The Memory of Love (46 page)

‘It certainly is,’ says Kai.

Foday grins. ‘They said this emperor wanted to wage war in the afterlife, to found a new empire with another emperor who was already deceased. Either that or these soldiers were for his protection.’ Foday laughs out loud. ‘I think this man was either very ambitious or very much afraid.’

‘Yes,’ agrees Kai, laughing too.

‘Or maybe both.’

Kai is silent.

‘I would like to see it for myself,’ says Foday.

‘Maybe you will one day,’ lies Kai.

But Foday shakes his head. ‘No. But if you find a picture for me, I would like that. Do you wish me to return the radio?’

‘No,’ says Kai. ‘You hold on to it.’ He’d taken it from Adrian’s room several weeks previously. Difficult to return now. He has not seen Adrian, much less spoken to him. He directs every ounce of his energy to not thinking about him. Not thinking about Adrian and Nenebah.

Kai says goodbye to Foday and as he walks away down the ward the thought occurs to him for the first time: he may not be here for Foday’s final operation.

Eight hours later and Kai lies on his back watching a silver spear of moonlight trace across the ceiling from the gap between the curtains.

He is wide awake.

CHAPTER 48

A handful of the men are playing football, not enough to make a five-a-side team, but enough for a kick-about. The pitch is a scraggy patch of tough grass and dirt. Discarded chains serve as goal markers. The men play barefoot, shirtless and with intent. Attila had given permission for the football games on the proviso Adrian came in to supervise them. Ileana and Attila were too busy and none of the nurses were considered sufficiently qualified to be left in charge of the unshackled men. Nobody, though, doubted the benefit of exercise to the men. Now Adrian watches the game, alert to any change in mood. So far, so good. Their concentration is upon the ball. On the opposite path he sees Attila followed by Salia. The psychiatrist stops and watches the game, nods at Adrian, who nods back. On the pitch the men play on.

After the game, Adrian has a session scheduled with Adecali. The young man arrives looking exhausted and underweight and does not sit down until Adrian invites him to do so. For a few moments Adrian watches Adecali’s left knee jerking up and down. From time to time his neck, head and shoulders convulse in a massive shudder. He has not looked directly at Adrian once since entering the room. At first Adrian had been troubled by the consistent failure of most of the men to make eye contact. It was Ileana who told him that to look an elder in the eye is regarded as an act of defiance. Still, Adecali’s gaze, darting about the floor as though in pursuit of an erratically moving insect, is anything but normal.

‘Do you remember in class we talked about having a special place, somewhere you can go when you’re finding things getting on top of you?’

Adecali nods.

‘Have you been going there?’

There have been a number of disturbances involving Adecali recently, one in the canteen just yesterday. His progress in the group sessions, initially so promising, has taken a turn for the worse.

Adecali nods and then shakes his head.

‘What does that mean, yes or no? Speak to me.’

‘I cannot always remember what you told us.’

‘Well, shall we practise it now? Whenever you have a frightening memory, something that upsets you, you can make yourself feel better. What about the relaxation techniques, the breathing?’ Though the men come willingly enough to the sessions, hardest of all is to get them to carry out the exercises on their own. The question is one of trust. The men are beginning to have confidence in Adrian, but his methods are still beyond them. They are uninitiated in the ideas of psychotherapy. And to find the required peace and stillness on the wards can’t be easy.

Adecali shakes his head.

‘All these things will help you to feel less stressed and less frightened. They will help you cope. Shall we try it here together?’

Adecali nods.

Adrian stands and crosses to the window, where he looks out at the ruffled surface of the sea. A fishing canoe is returning to shore, dipping in and out of sight. Adecali’s knee has stopped jerking. Adrian says, ‘Now I want you to take a deep breath … hold it … exhale.’

One by one he takes Adecali through the exercises, has him clench and release his fists and then his forearms, his shoulders, roll his head around his neck, tense and relax the muscles of his face, where most of Adecali’s tics occur. Finally his chest, legs and feet. Adecali is entirely biddable, as are all the men. Adrian never fails to find it remarkable, even accounting for the sedative effect of the drugs.

‘How do you feel?’

‘Yes, sir. I feel better.’

Adrian takes a breath. He says, ‘OK. Close your eyes. Now think about your special place. You can tell me about it if you want.’

