Gift of Revelation (12 page)

Upon my return to the camp late that night, I felt emotionally drained from the tragedy I had just witnessed. I made my way to my tent and plopped down on my cot. I couldn't sleep. Hours later, I waved away Elsa when she peeked her head in the tent. She wanted to talk about the massacre, but I needed time to process the wanton killing and rape. I was still in shock from what I had seen. She muttered under her breath and left in a huff. No sooner had I closed my eyes than I felt a finger poke me on the cheek.

“Can I see you outside, Clint?” It was Addie, giving me the evil eye. “It won't take long. I promise.”

It was still dark. Morning had not arrived yet.

“Okay, okay.” I rose and followed her outside.

Out in the yard, we leaned on one of the trucks and talked. She looked me up and down with a piercing glance. The woman wore the same clothes she had had on yesterday. Possibly, she had not slept at all. Her fatigue showed around her eyes and mouth.

Addie was the first to speak. “I saw you leave with Elsa. Where did you guys go? You seemed to be in a hurry.”

I frowned and tried to ignore her. “Addie, you called me out here for this? I don't get you. You're imagining things.”

“I saw you with my own eyes,” she insisted.

“You probably did.” I was getting mad.

“So where did you go?” She was not going to let me get off easy.

I looked at her with a bored expression. “I'm tired, Adele. I had a rough day. Maybe I'll tell you about it later.”

“Why can't you tell me about it now?”

I didn't speak. I started to walk back to the tent.

Addie grabbed me by the arm. “Clint, I don't even know how old you are. I know so little about you. You tell me so little.”

“Why is that important?” I asked.

“It just is,” she replied. “I want to know how old you are.”

I removed her hand. “What difference does that make?”

“Sometimes you seem very immature for a man your age,” she said, pouting. “You act like a teenager with your hormones acting up. You don't act like a man.”

“What?” I was surprised by her response.

Addie folded her arms and spoke to me like the teacher she was. “You act like you're going through puberty. You keep secrets.”

“Is this about Elsa again?” I replied. “Sometimes you get on my nerves.”

She was fuming, angry that her tactics were not drawing me out. “You're a liar. A big liar. Like most men, you think lying is very natural. You don't know how to tell the truth.”

I repeated the question. “Is this about Elsa again? I told you that you were jealous of her. You measure yourself against her.”

“That's crap.” She was really upset.

“No, it's not.” I didn't know why I was putting up with her foolishness. I think I was still dazed from all the scenes of suffering and death I'd witnessed hours earlier. I wondered how cops and soldiers could deal with a steady diet of this kind of horror.

“Clint, I'm not studying her,” she said harshly. “She's a loose woman. I told you this.”

Just then, three guys with guns walked past, their weapons held low, on a patrol. We stopped talking until they had gone on.

“I don't care what Elsa does,” I said. “My only concern is getting out of this hellhole alive. These people on both sides are out of their minds. The only thing they worship is death.”

She noticed something in my face. I could never fool her.

“What's the matter?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing.”

“You saw something that upset you. Out there. What did you see?”

I wasn't going to talk about it, not tonight. “Nothing.”

Her eyes searched my expression for any clues. “You look a bit different. You look like you saw something out there.”

I looked off into the night sky, in search of the coming sunrise. “Addie, I never understood what evil was until I came to this place. I thought some of the craziness in Harlem was over the top. Not so. That's the Little League compared to the work of the demons here.”

She laughed bitterly. “Harlem or Sudan. Take your choice.”

I watched the men on patrol take up their posts at the checkpoint. “Right. It's not necessary to choose. Sudan is out in front. Sudan wins hands down.”

She listened to me ranting and drew a different conclusion. “Were you this talkative with your late wife? It's very hard to get anything out of you.”

“I haven't changed,” I said, disagreeing with her. “I think we talked about things that mattered. If it didn't matter, then we kept our mouths closed and said nothing. Terry liked that about me.”

Her wry smile denied the truth of what I was saying. “Clint, you're fooling yourself. I tell you, you're cold. Your wife killed off all your emotions. I need more. I want more. I want more from my man.”

“Am I your man, Addie?”

She didn't miss a beat. “Yes, but I just want things to be different. This place has changed you. Maybe it's changed both of us.”

I agreed. “Absolutely.”

“Clint, what did you see?” she asked again.

“Nothing.”

Addie was furious. “You're like Elsa, who sees me as a country hick. You pay me no mind. Other men like me. I could get anybody around here to pay me some attention. I'm not a party girl. I'm particular about what I do with men.”

