The Sweetest Dream (61 page)

He did not reply, but stood with the sandwich in his hand.

‘And what is wrong with you, Mr Mandizi?' said Mr Phiri.

Without replying, Mr Mandizi went out to the verandah
where Sylvia met him, coming up from the hospital.

She put her hand on his arm, and was talking to him in a low
persuasive voice.

From inside the room they heard, ‘Yes, I am sick and my
wife is sick too.'

Sylvia, with her arm around Mr Mandizi–he had lost so
much weight it was easy–went with him to the car.

Father McGuire was talking, talking, pushing the meat plate
towards his guest, the potatoes, the tomatoes. ‘Yes, you must fill
your plate, you must be so hungry, it has been a long time since
breakfast and I too am hungry, and your father–is he well? He
was my favourite pupil when I was teaching down at Guti. What
a clever boy he was.'

Mr Phiri was sitting with his eyes closed, recovering. When
he opened them, opposite him sat a small brown woman. Was
she coloured?–no, that was the colour they went when they had
too much sun, oh yes, she was the woman just now with Mr
Mandizi. She was smiling at Rebecca. Was this smile a comment
on him? Rage, which had been leaving him under the influence
of the good beef and potatoes, returned, and he said, ‘And are
you the woman they tell me has been taking our school equipment
for your lessons, so-called lessons?'

Sylvia looked at the priest, who was signalling to her, with a
tightening of his lips to say nothing. ‘Doctor Lennox has bought
exercise books and an atlas with her own money, you need have
no concern on that score, and now if you could give me news
about your mother–she was my cook for a while, and I can say
truly that I envy you with such a cook for a mother.'

‘And what are those lessons you are giving our pupils? Are
you a teacher? Do you have a certificate? You are a doctor, not
a teacher.'

Again, Father McGuire made it impossible for Sylvia to reply.
‘Yes, this is our good doctor, she is a doctor and not a teacher,
but there is no need for a teacher's certificate if you are reading
to children, if you are teaching them to read.'

‘Okay,' said Mr Phiri. He was eating with the nervous haste
of one who uses food as a pacifier. He pulled the bread to him
and cut a great slab: no
sadza
, but enough bread would do almost
as well.

Rebecca suddenly chimed in: ‘Perhaps the Comrade Inspector
wants to come down and see how our people like what the doctor
is doing, how she is helping us?'

Father McGuire managed to control severe irritation. ‘Yes,
yes,' he said. ‘Yes, yes, yes. But on a hot day like this I am sure
Mr Phiri would prefer to stay here with us in the cool and have
a nice good strong cup of tea. Rebecca, please make the Inspector
some tea.' Rebecca went out. Sylvia was about to tackle Mr Phiri
about the missing exercise books and textbooks and the priest
knew it, and he said, ‘Sylvia, I am sure the Inspector would like
to hear about the library you have made in the village?'

‘Yes,' said Sylvia. ‘We have about a hundred books now.'

‘And who paid for them, may I ask?'

‘The doctor has very kindly paid for them herself.'

‘Indeed. And then I suppose we must be grateful to the doctor.'
He sighed, and said, ‘Okay,' and that was like a sigh.

‘Sylvia, you haven't eaten anything.'

‘I think I'll just have a cup of tea.'

In came Rebecca with the tea tray, set out the cups, the saucers,
all very slow and deliberate, arranged the little net fly-shield with
its beaded blue edge over the milk jug, and pushed the big teapot
towards Sylvia. Normally, Rebecca poured the tea. She returned
to the kitchen. The Inspector frowned after her, knowing there
had been insolence, but he could not put his finger on it.

Sylvia poured, never lifting her gaze from what her hands
were doing. She put a cup near the Inspector, pushed the sugar
bowl towards him, and sat making heaps of crumbs with her
bread. A silence. Rebecca was humming out in the kitchen, one
of the songs from the Liberation War, designed to annoy Mr
Phiri, but he didn't seem to recognise it.

And now, luckily, there was the sound of a car, and then it
had stopped, sending showers of dust everywhere. Out stepped
the mechanic in his smart blue overalls. Mr Phiri got up. ‘I see
that my car is here,' he said vaguely, like someone who has lost
something, but does not know what or where. He suspected that
he had behaved in an improper manner, but surely not, when he
had been in the right about everything.

