The Sweetest Dream

by Doris Lessing

  The storm of noise that was Mr Phiri and Mr Mandizi approaching was just outside the classroom–oh, were they coming back in? at least there was the nice sentence on the blackboard–no, they were striding past. The children rushed to the windows to see their last of the Comrade Inspector. Two backs were disappearing down to the priest’s house. Behind them came a third, the dusty black robe of Father McGuire, who was waving and shouting at them to stop.

  Silently the children went back to their desks. It was nearly twelve, and time for the lunch break. Not all brought food, but would sit watching their fellows eat a lump of cold porridge or a piece of pumpkin.

  The teacher said, ‘There will be physical culture after the break.’

  A chorus of pleasure. They all loved these exercises that took place in the dusty spaces between buildings. No equipment, no bars, no vaulting horse, or climbing ropes, or mats they could lie on. The teachers took it in turns.

  The two men burst into the priest’s house, with the priest just behind them.

  ‘I did not see you at the school,’ said Mr Phiri.

  ‘I think you did not inspect the third row of classrooms, which is where I was.’

  ‘I hear you teach at our school. And how is that?’

  ‘I give remedial lessons.’

  ‘I did not know that we have remedial lessons.’

  ‘I teach children who are three or four years behind their proper level, because of the poor state of their school. I call that remedial. And it is voluntary. There is no salary attached. I do not cost the government anything.’

  ‘And those nuns I saw. Why aren’t they teaching?’

  ‘They do not have the qualifications, not even for this school.’

  Mr Phiri would have liked to rage and shout–perhaps hit something, or someone–but he felt his head swell and pound: he had been told by his doctor not to get over-excited. He stood, looking at the lunch set out on the table, some slivers of cold meat and some tomatoes. A new loaf emitted delightful odours. He was thinking of sadza. That is what he needed. If he could only get the comforting weight and warmth of a good plate of sadza into his poor stomach, which was churning with a hundred emotions . . . ‘Perhaps you would like to share our meal?’ said the priest.

  Rebecca entered with a plate of boiled potatoes.

  ‘Have you cooked sadza?’

  ‘No, sir, I did not know you were expected for lunch.’

  Father McGuire moved swiftly in, with, ‘Unfortunately, as we all know, a good sadza takes half an hour to do well, and we would not insult you by giving you inferior sadza. But perhaps some beef? I am sorry to say there is plenty of beef around, with the poor beasts dying from the drought.’

  Mr Phiri’s stomach which had been relaxing, in the expectation of sadza, now knotted again and he shouted at Mr Mandizi, ‘Go and find out if my car is mended.’ Mr Mandizi was eyeing the bread, and looked in protest at his chief. He was entitled to his meal. He did not move. ‘And come back and tell me if it is not ready, and I can return with you to your office.’

  ‘I am sure he will have finished by now. He has had a good three hours,’ said Mr Mandizi.

  ‘And how is it you are defying me, Mr Mandizi? Am I or am I not your chief? And this in addition to the incompetence I have seen today. You are supposed to be keeping an eye on the local schools and reporting deficiencies.’ He was shouting, but his voice was strained and weak. He was about to burst into tears from impotence, from anger, and from shame at what he had seen that day. Just in time, Father McGuire saved him, from the same impulse that earlier had made Mr Phiri avert his eyes from Cedric Pyne’s tears over his calves. ‘And now, please sit down, Mr Phiri. And I am so happy to have you here because I am an old friend of your father–did you know that? He was my pupil–yes, that chair there and Mr Mandizi . . .’

  ‘He will do as he is told, and go and find out about my car.’

  Rebecca, never looking at Mr Phiri, came forward to the table, cut two hefty slices of bread, put meat between them, and offered them to Mr Mandizi, with a little curtsy, which was far from mocking. ‘You are not well,’ she said to him. ‘Yes, I can see you are not well.’

  He did not reply, but stood with the sandwich in his hand.

  ‘And what is wrong with you, Mr Mandizi?’ said Mr Phiri.

  Without replying, Mr Mandizi went out to the verandah where Sylvia met him, coming up from the hospital.

  She put her hand on his arm, and was talking to him in a low persuasive voice.

