After Kilimanjaro Read online




  AFTER KILIMANJARO

  Copyright © 2019, Gayle Woodson

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

  Published 2019

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-1-63152-660-2 (pbk)

  ISBN: 978-1-63152-661-9 (ebk)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019936488

  For information, address:

  She Writes Press

  1569 Solano Ave #546

  Berkeley, CA 94707

  She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

  Book design by Stacey Aaronson

  All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  To my husband, Tom:

  Fellow Traveler, and the Love of my life.

  Let the red carpet roll on.

  “The first stage is seeing mountain as mountain and water as water; the second stage, seeing mountain not as mountain and water not as water; and the third stage, seeing mountain still as mountain and water still as water.”

  —Qingyuan Weixin, ninth century

  “To get lost is to learn the way.”

  —African Proverb

  CHAPTER ONE

  MIDFLIGHT CRISIS

  Is there a doctor on board?”

  Every physician’s nightmare. Medical emergency in midflight.

  The woman in the next seat grabbed Sarah’s arm. “Did you hear that? They’re calling for a doctor.”

  Why did she have to tell this nosey woman that she was a doctor?

  There had to be at least one other doctor on board—someone who wasn’t jet-lagged and sleep deprived. She had not slept a wink during the five-hour layover in Amsterdam. Besides, she was trapped in her seat by vegetarian lasagna. The other choice was salmon, and her mother always said you shouldn’t eat fish on an airplane.

  The PA system repeated the plea. “Is there a doctor on board?” The woman beside her snatched the lasagna and commanded, “Go!”

  The plane was packed. Rows and rows of weary people. Just like the midnight crowd in the waiting room of the Philadelphia Memorial Hospital Emergency Room.

  But this wasn’t a hospital. Just a tin can, stuffed with hundreds of people, hurtling in an eight-mile high arc between continents. No X-ray. No EKG. No stethoscope. Probably no defibrillator.

  Two flight attendants in Delft blue uniforms hovered over a foot projecting into the aisle at a peculiar angle. A familiar queasy wave washed over her, and she prayed for something simple. A hangnail, airsickness … even a nosebleed wouldn’t be too bad.

  Please God, don’t let it be a heart attack.

  The man connected to the foot slumped forward, face plastered to his tray table. Sarah grabbed his wrist. No pulse. But his heart had to be beating because he was breathing. Wheezing, yes, but still breathing. He wasn’t dead. Yet. She tapped him on the shoulder. “Sir, are you having any chest pain?”

  “No,” he whispered.

  A woman kneeling on the seat beside him brandished his food tray like a sword. “This is fish, isn’t it? He’s allergic to fish—he told you that!”

  A flight attendant grabbed the tray. “He ate the salmon?”

  “I thought it was chicken,” he muttered.

  Sarah glanced at the name badge. “Anika, do you have an emergency kit?”

  “Yes, I’ll go fetch it.” Both blue uniforms fled to the galley.

  Airway, breathing, circulation. The emergency ABC mantra.

  He wasn’t breathing so well, and his circulation sucked. No room to get his head between his knees. And if he needed CPR, he’d have to be on a flat surface. She lifted his head to stow the tray table. “Let’s get you out of this seat.”

  He didn’t respond. Floppy as a rubber chicken. She grabbed him by the armpits and tugged in a futile attempt to get him out into the aisle, but he was glued to his seat. His lady companion had disintegrated into blubbering and moaning, and a little boy with curly red hair and freckles in the next row peeked over the seatback and giggled.

  Poor man, his life was slipping away, as surely as if he were being sucked out through a rent in the side of the plane. Sarah was his best hope, his only hope, and she was failing miserably. She locked her arms around his chest and pulled with all her might, but he wouldn’t budge.

  It was hopeless.

  Until help appeared. A young black woman with closely cropped hair and a clipped African accent. “Golly, he seems in a bad way. Can I help?”

  “Yes, please. Grab his knees.” Not the world’s smoothest transfer, but they managed to get him stretched out in the aisle without banging his head on something. Within seconds, his lips went from gray to pink.

  “You’re a Godsend,” said Sarah. “He looks a ton better, just getting horizontal.”

  “What’s your working diagnosis?”

  “Anaphylaxis. He’s allergic to fish.”

  Anika returned with the emergency kit, a black canvas bag stuffed with pills and bottles and bags and needles. Sarah snapped a tourniquet around his arm and searched for a vein while her colleague poked through the bag, muttering to herself, “Adrenaline, adrenaline, where are you?”

  Anika tapped the African woman on the shoulder. “Are you a doctor?”

  “Yes indeed. In fact, I am a surgeon.” She pulled a colorful plastic tube from the bag and waved it at Sarah. “What’s this?”

  “An EpiPen.”

  “Pre-packaged adrenaline?”

  “Yep. Stick it into his thigh. It’s a sturdy needle. You can poke it right through his pants.”

  “Wow, this is very cool. We don’t have anything like this at NTMC.”

  Sarah threaded a needle into a vein and popped off the tourniquet. “NTMC. That’s Northern Tanzania Medical Center, right?”

  “You’ve heard of it?”

