Thirty Girls

She felt a great lifting in her heart. Bosco hung back under the guard of a boy who looked no older than twelve. He wore a necklace of bullets and had hard eyes. She followed Lagira and passed close to some girls and began to greet them, but they remained looking down. She noticed that one rebel dressed in camouflage had a woman’s full bosom.

Captain Lagira pointed to a log with a plastic bag on it. Sit here.

She sat.

What have you there?

My rosary, she said. I am praying.

Lagira fished into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a string of brown beads. Look, he said. I pray too. They both knelt down and the rebels around them watched as the nun and the captain prayed together.

It was long past noon now and the air was still. When they finished praying, Sister Giulia dared to ask him, Will you give me my girls?

Captain Lagira looked at her. Perhaps he was thinking.

Please, she said. Let them go.

This is a decision for Kony, he said.

Kony was their leader. They called themselves the Lord’s Resistance Army, though it was never clear to her exactly what they were resisting. Museveni’s government, she supposed, though that was based in the south, and rebel activities remained limited to looting villages and kidnapping children in the north.

The captain stood. I must send a message then, he said. He had the rebels spread out batteries in the sun to be charged and they waited. She managed for a second here and there to sneak glances at the girls and saw most of their faces tipped down but a few watching her. Would you like some tea? the captain said. She could hardly answer and at that moment they heard the sound of helicopters far off.

Suddenly everyone was moving and shouting. Hide! Cover yourselves, they yelled. Sister Giulia saw people grabbing branches and the girls looked as if they were being thrashed as they were covered. She was pulled over to duck under bushes. Some of the girls had moved closer to her now. Leaves pressed on her. Then the loud helicopters were overhead, blowing dust off the ground and whipping the small leaves and loose dirt. Gunshots came firing down. One of the girls threw herself on Sister Giulia to protect her. It was Judith, the head girl.

The Ugandan army patrolled the area. Sister Giulia thought, They’re coming for the girls! But nearly immediately the helicopter swooped off and its blades hummed into the distance. They could not have known, it was just a routine strike. No one moved right away, waiting to be sure they were gone. After a pause heads lifted from the ground, their cheeks lightened by the dust. Sister Giulia saw Esther Akello with her arms over her friend Agnes Ochiti. The girl who had covered her, Judith, was wiping blood from her neck. A rebel handed Judith a bandage. She hesitated taking it. They were hitting them and then they were giving them bandages. There was no sense anywhere.

Orders were given now to move, quickly. The girls were tied to one another with a rope and walked in single file behind Sister Giulia. At least I am with my girls, she thought. She wondered if they would kill her. She wondered it distantly, not really believing it, but thinking it would happen whether she believed it or not. And if so, it was God’s will. They walked for a couple of hours. She worried that the girls were hungry and exhausted. She saw no sign they’d been given food.

At one point she was positioned to walk along beside Mariano. She had not dared ask him many of the questions she had. But since they had prayed together she felt she could ask him one. She said, Mariano Lagira, why do you take the children?

He looked down at her, with a bland face which said this was an irritating but acceptable question. To increase our family, he said, as if this were obvious. Kony wants a big family. Then he walked ahead, away from her.

After several hours they came to a wooded place with huts and round burnt areas with pots hanging from rods. It looked as if farther along there were other children, and other rebels. She saw where the girls were led and allowed to sit down.

Captain Lagira brought Sister Giulia to a hut and sat there on a stool. There was one guard with a gun who kept himself a few feet away from Lagira. This rebel wore a shirt with the sleeves cut off and a gold chain and never looked straight at Lagira, but always faced his direction. He stood behind now. During the walk they had talked about prayer and about God and she learned that Lagira’s God has some things not in common with her God, but Sister Giulia did not point this out. She thought it best to try to continue this strange friendship. Would Sister Giulia join him for tea and biscuits? Captain Lagira wanted to know.

She would not refuse. A young woman in a wrapped skirt came out from the hut, carrying a small stump for Sister Giulia to sit on. It was possible this was one of his wives, though he did not greet her. At the edge of the doorway she saw a hand and half of a face looking out. Tea, he said.

