by Jessica Yu
Junior stood stock-still, as though afraid any movement might wake him from this dream.
“You have seen the mom,” Gladys murmured, her whisper reverent. “You have seen your mom.”
She glanced up at Officer Rebecca. “Let’s leave them. Let’s let them be.” Osman followed them into the office, swiping at his eyes with a knuckle.
And then there was nothing but the wood-dove sounds of soft weeping against the din of street noise. Though they stood rooted in place, a few feet apart, the family seemed connected in that moment: mother, daughters, and son, all standing on the veranda of the police station, crying for everything that had been lost and found.
AFTER SOME MINUTES Gladys went back outside to interview Junior’s mother. The rising sun had erased the shade at the bench, so she led the family behind the building, where they could stand in its shadow. The baby girl followed reluctantly, still hiccupping with tears.
“Eh? You see the young one?” Gladys chuckled. “She did not even know why others were crying, and she is still crying. But we are happy now, baby. We are very happy. Oof!”
Junior and his mother smiled weakly, drained by the events of the last few minutes. The boy’s eyes, normally red, were positively inflamed.
Like the burning incident, those bloodshot eyes were a misfortune that had become an unexpected benefit. When the mother reached Officer Rebecca through the number listed in “Lost and Abandoned,” she revealed that it had been almost a decade since she had seen her son. “Madam, I don’t know how my boy looks now,” she confessed. “I can’t identify him. But the only mark he has, which I think he would still have, is his eyes. According to the doctor, he had an allergy, and his eyes always turn red.” That one feature connected her to her long-lost son: his red eyes.
And now here they were together. Passersby might assume that this tear-stained family had just received terrible news and that the large woman with the camera had just won the lottery. You could no more dim Gladys’s smile than you could turn off the sun. As she had said to the baby, she was happy.
The reunion had touched her. It had also validated her insistence on rerunning the boy’s story in her column. When nobody had responded to her first two profiles, she had had to push to include him a third time. Hilary had balked at first, asking, “Didn’t you write about this one the other week?”
She was not ready to give up. But her job, as some colleagues persistently reminded her, required her to move on. “Gladys, you are a journalist. Your work is to get the proper information and write the story. And we publish the story. Are you supposed to do more than that?”
“Not your job” was one song she often heard; the other was “lack of space.” But as with Trevor, she had refused to let this one go. It irked her that the world claimed not to know these kids.
So she had written about Junior again. And again. And finally the phone had rung. Woo-woo!
THE MOTHER’S NAME was Rebecca Nakiru. Odd to think that her son came to Old Kampala Station calling himself Mugerwa, like Officer Mugerwa, and here was the mother, Rebecca, like Officer Rebecca. The confusion of names seemed to be a hallmark of this case. At least there was no Gladys among the daughters: the three-year-old, who had a different father from Junior, was named Mary Faith; the thirteen-year-old was, as all knew by now, Marcy.
“Marcy is thirteen?” Junior asked, surprised. He and his sister were practically twins, barely a year apart. But he was the older sibling. “I thought I was twelve now.”
“No,” corrected his mother. “You are fourteen.”
“I am fourteen?” Junior slowly shook his head. Evidently the day’s surprises had not yet been exhausted. Where had those two years gone?
Finding out that this Rebecca was twenty-eight years old, Gladys did some quick calculations. She had probably been pregnant with Junior at thirteen and given birth to him at fourteen.
That she was poor surprised no one. Selling local brew on commission gave her a meager income, and she struggled to feed her children. How had she raised the money for the two-day bus fare from Karamoja to Kampala? It would take an eternity for her to earn such a fortune.
Gladys wanted to ask her about how she had separated from her eldest child, but Officer Rebecca appeared then, warning of the time. The next appointment for all of them, Junior and his family included, was at the military barracks, which kept strict hours.
“We will continue the interview later,” Gladys agreed, looking Officer Rebecca up and down. The policewoman’s black sheath dress, with its pattern of beige swirls, looked more appropriate for a party than a visit to the barracks. “Why don’t you put on a uniform?” she asked reproachfully.
It was not really a question. Rebecca moved off without protest.
“Okay, let’s move to the vehicles now,” said Gladys, zipping her notebook into her bag. Junior fell into step with her, and she rested a heavy forearm on his shoulder. The boy had said almost nothing since hugging his mother. “Tell me, are you happy?”
“Yes,” said the boy.
“Have you thanked me? Have you thanked me for putting you in my column all those times?” Gladys’s prodding was playful but pointed. Children needed to acknowledge assistance when it was offered to them. “I am waiting. Here I am!”
She cocked her head to hear his soft reply: “I pray for you.”
“You pray for me? Oh my God,” she said with a sigh, her own voice dropping so low it was barely audible outside her own head. “I think that is great. Instead of saying thank you, he is praying for me! Which is better. Can you imagine?”
She tightened her arm around the boy, talking brightly now. “Thanks for praying for me. And I also pray that I will be able to give you care, and see you continue to go to school. Okay?”
