City of Saints & Thieves

by Natalie C. Anderson

  “She just wanted you to forget? Act like Mama never existed?”

  Sister Dorothy sighs. “These are good people who work at this clinic, Christina. We wouldn’t stay here and see what horrors we do every day if we didn’t care, if we didn’t feel compelled by God. The nuns, the men and women who work here, they are good.”

  She looks past me again at the gray concrete wall. “But the awful truth of this place is that anyone who stays must choose to not ask too many questions. We cannot call the devil by his human names. You never know who is listening, who is saving up information for that moment when they need it to trade with the militias to keep their husband or children from being taken.”

  She looks back at me. She can see my mother in me, I can tell. “You should leave here. Take your friends and go back to Sangui City. Forget about revenge.”

  “I can’t.”

  She seems to know that’s what I would say. “Then I will pray for God to find you and stay with you.” She drains her glass. “But sometimes I worry He gave up on this place long ago.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  Rule 13: The good thing about bad news is that at least it’s true.

  And if you’ve spent most of your life wading around in half-truths and guesses, something real is like finding dry land in the middle of the ocean.

  Not that knowing the truth helped me sleep last night.

  • • •

  The boy is supposed to show us the way to Catherine’s house, but now he’s squatting in the mud like a toad and refuses to go any farther. He points up the path and, in a mix of Swahili, some other language we don’t know, and hand waving, tells us we just have to walk a bit farther. He holds his palm up. “Five minutes.”

  “Kid, we paid you to take us there! All the way there,” Boyboy says, one hand on his hip, one fanning his brow. He pulls his phone out to check it again.

  “Anything from the First Solutions guy?” I ask.

  Boyboy spent a couple of hours digging last night, and an hour on the phone this morning, and is hopeful about this most recent lead. It’s amazing how many dudes come out of the woodwork when you dangle a bit of cash in front of their noses.

  I probably should have asked Boyboy to stay with his computer at the guesthouse and keep working, but after I told him the bare bones of what Sister Dorothy had told me, he insisted on coming with us to find Catherine. I just didn’t have it in me to argue. I wouldn’t have told Boyboy about Catherine at all if he hadn’t forced it out of me. He claimed that from the way I looked when I came out for breakfast, either I’d caught some terrible intestinal parasite, or something was up. I didn’t say anything to Michael, though. All he knows is that Sister Dorothy confirmed Catherine was my mom’s friend and she was around. He’s the only member of the party looking buoyant and rested, marching along ahead of us like a Boy Scout on patrol.

  “Still no network,” Boyboy grumbles, and stuffs the phone back in his pocket.

  It doesn’t help that the air in the forest we’ve been hiking through for almost an hour is warm and incredibly humid. We’re all dripping. A stream rushes through a gully to our left, muddy and high with last night’s rain, adding to the general feeling that we’re not walking so much as swimming through the jungle.

  Our first stop this morning had been to see if we could catch a rumor of Mr. Greyhill being around, but without straight up asking people on the street, it was hard to tell. We figured a rich mzungu coming to town would cause a bit of a stir, but no stirring seemed to be happening. Michael wondered if maybe he was staying at one of Extracta’s mines in company housing. We had better luck finding out where Catherine worked. We were pointed to a bar. The cook we asked there said she wasn’t around, but—after a couple of sideways looks—told us we could hire his nephew to take us to her house. Or apparently within five minutes of it.

  “Come on,” I cajole the kid.

  The boy shakes his head adamantly. He is a good boy. Her home is a den of devils and he is going no farther.

  Michael wipes sweat from his face. “It’s just up there, eh? You sure?”

  The boy nods, drags his finger studiously in the mud. “Five minutes,” he repeats.

  Five minutes can apparently mean anything from a minute of walking to an hour. His uncle had assured us that Catherine’s house was only five minutes away. More like five kilometers.

  “Come on,” I say, taking Boyboy’s elbow. “We have to be nearly there. Don’t make that face. I told you not to wear those shoes.”

