The Memory of Love (29 page)

‘Glad you enjoyed it.’ She smiles at him, looks across at Ileana.

‘This is my colleague, Ileana.’ He stops. He doesn’t know her name.

‘Mamakay.’

‘Mamakay,’ he repeats. So he never forgets it.

‘It’s my house name,’ she says, as if in reply to a question.

‘Sorry?’

‘It’s my house name. You know, not your real name but the one everyone calls you. Sort of like a nickname. Mamakay is for my great-aunt. Mama Kay. She used to look after me. Terrible woman, actually. All she did was pray.’ She grins. ‘I used to ask her, Auntie, what are you praying for? Every time she gave me the same reply. For God’s answer. One day, when I was older, I said to her, maybe he already has answered. Maybe this
is
his answer!’ And she gestured all around. ‘Maybe he’s telling us he doesn’t give a damn!’ She laughs. ‘Bring me one Star, please,’ she says over her shoulder to a passing waiter. When the beer comes she wipes the top with the flat of her palm and drinks straight from the bottle.

‘Sit with us,’ says Adrian.

Whereas earlier in the day he felt weary, now he feels energised. Between the three of them, over the hours of the evening, the conversation turns around and around. Mamakay tells them of an island fort, complete with cannons, that is there still. Ileana sings the first few lines of a Romanian folk song, with which she mourns the death and celebrates the life of her dog. They talk about the matriarchal nature of hyenas. The advantages of animals over humans. Of men over women, and women over men. Of how best to grow tomatoes from seed. Of being rained upon, which Adrian longs for.

Often it is just Ileana and Mamakay talking between themselves; the two women find something in each other. It amazes him how soon between women the talk goes to the next level. He is content to be an audience, and grateful to Ileana, whose presence makes this possible. It’s a long time since he has sat with women. He looks from one to the other. Ileana’s vivid features, the dry humour etched upon her face. Mamakay’s suppressed energy, which erupts in hands that dance in the air in front of her. She stays and sits with them. Because he fears, with every passing minute, losing her company perversely he apologises for keeping her. She waves her beer bottle dismissively. Later, much later, they order food. She eats with her hands, without stopping or speaking except to praise the food. And chews the ends of her chicken bones.

That night he dreams of her. Of driving past her on the road with her water containers, towards Ileana further ahead. Of turning the vehicle before he reaches Ileana and returning for her. It is not an erotic dream as such, though as powerful as any he has had. And like the music, he is left less with images of the dream than the mood it creates in him. Such dreams in the past have left him bereft, wanting but unable to return to sleep to rediscover what he had lost. This time he awakes comforted, left with a different sense. One of utter certainty.

The next day he sees her, and again the day after. On each occasion he stops. He climbs down to help her with the heavy containers and she climbs up to take the seat next to him. For her work she wears a cotton dress, sleeveless with a small tear at the hem. A dress of sunflowers. She rubs her arms, hunches her shoulders. He turns off the air conditioning and she winds down the window. When he leans across to help with the door, he smells her sweat faintly. He inhales surreptitiously. After she is gone, he closes the window, to trap the scent inside.

In a short while it is again as it was on that first day. She stands on the street, as if she is waiting for him.

CHAPTER 28

War gave new intensity to their lovemaking. On the floor, facing him. Nenebah with her legs around Kai’s waist. He, inside her, a nipple in his mouth. One hand squeezes the surrounding breast, his tongue flicks back and forth, round and round. The fingers of his other hand, in the warm V of her thighs, imitate the same motion. Her breathing rises and quickens. As she comes, he holds on to her, an arm around her shoulders, pressing her down on to his cock. With the slowing of her shudders he rolls Nenebah on to her back, his fingers in her hair, moving forward and back until he loses himself. Afterwards he lies, still inside her, slowly softening, her hand stroking the back of his neck. In time they both sleep held in the same position.

They meet when they can. Around the hours of curfew and surgery. It is dark, there is no light, no cooking gas. Sometimes they go without eating or speaking, making love is all they do.

