Coincidence: A Novel (12 page)

At the airport, the pair were introduced by their VSO minder to a tall, aloof-looking English woman wearing an African cotton frock, smoking a mentholated cigarette and clutching the hand of a teenage girl. It was their first introduction to Rebecca and Azalea Folley. Rebecca threw their bags unceremoniously into the back of a battered twelve-seater minibus with a faded mission logo on the side, and their African adventure started as they wound their way out of the Kampala traffic for the four-hundred-mile, ten-hour journey to Moyo District.

It happens that Rebecca Folley
knew
that Ritchie Lewis and Lauren Marks would end up as a couple. She said this later to Luke. She knew it even as the minibus battled along the Lido Beach Drive past the steamy shallows of Lake Victoria, even before they left the built-up area around the airport, even as the two doctors were coming to terms with really being in
Africa
. Already, Rebecca could smell the sexual chemicals starting their ancient reactions, despite the fact that introductions at the airport had been hesitant and ridiculously polite: ‘Hello, I'm Ritchie'; ‘Delighted to meet you, I'm Lauren'. Even as the two would-be doctors sat deferentially on separate minibus seats, one gazing out of the left window and the other out of the right, and as they avoided looking directly at one another, even despite all this Rebecca could almost hear their raised heartbeats, could scent the pheromones, could practically count the days until they would be sharing a mosquito net.

They drove up the fertile Nile Valley through countless villages spread out among the hillsides, past the endless African array of farms and businesses – up past Masindi Port, where the Nile pours out of Lake Kyoga, where fishermen sold black piles of finger-sized fish along the roadside, where the soil was as red as Azalea's hair. They stopped for a warm Coca-Cola at a makeshift grass-roofed café, and Lauren treated Azalea for a bee-sting with a potion from her bag. Azalea looked at her with instant affection.

They drove north, skirting the Karuma game reserve. Now Ritchie and Lauren were on the same long seat with a perfect excuse, for the wildlife would be out in the park to their left. Azalea came to join them in the back of the bus while Rebecca sat stoically in the front with Stanton the driver.

That had been the introduction to Africa for Lauren Marks and Ritchie Lewis – that ten-hour drive. Lauren would eagerly write in her journal the names of all the animals she had spotted – distant giraffe hiding among the tall trees, baboons lingering along the roadside in search of discarded scraps, and huge bald marabou storks lurking like dirty old men in the ditches. She would record how she saw children gathering maize, women carrying firewood, men pedalling wobbly bicycles, boys herding cattle with horns longer than a human arm, children in bright pink uniforms coming home from school, toddlers selling mangoes and charcoal. Soon after Kampala, the tarmac roadway gave way to a dirt track and the minibus slowed to negotiate the potholes. Ritchie took photographs, cautiously conserving his film. They stopped by the bridge at Karuma where the broiling froth of the Victoria Nile hurtled beneath the road, and Ritchie photographed the whole group standing by the barrier – including Stanton the driver. Then Stanton took a photograph of Rebecca and Azalea and Ritchie and Lauren, and already they were so close they were touching.

The roadblocks started soon after Karuma, wire barricades strung across the track manned by soldiers in torn, unwashed uniforms. They were searching for LRA. Rebecca obdurately refused to bribe, so the delays were long. In the dark hours before they got to Langadi, Rebecca told Ritchie and Lauren what they needed to know about Uganda.

For all her dispassionate demeanour, Rebecca Folley had a good heart. She would never have endured nine years at a godforsaken mission in a civil war zone without one. She didn't deliver the voluble European invective so often heaped upon the poor of Africa. Rebecca, almost to her own surprise, had grown to love the country, could almost call it home. She told the young VSOs about the mission, and what she could about the medical needs of the hospital. ‘We are hopelessly understaffed,' she told them. ‘But we simply can't afford to pay more wages. We have sixteen inpatients because we have sixteen beds and sixteen mattresses – not because we have the staff or the medicines or the doctors or the money to treat sixteen patients – not because that is the right number to serve the population of a town like Langadi. So what do we do when a child comes in with malaria? We send someone else home. Someone else with malaria, or TB, or sleeping sickness or AIDS.'

