by Jessica Yu
“You could pull a leaf from Adam’s book. Well, you are. You are getting things going.”
Gladys appreciated the encouragement; her disappointments with Zam had pummeled her self-confidence. How had she been so blind to the dangers of relying on others? The answer, she knew, was desperation. The garden was vulnerable to thieves and cheats because she did not have the money to finish the building. Her children were vulnerable to abuse and neglect because there were too few places to put them. Like a hen seeking shelter in a storm, she may have led her brood to the butcher’s kiosk.
“Trust Jesus! He is the only one! Trust Jesus!” A street preacher prowled around the traffic circle with a megaphone, roaring at the indifferent pedestrians. “You have been called to repent!”
ON MONDAY, as promised, Adam was waiting at the New Vision offices. In his perfectly pressed white shirt, gray tie, and polished black shoes, he looked like a billboard model of a young executive.
Gladys returned Adam’s cordial greeting. Her white and black outfit—a dress and jacket topped by a ruffled collar—complimented his well, and the ringlets of her hairdo were as springy as ever. Nothing in her manner indicated that she had not eaten a meal since breakfast two days before. The new information about Freddy had erased her appetite, erased sleep, erased peace. But it was Monday now, and her unease would finally be exorcised. Once Freddy took her to meet the American couple, her questions would be answered, for better or worse.
Freddy was late, but delays were common for those entering Kampala in the morning. They waited at Mike’s car, Gladys standing outside, scanning the street for the pastor, and Adam, Esther, and Mike sitting inside. Early that morning, Adam reported, he had contacted the probation officer handling the adoption case of Susan Nabugwere’s children. The officer claimed that the department had conducted the proper investigations to look for existing family members.
“It’s important to find out if a child is a total orphan or not,” Adam said. “Because if a child has a relative, the child should be settled with that relative rather than be adopted.”
Esther only half listened as she gazed through the open window, watching Gladys answer a call on her mobile phone.
“Wangi, Pastor,” she heard Gladys say. “We are here at New Vision.”
After a moment Gladys dropped her arm as though the phone had suddenly become heavy.
“Do you know what?” Esther said, interrupting Adam’s report. “I think what Jacob said would happen has happened.”
“I told you,” said Adam, “there was that possibility.”
Gladys lowered her head to the window. “Freddy is not coming. He said he’s still in Jinja.” Her voice rose, untethered by disbelief. “Now he’s telling me, ‘Ah! I’m sorry. But you know, those Americans are not in Kampala today. They went north to check on the school they are sponsoring.’”
Mike and Esther exchanged a sour glance.
“He says even he can’t come to meet us. He’s very sorry—he lost a relative. He says he is at a funeral.”
“The probation officer must have alerted him this morning that people were asking questions,” Esther said, looking accusingly, if unfairly, at Adam. “And he changed his plan.”
“He’s assuring me that when the couple comes back from visiting the school, he will again arrange a meeting,” said Gladys.
“He will not,” said Adam.
“But he’s telling me he will arrange another appointment for me!” Gladys insisted, the words sounding foolish even as she uttered them.
“Arrange it.” Esther shrugged, this confirmation of Freddy’s character giving her some sour satisfaction. “You will get the same results.”
Adam spoke gently. “This is not a shock, Gladys. You remember what we discussed? We said don’t be surprised.”
“Let me not take it as a shock. But I am still surprised. I believed Freddy would meet me today! I believed it.” She still could not accept it. Even when Jacob had warned her that Freddy might play tricks, Gladys had told herself, No, no, no. I am meeting him. He will come.
“I think he is buying time for those people to be able to go,” Mike asserted. “For all I know, those kids could be halfway in the sky to the U.S.”
They reflexively glanced up, as if the plane carrying Alex, Annet, and Mercy might be whisking by at just that moment. They saw only white clouds, solid as balloons, in a sky of born-again blue. A cheerful backdrop to Freddy’s bit of theater.
