The wolf hour, p.12
The Wolf Hour, page 12
Tessa’s vision blurred. Beads of gold glimmered off Obed’s brocaded stole as he sprinkled water on the dead major, then on the soldiers who stood on either side of him. ‘Protection from harm, protection from bullets,’ he announced, as if they were preparing for battle rather than conducting a funeral. ‘We will not let our brother’s death go unpunished!’ His voice reverberated through the microphone.
Tessa felt a chill panic, her mind reeling as the cramping worsened. She was going to be sick. First she was hot, then cold. Forgotten images came to her—a man she had kissed and made love to, but who did not love her. Her stomach spasmed again. She needed to sit down. Kolo was opposite her with his arms folded; his gold epaulettes dazzled, great whirls of colour blared. She brought her gaze back to rest on the major’s body, but when she did, she saw that his hands and legs had begun to ooze a clear serous fluid. It was seeping through the thick fabric of his trousers and leaking onto the stretcher, and again she saw the terrible fear that had been in his eyes. She saw it as he fought for his last breath and, in that moment, it rose from him and entered her.
She stumbled towards the shade then crouched down and rested her forehead against the tree’s corky bark. It would pass, she told herself. But she heaved, and in one burst she expelled the meat she had eaten. It was still recognisable—the half-chewed contents of what she’d devoured splattered onto the ground at her feet in an acid soup of vomit. For a moment, she felt a sense of relief, but then the nausea quickly built again. She tried to stand but could only remain on her knees while the sermon continued. She could hear Obed’s magnified voice boom from the microphone and carry through the thick air as the soldiers slowly lowered the major’s body into the ground.
She tried to steady herself. She wiped her hand across her mouth and looked at Francis, who stood staring into the grave. He glanced back at her, his eyes flickering in her direction and away again as the drumming increased and the overwhelming need to vomit took hold of her once more.
15
It was dark when Tessa opened her eyes. She lay in the corner of the hut, not far from where the major had bled to death, and continued to vomit into a plastic bowl. Each time she felt herself improving, the pain in her head grew worse and the spasms took hold again.
Outside, thunder rumbled and lightning lit the space around her in momentary flares. Rain fell. She heard water dripping off the thatch and fell asleep only to wake once more in her own clammy heat, or later chilled, she curled herself into a ball and shivered, the pain at the very base of her spine. It was better to sleep, she told herself; it was better to sink back into oblivion. Voices came and went outside the hut, part of the strange dreams that drifted through her mind. She was inhabiting the dead major’s world, moving through the forest gloom, mud, blood, an army of vengeful cen with their pointed teeth and shining eyes. Just before dawn a shape detached itself from the wall of the hut. She thought it would come for her and take her by the throat, but in the next moment she recognised Francis in the dim light. He crouched by her side and offered her a gourd half filled with tepid water. Holding her head, he said, ‘Here, you can drink this.’
She took a sip and thanked him, her voice thick with gratitude. She tried to sit forward, and when she felt his hand brush the hair from her mouth she made a small gulping sound at his childlike helpfulness.
Francis’s voice was low. ‘I could do better for you. I would be better for you.’
‘Better?’ she asked, groggy and confused.
‘Yes. Better than your brother, better than your father—I am a soldier.’
She smiled weakly.
‘You might die here. You need protection. You do not want to die,’ he added with sudden hostility, then he sat back and punched himself in the chest. ‘I do not want to die.’ He crouched beside her silently and did not move.
She dreamt again, this time of what she knew—for one brilliant moment she saw the sweeping coastline of her summers; she was swimming in the ocean where the water was deep and cold, then lying on the warm sand, her striped beach towel salty and dried crisp. Homesickness broke inside her. Her mother placed a cool hand on her forehead. ‘Come on now, sweetheart, try to get up.’
