Birdcall

Oryx said she couldn’t remember the trip from the village to the city, but she could remember some of the things that had happened. It was like pictures hanging on a wall, with around them the blank plaster. It was like looking through other people’s windows. It was like dreams.

The man with the watch said his name was Uncle En, and they must call him that or there would be very big trouble.

“Was that En as in a name, or N as in an initial?” Jimmy asked.

“I don’t know,” said Oryx.

“Did you ever see it written?”

“Nobody in our village could read,” said Oryx. “Here, Jimmy. Open your mouth. I give you the last piece.”

Remembering this, Snowman can almost taste it. The pizza, then Oryx’s fingers in his mouth.

Then the Coke can rolling onto the floor. Then joy, crushing his whole body in its boa-constrictor grip.

Oh stolen secret picnics. Oh sweet delight. Oh clear memory, oh pure pain. Oh endless night.

This man – Oryx continued, later that night, or on some other night – this man said he was their uncle from now on. Now that they were out of sight of the village he wasn’t smiling so much. They must walk very quickly, he said, because the forest around them was full of wild animals with red eyes and long sharp teeth, and if they ran in among the trees or walked too slowly, these animals would come and tear them to pieces. Oryx was frightened and wanted to hold hands with her brother, but that wasn’t possible.

“Were there tigers?” Jimmy asked.

Oryx shook her head for no. No tigers.

“What were these animals then?” Jimmy wanted to know. He thought he might get some clues that way, as to the location. He could look at the list of habitats, that might help.

“They didn’t have names,” said Oryx, “but I knew what they were.”

At first they went single file along the muddy road, walking on the side where it was higher, watching out for snakes. A gun-carrying man was at the front, then Uncle En, then the brother, then the two other children who had also been sold – both girls, both older – and then Oryx. At the end came the other gun man. They stopped for a noon meal – cold rice, it was, packed for them by the villagers – and then they walked some more. When they came to a river one of the men with the guns carried Oryx across. He said she was so heavy he would have to drop her into the water and then the fish would eat her, but that was a joke. He smelled of sweaty cloth and smoke, and some sort of perfume or grease that was in his hair. The water came up to his knees.

After that the sun was on a slant and got into her eyes – they must have been going west then, thought Jimmy – and she was very tired.

As the sun got lower and lower the birds began singing and calling, unseen, hidden in the branches and vines of the forest: raucous croaks and whistles, and four clear sounds in a row, like a bell. These were the same birds that always called like this as dusk approached, and at dawn just before the sun came up, and Oryx was consoled by their sounds. The birdcalls were familiar, they were part of what she knew. She imagined that one of them – the one like a bell – was her mother’s spirit, sent out in the shape of a bird to keep watch over her, and that it was saying You will come back.

In that village, she told him, some of the people could send their spirits out like that even before they were dead. It was well known. You could learn how to do it, the old women could teach you, and that way you could fly everywhere, you could see what was coming in the future, and send messages, and appear in other people’s dreams.

The bird called and called and then fell silent. Then the sun went down abruptly and it was dark. That night they slept in a shed. Possibly it was a shed for livestock; it had that smell. They had to pee in the bushes, all together in a row, with one of the gun men standing guard. The men made a fire outside and laughed and talked, and smoke came in, but Oryx didn’t care because she went to sleep. Did they sleep on the ground, or in hammocks, or on cots, asked Jimmy, but she said it wasn’t important. Her brother was there beside her. He’d never paid very much attention to her before, but now he wanted to be close to her.

The next morning they walked some more and came to the place where Uncle En’s car had been left, under the protection of several men in a small village: smaller than their own village, and dirtier. Women and children peered at them from the doorways but did not smile. One woman made a sign against evil.

Uncle En checked to make sure nothing was missing from the car and then he paid the men, and the children were told to get in. Oryx had never been inside a car before and she didn’t like the smell. It wasn’t a solarcar, it was the gasoline kind, and not new. One of the men drove, Uncle En beside him; the other man sat in the back with all four children jammed in beside him. Uncle En was in a bad temper and told the children not to ask any questions. The road was bumpy and it was hot inside the car. Oryx felt sick and thought she would vomit, but then she dozed off.

They must have driven for a long time; they stopped when it was night again. Uncle En and the man in front went into a low building, some sort of inn perhaps; the other man stretched out on the front seat and soon began to snore. The children slept in the back of the car, as best they could. The back doors were locked: they couldn’t get out of the car without climbing over the man, and they were afraid to do that because he would think they were trying to run away. Somebody wet their pants during the night, Oryx could smell it, but it wasn’t her. In the morning they were all herded around to the back of the building where there was an open latrine. A pig on the other side of it watched them while they squatted.

After more hours of bumpy driving they stopped where there was a gate across the road, with two soldiers. Uncle En told the soldiers that the children were his nieces and his nephew: their mother had died and he was taking them to live in his own house, with his own family. He was smiling again.

“You have a lot of nieces and nephews,” said one of the soldiers, grinning.

“That is my misfortune,” said Uncle En.

“And all their mothers die.”

“This is the sad truth.”

“We aren’t sure we should believe you,” said the other soldier, also grinning.

“Here,” said Uncle En. He pulled Oryx out of the car. “What’s my name?” he said to her, putting his smiling face down close.

“Uncle En,” she said. The two soldiers laughed and Uncle En laughed also. He patted Oryx on the shoulder and told her to get back into the car, and shook hands with the soldiers, putting his hand into his pocket first, and then the soldiers swung the gate open. Once the car was going along the road again Uncle En gave Oryx a hard candy, in the shape of a tiny lemon. She sucked it for a while and then took it out to keep. She had no pocket so she held it in her sticky fingers. That night she comforted herself by licking her own hand.

The children cried at night, not loudly. They cried to themselves. They were frightened: they didn’t know where they were going, and they had been taken away from what they knew. Also, said Oryx, they had no more love, supposing they’d had some in the first place. But they had a money value: they represented a cash profit to others. They must have sensed that – sensed they were worth something.

Of course (said Oryx), having a money value was no substitute for love. Every child should have love, every person should have it. She herself would rather have had her mother’s love – the love she still continued to believe in, the love that had followed her through the jungle in the form of a bird so she would not be too frightened or lonely – but love was undependable, it came and then it went, so it was good to have a money value, because then at least those who wanted to make a profit from you would make sure you were fed enough and not damaged too much. Also there were many who had neither love nor a money value, and having one of these things was better than having nothing.