The Sleeping Baobab Tree Read Free Page A

Today, Sonkwe’s family came to tell me he was dead too.” Her voice sounded ghost-like. “They wanted to know why. Sonkwe had told them that Doctor Lula was going to make sure he had a long life. Because that
is
what I had promised him.”
    I remembered that voice from before, from the time when Mum’s patients were dying one after the other. I thought that had all been fixed. Mum talks to us a lot about her work, more than Dad does, so we know when things are going well. Since she has started receiving a steady supply of medicines, things have been good. She says that as long as she has a year’s supply in the clinic, she can keep ahead of herself and her patients will live.
    She still worries. She worries about people who can’t get to the clinic, people who don’t know about the medicines they need, people who won’t get an AIDS test. But she doesn’t worry as much as she did then, because she says that things are improving all the time.
    “If patients decide to stop taking their medication there’s nothing you can do,” Dad said gently. “It’s their decision.”
    “No, you don’t get it,” she said. “Sonkwe and Thandiwe would never have done that. I know them. They could see that the medication was working. They wouldn’t just stop without talking to me. And don’t tell me it’s a coincidence,” she added, “that they both disappeared from the clinic three months ago.”
    “They did? Stopped coming entirely?” Dad had already forgotten that he was supposed to be consoling her. “Why didn’t you follow it up?”
    Dad doesn’t work in the same HIV/AIDS clinic as Mum any more. He works in an office and is in charge of several clinics. Sometimes I think he forgets that Mum is not his employee.
    “I asked the nurses to do it,” she said quietly. “I should have done it myself and now it’s too late.”
    “Sorry, Lula,” Dad said. “Of course I know you would have had someone follow up. But tell me, has anyone else stopped coming for their check-ups?”
    It was a while before Mum answered. Finally she said, “I’ve looked back and there are eight others who stopped attending at almost exactly the same time. I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed before.”
    “There we are,” Dad said. “That’s not so bad. Only eight out of – how many? You have over a thousand regulars. Eight not showing up is not unusual. People move jobs. Family circumstances change. They could have been going to clinics in other areas.”
    “You still don’t get it,” Mum said. “These are ten of our very first patients. That’s how I know them all. And Sonkwe’s family didn’t know he’d stopped attending the clinic, he never told them. Then I made contact with Thandiwe’s people and it’s the same story. They thought she was still living in town and coming here for her treatment. Plus, we haven’t managed to contact any of the other eight. I’m sure there’s something really wrong.”
    “Don’t worry. There’ll be a logical explanation.”
    “
Logical
?
Like the time when that so-called ‘doctor’ came here peddling the pool cleaner Tetrasil as a cure? The same thing happened then. What’s worse is, when the other patients hear of them dying, they’ll think there’s no point taking their own medication and stop. Then we’ll be right back to the worst days of the catastrophe.”
    “Email me the ten names tomorrow,” Dad said. “I’ll go through them myself. We’ll get to the bottom of it. It’ll be all right, you’ll see.”
    “No, Sean, it won’t. It really won’t be all right.”
    “Wait,” Dad said suddenly. “Did you say these were your first patients? Kiki was one of your first patients.”
    “Yes,” Mum replied, so quietly I could hardly hear her. “Kiki had been coming into the clinic, you know that. She’d been helping me there. She wouldn’t stop coming without telling me.”
    I crept away then.
    When I got back into bed my head was reeling from what I’d just