In the farthest corner was a doorway draped in zebra skin with a dim light spilling at the edges. Quietly Connor stepped closer and through the gap he saw Makuma. Still dressed all in white, he was kneeling in prayer at an alcoved shrine upon which stood a gold cross and two candles. Just as Connor was wondering if he should slip away and come back later, he saw the man cross himself. Connor quickly headed back to the center of the room and turned in time to see Makuma emerge from the zebra-skin drapes, apparently not at all surprised to find him there. He was holding a small black leather Bible.
‘How much do you know of the spiritual beliefs of my people, Mr Ford?’
‘The Acholi people? Not much I’m afraid.’
Makuma walked past him to the table and put his Bible down on the map. He gestured at one of the canvas chairs and took another for himself and they both sat.
‘Nor did the first white men who came here. Are you familiar with the term
jok
? No? It is difficult to translate, but broadly it means a spiritual power. A
jok
can be good or evil, depending on many factors, and all have different names. When the first European missionaries came, they thought they might save more souls if they made their message appear to comply with Acholi beliefs. So they gave their Christian God the name of a
jok
. They called him
Jok Rubanga
. Unfortunately it was not initially a great success for there was already a
Jok Rubanga
: the spirit responsible for causing spinal tuberculosis. Perhaps these poor white men were mischievously advised. Or perhaps it merely proves that one should not meddle with spirits that one does not understand. Do you believe in God, Mr Ford?’
‘I guess it depends what you mean by God.’
‘Ah. So you don’t.’
Connor shrugged. If that’s what he wanted to think, it was fine. Makuma leaned back and folded his hands, staring at Connor with a smile that was both patronizing and vaguely threatening.
‘Do you like Bach?’
‘Is that what you’ve got playing here?’
‘The St. John Passion.’
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Yes. Do you think such music could exist if there were no God?’
‘Seems to me that many things exist, both good and evil, whether there’s a God who wants them to or not. Is it okay if I record this?’
‘If you wish.’
Connor took his recorder from his pocket and set it beside the Bible.
‘So, you don’t believe in God but you do believe in good and evil?’
‘I know that men are capable of both.’
‘And you believe that you can distinguish between them.’
‘Between good and evil? Yes, I do.’
‘But if there is no God, how can that be possible?’
Connor hadn’t expected any of this. He had thought long and hard about how best to present the proposal that he had come here to make and he knew that it was important not to let himself get riled. After all these years, he was only too aware of his instinct to confront those whose horrors he had witnessed. It was a foolish and perilous flaw. And if they tried to engage him in some kind of intellectual debate, as that murderous Rwandan mayor once had, as Makuma was trying now, it somehow tapped into that old seam of inadequacy, where he was still the kid who had never been to college, and fueled his anger all the more.
It was happening now and he couldn’t help himself. And in answer to Makuma’s question, he opened his camera bag and pulled out the photograph. It was the one he had taken of Thomas, the dumbstruck boy at St. Mary’s. He held it out to Makuma who thought for a moment and then took it. He picked up his glasses from the table and put them on and studied the picture.
‘I have seen this before. I read the article and the many lies you told.’
He said it simply with no hint of accusation or bitterness. He handed the picture back but Connor wouldn’t take it. His blood was up and pumping hard.
‘You asked me how I can tell good from evil. What was done to this boy was evil. Your soldiers murdered his mother and his father, abducted him, then forced him to go back and murder the rest of his family and friends and burn down his own village. Then they left him in the bush to die. Tell me, does that sound like evil to you? Or does your God have another label for these things?’
Makuma laid the photograph on the table and then did the same with his glasses. He gently put his palms together as if in prayer and raised his fingertips to his chin and for a long time stared at Connor. His smile had disappeared. The music was building to a climax and now seemed more ominous than beautiful. With his heart still thumping and his head screaming at him to keep cool, Connor stared back defiantly.
