The Old Man(84)
The Canadian People’s Relief Corps’ mission was to organize, fund, and equip teams of relief workers and send them where humanitarian aid was most urgently needed. They provided water purification systems, generators, food, clothing, and materials for temporary shelters. If the country was infested with mosquitos they brought mosquito netting. If the region was hungry but stable they brought well-digging equipment, seeds, tools, and even imported livestock. And no matter where they went, they brought medical supplies, doctors, nurses, technicians, and trained volunteers.
The organization had been operating for over twenty years, and Spencer saw references in the literature to teams that had been to Bosnia, India, Timor, Bangladesh, Mozambique, Mali, Rwanda, Nigeria, Liberia, Ukraine, Syria, Eritrea, Sudan, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya.
During his second month Spencer donated another five thousand dollars. After the third month he made the monthly donation permanent and began attending meetings. He never spoke during the business portions of the proceedings, which were usually reports on current missions in various countries or deliberations about future missions, but he sometimes stayed after with a few others to discuss the issues without speaking publicly.
On one occasion he happened to be talking to some of the board members about missions to the Middle East when the president brought out a letter from an official in Iraq. Spencer said, “I can probably tell you what it says.”
When the president handed the letter to him he read it aloud in English and handed it back. The director asked him why he spoke Arabic. He repeated the story he had concocted for Abdul Othmani and his friends about his parents bringing him to Libya as a child.
A month later, after a regular meeting of the Toronto group, the director introduced Spencer to a pair of doctors who were planning to take a large group on a mission to North Africa in a few months. One of them was a woman named Labiba Zidane. While they were speaking about the difficulty of operating in Libya, Dr. Zidane unexpectedly switched to Arabic.
“The director says you’re fluent in Arabic,” she said in Libyan Arabic. “Are you?”
He replied in Arabic. “I am only a poor student of the language, but I can get by in most situations. And you are a physician. May I ask what your specialty is?”
She smiled. “My practice is in pediatrics but I have some experience in infectious diseases.”
The other doctor, Andre Leclerc, was French Canadian. He looked at them in amused puzzlement. But the pair kept talking in rapid Arabic.
Dr. Zidane said, “How old are you?”
“I’m sixty,” Alan said.
“Healthy? No trouble with your heart or lungs?”
“No trouble.”
“Would you consider coming with us to Libya in the fall? We desperately need volunteers.”
“I’m not sure. What sort of work would I do?”
“Triage, most of the time. Often people in the remote areas or the poor in the cities don’t see a doctor from one year to the next, so they come in large numbers. You would greet the patients and ask them if they have any specific problems, ask them their names, then make them understand where to sit to wait, and take their temperature and blood pressure. Obviously, if someone is terribly ill you would take them to the front of the line.”
“Let me think about it.”
“You’ll need a few weeks of training, and you can think while we train you. It’s several months away.”
Dr. Leclerc said, “You two sound as though you’ve known each other for some time.”
“No, but we have a common acquaintance—with Arabic. This is someone we want,” she said. She turned back to Alan. “Do you have a passport?”
“I do,” Alan said. “But I’ll have to see if it’s even current.”
“Our staff will take care of that for you,” said the director. “Bring it with you this week, and we’ll include you in the request for all of the entry visas.”
“But I haven’t decided,” said Spencer.
“Having a visa is a precaution,” said Dr. Zidane. “And we’d better see which shots you need. I promise they won’t hurt a bit.”
As Alan Spencer walked to the subway station he thought about what had happened tonight. He had gotten the invitation that any clandestine operator would have wanted at this stage. Later, if Dr. Zidane doubted him, she would not fail to remind herself that Spencer had not come to her and Dr. Leclerc. They had approached him and tried to talk him into going. He would make sure they asked him again in English in front of more witnesses before he assented.
31
It was summer. To Marie Spencer the Toronto winter had seemed harder than the ones in Chicago. The snow had lasted into April, and then there was a period of cold rain and dark skies that seemed to last a long time before the sunny days arrived.
She had always loved summer—not just the gentle weather, but the celebration of renewal. Now she lived with a man who never had to concern himself with whether he could afford something—a play, a concert, a train trip across a continent. He let her spend summer days working at things she loved to do, and the long, mild summer evenings with him enjoying the city.
During the summer she had made good progress at the academy learning the piano pieces she had wanted to master, and Alan always seemed to be reading and studying, or going out to work with Canadian charities. He never said much about the charities, but she knew enough about him now to understand what he must be doing. He was very premeditated, and he was probably burnishing his legend. She’d read somewhere that was what they called a false identity in his old line of work—a legend. If he were ever under suspicion by the Canadian authorities, he couldn’t just be a reclusive businessman. He had to be a person with acquaintances and contacts, and a record of virtue. During that summer he seemed to be thriving, as he had not been since Chicago. Physically and mentally, he was at a peak.