The Atlas of Forgotten Places

by Jenny D. Williams

  “What was he investigating?” Sabine asked.

  “Resource smuggling,” he said. “Mainly from Congo. The Ugandan and Rwandan militaries have had a strong presence in eastern Congo since the Rwandan genocide. It’s said to be a cover for illegal exploitation of gold, timber, ivory; that sort of thing. There was a UN report a few years ago that showed a significant spike in exports of gold and diamonds from Uganda and Rwanda despite zero increase in mining or production. This spike occurred during the same years as the war in Congo.”

  “Our friend was looking into the political connections,” Rita said.

  “And now?” Sabine asked.

  “He’s taking precautions.”

  “They live just down the road from here,” Jochem added.

  “Still?” Sabine said.

  Jochem seemed surprised she would ask. “Of course.”

  Sabine had to remind herself that she, too, had made that choice time after time. She’d been mugged in Mozambique, faced down drunk soldiers at military checkpoints. She’d been evacuated by her organization twice, but she’d never chosen on her own to leave a post because of physical danger. Of course she understood why the couple had chosen to stay, why the journalist hadn’t stopped pursuing the story. Selfish as it was to admit, it was invigorating to be mixed up in the wrongs of the world, to have a finger on the pulse of evil. Better the danger you can see and touch and beat back with sticks than the one that comes slinking through the shadows, entering your home through a hole in your heart.

  Not that she’d avoided that one, either. A dusty road … a dark closet … her grandfather’s secret—

  “But you said Lily wasn’t doing any research,” Rita said.

  Sabine nodded. “Right.”

  When she thought of how little she knew about Lily’s Kitgum experience, though—how brief their communications had been—she wondered. The truth was that Sabine never really pressed for details; she hadn’t wanted to imagine Lily in Kitgum too vividly. Her own memories were still too close. Why hadn’t she asked more questions? She thought of a photo Lily e-mailed her a few months back—her niece stood smiling in front of the rehabilitation center, surrounded by giggling children. It was so pat, so facile. The knot in Sabine’s stomach twisted.

  The overhead lights went out abruptly, and in the darkness she could feel her pulse drumming against her chest. She’d forgotten the uncertainty of Kampala’s power grid.

  Rita laughed. “Dramatic, isn’t it? Sam will put on the generator in a minute.” She flicked a match, and the tiny flame spun into two, then three, as she lit candles she surely kept nearby for expressly this purpose. The light sputtered and held, and the smell of sulfur reached Sabine’s nose. She thought of her niece somewhere out in the vastness of land beyond and hoped that wherever she was, Lily was taking shelter from the storm.

  CHAPTER 4

  ROSE

  December 25

  Christmas Day in Kitgum was alive with song. Praise music and hymns echoed from a dozen churches and front-yard radios as Rose entered the Bomah Hotel compound and saw Christoph waiting for her outside the lobby. He wore sunglasses and was dressed in a pressed white collared shirt and jeans. Agnes’s words came back to her: With him you could really go somewhere.

  “Merry Christmas,” he said, and kissed her on both cheeks.

  “Eh, you are looking smart,” she said.

  “Well, it is a special occasion.” He lifted a plastic bag, which she could see was filled with chocolate bars. “I didn’t know what to bring, so I thought maybe these would be nice for the children?”

  “I think they will be very happy.”

  When Rose had realized Christoph would be remaining in Kitgum over the holidays and would have nowhere to celebrate, she’d invited him to join her clan for their festivities. It was sad, she thought, that he couldn’t be with his own family, but he insisted he was happy to be here. He said he’d be going back home in January anyway, and it was silly to make the long flight twice.

