Everyone smiled. Dr Milosiak said, “No, we don’t find Americans especially entertaining, other than your Saturday Night Live, it’s just that not many find this soup to their liking. We are pleased you like it, that is all. Tell me, Mr Martin, we hear you are very wealthy. Why would you come here to do this work? You’re not hiding from something back in Coco Indiana, are you?”
“I’m not that wealthy. And, no, I’m not hiding. Please call me Hanley. I’m from Kokomo, not Coco; although my granddaughter would find Coco funny. A friend of mine says she thinks of monkeys whenever she hears the name Kokomo.”
“But the plane is yours, is it not? It looks new even though it is old. You have the money to keep an old plane new, do you not? We have been told you left behind several businesses to come here. So, it seems you may be wealthy. We don’t see many wealthy people coming to Sudan to work, that’s all.”
Hanley did not like the direction this conversation was taking. Not certain whether the doctor was merely curious or something else, he wanted to move off his past and why he was here. “I worked hard all my life and was lucky to have some success. I did leave my businesses to work here for a year, maybe a bit more, we’ll see. It was a difficult decision, one that I wrestled with for some time. I am here and I want to make a difference, if possible. I was raised to believe that everyone must contribute. Even though I did that, I gave back by giving people jobs, paying taxes and doing it as honestly as I could; it didn’t seem to be enough. Maybe this will tell me if it was.”
Hanley realized the doctors and nurses knew of his background. Between letters from Father Bertrand to Father Jean-Robert and letters from Sister Mary Kathleen to Marie Claire, his background was known to the staff. Pilots willing to fly relief work in areas such as Sudan were rare. It was dangerous and other flying jobs, even in this part of the world, paid better. It was also generally known that Hanley was flying for the cost of his fuel only. That was not seen as unusual; many of the doctors that rotated in an out of the country were volunteers working through churches or relief organizations. He knew there was nothing really rare about that.
“Don’t get me wrong, Mr Martin. I am glad you are here. I hope you will be with us for some time. Pilots are hard to find and even harder to keep.”
“So I’ve heard,” Hanley said.
***
Sometime before midnight, Hanley awoke to the sound of a large truck entering the compound. Hushed conversations followed and then the sound of people working; cardboard scraping across wood and metal, supplemented by grunting and the occasional laugh or curse; mostly, the sound of movement and eventually silence. Then came the sound of a woman singing, soft and clear. A song he did not recognize; could not. It was sung in French. It was her.
7
Hanley woke to a dull morning light, shivered under his thin blanket, knew he was awake for the day, rubbed his eyes. Since childhood, rubbing his eyes had been comforting. With his hands balled into fists and using a circular motion, he massaged both his eyes together. The massaging stopped, turning into a quick rub of his face, Hanley stopped, sat up, stood and stretched. Pulling on his pants and a shirt, he picked up his watch, wallet and pocket knife and left the room, pulling its door shut behind him.
His room was the last room used as an apartment on the end of the hallway of the barracks that would be his home for the year or so he spent in Sudan. Across from his room was another used as a supply closet. He knew he would look in the room across the hall someday, but not this morning.
A door at the end of the hallway led outside, where a small, square platform made a porch. The porch was an open box frame made of lumber with a plywood top. The box rested on dirt leveled to provide a stable structure when stepped on. It wobbled badly as Hanley stepped out, the early morning light as dull as that in his room. Sitting on the edge of the box, he took in his surroundings, the smell of burning wood, smoking campfires in the distance marking the small spots where people had stopped to rest and gather themselves, their families, their lives. There was no dew, no dampness of any sort. Small noises, people talking, children, not happy, no cars, trains, television, airplanes, the things he would hear every day. There were the noises of country, birds, bugs, wind. Closing his eyes, he listened and heard the sounds of his youth, the wind and the birds similar, the bugs somewhat similar but not quite; these were more of a presence, persistent, insistent.
He opened his eyes. A man appeared in the distance, near a crude shelter, beside him a small child. Hanley could not tell if it was a boy or girl. The child followed the man about as he moved around the camp, never more than a foot or two behind him. As he neared a fire used for cooking, the man stopped, turn slightly around and slapped
