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Brenda
Chaos reigned in Rory’s house. Margaret sobbed and wailed at the loss of the child she had called Alice. Her sobs threatened to break Brenda’s tenuous hold on her own sanity. Everything was spiraling out of control. The witchdoctor had stolen the child, Herbert was no longer in control of anything, and Sarah had been taken by a warlord.
Brenda pulled herself together. She was determined not to take a cue from Margaret and collapse into a wailing, helpless heap. She turned her fear into anger and centered her anger on Rory Marsden and her suspicion that he was a CIA agent.
While Rory attempted to calm Margaret, Brenda stalked through the house trying doors and looking into the sparsely furnished rooms until she found a door that would not open. It was not a wooden door like the other doors. This was a metal door set in a solid frame and locked with a padlock.
She stood before the locked door and shouted above the sound of Margaret’s wails of grief. “Give me the key, Rory. Let me look inside. I know you have something in there. What is it? Is it a radio, a satellite phone? I want you to open this door.”
Rory ignored her. He had wrestled Margaret onto the sofa and was doing his very best to shove a couple of pills down her throat while she resisted him with all her might.
Aguma raised his hand, palm upwards like a police officer stopping traffic. “Be patient, please,” he said.
“Patient! Patient!” Brenda shouted, adding her screams to Margaret’s sobs. “They have Sarah. How do you expect me to be patient? Now she’s saying they have the kid —”
Margaret sobbed louder than ever and Rory somehow managed to pour some water down her throat. Her sobbing ended in a gurgling sound as she swallowed the water and the pills.
“They’re sleeping pills,” Rory said. “She’ll be asleep in a couple of minutes. I gave her enough to knock out a horse. Please, Brenda, please be patient.”
“I don’t have time to be patient,” Brenda said. “If that evil man from Kajunga has the baby, he’ll be heading straight to Matapa and Sarah won’t stand a chance.”
“No,” Aguma said, “he will wait.”
“Why? Why the hell should he wait?”
“Because the witchdoctor doesn’t know where Matapa is,” Rory shouted. “Now shut the hell up, and let me think.”
“You know where he is,” Brenda shouted back. “You know exactly where he is.”
“No,” said Rory, “not exactly.”
There it was! Confirmation! “Bastard,” Brenda said.
“Please Madame,” said Aguma.
Brenda turned on him. “You be quiet. I’m not talking to you. I don’t even know whose side you’re on.” She turned back to Rory. “What’s behind that door? Why is it locked?”
“Because I keep my computer in there and in this country, people steal things.”
“I think they steal in every country,” Aguma said.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re probably right,” Rory said. He leaned down and smoothed Margaret’s hair. She was no longer actually screaming, and her sobs had become gulps.
“She’s calming down,” Rory said. “Give me a moment and then we can talk. Just let me take care of her first?”
Angry as she was, Brenda knew that she would get no information until Rory had calmed Margaret. She didn’t know why he would care so much about her but she supposed that over the years they had become friends - the only two white people in Budeka.
Rory continued to smooth Margaret’s hair. “It’s not her fault,” he said. “She can’t help herself.”
“Why not?”
“Cerebral malaria.”
“Never heard of it,” Brenda said.
“Of course, you haven’t. America took care of malaria years ago with DDT, but we don’t have DDT here, and so we have malaria and when it affects the brain, this is what you get. She’s not like this all the time. Sometimes she’s quite rational. I think she is also suffering from senile dementia. She’s old, Brenda. We’re all old. I do my best to look after her, but it’s progressive. I have never seen her as bad as she is today. Leave her alone. Stop shouting and let her sleep. I’ll talk to you in a minute.”
“You’ll talk to me now,” Brenda said bringing her voice under control. “We have no time to waste. Margaret’s almost asleep and you’re stalling, so let’s get down to facts. Matapa has my granddaughter and you know more than you’re willing to admit.”
Rory rose slowly and made an attempt at a comforting smile. “I won’t let him hurt her.”
