Pharmageddon Chapter 16

Cape of Good Hope, April, year three

When BT said my old friends from the secession wanted to see me again, I didn’t think we’d gather in the tiny living room of a cottage on the Cape Flats and drink beer like the last time, but he didn’t give me many clues on what I should expect – except to ‘dress nicely’.

BT’s bodyguard was waiting for me in the foyer of the Cape Grace hotel at noon, and it turned out there was nothing wrong with his command of English.

‘You can call me Cautious, ma’am,’ he said with a big smile. ‘Streak is waiting in the car. Minister Abrahams offers his apologies for not being able to collect you himself, but he’ll meet you at the premier’s house.’

‘Thanks, Cautious. Is that your first name or your surname?’

‘My surname, ma’am. My first name is Super. The driver’s first name is Mean.’

And so it went until we passed through the gates of the premier’s official residence, when Super Cautious and Mean Streak fell silent. Super opened my door and assured me they’d be ‘ready and sober’ when it was time to take me back to the Cape Grace. When I said not to expect the same of me he merely gave a polite smile, obviously conscious of where we were.

As I turned toward the mansion I saw the reason for his caution – the massive bulk of the Reverend Dr William Abrahams, premier of the independent state of the Cape of Good Hope, was bearing down on us.

‘Gipsy! Welcome to my humble abode.’

I tried to look unimpressed. ‘Shit Billy, I really hoped you would make something of yourself since we last met!’

The giant man laughed so loudly that several people appeared at the door to see what was going on. I was somewhat worried myself – fat and jolly is a recipe for an oversized coffin. Billy draped a heavy arm across my shoulders and ushered me into the building, where he introduced me to a couple of dozen people, all holding high office or partnered with power.

In due course we were seated at a series of round tables on the terrace, overlooking an immaculate garden and the eastern side of Table Mountain, now in shadow, and our champagne flutes were kept filled with a lovely bubbly from Graham Beck. After we’d said grace and eaten half an avocado filled with shrimps in a seafood sauce, Billy rose to his feet and rapped on his glass with a spoon.

‘Friends, today is doubly special. First, it is exactly three years since a small group of malcontents met in my mother’s house in Mannenberg and decided that, somehow, the Cape had to insulate itself from what we all knew was going to happen to the north. I’m not sure any of us truly believed we would succeed but, as you can see, we did.’

He waved his arm at the mansion behind, and the lawns and mountain in front of us. I heard soft calls of ‘hoor hoor’ and ‘hallelujah’ from the group, and a few raised their glasses before Billy continued.

‘I’ve often been asked for the secret of our success, and I think the answer is – timing and gearing...’

‘Sounds like my old car!’ I recognized one of the men from that meeting on the Cape Flats. Like the others he looked older, heavier and better groomed. Billy took the heckling in good spirits.

‘Solly, that old Chev of yours couldn’t go anywhere that had a hill in it! But, unlike your car, our timing was good – we found people in power were ready to talk – and our gearing worked, because when we told them who else was supporting us, most of them agreed to join us. Even those who were against us at first came around when they saw which way the mood was going.’

‘If you talk much longer, the mood will be gone...’ BT got his timing just right, and the guests cracked up. I wasn’t used to heads of state taking a public ragging, but Billy took it all in his stride.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, the Lord gives us our families. Praise the Lord that we can choose our friends!’ When he could be heard again, Billy raised his hands for quiet.

‘But as always my little boetie, the honorable minister of foreign affairs, is right. So let me tell you the second reason that today is special. When we needed an unbiased observer to witness the birth of our state, there was never any question about who that should be. 

'Gipsy North told us about the bombing of those factories in India, and she gave it the name we all use today – pharmageddon. Gipsy knew who would be affected most by that sabotage, and she flew to Johannesburg the very same day, even before the looting started. She warned us of the dangers of interrupting ARV treatment, and she alerted us to the tribal conspiracy which was the reason for that interruption. Gipsy was here to witness the birth of our small nation, and she’s been close to our story, and to our hearts, ever since.’

Billy reached into his jacket and pulled out what looked like a small book. ‘Gipsy, last week the Cape Council resolved to recognize your contribution to the Cape by awarding you honorary citizenship to our boutique country. Now you are one of us!’

