The Underneath

by Melanie Finn

  “Yes, Freya, and I’m truly sorry for that. I can’t take it back. I hope you can forgive me.”

  Tom began to cry, a soft weepy noise.

  “Tom, honey.”

  “I thought you weren’t coming. You were mad at us.”

  Kay bowed her head, she shut her eyes. She got out of the car, walked around to Tom’s door, and she opened it. She kissed him, her son, her little boy: “I’ll never leave you. I’ll always be there. It’s my job as your mum and because I love you. Do you understand?”

  He nodded and threw his arms around her neck. “Where’s Dad?” he mumbled. “When is he coming back?”

  “He’s working. You know that. He goes away, but he comes back.”

  Then Freya reached out and put her hand on Tom’s head. “It’s okay, he really does love us.”

  Kay was afraid to catch Freya’s eye, to see the waiting sneer; she hoped so much the gesture was genuine. So she didn’t look. She kept her gaze on Tom. “You remember how you wanted to explore the woods, try to find that path down to the pond? Let’s do that.”

  “Can we collect tadpoles? Please, Mum?”

  *

  There was no hurry, the warm, soft air and the house hung among the round hills—what they had come for, with or without Michael. Tom and Freya slathered on insect repellent and danced ahead of Kay with nets and jars. “This way, Mum, this way!”

  Into the woods, the damp scent, mud, earth, uncoiling green; the light flickering through the canopy obscuring the sky in an umbrella of green. They were held in green, the layers of it. They were wading through it, ferns and brambles, a carpet of lilies with tiny white flowers. So much was unseen, but Kay sensed it happening around her, earthworms, insects, small birds, and deeper in, the dark-eyed doe with her fawns moving neatly on mute hooves.

  “Look, Mum!” Tom thrust a leaf toward her. She refocused to discern a tiny green caterpillar. “Can we keep it?”

  “Yes, Mum, yes! Say, yes!” Freya took her mother’s good hand and Kay felt a hard jolt of relief, and love. Why can’t adults forgive like children?

  “Yes,” Kay said.

  “We’ll show Mrs. Figgs! Mrs. Figgs loves caterpillars and butterflies. She knows all about them!” Tom could hardly stand still as Freya helped him put the leaf in one of his jars.

  At last they reached the pond, the path petering out in the pliant mud and solid tufts of yellow marsh grass. Here was a small oval of water: one half held a perfect reflection of sky; the other half, shaded by tall pines, was dark, occluded. Closer in, Kay saw how the still surface in fact seethed with pond skimmers, dragonflies, all manner of tiny fluttering insects.

  She stepped forward, and noticed her shoe fitting within another, larger print. Quickly, she pulled back, peered down to better see the boot print, but the mud sucked at it, and then she couldn’t be sure of the shape. Or if it had been there at all. She leaned over, scrutinizing the mud. She could see where the marsh grass had been bent at several even intervals, she could see the remnant indents. Someone or something had passed this way not long ago. A moose, she thought, that’s all, that’s all.

  “Here!” Tom yelled, and Freya ran to him. “Mum, Mum, tadpoles, hundreds of them.”

  42

  SURPRISINGLY, SHEVAUNNE WASN’T ON THE sofa, though the TV babbled on, alone, a mental patient on a park bench. You bitch never you always you don’t you always you always you bitch I hate—

  “Shevaunne? Jake?”

  He heard only the brrrrrr of the fridge.

  He listened hard. He could almost feel his ear canals opening, the delicate aural hairs stiffen.

  At last he heard the low breathing of a child.

  “Jake?”

  He turned into his bedroom. Jake was sprawled asleep on his bed and Shevaunne sat in the chair by the window. She had an unlit cigarette in her mouth. Ben studied the scene, there was something wrong—not just her presence in his room—but wrong in the subtext, as if a picture was suddenly hanging askew.

  Shevaunne smiled. “Hello, Ben.” She held up a manila envelope.

  He felt a sense of violation knowing she’d been through his things, carefully turning over his socks, his underwear, the cutlery, the dishes and coffee filters. Diligently, she’d investigated the underside of his bed, of every table and chair until she’d arrived, at last, at the fridge. And she had done this instead of making lunch for her child.