The woman went back into the hut and after some time returned with a tray and mugs and a box of English biscuits. They drank their tea. Sister Giulia was hungry but she did not eat a biscuit.

I ask you again, she said. Will you give me my girls. She didn’t phrase it as a question.

He smiled. Do not worry, I am Mariano Lagira. He put down his mug. Now you go wash. Another girl appeared, this one a little younger, about twenty, with bare feet and small pearl earrings. She silently led Sister Giulia behind the hut to a basin of water and a plastic shower bag hanging from a tree. She must have been another wife. Sister Giulia washed her hands and face. She washed her feet and cleaned the blisters she’d gotten from her wet sneakers.

She returned to Mariano. This rebel commander was now Mariano to her, as if a friend. He still sat on his stool, holding a stick and scratching in the dirt by his feet. She glanced toward the girls and saw that some of them had moved to a separate place to the side.

Mariano didn’t look up when he spoke.

There are one hundred and thirty-nine girls, he said and traced the number in the dirt.

That many, she thought, saying nothing. More than half the school.

I give you—he wrote the number by his boot as he said, one oh nine. And I—he scratched another number—keep thirty.

Sister Giulia looked toward the girls with alarm. There was a large group on the left and a smaller group on the right. While she was washing they had been divided. She knelt down in front of Mariano.

No, she said. They are my girls. Let them go and keep me instead.

Only Kony decides these things.

Then let me speak with Kony.

No one ever saw Kony. He was hidden over the border in Sudan. Maybe the government troops couldn’t reach him there. Maybe, as some thought, President Museveni did not try so hard to find him. The north was not such a priority for Museveni, and neither was the LRA. There were government troops, yes, but the LRA was not so important.

Let the girls go and take me to Kony.

You can ask him, he said and shrugged.

Did he mean it?

You can write him a note. Captain Lagira called, and a woman with a white shirt and ragged pink belt was sent to another hut, to return eventually with a pencil and piece of paper. Sister Giulia leaned the paper on her knee and wrote:

Dear Mr. Kony,

Please be so kind as to allow Captain Mariano Lagira to release the girls of Aboke.

Yours in God,

Sister Giulia de Angelis

As she wrote each letter she felt her heart sink down. Kony would never see this note.

You go write the names of the girls there, he said.

She looked at the smaller group of girls sitting in feathery shadows.

Please, Mariano, she said softly.

You do like this or you will have none of the girls, said Captain Mariano Lagira.

She left the captain and went over to the girls sitting on the hard ground in feathery shadows. She held the pencil and paper limply in her hand. The girls looked at her, each with meaning in her eyes.

She bent down to speak, Girls, be good … but she couldn’t finish her sentence.

The girls started to cry. They understood everything. An order was shouted and suddenly some rebels standing nearby were grabbing branches and hitting at the girls. One jumped on the back of Louise. She saw them slap Janet. Then the girls became quiet.

Sister Giulia didn’t know what to do. Then it seemed as if they were all talking to her at once, in low voices, whispering. No, not all. Some were just looking at her.

Please, they were saying, Sister. Take me. Jessica said, I have been hurt. Another: My two sisters died in a car accident and my mother is sick. Charlotte said, Sister, I have asthma.

Sister, I am in my period.

Sister Giulia looked back at the captain standing with his arms crossed. He was shaking his head. She said she was supposed to write their names but she was unable. Louise, the captain of the football team, took the pencil from her, and the paper, and started to write.

Akello Esther

Ochiti Agnes …

Judith … Helen … Janet, Lily, Jessica, Charlotte … Louise … Jackline …

Did I mistreat you, Sister?

No, sir.

Did I mistreat the girls?

No, sir.

So, next time I come to the school, do not run away. The captain laughed. Would the sister like more tea and biscuits? No, thank you. They bade each other goodbye. It was as if they might have been old friends.

You may go greet them before you leave, Mariano Lagira said.