It was almost dark when they got to the ferry at Laropi. A colonial-era barge, the last of the day, bore them heavily over the dark waters of the Nile. Now they were truly separated from the world they had left behind. The ferry slammed into the sandy bank and Rebecca said, ‘Welcome to West Nile. There's no way back now,' and she laughed. ‘Unless you fancy your chances in Sudan.'

They arrived a little before midnight. Azalea was asleep on Lauren's knee.

Rebecca knew that the
proximity
of the little bedrooms that they had cleared at the end of the mission hall for the two young doctors, with nothing but a brushwood wall between them, would only fuel the sexual tension. But what could she do? No better accommodation was available. She shrugged silently to herself. Lauren and Ritchie were adults, she figured. By the time she was their age, she had been through a dozen partners or more. They could work things out for themselves. They would only be in Langadi for sixteen weeks.

She was wrong. It would be only five days.

 

When the alarm bell sounded out over the thatched roof of the mission mess – the dingdingdingding urgent call – it was a rhythm unfamiliar to Lauren and Ritchie, who had yet to rehearse the ritual of the alarm. Each, still with their own mosquito net, was enclosed in their own small room behind the mission hall when the bell sounded. Lauren was cleaning her teeth with bottled water. Ritchie was shuffling items among his luggage.

Lauren, alerted by the noise, glanced through her window to see the disappearing heels of children fleeing into the bush. One child sped past her window, arms flailing, her face set in such a look of consternation that Lauren was immediately infected by a sense of apprehension. She slid from her room and knocked lightly on Ritchie's door.

‘I think something's wrong,' she said when he came to the door.

‘Wrong? How?'

Ritchie Lewis was a quiescent young man, and it would take a very significant crisis to ruffle his nonchalant demeanour. He was broad-shouldered, casual and blokeish, with a raffish smile and a quiff of hair that constantly threatened to obscure his vision unless it was affably flicked back into obedience. He wasn't about to let Lauren's anxiety upset his agreeable mood.

‘Wrong, like the bell is ringing like crazy and all the kids are running for the hills,' said Lauren.

‘Maybe it's sports day . . . or something?' said Ritchie.

Lauren looked at him slightly agog. ‘Ritchie,' she said, this time in an urgent whisper, ‘it isn't sports day. Something's going on.'

It would be an exaggeration to say that Lauren Marks was the ‘ying' to Ritchie Lewis's ‘yang'. They were not chalk and cheese, these two. Lauren too had a feisty reputation – a shrinking violet does
not,
after all, volunteer to spend sixteen weeks in a civil war zone. But on this occasion at least, Lauren demonstrated a more pragmatic, cautious attitude than her colleague.

Ritchie, unruffled Mr Practical, said, ‘OK. Let's go and have a look.'

Outside it was already uncomfortably hot. The bell had stopped and tranquillity appeared to reign.

‘There,' said Ritchie. ‘Nothing's up.'

‘But what about the bell?' protested Lauren.

‘Probably just the school bell.'

‘Ritchie, it's a quarter to eight. The school bell goes at nine.'

‘Does it? Well, then. Probably just one of the orphans playing a prank.' Ritchie made to go back indoors, but Lauren blocked his way.

‘Richard Lewis,' she said in a firm tone, ‘we're not going back in there until we find out what this is about.'

Ritchie drew himself up to his full height. Nothing so motivates a man of Ritchie's temperament as the urgent command of an attractive woman. But there was to be no skulking around. Ritchie would approach the situation head on. He marched out into the driveway to look for someone to ask. The wizened figure of Mzee Njonjo appeared behind the bulb of a makote tree. ‘Excuse me!' Ritchie called over to him, ‘What was the bell for?'

Mzee Njonjo's response was an unexpected one. He crouched down suddenly and gestured to Ritchie, with quick patting motions of his hand, to do the same. Lauren, who had seen the old man's reaction, gave a short gasp and grabbed Ritchie's arm.

‘It's the LRA,' she said. They had learned about the LRA on the journey from Entebbe.

Ritchie's bravado, however, was not to be so lightly punctured. ‘Hang on,' he said, ‘there's someone coming. We'll ask them.'

Down the drive in a billow of red dust, far too fast for the ruts and potholes, came a truck. Ritchie, smiling widely, set off to greet it. The truck braked hard and the dust began to subside.

‘It's just a load of kids,' said Ritchie.

But Lauren, still clutching his arm, had not relaxed. Down from the back of the truck leaped half a dozen boys – teenagers – most in faded T-shirts and patched-up cotton shorts. One of them wore a beret and was shouting out commands.