‘Whoever told you these things was telling lies,’ Makuma said quietly. ‘We do not abduct the children who fight for our cause. They flock, in their hundreds, of their own free will, to join us. Why? Because they want to help purge our land of the great evil that has seized it. If they are too young we do not let them fight—’
‘That’s bullshit and you know it.’
‘. . . we do not let them fight, but care for them and let them help the cause in other ways. Many of them are indeed orphans. Their parents have been killed by the soldiers of the government. It is the government who tortures and kills my people and who burns our villages and then, with the help of gullible western friends such as yourself, pretends to the world that we are to blame.’
‘I’ve seen it with my own eyes.’
‘Then your eyes deceive you. Tell me, did you come here, all this way, to interview me or to insult me?’
Connor hesitated. The music had come to an end and the only sound now was the chugging of the generators and the muted roar of the gas lamp. It was probably too late, but he took a deep breath and pulled out a sheet of paper from his pocket and held it out to Makuma.
‘This is a list of some of the children who have been kidnapped by your soldiers from the Karingoa area. There are seventy-three of them. The last name on the list, Lawrence Nyeko, is the twin brother of Thomas, the boy in the picture there. Please, take it.’
Makuma didn’t move, so Connor leaned forward and put the list on the table in front of him. Makuma didn’t so much as glance at it, just kept his eyes fixed on Connor.
‘Now, I’m all set to do an interview with you and to take your picture and all. And you can say whatever the heck you like, correct all those lies you say I told about you, whatever. I’ll make sure it gets printed. But what I’m really here for is to make you an offer.’
He paused and pointed at the list.
‘I don’t know what you think these children are worth. If they’re in anything like the shape of those I’ve met who escaped, my guess is they’re not a whole lot of use to you. And maybe some of them aren’t here. But those who are, I’d like to buy.’
Makuma looked at him for a moment, plainly astonished. Then he laughed.
‘How is it that Americans always think everything is for sale?’
‘All I’m trying to buy is their freedom.’
‘With whose money?’
‘My own.’
Makuma laughed in scorn.
‘You don’t have to believe me. I don’t give a shit one way or the other. But the cash is ready and waiting in an account in Nairobi. I’ll give you two thousand U.S. dollars for every child on that list. Payment on delivery, however you want.’
Connor was ready for some proud or outraged dismissal but Makuma made no reply. Instead, he called out to summon one of the guards and waved him over to where they sat. He spoke to the guard in Acholi and then handed him the list and Thomas’s photograph and the man hurried off with them.
‘On behalf of what agency or organization are you doing this?’
‘I told you, my own. Nobody else knows about it. And nobody needs to if that’s how you want it.’
Makuma considered this for a moment. Connor studied his face for a hint as to what he was thinking but found none. Makuma looked at his watch.
‘Go now,’ he said. ‘We will talk again in the morning.’
Long into the night Connor lay awake in his hut, shifting on his grass mat and sifting what was said. Every time he went through it he cursed himself for allowing Makuma to rile him so. He had rehearsed his proposal many times and had gone in determined to be strong and calm and polite and instead had promptly jeopardized the whole endeavor by attacking the man. However insane the idea was, he could at least have given it his best shot. The only consoling thought he found was that even if Makuma now detested him, it was the proposal itself that mattered. Either it appealed or it didn’t. Finally, as the sky was starting to pale, he fell asleep.
For the first time in a long while he dreamed of Julia. They were on a river that looked a little like that stretch of the Salmon that the two of them had canoed many years ago. It had those same tall canyon cliffs but the rock was the wrong color, not gray but the kind of red that you found only in Africa and the vegetation that towered above and into the clouds was clearly rain forest. Connor was in one canoe with all the gear bags and Julia was in another up ahead with Amy behind her and Ed in the stern. Amy was trailing her hand in the water and the mood was calm and blissful. Julia turned once and smiled at him and he smiled back and felt no tinge of sorrow or separation.
