The Memory of Love (33 page)

CHAPTER 32

In Elias Cole’s room, a bustle of activity. Adrian waits in the corridor. In time a doctor emerges followed by a nurse wheeling a trolley of equipment.

‘How is he?’ Adrian asks of the doctor.

The man, a Swede, possessed of the crisp, antiseptic aloofness Adrian associates with Northern Europeans, looks at Adrian, according him the automatic respect of a fellow white man. ‘Not so great. But OK.’

‘Can I talk to him?’

‘Are you a doctor?’

‘I am a counsellor,’ he says.

‘Oh, I see. Well then, you may as well know he’s been treated with corticosteroids. Now it looks as if he’s stopped responding. That’s not so unusual. Steroids don’t work for everybody, and even when they do they don’t work for ever. The trouble is there aren’t very many other options from here on in. A lung transplant is out of the question.’ He bends a little closer to Adrian and lowers his voice. ‘I mean, how long have you been here?’

‘Since January,’ says Adrian.

The other man shakes his head. ‘He needs oxygen therapy,’ says the Swede, telling Adrian what he already knows. ‘He’s at risk from hypoxaemia. Oxygen will improve his quality of life and give him some months more to live. Only maybe. I’m going now to talk to the administrator about it.’

Good luck, thinks Adrian. He has spoken to Mrs Mara about an oxygen concentrator for Elias Cole three times. On each occasion she promised to see what she could do. So far she has done nothing. The demands upon her are many. The last few months of Elias Cole’s life are lost in the crowd.

‘Let me know how you get on,’ says Adrian. He watches the Swede walk away, his rubber clogs creaking on the concrete floor.

Inside the room Elias Cole is sitting up in bed. Over the last few weeks he has grown noticeably thinner, his face worn almost to the bone. Around his neck the skin rests in pleats. Standing at the end of the bed Adrian feels like the priest in an old black-and-white movie, the man of God hovering at the deathbed, waiting for his moment. To divest himself of this sensation he goes over to the window and looks out. A kingfisher sits on the telegraph wire. A moment later it is joined by another. Adrian watches them for a few moments, almost forgetting his purpose in being there.

He turns to the old man. ‘How are you feeling?’

Elias Cole smiles, a tugging of the corner of the lips. ‘That was the last call. I’m in the departure lounge now.’

Adrian laughs. ‘There’s still some time left.’

‘I’ve been warned I may begin to forget.’

‘That’s one of the possible effects of hypoxaemia. There’s no guarantee it’ll happen.’

‘There’s more I want to tell you.’

*

A year passed. For me, a year of waiting. There was the Forty Day ceremony. Do you know the forty days mark the end of a wife’s period of mourning? Among her own people Saffia would be considered ready for remarriage. Life here is too short to mourn for very long.

In November another Apollo mission landed on the moon. Nobody thought of throwing a party. The crew were supposed to send back colour TV images, but something went amiss and the feed failed. Saffia followed the news carefully on the radio, just as she had when the first astronauts came out of quarantine and gave a press conference. I knew she thought constantly of Julius. But as I said, it was a year of waiting.

Then it was 1970. The 1960s were over.

I watched Saffia struggle for survival. Following Julius’s death there were practical matters that needed to be considered. The independence which had so struck me at our first meeting had proved to be an illusion, of course. An illusion sustained and perpetuated by Julius, who had spoiled his wife. And also I suppose by the three of us, Kekura, Yansaneh and I, in our own way. For hadn’t we revered her? Did we not outdo ourselves to perform for her amusement? See ourselves as her guardians? We had taken Julius’s duties as our own. But now Julius was gone. Kekura fled. And Yansaneh broken. I alone was left.

