2000~09年の執筆物

概要

ムアンギの『最後の疫病』(The Last Plague, 2000)とゲテリアの『ナイスピープル』(Nice People, 1993)のケニアの小説が描き出したエイズの惨状を分析した作品論です。小説にしか描けない人の心理や性に対する考え方など、日本人に伝えると同時に、この500年のアングロサクソンを中心にした西洋諸国の侵略におかされて来たアフリカの将来への提言も分析しました。

本文

Human Sorrow:―AIDS Stories Depict An African Crisis―

TAMADA Yoshiyuki

The Faculty of Medicine, University of Miyazaki

<Summary>

This essay aims to show how AIDS stories in Kenya depict an African crisis that we have never seen in history. The AID situation in Africa is so devastating as is pointed out in a newspaper article containing the headlines; “Africa: the continent left to die – The Aids virus will kill 30 million Africans in the next 20 years. Are the drug companies making the situation worse?”1, but most of Japanese do not pay much attention to African issues including the emergent AIDS crisis, even though our country is closely related to some of the African countries through trades: The Japanese have prospered by making the best use of ODA (Official Development Assistance), an important instrument of neo-colonial strategies, in addition to investments and trade by having enhanced the alliances with the ‘nice people,’ a few chosen Africa elites. For example, Japan is one of the leading trading partners of Kenya as well as the most important ODA donor.2 Nevertheless, most of Japanese do not know even the existence of African literature.3 But they have high-standard literature in Africa. Nice People4 is a memoir which records the history of the outbreak of AIDS as early as 1984. The Last Plague5 is a novel which depicts everyday life of ordinary people suffering from HIV infection and AIDS.

I hope this essay will be some help to fill in the gap between the realities of Africa and the Japanese consciousness on Africa.

1.AIDS epidemic in the neo-colonial stage

It has been less than a quarter century since the word “AIDS" entered our vocabulary. It is in 1981 when the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) set up a special investigation team, which was the beginning of the first methodical study of the unknown disease. The team discovered that the symptoms were caused by a drop in T-lymphocyte cells, which play the key role in the cellular immune system that protects a human body from invasion of pathogenic organisms. It was then that the disease was given the name AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). In the spring of 1983 the full proof of AIDS came and the virus is now generally called human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

CDC(米国疾病予防センター)

Since then, researchers have developed a number of drugs. In 1996 multi-drug therapy by a combination of reverse transcriptase (RT) inhibitors and protease inhibitors prolonged the lives of many AIDS patients. That year was heralded as the year AIDS treatment came of age, but none of the drugs shuts down the HIV life-cycle for long. Within a few weeks after it enters a body, HIV produces billions of genetically varied offspring. Drugs can shackle most of them, but a few survive and go on reproducing the offspring. Thousands of them look well but not everyone fares well with the drugs. Moreover, there have been some reports of problems with resistance and side effects.

抗HIV製剤

Effective multi-drug therapy can cost much. The price is tremendous, even in the industrialized countries. In the developing countries those drugs are financially completely out of reach as a report of the 1998 World AIDS Conference points out;

And even when the drugs offered hope, still other speakers said, it is hope beyond the reach of the vast majority of the 34 million people now infected the AIDS virus. Those patients cannot afford the treatment. It can cost about $15,000 to provide the drugs to one person a year, a sum greater than the entire budget of many a Third World village.6

It was in the early 80’s that the ADIS problem appeared in Africa. In such a short period the disease has spread much more rapidly than expected. An article in 1997 reports;

In the developing world, and especially in Africa, the virus continues to take an extraordinary, and often hidden, toll of suffering. It is estimated that 2,300,000 people will die of Aids-related diseases this year, a 50-percent increase on 1996.

The UN-Aids programme now admits that it has “grossly under-estimated” the number of people who have the HIV virus, and full-blown Aids, in Africa,…

The impact of HIV on this continent is so devastating that it has wiped out 30 years of gains from improved nutrition and medical treatment….7

Nice People and The Last Plague depict the devastating situation of AIDS in Kenya. The former story shows us the panic of the time when some doctors had to face this unknown sexually transmitted disease for the first time. The latter novel describes many suffering people in a withering village by the attack of the plague.

2.Nice People

The protagonist of Nice People is Joseph Munguti, a doctor in Kenya Central Hospital (KCH). In 1974, after graduating Ibadan University in Nigeria, he begins to work there.

