by Maggie Gee
‘But those wonderful folks came out and helped us.’
And their faces soften: they smile at each other. They like to think about human goodness. Too often, there isn’t any evidence. They love to remember the folks with the lanterns.
The boy-man has crept back, under cover of darkness. While they were eating dinner, he has stolen some boots, a beautiful leather pair, freshly cleaned and polished. They are his size, but even so, they chafe on flesh that is purpled, half-shredded. The shining orange leather looks strange on his feet. Now the boy-man limps swiftly to the old woman’s tent to get her money before she returns. The windows are dark; so far, so good. He can hear faint sounds of laughter from the restaurant. He turns her door handle: but this time she has locked it. He swears, swiftly, fiercely. He will climb in through the bathroom.
But just as he decides this, he hears her coming, and sees her torchlight wavering towards him, a beam of bright fear bobbing down the long path, snagging on trees, leaves, creepers. His heart pounds. He draws back into the shadows, and crouches, strong hands ready to pounce. He will take her by the neck, he will shake her like a rat and strangle her before she makes a sound. He has done it before, has been forced to do it, and now he will have to do it again. Every muscle and sinew is tensed and ready when she comes round the corner, silhouetted from behind – but stop, because a waiter is carrying her lamp, is seeing her safely back to her quarters, and he pulls himself back, panting, amazed, almost laughing at the thwarting of his expectations. ‘I hope you are fine, Madam,’ the man says, obsequious, begging the muzungu like a dog for a tip, but she is too stupid or too mean to notice. ‘Thanks very much, I’m fine now,’ she says, and before either man can take what they want, she is gone, and the light comes on inside, and both of them are left outside with nothing, the waiter wringing his hands with disappointment. Mugende mufwe! What a waste of time.
He walks away down the path, quietly cursing. But the boy-man is different. The boy-man stays on. As he stands irresolute, her light goes out. And then he and Vanessa are in the dark together, the terrified, terrifying boy and the woman, the two of them again, with just a flimsy door between them – a door Vanessa has forgotten about, as she hurries to pull off her muddy boots, her torn jacket, her soaked socks, and finds her pocket is full of small spiders. Shuddering, she forgets to lock up.
He hunkers down, tense, to listen and wait. In half an hour or so she should be asleep. He can enter unchallenged, and then, when she wakes, he can easily force her to give him her money. And if she resists, he will have no doubts, because everything he’s seen of her has been hateful. She is proud, and angry, and she has no pity.
And yet he cannot quite imagine it this time, the moment that has closed on him so often, during his endless days as a devil, when he cut, because he had to, and cut, and cut, at living flesh, at hair and skin, cut at the terror of a human face screaming, cut at his enemies to cut himself free. For days, weeks now, no-one has hurt him. It is as if his strength is going. It is getting cooler. He starts to shiver. He will have to do it before very long. He clutches the handle of the knife in his pocket. In the distance, he hears the sound of a car.
Trevor’s nosing Charles’s tired Toyota up the track in a mixture of hope and desperation. He knows Buhoma is near Bwindi, but the roads have been impossible to drive at speed so he got there two hours later than expected, leaving him with the last stretch to do after dark. The few people still on the streets of Buhoma could have been robbers or murderers; could have been the very murdering thugs he has come here to save Vanessa from. But stopping to ask them has to be better than driving blind into the forest. ‘Speak English?’ he asks, and they repeat it, parrot-style, ‘English,’ but smiling, apparently friendly. They try to point him towards a hotel. The Buhoma Forest Lodge, the Gorilla Refuge. He keeps saying, patiently, over and over, ‘Gorilla Forest Camp,’ and the men he is talking to repeat, respectively, ‘Gorilla’ and ‘Forest’, nodding and pointing in different directions. And then he tries one more time: ‘GFC?’ and their faces in the headlights suddenly clear, ‘GFC! GFC!’, and delighted, they show him the road he is now driving, slowly, carefully, a foot at a time.
‘I must be mad,’ he is muttering. ‘In fact, I am. Oh, fuck it.’ Of course he won’t find her. Of course he won’t. And if he does, she won’t want him, and won’t thank him. She won’t – need him. And that was the nub of it, always had been. Vanessa coped all right on her own.
