The Atlas of Forgotten Places

by Jenny D. Williams

  “Lost!” His face fell, and he stood very still, very solemn. “Sorry, sorry.”

  “I just need to know if you saw anything. Was she traveling with anyone? Was there anyone—” Her voice caught, and she forced herself to go on. “Was there anyone who wanted to hurt her?”

  “No, no,” he said, stricken. “Lily, she’s very nice. Everyone is happy to see her.”

  “Can I see where she stayed?”

  He led her to Lily’s hut—round with a conical top, concrete walls instead of mud, and a tin roof instead of thatch—and opened the door. Sabine saw right away that she was unlikely to find any clues here. The space was clearly unlived in: spare and tidy, with just a few Ugandan crafts as decoration on the coffee table and some books on the shelves—no journal or sketchbook, Sabine noted. But Lily would have brought that with her. She recognized a few books, among them Giles Foden’s The Last King of Scotland—a fictional account of a Scottish doctor serving Idi Amin during his reign of terror—and Els De Temmerman’s Aboke Girls. The latter told the true story of 139 secondary schoolgirls who were abducted by the LRA from their dorm rooms at St. Mary’s College in 1996. An Italian nun and a Ugandan schoolteacher—unarmed and unaccompanied—pursued the rebels into the wilderness and persuaded the LRA to release all but thirty of the abducted girls. Sabine had read the book during her first year in Kitgum; it was, at the time, one of just a handful of published volumes about the northern Ugandan conflict, and she wasn’t surprised to see it on Lily’s shelf. A dozen or so novels rounded out the collection. Sabine opened the drawers in the bedroom but found only an extra set of sheets, a stack of folded towels, and three partially used candles next to a box of matches.

  She turned back to Kenneth, who lingered at the doorway. “Did she have any friends over? Is there anyone else who might know something?”

  He turned to the side and yelled something quick in Acholi, and a moment later a tall Ugandan woman appeared next to him, their bodies silhouetted by the morning light. They engaged in a muted but rapid-fire conversation.

  “Esther says Lily has no friends coming,” Kenneth said, turning back to Sabine. “Lily is only going into town sometimes for dinner. This is also what I can say.”

  She heard the sound of a baby crying, and Esther disappeared.

  Sabine exhaled. “Thank you, Kenneth. If you think of anything else…” She gave him her phone number and got back in the car. After she’d driven out she could still see him in her rearview mirror, closing the gate behind her, shaking his head.

  * * *

  As she parked outside the Children In Need rehabilitation center, a tired-looking Ugandan man approached the front and put a key in the cutout door in the gate. Sabine hurried to get out of the car and catch his attention, calling out, “Excuse me! Apwoyo.”

  He turned. “Can I help you?”

  “I hope so,” she said. “It’s about Lily Bennett?”

  He gestured for her to follow him inside. The outer gate surrounded a dirt yard and three long, low buildings. A group of children played soccer in the far corner of the yard.

  “I’m Sabine Hardt. Lily’s aunt.”

  “I’m Francis,” he said.

  “Lily told me about you.”

  “Likewise,” Francis said. “I thought you were in Germany?”

  “I was.”

  “Germany is a long way,” he said. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you…” He paused to shout something in Acholi to the children, who stopped their game while one answered back. Francis chuckled and waved for them to carry on. Meanwhile Sabine’s heart had ratcheted up to a racehorse pace.

  “Tell me what?” she said.

  He stepped into the nearest building and set his briefcase on the floor next to a desk. “I’m afraid you’re too late to visit your niece. Lily left at the beginning of December.”

  She exhaled, then explained why she was there. As with Christoph and Kenneth, Francis’s surprise and sadness came through clearly.

  “So you haven’t heard anything from her, either?” she said.

  He shook his head. “I wish I could tell you otherwise.” He sat heavily at his desk and gestured to an open chair for her. She sat; she didn’t know what else to do. She felt like she should be asking more questions—investigating. But how?

  She noticed the blocky computer and its yellowing keyboard. “Old Reliable,” she murmured.