At the university he was interested in STDs (Sexual Transmitted Diseases) and wrote the sub-thesis: “Kenyan morality and its effects on the epidemiology of Gonorrhoea and the Treponematoses." He insisted that “we would gain tremendous progress in the fight against venereal diseases were we to provide by extensive and intensive media communications acceptance of sexually transmitted diseases instead of moralising about and concealing them.”

He starts his internship under Waweru Gichinnga, his officer in-charge, who advises Munguti to work on night duty on a clinic in Nderu. Later Gicinga opens his own clinic, the River Road Clinic in Nairobi. The Nderu and River Road Clinics complement each other. As the law is vigilant in Nairobi, some operations can be illegally performed in Nderu. Most patients at Nderu contact venereal diseases (VDs). Ten years later Gicinga is arrested for his illegal treatments, so Munguti inherits the clinic as his own VDs’ clinic for the down-trodden in society.

ケニア地図

In January, 1984, he reopens the clinic under a new name, believing he is the leading venereologist in the county and that there is no venereal disease he has not diagnosed and treated.

In December of 1984, however, a Chinese puzzle came to his clinic. At first he thinks it is a simple case of lymphogranuloma venereum, then, on a second visit, the sores that he thinks are simple genital herpes has spread all over the body. His patient named Kombo tells him that the patient tried all sorts of medicines without success. A friend referred him to Munguti and assured him that he would be cured.

Kombo says, “I am a rich man, young man. Here is twenty thousand shillings. Go and look for any medicine that will get rid of this."

Kombo and Munguti belong to the rich class. They are rich enough to use the Kenya Banker’s club “which was patronised by many members of the civil service, the big banks and government corporations. In this club most of the people in the who-is-who in Nairobi converged especially on Thursdays. It had five tennis courts, three squash courts, a sauna and a beautiful swimming pool which made it a particularly convenient rendezvous for Nairobi’s young bureaucrats.” (146)

ナイロビ市街

So, Munguti starts researching in the Kenya Medical Research Library and finds out the November issue of the “American Medical Journal":

A serious dermatological condition follows the genital herpes which resists all known antibiotic. Persistent diarrhoea, coughing and swelling of most lymph nodes accompanies the disease. Since the body is incapable of fighting many common diseases, the patient begins to wither away and eventually dies. It has been named the green monkey disease as the virus causing it is synonymous to the one similarly attacking the green monkeys of Central Africa! Several San Franciscan homosexuals are suffering from it."8

Munguti is certain that these symptoms were the same that he saw in Kombo. What he requires is a diagnosis with clinical tests and further research on causal factors, plus an understanding of Kombo’s background. He goes for a drink hoping to meet a medic with whom he can share his thoughts and comes across his old colleagues at the KCH. They confirm his fears that a new sexually transmitted disease has been diagnosed and is transmitted by a strange virus. It already killed five persons at the KCH, a Finish man, two Americans and two Zaireans. Three Kenyans were also admitted with the disease that week. The disease is highly contagious and is terminal. The men and women are therefore isolated in cages from other patients.

Munguti visits the KCH to look at the patients for comparative purposes. When he is taken by a nurse to a glass walled room where three men sleep, he feels such helplessness as he watches the helpless men anxiously looking at them. Then he recognizes his patient, Kombo. He froths at the mouth, archs his back and appears in great pain as he coughs repeatedly, a dry cough that is definitely puncturing his lungs;

“The one you were looking at is Major Kombo. Cleansing Superintendent of the Nairobi Garbage Handlers Company Ltd. They brought him yesterday and he is unlikely to survive another day," the nurse-in-charge advised and I started warming up in the heart. My guilt started waning as I recalled a battered Luo lady who years ago had come to the River Road Clinic complaining of a sodomist City garbage collection boss. I remembered thinking of going to the police station to report a felony, but declined because my medical profession barred me from doing so. Poor Major Kombo, I rationalised, his maker must have decided to avenge the women he had bestialized. (141)

Munguti asks the second opinion to his older colleague, Gichua Gikere. He already knew of the disease which was called “slim" and came from Uganda. Gikere talks about one witchdoctor. Although he does not believe in witch-doctors, he decides to go to the witch-doctor. But before going on the planned trip, Kombo passes away.

Munguti also has sexual realationships with three women: Mumbi, Mary Nduku, and Eunice Maimba, at the same time. They are all ‘nice people.’ He meets Mumbi, his colleague’s daughter at the clinic and is enchanted by her. They become intimate, finally promise to marry. But she has a white boy of Captain Blackman, whom she met in Mombasa as a prostitute, flees to to him in Helsinki just after childbirth. She dies of AIDS there.

