The Constant Gardener

Here is some more history regarding Pill. Five years ago when Goldmaker was looking for financial backing for the women's molecule not everything went easy for him. He tried to persuade some big German pharmas to sponsor but they are resisting strongly because they don't see big profits. The problem with the poor is always the same: they are not rich enough to buy expensive medicines! Giant came in late and only after big market researches. Also Our Friend says they were very clever in their deal with BBB. This was a masterstroke, to sell off poor Africa and keep the rich world for themselves! The plan is very simple, the timing perfect. It is to test Pill in Africa for two or three years, by which time KVH calculate that TB will have become a BIG PROBLEM in the West. Also in three years BBB will be so compromised financially that Giant will be able to buy them out for pennies! Therefore according to Our Friend, BBB have bought the wrong end of the horse and Giant have the whip. Carl is asleep beside me. Dear Tessa, I hope very much your baby will be as beautiful as Carl. He will be a great fighter like his mother, I am sure! Ciao, B.

Final entry in the Birgit/tessa file of correspondence:

Our Friend is reporting very secretive activities at Giant regarding BBB and Africa. Maybe you have stirred a wasps' nest? Kovacs will be flown in great secrecy to Nairobi where Goldmaker is waiting to receive her. Everyone speaks bad things about die schone Lara. She is a traitor, a bitch, etc. How does such a boring corporation become suddenly so passionate?! Take care of yourself, Tessa. I think you are a little bit waghalsig but it is late and my English does not translate this word so maybe you ask your good kind husband to translate it for you! B.

P.s. Come soon to Bielefeld, Tessa, it is a beautiful and very secret little town that you will love! B.

* * *

It is evening. Tessa is heavily pregnant. She is pacing the drawing room of the Nairobi house, now sitting, now standing. Arnold has told her she must not go down to Kibera until she has had the baby. Even sitting at her laptop is a tiresome chore for her. After five minutes of it she must prowl about again. Justin has come home early to keep her company in her travail.

"Who or what is waghalsig?" she demands of him, as soon as he opens the front door.

"Who is what?"

She pronounces the word with deliberate anglicization: wag like "wag" the dog, halsig like "hall-sick." She has to say it twice more before the penny drops.

"Reckless," Justin replies cautiously. "Daredevilish. Why?"

"Am I waghalsig?"

"Never. Impossible."

"Somebody's just called me it, that's all. Fat lot of dare deviling I can do in this condition."

"Don't you believe it," Justin replies devoutly, and they break out laughing simultaneously.

* * *

Letter from Messrs. Oakey, Oakey and Farmeloe, Solicitors of London, Nairobi, and Hong Kong, to Ms. T. Abbott, postbox Nairobi:

Dear Ms. Abbott,

We act for House of ThreeBees, Nairobi, who have passed to us your several letters addressed personally to Sir Kenneth Curtiss, chief executive officer of that company, and to other directors and officers of the managing board.

We are to advise you that the product to which you refer has passed all requisite clinical trials, many of them conducted to standards far higher than those laid down by national or international regulation. As you rightly point out, the product has been fully tested and registered in Germany, Poland and Russia. At the request of the Kenyan health authorities, that registration has also been independently verified by the World Health Organization, a copy of whose certificate is appended to this letter.

We must therefore advise you that any further representations made by you or your associates in this matter, whether directed at House of ThreeBees or some other quarter, will be interpreted as a malicious and unwarranted slur on this highly prestigious product, and on the good name and high standing in the marketplace of its distributors House of ThreeBees Nairobi. In such an eventuality, we are under standing instruction to institute legal proceedings with full vigor and without further reference to our clients.

Yours faithfully…

* * *

"Old chap. A quick word with you, if I may."

The speaker is Tim Donohue. The old chap is Justin himself, in whose memory the scene is playing. The game of Monopoly has been voted into temporary suspense while the Woodrow sons hurry late to their karate class and Gloria fetches drinkies from the kitchen. Woodrow has taken himself off to the High Commission in a huff. Justin and Tim are therefore seated alone and head to head at the garden table, surrounded by millions of imitation pounds.

"Mind if I tread on holy ground in the interests of the greater good?" Donohue inquires in a low, tight voice that travels no farther than it needs to.

"If you must."