  They’d skipped the church service; he wasn’t religious, and Rose had avoided the scrutiny of church ever since she’d returned to Kitgum. Now they drove together to the hamlet outside town where the clan would gather. Aside from Rose’s occasional directions—left at the bridge, straight past the primary school—they sat in comfortable silence. They’d worked together since April and had become something like friends. He had met Ocen a few times, and Rose was familiar with the ins and outs of Christoph’s wardrobe. He saved this white shirt for the most formal of occasions, and the fact that he’d chosen it for today made her feel especially affectionate toward him.

  She was nervous, though. Christoph hadn’t met her family—she’d managed to keep these two parts of her life separate until now. What if Agnes carried fresh bruises? Last night Rose had stayed as long as she could after dinner, remaking samosa dough, but eventually she’d had to return home. And then there were James’s words; would he be so cruel as to repeat them in front of her employer? She’d never told Christoph about her past. She felt nauseated and put the cool back of her left hand to the underside of her jaw.

  “Should I slow down?” Christoph asked.

  “It is nothing,” she said. “Look—we are there.”

  She didn’t have to tell him where to pull over and park: the place was obvious from the cluster of cars, bodas, and bicycles already along the roadside, skewed at various angles. She caught herself searching for Ocen’s familiar tassels, and swallowed the sting of disappointment.

  James approached as soon as they got out of the car. Rose was relieved to see that his eyes were clear and his manner respectful as he greeted Christoph.

  “It is good that you are taking care for our sister,” James said in his halting English.

  “Rose works … hard,” Christoph said in his correspondingly limited Acholi. Though he had some facility with the language on paper, he fumbled with it in practice. “I am the lucky.”

  James nodded to her then, and she saw the apology in his eyes. He turned back to Christoph and switched to Acholi. “You are very welcome today. I hope you feel at home.”

  Grace and Isaac came running over, Isaac slow on his short legs. Grace carried Wilborn on her back; she was the baby’s lapidi, his guardian, until he was old enough to be independent. Though many traditions had become stretched and mutated during the war decades, certain things remained. The first time Rose mentioned the term lapidi to Christoph, he said he’d already read it in a book by a man named Girling. Rose had once glanced through the files Christoph showed her on his computer, marveling to see those Acholi words dissected in English. Such clinical descriptions for ordinary objects—lot-kwon, “the oar-like millet stirring stick”; nye kidi, “small grinding stone used for making millet flour; odero, “winnowing basket”; pala, “woman’s small waist knife.” Nowhere did this Girling describe the rich, nutty smell of cooking millet, the naughty jokes the women made while separating grain from chaff.

  Grace and Isaac hugged Rose’s legs, and Grace gave a tiny curtsy when Christoph handed her a chocolate bar from his bag.

  “Can you share with your brother?” he said, and Grace nodded shyly.

  “What do you say, Grace?” Rose said.

  The girl’s voice was barely a whisper. “Thank you.”

  “You’re very welcome,” Christoph said.

  A group of children lurked nearby, the braver ones shouting “Mono! Mono!” at periodic intervals. One ventured close enough to shake Christoph’s hand, then bolted away, shrieking while the others burst into raucous laughter. Christoph was a gracious object of attention and curiosity—and, upon further distribution of chocolate, an object of reverence.

  Agnes was there, too, and Rose noted no visible bruising. When Rose introduced her, and Christoph said apwoyo, Agnes clasped a hand to her chest in surprise.

  “Acholi!” Agnes said, pointing at Christoph, and he laughed and replied, “Only a little.”

  “Come,” Agnes replied. “Food
is this way.” She took Christoph’s elbow boldly, and with a nod from Rose, led him off into the crowd.

  Rose remained at the edge of the dye-kal, the clean-swept circle of earth in the middle of a handful of huts. Plots of simsim and sorghum stretched off to one side, and tall grass and brush surrounded the other edges. The clearing was lined with wooden tables and plastic chairs, and there were woven mats on the ground beneath a shade tree. Fifty or so people mingled in their best dress, which meant something different for everyone. The men wore button-up shirts or suit jackets bought at the Kitgum market. Some women wore vividly colored traditional fabrics cut in elaborate patterns with giant sleeves and a tightly fitted waist; others had knee-length skirts and blouses in the Western style. It had always puzzled Rose how mono girls seemed to choose dirty jeans and flat sandals, when they could afford such lovely clothes. The fabric of Rose’s dress was spectacular in yellow and purple; she’d had it specially made so that the sleeve closed over her stump, shrouding it from view.

