The Canal House

by Mark Lee

  Daniel walked over to the tent opening. “The only thing I know is that Isaac wanted to guide me. It was his choice.”

  And then he was gone, slipping through the mosquito net and leaving me with my anger. Billy laughed softly and tossed down his cards.

  “Well, that was our surprise for the evening. Is this a problem, Mr. Seaton? Should I do something?”

  “That’s not necessary,” I said. “He’ll be gone tomorrow.”

  Billy grinned at Nicky. “Doesn’t look like you knew about this.”

  Nicky shrugged his shoulders as if to suggest that it wasn’t an important issue.

  “McFarland is crazy,” Billy said. “Do you really want to walk off into the bush with a ten-year-old boy as a guide?”

  “Right now, I’m going to bed. Thanks for dinner.”

  Nicky got up from the table. He seemed uncomfortable that everyone was staring at him and I could tell that he hated to be the center of attention. Richard pushed the redial button on his phone.

  “Is everything all right, Julia?”

  “No. It’s not.”

  “Best to move on, darling. Don’t let it bother you.”

  I wanted to shout at them for going on with their business and playing their card game. Instead I walked outside and went over to the medical tent. The lamp hanging on the front pole had attracted hundreds of insects and they fluttered and hopped and flung themselves foolishly at the light.

  Nicky

  5 THE MOTHER TREE

  The camp’s power generator had been switched off. In the moonlight, the tents appeared more substantial, like little huts constructed out of blue-gray slate. It was late, but the Karamojong refugees called to each other from the shadows. A few people were clapping out a complex rhythm that reminded me of the schoolyard clapping game girls played when I was growing up. I tripped over a few ropes, then found our tent and went inside. Daniel wasn’t there and I wondered if he had decided to change his plans. Julia was right; it was dangerous to take Isaac back to his kidnappers. We should forget about the Lord’s Righteous Army. It was safer to do an article on the elephants in Kidepo park.

  I pulled off my clothes and crawled into my sleeping bag. It smelled like someone else’s sweat, but I was glad that I had a place to sleep. I lay there for a few minutes until Daniel slipped inside the tent.

  “Where’d you go?”

  “I talked to Steve Ramsey. He’s going to sell us some blankets and water bottles for our journey.”

  “Does he know that Julia is angry?”

  “Ramsey doesn’t like Dr. Cadell. She caught him smoking hashish before going into surgery. Now he wants to quit and get another job.”

  “You should have told me about the plan, Daniel. This kid has combat shock or whatever you want to call it and we’re forcing him to go back into the bush.”

  “It’s his choice. I’m not forcing him to do anything.”

  “He’s ten years old. What if we meet Okello and he decides to kill Isaac because the boy ran away?”

  “I’ll do all I can to protect him.”

  “All I’m saying is that …”

  “I know what you’re saying, Nicky. But I’ve decided to take this particular risk. For you, there’s only one relevant question. Are you going to come with us or not?”

  I stared at the darkness and tried to make a choice. We had traveled thousands of miles to find the hostages and Samuel Okello. If I backed out, I’d have to return to London with a bag full of excuses.

  “So?” Daniel asked. “What’s your decision?”

  “I’ll come along.”

  “Good. We’ll leave as soon as possible in the morning.”

  Daniel’s cot creaked as he got undressed and wiggled into his sleeping bag. Within a few minutes, his breathing was slow and regular. I stayed awake. Somewhere in the camp, a woman began weeping. She said the same words in her tribal language, over and over again, but no one seemed to answer her.

  WHEN I WOKE UP the next morning, Daniel acted like we hadn’t argued at all. Sitting on the cot, he sorted through the articles in his canvas traveling bag. “All I’m carrying is my phone, water, food, and a blanket. We’ll leave everything else here.”

  “I wish we could rent a Land Rover.”

  “Walking is good for you, Nicky. You’ll see the countryside.”

  “If Isaac gets lost, that’s all we’re going to see.”

