Thirty Girls

by Minot, Susan

  We have seen you in the papers, Louise, Aunt Karen said.

  Louise looked to her as if at something too bright. It was from her mother’s efforts that Louise was known. By now Grace had been written about in Denmark, in the United States, in Germany. When Louise returned a week ago, Grace had brought a journalist there to see her and they had taken pictures. We had all seen the story. Was Louise looking forward to moving home? Aunt Karen said. Louise nodded yes. What do you think of your mother’s work?

  She has worked hard for us, Louise said in a soft voice. After being with the rebels you learn to say the easy thing. I now saw Aunt Karen had come with me this day because Louise was famous and she liked being near someone famous.

  What do you think of what your mother did? Aunt Karen said, sitting straight up; she smoothed that jacket I made for her. My aunt can be a troublemaker. She may not mean to, I am not sure, but she always is speaking of things which might bother a person hearing them.

  For us? Louise said. I am happy. Her voice was light as air, her shoulders as solid as before. She started to scratch a pebble in the dirt.

  Nurse Nancy appeared from behind the hut. Mama Grace has looked after all the children taken by tongo tongo, she said. She sat down and patted the knee of the girl with a bandaged ear, saying hello. We are very proud of her.

  So you understand her decisions? Aunt Karen said to Louise. Some might not agree. With Nurse Nancy here, Aunt Karen felt she had an audience.

  What decisions? Louise whispered.

  Aunt Karen took a breath. Well … she began as if unsure, but I knew my aunt, she was not unsure. She looked with a questioning face at Nurse Nancy who nodded at her to continue. When she met with the rebels.

  I thought about stopping my aunt from talking, but now Louise was looking directly at her. She was not blank, she was frowning. She did not want to speak of this. Her cheekbones made her face look triangular. My mother made the decisions she wanted, Louise said. She said it in an automatic way.

  I was comforted. So she knows it, I thought. I felt shame for Aunt Karen and stayed quiet, facing away. There was no one on the football field.

  But Aunt Karen was not done. So you know the story?

  Louise’s face was a mask, as if she heard nothing.

  Which one? Christine said, showing interest. In Sudan?

  We all knew this, when they killed the girl Regina after she spoke to Pere Ben. Many rebels blamed the St. Mary’s girls for it.

  No, Aunt Karen said. Not that one. Her meeting with Gregory Oti.

  Louise’s gaze remained down. She was not interested, I could see that.

  At the Surf Club in Gulu, Aunt Karen said. It is lived in by a tipu. She explained for the other girls.

  Some believe that, I said. But this did not stop her from talking.

  You know it, Aunt Karen said, speaking to Nurse Nancy.

  Nurse Nancy nodded. Yes, we have heard the story.

  Well, I knew it straight from my sister, who knew it from Serena, Aunt Karen said. Serena was at the meeting with your mother, Louise.

  We knew Serena. She was the mother of Jackline and, like my mother, no longer alive. Serena was Grace’s best friend, who died some time ago, before her daughter returned.

  Louise does not know it? Christine said, now recognizing the mischief of my aunt. She placed her hands flat on her lap and observed them, thinking.

  No one said anything. We were all thinking of Louise and of the story she did not know. I had the feeling of remembering an old dream, an old nightmare. She felt our thoughts, and perhaps our waiting.

  So she said, Tell me.

  It was a secret meeting, Aunt Karen said. But it is not a secret now.

  She looked at me as if I were arguing with her. Everyone knows it, Esther. And she told us what had happened.

  No one looked at anyone. We were all looking inside our heads.

  The meeting was arranged by that same doctor who treated Kony. This time the doctor did not promise Kony. No one anyway believed Kony would appear in Gulu. He offered a commander. Grace hoped for Mariano Lagira who perhaps might be generous again.