“For how long?” I replied. “You're flirting, just like Elsa.”

“Are you trying to hurt me?” Her eyes were flashing with temper.

“No.”

She glared at me intensely. “I don't follow you. Why are you trying to insult me?”

“I'm not,” I said, denying her accusation.

“Clint, then why did you say that mess? Why?”

I turned the focus around to her, making her look at herself.

“Addie, I see major changes in your behavior,” I said. “Suddenly, you smoke like a fiend and drink liquor. This is something you didn't do before. Every time I see you, you got a gang of men leering at you like you're fresh meat. And you flirt with them like crazy.”

“Is that how you describe me?” she asked.

“Yes. A tart.”

“A what?” she asked. This was news to her.

“You bet.” I wanted her to see herself realistically.

“Maybe I just want attention,” she replied. “Every woman wants to get attention. No female wants to be ignored. That's human nature.”

Now it was time to get her to realize that Elsa was a woman as well. And human. “Does that include Elsa?” I asked. “Maybe that's why she's acting like she does.”

She didn't want to hear any of that. “We're not talking about Elsa. We're talking about me. Me.”

I flashed her my best outlaw smile. “I'm saying that's why Elsa is so popular. I don't know her that well. But I bet she's craving attention as well.”

“Elsa's not so saintly, so innocent,” she said. “She's giving the boys what they want.”

“Does that include me, Addie?”

“Maybe,” she answered. “You won't tell me where you went with her last night. You won't tell me that.”

“You're right,” I said, strengthening my resolve. “We have discussed Elsa and her behavior before. Tell me this. Are you in a competition with her? Tell me the truth.”

“Heck no!”

I recalled Terry, another woman who was important to my life. “Like my late wife, Elsa likes men. Terry was the same way. They get a thrill being around so much beefcake.”

Addie refused to acknowledge that she and Elsa were similar in this way. “I'm not like her.”

“I think it's normal for women to compete with each other,” I replied. “It's healthy. Men do it all the time.”

“That's stupid,” she declared.

“Adele, I wonder why you came here, when you're not the least political,” I countered. “When the doctors and the staff discuss the state of affairs, what's going on here, you say nothing. You sit there like a log. Even the drivers contribute to the conversation.”

She turned her back to me. “I don't have to run my mouth like some people. You always have to be the center of attention. You're a show-off.”

“Is that what you think of me? I'm just a curious fellow.”

Imitating a small child, she whined, “Why? Why? Why?”

I grinned. “Now you're mocking me. Why are you so angry with me? What is it that you expect me to do?”

“Be yourself,” she retorted. “I know that's hard for you. I no longer know who you are. Who are you?”

“I am me,” I said firmly.

She disagreed with me strongly. “That's not true. You do everything to not be yourself. You're a phony. I bet you even lie to yourself when you're alone.”

I looked deeply into her eyes. “I made a choice to follow you. I wanted you in my life, but now I'm not so sure.”

“Why is that, Clint?” she asked. “Is it because I'm asking you all these questions? I'm interested. I want to know you.”

“Love is not easy,” I said. “After what I've been through, who can I trust? I don't want a repeat of what happened to me with Terry. I want someone who can bring out the best in me.”

“Can you give me the benefit of the doubt?”

“I don't know.”

She winked at me seductively. “Maybe I can become the person you want to love. I know God ain't finished with me yet.”

“I'm a work in progress as well,” I said, snickering.

“I was trying to figure out why I am so attracted to you,” she said. “You are a real mystery. I love a man, a preacher with a strange past.”

“A strange past?”

“Yes, your story fascinated me to no end,” she said.

I laughed again. “I guess I just want to stay on top of my feelings. I don't want them to control me. Maybe that's why I'm here. I want to learn about myself. I want to rejoin life.”

She brushed her khaki shorts off. “All I ask is that you talk to me, tell me the truth, and not tell me what you think I want to hear. Is that all right with you?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Clint, you won't believe this,” she said curiously. “Africa is really having an effect on me. I should have had my period already, but I haven't had one since I got here. I spot sometimes and get cramping. But no period.”

“It's too early for menopause,” I joked.

“I know, but it concerns me,” she said. “I'm going to talk to the doctor about it. I hope nothing is wrong with me. I know I'm not pregnant. I haven't done anything.”

I started laughing and couldn't stop. “Addie, is my hour up? Can I get your permission to leave and wring out a kidney? Mother, may I?”

Before she could reply, I went into the shadows, to the latrine.