Sister Giulia once again went over to the thirty girls, her thirty girls who would not be coming with her. She gave her rosary to Judith and said, Look after them. She handed Jessica her own sweater out of the backpack.

When we go you must not look at us, she said.

No, Sister, we won’t.

Then a terrible thing happened.

Catherine whispered, Sister. It’s Agnes. She has gone, just over there.

Sister Giulia saw Agnes standing back with the larger group of girls gathered to leave.

You must get her, Sister Giulia said. She couldn’t believe she was having to do this. If they see one is missing …

So Agnes was brought back. She was holding a pair of sneakers. She was told she might be endangering the others.

Okay, Agnes said. I will not try to run away again.

Sister Giulia had to make herself turn to leave.

Helen called after, Sister, you are coming back for us?

Sister Giulia left with the large group of girls. They walked away into the new freedom of the same low trees and scruffy grasses, which now had a new appearance, and left the thirty others behind. Bosco led the way and Sister Giulia walked in the middle. Some girls walked beside her and held her hand for a while. They bowed their heads when she passed near them. Arriving at a road they turned onto it. The rebels stayed off the roads. It grew dark and they kept walking. They came to a village that was familiar to some of them and stopped at two houses to spend the night. There were more than fifty girls to each house, so many lay outside, sleeping close in one another’s arms. Sister Giulia felt she was awake all night, but then somehow her eyes were opening and it was dawn.

At 5 a.m. they fetched water and continued footing it home. As the birds started up they saw they were closer to the school and found that word had been sent ahead and in little areas passed people who clapped as they went by. Sister Giulia felt some happiness in the welcome, but inside there was distress. They came finally to their own road and at last to the school drive.

Across the field Sister Giulia caught sight of the crowd of people near the gate. The parents were all there waiting. She saw the chapel blackened behind the purple bougainvillea, but the tower above still standing.

Many girls ran out to embrace their mothers who were hurrying to them. As she got close, Sister Giulia saw the parents’ faces watching, the parents still looking for their daughters. They searched the crowd. There was Jessica’s mother with her hand holding her throat. She saw Louise’s mother, Grace, ducking side to side, studying the faces of the girls. The closer they got to the gate, the more the girls were engulfed by their families and the more separated became the adults whose children were not there. These families held each other and kept their attention away from the parents whose girls had been left behind. They would not meet their gaze. In this way those parents learned their children had not made it back. When they came near Sister Giulia in all the commotion, she turned away from them. She was answering other questions. Some mothers were kneeling in front of her, some kissed her hand. She was thinking though only of the other parents and she would talk to them eventually but just now it seemed impossible to face them. Then she wondered if she’d be able to face anyone again, ever.

II

Launch

You have no idea where you are.

You sit among the girls. They’re in the shade, talking. It might be birdsong for all you understand or care. You think, I will never be close to anyone again.

2 / Landing

SHE STEPPED OUT of the plane and over the accordion hinge of the walkway to continue up the tunneled ramp. One always felt altered after a flight. There was the pleasant fatigue of no sleep and one’s nerves closer to the surface as if a layer of self had peeled off and gotten lost in transit. The change was only on the surface, but the surface was where one encountered the world. Her surface was ready for the new things that would happen in this new place, ready for anything different from what she’d known.

There was a soggy tobacco smell at the gate and loose rugs with long rolls no one had bothered to smooth out. She stood in a line of crumpled people holding their carry-ons and inching forward to wooden tables where clerks slowly stamped passports after a sliding look from the picture to the face.

She was finally away. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt the expansion, the air humid, the door opening, dawn light reflected off a hammered linoleum floor as she descended an old-fashioned staircase to the black carousel empty of baggage. There was a long row of bureaux de change with one short counter after another empty and behind them a large plate-glass window with palm trees being eaten by a white sky. Lackadaisical drivers were leaning on the hoods of their cars, half glancing around for a fare. Dark-haired men strolled in short sleeve shirts, women in thin dresses moved slowly. Everything mercifully said, This is not home.