モンバサ周辺地図

Mary Nduku, his friend from childhood, introduces Ian Brown at the Kenya Bankers’ Club to Munguti. She is a secretary and lover of Ian Brown, 34, an Englishman, who works for the Standard Bank and lives in Muthaiga, the Beverly Hills of Nairobi. His grandfather came to Kenya from South Africa. He drives a Jaguar and plays golf at the leading clubs. He dies of AIDS, too.

Eunice Maimba visits his clinic because of her husband domestic violence. At first she was only his patient but he finally found himself a “sugar boy” with a “sugar mummy”. Her husband passes away because of AIDS, too.

One morning he wakes up with swollen salivary glands and wonders:

I began wondering whether the dreaded disease that had been stalking me for the last ten years had finally caught up with me. Was it with Mary Nduku via Ian Brown? I asked myself, or was it Eunice Maimba through Godfrey Maimba? I sent a prayer to the heavens, then continued wondering if Mumbi, Dr. GG’s daughter, could also have been the cause of my problem. She had mothered a healthy child all right but this did not necessarily free her from seropositivity, or did it? I continued to ponder.

Captain Blackmann was a Finnish sailor who frequented Mombasa whore houses, so did Major Oluoch, Mumbi’s other associate. All this substraction and addition led to the fact that I was surrounded in the last ten years by likely pathways of the killer virus and there was to be no escape. I had coitus severally with the three women, who had done the same with three and more men who in turn had themselves been involved with others. I saw the picture similar to that of a spider-web that taps any flies that come into it and I knew we were all in the web. A sudden fear gripped me as I saw my mother listening to the news of her dear son’s final journey and its cause. (166-167)

The author focuses on ‘nice people,’ for they are their ‘limited pool of professional and technical elite’ in the country who are to play the key role of treatment. The author’s note shows his concern;

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Among the things that made me embark on Nice people was this cutting from the Sidney Morning Herald sent to me in June, 1987. I reproduce it here 3 years after:

AIDS in Africa: the crisis that became a catastrophe by Blaine Harden

NAIROBI, Sunday: AIDS has infected up to a quarter of the population of some cities in central and eastern Africa, where it is now regarded as an unprecedented catastrophe.

The fatal disease is viewed as a particularly severe threat to Africa, the world’s poorest continent, because it appears to have spread among its limited pool of professional and technical elite.

Health authorities in Africa and observers elsewhere say the AIDS epidemic could, in a sense, decapitate some African countries.

The growing epidemic, these authorities agree, aggravates an already severe shortage of skilled people and raises the prospect of economic, political and social disorder. (VII)

著者解説付きの『ナイスピープル』裏表紙

3.The Last Plague

The Last Plague, on the contrary, focuses on many poor people, ordinary masses.

It is a novel of Janet, who tries to become independent through her job. When her husband, Broker left her family, Janet tried to kill herself, but didn’t. There were three children to raise and Grandmother. She was forced to become strong and conscious of herself in the society. She willingly took a job of the Government, which gave her condoms and pills to dish out, free of charge, in order to save the community from poverty and death. Her daily life is as follows:

She walked and pedaled her bicycle dozens of kilometers every day, from hill to hill and throughout Crossroads. She talked to numerous people every day; sang them the song of the condom and told them of the benefits of planning heir families and of protecting themselves from sexually transmitted diseases. Some listened to her, but most people did not want to hear her at all and she was unwelcome in many homesteads that she visited. Some ran to hide when they saw her coming, but she chased after them and did what she had to do and said what she had to say, no matter how hostile the reception, for it was her job, a vital and important job, and she did not have to convince herself of that any more.9

Crossroads, a small town in Kenya, is going to die. The text reads; “There were burial mounds everywhere one turned; large, brooding things, darkly vibrant with death, and there was hardly a single homestead in Crossroads that did not host one, or two or three or more, of these terrible reminders of the futility of man. And where thee was one today, tomorrow there would be two. Two became four and four became eight. Hey grew, they multiplied and they mutated. They turned into monsters: hungry beasts with insatiable carving for human life.” (22)

