"Well great," said Cole. "Now we've got to be quarantined and—"
"No sir," said Drew. "No need for a quarantine. Not when the whole base has already been exposed."
"It's kind of like a vaccine," said Arty. "Except that you get the real disease."
"What gave you the right?" Cole demanded.
"It's going to happen," said Drew. "Catching the nictovirus. No matter how President Torrent does with his attempted quarantine. The nicto won't respect his little boundaries, it's coming eventually, and so we're going to go through it right here on this base, where we can look out for one another."
"Everybody's going to be too sick to—"
"Don't be such a pessimist, Cole," said Mingo, walking back toward the three-story College of Medical Sciences building that served as barracks and headquarters.
"You going to include this in your report to Torrent?" asked Arty cheerily.
"Not likely," said Cole. "I need you bastards too much to court-martial you. If any of you live, that is."
"That's what we're counting on," said Cat, with a wink. Followed by another sneeze. "Oh my," he said. "I'm really starting to feel under the weather."
Praying for rain is such a bad idea. Even in the midst of a terrible drought, someone will say, Of course I want it to rain, but not today.
Politics is the art of simultaneously satisfying groups with conflicting goals. The traditional way of accomplishing this is to speak to the groups separately, lie, and then, if you are caught, deny it. You count on the voters to forget or lose interest or change their minds, and they almost always come through for you.
In our time, between national television and the internet, contradictions are more easily caught, so now the best method of pleasing everyone is to promise nothing while seeming to promise everything. New Deal, New Frontier, Change, Progress, Morning in America—there is no limit to the willingness of voters to ascribe to the vague slogan whatever goal is dear to their hearts.
In times of crisis, however, where something is at stake beyond the next election, real decisions must be made. Some voters will discover that their most precious goals are not as important to you as someone else's. Even if you solve the crisis and avert certain disaster, they will never forgive you for having treated their aspirations with contempt. Govern long enough, resolve enough crises, and a large majority will wish to be rid of you.
This natural depletion of popularity only happens to statesmen. Political hacks never have to face the problem, because they never actually make a decision.
The temptation is to eliminate politics entirely and retain power without regard for the next election. This is always done with the intention of governing well; you can take the long view, act for the future, see things through to completion. The newly fledged dictator-for-life will always make wise decisions, he is sure.
But the praying-for-rain problem doesn't go away, it simply takes a different form. Now, instead of uniting to throw you out at the next election, your opponents and rivals conspire to have you killed. In order to forestall them and continue with your most excellent governing, you must find them and kill them first. The bloodbath begins.
People do not have enough appreciation for lying and vague politicians. In their avoidance of commitment, they rarely do much harm. It is the honest statesman who becomes a tyrant, not the hack.
Cecily did not have to go to Italy and travel with Catholic Charities there. Instead, she was included in the military flights that President Torrent arranged as part of his "wholehearted national support for people who volunteered to go to Africa to help victims of the nictovirus."
One thing about Averell Torrent—when he changed his mind, he changed it all the way. In his press conference the morning after she walked out of the White House strategy meeting, he already had much of his plan worked out. Military nights, military prefab housing where needed, including decent sanitation, and regular supply flights bringing food and medicine, both for the volunteers and for the people they would care for.
He didn't even claim that it was his own idea. "My goal was to keep everybody safe, even the people who didn't want to be protected. But some of my advisers told me in no uncertain terms that you don't tell Americans not to do what faith and compassion tell them they must do.
"So if these health-worker volunteers are going, let them go with the full support of the people of the United States. Donate whatever you wish—either through your own religious organization or through the fund that we're setting up for that purpose. Not a dime will go for overhead—it will all translate into food and medicines for the sick, and housing, food, and transportation for the volunteers."
He was as good as his word. Aunt Margaret barely had time to get back down to northern Virginia from her home in New Jersey so she could stay with the kids.
Aunt Margaret had words for Cecily, of course. Harsh ones. "If you planned to orphan them, why did you have them?"
"I'm coming back," said Cecily calmly. "So is Mark. But if we don't, they have you. And they'll know that both their parents died standing for what they believe in. Even if it took Mark goading me to make me do it."
"The parent is supposed to lead the child, not the other way around."
"'Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the kingdom of heaven,'" said Cecily.
"What is that, the Bible? Catholics don't read the Bible."
"I've been reading a lot of scripture lately."
"So you decide to be a martyr, then you read the Bible?"
"I love you too, Aunt Margaret," said Cecily.
For the next hour or so, Aunt Margaret huffed and grumbled through the house, putting her things away in the guest bedroom and checking the cupboards and fridge to make sure that Cecily had some "food that was worth eating instead of all that organic crap without any of my favorite chemicals."
But by the time Mark and Cecily had loaded their luggage into Stevie Popadopolos's car—as per the regulations: "one suitcase, one carry-on, and don't bother with warm clothing or electrical appliances because you'll never have a chance to use them"—and they were saying their good-byes to the other children, Margaret was crying, and when she hugged Mark she whispered into his ear, "I'm so proud of you."