Brenda stared at him, still unwilling to admit what lay behind his words. “Say that again.”
“I won’t let him hurt her.”
Brenda turned to appeal to Aguma, whose quiet brooding presence offered sanity in a world gone mad. “Did you hear what he said? He’s admitted that he knows where Sarah is. That means he knows where Matthew is. That means that he’s –”
“I know what he is,” Aguma said. He turned his brooding gaze on Rory. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know,” Rory said, “but I may have a way of communicating with Matapa.”
“Radio?” Brenda said.
“No. We use a satellite phone.”
“You use a satellite phone?” Brenda repeated. “How often do you talk to him? What the hell is going on, Rory?” She paused to review her memory of a police station in Johannesburg and a wild ride to the Rhodesian border. “You’re with the CIA, aren’t you? We were just cover for you, weren’t we?”
Rory shook his head. “I never intended it that way. It was just to get the financing for the trip. It wasn’t a real commitment. All I had to do was check in occasionally and report on what I had seen. My dad was CIA but I never intended to be. And then you got yourself arrested and –”
“So, this is all my fault?”
“No, no, of course not, but my dad had to pull in some big favors to keep you out of jail. For God’s sake, Songbird, it was the height of apartheid, with the whole world watching, and you joined in a protest.”
“I didn’t intend to. I didn’t know what it was.”
“You didn’t know anything and you still don’t. You’ve no idea what would have happened if arresting you had led the police to me.”
“You’re not blaming this on me,” Brenda said. “That was sixty years ago. You’ve had a long time to change your mind about the CIA, but you can’t, can you, because what Frank says is true.”
“I don’t know what Frank says.”
“He says that you’re here to make sure that Matapa stays around and destabilizes the country.”
“No!
“Yes,” Aguma said. “That is why he’s here.”
“And what are you?” Brenda asked, turning to Aguma. “Why are you here? Who are you working for?”
“Not for the CIA.” `
“I know why he’s here,” Rory said. “He’s been sent to watch me.”
“We don’t want you in our country,” Aguma said. “We don’t need American interference.”
Brenda’s impatience reached a boiling point. She and Sarah were nothing but tourists caught up in a nightmare. They had come to Uganda with no political agenda and they had done nothing to provoke trouble but now, somehow, Sarah had become a hostage in America’s secret African war. A CIA puppet was reigning terror all around them and Rory Marsden was holding the puppet’s strings and blaming her.
She surged forward and grabbed a handful of Rory’s shirt. “So now what are you going to do, Rory? Are you planning on letting Sarah and Matthew die? I suppose you have so much on your conscience already, a few more deaths won’t make any difference. You’ve done a good job of pretending that you care. You almost had me convinced. Obviously lying is all in a day’s work for you. You must be so proud to be an American.”
Rory’s voice was a snarl and he broke her hold on his shirt. “No, Brenda, I’m not proud but I’m doing something that has to be done. I don’t expect you to understand what that feels like. You’ve never had to do something you didn’t want to do. You were always just a little American princess, weren’t you? Well, listen to me, princess, someone has to get their hands dirty behind the scenes so that America can face the world with clean hands. America needs me to be here.”
“We don’t need you,” Aguma said. “Uganda doesn’t want your help.”
Rory turned to face him. “It doesn’t matter what you want. I’m not here to help you. I’m here to keep America safe. We don’t need another failed African government.”
“Our government has not failed.”
“Because we won’t let it,” Rory said. “So long as there are people like Matapa around, your present government has an excuse to keep control. Terrified people don’t want democracy, they want soldiers.”
“We can take care of ourselves,” Aguma insisted.
Rory ignored him. He looked at Brenda. “My father never talked about his work...”
“Because he was ashamed,” Brenda said.
“Possibly,” Rory said. “He may have been ashamed of some of the things he’d done and some of the compromises he’d made. I was drafted into the army. I went to Vietnam. After that I understood.”
