A Thousand Sisters

by Lisa Shannon

Poised to burst, Joseph spits out, “I have plenty to say.”

  He reins himself in, retreating to a more officious tone. “Read the report and you can ask me questions.”

  The UN doesn’t turn over the report. It’s classified.

  WE GO TO Women for Women’s Walungu center, where a few participants from Kaniola agree to talk with us. “The family with seventeen people killed are my neighbors,” says a young woman with a red dress and cornrows. “The Interahamwe came, started cutting people, killing them and burning houses. We spent the night here in Walungu. In the morning we went back to Kaniola. There were government soldiers there already. We felt safe and remained. They were burning dead bodies.”

  “You saw that?”

  “Yes.”

  “When was the last attack in Kaniola?”

  Another woman offers, “February, when they took my two nieces.”

  They’re all in agreement. It’s been three months since the last attack. And that’s actually an improvement, compared to the twice-weekly attacks that were happening before.

  “It’s the government’s Commander X who masters security in Kaniola,” someone says. “Whenever he’s there, nobody dares attack because he is strong. When he goes to Bukavu to visit his family, attacks happen.”

  I present my white binder, as though I’m conducting a one-woman war tribunal and each blurry, pixilated eight-by-ten video print will immortalize its subject. They crowd around the white notebook, flipping page by page, looking at their friends and neighbors. It might be a silly exercise. Watching them scan the pages, I realize that I have no idea what I want to do with my notebook full of fuzzy video printouts. I just need to know.

  “Do you know that little boy?”

  They shake their heads.

  “I know four of the children,” another woman says. “The militia killed their grandfather.”

  “What about these little girls?” I ask.

  “ I recognize that one,” another woman answers. “They got into her compound, killed her father, and burned people in the house next door. Burned them alive. About a year ago.”

  They point to a photo of a man on the roadside, waiting next to the children with the plastic water tubs. “He disappeared. It’s as if he was killed. His sister went a year ago to the bushes for sex slavery.”

  “This one died,” a woman says, pointing at another man. “The Interahamwe killed him nine months ago.”

  The women gather in closer. They are pointing at someone, discussing her among themselves. It’s the first woman I passed on my Sunday walk in Kaniola; she was on her way to church. She wore a beautiful dress and had pretty hair and makeup.

  “Do you know her?” I ask.

  “After a week of marriage, she was taken in the bushes. It was less than six months ago.”

  As the women watch, I scrawl notes across the bottom of the photograph, like my video log has somehow preserved time. As if I could go back and stop her on that trail. Warn her. Give her money to take her groom and move far away.

  “Has she come back? Has she been seen since?”

  “They killed her.”

  I gasp. I only said jambo. I didn’t know her. But I feel sick, the same way you might feel upon learning that someone at work just died, someone you used to joke with around the water cooler.

  “Any of these?” I show them a clear photo of the three girls with Christophe.

  “She’s there, the girl in the blue scarf.”

  “They are still in the village?” I say.

  “The one in green is a schoolteacher.” She’s talking about the girls’ father, Christophe.

  “But is he okay?” I say, pressing them

  Pointing to Nadine, someone says, “This one was taken to the forest, and she has never come back. She escaped the first time. When she thought it was quiet, she came back. They took her that time.”

  I mumble, “I met her once.”

  They start to back off, straightening their dresses, gathering their things. They’ve grown tired of the exercise.

  “These children, they’re okay?” I say, anxiously trying to rope the women back in.

  “Some children were taken to the forest. The parents were charged a fine.”

  “These children?” I say.

  “None of these.”

  A staff member interrupts the meeting. One of the original four Walungu sisters is waiting for me outside; she’s reporting that her brother-in-law was killed last night. When she enters, I recognize her and remember her name: Isabelle. I give her a big hug. The other women linger, arms folded. They’ve all heard the story. He was their neighbor.

  “He died or he was killed?” I ask.

  “They shot him,” Isabelle answers.

