Anna cradled a kitten against her chest. It purred with a steady rhythm, its whole body vibrating under her hand. As she stroked the soft fur she gazed down the length of the ward. It was divided by a curtain halfway down, separating males from females. The narrow beds were shrouded with green mosquito nets. The patients were barely visible, but Anna could picture each of them in her mind. There was the young boy recovering from surgery to remove a ruptured spleen. There was a woman who had almost died from pneumonia complicated by an underlying disease that Dr Carling had yet to diagnose. Then there was the bored young man, fit and strong, with a bandage on his leg. Her gaze skimmed past his bed – the dressing looked innocent enough, but she knew what lay beneath. She focused instead on an old man – a pygmy, no bigger than a child – who’d had a tumour removed from his neck.
The kitten squirmed in Anna’s arms, then began mewing loudly. Without noticing, she’d tightened her grip – now she was clinging to the animal as if it were a lifeline. With its picture-book markings and cartoon antics, it felt like her only link with the everyday world. Nine days had passed since she’d been left behind at the mission, and Eliza had still not returned. Anna could see why prisoners started marking the walls of their cells, afraid to lose track of time. As the first week bled into the next, she felt as if she’d been here for a whole month, or even longer.
She didn’t know what to make of Eliza’s continuing absence. Sometimes she felt angry and betrayed – imagining Eliza enjoying the company of her boyfriend and his companions, deciding to extend her visit. More often, Anna felt sick with worry that something bad might have happened. She couldn’t discuss her concerns with the Carlings without breaking her promise that she would say nothing to anyone about Eliza’s links with the rebels. And anyway, there would be no action the missionaries could take. Anna had no idea of where Eliza had actually gone, or exactly whom she was going to see. All Anna knew was that it was a secret. She just had to hope Eliza was safe. When the Carlings prayed each morning at the breakfast table, she had taken to adding her own silent plea – to any power that might be out there in the universe – for her friend’s protection.
Anna tried to keep her focus on the work she did each day. She had settled into a regular schedule of moving back and forth between the hospital and the house. It was surprising how quickly she’d adapted to the experience of being in the wards. Her initial reactions of panic interspersed with disgust and pity already seemed distant to her. In the main ward, as well as the maternity ward, she calmly assisted Rose in her nursing tasks and accompanied Dr Carling on his rounds. It was rare, now, for her to have to turn away or run outside to get some fresh air. She could even cope with helping to care for the lepers – though this was still her biggest challenge.
It had been only Anna’s second day at the mission when Rose had insisted on taking her Australian guest on a visit to the colony.
‘Treatment and rehabilitation of people with leprosy is a major part of the work we do here,’ she’d explained. ‘Most of the patients are burnt-out cases. The disease is no longer active, but the residual nerve damage causes lots of problems. We run a daily clinic for them.’
She’d led the way down a line of wooden huts, introducing Anna to the residents as they sat outside in the sun. One by one the lepers reached out to her with fingerless hands that looked like mangled paws.
‘What do they want?’ Anna asked Rose, shrinking away. She could smell the fluids that seeped, rosy yellow, through the patients’ clothes and bandages.
‘A greeting. A smile.’
Anna waved, her lips frozen into a thin line. A face knotted with lumps swam into view; where the nose should have been was a gaping hole. There was a man with no foot. It was like a journey through a nightmare: every face, every body, was maimed in a different way.
When Rose stepped into one of the huts to talk to a bedridden patient, Anna took the chance to escape. Back in the yard of the main hospital she ran behind a tree, bending over to vomit into the grass. Rose soon appeared, approaching with a questioning look. Anna was unable to speak. She shook her head, indicating that she couldn’t face going back. But Rose just touched her arm in a soothing gesture.
‘You’ll get used to it, my dear. I find it helpful to look into their eyes. I try to see the real person that is there, inside that damaged body. Picture them as a perfect little child, loved by their family.’
The advice sounded too simplistic to be meaningful. Yet every time Anna went back to the leprosy clinic and took her place at Dr Carling’s side, she found she was more able to do as Rose had suggested. One morning, as she was changing the bandages of a young woman – breathing in the sweet-sick smell that came from dying flesh – she began trying out some simple Swahili words she was learning. Soon, she was laughing with the patient. When the job was done, Anna had looked up to see Rose nodding her approval. The satisfaction she felt had stayed with her all day.
