by E. C. Frey
I let the tears fall onto my pillow.
The difference between that world and the one below was too much to bear. It’s not like the gorillas didn’t have their boundaries or even their moods. They just didn’t have any meanness in them. That was the moment when my jungle terrors began to fade. There were no gorillas in Vietnam, but somehow that didn’t matter. A world of grace was shrouded in the mists.
Gorillas were executed, terrorized, mutilated to prove a point. What kind of a world makes such a point? What kind of world destroys grace? Is this so surprising when children are raped and murdered for a political point? My love for David blossomed in those moments. But how could a love survive such insults? We were doomed from the beginning. If something melted in my heart that day, something is breaking in my heart this night. My sob wakens Jerome. Shit! I can’t burden him with this.
“What? What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”
I lean into him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Are you thinking about your brother?”
“Yes. I’m always thinking about my brother.”
He leans back and sighs. “I’m sorry, Eve. I know you can’t stand not knowing, but you have to face the facts. You may never know. You have to find a way to go on.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s okay.” He turns and pulls me to him. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
His kiss is long and tender, and I surrender to it.
Later, when his breathing is calm and rhythmic, my thoughts wind back up. Most people find contentment and sleep after making love. Not me. Not tonight. I slip from the bed and fling myself onto the couch. What does it matter where I lie? It’s six of one and a half dozen of the other. Only the couch is less likely to wake Jerome.
There was something in the Congo. A long-forgotten piece of information. What was it? There were so many things I wanted to forget. David wanted to save me. We needed rest and relaxation, he said. I laughed at the time. How does one find relaxation in the middle of war? But he tried. We headed to Goma. Our guide from the Park was genial. From Goma it was an easy climb to the lava lake on Nyiragongo Volcano. We reached the summit in six hours. It was a rare, clear night. The stars littered the sky and the lava lit the world around us. It was the most peaceful sleep I had ever found.
Breakfast consisted of ancient dry granola bars, but somehow the food tasted better up there in the heavens. We descended to the Mikeno Sector of the Park, and that’s where we found the gorillas. Those eyes. There were no words for their souls. I cried. My tears fell and I didn’t try to hide them. The gorillas remained impassive, but I knew they too knew the great suffering. If they could endure, so could I.
We made our way back to Goma and the Camp and the war and the violence and the death. It’s always amazed me. This opposable thumb condition and genocide wrapped up in a territorial imperative. Resources. Somehow we humans sense a future lack where there may be none. The gorillas didn’t defend what they had no fear of losing. There was plenty of greenery to go around. Content in the moment, they only had man to fear. It’s a sobering thing to know you’re part of the species that simultaneously must control resources and seeks to share it, all rolled into one. The complicated species. I roll over on the couch, but the cushions scratch and peck at my skin.
Goma. I went with two fellow Western aid workers to a bar in town. Our escape was rare and we were dressed up. Betsy, blond, blue-eyed, and Californian, caught the eye of Francois Flambeau, an ex-pat in town for the evening. Men were always underestimating Betsy, but she didn’t seem to mind that night. He bought us drinks, and the conversation was light and flirtatious. Until . . .
“So, what are you doing here in Goma, Francois?” Betsy leaned her elbows against the table. Her cleavage winked from her V-neck happy face T-shirt.
Francois smiled and slowly dragged on his cocktail. “I’m working for a company that, you know, is here to save these people from themselves. Give them access to American dollars and Western market economics. Let’s face it. They’ll kill each other without us.”
My normal reticence melted with the ice in my second cocktail. “What do you mean? What company? How are we the great saviors?”
“Fuck me.” He swallowed the remains of his cocktail and motioned to the waiter for another. “These people are children. They have to be guided. We need to bring the colonies back. It’s the only way they can save themselves. Let’s face it, my friends, they’re squandering their good fortune in resources. We know how to give them the full benefit of their good fortune.”
Betsy leaned in further. “They’re hardly children.”
Francois raised his eyebrows. “Look at them. They have so many rebel groups who think they stand for something. They spout it to the world. But their real agenda is money and power. Who or what does that money go to? More armaments and more conflict. They’re bloody stupid. They need help. They need to be managed.” He leaned back and swirled his new drink. “I can pay them and help them obtain more guns and watch them kill each other, but there’s a better way.”
“What’s that?”
“My company is part of the solution. We know what’s best for them.”
I leaned into the table and took a long swallow from my glass. “What company is that?”
“Astride Amalgamated Corporation. They’re the solution for Zaire.”
“Yes, but isn’t that corporate philosophy what got Zaire into trouble in the first place? While the rest of Africa was being carved into colonies, Old Leopold privatized the Congo and allowed it to be ruled by corporations who pillaged their resources. And who extracted those resources? The Congolese. Millions were killed and mutilated. Give me a break. They’ve never recovered. They don’t need to be managed. Especially not by a corporation. And what about Lumumba? He was executed in the name of mining interests. They don’t need your company.”
