'What happened to you afterwards?'
'Nothing. Dr Levansky continued to be friendly. Even so, I knew that I was being kept under constant observation. I had seen something I ought not to have seen. Then a rumour spread to the effect that people living in the vicinity of Leopoldville were being kidnapped, and that they ended up in the laboratory. That was in 1957, when nobody really knew what was going to happen to the country. Without having planned it, I woke up one morning and just knew that I had to get away. I was sure that one day I would end up in that basement room myself, be tied down with leather straps on a table and be cut open while I was still alive. I fled. I went to South Africa first, and then here. But I know now that I was right. The laboratory used both chimpanzees and living human beings for their tests. There is only a 3 per cent difference in the genetic material of a chimpanzee and a human being. But even then, in the middle of the 1950s, they wanted to go one step further; they wanted to erase that 3 per cent.'
Adelinho paused. Gusts of wind tore at the roofing sheets. There was a smell of decay coming from the damp earth.
'I came here. For many years I worked at the little cottage hospital here. Now I have my field, my wives, my children. And I paint. But I've kept abreast of what is happening: my friend, the Cuban doctor, Raul, keeps all his medical journals for me. I read them, and I can see that even today, human beings are used in experiments. It happens in this country as well. A lot of people would deny that, of course. But I know what I know. Though I'm a simple man, I have educated myself.'
The rain clouds had moved on, the sunlight was stronger. Louise looked at Adelinho. She shuddered.
'Are you cold?'
'I was thinking about what you said.'
'Medicines are raw materials that can be just as valuable as rare metals or jewels. That's why there is no limit to what people are prepared to do, in the name of greed.'
'I want to know what you have heard.'
'I don't know any more than I've told you. But there are rumours.'
He doesn't trust me. He's still afraid of that trap that was on the point of capturing him, way back in the 1950s, when he was still a young man.
Adelinho stood up. He pulled a face when he stretched his legs.
'Age brings pains. Your blood hesitates to flow through your arteries, you suddenly find that your dreams are in black and white. Would you like to see some more paintings? I also paint people who come to visit me, just like the group photos I used to take in the old days. Am I right in guessing that you are a teacher?'
'I'm an archaeologist.'
'Do you find what you're looking for?'
'Sometimes. Sometimes I find things I didn't know I was looking for.'
She took a few paintings to the veranda door and examined them in the sunlight.
She found him immediately. His face, in the back row. It was not a very good likeness, but there was no doubt about it. It was Henrik. He had been here and had heard Adelinho's story. She continued examining the picture. Were there other faces here she recognised? Young people, Europeans, a few Asians. Young men, but also some of young women.
She put the painting back on the floor and tried to gather her thoughts. Discovering Henrik's face had been a shock.
'My son Henrik has been here. Do you remember him?'
She held the painting up for Adelinho and pointed. He screwed up his eyes, then nodded.
'I remember him. A friendly young man. How is he?'
'He's dead.'
She made up her mind. Here, on Inhaca, in the house of a man she did not know, she could allow herself to say what she really thought.
'He was murdered in his flat.'
'In Barcelona?'
Jealousy struck her once again. Why did everybody know more than she did? After all, she was his mother and had brought him up until he had weighed anchor and sailed off to lead his own life.
A thought suddenly struck her. He had always said he would protect her, no matter what happened. Is that what he was doing by not telling her about the little flat in Christ's Cul-de-sac?
'Nobody knows what happened. I'm trying to find out by retracing his footsteps.'
'And they've led you here?'
'Yes. You have painted his face, and I think you told him the same story as you've told me.'
'He asked me about it.'
'How could he know that you knew anything?'
'Rumours.'
'Somebody must have talked about you. And you in turn must have talked to somebody. Spreading rumours is a human art form that requires patience and daring.'
As he did not respond, she continued. She had no need to think up questions, they presented themselves.
'When did he come here?'
'Not all that long ago. I painted the picture shortly afterwards. Before the rains came, if I remember rightly.'
'How did he get here?'
'The same way as you. With the colonel in his jeep.'
'Was he alone?'
'He came alone.'
Was that true? Was there not another, invisible person by Henrik's side?
Adelinho seemed to understand why Louise had paused.
'He came alone. Why should I not tell you the truth about that? You don't honour the memory of the dead by lying at their graves.'
