Thirty Girls (2 page)

George unbolted the doors of the breezeway and opened them to the gravel driveway lit by the floodlights. They looked upon a devastation.

The ground was littered with trash—burned sticks and bits of rubber and broken glass. Scattered across the grass of the quadrangle in the shadows were blankets and clothes. George and Sister Giulia stepped down, emerging like figures from a spaceship onto a new planet. In front of the chapel, the Jeep was burning with a halo of smoke. Dark smoke was also bellowing up in long tubes out of the smashed windows of the chapel. But she and George turned toward the dormitory. They could see a black gap in the side where the barred window had been. The whole frame had been ripped out and used as a ladder. That’s how they’d gotten inside.

Bits of glass glittered on the grass. There were soda cans, plastic rope, torn plastic bags. The second dormitory farther down was still dark and still. Thank the Lord, that appeared untouched. Those were the younger ones.

The girls …, Sister Giulia said. She had her hands out in front of her as if testing the silence. She saw no movement anywhere.

We must look, George said.

They stood at the gaping hole where the yanked window frame was leaning. The concrete around the frame was hacked away in chunks. One light shone from the back of the dormitory, the other bulbs had been smashed.

From the bushes they heard a soft voice: Sister.

Sister Giulia turned and bent down. Two girls were crouched in the darkness, hugging their nightshirts.

You are here, Sister Giulia said, dizzy with gratitude. She embraced the girls, feeling their thin arms, their small backs. The smaller one—it was Penelope—stayed clutching her.

You are safe, Sister Giulia said.

No, Penelope said, pressing her head against her stomach. We are not.

The other girl, Olivia Oki, rocked back and forth, holding her arm in pain.

Sister Giulia gathered them both up and steered them out of the bushes into some light. Penelope kept a tight hold on her waist. Her face was streaked with grime and her eyes glassed over.

Sister, they took all of us, Penelope said.

They took all of you?

She nodded, crying.

Sister Giulia looked at George, and his face understood. All the girls were gone. The other sisters caught up to them.

Sister Chiara embraced Penelope, lifting her. There, there, she said. Sister Fiamma was inspecting Olivia Oki’s arm and now Olivia was crying too.

They tied us together and led us away, Penelope said. She was sobbing close to Sister Chiara’s face. They came to know afterward that Penelope had been raped as she tried to run across the grass and was caught near the swing. She was ten years old.

Sister Giulia’s lips were pursed into a tighter line than usual.

George, she said, make sure the fire is out. Sister Rosario, you find out how many girls are gone. I am going to change. There is no time to lose.

No more moving tentatively, no more discovering the damage and assessing what remained. She strode past Sister Alba, who was carrying a bucket of water toward the chapel.

Sister Giulia re-entered the nuns’ quarters and took the stairs to her room. No lights were on, but it was no longer pitch black. She removed her nightdress and put on her T-shirt, then the light-gray dress with a collar. She tied on her sneakers, thin-soled ones that had been sent from Italy.

She hurried back down the stairs and across the entryway, ignoring the sounds of calamity around her and the smell of fire and oil and smoke. She went directly to her office and removed the lace doily from the safe under the table, turned the dial right, then left, and opened the thick weighty door. She groped around for the shoebox and pulled out a rolled wad of bills. She took one of the narrow paper bags they used for coffee beans and put the cash in it then put the bag in the small backpack she removed from the hook on the door. About to leave, she noticed she’d forgotten her wimple and looked around the room, like a bird looking for an insect, alert and thoughtful. She went to her desk drawer, remembering the blue scarf there. She covered her hair with the scarf, tying it at her neck, hooking it over her ears. That would have to do.

When she came out again she met with Thomas Bosco, the math teacher. Bosco, as everyone called him, was a bachelor who lived at the school and spent Christmas with the sisters and was part of the family. He stayed in a small hut off the chapel on his own. He may not have been so young, but he was dependable and they would call upon him to help jump-start the Jeep, replace a lightbulb or deliver a goat.