The memory of their lovemaking comes to Kai out of nowhere. He is standing holding a paper cup of drink: purple, sweet and alcoholic. The room is hot and crowded. The memory of Nenebah’s smell and taste, of the smooth skin and muscles of her back, the melting liquidness, hits him like a blast. Nothing he can do but stand still and wait for it to pass.

Mrs Mara is next to him, holding a cup of the same purple punch, dressed in a Swiss voile dress, a gathering at the hem and puff sleeves, in place of the usual suit. Her smile, too long held, has turned glassy. She is unable to smooth the furrow from between her brows. In front of them the two departing nurses are being photographed by a senior registrar. Arms around each other, heads together, the same shade of bright lipstick, mauve blusher – make-up bought and shared for the party. People have brought food and gifts: a scarf, bars of Lux soap, a plastic passport holder and an outsize card signed by each staff member. The two girls squirm in front of the registrar’s camera, their giggles betraying their nervousness. They have managed to arrange to go together to the same hospital in Reading. Kai, in the staff room, overheard one of the foreign doctors correct their pronunciation. ‘Reh-ding. Not Reeding.’

How many did that make this year? The operating theatres had lost an anaesthetist. He had attended at least three other parties for nurses, exactly like this one. Or was it three? They were beginning to merge. And now Wilhemina. The loss of Wilhemina, in particular, would be felt. She had the makings of an excellent theatre nurse.

Kai prepares to make his exit, goes up to say his goodbyes, kisses them both on the cheek. Squeezes Wilhemina’s shoulder. Once she had a crush on him, or so he suspects. Something about Wilhemina reminds Kai of Balia. Balia was another young nurse he’d known once years ago and who had been sweet on him, too. But Kai mustn’t think about her. He slips out of the door into the heat of the night.

Inside the ward Kai follows the trail of blue night lights to the corner of the room, to the bed with the wheelchair parked up by it. Scrawled upon a blackboard on the wall above are the letters
NBM
, nil by mouth. Foday is asleep. Kai is just preparing to leave when Foday opens his eyes.

‘I thought you were sleeping,’ says Kai.

‘I was sleeping, yes. But I can still hear you, even in my sleep.’ He grins and begins to struggle into a sitting position.

Kai presses him gently back down by the shoulders. ‘Relax. I just came by to see how you are doing. All ready for tomorrow?’

Foday nods.

‘Anything I can get you?’

Foday shakes his head. ‘Except you bring me some rice and cassava leaves.’

Kai smiles and shakes his head. ‘No, but afterwards you can eat all you want. You have someone from your family coming to give blood?’

‘My uncle.’

‘Good. Tell him to bring your fiancée. We’re all waiting to meet her. Tell her we’ve heard so much about her. Must be some fine woman. Does she know the trouble you are going to for her?’ It is their joke, the fictional fiancée, Foday’s dreams of marriage and a family.

Foday laughs wheezily. ‘So you can come and take her from me? When you get your own fiancée, then I let you meet mine.’

Kai smiles. ‘Sleep well. And I’ll see you tomorrow.’

On the way out he nods to the night nurse, sitting with her book of crossword puzzles on the desk before her. She raises her head and returns his nod.

That night he dreams of the bridge. The railings pressed into his back. A face close to his. There is shouting. And pain, like a claw hammer at the back of his skull. The pressure on his temple. The agonising paralysis. Then the sensation of weightlessness. He wakes with the taste of blood and metal in his mouth, a ringing in his ears, images crashing against the line of his consciousness. Only the sound of his cousin knocking gently on the door brings him back to himself.

‘OK,’ he calls. Hears her begin to move away, slow steps, in the direction of her own room. He sits up, frees himself from the tangled sheets and searches for the luminous light of his watch. Four-thirty. Two hours left. Through the sleeping house he makes his way to the kitchen, pours himself a glass of water from the steel container. The sound of the water trickling into the glass brings on the urge to urinate. He opens the back door. The moon is high in the sky. His squat black shadow tracks him across the yard like an animal at his heels. Under the banana trees he relieves his bladder. Heading back to the house he stops and for a few moments gazes up at the sky, the milky streaks of stars. He rolls his head around the back of his shoulders. He feels completely and utterly awake.

