by Minot, Susan
Down the hall Harry’s heart kept beating while the sorting of these facts—the intruders, the gun, what Murray did—was the chorus being sung around what were very likely Harry’s last hours on the planet.
Pierre lay stretched out over three chairs, resting his head on Lana’s lap. They were talking to each other and she was laughing. Then he was laughing, too. No, they weren’t laughing. They were crying.
In the afternoon, more people. Yuri, the artist Jane had met that first day she’d met Harry, came, frowning in a linen shirt spattered with paint. He spoke in a booming voice, refusing to give reverence to disaster. With him was a small-nosed woman with a camera around her neck and a firm mouth suggesting she took herself very seriously.
Jane listened to the woman named Diana who liked to talk and had a lot of opinions. Oh, spare me the free spirit, she said. A free spirit’s just an idiot who doesn’t want to face reality. Our Harry’s better than that. I mean, honestly, what’s the point if you spend all your time trying to avoid the way things are? You miss out on life. Harry knows what’s what. Always has.
Jane was grateful for the present tense. A young woman in white go-go boots and a sheath dress came in with a small child, whom she set up on the floor with crayons and drawing paper. When the daughter showed her the picture she’d drawn the woman started to cry. The daughter was not alarmed in the least. Jane told Lana what had happened with Harry, before the shooting. Lana nodded, listening. She rubbed Jane’s arm, looking off. That hardly mattered now.
Later she moved the hair away from Jane’s face. Come on, now, she said.
I know, Jane said. But she didn’t, she knew nothing.
Sheila appeared, and everyone looked up and went still. Lana squeezed Jane’s hand, not letting go. Sheila was the compass in this new world of the waiting room. She was no longer in the sleeveless top with her son’s blood on it, she had on a collared shirt and a denim skirt to her knees. She looked at everyone, unsmiling, though her mouth was stretched in a stiff semblance of a smile. Then she saw Priscilla. She crossed the waiting room and Priscilla stood and they embraced.
What the hell happened? Sheila said. Everyone pretended not to listen.
We do not know it yet, Priscilla said. How is he?
It is not good, Sheila said, holding on to Priscilla’s shoulders. Not good at all. And Murray? Sheila said. How is he?
Priscilla looked down and shook her head.
In the late afternoon Joe emerged. He was handed a Styrofoam cup of soup with a spoon sticking out and held it while talking to Dr. Ross. After a while he set the cup down still full on a chrome cigarette pedestal and walked out of the waiting room down the yellow linoleum hall toward the exit. The news spread in whispers he was going to the airport.
An hour later he returned with Emma, yet another family member with no resemblance to Harry. She was milky-skinned with shiny apricot hair and a long chin. She wore a blue blazer over a flowered dress, an outfit from another world. In the waiting room she greeted Priscilla, hugging her for a long time. Diana stood and embraced her, and the woman with the little girl surrounded her. Andy stood when Emma noticed him and she shook her head, as if refusing this. Seeing him was the closest to seeing Harry. She pressed her cheek against Andy’s plaid shirt, shutting her eyes, then turned back to her father. With his arm around her, she walked to the double doors. Joe pressed the square black button on the right, the buzzer went off and they pushed through.
Jane knew who it was right away when Rosalie arrived. She was small, as Harry had said, with a child’s body and a woman’s heart-shaped face, blue eyes wide apart, dark hair and a cherry red lipsticked mouth. She wore a cute 1950s dress and blue sandals and was accompanied by a very tall fellow with a beard who stood near, guarding her. Seeing her, Jane had an unsettled physical anxiety and was mortified that jealousy could visit her under these circumstances.
The dreadlocked girl—Kira, was it?—engulfed Rosalie in her arms. Lana said hello next, putting her hands on Rosalie’s small shoulders, looking down with a meaningful stare. Rosalie held the stare on her end and they shook their heads. Then Rosalie sat down and took out some rosary beads. Her red mouth moved in a small way, praying. Now and then she spoke to her boyfriend, who bent down so his ear was at the level of her vivid red mouth.