  Francis smiled and tapped a finger against the blank screen. “Lily was always complaining about this thing. She tried to sneak in the funding for a new one into a few grant proposals, but it never stuck.” They sat a long moment in silence before he spoke again. “You also worked in Kitgum, didn’t you?”

  “From 2003 to 2006,” she said.

  “Those were difficult years.”

  “They were.”

  “I was in Gulu then,” he said. “At the reception center for World Vision. I remember some months we had more than two hundred children arrive. Two hundred children a month, escaping from the rebels. And for every child that escaped, the LRA would abduct another to fill the place.”

  “And now?”

  “Things have been slower, especially here in Kitgum. We had a group of returnees in October—they were with the LRA in Congo and they escaped together. They turned themselves in at the army barracks in Arua, just on the Ugandan side of the border. The UPDF soldiers kept them for weeks, first, to make sure they weren’t spies.” He clicked his teeth. “Some of these kids were abducted ten years ago. Can you imagine? And now this military action in Congo…”

  “Operation Lightning Thunder?”

  “It won’t succeed,” Francis said. “But we already have reports from the UPDF that they have rescued some children and will send them to us next month, or the month after. So we continue. Our work never ends.” He let out a humorless laugh. “You know, when rebels are killed by the UPDF, they are ‘enemy combatants.’ When they are captured, they are ‘rescued children.’”

  Sabine’s heart squeezed. “Lily was grateful to be working here.”

  “She cared a lot about the children—she spent so many hours in counseling sessions, just listening.”

  Sometimes after they tell me their stories, Lily had written to Sabine that summer, I have to go sit in the bathroom and lock the door so they can’t hear me cry.

  “I remember the first time I met a former child soldier in Kitgum,” Sabine said softly. “He was twelve. Skinny as a flute. My coworker asked him what was the hardest thing he’d done in the LRA. You know what he said? Forced to kill.”

  Francis nodded. “Not just in battle, but other children, the ones who fall behind or try to run away. Friends. Some were forced to kill their own parents. Or they’re told that if they try to escape, the rebels will kill their entire family.”

  The room got very small.

  “And when they do escape and come home, everything is different,” he continued. “Sometimes the family doesn’t accept them. There’s a real stigma. People call them names—rebel, killer. And the kids themselves, they want to integrate, but they’ve been normalized to survive in a brutal environment. They have dangerous, powerful feelings. They don’t always know how to control their anger.”

  “And you help?”

  “We try.”

  “Psychosocial support?”

  “That’s the term donors like, isn’t it?” He grimaced. “I don’t mean to be negative.”

  “You’d be preaching to the choir.”

  Sabine’s eyes drifted past him to the wall behind, where a dozen or so drawings were pinned. Most showed sticklike figures in various family settings, with huts and livestock and green grass and blue skies. And then: a body on its side, spilling open with bright red scribbles; a line of smaller bodies marching behind one large, dark figure with a black rifle pointed forward. She caught a glimpse of three pencil sketches at the far left: an exquisitely lifelike portrait of a young African woman, a bird’s-eye view of Kitgum town, and a map of the entire distri
ct of Kitgum, up to the Sudanese border. Looking at the maps she had a strong sense of déjà vu.

  She asked, “Are those…?”

  Francis turned and followed her eyes, then nodded. “Lily’s work,” he said. “That was her favorite activity. The kids loved having their portraits drawn.”

  “Who’s that on the wall?” she asked.

  “That’s Miriam.” He leaned forward suddenly. “You know what? You should talk to her. She’s one of the girls who came in October. She and Lily were very close.”

  “I’d like that.”

  He stood up and gestured for her to follow.

  In the yard, the boys kicked the soccer ball in their direction, and Francis volleyed it back and said something in Acholi that made all the kids laugh. Sabine could see how well suited Francis was for this job: as serious as he was in the office, among the kids he seemed relaxed and carefree.

  “What did you say to them?” she asked.

