by Robin Winter
"But I can't understand why you're taking her to Lindsey," Sister Catherine said. "You've always been suspicious of Lindsey. Why turn around and believe in her now? You ought to pack up and head back to the States, Gilman. That's your best chance to get out of here. Find a life there, out in the American West somewhere. There's got to be a place that you'd be welcome. Make a home."
"You telling me you think Biafra's lost?"
"None of the important nations has recognized Biafra. We needed that to win."
"That's not true. Biafra's been recognized by other nations."
"Five," Sister Catherine said. "And who are they? Gabon, Haiti, Zambia, Cote d'Ivorie, Tanzania. No nation that really counts or can give us arms."
"Well, France sold us some."
"Do you honestly think that's worth a damn? France likes our money. We're blockaded, we're starving, Nigeria's outgunned us and the sooner by God's Grace we're allowed to lose, the better it will be for all these poor people. If not, we're all going down like a patient with gangrene. Inch by inch and limb by limb." Tears brimmed over in the blue eyes.
Appalled, angry, Gilman stared. "Well go home already, if that's how you see it," she said and her throat hurt.
"I'm not leaving yet." The nun blotted her eyes with her sleeve. "Excuse me. The matter at hand—this idea of taking Wilton over the border into Nigeria to Lagos or Ibadan makes no sense. You're avoiding the real question. What if Lindsey doesn't want her?"
"Wilton can't stay here at Uli, but she's got to stay in Africa. That much I know. The closer she can stay to the place of her deracinating event the better. She had her breakdown in Umideke. They say in the book what devastates shell shock victims is putting the seal on their guilt by taking them away to a different location for safety , making them both deserted and deserting. So we absolutely can't send her to the States. That would symbolize desertion for sure. Lindsey in Lagos is the best we can do. Dammit, Sister, Wilton deserves the chance, however difficult it is to get her there."
Gilman got up and paced across the small room. "Sandy'll want her. Lindsey has to want her. Of course she will. Lindsey and Sandy, they can manage anything. Wilton's always been close to Lindsey..."
"What if it's not shell shock?" Sister Catherine asked.
"I don't know. What are you suggesting?"
The nun shook her head.
"I wrote a note to Tom," Gilman said. "Asked him to come by."
Sister Catherine looked at her, no smile, no agreement.
"Have you told Wilton about going to Lindsey?" Sister Catherine stood up as though she'd decided not to question Gilman's plans any more.
"Couple hours ago. I don't know how much she understands. Some days I think she understands a lot, and then...it's like nothing's getting through."
"Keep her under restraints," Sister Catherine said. "You don't want to regret anything."
Gilman waited for Jantor. She lit her desk lantern and went out under the jacaranda tree leaving the door closed but for a hairline thread. She counted on Jantor coming to answer her note. She needed him, his warm shape and the comfort of his hands and his listening. Needed his help, his connections. Oh that sounded bad. Now you need him, you're going to ask him back, so he'll be easy to use.
The night held some sounds that Gilman couldn't identify. She leaned under a tree in the warm blackness, straining her senses for a rustle, for a warning, then she heard a thin wavering trill. Perhaps an insect, something not good to eat, that was for sure.
On the horizon she saw the last rich blue fade until the branches of trees melted into the sky. She shuddered. No dark in America had ever been so profound as this. All things die, and most fight it, but here she could almost believe in her own death. In walking into blackness like someone so tired, she knew it was the right path to take and no longer cared.
Her mind crowded with the images of the day, a day too long and slow and full. She forced her thoughts to Jantor and his war. But who was she fooling—it was her war, and Sister Catherine's war, even Allingham's. Sister Catherine talked like they could simply pack up and leave. Allingham sounded like he'd go tomorrow. But none of them did.
Jantor hardly talked about the Congo and the "fucking Kaffirs." But he talked of his Biafrans as if he saw heroes. He'd shot Samuel for some infraction of his authority. How did she reconcile these things? Was it her job to do so? Was it any of her business? If it were, she'd never have kissed him, would she? She didn't even know what Samuel was supposed to have done. How would she respond to Jantor telling her she made a surgical mistake? But what Jantor does is wrong. It's all killing. So then, Gilman, walk away.