I stood up to take the passport from Billy, who was on the opposite side of the table, and was horrified to find that everyone else stood up and began to applaud. Then I heard BT yell ‘speech’ and everyone sat down, leaving me standing with my new passport and my face hanging out. Neat trick.

‘Oh... crap! Hey, I bet you do this for everyone who applies for a passport...’

While they laughed, I wondered what would come out of my mouth next. I didn’t want to piss on their kindness, which ruled out the ‘I was only doing my job’ approach, and the ‘if I stand out it’s only because I’m standing on the shoulders of others’ line has been done to death. I wished I hadn’t downed two glasses of bubbly on an empty stomach.

‘This is just... great, thank you. I always wanted to have a second passport, just in case some mad dictator somewhere confiscates the other one. Hey, did you know that journalism is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world? We journalists face constant threats to our lives. Cirrhosis of the liver, diabetes, congestive heart failure, hair-dryers in five-star hotels falling into our bathtubs...’ They seemed to be lapping it up.

‘But as your newest citizen, I must warn you that journalists can pose a danger to others. Bad grammar, keeping bad company... but the greatest danger, by far, is that we will be asked to speak in public. The World Health Organization has issued a global warning against asking journalists to deliver a speech. Anyone who hears us speak must be disposed of with other toxic waste, in case the contamination spreads.’ Time to quit while I’m ahead.

‘But before I sit down, in the interests of your health and mine, I do want to say two things. The first is – I’m really touched by this! For the opportunity to see the birth of... what did you call it? Your boutique nation! I love boutiques! And the second thing is – congratulations! You guys turned a crisis into an opportunity, and you’ve succeeded. Magnificently. But for what it’s worth – if you’d failed, I would have written about you anyway.’

After I sat down Billy raised his glass to me. ‘Well said Gipsy. But tell me, now that you’re a citizen of the Cape of Good Hope, who will you be cheering for when we defeat the Wallabies?’

‘Hey, if you’re beating them, I’ll cheer for you guys. The golden rule – always be on the winning side.’ I raised my glass to him. ‘Same goes for your wine. When you learn to make better plonk than we do, I’ll be the first to admit it.’

After the thunder of the reverend premier’s mirth subsided, he hooked a finger at the wine-waiter and took the bottle from him. I’d seen the label earlier, so I deliberately averted my eyes now. The leader of the fledgling state carefully leaned over and filled my glass with red wine, then cocked an eyebrow at me. By now the entire audience was watching. I took a sip, ran it around my tongue and palate, sucked in a little air, and swallowed.

‘Yeah, okay. It’s not too shabby. Cab sav. It isn’t quite up to the best from Margaret River or McLaren Vale. Also a bit young. My guess is a De Trafford from, oh, 2004.’

‘You saw the label!’ BT yelled from the next table.

When normality returned Billy turned to me again and asked about my plans while I was in the region. I told him I’d been invited by the Indian army to see for myself what their treatment camps looked like, three years on.

‘And what are your plans this weekend?’

‘Oh, I heard you made some reasonable wines in the Cederberg, so I thought I might go and see for myself.’

+++

The hot-springs resort near the town of Clanwilliam was called ‘The Baths’ and their facilities were as spare as their name, so we checked into the Clanwilliam Lodge which was a modest step up. Pol Roger wasn’t on their wine-list but there was nothing wrong with their local bubblies, nor with their oysters and lobster – or crayfish as we call them in the colonies. They even had toweling robes in their ‘presidential suite’ and a treatment room for massage.

Not that we really cared. I’d hired a Landcruiser and bought us hiking boots at an outdoor shop, and we spent the two days exploring the mountains, tasting the excellent wines at the highest winery in the country, and talking. And we spent our two nights together eating, drinking, talking and... well, sleeping.

Kimberly was a delightful companion, and a great listener. She probed gently on Emily, and I ended up telling her the whole story. In fact I talked so much that I learned very little about her life, but she didn’t seem to mind. And I needed to talk to someone who hadn’t met Em, or grown to love her. Which is the same thing.

I told her how we’d met at a medical conference in Dublin, where Em was one of the simultaneous interpreters. I was so taken with her voice as she translated Spanish and Portuguese into my headset that I forgot to listen to what she was saying. At the first opportunity I went looking for the face behind the voice.

