Thirty Girls (28 page)

Later when I was apart making my toilet I had a feeling which had not visited me in some time, of needing to weep with my whole heart. I was there weeping, but no sound came. Agnes was my best friend in the world.

Will anyone know the pain I am enduring? I thought. Then, Why would it matter that they did? What difference would it make?

Each of us will all die one day. Some of us before others. The first time you meet death, it is a surprise. Up to that moment you have not believed it possible. You know it is there, but do not know it close-up until it takes away forever someone you love.

For a while I moved about as a ghost.

The man was so drunk you could not tell if that was why he stumbled around or if it was because he had no arms. The rebels were laughing at him as if at a clown. He had foam around his mouth and kept moving as if he had to get somewhere, as if there were someplace he could possibly make it to.

My heart by then was hard. I had a cruel feeling and did not try to get rid of it. If you were stone, nothing would hurt you.

I say this now because I am ashamed for it. I felt shame then and I feel shame now. It winds deeper and deeper inside you so it will not come out.

Helen heard them at night by the fire say they were going to test the river with us. All night we listened to the water rushing from the recent rain. The lazy one with no front teeth, Olet, said, If they can make it across, then we will follow.

That morning we went to the water. A girl, Mary, was beside me. She was not one of the Aboke girls, but she was now also a wife to Greg Lotti. I found her one day in the dark corner of the hut where I stayed with him. Greg Lotti had ordered it. She was a tiny thing and looked at
me with popping-out eyes so I might explain what would happen. I could not explain. Rebels were nearby. I told her with my eyes, This is how it is here. She stayed near me, quiet as a cat for some days, and so I was her friend. She was eleven.

At the river Mary whispered she could not swim. Her village had no river, so how could she ever learn? The river was swollen with ropes of brown water rushing by. She was frightened to cross. I told her, You hold on to me. Mary was small, so I could help her.

We gathered at a place the animals had smoothed. Stones jutted into the water and made a still round pool apart from the moving hump of river. First we were made to pour water over our heads to protect us. Then we were put in a line and given a rope and told to hold that rope. Greg Lotti was standing back with the others. He had cut himself on his chin and there was blood on his face, perhaps from shaving. He looked for a second, then not again.

They said to Louise, You with the long legs, you go first. Then you, you go next.

The one with the missing teeth said to me, Go.

I did not believe it would be all right. The water was cold at first then warmer. It came to my knees and when we hit the moving part swirled up to my ribs. Mary held the rope with one hand, but at the fast water dropped the rope and held me with both hands. She was, however, very light. We did not speak. Her fingers were digging into me. I did not mind. The rope did not always stay stretched tight, and when loose it was not so easy to hold. I did not trust that rope. You must let the person in front of you stay ahead to keep it tight or there would be spaces and you did not stay close. Instead I trusted my feet. In fast water if you keep one foot on the ground before lifting the other the water will not push you over.

I took slow steps. Water pressed at my side, curled around me and continued past. Mary clung on the side downstream, protected. Her legs did not reach, so I had the weight like an animal hugging me, but water makes a person lighter. I thought perhaps it would be okay.

In this way, we crossed the river, or did not, for not everyone made it across.

A person ahead of us splashed over and pulled the rope so another behind her fell, pulling others. I too went over into the water and quickly
stood. But coming up, Mary was not with me. I reached my arms and did not find her.

The rebels were shouting from the shore as if we were meaning to make trouble. We saw a girl floating away. She grabbed a branch at the other side. It was Helen. This was before I saw her at Kony’s, before she saved herself to become one of his wives. Some girls who had reached the other side waded to that branch to get her. I looked farther down the river and saw a dark head being carried away. It was in the middle, not reaching the other side, not grabbing on to anything. The ball was in sight on the surface then it disappeared. The rebels noticed and shouted. Bring her back! they said. But no one was near. No one did. Maybe the river would push her to the side far enough away so she could escape. Maybe this would be lucky for Mary. I hoped this, but we did not see her again.