One by one they were allowed in. One by one they saw Harry. A person returned to the waiting room and everyone’s eyes shifted as the next person stood and headed to the doorway to be buzzed in. Not everyone chose to go. Lana said she didn’t want to see Harry that way. She didn’t think he would want it.
Pierre came out and walked directly to Jane. He looked angry and rubbed the top of her head as if she were good luck. She stood. He fished around in his shirt pocket and turned to go for a smoke.
Jane went to the doors and pressed the buzzer. They opened. Inside seemed sealed off with a low hum of machines. She walked past some closed doors and some doors open where she saw heads sunk back on beds with tucked sheets and plastic masks over faces and bare arms sprouting clear wires leading to metal poles. Lit screens in boxes sprouted a maze of tangled wires.
She came to number 207. The door was nearly closed, but not all the way.
Inside was a bed and machines humming and screens blinking green numbers and colored lines and someone who resembled Harry propped against a pillow. Half his face was covered with a white bandage and plastic tubes went into one nostril and the eye that showed was slightly open with a dark unseeing pupil gazing in the direction of her hands. Jane felt a sob leap to her throat and covered her mouth to stop it. Her eyes filled with tears and heat spread in her face.
Sheila sat in a chair on the other side of the bed with an arm alongside Harry. She looked at Jane with a blank face, blank with shock, yet managed with one slow blink to corroborate the horror of what Jane was seeing. Sheila removed her arm, returning it to her lap, and glanced toward the window to give Jane privacy.
Harry, Jane said. She had to concentrate to stay steady. She felt a sea rising in her, but could keep it down if she refused to fathom what was before her. She looked at him, forcing herself to take in his face, and felt fury that he was here, the part of grief that storms and rails, and tried to stay with that outrage not to fall apart here in front of his mother. The heat in Jane’s cheeks seemed to be expanding her head, till it felt huge, like a balloon hovering on top of her body.
She tried to find words. Harry was all that came.
We’re all here, she said. Harry. His hands lay on the covers. She put her hand over the hand near her. It wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t so warm either. It was not Harry’s warm hand. Maybe he could feel her warmth now. They said that without his brain he wasn’t aware of anything, but maybe his body could feel something or someone there. His body had been how Harry experienced the world. The side of his face had the same shape as before, but the features were not the same. His mouth was open slightly with the lower lip drooping. It wasn’t Harry’s mouth. Maybe this was still his hand, but Harry wasn’t here anymore. She covered his hand, and concentrated on giving him heat.
After everyone had seen Harry, Sheila and Dr. Ross entered the waiting room. Sheila stepped forward. Now I want you all to leave, she said. Her head turned a little to the side, not meeting anyone’s eyes. One hand clasped an elbow. It’s time to go.
Diana stood. What’s happened? She had a deep, direct voice.
We’re taking him off the machine, Sheila said.
Behind her Joe came through the doors, looking shrunken. He faced everyone, but appeared to see no one.
Lana gripped Jane’s arm like a claw. The dreadlocked girl, cross-legged on the floor, was rocking back and forth with closed eyes. Faces waited, blank. How did one receive such news?
Sheila continued, They don’t know how long he’ll last when he’s taken off. We will stay with him, just his family. And Andy. You all don’t need to stay.
No one moved.
Finally Diana went to Sheila and hugged he
r. Sheila stood stiffly, arms down. Diana muttered something and Sheila wiped tears off her cheeks, looking past Diana’s shoulder. People turned away, not to watch. They picked up their backpacks or newspapers, gathered the little piles they’d made of coffee cups and wrappers. They all filed by Sheila and Joe with quick or slow goodbyes and straggled off reluctantly down the hall.
One woman remained sitting in the waiting room.
Priscilla, Sheila said. You go, too.
Priscilla shook her head. I’m staying.
Sheila dropped her chin. She shrugged. Some things you let go.
Lana locked Jane’s arm in hers as they walked out. I think now we must go do something really fun, she said.