The best way to describe her was ‘wild’. Her hair, her eyes, her voice, her laugh, even her life and her friends. Wild! I never quite understood what she saw in me but whatever it was, she saw it right away. When the conference ended, we didn’t.

It turned out we had a friend in common – Jim Wallace. In fact Em knew him much better than I did. They’d met a decade earlier in Antigua Guatemala, high among the volcanoes and coffee plantations of central America, when they were studying Spanish at one of that quaint city’s many language schools. Their love was mutual, profound and enduring, but the roll of the genetic dice meant it would never be physical. Jim never married, but he and Em spoke on the phone at least once a week, and made up excuses to visit each other a couple of times a year.

I’d met Jim a few times through my work, and taken a course that he taught in media trends at Columbia. We enjoyed each other’s company, but made no particular effort to stay in touch.

When I met Em I was working for BBC World and renting a grungy flat in Fulham. It had cupboards for my clothes, space for a good bed, and a few decent restaurants within walking distance, but it was hardly a place I yearned to be. Em had no trouble finding an outlet for her remarkable linguistic talents in London, and even less trouble renting a bright and warm semi in Chiswick which she made our home for three years. Then came the Economist for me, and a shift to literary rather than verbal translation for Em, and we pooled our savings to buy a cottage in Chipping Norton.

From the beginning I was away more than I was at home, but Em was a social magnet and complained she never had time to herself. And our times together were always memorable. Living near the impossible Jeremy Clarkson was enough reason to buy a sports car, and when we weren’t shopping for distressed furniture for the cottage, we spent many wonderful afternoons exploring the pubs of the Cotswolds in our yellow Mazda MX5.

Then, out of the blue, came Em’s dizziness, diagnosis and depression. An incurable and unpredictable illness, they said. Not terminal in itself, but opening the door to a catalogue of complications, from the niggling to the fatal. For a year we held our breaths but, apart from having to sit down occasionally to avoid falling down, or dropping things, nothing else happened.

Eventually we got tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop and drafted the Concord of Chipping Norton. Whatever is going to happen, will happen. We respectfully decline to live in fear. Instead, we will suck the sap out of whatever we have – time, abilities, opportunities, money – and we’ll ignore the things we don’t have, or lose along the way. Amen and pass the corkscrew.

Within a week Em found she couldn’t call me Gipsy. Her tongue wouldn’t make a ‘P’ sound. So we agreed that Jimsy or Gimme were good, too. But for some reason she took to calling me ‘lover’ even though she couldn’t say ‘Ls’ either and it sounded unnervingly like ‘mother’.

Within three months she surrendered to her first wheelchair. As I lowered her into it she smiled wickedly. ‘Hey! Now that I’m a cripple, our parking problems are at an end! Oh, and I can take a dog where other dogs aren’t allowed!’ A few days later the Mazda made way for an Audi station wagon, which could hold her wheelchair, and a couple of weeks after that Jamie entered our lives, courtesy of the Guide Dog Association.

Em’s balance and speech were messed up but her hand-eye coordination was perfect and she continued with her written translations, and her never-ending quest to soak up languages. She also made it clear that, while she was breathing, our home was her responsibility, and she would not tolerate any modification of my career. She made more than enough money to pay a housekeeper and a part-time nurse, and the insurance payout – after she finally litigated it out of her insurers – gave her a sense of financial security.

So we weren’t exactly bleeding, and when Shan and Jim’s offer came up I was ready to turn them down. It was amusing that anyone should offer me so much money, but it simply didn’t compare to my life with Em, and I knew it would mean even longer periods away from her.

But the wild girl of Dublin wouldn’t hear of it, happily throwing the Concord of Chipping Norton in my face. ‘We suck the sap out of whatever we have, lover. Including opportunities. If you turn Jim down, Jamie and I are outa here. Oh, no, that won’t work – I’m the cripple. Okay, if you turn him down, you’re outa here.’

An even bigger surprise was her insistence on moving to Istanbul, even though we could easily have stayed in Chippy. ‘I’ve only ever lived on one or other side of the Irish Sea. And I’ve already started learning Turkish...’ She didn’t need to say that it would also mean living near to Jim.

