The clinic stood, as it had, since its inauguration in the early 1900s, somewhat distanced from the town, and at walking distance from the church. A peaceful sentinel between the cassava fields.
Charles passed a grateful palm over his brow as he turned onto the driveway, and drank from the water bottle he had below his seat; the water had no way of staying cool and left a tepid taste behind the teeth.
Daudi came out to meet him with his custom wild cheer. "Dr Graves! Dr Graves, did you bring me 'toffee'?"
"Sure. Is Hadebe here?"
"Where is it?" Daudi climbed up the outside and poked his head into the cabin of the old Handley Page. Charles reached over to the passenger seat and handed him the small parcel of sweets McBryne had wrapped him.
"Share it with Dhakiya and Bakari." He told the boy. "How many beds do we have free?"
"Eleven in the ward."
"Very well."
"The doctor is at the kitchen. She bought Mandazi for Bakari's birthday."
"Mdm Adea's? — the boy nodded — Now, go inside and get me some help. We'll need linen to put some cots up in the house."
"How many do you have with?"
❧
Charles and Hadebe now sat in the drawing room, with its rattan woven seats and kerosene lamps and the fireplace that had never been used when he'd been here and the fact that it was clean and bare suggested it hadn't been in long. Perhaps not since Hadebe bought the place. But the late evening brought shadows that were long and strong, and Charles, his ankle thrown across the opposite knee, regarded the dog pass from the veranda to the kitchen. Dhakiya followed the dog in. There was a determined, adrenalised quality to her eyes, and a healthy blush to her cheeks.
Hadebe looked up. "Sit down, Dhakiya. I want to talk about your future."
"They are here, you know. At the church." Dhakiya said. "To summon us!"
Hadebe muttered something in Swahili under her breath. "Ah. 'Summoned.' And shall I also paint your face? Sit down, girl."
"They want me!"
"What do you know about any of it?"
"I know it is time to drive the invaders into the sea. And that I shall carry the spear and shield of my father!"
Hadebe made a clicking sound of disapproval between her teeth and regarded the girl side-ways. "Your mother was half European. Which part of yourself will you drive into the sea?"
Dhakiya postured impatiently in the middle of the room. "I am African enough not to mock when my people call."
"And what will you do, Dhakiya? It takes more than a spear to make a warrior."
"What does it take? You teach me! What does it take to be a warrior? A dead husband and daughter?"
"Dhakiya!" Charles's voice cut through.
The room went silent. Charles watched Dhakiya carefully. "Sit down. You're not ready to be——a warrior… I… promise you," he looked over at Hadebe, "rather, we would see you leave for London. With Mary and me. Once we return. I have been teaching for six years now, and the faculty there has—"
"They need me here." Dhakiya insisted.
"…And that is the most important thing in the world, isn't it?" Charles spoke quietly.
"Yes."
Hadebe refilled her glass, not looking at the girl. "Important enough to go setting fire to farms and murdering people. Why, Dhakiya? Why should you feel that way?"
"I hate them!"
"Them? As you do Charles?" Hadebe drank.
Dhakiya went quiet. Eyes to the floor, lips pressed together. She swallowed and sheepishly looked at Charles Graves, as he sat, his face carefully blank and posture open.
"No." The girl said, quietly.
Hadebe nodded. "Then I propose you sit down and listen to me."
❧
Hadebe rose from her seat and employed herself by the cabinet. A bottle of red had been airing out. "She is young. Has seen enough people die in their beds and thinks she is ready for a battlefield."
"It would break her." Charles spoke, and he threw a look towards the hallway, where Dhakiya had disappeared upstairs but a little while ago.
Hadebe let out a low, disagreeing tut. Her head angled downwards. "No, it would not. But I would not have it happen to her anyway."
"You stink of cheap wine."
"Ah, but it flows from expensive ideals."
Charles breathed deeply; head tilted against the rattan back. "You can't tell me you can kill people and come out of it without any harm to yourself. Or your relations," he pointed at himself, "in whatever form they come."
Hadebe turned around slowly and regarded him curiously. Searchingly. "You mentioned it." She began.
"Sure."
"But all I ever hear about it is that you wish it hadn't happened."
"No. Not quite, rather I would not have had it happen the way it happened."
"Changing politics?"
"No. But it was barbarous," Charles said. "Something had to be done but not the way Mary went about it. Nor the way I went about it after."
"Drink on it."
"No. Let's not."
Hadebe nodded once in understanding and returned to the seat opposite him. "I would have liked to teach." She spoke.
"I imagine."
"You look a little like a professor." Hadebe said. "You have a beard, at least."
Charles snorted. They were quiet for a while. And Charles could hear the din of the night carry inside.
"Denham-Moore's got Mary on edge," Charles spoke.
"Sure."
"She's intimidated. She'll be doing bad when I return."
"Just make sure you aren't doing bad."
"I'm not having this conversation again."
