Doris Lessing - The Sweetest Dream

The Growth Point was five miles from the Mission. The white government had created the idea that there should be a network of nuclei around which townships would grow: a shop, a government office, the police, a church, a garage. The idea was successful, and the black government claimed it as theirs. No one argued. This Growth Point was still in embryo but expanding: there were half a dozen little houses, a new supermarket. Sylvia parked outside the government office, a small building sitting in pale dust where some dogs lay asleep. Everyone piled out of the lorry, but Rebecca's boys had to stay in it, to guard it, otherwise everything would be stolen off it, including the tyres. They were given some Pepsi and a bun each, with instructions that if anyone at all looked as if theft was planned one must run and tell their mother.

The two women went together into the office, whose waiting-room already had a dozen people in it, and sat together at the end of a bench. Sylvia was the only white person there, but with her burned skin, and in her headscarf, for the dust, she and Rebecca were like each other, two small thin women, both with worried faces, in the timeless scene, petitioners waiting, lulled by boredom. From inside, beyond a door that had on it, Mr M. Mandizi, faded white paint on brown, came a loud hectoring voice. Sylvia grimaced at Rebecca who grimaced back. Time passed. The door suddenly opened and there appeared a young black girl, in tears.

'Shame,' said an old black man, who was well down in the queue. He clicked his tongue and shook his head, and said, ' Shame' loudly, as a large and imposing black man, in the obligatory three-piece suit, stood there and impressed them all. He said, ' Next' , and stood back, shutting the door, so that the next petitioner had to knock, and hear, ' Come in' .

Time passed. This one came out successful: at least, he was not crying. And he clapped his hands together gently, not looking at anyone, so that the salutation or applause was for himself. The loud voice from inside: ' Next. '

Sylvia sent Rebecca with some money to buy the children some lunch and a drink, and to make sure they were there. They were, asleep. Rebecca brought a Fanta back, which the two women shared.

A couple of hours passed.

Then, it was their turn, and the official, seeing that this was a white woman, was about to summon the man next on the bench when the old man said, 'Shame. The white woman is waiting like the rest of us.'

'It is for me to say who comes next,' said Mr Mandizi.

' Okay,’ said the old man, ' but it is not right, what you are doing. We don't like what you are doing. '

Mr Mandizi hesitated, but then pointed at Sylvia and went back in.

Sylvia smiled thanks at the old man, and Rebecca spoke softly to him in their language. Laughter all around. What was the joke? Again, Sylvia was thinking she would never know. But Rebecca whispered to her as they went in to the office, 'I told him he was like an old bull who knows how to keep the young ones in order. '

They arrived in front of Mr Mandizi still smiling. He glanced up from papers, frowned, saw Rebecca was there, and was about to speak sharply to her when she began on the ritual greeting.

'Good morning – no, I see it is already afternoon. So, good afternoon.'

' Good afternoon, ' he replied

‘I hope you are well. '

‘I am well if you are well...’ and so on, and even truncated it was an impressive reminder of good manners.

Then, to Sylvia: ‘What do you want?'

' Mr Mandizi, I am from St Luke's Mission, and I have come to ask why the supply of condoms has not been sent. It was due from you last month. '

Mr Mandizi seemed to swell, and he half rose from his desk, and his startled look became offended. He subsided and said, ‘And why am I expected to talk to a woman about condoms? It is not what I expect to hear?'

‘I am the doctor at the Mission hospital. The government last year said that condoms were being made available for all bush hospitals.'

Clearly Mr Mandizi had not heard of this ukase, but now he gave himself time by dabbing at his forehead, bright with sweat, with a very large white handkerchief. His was the kind of face that has to labour for authority. It was by nature amiable, and wanting to please: the frown he imposed on it didn't suit him. 'And what may I ask are you going to do with all these condoms?'

'Mr Mandizi, you must have heard that there is a bad disease... it is a new very bad disease and it is transmitted by sexual intercourse.'

His face was that of a man being forced to swallow unpleasantness.

‘Yes, yes, ' he said, ' but we know that this disease is an invention of the whites. It is to make us wear condoms, so that we do not have children and our people become weakened. '

' Forgive me, Mr Mandizi, but you are out of date. It is true that your government was saying that AIDS does not exist but now they say that perhaps it may exist, and so men should wear condoms.'

Ghosts of derision chased themselves across his large, black pleasant face, displacing the frown. And now Rebecca spoke, direct to him, in their language, and it seemed well, for Mr Mandizi was listening, his face turned towards her, towards this woman to whom in his culture, he would not have to listen on such subjects, at least not in public.

He addressed Sylvia: ‘You think this sickness is here, in this district, with us? Slim is here?'

‘Yes, I know it is. I know it is, Mr Mandizi. People are dying from it. You see, the problem is diagnosis. People may be dying of pneumonia or TB or diarrhoea or skin lesions – sores – but the real reason is AIDS. It is Slim. And there are a lot of sick people. Many more than when I first came to the hospital.'

Now Rebecca spoke again, and Mr Mandizi was listening, not looking at her, but nodding.

'And so you want me to telephone the head office and tell them to send me the condoms?'

'And we have not had the malaria tablets. We haven't had any medicines.'

' Doctor Sylvia has been buying medicines for us with her own money,' said Rebecca.

Mr Mandizi nodded, sat thinking. Then, a different man, a petitioner in his turn, he leaned forward and asked, ' Can you tell by looking if someone has Slim?'

‘No. There are tests for it. '

‘My wife is not well. She coughs all the time. '

' That needn't be AIDS. Has she lost weight?'

' She is thin. She is too too thin. '

‘You should take her to the big hospital. '

'I did. They gave her muti but she is still sick.'

'Sometimes I send samples to Senga – if someone isn't too sick.'

‘You are saying that if someone is very ill you don't send samples?'

' Some people come in to me when they are so ill I know they are going to die. And there is no point in wasting money on tests. '

' In our culture,’ said Mr Mandizi, regaining his authority because of this so often used formula, ' in our culture, we have good medicine, but I know you whites despise it. '

'I don't despise it. I am friends with our local n'ganga. Sometimes I ask him for help. But he says himselfhe cannot do anything for AIDS.'

' Perhaps that is why his medicine didn't help her?'

But hearing what he had said, his whole body seemed to freeze up in panic and he sat rigid, staring, then jumped up and said, ‘You must come with me now – yes, now-now – she is here, in my house, it is five minutes.'

He swept the two women before him out of the office and through the silent petitioners, saying, 'I will be back in my office in ten minutes. Wait. '

Sylvia and Rebecca were directed through the hot dusty glare to one of the new houses, ten of them in a row, like boxes sitting in the dust, but identical to the big new houses going up in Senga, scaled down to the importance of Kwadere Growth Point. Over them scarlet, purple and magenta bougainvillaeas marked them for distinction: here lived all the local officials.