The Good Doctor (16 page)

‘I want to stay.’

‘No. Now is danger. Problem, problem.’

‘Can I come back later?’

She shook her head. ‘Is better you go. Tomorrow you come.’

I stood up, dusting off my knees, feeling awkward and ashamed. Because I didn’t know what else to do, I fished in my pocket for money. I held it out to her: fifty rand. But tonight, for the
first time, she didn’t want it; she seemed almost not to see it; she shook her head again. It was something else she wanted.

‘You come tomorrow night?’

‘Yes.’

‘You promise tomorrow?’

‘Yes,’ I said, and I meant it with my whole heart, but she looked at me as if I was lying.

On Monday mornings there was a staff meeting in the office. In theory this was when patients were discussed, particular cases focused on with a view to improving our work, any
problems or ideas aired and shared. In practice it was an exercise carried out mostly on paper: roll-call was taken, Dr Ngema said a few words, everybody went away again.

But this morning Dr Ngema said, ‘There is a... special announcement today.’

We were all looking at her. She shifted uncomfortably and gestured to Laurence.

He looked important. He had dressed in his smartest clothes and combed and re-combed his hair so that the wet strands gleamed separately. His white coat was buttoned stiffly, all the way to the
chin. He stood up, a sheaf of papers in his hand.

‘Um. Yes. Thank you. I just want to say that on Thursday... this Thursday morning... I will be running a clinic in one of the villages near by.’

A faint consternation went through the room. There was a shifting of chairs, a sound of papers being rustled.

‘Excuse me?’ Claudia said.

‘A clinic. We will be running a clinic.’

Jorge coughed. ‘I don’t understand. You want...?’

Into the silence a first trace of dismay was creeping. Laurence’s face had fallen slightly and he looked at the papers in his hand as if the answer was written there.

Dr Ngema coughed; we turned to her pinched face. ‘This is an idea,’ she said, ‘an idea put forward by Laurence. It’s a... very good idea, I think. But it’s entirely voluntary, of course. If any
of you want to go and help out, it would be very much...’

‘Appreciated,’ Laurence said. He was still standing.

‘I myself won’t be able to go,’ Dr Ngema said. ‘Prior work commitments.’

‘Maybe I should explain,’ Laurence said. ‘The plan is for me to do a presentation. I’m not a hundred per cent sure yet, there are so many things... but I was thinking, a talk on sanitation and
hygiene, you know, then a talk on HIV-Aids. Then there’ll be condom distribution, it’s about all we have to distribute at this stage, but more stuff will come, I’m sure. Um, then there’ll be the
part where people line up to see one of us, for whatever problem they have. That’s all I can think of. Oh, it’s happening at a village near by, I’ve forgotten its name, but I did write it down
somewhere...’

An astounded pause followed on.

‘Excuse please,’ Claudia said, ‘but why is this for, why?’

Laurence said, ‘I thought it would be a way of drawing attention to the hospital, of making people aware that we’re here. And of actually doing something.’

That was not a good word to use; the next silence was very cold. When he sat down the energy in the room had gone flat.

I waited a few seconds before I raised my hand and said, ‘I support this idea, this initiative, of Laurence’s, completely. But I’m afraid it won’t be possible for me to attend.’

I could feel Laurence staring at me.

‘Why is that, Frank?’ Dr Ngema said.

‘I have to go away for a few days. Personal reasons.’

‘I’m not aware of any...’

‘It’s just come up,’ I said. ‘I was going to discuss it with you later.’

There was an overwhelming inertia in the room as the meeting broke up. I went out quickly, but Laurence caught up with me as I was crossing the open plot of ground on my way back to the room.
‘Why, Frank, why?’

‘Oh, they’ll be more enthusiastic on the day, Laurence, don’t worry about them.’

‘I don’t mean that. I know they don’t like my plan, I don’t care about them. It’s you, Frank. Why won’t you be there?’

‘I have to go to Pretoria. I can’t help it, Laurence. Bad timing. It’s my divorce agreement. Has to be done.’

‘Oh.’ His face fell. Divorce, signing: adult affairs – a world he didn’t know. ‘But it’s such a pity. It was your idea, Frank.’

‘It wasn’t my idea,’ I said, surprised at the vehemence in my voice. ‘This was your idea entirely.’