“Vietnam,” said Brenda. “Who the hell could understand Vietnam?”
“I could,” said Rory. “I saw the big picture. I saw how easily we could fall.”
“You’ve been brainwashed.”
Rory shook his head. “I have two numbers for you,” he said, “nine and eleven.”
For a moment Benda’s mind went blank.
“The World Trade Center and the Twin Towers,” Rory said.
“That,” she said, “was no excuse for what you’re doing now.”
“It’s every excuse,” Rory said. “For the past twenty years, we’ve been at war and in wartime people get hurt.”
“Uganda is not part of your war,” Aguma said.
“Yes, it is,” Rory said. “We are in the front lines. Uganda stands at the crossroads. If we allowed a violent overthrow of your government then —”
“Allowed!” Aguma repeated. “It is not up to you to allow anything!”
Brenda could see what was likely to happen next. She imagined it would involve a physical confrontation where Rory would come off second best to the younger, stronger Aguma. While the two men snarled at each other, nothing would be done for Sarah.
She wanted to cry and stamp her feet but Rory’s words came back to her. Little American princess. She flung herself on Rory, no longer angry, just desperate. “Please,” she wailed. “I don’t understand and I don’t even care why you’re doing this. All I want is to get Sarah back.”
Rory held her at arm’s length. “I know. I know.” He put his hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a bunch of keys. “I’m going to try to do that for you”
He unlocked the door to his inner sanctum and Brenda followed him into the small windowless room with Aguma close behind her. Rory flicked a switch and the room lit up.
“Solar,” he said, “and car batteries.”
The room held a desk and a rough wooden table loaded with electronic equipment. Screens glowed, lights blinked. Unlike the other citizens of Budeka, Rory was not out of power and not out of touch with the wider world. He picked up something that looked like the first experimental mobile from the eighties. A wire trailed from the phone to a bank of car batteries beneath the table, and another wire snaked across the ceiling and disappeared through a hole in the wall.
“This is my only hope of finding Sarah,” Rory said, “and you have to be patient.”
“What is it?” Brenda asked.
“It’s a satellite phone,” said Aguma. “We knew he had one.”
“We?” Brenda said. “Who exactly is we?”
“I cannot tell you that,” Aguma said. “Not yet. Even Mr. Marsden does not know who we are.”
Rory interrupted brusquely. “This is the only link I have to Matapa,” he said. “I wish I had some other way, but I don’t. If and when he turns on his phone, I can get a GPS reading of his position. I can’t do anything until he contacts me.”
“You could phone him,” Brenda said.
Rory ran his hand through his hair and Brenda could see his frustration. “I’ve been trying to reach him for days. He was just supposed to show himself and then move on through. No one was supposed to get hurt. We just wanted people to remember that he’s still around. We didn’t plan any of this. You have to believe me.”
“I don’t know why I should,” Brenda replied.
“Because —” Rory never finished his sentence. “Someone’s at the door!”
With a surprising display of strength for a man of his age, he shoved Aguma out of the room and grabbed Brenda’s arm pulling her along with him and closing the door firmly behind him. Margaret was where they had left her, snoring on the sofa, her mouth wide open. Someone was calling Brenda’s name and banging on the front door.
“Brenda, are you in there? Brenda?”
“It’s Frank,” Brenda said.
“The Irishman?” Rory asked.
“Yes,” she said. “He’s the one who helped me work out what you were doing and why.”
“You can’t tell him,” Rory said.
Brenda headed for the front door. “I can do what I like.”
Rory turned away from her and dashed back into his secret room. She heard the sound of a bolt sliding into place as he locked himself inside.
“That’s not going to help you,” she shouted furiously.
Aguma walked calmly past her and opened the front door revealing not only Frank, but also the bishop.
“Something’s happened,” Frank said.
“Is it the children?”
“No, it’s your husband.”
For a moment Brenda forgot who her husband was. For the past sixty years she had been without a husband. Frank looked at her sympathetically, obviously mistaking her incomprehension for distress.
