14
Motol Hospital, Prague, Czech Republic
November 28
Anouma took Adjobi’s hand and rubbed his fingers gently, and he opened his eyes. At first he didn’t notice his visitor, but when he caught a glimpse of the mask, he panicked, tried to climb up the back of his bed as if it were an escape route.
“Shhh, quiet, brother,” Anouma said, and put a hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him back down. His heart monitor rang louder and louder, a red light flashing more urgently on the console above the bed. An emergency call button. The Healer put a hand on his machete.
“Quiet, quiet now,” Anouma said with a soft voice. “He is here to help you.”
She turned her gaze to the Healer, hopeful. After a brief moment, he put his hands out, palms up, and bowed as a gesture of goodwill. It worked well enough: Adjobi’s heart rate was calming fast. Anouma stroked her brother’s head, and though he was much less agitated, his eyes were wide with fear.
“Adjobi and I came from Ferké three years ago—” she began.
“What is Ferké?” interrupted the Healer, “Where is this place?”
“What is it to you?” Adjobi said, then coughed a hoarse, dry cough.
“If your infection began in another town, I must travel. I have no information that LS-411 is anywhere but Prague.”
“Ferkessédougou is in Côte d'Ivoire,” Anouma said. “In Africa.”
The Healer nodded slightly.
“There are no synthetic diseases down there,” Adjobi said, wincing at a sudden pain. “Whatever it is I have, I got it right here.”
“Besides,” said Anouma, “they do not let sick doctors help in the relief.”
The Healer tilted his head.
“Relief,” he echoed.
“Six weeks ago,” Anouma continued. “these lesions appeared on Adjobi’s neck and chest...” she held out his arm and showed a purplish patch no more than a few centimetres across, shiny even in the dim light.
“At first we thought he had contracted something from one of the patients here, so we started him on Pathenex and kept him in isolation. Unfortunately, the other symptoms he developed do not fit with any disease we have encountered before. We have compared it to every entry in the WHO Pandemic Database. No one has made a virus this way before.”
The Healer leaned a bit closer to Adjobi, mask hissing at regular intervals.
“What other symptoms?” he asked.
Anouma held the LS-411 card, blocking his view; her voice grew stronger. A bit more resolve.
“These,” she said simply, and dropped the card onto the bed. The Healer stood up straight and looked towards the sealed window, the drawn curtains blocking the faint light from outside.
“Your brother did not die within days. He must be a carrier, not a victim. Most of your diseases… they make longer the life of the vector. To infect more. You have done… done good in isolating him. You have slowed the spread.
“It is usual for a vector to show symptoms. I have only seen this once before, where the host was bed-ridden.”
“How did it turn out?” Anouma asked.
“Badly.”
“So what, then?” Adjobi asked. “I’m not the vector? There was someone else before me?”
The Healer nodded, removed a black pouch from his belt. The two doctors became noticeably tense. He paused, hand over it, not opening it up.
“I will require a blood sample to verify… but in my experience, you do not look like a first-degree vector.”
Anouma’s face betrayed a smile.
“Then you will leave him alone? You are only interested in the vector, yes?”
The Healer stared at the black pouch for a moment.
“I have given you my word,” he said quietly. “But my directives are to eliminate hosts. I should euthanize him now.”
“But… but you won’t…” Anouma said, uncertain.
The Healer only looked at her.
“No, he won’t,” Adjobi said weakly. “And he won’t draw any blood either—”
“That is not what I said—” the Healer said.
“Because if he does, I won’t tell him who infected me.”
Both Anouma and the Healer looked at Adjobi, Anouma’s mouth hanging open slightly. She took his hand in hers, squeezed it gently.
“Adjobi, what are you…”
“There was a man. An American. His name was Lewis. I never learned his last name. He was a junkie, a sickly old thing. I was working the pit alone when his girlfriend — a prostitute I think — came and begged me to check on him. He’d passed out, possibly from an overdose. She couldn’t wake him, couldn’t move him, but she’d brought her car, so she drove me to his house.
“When I got there, he was barely alive. I performed CPR and flushed his system with the tools I had, and he seemed to be recovering well enough. But when he came to, he was delirious, probably spooked by my hospital uniform. He… he stabbed me. With a needle.”
Anouma covered her mouth in shock, sunk lower onto the bed.
