“Of course not!”
Boyboy looks unimpressed. “Give me what you’ve got on them and I’ll see what I can do to lure someone out. Someone must know where to send Mwika’s pay.”
Michael looks back at me. “And while he’s on that, what should you and I do?”
“How far away is Extracta’s mine? Can we go there and poke around?”
Michael shifts. “You want to go there? Shouldn’t we stay close, in case Boyboy finds Mwika?”
“We came all this way. You want to just sit here and do nothing?”
“We’re here to find Mwika, right?” Michael asks. “I mean, what else do we need?”
I stand up. “I want to find out what Mama knew about your dad that she was going to tell Donatien.”
From the corner of my eye I see Michael’s shoulders tense. He doesn’t say anything.
“What about the hidden file thing from your mom’s photo?” Boyboy asks. “Anything you two can do to make sense of it? It’s got to be important somehow.”
“What hidden file?” Michael asks.
I give Boyboy a pointed stare.
Boyboy blinks. “Uh. Never mind. Nothing.” He ducks behind his screen.
“What file?” Michael asks again, turning on me.
“I . . . It’s from your dad’s data. I didn’t think you needed to know. Yet. I mean, it might have nothing to do with Mama.”
“Show me,” Michael demands.
Boyboy looks at me and I sigh. “Go ahead.”
He pulls the handwritten list of names and numbers up on his computer and shows it to Michael.
“What is this?” he asks, eyes flashing. “And when exactly were you planning on sharing it with me?”
“I’m showing it to you now, aren’t I?” I say. “Besides, we don’t know what it is either. It’s just names and numbers.”
Michael points at the screen. “Mobile Interests. Do you know what that is?”
“No,” I say, crossing my arms.
He scowls. “Well, if you’d shown it to me, I could have told you.”
“What is it?” I ask eagerly.
Michael just stares at me, incredulous. He opens his mouth like he’s going to argue, but then just shakes his head. “It was the trucking company Extracta worked with,” he says. “They transported ore to Sangui City until Dad found out they were stealing from him.”
“How do you know all that?” I ask.
“It was this whole big blowup at home because Mom’s family owned part of the company.” His face is still clenched in anger.
I lean back. “Okay, that’s good information.”
“You can’t keep stuff like this from me, Tina.”
“Don’t be a baby,” I say, standing up again. “I don’t have to share everything with you.”
“You do if you want my help figuring out who killed your mom!”
I poke a finger in his face. “I’m still betting your dad killed my mom, so why would I want to share this with you?”
“Okay, children, okay,” Boyboy says, coming between us. “That’s enough fun for one night. I think we’ve all been in a banana lorry too long, and it’s time to get our beauty sleep. You two can pick up where you left off tomorrow.”
“Fine,” I say. I grab a lantern and stalk out. I can hear Michael and Boyboy continue to talk behind me, and I slam the door to my room. Who does Michael think he is? He shouldn’t even be here. I could have done this all by myself.
You still don’t know where Mwika is.
Well, myself and Boyboy, then. I flop onto my cot and stare at the ceiling, feeling my anger pulse through me like a fever.
In the quiet, I realize how loud the insects and frogs are outside. Rain starts to clatter on the tin roof like thousands of tiny stones. In the dim of the lantern I pull the photo of my mother and her prayer card out of my pocket. I look at the card, then the photo, as if something in the back of my mind is telling me they’re connected. But I can’t see how. The photo is getting crunched up from being carried around in my pocket, but Mama’s face and eyes are as sharp as ever. The face of the girl beside her pulls at some thread of recognition, but it’s like trying to grab spiderwebs. She melts away under my touch. Once, she meant something to my mother. They were obviously close. I feel a tug of anger again. Shouldn’t I know who this woman is? Why did Mama never say anything about her?
The hugeness of what I don’t know about my mother and her life here feels like a weight on my chest, crushing me. I’m doing all this for her, but she never even bothered to tell me about before. Did she not think I would want to know? I mean, this is my history too, and it sort of feels like she kept it all to herself. Not just the bad, but the good stuff too. Her friends, her family. My family. For the first time in a long time I think about my father. Who was he? Maybe he’s here too, in this very town. I could have already walked by him on the street.
I stare at Saint Catherine with her rosy cheeks and wistful gaze. She is as unflappable as ever. I take a deep breath to try to calm down, the richness of the smell of wet earth and rotting leaves outside filling my lungs. I should sleep. I turn down the lamp until the flame flutters out, and then lie back on the cot. I rest the photo and the card on my chest. I can’t hear Boyboy and Michael talking anymore, only the riot of insect nightlife. The sound is oddly familiar, and I guess it should be. I must have listened to these same bugs as a little kid. Or their great-great-grandparents.
