ALESSANDRO
I didn't see Sita in the cafeteria when I joined them, and the manager, the man she called by the name Ambrose, I didn't see him, too.
Where could the both of them be when everyone except David and his team were in the cafeteria, doing themselves the justice of putting food in their stomach?
I got tensed, I didn't know why I should react that way, but I wasn't comfortable sensing not just her absence but that of the freak who was all over her in his funny way.
I rose from my seat to go in search of her, but a hand pushed me back to my seat and held me to it for a while, then, a few doctors joined my table while the hands held me tight to the seat.
"You have to eat now, Alessandro, or else, you will regret it when your lips grow tight and numb and the nerves of your tongue die up." That was Musa's voice. He freed my shoulders and tapped my back before taking the seat beside me. "Tell me, are you Miss Sita's physician?"
I raised a brow, and for the first time since I entered the cafeteria, I spooned my meal for the first time, and like a shy girl, I scooped a spoonful and filled my mouth.
"She is currently in the clinic, attending to the patients you handled today and asking the nurses about you." He added to what he had said earlier. "And I must confess, I was jealous of that favor you have won in her sight."
I smiled and swallowed what I had in my mouth. I wasn't set to make many friends, but Musa looked like I needed him for proper survival in the camp because he was the director of medical and surgical affairs.
"Tell me, how did it all happen?" he continued, "I am very sure Sita Kouassi doesn't fancy having a thing with the men that are far off from the political class."
"I once treated her in the big city hospital in Abidjan," I replied. "We became friends without knowing each other so well as you think, but then, we met here."
"Don't you suspect she was merely checking out to see if you did a good job?" he asked.
"I don't have time for that." I faced my meal.
A plate of food was brought to his table, it was more veggies, a very funny kind of food. I know for sure that it was very healthy to eat vegetables, but never in my life will I cue in for a hundred percent veggies. What would happen to eggs, milk, and cheese?
"You know I got suspicious when I saw her asking of you with so much concern like you two are relatives." He dug his spoon into the plate of veggies. "What do you have to say about the invitation to the mess?"
I stopped eating. I've never heard anything like a doctor's mess. That should be a language for the military whose officers ease pressure and temper in officers' mess after every long time in action and what not.
"I'm not interested in your mess of a thing for just doctors." I aired outrightly and continued my meal.
He smiled, the doctors sitting around the table made faces. They seemed to be English speakers listening to our conversation in silence.
"You don't know how lonely this neighborhood is." He stood up. "When you understand the gravity of its loneliness, you will come running to the mess in the evening with your woman if you can make anyone your own within the space of two weeks."
He left for good, and that was the most peaceful moment I had in the cafeteria. The rest of the doctors left with him. They had come to make disciple of me, but I wasn't buoyant enough yet, when I wasn't fit for their net, they will come back to have me fished and tossed into their boat.
"Mister Greco." Came the manager's voice.
I turned to him, he was standing with his hands hidden behind him, and his face cracked in a smile. I raised a brow in query.
"Please, come with me." He blinked.
"Okay,"
***
"We once had a case here," he pulled a pack of cigars out of his pocket, "Do you smoke?"
"Hope you don't mind if I list what smoking can do to your lungs and the rest of your body?" I asked, and that's my way of turning cheap things down.
He returned the pack to his pocket and stopped by a pole outside the cafeteria. "We have a problem."
I waited for him to name the problem, but he went silent for a while before he cleared his throat and continued with his words.
"Once upon a time, a man with bone injury was brought here," he began, but before he finished, he dug his hand in his pocket and fished the cigar pack out of it, "Sorry, smoking doesn't hurt Africans the way it hurts Caucasians."
I smiled. It's a wonder how most Africans call themselves the strong breed and call us the weaklings, thinking they are super immune to a lot of things, more than we do.
"Go on and tell me about the boy with the bone injury," I ordered.
He puffed smoke in the air and nodded. There was enough breeze out here to blow his puff off from my face before it could even get to me, but the smell of dried burnt tobacco was still strong in the air.
"The boy was a victim of a motorcycle accident," he began, "His feet were cut, but when he was brought here, the surgeon here demanded we let him fix it rather than cut it off."
I folded my arms; the story was getting really interesting.
"He attended to him, but he wasn't good enough, so, the patient was brought back with his leg dripping." He landed, "Can you save his feet, or should I order the surgeon he was assigned to…"
"Let me see the patient first."
"Okay."
***