City of Saints & Thieves

by Natalie C. Anderson

  I jump down and join the skeleton men in stretching out the kinks nearly two days on the road has worked into us. The trip took longer than I thought it would. It’s late in the afternoon on Wednesday, and now I’m worried we’re not going to be back in time for my Friday date with Kiki after all. But maybe we’ll luck out and find Mwika quickly?

  Michael goes to ask the driver about a hotel, while Boyboy hugs his designer bag to his chest and looks miserable.

  “Oh, cheer up, habibi,” I say, looking around. “Isn’t it nice to be in the homeland? Maybe they’ve got a Prada since you’ve been gone.”

  “Don’t talk to me. Hey! Shoo!”

  A goat is experimentally nibbling at Boyboy’s trouser cuff.

  I wonder if Mr. G is here yet. Will he go straight to the mine or come through town first? Somehow I can’t imagine him down here slumming it.

  I hear Michael thanking the driver. When he returns he seems almost perky. “He says the best place to stay is at the guesthouse attached to the mission hospital. It’s where the UN people stay when they pass through. It has electricity and everything. All the piki-piki know where it is. They can take us.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. A hospital? Is that where Mama worked as a nurse? Maybe the guesthouse is the same place Donatien stayed.

  “We just need to change some money,” Michael says, looking around. “The guesthouse only takes francs.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say. “I’ve got cash.”

  “You already changed money? That was fast.”

  Boyboy gives me a look.

  “Yeah,” I say, patting the wad of cash that I’ve snuggled into my waistband.

  I’d got Michael’s money plus interest back when the tout groped me getting into the lorry. Most of it is in wilted Congolese francs.

  “And I even found out something about your mother,” Michael says quietly as we walk toward the piki-piki, obviously pleased with himself. “A guy the driver was talking to knew your mom’s name. He said that he could show us your cousin’s shop in the market.”

  I nearly stumble. “You asked a stranger about my mother?”

  Michael’s smile slips. “What? I thought you’d be happy. That’s part of why we’re here, right? To find people who knew her and talk to them?”

  “But we don’t need to go announcing ourselves,” I hiss. I glance around. We’ve already attracted stares: Boyboy in his finery, waving at us to come get on the death traps he’s secured; me in my city clothes—I’m going to have to wear a skirt if I want to fit in here, and that is not happening—and pale, green-eyed Michael, still looking way too clean.

  I slide onto the back of a motorcycle that looks like it is made of tinfoil held together with baling wire. “You are the worst detective on earth. Let’s go. It’s getting dark.”

  • • •

  The caretaker for the guesthouse has to be hunted down before we can get rooms. I guess they haven’t had many UN staff come through lately, because the nun we talk to wrings her hands and says something about needing to find furniture. Boyboy, Michael, and I exchange a look, but at this point anything with a roof and walls will do. We ask hopefully for blankets, which she says the caretaker can probably manage to find, and then excuses herself back to the hospital. As she hurries away, I notice a dark spot of blood on the hem of her dress.

  Leaving the boys to wait, I walk off to look around the compound. It’s past dusk, but there are no lights on. The shrieking of frogs and insects is nearly deafening. I thought Michael said they had electricity here, but maybe it’s only for the hospital. I pass a swimming pool that is now filled in and planted with vegetables. The guest rooms curve around the pool and lawn, and what was maybe once a restaurant, though it’s abandoned now, with broken tables and chairs propped up against the wall and a thatched roof that looks like it has mange. I stand looking at the tomatoes and corn that elbow for space in the kidney-shaped plot and wonder if I’ve seen this place before.

  From somewhere beyond the garden I hear a woman cry out. I crane my neck toward the sound and see a glimmer of fluorescent light filtering through the hedge. I walk toward it and find a concrete path running between two long, low buildings, each with barred windows. The lights are coming from inside, and I walk to the open door of one. There are fifty or so hospital beds crammed in together, and there are even more bodies on pallets on the floor. No wonder the nun was worried about having extra beds. I see her across the room, flicking a needle, getting ready to give someone an injection. I hover at the edge of the darkness and hear the woman cry out again. She’s somewhere out of sight off to my right, down another pathway lined with more rooms.

  “Habari ya jioni,” a voice behind me says, and I turn. An older nun with thick glasses is watching me from the doorway of a cluttered little office.

  I return the formal good evening and stand awkwardly, not sure whether to stay or go. The woman cries out again.

  “Don’t worry,” the nun says, seeing my face. “She is just in labor. She will be all right. She is young and strong.”

  I nod, drinking in her accented Swahili. She sounds like my mother. I’ve all but lost my accent living in Sangui. Of course other refugees speak Congolese Swahili, but there is something very specifically familiar about the way the nun talks, her words sliding into each other. I swallow painfully. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bother anybody. I can go.”

  “No, it’s fine, dear. Do you have a relative here?” Moths bang themselves against the lightbulb over her head like a frantic halo.

  “I’m staying at the guesthouse.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “Oh? We don’t get many visitors anymore. You look very young to be traveling. You’re not alone, are you?”

  I shake my head.

  “Good. Girls shouldn’t walk around the town alone.”