  “Trucking manifests,” she said, opening the envelope. “Forestry approvals.”

  He took off his cap, put it on top of the bureau. “I’m shipping logs to Canada.”

  Wetting her finger, she flipped through the paperwork. “Why’d you hide this, then?”

  “I don’t know what it is you think you have there.”

  “Ben,” she sighed. “I’m a junkie whore.”

  All he could do was wait, regard her impassively.

  “I’m looking at these forestry things, and they’re completely blank except for the signature. You can fill in anything you want.” She smiled. It was almost genuine, how happy she was. “You’re shifting smack to Canada, aren’t you, Benny.”

  Now Ben surveyed Jake. The child was fast asleep, yet it was early evening. He looked at Shevaunne. “What did you give him?”

  “He was driving me nuts.”

  Ben stood quietly. He did not raise his voice. “What did you give him?”

  “Some over-the-counter sleep shit.”

  “You drugged your child?”

  “Oh, mister, it’s just sleep.” She pulled out her lighter, lit up, boldly. “So, you’re gonna cut me into the next haul, right? I’d like to move back to town. I’d like a car. Me and Jake. We don’t want to stay out here in the boonies.”

  “I’ll think about it,” he said as if he might think about it, might give it a moment’s consideration, then walked back into the kitchen to clean the dishes in the sink. He did this calmly, plunging his hands into the warm, soapy water, carefully scrubbing the pan, the plates, between the tines of the forks. Shevaunne followed him out, puffing her smoke. She sat on her sofa like a duchess, for she possessed it now—it was her residence. He could feel her watching him, and she was imagining him thoughtfully thinking. But Ben did not need to think, he had arrived at the end of his thinking. He was 100 percent concluded.

  43

  The general showed me around his shop, the Alice Lakwena Good Buy. Alice Lakwena was the general’s patron saint, a visionary who’d convinced her followers they were impervious to bullets. In the 1980s, thousands died believing her—and not just the first hundred who so obviously died from bullets, but those after, row upon row, year upon year, convinced that their fate would be different. Such is the human capacity for wishful thinking.

  “And here are the washing powders.” Christmas gestured to a surprisingly wide array, including imported French brands that must have come from Kinshasa. “And here, cocking oil.”

  I smiled to myself, the naughty joke at his expense. Cocking oil. It almost made him comic; I almost said, “And what do you cock with your cocking oil?” But he would recognize my sarcasm immediately. So I nodded, and he showed me the flip-flops he imported from India. “They are very nice colors and of superior manufacture.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a girl, perhaps 15, diligently wiping down each can of tomatoes and replacing it with excruciating exactitude. She leaned into the shelves, so close I wondered if she had poor sight, and positioned the can, adjusting it several times. Her efforts were in vain, for Christmas tutted, pushed her aside, fine-tuned the placement by half a millimeter.

  “A hair’s breadth,” he chuckled. “When I first heard the expression, I thought it was a hare’s breath—you know, the distance of the breath of a rabbit. Poff.” He blew. “Not far!”

  “Yes,” I replied. “That makes a certain sense.”

  “How about a refreshment?” He turned to me, his generous smile. “We can go to my guest house.”

  We walked together across t
he sunny, open courtyard to the Sleep EZ. It was, like the shop, fastidious. I wondered how he dealt with blood and excrement, the mess of slaughter. We sat in large, over-padded chairs upholstered in purple ripple velvet. Another girl, the same age as the last, silently placed a tray of tea and coffee on the table. Under the cups, jug of milk, sugar bowl, and thermoses, was an immaculate ironed linen cloth embroidered with primroses.

  “Tea or coffee?”

  “Tea,” I said.

  “I shall be mother,” he tittered. Where had he learned this? The missionary school in Kitgum? A colonial memsahib, perhaps, tucked into the mountains of South Sudan, like a Japanese soldier who didn’t realize the war had ended long ago. Is that where he got the tea service?

  “You are not afraid?” He handed me the tea.

