THE NATURE OF THE BEAST
“Jacob, I have news, good news,” Paul waved a letter in his hand. “Tony and Norman got one too.” He was jumping up and down now. “Look, see, Headmaster Heycoop arranged it. We will go to school in Kampala, and Tony’s scholarship will be transferred. All three of us. No one will know us there. We can start again. We leave today.”
Paul took a deep breath, as if to calm himself, then suddenly, almost mid-sentence, his voice grew soft and quiet as a murmur.
“I will take care of them in Kampala.” Paul motioned with his head toward Norman and Tony. “It does not matter what Tony did. I will care for them like you cared for us.”
Everything happened quickly. The staff gathered clothes for Tony. Instead of packing his things in a bucket he was given a tin suitcase just like the other boys. They took up a collection and handed him more notes and coins than he had ever held in his life. “This is for books and the things you will need.” Paul and Norman repacked what little had been delivered from school. Their mattresses were bundled up with cord and stood propped up at the door, ready to go.
“Jacob, your father is sending a car for you shortly,” said one of the counsellors. Jacob nodded.
“Jacob, what will you do?” asked Paul.
“I will go back to school. And maybe one day I will be able to tell people about us. Maybe if they knew they would help. It is what Hannah believes.” Jacob smiled. “I shall visit you in Kampala. Father goes there on business often. You will see, we will meet again,” he said.
“Where do you think Oteka has gone?” Paul asked for the tenth time. Jacob shook his head. They knew so little about him. But they all felt the same way: with Oteka gone, something was missing.
Tony sat silently on his bed, his case packed. Jacob walked over and sat on his bed.
“Tony, it was not your fault.” How many times had Jacob said that?
Tony shook his head as he picked up his bag. Norman let Tony pass out the door. The bus waited inside the compound.
Norman looked back at Jacob. He wanted to say something, to do something, but there were no words.
“What is 124 times 68?” said Jacob.
“Too easy. 8,432,” replied Norman.
“I think that if we were in a multiplication contest, you would win,” said Jacob.
“No,” said Norman simply. Norman was getting better, day by day. “Goodbye.”
And then they were gone. Jacob sat by himself. The room, so full of sounds a moment ago, became still. A lizard raced up the wall, and from somewhere far off he heard children playing football. The sounds were unmistakable—a foot meets leather, a cheer.
“Jacob?” Norman stood at the door. “I thought you had left.”
Norman dithered. By nature he was a boy of few words, and many of those left to him were still held captive. He dropped his suitcase and walked over to Jacob.
“I think Paul has lied to us,” he said. Jacob’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“I think he told us those stories about America to make us think about other things. I do not believe children in America would be allowed to talk back to their parents, and I am sure children in America are not allowed to work the electricity,” said Norman. “And I am very sure that Americans do not dress their dogs in clothes. I think Paul told us those things to …” Norman searched for the words, “… to amuse us.” Then he did something so surprising that Jacob took in a deep breath and looked on, amazed: Norman smiled. It was a beautiful thing.
“I do not know. I have heard many strange things about Americans and Europeans too,” replied Jacob. “But I would very much like to go to America and see for myself.” Norman laughed. It was an infectious sound starting way down in his throat and bubbling up like soda pop. And in that moment, swift and gentle, Norman kissed Jacob’s forehead.
“Brother,” he whispered.
This time the two walked out together. Norman, Tony, and Paul boarded the bus.
“There will be other returnees like you,” said a counsellor to Jacob, as they waved goodbye. “More child soldiers will find a way out of the bush. You can help them, you can come back here and talk to them.” The counsellor did not push, did not require an answer. Jacob nodded. Yes, perhaps. Yes. And then Father’s green Honda Accord pulled into the compound and Ethel stepped out. She’d been skinny to begin with, and clearly she had lost weight. Still, she looked pretty. Jacob hadn’t noticed that before, either.
“Come Jacob, let us go home,” Ethel called out.
Jacob put his tin suitcase and mattress in the trunk of the automobile. “I would like to walk home.”
“But …” Ethel was about to argue. Jacob stifled a laugh. Could it be that she thought he could not find his way across the city he had been born in?