In his room he lies awake listening to the ticking of his watch and the sounds of the night, measuring off the remaining minutes. At six o’clock he is still there. Outside the sounds thicken with the approach of dawn as every household braces for the onslaught of another day.

Half an hour later he comes out of sleep to the sound of his cousin rapping on the door again, a louder, more insistent knock this time. In the kitchen he quarters a pawpaw deftly with a large knife, offers a slice to his cousin, who shakes her head. Abass is gone already, his satchel bouncing on his back. The two cousins eat together in silence for a few minutes, each with their own preoccupations.

‘Will you help me with the chairs before you go?’

‘Sure.’

‘We can do it now, together.’

Kai waves his fork. ‘Don’t worry. You go ahead. I’ll get it done before I go.’

She rinses her coffee cup at the sink. ‘Will you join us this time?’

‘Let me see how I get on.’

‘You know, you’d be very welcome.’

‘Thanks.’

They go through the same routine every time. Since the church meetings started to be held in the house, Kai makes sure he’s rarely ever at home at the same time. In the beginning he was happy for his cousin, for the comfort she had found in the act of worship. But increasingly he finds the other members of the church irritating, the anxious and obsequious manner they affect around him. They are awed by his job at the hospital and desperate to recruit him to their cause, unaware of how much he despises them, their fevered fatalism. Everywhere you look in the city new churches are springing up, on every patch of bare earth, in the open air, under blue-and-white UN canvas, in houses and empty buildings.

After breakfast Kai carries the chairs through from the yard to the verandah and sets them out in rows. By seven-thirty he is on his way to the hospital. The traffic is light, he makes good time. In the staff room he pours himself his third cup of coffee and sits with it, watching his hands holding the cup, the surface of the black liquid vibrating, the reflections shimmering and shifting. The last few nights have not been good. Hard to know if the coffee improves matters or makes them worse. Another few sips and he sets the cup down. He needs to prepare. He makes his way to the changing rooms for the operating theatres. Nobody is there. Just Mrs Goma’s wig hanging on a peg like a dead bird. Time alone is all he needs. It is an important day, the second operation of the elective, out of a total of four. When it is all over, and if everything goes according to plan, if no serious infections set in, and if all their projections are correct, a few months from now Foday will walk. Not the way he walks now, every step a flailing uphill struggle. Foday will walk tall.

In the first operation they had broken and reset the tibia of the right leg. Today they would perform the same operation on the left leg.

Kai strips off his day clothes and selects a green scrub suit from the shelves. He’s restless, nervous and overly alert. At the sink he washes his face in cold water and inspects himself in the mirror, pulling down his bottom eyelid and inspecting his gums. His skin is dry and taut. He feels queasy. He runs the tap and drinks from his hand. The water is warm and only slightly refreshing.

He sits on the bench and holds his hands up to his face. The tremble is still there. He closes his eyes and leans back against the lockers, feels his breathing slow, his heart quieten. He spreads his fingers out upon his thighs; his body begins to feel lighter.

A knock on the door. He opens his eyes. ‘Yes?’

‘Dr Mansaray?’

‘Yes?’

It is one of the theatre nurses with a message. ‘You’re wanted in emergency.’

‘Did you tell them I’m about to go into surgery?’

‘Yes. They say there’s nobody else.’

He sighs, rises and opens the door, but she has already turned away. He sees her shoulder her way into the theatre where Mrs Goma is working. Swiftly he changes his shoes and makes his way upstairs and through the building to the emergency unit. The unit doesn’t stay open all hours. They don’t have the staff. Instead it opens at ten in the morning and people begin to gather long before. Most conditions can be treated routinely, even when they are serious. But those times there is a real emergency out of hours, you can be drafted in from anywhere.

