A computer has been introduced, but I see the receptionist, Mary, mainly occupied in answering the phone, making appointments, giving out hand-filled chits for the next visit as patients leave. She also doubles up to apply vacuum on a patient, when called in by the dentist. Dr. Stuart knows enough about each patient to ask questions and direct the conversation beyond routine remarks. Nadine, the hygienist, has been in the office about three years in all. She took her maternity leave about a year ago. Then she was relieved by, Linda, the new-age girl, for a few months. I had not done too badly talking with Linda, but the relationship never had a chance to develop. It takes time to build sufficient understanding and trust - Nadine has to be both player and judge, as it were, timing her action to allow me snippets of response time, breaking up her stories, orchestrating the whole performance so that we both finish off gratified.
I have been looking forward to our meeting every three months - that is what the system will pay for.
On this winter day, Nadine has me lying in the dentist's chair facing the window. I can see the bright blue sky and the blue twin peaks of Lions Mountain in the distance.
"How's it out there- Is it cold-"
"No, it's quite mild. It's a superb day. Only in Vancouver can you get a January day like this."
"Well, in Cape Town it is summer."
"In Nairobi, every day is summer."
"Well, between the two of us we have lived in quite a few countries, haven't we-" said Nadine, organizing her instruments.
"Oh, sure. Add Britain to the list. I studied there."
She ties the little paper napkin round my neck and lowers the back of the chair to get me into a lying position. She is standing behind my head, ready to start.
"Move your body towards this end."
Her voice is coaxing, as if she is talking to a child of hers. I pull myself towards her. As she bends to probe into my mouth, the back of my head nestles briefly against her soft chest.
Nadine launches straight into the book she has been reading, holding my mouth captive.
"I haven't been to the book club for two months now. We are now doing The Dark Mushrooms. It's a Japanese novel. I started reading it. Sounds very interesting."
Nadine by now has no doubt that the locus of our conversation has to be, as always, literature, preferably related to Africa, our common matrix, as it were. Quite different from the new-age Linda. She was warm and friendly but aroused only a prurient interest. She fascinated me with talk of rolfing, reiki, hollotropic breathing and other exotic phenomena. She talked about these in a matter-of-fact way, as if she was talking about a cooking recipe. The truth is I lacked conviction in the things she talked about. Nadine has probed her needles in between my teeth to check the state of the pockets under the gums. She takes away the needles to do something else and leaves my mouth free for a second.
"I've just been reading a book by Andre Brink," I say quickly.
"Which one-"
"An Instant in the Wind."
"Is that a new one-"
"No it's an old one. 1976."
She is back in my mouth. She squirts in a sweet-smelling liquid and does a quick couple of suctions around the teeth.
"I went home in December, you know. Things have started looking different in these three years."
"Oonh..."
"Cape Town was always such a neat town. It used to be cleaner than Vancouver."
She was scraping deep into the base of the molar on the right.
"Turn your head towards me."
Again the coaxing voice. She has to be a good mother. Come to think of it, her baby is only about a year old. Wonder if she took the baby with her. Of course she must have, with her Canadian husband, to introduce them to her people.
"The services are going down. They don't clear the garbage often enough any more. So people dump their garbage in the next street to avoid piling it up in their own."
She runs the vacuum against both sides of the gums.
"A lot of people are now getting fortified. They have fences and security guards. It's going to be more and more the local community organizing it's own services... Move your head towards me."
Again that motherly lilt. I am wondering if 'fortified' is the right word. It sounds strange, as if they were expecting civil war.
"You know, I started reading Mandela's book this time. It has been really an eye-opener. We just didn't know how bad it was * for the blacks. We didn't know what was going on. We didn't really get to know other people. For example, I have never worked on someone like you before. In South Africa you would have your own Indian doctor or dentist."
She pulled out the scraper and pressed in a swab of wet cloth against the gum.
"It wasn't that different in the Kenya I grew up in."
"Open wide... You know, I had avoided reading Mandela's book before because I didn't want to face it. Maybe it was just guilt. You know there were some white people who were taking risks, fighting apartheid. Someone I know about, George Gordon, has been writing a lot of books that were banned.. He is the father of a fellow who was in school with me * the son used to be the editor of our school magazine. I found out all this on this last visit. But the way the son wrote was nothing radical. I used to talk to him. I never suspected that his father could have been such a brave figure. Of course, the whites in that situation did not trust other whites."
