Two Years of Wonder

by Ted Neill

  Ivy’s father’s other children remained the next few days for the reading of his will. When it was read, there was great fight with lots of yelling. People were very upset. Then they left very quickly and soon it was only Bahati, her husband Raphael, and her baby Emanuel left in the house.

  Ivy knew better than to ask right away what the commotion was about. The next day, however, she learned.

  Charity, another daughter from Ivy’s father’s second marriage, a full sister of Bahati, wanted Maurice. Her son had died the year before and she only had daughters. What she wanted more than anything was a new son. She had begged for Maurice, but the will was very clear.

  Ivy and her brother were to stay together. They had not been left to anyone in the family, but rather to the parish priest.

  Miriam’s sister, Purity, died. At the burial, Miriam’s father had to lean on her brother Peter, who worked for Kenya Bus and had returned from Nairobi.

  Miriam knew something was not right with Purity one morning when she was feeding her and she noticed bumps on the baby’s cheek. She had showed them to mother. Her mother had taken Purity to the doctor the next day, but he did not know what to do for the bumps. They soon spread all over the side of Purity’s face.

  Then she died.

  Other things were not right and Miriam’s brothers Peter and Joseph pointed them out. They tried to speak in Kizungu so that Miriam did not understand, but she had picked up some Kizungu and Sheng from the children at the market.

  Her brothers were worried about their mother and father’s coughing. Both slept fitfully now because of it. Miriam realized that neither Joseph nor Peter coughed in their sleep, making her worry that indeed something was wrong with her parents. One day Miriam had noticed that her mother’s fingernails did not even look like fingernails anymore—they were broken and looked the way an old paint can looked after it began to rust and turn brittle.

  There were long days, one after another, when her parents would only leave their bedroom to go to the toilet outside or to get some food. Miriam lost track of what days were which. She had to see what other people were wearing to figure it out: on weekdays the children wore their school uniforms. On Sundays people were dressed in their church clothes.

  Her mother’s friend Patrice would bring them food sometimes, but Miriam thought it was strange that she saw the market women so little. Miriam finally felt hopeful when Aunt Evelyn appeared. She lived in Nairobi near Peter and he had gotten her a ticket on Kenya Bus to come and help Miriam and her parents.

  With Evelyn around there was someone to make food, do wash, and even to braid Miriam’s hair. Evelyn was very good at telling stories and she would sit in the sun with Miriam sorting rice and entertaining her. Miriam would sometimes tell stories herself. Evelyn said they were very good stories and one time she asked why Miriam was not in school. Miriam said it was because she had not learned to read. Evelyn said she would speak to Miriam’s mother about it. For the next few days Miriam waited for Evelyn to say something further on the topic, but she never did.

  One afternoon Miriam wandered down to the old market—since Evelyn had arrived they had been going to a different market that Miriam called the “new market.” It had been a long time since she had seen the old one, so she thought a visit was long overdue.

  She was shocked at what she found: her mother’s booth had been burnt. There were only bits and pieces of boards left. They all were blackened and broken. She saw Sofie, one of her mother’s friends. Miriam ran up to her and asked her what had happened. Then she became confused, because the woman looked just like Sofie, but she seemed to be deaf. She would not respond to what Miriam said. Miriam walked in front of her. The woman, Miriam was sure she was Sofie, looked briefly at her, then away again. Miriam did not want to press her further. Then she felt something hit her back and scatter to the ground. There was a cloud of dust rising about her. Someone had thrown dirt at her. She turned around. She saw many of the faces she was used to seeing in the market, women whom had gathered around her mother and herself many times. Women she had fetched change for, but none would look at her now.

  She went up to Beatrice and greeted her. Beatrice spoke loudly to one of her friends, drowning out Miriam’s voice. Miriam was about to speak again when she felt even more dirt hit her from behind. It fell over her shoulders and spilled onto the bright red tomatoes on the stall before her.

  She turned, thinking it was some child, but there was Sofie, right behind her, reaching down for another fist full of dirt.

  “Get away. Get out of here!” she said and threw the dirt right in Miriam’s eyes. She coughed. Suddenly all the women started to cry at her to leave and get out. Dirt hit her from all sides. Miriam was blinded. She ran with her head down, bumping into stalls. Now even men were yelling at her to watch where she was going. Harder things than dirt were being thrown at her. She heard a rock hit the wall of a shack as she ran by. Children were following her now, throwing water bottles, throwing bottle caps.

  When she got home she was weeping. Evelyn took one look at her and asked her what happened. When Miriam started to explain, Evelyn covered her mouth, took her outside and said in a low angry voice that she should never go to that market again and that she should never ever speak of it in the house in front of her parents or anyone else.

  Miriam nodded. Evelyn told her to clean herself up and to be quiet because her parents were resting.

