For someone like Rebecca, who had a little card of the Holy Mother nailed on to the central pole of her hut, this ideological argument would have seemed too silly to think about: but she had never heard of it.
On the wall in Sylvia's room was tacked, straight on to the brick, a large reproduction of Leonardo 's Virgin of the Rocks, and some other smaller Virgins. It could be easy to conclude from that wall that this was a religion that worshipped women. The crucifix was a paltry thing in comparison. Rebecca sometimes sat on the bottom of Sylvia's bed, her hands folded, looking at the Leonardo, sighing, tears running. 'Oh, they are so beautiful.’You could say that the Virgin had slipped through the interstices of dogma by the way of Art. Sylvia had not known that she cared particularly for the Holy Mother but did know she could not live without reproductions of the pictures she loved best. Fish moth were attacking the edges of the posters. She must ask someone to bring her new pictures.
She fell asleep on her chair, looking at Father McGuire's insipid statuette and wondering why anyone could choose that if they could have a real statue, a real picture. She would not dream of saying this to Father McGuire who had been brought up in Donegal, in a small house with many children in it, and had come here to Zimlia straight from theological college. Did he not like the Leonardo then? He had stood a long time in the doorway of Sylvia's room, because Rebecca had told him, 'Father, Father, come and see what Doctor Sylvia has brought us.' His hands folded together on his stomach, and enlaced by his rosary, rose and fell as he stood there, and looked. ' Those are the faces of angels, ' he pronounced at last, ' and the painter must have seen them in a vision. No mortal woman ever looked like that. '
Next morning, while Rebecca's wash dried again after its dousing by the storm, Sylvia asked Aaron if he would ransack the bush for wrigglers, but he said he was afraid he had to read his books for Father McGuire.
She walked to the village, found some youths – who should have been at school – and said she would give them money to search the bush. ‘How much?'-and she told them, ‘I’ll give you a lump sum and you can share it. ' 'How much?' In the end they were demanding bicycles, textbooks for school, and new T-shirts. This was because they saw every white person as rich and with access to anything they wanted. She began to laugh, then they did, and it was settled they should have what she held in her hand, a clutch of Zimlia dollars, enough for some sweets at the store. Off they went, laughing in to the bush, and playing the fooclass="underline" the search would be a desultory one. Then she went to the hospital where she found Joshua sewing up a long quite deep cut.
‘You were not here, Doctor Sylvia. '
'I would have been here in five minutes.'
‘How was I to know that?'
This was an issue between them. He now did sew up wounds, and did it well. But he was attempting wounds that needed more skill than he had, and she had told him to stop. They were both watching the face of the boy, who was staring down at his arm where the needle slid through wincing flesh. He was brave, biting his lips. Joshua finished the stitching clumsily – Sylvia took the needle from him and did it herself. Then she went to the lock-up shed to measure out medicines. He followed her, leaving the reek of dagga on the air. 'Comrade Sylvia, I want to be a doctor. All my life, that is what I wanted.'
'No one is going to accept a man who uses dagga, for training.'
' If I was training, I would stop smoking. '
‘And who is going to pay for it?'
‘You can pay for it. Yes, you must pay for me. '
He knew – and so everyone did – that Sylvia had paid for the new buildings, was paying for the medicines, and for his wages. It was believed that behind her was one of the international donors, an aid organisation. She had told Joshua that no, it was her money, but he did not want to believe her.
On an old kitchen tray, relinquished by Rebecca, Sylvia arranged mugs of medicine, little piles of pills, many of them vitamins. She went with the tray to the tree where most of the patients lay, or sat, and began handing out mugs, and the pills, with water.
‘I want to be a doctor,’ said Joshua, roughly.
‘Do you know what it costs to train someone to be a doctor?’ she said to him, over her shoulder. ' Look, show this boy how to swallow this, I know it doesn't taste nice. '
Joshua spoke, the boy protested, but he took the potion. He was about twelve, undernourished, but he had worms, several varieties of them.
' Then, tell me how much it costs? '
‘Well, at a rough guess, with everything, probably a hundred thousand pounds. '
' Then you pay, for me. '
‘I do not have that kind of money. '
' Then, who paid for you? Perhaps the government? Was it Caring International?'
‘My grandmother paid for me. '
'You must tell our government to let me be a doctor and tell them I will be a good doctor.'
'Why should your black government listen to this terrible white woman, Joshua?'
' President Matthew said we could all have an education. That is the education I want. He promised us when the comrades were still fighting in the bush, our Comrade President promised us all a secondary education and training. So you go to the President and tell him to do what he promised us. '
‘I see that you have faith in the promises of politicians,’ she remarked, kneeling to lift up a woman who was weak from childbirth and who had lost the baby. She held her, feeling the black skin that should have been warm and smooth, rough and chilly under her hands.
' Politicians,’ said Joshua. ‘You call them politicians?'
She saw that the Comrade President, and the black government – his – were in a different place in his mind from politicians, who were white. ' If I made a list of promises your Comrade Mungozi made when the comrades were in the bush fighting, then we could all have a good laugh,’ said Sylvia. She gently laid the woman's head down, on a folded bit of cloth that kept it from the earth, muddy from the rain, and said, ' This woman, does she have some relative to give her food?'
‘No. She is living alone. Her husband died. '
‘What did he die of?'
AIDS was just entering the general consciousness, and Sylvia suspected that some of the deaths she saw were not what they seemed.
' He got sores, and he was too thin, and then he died. '
' Someone should feed this woman,’ said Sylvia.
'Perhaps Rebecca could bring her some soup that she is making for the Father.'
Sylvia was silent. This was the worst of her problems. In her experience hospitals fed their patients but here if there were no relatives, then no food. And if Rebecca brought down soup or anything else from the priest's table there would be bad feeling. If Rebecca would agree to bring it: a struggle went on between her and Joshua about who should do what. And, thought Sylvia, this woman was going to die. In a decent hospital, she would almost certainly live. If she were put in a car and taken to the hospital twenty miles away she would be dead before she got there. Sylvia had in her store some Complan, which she did not describe as food but as medicine. She asked Joshua to go and mix up some for the woman, thinking, I am wasting precious resources on a dying woman.
'Why?’ said Joshua. 'She will be dead soon.'
Sylvia, without a word, went to the shed, which she had incautiously not locked, and found an old woman reaching up to a shelf to fetch down a bottle of medicine. ‘What do you want?'