Bab 8: Chapter 8
In the morning, after his early round of check-ups, Charles Graves sat himself down on the veranda with a shirt and a mending kit. Almost all the trees beside the courtyard were ungrafted, and wild. But most budded, and produced excellent fruit when the season came. It was a popular meeting ground for children. The real little ones. And once those same children reached a certain self-declared maturity, you could see them hang out in groups around the market.
There were many children today, and over the past weeks they had passed their initial shyness and had come to the conclusion that they liked him. Charles would play with them on occasion. The joy which they inspired on the otherwise serious clinic grounds, delighted him. At recreation hours, Charles Graves watched them running and playing in the yard, and after a while he started to distinguish the laughs of children he knew better than others when they ran by.
Now, he finished the ripped hem, lifted the mended shirt and sewing kit off his lap, stood up and looked at the three boats on the horizon, stark against the lake and the mountain, and then went in and took a shower. The water heater had only been on since Daudi had left in the early hours and there was not much hot water. But he didn't care for it. Charles soaped himself clean, scrubbed his head, and finished off with cold water. He dressed in a white flannel shirt and light slacks and his ten-year-old English brogues, and took with him an old safari jacket. He went for the kitchen.
Hadebe was standing at the cabinet. Charles knocked on the open doorpost and sat himself down. A fresh stack of papers lay on the counter. Hadebe saw him look.
"Bakari brought it with him from Meru." She spoke.
He turned in his chair and reached out far to pick up the papers. "How old are they?"
"Couple of weeks."
That'll have to do, he thought. Be happy. At least you've got a paper. It'll be some time before you'll see another.
Charles settled. Hadebe passed him breakfast. He grunted in thanks.
"There's a minimum height of five foot nine, you know." Charles said, eying the headlines. He reached for his cup without looking.
"For what— Old, British men that won't share the mutura?" Hadebe pulled a plate towards her as she sat down at the kitchen table.
He shook his head. "My brother, Paul, is five foot eight. You know what they did? The recruiting officer measured him in his shoes."
Hadebe made a noise around a mouthful.
"Back home they're proud of him. And to think we lost my uncle in the damned war. You'd think they forgot."
Hadebe made a disapproving noise, swallowing. "If you think they forgot you are far more naive than I took you for, Charles."
"No— it's just..."
"You don't easily forget such things."
"I know that, I just didn't think they'd approve so easily."
"Did you not fight?"
"No. I was studying and living with my uncle in Cambridge at the time. My uncle went and I pledged myself a pacifist. My brother was twelve at the time and remained in Aix-en-Provence throughout it all. Same with my sister. I only became an Englishman in '21'."
"To work?"
"To marry."
"The ugali is homemade. Leave some for Dhakiya."
Charles looked up. "Is she not here today?"
"She went into town. She'll be here after."
❧
The call came in at six that evening. By then, the girl had been in labour for more than ten hours and the woman who'd come from Kalacha had walked the whole day. At half past seven Hadebe and Charles passed North Horr. At eight the BeRliet broke down halfway between North Horr and Kalacha.
Charles shifted around, drawing a leg up, the hard underground uncomfortable on his lower back. Hadebe was puttering under the bonnet.
Hadebe and he were both frustrated. There was no way they were going to find and fix whatever problem there was in an apposite amount of time, and their forced stop had robbed them of twenty minutes, already. It became clear that Hadebe had had enough when she told Charles that she would give them another fifteen minutes, and then she would go on foot and leave Charles with the car. If he fixed it, he'd drive to Kalacha; and either pick her up on the way or assist her once he arrived.
Charles Graves shifted around again. Fix it, he told himself. Fix it and be on your way.
Fixing things. He was good at fixing things.
Most things.
He should keep it at that.
"I'm going," Hadebe said, lightly, and Charles jerked to look at her and watched her abandon the bonnet, her expression falsely unconcerned. "You should finish that," she added, as she stretched to her feet, "before you have to get the torch out."
Charles watched her take up her bag from the back seat and walk away. She turned to glance over her shoulder. "We can't risk waiting here and fixing something we don't know what we're fixing." She turned away when she continued, and her tone sounded breezy, but there was something off. And there was nothing casual about the harsh line of her shoulders. "It's not going to be pretty work. If you get it running then come find me."
❧
Charles turned the car left up the forked road and followed the slight bend along the grassland. The call of some nightly animal could be heard in the distance, and closer, the sounds of Kalacha closing in. Ahead were the lights of the houses and beside him were the sorghum fields.
Charles Graves passed a hand over his face. He let it catch in his hair and made a supple effort to stretch out his limbs and moved further back upright in his seat. The wheel lay loose in his hand.
