Doris Lessing - The Sweetest Dream

Sylvia knew that Andrew was watching, and tried to eat the chicken and spooned in the jelly as if it were medicine.

He wanted to know the history of the hospital. He had been shocked by it, and by Sylvia's being there. How could such a wretched thing be called a hospital? His dislike of the place, his suspicion, were being communicated, being felt, by Sylvia, by the priest and by Rebecca, who stood with her back to her kitchen, hands folded, listening. He did not like Rebecca. And he thoroughly distrusted Sylvia's looking like her – the native-style top, certain mannerisms, ways with the face and the eyes which Sylvia was unconscious of. Andrew spent most of his time with people of colour — and what could you call Sylvia, looking like that, almost as dark as Rebecca? He knew he did not suffer from race prejudice. No, but it was class prejudice, and the two are often confused. What was Sylvia doing, letting herself go like this?

These thoughts, all visible on his face, though he smiled and was his delightful social self, were putting the three against him. The trio, two of whom he thoroughly disliked, were united in criticism of him.

Father McGuire's emotions came out of him thus: 'That white suit of yours, what possessed you to put that on, to come and visit us in our dusty land?'

And indeed Andrew knew he had been foolish. He possessed a dozen or so white or cream linen suits, which took him to the Third World looking cool and smart. But there was dust on him today, and he had caught Sylvia's critical inspection of him, seeing the suit as a symptom.

'It's as well you didn't see the hospital as it was when I first came, ' Sylvia said.

' That's true enough,’ said the priest. ' If you are shocked by what you see now, what would you have said then?'

‘I didn't say I was shocked. '

‘I think we are used to seeing certain expressions on the faces of our visitors,' said Father McGuire. 'but if you want to understand that hospital, then ask the people in our village what they think. '

'We think Doctor Sylvia has been sent by God to us,' said Rebecca.

This silenced Andrew. They sat on at the table, drinking weak coffee, for which the priest apologised – decent coffee was hard to find, anything imported was so expensive, there were shortages of everything, and it was due to incompetence, that was all it was... He went on, a hard practised grumbling and then he heard himself, sighed and stopped. ‘And God forgive me, ' he said, ' to complain about a thing like bad coffee.'

The story of the hospital – it was not going to be told, Andrew saw, and knew it was his fault. He wanted to leave, but a visit to the school had been planned. They would have to go out into the dazzle of hot light that showed through the window. Father McGuire said he would get his forty winks, and off he went to his room. Sylvia and Andrew sat on, both wanting to sleep, but sticking it out. Then Rebecca came in to take the dirty plates.

‘Did you bring the books?’ she asked Andrew direct. The way Sylvia was keeping her eyes lowered meant that she had been wanting to ask this, but had been afraid to. She had sent him a list of books after he had telephoned to say he was coming. He had forgotten them, though she had written under the list, Please, Andrew. Please. He said to Rebecca, 'I forgot them, I'm sorry.' Her face stared: No — then she burst into tears and ran out of the room, leaving the tray on the table. Sylvia fitted plates and cups on to the tray and still did not look at him. ' It means a great deal to us,’ she said. ‘I know you won't be able to understand how much.'

'I'll send them to you.'

' They would probably be stolen on the way. Never mind, forget it. '

‘Of course I won't forget it. '

Now he remembered that when he was in her room he had seen shelves on the wall, and above it a printed card: Library. ‘Wait, ' he said, and went into her room. She followed. There were two books on the shelves, one a dictionary and one, Jane

Eyre. Both were falling to pieces. A sheet of paper was nailed to the brick: Library Books. Taken out: Returned. The Pilgrim's Progress. The Lord of the Rings. Christ Stopped at Eboli. The Grapes of Wrath. Cry, the Beloved Country. The Mayor of Casterbridge. The Holy Bible. The Idiot. Little Women. The Lord of the Flies. Animal Farm. Saint Teresa ofAvila. These were the books that Sylvia had brought with her, a store added to when people came, the books they had brought with them, begged for and donated to these shelves.

'A funny little collection,' said Andrew humbly. He was really moved to tears.

‘You see,’ said Sylvia, ' we need books. They love books and we can't get them. And these are all the worse for wear. '

‘I’ll send you what you asked, I will, ' he said.

She did not say anything. She said nothing in a way that he knew she had learned and was practising. He suspected she was praying under her breath for patience. ‘You see,’ she attempted, ' you don't understand what books mean. You see someone sitting in a hut at night reading by candlelight... you see someone barely literate struggling. ' Her voice trembled.

‘Oh, Sylvia, I'm so sorry. '

' Never mind. '

The list she had sent was in his briefcase, which he had brought with him: why? but he always took it with him.

The Little Flowers of Mary. The Theory and Practice of Good Husbandry in Sub-Saharan Africa. How to Write Good English. The Tragedies ofShakespeare. The Naked and the Dead. Gawain and the Green Knight. The Secret Garden. The Centre Cannot Hold. Teach YourselfEngineering. Mowgli. The Diseases ofCattle in Southern Africa. Shaka the Zulu King. Jude the Obscure. Wuthering Heights. Tarzan. And so on.

He went back into the dining-room and found that Father McGuire had reappeared, refreshed. The two men exited into the hot glare and Sylvia tumbled on her bed. She wept. She had promised all the people who had come up to the house and come up again, and again, asking for books, that a new stock of books was coming. She felt abandoned. In her mind Andrew stood for perfect tenderness, kindness; he was the gentle big brother to whom she could say anything, whom she could ask for anything – but he was a stranger now. That brilliant white suit! I ask you, white linen, put on to visit St Luke's Mission! White linen that must be like rubbing thick cream between your fingers. She felt that in some subtle way that suit was an insult to her, to Father McGuire, to Rebecca. Once long ago she could have said this to him, they might have laughed about it.

She slept, woke and made tea – Rebecca would not return until supper time. She had made some biscuits for the visitor.

The two men returned. Andrew was smiling, but tight-lipped and looked washed out: well, he had not slept.

'And there is my tea,' said Father McGuire. 'I can tell you, my child, that I need it, yes I do. '

‘Well?’ said Sylvia to Andrew. She sounded aggressive, since she knew what he had seen.

Six buildings, each holding four classrooms, bursting with children, from small ones to young men and women. They were all exuberantly welcoming, and all complained to this representative from the higher places of power that they needed textbooks, they had no textbooks. There was sometimes one textbook for the whole class. ‘How can we do our homework, sir? How can we study?'

There was not a globe, nor an atlas, in the whole school. When he had asked, the children did not know what they were. Harassed and frustrated young teachers took him aside to beg him to get them books to teach them how to teach. They were eighteen or twenty years old themselves, without hardly any qualifications and certainly none to enable them to teach.

Andrew had never seen a more depressing place: school it was not. Father McGuire had escorted him from building to building, striding through dust to get out of the sun and back into patches ofshade, introducing him as a friend of Zimlia. His fame as Global