“It’s hard to think! My face! Yes! My lips.” His voice sped up. “And then the rashes came and my feet lost feeling!”
“Turn over. Good. Any fever? Chills?”
“It gets cold at night. But I stopped eating so I don’t know if I’m cold because I’m sick, or not eating.”
In my earpiece I tried to ignore the sound of clan fighters arguing behind us, the babble of enraged voices back there, in the circle of guns. I said, trying to find possible sources of infection, “Where do you get your water?”
“It’s bottled. Donated. Separate bottles for each person. We thought of that already.”
“Any odd smells? Or tastes when you ate?”
“No.”
“The sediments you work with. Is everyone here exposed to them? Did everyone go to these Roman ruins?”
“No. Some people stayed in camp, and never got near the work. They’re helpers. But they got sick, too.”
I was finished with the prelim exam. But not the questions. Lionel was giving me baseline information. I’d need to ask every patient the same things. “Anybody you’re aware of with hostility to this group?”
He let out a croaking laugh. “Hostility? That’s good! We’re in a war zone!”
“Almost done, Lionel. It’s important to eliminate possible causes. Are you aware of any chemicals used here, by one of the warring groups? Have you been in any areas where you saw dead animals? Dead vegetation?”
“Only us. Can I help you now, to help the others?”
I gazed into the ravaged face and my chest swelled with pride for my former soldier. “Your answers are already helping, Lionel. The trouble you’re having speaking — is that because you’re experiencing difficulty thinking of words? Or is it physically hard for you to produce the words?”
“Produce… the… words…”
“Headache?”
“No.”
“Chest pain? Shortness of breath?”
“I’m scared, sir. So yes. But is it related?”
“Maybe. Numbness?”
“In my feet.”
“Night sweats?”
“It’s hot here. You always sweat.”
“What percentage of the people here are sick?”
“Some people have it bad and some a little. Maybe seventy percent caught it. Half of those got better. Half, worse.”
I heard two male voices coming from one of the other tents, high above the hubbub, singing. I couldn’t make out the words.
I snapped a photo, but I had more questions than time to ask them. I said, “Last one for now. The healthy people. Is there anything common about them that you’re aware of? Maybe they came from the same place? Sleep in the same tent? Eat special foods? Anything?”
“I wish those guys in tent four would just shut up!”
I never forgot that Hassan was listening, so I kept my voice calm, which I wasn’t, as I asked person after person the same questions, and got the same answers. Lionel limped up and down the line, and I heard him telling others in that strangled voice, “Dr. Rush saved my life once.”
Lionel saying, “He saved my buddies and he’ll save us. You’ll see.”
We snapped photos. We wrote down names and home addresses and next of kin information. We took temperatures and skin samples. We administered broad-spectrum antibiotics, after asking about allergies. The samples would be analyzed in our tent lab back at the base, but not for many hours.
If Hassan lets us go.
“Ma’am? Lay down,” I addressed a skinny, bespectacled black girl in a UPenn T-shirt and jeans who I guessed was about twenty-four years old, a grad student, she said. The disfigurement added years. The cauliflower ears ballooned out, making it hard for her glasses to stay on. Her arms were a mass of lesions. “How much time passed between the first sore appearing and now?” I asked.
“Six days.”
“Did you notice anything wrong before the rash?”
“I spilled coffee on my hand. But I felt nothing.”
“Have you ever had a skin problem before?”
“No, Doctor.”
“Hassan? Are you listening to all this out there?”
“I am listening, Rush.”
“Dr. Nakamura and I can’t handle this alone. We need help. Let me call the base and get another plane here. I don’t understand why you’re stopping us.”
“If you call, the drones will come.”
The clouds thickened and the sky darkened and a light rain began. Lionel and a couple of healthy people helped two more sick grad students into the tent and helped others back to their cots. Wait there, out of the storm, and we’ll visit you, we said. In the mess tent, I used a picnic bench exam table. Rice sacks were chairs. The tent drummed with rain. Rivulets ran in through a hole up top to puddle on the ground. The man lying on the table smelled like decaying meat.
I glanced outside. The circle of militia had not moved. I was sure that the steady rain intensified their rage.
“Where are you from, Tom?”
The assistant professor’s dark red British passport shot showed a handsome face, twenty-eight years old, a neat blond beard, vivid blue eyes, a shock of boyish hair, a cocky smile. But now the hair was the only recognizable part. The features had swollen; the beard was mange. He looked like a practical joker had stuck a million-dollar hairpiece on a chimpanzee.
“You’re British, Tom?”
“John Bull, that’s me.”
“Have you ever experienced anything like this before?”
“Never sick a day of my life till now.”
“Tilt your head back. Can you swallow?”
Some of his sores had opened, become runny and smelly. The brow had furrowed so much, it almost folded in on itself.
“I’m giving you aspirin,” I said.
The gargoyle face stared fixedly but that was because his muscles were damaged, producing a single expression. He whispered, trying for humor, “That’s the best you can do, Doc? Aspirin?”
“Are you allergic to any medicines?”
“I never needed any. Can I have some water? Most of it runs out this damn hole in my mouth. Better oxygen flow, though.”
“You have a good sense of humor, Tom. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“I’m a regular Jason Manford, Doc. That’s what Mum used to say.”
“Hassan?”
No answer.
“Hassan?”
No answer.
“Hassan, I need to know if you can hear me. If you can hear me, answer!”
“What do you want?”
“Let me bring in copters. I’ll get the sick out. Surely you want them gone.”
“We’ll talk later.”
“In my experience,” Eddie said, not caring if Hassan heard or not, “later means never.”
Another hour went by.
We took more photos. We could not send them to anyone yet. The rain stopped and started again.
Two voices — two men — started singing religious songs again. One by one six prophets, the sixth the last to come. What the voices lacked in quality they made up in volume. The men in tent four were driving everyone crazy.
“They stay in their tent,” Lionel said.
“So! You two didn’t get sick,” I said, pushing in the tent flap. I saw the men sitting on two neatly made cots. A milk crate table. Field notebooks. Duffel bags. A once-happy group shot of grad students, khakis on, thumbs up, all smiles. Here we are in Africa!
They both looked to be in their twenties, burned by the sun, a thin tall man and a pale chubby one. The blond tall one, clean shaven as a Mormon missionary, wore a short-sleeved cotton shirt fielding a SAVE THE PLANET motif, Merrill desert boots, and aviator-style silver-framed glasses. The second man was older, curly haired but balding, and dressed in ragged denim cutoffs, flip-flops, and a summerweight hoodie with a Breckinridge, Colorado, logo, a downhill skier etched in dark blue against white.