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Motol Hospital, Prague, Czech Republic

November 28

In the oppressive dark of the night, snow still glowed impossibly as it drifted into the street by the hospital. Anouma leaned against the wall, her mask hanging loose around her neck, breathing in the clear cold air.

The scrape on the back of her hand was wrapped in a thick bandage meant for purging wounds. She absent-mindedly rubbed it, the peach colour stark against her brown skin.

A woman pushed a baby carriage down the side street, the wheels catching and spinning in the thickening snow. There was no baby inside: it rattled and clanked as the random junk and food shook on the uneven ground.

Anouma heard the crunch of snow underfoot behind her, didn’t turn, waited for Dr Bastien to stop next to her, looking out into the winter.

“I didn’t mean to be harsh,” he said. “I hope you understand.”

She nodded, looked over at him.

“I just wish I could have helped more.”

“I do, too,” he said, his tired eyes meeting hers. “I think we all do. I wish to god they’d immunized you before you got on that plane. It’s unfair, leaving you with that handicap. You’ve been so brave, coming here.”

Anouma shrugged, watched the woman with the carriage.

“It is what they would have done for us,” she said.

Bastien snorted, she felt him watching her.

“Not most of them,” he said, angrily. “And that you think that… it’s what makes you a good doctor, I suppose.”

“People are not as callous as you think, Bastien,” she said, meeting his gaze again.

“Not callous, no,” he said. “Myopic. Dangerously myopic.”

“I cannot forget what they did for my people,” she said.

“And you shouldn’t. Those doctors, the scientists and their companies, they saved the world. Once upon a time. But you can’t forget what they didn’t do.”

Anouma nodded slightly.

“It is not their fault. There are only so many resources they can—”

Bastien coughed loudly, waved her to silence.

“Don’t buy their bullshit so willingly,” he grumbled. “You embarrass yourself.”

“They saved my country when we were on the brink of extinction. They may be only human, but they are good people.”

“You’ve got your history confused,” he said simply.

Anouma put a hand on his shoulder and he winced, refused to look back. The scars on his face, around his neck… signs of battles he’d fought with diseases that would have crushed anyone else where they stood. He was not easily bowed by anything anymore.

“What happened in Russia, that is not your fault,” she ventured. “The odds were against you. Against all of you. And you did the best you could. But it is different here! This is not the same situation. You cannot go on carrying the chains they forced on you back then.”

He looked round at her suddenly, his eyes narrow.

“The chains aren’t gone,” he growled. “they’ll tug them when they’re threatened.”

Anouma tried to object, but he cut her off.

“The only difference between then and now,” he said bitterly, “is that they’ve become better at wrapping the truth in dangerous hopes.”

“Hope is not dangerous. Hope is how we survive.”

“Hope is how you think you’d survive. But you won’t.” He seemed lost in a flash of a painful memory, squinted at her. “Hope helps nothing. And in a painful majority of cases, neither can you. Sometimes it almost seems better to do it like the Healers did it. Clean it all out, start fresh. The battle here just… it just never ends.”

The wind blew, knocked Anouma’s mask about her neck, and she pushed some hair from her face. They stood there in the cold as the snow fell.

“How is Adjobi?” Bastien asked, his tone back to his normal, battle weary self.

“He is brave. His white count is very low, but he has not worsened.”

“That’s good,” was the reply, empty.

“What is wrong?” she asked. He avoided her eyes.

“Word came in from Paris,” he said. “They say there isn’t sufficient demand yet to produce another run of vaccines.”

Anouma’s face went blank, she could feel it.

“Did they say…”

He shook his head grimly.

“Twelve months.”

She nodded solemnly.

“At the earliest,” he added, then shook his head. “And I’m not sure I can keep the health director at bay to the end of the week, let alone a year. He’s demanding all blood samples be delivered tomorrow, so they can start issuing deportation orders on December the first.”

Anouma said nothing.

“I’ll cover for you as best I can, Fanta, but I can’t hide you forever. Too many people know where you and Adjobi came from, and they’ll make the connection.”

“If only they had kept a little of the vaccine. Just two doses, and we would be fine…”

“Fanta,” Bastien said gravely. “nearly two million Africans died from AIDS last year alone. Two doses doesn’t begin to cover it. It’s an untreated epidemic of dead diseases, and it makes me sick every time I talk to Geneva.”

Anouma bowed her head, stared at the snow in silence.

“It’s not what they do,” he said flatly. “it’s what they ignore. And they’ll punish you for their faults, believe me. It’s the proud chains they’ll use to hang us all.”