The Constant Gardener

They are approaching a line of rectangular sheds at the far end of the airstrip. To each shed a rudimentary enclosure like a paddock. To each enclosure a miniature Hades of the desperately sick, the parched, crippled and dehydrated. Stooped women hunching stoically upon themselves in silent torment. Fly-laden babies too sick to cry. Old men comatose with vomiting and diarrhea. Battle-weary paramedics and doctors doing their best to cajole and gentle them into a crude assembly line. Nervous girls standing in a long queue, whispering and giggling to each other. Teenaged boys locked in frenzied combat while an elder whacks at them with a stick.

* * *

Followed at a distance by Arthur and his court, Lorbeer and Justin have reached a thatched dispensary like a country Cricket pavilion. Tenderly pushing his way through clamorous patients, Lorbeer leads Justin to a steel screen guarded by two stalwart African men in Medecins Sans Frontieres T-shirts. The screen is pulled open, Lorbeer darts inside, removes his homburg hat and hauls Justin after him. A white paramedic and three helpers are mixing and measuring behind a wooden counter. The atmosphere is of controlled but constant emergency. Seeing Lorbeer enter, the paramedic looks up quickly and grins.

"Hi, Brandt. Who's your handsome friend?" she asks, in a brisk Scots accent.

"Helen, meet Peter. He's a journalist and he's going to tell the world you're a lot of lazy layabouts."

"Hi, Peter."

"Hi."

"Helen's a nurse from Glasgow."

On the shelves, many-colored cartons and glass jars are packed roof high. Justin scans them, affecting a general curiosity, hunting for the familiar red and black box with its happy logo of three gold bees, not finding one. Lorbeer has placed himself before the display, assuming once more the role of lecturer. The paramedic and her assistants exchange raw smiles. Here we go again. Lorbeer is holding up an industrial jar of green pills.

"Peter," he intones gravely. "Now I show you the other lifeline of Africa."

Does he say this every day? To every visitor? Is this his daily act of contrition? Did he say it to Tessa too?

"Africa has eighty percent of the world's AIDS sufferers, Peter. That's a conservative estimate. Three-quarters of them receive no medication. For this we must thank the pharmaceutical companies and their servants, the U.S. State Department, who threaten with sanctions any country that dares produce its own cheap version of American-patented medicines. OK? Have you written that down?"

Justin gives Lorbeer a reassuring nod. "Keep going."

"The pills in this jar cost twenty U.S. dollars apiece in Nairobi, six in New York, eighteen in Manila. Any day now, India's going to manufacture the generic version and the same pill will cost sixty cents. Don't talk to me about the research and development costs. The pharmaceutical boys wrote them off ten years ago and a lot of their money comes from governments in the first place, so they're talking crap. What we got here is an amoral monopoly that costs human lives every day. OK?"

Lorbeer knows his exhibits so well he doesn't need to search for them. He replaces the jar in the shelves and grabs a large black and white box.

"These bastards have been peddling this same compound for thirty years already. What's it for? Malaria. Know why it's thirty years old, Peter? Maybe a few people in New York should get malaria one day, then you see if they don't find a cure pretty damn quick!" He selects another box. His hands, like his voice, are trembling with honest indignation. "This generous and philanthropic pharma in New Jersey made a donation of its product to the poor starving nations of the world, OK? The pharmas, they need to be loved. If they're not loved, they get scared and miserable."

And dangerous, Justin thinks, but not aloud.

"Why did the pharma donate this drug? I'll tell you. Because they have produced a better one. The old one is superfluous to stock. So they give Africa the old one with six months of life left in it, and they get a few million dollars' tax break for their generosity. Plus they are saving themselves a few more millions of warehousing costs and the costs of destroying old drugs they can't sell. Plus everybody says, look at them, what nice guys they are. Even the shareholders are saying it." He turns the box over and scowls contemptuously at its base. "This consignment sat in a customs house in Nairobi for three months while the customs guys waited for somebody to bribe them. A couple of years back the same pharma sent Africa hair restorer, smoking cures and cures for obesity, and collected a multimillion-dollar tax break for their philanthropy. Those bastards got no feeling for anything but the fat god Profit, and that's the truth."

But the full heat of his righteous anger is reserved for his own masters — those lazy bums in the aid community in Geneva who roll over for the big pharmas every time.