Slash and Burn

  The community also has a cemetery. They could bury her there, if she liked. She has the right, as her mother and as her father’s wife.

  She says she’d also have the right if she weren’t her mother or hadn’t been his wife. But she doesn’t want to. She’d rather be somewhere her other daughters can visit whenever and for however long they like.

  Her other daughters had never set foot in the community. They’d never wanted to. They feared it in the same way civilians and villagers and even evangelical missionaries did. They’re only there now because of their mother, but they won’t stay long. Even though she tells them it’s safe and nothing will happen to them, they look over their shoulders constantly. They arrive without their husbands. Without their children. They leave before dark.

  What would they have done if their dad were still alive? He’d have been given a house there. Their mother would’ve moved, too. Some of them would’ve had to come with them.

  They’re not sure. Does it even matter? It never happened.

  She just doesn’t want them feeling scared while they visit their mom. In that case, her sisters say, she should’ve agreed to stay at their mother’s instead. They don’t understand why she couldn’t concede something so small.

  She can’t explain. If she did, they’d become frightened again, just like the day they saw her arrive at the house her mother had built out of cardboard and corrugated iron on the city’s outskirts. Instead, she apologizes for making things difficult for them: it can’t be easy seeing their mother in that state. She promises she’ll do all she can for her.

  Does that include moving? If she won’t go back to the farm named after a horse, she could go to one of theirs.

  Their mother asks them to stop badgering her about it. If it frightened them so much to come see her, they could call instead, send word or a letter. As far as she was concerned, they owed her nothing. They’d been good daughters. She harbored no resentment toward them, even though none of them had wanted to join the struggle their dad and brothers had fought in once they’d grown up and once their bodies were able to carry weapons. It wasn’t their fault they’d been born at a time when fear cast a shadow over everything, but she wouldn’t forgive them for haranguing her sister when they should have been thanking her for protecting them when they were little. She hadn’t raised them to be ungrateful or disloyal. If they weren’t planning to help, they ought to just leave. She had things to discuss with her daughter. Which was how she filled her nights once her littlest grandkid had gone to sleep.

  She’d tell her what her and her other daughters’ lives had been like after she left to follow in her dad’s footsteps, and asked about her and her father’s lives in the mountains, if that was something she could share. She didn’t want to pressure her into talking about topics that were still off limits. They also discussed the future of the girls who left for the city and the one who still lived at home.

  When was she going to ask about the one who’d stayed behind with her when she was called back to rejoin the fight?

  She didn’t want to.

  She’d hurt a great deal when she’d gotten her call, the day she was given permission to receive her daughter at the camp. She’d rather never have had to part with her granddaughter, never have had to give her back. She was glad the war was over and that her daughter was alive and able to look after the little girl, but she also hurt because her granddaughter was like her daughter and granddaughter at the same time, and also like her husband and all her living sons and dead daughters in one little body. She didn’t want to give her back, but she had to because the mother was claiming her, and the mother who was claiming her was none other than her daughter.

  If the girl had been anyone else’s child she would’ve fought for her, just like the adoptive mother of her daughter’s daughter who’d grown up in another country. She would’ve claimed her and done everything the other woman had. Of course, she never told her daughter any of this, so she wouldn’t feel bad or think she was making excuses for the woman who stood between her and her other daughter. But she felt as if she understood her. She preferred not to see or ask after the girl she’d taken care of, so as not to make a fool of herself. She made do with bits of information that came up in casual conversation, and the handful of photos she was given during the years they’d been apart.

  She knew the girl was already a mother and had given her name to her daughter, but she hadn’t wanted to visit her so as not to burst into tears in front of everyone, like the day she had to hand her over at the camp or the day she attended the girl’s wedding. She thought she wouldn’t be able to contain herself, so she said she couldn’t make it.

  The mother asked her daughter not to object: her grandma had been very poorly for a long time. If there was one thing she could do for her, it was to take her baby to meet her. Could she?

  Yes. She’d come by with the girl. They’d like to stay for a while, if it wasn’t a bother.

  Wouldn’t it bother her husband?

  She doesn’t care if it does.

  The mother doesn’t press her.

  The grandmother is nervous. She doesn’t know how to address her. She doesn’t know how to pretend.

  Her daughter asks her not to, please: the girl needs to know she’s loved. The woman bursts into tears just like on the day she returned her. She apologizes for having wanted what wasn’t hers. Her daughter thanks her for looking after her daughter. She’d said this the day she left the girl with her, the day she asked for her back and the day she collected her, but she needed to say it one more time. She asks her to understand that she couldn’t have left the girl with her. She couldn’t have stood losing a second child. She hadn’t even learned how to lose the first one yet.