‘But to go to that particular village...’

‘It wasn’t an idea, Laurence. It wasn’t even a suggestion. I was just talking without thinking.’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘oh,’ and he trailed the rest of the way behind me without speaking, his head down.

I went to see Dr Ngema that afternoon. She was in her office with the door open, writing at her desk. When she saw me she closed the door and sat us both down on the low
chairs, face to face, as she always did for personal conversations.

There was nothing she could say; today my haggard, troubled face gave me a kind of power. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll arrange the schedule, Frank. Don’t worry about it.’ It was the first time
I’d asked for leave in three years. She put a hand to my shoulder, then let it drop. Trying to show sympathy for a pain I didn’t feel; my marriage had effectively ended years ago. ‘Take off from
tomorrow, if you like. I’ll see to it.’

‘Thank you, I appreciate that.’

‘There is something else...’

I’d been waiting for this; I remembered her cryptic allusions at the party.

‘It’s related to the clinic. Indirectly. Actually, it’s about the job.’

‘The job?’

‘This job. My job.’ She leaned forward. ‘Your job. Things are moving again, Frank.’

‘Are they?’ I’d had this same conversation with her so many times by now that I could only give a tired imitation of enthusiasm. ‘That’s good.’

‘I think it’s really going to happen this time. I can’t give you the details, but it’s very promising.’

‘That’s good news, Ruth. I’m very pleased to hear it.’

‘Which is why I’m not so sure this clinic is such a good idea. I know you support it, Frank. You’ve helped Laurence along. For the best reasons, of course, I don’t doubt that. But we don’t need
any big new initiatives right now.’

‘Oh. Yes. I see.’

‘I support change and innovation,’ she said plaintively. ‘You know that. But we don’t want to rock the boat. Not at this point.’

‘I understand.’

‘Thank you, Frank. You’ve always been very... understanding. And you know when you’re the big boss here you can do whatever you want. You can change the world!’

I nodded carefully. She was being careful, too, in the way she spoke to me, but now some of her real feeling showed through.

‘I like Laurence. He means well, I can see that. But sometimes he...’

‘I understand.’

‘Yes. The way he talked just now, for example. “It’s a way of actually doing something.” Does he mean we’re not doing anything here?’

‘He’s young. He speaks without thinking.’

‘You’re loyal. He’s your friend. That’s good. But he’s... he’s arrogant sometimes. Too big for his boots.’

I nodded again and her face closed over; the irritation and dislike were gone. Or hidden. She said: ‘I don’t mean anything bad. You know that. I just think he would’ve been happier at another
hospital.’

‘You may be right.’

‘I like him. Don’t get me wrong.’

‘I understand.’

‘Thank you for understanding, Frank.’

When I got back to the room, Laurence was dressing for duty.

‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ he said defiantly, ‘and I don’t care.’

‘About what?’

‘If they don’t want to do the clinic, I’ll just go ahead on my own. I don’t care. They don’t matter. I just wish you were going to be there, Frank. That’s the only thing that bothers me.’

‘Next time, maybe.’

He shot me a look of such injured gratitude that I felt a pang of sympathy for him. He was alone, and he didn’t know it. And the quality I’d seen in his face that first day was back again,
flickering visibly beneath the skin, almost nameable for a second.

When he was gone I walked around aimlessly, straightening the furniture, wiping toothpaste off the mirror, dusting the win-dowsill, and somewhere in the middle of my vindictive housekeeping I
found Tehogo’s cassettes in a heap on the floor. I stacked them up neatly, ready for him to collect; but when everything was clean I took them down the passage myself.

Was I looking for something? I had no motive in my head, but the moment I was outside the door I was conscious of something heightened and alert in me. Something watchful.

It was the last door in the passage. The light outside had broken a long time ago and of course nobody had fixed it. Even now, late in the day, I was standing in the dark when I knocked. He
didn’t answer. He was asleep, I thought, and I knocked harder and the door shifted under my hand.

It wasn’t locked. Through the small crack I could see the edge of an unmade bed and a table with ashtrays and orange peel on it. I put out my hand and with the very tips of my fingers I pushed
gently on the door – as if it wasn’t me, as if the wind was doing it. The door swung further open. I put my head through and called his name. But the bed was empty and he didn’t come out of the
bathroom.