Nadine is animated now. She has stopped scraping and taken out the instruments from my mouth. Work stops while she continues her speech.
"You know, Mandela's book is so matter-of-fact. He is reporting objectively, just describing events. You know, in a funny way, the Government helped them get together by putting all of them in jail together. They had nothing to do. I mean they had to do prison labour but they were thrown together a lot and had lots of time to plan strategies for the future. That's just what they did."
She is beginning to sound nostalgic. She used to be so dubious, so tentative about South Africa when she first talked to me, more than two years ago. Apartheid had not formally ended. Nelson Mandela was, though about to be released, still in prison.
"You know, I still haven't read the book. It's called....-" I ask.
"A Long Walk to Freedom."
She starts on my mouth again.
"I wanted my book club to do the book. I was so excited I suggested it as soon as I got back from South Africa. But the response was not positive."
I want to tell her I know the feeling. My group wanted to do only Jane Austen these days. She doesn't let go of my mouth. I manage to get an "Oonh" across. She is working on the other side of the mouth and says:
"Well, my club's not always that bad. We are going to do the book by Aung Suu Kyi. That Burmese woman who has won the Nobel prize."
She lets go of me for a moment. I get a word in:
"They call it Myanmar now. You know I knew a Eurasian girl when I studied law in London. She was born in Burma. Lovely skin she had. That was long ago."
Nadine shares that first name with the famous South African writer. Gordimer's photos show a handsome, smiling face. An air of serenity. In South Africa they have role models for all races.
"You know, a lot of what you said about what's happening in Cape Town sounds like Nairobi. It has changed in similar ways since I left. Would you ever want to go back and live in South Africa- Could you-"
I ask silly questions. It can never be the same. Once you've cut off from a place, you've aborted a flight path. The point where you left does not exist any more. Oh, all those unlived possibilities. If there had been no escape, where would I be now- Perhaps I would have got into trouble, in that early, idealistic, hot-headed way of mine. But perhaps I would have survived by learning to balance danger against idealism. Develop a fine pragmatism, a technique for survival. Perhaps would have given in to the easy ways, enjoying power, making easy money, bask in the comforts, not worry about the corruption. Rationalize the good life... in the way that your people did in apartheid South Africa. Except that this would have been post-colonial Kenya. Pretend you were progressive, mix with African people, albeit the rich and the educated ones play golf or tennis with them, go to parties and dance with women of all races, even enjoy the thrill of interracial flirtation.... My friend who visited last year said he lives next door to a cabinet minister. "His sons call me 'Uncle'," he said proudly. But one has to turn a blind eye t dirty tricks, assassinations of political enemies, the police violence and torture, shooting suspected robbers dead, the rich getting obscenely richer, the poor going to the dogs...
She thinks a bit, makes a contortion around her mouth, evident in spite of the gauze-mask.
"I could. It's changing a lot, though. It is going to be interesting...."
The things you will miss more and more as time passes... The colours, the smells, the sounds. The beautiful beaches, sun and sand, taste of mangoes, the juice of coconut, the way it was deftly sliced open by the vendor on the beach, the white quivering pulp scooped out, to be eaten with the fibre spoon instantly made from the shell. The golden light permeating everything, rendering the world palpable, a living organ, pulsating with energy. The intense green foliage, the burgundy and red of the bougainvillea, the deep, living orange of the marigolds. Eating corn on the cob roasted on charcoal fire garnished with a dash of salt and lime -these things got into the soul before the abstractions took over, before one learnt to read the newspapers, before the idea of fear seized the mind, before one could think about the future and security and political parties, classes and races, before fear was born, before the thought of leaving was ever possible.
"Move your head towards me..."
