The Lazarus Effect. HJ Golakai
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child, too. She and Sean were blood. The doctors always start with the family first, and in this case they assumed they had a lot of options open. I’ve never seen such bad luck before. Three siblings, and not one was a match for Sean – not even little Rosemary. Ian had no choice but to ask for our help. At first he came in here demanding it, saying it was his fatherly right to use one child to help the other as he saw fit. I told him to adjust his attitude and come back when he had.”
She sighed. “It wasn’t the kindest thing to do at the time, but Ian also picks the wrong moment to aggravate me. He can’t admit he’s wrong or needs help; it’s always calling in a favour or being entitled to it. He said the most utter bullshit, about doing so much to provide for Jacqui and what-not, like that made us obligated to him. He even offered to pay me if she was a match.”
“So . . . what did you decide?”
“You mean, did I let them ‘compensate’ me for using my kid? No, I didn’t. I’m a mother too – how could I? What got to me was Ian suggesting it could all be kept quiet. Slide me some cash, take Jacqui to the hospital to do whatever they needed to do and get Sean the help he needed.
“I don’t know what that man had in mind, but he was willing to do something shady and risk losing his medical licence rather than confess to his wife about us.
“That’s when I saw him for who he really was, someone who cared much more about his bloody career and his image. He loved that wife of his, but it was my bed he came to sleep in. Then he expects to snap his fingers and I put my daughter through pain for what? I knew then I’d never get any respect unless I demanded it, so I demanded it. He had to tell Carina the truth, and they both had to come to my home and speak to me about it properly. Which they did. But it didn’t end there.”
Vee read her body language. “You were still apprehensive about the donation process.”
Adele nodded, looking ashamed. “The first tests were only blood tests to see if they were compatible. With half-siblings I thought it was a long shot. Then they were a good match, and it got real. Even after we explained it to her, Jacqui was so brave and wanted to do it. She met Sean and they really hit it off. The procedure sounded straightforward, and there’d be anaesthesia and everything, but it was too overwhelming. I’m not proud of it, but I lost my nerve and backed out. I got Jacqui released from the hospital and took her home.”
In the uncomfortable silence, Vee did some mental calculation. With Sean aged fourteen, Jacqui would have been twelve. Both old enough to absorb the awkwardness of their parents’ situation, but not enough to understand every adult undercurrent of friction. She tried to picture the situation: two families, subsets of each other, trying to put on brave faces at a very strained time. Adele’s decision would appear insensitive and immature to some, but it couldn’t have been easy for her.
“That didn’t go down well with Ian and Carina.”
“I’m not a monster. I knew I’d crack, but I just needed some time to think. Then Sean took a turn for the worse, and it really put things into perspective. It wasn’t about me or Carina or any of us. I didn’t need any more convincing, but Carina came to see me, to beg me to help save her son. Mother to mother. She wasn’t the same cold, hateful woman who sat in my lounge when we first met face to face. I agreed to take Jacqui back in the next morning.”
“But the procedure didn’t work, did it? Sean died.”
Adele nodded. “It never even went ahead. In that short period Sean developed an infection. I’m no doctor, but I know they tried everything to save him. Infections are common before transplants, and his system was already too weak from everything else. He passed away in September, not long after his birthday.”
From her handbag Adele produced a pack of Stuyvesant Extra Mild and tipped it in Vee’s direction. Vee declined. Smoking was not one of her vices, and she didn’t intend to make it one. Enough chipping away at her already.
“I warned Jacqui not to smoke,” Adele said, exhaling out of the open window. “I never used to. It’s a disgusting habit. Told her it would lead to an early grave.” She shook her head bitterly. From her lips to God’s ears.
“How did Jacqui take Sean’s death?”
Adele knocked her ash out of the window and walked out of the room. A few minutes later she returned with the squirming puppy in her arms. “Sorry,” she answered. “He’s not house-trained yet, but I never have the heart to leave him out in the cold.”
As she finished the cigarette, she said: “My girl was so different from me. Sometimes I wondered if they didn’t give me the wrong baby at the hospital. She took it so hard, because to her she messed up. She was like that, so protective. When she loved someone, she made their well-being a personal responsibility. Something her father could’ve learned a lot from.”
Now came the hard part. Vee knew the next couple of questions could draw a line in the sand and forever define her relationship with whoever she was interviewing, for better or worse.
“Mrs Paulsen, you speak about Jacqui in the past tense. I’m sorry to have to ask, but does that mean you don’t believe she’s still alive?”
Without hesitation Adele shook her head. “No,” she replied flatly. “Wish I could say different, something like ‘I feel it in my gut’ or ‘Deep down a mother knows’, but I can’t. Jacqui was a handful. She was growing wild, and I was essentially a struggling single parent. But one thing she wasn’t was cruel and maliciously dishonest. Yes, she lied – what teenager doesn’t? But she wouldn’t just disappear without one word, not one, to tell me where she was or how she was doing. Nothing would make my girl do that to me. So, no, I don’t think she’s alive.”
She dropped the whole of her dejected weight back into the sofa. “I told her to stay away from those Fouries. I knew nothing good could come out of it, but she wanted to be part of them so much. She wanted a real family. I tried to be enough, but they had this draw for her.”
“You suspect they had something to do with her disappearance?”
“Don’t know what to think. I’ve been over it a thousand times in my mind, and it doesn’t make any sense at all. This city’s dangerous for children, but no one ever thinks it can happen to their own. I’ve learnt so much about missing children these past two years . . . Do you know how many children go missing from homes in South Africa? Over one thousand six hundred per year. And three hundred of them are never heard from again.”
Her voice cracked, and she reached for and lit a new cigarette. The burning circle of tobacco illuminated a film of liquid brilliance in her eyes, threatening to break over the lids. “One thousand six hundred a year,” she whispered, “and my baby’s one of them.”
Vee switched off the recorder and let the silence hang. Families and their lies and wars. If anything was familiar . . . She refrained from rubbing her tired eyes. Outside, the light faded fast.
“Do you have a picture?” she asked.
Adele walked over to a dresser, retrieved and handed over a thick envelope. A lot of thought had gone into putting it together. Among the papers were two photographs. The uppermost showed Jacqui on the beach, fully clothed and laughing as she held a Coke. She had a small face, framed by shoulder-length curly hair, and her mother’s brown eyes. A pretty girl. The second showed her decked out in full uniform, forcing an embarrassed smile for the camera on what looked like a momentous school day.
“Keep it,” Adele said, blowing smoke in Vee’s direction. “I don’t need so many any more. Sometimes I think I’m the only one in the world who still cares what she looked like.”
Chapter Five
People in Cape Town don’t really see men, Joshua Allen mused absently. Sure, their eyes rested on and made out the edges of a form that constituted a person of the male gender, but somehow it didn’t quite register. Which was very strange in a city with a markedly higher proportion of women compared to men. The husbands and fathers looked