A massive iron gate had fallen while being lowered into place by a crane, trapping three workmen beneath it. Two of the men had escaped with broken bones and were already being attended to. The third man is the one Kai has been called to look at. The nurse indicates a man lying on his back on the far side of the room. He is not yet forty by Kai’s guess, though he is gaunt and this makes him appear older. He lies without speaking, his eyes open.

‘Hello,’ says Kai. ‘How do you feel? Are you in pain?’

‘Not so much pain, Doctor. Only I cannot feel my body.’

Kai reads the notes the nurse has given him. Suspected spinal injury. He examines the man briefly, calls the nurse and asks for a pin. Starting high on the man’s chest, he delivers pinpricks at regular intervals. ‘Tell me if you can feel this.’ The man nods and whispers, ‘Yes. Yes. Yes.’ Then silence. Just above his navel. Kai backs up and repeats the pinpricks, this time to check the exact location where the sensation disappears. ‘Yes, yes.’ When he reaches the same spot, there is silence once again. Next he checks the deep-tendon reflexes at the Achilles tendon. Nothing.

‘I’ll be back,’ he tells the man. ‘Who is here with you? Family?’

He shakes his head. ‘Mr Sesay.’

‘Who’s that, your boss?’

A nod.

At the nurse’s station Kai gives his diagnosis. Likely severance of the spinal cord at T8. To be confirmed by X-ray.

‘Shall I admit him?’ asks the nurse.

Kai shakes his head. ‘Ask him to let us call his family. Someone will need to explain to them.’ He exhales. He hates this most of all. ‘And to him.’ He hands her the notes. She takes them without looking up.

‘Who will explain to them?’ No doubt she is already worried the job might fall to her.

‘I’ll do it. Call me when the X-rays are ready. Otherwise I’ll come back and check after theatre.’

Outside he calls Mr Sesay’s name. The foreman steps forward, pulling off his woollen hat. Kai explains to him, in a way he hopes he can understand, the nature of the injury. The foreman isn’t stupid. He has lost a worker. He listens attentively, shakes his head, promises to bring the family himself. He is still standing there holding on to his woollen hat as Kai walks away. Kai thinks of all the things he has not told the foreman. In particular of Mrs Mara’s decision not to admit any more spinal-injury patients. In past times they’d kept men alive for months only to have them die within weeks of being discharged back to their
panbodies
, where nobody had the time or the expertise to care for them, to manage their bowel and bladder movements, to turn them several times a day; no money to buy catheters and equipment. Better let them die sooner than later – the brutal fact of it. He considers how much to tell the family, whether to confine himself to explaining how to care for their father and wait for the inevitable. The bed sores are the worst of it. With luck pneumonia would take him first. Kai glances at his watch. He will have to move if he is to be ready for the start of the operation. If they miss the slot they might have to reschedule.

In the theatre they are ready to begin. Foday has been wheeled down and is already on the table, one arm hooked up to the blood-pressure monitor. He is lying on his back, the massive chest rising above him, both his muscular arms outstretched, the shape of a crucifix. His penis lies flung to one side, shaved balls nestle between strong thighs tapering into underdeveloped calves, one splayed, one now straight, down to the out-turned ankles. On the light box on the wall, X-rays of those same frog legs. Kai bids Foday good morning, earns a smile, silent and serene. Foday’s confidence should be heartening. Instead Kai feels a quickening of the stomach muscles. The team is the same as before. Seligmann, the lead surgeon. Kai. The anaesthetist, Salamatu. All except Wilhemina. In her place the nurse who called him to the emergency unit. She is busy layering sterile drapes over Foday’s body, returning him to modesty. Her hands are quick, professional, her face unsmiling. She is the sole OR nurse now. From the instrument trolley Kai picks up a kidney bowl of water, iodine and ampicillin and begins to swab Foday’s leg. Seligmann is photographing Foday’s left leg. He steps forward, shifts the position of the leg and returns to take the photograph. The flash bounces off the white walls causing Foday to raise his head.