  “That’s where I’m headed.” Sarah connected the tubing and started the flow of sugar water into the vein.

  The man opened his eyes and gazed up at the women bending over him.

  Anika wrung her hands, “Should I ask the pilot to land the plane? He says he can stop in Khartoum.”

  Sarah tried to suppress a gasp. “Like … Sudan?”

  “That’s the closest airport.”

  The man sat up slowly. His blood pressure was 90 over 60. No need for an emergency landing. Sarah plopped on the floor and sighed with a blend of relief and exhaustion. Adrenaline had propelled her through the crisis, but now she was spent.

  The African surgeon cleared her throat. “You’re going to NTMC?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be there for a year.”

  “I guess we’ll be working together.” She extended her hand. “My name is Margo. Margo Ledama.”

  “I’m Sarah Whitaker. Now I know at least one person on this continent.”

  Anika pointed out that the man could not stay on the floor. “We must keep the aisle clear. Unfortunately, the plane is full. I have no place for him to lie down.”

  They helped him back into his seat. Margo rigged a way to hang the IV fluid from the overhead compartment and winked at A
nika. “You should bump us up to Business Class for this.”

  “I wish we could do that. I can offer you some little rewards. And I need you to fill out some forms.” In the galley, she presented each doctor with a business class amenity bag and a clipboard.

  Margo paused in filling out the form, tapped the pen against her chin. “I’m not really a full-fledged surgeon yet. One more year of training.”

  “Me too. I’m taking a break before my chief year. Got a scholarship to study maternal mortality in East Africa.”

  “Ah—So you’re the new OB fellow. You’ll be delivering lots of babies.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I’m a surgeon—not OBGyn. I’ll be doing research.”

  Margo raised one eyebrow. “Research?”

  The plane began to pitch and bounce, and the pilot’s voice rang out, “We’re encountering some turbulence, so I’m turning on the fasten seat belt sign. If you’re up and about the cabin, please return to your seat.”

  The woman in the next seat patted Sarah’s arm. “It’s lucky you were on the plane.”

  “I’m glad it wasn’t something more serious.”

  “You’re so inspiring. A missionary in Africa.”

  “I’m not a missionary. I’ll be doing research.”

  “Either way, you’ll be helping people. So noble. So brave. You could get Ebola or—”

  “Africa is a big continent. There’s no Ebola in Tanzania.” Sarah did not feel noble or brave. The last time she felt like this, she was eight years old, standing on the high diving board, gazing down into cold blue water, a chorus of children taunting her to jump. It was too late to turn back.

  The amenity bag contained a few useful items: lip balm, hand lotion, a sleeping mask, some cozy socks … She put on the socks and her noise-cancelling headphones and tipped her seat back as far as it would go. Sleep would not come. Outside, monotonous beige sand spread all the way to the curved horizon. She fiddled with the ring on her left hand. It still felt foreign. And it was loose. No time to get it sized. A ray of sunshine splashed onto the square-cut diamond, sprinkling little rainbow sparkles on the wall and on the seatback in front of her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  TOUCH DOWN

  The nightly stopover of KLM 569 was always a major event at Kilimanjaro International Airport. Passengers poured out of the jumbo jet and stormed the tiny terminal, milling about, gradually sorting into queues, like steel balls in a Pachinko machine.

  Margo scampered out through the East African Resident exit with her carry-on bag. Sarah was glad to be in the Have a Visa group because the Need a Visa line snaked and coiled around the room and extended back out onto the tarmac. She thumbed through her passport, browsing the stickers and stamps that chronicled her travels. Her father had lectured around the globe and sometimes took the family along. She had journeys of her own, like the mission trip to Honduras, the month in Europe with David … But she had never been to Africa before this. At the customs wicket, the agent nodded for her to look into the camera and put her fingers on the print analyzer. Finally, there was the satisfying ka-thump of the stamp.

  The stream of backpacks and huge suitcases circling on the conveyor belt was continuously replenished as passengers claimed their luggage. On a huge video screen, a leopard swam across a river to pounce on a massive crocodile and drag it into the water. Then a buffalo gored a lioness and tossed her into the air. The walls were studded with posters promoting local tourist attractions. The woman who had sat beside Sarah on the plane pointed to an advertisement for The Tanzanite Experience. “It’s a museum, but they also sell jewelry. I’m heading there first thing in the morning.”

  “What’s Tanzanite?”

  “A precious stone, found only in Tanzania.” She pointed at Sarah’s ring. “Tanzanite is much rarer than this diamond.”

  Sarah’s luggage rumbled past. “I think I see my stuff.” She caught up with her two massive bags, loaded them onto a cart, and rolled out into the cool African night, the air laced with hints of jasmine that buffered notes of diesel and charcoal. A horde of men waved papers with the names of passengers, some handwritten with Magic Marker, some professionally labeled. A glossy white placard emblazoned with “Abercrombie & Kent” in bright blue script welcomed the Patterson party.

  The hospital was supposed to send a driver, but she didn’t see her name anywhere. One by one, drivers and tour guides claimed their clients and the crowd gradually dissipated into the night.