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “Local government soldiers.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “We don’t know why.”

  “To punish him?” I say. “To steal from him?”

  “They waited for him on his way back home.”

  “So they knew him?” I ask. “Is that common? The Congolese Army just . . . assassinating people?”

  They all nod emphatically, all too aware of the truth. “Ndiyo.” Yes.

  “Who else have they killed?”

  One of the women calls out, “Three cases in two months of government soldiers killing someone.”

  Everyone ticks their tongues, a Congolese gesture of agreement and disapproval. I’m trying to get my bearings. Looting and rape are standard fare for the Congolese Army. But killing civilians? This is the first I’ve heard of it.

  “We don’t know why?” I persist. “They must have a reason.”

  “It’s a matter of conflict between people. When people are in trouble, they bribe soldiers to avenge them. They are hired to kill.”

  I AM SITTING on the terrace back at Orchid when a group of Pakistani UN officers wanders out onto the terrace. One lingers by my table, waiting for an invitation to practice his English. I notice that the patch on his uniform reads PAK ARMY.

  The officers look beyond the gardens to Lake Kivu. The man near me says, “Very beautiful country.”

  I’m bored and happy enough to engage. “Yes, so beautiful.”

  “But the people . . . not good. Very black.” Coaxing me to join his anti-African club, he adds, “Don’t you agree?”

  I slowly turn my neck and look at him, dead cold. “The people here are wonderful. Huge hearts.”

  His buddies inch away.

  “Work hard . . .” he says.

  I can hear a “but” coming, so I shoot him down before he can start. “Yes, they work so hard.”

  “Okay.” His colleague seems aware of the breach and is eager to usher him onward.

  MAURICE, SERGE, AND I park on the side of Walungu’s main drag and wait in the car. A credible anonymous tipster with UN connections has heard about our inquiry into the massacre. He was verifiably present with my UN major escorts at the massacre site. He approached asking us to meet him at a rendezvous point. He stayed up late last night copying the files.

  A handful of Congolese military men lurk on the opposite side of the road and seem to find me the most interesting attraction. One of them is especially keen to stare and I’m inclined to stare back. His face is shrouded with an army-green ski-cap. Creepy. I’m desperate to take his photo, but photographing the military is not legal and his is not a friendly stare. I pretend I’m watching some women who are struggling up the muddy road in the rain, their loads covered in dirty plastic, while I hold my camera sideways and try to capture a shot of Ski-Mask Guy. But all I manage to grab are a series of photos of raindrops on the car window. He’s blurry and out of focus in the background. It’s too bad, it would have made a great visual metaphor. I mentally title the photo I didn’t get: The Hidden Face of the Congolese Army.

  “Okay,” Maurice says, motioning. Enough time has passed. We weave our way through Walungu’s back pathways to a private home where our source has been waiting f
or us. We slip inside; the floor is damp and the faint sound of running water comes from somewhere within the dark hut, which is lit only by the sunlight coming through the doorway. We teeter on wooden benches opposite each other. He produces a small stack of papers and hands them over: carefully copied daily reports from Kaniola, as well as incidents of recent assassinations by the Congolese Army. He says, “You will need to copy it.” “We can’t just keep this?”

  “Not in my handwriting.”

  I would be amused were it not for the weight of what he’s inching towards telling me. I see the list of names labeled Chihamba. Eighteen persons killed. Twenty-five tied up and taken to the forest. Three goats looted.

  I dive in with my questioning. “You were there that day.”

  He is calm and direct. “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  “They cut out the eyes, nose, and mouths of all those people killed.”

  “So it was the Interahamwe.”

  “It was almost obvious it was meant to look like the Interahamwe.” That’s a pregnant way to put it. What a stunning thing to say.

  “What do you mean, ‘almost obvious,’” I ask him. “Meant to look like the Interahamwe?”

  “The disfiguring was like an imitation of Interahamwe signature attacks,” he says.

  “How can you tell the difference between the Interahamwe and an imitation?” I ask.

