He healed fast, got his voice back. He let me clean him up, let me shave him, drew the line at accepting help cleaning his teeth. Two days in and I stood, fully clothed, propping him up under the shower because he'd refused the offer of a chair and Angelique rolled her eyes at me as I sloshed back with him to his bed, still laughing and even getting a little laugh from him too.
A lot of the time he didn't seem all there, his eyes vacant. It happened all the time, one minute he'd be listening to me, not saying much himself but in the same world with me and then he'd be gone; even if he looked at me and seemed to listen I couldn't tell what he was seeing or hearing, and I know he was as full as it was possible for him to have been with meds but it seemed like more than that and so I never asked him what happened, how it was that he came to be "le pretre", however much I wanted to, because I don't do that, I don't dig. That day though he smiled and it reached his eyes and for a minute he held my hand firmly, and I thought again that since we'd found him everything had seemed very quiet no matter what else was going on around us, I seemed caught in a little bubble of quietude. Weird.
I sat outside to dry in the sun and Chance's mother came and sat next to me. I didn't need to ask what had happened to her, I knew what had happened to her and I knew what the likely consequence would be. They'd left Chance alone and I thanked the God I didn't believe in for that.
She asked me about Luka and I said he was getting better. There was a long silence then and it was like she was waiting for me to ask her what had happened to him so in the end I did. When she finished I thought again that maybe I should reconsider the whole God business. The hell of it, it left me feeling sick, thinking of her, violated, covering her daughter's ears against the gunshots, the men dying either begging for their lives or accepting it, and Luka kneeling in the dirt without his shoes, waiting for his turn, like all those patients that wait . . . patiently, saying the prayers he'd said as a boy. But Sakina smiled and nodded toward the clinic and Luka and said they'd saved each other. I couldn't answer that because Luka's sentence had been commuted but we both knew she was carrying hers around with her, and she could see that in my eyes, in the half smile that was too twisted to be real. She shrugged.
"J'ai mon tresor toujours. Pour moi, ca suffit. Et vous, vous avez votre amour. Je sais q'il est un vrai homme de Dieu. Pas un pretre peut-etre, mais ce de que vous avez besoin, un prêtre ne peut pas vous donner", and she winked even as her smile faltered.
I went back to him then and for the longest time I stood and watched him sleep. I said his name, once, twice, a third time, and when I knew for certain that he couldn't hear me I said the words I had no right to say and no power to keep inside.
Money counts, you know? Of course you know and of course I knew. I'd been amazed at the 20,000 John had gotten his hands on in Kinshasa without blinking and I'd felt kind of mad at the same time because what couldn't Angelique have done with 20,000? But when he told me there was a plane lined up for Luka I could have kissed him. So thank God for money, you know?
He'd need help of course and who better than me, a nurse? For once Angelique didn't give me her cool, appraising, knowing look, she just nodded and said "Bien sur" and went on her way.
The day we left it took a long time to dress him and a couple of times he looked at me as though he didn't know what was going on, which he didn't, because any attempt to talk about what was to happen next left him confused and agitated so we stopped. Still, I'd speak to him, tell him what to do and he did it, an obedient child, and my voice seemed to bring him back to himself. So he submitted to my fussing, juggling Ivs and once he even giggled and you know, the relief of hearing him laugh, even just a little made my eyes sting.
Chance and her mother came to say goodbye. Chance had drawn a picture of herself in a white coat and stethoscope in front of the huge, gleaming building she imagined as US hospital to be. He ran a shaky finger over the image of the little girl. She wore a pink dress and had ribbons in her hair. She had two legs.
In the end I excused myself. I don't like goodbyes, not even other people's. John and Angelique and Debbie came with us to the airstrip to see us off. I don't think Luka properly understood, although he thanked John and kissed him and asked if he was coming along and when he said no he seemed to understand that. I took the letter John pressed into Luka's hands and wondered who Abby was. And then I realised I didn't care.
Translation:
"J'ai mon tresor toujours. Pour moi, ca suffit. Et vous, vous avez votre amour. Je sais q'il est un vrai homme de Dieu. Pas un pretre peut-etre, mais ce de que vous avez besoin, un prêtre ne peut pas vous donner" -
"I still have my treasure; for me that's enough. And you, you have your love. I know he's a real man of God. Not a priest perhaps, but then what you need a priest can't give you".