Em loved everything about our villa in Fenerbahçe. The view, her staff, my colleagues from TWO, and especially the fact that Jim visited most evenings for a drink or supper. When Jamie finally made it through the Turkey shoot, as Em called their quarantine regulations, it seemed her life was complete. We were sucking the sap as hard as we could.

When the second shoe fell I was, against all odds, at home. I heard Kenan’s yell from the terrace, where I was hammering at my laptop. He told me later that Jamie fetched him in the kitchen, the dog’s body language powerful enough to make him drop his coffee mug and sprint to the bathroom, where Emily was lying between her buggy and the bog, her eyes alive but her lungs not taking in air.

He lifted her onto the bed and began resuscitation before bellowing for help. Despite my medical degree I knew my limitations, so I left the first-aid to Kenan while I held onto Em’s hand with both of mine – one hand for reassurance, the other taking her pulse – and talked to her eyes. I could hear Arda speaking urgently into the phone, so I couldn’t think of anything more to do.

Even though her body had stopped working, her mind had not. I saw her eyes flick over to the side of the bed where Jamie always lay, now out of her line of sight. I said his name and in an instant he was on the bed, snuggled against her side. Em’s eyes were on me again, saying what her face and her lungs couldn’t.

‘You’re welcome, my love.’

As Kenan kept working, I found myself dredging up crap from our lives together, just to fill the silence. Or to cover the sound of the BVM resuscitator which Kenan was squeezing rhythmically.

‘Hey, you remember that time when Nikki stayed with us in Chiswick? Before we bought the sleeper-couch? Didn’t she say there was some guy in her life? I think she met him in Geneva, but she never said how. Or what happened. She never tells me anything important – just about global epidemics and shit like that. Did she tell you what happened to that boy? You’re much better at wheedling that kind of information out of people. Remember to ask her about it when we next see her, won’tcha?’

After a few minutes I offered to take over on the resuscitator, but Kenan said he was okay so I rattled on mindlessly, trying to persuade myself that Em’s pulse wasn’t fading. Arda appeared at the door to say the ambulance would arrive in a couple of minutes, but I knew they couldn’t do much more than we were doing. Em’s eyes told me she also knew this wasn’t going to end well. They also said she wasn’t ready. Not yet.

‘Whatever is going to happen, will happen girl.’

There was movement at the bedroom door but it wasn’t the ambulance guys, it was Jim, his face white with shock.

‘Arda called...’ he said, crawling over the pillows to find a spot near Em’s head, from where he could stroke her hair. It was getting really crowded on the bed. I smiled at him and then looked back at Em, to find her eyes had changed. Now she was ready.

I must have said something, or maybe not. In any event Jim began crooning something in Spanish that sounded like a poem.

Em’s pulse fluttered and then disappeared, like a moth discovering the open part of the window. Now her eyes were... just eyes. I put a hand on Kenan’s arm and he stopped aspirating, then he dropped his head to his knees and cried like a baby. There was a commotion as the EMS guys finally arrived, and we all had to leave the bed while they confirmed what we knew.

After they’d gone Jim, Jamie and I all lay next to Em, saying nothing, for a long time.

A few days later Nikki flew in from her office in Geneva to join Jim and me as we scattered Em’s ashes from a rented boat halfway between the Fenerbahçe marina and the Princess Islands. Then we held a noisy wake at the villa, attended by pretty much everyone from the office, just as Em would have wanted.

Jim was the last to leave, and I walked him out to his car. As he opened the door Jamie brushed past him, scrambling onto the passenger seat then sitting motionless, his amber eyes fixed on me.

Jim was surprised. ‘Hey boy, where d’you think you’re going?’

But I understood. ‘If you’ll have him Jim, he wants to be with you.’ Somehow I resisted the temptation to add: ‘at last’.

++++

The invitation that brought me back to the Cape had been signed by a major general Ao at army headquarters in New Delhi. It simply said I was ‘invited to tour the UN installations in South Africa’. I was asked to allow a week for the tour, which seemed like a long time to visit a few camps. The plot thickened when a colonel on Ao’s staff told me I was the only person on this tour.

‘Why me? And why now?’

‘We understand you have a unique record as a witness to the... situation in South Africa, doctor. We would be sorry to see your batting average drop, at this late stage of the game.’

