King Mzilikazi is the recorded founder of what eventually became known as Zimbabwe. He had been an advisor to the great Shaka, the Zulu Chief, but became dissatisfied with service and desired a kingdom of his own. He was a ruthless man, a conqueror and opportunist, and he was a leader.
Among his most admiring warrior attendants was Wendy’s Great uncle, the Matabele ninja who Mzilikazi depended on for security. Great uncle died in the man’s service when he was eighty six years old.
Great uncle passes along his wisdoms to the brave Chimutengwende in this seventh installment of her adventures.
Resume
Wendy is back at the IBF, and she is done with the front desk job. It was initially supposed to be temporary because the doctors of the institute hoped to use her as a knowledgeable assistant for their studies and trials, but she was such a natural there and Wendy enjoyed the interaction, so she stayed on. But all good things must come to an end, and when she walks through the double front doors, she smiles at the new receptionist who has been sitting in for her. It is a young man who seems flustered by the phones and Wendy smiles politely as she shows her badge to access the elevators. She doesn’t even think about the basement level, instead she hits the top level where the doors open onto the desk of another receptionist.
“Glad to see you back,” the woman at the desk says with a big smile and the two hug.
“It’s good to see you Deb,” Wendy says as the two sit behind the desk. “How are things;”
“Same old thing,” Deb says in her thick Georgia accent. She has worked for the IBF longer than Wendy and she has become a mother-figure over the years. She manages the schedule of the executives who manage the IBF and her job has always been more stressful than Wendy’s.
“I hear you’re moving on up,” Deb says enthusiastically. “I didn’t even realize you were a doctor.”
“I’m a nurse. And I’ll still just be assisting, but no more phone calls, no more minute taking for meetings. They’re assigning me to the memory docs.”
Deb nods, genuinely impressed. The neurologists conducting various studies of human memory at the IBF, or the memory docs as they are affectionately called by assistants, are among the most prestigious in the country.
“Well, I’m proud of you, girlie. They should be ready to see you now if you want to go in.”
Wendy hugs Deb again and she goes inside the big conference room where she is praised for her hard work and dedication. She is introduced to Dr. Sylvia Hansberry, who she already knows very well. Dr. Hansberry is one of the doctors that she had been sleeping with before things changed so drastically for her, the younger one, who has missed Wendy lately and requested her service personally so that they would have to see one another.
The two shake hands and put on a show of introduction before the crowded conference room, and Sylvia is happy when the meeting is over and she and Wendy are in her laboratory on the second floor. It’s a nice sized lab with top of the line equipment. It connects to three other labs occupied by doctors conducting similar research. Sylvia has two patients who live in the second floor in-patient rooms, and they divide their days between their rooms, the doctor’s lab, and the adjoining sterile room for surgery. Both are women in their early seventies who had been institutionalized since the late 1950s when they were victims of forced lobotomy. Sylvia had recruited them for her work after their long-term assisted living facilities closed and their families were unable to care for them at home or afford other accommodations. Sylvia’s study is partially funded by a lesbian civil liberties union that pays for the meals and rooms of the women at the IBF while she works to restore the mental function of the women who have lost all connection to their pasts.
Wendy sits across from Sylvia at her desk in her office that is a corner of the lab with walls and a door.
“You avoiding me?” Sylvia asks. “Are we done?”
“Obviously not if I’m here Dr. Hansberry. I’m eager to work with you, any personal stuff we should deal with after the work day.”
Sylvia nods and stands suddenly.
“I was inappropriate. Please,” she opens the door and leads Wendy out to one of her patients who seems to be sitting silently with her thoughts and staring blankly ahead. “This is Helen. She was forcibly lobotomized when she was eighteen years old after her father caught her kissing another woman. Of course she hasn’t been the same since.” She looks over her shoulder at the other patient who smiles down at a tablet screen that illuminates her face. “Mildred, very similar story, only it was her husband and he only had suspicions of her homosexuality. They were especially unfortunate victims of the ice pick lobotomy. Mildred can speak when we can help her concentrate, and she is very emotive, but she can get frustrated and then violent, so we don’t push her too hard. Helen is mostly non-verbal. Since we started our work, both women seem to be able to parrot words to a limited extent. It’s slow but it feels like progress.