I wish Kiki could see this place. Parts of it are so different from how I think of Congo when I’m in Sangui City. It’s dangerous here, I know, but it’s also full of insects and frogs getting on with their business. Rain, and people worrying about making it home from the market before it starts. I think of all the herders we saw on the side of the road from the banana lorry, and women tending their fields, and kids playing in a school yard in one of the towns we passed. I guess a million little dramas happen here, just like anywhere else. The war can’t stop everything. I want Kiki to see this part of who she and I are. When I started out of Sangui two days ago I didn’t think I would ever tell her about this trip. But maybe I should. Otherwise, I’m just like Mama, hiding things from my family because I think I know best. But then again, Kiki’s so little. If she asks why I came here, what do I tell her? That I’m here mainly to make her father pay in blood for Mama’s death? My head swirls. But this trip isn’t all blood and death. It’s also frogs singing and kind nuns.
I realize I’m starting to doze, my thoughts flickering randomly. The rain drums like fingertips. And then I realize it’s not just rain, but someone knocking gently at my door. I sit up, tucking the photo and card into my hoodie pocket.
“Who’s there?” I whisper, ready to tell Michael or Boyboy that I’m in no mood to kiss and make up.
“Sister Dorothy.”
I jump up and open the door. I can just barely see the outline of her face. “Wait, let me get a light.”
“No. No light. Come with me.”
I slip out of my room, not even bothering to put my shoes on, and follow her down the covered walkway. Rain splashes up from the edges and hits my ankles, making me shiver. I think she’s leading me back to the hospital, where a few kerosene lights still burn, but instead she turns off toward a small chapel on the grounds.
The glow from the hospital doesn’t reach here, and the night is thickly black. She hurries across the lawn through the rain as thunder rolls. Mud oozing between my bare toes, I follow. She doesn’t go to the front door, but around to the side of the chapel, to a padlocked door. From a key on a string around her waist, she unlocks it and ushers me in.
I wipe rain from my face with my sleeves in the dark interior. There’s a scratch and a burst of flame, and I finally see Sister Dorothy in the light of a candle. I glance around the empty chapel and can just make out solemn rows of pews and simple stained-glass win
dows speckled with rain.
“I’m sorry for all the cloak-and-dagger business,” she says, and opens another door behind the altar that leads into a little room. Inside it’s musty and cool like a cellar, carved out of the hill the chapel leans up against. Dusty boxes and bottles of Communion wine line the walls, but there’s space for a small table and two chairs.
Sister Dorothy closes the door behind us and sits down with a tired sigh. “If I’d known who you are, I would have told you to be more careful with what you say in this town.”
“Who I am?”
“Your mother.”
I grip the table edge. “What about my mother? You knew her? The way everyone was acting at dinner tonight—”
“Sit,” Sister Dorothy interrupts, and I lower myself into a chair across from her. She gives me a weary smile. “It’s been a long time since anyone mentioned Anju.” Her eyes glimmer in the light, and I wonder if she’s searching for signs of Mama in my face. “You were born here. In the clinic. You didn’t know that, did you?”
The words hit me like a punch. “I was?”
“You were right. Your mother worked here,” Sister Dorothy says, touching the silver cross at her neck. “She did her nurse’s training here. At one time she wanted to be a nun.” She stops, pulls the cross absently over the chain, back and forth.
“A nun?” I ask, blinking. “Mama? What happened? Please, do you know something? I’m trying to find out who killed her.” Sister Dorothy’s eyes leap back to my face and I lean forward. “Did you know about that? Did you know she was murdered?”
“Yes. We get the news from Sangui. Is that why you’re here? To chase her ghost?”
“I-I’m chasing her killer.” I look down at my dirty nails curled in my lap. “I need to make him pay for what he’s done.”
Sister Dorothy doesn’t act shocked or scold me, like I expect her to. Instead she studies me. “You were a child when you left. What do you remember about living here?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing at all?”
I shrug helplessly and avoid her eye. “Bits and pieces. I remember running away.”
For a while she doesn’t move, just looks off at the wall past my shoulder, but I know she’s on the verge of telling me something. I hold my breath.
When she finally speaks again, it’s as if her words are stones that she has to find and carefully push out of her mouth. “After twenty years of girls, children, being brought here for me to try and put back together, I cannot pretend anymore that I understand why bad things happen, or that there is some purpose to them, or that God would want . . .” She stops herself, purses her lips, then goes on. “I cannot act like there is not true evil in the world, walking among us. I am going to tell you something so that you can be vigilant.” Her eyes flash to me. “Do you understand?”
I nod my head slowly. I’m not sure I do, but I don’t want her to stop talking.
She nods with me. Then her eyes wander back up the wall. “Your mother was one of my favorites. We’re not supposed to have favorites, but there you have it. She came here when she was eighteen to train as a nurse. She was very smart. Always curious, tremendous energy. She would have made a beautiful sister.”
I see the skin around Sister Dorothy’s mouth begin to quaver.
“The attack came while we were sleeping. It was the dry season, the raiding season, and the rebels had been attacking one village after another. We thought we would be safe here. The government soldiers were supposed to protect us, but none were around. None came when we called.”
She takes a second to breathe deeply before going on. When she speaks again, her voice sounds odd, detached, like she is reciting something from memory. “They took five women: four nurses in training and a teacher.”
My mouth goes dry.
