Displaced (21 page)

“Yeah, you and everyone else,” she said.

“I understand the mining association is
hosting a seminar in Arizona.”

“Yeah, I just got off the phone with Edward
Talbot.”

“Arizona in February, that’s not a bad deal.
You might as well do it, after all you earned it after putting up
with all their crap.”

“You’re right, it’s the least they could do,”
she said. “And I don’t know why I should be singled out, after all
it was a team effort. But they are contributors, so I guess I’m not
the only who benefits,” she said.

“Yeah, I guess not,” he said warily, “I’ll
see you later Jen.”

She picked up the phone and methodically
dialed the number for the Committee office. Bill picked up the
phone on the other end and said “Hello.”

“Hi Bill, this is Jennifer, how are you?”

“Hi Jennifer, I’m good, what’s going on?”

“I was wondering if it was too late for
changes in the committee report, we have a last minute change we’d
like to make.”

“No it’s not too late, were making the final
edits now.”

“Oh good, we have a final change, we’d like
to get rid of the language challenging the jurisdiction of the
International Criminal Court.”

“The Senator have a change of heart?”

“Yeah, he had a change of heart.”

“I don’t blame him. Okay, I’ll see that the
language is taken out. Just to be clear you don’t want to replace
it with anything, right?”

“No, we just want to delete that language
from the report.”

“And that’s the language that says, hold on I
got it right here, it says that: ‘provisions of US law precluding
jurisdiction of the ICC,’ and ‘the US does not recognize
jurisdiction over any state entity as recognized by the various
states,’ and then ‘any such cooperation is circumscribed by US
law.’ I’ll just draw a red line through all of that, will that do
it?”

“That ought to do it,” she said trying to
sound casual.

“Okay Jen, anything else?”

“No that’s it, thanks a lot.”

“Your welcome and have a good break.”

“You do the same,” she responded. “Good bye,”
she said and hung up the phone. She powered off her computer, put
on her coat and picked up her bag. On the way out of the office,
she walked through the mail room, where Jay was seated signing
correspondence with the auto pen. “Hey Jay,” she said. “Yeah,” he
said swiveling on the seat and taking an ear bud out of one ear.
“Good luck,” she said and put a hand on his shoulder and bent down
and kissed him on the forehead.

“I’m not leaving until Tuesday.”

“Good luck anyway,” she said and kept
walking. Tomorrow was Saturday. She’d come in early with an empty
box and clean out her desk when no one was around.

Father Boniface delivered the money to the
exchange office in Kampala as he said he would and that evening
after returning to the money changer, Nicole had one hundred
thousand Ugandan shillings in hand. The money made her feel
conspicuous amongst the destitution of the camp. The holder of a
comparatively small fortune, she walked quickly staying close to
Alice on the way back to their hut. She had already parted with ten
thousand shillings, which she gave to Alice in gratitude and to pay
for the cost of food. The remaining amount would be more than
sufficient to pay her way to Kampala. Father Boniface had
instructed her on the bus from Pakwach, and Alice confirmed that
matatus left daily from Pakwach to Mbale and that she could then
catch a bus from Mbale to Kampala. Alice recommended a guide to
help her navigate the 15 miles or so from the camp to Pakwach.

She slept fitfully that night with the fold
of bills, five, ten and twenty thousand notes secured deep in the
pocket of the new second hand jeans that Alice had helped her
purchase. Alice woke her early in the morning before the sun came
up and as the camp was just awakening. “Okay,” Nicole said still
sitting on the ground to Alice in a whisper, “I’m awake.” She got
herself up and began gathering her meager possessions in a plastic
bag and then followed Alice out of the hut while the rest of its
occupants were still asleep. The smoke of a hundred nascent cooking
fires produced a haze over the early morning camp that mixed with
the first rays of the sun to create a refracted glare. Nicole
followed closely behind Alice through this landscape of light and
smoke to the edge of the camp.