She breathed fear, they all did, even the priests and nuns. She'd imagined herself in a movie, dressed in surgical whites, her hands healing pain, disease and destruction. But it was filthy work from beginning to end, sour and grimy with panic.
Jantor kills to save us. To save the people here. The people he's paid to save. I'm meeting Jantor for Wilton.
Fucking liar. You want him and this is the easy way. Ask him for something you know he can do. Tell him he's wonderful for doing it, because it's true. He could easily turn his back.
So why do you think he won't?
That was the answer to all questions. She knew he wouldn't refuse her. And sooner or later she had to admit that nothing he did in his profession was hers to judge any more than he judged her. If she had a problem with that, then she belonged in America. Tomorrow. Now.
If she could do anything at all, as Wilton had once made her believe, what would it be? Assassinate Ojukwu? Assassinate Gowon? Have a major outside power enter the fray and rescue Biafra? Cavalry over the hill? Hell, the horses would all keel over from sleeping sickness.
Where was the United States when they really needed help? The champion of freedom. The whole world was watching, oh yes, but it watched a spectacle in which it wouldn't dirty its hands.
Where was Jantor? Could he have been injured and no one told her? He would keep his men from telling her if he were hurt. Exhaustion and shock had made her too vulnerable, and even in the heat of the night, she shivered. Her stomach clenched in on itself.
Then she saw him, even before she heard the grate of his boots in the gravel. That dear profile, the way his shoulders turned. She ran across the yard.
"God, Gilman." He grabbed her shoulders. "I coulda shot you, coming at me like that out of the dark. What the fucking hell is wrong with you?"
"I'm sorry," she said, but her heart beat so fast she was faint with relief. He felt so good against her. Solid, someone to depend on. He guided her back toward the light of the kerosene lantern, whose thin gold outlined her tent door.
"Good thing the curfew cops didn't see your light. What's wrong?"
"It's Wilton. She's come back. Masters brought her. She's lost it. Masters found her in the bombed market near Umuahia, digging for a dead American minister, someone she must have known. I can't treat her here. Most of the time she sits, almost catatonic. She doesn't seem to hear us when we talk to her. Looks like shell shock to me. But I don't dare try treating her." They slipped fast into her tent. She closed the door securely behind them.
"Got something in my boot," he said. "Digging a hole in my toe." He sat on her cot.
"Jantor," she said. "It's not my business what you do out there on the front. I know that much. If I have problems with what you are, they're my problems, not yours. I'm sorry. I know I'm not doing this well, but I'm sorry. You never pretend to be anything different. I'm not just saying this to get you to help Wilton."
She looked at him, half turned away from her. He unlaced his boots and she wondered what he was thinking. Her friends weren't supposed to be his business. Had he ever liked Wilton? Most men didn't like their lover's friends, but he'd seemed different about these things. Maybe because there couldn't be any promise that this would last.
"I figured," he said. "Anyway, as a liar, you suck."
She took a long breath, feeling light headed.
<
br /> "It's best if I get her to Lagos," she said. "Lindsey'll take care of her, find her a specialist. Lagos is huge. It has everything. Everyone obeys Lindsey. She has connections. Biafra's no place for Wilton, God knows. Every time she hears a plane or jet she gets violent, and I can't bear to keep her tied down all the time."
She studied his profile against the dim light of the lantern and steadied herself. He could say no, but she knew he wouldn't. Didn't know why or how—she simply knew.
"I need to take her myself," Gilman said. "I have to. I can't ship her out like a crate of guns. Can you do anything? Get us tickets or passes or whatever we'd need?"
He reached out a hand to her and she took it. Hard grip, and steady.
"Look," he said, "you're going to need all the help you can get. I'll manage the clearances. We can get you on a plane two maybe three days from now, with luck. Brownie's a good pilot. He'll cut us a deal."
Chapter 69: Gilman
February 1969
In Transit to Lagos, Nigeria
The small passenger plane began its descent through the clouds, a crackling intercom announcing that they'd be landing in Lagos by twenty after. The temperature in Lagos held in the high nineties.
