The man looked into my right eye, ‘You’re going to lose this one,’ he said.
Hard to know what to think. Hard to know what to say. I mean he’s just a man. A doctor right. But still, how does he know?
It’s not like you can get a second opinion. Not out here.
He goes back to his chair. He watches me absorb the news. He is a big man. Beard. I can’t decide if he’s looking at me with sympathy or disinterest. Up to half an hour ago we’d never met.
I stare at him because I don’t know what else to do. Questions come to mind. They dance above an emotion I feel building. As though the information the questions might gather will quell this emotion. The questions are: how will I loose the eye? Will it rot in my head and then one day just fall out? Will I wake some morning to find it staring back at me from the pillow? Is he going to surgically remove it now, and if so how? Scoop it out with his thumb, like taking a mussel from its shell?
I realise tears are gathering in the eye that has so little time left in this world. I think the sight disturbs him. ‘Listen, he says, ‘I’ve got a fine drop of Irish whiskey as it happens. Maybe it would be a good idea if you and I had a glass.’
Out the window, beyond the machinery, I see white and blue, the dirty white of dessert sand and the deep blue of the Sahara sky. In here there is the hum of the air conditioning unit. The Formica of the table tops imitates wood, on it are some of the personal possessions that this man, so far from home, has chosen to surround himself with.
‘Thank you’, I say, ‘A drink would be good.’
He smiles and stands. He walks to a locker near his bed and pulls out a bottle whose label is familiar to me. Odd to see it here, something from such a different time and place.
He pours two glasses, hands me one. He stands over me until his first sip is safely downed then he sits back in his chair.
‘What part of Ireland are you from?’
‘You can tell I’m Irish?’
‘Sure I can, used to go around with a lass from County Cork. You been there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Orla O’Malley, from Macroom, now there was a babe.’
I smile.
‘Worst thing I ever did was let her go. But there’s always one, hey?
‘I suppose.’ I take a sip. It’s a dagger of sharpness cutting through my middle. It’s relief, something pure, something solid.
‘And you’re on a boat you say?’
‘Yeah, on our way to Capo Verde from the Canary’s.’
‘We don’t get many sailors dropping in on us out here. In fact I’d say you’re the first.’
I smile again.
‘Sail boat, is it?’
‘Yeah, ‘
‘Hum, I used to do a bit, round the bay. Ever sail in San Francisco Bay?’
‘No.’
‘Well it sure beats the hell out of sitting around in this stinking dump. You know where I was two weeks ago?’
I shake my head.
‘Alaska! Can you believe that? It’s either burn your ass or freeze your ass in this business. And see all this here.’ He waves in the direction of the window. ‘There ain’t no oil out here. You know why we’re drilling? We’re drilling because the government wouldn’t let us run an oil line through here unless we dug. We know it’s useless. They know it’s useless. But hey, they make us do it anyway. Millions of dollars, drilling sand. Unbelievable!’
‘Seems pretty incredible.’
He looked at me and smiled. ‘How big is that sailboat you got?
‘It’s not mine. I’m crew. Fifty foot.’
‘Fifty foot, that’s impressive!’
I didn’t know how I should reply to this.
‘Sloop, ketch, schooner, what?’
‘Ketch.’
‘Nice. So how did you come to get that lump of sand in your eye?’
I have a strong urge to leave. Everything here is wrong. I’m in a room in the middle of the Sahara Dessert, in the middle of the day, and I’m cold. Outside, in other rooms such as this, men sit about eating ice cream while back on the coast cows chew cardboard and children stare from doorways, wide-eyed and listless. I look again at the man seated across from me. He is waiting for a reply.
’We were off the coast of Westren Sahara when the wind began to blow from the land, the whole sky turned red. It blew for three days, took the paint off the port side. And somewhere in the course of it a piece of sand got stuck in my eye. When it started to get infected we got out the chart and decided to try and find a doctor.’
‘And you went into Nouadhibou?’ He laughed.
I nodded. ‘The guy at the depot there told me that a plane stopped by every couple of days before coming out here so, if I could hang about, maybe the pilot would give me a ride out to see you.’
We are both silent.
‘Guess you feel that was a waste of a trip?’
‘I don’t know. What happens now?’
He stands. ‘We have another drink, that’s what happens now.’
He fills the glass I hold out to him.
‘Slante, as they say in the old country.’
The whiskey is smooth now, and sweet.
‘Look I’m sorry about your eye, I really am. Christ they put me out here and the worst I get to deal with is a sunburn or a sprain. I’m like everything else in this dump, here for show.’
’You’re a doctor though?’
‘I’m a doctor all right, probably even a good one. Orla O’Malley thought so anyway.’ He chuckles. ‘Truth is I’m little more fond of picking up a glass than a stethoscope’
I look at him. A smile spreads across his face. ‘Your thinking, of all the luck, I travel three hundred miles out into the middle of nowhere to see a doc who he turns out to be nothing but a drunk.’