Francois’s eyes hardened and glittered in the low light. He raised his glass and pointed at me with his index finger. “Listen, my friend, that’s ancient history. This is a new world. They have to be saved from their warring ways and we need to make sure their resources aren’t misspent. We can help them reap the benefits of this worldwide economy. It’s not our fault they’re killing each other. They aren’t civilized like us. You should know this. Just look at your little camp.”
Betsy laughed. “I’m sorry. It’s hardly little.”
Francois winked at her. “That’s my point, my beauty. Their problems are big.”
Who could argue with that? But his solution was hardly the answer.
A siren closes in on my street and I turn on the couch to watch the lights. There’s trauma somewhere in the city. I’m exhausted. The clock on the wall clicks to five. I have not had a drink in months, but I feel as hung over as I did the morning after we met Francois. I’m also as unsettled now as I was back then.
And then it hits me. That thing I’ve been trying to remember. In the middle of the displacement and mayhem of the Camp, the rumors took on an immediacy we couldn’t ignore. There was a company willing to pay for child labor and minerals in exchange for weapons. AAC. We started a list of missing children.
20 Michael
Sanctimonious pricks! Who the hell did they think they were?
“Michael. I hope you realize we’re not questioning your motives. Just your methods.” Lawrence Schmidt, Chairman of the Board, slid his fingertips along the highly polished mahogany tabletop. He regarded his fellow board members from under bushy eyebrows. There was no sparkle in his eyes. Only his flat, tired gaze gave any hint of the trouble he felt in his heart. It wasn’t like he cared about the casualties—only the reputation of the company his father had built from scratch. Michael knew he wanted damage control before any was needed. He was a little late for that.
Lawrence had swiftly called the meeting, and his fe
llow board members had traveled from far and wide to decide behind closed doors the next course of action. Michael had given them great results, and they didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize the returns. But any hint of a scandal or unethical behavior would be felt on the stock market. They couldn’t afford to lose stockholder confidence now. No. They had agreed, it seemed, that Michael needed to be made aware and brought back into line.
Warren took over from Lawrence. He smiled. “Michael. You’re doing a dynamite job. Spectacular. I think everyone here would agree things have never been better. We just need you to tone it down. Just a little. Let things settle down. We don’t need anything that will mar our reputation here. Keep the stockholders happy. You know what I mean?”
“Sure. But I have a couple of loose ends I need to tie up.”
“How bad would it be if you didn’t?”
“Potentially very bad.”
“Can you tie the loose ends up without jeopardizing . . . everything we’ve accomplished?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Well, then. I think it’s settled.” Warren looked around the table as everyone nodded their assent. “Go to it, Michael. Just keep it quiet. You know what I mean.”
“Yes, of course.”
Michael retreated and closed the heavy wood doors on the low buzz of male voices. The anger in him wanted to bust down the doors and mow them all down. That would put a real damper on his prospects. He snickered as he walked into the empty elevator. The doors closed and the box swooshed down.
Self-righteous assholes. Why didn’t they just say what they wanted to say? Why tiptoe around? Avoiding getting their little souls dirty? Well, they were knee-deep in it as well. If he went down, they went down.
Sniveling idiots. He knew how the game was played. He knew how it was done. He might even know how to do it better than them. Why should he be prohibited from playing the game?
After all, he’d been born and raised on the south side of Muncie, Indiana. Everyone thought they were better. His dad lost his job at Ball Glass when production ceased. His mom went to work as a waitress. Good old Dad mopped out shit in the local school, and Michael was left at home with Mrs. Trowell. He watched. He was just six years old, and the old battle-axe locked him in his closet and denied him food when she felt like it. You got what you paid for. That was how he learned about money and power.
In school, he learned how Muncie got its name. The famous Penn brothers swindled the Lenape out of over a million acres. The Penns got their fastest runner to go as far as he could when the Indians thought it was meant to be a walk. Ethics only work if it’s your side. The Lenape had to leave the Walking Purchase lands and ended up in Ohio Country, along the White River in Munsee. Twenty years later, they were forced out again by the federal government to make way for more white people, who changed the name to Muncie. The government said they were protecting the savages. Now that was how it was done. Force the weaker to vacate under threat of violence, change the name, and wipe the fucking slate clean. Bam! Did they think it was magic? How was anything he was doing any different? Hypocrites. They couldn’t tie his hands. AAC’s hands had been dirty way before he started working there.
“You have messages, Michael.” Angela Martin, his secretary, watched him. One needed to know his mood at all times if they were going to work for him, and she was particularly good at it. She protected him, and he knew she hoped he’d protect her. She also needed the job and enjoyed the prestige of being the right-hand person to a rising star. He was careful to reward her handsomely for her loyalty.
Michael grabbed the messages and leafed through them. He flung his office door open and turned to Angela, “Hold my calls. I have to make some important phone calls.”
“Michael, Heather Collings has been calling.”
“What does that—I mean, what does she want?”
“Um, she wants to talk to you about a sexual harassment claim against you.” She watched his reaction.
“That’s a joke. I’ll take care of it.” He slammed the door.
He took his briefcase from the closet, unlocked it, and retrieved another cell phone.
“Hello.”