When her classmate Frank comes back home, he is much surprised to find the change of his native village. He left for education by villagers’ donation, he comes back, his education unfinished: “As he crossed the old highway into town, he realized that Crossroads had changed too. The joyous town of his youth had aged, and done so badly. The walls had caved in, the roofs had collapsed and the streets were lined with piles of rubble from countless dead buildings; mountains of crushed masonry and heaps upon heaps of decomposing dreams. Crossroads lay still and despondent, a disease-ravaged animal, hopeless and despairing, an affliction-ridden thing whose resistance to adversity had decisively collapsed, dying without whimper.” (24)

Broker comes back, too. He visits the house of Jemina, a woman with whom he left Crossroads for Mombasa, and found she is dead of Aids and her grandmother remains with many orphans. He is also surprised to find the devastation:

Broker left Jemina’s grave a thoroughly troubled man. The boy took his hands as they walked back to the huts and the other children. Two of the huts were now open. Broker pushed a door to look into a dark and dank room, smelling of urine and poverty. Rats scrambled from the floor and ran up the walls to their nests in the thatching. There was not a stick of furniture in the room. The entire floor was covered with sacks and sleeping mats. The second hut was in the same dismal condition; one vast sleeping place where rats ruled most of the day. A scrawny milk goat, with twisted horns, leaped out of the hut, startling Broker half to death, and bolted. (321)

Janet desperately tries to fight against Aids problems with the help of Frank and Broker, who thought themselves to be HIV-positive. Janet has to make a fierce battle with the villagers’ taboos and tradition:

Taboos and tradition had to go, they had to be eliminated, to make way for meaningful progress. Old believes and assumptions were the biggest handicaps in the battle of Aids, because they had many wives, and so-called safe partners, and did not manga-manga, or consort with prostitutes. But their safe partners too had their own safe partners, who also had safe partners; in an endless long chain of safe partners that was a recipe for a terrible catastrophe. (336)

At home Janet is assailed by a fixed idea of her Grandmother day after day:

“Talk about yourself,” Grandmother said. “You don’t even have a man of your own. What are you doing about it?”

Janet heard these words nearly every day of her life. The words hurt, and made her want to scream with fury, but she knew she would hear them till she married again or Grandmother died. (40)

“You must get married,” she said to Janet. “I worry about you and the children.”

“Marry again?” Janet asked her.

“Broker was a mistake,” she observed. “You have a right to marry again, another man. A proper man, someone who can look after you and your children. A real man.”

“A real man?” Jane scoffed at her. “In Crossroads?"

Janet saw where they were now headed with the conversation; down the old labyrinths and tedious dead ends that they had visited too many times already.

Janet laughed, wearily and without mirth, and reminded her there were not enough men in Crossroads who could take care of themselves, never mind their women and children. (42)

Janet visits schools to give sex education for children, a church to advise their congregation to use condoms, a witch-doctor to stop circumcise village boys, but meets a strong opposition. The witch-doctor, in revenge, smashes Frank’s animal clinic to pieces because he helped Janet.

The most difficult problem Janet has to face is the marriage of her sister’s husband, Kata, the witch-doctor. Following tradition, he will inherit the wife of his dead brother who has just died of Aids. Janet tries to persuade her to change Kata:

“You know I can’t stop Kata from doing anything,” Julia said to Janet. “You know how he is a traditional man.”

“Don’t you understand anything at all?” Janet was on the point of despair. “If Kata takes Solomon’s wife, he will die. Then Julia too will die.”

“Do you now know when people will die?” Grandmother was appalled.

“Do you think you know everything?” Julia said, defiantly. “I’m tired of your telling me what to do.”

“I worry for you,” Janet said to her.

“Don’t worry for me,” she rose in a huff. “You are no my mother.”

“I’m your sister,” Janet told her. “I must worry about you.”

“Monika is more of a sister to me,” Julia retorted. “We depend on our men. We are not prostitutes.” (57-58)

In spite of her efforts Kata marries his brother’s wife, but he reluctantly admits to use condoms with Janet’s sister influenced by the graphic book on Aids which Janet advised her sister to read. One day a team of inspectors from Oslo comes to see Janet. She shows them around to the schools, the church, the deserted houses with orphans, her house, and the condom shop Broker started.

It is an ironic ending the team decides to help Janet and the village, even though most of the villagers are still against the change of taboos and tradition.

The HIV test is given to all the villagers. Frank finds himself HIV-negative, and Broker makes sure of his infection. Soon after, Broker passes away.