“They were gone for three months. Two of them never returned. Of the three that did, one was the teacher, and she left immediately; I don’t know what happened to her. One was a good friend of your mother’s, another nurse in training.” Sister Dorothy finally looks up at me. “And one was your mother. She came back barely alive, carrying you in her womb.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
For a few seconds I don’t move. Sister Dorothy watches me closely, but doesn’t say anything, just waits. The room slips sideways.
“My father was one of them? One of the men that took her?”
“Yes.”
I can barely force out my words. “Do you know who he was?”
“No. There must have been several who . . .” Sister Dorothy winces, looks away.
I start to breathe again, but I feel like I’m going to pass out. Not even an hour ago I’d been thinking about my father and now . . . but I assumed he had been a boyfriend, someone my mother just didn’t want to talk about. I’d never imagined that my father was a man who had . . . had . . . I can’t even think the words. I suddenly feel very hot, like I’m about to be sick. I bend and put my forehead against my fists.
For a while I just let the waves of nausea wash over me. When I lift my head, Sister Dorothy is reaching back to a shelf behind her. She pulls a bottle of Communion wine from the spiderwebs, and two little glasses. She pours for us both. It’s silent as a tomb, and then a roll of thunder reaches us, and my ears stop ringing. I hear the muted rasp of rain.
“I thought nuns weren’t supposed to drink,” I say, numbly staring at the glass in front of me.
“All fall short of the glory of God. I think He will forgive an old woman.” She brings the glass to her lips.
The thought of the wine curdles my stomach, but then I reach out and grab the glass and take it all down in one gulp. The wine is sour-sweet and thick, but it warms me. It occurs to me that this is what the Goondas do when they talk about death too. When one of them dies, they bring out a bottle and drink until no one can think about anything anymore. Goondas and nuns, drinking to the dead. A crazy giggle almost escapes my lips, but I catch it. I take a deep breath to try to steady myself.
Sister Dorothy’s words echo: Two of them never returned. Of the three that did . . . I look up. “The other nurse in training they took, is she still here in Kasisi?”
“Yes,” Sister Dorothy says. Her brow furrows. “Catherine is here.”
The name sends a chill through me. Catherine—like Kiki, I think. Like Saint Catherine.
“Sister Dorothy,” I say, pulling out the crumpled photo from my pocket. “Is this her?” I point to the girl beside my mother, the one who looks like she has the world on a string.
The sister’s eyes soften. “Yes,” she says. “That’s Catherine.”
My heart pounds. “I want to talk to her. Do you know where she lives?”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea . . .”
“Why?”
Sister Dorothy refills my glass, and then her own. “Catherine . . . struggles.”
“What do you mean?”
She speaks slowly, carefully. “If a girl is taken by the militias, and then found again, it is a joyous thing. It is as if she has come back from the dead. However, the joy eventually fades, and then everyone wants the girl to forget. But it isn’t possible. Some of the women have medical problems. They are in pain, or can’t bear children. They are a constant reminder of how the family and the village were not strong enough to keep this sort of thing from happening. Sometimes people blame the women, or say that they have joined the rebels and have been sent back as spies. If they have children, some people say they are ghosts, or witches—that they carry evil inside them.”
I go cold. That’s me.
“Some of the women go someplace new to try and start over. And some, when they are not able to work or marry, turn to other means of survival.” She hesitates. “Catherine . . . sells herself.”
I blink. “She’s a prostitute?” Sister Dorothy’s face confirms the answer. �
�People blame her? It’s not as if she asked to be taken!”
The sister suddenly looks very old. “People are complicated creatures, my dear. The ways they find of explaining the bad things that happen in the world are not always the right ones. Sometimes they are simply the easy ones. They are the ones that give them enough comfort to sleep at night, the ones that let them take the blame off themselves.”
I twist my glass on the table. “That’s shitty.”
“Yes. I suppose it is . . . shitty.”
“I need to talk to Catherine,” I say again.
And Sister Dorothy repeats, “I don’t think that is a good idea.”
I look around the room as if seeing it for the first time. Windowless. Dark. Secret. “It’s not that she’s a prostitute, is it? You just don’t want me talking to her. Why did you bring me here to this room? Why did you not want the other nuns to see us together?”
She takes a drink. “It’s not the nuns. It’s everyone. Talking is dangerous. The last time I saw your mother she was here, talking to a white man who was staying at the guesthouse. We later found out he was a reporter.”
Donatien, I think.
“I surprised her. She didn’t say anything about what they were discussing, but she seemed nervous. It was a busy time at the clinic, so I didn’t give it much thought, until that man was nearly killed the next day. And then we heard that your house had been burned down, and you and your mother were missing. Days went by, and then the men came back here, looking for her. They thought we were hiding her.”
“What men?”
She shakes her head. “The bad kind of men. The same kind as before. Militias. They came to the gates and started shooting in the air, asking for her by her name. The patients were all terrified. And when we told them we didn’t know where she was, they started beating people and breaking things, like before.”
I wait for her to take a shuddering breath before going on. “After that, people started whispering about your mother and what had happened to the reporter who was stabbed. They were afraid. The reverend mother sent the reporter back to Sangui City and forbade us from talking about Anju anymore, lest the militias come back.”
City of Saints & Thieves Page 19