Ethel dithered, and then smiled. “You have grown. I will have to get used to this new Jacob. I shall have a Krest waiting for you when you arrive home.” She smiled weakly, and that’s when Jacob realized that she was just being protective. In her own way, she loved him.
“Thank you.” Jacob shook hands and said goodbye to the counsellors and social workers before setting out on roads of red sand and scorched tarmac. His feet were still sore and he hobbled more than walked.
No one recognized him on the streets of Gulu, but then he was very thin. He peeked into kiosks, shops, stalls, and wooden lean-tos propped against crumbling buildings. He smelled the sweet scent of bananas sizzling on open grills. He gazed at the dried fish and papayas for sale. What he wouldn’t have given for even a bite of such wondrous food not three weeks ago.
A feeling nudged at him. It had been there for a while. He pushed it down, back, away, but it kept returning, like the pain behind his eyes. Everything was the same, but different. He saw the colors, saw the beauty, but this city was not safe anymore, not completely. At any moment the LRA, or any army, could flood into the city like a torrent of rain and take him away again. He looked at the elegant women who passed him on the street wearing bright busutis, many with babies on their backs or tall bundles on their heads. Did they think that one day those babies could be taken away and made to kill?
He turned, walked through the courtyard, and entered the church through the side door. Jacob slid into a pew and looked up. “I’m back,” he whispered to the baby angels painted on the ceiling. The pink padi bustled about the altar under the watchful eye of Jesus on the cross, and a woman sat alone near the top of the church in a pew, head bent. The only thing that had changed was Jacob.
“Why do such things happen?” he whispered. Jacob shut his eyes. Attack! Attack! Attack! It happened like this. He would be fine, smiling even, and then memories would crash down on him like giant waves.
“Hello.”
The waves turned soft and warm as the memories receded back to where they’d come from. He smiled, then opened his eyes and looked into almond-shaped eyes, at a nose and cheekbones sculpted into ridges, and a wide mouth made to smile.
“Where did you come from?”
Oteka slid in beside Jacob. “I have been watching the center for a while. I saw the bus leave with the boys, and then I followed you here.”
Jacob nodded. Oteka had been taking care of himself a long, long time. Being confined and accountable would have been hard for him. “Where did you go?”
“I went back to the displacement camp, to a grave. I called her Adaa; she was an old woman who cared for me once as I cared for her. In the bush I felt her presence and strength with me always. She saved me, and I had to thank her.”
Jacob understood. The woman at prayer crossed herself and left. Another woman took her place. The padi went away. A deacon in a white robe tied at the middle with a gold cord returned with tall candles. The two boys sat silently side by side for a while.
“Why did this happen? Why is it still happening?” Jacob asked the questions as much to Oteka as to the angels above, the statue of Mary in an alcove, and Jesus on the cross.
“Do you remember the story of the crocodile and the scorpion? You were here, the night in the church,” said Oteka, his voice low. “I was out there, sitting on the ground. I could see you listening to the storyteller.”
“I remember the story,” said Jacob. “A scorpion rode on the back of a crocodile across the lake. In the middle of the lake the scorpion stung the crocodile. As the crocodile began to sink he cried out ‘Why? Why? You will die too.’ Why did the scorpion kill the crocodile when it meant that he too would die?”
“Because,” said Oteka, “it was his nature. It is what the scorpion was born to do.”
A truck backfired, children called out to each other—around them there was peace, and just kilometers away, in the bush, beasts ruled.
“Are we born to be beasts? Is that our nature?” Jacob’s throat closed up.
“No, we can choose. That is God’s gift,” said Oteka.
It occurred to Jacob that he would give his life for this friend, and yet the two had never talked, not the way friends talk. Was it possible to know a person’s soul and not know the person? He did not even know if Oteka was a true soldier of the movement, if he had killed.
“I came to say goodbye,” said Oteka. He looked Jacob in the eye.
Wide-eyed and amazed, Jacob looked back at Oteka. “But you’ve just returned!”
“When I was living at the displacement camp and taking care of Adaa, I went to a medicine man and asked him to contact my mother. I asked my mother, ‘What is it I am supposed to do? What is my destiny?’ I did not understand her message then, but now I do.”
