Gravel Heart(8)

‘Then at last we had word from a freed detainee to confirm the rumour of our father’s death. The man stopped Bibi in a lane and told her in a whisper that he had heard it from a witness, who swore in the name of God that he had seen the act with his own eyes. We did not know if the man who witnessed our father’s death said the act or if he described what was done to him, but that was what Bibi said and we did not ask for more details because the news made my mother break into a wail of despair. She sobbed for hours on end, clinging to us as we sobbed with her and then stopped and started each other off, again and again, until we were exhausted. For the next few days, my mother sat grieving, weeping silently, shattered and drained, unwilling to believe what she had known for weeks. Then one morning, her eyes swollen and her body sagging in misery and exhaustion, she announced what she planned to do. It was hopeless from the start.

‘She was ashamed to have become such a useless victim of events and to know no way of ending them or lessening their tyranny, she said. Her voice was hoarse and thick from crying as she spoke. Everything had always been too easy for her in her life and now she was useless and could not cope, a spineless snivelling wreck. They had all become like that, too ashamed of their puniness to feel anything like indignation or rebellion, to know how to resist these monstrous wrongs, and all they could manage was a subdued, helpless grumbling among themselves. Thousands of people were forced to leave because they had no work or money, and had no choice but to throw themselves on the mercy of a brother or a cousin living in a more fortunate place, further up the coast or across the ocean. Now she would join them, said my mother, to see if she could manage something with the help of relatives or acquaintances who had gone on before to Mombasa or even further afield. It was a time of turmoil, their lives torn apart like that, and they were forced into a kind of callousness in order to survive. She hated abandoning her children … that was what she said and my heart leapt at her words … just the contemplation of the idea made her feel worse than anything she had ever done in her life, but she could not be a burden forever. She would go out there and see what she could manage, and then she would send for them. It would not be for long, just a few months, and then they would be together again. For days she talked like that. Bibi might have said something about the futility of such talk, but she did not. She might have said this is how life finds you, now bear up and do what you can to preserve yourself and your children, but she did not. She murmured, she fed us and warmed the water for our baths.

‘But before my mother could carry out her desperate plan, before her preparations to leave had even progressed beyond words and words and endless oaths never to forget her children come what may, she fell suddenly ill. It was like an order issued by a spiteful force outside her. She was sitting on a little stool in the yard, grating a coconut for the lunch-time pot of cassava, one of the kitchen duties she had taken on, when a powerful blow made her lean back and pant for breath. She started to slump to her left and could offer no resistance or even call out. That was how we found her, half-fallen over and panting for breath. I don’t think she could have known what felled her because her mind never cleared after that, at least not so far as anyone could tell because she did not say another word we could understand. It was not a fever because she did not have a temperature nor was it anything in her gut because there were no signs, you know, no … ’

She gestured behind her but did not say the words.

‘There was Bibi and us children and we knew nothing about these things. My mother had lost consciousness and was trembling all over and all we knew to do was to take her to the hospital, Bibi on one side of her in the taxi and Amir and I on the other, between us holding her upright, as if it was important that she should not lurch or slump to one side. It was not far but the taxi was not allowed through the hospital gate and we had to help our mother to walk as best we could, heaving her dead weight without a word spoken between us.

‘We went to the accident department first but could not find anyone to speak to. There was one nurse on duty and she strolled past us calmly as Bibi tried to explain what had happened, just walked past as if no one had spoken to her. I don’t know how a nurse could behave like that. When she did not come back, we joined the dozens of other people in Out Patients, who were waiting for the arrival of the doctor. We sat on a stone bench and said nothing for a while, just like everyone else, holding on to our mother while she trembled and groaned. The room was large and all its doors were wide open but that did not disperse the smell of waste and disease. There were people of all ages there: a fatigued old woman with her eyes closed, leaning against a younger woman who was likely her daughter, a baby wailing without pause in its mother’s arms, its eyes clotted with infection, young women in no obvious distress, and men and women in the exhausting grip of one of the many illnesses that befall people like us who live in the poor countries of the world.

‘There was a male orderly in attendance and when Bibi approached him to report our presence he waved her away without saying a word. He refused to allow anyone to address him about his or her ailments, cutting off whoever it was with a swipe of the arm and an imperious finger pointed towards the concrete benches where everyone else was waiting. To those who were too persistent to obey immediately, he addressed a few brutal words of warning, which soon sent them wearily away. He then retreated to a glass cubicle, a look of distress on his face, shuffling his papers and hiding from the people he could do nothing for. No doctor had turned up by early afternoon and the orderly told them all to go home, take an aspirin and try again the next day. The Out Patients hours were over and he was locking up. The duty doctor must have been feeling unwell. Go home, nothing to be done now, come back tomorrow. He’ll be here tomorrow. I’m locking up now.