I Die, but My Memory Lives On by Henning Mankell

Author:Henning Mankell [Mankell, Henning]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Biography, Political Science, Patients, Health & Fitness, Medical, Miscellanea, Diseases
ISBN: 9781595580139
Publisher: New Press
Published: 2003-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

33

In the end I spoke to Aida as well. We were in among the banana trees, but not to look at her mango plant: we were trying to find one of the black piglets that had decided to run away. Aida found it and pounced on it before it had a chance to escape her grasp. We carried it back to the pen. Then Aida went to wash her hands.

It was she who asked the question: "Where does it come from, this disease that Mum has?"

"I don't know. Different people think different things. But it's a virus, a so-called micro-organism."

"Why is it only people here who get it?"

"It isn't only here. People get infected just the same in the country I come from."

Aida thought about that.

"Where did it start? In your country or here in ours?"

"Probably here, but nobody knows for certain."

Aida seemed depressed. We walked back to the houses and the courtyard where a cockerel with an injured leg was limping about.

"I think the disease comes from somebody who wants to harm us," Aida suddenly said.

"Who would that be?"

"I don't know."

"Diseases don't come from 'somebody'. Diseases are there all the time. They develop and change. Eventually people start to die of them. It has always been like that."

Aida said nothing more. As we walked towards the raffia mat where Christine sat cleaning a wound on Aida's youngest sister's foot, she aimed a kick at the cockerel who fluttered away, cackling angrily.

Aida could get at the cockerel, but not at the 'somebody' she thought had inflicted the disease on her mother.

But I can't be certain what Aida believed or didn't believe.

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