by Jessica Yu
The Volvo rumbled past sports-betting parlors and inns and churches and bars and mosques. The passengers noted perplexing business names, like the God Is in Control Dairy Farm and the Mild Beauty Institute and the Executive Butchery Shop. They crossed the papyrus-filled Katonga River, a battleground during the Ugandan Bush War, now the burial plot for the soldiers whose bodies would never be retrieved from the swamp and its traps of quicksand.
Compounding the sense of distance was the fact that they didn’t really know where they were going. Deborah claimed her home was somewhere “around Lukaya,” but her dot of a village would not appear on any map. Gladys would have to navigate using the girl’s memories.
“Deborah,” she said, “what I want to know—do you still remember Lukaya town? Because now we don’t know the place we are going. We have to find out where it is in relation to that town.”
Deborah sat up, alert as a front-row student.
“Your village called Ndegi, what is its landmark? What is the sign of it?”
“It is in Kalungu District.”
“Is there a government school there? Or close to there?”
“No.”
“Did you know the LC chairman of the village?” Members of the local council would know who lived in their area.
“No.”
“Where did you go to church? Where did you go to pray on Sundays?”
“The church was at school.”
“What was the name of the pastor?”
And so it went. With the interrogation yielding little in the way of concrete information, Gladys resorted to her tattered address book. Perhaps there was someone in the area she could call. Whom had she met from Lukaya? From Kalungu District?
“So, Gladys,” Mike called back, “do we know where we are going?”
“Unfortunately, Deborah doesn’t know Lukaya town, and that is the only town I know around there.”
“I passed there once,” offered the girl.
“You passed there once. Okay, what I want to know is, do you pass there on the way to your home? Or do you branch at the town? Or what?”
“You pass through town.”
“Is your father very well known? So that if we stop in Lukaya, people know him? If so, it means your village is not very far from that town.”
Deborah gave an uncertain nod.
Gladys shifted tactics. “To get home, would you move on foot? Or use bodas?”
“Bodas.”
Despite the girl’s vague responses, Gladys concluded, “I think we can find the place.”
“Okay.” Mike sounded doubtful. But if he was surprised by the lack of a destination, he knew Gladys well enough by now not to be surprised by the journey.
IT WAS ALREADY midafternoon when they entered Lukaya, a highway town whose inns and bars catered to passing truck drivers and fishermen. Street vendors hovered at the edges of the road with muchomo, skewers of roasted meat hoisted in fists like heavy bouquets. Some held flat baskets of fruit and vegetables and roasted plaintains and dried fish. A few dangled live chickens at their sides. All were poised to pounce on any vehicle that stopped, or even slowed.
Gladys knew what she needed. “Look for boda-boda drivers,” she instructed Mike. “You know, when you see them together—there!” She pointed to a corner where a congregation of young men and motorcycles lounged by a meat vendor’s stand, its sign reading SMART BUTCHERY. “That is the place.”
Mike pulled over, and in moments the loose circle of men was breached by a large woman and a little girl. A few drivers glanced at Deborah’s unusual form, but Gladys’s strong voice quickly pulled their attention.
“Who knows the village called Ndegi?” she called out. “Who knows a man named Sebutali?”
There were a few murmurs. A couple of the men claimed to know the area.
“Can you take us there? How far away is it?”
“Seventeen kilometers,” said one young man in a gray shirt. “Or maybe fifteen.”
“About twelve kilometers,” offered another, in a green shirt.
Gladys snorted. A distance was not an item to be bartered! “If you know where it is, how come you can’t give us the correct distance?”
“I know where it is,” insisted Gray Shirt.
Gladys pressed the drivers for another minute, letting each vie for the job. This could be a tricky business, as it was common for boda drivers to get into fights over customers. It was a testament to the remoteness of Deborah’s home that there were not more candidates in the running.
Finally Gladys nodded at Gray Shirt. “Okay, I want you to lead us to that place.”
They followed the boda man through a side street, where they waited for him to put fuel in his bike. Two young mechanics leaned in the shade, staring at Mike’s dusty green car.
“Even if you were to give me that to drive for just one day, I’d be so proud,” one remarked. “Driving a Volvo . . .”
Gladys laughed, amused. The Volvo was a fine car, but she was simply pleased to have transportation. How good it felt to be able to get somewhere!
AS MIKE FOLLOWED the boda boda, he explained that he had given the driver half of the agreed-upon fee; the balance would be paid when—or rather if—they arrived at the destination.
“We will get there,” Gladys assured him.
“I’m glad you think so,” Mike quipped. Gladys and Esther laughed.
It was true, Gladys embarked on these journeys with the confidence of a bird migrating across water: fly long enough, and you will reach land. “You know, my boss Cathy always wonders how I get to these places without knowing first where I am going. She says, ‘Give Gladys the names of those far, unknown places, and she will go!’ One time she got so worried. I went on a case out to some place called Kyaggwe.”
At the name, Mike sucked air through his teeth.