Ritchie raised his arm to issue a convivial wave, but the gesture was not reciprocated. There was a sinister metallic click, and Lauren Marks and Ritchie Lewis found themselves looking up the oiled and shiny barrels of two locally made G3 assault rifles, and into the vacant and incurious eyes of the child soldiers of the Lord's Resistance Army.

14

June 1992

I
n the mess hall at the St Paul's Mission, the tension was now palpable. Rebecca tapped out a second cigarette, this time avoiding any offer to Kony or his henchman.

It was important, Rebecca knew, to keep these men talking. She imagined the children fanning out across the fields, heading for their safe houses. They needed time to get away. The farm lads, too, and the nurses; they would need to be well away from the compound by the time the LRA men started looking around – which they surely would. She wondered where Azalea would be. Azalea had nowhere to fly to. Azalea's alarm plan was to run for the mission minibus and to conceal herself inside until one of the staff could find the keys and drive them all to safety. Rebecca's heart fluttered at the thought. Anyeko, too – Azalea's best friend – she would certainly be with her; those girls were inseparable.

How strange it was, Rebecca Folley had often thought, that no sooner had her own childlessness led them to adopt Azalea than fate conspired to deliver to her a family of fifteen needy children and plenty of needy adults besides. There was not a child in the orphan hall that she, Rebecca, had not sat with and cradled, had not sung to, had not read to. In the early evenings when the children were ready for bed, the boys from the boys' dormitory would gather on the beds of the girls' dormitory and Rebecca would read aloud to them. A soft silence would settle over the room. Azalea would be there, too, cosied up alongside Anyeko. Outside the crickets would call, and inside mosquitoes would hum. Maria the matron would appear with her spray of pyrethrum insecticide and around the beds she would go, pumping out the mist above every bed as Rebecca began to read.

Whatever the age of the children, there was a spell cast upon them when Rebecca was reading. Some of the little ones spoke no English. Some of the older ones would struggle to relate to the stories. It mattered not. At bedtime, Rebecca, who was so formal in class, who demanded such discipline among her pupils, could unravel her temperament to become mother to a dozen or more children, from a world so far away, who had no mothers of their own.

And the books and stories that she would read! The favourites among the younger orphans were the stories of Dr Seuss. ‘The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house, all that cold, cold, wet day,' read Rebecca, to children for whom the sun would never
not
shine, who would never know a cold, cold, wet day. She would hold up the pictures for all to see, and boys and girls who had never known what it was to sit bored in a house waiting for a mother to come home would share the excitement and the anxiety generated by
The Cat in the Hat
.

Then sometimes she would read stories for older children. Anyeko, at thirteen, would still suck her thumb while the stories were read. August and Okot and Abola – the older boys – would squat close to Rebecca and peer around to look at the pictures on the pages. Lanyomi and Ruth and Little Rebecca, the youngest of the girls, would all be together in a single bed with only their eyes peeping over the top of the covers. Rebecca would read them the stories of Peter Pan and Wendy and the menacing crocodile, and she would read them the stories that she, Rebecca, had loved as a child. She read
Black Beauty
to children for whom horses were a rare sight, and if ever seen were always whipped hard, and thin. She discovered that orphans were common enough in children's literature;
Pollyanna
, the story of an orphan girl with an unquenchable tendency for optimism;
Oliver Twist
, an orphan boy who finds his place in society; and
Heidi
, raised by her grandfather, who overcomes her disabilities through strength of character and determination. It seemed to matter not a jot that none of the children at Langadi had ever been to Vermont or London or the Swiss Alps – the stories delivered their own powerful message. Whenever Rebecca would finish a chapter, she would firmly shut the book and the children would chant, ‘More, Mrs Rebecca, more, more.' And sometimes, with a twinkle in her eye, she would open up the book again. ‘Just one more chapter,' she would declare.