Okay, okay. Dawn, daylight, dusk. She caught the reek of her own sour breath. If she didn’t do something she might lie here and get worse. Francis was no longer in the hut. She was alone now and from the open door she could smell the post-storm earth. She struggled to her feet and rinsed her mouth, which helped, then she made her way outside. Her ribs hurt. She found a place where she could empty the plastic bowl she had vomited into, scouring it with wet grass then washing her hands and face in the same way she had seen the soldiers do.
A tall soldier she did not recognise indicated that she should go back towards the centre of the camp. He pointed his rifle and nodded. Walking, she felt a little better. Smoke rose from a small cookfire and birds called. Grey clouds drifted across the sky as the evening meal was being prepared. She sat down on an upturned kerosene tin and watched the scene unfold before her. There was the sound of chopping, voices talking excitedly. She noticed a vigorous soldier stacking firewood alongside the wall of a hut; another darted across in front her. It reminded her of a strange version of Robin Hood’s hideaway camp, a band of outlaws with guns and machetes rather than bows and arrows slung over their shoulders.
Colonel Kolo’s girl-wife, Mildred, bent over a large cast-iron pot of maize meal, her baby strapped to her back, and stirred the soupy mix while steam rose. When she had finished, she put the stick aside and went to sit beside Kolo. The sleeping baby lay with its head to the side and its mouth open, a thin sticky trail of mucus running from its nose into its mouth. Mildred moved closer to the colonel and nuzzled her cheek against his shirtsleeve. Without looking, Kolo reached across and stroked her hair. His muscled arm flexed through his tight fatigues as he drew her in. It was a gesture at once personal and tender, and Tessa could almost feel the gentle pressure of his fingertips, as if they stroked her own head—a precise knowledge of the sensation embedded in her memory, she felt it in the roots of her hair, a lover’s touch.
To be part of a family, even here. Especially here.
Tessa scanned the camp for Francis, but he had disappeared. She thought about approaching Obed or perhaps speaking to Kolo and wondered which of them made the decisions. Or did their instructions come from someone higher up the chain, maybe Kony himself? Satellite phones, notes left in trees. Robin Hood and his band of children.
Mildred stood up and tightened her khanga, securing the infant on her back. She scooped a portion of ugali into a bowl and handed it to Kolo, then nodded in Tessa’s direction before passing her a bowl too. If I’m sick again, Tessa thought, and shook her head, but the girl insisted, lifting her chin. She wore the same proud expression on her face as when the colonel introduced her. How in this place had she managed such assurance? You can get used to anything, John Alphington had said when they drove past the internal displacement camp. A comment made with his usual world-weariness, but she could tell he meant it.
Tessa took the bowl. She smiled apologetically, then put the bowl to one side and lifted her arms to gather her hair. Twisting the mass of it into a knot she lifted it off the nape of her neck. For a moment relief—the breeze cooled her—but again she felt the nausea return.
Kolo glanced at her. ‘You had better eat,’ he said. ‘You had better look after yourself, learn how to get on. You will probably be here for a long time.’
16
Melbourne
Neil used a screwdriver to loosen the upper hinge on the back door then wedged in a shim and tightened it. The door needed to be planed, but his makeshift repair would have to do, at least until he got the right tools for the job.
The phone rang again and he went inside.
‘Mr Lowell?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, his voice faltering as he recognised the East African accent. He looked through the window to where the ivy on the side of the garage glowed a deep crimson. Something was wrong. Tessa.
‘My name is Dominic Oculi,’ the man said. ‘I work at the rehabilitation centre here in Gulu.’ There was a pause. ‘I’m calling about your daughter. About Tessa.’
Neil pulled the door towards himself and shut it with a bang. He felt his heart constrict. His mouth was gluey. ‘What’s happened?’ he asked and forced his tongue to unstick.
‘I’m afraid I have troubling news.’
The connection sounded as if it might cut out. Neil pressed the phone closer and kept his eyes focused on the ivy; the way the light shone made it seem metallic.