TWO VEHICLES WERE required to take everyone to Makindye Military Barracks. Watching his newly recovered family follow Officer Rebecca to the other vehicle, Junior caught his mother’s eye. They shared an easy, unburdened smile, the expression giving his mother the carefree look of a teenager.
“She is beautiful. Beautifully shaped girl, the mother,” Gladys remarked to Osman. “Does she look like Karamojong to you? Or Junior? When Junior told me he was from Karamoja, I did not believe it.”
“Karamojong are different, by the way,” Osman agreed. “Those you see on the streets, they don’t have the structure of that lady. They have tiny legs and rough skin. This mother has nice skin.”
The cattle-herding Karamojong were often stereotyped as violent and uncivilized. Following a nomadic life in the remote northeast, they were known for their height and strength, their elaborate scar patterns, and their love for cattle and guns. Although the practice had declined in recent generations, one still heard of areas where a Karamojong man might claim a bride by chasing his intended and fighting her to the ground, marking his prize through “courtship rape” and the subsequent payment of cows.
In recent years, persistent drought was driving the Karamojong into cities by the thousands. Survival on the streets of Kampala was no sure thing, even for these tough people.
Gladys had dealt with Karamojong women before, particularly those who would walk through traffic with babies, begging. Recently she had reported on a Karamojong woman who had “rented” twins to beg with. To prompt more generous handouts, the woman had stripped the babies naked. She took them out on the street when it was raining, and one of the twins fell ill and died. Still, Gladys told Osman, a crowd of Karamojong women had swarmed the police station, crying that the arrest was unjust. “They are very aggressive. If one of them gets in trouble, ten of them show up to demand her release.”
“Will this woman be taking the son back to Karamoja today?”
“No.” Gladys looked at Osman like he was crazy. “He has to go back to school.”
“But she is the rightful guardian. Junior has to be in the village with the mom!”
Gladys turned to look back at Junior. “Do you want to go back to the village with your mothe
r?”
Junior shook his head. “I want to go back to school.”
“You see? This is my boy!”
Osman gave a bemused laugh, conceding defeat.
“What I wanted,” Gladys explained, “was to get the mother to know where the boy is. And to know that her son is still alive. That is enough. Whenever she wants to see the boy, she knows where to call.”
In truth, this plan to keep Junior at Early Learning School was not yet set in stone. It required three approvals. The first was from Agnes, of course, and that approval Gladys had secured. The second was from Junior’s mother. There had not been time to broach the subject with her yet. The third approval was from the person they were hoping to meet at the Makindye Military Barracks: Junior’s father.
The Boy with Seven Names, Part Six
Mugerwa Junior Godfrey Victor Mananga Adams
In his confession to Gladys at Early Learning School, Junior had reported that his father had died of cancer years before. Was he deliberately lying or only telling her what he believed to be true? She would soon find out.
With information from Junior’s mother, Officer Rebecca had been able to confirm the boy’s father as John Bosco Aleper, an army captain currently being detained at Makindye Military Barracks. A visit to the barracks was arranged, but detention facilities were sensitive places, and there was no guarantee that they would be admitted.
At the barracks, Gladys, mother Rebecca, and Rebecca’s two daughters were signed in, patted down, and asked to deposit their belongings at the security table in the yard. Gladys was not even permitted to take in a notebook and pencil, let alone her camera. As they were led across the yard, Osman rejoined the group, nervously recounting how the frisking officer had found a coin buried deep in one of his pockets.
They waited in a tiny anteroom outside an office staffed by a female guard with the jaded, watchful manner of a cat on a windowsill. Officer Rebecca seemed a bit nervous as she chattered about the case.
“This is the prodigal son,” she explained, pointing at Junior, who sat deep in conversation with his mother. “He is returned. Ten years he and his mother have not seen each other.”
“And why are you here?” the guard asked, more out of habit than curiosity.
“We are here to see the father.”
“He is here? What is his name?”
“Captain John Bosco Aleper.”
At this the guard gave a snort and rolled her eyes, a surprising show of animation. “I know him,” she said, derision curling her words. She nodded in the direction of Junior’s mother. “This isn’t his only one, you know.”
The women glanced over to see Junior exchanging playful grins with Marcy and his newfound baby stepsister. It was evident that the boy had no idea of what might take place in the next hour, in the next room.
ENTERING THE OFFICE, Officer Rebecca’s group was met by several men in uniform. Gladys, Osman, and Marcy took seats by the wall while Junior and his mother sat in chairs in front of the desk.
The level of caution was high, Gladys understood, as the situation was sensitive. John Bosco was being held on charges of treason. The captain in charge posed a few polite questions to Officer Rebecca and Gladys about their visit but offered no details on the case.
Without announcement, two guards entered the room, followed by a figure in a red prison jumpsuit. Junior followed the glances of the others in the room, turning his head toward the door. A paunchy, round-cheeked man stood before him, a smile quivering the ends of his scruffy mustache.
“Daddy!” Junior immediately leapt up and threw his arms around the man. Gladys was startled to hear jagged weeping coming from the boy. He was clinging to his father the way his mother had clung to him: with a joy that looked like anguish.