  From inside the room they heard, ‘Yes, I am sick and my wife is sick too.’

  Sylvia, with her arm around Mr Mandizi–he had lost so much weight it was easy–went with him to the car.

  Father McGuire was talking, talking, pushing the meat plate towards his guest, the potatoes, the tomatoes. ‘Yes, you must fill your plate, you must be so hungry, it has been a long time since breakfast and I too am hungry, and your father–is he well? He was my favourite pupil when I was teaching down at Guti. What a clever boy he was.’

  Mr Phiri was sitting with his eyes closed, recovering. When he opened them, opposite him sat a small brown woman. Was she coloured?–no, that was the colour they went when they had too much sun, oh yes, she was the woman just now with Mr Mandizi. She was smiling at Rebecca. Was this smile a comment on him? Rage, which had been leaving him under the influence of the good beef and potatoes, returned, and he said, ‘And are you the woman they tell me has been taking our school equipment for your lessons, so-called lessons?’

  Sylvia looked at the priest, who was signalling to her, with a tightening of his lips to say nothing. ‘Doctor Lennox has bought exercise books and an atlas with her own money, you need have no concern on that score, and now if you could give me news about your mother–she was my cook for a while, and I can say truly that I envy you with such a cook for a mother.’

  ‘And what are those lessons you are giving our pupils? Are you a teacher? Do you have a certificate? You are a doctor, not a teacher.’

  Again, Father McGuire made it impossible for Sylvia to reply. ‘Yes, this is our good doctor, she is a doctor and not a teacher, but there is no need for a teacher’s certificate if you are reading to children, if you are teaching them to read.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Mr Phiri. He was eating with the nervous haste of one who uses food as a pacifier. He pulled the bread to him and cut a great slab: no sadza, but enough bread would do almost as well.

  Rebecca suddenly chimed in: ‘Perhaps the Comrade Inspector wants to come down and see how our people like what the doctor is doing, how she is helping us?’

  Father McGuire managed to control severe irritation. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, yes, yes. But on a hot day like this I am sure Mr Phiri would prefer to stay here with us in the cool and have a nice good strong cup of tea. Rebecca, please make the Inspector some tea.’ Rebecca went out. Sylvia was about to tackle Mr Phiri about the missing exercise books and textbooks and the priest knew it, and he said, ‘Sylvia, I am sure the Inspector would like to hear about the library you have made in the village?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sylvia. ‘We have about a hundred books now.’

  ‘And who paid for them, may I ask?’

  ‘The doctor has very kindly paid for them herself.’

  ‘Indeed. And then I suppose we must be grateful to the doctor.’ He sighed, and said, ‘Okay,’ and that was like a sigh.

  ‘Sylvia, you haven’t eaten anything.’

  ‘I think I’ll just have a cup of tea.’

  In came Rebecca with the tea tray, set out the cups, the saucers, all very slow and deliberate, arranged the little net fly-shield with its beaded blue edge over the milk jug, and pushed the big teapot towards Sylvia. Normally, Rebecca poured the tea. She returned to the kitchen. The Inspector frowned after her, knowing there had been insolence, but he could not put his finger on it.

  Sylvia poured, never lifting her gaze from what her hands were doing. She put a cup near the Inspector, pushed the sugar bowl
towards him, and sat making heaps of crumbs with her bread. A silence. Rebecca was humming out in the kitchen, one of the songs from the Liberation War, designed to annoy Mr Phiri, but he didn’t seem to recognise it.

  And now, luckily, there was the sound of a car, and then it had stopped, sending showers of dust everywhere. Out stepped the mechanic in his smart blue overalls. Mr Phiri got up. ‘I see that my car is here,’ he said vaguely, like someone who has lost something, but does not know what or where. He suspected that he had behaved in an improper manner, but surely not, when he had been in the right about everything.

  ‘I do so hope you will tell your father and your mother that we met, and that I pray for them.’

  ‘I will, when I do see them. They live out in the bush beyond the Pambili Growth Point. They are old now.’

  He went out to the verandah. There were butterflies all over the hibiscus bushes. A lourie was making itself heard, half a mile away. He walked to his car, got in at the back, and the car drove off in rivers of dust.