“Cathy was so worried. But she became even more scared when I came back and narrated my experience. I went there with only the boda-boda man to guide me. Cathy said, ‘That’s very, very bad! How can you trust a boda-boda man when there are only two of you with those bushes up there? Something can happen to you! And those people there, they can kill you. Some can even eat you!’ You know, that place has those, those . . .”
“Cannibals.” Mike supplied the word.
“Yes. So Cathy said, ‘How about if they had eaten you?’ I said, ‘No, they can’t eat me.’” Gladys gave a dismissive laugh. “I am a big woman.”
“If they get a body like yours,” Mike teased, “they will be so happy. They will eat for at least four days!”
Gladys squealed like an overheated kettle. “Eeeeeeee! You hear this man?”
“Have a party, for four days!” His chuckle was low and slow, like the honks of an unhurried driver. “Ha. Ha. Ha.”
“Hee-hee-hee! Enjoying the flesh.” She wagged a finger at him. “But with you, they will be very disappointed, Mike. They will say, ‘We have caught this big one, but there is no meat!’”
“‘So much trouble to catch, but this one is only bones!’”
“Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!”
“Ha. Ha. Ha!”
“The bad thing is,” Gladys mused more soberly, “when I am chasing something, I don’t care where it is or what it takes. I must have it! Someone will be telling me, ‘There is this woman, she is suffering, but she is in a very remote area. There is no transport, there is no way you can reach there.’ I tell them, ‘Just give me the name. I will reach there.’”
AS THEY BOUNCED behind the boda for several miles, the scenery offered few distinguishing characteristics: sparse bush occasionally broken up by patches of crops.
Deborah pointed to some rows of trees on either side of the road. “They are growing coffee there. My father is a coffee trader.”
When they moved through an area with a few scattered buildings, Deborah pulled herself forward to peer between the front seats.
“I remember this road,” the girl announced, her voice quickening.
&nbs
p; “Is this the place?” Gladys asked.
“No, not yet.”
“Do you know this place?”
“I know this place.”
“Are there people you know here?”
“No.”
“Are we near your home?”
“Yes!”
Ahead they saw people: some children playing, watched by a woman with a baby on her back.
“Let us talk to these ones,” Gladys said.
Mike honked for the boda man to double back, then pulled over.
Leaning out of her door, Gladys called cheerfully to the woman. “Hello, Madam! Pardon us for disturbing you. How are you?”
The woman hesitantly returned the greeting.
“We are asking for Mr. Misuseera Sebutali,” Gladys continued. “Is this a village called Ndegi?”
“No, this is someplace else.” The woman pointed to the way they had just come. “You have to go back.”
Mike, the boda man, and the woman embarked on a complicated discussion of directions. It seemed they were close, but the route was difficult to describe. There were many indistinct roads and paths. Outsiders never used them, so none were marked. Giving directions was like trying to describe a particular row in a field of sugarcane.
They returned to their vehicles and retraced their paths. They meandered this way and that, they plowed ahead, they slowed and stared. At this point the boda man was no longer the leader; he was just sticking with the Volvo in the hopes of being paid.
“I remember this place!” Deborah piped up, on a road that they had clearly traveled down before.
She doesn’t know the way, Gladys thought. She was beginning to worry over the time. Like the heroine in a fairy tale, Deborah needed to find her castle quickly. She was supposed to be back in Entebbe by nightfall.
On one narrow lane their progress was halted by a herd of Ankole cattle. The Volvo had to stop in the middle of the road to allow the animals to pass on either side.
“Look at those ones!” Gladys exclaimed. Despite everything, she enjoyed the sight of the big, slow beasts lumbering by, their magnificent pronged horns bobbing up and down like outstretched arms. There was no reasoning with these creatures; with their density and their simplicity, they ruled the moment. No one, not even a cabinet minister with an entourage and sirens and military jeeps and soldiers in the lead, could insist on the right of way. One might as easily hold back a river of mud.
As the last meaty flank swayed past, Gladys took a breath and gave Deborah an encouraging nod. “I think we must be near your home. Just keep looking.”
BY AND BY they rolled down yet another rutted path, with a couple of brick houses set back from the road on either side. A girl and a boy drew in the dirt with sticks, while a man in a white shirt and a fellow with a bicycle stood chatting.
“Oh, I know that person,” Deborah said, the words popping out of her mouth almost casually.
“What?” asked Gladys.
“That man. I know him!”
At that, Mike halted the Volvo and, with a movie stuntman’s efficiency, reversed through his own wake of dust. The boda-boda man puttered ahead, oblivious, but this was not the moment to worry about him. He would double back.
Gladys spoke to the men through her window. “Do you know Mr. Misuseera Sebutali? This child says she knows one of you.”
“That one,” said Deborah, indicating the man in the white shirt.
“She knows me? Who?” The man squinted into the dark car. Then his face brightened. “I know this girl. She’s Sebutali’s daughter.”