The place was filthy. The floor was strewn with litter – old cigarette boxes, empty bottles, used glasses. The sheets on the bed looked foul. There were magazines lying everywhere and a stale
fug of smoke and sweat and tiredness hung in the air.

I called his name again as I went in, but I knew he wasn’t there: it was like a spell to carry me over the threshold. And at that moment the afternoon outside, and my reason for being there,
fell away; I was entering into a place inside myself, a sordid little room of my own heart, where a secret was stored.

But of course this was Tehogo’s room – and I saw that too. Maybe it was even, in some peculiar way and in spite of his absence, the first time I had ever seen Tehogo. He was an enigmatic
presence in the hospital, surly, opaque, with more attitude than personality... but my eye fell now on traces of a hidden nature. All the magazines lying around were women’s magazines, full of
fashion and glamour, and he’d cut out pictures from them and stuck them on the walls. Sunsets and beaches and improbable airbrushed landscapes. Women posing in underwear or fancy outfits. The
images gave off a longing and sentiment and pathos. And next to the bed, in a little cleared space on top of a table, was a framed photograph of an elderly couple. They were obviously dressed up
for the picture, stiff and awkward in formal clothes, standing slightly apart and rigid outside a house somewhere. His parents? Impossible to know, but it was the one item in the chaos that he’d
tried to give a certain value.

My eye went further, looking, looking. And I was so tangled up in all the angles and edges of the discarded junk that it took me a good few minutes to see. But when I did see, all the other
stuff became extraneous, a distracting trapping piled around the truth. The truth was in the myriad little bits of metal, the taps and pipes and bed-frames, casually stacked or piled or leaning
against each other. The whole room was full of it. And then I knew.

I went quietly back out of the room without leaving the cassettes and closed the door behind me. When I passed Tehogo in the passage in the main building a little while later, whistling to
himself as he pushed a trolley along, I nodded to him and said hello.

11

Dr Ngema changed the schedule. But I didn’t go away on Tuesday. I had things on my mind, things to brood over. On Tuesday night Laurence and I were in the recreation room,
watching the television, both of us wrapped up in private thoughts, until I suggested we go down to Mama’s place for a drink.

‘I don’t think so, Frank. Not tonight. I’m not in the mood.’ ‘Come on, it’s on me. There’s something I need to talk about.’ He perked up a bit at this. Gossip and intrigue; something to take him
out of himself. And when we were down at Mama’s, the mood and energy lifted us both. It was hard to believe that this little courtyard – so brightly lit, so full of people – was in the middle of so
much desolation and emptiness. You stepped out of gloom into warmth, talk, loud music.

‘What’s going on here?’ Laurence said. ‘Is it a party?’

‘There’ve been some changes since you were here.’

He’d heard about the soldiers. But he’d never seen them, or thought anything might be
different because of them. But even I was amazed at what had happened: there were at least twice as many people as before, twice as much noise. Something really did seem to have changed.

‘I’m going to get a pool table soon,’ Mama told us happily as she had two extra chairs brought in for us. ‘Business is good.’

I felt eyes on me and saw Colonel Moller in a corner of the courtyard, alone at a table, with a glass in front of him.

‘Are they really doing something, these soldiers? Or are they just sitting here drinking?’

She pretended to look shocked. ‘They are working very hard. Every day they are going out to look for people.’

‘But do they ever catch anybody?’

‘I don’t know about that,’ she said, with a shrug and a smile. That part of their presence had nothing to do with her. She brought our drinks and went away again, into the loud, busy crowd.

‘What did you want to talk about, Frank? Is it the clinic?’

‘Oh, no, no. Nothing to do with that. I have an ethical dilemma.’

‘Really? Tell me about it.’

So I told him – flatly, without colour – about going into Tehogo’s room, about what I saw there. When I’d finished, his face didn’t change. Then it did. It took a moment for comprehension to
break through, like a finger rummaging through his ordered version of the world.

‘You mean...?’

I nodded heavily.

‘He’s been stealing...? Been taking...? He’s the one?’

‘Well, it looks that way, doesn’t it? Maybe there’s another explanation, of course...’