these rituals with the most promising experimental Ebola vaccines. We negotiate with them: a vaccine in exchange for their rituals.”
My heart pounded against my rib cage. “But the vaccines are only experimental.”
Dr. Tovar leaned forward. Baring his teeth, he spoke only a few inches from my face. “You, Emma, are also not in Kansas anymore. West Africa is basically a petri dish at this point in time. A petri dish and an experimental lab. West Africa provided the petri dish. We provided the lab. You are going to have to get used to how things get done here.” He backed off, shoved his hands into his lab coat pockets. “Now, drink up, you two.”
We did. We drank down the sweet pink poison, our lips moving against the wooden stick of the purple umbrellas.
That is all Zoe and I remembered until the next morning when we woke up in our beds. We had chosen to bunk next to each other in our residence building. I awoke first in a complete state of panic. I thought I was back home in the United States. Then I remembered that I was in Africa…and what had happened the night before…and the missing chunk of time.
I ran into the bathroom. I locked the door. Slipping out of my nightgown and dropping it to the floor, I checked myself from head to toe for bruises in the full-length mirror. I lay down on the floor, lifted my butt up until I could see my private parts in the mirror and then inspected myself for tears or bruising. I picked up my underpants and smelled them. I didn’t appear to have been raped. And nothing hurt.
My head was fuzzy, but no more than I’d expect from jet lag or, actually, from having just woken up.
I made a pot of coffee in the small kitchen area next to our library. Then I carried two cups over to the nightstand between my and Zoe’s beds and nudged her. She opened her eyes; then sat up with a look of blind terror on her face.
I handed over a mug with a monkey face on the front and a brown handle shaped like its tail. I said, “Zoe, I’m fine. I’m not sure what was in those pink drinks, but I’m not hurt or anything. I checked myself in the bathroom. There’s a full-length mirror in there.”
Zoe set her coffee cup back down on the nightstand, sloshing some of the sugar-and-cream concoction on the polished mahogany, and ran off to the bathroom. I cleaned up the spill. When she returned, she seemed calmer. She simply said, “Tovar is weird. I’m glad I don’t work for him.”
I took two sips of coffee, looking at the gorilla watching over the library. I said, “How about that kid in the clearing and the soldiers? That was way weirder.”
Sophia Weber, blue-and-pink hair tangled across her pillow and tattooed tigers creeping down both arms, slept in a bed across the room from us. Rolling over in nothing but underpants and a tank top, she exposed two dragons fire-breathing at each other on her lower back.
Zoe looked at Sophia, then back at me. “Hey, she works in Building 4. We should ask her about the little girl from last night.”
I whispered, “Good idea.” Then I cleared my throat as loudly as I could.
Sophia opened her eyes. I asked if I could get her a cup of coffee. She mumbled, “Yeah…Great…Cream and sugar, lots of sugar,” and pulled her quilt up to her chin.
I returned with the coffee, set it on her nightstand and sat at the end of her bed. Sophia rolled over, squinting at me in the morning light. She looked grumpy as hell. In a curt tone, she asked, “What’s up?”
Zoe came over and stood beside the bed. Before I could say a word, she blurted out, “We have an important question for you. Is there a little girl among the patients in Building 4?”
Sophia sat up, alarmed. “Yes, there is. Why? Is she OK? Did she die?”
I placed my hand on Sophia’s leg. “No…No…she’s definitely not dead. I’m sorry; I didn’t want to scare you. I just wondered: are there any other little girls in Building 4, or just her?”
Sophia told us, “No, just her. She’s the only child, male or female, in our building. Our other patients are all adults, no one younger than thirty. All the nurses love her. God, I really hope we don’t lose her.”
Zoe asked, “How are you guys treating her rash?”
Sophia answered, “Well, she doesn’t have much of a rash. Her skin’s actually the least of her problems. She has a few patches of eczema, something she’s had for months, according to her chart. Her biggest problems right now are fever, chills and muscle aches…She tests positive for Ebola, so those symptoms are from the Ebola.” Sophia reached for her coffee and took a sip. “Why would you want to know about her eczema?”
Zoe was quicker on her feet than me. She lied without a moment’s hesitation: “I forgot my eczema cream back home. Just wondered if what you were using on your patient was effective, that’s all…and if I could get some.”
