Free The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut

were like animals that first night. But it went on for weeks, meeting each other in deserted wards or the corners of dark passages. It was in the long empty time after I’d
stopped seeing Maria, and it filled up a lack for me. I had nothing to lose. But she had a lot to lose, and the danger of what we were doing was crazy. We could be caught at any time. At least we
never met in my room, because it was only one wall away from her husband.
    But I think he knew. Since that time there had always been an uneasy tension between us, which may of course have been merely my guilt. It was only lately, now that Laurence was around, that
some of this tension had eased.
    ‘But they are leaving,’ I told him now. ‘That’s definite. It’s just a matter of when.’
    ‘I don’t think so. They’re a lovely, committed couple.’
    ‘Committed to what?’
    ‘Well, you know. The country. The future. All that.’
    ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘They don’t tell anyone, but it’s an open secret. Everyone knows it.’
    ‘Jorge told me Cuba is a hole.’
    ‘Ja, all right,’ I said. ‘It’s complicated. Jorge doesn’t want to go back, but she does. They fight about it all the time.’
    ‘You assume that she’ll win.’
    ‘She will win.’
    ‘Bullshit,’ he said. ‘Anyway, they don’t fight.’
    ‘Haven’t you heard them through the wall?’
    ‘No. Definitely not.’
    ‘Anyway,’ I said irritably, ‘it’s not the Santanders’ room you’ll be moving to. It’s Tehogo’s room.’
    ‘Tehogo’s room?’
    I don’t know where this came from. I just suddenly said it, but the minute the words were out they took on the vehemence of truth.
    ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Tehogo’s room. He’s not supposed to be there in any case. He’ll be moving out soon.’
    ‘Where’s he going to?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
    Tehogo’s room – the last one in our corridor, on the left – was meant to be occupied by a doctor. But Tehogo wasn’t a doctor. He was a nurse. Strictly speaking, in terms of qualifications, he
wasn’t even that. But he did the work at the hospital that a nurse was supposed to do.
    He had been here longer than me. When I arrived he was already installed in the room. How he had come to be there was never fully explained to me, but it was all tied up with troubles in the
homeland from years before. What was certain was that his family – mother and father, brother and uncle – had been killed in one or another act of political violence. It seemed there was some kind
of tie by marriage to the Brigadier himself, and the killings were meant as revenge.
    All that was murky. The only clear element to emerge was Tehogo himself, orphaned and alone, with nowhere to go. At that time he was working at the hospital as an enrolled nurse, but he kept
failing his exams; he was kept on for want of any other candidates. He’d been living out, staying with his family and coming in each day to work. It was only because he was at the hospital that
he’d escaped being murdered himself. But now he couldn’t go back to his home.
    Dr Ngema gave him the room. It seems it was meant as an interim measure, just until he found his feet again. But he had stayed. The other nursing staff had gone and he’d gradually taken over
their work, till now he was the only person left who could or would do the countless little petty labours involved – being a porter, washing and feeding patients, cleaning floors, taking messages.
He was, if not on duty, at least on permanent call, so it made sense for him to be living there, in the grounds. But there may have been more to it than that. This part was also hearsay and rumour,
but there was a story that the Brigadier had made a personal appeal to Dr Ngema to allow his young relative to stay.
    This was told to me by the other white doctor who’d worked here until a few years ago. He was bitter and burnt-out, and I didn’t attach too much importance to his