It happened that next Wednesday I finally got a tour of the Doctors Without Borders camp, with Dr. Arriale serving as a guide. He took me through a collection of tents and around the expanse of ground that held the crowded refugee quarters. The tall doctor apologized for having neglected me, but he had a good reason to do so, and that was that the camp had accepted another band of people fleeing for their lives. They had traveled for many miles, dodging enemy militias, trying to sustain their existence without food and water.

“We're seeing more new arrivals, much more than this camp can accommodate,” Dr. Arriale said while he showed me the perimeter. “I wonder whether we can continue to deliver essential humanitarian aid services. It's not about donations or staffing, but about the massive amount of supplies needed.”

I stepped up my pace to match his long, loping gait. “I have watched them come to the camp, and most of them are in really bad shape. They're weak, hungry, very sickly.”

We stood and watched three trucks in the distance pull up to a series of tents that were segregated from the others. Workers, dressed in strange medical suits, carried fragile refugees off the trucks and took them inside the tents, handling them gingerly, careful not to bounce their skeletal frames.

The doctor smirked and shook his head. “The increase in refugees is taking up so much room outside this original camp, stretching the limits of the security we can provide them. We'd love to send them home, but the violence is still raging there.”

I asked the question that most of us wanted to ask but were afraid to do so. “What is going on over there, in those tents? The staff won't let us go near there.”

“It's cholera, Reverend,” the doctor said sadly.

Science had not been my favorite subject in school. I did horribly in biology and chemistry; in fact, I almost failed those courses. Karen, a high school friend, had tutored me, and I'd got passing grades. She later died in a hit-and-run near her home, the victim of a drunk driver.

“What's cholera?” I asked innocently. “It's not like the Ebola virus, right?”

Dr. Arriale started to walk toward the tents, gesturing with his hands as he moved through a small group of refugees who were staring at the bush, wishing they could go home.

“Cholera is an acute bacterial infection in the intestines,” he explained. “It's spread in unsanitary, crowded conditions. Usually, the infected person has intense bouts of diarrhea and vomiting, leading to critical dehydration and death. This is a very painful disease.”

I halted in my tracks. “Can it be cured?”

The doctor smiled knowingly, then said that it could be cured.

“You've got to get the patient treated early,” he told me. “It can be effectively treated if treatment is started as soon as the person presents with any symptoms. We replace the lost fluid and electrolytes, such as sodium and potassium, with an oral rehydration solution. Sometimes we have to do this intravenously with the more severe cases.”

“How many cholera cases do you have in this camp?”

The doctor noted that since the government's ministry of health had officially recorded an outbreak in this area, they had tallied over two thousand cases, and more suspected cases were awaiting lab confirmation. He said he had got funds to open a cholera treatment center, which would offer safe water and the cholera vaccine to the camp.

“We had eight hundred cholera patients up until the rainy season, and then the numbers skyrocketed,” the doctor said. “I know a few people at Doctors Without Borders in Juba, and they provided more beds, testing kits, chlorine solution, and rehydration salts. That gave us a leg up on this epidemic.”

I mentioned the bodies I'd seen being carried out of the tents, wrapped in plastic and sealed, then loaded onto trucks. The doctor would not acknowledge that these were the ones whom treatment could not cure.

“What do you do with the dead?” I asked.

The doctor didn't reply. He switched topics and spoke about a massive cholera vaccination effort in the camp. Some refugees needed two rounds of the vaccine to avoid infection. The staff followed up on the required inoculations, but sometimes even those who had had the pair of shots contracted the horrific disease.

We stepped into a tent where the staff treated war wounds, gunshot wounds, serious burns, and amputations. There were forty beds in the large tent. The patients, mostly women and children, kept the nurses and attendants hopping. They administered painkillers, adjusted bandaged stumps, and performed many other tasks.

“I came here from the Bentiu Hospital a few months ago,” Dr. Arriale said, noticing my bewildered gaze. “We had a street battle in town, and the violence spilled over into the hospital. Hospitals are supposed to be places of comfort and safety. Not true in this case. Over thirty-three people were killed by the militia at the hospital.”

I took a deep breath and said, “No reasonable person would kill the sick,” but then I remember the other night.

“Hospitals in South Sudan are often under attack,” the doctor said. “The patients were killed randomly. However, some of those who had fled to the hospital were targeted because they were from a different tribe or religion. Twenty-one people were marched from the facility and murdered behind the building.”

“Evil reigns in this place,” I said somberly.