Besides, an hour ago Justin had phoned to say Abdy is definitely out of danger. It’s the miracle of penicillin. ‘Amazingly, he seems right as rain. You’d almost think he hadn’t been ill. The rash is still there, and they’re keeping him in, but they say we can take him home tomorrow ... Yeah, in an hour Zakira should be here.’
At first, Trevor had felt elated: but a few minutes later, as he drove onwards, he also noticed a slight disappointment, which he’s ashamed of feeling, but still. So there wasn’t really an emergency. So he hadn’t got such a good excuse. OK, Vanessa might still need a driver, OK, there was the question of the war, but he wasn’t driving to save the family.
I suppose I wanted her to think me a hero. Same old story: she won’t need me. Don’t forget, matey, she chucked you out.
But his gloomy thoughts are interrupted by the sight of something by the road ahead, something in the veering beam of his headlights, going up, now down, but they’ve caught it again, and it swims into sharpness, the most beautiful sign, the most beautiful thing he’s seen in ages, and it’s easy to miss but his lights steady, yes, there, there: GORILLA FOREST CAMP. A small clear sign. He stops and gets out, puzzled, seeing nothing, for there’s no building, only more forest. Then he swings his torch round and spots an even smaller white-painted arrow, pointing clearly up some steep steps into the trees. Sighing, smiling, he heaves out a bag, locks up Charles’s car and starts to stride up the steps, but his pace soon flags as his ankle, sore from driving, complains at the unexpected exercise, and by the time he finds the lit-up reception, he is limping.
Mary Tendo lies in bed beside Charles. He is starting to snore, just a small gentle trumpet, but tonight, Mary does not mind it. She curls towards him, tucks her toes under his feet. She is thinking about church. How good to go back. She is happier than she has felt for weeks.
They had welcomed her without too much comment. Even Sarah had been silenced by the mention of the village. Because every Kampalan understood about the village. The village is where people really live. In the city, they were only making their way, looking for a future for their children. And even when they have never been to the village, it stays in their heart like a lost garden, because their parents have told them about it.
I came here like so many others, Mary thinks. And then I went further, away to London ... but today, in the church, they welcomed me back. It did feel like a homecoming. There were smiles from the heart, and glad embraces, as if they had all been waiting for me. And perhaps God meant me to return today, because the gospel reading was the story of the Prodigal Son.
‘“I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son ... ” So he got up and went to his father.’
And what does he feel, the crouching boy-man, as the engine gets louder, and then cuts out, as he hears someone climbing up from the road, someone grunting, panting, it must be an old man, and then there is a clamour in Reception, and finally, the boy melts away into the dark, because two or three people, all with torches, are coming through the trees to the old woman’s tent, and one of them’s an old man talking in English. English English, that sound from the past.
As he lopes, limps through the loud dark of the forest, as the lights and the voices fade away in the distance, he realises with shock that he is not disappointed. He did not turn the handle. He did not go in. He did not touch her. He did not hurt her. He has not added to his terrible burden, to all the things that can never be forgi
ven. What he feels, as the damp air fills his lungs, as the cool wet leaves brush against his face, as he drinks from a pool in the bole of a tree, is relief, yes, a great flood of relief, and something he almost does not recognise, something he has not felt for years, a strange little surge of feeling that he hardly knows is happiness.
42
‘Trevor. Trevor. Oh Tigger ...’
She had shot up in the bed, terrified, when she heard the feet coming down the path and the flickering lights playing on her curtains. Hutu Interahamwe. Robbers. Murderers. War has broken out; the soldiers are here. She pulls the chilly sheets up around her, then changes her mind, jumps out of bed, fumbles for her shoes, clutches her glasses, for she must be ready for whatever comes. She is many things, but she will not be a coward. Her heart is beating like a drum in her chest. Something in her shoe briefly tickles. The light switch seems to have moved from the wall. She pats at the stiff canvas in desperation.
