Making It Up As I Go Along by Maria T. Lennon

Author:Maria T. Lennon
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307238177
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2005-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I WAS IN SEARCH OF TRUTH. THAT WAS MY MOTTO, AND possibly even the lead sentence of my soon-to-be blockbuster National Geographic cover piece on the diamond mines of Koidu. I was to embody the essence of National Geographic, to be the young intrepid war reporter, the female version of Sebastian Junger. I saw it all clearly as I filled my flask and packed my duffel bag with enough clean underwear and tank tops to last me the week.

I hailed a cab outside the hotel. “Connaught Hospital, please.”

The roads were wet from a few errant showers the night before, and the streets, dripping with red sand from the harmattan, were unusually quiet. Freetown was normally chaotic, lawless, and teeming with industry. Sidewalks were turned into markets, roads were closed off to make way for stalls, and cars zoomed in and out any which way they could. Cabdrivers were, as usual, the worst offenders. But today it felt like a ride through the countryside. It scared the shit out of me.

“Stop here.” I rolled down the window to take a look at some of the headlines on display at the newsstands. There was nothing that stood out, nothing to explain the quiet. “Carry on.” But something was afoot, I could feel it in my bones.

Connaught Hospital was glazed in red like a rusty ship, but the men who sat in front eating cola nuts didn’t seem to care. When the British designed Freetown to resemble a tropical paradise with sprawling white buildings and complicated latticework, they must have assumed that there would always be a workforce armed and ready to sweep away the red sand that blew in from the desert and blanketed the city from December through February.

Oscar’s car, a white cruiser that resembled the U.N. jeeps enough to keep me out of trouble, was parked in the back under a makeshift garage. I could take it without causing too much suspicion, but the problem was that his keys were in his room, on his bedside table.

The main staircase was crowded with people, young boys mostly, waiting to see a doctor or just passing the time. They stared at me with zero expression, blank and hollow, without hope or fear of what might happen next. Hope, of course, had been taken away from them and there really was nothing left for them to fear. It had all been done.

“Miss!” Footsteps raced up behind me. “You can’t go up there, Miss.” But I kept going, in the hope that another tragedy would come between us, and her attention would be diverted. But she kept coming. “That’s the doctor’s quarters, Miss!”

I swung around. “Ms. Katie, right?”

A look of surprise overtook her doggedness. “Yes?” Her eyes grew wide with suspicion.

I walked toward her and put out my hand. “I’m Dr. de Vries’s girlfriend.”

“Yes.” She nodded, totally unimpressed.

“I forgot something in his room.” I pointed and smiled. “I need to get it.”

“You can’t.” Her girth would have been imposing had she been over five feet.

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