Outside her shifts at the hospital Anna’s life followed a set pattern. She spent the afternoons supervising Lily and Sam’s lessons and reading stories to them. When Dr Carling came home from work, she joined him in playing with the older children, while Rose stayed with Molly and Adina. There were games of badminton on a makeshift court in the clearing behind the house. Sometimes they kicked a football around or started a game of tag. Harry Carling was a big man, with long limbs, but he moved with great energy. As he sweated in the heat he ran his hands back through his short sandy hair, leaving it standing up in damp spikes. If he was worried about the threat of marauding chimpanzees, he showed no sign of it. He looked relaxed and happy – quite unlike the harried person Anna saw at the hospital. Playing with his children seemed to help him leave behind all his concerns.
Anna had hung back at first, feeling self-conscious joining in games with Harry; he was off-duty but she still saw him as the doctor whose every word she must carefully obey. But it proved impossible to deny Lily’s demands that she take part. Soon Anna was as much involved in the outdoor games as the Carlings were. While chasing Sam or fighting for possession of the football, she often found herself noticing the interactions between Harry and Lily. The casual affection between father and daughter was clear. Watching on, Anna felt an irrational sense of loss, as if she had been left out of a performance in which she should have been given a part.
When the light began to fade, and the shadows between the trees turned dark, it was time to go inside. Adina went home to her village after preparing the food, leaving Rose to serve the evening meal. The Carlings ate by the light of kerosene lanterns. Normally, the generator was kept running until bedtime, but the diesel supply had to be conserved until the new Land Rover wheel arrived from the Catholic mission. Since the radio had suddenly stopped working – Harry had dismantled it but not yet discovered the source of the problem – there was no way to find out when this would occur.
The lanterns cast a yellow glow over the circle of faces around the dining table, adding a magical feel to the setting. As Harry told stories to make everyone laugh, played tricks on the children and teased his wife, Anna watched on with a wistful eye. This was what a real family was like: there was laughter, warmth, companionship. And at its heart there was a father, strong and loving and kind.
When it was the children’s bedtime, Lily and Sam kissed Anna goodnight, hugging her close as if she were already an intimate part of their world. She smiled into their hair as they pressed against her, and breathed in their smell of toothpaste and soap.
Harry and Rose spent their evenings reading textbooks on medicine and theology, or writing letters to friends and colleagues back in America. Sometimes they just sat with their cups of tea, talking about their work. At first, as Anna joined them, she missed having a cigarette or one of the sundowners she’d got used to sharing with Eliza, but the impulse soon disappeared. There were more important things to think about. The list of challenges the missionaries faced seemed endless. In addition to running the hospital, they headed up a church; beyond the leper colony was a third building where people from nearby villages met for mid-week Bible studies and literacy classes as well as Sunday worship. Harry and Rose included Anna in their discussions, asking for her reflections on her own experiences. Sometimes they smiled at what she said, but they were always sympathetic and encouraging. When the couple retired, Anna remained in the sitting room. She slept there on a kapok mattress, the bright moonlight shining in through the wire mesh and casting a crisscross pattern on her pillow. She felt safe, cocooned inside the house, listening to the blend of two voices – one high, one low – filtering through the wall.
Anna could have been lulled into complacency if there was no urgency about bringing this interlude to an end. But she was plagued by her fears for Eliza. Every time she emerged from the path near the turning circle, she looked for the Jaguar, hoping to find it parked beside the stranded Land Rover. At work in the hospital, she would picture Eliza walking through the door, striding between the beds, the scent of L’Interdit floating on the air. Eliza would give her an explanation for the delay – one that involved nothing too serious, but nothing too inconsequential, either. Then they’d be on their way.
Anna still clung to the vision of reaching Banya and beginning the search for her father’s identity. One good thing to come out of this detour to the mission was that she would now be able to arrive at the Lutheran hospital with a letter of introduction. The Carlings knew the medical superintendent there, Dr Bonhoeffer. They were sure he’d offer his help. Anna had been encouraged by the Carlings’ support for her quest. When she’d explained the purpose of driving up here from Albertville, they’d understood immediately why she needed to find out the truth about who she was. Rose had talked about her own father – a Scotsman by birth, who’d spent most of his life, and had raised his family, in India. He was a missionary doctor, like Harry.