  The contact number at the hospital rang on and on. No surprise. That office would obviously be closed at this hour. If only David were with her. He would know what to do. A cool breeze sent a chill up her spine, as she recalled a story that her sister had found on the internet, of criminals posing as taxi drivers who force victims to take money from ATMs. She was about to call David when a man in a faded and torn Chicago Bears T-shirt seized control of her luggage cart. “Come, Mama.”

  Perhaps he was her driver. “NTMC?”

  He grinned and nodded. “Okay. NTMC.” He rushed the into the parking lot toward a crowded mini-bus. Obviously not a hospital transport.

  She ran after him, “Wait! No!”

  He ignored her protests and proceeded to load her suitcases into the back of the bus.

  “No shillings.” She pointed to her purse, shaking her head. “I have no shillings.”

  He waved his arm toward a nearby ATM. “Sarah!” A figure sprinted across the parking lot, into the pool of light near the bus.

  It was Margo. She stopped to catch her breath, grabbing her knees. “The driver doesn’t have your name on the list.” She pointed to a stocky man ambling across the parking lot. He had a thick neck and carried his elbows away from his torso, like a weight lifter with bulky biceps or a sheriff trying to avoid bumping against his gun holsters.

  He bowed slightly. “Daktari Sarah? I am Tumaini. Pole sana. I thought you come last night.”

  She recognized the Swahili words for “doctor” and “so sorry.”

  After a few heated words with the driver, Tumaini retrieved her bags and led the way to a van marked with the logo of NTMC. He opened the passenger door with a flourish. “Karibu to Tanzania, Daktari Sarah. You are welcome. Where do I take you?”

  “It’s a hotel; let me find the name.” She scrolled through her smartphone. “Kibo View Lodge.”

  Margo peered over Sarah’s shoulder. “That’s a nice place.”

  “What does Kibo mean?”

  “It’s the tallest peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. How long are you planning to stay there?”

  “Just one night. I’m renting a house in the doctor’s compound, but since it’s so late at night, I thought I’d start out at a hotel first.”

  Margo nodded. “Very wise. You never know about the power. You wouldn’t want to move into a strange house in the dark.”

  “Oh.” Sarah had not given any thought to the possibility of electrical outage.

  Tumaini glanced in the review mirror. “Daktari Margo. How was your safari to Amsterdam? Was it a good conference?”

  “Excellent. We practiced surgery on cadavers.”

  “Daktari Sarah, where is your home? Somewhere in America?”

  “I grew up in Texas, but now I live in Philadelphia.”

  “Fee—Lah, What?”

  “Philadelphia.” Sarah thought for a moment. “Do you know … Rocky?” She leaned over the seat and punched the air with her fists.

  “Ah yes. Rocky!” He began to sing “Eye of the Tiger”.

  Margo put her hands over her ears. “Tumaini, please! Put on some real music. Maybe something to welcome her to Africa?”

  “I think so you will know this.” He popped a tape into an ancient cassette player and the opening strains of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” filled the van. Tumaini sang along in his soaring tenor, Margo joined in the chorus, thumping in time on the seat back. Sarah’s coloratura descant floated above it all.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A SOLO QUEST

 
The hot shower was truly a blessing after the thirty-hour journey. Sarah wiped the steam from the mirror and regarded her reflection. Her eyes were a bit puffy, pink-tinged, but not bloodshot. She had always thought that her neck was too long, but David said it was not possible for a neck to be too long. “It’s just long enough to connect your head to your chest.” He liked to say that she looked like a Botticelli girl, but not Venus, the naked lady on the shell. It was the “Printemps” painting. They were wandering through the Uffizi museum in Florence when he cried out, “Whoa! That’s you!”

  “They are you,” would have been more accurate. The pale women in the painting looked like clones. It was a bit creepy. They all had the same straight blonde hair, aquiline nose, thin eyebrows … If only she had a more formidable appearance. Looking dainty was not an asset for a surgeon.

  David, the man who had been central to her life for nearly six years, had not answered any of her calls or texts. She hadn’t expected to miss him so much, so soon. She dozed off with her phone on the pillow.

  The buzzing of the cellphone startled her awake. She could hardly wait to hear David’s voice. But it wasn’t him.

  “Mom?”

  “Did you have a good flight?”

  “Not bad.” She recounted a few highlights of her journey, leaving out the part when she felt stranded at the airport.

  “Your father would be so proud.”

  Sarah chewed her lip. Truth was, her father had advised her against following in his footsteps. His exact words were, “Surgery is tough, Princess.” She was still in medical school when he died.

  “Better hang up now, Mom. I’m waiting to hear from David.”

  “Of course, of course. Call me back when you can. I love you!”

  IT WAS THE foot. That’s what had set her off. The man in the airplane’s foot had been cocked at exactly the same angle as the foot of the blue-haired lady in the emergency room. Obvious hip fracture. Any first-year med student standing at the end of the stretcher would have nailed that diagnosis. Her blue hair was perfectly coifed, because she was just leaving the beauty salon when the car struck her. She was terrified, moaned that she was dying. Sarah offered reassurance and sent her off for an X ray.