"I'm not," said Nick gracelessly. "I think he's lost his mind."
"He'll miss you, too," said Cecily.
"No I won't," said Mark, but he hugged his brother and they held on to each other for a long time. They were only a year apart, and this would be the first time they were apart for longer than a school day. Or a new videogame, since Nick played like an addict and Mark rarely touched them.
When Nick pulled away he said, "I couldn't do it, anyway. No electronics, no games. It sounds like—"
"Hell," offered Aunt Margaret.
"I was going to say 'school,'" said Nick, "but hell is almost as bad."
For once Lettie seemed to understand that this wasn't about her—though she was losing her mother for several months, at least—and both she and Annie hugged Mark and Cecily and then backed off to watch. John Paul was only six, but he got it that this was something serious, and though he was trying not to cry, a little bit of emotion leaked out every few minutes.
Cecily saw Chinma standing in the doorway of the house, looking at them somberly. She beckoned to him. He immediately ducked back into the house, so Cecily left the others and went inside.
"Where you going, forget something?" asked Stevie loudly.
"I'll be back in just a moment."
She found Chinma curled up on the living room sofa. The television was not on, though he was looking at it. "I should go," he said.
"I know it's your country," said Cecily, "but the fact is, you can't go.Your asylum status in the U.S. absolutely forbids you to return to Nigeria. If you do, you'll lose your right to be here."
"I should go," he said again. "I already caught the monkey sickness. I can't catch it again. I'm the safe one."
"
We're going to be very careful," said Cecily.
"Why are you going?" he demanded, and for a moment he looked almost angry. "They're my people, not your people!"
"In one sense, they're not your people," said Cecily. "Your family, your whole language, they're gone. But in the only way that matters, there are no people who are not my people."
"Father said Christians never mean what they say."
"Well, he never met us, did he? Chinma, be at peace. You've already faced your share of death and loss and suffering. This is a time for you to heal. Be good to Nick and Lettie and Annie and J.P., and obey Aunt Margaret, and get to learn to speak English even better so you can go to school in the fall. That's your job. What Mark and I are going to Nigeria to do, that's our job. Okay?"
He hesitated, then nodded.
Cecily went back to the car. Mark was already inside and so were their bags. Cecily kissed everybody again and whispered to Aunt Margaret, "Chinma is feeling bad because he blames himself for this epidemic. He was the first victim. He didn't cause it, but if he's morose, that's why."
"Got it," said Aunt Margaret. "No blaming Chinma for the deaths of thousands. I'll try to avoid that."
"For an old lady, you're such a brat," said Cecily.
"I was a brat when I was young, too, you know," said Aunt Margaret.
"I don't doubt it." Then Cecily was in the car and Stevie pulled away from the curb.
Mark was silent the whole way to Andrews, and Cecily wasn't inclined to chat, either. The silence was probably killing Stevie, because to her, talk was like oxygen, but she was a good friend and let the silence reign.
Until they were stopped at the drop-off curb and Mark started to get out of the car.
"Wait," Cecily told him.
Dutifully he sat back down, but did not fully close the door.
"This isn't the last chance, but it's a chance."
"For what?" asked Mark.
"To change your mind. No shame in it. You're only thirteen, it's okay to tell your kids, I wanted to go to Africa but I was too young."
"I have kids? When did this happen?"
"You know what I'm saying."
"If you've changed your mind, Mom, don't lay it on me."
She ignored his defiance. Male bravado. Definitely not a phase—a lifetime commitment, or at least until the testosterone ran down. "When the door closes on the airplane, Mark, that's when there's no turning back."
"Then let's get inside so they can close it."
On the plane, she had halfway expected Mark would read the Bible, or maybe he had loaded his Kindle with medical information.
How to care for dying people. But instead he had a paperback of the long-awaited final volume of some massive fantasy series, and the few times she tried to talk to him, he looked up as if he were in another world, and she was a hallucination interrupting his preferred reality.
Books about heroes, warriors with swords and bows, powerful wizards, ruthless and beautiful women. The same kind of thing Nick cared about, only Nick wanted to see it on the screen and play through it and win, while Mark wanted to be carried away in a story that had more to it than fighting. Reuben and Cecily had seen these tendencies in both boys from the start.
Nick had to be active all the time—though neither of them had guessed that his main "activity" would turn out to be sitting in front of a TV screen, twitching in response to some game designer's plan.
Mark, on the other hand, would sit still for minutes, sometimes hours, listening to adult conversation. As soon as he learned to read, that took the place of listening—though Cecily and Reuben had both learned very early that when the boys seemed least to be listening, that was when they were most likely to hear and remember everything that was said.
And Mark was a crier. That really flustered Reuben. "I wasn't even yelling at him," he'd tell Cecily. And she'd say, "He's not crying because you yelled, he's crying because he disappointed you."
Crying because somebody else was in pain, because he had inadvertently hurt somebody, because the movie was sad, and sometimes because it was happy. Hyperdeveloped empathy, Cecily called it once, and Reuben said, "Empathy's the thing you have to switch off if you're going into the soldiering business."