  Rebecca came in, and unusually for her, sat at the table with them. Sylvia poured her some tea. No one spoke for a while. Then, Sylvia said, ‘I could hear that idiot shouting from the hospital. If I ever saw a candidate for a stroke, it is the Comrade Inspector.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said the priest.

  ‘That was disgraceful,’ said Sylvia. ‘Those children, they have been dreaming of the Inspector for weeks. The Inspector will do this, he will do that, he will get us the books.’

  Father McGuire said, ‘Sylvia, nothing has happened.’

  ‘What? How can you say . . .’

  Rebecca said, ‘Shame. It is a shame.’

  ‘How can you be so reasonable about it, Kevin?’ Sylvia did not often called the priest by his Christian name. ‘It’s a crime. That man is a criminal.’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said the priest. A pretty long silence. Then, ‘Have you not ever thought that that is the story of our history? The powerful take the bread out of the mouths of the povos–the povos just get along somehow.’

  ‘And the poor are always with us?’ said Sylvia, sarcastic.

  ‘Have you ever observed anything different?’

  ‘And there is nothing to be done and it will all go on?’

  ‘Probably,’ said Father McGuire. ‘What interests me is how you see it. You are always surprised when there is injustice. But that is how things always are.’

  ‘But they were promised so much. At Liberation they were promised–well, everything.’

  ‘So politicians make promises and break them.’

  ‘I believed it all,’ said Rebecca. ‘I was a real fool, shouting and cheering at Liberation. I thought they meant it.’

  ‘Of course they meant it,’ said the priest.

  ‘I think all our leaders went bad because we were cursed.’

  ‘Oh, may the Lord save us,’ said the priest, snapping at last. ‘I will not sit to listen to such nonsense.’ But he did not get up from the table.

  ‘Yes,’ said Rebecca. ‘It was the war. It is because we did not bury the dead of the war. Did you know there are skeletons over there in the caves on the hills? Did you know that? Aaron told me. And you know that if we do not bury our dead according to our customs then they will come back and curse us.’

  ‘Rebecca, you are one of the most intelligent women I know and . . .’

  ‘And now there is AIDS. And that is a curse on us. What else can it be?’

  Sylvia said, ‘It’s a virus, Rebecca, not a curse.’

  ‘I had six children and now I have three and soon there will be two. And every day there is a new grave in the cemetery.’

  ‘Did you ever hear of the Black Death?’

  ‘How should I hear? I did not get beyond Standard One.’ This meant, that she had heard, knew more than she would let on, and wanted them to tell her.

  ‘There was an epidemic, in Asia and in Europe and in North Africa. A third of the people died,’ said Sylvia.

  ‘Rats and fleas,’ said the priest. ‘They brought the disease.’

  ‘And who told the rats where to go?’

  ‘Rebecca, it was an epidemic. Like AIDS. Like Slim.’

  ‘God is angry with us,’ said Rebecca.

  ‘May the Lord save us all,’ said the priest. ‘I’m getting too old, I’m going back to Ireland. I am going home.’

  He was querulous, like an old man, in fact. And he did not look well either–in his case, at least, it could not be AIDS. He had had malaria again recently. He was tired out.

  Sylvia began to cry.

  ‘I’m going to get my head down for a few minutes,’ said Father McGuire. ‘And I know it is no use telling you to do the same.’

  Rebecca went to Sylvia, lifted her, and the two went together to Sylvia’s room. Rebecca let Sylvia slide down on her bed where she lay with a hand over her eyes. Rebecca knelt by the bed and slid her arm under Sylvia’s head.

  ‘Poor Sylvia,’ said Rebecca, and crooned a child’s song, a lullaby. The sleeve of Rebecca’s tunic was loose. Just in front of her eyes, through her fingers, Sylvia could see the thin black arm, and on the arm a sore, of the kind she knew only too well. She had been dressing them on a woman down in the hospital that morning. The weeping child that Sylvia had been until that moment departed: the doctor returned. Rebecca had AIDS. Now that Sylvia knew, it was obvious, and she had known, without admitting it, for a long time now. Rebecca had AIDS and there was nothing that Sylvia could do about it. She shut her eyes, pretended to slide into sleep. She felt Rebecca gently withdraw herself and go out of the room.