“It’s a stroke,” he said, “that’s what the doctor says. You should come. He’s asking for you.”
Brenda tried to drag her mind away from the problem of Rory and the locked door. “Herbert? Do you mean Herbert?”
“You need to be with him,” the bishop insisted. “Come with us, we’ll take you to him.”
Brenda refused to move and kept her eye on the locked door. “I’m sorry, but I can’t come with you.”
“I’ll stay here,” Aguma offered. “You go with them. You can’t do anything here. I can take care of this...problem.”
Brenda looked at the set of Aguma’s shoulders, the way that he held his body, and sensed his controlled power. Yes, she thought, Aguma will take care of this - for the moment.
A car and a driver awaited her outside Rory’s gate with the engine idling and headlights illuminating the potholed dirt road. Brenda climbed in with the bishop and Frank and the car bumped onto the main street and into the center of town. With the sun about to set, people were hurrying to complete their business before night dropped its blanket over the town.
The car stopped in front of the only building that was blazing with electric light.
“Private clinic,” the bishop said. “We thought it best for your husband.”
“So, what happened?” Brenda asked.
“He fell to the floor,” Frank said, “just after you left. He was very distressed, you know, when you left him.”
It sounded like an accusation and Brenda responded accordingly. “I had things to take care of.”
“And...?” Frank asked.
“I’ll tell you later,” she said, “but the long and the short of it is, you were right. He is what we thought.”
“Ah,” said Frank.
“Come,” said the bishop.
They climbed out of the car and went in through the front doors of the clinic. The room inside was brightly lit, clean, and modern. Brenda thought it was on a par with a modest doctor's office in the U.S.
“This is the best clinic we have,” the bishop said.
“And this is where the doctor waits for his private patients,” Frank said, not bothering to disguise his bitterness. This is nothing like the government hospital.”
The bishop looked at Brenda as if imploring her to understand. “We could not send a man of your husband’s stature to the government hospital. If he went there, they would let him die.”
“Yes,” Brenda replied, “I gather he’s not popular with the people.”
“It is not easy for our people to trust those who have friends in the government, especially if they have become rich,” the bishop said cautiously. “We are ever suspicious of people who have money.”
“Perhaps there will be a revolution,” Frank said.
“Apparently there will not,” Brenda said. “Apparently Rory is taking care of that.”
An inner door opened and a smiling African man appeared in a crisp white coat, a stethoscope slung around his neck.
“You are the wife?” he asked. His surprise was obvious. Brenda assumed that no one had told him that Herbert’s wife was a wild haired old white woman.
“Yes,” she said, “I’m his wife. What’s happened to him?”
“A small stroke. We are going to treat him.” He thrust a piece of paper at her. “This is what we will need. You can obtain it from my pharmacy next door.”
“What?”
“We understand his arteries are blocked. This is something that he was already told at Mulago Hospital. We will give him blood thinners. You can obtain them from my pharmacy.”
“What are you talking about?” Brenda asked. “Why haven’t you treated him already?”
“We are waiting for you to buy the drugs”.
“Me?”
“Yes. He says you will pay. I think he will also need water, and some other things. Pajamas, a little food, some clean sheets —”
“You haven’t treated him?” Brenda repeated. “Don’t you know anything? If it’s a stroke, he needs blood thinners right now. I don’t know much but I know that much. Why are you waiting?”
The doctor smiled apologetically. “We are waiting for you to buy them, Madame.”
“You want me to buy them?”
“Yes.”
“And in the meantime, you are doing nothing?”
“He is in bed. He is comfortable.”
Brenda had no more time to waste on the doctor. She had no more time to waste on anything. She shoved her way past the doctor and through into the examination room. Herbert, still fully dressed, was flat on his back on an old iron hospital bed. He looked at her with wide, frightened eyes.
“Can you speak?” Brenda asked impatiently. .
Herbert mumbled something. She came closer.
