trying not to be too friendly.
“Notting Hill Gate.”
It was only five minutes away. I said nothing.
“Listen, sweetheart, I’m sorry I was so angry the other night. I was drunk. I was thinking maybe we could go away for a few days together. I do love you, you know.”
“Do you?” I said, softening. “I’m sorry too—I was repulsive.”
“I’ll be round in five minutes, then,” he said.
The following week, the day before we were supposed to go away, he canceled. He said he was feeling trapped because we were getting too serious. Two days after that we had a wonderful night together, and he asked me how I felt about moving in with him. It was stop, go, stop, go. I’d just start to get my teeth into the pain of breaking up, and he’d turn up and offer to stop the pain. I should have just walked away, but I couldn’t release myself.
If only your mind was washable. There have been so many times since then when I have wanted to lift off the top of my head, like the top of a boiled egg, take out my brain and rinse it under the tap like a dirty sponge, squeezing it over and over again, until the water ran clear. Then I would take a hosepipe and flush out my empty head with it, getting out all the gunge, pop the nice clean brain back in, give the top of the head a bit of a hose round and pop that back on too. Then I would not be sad anymore, not hurt, not disillusioned, but clean, naïve and jolly again.
In the absence of a brainwash option, I began to view the Africa trip as an escape. I thought of the vast, empty, open spaces, the deserts, the savannas and thought that perhaps in Africa life would be simpler: pure, unsullied, uncompromised, full of meaning.
CHAPTER
Eight
Two days after the family had arrived at the camp I was sitting in the offices of the UNHCR in Sidra. Kurt, one of the younger officials, was talking on the phone in a high-pitched voice, from time to time letting out an irritating, scoffing, gurgling laugh, jabbing his thumb excitedly on the knob at the end of his pen.
“No! I don’t believe you! But you know I think also that he is not so good with the local staff. No, really. I have seen him with Kamal. They say he is racist, you know. I don’t know but, really.”
I shifted in my seat impatiently. Kurt mouthed, “Won’t be a moment,” and carried on. He was wearing the ubiquitous UN navy-blue cardi with a crisply ironed white shirt underneath, short-sleeved, no doubt.
“No!” Another gurgle of laughter. “Listen, I have someone with me. But listen, what about the weekend? Do you come to Port Nambula? We can go diving, if you like.”
Click, click, click went the pen. I wanted to rap him over the knuckles with it.
“But listen. I think Francine told me they have Gouda cheese at the duty-free shop. . . . Yes. Real Gouda, you know with the little red cover.” More giggling. “Fifteen U.S., I think. You can bring me some? Bring me four. And you can get some beer?”
I stood up and sat down again. The previous morning I had driven down to the camp to find that four more families had arrived during the night, and that they were in a worse state than the first. All that day new refugees kept coming. We had a hundred and ten new arrivals now. Five deaths. The radio still wasn’t connecting, so I had packed up the jeep and driven to Sidra.
Kurt put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Just a few minutes.”
“I’ve got a lot to do, Kurt. I’m in a hurry. I’ve got to talk to you.”
He was back on the phone again. “But I don’t believe you! And when did this happen? Friday? Oh, no. But you know he is going to have to watch it or he will be out. But what do you say about the diving? You want to come?”
I told Kurt I would come back later and strode out of the building, heading for my vehicle. The person I really needed to speak to was André, the head UNHCR man in Sidra, but André wasn’t there, only useless, stupid Kurt. It was twelve o’clock and I had achieved nothing whatsoever. This morning had felt like running through treacle. It was always like this when you came to town and started trying to have meetings, but this time it mattered.
I set off to drive back across town again to the Sidra regional COR office, feeling a knot tightening in my stomach. I had to get this sorted out, report the problem, request emergency food, find out what was happening with the ship, and get back to the camp. As I approached the souk, I braked to avoid a goat and the car behind drove into me. It was a taxi-truck with fifteen people in the back. No one was hurt. One of the headlights was smashed and the front was a bit dented but that was all and it was his fault. Nevertheless long conversations had to be gone through and a huge crowd gathered.
We were close to the meat market. An alarming smell was emanating from a pickup which was parked next to us, piled with sheep’s intestines. Men, goats, dogs, kids and bicycles gathered around. Everyone I knew in Sidra seemed miraculously to be there, and an elaborate greeting ritual had to be gone through with each one.
“Klef?” (Good?)
“Klef.” (Good.)
“Domban?” (Good?)
“Domban.” (Good.)
“Dibilloo.” (Good.)
“Del dibilloo.” (Good indeed.)
“Jadan domban?” (So all is good?)
“Domban.” (Good.)
“Dalek.” (Good.)
I once worked out that I had spent three hours and seventeen minutes during one day just saying “Good?” to people.
All sides of the accident were discussed, with a growing number of interested parties. It kept being agreed that it wasn’t my fault, but then somehow the conversation would start off again from square one. It was getting very hot. I had sand in my mouth and my ears, and my legs were sliding against each other in the heat. And I didn’t have a hat with me.
