Thirty Girls

by Minot, Susan

  Last night my mother appeared to me in my bed. Her face looked down at me from a ripped-out corner of the roof. Her face was calm, but my heart beat with wildness to see her. I was frightened.

  Today I got my blood test back. I do not have the virus. I think that is why my mother appeared, to offer me this news.

  In the bush I sometimes dreamed I was at home, then waking up would make home disappear.

  Here in the camp girls wake screaming.

  V

  It Is Possible

  10 / At St. Mary’s

  ON THE DRIVE to Aboke, Grace reported the rebels had attacked a grocery nearby in Atipe and there were three abductions.

  How do you get this news with no phone lines? Don said, hungover, with pink eyes.

  Grace shrugged. One hears it.

  A dented van packed with bodies careened past them, its back doors swinging open, and people hanging off.

  This past Christmas, Grace said, here on the Lira-Gulu Road, a woman was shot riding one of those matatus. She was on the luggage rack and just flew up and was dead before she hit the ground. You can tell a dead body even flying through the air.

  Pierre, sitting next to her, gazed at her with admiration. Her face was calm, curls blowing around.

  They drove in the hot morning. The road narrowed to dirt and Grace directed them over a rickety bridge of bleached boards warped with gaps. They proceeded slowly, fearing collapse. Children wading nearby in the rushes spotted them and came splashing over. Their hands reached up to the windows.

  Behave, Grace said. When they spotted her inside, they backed off.

  After a field of sunflowers they turned onto a driveway that crossed a large unplanted field of fried grass toward a stucco wall hiding half of a church painted in an Italian Mannerist style, chalky pink and yellow and green.

  A white-haired mzee opened iron gates and they entered a sort of Eden of high leafy trees and purple bougainvillea spilling from roof eaves. Flower beds encircled tree trunks and hanging pots of fuchsia dotted a turquoise veranda with crimson trim. Four nuns in wimples and dressed in pale blue nurselike uniforms stood on the porch.

  Greetings came in English, Italian and Swahili. The guests were invited inside for lunch. A soldier, gun strapped across his back, strolled by, crunching the white gravel path, ignoring the people and being ignored.

  A long table stretched from the entranceway to an inner courtyard where an enormous sunken garden was laid out in square beds of flowers and vines and rows of lettuce. The table was crowded with dishes of food the nuns had prepared themselves: meatloaf, macaroni, chicken, potato salad, corn, green beans, rice, stewed tomatoes. All the vegetables had come from their garden, they said, even the coffee beans. Jane scribbled notes, every detail important.

  They sat and said grace and passed the bowls.

  Grace had known the sisters for a long time; she had gone to St. Mary’s herself. There were no rebels then.

  They are not too far from us today, said one sister with the long face of a primitive Madonna carved in wood. Her name was Sister Fiamma. They are looking for food and people.

  Jane’s attention was half taken by the silent Sister Giulia. She was the size of a small boy, with wide-set eyes behind large peach-rimmed glasses. Her wimple was tucked over her ears and she ate and listened with an open expression.

  Sister Rosario, a hefty woman with a no-nonsense air, was talking about a local boy: He was seven when the rebels took him. He is fifteen now.

  The nuns nodded. Sister, it is possible.

  They talked about the night of the abduction.

  There was a path beaten across the grass, Sister Alba said. Robust, with red spots in her cheeks, she was the oldest nun, here fifty years. It went from the gate directly to the dormitory. They knew where they were going.

  Don’t you worry you’re going to be attacked again? Don said.

  The nuns looked at him with alarmed expressions.

  We have soldiers now. Sister Rosario squared her shoulders.

  We did not always do anything before, Sister Giulia spoke finally. Before this we were afraid to talk. She had a hushed voice, full of wonder. The visitors all looked at her, waiting for more, but nothing came.

  We thought it would hurt the girls to speak, Sister Alba said. Then we decided we must speak.

  Now we will not stop, said Sister Giulia. She spooned yogurt from a small bowl.

  I admire your strength, Lana said.

  Is it strength? Grace said with an impatient look.

  On top of this you have your own personal problems, Pierre said.

  No, Sister Alba said. I have no personal problems. The people’s problems are my only problems.

  They talked about going to meet the rebels in Sudan.

  Sister Rosario had some discomfort on the flight, Sister Giulia said, smiling.

  Yes. Sister Rosario agreed to smile, but it was conceding. We were to land in Khartoum, but near our destination the pilot said it was not possible.

  Tell the reason, Sister Giulia said, still smiling.

  He was told it was too sunny. The nuns all chuckled.

  After lunch Pierre set his tripod up under a towering camellia tree in the middle of the quadrangle. At the other end of the yard students in blue and white uniforms crossed in and out of fig trees near the school building, going to class. Nearby a platform used for sifting maize was watched over by a painted plaster Virgin Mary.

  Three girls were brought to them. They slid down in curtsies and extended their soft hands. Sharon, Beatrice and Theresa sat in chairs set up side by side, hands in laps, mouths closed, unsmiling. They wore clean T-shirts, two white, one light blue. Their hair was in the style of nearly all the girls, cut close to the scalp. Sharon wore pearl earrings. She’d been with the rebels for a year. Beatrice and Theresa had escaped together after a month.

