Thirst for Justice Read online

  “No, don’t worry. It’s healthy to talk about how you feel.”

  “I thought I’d develop a thicker skin, like when I started working emergency here. But that didn’t happen. There were so many people I couldn’t save. So many kids! African parents are so demonstrative. Their grief. Instead of suppressing their emotions, they just let ’er rip. Screaming, moaning, groaning vectors of pain and sorrow. It was contagious, devastating. I felt gutted every time. I let them down, failed them, over and over.”

  Michael sobbed, tears and snot running down his face. He howled, deep guttural moans that left him gasping for breath. Maria held him, gently swinging the loveseat back and forth. She’d never seen Michael like this, and it filled her with fear for their future.

  Eventually he resumed. “I’m having insomnia and nightmares, but complaining about it seems weak, so trivial compared to the suffering of the Congolese.

  “And there’s more. Something terrible did happen.” He recounted the Mai Mai attack that left Laurent dead and Anna brutalized. He heaped blame on himself for his arrogance, his errors in judgment.

  Maria was horrified, both by the story and by what these events had done to her partner. It was a painful reminder of her own terrible experiences growing up in Nicaragua, experiences that she still struggled to cope with. They were silent for a time. Then she quietly asked, “Does IMAF offer counseling? Maybe you should talk to someone.”

  “Yeah, they recommended that I see a shrink when I got home. Henri even suggested that I might end up suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.” Michael waved a hand dismissively as if shooing away a fly. “I’ll be fine. I’m exhausted, for sure, so I just need some rest. That’s all.”

  It’s so true, Maria thought, the cliché that doctors make the worst patients.

  Chapter 5

  Days dragged by. most mornings Michael felt more tired when he got up than when he’d gone to bed. Some days he went back to bed as soon as Maria left for the university. She thought maybe he’d brought back some kind of parasite or illness from the Congo, and urged him to go for testing. He refused, sticking with his theory that he just needed some time to recuperate. He was restless and easily irritated. He would soon be back at the Harborview Medical Center, but he had to wait for the locum they’d hired to replace him to finish her contract. He brooded endlessly about the mistakes he’d made that had caused Laurent’s death and Anna’s assault. It seemed irredeemably unfair that all he got was a whack in the head, and worse yet, an early release home.

  Michael went for a couple of short bike rides but found that he tired quickly. He spent an unhealthy amount of time online, emailing Anna to see how she was doing, checking with JC and Henri about Étienne, other patients, and the state of the hospital, and voraciously reading news about Africa. He was relieved when Saturday rolled around, the day he was to meet Dom for a run. It was a gray Seattle morning, not actually raining but with so much humidity that water drops seemed to be suspended in the air.

  “Good to see you, man!” Dom, tall, dark, and GQ handsome, was cheerful despite the fog.

  “You too.”

  “Beautiful morning,” Dom said as he embraced Michael in a bear hug.

  “For fish!”

  “C’mon, Michael, we live in a rainforest.”

  “I know, I know. It rained in Goma most days too. I can’t get away from it.”

  “So what do you think? Warm up on the Swordfern trail?” A system of paths crisscrossed the University of Washington campus, through regenerating second-growth forest and along Union Bay.

  “Sounds good.”

  Michael and Dom had met in college, running together on the cross-country team. Dom had more natural talent, but Michael was willing to dig a little deeper. Dom got the girls while Michael got the medals. After university, they both got into the triathlon scene but neither was interested in the volume of training needed to pursue it as a potential career. Michael’s fitness had eroded with the busy life of an ER doctor and then declined more while he was in Goma because it simply wasn’t safe for running. Back home, Dom was still in terrific shape, training incessantly with the Seattle Triathlon Club.

  He ran like a wolf—lean, tireless, predatory—and soon Michael was struggling to keep up. His competitive streak pushed him past the threshold where most runners would have quit. According to his monitor, his heart was going at almost 180 beats per minute, well past his anaerobic threshold. Desperate, he found a little extra reserve and surged to catch up with Dom.

  “Uncle, uncle.” He gasped and slowed to a walk.

  “What’s the matter, bro?” Dom was breathing easily, smiling.

  “Gonna burst a lung!”

  “Did Africa make you soft?”

  “Land mines,” Michael wheezed.

  “Mmm.”

  “Machete-wielding rebels.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Child soldiers with AK-47s.”

  “Right. Your point?”

  “Suboptimal running conditions.”

  “Ah. Good excuses, except for one small problem. Africans are the best runners in the world. Olympic champions in all of the track and road running events.”

  They paused at a water fountain. Michael slurped greedily, then wiped a handful of cold water across his face as he struggled to catch his breath.

  “Maybe they get fast running away from all of those hazards. Seriously though, you’ll note that it’s Kenyans, Ethiopians, and Moroccans who take home Olympic gold medals and world championships. Not Congolese, Rwandans, or Liberians. You can’t outrun mosquitoes, bullets, or bacteria.”

  Michael sketched the situation in the eastern half of the Congo for Dom, the interminable civil war, the recurring disease outbreaks, and the hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming into North Kivu province trying to escape even more wretched conditions elsewhere.