“Have you taken care of the mess in Mexico?”
“We’re taking care of it now. We’ve run into a few problems, though.”
“Problems. Like what?”
“The survivors are in a hospital set up by Doctors Without Borders. There are rumors World Health is on the way. Could get bigger. Do you want us to enter the hospital and take care of them before it gets out of control? We might have to take care of the doctors, too.”
Michael paced. “What? No! Don’t be ridiculous. It’s too risky. Leave them be.” He massaged his chin. The idea was intriguing. “If they ask about the bodies, we can say we did it to protect everyone. The faster they went to the grave, the faster we could clean up the place. As for the cholera, they refused to be hooked up to safe water and they soiled their water source with their own feces. It’ll get a little blurb on the eighth page and everyone will forget about it. I’ll take care of the damage control on this end. Just take care of the cholera situation. Get it under control.”
“Okay, boss.”
He had one more call to make.
“Harold. Where are you on that little problem?”
“Tom and Jim are outside her apartment, but her dogs are a problem. She’s heading to Charleston. I decided to get ahead of her.”
“Since when are dogs a problem? Kill them.”
“I think it’ll be easier to take her here in Charleston. Besides, she doesn’t have the flash drive yet.”
“All right. Try not to be seen, but if you have to, take her in broad daylight and get rid of her for good. And get that damned flash drive. I have a mess here I have to clean up. She and that flash drive are my only other loose ends.”
“There might be another problem.”
“What’s that?”
“That woman married to Brandon Collings—”
“Heather Collings?”
“Yeah. She’s here too. She’s staying in the same hotel.”
Michael stared out the window. What were the odds?
“Hey, boss.”
“Yeah. I’m thinking.”
“You think it’s a coincidence?”
“I don’t know. She’s my other loose end. I thought she was here. Watch them and find out. But Harold, we need that flash drive. Don’t take too long.”
“Okay, boss.”
“Remember the bitch in Connecticut?”
“Of course. I can still get a hard-on thinking of that one.”
“Make this one go the same way.”
“My pleasure.”
Michael sat in his chair and swiveled to his spotlessly clean and ordered desk. Damage control. What could they be doing there at the same time?
“And Harold.”
“Yes, boss.”
“What’s better than killing one bird with one stone?”
“Killing two birds with one stone?”
Michael laughed. “Double the pleasure.”
“Got it boss.”
“And Harold. Make it look random. Like a serial rapist is on the loose. And nothing to tie you to it. You were never there.”
“Sure, boss. In and out. Quiet as a mouse.”
Michael put the phone down. He thought of the self-righteous hypocrites up in the board room. If they only knew. He could bring them all down as easy as sugar cream pie.
21 Heather
Shannon’s mouth twitches. I stroke her arm. Tomorrow, we’ll all be together. We’re better together.
Lately, it seems like we’re all at a crossroads. Perhaps we’ve been moving toward this—toward the consequences of that night. Destiny knocks. We should’ve come forward then. We should’ve told someone. Sometimes silence is worse than the sin. It’s the sin of silence, the sin of neglect, the sin of avoided consequence. But isn’t that the way it is? The avoidance creates its own consequence
. One can’t find invisibility except in death and even then . . .
It was Fiona who wanted to save me. Even then, I knew it was impossible. Poor Fiona. She can’t forgive herself, even now. I have to tell my friends that it’s time. We can’t go on this way. I can’t go on this way.
His name was Paul. He followed me to the airport. Waited at the luggage carousel. Flagged a taxi behind mine. Stood outside the hotel. Brandon won’t save me. He doesn’t even want me. I have to protect my baby girl.
I slide out of the bed and double-check the locks on the hotel room door. We are secure. I spoke to the front desk at check-in and they assured me security would be alerted. I slip back into bed and snuggle the covers around us.
Once it started, we couldn’t stop it. Not then, not now. He’s come for his reckoning.
So much changed during that summer. It’s hard to remember the moment when everything shifted, but I’ve pinpointed the moment: It was the most peaceful of sunlit days. A soft breeze mellowed the heat of summer and my head felt lighter than it had since the beating. The Rose Garden was empty of people, but it buzzed with activity. Iridescent wings fluttered in the sunshine and the din of life sounded through the coniferous forest surrounding us. The scented air was an intoxicating elixir. Time stood still even as the wind lifted our spirits.
Ancient roses bloomed, unbending to the graceless passage of time. Mariah, shielding her eyes from the August sun, smiled and her happiness softened my fears. This was the portal to nirvana. We would be shielded from the adults’ world. Mariah kicked at a fallen pinecone, and its fragrance mixed with that of the roses.
There were many hiding places—the tall trees that ringed the garden were shelter enough from curious eyes—but there was no need for secrecy today. Today was a beautiful day, and all the turmoil of the early summer was a distant memory.
Promise glistened in the air.
We grabbed at each other’s hands and skipped in a ring before crashing to the ground, giggling. The green grass growing around the fountain cushioned us as we rolled on its softness. The sky, blue and infinite, held traces of white strings trailing from far-off airplanes. It was a dreaming-time day.
