“I guess my big-mouth husband has already ruined the surprise. So, Brigid, close your eyes.”
Albert said in a spooky voice, “Nooo peek-ing.”
I covered my eyes, and Sabeena spun me around until I was dizzy. I heard a commotion on the steps, and then Sabeena said, “You can open them now.”
Two grinning girls stood before me, smiling and plump, their hair braided, and dressed in pretty clothes. They were almost unrecognizable. And then, I screamed.
Aziza threw herself at me, and Jemilla did the same. Albert broke into “Happy Birthday,” giving it tremendous importance with his baritone voice. Sabeena served the banana cake that Albert had baked in the clay oven, and Dr. Susan somehow produced a bunch of flowers.
I don’t remember many of my birthdays, but I’ll never forget this one. I was twenty-eight. I was happy. I wanted for nothing. Just before we sliced the cake, I prayed.
“Dear Lord, thank You for leading me to this place, for the good health and safety of these wonderful people, and for this incomparable day. Amen.”
That night, the young ladies pushed a bed up to mine so that we could sleep together as we had at Kind Hands. They were living now in Juba, going to school, and no one was suffering that night. We had a window with a screen, clean beds, and full stomachs, and we were surrounded by people we loved.
While Colonel Dage Zuberi was still roaming free and planning genocide, Aziza, Jemilla, and I were snug in the attic room under the eaves.
We were giggling as we floated off to sleep.
Chapter 39
I STEELED myself for my trip to the village center of Magwi, which was an hour from the clinic, over a winding and rutted mud road. I had the use of a cart, and I was on good terms with the donkey, an old soldier called Carrot. But this wouldn’t be a ride in the park.
Kwame, the nearly toothless young man who had driven me from the airport bus stop to the clinic four months ago, worked at the post office in Magwi. He had called me over the radio channel the previous night and told me that a shipment of antibiotics had arrived for Zuberi’s Gray Army.
We had been waiting for this.
I said, “I’ll come for the drugs tomorrow. You understand, Kwame? I’m coming.”
“Lady, the Kill on Sight posters of the doctors at Kind Hands are still on the door. Your face is still up there. Maybe you should stay home.”
“Make the calls for me, please, Kwame. Make them now.”
On any day, going into town was very dangerous. I was scared but not suicidal. I had a good and very important reason for going to Magwi by myself.
I was going alone, but I wouldn’t be alone.
I held the crucifix hanging from a chain around my neck, and I prayed. After getting off my knees, I made notes in my journal, then tucked it under my pillow. I got a carrot from the kitchen for the donkey and left a note for Sabeena.
I had to make an emergency call. I’ll be back by dinner.
Then, at midday, when everyone was busy inside the clinic, I pulled on my rain slicker over my scrubs, borrowed Albert’s waterproof boots without asking, and took off in the cart.
I clucked to Carrot and told him he was a good fellow. He lowered his head and forged through hock-deep water, his hooves sucking at the mud as he pulled me without complaint toward Magwi’s small town center.
After about three miles, the dirt track merged with an unpaved two-lane road that morphed into Magwi’s main street. I stopped just outside the town and tied Carrot’s reins to the branch of a tree. I said, “Best to keep you out of traffic, buddy.” I gave him his treat and patted his shoulder.
The post office was located at the far end of the town, on the corner of an intersection of the main street and the road toward Torit. My heart was beating way too fast as I wondered if I would sleep tonight in my bed under the eaves.
Only God knew.
Was He busy with other people or things? Or did He hold this particular sparrow in His hand? Just before I entered the village proper, I spoke out loud, and I put everything I had into it.
“God? It’s me, Brigid. I really need you. Now.”
Chapter 40
MAGWI’S MAIN street was only three hundred yards long, lined with decrepit mud-and-wood-frame shacks and shopkeepers selling sleeping mats, cooking oil, and sacks of dried maize. I walked past the open-doored shops, the one-pump gas station, a brick-faced municipal building, and farther along I came to the market where men and women sat under umbrellas and sold produce out of suitcases.
Music and dancing broke out under the steel-gray sky. Beat-up cars, motorcycles, and pedestrians in bright clothing mingled in the street, and men on bikes with bundles on their backs wove through light traffic.
Several cars and trucks, including Kwame’s old Dodge junker, were parked at the end of the street, bounding the one-room post office building on two sides. A bare flagpole angled out from the peak of the metal roof, which had been half torn off by a storm. A line of people stood out front, and when I joined the line, they stared.