by Jessica Yu
Frozen Wings
The next morning Gladys announced to Mike that she had cleared the day’s program. A scheduled trip to Ndejje to visit three sisters with HIV would have to wait.
Gladys’s mind had been so unsettled by questions over the adoption of Alex, Annet, and Mercy that she had no choice but to seek answers. There were two men she could turn to in this case: Adam Kulubya, a social worker, and Jacob Kaheru, a police officer. Both worked in cases of child welfare, Adam supporting the victims, Jacob pursuing the offenders.
Although she had spoken to Adam several times over the phone, it was Gladys’s first time meeting him. Tall and slender, the young man possessed a composure that bordered on elegance. He wore stylish glasses, with frames of clear amber and lenses elongated like miniature windshields; behind them, his eyes took in everything with patient attentiveness. Gladys liked him immediately.
“I realize that I really, really need your assistance,” Gladys began once they had settled into the meeting room. “I need to talk to you about a case I’ve had for some time.”
Telling the story of such a case was like cooking a meal. One could not rush. One could not skip a step. Gladys took a full forty-five minutes to walk Adam through the journey of Susan Nabugwere and her three orphaned children. The young man listened thoughtfully, making occasional notes in his book. Not once did he glance at his watch or let his gaze wander to the courtyard.
Gladys ended the tale with her request for Adam to accompany her to meet Pastor Fred and the American couple. “You will be able to tell me whether my fears are warranted. Whether this adoption is proper. I don’t want someone saying, ‘You wrote about these children in the paper. But where are they now?’”
Adam stood up from the table. “Let me invite this gentleman who can advise us. As you know, Jacob is an officer who specializes in issues of child trafficking. He has been in this field for over fifteen years.”
Gladys was eager for the chance to meet Assistant Inspector Jacob Kaheru. Nicknamed “the Hammer,” the inspector was an intensely busy man known for his uncompromising nature.
The Hammer turned out to be an unassuming man of average height, with unremarkable features. Dark skin, close-cropped hair, ready smile. It would be difficult to pick him out in a crowd.
“I heard of your work back in 2005,” he said to Gladys. “When I was with Child and Family.”
Gladys beamed. It was always a good sign when someone in this field knew of her column.
“Gladys has got some kids resettled at Young Hearts,” Adam said. “Do you know that pastor?”
“I know him very well,” Jacob said casually, placing weight on the word very.
Adam produced a page from his folder, on which was taped a newspaper clipping. “I always get these stories from the paper,” he explained, passing the page to his colleague. “And I keep them on file.”
It was Gladys’s follow-up article: “Orphaned Siblings Find Care.” Jacob stared down at the smiling faces of Freddy and the three children, then slid the page back without comment.
Though Gladys had cooked a three-course meal out of the story for Adam, she sensed that Inspector Jacob would have time only for a snack. She compressed the case into a few minutes, ending with her consternation at hearing that the children were being taken out of the country without her prior knowledge. She explained that earlier she had blocked the pastor’s plan to split up the siblings and put Alex up for adoption. “I told Freddy, ‘If you ever get tired of taking care of these three, let me know.’ But he never even communicated before arranging this. Is it really proper? You’re saying that you know Freddy.”
“Very well.” Again the word very was delivered like a too-hard handshake. And then came the punch. “To tell you the truth, I knew Freddy when I was investigating him on trafficking. He’s not the best person to—take—care—of—our—children.” He rapped his pen sharply on the table, each word driving a nail into Gladys’s chest.
Investigating. Trafficking. Children.
“He keeps taking children on ‘legal guardianship.’ If you went deep to investigate, it’s a nasty story. Because I followed him on a case of trafficking. He had the child almost already leaving. I entered in, and I stopped the child. With your case, okay—”
“It’s not okay!” Gladys burst out. “It’s not okay.”
Jacob paused. “Ask yourself. Why did he not involve you?”
