Thirty Girls (32 page)

T
HE JOURNALISTS COME
as we were told. Journalists have been here before, but not for myself. I see them while we are cleaning our dishes at the spout.

They get out of a white truck which has a cover over the back. There are three men and two women. One man is underneath the truck with his feet sticking out. Then they walk over like people you see in magazines with sunglasses and bags over their shoulders, some wearing hats, some carrying cameras. One woman is small. The taller one we learn, she is from Kenya. She has on long necklaces and a leather cap with silver charms pinned to it and a fringed skirt. She is crouching down to one boy, Adam, talking with him in Swahili. He does not talk back, but she
keeps smiling. They are looking at his palms. The smaller woman has a gray army hat on and a light-colored ponytail and a blue dress above her ankles. She carries a straw basket with a finger loop like those we get at the market. One man has dark hair covered by a kerchief and holds a camera. The biggest man is the most white with a light pink shirt and skin like sand. He does not look at the children, but walks about in clean sneakers, looking over Mr. Charles’s head as if there were something more to see. Behind them comes the last man from under the car. His hair is to his shoulders and he has on a white hat. His pants are rolled up and his brown shirt is untucked and his hands hold nothing. He walks separate from the others and goes to another place and sits on a stump in the shade, near boys playing choro in the dirt.

Later this is the one who goes to the bicycle repair and makes a parachute with a figure hanging from it. He is also African from Kenya. When you drop this figure from a tree branch or high place it would sail off in the wind. The boys learn to make more of these parachutes with bits of cloth, so after the journalists leave we will remember that one from Kenya.

The others first disappear into Mr. Charles’s office. Then they have a tour. We see them by the tent, standing.

We are under the tree, crocheting, when Christine comes walking to us, bringing the smaller lady beside her. Who will talk to her? we wonder. Janet whispers to me, God will provide.

Christine tells us, This lady has come from America. She wants to hear how it is with us. If this is okay, we will help her know it.

No one says anything, but no one says no. Some keep working their needles. Emily is staring up.

The lady in the gray hat bends down to us, sitting on her heels. The man in the kerchief comes behind her, floating his camera in front of him, away from his face.

My name is Jane and this is Pierre.

She says she wants to tell people outside of Uganda what is happening here. She hopes it will help.

Christine repeats this in Acholi, but we all know what she says. The lady takes out of her basket a notebook like the ones we use at St. Mary’s, with a green-and-white-flecked cover and blue spine.

She asks who understands English and Emily’s arm shoots up. Some other hands go up. Not mine. The lady asks Emily her name and how long she is here and where she is from and how long she was with the rebels. She writes the answers in her notebook with a black pen. Sometimes she is writing without looking at the paper, keeping her face to us with her pen moving, listening. As she is listening she is also looking. I see her look at Carol, who will not look back. I see her spot a new girl, Paulette. She wears a dress with a ruffled collar and is showing a big stomach. The lady moves there by Paulette, who stops crocheting when she is near, keeping her long neck bowed down. What’s your name?

Paulette looks to Christine, worried.

This one is Paulette, Christine says. We have welcomed her a week ago.

Does she know when the baby’s coming? the lady says to Christine, but looking at Paulette’s doily. Paulette answers so softly you can barely hear.

Christine answers, The baby will come perhaps in a month or so.

How old is she?

Fifteen.

And this is the baby of a rebel?

Christine nods, but asks her anyway and Paulette says yes.

Do you have a name picked out?

Paulette’s face suddenly has many thoughts on it. She gives a long answer to Christine in Lor. Christine listens, tapping a twig on her chin, then, taking a breath, says, If it is a boy he will be Komakech, which means
I am unfortunate
. If it is a girl, Alimochan:
I have suffered on this earth
.

The lady looks to the man with the camera, and lifts her chin to make him come near. Is it okay if we film her? the lady says.

Christine translates to Paulette who listens, frozen. Maybe it is okay, Christine says.

The man steps around some girls, smiling at them. Paulette does not move when the lady asks where her village is and when she was taken. We know that Paulette’s parents have not come yet, but Christine does not say it. The man points the round black circle of the camera at Paulette.

She does not want it, I say.

What? The lady turns to me. The camera?

She is frightened.

The lady glances up to the man who lowers his camera right away. Then I see his face and the most blue eyes I have ever seen, not dark blue, but blue like the sky. I’m so sorry, the lady says to Paulette. Will you tell her? She turns to Christine. Thank you.

Then she speaks to me. Thanks for telling us that. What’s your name?

I am Esther.

Oh, she says, and moves near to touch my arm, which makes me jump. She takes back her hand and puts it flat in her lap. Sorry, she says. I was just—What’s your last name?

Akello.

