The Sweetest Dream

'I want muti, doctor. I need muti.'

Sylvia heard those words oftener than any others. I want medicine. I want muti. ' Then, come to where the others are waiting for me to examine them. '

‘Oh, thank you, thank you, doctor, ' giggled the old woman and she ran out of the shed and into the bush.

' She's a bad skellum,’ said Joshua. ' She wants to sell the medicine in the village. '

'I didn't lock the dispensary.' She called it that, with an inward mock at herself.

Why are you crying? Are you sorry for me because I can't be a doctor?'

That too,’ said Sylvia.

I know what you know. I watch you and I learn what you do. Perhaps I would not need much training. '

She mixed the Complan and carried it to the woman who had gone past the need for it: she was nearly dead, her breath fluttering away in little gasps.

Joshua spoke to a little boy sitting with his sick mother, and said, Go back to the village and tell Clever to dig a grave for this woman. The doctor will pay him. ' The child ran off. To Sylvia he said, 'I want you to teach my son Clever, teach him, he can learn here.'

'Clever? Is that his name?'

‘When he was born his mother said his name must be Clever so that he will be clever. And he is, she was right. '

‘How old is he?'

' Six years old. '

' He should be at school. '

‘What is the good of going to school, when there is no headmaster and no books to learn from?'

' The headmaster will be replaced. '

‘But there are no books at the school. ' This was true. Sylvia hesitated and Joshua attacked with, ' He can come here and learn what you know. I can teach him what I know. We can both be doctors.'

' Joshua, you don't understand. I don't use more than just a little part of what I know here. Don't you see? This isn't a proper hospital. A proper hospital has...’ She despaired, turning away, shaking her head from the enormity of it, in exactly the same way as Joshua would, it was an African gesture; then squatted down and picked up a bit of twig, and began drawing a building in the soft wet earth. She was wondering, What would Julia say if she could see me now? She was squatting, knees apart, opposite squatting Joshua, but he sat lightly and easily on his thigh muscles, while she was balancing herself with one hand down beside her. With the other she drew a building of many storeys, and looked at Joshua and said, ' This is what a hospital is like. And it has X-rays – do you know what X-ray is? It has...' She was thinking of the hospital she had trained in, while she looked out at grass roofs over the reed mats, the dispensary shed, the hut where women gave birth, on mats. She was crying again.

‘You are crying because this is a bad hospital, but it should be me, it should be Joshua crying. '

‘Yes, you are right. '

‘And you must tell Clever he can come here. '

'But he must go to school. He cannot be a doctor or even a nurse without getting his exams.' 'I cannot pay for him at school.'

Sylvia was paying fees for four of his children, and for three of Rebecca's. Father McGuire paid for two of Rebecca's, but he did not get much money, as a priest.

‘Is he one of yours I am paying for now?'

‘No. You are not paying for him yet. '

In theory, schools were free. And they had been, at the beginning. Parents all over the country, promised education for their children, helped to build schools, their labour free, their most heartfelt devotion building schools where no schools had been. But now there were fees, and every term they were higher.

‘I hope you aren't going to have any more children, Joshua. It's just silly. '

‘We know it is a plot by the whites, to stop us having children, so that we become weak and you can do as you like. '

' That's so ridiculous. Why do you believe that nonsense?'

‘I believe what I see with my own eyes. '

' The same way you see a plot by the whites to kill you with AIDS' – he called it Slim. 'He's got Slim,' people might say; he, she, has the disease that makes you lose weight. Joshua had taken in all she knew about AIDS, and was probably better informed than members of the government who were still denying its existence. But he was sure that AIDS had been deliberately introduced by the whites, from some laboratory in the States, a disease created to weaken Africans.

The Selous Hotel in Senga had been inter-racial, earning much obloquy, long before Liberation, and now it was a comfortable old-fashioned place, often used for sentimental reunions of people who had been imprisoned under the whites – whites by whites – or been banned, or Prohibited or just harassed and made miserable. It was still one of the best hotels, but the new ones, of an international standard, were already racing up into the sky like arrows into the future – a remark by President Matthew often quoted in promotion brochures.

Tonight a table of twenty or so people stood prominently in the centre of the dining-room, where lesser guests told each other, 'Look, there's Global Money.' 'And there's the Caring International people.' At the head one end was Cyrus B. Johnson, who was boss of the section of Global Money that deal with that Oliver Twist, Africa, a silver-haired much-groomed man with the habit of authority. Next to him sat Andrew Lennox, and on the other side Geoffrey Bone, Global Money and Caring International respectively. Geoffrey had been an expert on Africa for some years. His enterprise had caused hundreds of the latest most elaborate tractors donated to an ex-colony up north to lie rotting and rusting around the edges of as many fields: spare parts, know-how and fuel had been lacking, quite apart from the agreement of the local people, who would have liked something less grandiose. He had also caused coffee to be planted in parts of Zimlia where it instantly failed. In Kenya millions of pounds disbursed by him had vanished into greedy pockets. He was disbursing millions here, in Zimlia, which were suffering the same fate. These errors had in no way set back his career, as might have happened in less sophisticated times. He was deputy head of CI, in constant discussion with G M. Next to him was his ever-faithful admirer Daniel whose shock of red hair was as much of a beacon as it ever was: Daniel was rewarded for his decades of devotion by a starry job as Geoffrey's secretary. James Patton, now Labour MP for Shortlands in the Midlands, was here on a fact-finding trip, but really because Comrade Mo, visiting London, had run into him at Johnny's, and said, ‘Why don't you come and visit us?' This did not mean that Comrade Mo was now a Zimlian, more than a citizen of any other part of Africa. But he knew Comrade Matthew – of course, as he seemed to know every new president – and when he was at Johnny's he would issue invitations as from some generic Africa, a benevolent burgeoning place with ever-open arms. It was because of Comrade Mo and his contacts that Geoffrey had reached his eminence; because of Comrade Mo's remark to some powerful person that Andrew Lennox was a clever up-and-coming lawyer, and he knew him well, 'had known him since he was a child' , Global Money had headhunted him from some rival enterprise. Other people around that table, among them Comrade Mo, had been habitues of Johnny's: international aid was the legitimate spiritual heir of the Comrades. At the other end of the table from Cyrus B. – as he was affectionately known by half the world – sat Comrade Franklin Tichafa, Minister for Health, a large public man with a capacious stomach and a spare chin or two, always affable, always smiling, but his eyes these days had a tendency to wander away from questions. He and Cyrus B. were more splendidly attired than anyone else here, but not more pleased with themselves. These people, with an assortment of representatives of other charity organisations, scattered tonight around other hotels, had spent some days driving all over Zimlia, staying at towns that had acceptable hotels, and fitting in visits to beauty spots and some famous game parks. They had all agreed at lunches, dinners and on coach trips – which is where the decisions that affect nations are really made – that what Zimlia needed was a rapid development of secondary industry, already established if sometimes only in embryo, but there were problems with President Matthew who was still in his Marxist phase, which was thwarting all attempts to make a modern country of Zimlia, and a great many people were manoeuvring themselves into positions where they could be nourished by the lively flood.