The man’s voice echoed. ‘Your daughter has been abducted,’ Neil heard him say. ‘I thought it would be better if I phoned rather than you hearing first from the Department of Foreign Affairs. You can contact them yourself of course.’
Neil closed his eyes and opened them again. ‘I don’t understand. Maybe there’s been a mistake.’
‘No, sir, there’s been no mistake. It happened three days ago. I was with her.’
‘She was taken from the centre?’
‘No, not from the centre. We were across the border, more than a day’s drive away. We tried to go after those who took her—rebel soldiers. But they know the bush too well.’
‘Rebels? You’re talking about the LRA?’
There was the sound of a keyboard clicking. ‘Yes.’ And as he listened, Neil kept thinking, Oh shit, Oh shit, but the man was talking again. ‘We were hoping to have heard more by now, but I’m afraid there’s been no word.’
‘There must be something,’ Neil stammered. ‘Do you know anything else? Was Tessa hurt?’
But Dominic Oculi didn’t know, and when Neil asked if anyone else was taken, he replied, ‘It was just your daughter they abducted.’
Neil looked for his reading glasses, which he failed to find, then searched for a pen in the cluttered drawer by the phone and began to scrawl notes on the back of an envelope. ‘Who else have you notified?’
Dominic paused. ‘We have contacted the Allied Democratic Forces here in Uganda, but I think you should notify the Australian embassy. Unfortunately, there’s only a consulate branch in Kampala. If you want representation from the embassy itself, that is based in Kenya.’
Fuck, what a mess.
‘Do you have the name of the consul general?’ Neil asked.
‘There have been some changes recently. I’m not sure who is in charge now.’
Neil’s jaw clenched. Everything was moving faster than he could process. He gripped the phone in one hand, writing names, scrawling question marks on the back of the envelope with the other. There was a tightening in his chest, a pressure that seemed to worsen and extend up into the back of his head and down his arm. Fear gripped him. He spoke in a loud voice and kept asking, How? What? When?
‘Where were you exactly?’
‘In the Congo. Garamba. We were travelling back from talks when it happened.’
‘Talks?’
Neil was certain that this Dominic Oculi was not telling him everything. He felt a rush of indignation. ‘Why on earth did you let her go with you in the first place?’
‘Let her go, sir? She insisted. I told her I could not guarantee her safety, but she came anyway.’
Neil closed his eyes. Yes, insistent, headstrong girl. What an idiot. Oh, Jesus, Tess.
‘Once she made up her mind she was determined,’ Dominic Oculi continued. ‘She said she wanted to see where the children she had been interviewing came from.’
‘If only you’d stopped her.’
Neil heard Dominic take an inward breath. ‘And how would you have had me do that, Mr Lowell? Lock her up? She herself is not a child.’
‘Yes, of course, I’m sorry. I should have stopped her.’
But what was the point in making such declarations now? He knew Tess would have gone no matter what anyone said. He recalled the hand-painted placard, OUT OF IRAQ!, and the photograph of her holding it above her head on the front page of the newspaper when she was an undergraduate. The fierce expression on her face as they chanted, Impeach the murderer! Her desire to address what was wrong in the world, the force in her that wanted to effect change—that declared I will go, I will march. She was an idealist who, like him, was also impatient.
Their conversation continued, but it didn’t make things any clearer.
Neil’s immediate impulse was to get on a plane straight away; he wanted to go and find his daughter. In his mind he was already there. The connection faltered and Dominic’s voice began to break up. He said he would ring if he heard anything else, but Neil knew he couldn’t wait for that. A vision came to him of Tessa; he pictured her being brutally assaulted, her throat slit, and he tried to shut it out, tried to think of solutions, of how to protect her. How could he? From the day he found out he was to be a father he’d been humbled by the task ahead. You try to prepare yourself, you believe that you’ll have the insight, if and when the time comes—that you’ll cope. But that was so far from what he felt he was doing now.
‘I’ll call you back if I hear anything at this end,’ he said, and hung up. A surge of adrenaline ran through him. He tried to focus. He needed to prioritise. But all the things he understood seemed to slip away, as if any knowledge he had was like smoke.
