23

RETURNEES

Returning home wasn’t how Jacob had thought it would be. Twenty or more government soldiers leapt out of the grass as fast and as sure as great cats after a kill. They surrounded them, pushing, shoving, jeering, and snarling. One soldier babbled into a cellphone. Jacob heard the word truck. They didn’t need a truck; they needed food!

“You took my sister!” hissed a government soldier. “She was walking to school. Where is she?” He rammed his rifle butt into Paul’s back. Paul’s mouth was clamped shut, his hands balled up into two rock-hard fists.

“Jacob?” Norman cried.

“They will not hurt us,” Jacob whispered, but he was not so sure.

“Walk!” they were commanded. They all stumbled up the road toward the lodge.

Jacob looked over at Tony, who walked with his eyes fixed on the ground.

“You think that if you do not kill they will take you back? They will not believe you. They will treat you like a murderer.” Tony’s words rang in Jacob’s ears. What if Tony was right? What if they would never be accepted again? What if they were forever blamed for all the things the LRA did? It wasn’t fair, especially to Norman, a little kid.

Jacob wasn’t mad, like Paul, or scared, like Norman. He was tired—all of him was tired, feet, bones, heart. His skin itched and hung off him like a shirt many sizes too big. His feet? No, he couldn’t even think of his feet; he could barely feel them. They had made it, they had escaped, but here they were—still hungry, still afraid, still marching in front of guns.

“Hannah,” Jacob whispered.

“Quiet.” A soldier rammed the barrel of his gun against the back of Jacob’s neck, just like before. Hannah did not look up. She, too, had her eyes glued to the ground while she secured the band of cloth covering her missing ears.

Paul, Tony, Norman, Hannah—they dragged their feet as if walking toward a firing squad. Only Oteka held his head high, like a prince, as if nothing could hurt him, ever again. Right. Jacob straightened up and threw his own shoulders back. This time he caught Norman’s eye and made his mouth smile, as if to say, It will be all right. Slowly, as if each part of his body was working independently, Norman lifted his head and squared his shoulders too.

Good, thought Jacob. He looked at Paul and willed him to look back. It worked. Again, Jacob smiled. Again, he threw back his shoulders. Paul grimaced and did the same. Good. He turned to Tony. But nothing on earth could get Tony’s attention.

A truck came barrelling down the road at breakneck speed. It skidded to a stop, kicking up pebbles and dust. A soldier opened up the back.

“Get in.”

With all the dignity they could muster they climbed up into the truck and sat on a wooden plank, shoulders back, heads high. Only Tony folded up into himself, head down, slumped.

“Names?” Holding a clipboard and pencil, a soldier scribbled down first Paul’s and then Tony’s name. He came to Jacob.

“Please,” said Jacob. “We need food.”

“Name?”

“Kitino Jacob.”

The soldier looked hard at Jacob, then reached for his cellphone. Soon after, each was handed a banana.

“Look.” Paul touched Jacob’s arm. Through the bush they caught sight of two women, one very thin and the other not so thin. One had hair the shade of sand; the other had lemon-colored hair. They were climbing onto a sightseeing bus.

Jacob nudged Oteka. “The government soldiers must be under orders to keep us out of sight of tourists.”

Oteka nodded. He had been thinking the same thing. The truck lurched into gear. Jacob, Hannah, Tony, Paul, Norman, and Oteka sat facing the government soldiers and their guns.

The ride was three hours long, yet no one spoke. Mud huts, long grass, farms tended to and farms not tended to—all passed by in a blur of colors. And then, there it was! Gulu, his city.

The truck bounced in and out of potholes, tossing them from side to side, but Jacob couldn’t help himself; he leapt up. The city, bathed in a waxy yellow light, seemed to beckon. Once, he had seen only blue, yellow, and red buildings. Now they were sapphire blue, saffron yellow, and rosy pink. And there were other colors, too—leafy green, burnt orange, and cinnamon brown. The buildings seemed to grow from out of the ground and sprout fully formed, beautiful to his eyes. Boda-boda boys zoomed about on their motorcycles, women went to market with chubby, well-loved babies on their backs, bicycles and smiles were everywhere—home!

