— I can’t swallow it without water.
— Yes you can, it’s very small and quite round. Good. Now don’t miss out tomorrow or the next day. You’ll see, you’ll soon feel quite different. Next please.
The grid grows big and splits the taut Bahuko face, alert as a monkey’s but shining with curved oblongs and blobs of white light from the heat of the day.
— Is it true what he said?
The vibration of the voice has not been sufficient to carry the question across the metal barrier and the question evaporates, leaving no trace of error in the air, except perhaps a residue at the back of the mind, to be answered by Mrs, Mgulu who writes no little notes and does not nod and aches there by her absence. The dark hand moves across the card, holding a golden pen. In the right arch of the nose, with the left eye closed, the vertical metal bar divides the taut Bahuko face almost exactly in half. In the left arch of the nose, with the right eye closed, the vertical bar moves to the right of the face. The horizontal bars frame the face above and below.
— Hermm! Excuse me. But is it true what he said?
— What? Speak up man, I can’t hear you.
— Is it true? What he said?
The shrug seems to fill the whole trellis, twining in and out of the squares.
— No. He always comes and makes a scene. It is his big moment. We play along with him. Nothing today I’m afraid. Here’s your pill.
— No thank you.
— Hey, are you starting that game? You must take it. It’s a new regulation. I’ve got my job to do and you’ve got — to take it. Go on.
The pill tastes bitter in the saliva under the tongue. The floor is mottled and full of feet in dirty canvas shoes. Men move aside. Above their heads the notice says Do Not Spit. The young palm tree stands cut in stillness against the blue intensity framed darkly by the door, and waits, as if to bend down and mop up the accumulating spit that sizzles suddenly on the burning pavement and then is lost in walking legs and under ambling feet.
— Wait.
The voice grabs the shoulder. The man has a pasty face and thin pale hair. His hand is now outstretched.
— You are my friend?
— No.
— But you spat!
— A man can spit can’t he?
— What? I can’t hear you.
— People don’t usually.
— You mean you always say things like that?
— Like what? I mean, oh it doesn’t matter. My voice. It’s very small.
— Oh I don’t think so, it’s just the noise here. I saw you … spit. Don’t worry I won’t tell. Did you see the way he made me take it like that. Why, I might have been a child. Where you from?
— The — er — just outside town.
— No. I mean before. Ukay?
— Yes.
— Uessay. Can I walk along with you?
— If you want to. I mean, it’s very crowded, isn’t it.
— I must talk to you. About these pills.
— Are you a doctor then?
— There you go, you’re as bad as they are. That’s not the point. But can you honestly say that you haven’t been feeling steadily worse since you started taking the pills? Stand here and cross your heart and say — hey, there’s no need to push, Madam, the street’s big enough for all of us. Mongrels. Sons of bitches, the lot. I’m sorry my friend. I am upset and irritable today. It’s the long-term effect of these pills, there is not a doubt about that, and I ask you once again to stand here and cross your heart and swear you haven’t been feeling steadily worse since you began taking them. Can you? No you cannot.
— Well, it’s true I do feel worse.
— More and more debilitated! Of course. They send up the leucocyte count you see. Oh, the onset is insidious, well advanced before diagnosis. Very clever. But I’m not having it.
— But do you have proof? I mean how did you come to these conclusions?
— What? I can’t hear a word you say.
— Well, you asked for it. The street’s much too crowded. OW!
— Oh, I could probably prove it, if I had the facilities. The laboratories and that. But at the moment it’s just an idea, a hunch if you like, you know, like the sulphonamides and derivatives, for years everyone thought they were the answer to everything, until the ultimate harm they were doing to the blood cells was finally realised and, well, that’s medical history, like leeches or anything else. And this could be the same.
— Have you told anyone about your suspicions? Anyone responsible?
— No. And they wouldn’t listen if I did, would they? It wouldn’t be in their interest. Because it’s true. So they treat you like a lunatic, and if you’re not careful they treat you like a subversive element.
The crowds knock into their sudden immobility. The noise mills about. The traffic hoots by slowly through the swarming people who gesticulate and move lethargically among the shouts from the vegetable stalls. The children and the old men grub about under and between the stalls, under and between the innumerable legs, hoping to find a fallen fig or some dropped seeds of maize. It is market day.
— Now, listen. As I said to that chap, I don’t mean they’re doing it on purpose, nor are you going to get me to say it. I don’t know who you are anyway, come to think of it you’re not as friendly as you seemed when I saw you spit.
— Well, I didn’t ask for your company.
— You’re dead right. Don’t you trust anyone. Here’s my card. I’d ask you round to my place, I live down town, couple of blocks along but I share the room with four others. I like you. Let’s get out of this and go sit on a bench. I’d like to know you.
— Well, er, I have to be getting back. My wife’s ill.
— Oh. I’m sorry. I see you have all the more reason to be suspicious.
— Well, it’s not quite like that. As a matter of fact I just won’t believe that. If I did I couldn’t go on living.
— What? I can’t hear you. Come along round this corner, that’s better, we can breathe. Now listen to me, I’ll tell you something. I believe we’re being slowly exterminated. And I’ll tell you another thing. I’m not having it. I don’t take my pills either. I spat out that one too.
— You’re mad. Stark raving mad.
— Ha! That’s what you’d like to believe, that’s what everyone’d like to believe. Oh, I know you lot, you ex-Europeans, you’ll play along with them as far as you can, you don’t want to know your own kind, do you, the cold-hearted kind, they call us all, you know, but it’s people like you that have made it so, it’s your sickness we’re suffering from. Your wife is ill is she, and you live in THE-er-just-outside-the-town, do you? I know where that is, I’ll find you, if I want to, that is.
The fist lands straight on the snarling mouth with the advantage of surprise, paralyzing the mind behind the fist as much as it disfigures the face beyond it, so that the returning blow astonishes equally. The side-street rocks, then straightens. The grip is less strong than expected, the staggering is unsteady, the man is feeble, sick perhaps, tears burn the eyes, the grip lasts longer than expected, and aching burns the throat and head, the staggering is unsteady, the side-street rocks, the paving stone moves up. Innumerable trousers widen slightly at the bottom, grey or buff-coloured, like trees, or in creased grey denim like fig-tree bark, and some legs bare and thin and white. From this position in the gutter the paving stones look as large as tables.