A clamor rose up through the window. A flock of pied crows marched through the yard, shrieking accusations. Jacob’s voice drowned out the birds, his words breaking over Gladys like a thunderstorm. “You were the one who published this story. You are the one who tried to settle them. And you are the one who stopped him from giving out the boy. So when you see him passing behind you, then you know it is fishy.”
Jacob went on to say that in Uganda, he had seen children bought and sold. Children taken from their rightful families. Children trafficked for their kidneys. It was a bigger business than ivory smuggling.
“I am sorry to tell you that most of these children who go abroad, they are just sold. It can be fifty thousand dollars per child.”
Gladys sagged in her chair. “I am dead.”
“That is why the government is looking at an alternative care framework.” Jacob steamed ahead. “As of today we have a national adoption panel. With officers, psychologists, lawyers. Whoever wants to adopt a child must come and face the panel. But people are still doing it illegally. Our children are going out, every day, on legal guardianship. For proper adoption, the couple has to stay in Uganda for three years. But on legal guardianship, you get the order, and you take the child right away. And then people end up finalizing the adoption process in the United States or whatever the other country is.”
“How do they get this legal guardianship?”
“Most of it is influenced by how much money you have. You influence this and that, you get the papers, and at the end of the day . . .”
“So the courts are also bought?” Gladys asked.
Jacob snorted. “You, what are you talking about?”
Gladys rolled her eyes. “As if I’m not in Uganda.”
So someone with money could obtain a child and circumvent the proper vetting. It didn’t matter whether these Americans were suitable parents or not, as long as the right palms were greased.
“A lot of money is changing hands. A lot. Probation officers, the ones who run the homes, lawyers. And then when you tell me this American is an architect . . .”
“Architects in the United States make a lot of money,” Adam put in. “Some homes defraud such people. They tell them the court process needs this and this and this. And the ones who want to adopt keep giving out money—they don’t know these are lies.”
“There are lawyers who buy houses in Kampala every six months out of this business!” Jacob ranted. “It is only me whom you will never compromise in a case. I would rather die than take money.”
Jacob told them how he had once chased a suspect through the ceiling of a building. When cornered at gunpoint, the man had offered him 5 million shillings to let him go. “I said, ‘I will never eat such a money!’ But indeed, the other people ate it.”
Jacob’s phone buzzed. Raising it to his ear, he listened for a moment, then attacked. “You are speaking to Assistant Police Inspector Jacob Kaheru! And I’m telling you, if you cannot go to Peace Transition Home to pick up your child, I’m going to charge! I have the capacity to put you there! You would abandon your child in the home? What is that you are doing to your own child?” The Hammer shouted for a bit longer, as though he were alone in the room, until the person on the other end of the phone had evidently been ground into powder.
Jacob set his phone aside and returned to Gladys, not missing a beat. “I’m telling you, it is one hundred percent business. I am part of the team that visits children’s homes in Uganda.” As an inspector, he had visited dozens of homes, including Young Hearts. “Of course, I went as a born-again Chr
istian.” He clapped his hands and made a smile so wide it looked like the top of his head might fall off. “God bless!”
“Hallelujah!” Mike chimed in, tossing up his hands.
“Everyone was chatting, chatting,” Jacob went on, still wearing the beatific expression, the versatility of his unremarkable features on full display. “I did not identify myself until they allowed me in. Then I pulled my card. ‘I’m a police officer—can I have a visit around?’” His face abruptly contracted into a scowl. “Freddy has three big rooms where he keeps all those donated things from the sponsors, things that are supposed to be for the children. Brand-new, in boxes. And the kids are not having any of them.”
Jacob was bellowing now, as if he were trying to halt a fleeing suspect. “Children were moving barefoot! In his school! All of them barefoot, and yet I saw boxes and boxes. Shoes and shoes. ‘What is this?’ I asked him. ‘Why would you keep all this when the children are not even having slippers?’”
