And Then Dawn Broke Over The Hills

When they set out that morning, Mary Graves found McByrne standing motionless beside the trucks, staring at a goat perched precariously on the back of the Minerva.

"McByrne, why is there a goat on my truck?"

"Ah'd ask it, but it seems tae think it's in charge."

"You try reasoning with livestock again?"

"Nae even touched it," McByrne said. "A wiz payin the lad wha brought it, turned ma back, an the wee bugger climbed up like it was payin rent."

"Can you get it down?"

"Wee wait," McByrne said, eyes locked on the goat. "Aye, or we can haggle. But if it starts gnawin' at the brake cables, we'll be stormin' the hill wi' slingshots."

"We leave at seven. He can come to Loiyangalani if it pleases him."

❧

It did not please the goat. The sun hung low in the sky. An earthy, metallic scent hung low over the grassland and Mary Graves crossed her arms and let her chin rest upon her chest. The tout-terrain Minerva clattered up the hill. 

The first weeks, so far, had been very lucky and quite good. Everything had turned out well that could have turned out badly. She didn't mean just spectacular things like Bates and the lift, which could have come out very badly; nor the kids and their antics; but all sorts of small things had come out well.

She supposed she was owed a bit of luck.

Mary passed a hand over her brow. The air had cooled, leaving the evening air a fete for sand flies and gnats, and the only draught that could be felt was through the open roof of the Minerva as they drove. In the back, van 't Sand and Leigh gently discussed some inconsequential subject. Leigh looked a bit better than yesterday. During the day, he had jumped between extreme severeness and childlike joviality. Silva, beside her, with his sad eyes and playful smile, remained silent. The wheel lay loosely in his hands.

He had driven most of the afternoon.

Behind them lay the site and the mountains. Before them lay Loiyangalani. In between, situated by the main road and the Turkana Lake, lay the clinic of Dr Shani Hadebe. Mary knew the doctor herself wouldn't be present; that wasn't unusual. The mountain made sure it took time to travel all the way to Gatab, but Mary hoped there would be news of Hadebe's return waiting for her when she arrived at the clinic.

The highway ran downhill for another three miles towards Loiyangalani, with scattered vegetation on either side. There were nurseries, small farms, large farms with their decrepit colonial houses cut up into subdivisions, their old hilly pastures being cut and ended at dry hillsides. The grass had been brown from the drought in the last months before the rains but the green now ran along the watercourses towards the Turkana Lake where the trees grew tall and grey, their green tops slanted by the wind. This was a south-easterner, dry, hard, and colder. The landscape felt sharper.

Mary Graves took her water bottle from under her seat and took a sip.

She could almost mistake it for the same wind that hit the dunes close by her parental estate in Dunwich. Sharp wind and high grass and green flowing into beiges and blues— gray gulls shrieking as they skirted the incoming waves. The natural pier that existed of large boulders rough with crinkled limpet shells and sparsely strewn with locks of dry seaweed. As a child she'd had to stretch her legs far apart in order to walk from one to the other, and Mary had felt herself master of the beach when she got to the largest of the few.

Wind in her face. So similar to the one she felt today. Between the boulders had been hollows full of water, with a sandy bottom and the fringe of yellow-brown seaweed. She'd drawn them in watercolours, and kept it in her dorm when she left for Cambridge.

She remembered the boys that had come and used their little strech of the beach while she was visiting her parents during Christmas in 1915. It had been cold and windy— icy waves crashing on the beach and the entire landscape had felt too sharp and too desolate. They'd come with petrol bidons and motors that looked too heavy for the brittle boats. Mary had gone up to them and asked what they were planning.

"We're going to Calais." They said. "Then Amiens. But keep it quiet—" one added under his breath as he turned to help his schoolmate with the motor, "we don't need trouble."

Mary thought them reckless, and she'd told them as much.

"You wouldn't understand." They said. "Those animals aren't holding your England hostage."

They'd looked young, still. And they all carried the confidence of children who were sure they would never die. Mary watched them leave with the tide.