Sophia replied, “We’re just using some stuff that’s sold over-the-counter back home. I’ll get you a tube. We have plenty of them.”
Zoe answered, “Thanks,” then walked away as though she had nothing else but eczema on her mind.
Stepping outside to talk, we verified that we had both seen sheets of bloody skin falling off the little girl’s face. I sighed. “What a relief, Zoe. I felt drugged last night. Those pink drinks were strong. I thought maybe I had hallucinated that little girl’s skin.”
Zoe’s jaw tensed. “Yeah, well, who’s to say we didn’t both hallucinate the same damn thing? Do not trust Dr. Tovar. I mean it. That guy gives me the creeps.” She stormed back into our residence hall, leaving me to wonder what I had ever seen in that guy to begin with.
After showering and getting dressed, all the volunteers headed over to the dining hall. Zoe was wearing boots. I couldn’t resist teasing her. “I see you’ve decided to protect your feet.”
She snapped at me. “So, is that supposed to be funny? We ought to be careful. Do you still not get that?”
I shut my mouth. I felt frighteningly alone.
The dining hall was another long rectangular building, this one painted white. Inside were little more than white cement walls, a gray cement floor and rows of wooden tables and chairs. The food was outrageously good, however. I had a stack of pancakes, sausage links, orange juice and more coffee.
The clatter of silverware on plates and the chatter of human conversation subsided as heavily armed soldiers marched onto a wooden stage to the rhythmic, jackhammer sound of their own boots. Dr. Tovar came out from behind a curtain. He stood in front of the soldiers and announced through a microphone clutched in his right hand: “You are all to assemble out front in your designated groups. These soldiers will escort you to your Safety Stations. We do not want any slipups in your safety procedures. You are going to practice them again before working with patients.”
Outside, there was a terrible silence. Even the monkeys had gone mute. We heard only the shuffling of our feet upon the dusty African soil, our own blood pumping through our ears and military guns clacking into position. The soldiers finally yelled loud words at us, but only to give instructions.
At Safety Station 5, my personality disappeared. I watched Zoe being dressed in protective clothing, changed from a beautiful girl into an anonymous plastic robot. Only her eyes blinking behind goggles and a few inches of facial skin revealed anything about her. We had become robots…or monsters.
Escorted by the soldiers with machine guns, we lumbered over to Building 5. The soldiers remained outside as we entered one by one, receiving assignments at the door from an assistant to Dr. Steele. I was delighted to discover that I had been assigned to work with the four-year-old boy, Akachi Anikulapo-Kuti, as well as an old woman in a flowered dress. My direct supervisor would be an African medical school graduate doing her residency at the camp, Dr. Chibueze Koroma.
As Dr. Koroma approached the bed of Akachi, he shivered from fever. From behind her face shield, she spoke to him. “Akachi, how are you today?”
Her eyes were kind. They were also unique: light brown with specks of gold. When Akach
i didn’t answer, Dr. Koroma continued, “I have brought you some friends.” She smiled behind the clear plastic shield.
Akachi’s eyes grew wide, black marbles in a fevered face. He managed to whisper in a hoarse voice, “No machine spirits! I want Mama. Please…Mama!” Then he collapsed back into sleep, shaking with chills.
Dr. Koroma gestured for us to watch her. Her hands insulated by thick turquoise plastic gloves, she fumbled with a hypodermic needle, managing to stick it into Akachi’s arm and draw blood without sticking herself.
I felt dizzy from a combination of intense heat trapped inside my suit and forgetting to breathe while I watched Dr. Koroma handle that needle and draw blood teeming with Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever from the frail arm of the child. I pictured the filamentous, single-stranded RNA viral threads swimming through that liquid life force inside the hypodermic syringe barrel, ready to attack a host body where it could replicate.
Forcing my feet to lift and my legs to move, I followed Dr. Koroma over to our next patient, a tiny old woman with skin the color and texture of walnut shells, outfitted as though in her Sunday best in a brightly colored dress—purple and yellow interlocking flowers—now folded up into a fetal position, as though the hospital bed with its white sheets and wrinkled blankets were the womb for birthing her into some new world. She never moved. She lay