‘Madam, Madam ... Very sorry ... Madam, Mrs Henman, someone is here.’ The bark of the male voice makes her shudder, but it’s speaking English, it’s deferential.
Is it a trick? she wonders, to make her unlock. Then her stomach sinks. Did she even lock it? But the next voice floods her with incredulous emotion.
‘Ness. Nessie. It’s me. It’s Trevor.’
‘Trevor? Trevor?’ She runs to the door. The voice, unmistakable, infinitely dear. She opens. The warm Ugandan night.
Trevor: Vanessa. They stare at each other.
It takes some time and dispensation of money to convince the GFC staff that Trevor can stay here, that he isn’t an intruder, that she’s safe with him. Mustapha speaks with passionate sincerity about ‘the security of our guests’; Trevor says, ‘Exactly, mate, you don’t want any more murders here.’ Vanessa squeaks, alarmed, ‘What murders?’ and Mustapha accepts a small wodge of notes.
Once the men have gone, they are suddenly shy. She stands, wild-haired, in pyjamas and glasses, with insect cream all over her face, shivering a little with shock and emotion. ‘How on earth did you get here?’ she asks him. ‘Am I dreaming, Tigger? Are you really here?’
She has taken his hands, both his hands in hers. They stand like children, waiting to dance.
‘You aren’t dreaming. Well, I drove.’
‘You drove? Yourself? You can’t have done.’
‘I did, Nessie. There was nothing else for it. There’s a lot to explain. But ... I was worried.’
‘You came all the way to Uganda for me?’ Her little pale face is wreathed in smiles: the torch he had carried glints softly on her lenses.
It’s too soon to explain, to wreck the moment. ‘May I say one thing? You look beautiful, Ness.’ She’s old; she’s frail; she is his Vanessa. Torchlight streaks her hair with white gold; years of affection; so many lost summers. Her long pale neck is printed with lines. She is here, and alive. She is his love. And look, she is wearing their wedding ring, the thin gold band that was all he could afford. They have passed ten minutes without quarrelling.
‘I can’t do, darling. I’m covered in Doom or whatever they call this insect cream. You must be exhausted. I should offer you something. But I’ve only got some nuts. Oh, and some bananas.’ But she can’t find them. Her foot still tickles.
‘How did you find me .... AAAAAARGH!’ She is suddenly screaming, at full volume, and in fifteen seconds there are running feet, and the men are back, knocking hard on her door, and it isn’t easy to convince them, this time, that the only trouble is a half-squashed gecko, a poor little shape in the tomb of her shoe.
Within half an hour, they’re in bed together, and this time Vanessa isn’t shivering. They are not young. They know this is precious. Each fragile inch of flesh must be loved. The thing they have always been able to do that loosens the weight of time and space, that turns everything into a single moment, the wave of the present reaching for the sunlight, the swell of the instant that floats them away ... It was lost for so long, and they’re old enough to know that one day it will be lost for ever. The wordless miracle of the body, the living body of the person who loves you.
And then it passes, and they are still here. And Trevor’s ankle doesn’t feel quite right, and Vanessa scratches some of her bites. But they stroke each other, and it all hurts less, as they tell stories, remember each other. And he is still there as she falls asleep. He’s falling too, still holding her. As the damp cold air creeps in all around them, Trevor and Vanessa cling to each other, warm and dry on their shrinking island.
43
By morning, many things have been resolved. Large things and small things: though all of them are small things, looked at in the life of the planet, where human wars ebb and flow like seas, many times a day, the names forgotten, where species come and go like mayflies, thousands of lives in a day’s fast flicker.
Uganda and DRC announce a new agreement that will ‘allow us to go forward together’. There will be talks, in Tanzania. Kabila and Museveni are both ‘hopeful’. (And besides, Kabila has trouble at home. Laurent Nkunda’s on the move again.)