  The kid waits until we’ve moved up the path and then shoots away, skinny limbs flailing. I’m as skeptical as anyone else that we’ll find Catherine’s house as promised, but sure enough, and to everyone’s relief, we soon crest a hill and come out of the forest to find a sunny field. Sheep and goats graze around a little mud-walled house in the sun.

  For a second or two we just stand there, catching our breath.

  “Are you sure this is it?” Boyboy whispers. “Doesn’t look like a den of devils.”

  “I think this is the last home on the path.”

  The mountains and jungle rise steeply beyond the grass. The house looks like any of a dozen we’ve passed. The red dirt around it is swept clean, and fuchsia flowers bloom from rusted cans on either side of the doorway, which is covered by a sheet blowing in the breeze. Tiny white butterflies hover over manure in a carefully constructed cow pen a hundred feet away. In the distance I can see a girl hanging laundry on bushes that are covered in pink and orange flowers. The name of the plant pops suddenly out of some dusty corner of my memory: lantana, devil in the bushes. The scene as a whole looks postcard perfect, and I can’t tell if it looks familiar, or if I just want it to.

  “Hodi,” I call, announcing us from the edge of the yard. “Hello?” My nerves are zinging. This is it. I’m finally going to meet the mystery girl from the photo.

  There’s no answer from the house, so I walk around toward the back, where I can smell wood smoke. Boyboy and Michael follow. Before we can turn the corner, though, we hear a bark, and an enormous tawny dog comes bounding around the side of the house, hackles raised. He barks furiously at us.

  “Whoa!” I say, putting my hands up. I hear Boyboy squealing and scrambling backward behind me.

  “Hello?” Michael yells. “Is anyone back there? A little help?”

  A woman follows the dog, and our hopes for rescue are quickly dashed by the AK-47 slung over her shoulder. She doesn’t aim it at us, but she really doesn’t need to. We all back up.

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?” she asks. “Askari!”

  At his name, the dog stops barking but hovers near his mistress, hackles still up.

  I hold my breath. Her face looks familiar. She might be the girl from the photo but her expression is so different that I can’t be sure.

  “Uh, hello,” Michael says, recovering first, but keeping his eye on the gun. “I’m Michael, and these are my friends Christina and Boyboy. We came up from town.”

  “Yes, and?”

  “We, ah, well, we were hoping to speak with you.”

  The girl who was hanging laundry is now galloping over the grass toward us, another big dog at her side.

  The woman looks at each of us in turn, suspicion furrowing her brow. “About?”

  There’s no sense in beating around the bush. I step forward. “Are you Catherine?” When I get no response, I go on, “It’s about my mother, Anju. I think you knew her?”

  The woman just stares at me as if I were speaking Chinese, but then her look changes, like I’ve thrown mud at her face. “Anju? Anju Yvette?”

  The girl has reached us and stands hovering just outside of our circle, staring. She is all knees and elbows, maybe about Kiki’s age. The woman holds a hand up at her, telling her to stay back.

  “Yes, that’s her,” I say, and take a hopeful step forwar
d. “May we come—”

  “No,” Catherine says, and her voice is low and dangerous. The gun at her hip comes up, and she uses it to motion us back in the direction from which we’ve come. “I never want to hear that woman’s name again as long as I live.”

  Then she spits on the ground.

  Spits.

  “Now get off my farm and don’t ever come back.”

  • • •

  We have no choice but to turn around and leave. Michael had tried to protest but was met only by a hiss, which seemed to be the signal for the dogs to attack. They started barking and leaping at us, and between that and the gun, there wasn’t much more to say. We beat a quick path back down the trail.

  “What the hell did your mom do to her?” Boyboy asks, in between glances over his shoulder.

  “I don’t know,” I say, swatting at a bush that hangs over the path. “I thought they were friends.”

  I was not prepared for Catherine’s response. I thought she would be glad to talk about Mama, and the shock of our violent dismissal stings. I stop, bringing the boys up short behind me.

  “We can’t just leave. We have to talk to her,” I say.