  “Of what?”

  He gestured to my belly.

  Casually, I moved my hands to cover it, something we both knew to be instinctive and pointless. My belly, like a ripe peach for Christmas and his elves to split open and remove the pit. They had proved adept at this—I had read the Human Rights Watch reports, I had even seen the photograph of a woman who’d survived.

  As a pregnant woman, I discovered I was paradoxically more inviolable and more vulnerable; I was large and slow-moving, my swollen belly almost a deformity, yet I was an object of atavistic respect. I was doing my part for the species.

  I raised my eyebrow to General Christmas: “Should I be afraid?”

  He laughed, his warm chuckle, as if we were two old friends sharing a joke. How many psychopaths does it take to change a lightbulb? It depends who the lightbulb is attached to. Oh, ho ho, ho, that is so funny. “Ah, Kay, are you referring to certain reports? These are mere propaganda.”

  “The incidents certainly happened, General. Maybe you don’t accept that your men were involved.”

  He was still smiling and expansive. “You are trying to be clever with your words, ‘you don’t accept.’ I do not accept because my men would never do such things. These are our people, all of them. Why don’t you ask Foranga or SPLIF? They are interlopers, not from this region.”

  Foranga, SPLIF—part of the myriad of militias operating in the nasty triangle of death between northern Uganda, South Sudan and eastern Congo: Hutu, Tutsi, FNP, PPT, WTF. They all had acronyms, their clubhouses, their uniforms, their a la carte vengeance, their vague mission statements invoking “people” and/or “freedom.”

  Now I ran my hand over my belly, almost provocative. “I wonder what it feels like for a man to do such a thing. Does it make him less of a man or more of one, that you are not afraid of committing the worst crime.” I looked at Christmas now: “It seems almost brave because it is such a terrible, terrible thing to do.”

  He held my gaze. He knew my trick. I watched his liquid dark pupils and thought about what they had recorded, how the neurons in his brains stored the images as memories. Whatever he had done he may deny or excuse, but he wouldn’t forget.

  “Anyway, Kay.” He liked to use my name. “I was speaking of your advanced state of pregnancy and you are here in this country where—thanks to Mr. Foranga and his greed—we have inadequate medical care. I am surprised your husband allows you to travel.”

  “Did you know at least one baby was full term, it—he—was born alive and your soldiers—”

  “Foranga’s soldiers, Kay.”

  “We disagree then.”

  He splayed his hands, a gesture of reason. “I am simply expressing concern. My own wife lost a child. If you should need my assistance, please do not hesitate. My resources are at your disposal.”

  “I will be returning to Juba tomorrow. Thank you for the offer, though.” I gave him an obligatory smile, then took up my notebook. “You wanted to speak with me. What do you want to say?”

  He lobbed back his own smile. We were smiling at each other. “I am very surprised, Kay. For years you have been trying to meet with me. I thought you had the questions.”

  So he wanted to be flattered; he had in his mind an interview not a monologue. He appreciated the difference between conversation and rhetoric. He wanted to appear reasonable. But why now—what was his motive?

  I could ask him about his civic vision for peacetime, or about his past—had he tortured kittens as a child, had his mother shamed him while toilet-training? I could ask him about his influences—Marx, Castro, Donald Trump? What music he listened to, books he read, movies he watched; did he prefer Coke or Pepsi? But I had only one question—there was only one. I’d been asking it for years, drilling down into the African soil. I leaned forward, aware that he could glimpse my cleavage. “How did it begin for you?”

  He frowned. “It?”

  It has so many names. The names all have their roots, their reasons—their pathologies, physiologies, psychologies. But in the end, there’s only the single, singular noun.

  “Evil,” I said.

  “Evil.” He mulled the word, rolled it around on his tongue like a boiled sweet. “Kay, we are fighting for freedom.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. But I’m not interested in that. I want to know when you first felt evil.”

  Leaning back, he began to drum his fingers on the arm rest. At last he gave me a grin. “You speak as if it is a feeling, like happiness or coldness. That you can define from one moment to the next.”

  “Is it?”