“Need the drugs,” he said, struggling to produce the words.
“I know,” Brenda said, “and I’m going to make sure the doctor gives them to you.”
Herbert grunted but produced no words. His face was a mask of fear.
“It’s going to be all right,” Brenda said. “Can you move your arms and legs?”
She waited anxiously for his response. Many, many years ago, when she had just returned from Africa Brenda’s father had a stroke. He remained paralyzed on his left side for the rest of his life. He did, however, regain his ability to speak and tell her what he thought of her marriage to Herbert.
Herbert made flopping movements with both of his legs and his right arm. His left arm remained limp and unmoving. He looked at it in fear.
“It’ll be okay,” Brenda said, “they can do wonderful things these days.” She looked around the room, clean, neat and almost devoid of equipment, “I doubt they can do very much here. We’ll have to get you stable and then you will have to be moved to a real hospital.”
She turned to the doctor. “Why are you still here? What the hell are you waiting for? This man needs drugs.”
“I am waiting for the money,” the doctor said. “Someone must pay for the drugs before they are given to the patient.”
The bishop clasped his hands like a supplicant. “You must understand, madame. The supply is very small and most people cannot pay. The drugs are given to those who have money.”
“Well, he has money,” Brenda insisted.
Frank impatiently pulled a wad of paper money from his pocket. “How much do you need?” he asked.
Brenda put out a hand to stop him and then drew it back. Now was not the time to stand on principal.
Frank handed his roll of money to the doctor. “Go and get what he needs and bring me the change,” he said.
The doctor left the room clasping the roll of money. Frank leaned over the bed and took hold of Herbert’s limp hand. “I will pray for you, brother,” he said. “I’m believing for a complete healing.”
Herbert managed to smile with half of his face while the other half remained slack and unmoving.
“He will need you to stay with him,” the bishop said to Brenda, “and bring him whatever he needs. That is our way.”
“That’s what nurses are for,” Brenda argued.
“We have no nurses. Patients are cared for by their families. It is our way.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous,” Brenda said. “I don’t have time to care for him.”
“But he’s your husband. It is a wife’s duty.”
Brenda looked down at the man in the bed. She had married him on impulse, and abandoned him with ease. She had made a life in America and he had made a life in Uganda. They were strangers to each other with nothing to unite them except a long-ago passion that had produced a child whom Herbert had never even seen.
She went to him and took hold of his hand. She looked across at Frank. “I’d like a moment alone, please.”
Frank nodded solemnly and went out to the waiting room, but the bishop only stepped back and waited in a corner. Apparently, he didn’t trust her.
She spoke softly, gripping Herbert’s hand. “It’s over, my dear. I’m not going to torment you any longer. You have your wives, and I don’t deserve to be one of them.
He gave her a lopsided smile.
She leaned close to him and whispered in his ear. “I think I really loved you,” she said softly, “and you were the sexiest thing I had ever seen.”
He made a grunting sound. It could have been laughter.
“You gave me a beautiful baby,” Brenda said, “but I was never really your wife. It was always going to be a disaster. I’m going to send someone to get Janet. She’s your wife. She’s the one who should take care of you.”
She looked up at the bishop. “Could someone go and get his wife,” she asked. “I’ll give you money. I’ll pay for everything but I can’t be his nurse. I am not his wife.”
The bishop nodded. His expression was almost smug. “I have already sent for her.”
She felt Herbert squeezing her hand, and she turned to speak to him. “I’m going to get Sarah back,” she said. “I won’t give up.”
He squeezed her hand again and she remembered the boy with the crutch. “Matthew,” she said. “I’m going to get Matthew as well. I won’t give up. I have Rory Marsden cornered. I’ll get the truth out of him.”
She planted a quick kiss on Herbert’s forehead while he was in no position to forbid it and allowed the bishop to shepherd her into the outer office where Frank was waiting. All three of them stood still for a moment and Brenda realized that they were waiting for her to tell them where to go next.