  Sylvia lay flat, listening to the iron roof crack in the heat. She looked at the crucifix, where the Redeemer hung. She looked at various Virgins in their blue robes. She took a glass rosary off its hook by her bed, and let it rest in her fingers: the glass of the beads was warm, like flesh. She hung it back.

  Opposite her the Leonardo women filled half a wall. Fish moth had attacked the beautiful faces, the edges of the poster were lace, the children’s chubby limbs were blotched.

  Sylvia got herself out of that bed and went down to the village, where a great many disappointed people would be waiting for her.

  • • •

  Granddaughter of a notorious Nazi, daughter of a career communist, Sylvia Lennox has found a rural hideyhole in Zimlia, where she owns a private hospital, supplied by equipment stolen from the local government hospital.

  The problem was, this ignorant country had not yet caught up with the fact that communism was politically incorrect, and then, the word Nazi did not get the reactions it did in London. A lot of people here liked the Nazis. There were only two epithets that could be guaranteed to get a reaction. One was ‘racist’, the other ‘South African agent’.

  Rose knew Sylvia was not a racist, but, since she was white, most blacks would be ready to say she was. But it needed only one letter in the Post from a black saying Sylvia was a friend of the blacks–no, but how about spy? That was tricky too. In that time just before apartheid collapsed, the spy fever in South Africa’s neighbours was boiling over. Anyone who had been born in South Africa, or had lived there; who had gone there for a holiday recently; who had relations there; anyone criticising Zimlia for anything, or who suggested things might be better done; people who ‘sabotaged’ an enterprise or a business by losing or damaging equipment, such as a box of envelopes, or half a dozen screws–anyone at all who had become the focus of even mild disapproval, could be, and usually was, described as the agent of South Africa –which of course was doing everything it could to destabilise its neighbours. So, in such an atmosphere, it was easy for Rose to believe that Sylvia was a South African spy, but when so many were, it was not enough.

  Then Rose had a stroke of luck. A telephone call from Franklin’s office invited her to a reception for the Chinese Ambassador, where the Leader would be present. At Butler’s Hotel. At the best. Rose put on a dress and took herself there early. Already, after only a few weeks, if she was a
t a party for what she described to herself as the ‘alternative crowd’, she knew them all, at least to greet. Journalists, editors, the writers, the university people, the ex-pats, the NGOs–a mixed crowd, and a clever one, a quality she distrusted, since she always imagined people laughing at her–and it was still more white than black. They were informal, irreverent, hardworking, and most of them still full of faith in the future of Zimlia, though some were bitter and had lost faith. The other crowd, the one she would be with this evening, was where she felt at home–rulers and bosses, leaders and ministers, the ones with power, and more black than white.

  Rose stood in a corner of the great room whose general style and elegance soothed her, telling her she was in the right place, and waited for Franklin to come in. She was being careful not to drink too much–yet. She would get drunk later. The room was filling, then it was full, and still no Franklin. She was standing next to a man whose face she knew from The Post. She was not going to say she was a London journalist, a breed so hated by this government, but said, ‘Comrade Minister, it is an honour to be in your wonderful country. I am visiting here.’

  ‘Okay,’ said he, pleased, but certainly not ready to spend time on this unattractive white woman who was probably somebody’s wife.

  ‘Am I right in thinking of you as the Minister for Education?’ said Rose, knowing he was not, and he replied, amiable but indifferent, ‘No, as it happens the Under Minister for Health. Yes, I have the honour to be that.’

  He was craning his head over and around the heads in front of him; he wanted to catch the eye of the Leader when he came in, who, while he was renowned throughout the world as a man of the people, gave his Ministers little chance to see him. At the rare cabinet meetings he appeared, made his views known and departed: not a comradely man, the Comrade Leader. The Under Minister had been for some time wanting an opportunity to discuss certain things with the Boss, hoped for even a few words tonight. Besides, he was secretly in love with the fascinating Gloria. Who was not? This big exuberant irrepressible sexy woman with her face like an invitation . . . where was she? Where were they, the Comrade President and the Mother of the Nation?