“How’s the mother?” she said.
“She’s not wide awake yet,” the nurse said.
“Did she see it?”
“No, I kept it away from her.”
“That’s good,” Clara said. She looked over at me.
“This is the kind of thing that can happen because of malnutrition, or genetics, or any number of causes,” she said.
I was feeling really dreadful, but she wasn’t to know that and brought the baby over. She opened the shawl a little more so that I could see clearly.
The baby, if it could be called a baby, had no head, only shoulders and a neck. From a plateau on top of the neck a little pink tongue protruded through a narrow opening, and two little brown eyes stared up at me alertly.
I was now sweating heavily and feeling so queasy I thought I was going to vomit.
“I have to go,” I said, and quickly made my way back to my room.
I’D BEEN IN BED no more than five minutes when there was a brief knocking at the door and someone came in. I’d left the bedside light on and saw Clara through the mosquito net.
She came over to the bed and looked down at me.
“I’m sorry I showed you the baby,” she said. “I didn’t realize you were feeling so sick.”
I wished she would just go away and let me sleep.
She reached under the net and put a cool hand on my brow.
“Your fever’s ready to break,” she said. She then picked up my scattered clothes from the floor and put them on the chair. “Never leave clothes or shoes on the floor,” she said. “Scorpions and other creepy-crawlies can get into them during the night.”
Through the veil of the mosquito net I saw she had begun to undress. She put each piece of clothing, then her shoes, on the chair on top of mine.
My heart was beating very fast, both from the fever and from the sight of her through the net. Her brown, wizened face didn’t seem to belong to her body. Its startling white smoothness took my breath quite away.
She now put her glasses on the bedside cabinet, switched off the lamp, lifted the mosquito net, and slid in beside me. Very deliberately, she leaned into me and put her arms around me. The coolness of her against me was a wonderful sensation. In spite of my fever, I became aroused.
She moved my hand away gently.
“I’m here for medicinal purposes only — this is a local custom to help cool down a fever, and it’s generally quite effective,” she said, pressing her body once more against me. “Now try and sleep.”
AND I MUST have slept deeply, for when I opened my eyes again it was morning. Clara and her clothes were gone. I was feeling much better and was very hungry, so I got myself ready and went along to the nurses’ dining room for breakfast. On the way, I passed the nurse who’d brought in the little headless baby the night before.
I now wondered if the whole incident, together with Clara’s visit to my bed, hadn’t been figments of my delirious imagination. But I asked tentatively about the baby.
The nurse shook her head sadly.
“It was a little girl,” she said. “She died during the night. It was the best thing for all concerned.”
I couldn’t help but agree with that.
Clara was leaving the dining room as I came in. The owl eyes blinked at the sight of me and she reached her hand out to mine.
“Don’t worry,” she said dryly. “I only want to take your pulse.” She encircled my wrist with her fingers and after a few moments, nodded with satisfaction. “Near normal,” she said.
I told her I was feeling much better.
“There you are then,” she said. “Sometimes these traditional cures do seem to work.”
DUPONT CAME BACK sometime during that day. He dropped by my room after doing his round of the wards.
“I’m glad your fever’s down,” he said. “I was afraid I’d have to take my own clothes off and lie down beside you for a while.” He laughed at my embarrassment. “I hear from Clara you got a little overexcited last night. Maybe it’s a sign you’re recovering from your broken heart, too.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“We all wish love would be eternal and exclusive,” he said. “But it rarely seems to be the case. We lose one love, find another, and we’re sure this time it’ll last forever. And so on and so on. Lovers are supreme optimists at heart.”
But I refused to feel optimistic. Though my fever had definitely receded, I was certain a cure for my broken heart was just as remote as before.
10
Some weeks went by and all signs of my fever were completely gone. To pass the time, I’d begun helping out the nurses around the hospital, changing beds, polishing floors, working in the little garden, and trying to be useful generally. Dupont and Clara were busy during the days, but we’d usually get together for dinner at night. We all got along well. Sometimes we talked about the Tollgate and Duncairn. I didn’t even mind talking about Miriam, and they were careful to be respectful of my broken heart.
One morning as I was watering the garden, two military jeeps came hurtling into the compound, clouds of sand trailing behind them. They carried six soldiers and an officer. Dupont came out to see what was going on, and I heard the officer ask if he’d go with the patrol to a nearby place where a rebel group had recently attacked a platoon of government soldiers. Apparently Dupont often accompanied these patrols in case medical help was needed.
He came back into the hospital for his medical kit, saw me, and wondered if I’d keep him company.
“It’s bound to be interesting,” he said. “These rebels have a reputation for doing odd things with their victims.”
That should have been enough to make me hesitate. But I was so full of pent-up energy now that my fever had disappeared I said I’d really like to go.
ROOM WAS MADE for me in the jeep beside Dupont and we sped away, generating our own sandstorm. After five or six miles, the jeeps slowed down for a moment. The officer, who was in the front passenger seat, pointed ahead.
A few hundred yards off to the north, thick black columns of smoke were rising from the ground.
Before I had a chance to say anything, Dupont shook his head.
“Not smoke,” he said. “Flies.” Oh no, I thought.
WE GOT OUT of the jeeps at the edge of what looked like a volcanic crater, fifty yards or so wide. This was the area where the battle had occurred. Now that the jeeps’ engines were switched off, the noise from the seething black pillars of flies was as loud as an express train hurtling past. The columns towered over heaps on the ground that weren’t yet identifiable, though it was easy to guess. The soldiers threw rocks and the flies scattered, buzzing angrily. Then the soldiers, Dupont, and I scrambled down into the crater.
The withdrawal of the flies revealed an awful sight: not just dead body after dead body but each of the bodies eviscerated, their intestines draped around them like carnival decorations. A few had been dismembered and their various parts then grotesquely reassembled. Some had been given four legs, or four arms. In one case, a bloody head protruded from a split stomach, as though in an agonizing birth. Desert plants had been stuck in mouths and eyeholes.
The body parts weren’t all human. A herd of goats had been cut up, too. Goats’ heads and limbs had been put on human torsos. Human heads and limbs were attached to goats’ bodies. Some of these hybrids had been propped up with sticks so that from a distance they looked alive.