was long past noon now and the air was still. When they finished praying, Sister Giulia dared to ask him, Will you give me my girls?
Captain Lagira looked at her. Perhaps he was thinking.
Please, she said. Let them go.
This is a decision for Kony, he said.
Kony was their leader. They called themselves the Lord’s Resistance Army, though it was never clear to her exactly what they were resisting. Museveni’s government, she supposed, though that was based in the south, and rebel activities remained limited to looting villages and kidnapping children in the north.
The captain stood. I must send a message then, he said. He had the rebels spread out batteries in the sun to be charged and they waited. She managed for a second here and there to sneak glances at the girls and saw most of their faces tipped down but a few watching her. Would you like some tea? the captain said. She could hardly answer and at that moment they heard the sound of helicopters far off.
Suddenly everyone was moving and shouting. Hide! Cover yourselves, they yelled. Sister Giulia saw people grabbing branches and the girls looked as if they were being thrashed as they were covered. She was pulled over to duck under bushes. Some of the girls had moved closer to her now. Leaves pressed on her. Then the loud helicopters were overhead, blowing dust off the ground and whipping the small leaves and loose dirt. Gunshots came firing down. One of the girls threw herself on Sister Giulia to protect her. It was Judith, the head girl.
The Ugandan army patrolled the area. Sister Giulia thought, They’re coming for the girls! But nearly immediately the helicopter swooped off and its blades hummed into the distance. They could not have known, it was just a routine strike. No one moved right away, waiting to be sure they were gone. After a pause heads lifted from the ground, their cheeks lightened by the dust. Sister Giulia saw Esther Akello with her arms over her friend Agnes Ochiti. The girl who had covered her, Judith, was wiping blood from her neck. A rebel handed Judith a bandage. She hesitated taking it. They were hitting them and then they were giving them bandages. There was no sense anywhere.
Orders were given now to move, quickly. The girls were tied to one another with a rope and walked in single file behind Sister Giulia. At least I am with my girls, she thought. She wondered if they would kill her. She wondered it distantly, not really believing it, but thinking it would happen whether she believed it or not. And if so, it was God’s will. They walked for a couple of hours. She worried that the girls were hungry and exhausted. She saw no sign they’d been given food.
At one point she was positioned to walk along beside Mariano. She had not dared ask him many of the questions she had. But since they had prayed together she felt she could ask him one. She said, Mariano Lagira, why do you take the children?
He looked down at her, with a bland face which said this was an irritating but acceptable question. To increase our family, he said, as if this were obvious. Kony wants a big family. Then he walked ahead, away from her.
After several hours they came to a wooded place with huts and round burnt areas with pots hanging from rods. It looked as if farther along there were other children, and other rebels. She saw where the girls were led and allowed to sit down.
Captain Lagira brought Sister Giulia to a hut and sat there on a stool. There was one guard with a gun who kept himself a few feet away from Lagira. This rebel wore a shirt with the sleeves cut off and a gold chain and never looked straight at Lagira, but always faced his direction. He stood behind now. During the walk they had talked about prayer and about God and she learned that Lagira’s God has some things not in common with her God, but Sister Giulia did not point this out. She thought it best to try to continue this strange friendship. Would Sister Giulia join him for tea and biscuits? Captain Lagira wanted to know.
She would not refuse. A young woman in a wrapped skirt came out from the hut, carrying a small stump for Sister Giulia to sit on. It was possible this was one of his wives, though he did not greet her. At the edge of the doorway she saw a hand and half of a face looking out. Tea, he said.
The woman went back into the hut and after some time returned with a tray and mugs and a box of English biscuits. They drank their tea. Sister Giulia was hungry but she did not eat a biscuit.
I ask you again, she said. Will you give me my girls. She didn’t phrase it as a question.
He smiled. Do not worry, I am Mariano Lagira. He put down his mug. Now you go wash. Another girl appeared, this one a little younger, about twenty, with bare feet and small pearl earrings. She silently led Sister Giulia behind the hut to a basin of water and a plastic shower bag hanging from a tree. She must have been another wife. Sister Giulia washed her hands and face. She washed her feet and cleaned the blisters she’d gotten from her wet sneakers.
She returned to Mariano. This rebel commander was now Mariano to her, as if a friend. He still sat on his stool, holding a stick and scratching in the dirt by his feet. She glanced toward the girls and saw that some of them had moved to a separate place to the side.
Mariano didn’t look up when he spoke.
There are one hundred and thirty-nine girls, he said and traced the number in the dirt.
That many, she thought, saying nothing. More than half the school.
I give you—he wrote the number by his boot as he said, one oh nine. And I—he scratched another number—keep thirty.
Sister Giulia looked toward the girls with alarm. There was a large group on the left and a smaller group on the right. While she was washing they had been divided. She knelt down in front of Mariano.
No, she said. They are my girls. Let them go and keep me instead.
Only Kony decides these things.
Then let me speak with Kony.
No one ever saw Kony. He was hidden over the border in Sudan. Maybe the government troops couldn’t reach him there. Maybe, as some thought, President Museveni did not try so hard to find him. The north was not such a priority for Museveni, and neither was the LRA. There were government troops, yes, but the LRA was not so important.
Let the girls go and take me to Kony.
You can ask him, he said and shrugged.
Did he mean it?
You can write him a note. Captain Lagira called, and a woman with a white shirt and ragged pink belt was sent to another hut, to return eventually with a pencil and piece of paper. Sister Giulia leaned the paper on her knee and wrote:
Dear Mr. Kony,
Please be so kind as to allow Captain Mariano Lagira to release the girls of Aboke.
Yours in God,
Sister Giulia de Angelis
As she wrote each letter she felt her heart sink down. Kony would never see this note.
You go write the names of the girls there, he said.
She looked at the smaller group of girls sitting in feathery shadows.
Please, Mariano, she said softly.
You do like this or you will have none of the girls, said Captain Mariano Lagira.
She