In the parking lot they saw Rosalie walking with the tall boyfriend. Jane left Lana and caught up to them and introduced herself.
Hi, Rosalie said, mild and reserved. The boyfriend looked down at them, as if deciding if he should walk on or not.
I was a new friend of Harry’s, Jane said. He told me about you.
Rosalie looked at her, waiting. Jane wanted to add, He really loved you, but the boyfriend had not walked on and was still there holding her hand, and Jane didn’t have the nerve. Maybe another time, she thought. Though she caught herself believing in other times.
I just wanted to say hello before I left.
Thank you, Rosalie said. Her graceful hand gestured upward. This is Cal.
Cheers, Cal said. Where are you from? He had a cheerful high voice, not what she expected to come out of the tall, bearded figure.
New York. America.
So you heading home? he said.
Behind him, Jane saw Lana waving from the roll bar of the roofless Land Rover, showing her where she was parked. The wave was like a lighthouse beam.
No, Jane said. I’m staying awhile.
They gathered at the top of the Ngongs on a slanted field. Jane recognized the place, just down the ridge from where they’d gone for sundowners that first night she met Harry. A long line of motorcycles were parked tilted in the tall grass beside the mud-splattered Land Rovers and dented cars.
A great pyre of branches and logs and palm trunks had been arranged in the Rendille fashion, like a wide tepee. There were feathers and flowers decorating it, a few green wreaths. Someone said the fire for cremation needed to be built in a particular way. For a body to burn the fire had to be very hot with a sustaining flame. The pale coffin was carried by Harry’s father and Andy and Emma and Emma’s husband and set tilted on the pile. Before it was lit people stepped forward and spoke and read, their voices thin in the open air. The colorful crowd stood very still, women in long skirts and wide necklaces with bare shoulders, the men in patterned shirts and oilskin hats. Some rubbed their eyes. Others hugged themselves, sobbing.
Music played on a tape player. A Beethoven symphony, then Pink Floyd. Joe and Andy and Emma lit the pyre in spots near the ground and the flames started crackling right away. Soon a churning ball of smoke hid the pale coffin from view. Smoke billowed in one direction then swept in another as if pushed by a hand, blowing out over the valley and vanishing in a sheet. Then the wind swung it back over the people standing in their colors. Some turned their backs to the smoke, some covered their faces, some ignored it and stared at the fire. At one point the sound of an airplane engine could be heard and a white Cessna appeared, wavering in the soft sky, sputtering unevenly as it drew near and swooped down to buzz the crowd. The plane circled away, then came back again, diving low through the smoke. It was an old girlfriend of Harry’s, Helen, who then landed nearby, arriving, as some guests noted, late as usual. The fire snapped and grew hot and people stepped back, with faces that looked insulted or ruined. Jane found Rosalie in a flowery tea dress, for a moment unattended by her boyfriend, and told her what she might not have the chance to say again. Rosalie’s face was utterly transformed by a flash of joy. Any jealousy Jane had felt completely vanished.
Jane walked away from the crowd, going the short distance to where they’d been sprawled that evening on the striped cloth drinking Lana’s vodka, watching the sunset obscured by haze. It was less than three weeks ago. Time had many versions. She remembered how they were all leaning on each other. She stood on the spot. A small tremor shook her and it came back to her how Harry had been leaning on her shins, this stranger she’d just met, leaning so naturally on her bare legs. She’d forgotten that. She remembered him leaping out of his truck that day, him looking at her coldly, remembered their necks slumped in the back seat returning to Nairobi and him saying he liked old, but she had forgotten him leaning on her as if assuming they were already friends. It disturbed her she’d forgotten it, a young man she didn’t know leaning on her. She considered herself good at storing away things to savor. Keeping them in mind helped carry you through the loss of them. That was a good point of memory.
