Then he saw the truck. A man wearing a white coat jumped out, along with one of the Sudanese troopers. Grazie Dio. Un dottore.
The doctor was surprisingly gentle as he assessed Pietro’s bashed-up body. He looked into Pietro’s eyes. “You must be a bloody tough one,” he said in a British accent. “Let’s see if we can put you together again, Humpty Dumpty.”
The needle moved in slow motion toward his arm, and he was grateful. As if from high in the baobab tree, he watched himself being loaded onto a stretcher, then into merciful blackness.
Bright spotlights were on him, and he couldn’t sing. There was something over his mouth. His audience waited silently for him to finish his aria. He must get this thing away. He couldn’t disappoint them.
“You’re hitting your chloroform mask, you clown. Do
