He swept the two women before him out of the office and through the silent petitioners, saying, 'I will be back in my office in ten minutes. Wait. '
Sylvia and Rebecca were directed through the hot dusty glare to one of the new houses, ten of them in a row, like boxes sitting in the dust, but identical to the big new houses going up in Senga, scaled down to the importance of Kwadere Growth Point. Over them scarlet, purple and magenta bougainvillaeas marked them for distinction: here lived all the local officials.
'Come in, come in,' Mr Mandizi urged, and they were in a small room stuffed with a three-piece suite, a sideboard, refrigerator, pouffe, and then in a bedroom filled with a big bed where lay someone ill, and beside her a pretty plump black woman fanning the sleeper with a bunch of eucalyptus leaves, whose smell was trying to overcome the sickroom odours. But was the invalid asleep? Sylvia stood over her, saw with shock that this woman was ill, very ill – she was dying. She should have been a glossy healthy black, but she was grey, sores covered her face, and she was thin, the head on the pillow showed the skull. There was hardly any pulse. Her breath barely moved. Her eyes were half open. Touching her left Sylvia's fingers cold. Sylvia turned her face to the desperate husband, unable to speak, and Rebecca beside her began to wail softly. The plump young woman stared straight ahead, and went on with her fanning.
Sylvia stumbled out to the other room and leaned against the wall.
' Mr Mandizi,’ she said, ' Mr Mandizi. ' He came up to her, took her hand, leaned to stare into her face, and whispered, ‘Is she very ill? My wife...' 'Mr Mandizi...’ He let his body fall forward so that his face lay on his arm on the wall. He was so close to Sylvia she put her arm around his shoulders and held him as he sobbed.
‘I’m afraid she will die, ' he whispered.
‘Yes. I am sorry, I think she is dying. '
'What shall I do? What shall I do?'
' Mr Mandizi, do you have children?'
‘We had a little girl but she died. '
Tears were splashing on to the cement floor.
'Mr Mandizi,' she whispered – she was thinking of that plump healthy woman next door, 'you must listen to me, you must, please do not have sex without a condom.'
It was such a terrible thing to say at that moment, it was ridiculous, but the dreadful urgency of his situation compelled her. ' Please, I know how this must sound, and don't be angry with me.' She was still whispering.
‘Yes, yes, yes, I heard what you said. I am not angry.'
' If you want me to come back later, when you are... I can come back and explain it to you.'
‘No, I understand. But you don't understand something.' He pulled himself off the support of the wall and stood upright. He spoke normally now. ‘My wife is dying. My child is dead. And I know who is responsible. I shall consult our good n'ganga again.'
' Mr Mandizi, you simply can't be saying...’
‘Yes, I am saying it. That is what I am saying. Some enemy has put a curse on me. This is the work of a witch.'
‘Oh, Mr Mandizi, and you are an educated man...’
‘I know what you are thinking. I know how you people think. '
He stood there before her, his face contorted with anger and with suspicion. 'I will get to the bottom of this.' Then he commanded. 'Tell them at the office I will be returning in half an hour.'
Sylvia and Rebecca began to walk away towards the lorry.
They heard, ‘And that so-called hospital at the Mission. We know about it. It is a good thing that our new hospital will soon be built and we shall have some real medicine in our district. '
Sylvia said, ' Rebecca, please don't tell me that you agree with what he is saying. It is ridiculous. '
Rebecca was first silent and then said, 'Sylvia, you see, in our culture it is not ridiculous. '
‘But it is a disease. Every day we understand more about it. It is a terrible disease. '
‘But why do some people get it but other people don't get
it? Can you explain that? And that is the point, do you understand what I am saying? Perhaps there is some person who wanted to harm Mr Mandizi, or who wanted to get rid of his wife? Did you see that young woman in the bedroom with Mrs Mandizi? Perhaps she would like to be Mrs Mandizi herself?'
'Well, Rebecca, we are not going to agree.'
'No, Sylvia, we are not going to agree.'
At the lorry people were already waiting to clamber in but Sylvia said, ‘I am not driving home yet. And I will let six people come, only six. We are going to the new hospital and it is bad road.' She could see the beginnings of it, a rough track through the bush.
Rebecca issued urgent commands. Six women got in the back.
‘I’ll pick you up in half an hour, ' Sylvia said, and the lorry lumbered and lurched over roots, stones, potholes, for another mile or so, and they arrived where the outlines of a building had been laid down in a clearing among trees. These were big old trees; this was old bush, a bit dusty, but full and green.
The two women and the children got out of the cabin of the lorry, and the six women followed them. The women stood staring at what was described as the new hospital.
Swedes? Danes? Americans? Germans? – some country's government, devoted to the sorrows of Africa, had caused a lot of money to be directed here, to this clearing, and in front of them were the results. As with an architect's plan, these observers had to use their minds to work out the shape of things to come from these foundations, and walls begun and not finished, for the trouble was, it had been a good while arriving, the next instalment of aid money, and the rooms, wards, corridors, operating theatres and dispensaries were filling with pale dust. Some walls stood waist high, some were at knee level, blocks of concrete had holes in them filled with water. The women from the village, seeing the hope ofsomething useful, went forward and retrieved a couple of bottles, and half a dozen tin cans, which they shook, getting rid of dust, and then put them carefully into big hold-alls. Someone had had a picnic here or a wanderer had built a fire for the night to keep off animals. The faces of these visitors had on them the expressions seen so often in our time: we are not going to comment, but someone has blundered. And who had? And why? Rumour said that the money earmarked for this hospital had been stolen on the way; some said that the government in question had simply run out of funds.
On the other side of the clearing, under the trees, large wooden cases lay about. The six women went over to look and Sylvia and Rebecca followed. A case had split open. Inside was dental equipment: a dentist's chair.
'Pity I am not a dentist,' said Sylvia. 'We could certainly do with one. '
Another case, split at the sides, showed that inside was a wheelchair.
'Oh, doctor,' said one of the women, 'we must not take this chair. Perhaps one day the hospital will be built. ' She was pulling the chair out.
‘We need a wheelchair,’ said Rebecca.
'But they'll want to know where it came from and our hospital doesn't run to a wheelchair. '
‘We should take it,’ said Rebecca.
' It's broken,’ said the woman. Someone had tried to pull the chair out of its wooden shelter and a wheel had come loose.
Four more cases lay about. Two of the women went to one and began wrenching at the rotten wood. Inside were bedpans. Rebecca, without looking at Sylvia, took half a dozen bedpans to the lorry and came back. Another woman found blankets, but these were eaten by insects, and mice were nesting in them, and birds had pulled out threads to line their nests.
' It will be a good hospital,’ said one woman, laughing.
'We shall have a fine new hospital in Kwadere,' said another.
The village women laughed, enjoying themselves, and then Sylvia and Rebecca joined in. In the middle of the bush, miles from the philanthropists in Senga (or, for that matter, London, Berlin, New York), the women stood and laughed.