Yes. She smiles. Grace Dollo? You know her? She told me to find you here. She said, You look for Esther Akello. And here you are. I’ve found you.

I felt a surprise in me too. I looked down from her face. Against her skin, she had on a short necklace with a silver charm on it, a flower maybe or a propeller from an airplane.

I see you’re not crocheting. She took off her hat. Her hair was the color of bread. Would you come talk to me?

Christine moved near and said that I did not choose to talk.

Really? The lady looked to my face see if this was true.

I would not speak as they were always telling us to do. I was thinking, Why say these things when I want to forget them? I do not want these stories to be my life forever. I want another life. So I did not answer.

That’s too bad, the lady said. But she did not turn away from me, she waited. She still watched me. The sisters at St. Mary’s are also white-skinned, and seeing her made me think of them. I would have liked to hear you, Esther, she said.

Perhaps I would be stubborn forever. Or I could change. Maybe this was the time of my chance.

I sat up. I said, It is okay, then.

Christine looked surprised. The lady did not look surprised. She had a smile.

We moved to a place apart from the girls, where the camera was put on a triangle. The lady from America took her sunglasses off.

Shall we start at the beginning or the end? she said. The eyes in front of me were gray and a stranger’s eyes, but when she said this I felt she was not a stranger. She was like the sisters.

The end? I did not understand.

Where you are now. Here. The camera was up on black legs just going by itself. The man sat below it, cross-legged.

Perhaps the beginning, I said.

Good. Tell me the beginning.

Maybe I would tell this story again, maybe this was the one and only time, but my words, they were going in the camera.

I began, They came for us in the night.…

The lady watched me as I spoke. I looked at her hair, I looked at her shoulder, then down at her basket. She listened with her mouth closed. Sometimes I looked to the empty football field and saw a dust devil swirl up like a rope unwinding. I saw the girls past the kitchen in their dancing costumes with the woman from Kenya. They were making steps with her. I might look down at my hands, but in my head I was seeing again where I had been. And I told her all these things I have told to you.

A
T FIRST THIS
girl Esther spoke so softly Jane thought she’d been wrong to use the camera. She had a square forehead and round cheeks and a forceful look in her eye, despite her bland delivery. She spoke as if discovering things.

Marching away that night, she said in her gentle voice, we could not believe what was happening to us. Now I am here and I ask myself, Was I really there?

Her body and face were very still, and her hands sat holding each other in the lap of her white T-shirt. She chose her words carefully, focusing, and now Jane saw she was not being reluctant, but methodical. This girl had been back only a couple of weeks. Now and then she nodded to herself for reassurance, as if to say, Yes, that’s right, that’s how it was. She looked into her lap, she looked at Jane with a frown. She glanced off now and then and her eyes ticked back and forth, scanning the inside of her brain. She told her story without self-consciousness, not trying to impress. But Jane
was impressed. She was glad the camera was recording so she did not need to take notes. Jane listened and nodded and asked small questions. Yes, she said, go on. All her attention was taken listening to Esther Akello.

I did not want to hit her, she was saying. None of us want to hit her. Esther’s cheeks started to shake in a twitchy way and Jane saw she was having difficulty moving her mouth. But I did. We beat that girl. We killed her. I killed her. She bit the inside of her mouth. You are the first I have told this to.

The molecules in the air seemed to rearrange themselves around Jane. The part of her recording this story thought how no one could hear this and not be moved and want to help. The part of her unaccustomed to reporting felt a sort of repulsion intruding on this private distress. Pierre sat on the ground beside the tripod, with his arm extended, holding out the small mic, looking down, letting the camera witness.

Esther pressed the side of her face with a flat palm to still it. Her fingers trembled.

You can stop whenever you want, Jane said.

It is okay. Esther frowned deeply, rubbing her face, seeing something new, putting a hard glint in her eye.

One day we were made to cross a river.

Yes?

It was a terrible day.

What happened?

Esther told the story of losing Mary.

That is a terrible day, Jane said.

I
WAS REMEMBERING
new things. I remembered how on the day we crossed the river I was not so upset. I told the lady this. I did not feel bad, I said. I would lie to say I did. I felt just tiredness.

It was hard to say it.

Yes, she said.

I wished we had saved that girl Mary, but when she disappeared I did not care so much.

The lady looked away from me. I noticed the change because her face had been toward mine so far. She was seeing I was a bad person.

T
HE FACE WAS
so wracked with sorrow Jane glanced away, to give her privacy. What could she say? She looked in Pierre’s direction. His gaze met hers and she saw tears in his eyes. She turned back to Esther.

That happens, she said. It’s okay.

It is hard to know it, Esther said. Her look seemed to plead to Jane, needing to be convinced.