Saffia continued to live in the pink house on the hill with the crone aunt, who came and went between the city and the village. The aunt was a woman, as I think I have indicated, from whom a low-level hostility emanated at all times, who seemed possessed of an infinite capacity for hate. She hated the city people, who were full of themselves. She hated non-believers, but Christians more, because she also distrusted them. She hated the poor, the weak, the sick and the needy. In particular she reviled all members of her own sex. Her attitude to men was somewhat more complicated, for it encompassed both her natural loathing of her fellow man and her sycophancy towards those in possession of some degree of power. That she had disliked me and regarded my visits to the house with suspicion, I knew.

Between Saffia and the aunt there had always been a certain amount of bickering. Her aunt was straight from the rice fields. It was unsurprising, therefore, that Saffia might be easily irritated by an elder full of village superstitions. Balance in matters of social hierarchy, however, is infinitely delicate, accounted for by so many things: family, age, wealth.

The shift in the aunt’s manner towards Saffia following Julius’s death amounted to relatively little. She was merely, one might say, altogether less careful. Her tone of voice became sharper, her demands more frequent and petty. She seemed to feel Saffia was there to do her bidding. What had wrought it was this: whilst the aunt was the elder, and as such merited a high degree of deference, it was Saffia who had been married to a big man – this in the aunt’s view, of course – who lived in a grander house than I am certain the aunt had ever previously set foot in.

Now Julius was gone and Saffia no longer married to a big man.

The woman opposite, a coarse-mouthed fish seller, seemed to have found a new vocation in watching the comings and goings at the pink house, a fact she made no effort to conceal. There were occasions I had waited under her gaze, listened to her remark upon my visit to unseen listeners. I never once saw her husband. Doubtless he was barred from the verandah, for fear he might be drawn to the newly available temptations in the house opposite. Not that the fish mammy’s concerns were baseless. A woman alone does indeed attract the attention of men, who scent her vulnerability. It bothered me to think of who might try to take advantage of Saffia’s situation. Once I found the dancer fellow up there, ostensibly offering condolences. I sat down opposite and glared at him until he left.

However, it became interesting to observe the shift in the aunt’s manner towards me now that she was in the business of encouraging a protector for her niece. As I have indicated, she was the type of woman who adjusted swiftly to any change in the status quo. One evening I encountered her as she returned from the mosque. I raised my hat and greeted her in my most respectful tone. ‘Good evening, Auntie.’ It stopped her in her tracks and, once she had assured herself I wasn’t mocking her in any way, I saw a small smirk of pleasure at being thus addressed. It amused me to think of her as my new-found ally.

It was the aunt who brought it to my attention that the two of them were struggling to pay the rent. Julius had been far too young to leave a pension. Through my efforts and by applying some leverage upon the Dean who sat upon the relevant committee, I managed to secure for Saffia a small grant to cover her work cataloguing the flora that grew in the university grounds. Not so much she could rely upon it indefinitely. The amount of the grant would give her enough to live for exactly a year.

Throughout those months I worked towards a single goal. I threw my energy into research for a paper on the creation of the Native Affairs Department. If I had once been a merely conscientious academic, I was driven now. It is astonishing, the effect of hope. I was working towards a future now, one that included Saffia.

In the morning I dealt with my correspondence and planned my lectures. That lasted until midday. I took lunch in the cafeteria. In the afternoon I went to the library and worked my way through the bound minutes of the Aborigines and Native Affairs Department, pencilling notes in my notebook as I went. Thoughts of Saffia came between me and the letters of the government agent Thomas George Lawson, his fearsome Protestantism and loyalty to the Crown. At about four o’clock I concluded my travels with Lawson on his trips into the interior to settle scores between the chiefs, gathered my papers and deposited them in my office.

The state of nervous anticipation in which I spent my days peaked at about half past four, when I went to see Saffia. Most days I had a reason, for as I think I have told you, I sought to make myself useful to her in as many ways as possible. I dealt with the university bureaucracy, gave her financial advice and moreover attended to many other minor household matters as well. In the months after Julius died I watched as the weight fell away from Saffia’s body. Saw how the lines on either side of her mouth refused to fade. Observed from the wandering of her eye her inability to concentrate. From the slight, irrelevant smile with which she thanked me I knew how much pain she suffered. I also knew she would survive. For in the end, people always do.

