City of Saints & Thieves(24)

“Nothing useful in there.”

“I still want to see it.” He flips through the folder, stopping on a thick bundle. “Do you have your immigration file?”

It takes me a second to figure out what he means. “Our refugee file? You have it? How did you get that so fast?”

He avoids my eye. “I’ve had it.”

I frown. “Why?”

“A year ago I tried looking for you and Kiki,” Michael says. “I tried to find your family, where you might have gone . . .”

“How did you get our file?”

“Being a spoiled rich kid has its perks. You can buy things.” He glances at me from the corner of his eye. “Couldn’t find anything other than this, though. No one here, no one in your village in Congo, nothing.”

“You know what village I come from?”

“It’s in the file.”

“What else is in there?” I demand, reaching for it.

He keeps it above his head. “Dates of birth, photos, stuff like that. And all the notes from your mother’s hearing to get legal status. She had to tell them why she left Congo to prove she was a refugee.”

“It’s all there? Why she left?” I try not to look surprised. I don’t know why, but it never occurred to me that my file at the United Nations’ refugee office might have useful information. Mainly because they always seem so useless there. I’ve had to go and get Kiki’s and my refugee documents renewed a couple of times since Mom died, but they just ask me questions about where we live and if we’re in school. When we go, I comb my hair and wear clothes that cover my tattoos, and tell them Kiki goes to private boarding school on scholarship, and that I stay with a nice family and go to a public school because I’m not as clever as my little sis, but otherwise I am just fantastic. And I smile and they smile, and when they ask, I tell them no, I’m sure I’m not “engaging in survival sex” or “resorting to negative coping strategies” or doing whatever else they call prostitution and selling drugs to make them sound nicer.

Since they never have to actually do any work on my case, they like me. We get our papers stamped, and we’re on our way. I wouldn’t even bother with the whole thing if Kiki didn’t need the documents for school. My Goonda tattoos are usually good enough ID for anyone who matters.

But I had no idea that Mama told them what happened to her. No one at the UN has ever asked me why we left Congo.

“You have the whole file?” I lean over, trying to pluck it from his hands. His arm is longer, though. I reach higher, coming closer to his chest than I’d really prefer. He is warm and smells spicy and boyish. Good boyish, not bad boyish.

Pull yourself together, Tina.

“The schools it says you go to—they’re wrong, aren’t they?” Michael asks. Our faces are very close.

I give up on the folder and pull back. “So? How do you know they’re wrong?”

Anger finally sparks in Michael’s green eyes. “Look, you’re the one who left without saying anything to any of us, Tina. I’ve been wondering about you guys for five years.”

We glare at each other. He suddenly doesn’t seem cute at all.

“Where is Kiki?”

“She’s fine,” I say stiffly.

“But where is she?”

“It’s not important.”

“Come on, Tina, she’s my sister as much as she is yours.”

“She is not!” I say.

“Of course she is! Same dad, remember? Just because you took her and ran off doesn’t mean she’s not.”

As much as I want to argue, I know he’s at least technically right. But she’ll never be his sister like she is mine. I finally let out a long breath. “She’s in a convent school. Here in Sangui. She’s safe.” I pause. “Smartest kid in her class. She’s on scholarship.”

“Why don’t you go there?”

Because I’m too busy working out how to get back at your father, I think, but instead say, “Because it’s one scholarship per family.”

“We would have paid for you,” Michael says.

I stand up quickly. I’m starting to feel like a trapped animal. “Look, can we get back to why we’re here? You and Kiki may share a father, but where she goes to school doesn’t have anything to do with Mama’s murder.”

“Fine,” he says coolly. He pulls a thick sheaf of papers out of the folder and hands it to me.

I grab it greedily and sink back onto the floor. I flip quickly through the pages, trying to take it all in at once. I pause when I get to the photos. There’s one of Mama, and one of me as a six-year-old, both of us with messy hair and hollows in our cheeks. I go slower. There’s a close-up photo of the burns and slashes on Mama’s arms, then a page titled “Persecution History.”

Michael settles down beside me, reading over my shoulder as I scan the first lines:

Principal applicant (PA) is a single female of Nyanga ethnicity from North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). PA meets the definition of a refugee, having demonstrated that she fled her country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of nationality and membership in a particular social group (victim of ethnic-based violence and Congolese woman at risk) and is unable or, owing to such fear, unwilling to return to DRC. (1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, Article 1(A)(2) and its 1967 Protocol.) Her fear is grounded in current objective conditions as demonstrated by recent country of origin information contained herein concerning the political and human rights situation in DRC.