Bosco, she said. It has happened.

Yes, he said. I have seen it.

Sister Rosario came bustling forward with an affronted air. They have looted the chapel, she said. As usual she was making it clear she took bad news harder than anyone else.

Bosco looked at Sister Giulia’s knapsack. You are ready?

Yes. She nodded as if this had all been discussed. Let us go get our girls.

Bosco nodded. If it must be, let us go die for our girls.

And off they set.

By the time they had left the gate, crossed the open field on the dirt driveway and were walking a path leading into the bush, the sky had started to brighten. The silhouette of the trees emerged black against the luminous screen. The birds had not yet started up, but they would any minute. Bosco led the way, reminding the sister to beware of mines. The ground was still dark and now and then they came across the glint of a
crushed soda can or a candy wrapper suspended in the grass. A pale shape lay off to the side, stopping Sister Giulia’s heart for a moment. Bosco bent down and picked up a small white sweater.

We are going the right way, she said. She folded the sweater and put it in her backpack, and they continued on. They did not speak of what had happened or what would happen, thinking only of finding the girls.

They came to an area of a few straw-roofed huts and asked a woman bent in the doorway, Have they passed this way? She pointed down the path. No one had telephones yet information traveled swiftly in the bush. Still, it was dangerous for anyone to report on the rebels’ location. When rebels discovered you as an informant, they would cut off your lips. A path led them to a marshy area with dry reeds sticking up like masts sunk in the still water. They waded in and immediately the water rose to their chests. Sister Giulia thought of the smaller girls and how they could have made it. Not all the children could swim.

Birds began to sing, their chirps sounding particularly sweet and clear on this terrible morning. They walked on the trampled path after wringing out their wet clothes. Sister Giulia had been in this country now for five years and still the countryside felt new and beautiful to her. Mostly it was a tangle of low brush, tight and gray in the dry season, flushing out green and leafy during the rains. An acacia tree made a scrollwork ceiling above them and on the ground small yellow flowers swam like fish among the shadows.

They met a farmer who let them know without saying anything that they were going in the right direction, and farther along they caught up with a woman carrying bound branches on her head, who stopped and indicated with serious eyes that, yes, this was the right way. People did not dare speak and it was understood.

The sun rose, yellow and bright behind them. Sister Giulia saw the figure of a person crouching in the grass at the far side of a clearing. Suddenly the figure was running toward them. It was a girl. As she came closer, they saw it was Irene. She was wearing her skirt as a shirt to cover her upper body. Sister Giulia embraced her and asked her if she was all right. Yes, Irene said, crying quietly. She was all right now.

We are going to bring back the girls, Sister Giulia told her. Irene nodded with disbelief. Sister Giulia gave her the white sweater and walked
back with her a ways till they met again the woman carrying the branches and asked if Irene could go with her back to the village. The woman took her. It struck Sister Giulia how quickly one could adjust to a new way of things. You found a child, you sent her off with a stranger to safety. But then it was simply a new version of God watching over her.

Soon the sky was white. They walked for an hour, then another. By now their clothes were dry though her sneakers stayed wet. The sun was over their heads.

Far off they heard a shot and stopped, hopeful and frightened at the same time. They waited and heard nothing more. The sound had come from up ahead and they started off again with increased energy.

Sister Giulia apologized to Bosco for not having brought water. This is not important, he said.

At one point she spotted a white rectangle on the path in front of her and picked it up. It was one of the girls’ identity cards.
Akello Esther
, it said. She was in the 4th Class and had recently won the essay contest for a paper about her father and the effect of his accident on their family. She showed Bosco. He nodded. They had been this way.

When they heard shots again there were more of them and closer. Shouting voices floated through the bush from far off. They’d crossed a flat area and were now going up and down shallow hills. At the top of a higher hill they had a vista across a valley to a slope on the other side.