  “I said, if they focus as hard on their studies as they do on their footwork, they’d already be running the country. They laughed because everyone knows Museveni would never allow an Acholi to be president.” His face took on that serious look again. “That’s what the rebels are fighting for, in theory,” he said. “To liberate northern Uganda from Museveni’s oppression.”

  Sabine remembered how the journalists all used the same line, making the LRA out to be some kind of extremist religious cult, calling Kony a self-styled messiah, a madman, a warlord, saying he wanted to rule the country by the Ten Commandments. They said the violence was senseless. But she knew there were political aims, too, that the media overlooked. Or there had been at the beginning.

  “Doesn’t Kony claim to commune with spirits?” she said.

  He gave her a sideways glance. “There are many stories about him. Myself, I cannot say what is true.”

  They found Miriam with two other girls in an empty classroom, leaning against the desks, chatting. Francis explained who Sabine was, then asked the two girls to help him do inventory in the kitchen, leaving Sabine alone with Miriam.

  The girl was visibly pregnant—Sabine guessed six or seven months. She couldn’t be more than seventeen. Her hair was shorn close to the skin, and her eyelashes were dark and curled at the tips. She had a delicate loveliness about her features and mannerisms. Sabine could see why Lily would be drawn to her.

  “Apwoyo, Miriam,” Sabine said. “Is it okay if I ask you some questions?” Miriam’s nod in response was so subtle Sabine thought she might have imagined it. “I’m worried about my niece, Lily. Francis said you were friends, that you spent a lot of time talking. Can you tell me what you talked about?”

  Miriam’s eyes rested somewhere to Sabine’s left, and with her right hand she rolled a pencil back and forth on the table. She said nothing for several long minutes. Sabine understood her reticence—why should she share the pain of her life with a stranger? Please, she begged silently.

  “We were friends,” Miriam said at last. “But I don’t know where she is now. She never wrote to me after she left.” She made a small movement with her left hand, a sort of throwing away. “She forgot us already.”

  “I don’t think she’s forgotten you,” Sabine said. “It’s just—we don’t know where she is. She could be in danger. That’s why I’m here.”

  Miriam lowered her eyes. “She told me about her mother. I was sad because when I came home from the rebels, my mother was gone. Lily shared my sadness.”

  “Lily’s mother was my sister. Did Lily tell you how she died?”

  “Cancer.”

  Sabine nodded, choking back sudden tears.

  Miriam rolled the pencil back and forth, to and fro. The clicking of wood against wood reverberated lightly; through the window came the energetic shouts of the boys at their sport. Sabine took in the unswept corners of the room, the cracked chalkboard.

  “I told Lily about life with the rebels,” Miriam said at last. “The names of our people, the rivers, how we traveled, where we stayed … Sometimes we drew pictures together.”

  Sabine could imagine it easily: the two girls side by side, pencils in hand.

  “It helped me to tell her,” Miriam said. “I could just talk and talk. She always listened.” For the first time in the conversation, she met Sabine’s eyes. “I told her about the ivory.”

  “Ivory?” The back of Sabine’s neck tingled. What had Jochem said? Resource smuggling. Illegal exploitation of minerals, timber … ivory. “What about ivory?”

  “In the camp.”

  “With the rebels?”

  She nodded.

  Sabine’s throat went dry. “Does anyone else know?”

  “The others weren’t there. They didn’t see.”

  “The UPDF? Do they know?”

  Miriam shook her head.

  “Did Lily tell anyone?” Her veins were thrumming with adrenaline. She could feel a wave of desperation begin to swell.

  “I don’t know,” Miriam whispered. Her eyes darted to the door just as Francis’s shadow fell across it, and he leaned in.

  “Everything okay in here?” he asked.

  “Fine,” Sabine said, too fast. “Thanks.”

  “We are almost finished,” Miriam said, loud enough for Francis to hear. He gave a thumbs-up and disappeared.

  Sabine raised her eyebrows questioningly in the direction Francis left.

  “I told Lily not to trust anyone,” Miriam said. “Some things are dangerous to know.” Her expression broke into worry, and she put a hand on her round belly. “Is it my fault that she’s gone?”