“The violence here is very brutal and cruel,” the doctor observed. He paused when one of the nurses asked him to sign a prescription. “The enemy fighters searched for boys and men who had left their ranks and refused to kill anymore. They shot them dead where they stood. When I left to go home, the streets were littered with dead civilians. My place was ransacked, so I fled to the United Nations mission, and from there, I came here.”

“How can you bear it?” I asked. “How can anybody bear this misery?”

He stopped near the bed of a man wrapped in bandages from head to chest, and stuck a thermometer into the hole for his mouth. The patient lay quietly, moving his head only.

“He's a burn victim,” the doctor said. “We found him among the people outside the camp. He was in dire need of assistance. The others did what they could for him, but they notified us when his condition became worse. We've done all we can for him. We make him comfortable with painkillers.”

He walked along the row of beds, stopping occasionally to chat with this one and that one. A nurse followed him, taking notes about meds and their schedule. His manner was friendly, never patronizing. The place smelled of bleach, alcohol, sweat, burnt flesh, and decay.

“We can't let the refugees stay here forever,” he said. “We have a backlog of them. We have no screening center at the camp. We try to register them so they can get needed items, such as blankets, cooking utensils, soap, and such. The government allows us to truck water to temporary silos. CARE, the Red Cross, Oxfam, and some of the faith-based organizations and charities have really come through for us in our time of need.”

“I've heard that some of the girls and women have been molested in the camp,” I said, hoisting an eyebrow. “Can you provide protection to them while they're in your care?”

“No, we cannot,” he insisted. “We're worried about the enemy militias and their raids. If a woman feels threatened, she can report the situation to us, and we'll provide security. But there are too many cases here.”

“I feel badly for the girls and women here,” I murmured.

The doctor did his rounds, preparing his patients for treatment, putting on a good face for both those who were recovering and the critically ill. He told me that too many people were dying from preventable diseases because of the horrible conditions in the camps. He was ashamed of this fact.

I remained silent.
War, famine, disease. Simply hell.

“What complicated our cholera crisis was the latrines overflowing and contaminating our water,” the doctor said mournfully. “We're trying to make sure that problem doesn't happen anymore. Our funding is stable, but we don't plan ahead. We might have a shortfall.”

“And the government doesn't help matters?” I asked him.

The doctor said no. “The government is concerned only about the oil profits. Oil is king. Oil makes up ninety-eight percent of Sudan's budget. The real reason for all this turmoil is not religion but economics. About seventy-five percent of the oil lies in the south, but all the pipelines flow north. Khartoum gets all of the profits. You figure it out.”

“Most Americans believe the war in Iraq was started for oil,” I said. “In fact, Bush lied to us when he said we had to fight the Iraqis because they possessed biological weapons. Inspectors searched, but no such weapons were found.”

“Exactly,” the doctor agreed. “That's the situation here too.”

“Will the administrators expand this camp?” I asked.

“I don't know,” he replied. “There are certain government restrictions that prevent new humanitarian workers from accessing specific regions. It doesn't matter how many people have been displaced by the conflict. Nobody talks about this. But the government can't even provide basic services for its own people.”

“Why doesn't the world call attention to all this baloney?”

The doctor stuck his gloved hands in his pockets, suddenly very angry. “The European Union has imposed sanctions on the government's military leaders. They imposed travel bans and asset freezes on some of the army heads, but that doesn't do anything. They laugh at the sanctions. The government keeps supplying arms to the various militias and violating the cease-fire agreements. And the killings and rapes go on.”

“Elsa gave me the history of the truces and cease-fires, and they have flopped repeatedly,” I said. “I can't believe this.”

The doctor chuckled. “I like that Elsa. Interesting woman.”

“Isn't there an arms embargo against Sudan?” I said, not wanting to talk about the perturbing British journalist.

“Yes, there is, Reverend.”

“Are you serving displaced persons in remote areas other than this region?” I asked him while he put a stethoscope to a boy's chest.

“Oh yes, there is funding, but we don't know how reliable it is,” the doctor answered. “Plans for several camps in areas along the border are in the works. Also, we need more doctors and nurses to staff the camps. Recruitment is key.”

Suddenly, Dr. Bromberg, with three medical attendants at his side, trotted across the room, waving frantically. He yelled that two more trucks full of critical cholera patients had arrived. “All hands on deck,” he called.

“Someone once said, ‘Why would we want to help people in a faraway country with an unpronounceable name?'” my doctor guide said, moving toward Dr. Bromberg and the attendants. “Is this crazy, Reverend?”

We walked out of the tent and into the glaring sun, then watched the old routine: staffers unloading the sick to transport them into the tent. One of the staffers commented, “The parade never stops, never lets up.”