  Lana leaned forward and took a thistle off Beatrice’s shirtsleeve, smiling. Beatrice flinched, then tried a smile. Jane sat on a low stool in front of them. She told the girls they were interested to hear their stories. Don stood towering in his crisp jeans, arms crossed, waiting to see what to make of it all. But even he seemed to be under the spell offered by a set-up camera.

  Film offered the promise of permanence. This light, these words, these shadows, would all be preserved. The day would end, the season change, the tree topple, the people here grow old and die, but their images and the stories they told on this afternoon would last, as long as the images stayed recorded. Harry sat on the ground, slumped against the trunk of the tree, hat brim over his eyes.

  Pierre nodded he was ready and pressed the red button.

  The girls kept very still as they talked. They didn’t move their arms, they barely moved their faces, only their mouths moved. A camera aimed at you can turn you back on yourself. Their voices were very soft. Did they seem especially gentle in contrast to what they were saying? No, people here spoke with a sweet softness.

  They described the night of the abduction. For us we hide under our beds. When one girl was speaking the other two looked off, not glancing at the one speaking. The sun dappled the grass in shadow. Now and then a soft wind pushed the air. Jane asked about their escapes. In the day it is not possible to run. It is only possible at night or if you make your toilet. Some try then. Some make it, some do not.

  Then the girls grew more relaxed. A forehead was scratched, a shoulder hugged an ear. They began to nod to one another. Suddenly an eager look brightened their faces, surprised by something said not acknowledged before, something they too had felt.

  After her kidnapping, said Sharon, her left arm became paralyzed. Even if I could lift it, it would fall like so. She hoisted her arm with one hand, then let it drop like a sack.

  Don had moved to a chair nearby and sat with a deep frown, watching his sneakers, glancing now and then at the girls, almost suspiciously. Harry was close enough to hear the girls, but was he listening? Jane couldn’t tell. Pierre stood bent at the tripod, swea
t on his face.

  Jane had put her sunglasses in the collar of her T-shirt, not wanting to hide her eyes from the girls. She gazed at them, listening. Even absorbed, she had a voice inside murmuring, You do not know what it is to be pulled from your house in the middle of the night, what it is to be marched through the bush with blistered feet, to see babies thrown against trees, you’ve not had a daughter taken from you, you’ve not even had a daughter … and another, continuous voice at the bottom of her mind like subtitles: Why did this happen to them and not me?

  Soon the girls were relaxed and interrupting each other. In some villages, they do not want the children back … so then where are we to go? My family would take me back. I am fortunate.

  Fortunate, thought Jane.

  By the time the girls got to the end they were hitting at each other and laughing, the white people before them looking pale and shattered.

  The sisters and Grace stood on the veranda, near the parked truck. Jane felt a strong urge to be alone and offhandedly mentioned that she wanted to check out the classrooms before they left and started across the quadrangle. One of the sisters moved forward to accompany her, but Jane waved her off—No, no, just a quick look, please don’t bother. She was not ducking out gracefully, but there you go. She needed to get away. Or get closer, or something. Maybe one was less likely to notice a quick getaway. Quick getaways were a specialty of Jane’s. You had to be sure not to look at those you left, or you’d see how badly you had done it. She strode across the springy grass, to relief in the silence.

  The stories told by the girls were engulfing her. She was filled to the brim with the images. Other realities exist, she told herself, but at the moment, this one of rape and killing and looting was crowding them out. Why was horror more vivid than tranquillity? Other realities were layers away, like overlapping screens, located far off, somewhere on the other side of the bridge at Karuma Falls. Even the soft air fanning her damp neck was a layer away from where she really was. What was the line? To learn of another’s suffering is to confront one’s own shame.

  She came into the shade of a line of fig trees and arrived at the one-story building. The students were gone, the school day was over. Classrooms here were lined up one after another, with open doorways, to interiors painted half blue and half white. She walked into one and saw empty desks with attached chairs, while in her mind’s eye she saw machetes slicing into skulls and men kicking children with their boots. One minute, these girls had been sitting at these desks, curious, bored, and the next minute in a hut under a man raping them. Children … The high windows on the other side of the classroom framed yellow and green foliage outside. She thought how far removed it was here from cities or seaside towns or suburbs. Those were the places one conjured when picturing normal life.

  She noticed without really seeing them leaves scattered under desks, blown in the window.

  She thought of news and of TV, where these things were supposed to be reported, and how no one wanted to see such things and no one wanted to show it and certainly nothing she had learned before had conveyed this hell as vividly to her as it had been by these three girls. Even that view was one step removed. She had only heard a story.

  Jane?

  She jumped. A hand touched her arm.

  Hey.

  She turned. We’ve been calling you.

  Harry’s face had its own reality. I just—she began. Those girls—

  I know.

  He turned her around, steering her like a child, out of the classroom.

  I was just thinking, she said.

  You should stop that, he said. Come. Time to get out of here.