'How did he know where to come?'
'He'd heard from my friend Dr Raul. Raul is proud of his name. His father was also called Raul, and he was on board the ship, whatever it's called, that took Fidel and his friends to Cuba and started the freedom struggle.'
'Granma.'
He nodded.
'That was the boat. It was leaking and seemed likely to sink, the young men were stricken with seasickness, it must have been a distressing sight. But misleading. A few years later they had driven out Batista and the Americans. But they didn't say Americans, they said Yankees. Yankees go home. That became a war cry that echoed all round the world. Today our country bows before the Americans, but one of these days we'll force out the truth. About how they helped the Belgians and the Portuguese to grind us into the ground.'
'How had Henrik found Raul?'
'Dr Raul is not only a skilful gynaecologist but is much loved by our women because he treats them with great respect. He's also a fiery spirit who hates the big pharmaceutical companies and their research laboratories. Not all of them, not everywhere. Even in that world there is the brutal contrast between goodwill and greed. The battle is going on all the time. But Dr Raul maintains that greed is gaining ground. Every minute, every second, round-the-clock greed is on the march and pressing forward. In an age where millions and millions of dollars and meticais are allowed to run amok, always seeking out the greenest grass, greed is well on the way to achieving world hegemony. That's a difficult word I didn't know until I reached old age. And now greed is homing in on the little virus that is spreading all over the world like the plague. Nobody knows even now where it originated, even if one can assume that it was an ape virus that somehow managed to scale the mountain peaks of immunity and enter into humans. Not in order to destroy them, but to do the same as you and I want to do.'
'What's that?'
'To survive. That's all this weak little virus wants to do, nothing more. A virus is not a conscious being, it can hardly be blamed for not understanding the difference between life and death: it merely does what it's programmed to do. To survive, to create a new generation of viruses with the same aim: survival. Dr Raul says that, really, this little virus and the human race ought to stand on opposite banks of the river of life and wave to each other. The banners fluttering in the wind should be speaking the same language. Survival. But that's not what happens, the virus causes chaos like a driverless car on a busy road. Dr Raul says that this is because there is another virus. He calls it "The Greed virus, type 1". It spreads just as quickly and is just as deadly as the insidious disease. Dr Raul tries to whip up resistance to greed, to attack the virus that is infecting the bloodstream of an ever increasing nu
mber of people. He sends the people he trusts here to me. He wants them to know that there is "A History of Cruelty". People come here and I tell them how organs were being cut out of living people as long ago as the 1950s. People who were snatched from their homes, injected with various illnesses and then used as guinea pigs or monkeys. It didn't only happen under a sick political regime such as Hitler's. It happened after the war, and it's still happening today.'
'In Xai-Xai?'
'Nobody knows.'
'Can Henrik have been on to something?'
'I think so. I told him to be careful. There are people prepared to do absolutely anything in order to conceal the truth.'
'Did he ever talk to you about Kennedy?'
'The American president whose brain disappeared? He had read widely on the subject.'
'Did he explain why he was obsessed by that incident?'
'It wasn't the incident itself. Presidents have been assassinated before, and they'll be murdered again. Every American president is aware that a large number of invisible guns are aimed at him. Henrik wasn't interested in the brain as such. He wanted to know how and why it had happened. He was trying to understand how you go about concealing something. He was walking backwards in order to find out how you move forwards. If he could understand how you go about concealing something at the highest possible political level, he would be able to discover how to expose it.'
'I know that he saw something in Xai-Xai that changed him.'
'He never came back here even though he had promised to do so. Raul didn't know what had happened to him either.'
'He fled because he was afraid.'
'He could have written, he could have used the electronic magic we have access to now, in order to whisper something in Raul's ear.'
'He was murdered.'
It was now clear to both Louise and the man on the chair opposite her what that meant. There was no need to wonder any more. Louise felt that she was reaching a point where an explanation for Henrik's death might be found.
'He must have found out. He must also have realised that they knew that he knew, and so he fled.'
'Who is "they"?' Louise asked.
He shook his head.
'I don't know.'
'Xai-Xai. Christian Holloway?'
'I don't know.'