  Michael looks dubious. I know he’s wondering just what exactly Catherine has to do with my mother’s murder, but I’m not about to try and explain. I feel like I need to talk to her. She might be the only person in the world who can tell me what happened to her and Mama that led to my birth. She was my mother’s friend and they must have suffered through it together. My urge to talk to her goes beyond figuring out who killed Mama. It’s deeper than that, personal.

  So why will she not talk to me?

  Boyboy puts his hands on his hips. “I’m not going back up there. Lady’s got a Rambo complex. Who has guns like that unless they’re part of a militia?” Just then Boyboy’s phone buzzes. He pulls it out of his pocket and grunts at what he sees. “Voice mail. Finally.”

  “What did you have to pay this guy at First Solutions to talk to you?” Michael asks.

  “Nothing.” Boyboy puts the phone up to his ear. “But you paid him plenty. Well, technically your trust fund did, but it was for a good cause.”

  “What? How did you—”

  “What’s he say?” I ask Boyboy, shushing Michael.

  Boyboy frowns, concentrating on the message. He puts a finger up to tell us to wait.

  While he’s busy, I turn back to Michael. “We have to talk to Catherine. She was Mama’s friend. She knows . . . stuff.”

  Michael is still giving Boyboy a disgruntled look, but sighs and says, “Maybe we can get Sister Dorothy to talk to her.” He frowns. “What is it?” he asks Boyboy.

  When I turn around, I don’t like the expression on Boyboy’s face. He takes the phone away from his ear. “Bad news,” he says. “Mwika’s dead.”

  • • •

  Boyboy’s contact didn’t leave a lot of details, just that Mwika got knifed in a bar fight about two years ago near a diamond mine in Katanga where he was working.

  “But he left me Mwika’s email address. I’ll hack it,” Boyboy says, putting a hand on my arm. “There may be something there.”

  Michael nods. “We shouldn’t give up yet.”

  “How could you not have known he was dead?” I ask Michael. Two years ago was when Mr. Greyhill made payments to Mwika. There’s got to be some connection to his death. “Did you know?”

  “No!” Michael says, stepping toward me. “Of course not!”

  I lurch back from him, trying to read the truth in his face. He looks as genuinely shocked as Boyboy, but if I know anything, it’s that the Greyhills are good liars. “I can’t believe I trusted you,” I say. Without waiting for him to respond, I turn around and start walking down the path.

  No video.

  This whole deal with Michael was to get to Mwika and his supposed video, and now we find out he’s been dead for two years. Did Michael know? Was he just leading me on?

  Between Mwika and Catherine, the trip so far has been a disaster. The only thing I’ve learned by coming here is that my mother went through some horrible, unspeakable shit and that I’m the war baby she never wanted. A baby that ruined her life and probably reminded her every single day of what had happened to her. I suddenly want very badly to see my sister. Not to tell her what’s happening, just to see her, to have her tilt her head at me and ask me what’s wrong like she sometimes does. I never tell her, but I like it when she asks. I could really use that about now.

  When we get back to the guesthouse I go to my room, lock the door behind me, and stand there. I have no idea what to do next. Do not cry, Tiny Girl. Maybe Boyboy will still find something in Mwika’s emails.

  Outside my window I can hear Boyboy telling Michael not to knock on my door, that I just need some time. I listen to the sounds of Boyboy getting set up outside, checking his solar panel, turning on his computer.

  Now what? Should we just go home? I want to talk to Catherine, but how? Sitting in here pouting isn’t going to help. I take a deep breath and dig for my phone in my bag. Maybe I can help out and call Boyboy’s contact back myself, get more information. Maybe Mwika had a house, a place where he stashed stuff. I start to go outside, but stop when I see that I’ve missed a dozen calls from Ketchup, three calls from numbers I don’t recognize, and most worrying, one from Bug Eye. A single text from him: where you at call now.

  Knots begin to twist in my stomach, one after another. As I’m staring at my phone, trying to decide whether to call Bug Eye back and pretend like everything is cool and I’m still in Sangui, it starts to vibrate with an incoming call. I curse, sure it’s him or Ketchup, but the number isn’t one of theirs. I know I probably shouldn’t answer it—it’s most likely one of them calling from a different line, trying to get me to answer—but some weird urge kicks in. “Hello?”