  She’s sorry she hadn’t taken her to visit more often, but she couldn’t stand seeing her gravitate toward her grandmother as she would’ve liked her to gravitate toward her. She promises she won’t intrude when the girl arrives. She won’t ask her to think of her husband and keep her visit short. She won’t even interrupt while they’re discussing the past or spending time together. Nor will she inconvenience them with her presence. She can look after the baby while they enjoy themselves. She likes the child. She likes to think of her as both her granddaughter and the daughter of the girl she didn’t raise. She likes to tell her things she might also have told her other granddaughter. She speaks to this girl about the other one so that, if they meet someday, she can greet her as the family they are, and feel fond of her even though she doesn’t know where she comes from.

  The grandmother tells her to sit with them whenever she likes and leave whenever she needs to. She’ll do the same.

  The littlest granddaughter is delighted by the prospect of having her niece at home. She starts to make the bed she’ll sleep in. She bumps herself a couple more times.

  Her grandmother says she’ll buy her a pair of glasses. As soon as her sister arrives, her mom will take her to get them. Is that all right?

  No. She doesn’t want glasses. She wants to be like her sisters, who don’t need them.

  Her mother says they all need them. And that it’s just a matter of time.

  The girl stands her ground.

  Her grandmother says the glasses will be very pretty.

  How pretty?

  The prettiest.

  The girl excitedly tells her niece, who doesn’t understand what she’s saying but looks up at her and smiles as if she’s glad about the news. She takes her to where her bed and cuddly toys are. The mother takes her recently arrived daughter to her grandma. She hugs them both. The three of them burst into tears.

  After a while, the mother leaves the two of them to talk on their own. She goes to collect her daughter and granddaughter’s bags, which have been left in the hall. They’re heavier than she’d imagined. This is when she realizes that her daughter hasn’t just come to spend some time with her grandma, or to be there as long as she’s needed. She’s come to stay.

  Did som
ething happen?

  No.

  Did he hit you?

  Never.

  So?

  She isn’t happy. She’ll never be, not with him.

  How can she know?

  She’ll explain later. For now, she wants to focus on her grandma. Is it a problem if she stays?

  Not at all. She’s happy she’s home.

  36

  The next morning, the eldest daughter she raised gets the littlest one ready for school. She has already seen to the mill, fed the few chickens they have left, and collected their eggs for breakfast. She tells her mother she’s considering fixing sandwiches to sell in the afternoons. She knows she doesn’t have the money to feed her and her daughter. She has no intention of being a burden. She doesn’t want her to have to cook either: she knows she hates it. All she asks is that she let the littlest one help with the sandwiches: the girl can sell anything.

  On the way to school, the mother asks her little girl if she’d like to help her big sister. In exchange, they’ll give her a share of their earnings.

  How much?

  It depends on what they make every day.

  The girl asks if it’ll be enough for her next oldest sister to come home from the country she’s traveled to.

  The sister cries when they tell her this over the phone. And laughs to cover it up. She asks how school is going.

  Better, since she got glasses.

  She’s sad: she would’ve liked to gift her some herself.

  There’s time: her sister will need new ones every so often. Is there anything she needs?

  Nothing. She has everything there. Even things she didn’t know existed. Does she need anything?

  They’re always in need of something, but it’s not the daughter’s job to solve their problems. She thinks the girl’s doing more than enough by helping her sister go to university, so she says no, they don’t need a thing.

  Has she heard anything about the other daughter?

  No. She’s been quiet for a long time. According to her other siblings, she’s always been like this: vanishing for long stretches, but always returning. They’ve told her to trust that she will.

  The mother’s sorry to hear this. She’d have liked her to know how near death her grandma is. She thinks a word from her might lift the woman’s spirits.

  The daughter says she can pretend. The mother says her mother will know at once. She’d hate her for it. If she gets back in touch she’d like her to beg the girl to reach out. Without pressuring her, of course. She doesn’t want them to drift apart too.

  The daughter can’t promise she won’t. She thinks she might have gotten upset last time they spoke.

  Why? Had she mentioned her?

  No. She’d called the girl dumb. It hadn’t been on purpose. She’d wanted to say that she wasn’t very clever, but, when it came down to it, she’d used the other word.

  Why’d she call her that?

  Maybe because she was. What else could explain her blindness to everything they did to recover her? The sister at university was right about that.

  The mother would like her to stop blaming the girl.

  She was trying. She knew they didn’t have the same father. The girl was a bit like her dad, wasn’t she?

  A lot.

  What kind of person was he?

  There wasn’t time enough left on the call to tell her.

  It was a pity the girl’s adoptive brothers weren’t her sons: they were good people. They were always asking how she and her sisters were doing. And they were interested in their grandma’s health. Though they didn’t mean to insist, they’d once again offered to help, if needed.

  The mother asks her to thank them on her behalf and remind them that the door of her house is always open to them. Does she know if there’s been any progress with their families?

  Very little.

  It’s a long process. They mustn’t lose hope.

  They haven’t. They seem to be constantly preparing for the moment when it’s their turn to be reclaimed. At times, they seem younger than they are.