‘The place I chose is a tree outside my village where I grew up.’

‘Is it somewhere you used to go as a child?’

‘Yes, if my mother beat me. Sometimes I sat underneath it. Other times I climbed up.’

‘OK, I want you to sit there and remember how it felt. What could you see from up high? What could you hear?’ Adrian is silent for a minute, watching Adecali. Then he says, ‘What I want you to do now is to talk about one of those times when you remember something from the past, something bad. You are going to describe it to me and we are going to talk about it. And then I’m going to teach you something that will help you stop these memories from coming at unexpected times and making you upset. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Adrian knows now, from their previous sessions, from whence Adecali’s horror of fire derives, so too his dread of the smell of roasting meat. Adecali had belonged to the rebel Sensitisation Unit. The Unit’s task was to enter a town marked for invasion ahead of the fighting contingent of the rebel army and by their methods to ensure the villagers’ future capitulation. As a strategy it worked. It saved on casualties – among the rebel forces, that is. It saved on ammunition. The Unit’s planning was meticulous, the process merciless, the outcome effective. Adecali’s job, his particular job, was to burn families alive in their houses.

‘Shall we begin? Would you like to describe one of those moments to me?’

Adecali is silent. Words seem to fail him. This happens often. Without Adrian’s prompting, the men seem incapable of acting. Perhaps this is how it worked in the battlefield. Adecali’s spirit, broken in much the same way as he set about breaking villagers’ wills. Now, without the gang, the drugs and the drink, the spur of violence, out beyond the triumph of survival, the desolation steals up and surrounds them.

Adecali begins to rub his forehead with the palm of his hand.

Adrian says, ‘Some time ago I was called to the ward. You were very upset. Do you remember why?’

Adecali nods.

‘What happened?’

Another silence, shorter this time. When Adecali begins to speak his words come in between rapid, shallow breaths. ‘They came with meat.’

‘Who did?’

‘Them that are on my ward.’

‘And why did that upset you?’

‘It made me feel sick in my stomach.’

‘Go on. What else did you feel?’

‘I felt fearful.’ He is quiet. His eyes are open now, staring at the floor. ‘I heard noises in my ears. I saw visions.’

‘What were those visions? Tell me exactly what you saw, from the beginning.’

‘I saw thatch burning, the thatch of a house. The smoke is in my nose and my mouth. I hear people shouting and screaming. There is a lot of noise. Singing. The people gathered around to watch, we make them come to see what we are doing and to chant and sing. It was my job. That is what I remember. A welcome song.
Sene-o
. I feel drumming in my ears. We pass around palm wine. I am the conductor, I have a baton. I conduct them. A woman refuses to sing. She makes me very angry. She has a baby on her back. I tell myself it is time to teach this woman a lesson. What will other people think of me if she does not sing?’ His leg has begun to jerk again. Bubbles of sweat pop out on his forehead. Adrian is aware of a rank odour rising in the room.

‘Keep going.’

‘I need to teach this woman a lesson. For refusing to sing. I take her baby and I throw it on the roof. The woman sings then, she sings. I make her sing.’ He is babbling now, rocking back and forth in his chair. ‘But now she is coming after me. She is in my dreams. She appears even when I am awake.’

‘What does it mean to you to see her?’

‘Her spirit sees me and is coming after me, for causing the death of her child.’

Adrian leans forward and touches Adecali on the shoulder. ‘OK, stop there.’

Adecali blinks.

Adrian comes to sit down opposite him.

‘Would you like a glass of water?’ Adrian fills a glass from the carafe on the table in front of him and pushes it across the table. Adecali drinks noisily.

‘What you’re experiencing,’ says Adrian, ‘are called flashbacks. A flashback is a memory of a bad thing that has happened, but sometimes these memories are so strong it makes it feel as though the thing is happening all over again, as though you are back in the same place. Sometimes you forget where you really are. The day in the ward, for example, when I came to help you, at first you didn’t recognise me, you had forgotten where you really were. Could I be right?’

Adecali nods. He is gripping the glass, resting it on his knee.

‘You can put the glass on the table now. What I want to do is to teach you some ways of coping with these flashbacks when they come, OK? We’re going to replay parts of that memory until you get used to it and it stops frightening you so much. You can learn to control it, just as though we had taped it and were playing it on a video player and you had charge of the remote.’