It was all falling painfully into place. The half-clothed babies, the indifferent matrons, perhaps even that toddler’s swollen knee. Why were children doing the laundry in the yard while adults were standing around? Why was Pastor Fred taking a holiday in India while children went barefoot in his orphanage?
“Surely it stinks,” said Gladys. “Mike, this is why Freddy didn’t want us to look behind where the orphanage was.”
Jacob puffed out his cheeks, gesturing at them with cupped hands. “You see this man is fat like this. How do you think he got like that?”
“Oh, good gracious me.” Mike laughed.
The inspector listed other signs of misconduct. “I saw that the license was expired. There were no recommendations from the ministry. No one is supposed to have a children’s home without an approval from the Ministry of Gender. No one!”
“Eh!” Gladys exclaimed. “The last comment Freddy made to me was, ‘Gladys, you move with those people from the Ministry of Gender. Talk to them. They have not given us licenses. How do they expect us to help children?’”
“He must have a license. He must become responsible. Because if we find that you are not taking care of children in a good way, we charge you and we take you to court.”
“What came out of the investigation?” asked Gladys.
Now it was Jacob’s turn to deflate. His shoulders sank as he shook his head, his smile more rueful than bitter.
“Big people got in the way,” Gladys concluded.
Mike smiled grimly. “Wow.”
“So if these people have already gotten the legal guardianship order . . .” Jacob spread his hands. “As much as you want to protect these children, there’s a point you reach where you say, ‘God, take over.’”
But this case had not yet reached that point. If they could determine that any lies had been told in court, they had a chance of stopping an illegal action. Jacob’s eyes narrowed as he asked the question that Gladys herself had posed in Pastor Fred’s office: “What do the American couple want with the kids if they are already sponsoring a school here in Uganda? Why do they want the kids with them?”
Esther spoke up. “Mr. Jacob, we have another chance on Monday. We are supposed to meet with Freddy. To see the people who are taking the children.”
The inspector’s grin hardened into a thin line. “How sure are you that you are going to meet them?”
“Ah, no.” Gladys shook off his skepticism. “We have made an appointment. Freddy will be coming to New Vision.”
“Do you know that he can tell you, ‘Oh, I have now a meeting, and I can’t make it’? You may not find those people on Monday, and if you do see them, you may find that they are moving out that night.”
Mike picked up the theme. “He might say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, can you believe it? They had to fly out already.’”
It was agreed that Adam would accompany Gladys to meet with Freddy on Monday, as Jacob had other business scheduled. While Freddy was not likely to welcome the presence of a social worker, he would probably flee at the sight of the Hammer.
“He knows me very well!” Jacob snorted, one eyebrow raised. Recalling his visit to Freddy’s home, he sounded almost wistful. “I photographed everything. Oh my God, I wish I had my laptop with me—I could show you. Boxes and boxes. Shoes and shoes. And children there are barefoot. And he still goes to the U.S. to ask, ‘Would you adopt? Would you adopt?’”
Gladys pointed to the article on the table. “And I’m now helping Freddy by doing these things! Last Saturday we ran the success story: ‘Orphans Find Care.’”
Mike laughed. “You are the conduit. You are the conduit!”
“Oh my God . . .”
“You are aiding and abetting!” Jacob chortled.
Esther jumped in mercilessly. “Next is Luzira Prison for two years.”
Though she was as much a connoisseur of dark humor as anyone in the room, Gladys could only twist in her seat with misery. What if people did assume she was eating money? What if the authorities blamed her for not investigating the situation more thoroughly? “Okay, so we’ll close the column. It is very easy to close the column. If it has such problems.”
Jacob’s response was immediate. “No. Continue. The column is very good.”
“One thing to know,” Adam said calmly. “The biggest thing you have, Gladys, is your big heart.”
Gladys uttered a gasp of surprise, almost of disbelief.
“That heart is a very big asset to Ugandan children,” Jacob agreed. He and Adam considered her with a sober, almost stern appreciation. “Let me tell you, did Mandela fear being put in prison to redeem the country of South Africa?”