  “Jesus,” Dom said, when Michael stopped talking. “Makes our problems seem pretty minor. But we’re here to burn some fast-twitch muscle fibers. If you can’t keep up on the way back, I’ll meet you at the parking lot. Loser buys coffee.”

  Dom took off, running at a clip that Michael simply couldn’t match. By the time he got back to the parking lot, Dom had put on some warm-up clothes and was lying on a yoga mat in the grass, stretching his hamstrings. “So how come you’re back from the heart of darkness a few weeks early?”

  Michael gritted his teeth and rubbed his cheek at the prospect of telling his brutal story again. But he gave in and told Dom.

  “Holy shit. That’s unbelievable. You’re lucky to be alive!”

  “To be honest, it doesn’t feel that way. I’m the one who fucked things up.”

  “Dude! Don’t lay that guilt trip on yourself. The whole situation was fucked up, and you aren’t the killer or the rapist. You’ve gotta get that straight in your mind.”

  “It’s not only the person pulling the trigger who’s responsible for the crime. There’s often a chain of causation, and I was definitely a link in that chain.”

  “But you’re a human, not a superhero. Who can say what the right thing to do is in those circumstances?”

  “Well, what I did was the wrong thing.”

  “I can tell I’m not going to change your mind. But are you okay? I mean going through something like that . . .” Dom shook his head.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. A little burned out maybe. A little pissed off at the world for letting such massive suffering go almost unnoticed. I mean when was the last time the Congo made the news here?”

  “Look, Michael, I hear you. Clearly Africa needs help. But that’s exactly what you and IMAF were doing. Using your expertise to save lives and improve the situation.”

  “Dom, we’re not even a drop in the bucket. IMAF runs a couple of medical centers in the Congo, co-manages a hospital, and operates a few mobile health care buses. But
we rely on donations and can help maybe one or two out of every hundred people who desperately need assistance. We spend millions when what’s needed is billions. Tens or even hundreds of billions.”

  “You’ve been there and you’re probably right. But that kind of money doesn’t just appear. Such a huge investment would require years of concerted effort by philanthropists, governments, and businesses. It takes time to change the world.”

  “We don’t have time. Millions of African kids will die this year! Easily preventable deaths. Easily treatable diseases. Millions more next year. It’s a fucking emergency. A humanitarian crisis that dwarfs almost anything the world has ever seen.”

  “I’m sorry, man, I really am. But Africa’s challenges will probably take decades to resolve.”

  Fuck that, Michael thought. There has to be a faster way.

  “Let’s go refuel. I need a hit of caffeine and sugar, and you’re buying. Let’s head to the Bakery Nouveau for espresso and twice-baked almond croissants.”

  “All right.” But at the bakery Michael did some quick math. Two coffees and a couple of sugar-laden treats cost more than the average monthly income in Goma. For the price of their morning snack, he could have bought forty vaccines for measles or several cases of the dehydration tablets that prevented deaths from diarrhea. The inequality hit him like a hammer every time he pulled out his wallet.

  Chapter 6

  As weeks passed, Michael’s depression only deepened, and Maria’s concern grew. During another silent breakfast, Maria made a bold suggestion. “I think it’s time for us to spend a few days in North Cascades National Park. Pick a hike, any hike.”

  “I don’t think now is a good time. I’ve got shifts coming up at the hospital.”

  “Michael.”

  “Yes?”

  “You need to get out of the house. And out of your head. You can trade a couple of shifts at the hospital, and I’ll find a couple of guest lecturers for my classes.”

  “Okay. You win.”

  Maria unleashed her dazzling smile. The North Cascades were Michael’s heaven and haven. As a young man, he had explored their wilderness, seeking adventure far from the roads and clear-cuts that scarred so much of the state. It was in the North Cascades that he and Maria had first made love, in an alpine meadow under a moonlit sky. The memory always triggered smiles from both of them, not so much at the corny image or a recollection of the earth moving beneath them but because Maria had been frightened that a curious grizzly bear would make it a threesome.

  “How about the Thornton Lake Trail?” Michael asked.

  Maria had anticipated this suggestion. She knew her husband well. He loved to repeat their first backpacking trip. At the time, Maria had been very much a city person, and the thought of a night in the wilderness with only a thin tent between her and marauding wildlife had been terrifying.

  “Is it safe?” she’d asked.

  “Of course,” he had replied. “No grizzlies have been seen in the North Cascades for decades.” There were alleged sightings every summer, but there’d been no conclusive scientific proof of grizzly presence since an old silverback was shot in 1972, the year before grizzlies were put on the endangered species list. No scat, no tracks, no skulls, no skeletons. “Scientists call them the ghost bears of the North Cascades for a reason.”

  “I’m sorry if this sounds weak, but that’s a relief.”

  “There’s just one small problem with the absence of grizzlies.”

  “What is it?”

  “More room for black bears and mountain lions.”

  Maria looked alarmed.

  “I’m kidding.” Sort of, he thought. “As long as we follow the three golden rules of hiking we’ll be fine.”

  “What golden rules?”

  “One, always hang your food from a tree. Two, make lots of noise when approaching blind corners. Three, always hike with someone you can outrun.”

