A Thousand Sisters

by Lisa Shannon

  No, she isn’t perfect. The decidedly unglamorous details of organizing these fundraising runs have been a Herculean effort for that right-brained lady. But then, I don’t think the thought of perfection has ever crossed her mind, much less slowed her down. She’s been too busy throwing her wild-hearted energy into getting sound permits, making photocopies, and coordinating porta-potties. She’s worked her butt off for Congolese women. Just as she’s been doing for years.

  Despite all the fits and rages and screams of “I want out,” she’s still here.

  I’m sure she does it because she wants to support me, but if that were all, the mother-daughter tension would have sent her packing years ago. She is still here simply because, in a strikingly personal way, she loves Congolese women and believes herself connected to them. Looking at my mom across the park lawn in my post-run daze, I burst into a smile, which is tempered only by my embarrassment over how long it’s taken me to get how wonderful she is.

  Actually, my two-person staff—Mom and me—has become the bottleneck. It’s time for Run for Congo Women to grow beyond our limited capacity. Women for Women is ready to take it over so they can help it grow with fully funded staff that operates from checklists based on a proper development strategy and will never miss an email. They will handle the logistics, while I continue my role as spokesperson and founder on the volunteer basis with which we have built up the project.

  The network interest in my footage is lukewarm. I never make a documentary. I knew while sitting on the little airplane next to Alice and Zainab that I wasn’t walking away from Congo with a film. I turn over the footage to Women for Women, who hand it off to an editor to make a web video of me and my trip. A male movie-trailer voice booms, “While watching an episode of Oprah, Lisa Shannon learned that four million people. . . .” I find it unbearable. When I see it, I want to climb under the table and stay there.

  The blank space in my life grows cavernous in the absence of fourteen-hour workdays, even though I’m interrupted by the occasional conference call or speaking engagement.

  I KEEP D ON HAND the way one keeps good wine in the cellar. I bury myself in him the way one reflexively covers an exposed nerve. Both of us are reeling from the shell shock of lives in collapse. The connection is forged without plans, professions, or sentimentality.

  In the summer, we escape to a cabin on a remote bay in the northern wilderness. “It doesn’t get better than this,” D says. The insistent invitation of his stare is like a knock at the door when you’d rather pretend no one is home. He lists the food, the wine, the trees, the light, the reflections on the water, as though I would miss it without his itemized list. As though I can’t feel the wine on my tongue or the breeze on my skin. As though I can’t see his face. As though I won’t remember.

  I retreat to my three-by-five notecards inside the glass cabin, scribbling down thoughts, moments, scenes from Congo, shifting them around the table. I don’t have a film, but I wonder if I might have a book—if only I can find the narrative through-line.

  In deep winter, we stand on opposite sides of a snow-covered bridge. We are silent as I watch the water flow past the last open patches of the stream crusted over in ice. He calls this meditating. We’ve walked for an hour in the snow, past farms and forest. I’m not sure if we’ve been talking; it felt like silence. And silence feels perfect. It’s early December. I would rather not speak. I didn’t want to come here, afraid soft and sweet would scrape at the edges of my raw state. Instead it feels like a refuge.

  In early spring, we are in D’s townhouse bathroom. It is the most inviting room in his house, not because of the floor-to-ceiling marble, steam shower, or spa tub. It’s the light. In it, I can breathe.

  We slip into opposite ends of the bath. Again with the insistent stare, he asks, “How have you been?”

  Our eyes meet for a second. I could spill everything: I’m lost. Reeling. Empty.

  “Good,” I say.

  I shut my eyes.

  We have plans to see each other before and after my trip out East. But for reasons too convoluted to recount, in a rapid-fire text message exchange, we end it. I’m on a subway in New York, with two valid e-ticket itineraries still sitting in my in-box, but I know which plane I’ll step on tomorrow, all the same. I won’t see him again and as I sit here, it seems fitting. As the dirty metal cars rock back and forth, faces shutter past like out-of-sync movie frames. I think of the unspoken undercurrent between us since we met at Orchid, the energy we’ve spent pretending things are casual, of how I have ignored the fact that when he looks in my eyes, I sense something rare. I write him a message, something like “life is too short to be so guarded.” I erase it when I realize the message is more like a note to self. The moment has come and gone.

  WHILE DIGGING AROUND in the basement, I purge stack upon stack of plastic crates filled with stock photo props. They’re now destined for the local women’s shelter—the plastic flowers, white slipcovers, colorful dresses for little girls’ summer days with fake families. Mixed in among the props and Christmas ornaments, I notice water-damaged, mildewed boxes labeled LISA: CHILDHOOD. I remember a smaller, carved wooden box that is buried in one of these boxes. I picked it up in India, to keep important letters, photos, and keepsakes in. And in that box—it’s astounding I have forgotten it all these years—is a handwritten note from my father, the only one he wrote to me in my life, presented on the verge of my departure to India, when I was sixteen. My mom had corralled her New Age friends for a going-away “blessing ceremony” for me. This note was Dad’s effort to participate privately, without over-the-top ritual displays. I pull out the plain piece of paper with perforated edges; it was torn from an eighties dot matrix printer, folded in quarters, and labeled in barely legible man-handwriting:

  A Blessing for Lisa

  7-28-91

  Writing a blessing or a deep wish somehow implies doubt, which I don’t feel. So I prefer to affirm the blessings, talents & characteristics that you already have clearly demonstrated, that I believe will serve you well in India and the rest of your life.

