I see his question coming and say, “If you don’t, if you even hesitate, it will be done for you. You owe my mother that much a hundred times over.”
His face goes slack, and I can see in his eyes that he knows I’m right. But I’m not done yet. “And furthermore, if you haven’t completely cut ties with the militias by the end of the year, I’ll begin to release information from your hard drive to the press. Yes, I have copies. And don’t even try to have my friend or me killed. There will be safeguards. Either Boyboy or I go missing, the whole of it gets sent straight to a dozen different international news agencies.”
I pause, letting this all sink in. “Am I clear?”
For a moment he simply looks at me, expressionless. Then a corner of his mouth lifts and a flicker of emotion registers on his face. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure it’s a look of grudging respect. “Perfectly,” he says. “I would expect nothing less from your mother’s daughter.”
FORTY-THREE
What will you do now?” Michael asks.
We’re standing in the Greyhills’ yard, near the spot where we got our scars all those years ago. I know his parents are inside discussing Kiki and me and what to do with us. I can hear Mrs. Greyhill’s raised voice, and catch, “They’re not your responsibility . . . We’re your family!”
Michael looks up at the house. I think I’m learning the nuances of his expressions now. This one is complicated, but it seems to be a mix of annoyance and exhaustion. “Let’s walk,” he says.
“Okay, wait a sec.” I catch Kiki’s eye. She’s sitting in the grass a few yards away, with the head of one of the German shepherd guard dogs in her lap. I give her a little smile, and she manages one back. I hope she didn’t hear Mrs. Greyhill shouting.
Kiki’s eyes are less haunted today, but she still looks small and tired. I know it’s a good thing she’s soon going to be far away from here. She needs a fresh start. But that doesn’t mean that I’m happy about letting her go. Michael has assured me he’s going to watch out for her in Switzerland, and I know he will, but it’s not the same.
“We’ll be just down there,” I tell her. “You’re okay?”
She nods her head. “I’m fine, Tina. Really. Stop worrying.”
The dog looks up at her adoringly and licks her chin.
The handoff with Bug Eye went smoothly. The general flew us in on two helicopters with six of his men to make sure no one became too “emotional” during the exchange. We met at the private airfield where Mr. G keeps his helicopter.
Ketchup was brought out to Bug Eye on a stretcher, and when Bug Eye saw his brother, for a second it really did look like things were going to get messy. But Mr. Greyhill had also thought to have a doctor present, who checked out both Ketchup and my sister and assured all of us that everyone was going to be “Fine just fine! Please put the guns away, please.”
My sister. Whew. I just about lost it when I saw her. Talk about emotional. Her getting into the Greyhills’ car is a blur. All I remember is shaking like crazy, and asking her if she was okay over and over again until the doctor gave me a shot of something in my arm. I woke up later that night in a panic in the Greyhills’ guestroom. But Kiki was curled right up next to me, and when I realized she really was there and okay, all I could do was cry silently and try not to wake her up.
Michael waits patiently now, a day later, for me to tear myself away. When I finally do, he leads the way down the yard, past all the flowers and ornamentals. He takes my hand with his good arm near my old cottage, and we walk past the place where I saw my mother and Mr. Greyhill arguing one dark night an eternity ago. We stop in front of the vegetables. The house behind us is hidden by a hibiscus bush humming with bees.
“So?” Michael asks. “What’s your plan? I know you have one.”
“I’ll be around,” I say.
“That’s all you’re going to tell me?”
“The less you know, the better,” I say, letting a teasing smile creep onto my face.
“One day I’m going to know all your secrets, Tiny Girl,” he says, “and you will never escape me.”
“We’ll see.”
“But aren’t you worried about the Goondas if you stay here?” he asks, his smile faltering.
“Your dad paid Bug Eye to leave me alone.”
Michael doesn’t look convinced. He shouldn’t. Payment or no, I bet there’s a price on my head. “Maybe I’ll do some traveling while you’re gone,” I say.