  Looking across the gathering, Rose felt that the carefully cultivated atmosphere of cheerfulness was both strange and necessary. Strange, because bloodshed had loomed over this land for so long; necessary, because of the same. In the two and a half years since the start of the Juba peace talks, people had begun to imagine a future without war. Now, Museveni’s military action in DRC—this “Operation Lightning Thunder”—threatened to unsettle their fragile faith. It was a controversial operation. Some, like Agnes, wanted the rebel commanders to be killed; others wanted the chance to reconcile, to forgive; still others wanted international justice, for their suffering to be recognized by the world.

  Fundamentally, they were torn by love. As much as they feared and hated the actions of the LRA, neither could they simply wish them all dead. The rebels were their brothers, their sisters, their fathers, their daughters, their sons. Though the rebellion had originally consisted of volunteers and Acholi defectors from the Ugandan army—people who chose to fight—the LRA had turned to abduction in the nineties as a means of recruitment. Children were taken, trained, forced to kill or be killed.

  Rose had been one. Ocen’s twin brother, Opiyo, was another. Rose and Opiyo were abducted on the same day, nearly ten years ago, from their village outside Kitgum. Rose was thirteen years old when she was tied with rope and marched deep into the bush. She was given a gun and called recruit. Then babysitter. Then wife. Five years after she was taken, she returned to Kitgum, less than whole.

  At first she had nightmares every night. The faces of men. The sound of gumboots in the mud. The rocking of the earth as bombs fell near. She tried not to think of those years now.

  Some said it was God’s will that she survived at all. So many were still gone. Their fates might never be known. Rose understood the impossibility of hope: how could you want your child alive, knowing the acts he must have committed in order to remain so? But how could you wish for anything else? How could you support Museveni’s army, when they committed atrocities of their own? When it could be your child, your lover, fleeing their bullets?

  She missed Ocen with a sudden desperation. With him, she felt released. Understood. Seen.

  Why had he left? Why hadn’t he returned? Why was the world only full of the missing?

  Christoph approached carrying a chipped plate of malakwang and millet and groundnut sauce and boo. “Hold this a second,” he said. She obliged, and he dug in his pockets for the recorder he always carried with him.

  “One of the elders has been telling me Acholi proverbs,” he said. “I’ve got to record these. Wicked sense of humor, that man.”

  Rose saw Thomas Obita, a clan elder, come up behind Christoph and clap his hand on Christoph’s shoulder. “I have one more for you. Lapyelo inget yoo nyebe. In English you would say…” He hesitated, searching, then came up triumphant: “A person who defecates at the side of the road can make it a habit.”

  Christoph laughed. “I give up. What does it mean?”

  “It means, okay, somebody commits a crime, and it seems easy the first time, and easy again, and he can become addicted. But eventually if he repeats it, he will get caught.”

  “What was the one you just told me before?”

  “Cing acel pe kweko ngwiny.”

  “One hand cannot open an anus,” Christoph said soberly.

  Thomas grinned. “Correct! Like, some things, you cannot do them alone.”

  “In English, you say, two heads are better than one. In German—vier Augen sehen mehr als zwei. Four eyes see better than two. It’s fascinating, isn’t it?” Christoph turned to Rose now. “Hands, heads, eyes … the body part is different, but the principle is the same.” He turned back to Thomas. “But as far as memorable images go, Acholi is the clear winner.”

  “You are an anthropologist, yes? What is your research here in Kitgum?”

  “I study cultural anthropology,” Christoph said.

  “What is that?”