I hate sporting analogies, but I let it go. ‘And the timing?’

‘Well, I’m told the heat of summer is over, so it is a pleasant time to visit. It is also three years since the treatment camps were established, so we believe it is time for a review. You will have an opportunity to meet general Ao, who has been appointed GOC – general officer commanding of our peacekeeping forces in that region.’

I sensed that I was supposed to be intrigued by these platitudes. I was, a bit.

The bases for the Indian army’s reserve forces inside South Africa - including the one I’d visited in Bloemfontein - had been evacuated shortly after my last visit. New bases were established instead outside South Africa’s borders - in Lüderitz Namibia, Francistown Botswana, Maputo Mozambique and Saldanha Bay in the Cape, an hour’s drive north from Cape Town, where I was expected.

I may have been the only person on the ‘tour’ but I wasn’t the only passenger on their Mi-8 helicopter for the three-hour flight to the Three Sisters Treatment Camp. This time I was given ear protectors rather than an audio headset, so there was no question of talking to the other 19 passengers. They all appeared to be Indians – a collection of medics, soldiers and bureaucrats from the looks of them.

Now, as we circled the camp, I got a buzzard’s eye view of how this patch of desert had been transformed since I ate barbecued corn and potatoes on this spot, more than three years ago. The camp was set against the small hill, exactly where we’d assembled that night. It was now a sprawling mass of brown and olive tents, clinging to a spider’s web of roads. Near the middle of the web I could see clusters of prefabricated buildings and dusty open areas. Finally my vision was obscured by a cloud of diarrhea-colored dust, and we settled on the ground. I fumbled for my carry-on as the engine note changed and finally disappeared, along with the dust. The door was yanked open, and the dry desert air and silence wafted in.

Inside a building which served as a terminal, a man wearing a white waiter’s jacket was holding a little placard with my name on it, seemingly oblivious of the fact that I was the only peppermint in a box of chocolates. He solemnly introduced himself as Sunny, took my bag and led me outside and a few paces along a gravel path to a building bristling with satellite dishes, antennae and airconditioning units, which turned out to house both the military commander of the base and the civilian camp administrator, Mahmud Khan.

Khan turned out to be a small man in his mid-forties wearing a white dhoti kurta, like a long shirt over a skirt. He said he was delighted I’d accepted the invitation from the GOC to review ‘his’ camp – a sentiment not entirely shared by his eyes – and ushered me into his small office. After a few pleasantries and a cup of spiced tea with milk and sugar already added, served up by Sunny, Khan asked what I wanted to know.

I’d been sent a bunch of figures by Ao’s people, but no narrative, so I asked for a history lesson.

‘When we set up the camps we were expecting a lot of patients to arrive very quickly – to be swamped you could say – because nobody was getting treatment anywhere else. But we were surprised when a lot of people who wanted to cross the border, but tested positive, refused treatment and went back home. Eventually we learned the reason from your own good website, Dr North. It was the rumor that these treatment camps were actually death camps, and that nobody who was admitted would leave. Well, not alive anyway.’ He seemed amused at the thought, but pressed on.

‘The observers sent by the South African government seemed happy that the public was not making use of our facilities. Unfortunately, those patients who did ask for treatment were at a very advanced stage of their illness, so the mortality rate was high. And it seems the government used this fact to reinforce the rumors.’

‘When did the number of patients pick up?’

‘About three months after we opened. By that time patients could no longer purchase ARVs on the black market, or they were becoming resistant to those drugs, and they were no longer so accepting of rumors.’

‘That would be around the time of the attempt to restore treatment at Ladysmith hospital...’

‘Yes indeed. A terrible tragedy. We have named the fountain in our memorial garden after captain Singh, at the request of our patients.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. They regard him as a hero, as we all do of course. He gave his life trying to save South Africans. A lot of people heard of it, and realized they had been misled about our intentions.’

‘I’m glad his death served some purpose. At the time it seemed such a huge... waste.’

Khan nodded, and waited for me to ask another question.

‘I gather your inmates here are all women and children. Why is that?’

‘Ah yes. Well you see at first we were admitting AIDS patients only, so there was nowhere for their families to go, and they started camping outside our fence.’