Gladys took a last look around, as though she might spy the fat pastor peeking out from behind the New Vision building. There were security guards, the parking attendant, some skinny pedestrians. No Pastor Fred.
There was nothing to do. They sat in the parked car, stranded in their neat clothes like guests at a canceled wedding.
At this point only an actual relative could pursue the case, Adam explained. “The problem is that Gladys is just like a well-wisher here. She is out of the loop legally.”
Gladys gazed out through the speckled windshield. “You know, what clicks in my mind is why Freddy is so much interested in children from these madwomen, or children who have been left in the latrine. If he has plans for those ones, no one will be following.”
No one but Gladys, who could be brushed away like a mosquito.
Freddy had not even taken her seriously enough to inform her that he wasn’t coming. Maybe he thought it was funny to have a carload of people in Kampala waiting to take him to a make-believe meeting!
Well, she would learn to laugh at Pastor Fred’s jokes. She would just have to be more like Jacob. Expect frustration. Anticipate obstruction. Accept disappointment.
Could she truly accept it? It seemed inconceivable that she had come so far with Alex and his sisters, only to be denied the chance to learn their ultimate fate. But if Pastor Fred had pulled the curtain, that was it. The children were gone from her sight.
Her sigh had the finality of a last breath. “So we are at the end now.”
Win Win
There were those days when a conspiracy of offenses, small and large, converged on Gladys from the moment she left her home. When the traffic stretched her morning commute beyond three hours. When the streets were lined with dead dogs, culled by city authorities with poisoned meat. When she reached for her phone, only to find it had been snatched. When one of her children tested positive for HIV. When her joints ached with the telltale pain of malaria. When her deadline loomed but her power was shut off. When the sun went down but the night was still hot.
It had started as one of those days. Still bruised from Freddy’s games, Gladys had accompanied Adam thirty miles from Kampala to Nkokonjeru, a town in Buikwe District, where she interviewed the family of a five-year-old girl who had been raped by a local man. The girl’s father had forcibly taken the rapist to the police, but when he tried to get the committal letter to send the case to high court, the bureaucrat in charge demanded a “fee” of 300,000 shillings. This was an astronomical sum for the father, a clothing vendor, who had spent everything he had on his daughter’s medical costs. The letter was not produced, and the rapist returned to the village, yelling taunts at the girl’s father. Soon the rapist was caught trying to attack another child, and a crowd beat him up. The family of the second child was afraid to go to the police, though, and the man remained free. It was said that he had even defiled a pig.
As Adam interviewed the parents, Gladys took out her camera. The little girl grinned shyly, revealing a mouth full of baby teeth. Adam put his arm around her and gently turned her head toward his shoulder. They could not show her face in the newspaper.
BACK IN THE CAR, Adam expressed his commitment to pursuing the case. If he and Jacob had to open a new file, they would do it. “We will bring this case to high court,” he vowed calmly.
Gladys nodded, assessing the damage. The family needed justice, and the community needed protection. The girl required continuing medical treatment. One man’s depravity could cause such destruction. So easy to poison
the well.
A jazzy ringtone interrupted her thoughts. Gladys glanced at her phone and blinked. It was Freddy.
“Wangi, Pastor.”
The others listened in, tracking the occasional “hmm” and “okay” from Gladys’s side. The conversation lasted less than a minute.
“Freddy is full of surprises,” Gladys reported. “He is now telling a new story.”
The pastor apologized for Monday’s “miscommunication”: the American couple had not left town after all. They were still in Kampala, but the man was flying back to the United States that night. If Freddy texted her the couple’s number, would Gladys like to try to contact them? Perhaps she could still meet them and the children before they left.
“So that is the latest.” A laugh rose from Gladys but did not take flight. The specificity of Freddy’s offer gave her hope, which she now mistrusted. She was trying to learn from Jacob, after all. Would the Hammer allow himself be taken for a fool a second time?
