Mark Lee - The Canal House

“The fire’s big enough, Nicky.”

“Just one more branch.”

“A bigger fire isn’t going to make a difference to a leopard.”

“That’s what you think. All the leopards I know are very impressed.”

Isaac was already asleep, wrapped up in one of the army blankets. I sat close to the fire while Daniel leaned against a boulder. Instead of worrying about the Lord’s Righteous Army, I started to plan the perfect victory meal for when we got back to Rome. For the first course I wanted straccetti con rughetta , strips of young beef cooked in arugula. No. I’d order saltimbocca , little chunks of veal skewered with prosciutto and sage.

“She was really angry.”

I shifted around and looked at Daniel. He sat with his knees up and his head back against the rock. “Who are you talking about? Julia?”

“I can never understand what motivates people like her. Julia’s not a missionary or a Bible thumper. Maybe Richard Seaton gives her a big salary, but I don’t think she’s doing it for the money either.”

“And she’s pretty, too.”

Daniel took a stick and stirred up the fire as if Julia’s appearance was the ultimate annoyance. “She made it sound like I had flown to Kosana looking for somebody like Isaac. Believe me, I would have hired an adult if I could have found one. You saw those Acholi farmers. They’re terrified of Okello.”

“Maybe we should be terrified, too. I really don’t want to get my hand chopped off by some fanatic.”

“There’s always a risk, Nicky.”

“All I’m saying is that I don’t like dealing with prophets or visionaries, especially if they have their own army. People who talk to God are dangerous. I prefer a sleazy police captain who accepts bribes.”

IT WAS A LONG, uncomfortable night. I got up to put more wood on the fire and heard an animal moving through the grass. Whatever it was made a quick huffing sound like an asthmatic breathing. The animal crept closer; then the sound faded away.

I started itching when I lay back down on the sand and realized that the blankets Ramsey had sold us were infested with fleas. I could feel them crawling beneath my clothing, searching for a soft patch of flesh.

The next morning all three of us had welts on our skin. We ate crackers and jam for breakfast before continuing north up the riverbed. I asked Isaac how far we had to go and he mumbled something about the mother tree and kept walking. It felt like we were going uphill. There were fewer places to find water. I was hot, then shivery, and it was hard to swallow. As I stumbled forward I began to fantasize about the White House job that Carter Howard had mentioned during our walk. Once I became part of the press pool I could rent an apartment in Georgetown and buy some furniture for the first time in my life. All I had to do was join the pack of photographers and learn how to shout: “Over here, Mr. President! Over here!”

Isaac saw something and ran forward. When we finally caught up with him, he was standing on the riverbank next to a pair of baobob trees. They looked like two pieces of broccoli planted in the ground. The larger of the trees had two branches that curved around a smaller trunk that grew from the base. It reminded me of a parent embracing a child and then I realized this was the landmark we’d been looking for—the mother tree.

Grass was crushed around the tree and there were patches of ash left over from fires. “Did Okello come here?” Daniel asked Isaac.

“Not Okello, but the archangels and the seraphim. They would stop here after they attacked a village.”

“Can you lead us to the main camp?”

Isaac grasped the watch hanging around his neck as if he thought we were going to take it back. “I don’t know. They went different ways.”

“How far is the main camp?”

“I don’t know.”

“Screw this, Daniel. If we leave the riverbed and start wandering through the grass, then we’re definitely going to get lost.”

“We’ll stay here and build a fire,” Daniel said. “If Okello’s men are in the area, they’ll see the smoke and track us down.”

I sat down at the base of the tree, took out my Swiss Army knife and opened a can of sausages. Daniel built a fire and worked hard to keep it going. The wind pushed the plume of smoke off to the west, a dirty gray line smeared across the sky.

I wandered around the area and found Isaac down in the riverbed. He was building a little fort with sticks and boulders, just like I used to do when I was a boy. I took a few pictures of him working, then put away my camera and picked up a stone. “Want some help?” I asked. He didn’t tell me to go away so I figured it was all right.

We started working together, but neither of us spoke. I don’t know how to deal with children in general, and war victims like Isaac are in their own special category of pain. There was nothing I could say to him that would take the images of death and killing out of his head, so I stayed quiet and carried rocks. After two hours of labor we had built a little stone house with some branches for a roof. Isaac and I sat inside it together, peering out one of the windows and watching the smoke from Daniel’s fire drift past the mother tree.

“So who are the archangels and the seraphim?”

“The archangels are the commanders. You become a seraphim when they give you a rifle.”

“Were you a seraphim?”

Isaac nodded and turned away from me. He looked tired and defeated, like a lonely old man.

“Want some chewing gum, Isaac? I think I have a few sticks in my camera case.”

The boy crawled through the door and walked away. I sat in our little house for a while, hoping he’d come back, but the game was over.

I WOKE UP the next morning, ready to argue with Daniel. There was no more food and it was difficult to find water. Time to go home.

Daniel vanished into the grass for a few hours, then came back. It was nine o’clock in the morning. He picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“I thought you might want to stay.”

“I’ll go to the edge of the cliff, Nicky. But I won’t jump off. If you do that, you can’t write anymore.”

We left the mother tree and headed back down the riverbed toward Kosana. Daniel moved slowly and he kept glancing around him as if, somehow, the thornbushes and boulders would provide him with a new plan.

We found a muddy patch of ground but no water. When we started walking again I saw something moving through the grass on the right side of the riverbank. We stopped walking as four guerrillas emerged from the undergrowth and pointed their rifles at us. The tallest man was about nineteen or twenty years old. He had dreadlocks and a scraggly beard and wore a ragged blue T-shirt and military pants.

The other three guerrillas were small, shoeless boys with bits of dry grass in their hair. Each carried a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a panga knife. The boys had thrust their knives in their belts, but the tall man wore his in a leather scabbard slung around his neck. Everyone looked hungry and intent, like a pack of hyenas that had just found a limping gazelle.

Isaac stood very straight, his arms at rigid angles, and stared at the tall man’s rifle. I licked my lips and tried to look confident while Daniel stepped forward.

“ Jina langu Daniel. Jina lako nani? ”

“I speak English,” said the tall man. “Better than your Swahili.”

“I’m Daniel McFarland. I write for British, German, and American newspapers. This is my partner, Nicky Bettencourt. He takes photographs for the newspapers.”

The tall man motioned his rifle at Isaac. “And this is the traitor who brought you here.”