In the morning, after his early round of check-ups, Charles Graves sat himself down on the veranda with a shirt and a mending kit. Almost all the trees beside the courtyard were ungrafted, and wild. But most budded, and produced excellent fruit when the season came. It was a popular meeting ground for children. The real little ones. And once those same children reached a certain self-declared maturity, you could see them hang out in groups around the market.
There were many children today, and over the past months they had passed their initial shyness and had come to the conclusion that they liked him. Charles would play with them on occasion. The joy which they inspired on the otherwise serious clinic grounds, delighted him. At recreation hours, Charles Graves watched them running and playing in the yard, and after a while he started to distinguish the laughs of children he knew better than others when they ran by.
Now, he finished the ripped hem, lifted the mended shirt and sewing kit off his lap, stood up and looked at the three boats on the horizon, stark against the lake and the hills, and then went in and took a shower. The water heater had only been on since Daudi had left in the early hours and there was not much hot water. But he didn't care for it. Charles soaped himself clean, scrubbed his head, and finished off with cold water. He dressed in a white flannel shirt and light slacks and his ten-year-old English brogues, and took with him an old safari jacket. He went for the kitchen.
Hadebe was standing at the cabinet. A fresh stack of papers lay on the counter. Hadebe saw him look.
"Bakari brought it with him from Meru." She spoke.
He turned in his chair and reached out far to pick up the papers. "How old are they?"
"Couple of weeks."
That'll have to do, he thought. Be happy. At least you've got a paper. It'll be some time before you'll see another.
Charles settled. Hadebe passed him breakfast. He grunted in thanks.
"There's a minimum height of five foot nine, you know." Charles said, eying the headlines. He reached for his cup without looking.
"For what— Old, British men that won't share the mutura?" Hadebe pulled a plate towards her as she sat down at the kitchen table.
He shook his head. "My brother, Paul, is five foot eight. You know what they did? The recruiting officer measured him in his shoes."
Hadebe made a noise around a mouthful.
"Back home they're proud of him. And to think we lost my uncle in the damned war. You'd think they forgot."
Hadebe made a disapproving noise, swallowing. "If you think they forgot you are far more naive than I took you for, Charles."
"No— it's just..."
"You don't easily forget such things."
"I know that, I just didn't think they'd approve so easily."
"Did you not fight?"
"No. I was studying and living with my uncle in Cambridge at the time. My uncle went and I pledged myself a pacifist. My brother was twelve at the time and remained in Aix-en-Provence throughout it all. Same with my sister. I only became an Englishman in '21'."
"To work?"
"To marry."
"The ugali is homemade. Leave some for Dhakiya."
Charles looked up. "Is she not here today?"
"She went into town. She'll be here after."
❧
The call came in at six that evening. By then, the girl had been in labour for more than ten hours and the woman who'd come from Kalacha had walked the whole day. At half past seven Hadebe and Charles passed North Horr. At eight the old Handley page broke down halfway between North Horr and Kalacha.
Charles shifted around, drawing a leg up, the hard underground uncomfortable on his lower back. Hadebe was puttering under the bonnet.
Hadebe and he were both frustrated. There was no way they were going to find and fix whatever problem there was in an appositeamount of time, and their forced stop had robbed them of twenty minutes, already. It became clear that Hadebe had had enough when she told Charles that she would give them another fifteen minutes, and then she would go on foot and leave Charles with the car. If he fixed it, he'd drive to Kalacha; and either pick her up on the way or assist her once he arrived.
Charles Graves shifted around again. Fix it, he told himself. Fix it and be on your way.
Fixing things. He was good at fixing things.
Most things.
He should keep it at that.
"I'm going," Hadebe said, lightly, and Charles jerked to look at her and watched her abandon the bonnet, her expression falsely unconcerned. "You should finish that," she added, as she stretched to her feet, "before you have to get the torch out."
Charles watched her take up her bag from the back seat and walk away. She turned to glance over her shoulder. "We can't risk waiting here and fixing something we don't know what we're fixing." She turned away when she continued, and her tone sounded breezy, but there was something off. And there was nothing casual about the harsh line of her shoulders. "It's not going to be pretty work. If you get it running then come find me."
❧
Charles turned the car left up the forked road and followed the slight bend along the grassland. The call of some nightly animal could be heard in the distance, and closer, the sounds of Kalacha closing in. Ahead were the lights of the houses and beside him were the sorghum fields.
Charles Graves passed a hand over his face. He let it catch in his hair and made a supple effort to stretch out his limbs and moved further back upright in his seat. The wheel lay loose in his hand.
In the house closest to the road there was a light in the window. Charles parked right by the animal trough. An old woman stood in the doorway holding a lamp and Charles nodded at her once in greeting. The smell hit him as soon he pushed past the curtain.
Inside, on a low cot, lay the girl. She cried out just as Charles stepped through the doorway and Charles ground his jaw. The girl's head was turned away from the doorway and Hadebe stood crouched between her legs. The doctor didn't look up nor acknowledged him, but the woman next to Hadebe gave Charles an affronted look and said something Charles didn't understand. Hadebe's answer was cut off by another miserable, elongated cry, and the older woman threw Charles another look and then bowed down closer to Hadebe, sounding even more insistent. Hadebe finally looked up.
"Yeye ni daktari," Hadebe scolded the old woman. "Utahitaji msaada wake."
Charles turned to the other woman in the kitchen. She indicated a basin.
"Joto sana. Watch out." She said and poured about half of the water out of a big kettle into the basin.
Charles said nothing and began to scrub his hands in the basin of hot water with a cake of soap, watching the familiar motion of his hands scrubbing each other. The woman at the kettle spoke up:
"Unahitaji kitu kingine chochote?" She waved at the basin.
"No." Charles Graves said. He didn't need anything else. "Asante." And then he was satisfied with his hands and he went back in and went to work.
"So, you decided to join us after all?" Hadebe said.
"How is she?"
"You won't have to operate." Hadebe continued. "She'll pull through. We'll know in a little while."
The girl screamed. Her knuckles white as she gripped the edge of the cot, her nails dry and broken. A shadow lay deep under her eyes.
It was a long time before Hadebe picked the baby up and slapped it to make it breathe and handed it to one of the older women.
Charles breathed, taking the moment to flex his fingers; they were cramping. Hadebe threw him a look. Charles nodded.
"Yeah, go along. I'll sew up the incision." He said, and shifted. His knees popped. Charles Graves heard the child's cries distance themselves, and the poor miserable girl on the cot said something Charles didn't understand. Hadebe and he kept up an amiable discourse though-out. Saying nothing of importance but both talkative and feeling exalted as athletes are after a good race.