She scrapes deep. The tactile probe, the rubbing, scraping, feeling hot, feeling cold, a source of pleasure, now pain, now tingling, tickling...the moon, thought that strange bird, D.H.Lawrence, was made of cheese. If you scraped away, what would come out- An infinite number of shreds, soft pieces of poetry, do not allow them to violate the sacred space, you will only get rock and moon-dust never mind the giant step for mankind, it was the inner space of woman, good thing Lawrence didn't live to nineteen sixty-nine to witness the violation. The sixty-nine position, when Dolores was nineteen she had never heard of such things. Dolores my eurasian flower blooming in Maida Vale we never went to see the Elgin marbles she was born in Burma. George Orwell nervously shot an elephant there compelled to uphold all the pride of the white man and empire. Oh, remember we had those sessions at the pub near Tottenham Court Road after the law lectures, Orwell used to go there his signature still there on the wood panel and those foreign students from the Russell Square hostel joined our table for a pint and we talked about the Alexandria Quartet and Cavafy. Dolores ever so slightly jealous of the olive-skin dark-haired beauty from Cyprus, those were the days...Those far-flung islands in the midst of nowhere, the British exile the bearded Cypriot Bishop Makarios for terrorism-subversion, send him off to Seychelles the ship docks at Mombasa the Kenyan papers dimly conscious of the historical moment say something about Kenyatta, our old man Mzee held in detention somewhere up close to the jade sea Lake Rudolf now gone Turkana in the desert sending greetings to the Bishop, both gentlemen divine-share the secret * terrorists transmute to presidential gold in the twilight of empires, be it seven years or twenty-seven....albion jaw or dutch crunch they all disgorge as they go and I the flotsam and you the jetsam.
"Spit it out," she hands me a paper cup and I gargle the contents into the cute little cubicle whirling red liquid down the navel of the universe. I remain silent now and she, sensing I was away in different space, continues chipping away without saying anything.
By the time the Bishop gets back to presidential splendour in Nicosia, Dolores follows the young Cypriot we met in the pub to the same destination and Africa pulls me back. Never the twain shall meet proclaimed the imperial poet he might as well have been talking about Dolores and me except that the twain already mingled forever when the gods created my eurasian flower, Dolores who could foretell you would wed that young man, you were ever so slightly jealous of the girl it turned out she was only the sister oh it is a little bizarre this white woman from the cape scraping my teeth in vanzalm city coming to terms with Mandela.
She applies a sweet tasting paste on my teeth. I know this is polishing time and we are nearing the end.
She is pointing to the lower molars near the front right. They have fillings. She pokes with a needle into a deep pocket underneath.
"Have you been having problems in this area-"
"No."
"You need to take more care on this spot. Have you got a brush with a rubber tip-"
"No."
"I will get you one."
She bends and opens the bottom drawer beside her and fishes around in the drawer. I get a chance to talk and say "Did you ever read Olive Schreiner- I just found out that she used to be Gandhi's secretary in South Africa."
"Oh, we did her book in school. I can't remember the name."
"The Story of an African Farm-" I say.
"Yea. You know Mandela was influenced by Gandhi. It was only later that he and the ANC decided non-violence wouldn't work in South Africa. But of course you know that."
She leaves the room and is back in a second, saying "I want Dr. Stuart to look at that spot. He will be here in a moment."
Old Dr. Stuart walks in. She points out the problem area on the chart. Dr. Stuart looks into my mouth and pokes the instrument in his hand into the problem pocket.
"I see, oh yes. That area needs extra care."
He turns to me.
"We think Canada is going to hold her this time."
I laugh. The doors of his room and ours had been open. He had picked on some of our talk.
She comes out to hand me my coat. As she helps me put it on I thank her for the interesting talk. She smiles, her face glowing. I feel like saying something.
"I've been through all that business about missing a place. It takes a bit of time. I have been here for a couple of decades. At some point it becomes home."
Actually, it takes for ever. That is because the way it really happens I can't tell you in the dentist's office. The thing was when I left home for good all the spirits who had got used to me from my childhood were very sad and they came to say good-bye at the airport and then they had a fight about letting me go. Those that were opposed to letting me go alone and unarmed in such a far-off land simply couldn't bear to stay behind and they got together and formed themselves into a ball of fire and entered my body just as the aircraft was taking off. They housed themselves in a part of my body next to the stomach and have settled there for good, as long as I live away from Africa. They get thirsty from time to time, they like beer a lot and are satisfied if I feed them a couple of pints from time to time. Lately some of them have been demanding stronger liquor but I am careful not to give in to them too quickly. Well, I give them a little brandy sometimes, as a special treat. I can't be so heartless as to let them starve to death....
"Bye..thank you for listening."
"Thank you, I am one of the few people who can say I enjoyed my visit to the
dentist's. It does look like you are discovering the old country all anew."
Nadine comes out with me, helps me put on my coat and sees me out into the corridor and says: "Yea, I could have stayed on in South Africa. I could have."