Thirty Girls (27 page)

Inside the whitewashed walls was a sprawling complex of buildings. A nurse in a pink lab uniform and a small paper-cup hat introduced herself as Bridget and told them Dr. Marciano was operating all morning. You are most welcome to see our hospital, she said.

The five visitors followed her white sandals snapping her heels lazily. Her hands swung around her wide hips as if trailing in water. They passed doorways open to empty rooms with no beds, to rooms with empty beds, then to rooms filled with beds and patients in them. Jane walked beside Harry, feeling love. They stepped outside under a tin roof to a walkway which extended past a courtyard to a structure with a massive pink façade of flaking paint. The old hospital we do not use, Bridget said. It is in need of repairs.

She steered them back inside, down another hallway, green on the lower half, beige on the upper. Lana hung back, pulling Pierre’s arm.
Jane watched her stroll down the cracked walkway beside a rusted turquoise railing as Pierre, who had his camera up, filmed her from behind.

The others continued behind Bridget till she stopped at a doorway. Here there are sisters, she said. They looked in. In one bed sat two girls of about eleven, looking back at them without surprise.

What’s the matter with them? Don said, forever subtle.

This one is healing, Bridget said. She pulled back the sheet of the girl nearest her. One leg was a stump, bandaged, with a rusty stain at its rounded end.

That’s okay. Jane put up her hand. Bridget looked perplexed.

We don’t need to see it, Harry explained.

Is her sister hurt too? Jane said.

No, her sister stays to keep her company.

The tour continued. Jane was mesmerized by everything. Each step seemed to take her deeper into a true life she had not known before. Each detail was savored.

Where’re Lana and Pierre? Don said, moving impatiently, nodding at the doorways. He swiveled his head to see if Lana had returned. The trip had long ago stopped being what he expected.

Through a door at the end of the hall they exited to a courtyard blinding in the morning sun. The air smelled of burning wood. Some families had set up small camps in shaded areas and were tending fires inside rings of rocks. A pregnant woman wafted by in a filmy white robe. Men with bandages sat in low chairs beside women stirring pots. Children ran, looping. A woman in a yellow turban chopped orange fruit on a hubcap. The ground was a white dust, fine as powder in a compact. There was little sign that the night before this ground had been covered with a lumpy rug of hundreds of sleeping people, curved against each other, lying side by side. On rainy nights, Bridget told them, they slept on the walkways or in the halls, and the hospital handed out plastic sheets to cover them or make lean-tos with. A small girl in a shredded purple dress stood frozen, watching Jane and Harry, her face opening like a flower as they passed.

They continued into another building much like the first, went through it, and eventually reached the final courtyard. Women there sat in the shade of a far wall; children circled a dribbling faucet. Behind the wall was a dark density of trees.

Bridget thanked them and said she must be getting back to work. They could find their way out. It is a pleasure to have this visit, she said, and walked off, hands swinging.

The sun was high and white. Don patted his pockets for his sunglasses. I don’t know about you, he said, but shouldn’t Pierre be getting this shit?

In each place they had come, Jane felt the field of her being tilled and turned over. Don Block looked the same here as he’d be anywhere, head tipped back, hand in his pocket jiggling change. His manner said, No matter where you put me I will remain this way. Even in a hospital refugee camp I am a man impatient with the idiot late for our lunch meeting.

They’re in the old wing, Jane said to be rid of him.

His sneakers made small explosions of dust as he hurried off. Jane sat at the edge of a dry fountain in the center of the courtyard and wrote in the green notebook. Harry sat beside her. She didn’t look at him, but liked him near. Here among the wounded and displaced she was relieved of herself and having him there felt in balance with the world.

A boy rolled a de-spoked bicycle by them leaping back and forth through it.

You’re very skillful, Jane said.

Harry spoke in Swahili. The boy did a double take, surprised. The boy chatted with him for a while then left, energized by Harry.

I gave your bracelet away, she said, still writing.

You what?