“I have not heard of myself with Mandela!”
“He was put in prison for twenty-seven years. You have a heart for the children of Uganda. You are standing for them!”
IN THE CAR, Gladys slumped. She felt like the four hours of the meeting had drained the blood from her body, drop by drop. And yet it was not emptiness she felt, but a roiling dread. If her heart was big, as Adam and Jacob had said, then her skull was thick. How else had she come to trust Pastor Fred?
“What Jacob explained? That revelation made me so . . . so . . . so . . .” She struggled for words. “It has disorganized me completely!”
Mike wore the expression of one who has just discovered maggots in his rice. “I had a very quiet life until this job. Now I’m meeting all these crooks like Freddy.”
“By the way,” Esther remarked, “they say someone who does not know something cannot get sick about it. That’s why the educated get more sick than the uneducated.”
“Ignorance is such bliss, you know?” Mike agreed. “If I had not found out anything about Freddy, I would’ve just thought of him as another guy.”
“But then you get involved with Gladys,” said Gladys.
Mike watched the traffic for an opening, his head swiveling like an owl’s. Two children came up to the window, palms up, heads tilted in supplication. Mike gave a tiny shake in their direction and gunned his way into a gap between two matatus.
“There is a small story told about a sparrow,” he announced with the authority of a speaker stepping up to a podium. “Once upon a time there was a very deadly winter coming. And all the birds began flying south. But the sparrow decided not to fly south. It flew north. As it flew north, its wings got covered in ice, and it fell down to the ground into a barnyard. It was lying in the barnyard thinking, ‘Okay, I’m dead. I’m finished. My wings are frozen, I can’t jump, I can’t do anything.’
“Then a cow walked by. The cow stepped on the poor bird and pushed it into a heap of dung. Now in the heap, the heat of the dung warmed the sparrow’s wings and the ice melted. The bird was so happy! It started chirping. A cat was walking by and heard the chirping sounds, so it quickly dug out the bird and ate it up!”
Despite themselves, Gladys and Esther giggled, the bigger woman’s body convulsing as though shaken by an invisible giant.
“So the moral of the story is, i
f you are warm and happy in your pile of shit, keep your mouth shut.” The women’s squeals rose to shrieks, Mike’s deep laughter swelling below, coals stoking the fire. “I was so warm and happy in my pile of shit, and now the cat Gladys walks by and I’m swallowed up in her issues!”
“Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!”
“Your business is really getting under my skin!”
“Now the heart will get high blood pressure!” Esther chimed in.
“And everything has come because of this Gladys!” Gladys rocked back and forth and clapped, laughter hissing out of her like spray from a shaken soda can.
“You had been living as a happy man in Kampala. But now you are having a jigger in the head.” Esther delivered the diagnosis soberly. “Very sorry.”
“Oh my God . . .” Gladys sighed, wiping her eyes. “Now Mike hates me really. The other time he hated me so much because of George the First. And the other time at the garden, he couldn’t believe what he was hearing from Zam and Robert. And this time it is Freddy. Ah! So I have really disorganized your sleep.”
“I miss my pile of shit.”
After a couple of long sighs and a few “Oh my God”s for good measure, they retreated again into an uneasy silence.
All the questions Gladys had started the day with still stood unresolved. Was the adoption final? Who were these Americans? Should Alex and his sisters go with them? Were any children safe with Freddy?
“But Gladys.” Mike spoke suddenly, as though in answer to something she had said. “In every situation there is a lesson. If you look in with a magnifying glass, there is something you’re learning. Adam had fantastic information for you.”
“Yes,” Gladys agreed.
Toward the meeting’s end, Adam had counseled Gladys to find a way to generate income for her work with the children so she would not be so dependent on people like Pastor Fred. In fact, he and some of his colleagues had started digging in gardens to raise money for their outreach work. Even small harvests had helped fund their transportation. Gladys had listened with interest but declined to mention her Luwero project. Her big plans had not yet progressed enough to be shared.