Thirty Girls (20 page)

It was enough. This girl moved her lips, whispering. I could not hear. Then I hear it. Last night they came back, she says. They were here this morning, but now they have moved to Camp Fourteen. They have gone in a lorry. This was the first information we had found. I felt hope. Is this true? I said. Yes. Just this morning they were here.

So Charlotte was nearby.
Just this morning they were here
.

Then the girl’s expression changed. The doctor and the same rebel were just there. Pere Ben stood.

What right have you to promise these things you cannot give? the rebel said.

Pere Ben pulled a camera from his pocket and quickly took pictures, one of each girl. I have pictures of these girls, he said. So no harm must come to them.

The rebel looked at him with cold eyes. Two more rebels came over and pushed the children away. It was time to go.

Later they learned that after the visitors left, the girl was killed, hit with a piece of metal on the back of her neck.

Yes, Grace said. This has happened.

Swallows dipped under the eaves of the porch like black rags.

Already it is more than a year, someone said. We will not soon forget that day.

No, the voices mumbled together.

The cicadas filled the night air. Jane felt everything drain from her and thought, I will never complain ever again. At the end of the porch was Harry’s white hat, the only thing showing in the dim light.

They checked in to the Lira Hotel. There was a reception desk and a few feet away a number of tables set with place mats. They put their bags in their rooms then came back for dinner.

Everyone was tired and barely looked at the menus, thinking of the stories they’d heard.

That was heavy, Don said. I felt a little like I was butting in.

Everyone nodded, united by the awareness that their usual concerns looked awfully trivial.

It is amazing what people endure, Pierre said.

They don’t have a choice, said Harry.

They ate curried vegetables and the stew special. Across the dining room was a bar with stools where music suddenly started pounding. Lana pushed away at her plate. Did anyone want her eggplant? No one answered. No one ordered dessert. Harry and Jane said they were going to turn in.

I think some of us need more drinks, Lana said, and stood. She squared her shoulders toward the pounding music. Don and Pierre stood and followed.

Jane and Harry took the white gravel path of an interior courtyard. The music grew fainter, though the bass continued to thump the air as they turned a stucco corner into the shadow of door number 7. Jane inserted a rusty key.

I can’t believe they were waiting for us for five hours. The people here are so much more—She felt for the light switch inside.

Stop talking, he said.

I was just—

Hands gripped her shoulders, holding her arms down, steering her into the room where the light was striped and dim, coming through a lattice shade. He turned her around and lifted her onto a small table by the window. Her long dress was pulled up to her hips. Sometimes Harry seemed tall and other times smaller, maybe if he was beside a tall man, but now he seemed tall. He pulled her close, socking the air out of her. This is how I like you, he said so faintly she could barely hear.

Then he said, more clearly, Tell me.

Yes.

Yes what?

She didn’t answer.

You like that? he said.

Her breath was all irregular.

Tell me, he said.

No.

Tell me.

She smiled. No.

The light from the window was sharpened on the floor into checkerboard squares. He held her draped over him and staggered her, collapsed on his shoulder. There were two single beds, each against the wall, with a narrow space in between. She felt her body all mixed up with his. His breathing sounded asleep, then he spoke.

We don’t do that enough, he muttered.

He said it as if they were a couple with a long history and not people who’d known each other less than two weeks. Then, at the edge of sleep, she wondered, because wonder never stopped even when gratified, if he’d meant the world in general and not specifically the two of them. She wouldn’t ask. Sometimes the answer could snap you in half.

Entering a person’s private terrain was dangerous. You never knew where another person’s tender places were and chances are they were different from yours. You didn’t know the damage you might cause. Maybe the person didn’t even want to be explored. Most people she’d found wanted to be left alone.

But tonight Jane was not feeling how apart she and Harry were.

The throbbing music stopped and the room was extra quiet.

She saw again the parents on the porch, and heard their soft voices under the roof. Each day your child was gone you must think you couldn’t bear it another then the next day comes, and you do.

How far away were the rebels now? What children had been hurt that day or killed?