‘What – here in the desert?’

‘Yes, it was... uncomfortable for them. They had no shelter, no water, no sanitation, so we took them food and water, and treated those who were sick from other causes. But our mandate prevented us from admitting anyone who was not HIV-positive, and the observers were such... sticklers. Then, after some time, the observers withdrew and we decided – Delhi decided – to expand our perimeter to accommodate the outsiders, as we called them. Unfortunately, by this time they were being preyed on by gangs, who were stealing their food and medications, abusing their children and so on...’

‘Couldn’t your soldiers chase away the criminals?’

‘Oh, it wasn’t so simple. There was no way to decide who was a family member and who was a gang member. I mean, they didn’t threaten anyone openly, and if anyone had pointed them out...’ he made a throat-cutting gesture. ‘So when our reinforcements arrived to expand the perimeter, they decided as a temporary measure to admit only women and children. Until we could sort the good men from the bad men, so to speak.’

‘How did you do that?’

‘Unfortunately we failed. Our plan was to interview all the men, and verify their stories with the women inside. But one night they all disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’

‘Yes, we woke up to find they were all gone. All except for a few old men. We heard they had been forced to join the militia. We also heard there was a rumor that we were going to poison the food we took out to them, but I don’t know about that.’

I tried to blank out the horror of men being forced to abandon their women and children. Khan’s matter-of- fact tone and slight smile formed a bizarre counterpoint to the human tsunami which had washed up against the razor wire of these camps. He went on to describe the logistics of trucking in food and supplies donated by wealthy nations, and busing Indian soldiers, medics and support personnel.

Time to take another tack. ‘I’m curious about your own background, Mr Khan.’

‘Thank you for asking, doctor. I am a member of the IAS – the Indian Administrative Service. It is like a professional association for civil servants. Before I was posted here I held the post of joint secretary in the national Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.’

‘Where does a joint secretary fit into the organogram?’

He smiled. ‘A joint secretary is the fourth highest rank in our national government service. The next step is additional secretary, then secretary, then cabinet secretary, which is the top position.’

‘In a country of over a billion people that sounds like a pretty big deal.’ 

‘Thank you. It is a great honor to serve my country.’

‘So... why are you running a desert camp in South Africa?’

The man looked genuinely surprised. ‘Well we... our government attaches a very high priority to these camps, Dr North. I was one of many applicants for this job, and I was very honored to be chosen.’

After a while Khan asked whether I’d like to meet the brigadier, and ushered me across the hall and into another waiting room, much like his own. Several soldiers leapt to their feet when we entered. A secretary – who hadn’t stood up – picked up her phone and spoke briefly in Hindi before showing us through to the brigadier’s office.

Brigadier Bhardwaj was every inch the military officer, tall and thin with a fine handlebar mustache and graying hair, and his eyes were friendly and inquisitive.

‘Ah, Dr Gipsy North. I was hoping we’d get a chance to meet.’ He grasped my hand firmly and held on. ‘I’ve been following the development of The World Online since it’s inception, d’you know. A wonderful tool. Long overdue. A real antidote to war.’

‘I’m glad you feel that way, brigadier. I certainly share Dr Gupta’s view that the truth can set us free.’

‘And you have done a truly admirable job of covering the unfolding drama that brings us all to this dusty spot. It seems to me you’ve done so much more than simply present the news...’ He left the question unspoken, and there was a twinkle in his eye.

‘Well, I could tell you everything, but then I’d have to kill you. And Mr Khan.’

Bhardwaj threw his head back and roared with laughter. I caught a fleeting look of distaste on Khan’s face, quickly concealed. I wondered if it was my crook humor or Bhardwaj’s lack of inhibition that Khan objected to.

‘And now you have joined us to witness the beginning of the end of this affair?’

I caught Khan’s reaction from the corner of my eye, and saw Bhardwaj’ eyes move to him. ‘Ah, I think I have said too much too soon.’

Khan shrugged. ‘I was leaving it for you to tell Dr North, brigadier.’

‘Well then, let’s make ourselves comfortable.’

Bhardwaj offered more refreshments. This time I sipped a club soda with ice and a sprig of mint while he explained their operation. ‘We’re mainly policemen – policemen and border guards. We don’t expect any external threat. Just a case of keeping the peace. A classic UN mission.’

