Achar
Mohammed Achar's clinic, a subsection of the Ministry of Public Health, was known in Dradeb simply as 'Dr. Achar's.' It was a maze of tiny rooms linked by passageways that were narrow and damp. When the wind blew, which was often in Tangier, the place was a symphony of slamming doors.
Achar prowled about the corridors like a bear. Burly and strong, he moved like a man with too much to do and insufficient time. One Saturday in the middle of June he was everywhere at once, dropping into the tiny treatment rooms, assisting doctors who needed his advice, holding hurried consultations in the hall on the cases that kept pouring in. From time to time he'd disappear into his refuge, a cluttered, book-lined office in the back. Here, at a desk heaped with X-rays and reports, he puffed on cigarettes, sipped mint tea, and shouted furiously over the phone. His heavy bass voice boomed down the hall to the waiting room at its other end-a signal to the people thronged there that someone in Dradeb cared.
On this particular Saturday there was a small operation to be performed. Early in the afternoon Achar went to the scrub room, washed his hands, then extended his arms so that his nurse could help him with his gown and gloves.
The patient was a boy with a hernia near his groin, so small it took the doctor more than twenty minutes to find. Achar took no notice of the time, was too involved with his work. He liked surgery, enjoyed patching people up. His hands, he thought, were skillful though hardly great. It embarrassed him that there were rumors they were magical and blessed by God.
Had his staff started that? He hoped not, though he knew they loved him as much as he loved them. He was a benevolent dictator who shouted orders in crises. But when there was time he always asked their views. 'If any of you ever thinks I'm wrong,' he told them, 'tell me right away. Even if I don't take your advice I still want you to talk. And if I seem to be acquiring a complex, you must tell me that too. I detest the myth of the master physician, the all-knowing doctor-saint.' He meant it, and hoped they understood the dangers of being corrupted by the healer's power. When he passed through the waiting room and poor people leaned to touch his hands, he turned away with shame.
It was difficult to work in Dradeb, but Achar had no desire for a private practice on Boulevard Pasteur. He was always short of antibiotics and blood, and had constantly to worry about keeping his reservoir filled and maintaining his generator in case the electricity should fail. Still he persisted, and now, after some years of effort, he'd managed to assemble a devoted staff who shared his notion that there was too much disease to allow oneself to rest.
Probably, he thought, he was a better administrator than anything else, with the gift of motivation, of getting people to work. But it took so much energy to enliven others, to give and give while taking nothing in return. Surgery was his diversion from that, an abstract game he played. Looking down at the exposed tissues of the boy, he thought of the body as a puzzle. But afterward, when he'd closed the wound and sewed it up, he felt a rush of exhaustion, a need to rest and close his eyes. It came upon him always after an operation-his bones ached from standing, his eyes from so much strain. And, too, he wondered about usefulness-whether these little operations, these little patchings-up, were really the answer to human pain.
When he returned to his office, hoping for a quarter hour's rest, he found a young man named Driss Bennani sitting before his desk.
'Fischer's dead,' Driss announced. 'He died in California ten days ago.'
Achar lit a cigarette. 'His heart?'
'I suppose so. His son didn't say. Just a note to tell me that he was dead and that he thought I ought to know.'
'Well,' said Achar, thinking back to the last time he'd examined Fischer in Tangier, 'I'm very sorry to hear this, Driss. He was the only American I ever liked.'
'He was a great man, Achar. I learned more about architecture in my year with him than from all the professors I ever had. He was a visionary. He knew that buildings were for people. An obvious truth, but not many people see it here.'
Achar nodded. 'Yes,' he said, 'Fischer had great plans for us. He was going to build us a great hospital, the best equipment, a place where we could really work. I suppose all that's out the window now-they're going to tear us down, I hear, and put up skyscrapers in our place.'
'Not quite yet,' said Driss. 'The redevelopment of Dradeb has been postponed. They've got a different project now. They're going to use the money for a road.'
'I see, though I'm not sure where they'll put it. There're buildings to the edges of the road we have now.'
'No, Achar. You don't understand. Not a new road through here. A road to go around.'
'Oh, yes, I see.' He didn't, though-was too tired to concentrate on what the boy was trying to say.
Driss noticed his lack of attention and began to raise his voice. 'A new access to the Mountain. The Governor doesn't like driving through here, and also there's the King. Not that he ever comes to Tangier-I don't think he's been here in three or four years-but in case he does come he'll have a more pleasant access to the hill. So the plan is to build a road up the Mountain from the other side. That way the people who live up there won't have to drive through here anymore.'
'A blessing, I suppose.'
'But don't you see?' Driss was angry. He stood and began to pace around the little room. His bitterness caught Achar by surprise. 'There'll never be a rehabilitation. The whole project was a charade. They just wanted to cosmetize the place, put up some high rises to make the street look good. Fischer's idea, to make a new village here, never had a chance.'
Achar watched him carefully. 'Sit down, Driss,' he said. 'You don't have to shout in here. And stop talking like an idealist. It's foolish and boring too. If Fischer's plan had been approved, two-thirds of the money would have been stolen before they laid a brick. Fancy designs, big talk-that sort of thing always conceals a sham. The only way you ever change conditions is to get the people to change them for themselves. Fischer didn't understand that, but he was a foreigner. You were born here. You don't have that excuse.'
'Yes. Yes.' The boy seemed dejected. 'I know all that, of course.'
'Good! Then you can start doing something instead of talking about how bad things are. Get them to put up some lights. Stop the traffic every few minutes so people can cross. Get some damn water in here-dig up those rusted pipes, or whatever is wrong, and put in some new ones so we can drink. Look at this clinic. It's falling apart. It leaks when it rains, and in winter it's like ice. But we function here, Driss. We make it work.'
After a silence Driss leaned forward, spoke angrily between his teeth. 'Let me tell you, doctor, why there's no water here-the real reason. It's not the pipes. The golf course on the south flank of the Mountain has to be watered all day long, and since there's a shortage now, they're drawing on the reservoir that feeds Dradeb.' He shook his head. 'I don't want to build anymore,' he whispered. 'I want to tear things down.'
Achar looked at him. He had to be careful now. But the young architect seemed sincere, with an anger he