She was aware of being in a place where others were so much worse off than she, and yet felt content lying against Harry. She would have liked to tell him of her happiness. The feeling rather astonished her. But happiness was hard to express. When happiness was over, she found plenty to say. When it was in you, you felt mute.

Tomorrow they were going to St. Mary’s. She thought how maybe Pierre could film Grace in the car on the way. She didn’t want to miss a thing.

In the morning they drove back into town. There seemed to be a church every third building, some with steeples, some bunkerlike with signs on the front lawn. Jane bought some notebooks in a store selling coffee and ribbons. In a bank of sharp new bricks they cashed travelers’ checks. It took forty minutes, as strips of paper were carried lackadaisically from one desk to another, scribbled on, transferred to a ledger, brought back to the same desk, then sent off to another quarter. In Jane’s wallet she noticed she had bills from five different currencies.

When they came out the truck was dead. Lana and Don were nowhere
in sight. Some people standing by helped Harry and Pierre push the truck down the slope while Jane steered, but they couldn’t get the engine to turn over. They were shown a repair shop off a side street and conveniently glided to it without a sound.

We Fix It Garage was a small concrete building painted yellow with a green stripe around it beside a wall-less garage with a corrugated tin roof. Parts of automobiles lay scattered about in the weeds, and in front sat a man in a wooden wheelchair beside another man in a chair. They watched the truck slide in. The man in the wheelchair lifted his chin in greeting, and sat forward from the tasseled cushion behind him. He had a wide chest in a crimson T-shirt and strong arms.

Harry got out. Jambo, Bwana, he said. He stood with his hands in his pockets. Through the windshield Jane watched them talk.

Karibu, Kenya, said the man in the wheelchair. I know Kenya. My aunt, she was living in Kenya.

No more? Harry said.

No, she is no more.

They continued chatting, nodding, pausing. Eventually Harry pointed to the truck and the three of them looked at the truck for a while. Then the man in the wheelchair rolled toward the Toyota and, bending to look underneath, tipped his wheelchair nearly on its side, bracing himself with one of his strong arms. Neil! he shouted.

An orange wool hat appeared behind a barrel in the garage and a young man emerged pulling the hat over his ears. He listened to his orders, then ducked out of sight. The man wheeled over to a small yellow vehicle with no doors and no hood, and hoisted himself with a jerk out of the wheelchair into the passenger seat. He started the yellow car and drove it to the truck. Jane got out as the young man appeared with jumper cables.

She walked back up the road to where she’d seen a woman selling fruit. A few pyramids of onions and bumpy breadfruit lay on a cloth in front of the woman, who was looking down, showing the top of a wide-brimmed straw hat. Jane spotted a basket of lemons. Upon closer examination she saw they were oranges. Yellow oranges.

How much? she said.

The brim of the hat tipped up and the woman faced her. It was not a
woman, but a young girl. Where the girl’s mouth should have been was a hole with a thick rim of scar around it. Jane kept her gaze on the face, trying to hide her shock. The girl held up four fingers.

They look really good, Jane said. I’ll get some for everyone. The girl did not seem to understand her. But Jane kept talking. I’ll take all of them. Why not? She picked up the oranges and gestured.

The girl regarded her with a slow blink. She reached to a plastic bag beside her bent knees and removed a crumpled piece of paper which she smoothed out on the ground. She indicated that Jane put the fruit there. Oh thank you, Jane said. Asante sana. The girl piled oranges on it. Some rolled off. That’s okay, Jane said, I can just carry them. The girl stopped wrapping, thinking Jane did not want them. No, no, I want them. She held up her wallet, embarrassed to be an American waving money. Ndio. Asante, she repeated. The girl handed her the wrapped oranges and took the folded bills. She put them in a box and selected coins for her change.

Hapana. No, that’s for you. You keep that. Asante. As she strolled back down the hill, she checked herself to slow down, aware of being like the other white people who moved fast, always hurrying away.

The truck was running again and they stopped to pick up Grace. Jane knocked at the open door frame as Grace appeared from behind the house with a handful of eggs. Behind her, chickens fluttered. Come in, please, she said. Jane looked back to everyone sitting in the truck, idling to charge the battery. They’d wait.