‘But I heard that it can get a bit... hectic sometimes. Like that attempt by the militia to take ARVs from that camp on the border of Mozambique?’

A deep chuckle this time. ‘Heavens, I would have loved to see the look on those thugs faces when Narain planted those 102 millimeter mortars. I gather they wet themselves.’

‘Have you had anything like that here?’

‘No, m’dear. The hostiles have kept their distance. We’ve had a few of them taking pot shots at our patrols, but we go out in armored vehicles, so no harm done. We never retaliated. In fact we’ve not fired a shot in anger.’

‘What about inside the camp? Any agro in here?’

‘Well, when you put a bunch of young men together there’s always excitement. But we’re used to that in the army. Our Indian boys are pretty well behaved overall. The UN loves to use us for peacekeeping.’

‘Do you have any problems with... what do you call it in the military... fraternization, between your men and the civilians?’

‘No no no. Well, not with the patients. Our fellows are very well behaved. Mind you, I told them I’d cut off their balls if they used them anywhere except on the cricket field!’

Now we both guffawed. I could see Khan was uncomfortable with the tone of the discussion, but Bhardwaj paid him no attention. ‘Mind you Dr North...’

‘Please, call me Gipsy.’

‘Thank you, m’dear. I was going to say that my unattached boys take a keen interest in the Indian nurses and teachers, but our girls are very... straight laced, I suppose you’d call it, by western standards. And of course our married soldiers are allowed to bring out their wives and children after a year.’

Out of the corner of my eye I caught a reaction from Khan, so I turned to him. ‘Have many families arrived from India?’

The administrator glanced at Bhardwaj before replying. ‘A growing number, yes. A lot of our staff – military and civilian – have opted to extend their tours here. It means they have additional privileges, like having their family stay with them, or getting married.’

From the little I knew of Indian custom, it seemed odd that their young men and women would choose to get married so far from their homes and families.

‘Do you think many of these couples are hoping to stay after the camps are closed?’ Ah, a definite reaction from them both, but Khan responded smoothly.

‘It’s something which they are certainly talking about. At this stage there’s no policy from Delhi, but I think some of our staff would like to help rebuild public health services in South Africa. Time will tell.’

‘Is that what you meant by “the beginning of the end”, brigadier?’

‘Well yes m’dear, that’s the objective. In fact the GOC has asked me to brief you on Operation Truro. Unfortunately I can only give you the broad details, because if I told you the specifics...’

‘Then you’d have to kill me! And Mr Khan?’

Again Bhardwaj bellowed at the ceiling. ‘Oh heavens! No, I think I would spare Mr Khan. I wouldn’t want his job. And don’t you know the IAS is a protected species in India?’

‘Okay, tell me about your operation. What does Truro mean?’

‘It’s the name of the ship which carried the first indentured laborers from Madras to Durban in 1860. I believe they named the operation after that ship because India is now sending more people to help restore the society that our countrymen helped to build.’

‘Restore the society?’

‘Indeed. Obviously we cannot continue with these treatment camps indefinitely, but at the same time we cannot abandon nearly four million people who are depending on us. So the only way to break this impasse is to restore order in South Africa, including their public health system.’

I was making a show of taking notes, although every detail was being recorded both here and in Istanbul. ‘And how will you do that?’

‘Well, our approach is quite straightforward. In the first phase we will secure points of entry for a team of civilian assessors. During the second phase the assessors will decide what’s needed to restore services and infrastructure. And in the third phase we will operationalize their recommendations.’

‘Sounds simple enough.’

Bhardwaj smiled at my teasing tone, but waited for a question. 

‘What are they expecting to find? These assessors.’

‘Our intelligence chappies believe a lot of city dwellers would have barricaded themselves in buildings and compounds, and lived on canned food and so on, but they must have run out by now or been overrun by militants. Aerial and satellite surveillance suggests the cities are mostly depopulated, and the survivors are scavenging off the land or on the sea-shore.’

I told them what BT had said about the Catch-22 of restoring the South African economy, and the two men listened attentively, and Khan responded.

‘Yes, we’ve had the pleasure of meeting minister Abrahams. He is an astute man.’ 

‘So when will this operation begin?’