イライザ法検査器具

4.Human Sorrow

Now that the cause of the disease is clear, it seems possible to prevent the virus invasion. The two stories, however, show how difficult it is to control STDs and even more human desire. We feel even human sorrow.10

In Kenya, like in other African countries, the basis of the exploiting system is peasants and workers. When Europeans began to colonize African countries, they robbed Africans of their land and posed them various taxes, so Africans were forced to become landless peasants and workers. In Kenya some were forced to pick up tea as wage workers in white man’s farms and others to serve as domestic workers for white families.

ケニア地図

Under the colonial system companies and plantations needed foremen who served as mediators and could speak English, the language of the employers, which led to the development of a new type of administrative African middle class. They were given the privilege of going to school and learned much of European culture. They began to read criticism against colonialism. Some of them reacted against the cultural oppression in the colonies. Some of them were against social discrimination as a group, but they were tempted to imitate the Europeans’ privileged way of life. They led the fight toward independence.

Independence, however, gave nothing to peasants and workers, for the upper petty- bourgeoisie class and the petty-bourgeois tried to make an alliance with industrialized countries. We cannot deny that fact Japan is among them, the important trading partner. Some of our prosperities are based on the profits of investments and trades.

Now Aids has been added to the burden of ordinary African masses. The solution of the Aids problems is alternative: Africans like Janet will change the ‘taboos and tradition’ from inside or the side of the robber like Japan and the U.S.A. will concede even an inch in investments and trades.

Both are necessary.

HIV

Notes

1 Smith, Alex Duval. (September 12, 1999) Africa: the continent left to die. The Independent included in The Daily Yomiuri.

2 The Homepage of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan:

http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/gaiko/oda99/ge/g5-12.htm

3 According to the questionnaires I made to the freshmen in April, 2004, just one student among 236 knew the existence of African literature. (The Faculty of Medicine -134, The Faculty of Engineering – 46, The Faculty of Agriculture – 56) In April, 2009. there are only 3 among 140 (1 nursing student and 3 medical students in the Faculty of Medicine.) Every year the situation is almost the same.

4 Geteria, Wamugunda. (1992) Nice People. Nairobi: African Artefacts. I happened borrow this book from my Kenyan friend. I was told he had got it in some overseas conference. I wrote to the publisher for some inquiries, but there was no reply. I’m afraid the publisher exists no longer. Now we can get a version by East African Educational Publishers and Michigan State University Press.

5 Mwangi, Major. (2000) The Last Plague. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers.

6 Altman, Lawrenc A. (July 6, 1998) World AIDS Conference Ends Pessimistically, With No Cure in Sight. The International Herald Tribune included in The Japan Times.

7 Lichfield, John. (November 30, 1997) Lethal epidemic is much larger than feared. The Independent included in The Daily Yomiuri.

8 Nice People. 140. All subsequent page references to this work will appear in parentheses in this paper.

9 The Last Plague. 80. All subsequent page references to this work will appear in parentheses in this paper.

10 This work has been supported by JSPS. KAKENHI Grand-in-Aid-for Scientific Research (A) (15520230 – H.15~H.18) under the title: “Human Sorrow Seen between Medicine and Literature – AIDS Issues African Literature in English Depicts”

執筆年

2009年

収録・公開

Research and Practice in ESP (No. 10), pp. 12-20

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Human Sorrow – AIDS Stories Depict An African Crisis

2000~09年の執筆物

概要

『ナイス・ピープル』を医学的な面からではなく、文学の面から分析したものです。医学的な資料は多いのですが、人間の心の襞を写す文学作品はそう多くありません。いち早くエイズ患者が出始めたケニアの状況のなかで、右往左往する医師と患者の揺れる心の襞に焦点を当てました。

本文(写真作業中)

アフリカ文学とエイズ ケニア人の心の襞を映す『ナイス・ピープル』              玉田吉行

アフリカ文学

ケニアの小説『ナイス・ピープル』を感心しながら読みました。メジャー・ムアンギの『最後の疫病』(二〇〇〇年)を読んだ時、エイズの問題が作家に咀嚼されてようやく小説になったかと思ったのですが、『ナイス・ピープル』は一九九二年に出版されていました。

欧米志向の強い日本では、アフリカに文学があることすら知られていないのが実状ですが、最初のエイズ患者が出た直後の社会状況と未知の感染症に振り回されるケニアの人々の心の襞を見事に描いています。

著者について詳しくは判りませんが、オーストラリアに留学中に目にした次の新聞記事がこの本を書く動機になったようです。

「著者の覚え書き

『ナイス・ピープル』でどうしても書いておきたかった一つに一九八七年六月一日付けの「シドニー・モーニング・ヘラルド」の切り抜きがあります。三年のち、ここでその記事を再現してみましょう。