I see them, Bosco said. She stood near him and looked and could see only brown-and-green lumps with dark shadows slashed off them. She looked farther up the slope, bare of trees, and saw small bushes moving. Then she saw the girls, a line of them very close together, some with white shirts and all with dark heads. Alongside the line were gray and green figures, larger, guarding them on either side. It was too far to see the features on the faces.

For a moment she couldn’t believe her eyes. They had found them. She asked herself, What am I to do now? At the same time she set off, but now in front of Bosco. She had no plan. She prayed that God would guide her.

They took small steps down the steep path almost immediately losing sight of the opposite slope. They moved quickly, forgetting they were tired. It was past noon and they moved in and out of a dim shade. At the bottom of the hill they could look up and see the rebels with the girls. It
appeared they had stopped. It was one thing to spot them far away and another to see them closer with faces and hats and guns. Then a rebel looked down and saw her approaching and called out. She thought it was in Acholi, but she couldn’t tell. She raised both hands up in the air and behind her Bosco did the same.

Other rebels were now looking over. She knew at least she would not be mistaken for an informant or an army soldier. Then she saw the girls catch sight of her. A large man walked down from higher up and stopped to watch her coming. He had yellow braid on his green shirt, a hat with a brim, and no gun. He shouted to his soldiers to allow her to approach and Sister Giulia made her way up the hill to where he waited with large arms folded. She saw the girls out of the corner of her eye, gathered now beneath a tree, and instinct told her not to look in their direction.

You are welcome, the man said. I am Captain Mariano Lagira. He did not address himself to Bosco or look at him. Sister Giulia lowered her gaze to hide her surprise at such a greeting.

She introduced herself and Thomas Bosco. I am the headmistress of St. Mary’s of Aboke, she said.

He nodded. She looked at him now and saw badly pockmarked skin and small eyes in a round face.

I have come for my girls, she said.

Captain Lagira smiled. Where were you last night?

I was not there, she said. Yes, it was a small lie. I had to take a sick nun to Lira. She slipped her backpack off and took out the brown bag. Here, I have money.

Mariano Lagira took the paper bag and looked inside. We don’t want money. He handed the bag to a rebel, who nevertheless carried it away. Follow me, he said. I will give you your girls. A rebel stepped forward and a fisted gun indicated that Bosco was to remain with him.

She felt a great lifting in her heart. Bosco hung back under the guard of a boy who looked no older than twelve. He wore a necklace of bullets and had hard eyes. She followed Lagira and passed close to some girls and began to greet them, but they remained looking down. She noticed that one rebel dressed in camouflage had a woman’s full bosom.

Captain Lagira pointed to a log with a plastic bag on it. Sit here.

She sat.

What have you there?

My rosary, she said. I am praying.

Lagira fished into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a string of brown beads. Look, he said. I pray too. They both knelt down and the rebels around them watched as the nun and the captain prayed together.

It was long past noon now and the air was still. When they finished praying, Sister Giulia dared to ask him, Will you give me my girls?

Captain Lagira looked at her. Perhaps he was thinking.

Please, she said. Let them go.

This is a decision for Kony, he said.

Kony was their leader. They called themselves the Lord’s Resistance Army, though it was never clear to her exactly what they were resisting. Museveni’s government, she supposed, though that was based in the south, and rebel activities remained limited to looting villages and kidnapping children in the north.

The captain stood. I must send a message then, he said. He had the rebels spread out batteries in the sun to be charged and they waited. She managed for a second here and there to sneak glances at the girls and saw most of their faces tipped down but a few watching her. Would you like some tea? the captain said. She could hardly answer and at that moment they heard the sound of helicopters far off.

Suddenly everyone was moving and shouting. Hide! Cover yourselves, they yelled. Sister Giulia saw people grabbing branches and the girls looked as if they were being thrashed as they were covered. She was pulled over to duck under bushes. Some of the girls had moved closer to her now. Leaves pressed on her. Then the loud helicopters were overhead, blowing dust off the ground and whipping the small leaves and loose dirt. Gunshots came firing down. One of the girls threw herself on Sister Giulia to protect her. It was Judith, the head girl.