This morning. To a woman with nine children who was eating fried flies.

Oh.

Will you get me another? she said lightly.

No.

She kept writing. I thought she could sell it, she said, justifying herself. She wanted to keep the balance. She felt him looking at her and glanced up. His face was near, an expression sizing her up. His face told her she was not to be trusted measuring the worth of things.

She bent back to her notes, focusing attention on the page, not him. Sorry, she muttered.

Forget it, Jane, he said. His tone was mild and unreadable, and she pretended to believe he didn’t care.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Don, a light blue blur crossing far off, the only hurrying figure in this place of slowly moving things. His head reared back when he spotted them and his long arms rose into in an exaggerated shrug of
What the hell?

Someone’s ready to go, Jane said, and stood. She took the reason to move.

They caught up with Don on the road back to the house. They had planned to go into Gulu to find a hotel.

Is everything okay? Jane said.

Fucking great, Don said.

What’s the matter?

I found them balling back there.

Jane nearly laughed. What?

Well, maybe they were finished by the time I got there. But they’d been recently going at it, that much was clear.

Harry showed no sign of listening.

Wow, Jane said.

Yes, Don said. That’s what I thought. He imitated a girl’s voice: Wow. He turned to Harry instinctively walking behind and shouted, What’s with you people here?

What? Harry said.

You people.

What people?

You! Don screamed. Here!

Harry calmly shook his head, walking on.

Here! Here! His hands waved in the air.

Jane saw he meant nothing less than all of Africa.

W
HO SAID
you choose your life?

You have gone away and new things steer you. Wind, hands. Some cruel, some kind. There is madness in the dark and madness in the morning with the smell of smoke.

You wade in the water, walk on your knees. Sometimes they take your hand and bind you. No one looks you in the eye. You listen to what they say, some is true, some not.

You meet yourself before falling asleep. You may have been gone from yourself all day but you are there when you close your eyes. You lie on the leaf of yourself and sail into dreams. People there fly. You may not be able to steer, but at least you are able to bear it.

You are a child again and the powerless world expands around you. Some days you say, It will be all right. Other days, It is too much to bear, no one can bear this. Then people do, they bear it.

There are always others worse off.

S
INCE RETURNING
, I have the feeling that my life has a hole in it and now I am missing that hole.

I have sharp pains at night and before sunrise the fluid breaks. I am brought to a hut and lie on the straw mat with pain all day. Louise is in the doorway, then gone. The woman tells me, calm, unsurprised, It will be all right, but her face is worn out, and when she checks between my legs, she shakes her head. Lotti, I hear, is nearby, but not appearing. I want to get away from the pains but have nowhere to go. My body is not ready to push that baby out. At night tight straps squeeze me, like knives. Another woman puts her hand inside, saying the baby does not sit right. She tries to turn it, with the other hand on my stomach.

So it went for a day and night. I ate nothing, drank water. Maybe I will die this way, I thought. In the morning the worn-out woman returned. Now we must push. It was like being attacked from inside. Did hours pass or minutes? Who knows. The feet came first, then one arm was out and they were moving me around to pull that baby out. They were frowning, shifting me. They didn’t want to break the arm.

Then the baby came out at last. It was a dark color, not moving, its neck was choked. It had been that way for some time.

She doesn’t need to see this baby, the woman said. It was taken away and buried. Perhaps it passed by Greg Lotti on its way. I thought at least there was not another person to join the rebels. But my feelings—they did not appear to me.

These things come back to me: In Sudan, washing clothes in plastic buckets after a battle, rebels nearby laughing and passing around a bottle, I washed blood from a small skirt. When we poured blood from gum boots it sat like red glass on the dust, then sank in, more slowly than water.

There was a girl named Doris who gave me a pain. She would say we were abducted because we were sinful. Kony’s tipu told him to punish us because we are Acholi. Look at what we did, for instance, at Bucoro.

I saw Agnes showing interest. Agnes, I said. Do not listen to this one.

