Doris Lessing - The Sweetest Dream

At the house the priest was drinking tea. 'Sylvia, my dear, I think you should take a little holiday.'

'And what would that do?'

' Give it time to blow over. '

‘Do you think it will blow over?'

He was silent.

‘Where shall I go, Father? I feel now that this is my home. Until the other hospital is built these people need me here. '

'Let us see what Mr Mandizi says when he comes. '

These days Mr Mandizi was a friend, and it was a long time since he had been rude and suspicious, but what was coming was an official doing his duty.

When he came, there was nothing to know him by but his name. This was Mr Mandizi, he said he was, but really he was dreadfully ill.

' Mr Mandizi, should you not be in bed?'

‘No, doctor. I can do my job. In my bed, there is my wife. She is very sick. Two of us, side by side – no, I do not think I would like that. '

‘Did you have the tests done?'

He was silent, then sighed, then said, ‘Yes, Doctor Sylvia, we had the tests. '

Rebecca brought in the meat, the tomatoes, the bread for lunch, saw the official and said, shocked, 'Shame, oh shame, Mr Mandizi.'

Since Rebecca was always thin and small and her face bony under her kerchief, he could not see she was ill, and so he sat there like the doomed man at the feast, surrounded by the healthy.

‘I am so sorry, Mr Mandizi,’ said Rebecca and went out to her kitchen, crying.

‘And so now you must tell me everything, Doctor Sylvia.'

She told him.

‘Would she have died if you didn't operate?'

'Yes.'

'Was there a chance of saving her?'

'A bit of a chance. Not much. You see, I don't have penicillin, it ran out and...'

He made the movement of his hand she knew so well: don't criticise me for things I can't help. ‘I shall have to tell the big hospital.'

‘Of course. '

' They will probably want a post mortem.'

'They will have to be quick. She is in her coffin. Why don't you just say it was my fault. Because I am not a surgeon. '

'Is it a difficult operation?'

‘No, one of the easy ones. '

‘Would a real surgeon have done anything different?'

‘Not much, no, not really. '

‘I don't know what to say, Doctor Sylvia. '

It was clear he wanted to say more. He sat with his eyes lowered, glanced up at her, doubtfully, then looked at the priest. Sylvia could see they knew something she didn't.

‘What is it?’ she said.

'Who is this friend of yours, Matabele Bosman Smith?'

'Who?'

Mr Mandizi sighed. He sat with his untouched food in front of him. So did Sylvia. The priest ate steadily, frowning. Mr Mandizi rested his head on his hand, and said, ' Doctor Sylvia, I know there is no muti for what I have, but I am getting these headaches, headaches, I didn't know there could be headaches like these. '

‘I have something for your headaches. I'll give you the pills before you go. '

' Thank you, Doctor Sylvia. But I have to say something... there is something...’ Again, he glanced at the priest, who nodded reassurance. ' They are going to close down your hospital. '

‘But these people need this hospital. '

' There will be our new hospital soon...’ Sylvia brightened, saw that the official was only cheering himself up, and she nodded.

'Yes, there will be one I am sure of it,' said Mr Mandizi. 'Yes, that is the situation.'

'Okay,' said Sylvia.

' Okay,’ said Mr Mandizi.

A week later arrived a short typewritten letter addressed to Father McGuire, instructing him to close down the hospital ' as from this date' . On the same morning a policeman arrived on a motorbike. He was a young black man, perhaps twenty, or twenty-one, and he was ill at ease in his authority. Father McGuire asked him to sit down, and Rebecca made them tea.

‘And now, my son, what can I do for you?'

‘I am looking for stolen property. '

'Now I understand. Well, you won't find any in this house.' Rebecca stood by the sideboard. She said nothing. The policeman said to her, ' Perhaps I will come with you to your house and look around for myself. '

Rebecca said, ‘We have seen the new hospital. There are bush pig living in it. '

‘I too have visited the new hospital. Yes, bush pig, and I think baboons too. ' He laughed, stopped himself, and sighed. ‘But there is a hospital here, I think, and my orders are that I must see it.'