ハーデン・ブレイン著「アフリカのエイズ 未曾有の大惨事となった危機」

(ナイロビ発)中央アフリカ、東アフリカでは人口の四分の一がHIVに感染している都市もあり、今や未曾有の大惨事と見なされています。

この致命的な病気は世界で最も貧しい大陸アフリカには特に厳しい脅威だと見られています。専門知識や技術を要する数の限られた専門家の間でもその病気が広がっていると思われるからです。

アフリカの保健機関の職員の間でも、アフリカ外の批評家たちの間でも、アフリカの何カ国かはエイズの流行で、ある意味、「国そのものがなくなってしまう」のではないかと言われています。

病気がますます広がって、既に深刻な専門職不足に更に拍車がかかり、このまま行けば、経済的に、政治的に、社会的に必ず混乱が起きることは誰もが認めています。

世界保健機構(WHO)によれば、エイズは他のどの地域よりもアフリカに打撃を与えています。今年度の研究では、ある都市では、研究者が驚くべき割合と記述するような率でエイズが広がり続けているというデータが出ています。

第三世界のエイズのデータを分析しているロンドン拠点のペイノス研究所の所長ティンカー氏は、「死という意味で言えば、アフリカのエイズ流行病は二年前のアフリカの飢饉と同じくらい深刻でしょう。

しかし、飢饉は比較的短期間の問題です。エイズは毎年、毎年続きます。」(『ナイス・ピープル』、Ⅶ~Ⅷペイジ)

医学部で英語の授業を担当し始めてから十八年目になります。最近は、授業に使えないかな、科学研究費が取れるかな、という不純な動機で本を読むことが多くなりました。その点では、この本はうってつけだった訳です。特に三つの点に牽かれました。

一つ目は、エイズ患者が出始めたころの混乱した社会状況が描かれている貴重な歴史記録だという点です。

二つ目は、医者を含めた少数の金持ちに焦点が当てられ、新植民地時代の構図が分かり易く描かれている点です。

三つ目は、主人公の医者の目を通して小説が描かれている点です。大学卒業後すぐに私設の診療所で稼ぎながら国立病院で研修を受ける鷹揚な医療制度、未知のエイズ患者を隔離している特別病棟、売春が社会の必要悪で治療こそが最優先と結論づける卒業論文とその審査過程、売春婦などが通ってくる診療所での日々の診察風景、金持ちの末期エイズ患者に快楽を提供して稼ごうと目論むホスピス、雑誌の症例から判断して担当の患者をエイズと診断したことなど、これなら医学部の授業にも、科研用にも使える、と考えた訳です。作品を紹介しましょう。

「一九八四―謎の疾病」

主人公ジョセフ・ムングチが、ナイジェリアのイバダン大学の医学部を一九七四に卒業したあと、直ちにケニア中央病院で働き始めたという設定です。卒業論文のテーマに性感染症を選んだこともあって、先輩医師ギチンガの指導を受けながら、ギチンガ個人が経営する診療所で稼ぎながら勤務医を続けます。ギチンガは国立病院では扱えないような不法な堕胎手術などで稼ぎを得ていたようで、やがては告発されて刑務所に送られてしまいます。十年後、ギチンガから譲り受けた診療所で、ムングチは念願の売春婦などを相手にひとりで診療を継続します。

一九八四年、ムングチの元に、年老いたコンボと名乗る中国人がやってきます。「やあ、先生さんよ、わしは金持ちじゃよ。二万シリング持ってきた。わしのこの病気を治してくれる薬なら何でもいい、何とか探してくれんか」と言って、大金を残して去って行きます。法外な大金に戸惑いを見せますが、格安の料金で社会の底辺層を相手に性病の治療を続けるムングチには、断る理由もなく、謎の病気の正体を突き止めることになりました。最初は性病性リンパ肉芽腫かと思いますが、どうも違うようで、ケニア中央研究所の図書館に入り浸った二日目に、同年十二月にアメリカで発行された以下の症例報告を見つけます。

あらゆる抗生物質に耐性を持つ重い皮膚病の症状を呈し、生殖器に疱疹が散見される。下痢、咳を伴い、大抵のリンパ節が腫れる。極く普通にみられる病気と闘う抵抗力が体にはないので、患者は痩せ衰えて死に至る。病気を引き起こすウィルスが中央アフリカのミドリザルを襲うウィルスと似ているので、ミドリザル病と呼ばれている。サンフランシスコの男性同性愛者が数人、その病気にかかっている。(『ナイス・ピープル』、百四十ペイジ)

