“When did you last see or speak with Nasiiba?” Hibo asked, her tone imbued with the importance of a secret only she knew.
Duniya was annoyed by the question. She was alarmed to think that Hibo could know something about Nasiiba that she, the girl’s mother, didn’t. She said, “Tell me what you know that I don’t.”
Hibo’s lips twitched again, disturbance dancing at the fringes of her mouth. Gaining confidence, she said, “Nasiiba called at our place yesterday afternoon, looking pale, quite sickly. I asked what was ailing her. She wouldn’t say, but later she told my daughter she’d been to the blood bank in our district to donate blood.”
“Why?” was all Duniya could think of saying.
Hibo shook her head.
Duniya’s expression became stiff. Her mouth opened without emitting a single sound. Then she remembered being disturbed by Nasiiba’s coming home late last night, visibly tired, yawning and telling her brother Mataan to leave her in peace.
Duniya was on the verge of saying something when a deferential silence fell on the hall. From Hibo’s movements, she deduced that Dr Mire had arrived at last.
Dr Mire M. Mire, principal obstetrician of Benaadir Maternity Hospital, had barely come into the hall when he noticed Duniya’s expression. He stood still, confirming to himself at a second glance that his favourite senior nurse wasn’t her usual ebullient self. He remained where he was, tall, thin and shy in his white coat with the missing button. Silently, he observed changes in her, abrupt as nightfall in the tropics.
Duniya rose to her feet, conscious of everyone staring. She struggled with a custom-made smile; she finally managed to produce one which in its genuine freshness she offered to Dr Mire. He seemed pleased as if he had collaborated in manufacturing it. Instinct told him not to ask what was the matter with her today.
He greeted the other nurses in turn by name and indicated that he was ready to get to work immediately He moved in the direction of his consulting cubicle, with Hibo and Duniya on either side of him and a junior nurse in tow.
Dr Mire was a man of strictly observed habits; he was fond of developing a more intimate relationship with rituals than with people. He was easily upset if small things went wrong, which in a place like Somalia occurred with annoying frequency. If irritated in a big way, he was depressed. To ensure the world didn’t fall to pieces about him, Dr Mire depended on Duniya, who was never clumsy in her faithful observance of the details of these rites. He couldn’t imagine working in Mogadiscio without her by his side, she who helped him understand his personal short-comings, who taught him to be tolerant, forgiving and forgivable.
“What have we here?” he asked, receiving the patient’s card from the junior nurse.
There were five of them in his small cubicle, seemingly occupying every single inch of it. Duniya stood away from everyone else, her back to his desk, and Hibo and the junior nurses crowded in on him, catching every word he uttered. After studying the history of the woman’s pregnancy, he turned to put a number of questions to the patient, who sat up to answer them, maybe as a sign of respect.
And then it happened.
Duniya’s clumsiness ran amok. Her hand hit a bottle in which were kept pens, pencils and spare thermometers, knocking it over. Very noisily Hibo and the junior nurses bent down together with Duniya to retrieve the scatter of objects. But having done so Duniya stood apart, idle in an indulgent manner. And silent.
I’ll at ease, Dr Mire resumed his routine questions and was the more irritated to discover that the woman’s responses contradicted what the card had told him. He looked to see who had initialled the card. Duniya. Dr Mire chose to examine the patient. As he bent to do this he appeared to relax, his body inclined like a worshipper at a shrine. Pregnant women had that effect on him.
In an instant his head shot up, his back straightened. His stethoscope hung down, knocking against the buckle of his trouser belt. He took his reading-glasses out of his breast pocket and with his outstretched hand received a biro from the junior nurse. Then he looked from Duniya to the patient, and from the patient back to Duniya, as if deciding whom to address first.
The woman said, “I am to blame, Doctor, not the nurse. I lied.”
“And this is not your card either?”
“That’s right.”
Dr Mire waited for the woman to explain.
“I know I’m infected with gonorrhoea, Doctor,” said the woman, her voice tearful although her eyes were dry “I lied because I couldn’t say the truth in the presence of the other women outside.”
Dr Mire remained silent.
“It is because of my baby that I’ve come, Doctor,” she said.
Dr Mire had recovered his calm; it seemed that no consuming temper was likely to impose its will on him, although flames of rage had earlier appeared in his eyes, flames which the other nurses imagined would set his whole body ablaze.
“What about your baby?” he asked the patient.
The woman’s voice cracked as she said, “It is my lawful husband who gave the gonorrhoea to me, Doctor. I’ve known no other man, Doctor, I swear. I was shocked to the marrow of my bones when I spotted the unhealthy stains on his underwear.”
Embarrassed, Hibo appeared too perturbed to look at the woman. Duniya’s features assumed an amused indifference, as if to say she had her own worries. The junior nurse’s eyes grew misty. Dr Mire was angry with himself for not having seen the woman a while back.
“You see, Doctor,” she said, “it’s my husband who brings things into our house, good and bad things. Please help me and my baby.”
Dr Mire nodded.
“Will my baby go blind, Doctor?” She was in tears.
Dr Mire hushed her. He let his half-moon spectacles rest on the bridge of his nose and after a moment’s thought wrote on a pad that had the hospital’s logo and name printed on it in Somali, Chinese, Arabic and English, in that order. He scribbled something short and essential as a postscript, initialling his remarks with a large M whose middle leg was shorter than the two on either side of it.
And then it happened a second time.
This time there was a mind-boggling noise, like something heavy falling to the floor and breaking instantly. Everyone turned, all eyes were focused on Duniya, whose innocent grin pointed her up as the culprit. A thick glass paper-weight had dropped, along with a full cup of water, water running in every direction like fleeing ants in a scatter of panic. Hibo and the junior nurse removed Dr Mire’s papers as fast as they could, and Duniya helped, but not as though she had done anything wrong. There was no hostility in Dr Mire’s eyes. He treated her as though she were a member of the family who had behaved in an unsteady manner; there was only enough anger in his look to fill a thimble.
After helping the pregnant woman to her feet and giving her Dr Mire’s prescription, the junior nurse and Hibo considerately left the room, confident that the principal obstetrician would want to have a word with Duniya.
When they were alone Dr Mire said, “Would you prefer to take the day off, Duniya?”
Her lips trembled as she said, “Why?”
Mire raised his eyes, then pushed his spectacles towards where his hairline had begun to thin. He seemed older than his forty-five years, emptied of all energy. He had returned to Somalia after twenty years’ sojourn abroad, mainly in West Germany, where he had trained, and the USA, where he did his post-doctoral qualifications and then ran his own pharmacy and practice. He came home to donate his services to the government and people of his country, accepting no payment, only an apartment, conveniently located and modestly furnished. He was a childhood friend of Bosaaso’s and it was rumoured that the two men had offered the same conditions of service to the respective ministries to which they were attached, Health and Economic Planning.