  “I’m pretty good at taking care of myself.”

  She blinks, but doesn’t comment on how small and puny looking I am, like most people. Instead she says, “You are not from here, are you?”

  “I am, actually, but I’ve been gone for a long time.”

  “Karibu. Welcome home.” She smiles and the wrinkles in her face remind me of wood grain. I decide that I like her face. “I’m Sister Dorothy,” she says. “Since you’re here, maybe you can help me do something?”

  “Oh, uh . . .” I look toward the patients, wondering what exactly I would be able to help with.

  She smiles. “Come—they won’t bite. I need a strong pair of arms. What’s your name, dear?” She reaches back into the office and pulls out a tall stack of itchy-looking polyester blankets.

  “Christina.” My name is out of my mouth before I can think to give her a fake one.

  “Very pretty,” she says briskly. “It gets chilly in here at night, and we have new patients who’ll need these.”

  I take the blankets, wondering if I should steal a couple for us just in case. I follow her, after a glance over my shoulder back toward the guesthouse.

  Sister Dorothy leans down to a young woman in a bed just inside the doorway. Both of the woman’s hands are bandaged, and she holds them to her chest as the sister talks softly with her. Sister Dorothy takes a blanket from the top of my stack and spreads it over the young woman. The sister smoothes the wrinkles and the woman closes her eyes, never once looking at me.

  We move to the next bed, an old woman with gray hair who is so withered and frail she practically disappears into the bedclothes. She’s asleep, but a small child with big eyes is sitting up in bed beside her, sucking his finger. He stares at me. He looks healthy, but I wonder where his mother is. Another blanket is delivered; I suddenly feel very guilty for thinking about stealing them. We move to the bed of the next woman, who is sitting up and has been watching us approach.

  “A novice?” the woman asks Sister Dorothy, nodding at me.<
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  “No, a guest,” the sister answers.

  The woman’s nostrils flare. She says something in rapid French that I don’t understand. But the meaning is clear enough in the way she points at my face and makes a shooing motion with her hands.

  “What did she say?” I ask.

  Sister Dorothy takes a blanket from me. In Swahili, she says, “That you are very pretty. She gets nervous about militia breaking in, thinks pretty girls will attract them. Now, Georgette, we’ve talked about this. You have to relax or you won’t get better. Don’t worry about this girl. She’s welcome just as you are.”

  Sister Dorothy goes on to ask Georgette in low tones how she’s feeling, while I shift awkwardly and try not to listen. Georgette shifts laboriously in the bed and speaks in French. Her pain “down there” will not go away, I gather.

  Sister Dorothy nods and feels Georgette’s forehead with the back of her hand. “I’ll bring you some aspirin,” she says, and we move on.

  “It’s only women here?” I ask.

  “No, there are boys and men also. In the other wing, unless they are small like that one back there.”

  The woman in the next bed is sleeping too, and so we pull the blanket over her. There is an odd, coppery smell over her body, and something worse that reminds me of a butchery. I have to force myself not to step back from her. She has a bandage covering most of her face, and what peeks out from under it looks mangled and swollen. The sister frowns and checks the woman’s pulse in her wrist. “She was just brought in today. Three of them, actually,” she says, nodding down the rest of the beds against this wall.

  All the women are asleep, their faces slack. White bandages on arms and faces are jarring against their dark skin. The one on the end looks barely older than me, though it’s hard to tell with her bruised face.

  “And one who didn’t make it through surgery,” Sister Dorothy adds. She tucks the woman’s arm under the blanket. “They were found out at the edge of the fields, left for dead. They’re medicated now, but we don’t have enough to get them past the first day. Tomorrow will be hard.”

  “What happened to them?”

  Sister Dorothy looks at me, and for a second I don’t think she’s going to answer. But then her eyes travel around the room, at the still bodies and blank expressions. Some of the women are looking at us, but most stare at the ceiling or the wall or they’re curled into themselves like fists. Sister Dorothy says quietly, so only I can hear her, “Same thing as everyone else. The war.”

  • • •

  My head is still full of images of broken bodies when we sit down to dinner with the nuns, after they’ve finished their evening prayers. I’m glad when Michael and Boyboy don’t involve me in the heated argument they’re having about whether the animal they saw run across their path on the way to the dining room was a stray cat or a civet. One is lucky and one is not, apparently. I don’t bother to ask what a civet is, though I probably should. This place could use some good luck.

  We squeeze in with a dozen nuns and a priest. The electricity has been shut off throughout the compound, and everything is lit by flickering oil lanterns. The nuns tell us that since they don’t get many guests anymore, the hotel restaurant has been disassembled and the useful parts scavenged. But the nuns have their own kitchen, and after a blessing they dish out steaming bowls of dengu, sukuma, and matoke.

  “It’s just beans, greens, and bananas,” I tell Michael when he doesn’t seem to know what to do with his plate. “Don’t be rude.”

  Michael takes a tentative bite, grunts with approval, and is soon digging in. The nuns’ chatter is a warm envelope around the table, and soon, between that and the food, I’m feeling a little better. Exhaustion from the long ride is catching up to us. Boyboy’s head nods over his plate.