Now, in the mess hall, with the AK47 rifle resting like an alien corpse on the breakfast table, Rebecca wondered if she would ever read to the children again. Would this be the day it all ended for the Holy Tabernacle mission of St Paul? She thought about each of the children. Abola with his passion for football, able to sprint barefoot across the stony playground, able to send a ball high into the flame trees with a flick of his long toes; Lubangakene with her predilection for wearing trinkets in her hair – beads and posies wound in with rubber bands; August, who came to St Paul's as a youngster (maybe six or seven years old) and was so traumatised by something in his past that he barely spoke for a year, but who now helped Odokonyero in the kitchen carrying sacks of pulses on his shoulder like a man; Little Rebecca with eyes like mysteries, who would dissolve away into the darkest shadows, who would steal the heart of every visitor to the mission. All of these, and so many more. Rebecca found herself shaking deep within her being. She imagined Little Rebecca with her lips and nose cut off; Lanyomi and Ruth and Cota and James with no hands. It was too horrible. Too, too horrible.

Joseph Kony was saying something to Luke. Something about God's plan for the world. He was quoting the Ten Commandments. Rebecca found herself rising to her feet, struggling to control the deep emotion that was choking her. She felt a hand upon her arm: Odokonyero. It was a touch – just a subtle touch – a feather-light, fingertip touch of his large hands. She flicked her eyes towards the big cook, but he was focused on Kony. His touch upon her arm was telling her, ‘Wait, wait, wait. Wait while this man wastes his time with us. Wait while he fills the air with his miserable polemics.'

But Rebecca could no longer wait. She shook off Odokonyero's hand and stubbed her cigarette firmly out on the wooden table.

‘Why don't you just tell us what you want with us, Mr Kony?' she said sharply.

Outside there were noises. A truck was barrelling down the drive in a universe of dust.

‘I am a man of peace,' said Kony, although his eyes said otherwise. ‘I am here to help you. I am here to help your mission.'

‘And how do you intend to help our mission?' demanded Rebecca.

Kony's hand crept back towards his gun. The tone of the meeting had changed. ‘I can offer employment to your children,' he said in Acholi, ‘to your orphan children.'

‘What is he saying?' said Rebecca.

Luke stretched out his hand to calm her. ‘He is telling us he can find jobs for the children.'

‘Well, tell him that our orphans don't need jobs,' Rebecca snapped. She started to fumble with her packet in search of another cigarette.

‘Mrs Luke,' said Kony in English, ‘these children are not
muna muna.
They are not white men. They are Acholi. The Acholi people are at war with the murderers and child-killers of the Museveni regime. Every Acholi man, woman and child is bound by blood to rise up and support the struggle. Every one.' He swept his gun back off the table and slung it on his shoulder, rising from the table as he did so. There were shouts emerging from the truck that had swung into the compound. ‘You will not stop us, Mrs Luke,' said Kony, ‘because we have God and Jesus on our side; because we are the Acholi. If you try to resist, then we will say you are a part of the Museveni regime.' He swung his gun around so that the barrel was an inch from Rebecca's face.

‘Now look here,' said Luke, ‘We're not looking for trouble.'

‘
Are
you a part of the Museveni regime?' asked Kony of Rebecca. There was a heartbeat of silence. Two boy soldiers came bounding into the mess hall with G3 rifles and also levelled the guns onto the Folleys.

‘Well, are you?' asked Kony.

‘Of course I'm bloody not,' said Rebecca.

Kony lowered his gun and the boy soldiers did the same.

‘Good answer,' said Kony.

‘This mission has looked after Acholi children for ninety years,' said Luke. ‘We only care about the welfare and health of the children.'

‘Very good,' said Kony. ‘Then we are on the same side.' He barked something to the child soldiers in Acholi. Rebecca couldn't understand, but Luke knew exactly what he was saying. What he said was, ‘Find all the children you can and put them in the truck.'

A second truck now rolled up the driveway and more young soldiers spilled off the back. Kony barked some orders, then he turned to Luke.

‘Do you have any vehicles?'

Luke shook his head.

‘Don't lie to me, Mr Luke!'

There were two vehicles in the compound. One was the Folleys' Land Rover, the other was the mission minibus. Luke reached into a pocket. ‘You may borrow the Land Rover,' he said, and he tossed the keys onto the table. ‘The bus isn't working. The engine is broken. It needs parts from Europe.'

‘Is that so?' said Kony. He turned to one of the older boy soldiers and gestured with his gun. There was a series of shouts outside, and a militiaman in uniform emerged from one of the trucks leading a man by his collar. The man was Stanton – the minibus driver.

‘Is this bus working?' demanded Kony.

Stanton looked down at his feet. ‘It is not working well,' he said, in Acholi.