"Is it good to teach?"
"It's— acceptable."
"It's bad?"
"Not all of it's bad. Most of it's good."
"The proverbial double-edged sword."
"The worst is when they make mistakes. That first time's the worst. We tell ourselves the ones after that are just as bad but it just hits differently." Charles clenched his jaw. "It's at that point we realise we can't save the world."
Charles remembered once when he'd had a young physician at his desk. Elbows on her knees and head in her hands, and the young woman had looked as if she was questioning all that was good within the world— expression grave and abandoned and betrayed. When Charles had sat down before her, the woman had looked at him with imploring and accusing eyes, brimmed red and vile.
"Go home." Charles had said. "No drinks. Get to bed. Tomorrow, you come back and do your job. This time better." Charles had paused. The young woman's eyes stood furious, her shoulders high and her jaw tensed. She'd held her fingers clenched into each other as if it would subvert their shivering. Her knees bounced neurotically. Charles had turned away to give the young physician some privacy.
"If you need absolution, you can pray, donate, give food to the poor. Whatever ritual comforts you."
"— I failed them." The soft interruption came.
"Yes. And you'll do it again." Charles turned back to watch her. "I can't forgive you. You must do that yourself. Even though you may know there's nothing to forgive— it's not something you will easily believe after the day you've had. Take the evening. Come back tomorrow."
The woman had risen. Charles had watched her closely. But she hadn't said anything anymore and just walked out. Disillusioned. A little less naive. A little less hopeful and at wonder with the world. And a little less believing that she could save it.
Charles waved away the memory. He didn't know if Hadebe had said anything in return. But it didn't matter, really. So they sat there and watched the shadows move until Hadebe got up and went to the cabinet and Charles heard the bottles clink once more.
❧
Two days later, mid-morning. They stood outdoors, in the shade of the main house. Charles was emptying the last of a case of drugs onto the table upon which Daudi had stacked a heap of great banana leaves. Dhakiya stood wrapping the bottles in the leaves and placing them in a low-set box. About her waist was a sheeted sambura knife.
Dhakiya tucked the waxy, flexible corners around the glassware. "You have churches in your London?" She asked, timidly.
"Yes, although they're different from yours."
"Do they have angels?
"Yes."
"Are they pretty?"
"I suppose."
"I want to be."
"You could be," he smiled. "You would be the angel with the most beautiful laugh."
She giggled, hesitant and embarrassed and very pleased. "Oh— don't give me hope."
Charles smiled at her encouragingly. "And you have Hyde Park, and the National Gallery, and a clutter of small theatres littered about the lower city."
"I like the idea of the city." She admitted. "At least the idea of it."
Then Daudi came running:
"You called?" The boy asked.
"They go under the ward," Charles said. "Make sure Bakari helps you with them. Thank you, little one."
Daudi picked up the box. "Can I go, tonight? Mama needs me tonight."
Charles waved him away. "Wish her well."
Daudi threw him a grin that seemed too wide for his face, but was brightly honest, and pottered off.
His mother was a widow, and lived a long way away.
Daudi, when Charles first met him, looked as if he were seven years old, but he had a brother — Tukufu — who looked about ten, and both brothers agreed that Daudi was the eldest of them, so Charles supposed he must have been set back in growth; he was probably then eleven years old.
He had in him something bright and alive and incredibly thoughtful. And Charles smiled as he watched the boy run down the drive-way little under half an hour later.
Charles had always liked children, and they had discussed it, surely, Mary and him. And they had even held hopes for a while that something might change once settled.
Then, Trujilo happened and Charles forgot to care for Mary for a bit.
There had been indignation and dejection, and it hadn't even mattered that his wife — uncharacteristically — was the only one who didn't 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮 to take to heart his harsh tone and his refusal to acquiesce.
It had been infuriating.
And Charles had lashed out.
Ugly feelings and cruel accusations, against the institute, against Mary herself, had been thrown at her uncharacteristic impassive face. Mary Graves had been a picture of calm and composure under the torrent of painful declarations and mindless fury. Calm, collected, and so unlike her. He knew Mary as competent, as headstrong, impatient, short-tempered, protective, duty bound. He knew Mary as everything she presented herself as, volatile and uncaring and cold. He knew Mary in everything to be much softer than she liked admitting, less willing to meet eyes when nervous. How, away from stress and difficulty, her voice gentled to such a comfortable, pleasant tone. How she pressed and failed to control and wrangle her temper so it did not, in turn, control her.
But she had never been so impassive.
Once passed, once he hadn't been able to bear looking at Mary's expressionless face; once another argument had turned into a monologue, Charles had felt, for a long time, like there was nothing left inside of him. Nothing left to say to each other.
And still— she was brave where he was cautious, cold where he was kind. But Mary had always been the other half of Charles, not the other way around. And that was fine. It was what he had agreed to upon marriage, and no one sane could ever hope to possess Mary Graves.