A chill came over Jacob. “What did she say?”
“Kony, my mother said Kony.”
“She wanted to warn you. She wanted you to run away.” It was obvious to Jacob, but something was whirling away inside him, something uncomfortable, not an idea but a feeling. Something bad was about to happen.
“I thought that too. I thought that if I stayed the LRA would raid the camp and I would be captured. I thought that if I left the camp and ran away, I would be captured on the road. I kept thinking, what was the point of telling me what would happen when I could do nothing about it? Before Adaa died she reminded me that my name meant ‘hero.’” Oteka paused. Again he felt embarrassed but plunged on. “That’s when I realized that all Acholi names have meanings. ‘Kony’ means ‘save.’ My mother was telling me to save.”
“No, you cannot do this. This is madness. You will die,” Jacob hissed. It was a loud sound that reverberated around the church. The deacon turned and glared at Jacob.
“I have Adaa’s protection, and I feel my mother’s and my father’s presence too. And my father left me with a gift. He said that I would always know the right path to take and now that path is clear. I will help the government soldiers track the rebels.” Oteka’s voice was quiet, even, and resolute. “I will go back after the lost boys. I will save as many as I am able.”
“I will come with you.”
“I have watched you, Jacob. You are different now; you have found your voice. I heard you say to your friend Paul that you wanted people to know about us, to know what happens to child soldiers. So tell them. You have great things to do in your life. You must follow your destiny, and I must follow mine. I know the voice of the true God. I will follow that voice. It is my nature.”
…
The road out of town was the same road that passed by Jacob’s home, and so the two walked together through Gulu. They stopped at the entrance to Jacob’s family’s compound.
Jacob dithered and pondered but in the end he came out with his thoughts. “Oteka, I must ask and I am sorry.” And here Jacob paused. “Did you kill?” Was the question fair? Did he have the right to ask?
Oteka did something surprising. He laughed. “The commanders are greedy. They cared too much for well-cooked food. When I was sent into battle it was not to kill; it was to make sure the other soldiers did not steal the food they found in the villages. They wanted me alive so that I could return and cook their food. No Jacob, I did not kill.”
“Would you have?” It was hard, but Jacob looked Oteka in the eye.
“You are not asking me the question, Jacob, you are asking yourself. I hope one day you find your answer.
“Brother.” Oteka and Jacob clasped hands.
“Brother,” said Jacob. “I will see you again.”
As Oteka walked away he should have become smaller and smaller in Jacob’s sight, but instead he became bigger and bigger, until he filled the whole skyline.
“Jacob!”
Ethel stood, hands on her hips, beside the guardhouse. The guard himself was tucked away in his little wooden hut. Jacob grimaced and walked toward her, but not before taking one last look down the road. Oteka was gone.
“Welcome home.” There might have been a hint of a smile on Ethel’s face because when she moved aside Hannah came into view. Jacob took a breath. She wore a simple dress. A band of colorful material covered her ears and her hair was done in strange, thin braids looped up and around, creating a sort of halo. Her eyes were wide, her nose thin, her mouth curved into a gentle smile. She was—Jacob could hardly speak—not pretty, but beautiful.
Ethel looked from Jacob to Hannah and sighed. “I shall leave you two, but after you have said hello, go and talk to your father. He is under the mango tree.” Off Ethel went.
They waited until she went into the house before they spoke.
“She is very bossy.” Hannah giggled.
Jacob laughed. “That is because she loves me. Where have you been?”
“Did you think I would go away forever?” she asked simply.
“Are you a nun?” He blurted out the question. Why did he keep doing that? He did not know how to talk to a girl. How, then, was he supposed to talk to a nun?
“No, I am living with the nuns and I am studying to be a teacher.” She gazed at him with a steady eye.
“Will you … I mean, might you ever become a nun?” There, he’d said it, and now he would be happy to sink into the sand.
“I do not think it would be right for me. I stay with the nuns because I have no family.” Suddenly shy, she looked down.
“You have family.” Jacob’s heart pounded so hard it made hearing difficult. Speaking was almost impossible. All he could manage were the words, “Come and meet my father.”
Jacob and Hannah walked into the garden toward the great mango tree. It was a sweet–sweeter life.