When I got home from work the next morning, I was tired and grumpy.
Herding livestock isn’t part of my job description. Shortly before sunrise, Deng and I had come across a frightened boy. He was running down a path in a shantytown on the city’s outskirts. We stopped and Deng asked what was wrong. The boy explained that he’d lost the family’s best goat. We drove slowly down the road, shining our flashlights into the bush. We didn’t have to search long before we found it. The rope around the goat’s neck had snagged on a thorny bush. It had spent its time productively. All the leaves and thorns within reach had been stripped off. We rescued the goat and returned it to the happy boy.
Heading back to the truck, I stepped in a hole. It wasn’t a very big hole, but I didn’t see it in the dark. I fell, my ankle twisting underneath me. Deng helped me to my feet, chuckling. It wasn’t broken or sprained, but it was darn sore.
The sun was an orange glow in the eastern sky when Deng dropped me off at the UN compound. No one was around. I limped to my container, feeling very sorry for myself.
A length of measuring tape hung over my desk. I’d cut it off at thirty-one inches. Every morning for a month, I’d snipped off an inch. Eight inches were left. Eight mornings until Jenny and home.
I put my key in the lock and turned it. I pushed open the door and switched on the light. I’d untied the laces on my right boot to give the ankle some relief. Now I pulled both boots off. While I unfastened my belt, I limped across the room, heading for the small bathroom. I glanced toward my bed.
My heart just about stopped.
Eyes as white and frightened as a horse smelling fire stared back at me.
“What on earth?”
The face was small and round. Not from being well-fed but from baby fat. She was about twelve, maybe thirteen years old. Her hair was cut short. She wore dangling blue earrings. Her lips were painted bright red. Mascara had been thickly applied to her lashes. Her eyes blinked.
I crossed the room in two strides.
“Who the hell are you?” The duvet was pulled up to her chin. I grabbed the cover and yanked it down to her waist.
I leapt back.
She was naked. Nothing more than a bag of skin and bones. I could see her chest rising and falling. I could almost see her heart beating. Her breasts were no larger than peanuts.
“A present,” she said. Her voice squeaked. Her smile was forced. “You like me?” Her accent was thick. The words spoken by rote. As if she didn’t understand the meaning.
“Get up. Get up right now.” My heart was beating almost as fast as hers. This was no present. Not a goodbye gift from my buddies. I looked around. Her clothes were draped over the desk chair. I scooped them up and threw them at her. “Get dressed.”
Tears welled up in her dark eyes. “You don’t like?” She tried to keep smiling. She pulled the duvet down, showing me a leg as thin as that of a stick insect. She cocked the leg. It wasn’t seductive in the least.
“I most certainly don’t like. Get up. Get dressed.” I gestured to the clothes. “Now.”
I turned and ran. I had the presence of mind to switch off the outdoor light as I fled.
I had no doubt someone was crouching in the bushes. With a camera. Ready to get a shot of the girl leaving my room. Hoping she’d be adjusting her clothes and I’d be half-dressed and grinning. I darted around the side of the container. I stopped to get some breath and to think. Not about who had done this. That could wait.
But about what I was going to do.
I could not be seen leaving my room with that poor frightened child. Camera or not, anyone could pass by at any moment.
Joyce lived two containers over. In off-hours she kept pretty much to herself. But she was friendly enough.
I pounded on Joyce’s door.
“Keep your shirt on,” she yelled.
The door opened. She peered out, blinking sleep out of her eyes. Her red hair stuck up in all directions. “Robertson. What’s the matter?”
“I need your help. Now.”
“I’m in bed. Can’t it wait?”
“No.”
She must have read something in my eyes. Pure panic, probably.
“Hold on.” The door shut in my face.
It opened a minute later. She wore black track pants and was pulling a light jacket over her T-shirt.
“I got home a couple of minutes ago. I found something in my room,” I said.
“What?”
“You’ll see.”
She stopped dead. “It’s not a snake, is it? I can’t stand snakes. You’ll have to get someone else on this.”
“Not a snake. No.”
We went into my room. The girl was exactly where I’d left her. In my bed. Naked.
“Well, stone the crows,” Joyce said in surprise. She turned to me. “You’d better not be having me on, mate.”