  “Of course not,” Sabine said. Her mind was spinning. She’d planned to go to the police next, but now she wasn’t sure. The dead end had suddenly opened up like a sinkhole, and she was falling into the deep.

  CHAPTER 8

  ROSE

  December 27

  The two clans sat in half moons facing one another, the men in plastic chairs, the women and children on mats on the ground. Rose felt sweat beading at her temples; the sun was hot and getting hotter, and there wasn’t shade enough. She’d been granted a chair so that she could sit next to Christoph—he’d tried to insist that he was fine sitting on the ground, but such impropriety would not be allowed, and as his translator, Rose must be close enough to whisper in his ear without disturbing the other parties present.

  “Now they are discussing compensation,” she told him. “This man is saying that the compensation is too high. They cannot afford to pay.”

  The negotiations occurred in even tones, without raised voices. The perpetrator of the crime—a boy of twenty-six—sat quietly among his clan. Rose had already explained to Christoph the backstory: how this boy had been abducted by the LRA twelve years ago, and had, at some point during his captivity-turned-deployment, killed a child from Rose’s clan; now, after returning from the bush, the boy wanted to cleanse himself of bad cen and thus pursued reconciliation through mato oput, drinking the bitter root. He’d had many victims, but they were unknown to him—how could one ask forgiveness from an unnamed ghost? He went to a great deal of trouble to learn the identity of one of his victims and track down the family members so that a ceremony might be conducted. The planning and preparation had taken weeks. First the boy made a request to Rose’s clan that they would hear his confession; then came the confession itself, with details that were painful—but vital—for all to hear. “I confess to the killing; must I say more?” the boy had said weakly. In response, the victim’s grandfather, with knobby knees and half blind, replied: “I am an old man. I want to hear the truth before I die.”

  After the confession, the boy grew paranoid and concerned for his safety—for good reason. James wasn’t here today, but Rose remembered him saying last week that he would go personally to the boy’s home if compensation was not agreed upon; other men in the clan had said the same. For all of the emotional aspects of a reconciliation ceremony, compensation was the one truly indispensable element of mato oput; without comp
ensation, the ceremony could not be performed.

  “How much is your clan asking?” Christoph said.

  “Three hundred thousand shillings,” she said. “But the other clan can only pay two hundred thousand.”

  “The difference is less than fifty euros.”

  “Yes.” A pause, while the others spoke. “But now my clan is asking for two million for funeral rites.”

  Christoph’s phone buzzed in his pocket; he hushed it with a flick of his hand. The mother of the victim spoke up, and Rose leaned in to listen.

  “What’s she saying?” Christoph whispered.

  “She says, ‘If the killer is feeling pain, let him suffer. I’ve lost my family, and I am alone.’”

  More discussion; more negotiation. Compensation was raised and whittled down. Payment plans were offered. Strangely, though Christoph asked questions and kept his voice recorder on, Rose had the sense that he was distracted—his academic intellect was here, but his thoughts were elsewhere. They had not spoken of his offer to help her further her studies since the day before yesterday, and she wondered whether he would change his mind. Finally compensation was settled. The money was brought out.

  “Now they will begin the ritual,” Rose said.

  The perpetrator had purchased the necessary items at the market that morning: two knives, a spear, a large calabash gourd, and a clay bowl. Earlier his clan had dug up a piece of the root of the oput tree, dried it, and ground it into a powder; this was mixed with local beer—kwete—in the calabash.

  Dialogue:

  Why have you come here?

  I have committed a crime here and have come to compensate you.

  The sheep were brought out—two: one black, one red.

  “Are these for exchange?” Christoph asked.

  “No,” Rose said.

  The elder of her clan took the black sheep and laid it down, facing north toward them, the victim’s family. The elder of the boy’s clan laid the red sheep facing south, toward their own members.

  Then the knives, sleek and quick, glinting in the sun—and the blood, crimson, glugged freely across the dusty earth; the blood, thick; the blood, mingling.