“That’s a good idea,” Michael tells me. “You should take Dad up on his offer to send you to school with us.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“You’d like Switzerland,” he says. “It’s . . . clean. And Kiki will be there.”
“I can’t go to Switzerland.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“I don’t belong there.”
“Do you belong here?” he asks quietly.
Some part of me wants nothing more than to say I’ll go with him. I want to be there to watch over Kiki and, if I’m honest, to be close to him. I don’t know what’s happening between us, exactly, but I wouldn’t mind more time to figure it out.
But some other part of me knows that I will stay. And that it’s the right decision. Maybe it’s because I’ve already made up my mind to go back and check on the mission hospital in Kasisi once Mr. Greyhill’s “donation” goes through. Maybe it’s because while I want the opportunities that school will give Kiki, I know that life isn’t for me. Even before I was a Goonda, I didn’t really like school. I know that’s not great, but it’s just who I am. I can’t imagine spending every day on lockdown, on someone else’s schedule, even if it’s good for me. Wearing a neat uniform, being told what to do, where to go, when to be there—it all sounds like being slowly smothered. I would chafe at being made to sit up straight in a classroom. And I wouldn’t last long with people bugging me to figure out where I want to go to college and decide what I’m going to do with my life.
But mostly, the reason why I am staying is simple: I already know what I’m going to do with my life.
This morning I woke before dawn and crept out of bed. I knocked on Michael’s door and exacted a promise just shy of a blood oath from him to make sure Kiki stayed safe. Then I left. I needed to talk to Boyboy. He was already at my roof by the time I got there. He said he couldn’t sleep and he couldn’t stop shaking. “What happens next?” he’d asked. He knew as well as I did that everything was different now. For one, we were on the Goondas’ shit list. We were going to have to go underground. I needed to find a new roof . . . or maybe a basement. I promised Boyboy we’d set his family up somewhere nice and new and safe. An island maybe.
But two, even if the Goondas had wanted us back, we knew we couldn’t operate like before, robbing people blindly, not caring whose lives we affected.
We talked until the sun was up. We came up with plans, Boyboy and I, that may or may not involve more of what he calls “redistributive justice.” The world is full of bad men with hackable bank accounts.
And after all, I can’t give up being a thief entirely.
“It’ll be like Robin Hood,” Boyboy said. “Prince of Thieves.”
I bumped shoulders with him as we looked out over the city. “Come on, we can do better than that. We’ll be the Queens of Thieves.”
And he laughed, for the first time in a long while.
I face Michael. His eyes are the same color as the leaves behind him. I think he gets why I can’t go. I think, actually, he might get it better than anyone else. He may not know the details, but he knows me. He trusts me to know what’s right for me. I can tell that he wants to ask what this is between us, what it might be. Our friendship is solid, a bedrock I never knew I needed, that I never knew I had all along. But is this more than that? I’m not sure either of us knows yet. But he seems to understand that l
etting the questions remain, letting the messy, unpredictable future happen is maybe the only way for us to go forward.
He brings his hand to my face, his fingertips grazing my hair. I can feel his warmth. “Just . . . don’t disappear again, okay?”
“You’ll always know where I am,” I say, and tentatively lay my palms on his chest. Under his shirt I can feel his heart beating hard and fast.
He watches me like he’s taking in every millimeter of my face. I know the feeling. I want to memorize everything about the way he looks right now, with the sun so bright on his skin and little insects doing lazy circles around his head. And then he reaches around my back and brings me closer, and I’m framed within his arms and I smell him and I can feel how tense he is, holding me as delicately as a wild thing that might launch out of his hands and run away.
And something in me suddenly cracks open like an egg, and I let go of everything except for this ache for him that is so sweet and so powerful and so good. Tomorrow doesn’t matter, I realize. Not right now. Who knows what will happen? All we have is this. Here. Now.