  “You’re awful!”

  That first backpacking trip had cemented their relationship. Four magical days in a world of their own, seeing more wild animals than hikers, sleeping under more stars than Maria had ever seen, breathing the incomparably fresh alpine air. Maria broke a longstanding silence and talked about her troubled childhood in Nicaragua, when her family got on the wrong side of the Sandanistas. On Michael’s side, on the final evening, as they lay with their heads sticking out of the tent, looking for constellations and shooting stars, he took a deep breath. Inhaling Maria’s smell, fresh from lake swimming, he felt almost intoxicated, and looking her in the eye said for the first time, “I love you. You’re the one.”

  The first available window that they could both pry open was about two weeks away. Maria hoped that the North Cascades would work their magic. She picked up the rental car, then stopped by REI to buy an assortment of dehydrated dinners, granola bars, and chocolate. The pile of food looked like it would feed a group of six for a week, but Maria had learned that that your appetite explodes when you walk up and down mountains with a fifty-pound pack on your back and bathe in lakes where the water temperature is barely above freezing.

  At home, Maria pulled their camping gear together, laughing to herself at the so-called “two-person tent” that was a leftover from Michael’s bachelor years. The tent was so tiny that any two persons who slept in it had little choice but to be intimate.

  They took the I-5 north from Seattle. The traffic was light and they reached the rangers’ station at Marblemount ahead of schedule.

  “I’ll get the camping permits,” Michael volunteered.

  “Thanks. I need to use the ladies’.”

  With Maria safely out of earshot, Michael was able to ask the young ranger if there’d been any bear problems in the Thornton Lakes area recently.

  “Nope, but you should still be careful.”

  “Right.”

  The drive from the ranger station to the trailhead was uneventful except for a glimpse of two black bear cubs cavorting in the ditch.

  “I hope they’re going the other way. We don’t want to run into their mother.”

  “I’m sure we’ll be fine.” Michael was an old pro at reassuring Maria that they would be safe. He told her, accurately, that the odds of being harmed by a bear in the USA were a small fraction of the likelihood of being assaulted by a human, and that bears lagged far behind wasps, cats, dogs, and ferrets in causing visits to American hospitals.

  Just past Milepost 117, they turned left onto a rough old logging road. The gravel road was heavily washboarded, with potholes that looked like they could swallow a small vehicle. Michael had a flashback to the Congo and tried to banish his dark thoughts with a joke.

  “Do you know what they would call this kind of road in Kivu Province?”

  “A disgrace? A disaster?”

  “No. A national scenic highway.”

  It was only nine miles to the end of the road but the drive took half an hour. There were no other cars in the small parking lot.

  As they fiddled with plastic clasps and Velcro straps, Maria said, “Funny thing about putting on a heavy pack out here. I still feel lighter than in the city where I don’t carry a pack.”

  “Must be something in the air,” Michael replied, as he and Maria kissed.

  “We aren’t going to make it very far at this rate.”

  “It’s kind of nice here. We could kick some gravel out of the way and pitch the tent just over there . . .” Michael winked.

  “Come on, wilderness boy. Let’s hit the trail.” It was five grueling miles of switchbacks climbing uphill to the pass, and then a quick descent to lower Thornton Lake. Craggy peaks pierced the clear autumn sky. The mountains were covered in an evergreen blanket while valley bottoms had erupted in a riot of fall colors.

  “Look! A marmot!” Maria exclaimed.

  “Where?”

  “Sitting on
that big rock, just to the left of the trail. Perfectly camouflaged.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Michael mumbled and returned his gaze to the ground in front of him.

  “Not a bad eye for a city girl!” Maria was unsettled by Michael’s tepid response. Even out here he seemed distant, haunted by demons acquired in Africa. Would he ever again be the man she’d married?

  They headed for the third Thornton Lake, the farthest away but easily the most beautiful. “Michael?”

  “Yes?”

  “A penny for your thoughts,” Maria said as she took a swig of her water.

  “Oh, I was just admiring that gorgeous alpine lake, full of seemingly clean water. Wait a second!” Michael looked from the lake to Maria’s bottle. “I just had a crazy idea! Americans are the wealthiest people in the world, right? We drink billions of bottles of water, beers, soda pops, lattes, and cappuccinos every year. Imagine if one cent, just a measly penny, was charged on each of those drinks. It would add up to billions of dollars annually.”

  “Okay . . .”

  Michael was as animated as he’d been since returning. “That money could be dedicated to African countries for drilling wells, building basic water-treatment facilities, constructing latrines and sewage systems. Billions of dollars per year . . . and who on Earth could possibly object to paying an extra penny for a Vitaminwater, Coke, Budweiser, or Starbucks coffee?”

  “But most of those companies already donate to charities. You know, like McDonald’s has Ronald McDonald House.”

  Michael scowled at Maria. “So what? I’m talking about a high-profile new initiative where they all raise their prices by one cent per beverage for everyone.”

  She raised her hands in surrender. “It’s a cool idea, for sure.”

  “That’s more like it.” Michael shifted back to smiling. “What’s the U.S. population these days?”