Gilman turned to look at Wilton, sleeping a drugged sleep beside her. Bruising under her eyes and in the hollows of her gaunt face. The arm in a light sling rested on Wilton's laden backpack in her lap. Taped ribs gave an illusion of bulk to clothes that otherwise hung on her. The other hand packed in gauze had a spotting of blood where Gilman had removed splinters of glass and wood. Gilman wanted the chance to change the dressings, but when would she have facilities?
Allingham said Wilton suffered from grief, as if it were like measles or a sore throat, and she would recover in supportive surroundings. To Gilman this sounded like false professional optimism. She remembered Sister Catherine's first shocked response to Wilton's condition and wondered if doctors tried to comfort by making breakdowns sound like a childhood disease.
Prostration was a Madison Avenue illness—the luxury of people who could afford it. Besides, in the Hieronymus Bosch landscape of Biafra, grief became like hunger, only a memory. She wished she knew exactly what Wilton saw, or what it had meant to her. That information would help a specialist diagnose Wilton's withdrawal and the terrifying fugues when she went into flashbacks.
They all had their bouts of the crazies, but hadn't Wilton gone off some deeper end? Jantor found the idea of shell shock credible, and God knew he'd seen enough of it in seventeen years of ceaseless war. She'd seen cases herself before Biafra, in a tour of a Veteran's Administration hospital in Boston. The World War II veterans shook her. What did boys see on the battlefield that left graying middle-aged men drooling in wheelchairs and staring at walls? What was so horrible it couldn't be forgotten in twenty years? What nightmare took over and overgrew minds like some metastasis?
In Biafra they called shell shocked men "artillery men." They danced down the sun-soaked roads, jesters without a court. She wondered if Allingham was right when he said they faked madness to avoid the front. But they had eyes that scared her.
Wilton couldn't really be that bad off. She was smart and tough and she'd spent her whole life translated between cultures. That argued flexibility.
God, what did she think she was doing? Flying into Lagos with Wilton and this crazy Biafran Paul, that the International Red Cross had decided she needed as an assistant? Gilman had to be on a wanted list. For all she knew Paul was too. In the long waits in various airports, Paul's conversation had proved him a hard-line Biafran freedom fighter. Obsessed, in fact. Well, weren't they all? She only hoped that he had enough control to keep his mouth shut in enemy territory, especially when contrasting conditions already grated on his sense of injustice. She had to remember it was his family, his own friends and children, who died by inches in Biafra.
Lindsey would have to protect them to allow the three to land and walk into Lagos International Airport without being arrested. Gilman fought down rising terror. She went into a trap now, if Lindsey chose to close it. She had to trust Lindsey, or gamble that Sandy would keep Lindsey's police mentality in check.
Too late anyhow. What she was doing was right. Nothing wrong with Wilton that a stay in Lagos with friends couldn't mend…Of course they were friends. Lindsey would find the best medical and psychiatric help. Her secluded house outside Lagos would soothe. Perfect servants, nutritious food, Lindsey's calm—all these must work. Once Wilton started her way to recovery, no devils could resist Sandy's comic exorcisms. Gilman turned to gaze out of the window. There came a tug on her seat and a black hand curved over the top of her headrest. A voice whispered in her ear.
"Do you see the sun shining on the silver wing, Doctor?" The English was textbook perfect.
"Yes, Paul."
"I am thinking this will not be like our ascent at Uli."
The name snapped Gilman's self-control. She rounded on the Igbo sitting behind her.
"Look, you goddamned idiot," she said, remembering to lower her voice despite her anger. "I don't know why someone in the charity hospital picked you for this trip, or how you got entrance papers, but I wish you'd remember that we are unwanted representatives of a suspect organization…"
"An international organization known for its compassion…" he said.
"You broadcasting our origin and your political sentiments all over the place will jeopardize negotiations and probably land us in jail."
Her voice softened when his face hardened and she realized how overbearing she sounded.
"Look, Paul, legitimizing the Red Cross relief flights depends on our convincing the Feds of the Red Cross's neutrality. Neutrality. Now drop it."
"Yes, Doctor."
