"We can get you a delivery of salts," Sandeep Jyoti said. "We'll get them to you as soon as possible. The city is stretched to its limits, but I'll make sure you get a team of volunteers here as soon as we can send them. I'll put a priority on it. Good luck."
We watched in grim silence as he followed his assistant out of the slum. We were all afraid.
Qasim Ali Hussein took control. He declared his home to be a command centre. We called a meeting there, and some twenty men and women gathered to devise a plan. Cholera is largely a water borne disease. The vibrio cholerae bacterium spreads from contaminated water and lodges itself in the small intestine, producing the fever, diarrhoea, and vomiting that cause dehydration and death. We determined to purify the slum's water, beginning with the holding tanks and then moving on to the pots and buckets in each of the seven thousand huts. Qasim Ali produced a bundle of rupee notes as thick as a man's knee, and gave it to Johnny Cigar, deputing him to buy the water purification tablets and other medicines we would need.
Because so much rainwater had accumulated in puddles and rivulets throughout the slum, those too had provided breeding grounds for the bacteria. It was decided that a chain of shallow trenches would be established at strategic points in the lanes of the slum. They would be filled with disinfectant, and each person walking the lane would be required to pass through the ankle-deep antiseptic drench. Plastic bins for safe disposal of waste materials were to be placed at designated points, and antiseptic soap would be given to every household.
Soup kitchens would be established in the chai shops and restaurants to provide safe, boiled food and sterilised cups and bowls. A team was also assigned to the task of removing the bodies of the dead and taking them on a trundle-cart to the hospital. My task was to supervise the use of the oral rehydration solution and to prepare batches of a homemade mixture as required.
They were all huge undertakings and onerous responsibilities, but no man or woman at the gathering hesitated in accepting them.
It's a characteristic of human nature that the best qualities, called up quickly in a crisis, are very often the hardest to find in a prosperous calm. The contours of all our virtues are shaped by adversity. But there was another reason, far from virtue, for my own eagerness to accept the tasks-a reason found in shame. My neighbour Radha had been desperately ill for two days before she died, and I'd known nothing of it at the time. I was gripped by a feeling that my pride, my hubris, was responsible for the sickness in some way: that my clinic was founded in an arrogance - my arrogance-that had allowed the disease to breed in the smear of its conceits. I knew that nothing I'd done or neglected to do had caused the epidemic. And I knew that the disease wouldVe attacked the slum, sooner or later, with or without my presence. But I couldn't shake off the feeling that, somehow, my complacency had made me complicit.
Just a week before, I'd celebrated with dancing and drinking because, when I'd opened my little clinic, no-one had come. Not one man, woman, or child in all the thousands had needed my help.
The treatment queue that had begun with hundreds, nine months before, had finally dwindled to none. And I'd danced and drunk with Prabaker that day, as if I'd cured the whole slum of its ailments and illnesses. That celebration seemed vain and stupid as I hurried through the sodden lanes to the scores who were sick. And there was guilt in that shame as well. For the two days while my neighbour Radha lay dying, I'd been ingratiating myself with tourist customers in their five-star hotel. While she'd writhed and thrashed on a damp earth floor, I'd been calling down to room service to order more ice-cream and crepes.
I rushed back to the clinic. It was empty. Prabaker was looking after Parvati. Johnny Cigar had taken on the job of locating and removing the dead. Jeetendra, sitting on the ground outside our huts with his face in his hands, was sinking in the quicksand of his grief. I gave him the job of making several large purchases for me and checking on all the chemists in the area for ORTs. I was watching him shamble away down the lane toward the street, worrying about him, worrying about his young son, Satish, who was also ill, when I saw a woman in the distance walking toward me. Before I could actually know who it was, my heart was sure it was Karla.
She wore a salwar kameez-the most flattering garment in the world, after the sari-in two shades of sea green. The long tunic was a deeper green, and the pants beneath, tight at the ankle, were paler. There was also a long yellow scarf, worn backwards, Indian style, with the plumes of colour trailing out behind her.
Her black hair was pulled back tightly and fastened at the nape of her neck. The hairstyle threw attention at her large green eyes-the green of lagoons, where shallow water laps at golden sand-and at her black eyebrows and perfect mouth. Her lips were like the soft ridges of dunes in the desert at sunset; like the crests of waves meeting in the frothy rush to shore; like the folded wings of courting birds. The movements of her body, as she walked toward me on the broken lane, were like storm-wind stirring in a stand of young willow trees.
"What are you doing here?"
"Those charm school lessons are paying off, I see," she drawled, sounding very American. She arched one eyebrow, and pursed her lips in a sarcastic smile.
"It's not safe here," I scowled.
"I know. Didier ran into one of your friends from here. He told me about it."
"So, what are you doing here?"
"I came to help you."
"Help me what?" I demanded, exasperated by my worry for her.
"Help you... do whatever you do here. Help other people. Isn't that what you do?"
"You have to go. You can't stay. It's too dangerous. People are dropping down everywhere. I don't know how bad it'll get."
"I'm not going," she said calmly, staring her determination into me. The large, green eyes blazed, indomitable, and she was never more beautiful. "I care about you, and I'm staying with you. What do you want me to do?" "It's ridiculous!" I sighed, rubbing the frustration through my hair. "It's bloody stupid."
"Listen," she said, surprising me with a wide smile, "do you think you're the only one who needs to go on this salvation ride?
Now, tell me, calmly-what do you want me to do?"
I did need help, not just with the physical work of nursing the people, but also with the doubt and fear and shame that throbbed in my throat and chest. One of the ironies of courage, and the reason why we prize it so highly, is that we find it easier to be brave for someone else than we do for ourselves alone. And I loved her. The truth was that while my words warned her away to safety, my fanatic heart connived with my eyes to make her stay.
"Well, there's plenty to do. But be careful! And the first sign that... that you're not okay, you grab a taxi to my friend Hamid's. He's a doctor. Is that a deal?"
She reached out to place her long, slender hand in mine. The handshake was firm and confident.
"It's a deal," she said. "Where do we start?"
We started with a tour of the slum, visiting the sick and dispensing packets of the solution. There were, by then, more than a hundred people presenting symptoms of cholera, and half of them were serious cases. Allowing just a few minutes with each of the victims, it still took us twenty hours. Constantly on the move, we drank soup or sugary chai from sterile cups as our only food. By evening of the following day, we sat down to eat our first full meal. We were exhausted, but hunger drove us to chew through the hot rotis and vegetables. Then, somewhat refreshed, we set off on a second round of the most serious cases.