And our mouths come together, and he holds me so close, and in this moment I can’t tell if I am quenched, or more thirsty for him than ever. We kiss and it’s like we’ve invented kissing, like no one can possibly have ever kissed like this in the history of forever. And all around us the world fades away, except for the buzzing of the bees in the flowers, like a thousand strings vibrating.
FORTY-FOUR
Rule 18: A last rule—maybe you can’t be all things to all people. You might not ever be a proper boarding-school girl. Or a perfect thief. Not always the daughter they want or deserve or the sister or the friend. Rules will break you as often as you break them. But I guess that’s okay.
Maybe I’m done with rules.
For now, anyway.
I think I will just be. I will exist. And see what happens.
• • •
I leave Boyboy squirting himself silly with expensive perfume in the duty-free shop and walk with my sister to her gate. Mr. G was going to come to the airport to see her off too, but I asked if we could just go alone. When she flies into Sangui with Michael and Jenny for break in a couple of months, we’ll both come and meet them. I give the security agent my special “escort” pass issued by the airline. Mr. G pulled some strings to get it. It looks just like Kiki’s ticket, but it will only get me as far as Gate 23.
Michael left yesterday, and Mr. Greyhill came in a wheelchair to say good-bye. I could tell he hated being pushed around in the chair, but I guess he really wanted to be there. Michael’s flight was full, so Kiki has to fly today. Michael assured me, though, that he’ll go with the school van to pick her up from the airport. She’ll be in the grade right below Jenny. They’ll look out for her.
We pass row after row of people waiting for their flights. They’re all colors, all ages. The only thing they have in common is a rich sort of weariness, like they’ve had their fun in Africa but now it’s time to go. Maybe they’re not all wealthy, but there are plenty of gold wristwatches and carelessly scattered designer handbags around. It would be a good place to pickpocket; all these people are leaving. By the time they realized they’d been hit, they’d be thousands of miles away.
The airport terminal is new and very clean. All straight lines and no smell to anything. The planes outside the windows look scrubbed and polished. It seems so far away from the dusty streets of Sangui. I wonder if Kiki’s new school in Lucerne will be more like this.
We stop in front of her gate.
“You have your passport? Your money?”
Kiki rolls her eyes. “I haven’t lost them since you asked me five minutes ago.”
I shove my hands in my pockets. The sun is just rising, and it comes through the window like liquid copper. Around us tourists linger over last-minute souvenirs. Mothers try to corral toddlers, and businesspeople in suits hunch over their laptops and furtively sip coffee.
Kiki watches everything with wide eyes. She’s wearing new clothes that were bought for the trip, everything pink and green. With her hair pulled back in neat braids and her new plastic backpack, she could be any of these travelers’ daughters. It’s been almost a week since her kidnapping, and she’s starting to act like her old self again. She’s had nightmares every night, but the doctor says that’s normal and that they will probably stop after a while.
“Call when you get there with the phone Mr. G gave you, okay? My number is already programmed in.” Her backpack strap has slipped down her shoulder, and I tug it up.
“Yeah.” She can’t stop staring around.
I push my sleeves up. I’m getting hot for some reason, and agitated. I look around. Mr. G said there was supposed to be someone here to meet her—someone from the airline who’ll watch her and make sure she gets where she needs to go. But I don’t see anyone. I put my hands on my hips.
Kiki turns back to me, like she’s finally remembered I’m there. “You got a new tattoo.”
My tension ebbs. I show her my forearm. My first non-Goonda tattoo. The skin is still raw and scabbing, but the new tattoo artist I found did a good job. My long, straight scar is now the central stem of a palm branch. It looks just like the one Saint Catherine holds in Mama’s prayer card.
“It’s a symbol of triumph,” I say.
Just then a woman breezes up to us. She’s wearing a lot of makeup, but her face underneath is pretty and friendly. She gives us a big smile. “Catherine Masika?”