In the house nearest the road there was a light in the window. Charles parked right by the animal trough. An old woman stood in the doorway holding a lamp and Charles nodded at her once in greeting. The smell hit him as soon he pushed past the curtain.
Inside, on a low cot, lay the girl. She cried out just as Charles stepped through the doorway and Charles ground his jaw. The girl's head was turned away from the doorway and Hadebe stood crouched between her legs. The doctor didn't look up nor acknowledged him, but the woman next to Hadebe gave Charles an affronted look and said something Charles didn't understand. Hadebe's answer was cut off by another miserable, elongated cry, and the older woman threw Charles another look and then bowed down closer to Hadebe, sounding even more insistent. Hadebe finally looked up.
"Yeye ni daktari," Hadebe scolded the old woman. "Utahitaji msaada wake."
Charles turned to the other woman in the kitchen. She indicated a basin.
"Joto sana. Watch out." She said and poured about half of the water out of a big kettle into the basin.
Charles said nothing and began to scrub his hands in the basin of hot water with a cake of soap, watching the familiar motion of his hands scrubbing each other. The woman at the kettle spoke up:
"Unahitaji kitu kingine chochote?" She waved at the basin.
"No." Charles Graves said. He didn't need anything else. "Asante." And then he was satisfied with his hands and he went back in and went to work.
"So, you decided to join us after all?" Hadebe said.
"How is she?"
"You won't have to operate." Hadebe continued. "She'll pull through. We'll know in a little while."
The girl screamed. Her knuckles white as she gripped the edge of the cot, her nails dry and broken. A shadow lay deep under her eyes.
It was a long time before Hadebe picked the baby up and slapped it to make it breathe and handed it to one of the older women.
Charles breathed, taking the moment to flex his fingers; they were cramping. Hadebe threw him a look. Charles nodded.
"Yeah, go along. I'll sew up the incision." He said, and shifted. His knees popped. Charles Graves heard the child's cries distance themselves, and the poor miserable girl on the cot said something Charles didn't understand. Hadebe and he kept up an amiable discourse though-out. Saying nothing of importance but both talkative and feeling exalted as athletes are in the dressing room after a race.
❧
The girl had been given something to help her sleep.
He came out of the long, dim house and went down the street into the air of the Kenyan night. The dogs played around his legs and a sad stray came up grovelling and wagging his tail with a lowered head.
"Run along," Charles said to the stray. He patted him and the dog fawned. The dogs were cheery and prancing in the excitement of the cold and the wind. One was going gray with age, her tail curled over her back, her feet and legs almost brittle as she stood, her muzzle resembling a fox terrier and her eyes loving and tired.
He remained still, outside, as he heard Hadebe talk to one of the older women. One of them had handed Charles some soap earlier, and pointed him in the direction of the basin.
Charles closed his eyes, another stab of exhaustion welling within him. He breathed. Charles then dropped down behind the wheel, regarding the stars above with a numb kind of detachment and then jumped as Hadebe opened the passenger door. She looked worse than he felt.
He marshalled the scraps of energy remaining to him, and said, "I'll have us going in five."
❧
When Charles pulled the car under the acacia, it was early morning. They got out without saying anything.
At the main house, Bakari was seen carrying dried linen from the porch. A young girl was seen coming up the street and Bakari called to her and the girl grinned and shook her head.
"She is a younger sister of Daudi." Bakari said.
"I know," Charles Graves said.
As he talked, irritated and short as always with the kid as Hadebe had let him go twice already but had taken him back each time when his father had come and pled for him, Daudi came over carrying a bidon and a telegram. He was smiling cautiously.
"How was the voyage?" Daudi asked.
"A little rough."
Once they ascended the steps of the patio, Hadebe sighed and turned round. "Why do you not go and clean up? A change of clothes. Not uncalled for," she added delicately.
It did sound tempting. Everything ached, not just his muscles.
"Go," the woman said.
Ten minutes, Charles decided. Ten minutes to pull himself back together. "Alright."
Charles Graves went up the hallway to his bedroom. Like the rest of the house, it was decorated in a stripped, simplistic style. He unclipped his belt and left it on the bed, then stripped out of his clothes, adding to the heap at the foot of the bed. There were towels on the top shelf of the wardrobe; he tied one around his waist and padded barefoot out to the shared bathroom at the very end of the hall.
The door had a bolt, but Charles chose not to slide it across. It was rusted. Hadebe was the only one around, and she wouldn't be walking in. Groaning, Charles removed the towel and draped it over a rail. There was an oddly shaped tub above the granite tiles. Charles stood before it and looked down at the water. Before the inception of the clinic, the house had been the residence of an elder couple from the '04 English generation that migrated to the Turkana region. It had base pluming. But the water always took on a troubled hue when leaving the pipes.