‘A father means so much,’ Rose had said, ‘especially to a girl . . .’ She’d stroked Anna’s shoulder, offering a kind smile. ‘We will pray that you succeed in your mission. But always remember, Anna, whatever happens, you have your Father in heaven, watching over you.’
Anna had nodded politely. The words were spoken with conviction but they meant nothing to her. She dreamed of meeting a flesh-and-blood father who lived and breathed, who could wrap her in his arms and look into her eyes . . .
A rasping cough, coming from the patient with pneumonia, drew Anna’s attention back to her duties. Bending down, she placed the kitten on the floor. As soon as it was free, it bounded away as though afraid of being held captive again. Anna crossed to the hand basin to wash her hands. She didn’t want to end up with ringworm or toxoplasmosis, or any of the other animal-borne infections Rose had warned her about. The Carlings took hygiene very seriously and had made sure Anna knew all the rules. At the mission, drinking water was boiled for a full three minutes to kill germs. The family only ate well-cooked food or raw fruit and vegetables that had been soaked in a solution of potassium permanganate. Even the smallest cut was daubed with disinfectant. They couldn’t afford to get ill, Rose explained. Apart from anything else, there was too much work to do.
Anna dipped a small bar of soap in the mud-tainted water, then rubbed it over her hands. Her skin was getting raw from the constant scrubbing. She’d had to cut her nails short so that germs couldn’t hide under them. The varnish was chipped, and her attempts to remove it with methylated spirits had failed. By the time she reached Banya she would be ashamed to let anyone see her hands.
As she worked the lather between her fingers, she looked out through the window, past the wire mesh, towards the leper colony. There were often patients to be seen loitering at the boundary. They kept to their own area to avoid upsetting the other Africans. The lepers might be cured of their disease but that didn’t mean they were free of the stigma it carried. That would remain with them for life.
Today, the only person Anna could see was Mboko, one of the gardeners employed at the mission. He was sitting not far away, on a bench in the hospital compound. From his moving lips Anna could tell that he was singing. He held a bunch of carrots, still crusted with red earth, dangling from one hand. Where his other hand should have been was only a stump. He used his forearm to clutch a chicken to his chest. The first time Anna had encountered him she’d taken him for a leprosy patient as well. But when she asked the Carlings why the gardener had lost his whole hand to the disease and not just his fingers, Harry had a very different story to tell.
It was only her third night at the mission. She had been sitting with the couple at the dining table, sipping her second cup of tea. The children were already in bed, their nets tucked carefully in. The shadows cast by a moth dancing madly inside the glass funnel of the lantern added to the nightmare quality of what Harry had revealed.
He’d painted the backdrop first. Mboko was born in the era when the Congo belonged to King Leopold of Belgium. The colony was almost as big as the whole of Western Europe. The King used it as his personal piggy bank, plundering its resources.
He forced the Congolese to harvest rubber for him. It was before plantations had been established so they had to leave their villages and go deep into the jungle. Wild rubber comes from vines that can’t be tapped like trees; the Africans had to smear the sticky sap onto their skin as they worked, building up a thick layer. Then they had to tear it off when it was dry, ripping away hair and skin at the same time.
The officers of King Leopold’s Force Publique travelled the land collecting the rubber. A certain quantity was required from each village. If the quota wasn’t reached – often because the villagers had had to spend time growing food for their families – the police handed out brutal punishments. Rape, torture and murder were the order of the day.
King Leopold’s men became suspicious that the officers they sent into the villages might be wasting time and precious bullets hunting game instead of punishing Africans. To address this problem they worked out a system whereby for each bullet used, there had to be some proof that a man had been executed. The best way to show this was to cut a hand off the corpse and bring it back. So it was that after each tour of the villages, the King’s men returned with whole baskets of severed hands. Often they had been smoked over fires to preserve them for the journey.
Sometimes, though, it wasn’t possible to kill enough men. Time ran out, or the officers were too lazy, or they were, indeed, spending their time hunting game. They took to cutting hands from the living. The easiest of prey were the women and children.
