Aminatta Forna - The Memory of Love

‘I know,’ he replied. Not knowing if she were talking about her father or the coup. From Kai’s room in the student halls of residence, the return to their family homes restricted their lovemaking, bringing to it a new anticipation. Many times he had knocked on the shutter, whispered their password; never had he slept there. That night he had not slept, either, but lain awake and watched the changing light upon the bare wall, dawn slowly highlighting the shape of her beside him. It had rained hard in the night, the pattern of the rain played out upon the wall; the sound wrapped itself around them as they lay in the huddle of each other’s arms.

In the morning he had slipped out, the air clammy with dew and the exhaled breath of sleepers. By then there was a new order.

Kai awakens from dreaming of her. From outside comes the sound of rain. For a while he imagines it is some part of the dream, surely it is too early in the year for rain. The water resounds upon the roof. Kai rises and crosses the sitting room to turn up the music, Jimmy Cliff. ‘Wonderful World, Beautiful People.’ He goes to the door and opens it, watching the rain, feeling the water splash up and touch his feet, his ankles. Gradually the glory of the music, the soothing sounds of the rain absorb the memory of the dream.

On the fifth day Kai opens the door of the bedroom to find Adrian up and half dressed. At Kai’s entrance he slumps on to the bed, apparently defeated by the effort of buttoning his trousers. There are faint shadows between his ribs, tracks of purplish veins run beneath translucent skin.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘I have to go in.’ Adrian struggles with the buckle of his belt.

Kai shakes his head. ‘Man, you can barely stand.’

‘Just for two hours. That’s all. I have to see her.’

‘Who?’

‘My patient.’

Kai stands regarding Adrian’s efforts for a moment. Then he crosses the room, takes a striped cotton shirt from the cupboard, hands it to Adrian and watches as he forces one arm and then the other through the sleeves, a sheen of sweat upon his forehead. Kai steps forward to help with the buttons.

‘I’ll drive you,’ he says.

Kai recognises Ileana from her voice over the telephone.

She takes one look at Adrian. ‘My God, you look awful.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ve brought my doctor.’ Adrian smiles faintly and waves his arm at Kai, a lolling gesture, like a barely animated rag doll. ‘Kai, Ileana. Ileana, Kai.’

Ileana looks at Kai and nods briskly. Her attention immediately returns to Adrian. ‘Listen, I’m really sorry,’ she says.

‘It’s malaria. Everyone gets it. Or so I’m told.’

‘No. I mean I’m sorry, Adrian. Agnes’s gone. I’m so sorry. I should have called, but you were sick.’

The drive back takes place in silence. Adrian, his head resting upon the glass, gazes sightlessly out of the window. Kai understands the dismay that goes with losing a patient, in whatever manner. Each time you start work on a patient, you begin — he does not know a surgeon who is different — with total belief. It is a belief in the possibility of life, almost a spiritual belief which dwarfs all scientific knowledge, all medical learning. No information about the chances for the patient can assail it. You tackle a one-in-a-hundred with the same vigour you bring to a one-in-three or a one-in-two. During the worst days of the war, the doctors would walk down the corridors picking the injured men and women who might have a chance, leaving the others to die. He had experienced less conflict over doing so than he imagined. Yet once a patient had become their own, once the team became united in that goal, the loss was bitterly felt by all.

In the event it is Adrian who speaks first, to ask if the air conditioning might be turned down. Kai reaches across and rests the back of his hand briefly on Adrian’s brow.

‘Your temperature is right back up. What you need is to cool down.’ He leans back and gropes about on the rear seat until he finds a plastic bottle of water. He hands it to Adrian. Kai sees him take a few sips, bracing himself against the jolting of the vehicle on the uneven road. He slows the vehicle and says, ‘From what you told me she’ll be back in a few months.’

Adrian stares ahead and wipes his mouth. ‘Yes. Only I don’t know if I’ll still be here when she does.’

When they reach the flat Adrian heads straight to the bedroom, and Kai into the kitchen. Presently Kai hears the sound of the cistern and Adrian returns to the sitting room.

‘Christ, I’m exhausted. By the way, is that normal?’

‘To be exhausted? Yes.’

‘No, I mean my piss. It’s the colour of orangeade.’

Kai laughs. ‘I forgot to warn you about that.’

The telephone rings. Lisa. Kai listens to the restraint in Adrian’s voice. He and Nenebah had never got to that place, the place where politeness reasserts itself, had argued frequently. He notices Adrian makes no mention of his illness.

That morning, when Kai had left Nenebah’s house and arrived back at the hospital, had been the first. There would be a lull. The storm would catch them all unawares. But all that was two years away from that morning. Right then he’d been twenty-six years old. On the walk to work he’d heard the sound of mortars for the first time, beginning with the cheerful whistling overhead and ending in an explosion. He began to run, arriving to find the hospital in chaos. His heart still pumped from the run, to him it was exhilarating. The army had mutinied and stormed the central prison, the prison gates had been torn down. The first casualties were prisoners. Burns mostly, and the effects of smoke inhalation, for the first wave of departing prisoners had set fire to their quarters, forgetting or perhaps heedless of the fate of the other inmates. Only the worst wounded came to the hospital, the others preferring to seize the opportunity which had presented itself. There were a few prison guards among them, who thought they should be treated first, and some of the staff were in agreement. Kai hadn’t cared. He merely set to work on the patients, one after the other. The fires burned all night, the sacking of the city continued. That day, apart from burns, he had treated more gunshot wounds than he had seen in his career.

Late in the afternoon he had stepped outside the building. Somebody offered him a cigarette, and though he didn’t smoke he placed it unlit between his lips. Rumours abounded. One, no, two of the hotels were under siege, packed full of fleeing politicians. The Americans were coming. The British were sending a gunship. The central bank had been raided, there was money lying in the streets. Inside the empty staff room a radio blared, the spokesman for the coup leaders issuing statements in broken English.

The next time Kai left the building it must have been around midnight. It was dark. For the last five hours he’d been working by the light of a camping lantern. He stood listening to the sound of gunfire. Later it would never fail to amaze him how innocuous a sound it was in reality, nothing like the loud bangs in the movies. A time would come when he would be able to identify the make and model of a weapon from the sound it made, match the resulting injuries to those weapon types. For now he stood and stared at the sky, the iron-rich scent of blood rising from the stains on his gown. He felt exhausted, and at the same time utterly content. He smiled.

Then he remembered Nenebah.

Evening comes. Kai is folding paper from memory: in half, a corner here, an edge turned over, he runs a fingernail down a fold, working quickly for speed is part of the purpose. His fingers move deftly, finally pulling the object into shape. A frog. He pulls it apart, smoothes out the creases and begins again. This time he fashions a long-necked camel, after that a swan. At home, origami animals line the windowsill in the room where Abass sleeps. Kai is about to dismantle the swan when Adrian comes into the room, clad only in his shorts. His hair is stuck in dark points to his forehead. He is holding a pair of scissors.