Stay. Wait. Patience.

An evening we walked in the garden. The idea had been mine. Saffia looked like she was about to decline, but then changed her mind and led the way down the stairs. It was still light, the dense rain clouds had lifted, there was even a little blue in the sky. The garden was looking somewhat neglected. The Harmattan lilies were bent and broken, like soldiers after a battle, many were strewn in tangles upon the ground, their once lovely heads had shrivelled away, the petals darkened and torn. I remember the occasion because it was perhaps the only time she spoke to me of Julius directly, though she often mentioned him in passing.

‘I still miss him, Elias,’ she said.

‘I know,’ I replied. ‘I miss him, too.’ In a way it was true. Julius had left a space in my life. I had not known a great many friendships.

Saffia sighed. ‘Perhaps if we’d had a child. But Julius wanted me to finish my studies.’

‘There’s still time,’ I said. ‘You’re young.’ It is the stock response, people say such things to widows all the time. I had spoken without thinking.

But she merely replied, ‘Yes.’

One word. Yet so much more. She had said yes. Agreed her life was not over. I looked at her. I was consumed by a feeling of inexpressible joy. Only later did I recognise it for what it was. Hope. For in that instant the beauty and pain of the past, the unbearable present and the possible future all ran together.

In most other respects life had returned to a kind of normality. I saw Yansaneh once on the campus, I think. He seemed to be keeping his head down. No word from Kekura. Nor did I hear from Johnson again. The Dean seemed in reasonable spirits. A lot of universities in our country and elsewhere were closing their humanities departments or else having their grants cut. Liberal arts were the first to be hit in times of economic stress. The government argued certain skills were more in demand than others. Philosophy, literature, drama – such subjects were a luxury, a frivolity even, in times of need. So far the Dean had proved himself a powerful negotiator in these matters and had somehow managed to save our department the same fate. As the months wore on, Julius, his death, my own arrest – these events seemed to recede into the past.

One unpleasant occurrence. A visit from Vanessa.

It was Saturday when she turned up at the apartment. I could scarcely remember when I had last seen her. At any rate, she hadn’t changed, though her look had been updated. I heard later she had a new boyfriend. She wore a large Afro wig and a pair of tight trousers. I have never cared for the look of trousers on a woman. It was hard not to make comparisons with Saffia and I wonder if Vanessa didn’t sense my appraisal, for she leant against the kitchen counter and eyed me challengingly.

‘You look well, Vanessa,’ I said.

‘Thank you, Elias. I came by to see how you are.’

‘As you see, I am well.’

‘Well, I’m pleased about that.’ She sounded as though she had heard different. I noticed her glance around the apartment. Then she said, ‘Maybe you would like to make me a coffee.’

I’d had no intention of offering her a coffee. Nevertheless, I reached around her and found the Nescafé and evaporated milk. I lit the gas ring and boiled water. I didn’t offer her any sugar.

‘Is it true you were arrested?’ she said.

‘No, it isn’t,’ I lied.

‘That’s what they say.’

‘Well, they are mistaken.’ I didn’t ask how she knew. It would have been exactly like Vanessa to have contacts among the police, a lover or two.

She watched me coolly. The cup of coffee sat on the counter.

‘Your coffee will get cold.’

‘It’s too bitter,’ she said, not taking her eyes off me. ‘So maybe it’s not such a bad thing for you; what happened to Julius?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said. ‘Julius was my friend. His death is a tragedy.’

She laughed, a short, soft and yet abrupt sound. ‘So his wife is a widow now.’ Her voice had taken on an insinuating sneer, which I didn’t like.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Saffia is mourning the loss of her husband.’

That laugh again.

‘Vanessa,’ I said. ‘I’m happy to see you. Come and visit again or I’ll come to you. Right now I’m due out.’