“I swear. I walked through the door two minutes ago and found her. Right there. Like that.”
“This isn’t a joke,” she said. “Someone’s out to get you.”
“I know.”
She picked up the girl’s shirt.
“Robertson, wait in the bathroom. You, time to get up.”
I went into the bathroom. I heard Joyce ask the girl what her name was and where she lived. I couldn’t hear the replies.
“You can come out now,” Joyce called.
Dressed, the girl looked even younger. She wore a short skirt that jutted across bony hips. A low-cut, sparkly blouse revealed the top of barely-there breasts. Joyce held the girl’s shoes in her hands. Gold sandals with thin straps and four-inch heels. I thought of my daughters. Dressing up as princesses for Halloween. Raiding their mother’s closet to play dress-up.
This child was a travesty.
“We’ll walk out together,” Joyce said. “I’ll hold the girl’s arm, you come behind. Her name, by the way, is Olivia.”
“And then what?”
“I’m taking her to an NGO that runs a shelter for war-orphan girls living on the streets. You’re coming with us.”
“You don’t need me.”
“I sure the hell do. Crikey, you think I don’t know what some of your mates have to say about my supposed sexual orientation? I won’t let them into my bed, so they figure I must be a lesbian.”
I’d heard the talk. Figured it was none of my business.
“I’ve been married three times. I’m off men for the moment. Seemed like Africa would be a nice place to get away from my ex-husbands. I’m almost as vulnerable as you if I’m seen alone with this baby whore.”
“Whore,” Olivia said. “Yes.”
“Let’s go,” Joyce said.
We snuck around the back rather than cross the compound in the open. Fortunately, it was still early. We didn’t see anyone. The three of us marched into the motor pool. A driver was washing an SUV. Joyce told him she’d found the girl on the street outside. We were taking her to a shelter.
She pushed Olivia into the back of a Land Cruiser. Then she climbed in beside her.
I took the passenger seat. The driver said nothing.
As we drove through town we passed a primary school. Children were gathered in the dusty yard, kicking a soccer ball around. In Africa, any patch of ground and a group of kids means soccer. I’ve seen balls made out of plastic bags and string, bundles of cloth, even shredded car tires. The one these kids were playing with was white and black. A real ball. The children wore school uniforms. Gray trousers and white shirts for the boys. Gray and black tunics over white shirts for the girls. The air might be full of red dust, but the uniforms were clean and well-kept. Parents who could afford school fees were determined to do the best for their kids.
The playing children burst into cheers. A boy ran across the yard, his arms in the air. His smile just about split his face.
I glanced in the back. Joyce was also looking out the window. She watched the laughing, playing children. She reached out and lightly stroked Olivia’s hair.
Joyce took Olivia into the shelter for street children. I waited in the car.
Joyce soon came back. Alone.
We returned to the UN compound in silence. The schoolyard was empty. We could see rows of dark heads through the classroom windows.
“Thanks,” I said as we walked to our containers.
“You’ve got an enemy, Ray. When men get to butting antlers, I stay out of the way. Your enemy used a little girl. I don’t like that.”
“It might turn out well for Olivia after all. She’s better off in the home.”
“For now. She’ll be back on the streets soon enough. They can’t keep them all, you know. There are too many girls without families. Too many blokes, white and black, ready to take advantage of that. And they wonder why I’ve gone off men.”
She punched me in the arm. It hurt. I didn’t want to look like a wimp by rubbing at it. “You’re okay, Robertson. If this comes back to bite you, I’ll back you up.”
She crossed the thin weedy grass to her own container. Her steps strong and determined, her head straight. I was glad Joyce was in my corner.
I’d almost forgotten about my sore ankle. Now that the adrenaline was fading, the pain was returning. With it, a black rage.
Someone had tried to frame me. A couple of pictures sent to my bosses in Canada. Me leaving my room with an underage girl in the early hours. I could deny it until the cows came home. They might believe me. But the stench would linger for a very long time.
They didn’t even need to send the pictures. Just knowing they were out there might be enough to have me minding my own business.
I ripped the sheets off my bed. I bundled them into the laundry basket. I remade the bed with clean ones.