They could hear the sound of a vehicle approaching. Colonel Ricardo drove his jeep into the courtyard. Just as they were about to go onto the veranda, Adelinho placed his hand on Louise's shoulder.
'How many people know that you are Henrik's mother?'
'Here in Mozambique? Not many.'
'Perhaps it's best that it stays that way.'
'Are you warning me?'
'I don't think I need to.'
Colonel Ricardo sounded his horn aggressively. As they drove away she turned round to look at Adelinho standing on the veranda.
She missed him already because she suspected she would never see him again.
She flew back to Maputo soon after two in the afternoon, in the same aircraft with the same pilots. The passenger with the book was not around, but a young man was helped aboard. He was so weak that he could hardly stand up. Perhaps it was his mother and sister helping him. Although she could not be certain, she suspected that the man had Aids. He was not only infected by the virus: the illness was now full-blown and was syphoning his life away.
She was upset by the experience. If Henrik had lived, he might have ended up in a similar state himself. She would have supported him. But who would have supported her? She felt her grief building up. When the plane took off, she hoped it would crash and allow her to escape into oblivion. But she could already see the turquoise water down below. She could not go backwards.
By the time the aircraft landed on the hot tarmac, she thought she knew. It was in Xai-Xai that Henrik had been most tangible. That is where she had felt his presence. She did not even bother to go to Lars Håkansson's house to change her clothes. Nor did she phone Lucinda. Just now she needed to be alone. She went to one of the car hire offices at the airport, signed a contract and was told that the car would be ready for her in half an hour. If she left Maputo by three o'clock, she should reach Xai-Xai before dark. While she was waiting she thumbed through the telephone directory. She found several doctors by the name of Raul, but could not tell which was the right one as none of them was listed as a gynaecologist.
On the way to Xai-Xai she very nearly ran over a goat that suddenly appeared in front of the car. She swerved violently and almost lost control. At the last moment one of the rear wheels got a grip on a rut in the tarmac and kept the car on the road. She was forced to stop and get her breath back.
Death had almost claimed her.
She found her way to the turn-off leading to the beach in Xai-Xai and checked into the hotel. She was given a room on the first floor. She spent ages with the shower before persuading it to produce a jet of water. All her clothes smelled of sweat. She went to the beach and bought a capulana, a length of fabric that African women wrapped round themselves. Then she walked along the sand and thought over what the man in the rain, the Dolphin Painter, had said.
The sun vanished. The shadows lengthened. She went back to the hotel and ate in the dining room. An albino sat in a corner playing an instrument that looked like a sort of xylophone. She drank red wine but it tasted musty, watery. She abandoned the bottle and drank beer instead. The moon was shining over the sea. She felt an urge to wade out along the beam of light it cast. When she went up to her room she barricaded the door with a table, then fell asleep with her feet entangled in the torn mosquito net.
In her dreams horses galloped through a wintry landscape. Everything was white with snow. Artur stood and pointed at the horizon. A lump of snot had frozen to his upper lip. She never caught on to what he wanted her to see.
She woke early and went down to the beach. The sun was rising up out of the sea. For a brief moment she felt that Aron and Henrik were standing by her side, and all three were gazing straight at the sun before the light became too strong.
She went back to Christian Holloway's village. Everything was as quiet and still as last time. She had the feeling that she was visiting a cemetery. She remained seated in the car for ages, waiting for somebody to appear. A lone dog with a shaggy black coat was wandering around on the gravel. Something that might have been a large rat scuttled alongside one of the buildings.
But no people. Completely still. Like a prison. She got out of the car, walked over to one of the buildings and opened the door. Immediately she found herself in a different world, the world of the sick and the dying.
Even more strongly than last time she noticed the pungent smell. Death smells like bitter acid. A cadaverous odour, the fermentation comes later.
The rooms were filled with dirt, uncleanliness, angst. Most of the sick people lay curled up in the foetal position in bunk beds on the floor; only the very youngest children lay stretched out on their backs. She moved slowly among the afflicted, peering at them through the gloom. Who were they? Why were they lying there? They had been infected with HIV and were going to die. This is what it must have looked like in the classical opium dens. But why did Holloway allow them to live in such squalor? Did he think it was enough to give them a roof over their heads? It struck her that she had no idea about his motives behind a village for the poverty-stricken sufferers.
Kennedy's Brain Page 27