This wasn’t happening in the Dark Ages, Harry pointed out. It was the early 1900s. In America, Henry Ford had opened a factory for making automobiles. The electric washing machine had just been invented. People were riding the subway in New York. Einstein was expounding his theory of relativity. It was hard to believe Leopold’s barbaric regime could be part of this modern world.
Mboko had been one of the innocent victims. His little sister suffered a similar fate, and so did his aunt. Nearly sixty years had passed since the day the men of the Force Publique came to his village looking for hands to match the tally of bullets. Mboko still remembered the pain and terror he’d felt. But he was barely able to speak about it, even now.
When Harry finished giving his account, he fell quiet for a while, staring down at the table. The ticking of the clock above the bookcase competed with the staccato sounds of insects coming from outside. Anna’s thoughts turned to the painting she’d seen in the Hôtel Royal Kivu – the King’s eyes spiked through with a knife.
‘Violence breeds violence,’ Harry said eventually. When he looked up at Anna, his eyes burned with passion. ‘Make no mistake – what is happening in the Congo now is part of what happened then.’
‘You mean the rebellion?’ Anna was eager to hear what he thought about the Simbas. But as Harry took a breath, Rose put her hand on his arm.
‘We don’t discuss it,’ she said firmly. ‘We’re just missionaries, here to do our work.’
Harry let out a long sigh, then nodded his agreement. ‘You are right, my dear.’
A dense silence filled the room. The air felt heavy with the dark weight of Mboko’s history. Rose pushed back her chair, scraping the floor. Anna thought she was going to suggest they all go to bed, but instead she brought a game of Snakes and Ladders over to the table. She made Harry and Anna each choose a counter to place on the board. The rattle of the dice broke the quiet, followed by the light tapping of counters. Gradually the game captured their attention. Harry smiled when he landed on a ladder and shot up the board. Rose groaned when she found herself sliding down a snake. Anna leaned eagerly over the board as her counter moved into the lead. By the time the game was over, the bleak mood had lifted. The three were laughing and chatting as if the world were a carefree place. This was how the missionaries survived, Anna realised: they found ways to retreat from the pain and hardship that surrounded them every day. They replenished their reserves of strength so they could go back into battle again.
She thought of that process, now, as she gazed out at Mboko, still resting on the bench in the shade. She suspected it wasn’t only the foreigners who had to live this way. The Africans were always laughing, she’d noticed, as if practising cheerfulness were a vital skill. She watched the gardener put down the chicken, which staggered for a moment, before strutting away. As he got to his feet, he looked across to the window. Seeing Anna, he smiled and waved his stump. She returned the gesture, soapy water dripping from her fingers.
She was just reaching for the hand towel when she heard footsteps approaching along the corridor. She knew it was Rose; her businesslike step was completely different to Harry’s heavy tread. Hurrying to the nearest bed, Anna bent over to tuck the net more neatly under the mattress. She’d finished all the tasks she’d been given, but she still wanted to be found looking useful.
Rose was writing notes on a clipboard as she entered the ward. Like Anna, she wore a green pinafore sewn from a worn-out sheet. It was tied tightly around her body, showing off her slim waist and upright posture.
‘I’ve checked all the nets and mended one hole,’ Anna said, ‘and I’ve fed the little girl.’
‘Her relatives didn’t come?’ Rose frowned. ‘I’ll have to send someone to speak to them. We’re not running a hotel.’
She walked over to the bed of the young man with the bandaged leg, and swept the net aside. After exchanging Swahili greetings with him, she beckoned Anna over. ‘Let’s see if we can get another inch today.’
Anna braced herself as she moved to stand at Rose’s side. She’d helped with this task twice before and her revulsion had waned, but she still didn’t want to look at what was about to be revealed.
Rose unrolled the bandage and gave it to Anna. Then she peeled back a square of gauze. Anna grimaced at the sight of a thin white worm emerging from a weeping red hole. Part of the creature had been wound around a matchstick, its head tethered by a piece of silk thread. Each day Rose had been turning the stick, gently pulling the worm from the body of its host. The goal was to remove the whole thing without damaging it. The job would take weeks, since the worm might be as much as three feet long. If it died in the process, the body was much harder to remove. If it broke off, the rest of it would remain in the man’s leg and serious infection could result.