  “You are students?” the priest, Father Fidele, asks. “What brings you to Kasisi?” He is young and friendly looking. His face is still round with baby fat.

  The talking subsides and there are only the sounds of spoons clinking on plates while the nuns turn expectantly to us for an answer. I clear my throat and wipe my mouth, realizing too late I’ve done so with the back of my hand. “Yes,” I say. “We’re on, eh, an assignment.”

  “To talk with villagers about farming practices,” Michael supplies. “We’re in a conservation ecology class.”

  Boyboy coughs, and I smile and nod, grateful for Michael’s quick save.

  “That sounds like a big assignment for secondary school students. And you’re traveling without chaperones?”

  “We’re in university,” Boyboy assures them.

  One of the older nuns tuts. “It’s not that strange. I traveled on my own for school when I was their age.”

  “That was before the roads were clogged with rebels,” another answers.

  “There have been reports of raids over the past few days on villages to the north of here,” Sister Dorothy says.

  “We are very careful,” I say. “We stay with pastors and priests along the way.”

  “You have to watch out for them too,” a nun says, and the others laugh. She’s given a stern look by a sister who I assume is in charge, and murmurs an apology.

  “Quite all right,” Father Fidele says. He’s laughing too. “We’ll pray for a safe journey for you.”

  “Um, thank you.”

  “Sister Dorothy says you are from here, Christina?” the priest asks.

  I shift in my seat. I wish I’d thought of some other story to tell the nun, but too late now. “Yes. I left here when I was five, about eleven years ago, with my mother.” I hesitate, glance at Michael and Boyboy, but they’re waiting for me to go on. Can I ask about Mama? They’re nuns, I think. A priest. They take care of the villagers. Hope flashes in my chest. I could be missing my chance by not saying anything. “She was a nurse,” I say carefully, watching their faces. “She may have worked here.”

  “Oh? What was her name?”

  I take a breath. “Anju Yvette Masika.”

  My words are met with silence, and I look around to see spoons hovering en route to mouths, eyes widening. One of the nuns discreetly makes the sign of the cross over her chest. My stomach drops. Then, just as suddenly, the moment is over and everyone is back to eating, like nothing happened. But I see Sister Dorothy exchange a look with the older nun before returning to her food.

  “Do you know her?” Michael asks, subtle as ever, when no one responds. I want to kick him under the table, but I’m afraid of hitting a nun.

  A few heads shake no. No one else offers up any explanation for their reaction, and the priest clears his throat and asks for seconds. There is a flurry to accommodate him, after which the talk turns to the dwindling pharmaceutical inventory, and whether anyone should be sent to Goma for supplies, and if the malaria season will be bad this year. I glance at Boyboy, and he raises an eyebrow. Someone here knows something.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I want to catch Sister Dorothy and talk to her privately after dinner, but a young woman who works in the hospital gets to her first, tugging her arm before Sister Dorothy has even stood up from the table. The other nuns vanish in twos and threes like ghosts, and there’s no opening for me to ask about my mother. We’re given oil lanterns, and I’m left to trail after Boyboy and Michael, a mix of exhaustion and uneasiness settling into my bones.

  The rooms we unlock are damp and feel neglected. Geckos scatter in the lamplight, barking in alarm. There are no beds, but the caretaker has found a couple of chairs and some cots that remind me of the one I slept on in the Greyhills’ dungeon.

  I half expect Michael to make a fuss about the conditions, but he just slings his bag onto his cot and says, “Home sweet home.”

  Boyboy flicks a switch on the wall experimentally in Michael’s room, but nothing happens. “My laptop’s not going to last long with no electricity,” he says.

>   “I hope your brain doesn’t dry up without screen time.”

  He makes a face. “I’ve got brainpower for miles, sweetie, don’t you worry. It’s my computer I’m worried about. I’ll charge it up tomorrow. I brought a solar panel. I just won’t be able to do much work until then.”

  “What was that all about at dinner?” Michael asks.

  “I have no idea. But they obviously knew Mama.” I chew my fingernail pensively.

  “It’s not a big town. Maybe everyone knows everyone.”

  “They were acting weird,” Boyboy says. He pulls out his computer and turns it on.

  “So what’s the plan for tomorrow?” Michael asks. “Mwika was last seen in Walikale Town, which is still a few hours up the road. Are we going there or staying here for a while to look around?”

  “Boyboy, can you use that contact phone number from Mr. G’s files to try and track him?” I ask. “I don’t want to leave here if we don’t have a solid bead on him.” I ignore the scowl that Michael gives me at the mention of his dad’s stolen data.

  “I’ll try. I take it First Solutions is not the sort of outfit to have a storefront?”

  Michael shakes his head. “If only it were that easy. I don’t even know where they’re based. They seem to just send people out to different locations. I’ve been trying to contact them for days but no one ever answers the phone. I’ve left a dozen messages. Maybe whatever contact number you have is better.”

  “What did you dangle?” Boyboy asks, looking over his screen.

  “Dangle?”

  Boyboy rolls his eyes. “Did you tell them who you are?”