Mortals

what they are you won’t like them. They have a strong odor.” He felt it was important to make Morel talk more, keep talking, get off the subject of going back to Gaborone, which was something nothing could be done about.

“I can’t do anything here,” Morel said.

“Sure you can. What do you mean?”

“I have nothing to work with. I have zinc oxide, what can I do with that? I have petroleum jelly. I have a headache. I don’t even have any aspirin.”

“Look, eat something and you’ll feel better. You have low blood sugar. Drink some tea.”

“Don’t tell me what’s wrong with me.”

“No, that’s just, I don’t know, it’s what Iris says to me when I get ragged and crab at her and I eat something and I…”

“It isn’t that. I have to get back to Gaborone.”

“You keep saying that. Why do you have to get back more than I do? Why is it so urgent? We’re in a mess, here.”

Morel murmured an answer.

“I didn’t hear what you said.”

“I have to see Iris,” Morel said loudly and brokenly. Ray felt a rage of emotion, outrage, fury mixed with injury and indignation at the breaking of rules between men. He could hardly breathe.

He trained the light on Morel’s face. It was an aggression. Morel was about to cry. Tears were coming. He was distraught. Ray wished that the beam of the torch could be scorching, hot enough to burn Morel, make him cry out, apologize, apologize, apologize with a scream, a begging scream. He turned the torch off. He was reeling.

Who do you think you are? Ray wanted to say, except that it was so feeble. He wanted to attack Morel. Morel needed to see Iris so much he would do something insane. It was love. He wanted to say that he hated Morel, but he couldn’t.

“I’m sorry,” Morel said, reaching for the cup of tea.

Ray emptied the cup on the ground. My hand did it, he thought. It had happened without his intending to do it. He was surprised at himself. There was no more tea. More could be heated up, but there was no tea right now, nothing to put in Morel’s trembling, reaching hand, here in the desert.

Ray didn’t want to see Morel’s reaction to his act. He was ashamed.

Both of them said something about being sorry at the same time.

But Ray was in a state of blood-red rage, still. He wanted to say things that were wrong, couldn’t be said. He was wanting to go into the whole stupid whatever oath there was about doctors not screwing their women patients. There had to be something like that.

“I’ll get some more tea,” Ray said. He hoped there was more. There would be. It was possible Morel thought that the tea had been spilled accidentally.

“No, don’t. I have to talk to you,” Morel said.

“What?”

“I’m worried about her.”

It isn’t effrontery, it’s worse, it’s weakness, Ray thought. Effrontery would be better.

“Say what you mean,” Ray said.

“This isn’t the way she wanted it. She’s going to blame herself. She’s going to blame herself for sending me into this. She…”

That was effrontery. It was astounding effrontery. Morel was obsessed with the need to go back and comfort Iris and reassure her that he was fine, he the doctor was fine.

“Get hold of yourself. You don’t even know what you’re saying. I can’t believe you. Didn’t she send you off to find me, if you recall?”

“She’s not so strong.”

“You don’t even know her.”

“I do. She’s not that strong.”

“You don’t know anything. She’s strong as a horse. Look how long she put up with me.” Get some levity into this, he thought. Because he was feeling violent.

“I want to tell you I’m sorry about it, with Iris, but I can’t. I have to be truthful.”

“You’re not sorry because it’s so wonderful, with my wife. You want her. You love her.”

“I do.”

“I’ll see if there’s more tea.” There was nothing to do with his feelings of fury and betrayal and inadequacy. Ray had been preoccupied with confrontation, with inducing the truth by allowing her the chance to be shameful and lie to him. Morel was thinking about how she might be doing, thinking more about how she might be doing without her new lover than without her old lover, it had to be said, but still.

Kevin was keeping the fire going.

Ray asked, “Can we make some more tea?”

Kevin leapt up to attend to it. Ray thought, He would make a nice son. But of course he already was somebody’s son, somebody else’s. There was nothing he could do to protect Kevin from the hazards of war. He would die bloodily. What can I do? Ray thought. It was late in the day. He could hardly put himself in the position of trying to make special provisions, arrangements, for everybody he liked among the witdoeke and not for the others, the ones he barely knew. And there was the further fact that he was not in a position to do anything, alter anything, provide any kind of alternative. And when it came to alternatives, he wasn’t clear what his comrades and friends were planning to do next, what he would be trying to think of an alternative to. He had to talk to Kerekang. Every food can in the faux cave was empty. Fighters were already asleep or preparing to sleep. Some had sleeping bags and some had scabrous, filthy blankets and quilts. No pillows were in evidence. Kerekang was still outside somewhere, off on his own.

Kevin had put too much water in the pot. It was going to take too long to boil, especially now that the fire was in decline. Water was precious in the desert. He couldn’t tip water out of the pot and onto the earth. He knew he couldn’t. He waited until Kevin’s attention was elsewhere and poured the excess water into a can and drank it down. Shortly, the water boiled.

Ray went to Morel. “Here’s tea,” he said.

“I was out of line,” Morel said.

“That’s all right.”

“I was. And there’s another thing I want to say.”

“Please don’t.”

“No, I want to say this, then that should do it. I didn’t know you. I didn’t like you. I knew you were in the agency. So there was that. It put you in a category I’m not proud about. I had my objections to the agency and what it represents, and you know what, I still do. And I don’t want to make an excuse out of it, but it did go on the scale. It added to the feeling I had that you didn’t deserve her. Everybody knows you’re in the agency…”

“I think you told me that once before. I had the pleasure of hearing that when we were locked up.”

“Well, I didn’t know you. That’s all I want to say.”

“Now you love me. You think I’m great.”

“I’ll just say I’m sorry I didn’t know you better. It’s cold.”

If what he was hearing was an apology, it was only making Ray feel worse. What was he supposed to do with this information? He couldn’t think of a thing.

“If you’re cold, come on. We have to figure out where to sleep. I’m not going back into that cave. I don’t know what’s in there, and I notice nobody is fighting to use the space. Come on, doctor.”

“You’re supposed to keep a fire going as a preventive against lions and jackals, aren’t you?” Morel asked.

“Yes, and leopards.”

Ray noticed something. There were five stones on Wemberg’s grave. Morel had been active, doing that, waiting for his tea. Ray was grateful. It was a gesture. To make a serious cairn that would pose some kind of real barrier to carrion eaters, energy would be required that neither of them had.

They went back to the fire. Someone had gathered stacks of wood, for the night. Probably it had been the