Rose prodded the worm’s head with a cotton bud. ‘Good. She’s still alive.’
Anna found it hard to think of the disgusting creature having a gender, but Rose had explained that the guinea worms found inside humans were all female. They entered a person’s body as larvae, swallowed in drinking water. When they grew to maturity, they pushed their way out through the skin in order to discharge their own larvae. Anna knew all this, because Rose always gave her assistant a mini-lecture about the case in hand; Harry did the same. Anna had the uncomfortable feeling that the Carlings believed it was only a matter of time before she decided to give up the idea of being a secretary and turn instead to nursing.
‘Ready?’ Rose raised her eyebrows.
‘Ready,’ Anna confirmed as she grasped the patient’s leg firmly to make sure he made no sudden movements. Rose began twisting the stick, her face bent close, lips pursed with concentration. After the first turn, Anna looked away; she didn’t want to watch, in case the worm was going to break. She focused instead on her apron. It had been sewn by hand, perhaps by Adina. There was an old bloodstain near the hem. It was the shape of a heart, the red turned to rust.
When Rose was satisfied with the length of worm that had been extracted, she told Anna to release her grip. Then she began replacing the dressings, covering the wound as well as the matchstick with its string-like wrapping. Now that the crucial part of the task was over, Rose seemed to lose her concentration. She rolled the bandage too tightly and had to take it off and try again. Anna waited for her to start giving the usual detailed background to the next patient’s case, but Rose was unusually quiet.
When she eventually straightened up, Anna hovered at her side, waiting to be led to the next bed. But she didn’t move.
‘I’d like to talk to you, Anna.’ Rose sounded even more serious than usual.
Anna chewed her lip anxiously as she ran back over the events of the day, wondering what kind of mistake she could have made.
‘You mustn’t mention it to Harry.’ Rose glanced over her shoulder as if to check that her husband wasn’t around.
Anna hid her surprise that there might be any secrets between the Carlings. ‘I understand,’ she said. Maintaining confidentiality was a skill she practised daily in the office.
‘Did Eliza talk to you about the Simbas? Did she say anything about them?’
Anna’s mouth dropped open. ‘What?’
‘The rebels. You asked Harry about them. You must know who they are.’
‘Yes . . .’ Anna tried to sound vague. ‘A little.’
‘Does she think they’re going to keep on moving south?’ A spasm tightened Rose’s face for an instant. ‘It’s just that with no transport we’re trapped here. And now the radio’s broken we don’t even know what’s happening.’
‘Are you very worried?’
Rose forced out a laugh; it sounded like air being expelled from a balloon. ‘Of course not. Not really . . .’
Anna noticed Rose’s hands were clasped together, her knuckles blanched. She wasn’t as strong and calm as she appeared, Anna realised.
‘I can tell you for certain that it’s safe in this area.’ Anna gave a reassuring smile. ‘Otherwise Eliza wouldn’t have offered to drive me to Banya.’
‘She’d know, wouldn’t she?’ Rose didn’t sound very sure.
‘Yes, she would,’ Anna said firmly. ‘She’s got contacts everywhere. She knows everything.’
‘But the situation could change, in time,’ Rose said. ‘I’m just concerned because of the children . . .’
Anna felt a rush of sympathy for her. She thought of all the effort Rose made to keep Lily, Sam and Molly safe – making them stay inside, where they were protected by wire screens; washing her hands so carefully when she came home; removing her shoes . . . ‘Why don’t you and Harry go back to Albertville with Eliza?’ Anna suggested. ‘Just for a while – until the rebellion is over.’
As she spoke, Anna realised she had very little idea what she was talking about. She didn’t know what it would actually mean, for the rebels to win or be defeated. But she did know that she wanted to comfort Rose. And she refused to consider the possibility that Eliza might not ever come back here.
‘Everyone could fit into the Jaguar,’ she added. ‘It’s huge.’