老人の症状から判断して診断に確信を持たざるを得なかったのですが、元同僚の意見を求めます。ケニア中央病院の二人の医師は、未知のウィルスによって感染する新しい性感染症の診断に間違いはなく、既に同病院でも米国人二人、フィンランド人一人、ザイール人二人が同じ症状で死亡しており、三人のケニア人の末期患者が隔離病棟にいる、と教えてくれます。早速、隔離病棟に出向いたムングチは、改めて死にかけている老人の症状を目の当たりにします。

「私は調べた結果と比較して患者を見てみたかった。目的を説明すると、看護婦は三人が眠っているガラス張りの部屋に連れて行ってくれた。私達を怪訝そうに見つめる救いようのない三人を見つめながら、言いようのない侘びしさを感じた。その時、その老人が目に入った。私の患者、コンボ氏に違いなかった。口から泡を吹き、背を屈め、酷く苦しそうに繰り返し咳き込んでいた。渇いた咳は明らかに両肺を穿っていた。老人には私が誰かは判らなかったが、隔離病棟の柵を離れながら、後ろめたいほろ苦さを感じた。」(『ナイス・ピープル』、百四十一)

患者コンボ氏は、実は以前ムングチの診療所を訪ねてきたルオ人女性の鼻を折った張本人で、ナイロビ市の清掃業を一手に引き受ける大金持ちでした。ルオ人の女性は清掃会社の就職面接でコンボ氏から裸になって歩き回るように命令されて抵抗した為に暴力をふるわれました。噂では、肛門性交嗜好家の異常な行動の犠牲者が他に何人もいたようです。ムングチは、コンボ氏の死に際の哀れな姿を思い浮かべながら、神が犠牲者たちに代わって蛮行への鉄槌を下されたに違いないと結論づけます。

元同僚のギチンガ医師は、「スリム病」と呼ばれるこの病気については既に知っており、唯一薬を提供出来るだろうと地方の療法師・呪術師を紹介してくれますが、実際の役には立ちませんでした。こうして、ムングチのエイズとの闘いが始まります。

「ナイス・ピープル」

コンボ氏と同じように、ムングチも金持ちの階級に属しており、「ナイス・ピープル」とはそんな金持ち専用の次のような高級クラブに出入りする人たちのことです。

「ムングチも、今では、役所や大銀行や政府系の企業の会員たちが資金を出し合う唯一の「ケニア銀行家クラブ」の会員だった。クラブには、ナイロビの著名人リストに載っている人たちが大抵、特に木曜日毎に集まって来る。テニスコート五面、スカッシュコート三面、サウナにきれいなプールも完備されており、ナイロビの若者官僚たちの特に便利な恋の待合い場所になっている。(『ナイス・ピープル』、百四十六ペイジ)

開発や援助の名の下に、西洋資本と手を携える現代のアフリカ社会は、一握りの金持ちと大多数の貧乏人で構成されています。資本を貯め込める中産階級が極端に少なく、その階級の大半は外国人で埋められています。病気の治療を担う側の医者や官僚などの専門職の人たちも多数、HIVに感染しており、その感染率の高さを作者は問題にしています。幼馴染みンデュクの愛人ブラウンもギチンガ医師の娘ムンビの愛人ブラックマンも、ムングチが高級クラブで出会った「ナイス・ピープル」です。

南アフリカからの入植者を祖父に持つブラウンは、高級住宅街に住む三十四歳の青年で、勤務する大手の銀行で秘書をしているンデュクと愛人関係にあり、ジャガーを乗り回し、一流のゴルフ場でゴルフを楽しんでいます。エイズを発症し、英国で治療を受けるために帰国しようとしますが、航空会社から搭乗を拒否されて失意のなかで死んでゆきます。

ブラックマンはモンバサの売春宿でムンビと出会い、常連客の一人となったフィンランド人の船長で、結果的には、二人の間に出来た子供を連れてヘルシンキまで押しかけてきたムンビを引き取ることになります。

高級住宅街に住むマインバ夫妻も「ナイス・ピープル」です。妻のユーニスは、ある日、額から夥しい血を流しながら病院に担ぎ込まれます。その傷が夫の暴力によるもので、のちに、夫とメイドとの浮気の現場を見て以来、精神的に不安定な症状が続いていることが判り、精神科の治療を受けるようになります。数ヶ月後、コンボ氏と同じように肛門性交を好む夫が、かかりつけの医者からHIV感染の疑いがあるので血液検査を薦められていると、ムングチに訴えにやって来ます。

