The Cure
By Veronique N. Mbaye
The boy had begun calling for his mother, but Dr Awa decided not to ask for her.
The boy had writhed, white foam had bubbled at the corner of his cracked lips, and his eyes had rolled back until they were slits of pale pink. The nurses had wept and clung helpless, shaking hands to their chests.
“He is dying! Diop’s son is dying!” They had moaned. Dr Awa had found no choice but to leave the death-stenched room and return to her office, where she would await the verdict. She knew it would make or break the fragile future of her infant nation.
News of chaos and devastation blared from the small TV perched against the wall she faced at her office desk.
“…His excellency Malick Diop urged to take the World Bank deal before it is too late…”
The curfew sirens sang through the open windows, halting even the gentle nightly sea-breeze. 10.30 pm. The entire Sene-Kongo would fall into silence in a few minutes. Doctor Awa sighed and reached for the tobacco pipe in the bottom left drawer of her desk. It was a replica of the one her great-great-grandmother, a renowned healer in the then-named Republic of Senegal, had smoked from. Oh, what Dr Awa would have given to be surrounded by her family now. But they had made their choice and she had to stand by hers, even as the boy was dying. She lit the pipe and pulled from it lengthily, the musky scent of the smoke bringing her nostalgic comfort.
She recalled the first day of the liberation. The revolutionaries had carried her out of her cell, her captors immobilized by shots of paralyzing snake poison to their necks.
“You are safe now, Yaye”, the boys had said. They couldn’t have been older than her baby brother Mansour. At most, they were in their first year of university. She had never seen them again. But before they had delivered her to safety, she had made them a promise.
“We will find the cure. And we will be free.”
Seventeen long months later, the president’s son was dying of the strain 23 in a hospital room two floors above her office. The medicine she had crafted in her tiny lab couldn’t heal new life into the boy’s lungs. He choked and heaved, the rest of his organs having followed suit, and the country awaited his death. If he lived, they would be saved. If he did not, the rebels would strike in the morning.
Awa reached for the phone on her table and dialled Moctar’s number.
“Hello?” His voice answered after one ring. Fear was palpable in his deep baritone.
“I’m so sorry.” Dr Awa said, fiercely clinging to the tears in her throat.
“Already?” Moctar asked.
“Not yet. But soon”.
A lengthy silence had followed but Moctar eventually laughed, without a hint of joy in his chuckles.
“And you refused to marry me when we still had time. We could have been happy.”
Dr Awa, taken by surprise, had heard herself giggling in earnest.
“Moctar!” She pretended to chastise him. “Now is not the time!”
“Then when?” He asked.
“When our whole world isn’t on the brink of collapse. When the rebels aren’t looking to take over and sell our nations back to the west.”
“Well…” he paused, “it’s looking like neither of us is going to see that day.”
Another silence fell, and Dr Awa blinked back moisture from her eyes.
“I always did love you.” She said.
“I know.”
“Even when you thought this was pointless. When you sided with them and said we should bow and ask for another chance to pay them.”
Moctar burst into the joyful guffaw she had lived to hear in their days of school.
“I don’t know why you’re laughing”, Dr Awa went on. “You were so scared of death then, big man like you. It’s almost as if you thought we should ask the Europeans for forgiveness.”
“Our last conversation and you choose to attack me by revisiting distant history?” He asked teasingly.
“That’s what you loved about me, Moctar. I never let things go, remember?”
An unexpected silence ensued.
“I really thought you would figure this out.” He finally said. The laughter had disappeared from his voice. Dr Awa could no longer hold the tears.
“Me too.”
Waves could be heard in the distance, crashing against the rock, then pulling back with a soothing hum.
“I should have married you. I feared they would come after you.”
“I know.” He said.
“And I thought we could…we could get through this, and I got carried away imagining what could have been…”
“I know.”
“Can you remember? All the hopes we had for SeneKongo. How was I meant to know? Revolution seemed like the only plan then. We were dying. The explosion of hunger, the economic turmoil, the diseases and the wars, and still, those debts rising…”
“I know, Awa!” A hint of exasperation had coloured Moctar’s tone. “It’s not safe discussing this on the phone. There’s really no point anyway.”
Dr Awa bit back words of outrage. She knew Moctar didn’t deserve to be the true recipient of her spite. Still, she pained to sense the deep crack fear had formed between them, and how much further it ran with every day she failed to find a cure.
“Please forgive me.” She said.
“Forgive you for what? None of this is your….”
“Daddy?” A distant infantile voice asked on Moctar’s end of the line. “There are men outside knocking on our windows”.
Panic spread through Dr Awa’s veins. At the very moment Moctar began to ask his daughter about the men, Dr Awa heard rushed footsteps in the corridor, coming towards her office. They could only mean one thing. Her door swung open as she stood up.
“The boy’s vitals…” Nurse Ajuma, a fearful-looking woman in her 40s, said from the frame. “Please, Dr Awa. You must come.”
Without a further word, Dr Awa followed Ajuma into the dimly lit corridors. The blueish LED lights squinted ominously with every step they took. Dr Awa did not dare ask if the boy was in re-animation. As the walk lengthened and the pit in her stomach grew warm with horror, she recalled the dimple in his cheek when he had first spoken to her.
“I’m not going to die, doctor. I feel it.” He had said. Eight days later, his liver had shut down.
When Dr Awa and Ajuma reached the door to the boy’s room, the nurse turned to her superior and friend and flashed a teary-eyed smile.
“Thank you.” She said as she opened the door. Suddenly, a thunder of cheers and claps emerged from the small hospital room. The five nurses squished against each other in their protective gear all rushed to hug her and whistled and laughed with palpable relief. The boy who laid on the bed was barely recognizable from the limp, greying body she had left only a few moments before. The dimple was back in his cheek, and the ventilation mask was no longer on his face. A gentle smile pulled at his lips.
“His vitals are so strong, Dr! You did this! You did this!” one of the women both cried and chanted. The boy’s heartbeat was a wonderful, brave 89. His little chest lifted and sunk around breath it pulled off its own accord.
Dr Awa knew the cure she had designed, if successful, would provide almost instantaneous results, once the white blood cells had begun to regenerate themselves. She knew the improvement would be this rapid and impressive, however, to witness the colour returning to the boy’s lips in real-time, was a wonder she couldn’t possibly have imagined.
“A miracle.” She whispered. The smile on the boy’s face grew, and he opened his eyes to look at her. The room fell quiet. The boy coughed.
“I…” He attempted, then coughed again. “I…knew…I knew I would not die.”
A sob ripped from Dr Awa’s chest, and an unspoken sentiment of victory filled the room. Her legs suddenly felt like jelly, and she struggled to breathe through the mask on her face. She knew why her call with Moctar had been interrupted. News travelled incredibly fast in the region, and soldiers had been stationed outside Moctar’s home ever since the boy had fallen ill. Somebody in the room must have informed someone who informed someone else or posted something online before Ajuma had gotten to her. Surely enough, she noticed a buzz in her pocket. Her phone was vibrating, and she heard waves of ‘pings’ around her. The news had spread. She could only imagine what they said. But before she checked for herself, she wanted to bask in the moment. The boy lived. They were saved. And no one, no foreign entity or force, could take this from them. They had done it. Alone.
“SeneKongo is ours.” She said. “It will always be ours.”
Veronique N. Mbaye’s piece came in highly commended at the Arise Africa Writing Contest.
About the Author: Veronique N. Mbaye is a political commentator and creative writing adept. She won the 2019 Loose Conversations Writing Competition. She is currently living in Kigali, Rwanda, where she juggles communications work, digital marketing, and journalistic contributions.