  The grandmother tells her she should consider adopting them.

  Is she kidding?

  No. They need a mother. And she needs to recover a child.

  She needs to recover her own.

  What she really needed was to bury her. She felt bad saying so, but somebody had to: she’d lost that girl just as she’d lost the war. She’d have to come to terms with it, eventually. And though her mother hadn’t been able to help her win, she could offer to help her lose. She knew how. The day they buried her, they could lay something at her feet which represented that baby. She’d look after her, either in the thereafter or in nothingness.

  What sort of thing could it be? After they were separated, she’d been left with nothing of her daughter’s. And she couldn’t go to the nuns who’d kept her and try to recover something. She refused to break her promise to the people who’d helped her find her girl. And she didn’t think they’d still have any of her garments. Knowing what they’d done, they wouldn’t have left any evidence.

  Her mother isn’t convinced. If they didn’t have any of the girl’s garments anymore it was probably because they’d used them for other kids until they’d worn thin. She doesn’t think they’d have bothered to burn them. She didn’t think they much cared about what they’d done.

  Would she ever forgive them?

  Could she?

  She tried every day.

  She wanted to imagine they hadn’t had a choice. Just like the soldiers who destroyed the house her dad built them. Just like them, when they went up the mountains and left her behind.

  She couldn’t.

  She should. It wouldn’t do her any good to hate people she didn’t know and who she couldn’t say were alive or not. Was she going to waste the last of her energy on it?

  Was she going to waste her own on suffering over things that would never happen and following orders that no longer made sense? She reminds her of a woman she worked for before meeting her father and understanding that a person should never serve others. This woman kept in her home the furniture of a man who’d left in a hurry under popular pressure, even years after he was murdered abroad by someone he’d thought was on his side. She kept waiting for him to send for it or return to claim it. One day, she asked the woman if she thought it was possible. The woman never understood the question. She hadn’t wanted to. And she was the same.

  Why didn’t she want to give up on her daughter?

  Because she didn’t want to accept that everything was over. That it had ended a long time ago. Almost as soon as it began.

  The woman who’d given her and her daughter guidance had said the same about herself.

  Why had she let them go to war, then? Why hadn’t she stopped them or gone after them and asked them to come back?

  Because she’s only seeing it now.

  Would she have stopped them if she’d seen it earlier?

  The mother stays silent. The daughter asks again.

  She knows the answer. So why ask?

  She wants to hear it from her.

  Maybe the daughter she didn’t raise gets her cruelty from her, not her father.

  She apologizes.

  There’s no need. Maybe she deserves it. Maybe moving there was a mistake. She apologizes. She should never have made her take her in.

  That night, she’ll call one of her daughters and tell her she misses the farm named after a horse more than she’d bargained for. She wants to go back there. Can she help?

  Her granddaughter hears her. She asks her not to go: she won’t be able to follow her if she does. She can’t take her daughter all the way to her house and look after them both. And she doesn’t want to abandon her mother. Though she won’t admit it, she isn’t the woman she once was. Her body doesn’t hold up the same. She can’t manage it all.

  Is that why she came home?

  No. She’s noticed it now that she’s back, but it may have started ear
lier.

  She doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t want to complicate things.

  She isn’t. Hasn’t she noticed her daughter always smiling at her? And her sister can see properly now. If she stumbles, it’s because her feet are twisted. When she has the chance, she’ll take her to the doctor to be examined. Maybe it isn’t too late to get help. Does anyone in her family have feet like that?

  She can’t recall. Maybe it’s from the other side. Her mother’s right to worry about her. She doesn’t know what she would’ve done with a girl like that. They wouldn’t have gotten far. She might have had to let her go at some point.

  Could she have gone searching for her later, like her daughter had? Could she have given up on her once she’d found her? Could she have buried her at her mother’s feet? Could she have admitted it was all over, after fighting like she had?

  She’s sorry she asked. She hadn’t meant to hurt her.

  Is she sure?

  She can’t lie to her.

  Neither can she. Earlier, she said she’d earned the right to be buried in the same cemetery as those who’d fought, but it wasn’t true: she hadn’t. She wasn’t like her or her husband, or like her other sons. She was one of those people who fled and hid and hoped for acts of God. Only when she’d been attacked had she stood up to someone. She would’ve been useless in the mountains. Her feet might not be like the littlest’s but she was always banging into everything in life, just like the girl. If she had to bury one of her daughters, it shouldn’t be at her feet.

  She disagrees. She can’t think of anyone who’d take better care of the girl she lost. The day they bury her, she’ll place some of her daughter with her, not at her feet but in her arms: she might not have picked up a weapon, but she’d never let any of her children go.

  She’d done nothing to stop them either.

  She hadn’t had a choice.

  37

  Before her mother dies, she has to find something to bury with her instead of the body of the daughter she lost. She can’t delay because her mother might be taken any moment now, any day.