Troops are to be pulled back from the border, though it takes for ever, on flooded roads. The soldiers are dissatisfied; they didn’t want to die, but they earn more money when they are on active service. Their girlfriends will hardly be impressed. Why can’t their leaders make up their minds? Ebola breaks out once more; this time it is in north-west Uganda. Many people die: Death creeping closer. Museveni frowns, in the capital, and consults his ministers, and issues statements. The floods destroy schools, churches, hospitals. The rich countries begin to think about aid, but they are already paying so much money to prevent the war that it hardly seems fair. The people in the flooded districts agree with them; it is slightly awkward to lose your home, your school, your clinic. But this is Uganda. Life goes on. The peace talks in Juba, too, stagger onwards, though no-one really expects Kony to surrender until he knows he might be forgiven, and only Ugandans are prepared to forgive him, the people who have so much to forgive, yet somehow they manage to start again.
PART 6
The Long Road Home
44
They set out for Kampala full of talk and laughter. Trevor has become Vanessa’s hero.
Why didn’t she know that he was coming to Uganda? This question is easy to gloss over. The well was ‘an emergency’; ‘I sent you a postcard.’ If she knew he’d kept it secret, she would be hurt. In any case, Trevor’s in the clear: why didn’t he know she was here? ‘I did ring Soraya but she wasn’t very friendly ...’
They agree how much they have missed each other. They daren’t quite confess they would like to be together, but it’s early days. And the night was such fun! All the things that they know how to do to each other better than anyone else ever could. ‘You were always a cracker in that department,’ Trevor tells Vanessa, fondly.
Trevor (who feels a little tired, this morning) has phoned Mary Tendo, to fill her in about his miraculous rescue of Vanessa, and had a long consultation with the GFC manager about the best way to drive back to Kampala. He warns Trevor there are big troop movements on the road from the DRC frontier to Masindi, and there may be soldiers elsewhere, too. He doesn’t know which way the troops are going.
‘Vanessa is not too keen on heights,’ Trevor tells the man, who is frowning, distracted, waiting for news about the war. ‘So, it doesn’t have to be, you know, scenic.’
‘Scenic,’ says the man, jumping on the word. ‘Yes, this way the country is beautiful.’ He innocently directs Trevor to the road along the side of the Rift Valley along which Vanessa came two days ago, hardly daring to look down, white-knuckled, trembling. ‘Of course, you will drive carefully. But tourists like very much this road.’
Since then, two days of heavy rain have fallen. But they start in hope; they drive off laughing. Many of the staff come and wave them goodbye, for they sense this is a romantic story, a comedy with a happy ending, and too much of life does not end well. And perhaps it has something to do
with the fact that Trevor has tipped them royally, and so, not knowing that, has Vanessa! And they laugh behind their hands, but then run forward, genuinely caring and distressed, when Trevor slips on the last step down as his ankle turns under him, making him shout and landing him firmly on the road on his bottom.
‘Don’t worry, my rear is big enough,’ he tells them, slapping it. ‘Good padding!’
And they laugh again. ‘Ah, sorry.’ Mr Patcher is a nice muzungu.
(The nice bazungu get smaller in the distance; the GFC staff are left with their worries, their threatened green world, and a little more money. But the soldiers have not come. It is a very good day.)
Trevor’s driven about a mile down the track through the forest when they round a corner into radiance, as the tall trees yield to banana plantation. The road ahead is a ribbon of sunlight. They cannot be very far from Buhoma. But strange human figures are spread across the road forty metres ahead, in a loose shifting pattern, shambling, ambling figures lurching through the bananas.
‘Gorillas,’ says Trevor, ‘Bloody hell.’ He slows to a crawl. The gorillas watch them coming. They have a benign, faintly raffish air, as if they have been sitting around and drinking. Some of their paws clutch yellow fruit. And look, there’s the baby, tiny on the brightness, trying to run headlong, his quiff bouncing, then boff, he’s down, and a big hand catches him, the broad black wrinkled hand of the leader. (He won’t kill this baby. He is the father.) Just for a second, he looks straight at Trevor, a single, dry, assessing stare.
‘What’s his name, that feller? Didn’t you tell me?’
‘The silverback? They call him Ruhondeza. Mind you, I don’t know what the gorillas call him.’
The red Toyota crawls through the animals. They’re almost too relaxed, drunk with bananas. An adolescent playfully thumps on the bonnet.