The first time she saw him he flew.

They were in Lana’s driveway, unloading alabaster lamps she’d had copied on Biashara Street when a white Toyota truck pulled up and a young man with shoulder length hair opened the door. He leapt over the roof of the truck and landed in a bowl of dust.

Lana gave him a big greeting, embracing him as an old friend, as she embraced everyone. She stepped back to study him, hands on his shoulders. He had on a dirty white hat with a zebra band around the crown. Nice, she said, flicking the brim. Jane, come meet Harry.

Jane set down her crate. Harry, Jane, said Lana. Jane, Harry.

Cheers, Harry said in a flat tone. His chin drew in and he regarded Jane with a strange stoniness, as if she were an intruder who ought to explain herself. The impulse to explain herself was an urge Jane Wood struggled to ignore, so getting a look like that unnerved her. At least that was how she explained the unnerved feeling.

My friend from America, Lana said. She looked back and forth between them. Her bright gaze took in things quickly and let them go, just as fast.

Harry leaned forward and kissed Jane’s cheek, surprising her. Karibu, he said.

The phone rang inside the cottage and Lana dove to get it, swerving past the crates crowding the foyer.

We’re going for sundowners, she called over her shoulder. You must come.

With Lana, there was always a must.

A short time later Jane found herself crammed in the back seat of a dented station wagon driven by a paint-spattered neighbor of Lana’s named Yuri. They were headed to the top of the Ngong Hills.

The suburb of Karen flickered by. Its dirt driveways and high concrete walls topped with curling barbed wire hid the airy houses Jane had seen with their long shaded verandas and scratchy lawns. Abruptly the station wagon came to a sort of empty highway, drove on it for a while, then tilted off up a steep rutted road, laboring at a tipped angle. At the top they righted themselves over a lip and arrived at a wide sloping field of tall grass which dropped sharply to a vast smoky savannah banked in the distance with low gray hills.

Striped cloths were spread on the ground and Jane noticed the sunset behind too was striped with grimy clouds. Lana unpacked a hamper and poured vodka and orange juice from a thermos and they drank from dented silver flutes while watching the sky and leaning on each other. A warm wind blew up from the valley.

Jane knew none of them save Lana and even she was a recent acquaintance, met a year before in London on a film set Lana was decorating. If Jane was ever in Kenya, she must come visit. When the possibility actually arose, Jane found Lana and discovered how many guests and strangers took Lana up on her invitation. She was a tall striking girl with a cushioned mouth and flashing eyes. She was also a splendid recliner, as she was demonstrating now, surveying the scene before her like an Oriental odalisque, radiating enjoyment. Her pillow at the moment was a large American man named Don who appeared to be relishing his position of support despite an awkward pose requiring that he brace an arm against a nearby rock. His unwrinkled khaki pants and new white running shoes extended off the blanket into the dry grass. Lana was telling him about a project she had set up where students looked after orphaned wild animals. She must take him there tomorrow, she said, patting his red and white striped shirt, as if knowing money were packed in his chest. Yuri had brought along a dimpled girl in army boots. Jane thought she heard her say she was pre-med, which was surprising. Yuri and Harry were talking about flying. They paraglided here, at a spot farther down the escarpment where the updraft was better. The French fellow wearing a bandana was a photographer named Pierre. Pierre was also staying at Lana’s, on the couch in the living room. His low-lidded eyes regarded everything with amusement. He was snapping pictures of the army-boot girl who seemed not self-conscious in the least.

The sky dimmed and the air chilled and they packed up. They took the bumpy road back to Nairobi as it darkened. Harry sat slumped in the back seat beside Jane. She learned his last name was O’Day. He asked her what she was doing here.

What indeed, she thought. Writing a story. Getting away. She could say all that.

Seeing the world, she said.

She’s taking us to Uganda, Lana shouted back over Édith Piaf’s voice warbling out of the dashboard. Her long bare legs were draped over Don’s lap and extended out the window. After drinks everyone was feeling jolly.