  “Tina? Is that you?”

  My knees go wobbly and I almost lose my footing. “Kiki? Are you okay?”

  “I’ve been trying to get you for days!”

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  I hear her whisper something to someone nearby. “What? No, nothing’s wrong. Where are you?”

  I can hear girls talking in the background. My heartbeat starts to slow, and I wipe my mouth with a trembling hand. I take a deep breath and try to sound normal. “I left the city.”

  “You did what? Why? Where are you? I can barely hear you.”

  “I-I had to do some stuff. I’ll only be gone a couple of days.”

  “Oh. But you’ll be back by Friday night?”

  “I’m going to try. But if I’m not, don’t worry, okay?”

  “One of the other girls overheard someone telephoning for me. It was you, right?”

  “Yeah, the nun wouldn’t let me talk to you.”

  “That was Sister Agnes. She is so strict. No phone calls, no phones. She thinks we’ll call our boyfriends or order takeaway food or something. But my friend Simone has a mobile that she hides in her mattress. She let me use it to call.” My sister speaks in a breathless stream. “This guy said you had skipped town. I was worried; that’s why I asked Simone to use her phone.”

  “What guy?”

  “Um. I don’t know his name, but he came to the school while I was outside at recess yesterday. He said he was a friend of yours. He said I should call you.” She goes quiet. “Tina, who was he? Why did you leave Sangui? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I say, working hard to keep my voice level. “What did he look like?”

  “Like, kind of tough. Tattoos and stuff all up and down his arms, like yours. The other girls thought he was cute, but I thought he looked like a meerkat.”

  I lick my lips. “You remember any of the tattoos?”

  “Not really. He had a bunch. Um, okay, there was a big tomato on the back of his hand. I remember that.”

>   My vision tunnels.

  Ketchup.

  At Kiki’s school. Talking to Kiki.

  I will kill him.

  “He told me that if I hear from you, to tell you to call him. Or if you came by, to give you a note.”

  “A note? What does it say?”

  “Hang on. It’s in my pocket.” I can hear shuffling, and then, “Okay, it says, ‘Tiny, Your wasting time. Tell your sister hi.’ What does that mean?” She pauses. “He spelled you’re wrong.”

  I have to hold my hand over the mouthpiece so Kiki doesn’t hear my breathing go ragged. Ketchup tried to call me. And when I didn’t respond, he did what he knew would get my attention. He wanted me to know he’d seen Kiki in person. That he knows where she is, how to get to her. How did he even find her? I’ve been so careful.

  “Tina? I have to go. Simone says I’m using up all her airtime.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I manage. “Listen, if that guy comes back to the school, don’t talk to him, okay?”

  “I won’t.” Suddenly her voice falters. “But you’re okay, right? He’s not, like, hurting you or anything?”

  I shake myself. “No, nothing like that. C’mon, don’t worry so much, okay? I’ll see you soon.”

  “Friday?”

  “Friday. I’ll be there for sure.”

  “Okay, good. Bye!”

  I have a sudden urge to tell her I love her, but I wait too long, and the words get stuck in my throat. And then the line clicks off and she’s gone.

  THIRTY

  Rule 14: Bad luck comes in multiples of so many more than three.

  • • •

  By mid-afternoon both Boyboy and Michael are tired of my jittery energy, and Boyboy pleads with me to go do something productive somewhere else while he works. But I don’t know what that would be. This trip was a stupid idea, and now my sister might be in trouble.

  We’ve got to leave super early in the morning if I’m going to make it back in time to meet Kiki. I keep picking my phone up to dial Bug Eye and then stopping, reconsidering. Do I call and try to convince him I’m still at the Greyhills’? Ketchup told my sister that I had skipped town. But how would he know? If I call, could Bug Eye somehow hack my GPS and find out where I really am? Boyboy traced me to the bus station, after all. It’s possible Bug Eye could find someone to trace me all the way here. And then how much trouble would I be in? How much trouble would Kiki be in?