'The hospital is closed.' The priest pushed over the official letter, the policeman read it, and said, ' If it is closed, then I do not see any problem. '

' That is my opinion too. '

‘I think I must discuss this situation with Mr Mandizi. '

' That is a good idea. '

‘But he is not well. Mr Mandizi is not well and I think we shall soon have a replacement.' He got up, not looking at Rebecca, whose house he knew he ought to be investigating. Off he went, his bike roaring and coughing through the peaceful bush.

Meanwhile Sylvia was supposed to be closing down her hospital.

There were patients in the beds, and Clever and Zebedee were doling out medicines.

She said to the priest, 'I am going in to Senga to see Comrade Minister Franklin. He was a friend. He came to us for holidays. He was Colin's friend.'

‘Ah. Nothing more annoying than the people who knew you before you were Comrade Minister.'

‘But I'm going to try. '

‘Wouldn't you perhaps think to put on a nice clean dress?'

‘Yes, yes. ' She went into her room and emerged in her going-to-town outfit, in green linen.

‘And perhaps you should take a nightdress or whatever you need for the night?'

Again she went into her room and emerged with a hold-all. 'And now shall I ring the Pynes and ask if they plan a trip to Senga?'

Edna Pyne said she would be glad of an excuse to get away from the bloody farm, and was over in halfan hour. Sylvia jumped into the seat beside her, waved at Father McGuire, ' See you tomorrow. ‘And so did Sylvia leave for what would be an absence of weeks.

Edna kept up her complaints all the way into town, and then said she had something shocking to tell, she shouldn't be mentioning it but she had to. Cedric had been approached by one of those crooks to say that in return for giving up his farms ' now-now' a sum amounting to a third of their value would arrive in his bank account in London.

Sylvia took this in, and laughed.

' Exactly, laugh. That's all we can do. I tell Cedric, just take it, and let's get out. He says he's not accepting a third of the value. He wants to stick out for the full value. He says the new dam alone will put up the value of the new farm by a half. I just want to get out. What I can't stand, is the bloody hypocrisy. They make me sick.’And so Edna Pyne chattered all the way in to Senga where she dropped Sylvia outside the government offices.

When Franklin was told that Sylvia Lennox wanted to see him he panicked. While he had thought she 'might try something on' , he did not expect it so soon. He had signed the order to close the hospital a week ago. He temporised: ' Tell her I am in a meeting. ' He sat behind his desk, his hands palms down in front of him, staring dolefully at the wall which had on it the portrait of the Leader which adorned all the offices in Zimlia.

When he thought ofthat house he had gone to for his holidays, in north London, it was as if he had touched some blessed place, like a shady tree, that had no connection with anything before or since. It had been home when he felt homeless, kindness when he had longed for it. As for the old woman, he had seen her, like an old secretary bird going in and out, but he had scarcely noticed her, this terrible Nazi. But he had never heard any Nazi talk in that house, surely? And there had been little Sylvia, with her shining wisps of gold hair, and her angel's face. As for Rose Trimble, when he thought of her he found himself grinning; a proper little crook, well he had benefited, so he shouldn't complain. And now she had written that nasty piece... surely she had been a guest in that house, like him? Yet she had been there much longer than he had, and so what she wrote had to be taken seriously. But what he remembered was welcome, laughter, good food, and Frances, in particular, like a mother. Later, when it was Johnny's place he stayed at, now that was a different thing. It wasn't a large flat, nothing like that great house where Colin had been so kind, yet it was always crammed with people from everywhere, Americans, Cubans, other countries in South America, Africa... It was an education in revolution, Johnny's flat. He remembered at least two black men (with false names) from this country who were training in Moscow for guerilla war. And the guerilla war had been won, and he owed his sitting here, behind this desk, a senior Minister, to men like those. While he kept an eye out for them, at rallies and big meetings, he had never seen them since.