The room erupted in cheers and laughter, and John Bosco’s eyes glistened as he returned his son’s hug. Chuckling softly, he set his chin on the smaller head, the arch of his hairline a receding echo of the boy’s. Gladys beamed, her heart full. For the second time that day, Osman dabbed at his eyes.
As Junior’s crying subsided, John Bosco grew aware of his audience. Like a good host—or a seasoned captain—he scanned the room and made eye contact with the new faces around him. His drooping mustache framed his mouth, giving him a jocular air.
“Here is your son,” Officer Rebecca announced, somewhat belatedly.
“God is really great,” the man said, shaking his head in wonder. “I had given up hope myself.”
Dark tearstains showed on the belly of his red jumpsuit where Junior’s face had pressed into him. The boy remained at his side, clutching his arm. His eyes saw nothing, and his breathing was shallow. There was no question in Gladys’s mind that the boy had been telling the truth. He had believed his father was long dead.
The captain in charge introduced John Bosco to Officer Rebecca and Gladys.
“Thank you for finding my boy,” said the father. Someone had sneaked a copy of the paper with Gladys’s last column into his cell. The moment he had seen the picture, he had started crying. “I dropped to my knees and prayed. I said, ‘God, now I really believe you exist.’”
Around the room, a few heads nodded.
“Maybe you don’t see angels,” John Bosco said, breaking into a smile. Even in his prisoner’s jumpsuit, he exuded the confidence of someone accustomed to wielding his charm. “But I think I am seeing angels at this moment.”
“When was the last time you saw your son?” Officer Rebecca asked.
His grin faded. “If I answer that question, I will start breaking down.” He gestured at three-year-old Mary Faith. “I left him when he was a few years older than this one.”
After splitting from Junior’s mom, he explained, he had taken the boy with him to his new wife. Then he had moved on to another relationship, taking the boy to the next woman. But he split up with her too, and lost track of both her and his son. From that point, the only one who could pick up the story was Junior.
“Who told you that your father had died?” Gladys asked the boy.
The second woman, Junior explained, staring down at his borrowed shoes. “She said, ‘Your father died of cancer—you should just forget about him.’”
John Bosco must have left this woman with a great store of fuel to stoke her anger, because she had not been satisfied with the lie about his death. She erased him further by changing the son’s name to Mugerwa Junior. The boy’s real name was Adams. Mananga Adams.
Mugerwa Junior. Godfrey. Victor. Mananga. Adams. Gladys sincerely hoped this was the end of the list of names for this boy.
The third woman’s cruel treatment of Junior had ended with her chasing him from her home. That was how he had come to wander the streets.
Officer Rebecca and Gladys told John Bosco of the boy’s arrival at the police station, his repeated profiles in “Lost and Abandoned,” the burning accident, and his placement in Early Learning School.
“I am grateful to you people for helping my family,” the man said.
“He is adjusting well in school,” Gladys said. “I think it is a good place for him right now. How do you see it?”
“I think it is good.”
“And you, Mommy? What do you think?”
Up to this point, attention had been focused on father and son. Now all eyes turned to the chair in the middle of the room, where Junior’s mother held Mary Faith asleep in her arms. Sitting motionless, with slow tears sliding down her cheeks, the woman did not respond.
“We want to know what is on your mind,” Officer Rebecca prompted. “Because you have parental rights as his mother.”
For a few seconds everyone waited, but the woman said nothing.
“No one is taking him away,” soothed the policewoman. “But if he is in school, then when he grows up he can come back and help take care of his sisters.”
“Please let him stay in that school,” John Bosco said to his former wife. “He has some chance if he is in school.”
Reb
ecca refused to look at him, or even to acknowledge that she had heard him. She wore the sorrowful, stricken look of someone standing in the ashes of a burned-down house.
John Bosco tilted his head at her, his eyes conciliatory. “Forget about the past.”
“It is done,” the captain in charge agreed. Apparently he knew something of the couple’s history. “Why dwell on what has already happened?”
Gladys glanced from the father to the mother; their features surely added up to this boy and the girl Marcy. By nature, these four belonged to each other as much as fingers on a hand. For the first time in ten years they were gathered in the same room. But their minds were as isolated as trees in different forests. What had happened to this family?
“She has said nothing since we entered this room,” Officer Rebecca noted with a sigh.
“Please,” Gladys coaxed. “Tell us what you are thinking.”
After another long silence, Junior’s mother wiped her wet cheeks with the back of a hand, a gesture everyone seemed to interpret as assent.
“It will be all right. You know where your son is now—you can come to visit him,” Gladys said reassuringly. “Okay? Are you happy?”
“Yes.” The answer was low and unconvincing, like an apology from a child accused of something she did not do.
Marcy began to cry, her head bent into her lap, the top layer of her frilly skirt held to her face. Mary Faith woke up in her mother’s arms. She began to wail too, a pup responding to the pack.
Everyone watched Marcy sob. What had made her so distraught? Gladys wondered. Surely all this was good news: her brother had been rescued and reunited with their family, and Good Samaritans were providing for his welfare and education. The day had been filled with joyful tears, but these were heavy and sad.