  “The Interahamwe does not kill eighteen people for three goats and cell phone. Understand?”

  No. I don’t understand at all. “Why would someone imitate the Interahamwe?”

  He’s quiet for a moment, squirming. “There are tensions. Sabotage actions. Different brigades behave like rivals.”

  “You’re saying it was a Congolese perpetrator? The Congolese Army?”

  “I am confident.”

  I look at the notes on other attacks which read: “Comment = probably to create illusion” and “Global context of the incident: troop units shifting in and out.”

  He continues. “Brigade Y was handing over the area to Brigade X, under Commander X. There were subsequent confrontations between the rival units, under the command of a certain Commander Y. Once Brigade Y was transferred away, the disturbances ended.”

  Is he telling me this just to be dramatic? My gut tells me no.

  Even in this anything-goes place, I am astounded.

  The Congolese Army mutilating and murdering civilians, staging their actions to make it look like the Interahamwe was to blame, for the benefit of rivalry?

  His story is not so far-fetched. Months from now, the New York Times will report high-level collaboration between Interahamwe leadership and top-ranking Congolese military officials. Satellite phone records will show lengthy, frequent conversations between the two. As it turns out, collaboration between the Interahamwe and Congolese government is common knowledge.

  “The people were promised an investigation would be carried out,” he tells us now, in the dark hut. “But the locals wait and wait. There was no investigation.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Furaha

  FROM BEHIND MY sunglasses, I watch the sunlight reflect on my eyelashes, forming little rainbows. I’m sitting in a patch of sunshine while the cleaning guy mops the otherwise empty Orchid terrace with citronella. Old-world French accordion music drifts in as I sip my tea. For a moment, the moldy corners disappear and the patio borders on elegance. I shut my eyes. Why are we all here?

  Henry Morton Stanley—the real one—comes to mind. The mining guys, the aid workers, me . . . aren’t we all trying to live one of those “create-your-own-adventure” books we read as children? Pick option A, B, or C: do you want to help rape victims or child soldiers, rake in the cash as a mining guy, or take down a warlord?

  A European mining guy sits down in the next cluster of chairs to sop up a cigarette and a juice. He’s looks like a frat boy lost in Thailand, wearing floppy shorts, prayer beads around his wrist, and well-worn flip-flops. As he smokes, he watches me as if he’s watching a traffic accident or street fight from a distance; he’s cool and detached. He’s staying in the room next to mine. I wonder if he heard me crying last night.

  An hour or so later I’m still on the terrace, though I’ve shifted to the table in the corner. French-lady aid-workers smoke and laugh loudly, as if to draw attention to themselves, while keeping an eye out for anyone worth talking to. A collection of blasé Scandinavian businessmen in jackets, pleated khakis, and blue striped or checkered oxford shirts sip wine. I’m not sure any of us belong here, sucking the marrow out of Congo. I keep my eyes down and watch the tiny flies flailing around on my dinner plate. It’s a bad day in Congo. The kind that leaves me haunted by futility and failure, and swimming in images of pixilated, freeze-framed faces labeled “abducted” and “murdered.”

  I want to vent, to scream. But then there’s that nagging question: Vent to whom? Despite the fact that it has been months since we’ve shared a bed, and that we’ve never been in the territory of “I love you,” D comes to mind. I text him:

  Here with your mining buddies on the terrace at Orchid.

  Found out four people I met last year were killed.

  Back in my room, it’s late. I’m bent over the mildew-ringed bathtub, washing my only outfit, jeans and a T-shirt that have grown thick with road dust and sweat. I wring the clothes out and prop them on the chair, knowing they’ll likely be more wet than damp by morning, but perhaps dry by noon.

  I climb inside my cocoon, pull down the mosquito net, tuck it under the mattress. I lie down, carefully positioning myself in the middle of the bed so as not to touch the net. I’m still aching. I stare at the dimly glowing light bulb. I run my fingers across the sheets. They always feel damp here. I study the little rips and mended tears in the net, and I start to cry.