Kiki raises her hand.
The woman smiles even wider at her and then at me. “I work for the airline. The flight will board soon, but you can go on first with me and we’ll get you settled. Does that sound good?”
Kiki gulps. “Yes, madam.”
I back up, already feeling myself melting away into the crowd, into the background. She’ll be fine, I tell myself. This is what Mama would have wanted for her. Michael will be there. He won’t let anything bad happen. Still, some part of me wants to grab Kiki’s hand and make a run for it. My throat burns, but I won’t cry in front of her.
The woman takes Kiki’s passport and ticket and puts her hand on her shoulder to steer her toward the gate. She looks at me. “Do you want to say good-bye?” she asks Kiki.
My sister nods again and then turns to me.
“Bye,” I say.
“Bye.”
Then I open my arms and she hits me so hard that we nearly topple over. I squeeze her and press my face into her hair and take a deep breath. All the expensive perfumes in all the duty-free shops in the world could never smell so sweet.
For a moment the world is still and golden, and then Kiki pulls back from me. She’s crying, but she’s smiling too.
“Be good,” I say, and rub the back of my hand across my nose.
For a second, Kiki’s smile makes her look just like Mama in the old photograph of her and Cathi. “You be good too.”
Then she turns and walks toward the gate with the lady, past a roped-off area where I can’t follow. As the woman gives Kiki’s ticket to the gate agent, Kiki looks back at me and says something.
“What?” I ask, and come as close as I can.
She points at my arm and shouts, “Your new tattoo! It’s not for triumph. It means peace!”
I look down at the palm branch. When I look back up, Kiki is walking with the woman through the door that will take them out to the tarmac and the plane. She looks over her shoulder and waves at me one last time.
I wave until long after she can’t see me anymore.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
A few notes on liberties the author has taken with the truth:
Much of this story is based on real events affecting real people in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Human rights violations, especially against women, are common. While Anju’s story is fictionalized, it draws from persec
ution histories I heard firsthand while working with refugees in Kenya, as well as documentation from groups like Human Rights Watch and the UN Security Council. Mining companies bring much-needed employment, but undoubtedly take advantage of chaos and corruption in the region. Refugees flee to neighboring countries every day, looking for peace and security. The conflict is ongoing, complex, and overlooked by much of the rest of the world.
At the same time, eastern Congo is a place of incredible beauty. Its inhabitants are regular and extraordinary people of profound dignity who, like others around the world, are simply trying to go about the business of living their lives. Putting themselves at great risk, brave women and men work every day to help end the conflict and care for survivors of violence. Under-resourced clinics like the mission hospital in this story operate against incredible odds. If you’ve been moved to learn more about such places, here are a few to get you started: Solidarité Féminine pour la Paix et le Développement Intégral (sofepadi.org), located in DRC’s North Kivu; Sister Angélique Namaika’s Centre for Reintegration and Development in Orientale Province; Panzi Hospital in Bukavu; and HEAL Africa in Goma.
That is the real story.
Things that are not real: the characters, plot, Sangui City, and Kasisi are all from my imagination. Of course, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that, like many authors, I am a magpie. I steal things from real life all the time and use them to fancy up my nest. For those who know Kenya, you can imagine Sangui City as a mix of Mombasa’s coastal beauty and Nairobi’s hustle. And while Kasisi is not a real town, Walikale Territory and Walikale Town in North Kivu are.
Saint Catherine’s prayer was adapted from two different prayers: 1) John James Burke, Bonaventure Hammer, Mary, Help of Christians, and the Fourteen Saints Invoked as Holy Helpers (London: Forgotten Books, 2013), pp. 234–5 (original work published 1909), and 2) Réalta [an] chruinne Caitir Fhíona: St. Catherine of Alexandria [McKenna, L.: Aithdioghluim Dána (Irish Texts Society, vols. 37, 40, 1939/40), poem 99].
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