  I would have paid fifty dollars for a cup of coffee that morning, but I figured that we wouldn’t be welcome at the staff tent. Daniel unpacked the food Winston had bought for us in Kampala marketplace. We had crackers and canned sausages for breakfast.

  It was cold outside the tent and the wind was blowing in from the east. Some of the Karamojong had started a fire and they were cooking cornmeal. The older men wrapped their shuka cloths around their shoulders and stared down at the flames as children ran back and forth, tossing twigs and dead leaves into the pit. The smoke and the cold gray sky made all the colors look muted, as if they’d been worn down by the wind.

  Trying to avoid Julia, we circled the edge of the camp to Steve Ramsey’s tent. The doctor sat on a folding campstool in his underwear. He was trimming his toenails with a pair of surgical scissors.

  “Still want the supplies?”

  “Yes. We’re leaving right now.”

  We followed Ramsey into his tent. Three army blankets were stacked up on his folding cot along with six plastic bottles of boiled water.

  “All this for a hundred dollars.”

  It looked like Ramsey had stolen everything from the supply tent, but Daniel paid without bargaining. Quickly we rolled up the blankets and distributed the water bottles between our two bags. We stuffed our extra equipment into a nylon storage sack.

  “We’re leaving this here,” Daniel said. “If we don’t come back in a week, it’s all yours.”

  Billy and Erik were waiting for us when we came out of the tent. A squad of Ugandan soldiers was officially in charge of the camp, but I wasn’t about to argue with a professional thug like Billy.

  “You two going off into the bush?”

  “Looks that way,” Daniel said. “Is there a problem?”

  Billy smiled like a genial bartender. “Mr. Seaton isn’t concerned about Samuel Okello. However, if you decide to write about Mr. Seaton’s leadership of Hand-to-Hand, we hope that it’s a positive article.”

  “People are hungry and you’re feeding them.”

  “Exactly. Well said, Mr. McFarland.” Billy pulled out a business card for the Riverside Bank and handed it to Daniel. “We’re flying out this afternoon so Mr. Seaton wanted you to have this. Give us a call if you make it back to London.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “If you meet up with buffalo, especially a solitary male, stand still and don’t make a sound,” Erik told us. “Anything else—lions, cheetahs, hyenas—just shout and act crazy. Carnivores stay away from crazy people.”

  “Great,” I said. “Sounds like the New York subway.”

  Billy made a point of shaking our hands, then we hurried over to the area where the Acholi refugees were living. Isaac stood alone beside one of the tents. He held his pink flip-flop sandals as if he was waiting for permission to put them on.

  “Morning, Isaac,” Daniel said. “You ready to go?”

  The boy stared at us with those dead eyes of his. It looked as if every possible emotion had been squeezed out of him. “I’m ready.”

  Standing to one side, I was the first person to see Julia approach us. It was still cold, and she wore a sweater along with her khakis and work boots. I’ve photographed a fair number of relief workers and I’ve learned how their faces change because of the job. The first time they encounter a war or a famine, they look startled and somewhat scared. After six months, their faces begin to relax and they seem aware of problems even before they happen. After two years or more, many of them become cynical and bored. They spend their spare time calculating the total per diem paid b
y their aid organization. But a few relief workers remind me of Giacometti’s sculptures: they look as if they’ve been cut and chipped away until only their essence remains.

  Julia was just moving into this third stage, but it was too early to tell which way she would go. She came toward us with a long-legged confident stride. In fact, stride was a good word to describe her. She didn’t seem to be afraid of anything.

  “I want to talk to Isaac.”

  “Of course.” Daniel stepped away from the boy and crouched in the dirt. He took out a cigarette, cupped it in his hand, and tried to light a match in the wind. I knew that he wasn’t going to argue with Julia. Although Daniel wrote about wars, he disliked confrontation. It wasted time and diverted him from his constant movement forward.

  Julia turned to Isaac and smiled brightly. “I just had a wonderful idea, Isaac. I know you wanted Mr. McFarland’s watch. That’s why you agreed to be his guide. But look …” She unstrapped her own watch and offered it to the boy. “You can have mine. It’s yours if you don’t go with him.”