性感染症専門医と性

ムングチの診療と日常生活が、性感染症の恐ろしさと感染対策の難しさに加えて、複数婚が続くケニア社会と今の日本社会との、性や売春行為に対する社会通念の違いを教えてくれます。

ムングチは、メアリとユーニスとムンビと、同時に関係を持ちます。幼馴染みのメアリとは高級クラブで再会し、ブラウンの愛人であることを承知で関係を持ち、一時は同居しています。アパートで鉢合わせになったブラウンと大げんかをして別れますが、ブラウンは後にエイズを発症して死んでいます。ユーニスはムングチが担当した患者です。性的な関係を持つようになり、中年マダムのお供をして週末毎に豪華な小旅行に出かけた時期もありますが、夫がHIV感染の可能性が高いと相談され、恐ろしくなって別れます。ムンビとは父親を訪ねて来たときに私設の診療所で出会ったのですが、モンバサで娼婦をしているのを承知で恋人関係になります。一時期同棲をして、子供を身ごもったことを告げられて結婚を決意しますが、生まれてきた子供はムングチの子供ではなく、売春宿の常連客ブラックマンの子供でした。ムンビは逃げるようにヘルシンキへ渡りますが、エイズを発症して死んでしまいます。

おわりに

ムングチは、のちにエイズで死ぬ愛人を持つメアリと、HIVに感染したと思われる夫を持つユーニスと、異国の地でエイズを発症して死ぬムンビの三人と同時に性的な関係を持っていた訳です。売春行為を社会の必要悪と捉え、性感染症については治療を優先すべきで、社会の底辺層には国が無料で治療活動を行なう義務があるという趣旨の卒業論文を書きました。私設の診療所では、最低限の料金でその人たちの性感染症の治療に専念します。性感染症の怖さを充分に承知していたわけで、ムングチを始めとする「ナイス・ピープル」の性や売春に対する考え方を思い合わせれば、この小説の冒頭に載せられた「アフリカの何カ国かはエイズの流行で、ある意味、『国そのものがなくなってしまう』のではないか」という記事が、信憑性を帯びて迫って来ます。

南アフリカからの入植者によって侵略されたケニア社会は、かつての自給自足の豊かな農村社会ではありません。複数婚も乳児死亡率の高い中で子孫を確保したり、農作業や老人・子供の世話を分担する労働力を確保する、などの必要性から生み出された制度でしょうし、西洋社会が批判する割礼にしても共同体全体で次世代を育てるための教育の一環として生まれたものです。しかし、土地を奪われ、課税される農民と都市部で働かされる賃金労働者には、旧来の制度を踏襲し発展させる力はありません。割礼や複数婚の制度が残っていても、かつての共同体を基盤にして機能していた制度とは全くの別物なのです。大多数の農民や労働者は食うや食わずの生活を強いられ、国全体も、西洋資本と手を組む一握りの貴族やその取り巻きの豊かさと引き替えに、背負い切れない程の累積債務に喘いでいます。そこにHIVが猛威をふるい始めた訳です。二〇〇四年のCIAの推計では、ケニア全体の平均寿命は約四十五歳にまで落ち込んでいます。

ケニアをはじめとするアフリカ諸国の危機的なエイズ事情と、ケニアに援助して協力していると考える大半の日本人の意識との格差は、大き過ぎます。

第二次世界大戦後、欧米や日本は世界銀行や国連などを設立して、開発や援助の名の下に資本を提供して利子をとる新植民地方式に戦略を変えています。ケニアへのODAの予算の大半は日本の大手の建設会社が請け負い、日本の大手金融機関、造船会社、運輸会社、商社などを経て日本に還元する仕組みになっています。ケニアも重債務国ですが、ケニア政府は債務の帳消しには反対です。債務が帳消しになると一握りの貴族が困るからです。

日本政府は一九九三年から東京でアフリカ開発会議を東京で始めました。このエイズの深刻な事情が進めば、外交政策に支障をきたすのが予測出来るからでしょう。資本を提供する相手から利子を取ろうにも、エイズによって死者が増加すれば絞り取る相手の人口自体が減ってしまうのですから。

『ナイス・ピープル』を読んで、そんなことを考えました。

(たまだ・よしゆき、宮崎大学医学部英語科教員)

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