  “In a word, folklore. Tekwaro. Stories, legends, jokes, proverbs—carolok in Acholi, right? The ones you’ve given me are very good. My academic research centers on storytelling traditions.”

  Thomas was listening closely, a serious look on his face. He brightened at this last word. “Traditions! If you are interested in traditions, you should come to the ceremony this Saturday. Two days from now. It is mato oput, the forgiveness ceremony, between our clan and another clan.”

  “I’d be honored,” Christoph said. Rose sensed his excitement, and her heart sank. She knew he’d been waiting for such an opportunity all year. But it would not be easy to watch.

  “It is settled,” Thomas said. “Come, let us sit. I have thought of more proverbs already.”

  * * *

  There were hymns, there was music, there was dancing. Dusk came and went. There was waragi, too, and Christoph partook, and now he was jolly and flushed. His participation in an impromptu larakaraka dance caused a delightful uproar; probably they’d never seen a mono man dancing the female role. Shrill whistles and ululations accompanied his surprisingly graceful body. Monos could get away with anything. Rose did not dance but observed from the side. She’d been too young to dance the larakaraka before she was abducted, and there had been no such courtship rituals with the rebels in the bush. Now, at twenty-two, she was too old. And her center of gravity had changed, her balance a delicate thing to maintain. She was missing six pounds of weight on her right side; every movement must be recalibrated to compensate.

  When the dancing was over, things began to wind down, and Rose took a seat in a plastic chair away from the crowd. No one approached her; she did not expect them to. When she’d returned from her life with the rebels, she’d received no warmer a welcome from her clan than she did from her brother and Agnes. Her father had died while she was away, and her mother had traveled to Kampala and had not been heard from since. Her aunts and uncles said Rose brought cen with her, and these vengeful spirits would spread to the entire clan so that they all became ill and infected with madness. They accused her of supporting the LRA even now. Rose discovered that many people believed that escape was easy, and that those who remained in the bush did so out of choice. If you love them so much, James said upon first laying eyes on her, you should go back. After she started earning money, he usually held his tongue. But others among her clan and in town continued to find ways to be cruel. Once she bought fabric to make a dress; when the tailor returned the package, Rose unwrapped the paper to find the fabric shredded into slender ribbons and saturated with gasoline. Another time she was sick—she thought maybe malaria—and went to the hospital, where her cousin worked as a nurse. Rose waited for hours for medication, and finally her cousin dismissed her and said, Ask your husband in the bush for herbs, if you are feeling bad. In the last year, relations with her clan had gotten better, and she had been seen enough around town with a mono at her side that people were not so outwardly vicious. Still, Rose did not feel at home with the people here. But where else should she go?


  She startled at a touch on her knee; it was Grace, with baby Wilborn still tied to her back, sound asleep. Grace opened Rose’s hand and pressed something into her palm.

  “Merry Christmas,” the girl whispered.

  Rose looked down at the gift. It was a paper bird, folded perfectly with crisp edges. “It’s beautiful, Grace. Where did you learn to do this?”

  Grace pointed to where Christoph stood at a wooden table with a group of enthralled children crowded at his elbows. Rose watched as he folded a page of paper, torn out of a school notebook, onto itself, over and over again, in strange ways. At every point he made sure all the children could see what he’d done. After a moment, the paper was transformed into the wings, beak, and tail of a bird. Christoph handed the exquisite object to a small boy, who ran off with his treasure. The other children pressed closer, wanting to be next. Their slender hands grappled for a turn with the paper. Christoph looked up and caught Rose’s eye, and smiled.

  A moment later, he came to sit beside her. He had the look some men did after a long day digging in the fields, weary and satisfied.

  “The lesson is over?” she said.

  “I ran out of paper.”

  “It’s a bird?”

  “A crane.”

  “Owalo,” she translated.

  “Owalo,” he repeated.

  “It is the national bird of Uganda. You are a good teacher.”