Jane told Harry she was there to write a story on the children kidnapped by the LRA in northern Uganda. Lana had matter-of-factly said she’d go with her and that morning Pierre asked if he might come, too. He was in between assignments—there was no famine or war to cover at the moment—and he wanted to try shooting some video, not what he usually did. He mostly shot stills.

It’s not really my subject, she said. At all.

What’s your subject?

Desire.

It sounded totally pretentious, but what the hell.

And death.

Death should fit, he said mildly.

Death always fits. She smiled.

They both faced forward. In the front seat Lana was whispering in Don’s ear. Jane saw her tongue come out and lick it.

Things are hectic in Uganda, Harry said.

Have you been?

Not yet.

We haven’t exactly figured out how we’re getting there.

I am working on it, Lana said. I might have a possible driver.

Good, Jane said and a for a moment felt a pang of homesickness, which was odd since she did not want to be home in the least. She wanted to be as far away from back there as possible. Clutching at straws, she said.

You’ll figure it out, Harry said. You look like the kind of person who does.

She turned her squished neck to him to see if he meant it. Jane was sufficiently bewildered by what kind of person she was, so it was always arresting when someone, particularly a stranger, summed her up. His face, very close, had a sort of Aztec look to it, with flat cheeks and straight forehead and pointed chin. Jane couldn’t tell how old he was. There was no worry on his face. He was young. His expression was, if not earnest, still not cynical.

What do you do with yourself? she said.

Little of this, little of that.

She laughed. What at the moment?

I’m thinking about going to Sudan to look after some cows.

Really?

He shrugged. Maybe. Did anyone ever tell you you have a very old voice?

Voice?

The sound of it, he said. It’s nice.

Watch out! Lana screamed. The car jerked and swerved. Gasps of alarm rose from the passengers.

Not to worry, Yuri said in a calm voice, straightening the wheel which he steered with one hand. I saw the little bugger. He was trying to get hit.

Lana Eberhardt rented a cottage off the Langata Road. It was green with a rumpled roof where furry hyraxes nested and screeched through the night. In the three days that Jane had been in Nairobi, she had learned the cottage served as a crucial landing place in the constellation of the drifting populace.

Plans were made for dinner. Pierre got into a Jeep for the liquor run. He was tall and slow-moving, as if his attractiveness to women did not require he ever rush. This manner, combined with a French accent, made everything he said sound both frivolous and direct. Don drove off taking Lana in a shiny white rental car to some people called the Aspreys to see if they’d caught fish over the weekend. Their phone was out. Some time later they returned with a large cooler stocked with fish. The Aspreys themselves followed eventually, a short swarthy man and a woman in a shiny green wrapped affair with a plain face who carried herself with such flair and confidence she looked positively radiant. They had with them a beautiful freckled woman named Babette who someone said worked in an orphanage in the Kibera slum. She was dressed blandly in shorts and T-shirt and was all the more beautiful because of it. Other guests trickled in: a man named Joss Hall biting on a cigar and his wife Marina in a long Mexican skirt. There was a silent unshaven journalist whose name Jane didn’t catch. Harry O’Day had gone and not returned. Someone said he was sorting out job prospects. Pierre arrived with the liquor and a curly-headed blond woman with a fur vest and bare arms. He spent the evening leaning close to her with merry eyes. At eleven everyone finally sat down to dinner and more people appeared and wedged chairs in. A couple could be heard out in the garden shouting at each other, and Joss Hall came striding out of the shadows, with his head low, as if avoiding blows. Jane found herself glancing toward the doorway to see if that person Harry might reappear, but he did not walk in.

First they were leaving Tuesday, then Wednesday was better, then Friday. Pierre was waiting for some film that hadn’t arrived at the dukka in Karen on Friday. Lana had found them a driver, a German named Raymond, but he couldn’t leave till Sunday. No one was in a hurry; everyone had a loose time frame. They could wait.

Jane was napping on the Balinese bed in the back garden and woke to Harry’s face. He was wearing the white hat with the zebra band around it.