Minessi is silent as we walk down the sterile hallway.

"That doctor was a jerk, wasn't he?" I say finally, but she just stares straight ahead.

In the pediatric section, which seems to consist of a room with eight cots -- six empty and two occupied -- they give me a prescription to fill. We walk into town to find a pharmacy.

It costs 2,500 cedis for ampicillin; 2,100 for paracetamol. Minessi looks on with a stunned, incredulous expression, shaking her head slightly as I fish out the money for the medications. On the way back to the hospital, she repeatedly removes the medicines from their paper bag and looks at them.

"Are you all right, Minessi?" I ask, but she doesn't respond.

Back at the hospital, she sits down on a cot with Yao. In a flat voice, she asks me to tell her husband to come tonight with clothes for her and the baby, and some water.

I begin to leave, but she stops me. "Chop money," she says, her face turned away. She needs money for food. I give her 1,500 cedis, and tell her to send word with her husband if she needs more. She takes the money without comment, and doesn't look at me as I go to the door.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Yao is well! He and Minessi stayed in the hospital a week, and now his eyes are clear and bright. His breath flows unimpeded, a strong sweet column of air. He lies on his blanket in front of the hut, flailing his arms.

"I'm so glad he's better," I say to Minessi, who is pounding fufu in a corner of the yard. She has been distant towards me since her return from the hospital. My feelings towards her have changed, too, subtly. I have an agenda now: to make sure Yao stays healthy. Where I once thought Minessi an ally, I now fear she may be an obstacle. I keep my tone cheery, attempting to neutralize the tension by ignoring it.

"Isn't it a relief that Yao is back? Maybe we could go together and buy some milk for him. I could set up some kind of a milk fund."

She continues to pound silently, the muscles in her back working.

"Sistah Korkor!" calls Amoah from across the yard. "You people know so much! Here we thought, the boy is fine. He smiles, he looks around, this is a healthy boy. And now we find that the boy was so sick. We know nothing!"

I sense, more than see, a bristling from Minessi. The pounding speeds up.

"Oh, no," I say. "Minessi knows a lot more than I do. She just couldn't ... She didn't --"

"No!" Amoah laughs. "She is a foolish African woman. Not smart, like you. Is that not true, Minessi?"

Minessi stops pounding, her pestle hanging in mid-air. "Yes," she says suddenly, loudly. "Before Sistah Korkor and her friend the doctor we know nothing. We do not know Yao is sick, we do not know Yao is well. We know nothing, we can do nothing. We must say thank you to Sistah Korkor." She turns to me, her jaw taut. The veins stand out in her neck and arms.

"Thank you, Sistah," she says, her voice low and shaking. "Thank you for the life of Yao."

She turns her back. The heavy thud of her pestle fills the air like a mournful drum, a rhythmic counterpoint to the other women pounding out their dinners in nearby huts.

Recent Stories