After years (or, rather, years of nights) spent observing mosquitos, I reached the conclusion that this creature is possessed of a deeply seated suicidal instinct, some uncontrollable need for self-destruction. Witnessing the demise of the predecessors does not discourage them, instead they hurl themselves one after the other, clearly excited and desperately determined, toward an inevitable and quick death.
Whenever I return to my apartment from some longer trip, I bring great confusion and discomfort into the lives of those I find there. For the place doesn’t stay empty during my absence. Barely have I shut the door behind me than a teeming, bustling, and meddlesome world of insects takes possession. From cracks in the floor and walls, from behind window frames and out of corners, from under moldings and parapets emerge into the light of day armies of ants and centipedes, of spiders and beetles; out fly swarms of flies and moths: the rooms fill up with the countless and varied little nothings, which I am unable to either describe or name; and all this moves its wings, grinds its chops, and minces its limbs. I most admire a certain variety of red ants, who appear suddenly out of nowhere, marching in a superbly even formation and in a perfectly synchronized rhythm, briefly enter one cabinet or another, consume whatever is sweet there, then leave their feeding ground and, walking again as before in an equally ideal order, disappear without a trace whence they came.
It was this way now, too, when I returned from Kampala. At the sight of me, part of the assembled company departed without any deliberation or delay, the others reluctantly, pouting. I drank some juice, looked through the letters and newspapers, and went to sleep. In the morning I got up with difficulty — I had no strength. Making matters worse, it was already the dry season, a time of terrible, withering heat waves that begin from the earliest morning hours. Rallying what strength I had, I wrote several dispatches about the situation in Uganda during the first weeks of independence and drove them to the post office. The clerk who took them from me wrote the date and time into my notebook. They were transmitted via teleprinter to our office in London, and from there to Warsaw: it was the cheapest way. I was astonished by the skill of the local teletypists: they transcribed the Polish text onto the telex without making a single error. I asked them once how this was possible. Because, they answered, they had been taught to copy not words or sentences, but letter after letter. “That is why it makes no difference to us in which language the telegram is written,” one of them explained to me. “So far as we’re concerned, we are not sending meanings, but marks.”
Despite the fact that quite some time had already elapsed since I’d left Kampala, instead of feeling better, I was feeling increasingly worse. It’s the remains of the malaria, I told myself, and on top of that the unbearable temperatures of the dry season. Despite the fact that I now began to feel an unfamiliar, intense warmth within, I thought it was the external heat somehow settling down inside me and radiating from there. I was dripping with sweat, but others, too, were drenched — sweat prevented you from being incinerated on the summer’s blazing pyre.
After a month of this diminished and wretched existence, I awoke one night feeling that my pillow was wet. I turned on the light and froze: my pillow was covered with blood. I rushed into the bathroom and looked in the mirror: my whole face was smeared with it. In my mouth I felt something sticky, with a salty taste. I washed, but was unable to get back to sleep until morning.
I remembered seeing a sign on one of the houses near the main street, Independence Avenue, with the name of a doctor on it. I went there. John Laird, a tall, slim Englishman, was bustling about his office, which was stacked high with crates and packages. He was returning to Europe in two days, but gave me the name and address of a colleague whom I should see. Close by, near the railway station, there’s an outpatient clinic; I would find him there. His name is Ian Doyle. “And,” he added, “he’s an Irishman” (as if in medicine, at least in this country, what mattered was not so much one’s specialty as one’s nationality).
The clinic occupied an old military building, which had served as the army barracks during the days when Tanganyika was a German colony. A listless crowd of Africans was camped out in front, suffering no doubt from all manner of illness. Inside I was greeted by a tired, drawn-looking middle-aged man, whose warmth and kindness struck me momentarily. His very presence, his smile and friendliness, acted like a balm on me. He told me to come to the Ocean Road Hospital that afternoon, because that was the only place with an X-ray machine.
I knew things weren’t right with me, but blamed everything on the malaria, and very much wanted the doctor to confirm my diagnosis. As we left the X-ray ward — Doyle had X-rayed me himself — he placed his hand on my shoulder, and we started to stroll over the gently rolling grounds covered with tall palm trees. It was pleasant here, for the palm trees gave shade and a light breeze blew from the ocean.
“Yes,” Doyle said finally, and lightly squeezed my arm, “it’s definitely tuberculosis.”
And he fell silent.
My legs buckled under me and grew so heavy I could raise neither one. We came to a stop.
“We will take you to the hospital,” he said.
“I can’t go to the hospital,” I said. “I don’t have enough money.”
A month’s stay in the hospital cost more than my quarterly salary.
“Then you have to return home,” he said.
“I can’t go home,” I replied. I felt the fever consuming me, I was thirsty and weak.
Then and there I decided to tell him everything. I had trusted this man from the start, and believed he would understand. I explained to him that this stay in Africa was the chance of a lifetime for me. That an appointment like mine was the first of its kind in my country: Poland had never before had a permanent correspondent in sub-Saharan Africa. That it came to pass thanks only to an enormous effort on the part of the editorial department, which is poor, for ours is a country where every dollar is precious. That if I inform Warsaw of my illness, they will be unable to pay for my hospitalization and will simply order me to return, and that I will most likely never come here again. And that the thing that had been a lifelong dream of mine — to work in Africa — will vanish forever.
The doctor listened to all this in silence. We were walking again among the palm trees, shrubs, and flowers, amid all that tropical beauty, poisoned for the moment by my defeat and despair.
Silence. Doyle was weighing something, deliberating.
“There is really only one solution,” he said at last. “You were at the local clinic this morning. Poor Africans go there for medical attention, because it’s free. Unfortunately, conditions are dismal. I don’t go there often myself, because I am the only pulmonologist in this whole large country, where tuberculosis is common. Your case is fairly typicaclass="underline" a strong malaria so weakens the system that you then easily succumb to another illness, frequently tuberculosis. Starting tomorrow, I will put your name down on the list of the clinic’s patients. I am authorized to do so. I will introduce you to the staff. You’ll come every day for an injection. We’ll try, we’ll see.”