Deborah beamed at the man as Gladys’s heart jumped. “We are trying to find Sebutali’s home.”
“If you just go to that corner, you turn and take a . . .”
“What about you get in and take us there?” The proposal popped out of her mouth.
The man considered for a moment, then nodded.
Gladys leaned toward Mike, speaking quietly. “How do you see it? Is it an inconvenience?”
“I mean, there is no other option . . .”
“. . . other than going on like this.”
And so the man got into the back seat, and the boda fell in behind the Volvo.
From there, everything was easy. “The road that goes by church,” directed the man, “that’s the one you have to use.”
They turned past the church. “I know this road!” Deborah cried, her voice high with excitement. “I used to come and collect firewood here.”
“We are on track!” Gladys declared triumphantly. “I tell these people, Gladys does not fail.”
Mike’s foot pressed a little more eagerly on the gas pedal, stirring up the air in the car. Gladys tingled with anticipation. From the beginning Deborah had told everyone of the father and grandmother who loved her. She had been trying to walk back home. It had taken two years, but she was returning at last. Just as Gladys had promised.
THEIR ARRIVAL UNFOLDED exactly as Gladys had imagined it. The moment the car pulled up, faces appeared at the window and turned shiny with joy.
“Olivia! Olivia!” People shouted Deborah’s original name. The news of her return spread instantly through the village, like lights coming on after a blackout.
Sprinting down the footpath from the bush came a young woman, screaming and crying. Clapping her mouth with a flat hand, the woman emitted a ululating call as she scooped up the girl in one arm.
“Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo!”
In a flash, an old woman came running from behind a small brick home, the sleeves of her yellow dress tied hastily under her arms. The dress was nearly falling off her body, but she did not slow down to adjust it.
“Olivia! My girl!”
“Where have you been?”
“We are so happy to see you!”
“We thought you were gone forever!”
“Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo!”
Deborah was spun around from person to person. As they wept and wailed, she said nothing; she just hugged them back, a delirious smile on her face. Gladys looked on, laughing, her camera snapping away.
A strapping, handsome teenager in a red football jersey picked up Deborah as easily as he would a baby.
“Is that your brother?” Gladys asked.
“Yes!”
Gladys turned to the old lady in the yellow dress. “And you are the grandmother?”
The weathered face contorted with emotion. “Yes. Yes!” The first words dropped like pebbles, then came the avalanche. “Thank you for keeping my grandchild. I’m so happy! She is back! Just last night I was talking about this child. I was saying this child has died. But Olivia has come back!”
Around them the happy shouts continued as more and more people came running up through the bush.
“Look who is home!”
“We missed you!”
“When someone is lost, never say the person is dead!”
“Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo!”
Gladys looked around. The whole village was running out to greet its returning child. But there was someone missing. “Where is the father?”
“We were so worried about this girl.” The grandmother bent down to look directly into her granddaughter’s eyes. Her voice was frail and hoarse, as though she had been thirsty for a long time. “Welcome back. My child, my girl!”
UNDER THE SHADE of a tree, Gladys sat with the grandmother and brother while Deborah floated about, chatting with everyone.
“Where is the father?” Gladys asked again. Had something happened to him?
The grandmother did not answer, but a voice chimed in, mentioning that the father was somewhere nearby.
“I hope someone is getting him.” The clock was ticking on their visit. Gladys would start her interview with the others and hope for the father’s arrival.
The old woman was Deborah’s paternal grandmother, and just as Deborah had always maintained, she doted on her granddaughter. When the news had come that the girl had run away from her abusive mother, the gra
ndmother had become frantic.
“Did you try to find her?” Gladys asked.
The grandmother shook her head. “I have not been well, as you can tell by looking at me.” It was true: her fifty-eight years hung heavily on her. The whites of her eyes were yellow and red-veined; her mouth was missing many teeth. “And I had no funds.”
Gladys’s pen worked quickly. “What about the father?”
“I told him he should look for her, but he said, ‘The mother took the child, and that is her business now.’”
So they hadn’t looked for the child. “You thought the girl was lost all this time.”
Again the grandmother shook her head. When Deborah had been picked up on the road and taken to the first police station, an officer had called one of her uncles. “Her father—my son—was given the phone. The police asked for confirmation that this was his daughter. With the swelling on her back. The father said, ‘Yes, the child has got a hump.’”
Gladys’s pen hovered in midsentence. The police had called the family? The family had known where Deborah was? Her mind reeled. This made no sense. “You knew the child was found.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you not get her?”
“The father told the police that he didn’t have money for transport, they would have to bring the child here. But the police said no, that’s too far.”
“You understand, the police do not have money. They may go months without salary.” Gladys’s voice grew hot with disbelief. “Did you really think that they could get the child from Kampala and bring her back to you? Of course you would have to get her yourselves. You have the grandmother’s love for the grandchild, do you?”
“I do,” the old woman insisted. “But as the grandmother, I have no authority. The parents are the ones who have authority over the child.”