"Well, I guess that's not where Mark's going to go," said Cecily.
But they both knew it wasn't true. Reuben was consumed with empathy for others. That was part of what made him a good soldier—his ability to sense what the other guys on his team needed to hear him say. And his ability to guess what the enemy would do. Not to a level that would qualify as magic in one of Mark's books, but often enough to make a difference, to make Reuben a superb leader of men.
They hadn't got parts and pieces of Reuben. Mark and Nick were their own men, their own mixture of genes and upbringing and whatever God put into them and maybe whatever was really them, independent of everything and everybody.
Mark is the one who cries at the drop of a hat, so I'm taking him to a place filled with suffering and death.
But he won't just watch. He'll have something real to do, something that isn't in a book, isn't on a screen, isn't imaginary, and wasn't prescribed for him by some homework-manic teacher.
Oh, God, please let this boy learn from what he goes through. Don't let it hurt him, don't let it break his spirit, don't let him become hardened to suffering.
And while you're at it, keep us both alive, will you?
She wanted so badly to grab him and hug him and yell at him for getting them both into such a nightmare and then rock him to sleep in her arms. Always she could feel him in her arms, her firstborn, the one who taught her how to nurse a baby, the one who taught her how little she needed to teach, he just learned anything, everything, kept coming up with new achievements every day, and all she could do was hold out a hand when he needed one, comfort him when he needed comfort, feed him, clothe him, and then stand back and watch what he was becoming.
What am I doing, taking you to Africa, to Nigeria, to a land of plague and war? The Book of Revelation is all coming true in this place we're going to, and we have no weapon at all, nothing to protect us.
And then she thought: Cole is there. Cole and all of Reuben's boys. The finest soldiers in the world. They're there, too. She thanked God for them. And then, finally, as night rushed toward them across the Atlantic, she slept.
When she awoke, Mark was curled up against the window. Not so tall-looking now, his body so young and thin, his sweaty hair clinging to his forehead and cheek, his fist up under his cheek the way he always slept on car trips with the family.
Whatever sleep they had wasn't enough, but when the plane landed, there was nothing to do but get up and gather their belongings and shuffle toward the door and out into the bright sun of a Nigerian morning.
Theirs was the first plane of the relief mission to arrive—one of the perks of being a presidential adviser—but it was clear that the people awaiting them, Nigerian and American, weren't quite sure what this influx of untrained people would be good for.
By her nature, Cecily couldn't stand back and wait to be told what to do. She was obedient enough when they were shuffled from the plane to a trio of city buses and driven from the deserted airport to the abandoned university campus that was now a makeshift American military base. But when the whole planeload of volunteers were left sitting in a large lobby of the College of Medical Sciences building with only about half enough chairs and absolutely nothing to see or read or do, Cecily got up and began to make a pest of herself. She knew how to talk to military people, how to explain things without raising the stress level too high.
"If you don't have any place ready for us to sleep or eat, that's fine. But maybe if someone could brief us on what we should and shouldn't do for patients of the sneezing—the nictovirus—what their symptoms are, what might help them keep a fever down, what they can eat—"
"Ma'am," the lieutenant assigned to them finally said, "you don't get it. We don't do anything for them. They aren't
here. Mostly we just try to keep sick people off the base, keep our contact with the locals to a minimum."
Cecily was stunned. "Well, didn't anyone tell you we were coming?"
"Did anybody ask us if we wanted you?" asked the lieutenant. "No, sorry, ma'am, I didn't mean that the way it sounded. We've kept ourselves separated from the local population because our soldiers have to stay healthy to do their work. The few health workers who actually interface with the patients aren't allowed on the base. For fear of contagion."
"Then we need to get off the base as quickly as possible," said Cecily, "because we're here to interface with the patients."
"I know," said the lieutenant, "and if it was up to me I'd let you all march through the gates and go to it, whatever you think you're here to do. But our base commander has the crazy idea that he doesn't want you all to be sent home in body bags. Or buried here so that the virus doesn't enter American breathing space even in corpses. To put it bluntly, ma'am."
"Who is your commander?"
"General Coleman, ma'am."
Of course. She knew he was the head of American military operations on the ground in Africa, she just hadn't put it together that they would be brought straight to his base of operations. For all she knew he was out on a mission right now. Hadn't he just gotten through rescuing the U.S. embassy staff in Bangui? Cole wasn't the type to sit around and wait for a bunch of civilians to arrive.
Then again, Cole was also not the type to leave them with no support, no instructions, nobody to greet them.
Most of the people found some miserable spot on the floor to lie down and sleep, using wadded-up clothing from their suitcases as pillows. The second plane arrived only a couple of hours after theirs, and those people made it even hotter and more crowded.
But then food came, big serving bowls pushed in on carts, and metal dishes in stacks and utensils in bins. Some of the food was familiar—peanut butter sandwiches, ham and cheese sandwiches, turkey and cheese, roast beef—but there was also a gloppy mess of white-colored mashed yams that had little flavor, but whatever there was, she hated it and so did most of them.