Waiting for them, seated by a small gulley
was a man in camouflaged pants and a tank top t-shirt. He stood as
they approached and Alice introduced him as Hector. “Hector is
reliable,” she told Nicole, “you can count on him.” Hector, the
name reminded Nicole of her classical Greek studies and Troy and
Achilles, but Hector was not a Greek champion, he was sinewy and
middle aged and his lean musculature bore a permanence like
accreted scar tissue.

“You’ll take her to Pakwach to catch the bus,
like we agreed,” said Alice and she gave him eight thousand
shillings, that Nicole had given her that morning. Alice did not
want Hector to see Nicole handling the money.

“Yes as agreed,” he said scratching his
graying beard. “Not to worry, I’ve done this many times and all
have arrived safely.”

Nicole hugged Alice. “Thank you for all your
help,” she said, “when I get to Kampala, I won’t forget, I’ll send
you some more money.”

“Thank you dear,” Alice said. “Good luck on
you journey, take care of yourself.”

Hector was growing impatient and encouraged
the two to finish saying goodbye. He eyed Nicole and said, “let’s
get going young lady.”

“Okay, goodbye,” she said to Alice and
started to follow Hector, who had already begun walking away, and
turned a last time to waive at her benefactor. They walked east
toward the rising sun over a tramped field that turned into a
smooth worn clay path through the bush which grew thicker the
further away from camp they got. Two miles from camp, the scrub was
overgrown and the grass around them higher but the path remained
definite and they continued on, Hector taking the lead, striding
purposefully ahead, and Nicole walking briskly to keep up. Hector’s
attitude was at once solicitous and indifferent, he slowed only to
ask where she was from, how old she was and why she was going to
Kampala. She had people in Kampala, she told him and content with
the response, he marched on ahead. Several miles on they came to a
small village abandoned and in ruin, they walked through the middle
of the town past roofless concrete walls and impressions on the
earth where structures had been burned to the ground. Ash and
rubble were the only remnants of the homes of some anonymous
persons, who either fled or died. Past the village the terrain took
on the aspect of having been previously cultivated but now
neglected, borders of fields remained but no crops only the husks
of a previous harvest. The path cut vertically across fallow plots
and she focused on the way ahead. The sun was higher in the sky and
sweat beaded around her neck.

They approached a field of sugar cane that
reached above their heads and followed the path that plunged into
the center of the thicket. The path opened onto a small dirt road
and they turned onto the road which was lined on both sides with
the cane that had been planted and then forgotten and turned a pale
brown. Hector looked back at his charge not at all benevolently and
asked her if she was tired.

“I’m fine,” she responded.

“We’ll stop here for a moment,” he said. They
stopped and she sat on the side of the road and drank from a
plastic water bottle.

“We are getting close,” he told her. They had
been walking close to four hours. Hector sat down next to her and
took a pull from his own bottle. “You are very pretty,” he said to
her.

She looked at him warily, “thank you,” she
said.

He reached over and took her hand and held it
in his own and she froze and every muscle tightened, her pores
stopped sweating and she felt a chill though her body. “No,” she
said.

“Oh come now bibi mama,” he said, “I have
brought you this far.”

“No,” she said and meant to stand up, but he
grabbed her forcefully by the arm and pulled her back to the ground
and then he was on top of her. “Please no,” she cried and struggled
and one hand was around her neck now and the more she struggled the
tighter he grasped until she could stop struggling or risk having
her throat crushed and suffocation. His pants were off and his one
free hand worked the zipper of her pants. He let go of her neck to
pull at her pants leg and her panties. She was able to raise her
head, and she kicked out at him and scratched the side of his face.
He turned toward her in full, grabbing her blouse and cuffed the
side of her face with the ball of his open palm, knocking her back
to the ground. She was momentarily dazed and he was on top of her
again. “Please no, no,” she cried and struggled against the torso
grinding on top of her. She couldn’t not struggle, to concede would
have been betrayal, but her struggle did her little good. After it
was over and he had finished, she lay crying on the ground in
frustration and disgust at the whole degrading physicality of it.
She felt like a reservoir of depravity forced to absorb this new
indignity.

