B
Insignificant Gestures by Jo Cannon

The short story from 2007 by Jo Cannon is a story about a former district health officer, who is looking back at the time in Africa and how his job was different from the western understanding of the job. He worked sometimes at night, sometimes with sulky pregnant nurses and he didn’t seem to enjoy his job very much. His only ray of comfort was his housekeeper, Celia. But one day she is suddenly his patient while she, according to the women in the village, was beaten up by her boyfriend. She was in such bad condition that he chose to send her to a larger hospital an hour and a half away, in a last attempt to save her. After her transport he was called to the police station to give a medical statement which could put the boyfriend behind bars. Six weeks later he finds out that Celia didn’t die of that reason which he had given a medical statement of - she died of meningitis, meaning he could have saved her with penicillin. When he realizes his mistake he contacts the police station so the boy can be free to go, but the police officer does not agree and the innocent boyfriend stays inside the walls. After returning from his job in Africa retrained as a psychiatrist, to keep away from death, hunger and the severe amount of bad memories from his time as doctor in Africa. This results in a meeting with an African nurse, who brings back all the memories about Celia, his companion.
The short story is written in past-tense with a flash back to the time spent in Africa and is seen from a first-person perspective and we therefore only know about the narrator’s feelings and thoughts - the narrator is non-omniscient. The narrator is very attentive and that gives him the opportunity to describe the environment surrounding him into details. For example …Then I would spring from bed and smash them with a shoe, disgusted as much by my violence as by the white sticky glue that oozed from the splattered bodies…extending feelers from beneath the toilet seat, or jostling in the teapot, or moving together like a glistening carpet inside the wardrobe.
About the narrator as a person we don’t know that much. When he is working in Africa he is 28 years old. Working as a psychiatrist he is a bit older. He is a fair and honest man, at least that’s the impression that is given us. Especially it is clarified when he returns to the police office to change his medical statement, to save the innocent boy. He is not sharing his feelings with anyone, and that might be the reason he has to change his career from doctor to psychiatrist where he can hide his own problems and instead deal with other persons problems. Through time he has acquired a strong dislike of cockroaches, but Celia gets them away for him.
Celia is the servant of the narrator. He doesn’t really need her at first, he thinks servants symbolizes inequality and exploitation, and she doesn’t really do much more in the house than to sweep the floors and wash his clothes, while he prefers to cock his own meal. She, as said before, gets the cockroaches away for him - she simply makes life a better place for him with insignificant gestures. Their relationship is not sexual, Celia was my companion; our elbows at the table never touched, they don’t talk much, with no words exchanged between us but they share a passion for drawing and he is amazed by her skills, I marveled… that she could draw so well. She was a natural… She drew a flower, in such exquisite details that I was astonished. Celia is his door to freedom, freedom from all the illnesses that is surrounding him. When Celia dies he loses his freedom, his place to rest, his place to feel happy. In a way he feels responsible for her death, because he reacted more on his feelings than on his medical knowledge which caused that he failed to recognize the meningitis symptoms and to give her the right treatment in time. Furthermore he places a young innocent boy in prison and it is not difficult to understand why he has been blaming himself for the rest of his life. He obviously has some big pangs of conscience which he hasn’t shared with anyone or dealt with in any way. No one has reached him.
The first person who finally gets to him is an African nurse, who crushes a cockroach with her shoe, just like Celia an insignificant gesture. And when she does, she cracks the shell he has kept around him and all his feelings finally burst out.
Jo Cannon uses flashback in her short story to show the time that has gone, to show for how long people can hide away their most deepest feelings and thoughts. How long he has kept it is unknown for us, but it seems like he opens up at the right time for him, in the right environment (the African nurse). What is important to take notice of is that it is a small insignificant gestures, from this the title, that finally opens him. When the African nurse crushes a cockroach it reminds him of Celia and the time they had and how it all ended. It reminds us that sometimes it’s the smallest thing that makes the difference. That little thing is the last straw that breaks the camel's back.