  Other parents went also to the Surf Club. Esther’s mother Edith had even been there, waiting at the abandoned house. The doctor arrived and said everyone must leave. But Grace, he said. Aunt Karen told us he had brought Kony’s second in command, Gregory Oti. We knew Oti. He was a very bad man, fat, with low eyelids and an uneven mouth. I have seen him once beat a boy with a bicycle chain.

  Soldiers accompanied Oti that day, carrying guns. The soldiers entered the house and allowed Serena to stand by the door. No one else.

  Louise was scratching that pebble in the dirt, listening. We were all listening. Aunt Karen had started to tell it and was going to keep telling it. Your mother showed no fear, Aunt Karen said. A mother has no fear if she is thinking of her children.

  There were two chairs in the room, facing each other. Gregory Oti sat first, a big man with creases in his fat neck. The soldiers stood behind and Grace had a view of Serena by the door.

  We will have tea, Gregory Oti said. A soldier, not with a gun, brought two tin cups of tea and handed them to the commander and Grace.

  Gregory Oti leaned back on the small chair. You have been making problems for us, he said, smiling.

  Grace sat on the edge of her seat. We want our children back, she said.

  Oti’s smile shrank. We look after our children as our own family, he said. Do not think the girls are unhappy. They are happy, they are very happy. He took a sip from his cup.

  Mariano Lagira let the girls of St. Mary’s go, Grace said.

  These girls are Kony’s family now.

  No, I am her family. I am her mother.

  I am not an unreasonable man, he said vaguely. You have made a group, isn’t this so?

  Yes. We call it We Are Concerned.

  Yes. Oti swiveled his head, as if not wanting to hear it. I see.

  You know our wish, she said. Then an odd thing happened; she recognized this man as someone she had gone to school with. She had known his sister. But she did not say this.

  Someone had placed plastic bags on the chairs, and hers was sliding beneath her. Serena saw she was becoming angry and knew Grace’s temper and gave her a warning look. Grace dropped her shoulders a little.

  We ask you to please release our daughters and all the children, she said more softly. A glance at Serena. Please, in the name of God.

  We have heard you, he said. He sighed. Sometimes we release girls. He shrugged as if he was tired of talking about this already.

  You will give us our girls?

  Gregory Oti made a noise in his throat, like a buffalo before charging. But he did not want to hurry. He finished his tea and held out his cup to be taken by the small soldier.

  This is our wish, Grace said.

  Then his face was angry. We have heard it, he repeated.

  Grace was silent.

  The Aboke girls, they are receiving a lot of attention, he said. You have been the cause of army attacks on the children, you know.

  No, Grace said. That could not be so.

  I have seen it, he said, leaving his mouth open. And now we hear the Pope speaking of the Aboke girls. He stared at Grace with his low-lidded eyes, as if this were proof she was damaging.

  The Pope has spoken on their behalf, she admitted. And on behalf of all the children.

  Oti set his feet down. Kony does not like this. There was a pause, apparently in honor of Kony. Then Oti went on, This makes trouble for him. When Kony only wants to keep his mind on saving his people.

  Grace chose not to debate the truth of this.

  But there may be a way, he said. He smiled. Your daughter, what is her name?

  Louise. Dollo Louise. Grace was not encouraged by the smile.

  Yes, I have seen all the girls, he said, waving his hand dismissively. I say this to you from Kony. He tucked his hand into his belt. I am a man of my word and I offer you this agreement if
you will receive it. I will give you your daughter Louisa—

  Louise, Grace said softly.

  —and in exchange you will stop speaking against Kony and stop making trouble for the rebels. You and your group will remain silent.

  Grace stared at him.

  He untucked his hand and held his palms out, as if to say, How can you refuse?

  You must release all the girls, Grace said. All the children.

  Oti sat forward, hands on his knees, shaking his head. You are not understanding. I give you your daughter. You are then silent.

  Grace thought of the children. Later she told these thoughts to Serena. She also thought of the mothers. She thought of Pere Ben who had just then lost his job, working instead to bring his Charlotte back. She saw the different houses where the parents would meet and make their plans. She saw one mother named Florence making soup and crying at the stove for her daughter Helen. The mothers were banded together. She would not forget all the mothers.