As they waited for Freddy to text the Americans’ number, the chorus of skepticism in the car grew louder.
“Two days ago he said they were out of town,” said Mike. “And now he says they are flying home.”
“The number will come when they are already in the air,” Esther predicted.
“If he does send the number, don’t be surprised if the phone is off,” Adam warned.
Gladys chuckled darkly. “I’m now ready for whatever comes, because I’m no longer shocked by anything.”
Three minutes went by, then five, then ten. How long did it take to text a phone number? The worm on Freddy’s fishhook was looking dead.
“Do you know what he asked me?” Gladys snorted. “‘Do you know how to read text messages?’ What kind of question is that!”
“He must think you’re really from a backward place,” said Mike. “A national park!” Everyone laughed. And then Gladys’s phone buzzed.
FLOWING SKIRT, bare shoulders, blond hair swept back in a loose ponytail, candy-colored paper beads circling pale neck and wrists: Michelle Griffen did not at first blush resemble a child trafficker.
“You found us,” she called brightly, walking to meet them. With her pretty, unadorned features, she radiated the free-spirited air of a globe-trotting college student. It was only close up that one could see that she was close to forty, with a touch of wariness clouding her blue eyes.
Gladys, Esther, and Mike followed her through the yard of the rental complex where she and her husband were staying. A car tire wobbled across their path. Two small figures in bright pink shirts and brighter pink flip-flops danced behind it, as though they were starting a parade.
“Is that Annet? And is that Mercy?” Gladys’s voice pitched an octave higher with each name. The two girls turned to throw their skinny arms around her. “It is good to see you!”
After a flurry of cooing and clucking, the party moved into the spacious apartment. Several bedrooms and a hallway branched off from the living room, which had church-high ceilings and a trio of brown fabric couches positioned around a flat-screen television.
A tall white man sat in one of the couches. In his gray T-shirt, khaki shorts, and bare feet, he looked more tourist than architect.
“I’m Phil.” He stood up, hand extended. His long face was heavier at the bottom than the top, like a jackfruit. As with his wife, his smile did not quite reach his eyes.
“It’s nice meeting you people. I’m Gladys Kalibbala, from New Vision newspaper.”
A boy in a red shirt and loose blue shorts came skipping in, a ball tucked under one arm. It took a moment to register who this was. Gladys had never seen Alex skip before.
“He’s going outside for football?”
“Yes,” replied Phil. “He loves football.”
Gladys was reluctant to disrupt the boy’s play. “Okay, Alex,” she sang to him. “You just come and say hello.”
Alex bounded over, still clutching his ball, and gave her a one-armed hug.
Gladys pointed to Phil. “Okay, introduce him to me.”
“That’s my daddy,” Alex said, a shy grin lifting his face even as he lowered his chin.
“Ah-hah!” Gladys exclaimed. “That sounds good. And what about your mother?”
Without turning to look, the boy pointed over his shoulder at Michelle. Gladys marveled at the casualness of the gesture. It was the way one might wave in the direction of one’s home. “That’s my mother,” the boy said, then ran out the door with his ball.
“Shut the door, please!” Michelle called after him. Then, to her visitors, “They’re learning how to shut doors. The first couple days, they would just run in and out. But they didn’t have doors where they were living. In the orphanage, they just had cloth.”
“And you can imagine what was happening before that, in the place that I got them,” said Gladys. She lowered herself onto a couch, set down her purse, and looked up at the couple. “By the way, how did you get them?”
Phil looked up sharply, alert. “What do you mean?”
“How did you first find out about these ones?”
Michelle answered that she had heard about the siblings from a friend who had adopted a child from Freddy’s home.
It seemed that the Griffens had indeed been led to the shortcut. The process of acquiring the children was unfolding just as Jacob had said it would. A month ago the courts had granted them legal guardianship of the three children. The actual adoption would be finalized in the United States.
