‘I’ll have to learn to live with that’ – said with the faintest of smiles. ‘But, as I said, our family GP is making himself available.’ He held out his hand, but the doctor’s hands remained clasped on top of his files.
‘I’ve taken the Hippocratic Oath – as I’m sure you must know – to save lives at all costs. I’d be breaking that oath if I didn’t speak out.’
Adrian wondered what the doctor was getting at, but decided not to ask him. He made to walk off, then stopped. ‘Mujtabaa is here of his own free will, you know, Doctor. He understands that, by helping us, he’ll help his family and tribe.’
The doctor said nothing to this; he simply left the room. The young nurse gave them a little smile as she followed him out.
On their way back to Terminal 3, Dave, who was pushing the wheelchair, said: ‘I thought it was a good idea to leave Mujtabaa there for the night.’
‘Did you?’
The assistant hesitated, perhaps reluctant to risk overstepping some imagined mark. ‘It struck me as a sensible option. You know, a safe one.’
‘It’s too great a risk. You know what they say; possession is nine-tenths of the law.’
They took a few steps in silence before Anne murmured: ‘I didn’t appreciate that rule applied to people.’
Adrian couldn’t tell if this was a straightforward claim to ignorance or if the nurse was being ironic.
‘I’m pleased to hear you’ll be contacting your GP as an added safeguard.’
‘If it makes you happy, Anne,’ he said magnanimously, ‘I shall do just that.’ He hadn’t intended to.
When they reached the reserved lounge, Anne read a book, Mujtabaa fell asleep in the wheelchair, wrapped in a large grey blanket, while the two men discussed the printing and distribution of flyers, the placing of advertisements in newspapers, the organizing of an army of volunteers, and the arrangements with respect to the mobile home. Adrian also told Dave to confirm, first thing in the morning, Mujtabaa’s attendance at the Sunday rally. This was a long-standing booking organized by the Disasters Emergency Committee, the umbrella group for British charities raising funds for emergency relief.
Dave stared at the young Ethiopian in his wheelchair, his head lying awkwardly on his shoulder. ‘We’re giving him food, aren’t we?’
‘Enough to keep him going. Over the next few days, until the weekend, we just want to keep him alive.’
Dave grimaced. ‘That sounds fun.’
‘He has to stay hungry, otherwise this won’t work. Come Sunday, we can feed him up, but not until then.’ Adrian shook his head. ‘We don’t have an option. The hungrier he looks, the better this will work for us.’
‘I suppose so.’ His assistant didn’t look convinced.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of him.’
‘Oh, I’m not worried.’
But Adrian added, because he knew it would be faithfully relayed back to Dave’s boss, ‘He’ll be in good hands at all times.’
Dave changed the subject: ‘It reminds me of that joke you hear every time there’s a famine in Africa.’
‘Yes?’ Adrian did his best to appear interested.
‘A fat man runs into a thin man and says: “You should be ashamed of yourself. If a visitor to this country saw you before anyone else, he’d think there was a famine here.” And the thin man replies, “And if he saw you straight after me, he’d know the reason for it.”’
With a somewhat preoccupied air, Adrian nodded.
Soon after Dave left for home, Dr Somerville arrived, stooping, as if dragged forwards both by his age and the weight of his faded black medicine bag. He’d been the Burles family’s GP for many years, back to the days when Adrian was a child. Adrian had always regarded him as part of that rare breed of doctors that takes the time to talk to each of their patients, to find out how their lives are going even if they only claim to be suffering from a headache. This meant he was always behind schedule, and his waiting room always crowded.
He examined Mujtabaa carefully, breathing heavily as he did so. Adrian looked on, deciding the doctor sounded far less healthy than the patient. Finally, the medical man straightened up. ‘Malnourished definitely, but fit as a fiddle I’d say. If I were you, I’d dose him up on vitamins, and plenty of supplements.’ He turned to Anne: ‘Imagine you’re doing that already, Nurse?’
She smiled back at him. ‘I am, Dr Somerville.’
‘Good woman. Obviously can’t teach you anything.’ And a few minutes later he left.
Adrian told Anne that he wanted the three of them to spend the night in the lounge. ‘It’s more authentic if it looks like Mujtabaa has just stepped off a plane when he starts his walk. It’s not the same if he spends the night in a hotel, then returns to the airport the next morning.’
‘That doesn’t mean you have to stay here, Adrian. He’ll be fine with me – just so long as you’re nearby.’
He quickly agreed, grateful not to have to spend the night on a sofa. They said goodnight. He left Anne and the still-sleeping Mujtabaa and caught the lift down to the ground floor. He booked into the first airport hotel he stumbled across and, before going up to his room, called Anne to give her his room and phone numbers. ‘Call me if you have any worries, any worries at all.’ Then he ordered a double scotch at the bar. He was the only customer. He stared down into the amber liquid in front of him, swilling the ice around in the glass. He felt tired and lethargic, and briefly wondered why. This was no time to take his foot off the accelerator; this was his moment. This project could be the biggest thing he’d ever done.
In the early hours of the morning, Anne woke to find Mujtabaa standing on one leg, his other foot placed against it at right angles just above the knee. He was staring blankly across the room, motionless, frozen in the centre of an alien place.
She asked if he needed anything, but it was as if he didn’t hear her. Not wishing to disturb him, she lay back down on the sofa. Her heart went out to him. This is no place for an Afar warrior, she thought, and momentarily she wished they were both back in Ethiopia.
She remembered what he’d said to her earlier, on the plane. It had been garbled, at times almost incoherent, and her poor knowledge of the Afar language had scarcely helped. He had told her a story – and for a while she wondered if it had been just that, a story – about a creature that had attempted to kill him on his long trek across the Danakil.
Shivering with cold – or fright, she wasn’t clear which – he’d become aware at some point in the journey of a creature with red eyes looming over him in the darkness. This creature was so close to him, he’d been able to smell its breath. Other creatures were there too, equally malignant, but always lurking in the background, their shadowy shapes scarcely visible in the darkness. Mujtabaa told Anne they’d been following him for days, but only appearing after the sun went down, and that the whining, shuffling and predatory postures of the creatures – especially of the leader, the one he called Red Eyes – meant they were about to attack him. He had wanted to tell them not to waste their time: he was no more than skin and bone and as hungry and thin as they were.
Yet there was a part of him that wanted these creatures to attack, for his ordeal to be over. It was like he had neither the strength nor the will to keep them