  My BlackBerry rings.

  D.

  I could pick up. I could cry into the phone. I could tell him everything. A piece of me would rather not. In fact, all of me would rather not. I won’t.

  But I pick up anyway.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “No,” I say quietly, my voice shaking.

  “How are you?”

  I let out a long sigh, crying.

  “That’s what I thought. That’s why I called.”

  I spill it. All of it. The massacre. The Congolese Army. The assassinations. And my deepest doubts. “What am I doing here? They live in hell and I give them peanuts. . . .”

  I can’t talk anymore. I just cry.

  D says, “Someone has to do it. Someone has to be a witness.”

  I cry for a long time. Then D tells me about his beautiful new office. His view of the trees. He brings up the cabin we stayed in on the bay. He reminds me of the wonderful time we had; it’s as if he is coaxing me back to life with his itemized list of little joys. Cradling the phone, curled under my mosquito net, we talk longer than anyone should from America to Congo.

  I WAKE UP EARLY, my stomach acidic and nervous. We are scheduled to go to Kaniola today. When I went before, I was too numb and off-guard to be scared. Not so this time. I know what’s coming and I’m petrified.

  I WANT TO BARK at one of my Pakistani Army UN escorts, “Stand down, soldier!” He is pointing his gun squarely at a seven-year-old boy. The little guy’s only infraction was to move a few steps closer to me after we exchanged jambos.

  We are in Kaniola at the trailhead of what Major Vikram referred to as The Last Walk, a point marked by the rusty, bullet-ridden sign on the side of the road that matches my video-print photos. Never mind my camera being mistaken for a gun. We have real guns this time, and a crew of five armed and jumpy men committed to securing my perimeter. They’ve only been stationed here in Congo for a few days and this is their first visit to Kaniola. They’ve heard the stories. But they don’t quite grasp the security threats on hand; they’re drawing on military exercises that don’t apply here. There are no child suicide-bombers in Kaniola. The Interahamwe don’t hide i
n thatched roofs waiting to pounce. They announce themselves and kill openly here, so there is no point in harassing children who just want to say hi. I’m not going to let the ambiguity of who’s in charge get in my way. I’m the only one who has been here before. I smile at my security guy and kindly request, “Don’t point the gun at children, please.”

  He eases off the boy. But as we set out on our walk through the stunning, now-familiar valley, their tense, by-the-letter approach continues. One stays in front, another in back, both with guns poised for action. In theory, having guns should make us safer, but in a place like this, I’m not sure if guns protect or provoke. They do not endear us to the locals. We approach a group of young men, ranging in age from late teens to early twenties. Though they gather and tolerate my trigger-happy guards, who are stalking the periphery of the crowd, my questions about security land flat.

  “There is nothing wrong. Everything is okay.”

  I can see it in Maurice’s discomfort. They are unwilling to talk.

  Around the next bend, I spot a familiar old woman: the grandmother. She’s heading towards her compound. I call out, “Jambo, Mama!”

  She sizes up the group, unimpressed with the lurking armed security. As Maurice approaches, she turns and walks away. I follow her and say, “Mama, I wish you would talk to me.”

  “I’m too hungry to talk!” she calls behind her. Maurice and I follow with the guards running to stay in position in front and behind.

  “But I met you last year,” I say. “Do you recognize me?”

  She ignores us, continuing on. I chase her. “I’ve been worried about you all year. I’ve traveled all the way from America to make sure you and your family are okay.”

  She slows down and turns around to size me up.

  “Here is your photo. Do you remember?”

  She looks at the fuzzy photo of herself, baffled. “I can’t think of anything but hunger.”

  She caves and agrees to talk for a few minutes. One of the guards searches the compound for any lurking evil-doers on the roofs or in the hedges and huts. The grandmother perches on a little wooden bench and laughs. “Can you give me clothes, so I can be beautiful?”