Then he was peering up at the cliff walls because he knew there were supposed to be some rock paintings hereabout, but he could see no trace of them. When he looked ahead again he saw Julia’s canoe disappearing around a bend and Ed, in his dark glasses, looking back at him over his shoulder and waving for him to hurry on. Suddenly Connor knew that there were rapids ahead and a great waterfall and that he had forgotten to tell them and that you had to leave the river and carry the canoes around. And as he listened, he could hear the thunder of the water and he called out to warn them but knew they couldn’t hear him and so he started to paddle after them as hard as he could, yelling for them to stop, the roar of the water getting louder all the time.
The roar woke him and it turned out to be Okello’s Jeep pulling up outside the hut. And a moment later the man himself was in the doorway and yelling
muzungu! muzungu!
as if it were yesterday all over again and Connor found himself wishing that it were, so he might have another chance.
He could tell at once that the mood had changed. As he stepped out of the doorway, Okello gave him a shove between his shoulder blades. Connor turned on him.
‘What the hell was that for?’
‘Get in.’
The two henchmen in the back were grinning but it wasn’t the kind of grin that he had been trying all these days to elicit. They seemed to be privy to some joke that no one had told him yet. They drove down the winding trail that led to the lower camp with birds cackling and whooping in the trees as if they were in on it too.
The camp was a lot more squalid than it had looked from the ridge. The red earth was churned to mud and the shelters were pitiful. Vultures picked at piles of garbage and the smell of human filth hung heavy in the sultry air.
Connor looked over his shoulder and saw another Jeep was right behind, Makuma in the front passenger seat with his head held high, gracing all they passed with a regal wave and his sanctimonious smile. They drove through the camp and stopped at the edge of a mud clearing where a group of the youngest soldiers Connor had yet seen stood waiting on parade. He estimated that there were about forty of them and their ages ranged from maybe nine or ten to about sixteen. All but a handful were boys. On command, as Makuma alighted from his Jeep, they snapped to attention and shouldered their weapons and chanted some kind of battle cry. Everyone else got out of the Jeeps too and Connor stood by the hood, watching Makuma come sauntering toward him.
‘These are your so-called “abducted” children. There are forty-two of them. Nineteen of the others on your list are not here because they are currently serving with active units. For reasons of security, I cannot of course disclose where. The other twelve names on the list we know nothing about. Probably they were taken or killed by the forces of the government. ’
‘I thought you told me last night that the young ones weren’t used as soldiers. Some of these kids can’t be more than nine years old.’
‘It is not a question of years but of spirit. If they are passionate to fight for the cause, who are we to stop them?’
‘Is it okay if I take some pictures?’
‘No.’
‘For reasons of security, I suppose.’
‘Naturally.’
‘A photograph would at least let their parents know they’re alive. I’ve never seen these children. I need some way to identify them.’
Makuma nodded to Okello who on cue held up the list and started shouting out the names. One by one the young soldiers piped up in answer. Connor watched, shaking his head. He had little doubt that this was a setup. The last name that Okello called was Thomas’s brother, Lawrence Nyeko.
‘Let me talk to him,’ Connor said.
Makuma nodded to Okello and the boy was called forth. Makuma handed Connor the photograph of Thomas.
‘Perhaps you need this to remind you.’
Connor didn’t. He knew the twins were identical and he could see the likeness in this boy’s face when he was still twenty yards away. His fatigues were tattered and billowed big and as he came nearer Connor could see how his collarbones jutted and how his skeletal little wrists had sores on them. He halted before them and gave Okello a brave salute. But although he was trying to carry himself like a grown soldier, there was a child’s fear in the eyes that flicked nervously from Makuma to Okello and on to Connor. Connor smiled at him but he didn’t smile back.
‘Lawrence?’
The boy looked at Okello, glancing at the horn-handled stick with which he was clearly acquainted. Okello spoke gently to him in Acholi and Lawrence looked briefly again at Connor and nodded. Connor held out his hand.