  She walked beside him across the rectangle of grass. Above the white truck where everyone was waiting was a wide ruffle of purple bougainvillea like a low cloud.

  It’s so pretty here, she said.

  They were intersecting the path made by the rebels to the dormitory. She did not say what she was thinking: How am I ever going to get out of here now?

  They drove back to Lira in the dusty light. No one spoke.

  By the time they arrived at the roundabout at the bottom of Main Street darkness had fallen. Streetlights lit the red and orange flower beds arranged like frozen-food trays. In the town a few lights wavered in the darkness. Grace wanted to be let out here to walk home. Jane got out of the truck to say goodbye. The next day they were headed farther north, to Gulu and the rehabilitation camps.

  At Kiryandongo, Grace said, You will find St. Mary’s girls also there. This one, Esther Akello, is returned just now. You see her. She is a friend of Louise.

  Jane said she would.

  God bless you on your way, said Grace Dollo.

  Jane had the feeling in that moment she’d been there before, in a dream on that red dirt road beneath the streetlight. The women kissed one another goodbye.

  No matter how vivid, the first impressions vanished if you did not write them down. Jane had learned not to trust anything left on its own to last. She could look back to a journal years old and find that, not only did she not remember writing it, but she would not even remember what it was she was describing. She sat in the back courtyard of the Lira Hotel near the one outdoor light, her back against the concrete wall, writing.

  After their short dinner Lana had said she was going to bed. Don and Pierre both gazed after her as she walked off with long strides.

  Harry appeared, carrying an oversized beer bottle. He sat a step down in front of Jane and leaned against her, so her legs were straddling him. They faced the white pebble path.

  They handed the bottle back and forth and spoke of the girls.

  I don’t need to hear the details, Harry said. You get the idea pretty fast.

  But it’s important to know. Isn’t it?

  It’s important to try to stop it. No one needs to be convinced of that.

  But it isn’t being stopped. Her arms were around his shoulders and she felt the swell of his back. People should know about it.

  I never liked should, he said.

  If they know about it, they will be moved to do something.

  Have you ever considered turning some of the attention you give to others to yourself? Harry said.

  Jane laughed. No. Much easier to stick up for other people.

  Children have no economic value, Harry said. African children even less. This has been going on for, what, ten, fifteen years? And who has noticed? She could feel his voice through his back vibrating in her chest.

  It’s important to speak for the children.

  Yup, Harry said. He finished the last swallow of beer. I hear their stories and feel bad. How does it help them if my head is filled with horrible images?

  It helps them if you listen, she said.

  But I just want to block it out, he said.

  I would like to be able to blocks things out, Jane said. Did you know that it’s a myth that trauma victims block things out? It’s actually the opposite of what happens. It remains engraved.

  You do, said Harry.

  What?

  Block things out.

  I do?

  I watch you go away when you’re right here.

  Really? she said. Sometimes she felt any other version of life would be preferable to the one she had. It’s hard here, she said.

  You expect something different?

  No.

  People here have luck against them, he said. You can’t lend people luck.

  You can try.

  Trying is good, he said. He took her hands off his shoulders and stood up. I’m going to bed.

  I’m going to write down a few more things.

  You do that.

  Some time later, she returned to a dark room. The bathroom light threw a white stripe to the corner where Harry’s body lay on its side in one of the beds, motionless, a band of light curved up over his shoulder.

  She switched off the light and got into the bed opposite. She lay on her back and against her closed eyes saw the faces of the gir
ls, the frowns creasing their smooth foreheads, their demure eyes at one moment, drooping with heavy lids, then the next moment lifted, with a bright shine in them of something good, of relief. She heard their soft voices speaking of unspeakable things. Tears leaked down her temples. She would never forget them, she thought, then immediately wondered how long it would be before she did.

  In the middle of the night she woke to sharp snapping sounds outside. Harry stirred in the other bed.

  You awake? she said.

  Yes, came his voice out of the black.

  What was that?

  Gunshots, sounded like.

  Were they close?

  Not too.

  They sounded sort of close.

  Well, they’ve stopped now. They both listened. After a moment, he said, What are you doing over there?

  Sleeping.

  You should be over here.

  I should?

  Yes.

  She felt her way over in the dark. He was nearer than she thought.

  11 / Was God in Sudan?

  IT TOOK DAYS of walking to get to Sudan. We traveled in a small group, about fifty of us. The rebels were about twenty. Most of the girls of St. Mary’s were with us. I walked by Louise. Agnes, she was near Charlotte. One boy with us, very thin, died on the way. You think by then you would be accustomed to long journeys but we never got accustomed to it. We filled the splits in our feet with mud then walked then filled the splits again.

  At night we collected leaves to sleep on. Sleeping, the girls stayed close. In the morning before opening your eyes, you might hear a rooster and be sure that the walls of your room were around you with your cross on the wall and your jacket on the hook and then opening your eyes had a moment before you understood the ceiling above you was branches and white sky and leaves like shriveled paper. Then you would remember: I am in this other life.

  One day we passed through my grandmother’s village. The rebels did not know I knew this village. Fortunately we did not stop there.

  You are thinking about home when you are crying.