  1. Courage: As a child and later you often seemed fearless in pursuing your objectives, whether in a game or telling a prejudiced stranger off. This tenacity has been linked with a strong sense of inner direction. You seem never to doubt your objective and then be willing to act.

  2. Your inner directedness seems to be leading you to areas of meaning, purpose, and high values. You seem always to be concerned with more than just yourself, indicating a maturity far beyond your years.

  Thus I know you will do well in the tasks you set for yourself and I am proud to be your father.

  Love,

  Dad

  As if Dad’s trying to temper me with another parting message, I later find a small collection of mini digital video tapes that have been scattered and lost in a junk drawer. I interviewed my dad on video in his final weeks. When I asked about his work and finding meaning through helping others, he responded, “I don’t think you can be focused on, ‘Oh, gee, I want to make a difference.’ It has to be spontaneous. If it’s not . . . there’s some kind of egotistical thing going on. That’s a red flag. You hope you impact people on the deepest level you are capable of at the time. Sometimes you hit it, sometimes you don’t. You’re trying.”

  I WAKE IN MY empty attic-bedroom, three stories up, with windows overlooking the top branches of the two ancient walnut trees that guard my empty Craftsman-style house. Like the rest of the place, my bedroom is void of furnishings, except for some clothes on a rolling rack and the crisp white sheets and comforter that engulf me on a mattress on the floor. I get up, wander downstairs, get a cup of tea, and check my email. There is a message from Eric with the subject line “Seventeen Knifed to Death in Kaniola.”

  “I am forwarding you an article about 17 persons who were killed by knives in Kaniola. Do you remember there?”

  Yes, Eric, I remember there.

  What part of Kaniola? Oh, God. Was it the
area I hiked to? Was it people I’ve met?

  I burst into tears and cry half the day, scanning the footage, searching my memory, swimming in images of the children who ducked when I pointed the camera at them. The waddling little boy. The grandmother. The boys playing soccer on the hilltop. The three still-innocent girls. Their brother, our guide. The father. Oh God, the father. Is it Christophe? It must be.

  I remember—today is Memorial Day.

  I’ve spent too many days scribbling down notes—shreds of paper that get lost in stacks and “to sort” boxes—with pleading faces in my head, telling me I promised to continue until the coming of Jesus. As time goes on, I’m all too aware I am slowly becoming another one of those muzungu bullshitters who said they care, who said they’d be back, who said they’d do something. Maybe the problem isn’t me straightening out the story. Maybe it isn’t complete. I have unfinished business.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Missing

  UNDER THE WEIGHT of fluorescent lights and jet lag, I watch the unclaimed plastic suitcases make their final rounds on the baggage belt. I’ve combed the pile of bags set to the side, waiting to be claimed, and scoured nearby belts to see if my bag could have maybe, possibly, been put on the wrong cart.

  It’s late night in Nairobi, 15 months since I was last in Africa, and time to face facts. The bag is still in England, lost with tens of thousands of others in the abyss of Heathrow’s new Terminal 5 chaos. All the carefully selected presents, my clothes, videotapes, malaria pills, tampons . . . I’m going to Congo with no stuff.

  I get in line behind the other British Airways passengers who share my fate, comforting myself by taking stock of what I do have. The essentials: my camera bag, my white three-ring binder, a catalog of photos, printed from video, of every person I passed in Kaniola on the Last Walk.

  At least having no stuff breaks the ice as I cross the Congo border, pulling the passport-stamp guy into my little drama. “I have no bags for you to search.”

  “You didn’t get your bag?”

  “No.”

  He looks at me, deadpan. “I’ll loan you a pair of my trousers.”

  See that? The spirit of giving.

  Ah, Congo, the familiar air of a war-ravaged land. It feels like home. I already dipped my toes into the familiar paranoia back at home, when I hit a major snag in my travel preparations. Maurice and Serge are now being quoted US$300 per day for SUV rentals. Even on a ten-day trip, that adds up fast. As with all my Run for Congo Women work, including my prior Congo visit, this jaunt through Africa is strictly self-funded. After all, I am a never-published, would-be author working on spec.

  I put out the word, emailing all my contacts if they know how I can find a more reasonably priced vehicle (around US$100 a day). Less than a week before departure, I got one hit from a friend.

  MAMA LISA,

  I RECEIVED A CALL FROM RENÉ THIS MORNING. HE SAID HE HAS A

  JEEP FOR RENT.

  HE WILL BE DRIVING IT HIMSELF.

  NICE DAY!

  I SPENT TWO DAYS swimming in thoughts of El Presidente hovering behind me, overseeing every interview, every roadside stop, and wondering if he knows I was responsible for getting him fired. (After our drive, I approached his boss at an international NGO, who was unaware of his affiliations. He was fired immediately and since then has struggled to find work—even calling me for a job reference at a ridiculous hour after he was forced to abandon “political affiliations incompatible with humanitarian work.”)