It had been the same when he'd resided at Cambridge. The little studio appartement with the broken pipes and the white lace curtains and little ornate balcony looking over the bridge.
He'd once watched Jean Varga walk over the square and pass over the bridge. Charles had been a first-year at the time, and not even brave enough to put on a big mouth when he went down to The Mundi that was but a few streets from where he and Isaac Hyman — a classmate — rented a studio apartment together.
During one of those evenings, Charles remembered, when he'd finished his last exams and was relieved to finally become a second-year, something strange had happened at The Mundi. One of the fourth-years, Jean Varga, had come to their table and shouted: "Everyone shut up! Which one of you fools ever heard of Sarajevo?"
Nobody had answered. Charles and his classmates pushed each other and looked uncomfortably around the room. This had nothing to do with the July Crisis, they were constantly looking around uncomfortably at The Mundi these days. Officially they were no longer freshmen, but only Charles and his fellow classmates seemed to realize this. And they were still the youngest here until the new academic year started. They had split up into five year clubs, each sitting around their own table, on top of each other in a circle, and the seniors showed them the respect usually imparted to a nest of pests.
No news there.
"Answer me, people! Which ones of you has heard of Sarajevo? Show of hands!"
It had been 1914. Asquith was first minister, Dorothea Lambert Chambers had won the Wimbledon Championships for the seventh time, cricket had been in full swing, and Cambridge had been the fastest on water; Heidelberg sang 'By the Beautiful Sea' and Vernon and Irene Castle danced the foxtrot. Austria was still Austria-Hungary, and for the Dutch there seemed to be nothing going wrong; at The Schamton, their faculty held an annual dinner, and a few hundred miles east, Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia. You could have been living in a cave, it was impossible, even for Charles, to pretend that you hadn't heard of it yet. And at first, there was a slight hesitation felt in the air, but ultimately, they all raised their hands.
Varga hummed contently. "Now, pay attention! What do you think of it?"
This caused consternation. What did this guy want? Where they going to walk into something? The question itself was strange. They considered themselves apolitical and took pride in it. Political discussions were not rare at The Mundi, but certainly not more important than the results of sports competitions.
"Big forehead," somebody shouted.
"Shits bricks." Someone else joined him.
"Creepy bugger."
"I'd steal his car, though."
"I'd steal his wife!"
A cheer rose from the group of students gathered around the tables. Everyone agreed on that, at least. Personally, Charles didn't care for the whole situation that much. Sure, he still had family living on the continent mainland, but he'd heard from them only this week, and his little sister had visited him at Christmas.
"Shut up!" Jean Varga shouted. He shook his head. A sombre gleam to his eyes. "Which ones of you know that on the other side of the canal, they're laughing at your English roots? Do any of you know?"
Charles and his table began to shuffle restlessly in their seats. It had been approaching two in the morning, traditionally The Mundi's busiest hour. They looked around the room.
"Pay attention!" Varga shouted. "Which ones of you fools knew that? Raise of hands!"
They had heard something about it, by rumour, but it was of little importance to them. Who truly cared about the indecisiveness of the French government or the eternal famine in India? Who cared about the strikes in Hungary and the talks in Serbia? What happened here at The Mundi was important. The fact that they'd finished their first year was important. No one had raised a hand. They'd grown tired of Varga's games.
"Do you see?" Exclaimed Varga, turning to the group of his fellow fourth-years behind him. "They don't believe it. They simply don't believe it." But there had no longer been any spectators. They had since long moved on and were drinking beer somewhere, and only the background din of the pub had greeted Varga.
"What did he really want?" Charles had asked Isaac Hyman on their way home. It was nearly six o'clock, but it was still night. In the dark, the taps of horseshoes against cobbles came at them. Law enforcement. They quickly made way for them and crossed the street.
"Jean Varga? Hungarian himself, I think. Or at least a little. Dad's a diplomat attaché."
Jean Varga, Hungarian? That had never been discussed. Why should it have been? What did it matter? Who had cared about Sarajevo and Serbia and some Austro-Hungarian heir?
Now, Charles looked at his own reflection in the old mirror that showed slight silvering already and thought of the war and the assassination and young, young Jean Varga at The Mundi and how he'd seen Varga march over the square and over the bridge in uniform and how that'd been the last any of the people at The Mundi had ever seen anything of him.
The window of the bathroom stood adroit and carried the din. Outside, in the orchard beside the yard, children had arrived to chase each other under the trees. And Charles smiled.
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