  Grace held the tin cup in her hand. It was still full of tea. She hadn’t been able to drink. The brownish liquid had a slick of oil on the surface and was swirling as if with the movement of the planet, and she kept her head bowed, thinking.

  The girls, she said, they are one. She began to shake her head from side to side, and her wide curls touched her cheeks. I cannot take one without the others.

  Oti straightened his shoulders. This woman was a fool, he was thinking. Then we do not agree, he said, and stood up. Serena said he looked relieved.

  The meeting was over. This was easier for Oti. It would not have been so easy to release only one of the Aboke girls. He was not sorry.

  Grace stood also. I know you, she said. Your sister was Angelica.

  Gregory Oti had stopped looking at her. Perhaps. But it was as if he were deaf. He was already leaving. His soldiers led the way out the door.

  Aunt Karen finished talking.

  Nurse Nancy spoke. She inquired of Louise, Can you understand why your mother did this?

  Louise’s face was blank, but this was usual: a blank face.

  Why not just take Louise anyway? Christine said. Then she would at least have Louise back.

  Maybe she knew they would punish the other girls, said Nurse Nancy. If she broke her agreement.

  They were punishing us in any event, said the girl with the bandaged ear.

  I had the strange feeling of everything tilting, and said nothing. We were quiet. We were thinking about this, we were thinking about many things.

  Louise stood up. My mother was thinking of all the children, she said, and walked just there, as if to go to the toilet.

  When she was gone I looked at Aunt Karen. I had been learning to accept Aunt Karen, but now I wanted to stop learning. Why do you tell her this? I said.

  Aunt Karen rubbed her neck. I thought she knew it.

  But you see now she did not.

  Perhaps it is better not to know some things, Christine said, though she did not sound certain.

  The girl with the bandage on her ear, sitting beside her, spoke again: I think it is better to know it.

  Nurse Nancy patted her leg again for saying this. We hope this, she said.

  Louise returned and sat near me. The others were talking and so Louise and I talked separate. I told her news of Janet and Jessica. I told her I would make her a dress. I did not tell her how one day inside you just say, Enough. I could only stay near her from now on and not leave. She blinked slowly, not ready to believe this new life.

  She was facing across the yard and her eyes noticed something far away. I saw why. Her mother was now there, arriving from the road. Grace walked quickly, her brown and yellow dress rippling as she walked. She carried a full straw bag. Louise stood and they embraced softly.

  Esther, she said, smiling at me. You are here.

  I have come for Louise.

  They sat and we all felt the story we had heard. Grace said she had seen the boys in Gulu and they will be fine. Then she asked the new girls what their names were and asked Nurse Nancy about a trip she had taken and talked about being on TV. Louise listened, but she did not look at her mother. She was looking in the distance at nothing we could see.

  Much time has passed since that time. Helen, the last one of us, she is still not back. We pray and think of her every day.

  22 / Where I Didn’t Go

  IN HER DREAMS he was always dead. He appeared, but dead. He didn’t seem upset. He explained nothing about where he’d been or how he’d come back and was unmoved by any emotion shown him.

  Then, in one dream, he was alive again. He was sitting in a chair in his parents’ tall living room with the Ngongs out the huge window behind, telling her it had all been a mistake. She fell across his lap and started to cry. There’s so much I have to tell you, she said, weeping. When she woke she had a strap across her chest, making it difficult to breathe, and the grief felt like actual poison streaming into her heart.

  She stayed in Kenya with no plans to return. She had a dread of going back to familiar things that knew nothing of Harry and nothing of where she’d been and what she’d seen. She had no urge to see the people she knew and to try splitting herself back into an old life when she felt she’d been turned inside out here and was thoroughly changed.

  Pierre was offered a long assignment in Afghanistan and he took it eagerly. He’d been subletting an English journalist’s empty cottage, so Jane sublet his sublet and moved in. It was two rooms with padlocked French doors and bars over every window.