  I offhandedly mentioned René’s offer to drive me in an email to D when I was encouraging him to buy Eric an SUV. (If the inflated rental rates are tough on me, they must be killing Eric’s little nonprofit with his hour-and-a-half commute!)

  D didn’t respond much; he just cautioned me. “Be careful.”

  But, funny thing, I got an email from Eric about an hour later. He had just gotten off the phone with D and just happens to have a neighbor who will rent me an SUV at US$90 a day.

  D plays dumb when I mention the coincidence.

  Later Eric will tell me about the call, how D urged him to take care of me, since I don’t always maintain the strictest safety standards for myself. (It’s true, a lot of experienced Congo travelers think I am nuts. I prefer to think of myself as having a high threshold for risk.) Oh, and D agreed to buy Eric that SUV.

  ORCHID IS A WHOLE different scene this time around. The Last Belgian is away and the place is crawling with middle-management types, mostly mining subcontractors clearing the way for a massive goldmine that is only a short helicopter ride from town.

  Over breakfast, some managers strike up a conversation with me and ask about the purpose of my visit. I see no reason to sugarcoat the matter. I mention the Kaniola massacre matter-of-factly, as I would tell any friend inquiring about my plans for the week. They fidget with their napkins for a moment and quietly rise. Someone murmurs, “Well.”

  They walk away without further niceties, but one of them remains. So I start with the basic traveler’s intro. “What brings you here?” “Environmental work.”

  “I have a lot of friends who have environmental projects here. What kind?”

  “Mining.”

  In remarkably unfiltered fashion, he explains he’s been hired by a mining company with offices in the hotel to do an environmental impact assessment. The company wants to claim that all the pollution and other damage to rivers near a new gold-mining project they’re starting in Eastern Congo already existed—and was done by local artisanal miners—prior to mine and hydroelectric construction. “So no one can pin it on us,” he says.

  In another lifetime, I might have found this intriguing, even scandalous. But foreign mining interests are no secret in Congo. Why pretend it’s shocking? Why be shy? He’s not. Like all good corporate spin-machines, he has resolved the ethical issues, hovering above the conflict like the helicopter that flies in and out every day, cruising across the Congolese landscape just high enough to avoid being bothered by the little things, like people.

  “Americans did this in their own West,” he reminds me. “Is it fair to say in Congo, they shouldn’t do what the West did?”

  I can’t help myself. “Who’s ‘they?’ The Congolese people? Last time I checked, they aren’t responsible for most of the mining or timber harvesting here and they don’t seem to benefit. And it’s brought the war.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” he says. “But is it different than all of history? We used to all have colonies, only now, we label it bad.”

  I can’t disagree: War profiteering. Genocide. Global warming. All generally thought of as “bad.” “We do,” I agree.

  The conversation makes me tired, too tired to feel hostile or even annoyed. Beneath the thick Afrikaans accent, here is a man clinging to a dying ideology. The grasping mindset, the moral compromise that won’t even get him big bucks, just a stab at a life’s work that involves travel to exotic corners of Africa. That may be enough for a neocolonialist. I look at him and feel sad.

  I ask, “But isn’t it a question about who we are? Choosing the role we will play in this world?”

  He chews this over for a moment. “I suppose it is.”

  As he gets up to leave, as though offering me some kind of truce, he hands me his card. I realize he thinks we’ve been flirting when he says, “If you ever need a place to stay when you’re in South Africa. . . .”

  I WANT TO GET the return visit to Kaniola out of the way immediately, if nothing else to combat my shaky nerves. At Major Vikram and Kaycee’s former station in Walungu, I am greeted by Major Alejandro, a warm, slim South American who is new to this post. I describe the attack and what I’m after: a return trip to Kaniola and any information about the massacre.

  “I know nothing about this,” Major Alejandro says, “as I have only been here four days. But there is one man left from that time. He’s in Bukavu today. Come back tomorrow, he will be here. It will be his last day.”

  In the meantime, I am dire
cted to the Pakistani Battalion in Walungu to secure permission for a Kaniola visit, which now requires clearance.

  I end up on a sunny hilltop, on a patio lined with roses and yellow cosmos that overlooks the vast valleys beyond Walungu, with a handful of Pakistani military commanders. Shared cups of juice served in glass and gold goblets aren’t enough to bridge the massive cultural divide, especially when it comes to their questions about my scant credentials. “You’ve written a book before?”

  “No.”

  “Who is publishing this book?”

  “I don’t know yet.” I cut to the chase. “I don’t need guides. I can go on my own. . . .”

  “I’m sorry Madame. You’ll need written permission from HQ in Bukavu.”

  BACK IN BUKAVU, I am poised for another “we couldn’t have less in common” meeting as I am led into a grand office at UN headquarters. Instead, Colonel Khan is gracious, carrying himself with restraint and formality. He’s genuinely trying to be helpful. I sip my requisite apple juice while he scans his desktop files for any information about the day of the massacre.