I am allowed one night to go home. I visit and think my mother will each minute come around the corner, but of course she does not. Neighbors come and everyone looks at me. My father sits in his chair, pats my head and drinks his beer. Aunt Karen makes the food my mother would make: chicken in sauce, rice, plantains. At the table my father passes me a bowl of rice, already looking to the salt. I don’t know if he is pained for my sake, or his, unable to see me as the same daughter as before. I am there, but I do not feel among them. A gray curtain comes down and I am apart with only myself.

Even now I do not lose the urge to escape. Even if I know I have returned I am still in the habit of thinking of escape.

In the bush you never forgot that one day you might have the chance. This life perhaps would not go on forever. Each day you wondered, Is this the day? And you would answer, Not yet, not today. You waited for the right day. You learned you had more patience than you thought. Somehow patience came. You might not feel patience in you, yet it was there. At least, you told yourself, I am alive.

Then at last the day arrived.

Before sleep Louise whispered, We are moving tomorrow. She heard them talking by the fire. I was sitting away, because a girl who is in her period must sit far from the fire. She also must not touch anything that a rebel will touch. For those days I could sleep near the girls. That night Greg Lotti was in another place and no other rebel was bothering me so I was rested. Whenever we moved, there was the chance, even a small chance, so each time before we moved we would ask, Is this the time of my chance?

I whispered to Louise, I think this is the time.

How do you know it?

We are near a place we know.

Tomorrow will you take the chance with me? Louise’s head lay on the pillow of her arm, not answering. In the dark I saw the darker holes of her eyes open. She shook her head.

I am not sure, she whispered.

Maybe in the morning you will think it.

We spoke no more. Would this really be the day? I was not sure myself, but I would be ready.

In the morning Louise showed she was still not sure. Louise was careful and we looked to her, but this day I thought, I must listen to Esther.

We left that place and walked and soon stopped at another place. Some girls went to make their toilet and I went with them. A guard was just there near us, and there was the shouting that we move. The girls left with the guard to join the others and I stayed sitting on my heels, still. If someone had looked back or called to me I would have stood up, but no one looked back. No one called. I saw them walking in pieces between the trees, I heard their voices grow soft. I heard someone saying, Tomorrow we will … Then it was silent.

I stayed crouching with my heart pounding in my knees. Soon it was long enough so that if I was discovered it would be known I was trying to escape. And so began the adventure of my life. I stood and walked quickly in the direction opposite from the rebels.

Soon I was running. I ran for a long time to be far away. I might stop for a moment and listen to hear anything then I would run again. One time I heard a voice. I looked in the direction across a field and saw an old woman walking with a child. I lowered myself in the grass. I was
breathing hard from running and the green blades of grass were touching my eyebrows. It seemed as if the grass was friendly to me, not outside of myself, but part of me. Each blade touched me, supporting me in my venture.

For the next three days I did not know if I would live or die.

I had little idea where I was going, but aimed to the south. I was hungry those days, but that did not worry me. I was used to hunger, I was not used to being free. Walking on my own, I could go wherever I chose. I had my freedom back, even if I would not survive it.

When the leaves darkened I looked for a place to sleep. This tree had thorns and another was not so far off the ground. The sky was now growing dark and I had to choose. I came near a trunk split into two thick branches which tilted beside each other with a triangle at their meeting where a person could sit. This would be my tree, the first place I would spend the night alone in a year and a half.

I climbed up. The two branches were near enough so I could rest across them and not fall out, but not so close that I could relax completely. It seemed that if I fell asleep I might fall through. So I leaned back and closed my eyes, not to sleep, only rest. I woke with a jerk, thinking myself falling. But I wasn’t falling. In the darkness the leaves were ticking in the silence. I could make out a dusty bush with a smaller bush beside it and a dead branch sticking out which looked like a spear. What if they find me? I wondered. Then I thought, No one in the world knows if I am alive or dead.