  A few nights later a noise woke Miriam. She tried to fall back asleep but she heard voices outside. Many voices. Wide awake voices. She looked through a gap in the wall and saw a flame pass before her eyes. At first she thought that someone was burning rubbish, but she knew rubbish was only burnt on the ground. These flames were moving higher than that. Some were now fixed upon the roof. Miriam smelled the acrid odor of burning plastic.

  She sat up and screamed, “Fire!” Evelyn woke up with a start. Something was dragged across the ground just outside their house and slammed against their door. Miriam thought someone would come inside, but no one did. The door stayed shut, only it was pressed inward more than usual. Smoke was creeping in from the roof now. Evelyn ran about trying to find water. She pressed on the front door but it did not open. She cried for help and for mercy. Even though Miriam heard voices outside, no one answered. She did not understand what was going on. Were these the same people that had burnt her mother’s stall?

  The door to her parent’s room swung open. Her father was standing there, leaning heavily against the wall. It had been so long since Miriam had seen him out of bed, she had forgotten how tall and imposing he could be. He crossed the room, like an old man, leaning on the table, coughing, and limping. He tried the door, but it did not budge. The room was filling with smoke now. Miriam was choking. Her mother was screaming now as well. Miriam called her father and said to him she did not want to die.

  His eyes, were larger and deeper than she remembered. He almost looked like a skeleton to her. But then he turned to the door and leaned his body into it. Miriam thought of the strength he once had to carry things at the truck depot and somehow he summoned it now. The door moved and something very heavy fell away to the ground outside.

  Evelyn came out with Miriam’s mother leaning on her. Miriam ran to the cupboard, grabbed their family’s Bible, then ran outside.

  Her father was standing in the center of the road. There were men all around with torches. Evelyn yanked Miriam to her side by her night shirt. Miriam looked back at the melting plastic of the roof. Burning sticks were crackling. The corrugated metal was making loud popping noises.

  Her father was wheezing but speaking in gentle tones like he always did. He asked the men politely to just let him and his wife die in peace. He swore to them he meant them no harm. Then he called their names, for they all were from the community. Even Miriam knew some of the men her father named and she hoped that because they knew Miriam and her family, they would leave them alone. These were the husbands of her mother’s friends at the market, t
he fathers of Miriam’s friends. Even one of her brother’s friends was there. She saw him holding a torch and a petrol can, but she could not believe he would burn down their house with them inside. She guessed he had just been doing what his father had told him. Maybe his father was drunk, maybe they all were. People did things as tricks at night when they were drunk that they would never do during the day.

  Her father spoke of Jesus and how Jesus treated lepers. Miriam was now glad that she had brought the Bible in case her father would want to read from it.

  But he did not. He stopped speaking, except to say please, please leave them in peace, to have mercy on them as Jesus would want.

  They listened to him. The torches and the men disappeared.

  Once the torches were receding, a figure came running up with water that he doused the flames with. It was Patrice’s husband. Patrice was there in her nightclothes, as were many other people who had been awoken by the commotion. But they slowly began to disperse. Miriam thought that Patrice would come over to them, but her husband led her away. As she turned she said, “Sorry.”

  Oliver and his mother moved back to Babu’s house. Oliver understood that other people would now live in his mother’s apartment and they would send her money to live there. It felt strange to Oliver to think about other people living in what he had come to think of as his home. He was happy to be living in Babu’s house again even if his mother was so sick now that she could not get out of bed.

  Oliver did not begin school right away. They decided he would wait until next term. Pricilla brought him a few exercise books that he would work on in the mornings. In the afternoons he would play outside in the fields and the yard.

  One day Babu called to him and asked him to sit with his mother. Oliver went into her bedroom. He knew the person lying in the bed was his mother even though she looked more like a skeleton. He told himself that even if she looked like a skeleton, his mother was inside. It was like a story he read in one of his books where a man’s brain was transplanted into another man’s body. On the outside he looked different, but on the inside it was still the same person.

  Oliver sat beside his mother’s bed and held her hand—which was more like Babu’s hand because he could see and feel the bones inside. His mother was breathing very hard. Her teeth stuck out of her mouth. He wondered if she knew he was there. He decided to tell her a story about a man named Ndegwa who had to climb a mountain to find his water gourd.

  When Oliver was finished, Babu told him that his mother needed to rest. He was not sure how Babu knew since his mother did not seem able to speak. She only breathed very hard and loudly. But he obeyed, went to his room, and went to sleep.

  In the morning when he woke, he heard strange voices in the house. When he came out of his room he saw two cucus go into his mother’s room and close the door. His grandfather was sitting in his chair. He called Oliver over and held him on his lap. He told him that his mother had gone to be with Jesus and that they both would see her again someday when they met Jesus. Oliver knew this meant she was dead because when Pricilla’s aunt had died his mother had said to Pricilla that her aunt was with Jesus, but when they were alone his mother had said to Oliver that Pricilla’s aunt was dead.

  Oliver sat with Babu a long time. Finally one of the cucus came out and asked for Babu. Babu went into Oliver’s mother’s room.