Bhardwaj smiled. ‘Ah, I could tell you that, but...’

Before we could milk the joke for the third time, Khan cut in.

‘I’m afraid we can’t be more specific until you have signed an agreement of confidentiality, Dr North.’

He produced a document which said that I agreed to withhold publication of any and all information which I learned for a period of six days. I checked that it did not limit what I could write, or photograph, only the timing of publication. For the duration I would have to surrender all communications devices.

‘Okay, guys. Here’s what I suggest. I have my regular Monday afternoon editorial conference this afternoon. Let me bounce this off my colleagues, and then I’ll let you know whether I’m in or out.’

Khan looked surprised that I would think twice, and he seemed to hesitate over what to say next, but finally surrendered with a simple ‘Very well’.

+++

I didn’t really need Jim’s blessing, but I wanted to tell the others what I knew so far without worrying about breaking any agreement. Of course Linus was the most experienced in matters military, and he said restrictions on information were quite normal – keeping critical information from the enemy – and in fact the terms I’d been offered were pretty relaxed.

‘Sometimes they list all kinds of stuff that you can’t report – ever. Other times they want to check your copy and recordings before you post them. A simple time-embargo is... well, it’s actually amazing. But then again this is just a mercy mission. Hey listen Gipsy, why don’t you pass it over to me?’

Before I could blow a raspberry at him, Russ cut in. ‘Gipsy, you said you were asked to allow a week for this tour? That must mean the Indians are going to land their reinforcements in the next couple of days...’

‘But... they don’t have a mandate from the UN. Oh, of course!’ Georghe looked as though a light-bulb had just turned on in head. ‘Guys, they aren’t afraid of Gipsy tipping off the tribal militia – they’re worried about another foreign power trying to stop them before they get there!’

Jim waved a hand to draw our eyes to his little square on our computer monitors. ‘Hold up a second. I don’t believe India would risk international confrontation. Surely Georghe, if they don’t have a UN mandate they must have cleared it with the big guys?’

‘Well, I’ll check with my contacts of course Jim, but I can’t imagine any way that China would agree to an increased foreign military presence in South Africa, unless it’s their own. They’ve been trying to muscle into Africa for years, haven’t they?’

Russ nodded. ‘Yes they have. The Chinese declared 2006 the Year of Africa, they’ve written off a lot of government debt, lent a lot more, paid for infrastructure, and propped up failing states like Zimbabwe in return for access to their natural resources...’

‘Are there any circumstances in which India wouldn’t need a mandate from the security council to send more troops to South Africa?’

‘Jim, I may have the answer.’ 

‘Yeah, Gip?’

‘The brigadier says this is the only way they can dismantle these camps. They have to restore public health services so the people in the camps can go home. But to do that, they have to restore public order first.’

Linus blew out his cheeks. ‘Well, I don’t know if that’s enough to by-pass a UN mandate, but it may be enough to persuade some of the superpowers to sit on their hands. If the Indians tried for a security council resolution, you can be bloody sure China would veto it.’

I could see Jim wanted to move on. ‘Okay okay! Georghe, you’re going to check on the legality of the Indian position, and whether they’re getting tacit support from the superpowers. Linus, can you follow up on the military angles, and together with Georghe watch for the Chinese reaction when it comes? Russ, how about a refresher course on the international push for economic hegemony in Africa? But listen, all of you, we need to play this very close to our chests. No posting until we agree it’s safe to go. Gip, how much of this can go on record right now?’

‘Jim, I think they cocked up today. I’m pretty sure the guy in the night-dress was supposed to get me to sign his piece of paper before they told me anything about their Operation Truro. If I post anything now, I think they may withdraw their invitation to see all the fun.’

‘So what else have you got?’

‘Oh, quite a lot of touchy-feely stuff on the camps themselves. I’ll do a walk around this evening, chat to the patients...’

‘Okay, go with that for now. The rest of us will get our ammunition ready for when the fighting starts.’ 

‘Shit, nobody said anything about fighting!’

Jim didn’t laugh like the rest. ‘Gip, I’m sure you realize this has Pulitzer written all over it. If you need anything, anything at all...’

‘Thanks Jim. Just hold your thumbs while I’m on the dark side of the moon.’

+++