‘I do so hope you will tell your father and your mother that
we met, and that I pray for them.'

‘I will, when I do see them. They live out in the bush beyond
the Pambili Growth Point. They are old now.'

He went out to the verandah. There were butterflies all over
the hibiscus bushes. A lourie was making itself heard, half a mile
away. He walked to his car, got in at the back, and the car drove
off in rivers of dust.

Rebecca came in, and unusually for her, sat at the table with
them. Sylvia poured her some tea. No one spoke for a while.
Then, Sylvia said, ‘I could hear that idiot shouting from the
hospital. If I ever saw a candidate for a stroke, it is the Comrade
Inspector.'

‘Yes, yes,' said the priest.

‘That was disgraceful,' said Sylvia. ‘Those children, they have
been dreaming of the Inspector for weeks. The Inspector will do
this, he will do that, he will get us the books.'

Father McGuire said, ‘Sylvia, nothing has happened.'

‘What? How can you say . . .'

Rebecca said, ‘Shame. It is a shame.'

‘How can you be so reasonable about it, Kevin?' Sylvia did
not often called the priest by his Christian name. ‘It's a crime.
That man is a criminal.'

‘Yes, yes, yes,' said the priest. A pretty long silence. Then,
‘Have you not ever thought that that is the story of our history?
The powerful take the bread out of the mouths of the povos–the povos just get along somehow.'

‘And the poor are always with us?' said Sylvia, sarcastic.

‘Have you ever observed anything different?'

‘And there is nothing to be done and it will all go on?'

‘Probably,' said Father McGuire. ‘What interests me is how
you see it. You are always surprised when there is injustice. But
that is how things always are.'

‘But they were promised so much. At Liberation they were
promised–well, everything.'

‘So politicians make promises and break them.'

‘I believed it all,' said Rebecca. ‘I was a real fool, shouting
and cheering at Liberation. I thought they meant it.'

‘Of course they meant it,' said the priest.

‘I think all our leaders went bad because we were cursed.'

‘Oh, may the Lord save us,' said the priest, snapping at last.
‘I will not sit to listen to such nonsense.' But he did not get up
from the table.

‘Yes,' said Rebecca. ‘It was the war. It is because we did
not bury the dead of the war. Did you know there are skeletons
over there in the caves on the hills? Did you know that?
Aaron told me. And you know that if we do not bury our dead
according to our customs then they will come back and curse
us.'

‘Rebecca, you are one of the most intelligent women I know
and . . .'

‘And now there is AIDS. And that is a curse on us. What
else can it be?'

Sylvia said, ‘It's a virus, Rebecca, not a curse.'

‘I had six children and now I have three and soon there will
be two. And every day there is a new grave in the cemetery.'

‘Did you ever hear of the Black Death?'

‘How should I hear? I did not get beyond Standard One.'
This meant, that she had heard, knew more than she would let
on, and wanted them to tell her.

‘There was an epidemic, in Asia and in Europe and in North
Africa. A third of the people died,' said Sylvia.

‘Rats and fleas,' said the priest. ‘They brought the disease.'

‘And who told the rats where to go?'

‘Rebecca, it was an epidemic. Like AIDS. Like Slim.'

‘God is angry with us,' said Rebecca.

‘May the Lord save us all,' said the priest. ‘I'm getting too
old, I'm going back to Ireland. I am going home.'

He was querulous, like an old man, in fact. And he did not
look well either–in his case, at least, it could not be AIDS. He
had had malaria again recently. He was tired out.

Sylvia began to cry.

‘I'm going to get my head down for a few minutes,' said
Father McGuire. ‘And I know it is no use telling you to do the
same.'

Rebecca went to Sylvia, lifted her, and the two went together
to Sylvia's room. Rebecca let Sylvia slide down on her bed where
she lay with a hand over her eyes. Rebecca knelt by the bed and
slid her arm under Sylvia's head.