The truck charged into town and rumbled down the main street. In front of the two department stores, and standing on wooden walkways, wire models displayed all sorts of busutis. Red and yellow posters advertising Bell Beer were plastered on the sides of buildings. Father always said that Ugandan beer was the best. Jacob’s heart began to beat faster, faster, faster. Never mind the government soldiers, never mind what people think. Father, I am home. A shout from one of the soldiers made him sit down again.

The truck pulled into a large compound with gray cement buildings and stopped, jolting them all forward then back. There was no color here. Several boys playing football in an open, sandy space stopped to look at them. There were offices, a chapel, and a two-meter high wooden fence surrounding the entire area.

“Get out,” hollered a soldier. Policemen were waiting for them.

Jacob heard the car before he saw it. The Honda Accord had barely come to a stop before Father flung open the door and ran toward Jacob. “Jacob, my son, my son,” he cried over and over. He hugged Jacob, kissed the top of his head, then stood back and took in the sight. His eyes became wet; his voice grew quiet. “My son, I failed you.”

“I will be well again. And you did not fail me, Father.” He looked smaller than Jacob remembered, and older.

Father covered his eyes with his hands. Tears fell through his fingers.

A van pulled through the gates. Two nuns dressed in blue habits climbed out and hurried toward Hannah. Where had they come from? What did they want? Their arms enveloped Hannah and then the three walked back to the van together. What were they doing? Stop! Stop! The van doors slammed shut, and the sound echoed across the compound.

“I will be back, Father,” shouted Jacob as he started to run across the compound. “Wait!” He could see Hannah’s face in the window. He saw her mouth form his name. A policeman put up his hand. Jacob slammed into him as the van drove back through the gates. Hannah was gone.

The counsellors said it was best that they all stay in the rehabilitation center for a few weeks. Father argued. He wanted his boy home. In the end, Father relented.

The police interrogated them. They did not seem to care about how they were treated by the LRA. They only wanted to know about the guns and future plans of Kony and his crew. The boys exchanged looks. How would they know such things?

There were doctors, nurses, and social workers to tend to them, people who said that they must be reintegrated into society. They said that they must forgive themselves. Tony hung his head but Jacob could only wonder. Forgive themselves? They had been stolen, imprisoned, tortured, abused. Whom should they forgive? Jacob said nothing, so the rest followed suit.

They ate. They slept in single, squeaky iron beds. Norman especially slept a great deal. But Jacob would wake with a start at the slightest sound, his heart racing.

A week passed. There was a rooster in the courtyard that would crow at odd hours during the day, and sometimes in the middle of the night too, waking them when they had finally been able to get to sleep. At one point Oteka muttered something about throwing a rock at it, but they were all too tired to get out of bed.

…

“Tony, are you awake?” It was just before dawn. “Tony?”

Jacob got up, crept over to Tony’s bed, and sat on the end. Tony rolled over and looked at the wall. He hardly talked at all. The counsellors said that it was normal; they said, “Give him time.” But two weeks had passed.

“My mother is coming again today,” he said in a low voice.

“That is good,” said Jacob.

Tony’s mother had come with his little brother the day after they’d arrived, but something had gone wrong. Tony’s mother had yelled at the counsellors. “Demons!” she’d cried. “My son must visit the medicine man.” She had shoved a packet of cream into a counsellor’s hand. “Take this. It is moo-yaa, nut butter from a yaa tree. It must be smeared on my son’s chest to cleanse him of his crimes.”

“Your son is a Catholic,” said the counsellor. “He does not believe in witchcraft.”

More yelling. It went on for some time, and then Tony’s mother and brother had left. She had not returned.

“They call her things, bad words, evil words.” Tony’s voice kept catching, like cloth on a jagged nail.

“Who, Tony? Who calls your mother things?” Jacob inched up the bed.

“The neighbors. At the well where she draws water they called out, ‘Konyi pe.’ ‘Useless,’ they say. ‘You are useless.’ They shake their hands in the air and jeer at her. They know that I am a returnee. And my little brother, he is afraid of me. I can see the fear in his eyes.”

The rooster crowed again and again. As Jacob turned his head to look out the window, Tony scrambled up and walked out of the room toward the latrine.

Paul sat up, rubbed his face, then put his arms behind his head and looked up at the ceiling.

“Would he have killed us, do you think, if he’d been ordered to?”

Jacob didn’t respond. He just walked back to his bed and threw himself face first onto the mattress.

Returning home wasn’t how Jacob had thought it would be.