  Oliver was left behind. He waited a while and when the door did not open, he walked outside into the yard and sat down underneath his bush.

  When she was supposed to be sleeping, Ivy had overheard Raphael and Bahati talking. They were surprised and also insulted that Ivy’s father had left the children to the priest. It was highly unusual. Why not leave them for the family?

  Ivy was surprised herself. When she had asked Bahati what might happen if her father died, Bahati had said that they would simply go to other family members.

  Ivy wanted to stay with Maurice, but she was afraid that they would be separated to different daughters of their father, so in a way she was glad they had been left to Father David.

  Father David was a very nice man. He was also a priest, so he had a nice house that was up the hill from the church. It was made out of stone and had a metal door. It also had electric lights.

  But Ivy was surprised to learn that the entire house was not his. He shared it with many people and only two rooms were his. This was his explanation as to why he could not take Ivy and Maurice.

  Bahati and Raphael did not like this news. They could not keep Ivy and Maurice either—at least that was what they said. They also had to be leaving Kariobangi soon because a son from the first marriage had been left the house and he wanted to move in soon.

  So Father David said Ivy and Maurice could stay with his mother. But that meant they would have to say goodbye to the home they had known all their lives. That night, Ivy told Maurice wonderful stories of how nice their new home would be, even though she had no real idea. She just wanted to keep him from crying so he could sleep. When he finally drifted off, she buried her face in her own pillow so her sobs would not wake him.

  Chapter 12

  Night Commuters

  We shouldn’t have favorites but we do. Miriam is of course one of mine. Anika is another, if for no other reason than she plays hard to get.

  Anika is nine and scary smart, as smart as Miriam is emotionally perceptive. Working with orphans attracts a wide range of characters but common to all of us, I suspect, is a desire to be liked, even loved; the open arms of children desperate for connection and attention is a comfortable place for us in our codependence. Anika, however, sees through us, or at least the foreign volunteers. She spends her energy on her relationships with the Kenyan staff, as if she knows we are just passing through, as if she recognizes our neediness and she is too smart to set aside her own needs for ours.

  But this does not mean Anika does not like any foreign volunteers. At one point I bring in a cadre of female Canadian college students who turn out to be my best volunteers ever. Anika takes a liking to them like no other. One of them, Amy, teaches the children a song, along with dance steps, that goes like this:

  Pick pick pick pick banana

  Peel peel peel peel banana

  Eat eat eat eat banana

  Go go go go bananas

  It is accompanied by picking, peeling, and eating motions. When you “go bananas” you spin in a circle with your hands in the air. The children love it and I watch Anika responding to Amy with such genuine fondness that I’m actually slightly jealous. I try to teach her a song as well, but she remains uncooperatively still, narrows her almond-shaped eyes, and simply comments, “Ted, you are stupid.”

  Like a scorned school boy, I just want her to like me more.

  Hannah goes on a sightseeing trip to Uganda with three American men fresh out of college. They have come to Africa looking for a story to film. They have been to Sudan, but finding nothing but stomach bugs, empty desert, and footage of them, in a screaming panic, killing a large snake that had slithered into their campsite. They turned back to Kenya and then Uganda. Hannah says she can understand them easily because their accents are as horribly American as mine.

  They pass through Northern Uganda. One evening as they are riding in the back of the truck they have rented, Hannah notices long lines of children walking along the road, all in the same direction. The lines go on for miles. Hannah asks the driver what is going on.

  The driver explains that the children are the night commuters. For twenty years, the Lord’s Resistance Army, the LRA, headed by a man named Joseph Kony, has been terrorizing Northern Uganda. Joseph Kony preaches that he is the new Messiah. He and his followers want to install a theocratic government in Uganda in order to save their countrymen from the forces of evil. In twenty years, twenty thousand children have disappeared in raids conducted by Kony’s men. The children are used as child soldiers, sex slaves, and servants. Often they are made to beat their own friends and parents and relatives to death, then eat
their flesh or drink their blood. Children that try to escape are often killed in the same manner. If they are allowed to live, their lips, noses, hands, breasts, or entire limbs are amputated as punishment and warning to other children that might try to escape.

  Since most children are taken in night raids, as soon as the sun begins to dip down near the horizon, any child that is old enough to walk makes his or her way out of the villages and towards the towns where they can sleep in relative safety. They sleep in the streets or, if they are lucky, under the eaves of a building.

  Hannah asks the driver to slow down. She climbs out of the truck bed and begins taking pictures. Some of the children stop, studying her warily. Some ask for food or money. Hannah is able to get one young girl, with an even younger girl on her back, to stop and pause for a close up. Children form a knot around her, tugging on her clothes and reaching out with open palms.

  But the driver thinks he hears gunfire. He tells Hannah to get back inside and they drive down the road, leaving the children behind.

  I find Judy sitting on the porch of her cottage looking miserable. She is seven, light skinned, freckled, and usually very articulate. I ask her what is the matter. She says,

  “I am having bad thoughts about my mother.”