‘Poor Sylvia,' said Rebecca, and crooned a child's song, a
lullaby. The sleeve of Rebecca's tunic was loose. Just in front of
her eyes, through her fingers, Sylvia could see the thin black arm,
and on the arm a sore, of the kind she knew only too well. She
had been dressing them on a woman down in the hospital that
morning. The weeping child that Sylvia had been until that
moment departed: the doctor returned. Rebecca had AIDS. Now
that Sylvia knew, it was obvious, and she had known, without
admitting it, for a long time now. Rebecca had AIDS and there
was nothing that Sylvia could do about it. She shut her eyes,
pretended to slide into sleep. She felt Rebecca gently withdraw
herself and go out of the room.

Sylvia lay flat, listening to the iron roof crack in the heat. She
looked at the crucifix, where the Redeemer hung. She looked at
various Virgins in their blue robes. She took a glass rosary off its
hook by her bed, and let it rest in her fingers: the glass of the
beads was warm, like flesh. She hung it back.

Opposite her the Leonardo women filled half a wall. Fish
moth had attacked the beautiful faces, the edges of the poster were
lace, the children's chubby limbs were blotched.

Sylvia got herself out of that bed and went down to the village,
where a great many disappointed people would be waiting for
her.

 • • •

Granddaughter of a notorious Nazi, daughter of a career communist,
Sylvia Lennox has found a rural hideyhole in Zimlia, where she owns
a private hospital, supplied by equipment stolen from the local government
hospital
.

The problem was, this ignorant country had not yet caught
up with the fact that communism was politically incorrect, and
then, the word Nazi did not get the reactions it did in London.
A lot of people here liked the Nazis. There were only two epithets
that could be guaranteed to get a reaction. One was ‘racist', the
other ‘South African agent'.

Rose knew Sylvia was not a racist, but, since she was white,
most blacks would be ready to say she was. But it needed only
one letter in the
Post
from a black saying Sylvia was a friend of
the blacks–no, but how about
spy
? That was tricky too. In that
time just before apartheid collapsed, the spy fever in South Africa's
neighbours was boiling over. Anyone who had been born in South
Africa, or had lived there; who had gone there for a holiday
recently; who had relations there; anyone criticising Zimlia for
anything, or who suggested things might be better done; people
who ‘sabotaged' an enterprise or a business by losing or damaging
equipment, such as a box of envelopes, or half a dozen screws–anyone at all who had become the focus of even mild disapproval,
could be, and usually was, described as the agent of South Africa
–which of course was doing everything it could to destabilise its
neighbours. So, in such an atmosphere, it was easy for Rose to
believe that Sylvia was a South African spy, but when so many
were, it was not enough.

Then Rose had a stroke of luck. A telephone call from
Franklin's office invited her to a reception for the Chinese
Ambassador, where the Leader would be present. At Butler's Hotel. At the
best. Rose put on a dress and took herself there early. Already, after
only a few weeks, if she was at a party for what she described to
herself as the ‘alternative crowd', she knew them all, at least to greet.
Journalists, editors, the writers, the university people, the ex-pats,
the NGOs–a mixed crowd, and a clever one, a quality she
distrusted, since she always imagined people laughing at her–and it
was still more white than black. They were informal, irreverent,
hardworking, and most of them still full of faith in the future of
Zimlia, though some were bitter and had lost faith. The other
crowd, the one she would be with this evening, was where she
felt at home–rulers and bosses, leaders and ministers, the ones
with power, and more black than white.

Rose stood in a corner of the great room whose general style
and elegance soothed her, telling her she was in the right place,
and waited for Franklin to come in. She was being careful not to
drink too much–yet. She would get drunk later. The room was
filling, then it was full, and still no Franklin. She was standing
next to a man whose face she knew from
The Post
. She was not
going to say she was a London journalist, a breed so hated by this
government, but said, ‘Comrade Minister, it is an honour to be
in your wonderful country. I am visiting here.'

‘Okay,' said he, pleased, but certainly not ready to spend time
on this unattractive white woman who was probably somebody's
wife.

‘Am I right in thinking of you as the Minister for Education?'
said Rose, knowing he was not, and he replied, amiable but
indifferent, ‘No, as it happens the Under Minister for Health. Yes, I
have the honour to be that.'