I stay silent.
His face looses any trace of amusement.
‘Yeah, I guess you’ve just joined a long list a people I’ve disappointed one way or the other.’
‘You’re not the reason my eye’s infected.’
‘No I’m not. But neither am I the one whose going to make it better which is what you expected when you came out here.’
‘I didn’t know what to expect.’
He leans forward grabbing the bottle by the neck.
‘Tell you what,’ he says, ‘And I say this only because you hail from the same place as the lovely Orla, why don’t I have a look at that eye of yours?’
He drinks half a glass while I’m looking at him.
‘Why not?’ he says. ‘Look, if we do nothing you are going to loose it. If I have a go there’s a chance. What’ja think?’ He leans forward in his chair, waiting. ‘I’ll brew some coffee, clean up my instruments and I’ll fix that eye of yours. Come on!’
‘You told me when I came in here that it couldn’t be saved. Now you’re telling me it can it can?’
‘I didn’t say it could. I didn’t say that. I said it’s worth having a go, is all.’
‘If I don’t I lose it anyway?’
‘Oh yeah! I mean there’s a good hospital in Dakar but your what, a three day sail from there?’
‘Yeah, if we left today.’
‘Which you won’t. So in truth it’ll be four, maybe five days, and even with antibiotics that eye’s not going to survive.’
‘Alright.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
He sits upright, drains the glass and smiles. ‘Right! We are going to do this.’
He goes to the kitchen area. He fills a pot from a water tank and puts it on a stove. He then begins to lay silver instruments along a strip of white cloth.
‘All you gotta do my friend, is relax.’
I try to focus on the knots in the artificial wood. They’re not convincing,
too big, too dark, too many. I have a strong urge to get up and leave. There has to be another doctor, a clinic, something, somewhere. But I know there is not. It is simple. I have no choice.
‘Have you ever done eyes before?’
‘Hey, relax man, no need to worry. First thing I’m going to do is have a good look at that sucker, that’s all. A look ain’t going to hurt is it?
‘But have you ever done anything like this before?’
He turns towards me. ‘You want me to do this or not?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’
He walks forward. ‘It’s your call. I’m just as happy to have another drink and forget about the whole thing.
‘If you do that I loose the eye.’
‘Like I say, it’s your call.’
‘What about an anaesthetic?’
‘Sure, have as much as you want, the bottle’s there.’
‘All right.’ I try to smile. ‘Fine, thanks.’
He goes back to the stove. I try to drink but my stomach is a knot. I listen as he goes about the business of making coffee and gathering his bits and pieces.
When he next comes towards me I see he has some type of apparatus strapped to his forehead. He reaches my chair he pulls it down over his eye. It’s a lens. It makes his own eye look ten times its size. He stoops into me bathing me in his breath.
A beam of light blinds me.
After a moment he says, ‘Right, there you are. One tiny grain sighted at three o’ clock.’
I take a breath. I can’t see what he’s doing behind the light. But I catch the flash of metal, too close to focus on. Scraping begins. I feel the vibration of it scratching the surface. My fists grip the arms of the chair, my legs are outstretched, toes curled inside my shoes.
‘Just try and relax.’ He says. His tone is that of someone preforming a not unpleasant task, a man adding presious stamps to his collection. I want to shout ‘Stop!’ I want to raise my arm and push him away. But doing anything to someone holding a scalpel over your eyeball seems counter productive.
He straightens. ‘Naw!’ He sighs. ‘Sucker’s in there good.’
He looks defeated. He walks to his empty glass and is about to pick up the bottle when he stops, ‘Lets give this one more try, hey? For Orla.’
When he lowers himself in front of me again the beam from his lamp again obliterates everything. My fingers grip tighter, the scraping begins again. There’s pressure to it now, he’s pushing harder. In my mind I see the blade slip through the pupil, a silver jet into a dark ocean.
‘This mother’s putting up one helluva fight.’
Then the scraping stops. Whatever he’s doing now it feels different, smoother, silkier. He starts muttering. I no longer want this. He is working the blade, holding the handle upright, then dropping it sideway. My heart is pounding. I feel sick.
‘Yes, yes.’ He leans in harder. ‘Come on to Mama.’
‘Stop!’ I shout. ‘Stop it!’
‘There!’ he says straightening, staring at the tip of the blade ‘There’s the sucker.’ He’s smiling, holding the scalpel like a trophy, ‘I did it!’
‘You got it out?’
‘I did!’
My heart rate begins to subside.
‘Thank you.’ I say, ‘Thank you very much.’
‘I’ll give you some antibiotics, bandage that bad boy up, by the time you get to Cape Verde you’ll be good as new, near as.’
I smile, ‘This calls for a drink.’
He looks at me and smiles, ‘It does but, know what? I’m going to give it a miss for now.’