The face seemed immovable, but Gilman thought she detected an undertone of sarcasm. He settled back in his seat. Damn the committees anyway, for saddling her with this character as a companion. Well, half damn them. They'd made her trip official at least. Handing her and Paul the authority to discuss relief flights with Nigerian bureaucrats might help her to get out again and back to Biafra once she'd delivered Wilton. But Paul was such a stiff-necked…
For her, the problem still had a few degrees of removal. She recalled her response to the airline dinner last night and how despite her almost frantic lust to eat everything and anything she was offered, she hadn't cleared her plate. How she used to sneer at airline food. Gilman heard the landing gear engage.
Chapter 70: Gilman
February 1969
Lagos, Western Region, Nigeria
They ducked off the seething street with its stench and noise, hurrying into the building, away from people quarreling, marketing and celebrating. The hall seemed a haven of shade and quiet after Gilman guided Wilton in, marveling how, in this moment, it seemed Wilton had regained some regularity of motion. Up the elevator, down the next corridor and to Lindsey's office. Maybe Wilton felt the order and sanity here where Lindsey's rationality ruled.
A man in a white shirt and pressed pants opened the doors, and they walked into Lindsey's office. Gilman eased Wilton onto the couch and helped her lean into the corner between back and arm before she turned to Lindsey with a deep breath of relief. Good old Lindsey with her ivory shirtwaist and gleaming chestnut hair, perfection unmarred, like the memory of their shared past.
For an instant the familiarity of Lindsey's calm face overwhelmed Gilman. She wanted to hold her friend close, as if this was the way she'd always felt, as if this was the secret way to move back in time. When she tightened her embrace, Lindsey stiffened. Lindsey's answering arms came about her a moment too late and Gilman disengaged.
"I got your message," Lindsey said. "Are you okay, Gilman? Can I get you anything—water, juice, bourbon?"
Gilman heard the shakiness in her own laugh. Not good.
"Nothing right now, thanks." She noted how Lindsey's fingers flexed at her sides as if she'd wanted something to do. "But I'll sit down."
Gilman fe
lt immediately that she'd said the wrong thing. Was she too dirty to sit in Lindsey's office? Too crumpled? Or was it guilt by association—messengers from the rebels had to be unwelcome here. Official US government thinking. Never forget that whatever else she was, Lindsey had government and official written all over her. Gilman wavered.
"Unless you think it's a bad idea."
"What bee's in your bonnet?" Lindsey asked. "Sit. It's good to see you. Looks like we need to fatten you up a bit." Lindsey considered Wilton, then settled for a quiet pat on Wilton's unresponsive shoulder before retreating a few steps.
"Yeah, well, no kidding."
"I think Sandy's ordered you a steak from the embassy supply store. Not strictly legal, but who gives a…it's not like you're here in any official capacity."
That hurt. As if she wasn't worth entrusting.
"I am," Gilman said. "I have the letters right here. I'm to talk with whomever I need to see about allowing relief flights through to the Biafran children."
"God no, Gilman. Why'd you let them entangle you in politics?"
"Politics be damned. What's the matter? You think I'm too dumb to know how to negotiate? Or too stupid to know when I'm being manipulated?"
"Sit down, Gilman. Let me get you a drink."
"I don't want a drink. And I don't want to sit down."
She felt ridiculous. She knew she didn't have the option of walking out. Wilton needed to stay and Gilman couldn't leave without going over the necessary details. She had to impress Lindsey with the purpose behind keeping Wilton in Nigeria instead of shipping her back to the States.
"I'm sorry if I said something to offend," Lindsey said. She walked back behind her desk but didn't sit down either. "You've had a hell of a time. I can only imagine the horrors you've had to see—and now it's Wilton gone insane."
"Just temporary," Gilman said. Good, she'd swallowed her temper. Lindsey was trying too. Now she could talk about what she knew. "She needs to stay in Nigeria because shell shock gets unbelievably worse if you transport victims far away from where the trauma occurred. You need to take care of her for us." She followed Lindsey's somber gaze and noted Wilton had fallen asleep, or passed out, her mouth slack. "With a good psychiatric doctor she'll recover."