Sylvia leads Wendy to a large lab table and they both lean in at the small glass of the box that contains cultures of neural stem cells.
“It’s been a lot of trial and error,” Sylvia explains. “Dr. Smith across the way is doing something similar with dementia and alzheimer’s patients, but our work here is definitely more structural. In both of these cases, we have been attempting to reconstruct their brains, and of course, that is an extremely complex task that we will not complete in their lifetimes. But we may be able to give them something better than what they’ve had to accept for almost half a century.”
Wendy follows the doctor to the smart board on the wall where she cycles through pictures of their procedures so far, graphs that demonstrate increases in brain matter at different locations on the women’s damaged brains.
“I want your help synthesizing all of the data that I have from the past decade or so, see if we can document concrete effects of the increased brain mass. I will have to hire more assistants soon, actual doctors, but I want you to help me manage everything.”
Wendy has been fighting back tears since Sylvia first explained the stories of the women. It’s crazy for Wendy to realize that she has been having sex with the doctor for the majority of her time with these two women, and she had never been even remotely curious about her work. The stories of Helen and Mildred are heartbreaking and Wendy is happy to help in any way that she can, and she suddenly has a lot of respect for Sylvia.
“I…” Wendy clears her throat to maintain her composure, “I’m excited to do what I can.”
When their day is done, Wendy packs her satchel with reading material that Sylvia had suggested. Helen and Mildred are back in their room and Sylvia puts things away to prepare to leave.
“I should apologize again,” Sylvia says as she turns out the lights. The two women walk out together and take the elevator. “I will only be professional here in the future. It’s true I wanted to spend more time with you, but I also thought that this work might mean something to you.”
Wendy nods and she hugs Sylvia when they are outside at her car. “I’m sorry I’ve been distant. I have some relatives in town and they are taking up a lot of my attention.” It wasn’t really a lie, only it would be hard to prove because Sylvia can’t see ghosts. “I’m excited about working together. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
After Wendy has had dinner, and she has spent hours pouring over her reading, she goes out to her backyard where she calls for an ancestor, the ancient man who has sharpened her instincts and made her a lethal fighter.
“Great uncle,” Wendy says referentially, “I am ready to continue.”
The man appears, mostly naked with a long staff and a slight cloth covering his groin. He smiles proudly at Wendy and he responds to her in English.
“You are eager now! I feel you call to me more gleefully each time. You will be my greatest student yet. And a woman at that! Who would have imagined?”
Great uncle has taught Wendy the rare of art of energy transference that allows her to endow a small part of her being to him so that he can become tangible and spar with her in their fighting lessons. It is not an easy skill to master, and Great uncle cautioned Wendy that it was just one more way for a medium to lose her life to spirits if she was not careful.
Wendy focuses and she gets a dark blue glow around her body. A blob of it detaches and floats to Great uncle who becomes surrounded as well. And then he leaps at her, and kicks Wendy in the chest. Or he thinks he does. She sees him coming, braces for the impact, and when she feels his foot on her, she grabs his ankle firmly and falls to her back, flipping the man over her head. It is a quick and unexpected counter that would have worked on a man of lesser skill, but Great uncle braces for the impact with both hands, and then attempts to kick Wendy with his free foot. Wendy has to release his ankle so that she can roll away, and Great uncle flips after her to keep the pressure on.
The two of them are at it for hours, and Great uncle has to end the session after midnight because he knows that Wendy has obligations in the morning, and she is bruising in places that will be hard to cover with clothing.
She returns to work the next day sore, but happy. She spends time with both of Dr. Hansberry’s patients and the doctor joins her to train her in the observation of patients. The two work well together, and soon Wendy’s first month with the doctor has passed and she has developed a strong bond with both Helen and Mildred. Over the course of the month, though, Helen, who had been nonverbal, spoke to Wendy and they have a special connection.
Until the day that Wendy arrives at the IBF in chaos, alarms blaring and police cars out front. When she is at Hansberry’s lab, the doctor looks dismayed as she answers police questions. Wendy goes to her side and the doctor is crying.
“Helen is gone. She just disappeared.”
Helen couldn’t just wander off, Wendy thinks. She has spastic control of her motor function and someone would have noticed her trying to leave. Someone had abducted the woman, and Wendy wants to know why.
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