  Isaac examined Julia’s face, then glanced at Daniel. What was he looking for? I wondered. How would he make his choice? Julia obviously cared about Isaac. She wanted to save him and it showed. Daniel was cold and expressionless, but I could see that Isaac was far more comfortable with that lack of emotion. Julia’s compassion was not part of his world.

  Isaac dropped his sandals and stepped into them. “I’ll go with Mr. Daniel.”

  Julia’s lips were pressed into a tight line. I expected her to start arguing with Daniel, but she turned to me. “I think it’s obvious that this expedition with Isaac wasn’t your idea. Stay here and you can go back to Nairobi in our supply truck.”

  I felt ashamed for a few seconds, but that emotion was pushed away by a surge of anger. I could have lectured her about the responsibilities of journalism, but that would have been a lot of words piled up over the truth. Last night I had accepted Daniel’s plan because I needed to please my employers and I didn’t want to look like a coward. Sometimes I think all men are still six years old, daring each other to kick a dead snake in the middle of the road.

  “I’m going with them.”

  Julia shook her head and turned away from me. She touched the boy’s shoulder. “We’ll be waiting for you, Isaac. You can always come back here.” She glanced at Daniel one last time and walked away. A gust of wind passed through the camp and smoke drifted through the gaps between the tents.

  • • •

  ISAAC STROLLED OUT of the camp and we followed him. The boy’s flip-flops made little slapping sounds with each step. As we crossed the rocky strip of dirt that surrounded Kosana, I felt like we were on a beach, approaching a vast ocean. For a few hundred yards we stepped around patches of weeds and thornbushes; then we were lost in the grass. The thick yellowish stalks brushed against my chest and shoulders. A flock of doves rose up from the earth.

  Isaac had only a general idea about where we were going. The path of crushed grass divided several times and veered off in different directions. At each juncture the boy stopped and checked the horizon, then took the path that led to the morning sun. After a half hour of slow progress, he led us up a crumbly dirt slope and paused at the top. We looked down at a riverbed about thirty to forty feet wide. During the rains it would be filled with a surge of muddy water from the surrounding hills, but now it was a dry channel of reddish sand and lichen-covered boulders. Instead of forcing our way through the grass and thickets, we were going to follow this natural pathway.

  “Where are we going?” Daniel asked Isaac.

  “To the mother tree.”

  “What’s that?”

  Isaac shook his head. Couldn’t explain.

  “How far is it?”

  The boy shook his head again.

  “How many nights’ sleep?”

  “One night. Then a little farther.”

  Daniel took off his watch, pulled a piece of twine out of his pocket, and threaded it through the strap’s buckle. He tied the ends of the twine together and formed an improvised necklace with the watch as a pendant. “Here you go,” he told Isaac and slipped the loop over the boy’s head.

  Isaac touched the watch cautiously, then held it up and stared at the second hand ticking its way around the dial. Satisfied, he nodded and sighed. It was the first time I had seen the boy show any sort of emotion.

  “Is that what you wanted?”

  “Yes, Mr. Daniel.”

  “Wear it under your shirt and people won’t take it.”

  Isaac led us down into the riverbed and we followed it north. By eleven o’clock it was hot and sweat flies began to swarm around us. Isaac walked carefully, picking his way around the boulders. He never seemed to get tired or thirsty.

  The sun rose higher in the sky and the shadows darkened. We rationed water, trying not to drink more than one bottle per hour. I started to get worried when we finished the third bottle, but then we found a mud hole with a few inches of water on the surface. We filled the bottles and dropped in iodine tablets, but the water still tasted like rocks and sand.

  Larks and warblers darted in and out of the brush. A gerund gazelle with a long slender neck nibbled on a thorn tree, then ran away when we stumbled into view. The riverbed narrowed to about twenty feet across and the boulders got larger. We scrambled over rocks, knocking off pieces of lichen. I slipped twice and banged my knee. When we came around a bend two miniature deer were hiding in the thicket on the right bank. They were dik-diks, so small and delicate that they seemed to come from a gentler place than the rest of the world. I stared at them, forgetting to take out my camera, but then Isaac made a noise and they disappeared into the grass.

