S. Naudé - The Alphabet of Birds

Lerato frowns. She picks up the phone. She looks at Sandrien while she instructs someone to order the basin. See, her expression says, I give the orders here.

‘What is the situation with antiretrovirals, Lerato? We all know, after all, that the policy has been for some time to provide it universally.’

‘Not so simple, girl. Issues of distribution, of infrastructure. Only doctors may prescribe them. And the issue of patient cooperation. We all know the risks if patients do not comply properly. We can only do what we can do. And what we have money for.’

‘And if I can get it elsewhere, how do I get a doctor to prescribe it?’

Lerato frowns. She lifts her chin and looks down her nose at Sandrien.

‘We have a lot of vacancies for doctors at the moment. Everything in due course, my meisie .’

Sandrien sits with her face in her hands opposite Kobus.

‘Yesterday two of my patients died, in a single day. This morning,’ she holds out an arm in front of her, ‘I lifted a man on the examination table — a twenty-nine-year-old man — like a tiny bird. As I lifted him, the diarrhoea poured out of him over my arm, down my leg.’

Kobus remains quiet for a long time. He does not look up when he speaks.

‘You’re never here at Dorrebult any more,’ he says. ‘And even when you’re here, you’re not really here. You’re becoming a stranger.’

When she arrives at her Venterstad clinic, the testing kits are there, compliments of Widereach. Her heart lifts. Each testing kit is in a little suitcase-like box, a clinic-in-miniature. Next to the queue of people in front of her door a basin is lying on the veranda. No pipes, no taps. She calls the works department, insists they come and install the basin today.

‘If I haven’t got a working basin by lunchtime tomorrow, I will complain to Lerato.’

The man laughs and puts down the receiver.

Late afternoon, after her last patient, she drives to Aliwal North. Dust clouds are emanating from the windows of the municipal offices. Scaffolding and canvas block the way to Lerato’s office. A team of workers. Sandrien greets one of them, the husband of one of her sickest patients.

‘Where is Lerato?’ Sandrien has to shout to render herself audible amidst the din of brick cutters.

‘We’re renovating,’ the secretary shouts back. ‘We’re remodelling! Lerato’s office will be lovely! And double the size!’

She gestures excitedly in the direction of a set of textile samples next to a catalogue of sofas. She turns her head, holds up two pieces of cloth.

‘What do you think? Isn’t it a charming combination?’ When Sandrien retreats, she calls with greater urgency. ‘Look,’ she gestures, ‘look!’

She points to sample paint patches against the wall, shades of grey.

Away from the noise and dust, Sandrien pushes open the door of a cubicle in the ladies. Lerato is sitting on the toilet, skirt around her high heels. She is studying a sheet on her lap: a sketch of an interior.

‘Sorry,’ Sandrien mutters, and pulls the door shut.

She considers discussing the issue of the basin through the cubicle door, but then stumbles out.

‘Wait!’ Lerato shouts from the cubicle. ‘Come and see the mock-up of my new office!’

When the coldroom’s doors swing open, a cloud of vapour rises into the heat. The coffin appears from the cloud. Two men in overalls and gloves are pushing the trolley. The coffin is made of pine, but has been stained and varnished to look like ebony. It is topped by a bouquet of arum lilies. The chilled flowers look fresh and resilient. No sign yet of how fast they will wilt. The carriers lift the coffin and the mourners fall in line behind them. The men in overalls stand back and lock the doors, their delivery complete. Sandrien keeps at a distance. There is singing in the sun, a woman who collapses and has to be held up. The coffin descends into the grave. Afterwards she shakes hands with the family. They react with politeness, distance.

‘What do you think of my fridge?’

It is Manie Maritz who has approached Sandrien from behind. The funeral is on Mara, Manie’s farm near Steynsburg. Manie is an acquaintance of Kobus’s and one of the few farmers who hasn’t sold out to the hunting-farm developers. She arches a quizzical eyebrow.

‘There.’ He points to the coldroom from which the coffin appeared. ‘That’s where we keep them fresh. We used to refrigerate slaughtered cattle and game in there. It needed only a few adjustments.’

‘Good afternoon, Manie. I see you have some sort of business here.’

He smiles. ‘Not quite what one had in mind, but one has to make do.’

Sandrien looks at the people still milling around the grave. Where before there was a field, there are now rows and rows of granite graves, some with turrets or cherubs.

‘How do these people afford all of this?’

‘This is only the beginning,’ he says. ‘There’s a big feast coming.’

He points to a concrete surface on the other side of the graves on which a large tent has been erected. The mourners are making their way there. ‘There’ll be slaughtering now. I have two cows ready. They pay in instalments; it’s a long-term business. One has to manage it carefully. I have arrangements with farmers to dock wages if payments become overdue.’

Sandrien leaves without saying goodbye to Manie. She will not be attending another funeral.

Sandrien and Kobus leave for Bloemfontein before dawn. She is going for her quarterly tests and scans. She had wanted to cancel her appointment, but knew Kobus would refuse. On the sonar screen in the oncology ward they see how the antihormone treatment is making the milk gland in the remaining breast atrophy. After the hospital visit, they pick up the twins at the school residence for lunch. When she sees them, she realises she has not spoken to either of them for over a month. They sit with the girls in a shopping centre over bland plates of food. The twins are sullen, as is usual these days. Sandrien suddenly becomes impatient to be back in her van, working. She forces herself to stay put.

In the car on the way back from the residence, Kobus peers at her furtively. He rests his hand on hers. ‘You don’t have to feel guilty about these privileges, even though there are people dying in the dust. The world is a broken place, but you did not create it.’

She pulls her hand from underneath his, looks out at the pale winter lawns.

On her way from one outer corner of the territory she serves with her van to the other, she stops at home.

‘When last did you visit your mother?’ Kobus asks. ‘I was there this morning to take supplies, and she’s not looking good.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Have you forgotten, Sandrien? She’s over ninety years old. She’s fraying around the edges, she’s drifting into oblivion. You’ve hardly been there once in the months since you’ve been back. And that little maid who looks after her—’

‘Brenda, Grace’s daughter.’

He shakes his head. ‘It’s not working. Too brusque, too little empathy.’

‘I’ll drop by.’

Her head is bent forward; she has started writing medicine labels at the dining table and sticking them onto amber bottles.

‘You’re not looking that good, either. You’re losing weight.’

She keeps writing.

Kobus is on his way out, to church. He knows better than to ask her along.

‘Surely one wants to be part of some community?’ he said one previous Sunday morning.

She was sitting at the dining table, writing on vaccination cards.

‘I have my community,’ she said without looking up.

Now too she keeps on writing. Closing the door, he sighs quietly.

‘It isn’t looking good,’ her oncologist says the following day on the phone.