Adecali is looking at him with what appears to be intense concentration, biting his bottom lip.

‘You know what a video recorder is, don’t you?’

Adecali nods slowly once.

Thank goodness for that. ‘And so you know how to use one?’

Adecali shakes his head.

After Adecali is gone Adrian, halfway through writing up his notes of the session, puts down his pen, stands up and goes to the window. The fishing canoe is gone. A freight liner is moving, almost imperceptibly, across the horizon. If only it were so easy to rewind the past, he thinks. To where might he return? How far back would he go? What, if anything, would he change?

For nearly six months now Adrian has been listening to Elias Cole’s story; Cole has been using him as a confessor. The question is why. In Adrian’s experience it isn’t unknown for a patient endeavouring to conceal an uncomfortable truth – from themselves as much as anyone else – to confess to something lesser. The therapist is handed the role of judge and juror. If he accepts the version of events presented, the patient sees himself as absolved.

So what is Elias Cole’s real story?

Inside his room Elias Cole is being given a bath. He lies naked to the waist while Babagaleh holds up an arm, sponging the underside with water from a large basin on the side table. The older man’s thinness is pitiful, the shadow of his ribs visible either side of the sternum. The slack skin falls away from the bone, a cloth slung over a heap of sticks.

‘Stay, stay,’ as Adrian prepares to withdraw. ‘Babagaleh is finished here, anyway.’ He indicates to Adrian to sit. And to Babagaleh, ‘Go away now. Come back later.’

Babagaleh dries the old man off, pulls the bedclothes up over his chest and folds them over neatly. Unhurriedly he gathers up the basin, soap and towel and leaves the room.

‘How are you?’ says Adrian. No sign of the oxygen concentrator today. Mrs Mara must have had it repossessed.

‘As you see. I have been unwell, but now I am a little improved, though my trajectory remains in the same general direction.’ He smiles thinly. ‘How are you?’

‘I am well, thank you.’

‘You look a little different, somehow. Let me look at you.’ Cole cocks his head and regards Adrian. ‘You are looking rather solemn, if you don’t mind my saying so. I hope everything is all right.’

‘It is,’ says Adrian, summoning a smile. He draws his chair closer to the bed, decides to get straight to the point. ‘Have you heard of the Prisoner’s Dilemma?’

‘The Prisoner’s Dilemma? Yes, I am loosely familiar with the theory. Though it has been some time now.’

‘What do you understand from it?’

‘Two men are being held in jail for the same offence. The police don’t have enough evidence to make a charge, so instead they make a deal with each man to inform on the other. It is the same deal, the broad result of which is that, if each stays silent, then each is convicted of a lesser charge. If one gives information about the other, he will get off, but the other man will suffer an even greater penalty.’

‘That’s right,’ says Adrian. ‘And if they both confess, they will get a sentence longer than if they remain silent, but shorter than if one has been informed on by the other.’

‘You are talking about me and Julius.’

‘Game theory. That particular form of the game was devised by a mathematician in 1950 or thereabouts. It’s been in play ever since.’

The old man inhales and then exhales slowly. ‘I see.’

‘It’s a non-zero-sum game as opposed to a zero-sum game. It allows for the possibility of cooperation. There’s a move that benefits both players.’ He watches Elias Cole’s face carefully.

‘Yes, as I said, I’m familiar with the theory. I’m not sure how it relates to me and Julius, except that we were, quite literally, prisoners. The point you’re missing, of course, is that I could not confess to anything as I was not involved in anything. So that option was not open to me. I followed the only recourse there was.’

‘Of course,’ says Adrian. ‘I understand that perfectly. Let’s stick with the game for the time being. You see, it really concerns questions of self-interest and betrayal. If Prisoner A decides to act in his own self-interest he wins.’

‘But only if the other prisoner doesn’t do the same thing.’

‘Precisely, if the other prisoner does then they both lose. Unless of course Prisoner A knows Prisoner B is unlikely to betray him. It puts Prisoner A in a strong position. It’s really quite fascinating. It isn’t just mathematicians and philosophers who are interested in the outcomes. Economists, too. Rival companies manufacturing, oh, I don’t know, soft drinks, dog food. They have to decide whether it’s better to price fix or compete.’