  Daniel called a halt around four in the afternoon and we spent the next few hours pulling dead branches from trees for a pile of firewood. We camped on a patch of sand near the shelter of two boulders. I dug a pit with my hands and lit a fire as the sun went down.

  The cicadas had been chirping all day long, but they got louder at nightfall. Their sound reminded me of a heartbeat, something steady and physical that came with its own rhythm. Birds called from the darkness and a pack of wild dogs greeted each other with a high-pitched yittering sound.

  Some people pay thousands of dollars so they can fly to Africa and sit by a campfire under the stars, but sleeping outdoors always makes me nervous. If you take away our guns and cars and drop us into the middle of the wilderness, we become scrawny little apes with no fangs or claws to defend ourselves. Forget about art and philosophy; we’re lunch.

  “The fire’s big enough, Nicky.”

  “Just one more branch.”

  “A bigger fire isn’t going to make a difference to a leopard.”

  “That’s what you think. All the leopards I know are very impressed.”

  Isaac was already asleep, wrapped up in one of the army blankets. I sat close to the fire while Daniel leaned against a boulder. Instead of worrying about the Lord’s Righteous Army, I started to plan the perfect victory meal for when we got back to Rome. For the first course I wanted straccetti con rughetta, strips of young beef cooked in arugula. No. I’d order saltimbocca, little chunks of veal skewered with prosciutto and sage.

  “She was really angry.”

  I shifted around and looked at Daniel. He sat with his knees up and his head back against the rock. “Who are you talking about? Julia?”

  “I can never understand what motivates people like her. Julia’s not a missionary or a Bible thumper. Maybe Richard Seaton gives her a big salary, but I don’t think she’s doing it for the money either.”

  “And she’s pretty, too.”

  Daniel took a stick and stirred up the fire as if Julia’s appearance was the ultimate annoyance. “She made it sound like I had flown to Kosana looking for somebody like Isaac. Believe me, I would have hired an adult if I could have found one. You saw those Acholi farmers. They’re terrified of Okello.”

  “Maybe we should be terrified, too.
I really don’t want to get my hand chopped off by some fanatic.”

  “There’s always a risk, Nicky.”

  “All I’m saying is that I don’t like dealing with prophets or visionaries, especially if they have their own army. People who talk to God are dangerous. I prefer a sleazy police captain who accepts bribes.”

  • • •

  IT WAS A LONG, uncomfortable night. I got up to put more wood on the fire and heard an animal moving through the grass. Whatever it was made a quick huffing sound like an asthmatic breathing. The animal crept closer; then the sound faded away.

  I started itching when I lay back down on the sand and realized that the blankets Ramsey had sold us were infested with fleas. I could feel them crawling beneath my clothing, searching for a soft patch of flesh.

  The next morning all three of us had welts on our skin. We ate crackers and jam for breakfast before continuing north up the riverbed. I asked Isaac how far we had to go and he mumbled something about the mother tree and kept walking. It felt like we were going uphill. There were fewer places to find water. I was hot, then shivery, and it was hard to swallow. As I stumbled forward I began to fantasize about the White House job that Carter Howard had mentioned during our walk. Once I became part of the press pool I could rent an apartment in Georgetown and buy some furniture for the first time in my life. All I had to do was join the pack of photographers and learn how to shout: “Over here, Mr. President! Over here!”

  Isaac saw something and ran forward. When we finally caught up with him, he was standing on the riverbank next to a pair of baobob trees. They looked like two pieces of broccoli planted in the ground. The larger of the trees had two branches that curved around a smaller trunk that grew from the base. It reminded me of a parent embracing a child and then I realized this was the landmark we’d been looking for—the mother tree.

  Grass was crushed around the tree and there were patches of ash left over from fires. “Did Okello come here?” Daniel asked Isaac.