A week after this encounter, she had come back from holiday to discover that half her year had left to sign.

The Minerva broke over the hilltop, and began its gentle, more gradual journey downwards. As they crossed the outskirts of the village, they passed the plastic basins with crushed flour which shone so brightly, so impeccably white, even in the evening light, that Mary had to close her eyes. Beside them rose mountains of manioc roots, stout bright white stumps reminiscent of sawn tusks.

In the sweltering heat, Loiyangalani strechedalong the lake with a small port along the banks. It's centre, small but bustling, and sandy. Loiyangalani's color palette was varied, but they were not the rich pigments of other sun-drenched cities. One never saw the saturated colours of Mzizima or the deep warm hues of Mwanza. In Loiyangalani, every lick of paint faded so quickly that people no longer seemed to bother: and faded colours had become an aesthetic in themselves. The little shops, where one could buy some soap or heavy bidons of water, sported walls invariably painted in a pale green or pale blue hue. Crates of pixie oranges were stacked in large fortresses in the courtyards of the two hotels. The oranges were not scarlet, but a dull red. The shirts of the traffic police were a pale yellow. Only the earth seemed dark. And the only colour that really stood out was the processed manioc.

Dr Hadebe's clinic was situated behind the church, easily accessible by the main road, and had a view on a cassava field behind, which lay between the clinic and the banks of the lake. Silva pulled the Minerva up a spot under the acacia tree that marked the end of the driveway and separated it from the courtyard; past the concrete wall covered with shards of glass, and the chipped black metal gate that always stood wide open. Up high on the wall a macaque bared its teeth, angry and fearful like a grimace, when Mary slammed her door too hard.

Mary Graves turned to Van 't Sand as the other woman jumped down the back of the truck. They stood regarding Leigh as he waved his arms around and walked back and forth to get the blood flowing. Silva came up behind them.

"Did he get some rest?" Mary asked Van 't Sand, nodding at Leigh. The kid had found himself something interesting and was prodding it with his foot.

Van 't Sand scrunched her mouth. "Not much. But I'll make sure he doesn't get into trouble."

"We'll put cots on the screened porch." Mary inclined her head towards the greyish building next to the main house. There were never as much patients as cots and Hadebe always made sure to have the ones the team used in storage. "Take your time. We'll leave for Nairobi tomorrow at noon," she regarded the house, "I'll be inside."

"Alright." Van t' Sand then turned to Silva. "Are you going into town?"

"If you are, I am."

Mary watched them. She had other things to deal with, first. A faint anxious sting had been her constant companion in the past hour, and it gave a sick turn in her stomach now.

"Alright— Leigh!" Silva called. "Want to get some dinner?"

As the three of them made their leave, Mary took her bag from the back and went towards the clinic. Against the paled blue walls of the two-story main building directly opposite the gate, a woman was seated, her head tipped back and her eyes closed, drinking in the afternoon sun. Mary ascended the patio. The woman opened her eyes. Her glasses were thick and frequently scratched. Mary greeted her. The woman closed her eyes once more. Parallel above her, next to the door, a plate hung: "usajili" it said in chalk. Someone with charcoal had scribbled an address under it.

Inside it was cooler than outside, and while Mary had expected to find Charles finishing his dinner in the back, he didn't seem to be back yet. The rooms were open, and broad. Far more so than would be expected. The furniture felt out of place, looked worn and old; they had the feel and look of things with previous lifes led, marks of all kinds serving as proof of it. They did not fit together. Each piece felt unique, standing out from the whole, and Mary left her bag next to one of the low, rattan woven chairs. There was the terrace behind the kitchen and the cassava field and the water behind where azure spots could be made out on the lake, as if an enormous brush had splattered drops on the still surface. Only a single structure could be spotted on her far left. The sandowner pub.

She stretched herself out.

Mary debated stepping into the clinic, but she reasoned Charles had heard the Minerva draw up and if he hadn't come out to welcome them then he was either too busy or at the village. Either way, Mary could justify it to herself not to seek him out. Mary decided to eat, then, and afterwards she would check up on Henderson via radio.