Bibi by Mike Resnick and Susan Shwartz (Asimov’s SF, mid-December 1995) opens with an enigmatic passage that has a woman looking for food in the African bush after having “slept too long”. Thereafter the story introduces Jeremy Harris, an American aid worker in a nearby tented compound who is woken by one of the children who lives there with the message that the camp doctor wants him. As he wakes and gets ready we get some of his backstory: he is HIV+, and moved from the USA to work in the Ugandan camp after he infected his ex-partner. We also learn that he was a wealthy stock trader and not only does manual work for the project (there is an observation about digging graves being better exercise than any personal trainer) but helps fund it.
There is more information about Jeremy, as well as the effect that Idi Amin and Aids has had on Uganda, before he goes to meet the story’s other main character, Elizabeth Umurungi. Elizabeth is the camp doctor, a Europeanised Ugandan who was a fashion model before she changed professions. She tells him that one of the families has left the camp and, after breakfast, they drive to their village to see if they can find them. En route Jeremy gets a glimpse of what looks like a woman in the bush.
When they get to the village Elizabeth speaks to the grandmother, and asks her why she left the camp. The grandmother, after some cultural sparring with the doctor (she calls her “Memsaab”) tells her that “Bibi” is coming to help them. Unconvinced, Jeremy and Elizabeth stay to help the daughter, who is dying of AIDS.
As the pair settle down for the night we get more backstory about Jeremy when Elizabeth reads out loud a letter from Jeremey’s ex that he has been reluctant to open and read himself. And with good reason—it contains angry, bitter recriminations, as well as bad news about other friends:
“Dear (that’s a joke) Jeremy:
“After I stopped shaking and walked out on you and got back to the Keys, Bud wanted to head North after you with his AK. But Steve said what the fuck, Bud tested clean—no point throwing away his life along with yours and mine. And Steve’s. He’s real sick. ARC pneumonia. He calls it ARC-light bombing when he’s got enough breath to talk. I’ve moved in with the two of them to try to help out. Money goes farther that way, and I like to think I’m useful. It’s hard to watch him come apart and know this is how I’m going to end up.
“Then I think it’s how you’re going to end up too, and it’s not so bad. For once, you’re not going to be able to weasel your way out of something. Only you call it negotiating, don’t you? It’s part of that important stuff, like attention to detail and execution, that makes you such a big success on the Street. Wall, that is, not 42nd, where they sell themselves another way. Not much difference, is there, when you come right down to it? Talk about ‘execution’—you’ve sure executed the two of us like a pro.” p. 34
That night, a number of odd things happen: Jeremy wakes up and sees what he thinks is a child by the grave of the family’s grandfather before he shoots at a leopard; later they discover that the the radio and spark plugs have been stolen from the Landrover. When Jeremy and Elizabeth question the family they learn that Bibi took them. Then the daughter starts recovering, seemingly cured.
Later on Jeremy sees Bibi in the bush, and realises she looks like Lucy, the 3.2 million year old Australopithecus afarensis found by archaeologists. Then, when he subsequently tries to lure her into the camp (spoiler), he catches her but is bitten and she escapes. He develops a fever, and tells Elizabeth that she came to village to save her son—they are all her children—and that she can talk but no-one can understand her language. When Jeremy finally recovers he tells Elizabeth that he knows he is no longer HIV+.
Much later, after they have returned to the camp (they swap Elizabeth’s jewellery for the spark plugs), they argue about whether they should try and find Bibi and exploit her gift:
“We’ve got to go back and find her,” answered Elizabeth. “I’d kill for the chance to have AIDS researchers examine her. I still don’t know that I buy your story about her curing you with a bite, but whatever happened, she obviously gave you some biochemical agent that kills the HIV virus.”
She looked at Jeremy wryly. “It’ll never replace the Salk vaccine, but there’s simply no other explanation. I’ve got to find her and bring her to the camp.”
“She’s not a lab animal,” replied Jeremy seriously. “She’s got to remain free to do her job.”
“Her job?”
“She has other children to cure.”
“You’re not a child.”
“We’re all her children.”
“That again,” said Elizabeth with a sigh.
“You don’t have to believe it,” said Jeremy, protecting his bacon as the kite swooped down toward his plate. “It’s enough that I do.”
“You’re not being logical, Jeremy.”
“I was logical my whole life, and what did it get me, except some money I don’t need and an incurable disease?” replied Jeremy. “Why don’t you really look at Uganda sometime? This is a magical place, for all its problems. Spit a mango pit out the window of your Land Rover, and when you drive by six months later a mango tree has grown up. Amin and his successors virtually wiped out your wildlife, yet all the animals are returning. Terminally ill people suddenly get cured. So how can I not believe in magic?” p. 59
The final section sees the pair spend three months trying to find Bibi but eventually they give up. Then Jeremy wanders out into the bush on his own, and eventually comes upon her.
This, as you can probably gather from the above, is a bit of a mixed bag. It gets off to a good start with its characterisation and the African locale, and throughout the story does an impressive job of recalling the AIDS epidemic of the eighties and nineties (perhaps worse than the one we are dealing with now)1—however, the idea of a three million year old woman who is able to cure various diseases, and Jeremy’s anti-science/magical thinking take at the end of the piece, both take some of the shine off. That said, it’s a worthwhile read for those that are interested in character driven stories set in the HIV era, and/or in Africa, and I enjoyed it.
*** (Good). 18,200 words.
1. Scientists had less of an investigative armoury with HIV; the virus appeared to be lethal; and it seemed at first to affect only certain groups (i.e. gay men, which blunted the initial level of concern).