Well now she had him leaning against her shins. Something new had appeared. She would have to reflect more. Any new things about Harry would now come from reflection. She would review the days. She had him flying over her head at the edge of the escarpment, had him driving her up the steep white hill with his strong hands wrestling the steering wheel. He was waiting in the shade with his hat brim down. She had his body sleeping around her body in the tent of their mosquito net. She had it again and again, each time the thought came to her.
X
Flight
21 / Perhaps It Is Better Not to Know Some Things
IF AGNES DID NOT come back, at least Louise did.
It was more than a year after I left Kiryandongo that Louise made her escape and finally returned.
When I heard this news I had real gladness. I even remembered the rebels as if there was something good that might have been there.
I had by then gone back to St. Mary’s. I remained in school for a while and tried to study, but it was difficult. The air sometimes thickened and bothered me, and I found it hard to concentrate or do well. So I made the decision to come home to my father’s house and help with my brother and sisters. Aunt Karen is there and it is not so bad always. Soon I will be going to another boarding school, in Kampala, but not just yet.
Louise was taken to Kiryandongo and I arranged to go as soon as it was possible.
Aunt Karen accompanied me. She got us a lift from the medical van bringing supplies from Kampala. The van stopped at our clinic in Lira where my mother had been a nurse, then continued north to the hospital at Lacor. We traveled on a sunny day and the shadows were sharp black shapes under trees and also under the people walking the red paths beside the road. The van dropped us at the sign for Kiryandongo Camp and we walked the road.
Aunt Karen wore her wedge shoes with tan straps, showing her pale heels, and the soles picked up a layer of red mud, making them higher. I wore a new dark blue dress with spaces cut at the shoulders which I made from one I had seen in my dream. At home I was sewing very much. I also made the top Aunt Karen was wearing, a striped blazer with short sleeves.
We arrived back to this place where I had lived. The trees even stood alert to greet us. I thought of Simon. He had returned to his people in Nebbi, and I sometimes received news of him from there.
I thought of the journalists who had walked across this ground. We had learned of the murder in Kenya and were sorry to hear this news about those who had been our friends.
In the yard was Nurse Nancy leaving the office, her hair flying out as always, maybe longer. She held her arms toward me. Esther, it is you, she said. I am waiting for my letter. I had told her I would maybe be sending letters. I do think of doing it.
We have come to see Louise, I said.
She nodded with closed eyes. I take you.
We approached a group in the shade. One stood. My friend Louise. She looked taller and thinner and had on a new skirt with a swirl of colors and a black shirt.
Our arms went around each other.
Close to her face I said, You are back.
Louise nodded.
You
are back. I liked to say it.
Her mouth opened but she said nothing. She did not smile. Her head had been shaved and the hair was smooth. Let us sit there, I said, and we went to the smoothed dirt by a hut, a new one I had not seen. Aunt Karen sat with us. She was a little apart, while Louise and I sat close with legs bent to the side.
I have brought you plasters, I said. They were in the medical van and I knew the camp could use them, so why not?
Louise accepted them. That is okay, she whispered. She put her foot out in a thin flip-flop to show me it was covered on the bottom with plasters. It was the nearest I got to a smile from her.
It is a while before you are accustomed to being back, I told her. She touched the skin showing on my shoulder. I smiled. It will change, I said. She showed what interest she could. Her face was calm, as it is when you return, because you are blank. Behind your face there is still fright you have learned to hide and which may go away or may not. Louise’s face reminded me that I am not as I was when I first returned. That other life remains in me, but it is not up in the front.
I asked Louise where were her children, her two sons, and she told me they remained in the medical clinic in Gulu. Here or there, her face seemed to say, I accept what it is.
Some girls passed by with Christine. She greeted me with a sliding hand. You looking sharp, she said. She was in a white T-shirt, and her pearl earrings stood out against her dark skin. I thought of how she had gone to nursing school in Kampala, but it had not worked out so she had returned here to Kiryandongo. Sometimes there is difficulty going back to the usual life. Christine and the girls sat with us. One beside Christine had a bandage over her ear. I recognized none of these girls, but we were all sisters.
