The Soldier who Said No by Chris Marnewick

Author:Chris Marnewick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Soldier Who Said No
ISBN: 9781415203330
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Published: 2011-04-22T04:00:00+00:00

Auckland

March 2008 23

This time round Dr Annette de Bruyn wore her professional face.

A second blood test had been positive for PSA. The count had doubled in less than three months. ‘Pierre, the tests have come back. I think you had better come in so that we can decide on a way forward.’

De Villiers had been sitting around at home since mid-December, for three months now, the longest he had been inactive since he had been a baby in nappies. He wasn’t sure whether it was his imagination or whether it was real, but he felt as if an evil force was keeping a grip on him, a cold hand holding his insides behind the operation scar. He had not obeyed Henderson’s injunction not to leave his house. He had made inquiries on the North Shore, speaking to the South African immigrants there, asking questions about who lived where and what organisations had sprung up amongst them.

There were no surprises. A Dutch Reformed Church with its own dominee from Verwoerdburg. The South African Shop in a small shopping centre near the church was run by an Indian family from Durban and sold South African wines, biltong and Mrs Ball’s chutney. The owner of the store had arranged for the South African electronic newsletter to be sent to De Villiers each month, but he had found no clues there.

De Villiers watched as the doctor fussed with the file. She wasn’t her usual gregarious self.

‘There’s something wrong here,’ she said at last. She looked at De Villiers over her glasses, making eye contact, but the focal point was somewhere behind him.

De Villiers had expected something out of the ordinary. He waited for the doctor to explain.

She swallowed before she spoke. ‘The PSA has doubled in the last two months when there should be no PSA at all. I’ve explained that to you previously. There can only be PSA in two circumstances. One is if there’s still some prostate tissue. The other is if the cancer has spread.’

The words had come out in a rush.

‘How can that be?’ De Villiers asked, eliminating the obvious circumstance in his mind. ‘Shouldn’t the surgeon have removed all of it?’

‘Yes,’ she said. She watched De Villiers more closely.

‘Where could the cancer have spread to?’ De Villiers asked. A slow acceptance grew in him, confirmation that the evil presence he had felt inside him was real, not imaginary.

‘Prostate cancer usually spreads to the lymphatic system in the lower abdomen and then to the bones of the pelvis and upper legs,’ she said. ‘Have you felt anything in your bones, anything unusual in that area?

‘All I’ve felt is some pain … no, it’s not really pain, below the operation scar,’ De Villiers said. He moved his weight on the examination gurney and felt exactly what he had tried to explain to the doctor, a slight twitch inside him.

‘No,’ she said, ‘that’s quite normal and would probably be with you always. It’s just the scar tissue below the cut.’

‘Does that mean then that the cancer has spread somewhere else?’

She shook her head.

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