‘Do you have the keys?'

‘I . . . have lost the keys,' said Stanton. But he paused too long before he spoke and one of the boy soldiers was onto him, striking him across the face with the barrel of his rifle. Stanton fell to the ground weeping loudly. The boy with the rifle flicked his hands like a professional pickpocket into the driver's jacket and extracted the keys.

‘That man is not a true Acholi,' said Kony in mock sorrow. ‘Please send him for some education in how to defend his own people.'

The soldiers hauled Stanton out of the mess hall.

‘You are not to touch a hair of his head!' shouted Luke.

Kony tut-tutted. ‘He is no longer your concern, Mr Luke.' He tossed the Land Rover keys back at Luke. ‘You may keep your Land Rover. We will take your bus.'

Rebecca said, ‘I have one or two personal items in the minibus that I would like to remove.' She shot an imperious look at Kony and started off towards the compound. No one tried to stop her.

Some boys came running up. They had Tebere and Kila and Lubangakene and James; four of the orphans who had not run fast enough. There were no other children in the orphanage, the boy soldiers told Kony; only a matron and a baby. Kony shouted at them to search the rest of the mission buildings. He was joined now by a couple of his more senior-looking commanders.

As they emerged from the mess hall, Luke and Rebecca spotted Lauren Marks and Ritchie Lewis standing against a truck while a child of little more than ten waved a machine gun at them.

‘Would you please tell your men not to wave guns at my guests,' Luke said to Joseph Kony.

Kony issued the command and the child with the gun withdrew.

‘You two are to do exactly what I say,' Luke said to Ritchie and Lauren in a brief moment when Kony and his men were out of earshot. ‘Don't waste any time. Don't attempt any heroics. These men are LRA. They are very, very dangerous. In one minute I shall create a diversion. When I do, just turn and walk out of this compound and never come back. Don't stop for your personal belongings or your passports. Just turn and walk calmly out into the town. Get a lift back to Gulu and go to the British High Commissioner in Kampala. They'll get you back on a plane. Now nod if you understand what I just told you.'

What could Lauren and Ritchie do? They nodded.

As Luke was instructing the VSOs, Rebecca was making her way over to the minibus. This was a routine, it appeared, that they had practised.

Eyes followed Rebecca to the bus. She slid open the door. ‘Don't make a sound,' she whispered.

Cowering in the back were Azalea and Anyeko.

‘As soon as I say so,' said Rebecca, ‘open the back door and run to Pastor David's house. Run as fast as your legs will carry you and don't look back.'

She made as if she was collecting some items from the seat, then stepped out of the bus with the faintest of nods to Luke.

‘Aaaaah!' Luke cried suddenly, falling to his knees. ‘A devil! A devil!' He was looking up at the makote tree, his eyes wide. ‘A devil!'

All eyes swung back his way.

‘Now!' commanded Rebecca. Across the compound Luke let loose the wail of a banshee. He threw himself on the grass and began to thrash about like a fish plucked from a stream. The unlikely performance had the desired effect. Men with guns came running from every direction to investigate the commotion, and as they did, the two teenage girls slid unseen from the belly of the minibus and fled behind the mission house.

Rebecca, too, ran over to Luke. ‘Please, please,' she cried, ‘let me through.' She knelt beside him. ‘He gets like this when there are devils around. Please – no one must move until the devil has departed.' Rebecca froze. One by one the child soldiers also obliged. ‘Has the devil gone yet?' Rebecca asked Luke.

‘Not yet.'

Kony and his commanders appeared. ‘What is going on?'

One of the boy soldiers replied, ‘This man has seen a devil.'

Kony looked worried. He stalked up to the place where Luke was lying. ‘Tie him up,' he ordered. He waved his gun to call all his men and boys back. ‘We will return for more children,' he told Rebecca. ‘They are needed for God's work.'

Luke caught Rebecca's eye.

‘They're okay,' she mouthed at him. ‘They got away.'

‘Thank God.' Luke held his arms out in cooperation. The longer he could keep this going, the more time Azalea and Anyeko would have to flee. As Luke was being restrained, he managed a glance back over his shoulder towards the road. Lauren and Ritchie had made good their escape. His last sight of the couple was the flash of Ritchie's blond hair over the top of the compound hedge, and then they vanished into the network of little paths than led towards the village.