After countless days—spent crossing several former French and English colonies, treating the sick and consoling the afflicted—he got used to the idea that death was always near and promised himself that never, at any moment, would he allow the poor to suffer or the forgotten to live in discomfort.
Michael—this was the driver’s name—had done something unthinkable three years earlier; after earning his medical degree, he’d received a used Volkswagen from his parents and, instead of parading it in front of the girls or flashing it before his friends in Edinburgh, he set off one week later on a trip to South Africa. He had saved enough to spend two or three years traveling—working in private clinics as a paid internist. His dream was to see the world, because he had become all too familiar with the human body; he had seen its fragility. After countless days—spent crossing several former French and English colonies, treating the sick and consoling the afflicted—he got used to the idea that death was always near and promised himself that never, at any moment, would he allow the poor to suffer or the forgotten to live in discomfort.