“It didn’t hurt. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I flushed the wound, took the standard stopper dose of Pathenex, and moved on.”
“You think he was your vector,” the Healer said.
“It would make sense. I got sick a few weeks after that. What else could it be?”
The Healer looked at the black pouch for a moment.
“Where does ‘Lewis’ live?”
“Michalská, house number 21, I think. It had a green door. That much I remember.”
The Healer took hold of the pouch, put it back into his belt, did not look at either Anouma or Adjobi. He turned away, heading to the door, dust swirling in his wake.
“Will you come back?” Anouma asked him. He stopped, looked at her, framed by banks of monitors and equipment flowing wires onto the floor.
“Pray I do not,” he said, and left.
* * *
“That was… dangerous, Fanta,” said Adjobi, when they were sure the Healer had gone. Anouma backed away from the door, returning to his side. Her eyes glistened with fear.
“I am sorry, Adjobi. I thought the lesions matched yours… I thought he might help you.”
“You know Healers don’t help anyone but their own. He might have killed me.”
Fanta lowered her head, contained her crying. Adjobi patted her hand with his, weak, faltering.
“But it will be fine,” he said softly. “If he finds my vector, we might have hope. They have some of the best minds in the world working there. If anyone can crack it, they can. It’s a long shot, but we can’t lose hope.”
She smiled at him, but it was clear she didn’t share his optimism anymore.
“How do you feel today?” she asked.
“A bit better. I haven’t got much left to vomit, and the sedatives help with the rest. No new lesions this week, either. It’s as close to ‘progress’ as I can manage, I think.”
“That is good. That is very good. Dr Bastien will be happy to hear it. He does not get much happy news these days.”
“Oh?” asked Adjobi, straining to sit up a bit in bed.
“The Director of Public Safety is causing problems again,” Anouma explained. “He has summoned Dr Bastien five times this week already, always without notice. I have heard he is trying to implement a new policy to screen all aid workers.”
“We’re subject to that already…”
“Not like this. He is looking for anyone whose vaccines are not up to date, to have them deported. A doctor in Ostrava contracted measles and passed it on to his patients, and it has everyone scared. He wants to force every doctor in Prague to be fully protected. From everything.”
“So are they going to provide us with the vaccines they withheld before, then?” Adjobi said, his voice weak but increasingly angry.
“They say they still do not have the resources.”
“So they’d give up some of their best minds to satisfy some knee-jerk reaction…”
“Bastien is fighting it. He says they have no right to meddle with MSF affairs.”
“I doubt that,” Adjobi sighed. “But they’re still fools for trying. You have to refuse, Fanta. I can’t be stuck in this hell hole alone. You have to stay hidden. At least until Bastien gets word from Geneva...”
“I do not think we will hear from them soon,” Anouma said gravely. “He said not to expect anything for many days, at least. The mail servers have been shutting down often, too. No one knows what got out and what got lost.”
“You’ve got to be careful, then. You should be switching masks every few hours. Carry extra gloves. Don’t take any chances, Fanta. All they need is for you to show signs of a fever, and you’ll be caught.”
She lowered her eyes.
“Adjobi… why did you not tell me about your accident? It changes so much…”
Adjobi sighed, put a hand to his forehead, and the cables tugged gently at the movement.
“Bastien would have left me for dead for disobeying his orders. He’d be mad as hell if he knew I’d been galavanting around the city, Stall Kit in hand. No, it was too risky. Better he think I got it from someone here than someone out there.”
Anouma nodded, quiet.
“He is wracked with guilt, though,” she said. “He thinks it is his fault.”
“Don’t read too much into Bastien’s guilt. He’s been wearing it round his shoulders since before we got here. I’m not worried about adding to his sorrows. I’m scared to death of disappointing him.”
Anouma smiled at this, patted his hand. Adjobi winced at pain somewhere in his frail body, half-rolled to his side. His heart monitor beeped faster and faster, and then slowed to a normal crawl.
“I will get more morphine,” she said, moving off the bed, but he caught her arm, held her back.
“It’s okay,” he swallowed. “I’m fine. Don’t waste it on me. With any luck, that monster you found will have a cure for me, and all of this will be a faint memory.”
“I would rather never see him again,” Anouma confided.
“Neither would I,” said Adjobi quietly. “but somehow I think we will.”