46

The smell of burned flesh.

The smell of death.

The smell of shit.

The smell of detergent.

The piping-hot air, the gray drapes rippling gently at the window.

The light—white, blinding, brutal.

I blink. I want to call out, but my mouth is as dry as arid land. I faint with relief.

~ ~ ~

I come to in a soft and unfocused world. I don’t feel anything except nausea and fatigue. And as I open my eyes, I see her leaning over me, surrounded by a white halo, a serious look on her beautiful face…

Farah.

She helps me sip something through a straw. I have the sensation of coming to life again. I want to hold her hand, brush her cheek. But then I sink into limbo, into my regrets.

I see her several more times, or maybe it’s someone else.

I see them too. Marion and Alexander. Alexander is playing in his room with his model Boeing 747, the one I brought back for him from New York. I had been working on a case with the FBI and had bought the plane at JFK because I didn’t have time to go shopping. Sitting beside the bed, Marion is looking at me with a serious face. As always, she is worrying.

I sink into a pool of murky water.

~ ~ ~

Slowly, the pain returns.

I feel hot. I’m sweating, and my gut is burning. It hurts.

It hurts so bad.

At night sometimes, I whine like a child. I bawl too, and the deafening sound of my voice hits me from far away.

~ ~ ~

I think I see Milo and Rony come in. Pierre too, but I’m not sure.

~ ~ ~

In one of those rare moments of consciousness or cognizant unconsciousness, I discern the presence of an old man sitting in a chair beside my bed. He is wearing a white Panama hat and has an ivory mustache and dark impenetrable eyes. He has a kind smile on his face and is holding a bouquet of fresh flowers. I sift long and hard in my clouded memory, but can’t remember who he is.

He comes to visit me several times—at least I think he does.

~ ~ ~

“How are we doing today, Mr. Camara?”

I hated that doctor with the butt-ugly face and car-salesman smile. He asked the same question every morning.

“I’m okay, doc,” I said wearily. “I’m okay.”

He checked my chart.

Outside the open window I could hear the city quietly humming.

“All right, looks like we have a lower fever today. The antibiotics are working.”

That way of talking like I wasn’t there.

“When can we leave, doc?” I asked with a yawn.

He wagged his finger at me. “We must not be impatient.” Then, just so he wouldn’t look like a grouchy old school teacher, he gave me a wink.

I waited a few seconds and changed the subject.

“Doctor, when I got here, I had a blue tagelmust. I used it for a tourniquet. Do you know what happened to it?”

“Ask the nurses,” he answered absentmindedly.

I sighed. Through the half-open door, I could see two police officers in civilian clothes keeping watch. The younger one waved at me. I wanted to respond, but it hurt too much.

~ ~ ~

Apparently I was lucky.

Samaké’s blade had cut my femoral artery, and when I arrived at Gabriel Touré Hospital, I had almost bled out. Barely more than two liters of hemoglobin left inside… Without the tourniquet, I would have croaked. Remarkably, my stomach injury wasn’t as serious. I was going to live, although I’d have to follow a strict diet for a while, the kind to make you regret having remained in this world.

In fact, I was damned lucky. I had survived the hemorrhage. The emergency room just happened to have enough of my blood type on hand when I arrived. I had survived the hospital too, and that was quite a feat. There were no complications during the operation to patch me up, no staph infection. And I got back my tagelmust, the one I had given Marion. It was all stiff with blood—hers and mine. That thing saved my life. But I didn’t understand. Why had I chosen to live? Why was it that I hadn’t embraced that whore, the grim reaper? Why was I always slipping out of her reach? I was tired of playing hide-and-seek with her. Doc acted like I should be thanking God for my miracle—for my resurrection. He said my sheer will to live had brought me through.

Jackass.

I wanted to leave, but I had to wait until my strength was restored and my insides—what was left of them—were healed.

Fuck, it was hot.