We were shaken awake in the night and made to get up and steered to a clearing where others were gathered. Kony wanted to speak with us, a spirit had woken him telling him it was time to pray. We knelt and bowed our heads. Kony prayed in the name of Jesus, he prayed in the name of Muhammad. He prayed in the name of Alice Lakwena. He was the father who would lead us and all his family to the glory of the resurrection and we must pray for the sinning we’d done.

I was beside Doris but she was not even listening. She was looking toward the rebels and I saw she loved one of them. I turned to see Ricky, that one who had taken me to Kony, the one with no mother.

In Sudan, in a dry riverbed. A group of rebels arrived. We were some distance away in the shade and saw them crouching in lumps on the sandy ground, praying. Sometimes when they prayed, it meant they were going to kill you. They were praying for your soul. But not this time.

When they were finished, Louise looked at me, meaning there was something of interest there. The group was picking up their guns and there among the figures was Philip. His back was to us, but I knew it to be him. I did not know he had been taken. He wore camouflage pants, a dark T-shirt with a gun strap across his back, and a camouflage hat with flaps over the ears. You would only have a gun when they believed you were with them.

I waited to see if he would turn. I could not know what would happen, for me or him. I did not know if he would come near. Then Philip moved from that place and we could not see the whole ditch and I could no longer see him. Some rebels climbed out of the riverbed and came toward us. A group of children was following behind and there was Philip, pushing some children to stay in line. He pointed his gun toward us in the shade and it seemed as if I met his eyes, so my heart was pounding. When he looked easily away, I thought we were too much in the shade to be seen.

I was weaving roof thatch and my grass was in a tangle. They came near us and then Philip was there, close by. I kept my head down but my eyes were seeing everything. The children walked near and he too was near. He looked at us girls sitting among the thatch and saw me and passed by.

When a person you love moves by you with flat eyes that will not see you, it is a shock to believe it.

So this life goes. You suffer and think nothing new can come to you, then a new suffering comes you had not imagined.

I saw Philip one more time after that. We were in Uganda after a raid in a place with other rebels, preparing food. I brought some sorgham to the children and found Philip sitting there among them. His head was shaved with a white scar on the side. He had no gun, but still wore camouflage pants. This time he saw me and frowned.

Do I know you? he said.

Philip, I said. It’s Esther. Was he teasing me? He used to tease so much. His voice was regular. I handed him a banana leaf with sorghum on it. He accepted it and dropped it splat on the ground. He began mixing the sorghum in the dirt, then ate it off his fingers. He stared at me. Mother is angry, he said.

What? I watched him eat the dirt.

You did not come and she needs you to take the baby. He’s been crying, crying. Philip rolled his eyes. Can you at least do that?

What baby?

Go on. She will whip you.

Philip, there is no baby. We are not home.

She was everywhere, screaming for you. She needs help with the baby! he said. Another rebel came over and waved me away. He was not surprised to see Philip eating dirt.

Afterward, when I returned, I said these things to Louise. Esther, she said, Philip has gone mad.

Later we learned that Philip was hit in the head by a fragment in battle and afterward was not the same.

What else comes back to me: We are stealing food. Most villages we come to are deserted. We sleep in the empty huts, then continue on.

A week after she left we found Agnes.

We were moving to another camp and had been walking for some time when we came to a place with a very bad smell. We knew by now the smell of death. The rebels walked us away from this smell, and one went looking there. I saw a red cloth in the grasses and my body knew it was terrible. The rebel called out and they did not worry if we also moved closer. Then I saw it was Agnes. She lay facedown with her arms and legs out at angles and dirt creased in her red shirt. These arms and hands of Agnes’s, I thought, they had held me. Her face was sideways to us with eyelids so swollen it did not look like her face.

The rebels stood over her, saying this and that, then deciding nothing. They said, Let us go.

We got back in line. Louise hooked her finger in mine, then dropped it right away. We did not look, but when someone touches you, you don’t always need the eyes. Eyes may go deep but touching goes another deep place.