A look of raw longing flashed across Rose’s face. ‘Maybe we could go over to my sister. She’s a nurse at a leprosy mission on an island on the Tanzanian side of the lake. I’ve been wanting to take the children there ever since they were born. I’d like to see the hospital – they’ve got all the latest medicines and equipment. But most of all, I’d love to see Lydia. I really miss her.’ Rose’s voice trembled, then she fell quiet. After a moment she shook her head. ‘But we could never leave the hospital without someone to take over from us. What would happen to all these people?’ She waved a hand at the rows of beds. ‘Four years ago we were evacuated. We went to stay with Eliza in Albertville. It seemed the right thing to do. When we returned, the patients had disappeared. Lots of them probably died. Only the people in the leper colony were still here, and they had suffered too.’
‘What made you leave?’ Anna asked.
‘It was right after Independence. All the senior officers in the Force Publique had been Belgians, and when they pulled out – all at once – there was chaos. Africans began raping and killing Europeans, looting their homes. They targeted the Belgians mainly, but as a precaution missionaries all over the country were evacuated. But, as it turned out, the ones who trusted God for protection and stayed at their stations were quite safe. No one lifted a finger against them. We regretted our decision to abandon the mission. We don’t want to make that mistake again.’ Rose sounded as though she were having an argument, even though there was no one offering an opposing view.
‘Harry’s quite sure the Simbas wouldn’t harm us,’ she continued. ‘We’ve met one of their leaders. Philippe was his first name – I’ve forgotten the rest. He was in the first government formed after Independence. Harry wrote to him about the need for a school in this area. He came all the way out here, and had chai with us in the house. He promised to help. But then Lumumba was killed and he lost his position. He’s a rebel officer now, high up in the Simbas. Harry can’t believe he’d let his men attack civilians.’
Anna picked at the hem of her apron, where a loose thread hung down. She thought of the soldiers she’d seen in the photograph – Eliza’s friends – imagining them arriving at the mission house, parking their trucks in the turning circle. She remembered the Code of Conduct she’d seen in Eliza’s bag. Surely Harry was right – they wouldn’t harm an innocent missionary family . . . But there seemed to be another side to the rebels. The soldiers at the checkpoint in Albertville were afraid to fight them. They feared the powers of their witchdoctors. Karl had described the Simbas as animals in human form.
Anna looked over Rose’s shoulder towards the window covered in wire mesh. If the barricade could keep out a chimpanzee, would it withstand an attack by soldiers? It might delay their entry to the house for a while, Anna thought, but no more. She hated the thought of Lily, Sam and Molly being hurt, or even just frightened.
‘Perhaps you should at least send the children away to Albertville?’ she suggested. ‘Magadi would help look after them.’
Rose didn’t seem to have heard; she began pacing up and down beside the bed. ‘We have to remember this conflict has nothing to do with us. We just have to stay right out of politics. I keep reminding Harry about that. We need to make sure we’re seen as completely neutral.’
‘Talk to Eliza when she comes back,’ Anna insisted. ‘Ask her what she thinks.’
Anna’s voice seemed to break Rose’s train of thought. She looked blank for an instant – then she made an obvious effort to regain her composure. She loosened her hands and smoothed back her hair. ‘That’s a good idea, Anna.’ She gave a brave smile. ‘I wonder what’s happened to our friend. She must have been badly delayed. But then, time means nothing to Eliza. Perhaps she’s caught up taking photographs. I know what she’s like. She’ll wait forever to get that perfect shot.’
Anna looked towards the door of the ward, trying to think of an excuse to get away; she was afraid that everything she knew about Eliza must be written on her face. One of the adult cats prowled into view. Anna recognised the mother of the kittens by the kink in her dark tail. She carried something in her mouth. As she came closer, Anna saw it was a rat. The limp body draped from the feline’s jaws, its tiny feet hanging down.
The cat padded silently towards the two women, gazing up with big round eyes, the clear blue of the Congo sky. Right in front of Rose’s feet, she dropped her prey. Blood oozed from the rat’s mouth, dripping onto the floor.
Rose stared at the small corpse for a moment. Then the spasm crossed her face again. She clasped her hands together in front of her chest.
‘I can’t stand it,’ she whispered. She spun on her heels and half-ran from the ward. When she reached the corridor, Anna saw her jerk to a standstill. Bending her head, she hid her face in her hands.