He called Leigh’s number. The words piled up in his mouth. He listened to the ring tone and waited for her to answer. The call ran to her message service. ‘Leigh, it’s—listen, I have to speak to you. It’s urgent. Just ring me as soon as you get this.’ He hung up, then looked at the information he had scrawled on the back of the envelope, although he could barely read his own handwriting. His breath caught in his throat. His left hand felt numb and the pain in his chest, which had started as a tight centralised knot, bloomed. Dropping the phone, he crashed to the floor.
In the white space of the emergency room Neil opened his eyes. He could hear Leigh talking to the other doctors in the medical language that was their own. The clipped formal sound of Leigh’s voice rose above him as her fingers found their way back to his wrist so she could check his pulse. He had no idea how he’d got here; a vague memory of a stretcher, a door closing. Maybe the side door of the ambulance. But now, under the bright lights, he tried to bring himself back as if from an alcohol-induced sleep.
Above him Leigh’s face appeared slightly misshapen. She smiled uncertainly, her eyes wide. Everything was moving very slowly, and yet Neil felt as if he were hurtling towards an accident on the freeway, the same kind of frame-by-frame action in which each second lagged, until the inevitable moment of impact when he would crash and know, irrefutably, that everything had spun out of control.
‘Neil. Darling, can you hear me? Are you okay?’ Leigh asked.
‘It’s not me,’ he said, trying to sit up. ‘There’s something—it’s Tess.’
Later they argued. ‘The rebels have her,’ Neil repeated, and it sounded as if his voice were not his own. ‘I have to go. I have to do something.’
Leigh was incredulous. ‘How can you go? It’s out of the question; you’ve just had a major heart scare.’
‘I blacked out. It’s not that serious. But this isn’t even about me. Leigh, you read the papers, you watch the news—you’ve seen how these things escalate! We’ve no way of knowing what might happen. We don’t even know if Tess is hurt. These people … shit, they kill indiscriminately. What’s to stop them from harming her, or worse? I need to go there.’
‘And what if you arrive and collapse again?’
‘There are a million what-ifs.’
Neil glanced at the doorway. Six hours in casualty, and now shunted into a room on the cardiac ward. He looked at Leigh, then at the cannula in the back of his hand. It was connected to an intravenous line that ran up to a small chamber. Clear fluid dripped into it from the bag above. Another machine monitored him. There were whole years, he thought, when very little changed, and then out of the blue something happened that altered everything and then you needed to know exactly what to do and how to do it. He closed his eyes. He’d had an echocardiogram and an ultrasound of his heart, but he had been told that he needed more tests. ‘We suspect it might be stress-induced,’ the cardiologist had said. ‘A syndrome known as takotsubo where the ballooning of the heart resembles the Japanese octopus pots it’s named after.’ A fanciful name, but temporary, not as serious as it sounds, he was told, but it still meant he would have to stay in hospital at least overnight, maybe for another day. ‘We have to be convinced beyond reasonable doubt,’ the cardiologist had insisted.
Leigh pressed her lips together. ‘Let’s wait. For all we know Tess might already be safe.’ She spoke without conviction and looked at him as though she could no longer trust herself, or him, and in that moment his perception of them changed. His body tensed and his breathing became tight again.
‘We have no idea if she’s all right,’ he said. ‘No information that gives us the slightest confidence. We have to do something.’
Two hours passed before they got through to DFAT, and then there was more red tape—calls that involved being shunted from one official to another. At last Leigh got to speak to a senior politician in Canberra. They had their policies. I’ll stay on the phone, Leigh insisted. The politician said he’d look into it, but it would take time. Leigh walked around the room. First she was rational, then angry; she couldn’t make any further headway. Neil made simultaneous calls, tried the embassy in Kenya. An eight-hour time difference meant it was still the middle of the night in East Africa. They would need to wait.
