? ? ?
Years passed. War lingered around the edges, coming and going, like the seasons. Sometimes it would steal cattle and goats. Sometimes they would see it hanging around in the bars in town, laughing and drinking. Sometimes they would hear it coming and run and hide in the forest in a secret place, and pretend for the sake of the child they were on a great adventure.
One of those times, the quiet one’s mother, who had grown smaller and frailer, refused to leave and hide, even though her daughter begged and pleaded. When they came back, they found her mother still in bed, as if perhaps only sleeping. There was little blood, and the girls washed her body in the creek and wrapped her in her best Sunday kitenge. They buried her on the hill, next to the quiet girl’s father.
? ? ?
Something about the death of the quiet one’s mother changed her. She was still quiet, but there was a look in her eyes that worried the loud one. The quiet one started leaving the child with the loud one, and walking off into the forest alone. She would come back with filthy feet, sticks in her hair, and a look in her eyes like an animal gone wild.
? ? ?
Five years after the birth of the child, a white man came to town and started asking questions.
He wasn’t the first white man to come through. The war had brought pilots and journalists and blue helmets of all colors who followed the fighting like spectators. Lord knows that business was good for the loud one when she worked the bars closest to the hotels. The war brought do-gooders and missionaries who looked bewildered and thrilled all at once, and mining men who acted like the kind of dogs that never bark, that only bite.
But this man was different. He asked too many questions. Said the names out loud that everyone else knew to whisper.
When the loud woman found out that the quiet one had spoken to him, she was terrified. She told the quiet one to stop, but the quiet one said she was tired of being silent.
? ? ?
The war came back, like the loud one knew it would. It came the very night after the quiet one talked to the white man. This time it didn’t come for goats or cattle. It came for the two girls, now women. It chased them into the forest. It put its hands on them, and said, These are still mine. And it took them back to the terrible kingdom.
Only the child escaped.
? ? ?
There was no digging this time. Only hell. The two women were separated, and the loud one could hear the screaming of the quiet one, and she screamed herself, and thought about letting her soul drift away and not come back. But she knew she couldn’t because that would mean leaving the quiet one alone.
? ? ?
But then, four days later, the quiet one was gone.
The men came in screaming for her, “Where did she go? Where did she go?” They beat the loud one, who was not so loud anymore. They put their knives in the fire and laid them sizzling on her legs. But it didn’t matter. The not-so-loud woman didn’t know how her friend had escaped, or where she had gone. All she knew was that the quiet one, who had become not-so-quiet, had left her.
She was alone in the terrible kingdom.
They beat her almost to death. But as they really only cared about the once-quiet woman, eventually they lost interest. They packed up their camp and left the once-loud woman there, alone on the forest floor. And when the once-loud woman realized she wasn’t going to die, there was nothing to do but go home.
? ? ?
And there she was still alone, except for the seed in her belly. A strange thing, because it should not have survived. But it did, which was lucky, or awful. Or both, because it was the only thing that clung to her soul and kept it from flying away for good.
THIRTY-FIVE
When Cathi is done she gets up and brushes the dirt from her dress. She walks to the edge of the forest and stands looking into it, like she’s waiting for someone to appear.
? ? ?
It’s late in the afternoon when we speak again, and we only do because Ruth comes back full of chatter. She’s had her hair braided by Nyanya Florence’s granddaughter and wants us both to compliment her. It’s enough to ease us both back into the real world.
“Very pretty,” I tell her, and she beams. She doesn’t look like Kiki, but I can’t help thinking again of my sister. I feel an ache in my chest, an urge to protect this girl I’ve only just met. It must make Cathi crazy, thinking the same thing that happened to her could someday happen to her daughter. They are so far from town, just on the edge of the jungle, and Cathi knows the men are still out there. Suddenly the AK-47 and two giant dogs seem very reasonable.
“Will you stay for dinner, Christina?” Ruth asks.
“I should go back to the hospital,” I say.
“Are you still sick?”
“No, I’m better now,” I say. “We’re staying at the guesthouse there.”