  “And you speak as if you have never felt it.”

  “I’ve never killed anybody, General.”

  “And that is the defining act of evil—the, what do you call it, hallmark?”

  “Is it?”

  “Killing.” He sighed: oh, the grating ennui of waging civil war. “Is easy, it is the easiest thing. We are designed to kill. Killing is our history, our design. It is our hands, our brains.”

  “So is art, so is medicine.”

  “Really? You think there is good and evil, salt and pepper?”

  “Not so simply delineated, of course not. But at a certain point relativism becomes an excuse for atrocity. I’m interested in that point.”

  “So you’re not here to write about me?”

  “I’ll write something, the usual thing.”

  “You are here to examine me, then, like an ape in a cage. The big black man all you whites fear.”

  “No. Not that.”

  “But it’s a story you like to tell yourselves.”

  “It’s passé.”

  “So you think there is a door that you open, you step through, and you are evil?” he pondered. “Or do you think it is a corridor, long or short, moving from light to dark?”

  “I want to know what it is for you.”

  “Why, Kay?”

  I shrugged. “I want to understand why terrible things happen.”

  “Understand? You sound like a dilettante. One of your white tribesman drinking martinis, shooting elephants. ‘Bring me more ice, boy.’”

  “Forget that I’m white and you’re black.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Then it’s beside the point. Race has nothing to do with evil.”

  “To answer your question, I have to admit that I’m evil.”

  “But you are.” I smiled.

  “You think there’s you and there’s me, there’s what you do and there’s what I do.”

  “You want me to say there isn’t? That given a set of circumstances I could round up a group of school children and burn them to death in a church. I don’t believe I could ever do that.”

  “I’m disappointed in your lack of imagination, Kay. You want to understand? Then imagine. You are in a different world to my world, Kay, a gated community, a real passport. You don’t know, you haven’t the faintest idea what you would do in my situation. Your innocence is just a failure of imagination.”

  “Others in your exact same circumstances don’t—”

  He cut me off, his hand coming off the armrest like a knife. “Where I am, who I am. Here, now, the accumulation of what I have done and what has been
done to me. I cannot be anyone else.”

  “You could meet with the opposition. You could sign a truce with Museveni. He’d give you amnesty.”

  “He’d give me amnesty with the crocodiles in Lake Victoria. You know that.”

  “You keep killing, then, to avoid dying yourself.”

  “Because we are in a war, Kay.”

  “That you perpetuate.”

  “That would perpetuate itself. As long as there are people, there will be war. This is basic.” He shook his head. He was getting bored.

  “What is it, then, that you want to tell me? Because you did bring me here. Not just to repay me for my efforts. Tell me, tell me.”

  We were back again to his expansive smile. “Okay. I admit. I heard you were pregnant. I wondered to myself, this white woman, how white people think they are special, will she come all this way to see a man who cuts babies out of the belly?”

  I held his gaze, impassive. “I am a trophy?”

  “Not yet.”

  *

  Back at the Hotel Gol, I poured myself a small beer and reviewed the HRW files, the many eye witnesses that corroborated accusations against Christmas and his elves. Foranga was just as bad: a five-year-old girl raped so violently and repeatedly that her pelvis had been broken and she now walked like a dog.

  I finished my beer and took a bath. I was almost too large for the tiny hotel tub, which anyway filled only halfway before the water ceased. I washed, I could barely reach my toes. I was much bigger with Tom than I’d been with Freya.

  Rising from the tub in the Hotel Gol, my vast, heavy belly like a masthead, I thought about hell. I am an atheist, but allow for the infinite universe—possibilities quite beyond our simple sketch of God or time: some massing or conglomerating or dispersing of matter, the pliability of dimensions. Why not?

  Explain evil. This is always the problem for theists. So they invent Satan, and Satan and God become puppet-masters. We humans, flippy, floppy, string-tied, we cannot help ourselves. General Christmas, therefore, cannot be blamed. But I don’t believe that. Cannot believe it. And yet if you bring in free will, then what’s the point of God—other than as an arbiter of culturally relative morality. He sends you to Heaven or Hell.