  She rode the English journalist’s bicycle around Langata. Lana’s cottage was ten minutes away on the dirt back roads and three minutes through the woods. There were more dinner parties with wine flowing, more long candles burning down to white coins, more people appearing, then leaving.

  She worked on the story. It absorbed her.

  In a daze, she pondered the usual questions that come with loss. Death steers one toward wonder. What is life after all? Are we made of what we think? Or of what we have done? Is our final measure of life the images and impressions we leave in living minds? Or how engaged life felt to us? Or is it all only dust?

  One afternoon Jane bicycled to Lana’s and found Beryl visiting with the four children. Her husband was still not in evidence. The children played in Lana’s scooped-out garden, throwing water from buckets, running along low tree branches. Seeing Beryl had the effect of resurrecting Harry, and Jane’s previous suspicion toward her was replaced with an intense unbidden affection, though Beryl herself had not altered in the least. That evening they all lay outside on large velvet cushions around a fire. The children swooped in the dusk, gravitating toward the fire as the flames grew brighter and night fell. The fire cast its spell and wonder showed on all the golden faces.

  Jane stared at the twisting flames and the black wood shimmering into blocks of glowing coal. Loss turned one alert to beauty and tenderness. She felt it like a balm, the generosity emanating from Lana, Beryl’s loose bravery, looking after her children on her own. The wonder coming to Jane seemed new, but maybe wonder always seemed fresh and new, and that’s what wonder was. Who am I? she thought not with anxiety, but with wonder. What good do I do?

  Lana and Beryl were chuckling over old stories, the time a hippo charged the Jeep, the time their mum dumped them at the orphanage to go on safari with a lover.

  Beryl’s daughter Tess was braiding Jane’s hair with fingers soft as insects. Jane wondered if she would ever look after a child. She wondered what would it be like if Harry were there beside her on the pillow. She could picture him coming out of the darkness, throwing a log on the fire and sending sparks flying. She remembered another thing she’d forgotten. Around a fire on the McAlistairs’ lawn when they were dancing, Harry had come running out of the darkness and leapt over the fire. He seemed to hang in the air longer than a normal person, skimming the flames. It came to her again, the feeling he particularly gave her, that she was an altogether better person. He was connected to somethin
g good and solid and through him she was connected too. She could get to there with him in mind. On her own it was harder. People said that it had to be all in you, that you couldn’t depend on other people to make you better, but that wasn’t true. It was only through people that you learned how to be better.

  The women talked and the children fell asleep. Little Tess, with her long tangled hair, had curled up next to Jane and was breathing into her shoulder, in the abandon of sleep, trusting that anybody around this fire with her mother nearby was safe.

  Jane wrote the story. In those times of asking herself what she was doing with her life she would fall onto the raft of work and float on the belief that the work would carry her. It was mostly true.

  This time when she finished the story, it didn’t leave her.

  Usually when she was done writing a piece not only would she have worn out her interest in it, but she would have to strain to keep hold of what had compelled her about it in the first place.

  But that didn’t happen with this story. Perhaps it was Harry. Perhaps it was because, unlike her other work, this story was real. In any event the images of the trip continued to throw themselves up like screens between her and the world in front of her. The trip was not fading, but becoming richer. It wasn’t growing lighter, it was getting heavier. It took on the weight of memory.

  She couldn’t bring Harry back. The dead don’t come back. She repeated this to herself. Despite how obvious and ironclad it was, she still needed to repeat it to believe it. She would not hold him again. She would not tell him the things she had been waiting to say. She had thought there was time, then time for him stopped. How was she to know time would stop?

  For a long time it remained impossible to believe.

  In the months and years that followed, she also continued to say to herself: I have him forever. Sometimes this felt good and was reassuring. Sometimes it even felt true. But whenever she actually pictured Harry where he was now, it was harder to keep the good feeling.