Then the atmosphere turned ugly. This was always a moment you had to watch out for in Nambula, when things turned the corner and started to range out of control. The driving laws here were almost as dangerous as driving. If you killed anyone in an accident then the family had the right to kill you on the spot. I decided the moment had come to report the accident and have it dealt with officially. I jumped back in the cab, ignoring the protests, and drove back to the UN. This time André was there, thank God.
“You had a collision with a carr? What a nightmare. You need a drink.”
“Double Scotch. No, a treble.”
André fetched me a Fanta. He was a Canadian, about the same age as me, medium height, straight, light-brown hair, an aquiline nose in a broad face and very white teeth. He smiled all the time. He was flip, but pretty good.
After we’d done the necessaries with the accident I started to tell him about the arrivals. He listened attentively, asking the odd question, nodding, saying, “Uh-huh. OK, fine. Uh-huh.” André dotted everything he said with “OK, fine.”
“OK. Fine. Yes, I have heard of these rumors. Fine. OK, so we have a problem. No. We have a question mark. A possibility of a problem.”
“When’s the ship due?”
“OK. The ship is expected to arrive Tuesday week, OK? But this is the position. We have a situation where, because of various confusions and delays in Europe, we are effectively one delivery behind. What that means is the whole area is on short rations which will run out in between three and six weeks. OK, fine. The ship arrives. We distribute the food, which could take two weeks, and we start with the camps which have the lowest stocks. OK? So even the settlements which are on zero by the time they get a delivery should be able to go back immediately to full rations and in theory everyone sho
uld then have full rations for at least two months.”
“Say that again.” He obliged. I still couldn’t follow it.
“So we’ll be fine if the ship brings what you’re expecting it to bring,” I said doubtfully.
“Yes.”
“And if it’s on time.”
“And if it’s on time.”
“What’s the problem with it?”
“Honey, I wish I knew, but I think . . . OK, fine. Let me just say that Nambula’s connections with Iraq are not helping us here.”
“So we’re all skating on thin ice?”
He looked at me.
“Aren’t you worried?” I said.
“OK, fine. Let me tell you how I see it. The situation is not as it should be, which is why I have been bashing the telex machine and going up and down to El Daman for the last month. The locust story is something which has come up here within the last few days, and something I am treating with a degree of skepticism, given that it is in the interests of the Keftians to get us scared.”
“But it’s not just talk. We’ve got a hundred and ten arrivals in a very bad state.”
“OK. What are you saying to me about Safila is something I do not want to hear at this moment, OK? What I am going to do is inform El Daman and Geneva that we are getting apparent confirmation of these rumors, and I will ask them to get the situation inside Kefti checked out from the Abouti end. You’ve told COR?”
“Not yet.”
André and I drove together to COR. The Nambulan Commission for Relief couldn’t do much about this problem themselves, because they didn’t have any money or resources, but they could put pressure on the UN and other Western agencies up in the capital. The trouble was, the commissioner in Sidra did not run the most organized of organizations.
We were shown into his office where he was talking on the telephone, standing up and walking about with a masterful air. He was dressed from top to toe in stone-washed denim, with oddly bulbous trousers. He waved us to sit down with his customary manner which said, “It’s all right, you’re in the hands of an educated, reasonable, massively intelligent, up-to-the-minute man.” This was Saleh’s little vanity.
“Wellyboo. Foonmabat, da dirra bellbottom,” he was shouting into the receiver, his voice going high with indignation. I couldn’t understand more than the rudimentaries of Nambulan, but I liked the sound of the words.
“Fnarbadat. Birra bra. Dildo baboon,” Saleh shouted, rolling his eyes at us as if to say, “Look at the idiots I have to deal with here.”
When the phone call was over, he placed his hands flat in front of him on the table and smiled with his eyes closed. “So,” he said. “What can I help you with?”
André started to tell him, but he said, “Just one moment, please,” in a suddenly serious, authoritative voice. At this point a protracted search began through each compartment of the briefcase which was opened on the desk, then carefully through every file on the desk, each drawer. Nothing was said.
This was not unusual. In Nambula, time wasn’t a precious commodity. Most people had far too much to fill, and it wasn’t considered rude to waste other people’s. The search lasted fifteen minutes. At the end of it nothing was found, nothing explained. Saleh merely closed his briefcase, cleared his throat lightly and said, “Go on.”
André began again.
“One moment, please,” said Saleh. He got up and walked out of the room. We could hear him talking in Nambulan to a woman outside.
After fifteen more minutes he came back in and sat down. We got a good long way into the discussion this time. Saleh adopted an expression of sepulchral gravity. “I see, I see. Oh, this is most serious. I am most concerned. Our radio contact with Safila is malfunctioning, you see, otherwise I am certain my fellow there, Hassan, would have been informing me.”
“Yes. That is why I have come to Sidra. I’ve spoken to Hassan. We must raise an alert, you must put pressure on the donors,” I said.
“Ah, Miss Rosie. Of course you know we cannot be raising appeals any more for these Keftians. Our friends in Abouti would not countenance that. Their problems are largely of their own making.”