“We’re just waiting for passports now,” said Michelle. “Looks like this may be the week.”
They made a bit of small talk, the three locals inquiring about New-braska and the Americans’ interest in Uganda, the fair-haired couple expounding on their affection for the country even with its lamentable traffic. Despite the shared chuckles and knowing nods, a veil of tension as sticky as a spiderweb still divided hosts and visitors.
The Americans must have wondered why Pastor Fred had encouraged this meeting on the day Phil was to fly home. Indeed, the question had occurred to Gladys as well. Maybe Freddy calculated that if Gladys were to meet this well-to-do American couple, she would offer less resistance to future adoptions and send more children his way. Clearly her disillusionment with him had not registered; he did not consider her capable of throwing a wrench in the works.
Gladys had nothing to throw, nor did she know where to aim. What she sought here was not control but reassurance. This might be her only chance to get it.
Esther leafed through a book of photographs on the low table in front of her. Inside were pictures of the Griffen family, including grandparents and kids of all ages. All were potato-pale like Phil and Michelle. The kids posed in a swimming pool, in front of a Christmas tree, around picnic tables. Their lives seemed lit by birthday candles.
“How many children do you have?” Esther asked. It was hard to tell from the pictures.
“With these three? We now have seven,” said Michelle.
Gladys gaped at her. “How many?”
“Seven.”
“But from what I see, people in the U.S. don’t want many children.”
“Yeah, they’re not big on big families,” Michelle replied, wrinkling her nose. “But I always wanted a big family.”
Annet and Mercy scampered back in from the yard, the slaps of their quick feet like applause on the smooth tile. They paused to nibble at a broken bar of chocolate on the table before flitting behind the couch to play with their new father’s hair.
“Girls, what is that you are doing to your daddy?” Gladys asked, smiling.
For his part, Phil surrendered to the treatment, leaning his head back as the giggling girls ruffled and plucked at the fascinatingly straight strands. “They like to pretend that I’ve got bugs in my hair.”
“They tease us,” Michelle said, looking pleased.
“Back in the village where they were with the mother,” Mike broke in, “you find there will be lice. In the hair and in the garmen
ts. And what they will do, they will pick the lice, and then break them with the teeth.”
There was a half second of silence.
“Oh,” said Michelle.
“So the younger ones have watched the older ones,” Mike went on merrily. “If one has lice in her undergarments, for example, she will sit down one fine day and start picking them out, saying, ‘This is my blood you’re chewing.’ She will start biting them with her teeth, to take back the blood that they have sucked from her. So that’s what these ones are doing!” Mike’s lone guffaw faded abruptly, like a sprinter’s false start.
At that moment Alex bounded in with his ball under his arm, remembering to shut the glass door behind him. He plopped down on the couch, a pair of pink plastic sunglasses perched low on his nose.
Gladys looked down at the boy. “Alex, when your new dad and mom said that they wanted to take you into their family, what did you think?”
“I felt so happy.” He drummed on the sunglass lenses, his feet kicking to the beat.
“If you had been taken alone and your two sisters had been left behind, would you still have been happy?”
Alex’s squirming ceased. “No.”
“It was always all or none,” Michelle said after Mike had translated the Luganda. “We felt it would be hard for somebody here to adopt all three of these children and keep them as siblings.”
But seven children? “Are you sure you are not from Uganda?” Esther quipped.
Michelle smiled and jerked a thumb at Phil. “He first thought I was crazy.”
There was no reproach in his wife’s voice, but Phil’s long face contracted slightly. “I was coming back from a building mission. I was in the airport when Michelle told me about these three children. I’m sure I said, ‘Are you crazy? We have four already!’”
“Eh-eh-eh-heh!” Gladys and Esther found this scenario singularly amusing. A woman pushing her husband for a bigger family? This man was lucky he had only one wife! It took a good minute for Gladys to compose herself.