Then I must have fallen asleep, because my eyes opened to branches against a lightening sky. I had made it through my first free night. I slipped down to the ground.

I walked south, at least I thought south. The farther that way, the farther from encountering the rebels. I walked all morning and kept away from villages, worried they would not welcome me.

In the middle of the day I came to a place with fewer trees and open brush. I heard a baby crying. I followed the sound and saw down a slope at a low dry place a woman sitting, her head draped over with a kanga of purple and yellow. I approached, stepping on loud twigs so she would not be surprised. When I was near she turned and I saw it was not a woman, but a girl. She covered the baby’s face with the kanga to protect it.

Please, do not hurt us. I suppose I did not look so clean.

I will not hurt you.

You are a rebel, she said. I saw now she was very young.

No. I have escaped from the rebels.

She frowned. You look like a rebel.

Yes, I was with them, but I am escaping now. I am trying to go home. I felt a trembling inside as I said these words.

The baby was crying in a thin slow way, and the girl bounced it near her chest, hiding it from me. My baby is sick, she said. I am afraid for her.

Let me see.

Still frowning at me, she pulled the cloth away. The baby’s eyes were closed and there was a white crust around the mouth.

This baby needs water, I said. Can you feed her?

I am unable, she said, as if it were my fault. When the kanga slipped back from her forehead I saw her hair was thin and in tufts. She was not so well either.

Do you know this place? I said.

She looked at me, her eyes a little crossed, not answering.

Let us find water, I said. I started in the direction I had been taking.

I cannot go that way. Her eyes rolled off a little. I began to see she might be crazy. By now I had seen enough crazy people. I thought of Philip, how he did not look crazy right away. She stood and tucked the cloth behind her ears to keep the kanga on. It had green plums and a yellow vine. The baby was strapped close to her chest in a bundle, and it stopped crying when she stood.

I have not spoken to anyone since escaping, I said. Even if she was crazy I would say it aloud. She walked behind me, not interested. This made it easier to speak.

I have been gone a long time, I said. It made me dizzy to realize it.

Every now and then this girl dipped down, almost kneeling, and snatched at the tops of grass and threw the seeds over her shoulder. She concentrated on doing this, as if it was a dance.

I am Esther. What is your name?

Do you think my baby will die? she said.

Not if we get water, I said. But how was I to know?

Do you think water is this way? she said, bending her knee like she
was genuflecting in church. When she faced me I saw she had no upper teeth. I thought then it might be better to go in the opposite direction, away from this girl.

We got to a hilltop and saw trickles of smoke rising out of the floor of trees and a dark area where the trees made a hole. We headed for the dark area and arrived at a shallow pool of water with dirt polished around it. I drank from the cup of my hands and the girl drank water and poured it from her mouth into the baby’s mouth. Water spilled over their chins. The baby coughed.

I told her I was choosing now to go an opposite way. You go to the village there, I said, and pointed to where we had seen smoke. They will help you.

She looked up as I was leaving. I see the baby flying with you, she said. What? I looked into her crazy eyes.

There, she said, pointing above my shoulder. Is it a boy or a girl?

I felt pain in my stomach.

A girl, she decided.

Yes, I said. It was hard to speak.

She shrugged as if none of this was surprising. This one, she said, she will guide you home.

The pain in my stomach seemed to become something warm and for the first time I thought of my baby as a thing I might have loved. It made me feel lighter, even if it was sad. My baby was with me, a maleika in the air. I continued on.

That night I slept not in a tree but under one. I had not passed any animals. I thought, maybe this place looked familiar. I made a pile of leaves and lay on them and covered myself with more leaves and felt hungry. In the morning I woke. A rooster called far away. People were nearby.

Things might completely change from one minute to another. I learned this the night of October ninth when my life changed forever. I woke this morning alone in the world and soon after was united again with mankind.