This was bad news. Hitherto COR had been more than willing to help the Keftians once they’d come over the border. There must have been some change of policy within the government. We pressed Saleh to find out what was going on, but he merely smiled. “My friends, I am not at liberty to discuss this matter.”
As we left Saleh I turned round to see that the search had begun all over again, starting once more with the briefcase.
We stopped back at the UN office to try to phone Malcolm in El Daman, but the line which had worked so efficiently for Kurt with his mindless babble was now as dead as a post. I drafted a letter instead, which André promised to have delivered to Malcolm in the next El Daman pouch.
I left the UN compound and drove through the wide, straight streets of Sidra, past low sandstone buildings, and headed out beyond the tarmac towards the weird, red Sidra mountains. They rose up sheer from the desert like giant molehills, worn into their smooth sculpted shapes by the wind and the sand. As the truck bounced over the stones and dents of the track which led to Safila, I was filled with foreboding. After the last time, there was so much talk: a famine would never be allowed to happen again, everyone said. And now all the warning signs were there, and no one seemed able to do anything about it.
It was four o’clock when I got back from Sidra, and the compound was deserted. I backed up the truck and drove straight down to the hospital. It was the scene as I remembered it from five years ago: every bed full, the smell of diarrhea, the sound of crying. The whole ex-pat team was there, bar Henry, and five of the Keftian health workers. O’Rourke was bent over a child, feeling below its rib cage.
Betty was upon me in a moment. “I’m afraid you picked an awfully bad moment to go away. We’ve had seventy more since you left, four more deaths. And we’ve got cholera. Did you have a good time?”
So that was a hundred and eighty arrivals. Nine deaths. And cholera. Jesus.
“It’s been dreadful, absolutely dreadful,” Betty continued. “Remember what I was saying yesterday morning? Heaven knows how many more are on their way.” She got out a tissue and dabbed at her eyes.
O’Rourke saw me, started to get up, saw Betty and sat down again.
“Have you opened the cholera hospital?”
“Yes, of course. They’re in there with Linda.”
“And are all the arrivals in here? Have you isolated the others?”
“No, no. Dr. O’Rourke has tested them, and we let the ones who are clear go to their village. It didn’t seem fair. He’s awfully good, you know.”
“Are they from the same area as the others?”
“Yes, no. Well, I’m not sure, actually.”
I went round the hospital. Sian was measuring a baby, pushing the thin little legs out flat on the ruler, working out the weight-for-height ratio. She pinched the skin on the little thigh. It stayed for a moment where she had raised it, like peaks of meringue left by a whisk. I went and stood behind O’Rourke. He was absorbed, trying to find a vein in the scalp of the child to get the drip in.
“Hi, Rosie,” he said, without looking up.
“Hi,” I said quietly.
“Damn.” He leaned back and wiped his forehead, then started again. He did it at last.
“OK, let’s talk.”
He guided me a little distance away. “You’ve spoken to Betty?”
“Yes.”
“It’s pretty bad, but contained.”
“Are they still coming because of locusts?”
“Yes, but they’re all from the same area. It could just be a pocket, touch wood.”
“What about the cholera? Don’t you think we should be isolating the lot?”
“They’ve been tested and they’re clear. I don’t think we should fill up the isolation unit with people who don’t need to be there—”
“I just thin
k we’ve got to be very careful, you know how these things can happen. Have you started immunizing for measles?”
“We were going to,” Betty chipped in, joining us, “but Dr. O’Rourke said—”
I glared at him. He was being a bit too bossy, considering he’d just arrived. “We have immunized,” I said, “every single refugee against polio, measles, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, TB. The last thing we want is an epidemic. We should do all the new arrivals today.”
“Dr. O’Rourke said the health workers should do it,” Betty concluded breathlessly. “It’s done.”
Henry had opened up the feeding center again. The mothers were sitting in lines on mats, feeding the children out of orange plastic cups. These were the worst cases. The three gigantic metal cooking pots were out again, and Henry and Muhammad were talking to the cooks.
I put my hand on Henry’s elbow. “How is it going?”
“Ah, Rosie, old stick. Fine, fine. Forward to the breach, all hands to the pump, etcetera, etcetera,” but he wouldn’t look at me. He was very pale, with bags under his eyes. Muhammad was standing behind him. There were beads of sweat on the brown skin of his temples. We all knew how easy it was for things to slide out of control, for disease to start wiping people out like flies.
“Have the health workers told the new arrivals about defecation zones? Are they keeping them away from the river?”
“All been done, old girl.”
“We must talk to RESOK, Rosie,” said Muhammad. “The serpent of fear is slithering amongst them.”
I shot him a look.
“I’m sorry. I mean, they are a little nervous.”
I wanted to check the pharmacy to see how we were doing but it was locked, so I walked back to find Henry and asked him to deal with it and then I went to Muhammad’s shelter and sat waiting for the RESOK people to arrive. It would be a tricky meeting. RESOK were the Keftians’ relief organization, and not supposed to be political, but they were very tough, and keen on their rights. My back was aching from the journey. I could feel sweat trickling down it. The only thing which was good was that the system in the camp seemed to be working well. Everything was organized and under control.