A man sat in the living room. My husband, Milton, Grace said, pointing the eggs in his direction as she continued past him into the kitchen.

Hello, Milton said. He stood, a trim man in a white short-sleeve shirt.

Jane moved forward, putting out her hand. Nice to meet you, she said. He offered his left hand, there being no right arm.

Please, he said, you are welcome.

Jane sat down on a hard orange sofa. On one wall, hung high, was calendar with a photograph of Victoria Falls, on another a tapestry in a velvety weave of red, gold and brown depicting the Holy Family. Grace is taking us to St. Mary’s, she said.

So you will meet Sister Giulia.

Yes.

Then you will see, he said mysteriously.

A little girl appeared in the doorway, staring.

Hi there, Jane said. Who’s this?

My daughter Hannah. Come say hello. The little girl approached Jane with trepidation and bent on one knee, curtsying. The lady is from America, Milton said. The little girl looked up, startled.

Yes, I am. How old are you?

Five.

You must be Louise’s sister. The little girl looked back to her father to see if she should answer. He nodded. We pray for Louise every day, he said. He picked up a photograph in a flowered cardboard frame from the table beside him. Here she is. The girl brought it to Jane. It was a studio portrait of a girl standing sideways in front of a painted turquoise ocean with islands and palm fronds. Her white shirt was tucked into a long purple skirt, and one hand held her hip in a sort of bathing beauty pose, but her face straight to the camera was not flirtatious. It was innocent and clear. Her hair had been done in two shiny rolls above the temples.

She’s beautiful, Jane said. Seeing Louise’s face added a layer.

Grace came in with a boy and a girl beside her. Children, she said. You come now and tell our visitor your name.

Dorothy. The child curtsied. Harold. A boy bowed his head.

He is tall for nothing, Milton said. He’s gone past the others.

This one, Grace said, and another girl peeked out from behind her, she is called Martha. Martha whispered to her mother.

Hi, Martha.

She would like to touch your hair, Grace said.

Certainly, Jane said. Louise is beautiful, she said, handing Grace the photograph.

It is old now, she said, putting it back. All right, Martha, come.

Grace sat in a chair with wooden arms. It was six o’clock in the morning when we heard, she said.

Jane recognized the beginning of a story. Yes, tell me, she said. The others can wait, she thought, hearing the truck’s motor still going. This is why we are here.

Someone came banging on the door.
The rebels have taken them, all the girls of St. Mary’s
. My God, I lost my head. I screamed. I felt helpless. My husband was confused.

Grace didn’t look at Milton, but he was nodding.

He even didn’t know what to do. Another neighbor heard me screaming and came in with her husband, saying, What is the problem? My husband had the courage to tell them. They comforted us, we prayed with them. Then I thought, Why sit here? Let me get to Aboke. My husband was still looking for a means of traveling, but I got out of the house. I was dressed shabbily and I took off for the bus park and got a pickup. I was dropped at a juncture and caught a ride on a bicycle. The road by then was muddy. Part of the way we walked. I was at the school by seven.

I saw Sister Alba there first and some teachers and other people from nearby. By eight o’clock the schoolyard was filled with parents. It was like a funeral. It was like a graveyard. People were weeping. I was with my friend Serena whose daughter Jackline was taken, and we thought, Should we walk and find Sister Giulia? Some of us mobilized and said, What do you think? Then we said, Let us wait till Sister Giulia returns. So we waited. All day. That night some of us stayed at St. Mary’s and some went home. I went back, because I had the children.

The children sat quietly in the living room, not appearing to listen.

But there was no sleep, Grace said. I returned at seven the next morning. That friend of mine, Serena, she has since died. She died of sorrow.

There was a pause; she continued.

Then we heard that Sister Giulia was returning with the children. We decided to follow in that direction. We drove there with a man from Gulu, a manager of the electrical board. We met them five miles up the road. The first girls were on a tractor. Others were coming on foot, some on motorcycles. There were many girls piled on that tractor. I looked through quickly and of course did not see my daughter. I screamed.