Hector got up and waited, as if nothing
happened, to resume their journey where they had left off. He sat
chewing a piece of cane, stripping the shoot with his teeth and
spitting out the bits of masticated fibrous stalk that couldn’t be
digested. She wanted to tell him to go and leave her, she would
make her own way without him but could only sit and cry. Before she
could get up or do anything, the quiet of the cane field was broken
by the sound of an engine and Hector alerted to the noise grabbed
her under one arm. She was just able to pull on her pants before he
pulled her into the cane, and they lay on the ground among the
roots and stubs. Hector watching the road spotted a green jeep and
white pickup truck pull up. She hardly cared who found her and was
still sobbing when the doors to the vehicles opened and men got out
and Hector put his hand around her mouth. There were four men in
total, two in military uniforms and two in irregular militia
clothing, they all carried AK-47s.

One of the soldiers was bragging and
laughing, “we took the whole bus,” he said, “we hardly even need
your money this week.” From the back of the jeep he produced boots,
guns, telephone cards and uniforms.

“But, I’m sure you’ll take it anyway,” she
heard another man respond. Nicole listened without looking up and
kept her face buried in her arm in the dry dusty earth. “We need to
know when they are coming,” she heard the man say.

“Three days from today. They’ll travel during
the day on the road from Mbale to Lira, you can attack them then,
maybe in the afternoon.”

“Okay, fine,” the older man said and threw a
parcel at the soldier’s feet. “Here you go, as promised, it’s good
doing business with you.” As the soldier stooped to pick up the
package, he hesitated half bent over and looked in the direction of
Hector and Nicole. “What was that?” he said. A reflection, a
movement, a discoloration, something had caught his eye.

“What was what?” the man said, but the
soldier had already pocketed the parcel and was moving in their
direction.

He came through the cane and was right on top
of them and they lay with their faces in the dirt. “I’m right here,
I can see you,” he said standing over them. “Get up.”

They were forced to acknowledge his presence
and they got to their feet. “Come on,” he said and they marched out
to the road where the three other men were waiting. Nicole saw them
all clearly now, two men, Ugandans, dressed as militia fighters and
the other two men, Ugandan soldiers, one of whom she recognized,
the smooth dark face with the single creased scar of the Major who
drove her out of the Congo. She caught his eye and he held her gaze
for just a moment before turning away.

“How much did you hear?” the first soldier
asked.

“We couldn’t hear anything,” Hector lied and
he was being pushed between the two soldiers, jostled back and
forth as he tried to explain himself. “I am a soldier like you,” he
offered.

“Not today you’re not,” the soldier said to
him. “You’re in the wrong place brother.”

Hector changed tactics, “you don’t have to
worry about me, I won’t say anything.” But this would not save him
and only affirmed the other men’s suspicions. Meanwhile Nicole had
sat herself on the ground while the men decided their fate.

“You’ll have to take care of them,” one of
the men, an older man in dreadlocks said to the soldier, who began
to remove the sidearm from his hip. “Not here,” he said, take them
into the cane where no one will find them.”

“Here, I’ll take care of it,” the Major
volunteered and pulled his pistol. “Wait for me here, I’ll be right
back,” he said to the other soldier. “Let’s go, get up,” he said to
Nicole. He walked the two of them into the cane ahead of his gun.
Behind them the engine of one of the vehicles, ignited and moved
off and Hector began pleading in earnest.

“Please brother, you don’t need to do this,
I’ll run off no one will need to know,” he said. “You can take this
one, she is still young and pretty. Please just let me go, I won’t
say anything.”

But the Major was not convinced and without
warning raised his pistol and shot the man through the head, and
with a loud crack Hector fell sideways through the brown stalks.
His body lay crumpled on the ground in an unnatural recline with a
dark stain oozing from his head that was absorbed into the dirt. In
a flash of anger, which surprised the Major, Nicole picked up a
fractioned piece of cinderblock lying on the ground and heaved it
at the corpse. The epitaph to their brief union conceived in force
and consummated in violence. She fell to the ground exhausted and
ready to be reunited with her parents, she was too tired to resist.
A quick bullet through the head she thought and then she could
rest.