City of Saints & Thieves(73)

I push my fingers into my temples, trying to press my thoughts and the pounding away.

With a grunt Catherine lowers herself to the ground beside me. She tucks her legs in under her and watches the yard, where the dog pounces on something in the grass and the girl runs over to investigate. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“No,” I say. “I don’t. But you knew my mother. Probably better than me.”

Catherine shifts and pulls a piece of paper from her apron. Her hands are dark and rough, used to work. She unfolds the paper and I realize she’s taken the photo of her and my mother out of my pocket while I slept. She looks at it for a long time, then slowly hands it back to me. “She was my best friend,” she says. Her mouth pinches.

I look at Catherine’s younger face. Plumper, eyes brighter. The Catherine sitting next to me is still attractive, but her eyes are a thousand years older.

“Anju was my cousin, but just like a sister to me. We grew up together. When she had you, I helped her.”

I stare at Catherine. She and her daughter are family. The only family I know, other than Kiki. And suddenly, sitting here with the smell of grass and the coolness rising from the creek, a memory comes to me: the sound of my mother and another woman laughing at something I had said. It was her, Catherine. My voice breaks as I ask, “So why do you hate her now?”

Catherine sighs. “I don’t think I hate her anymore.”

“But yesterday . . .”

“I hated her yesterday. I loved her and she left me and I’ve hated her for it. But now that I see you . . .” She looks from me to her daughter. “Now I think I understand.”

“Please, Catherine, understand what? I don’t understand anything.”

She smiles a little. “Nobody calls me Catherine anymore, just the nuns. It’s Cathi.”

I look down. “Catherine’s my sister’s name. No one calls her that either. She’s Kiki.”

“Sister?” Cathi looks surprised. Her voice falters. “Named Catherine? Your mother got married?”

I hesitate. “No.”

She looks at her daughter again, who has found a long stick and is poking at the avocados. Cathi puts two fingers to her mouth, but doesn’t say anything. An avocado falls from the tree and the girl retrieves it, adds it to the others she’s carrying in her skirt. She looks to be about the same age as Kiki, maybe a bit older.

“They took you too, didn’t they?” I blurt. “When they took my mother? When she got pregnant with me?”

Cathi starts to stand. I’ve pushed too hard, said something wrong. “Wait,” I say, lowering my voice, reaching for her arm. “Please. I came here to find out who killed my mother, but every time I think I’m getting closer it just gets more confusing. Help me. I have to understand.”

Her arm is stiff under my hand, tense. I let go.

She takes a couple of long, deep breaths. “I haven’t seen Anju since before this sister of yours was born. I don’t know who killed her.”

“But you knew her better than anyone! Help me understand what happened to her here. Because I think somehow, everything has something to do with this place. With her—your—capture and what she saw and knew. She ran from here, and maybe someone followed her. I don’t know why they killed her, but . . . please. I don’t know her anymore. I think maybe I never knew her. Just tell me what you can. Anything.”

“You are too young,” Cathi says after a long moment, but in that same tone, like she doesn’t really believe it. She bends forward. “My Anju . . . my poor Anju . . . I forgive you, of course I do . . .” Staring at the dirt between her feet, she begins a shallow rocking, back and forth.

I reach out to touch her again, afraid I will lose her to whatever blackness is hovering nearby, ready to sweep her up. “Please, Cathi. I have to go back to Sangui, but I can’t leave knowing less than when I got here.”

Cathi looks up suddenly, her eyes bright. “And what will you do, eh? What will you do with my story? I don’t have answers! I don’t know who killed your mother! I don’t know who my Ruth’s father is! I can tell you what was done to us, but why? What does telling do? Those days brought me nothing but evil! No one gets punished; those men are all still there, just up the mountain,” she says, waving her hand toward the jungle. “There is no justice that comes from telling! Do you know what I do now to get my daily bread? About the men who come to me at the bars because no one will let me sell my vegetables in the market? No. It is not a story for telling. It is nothing but pain.”

“You think I’m not in pain now?” I cry.

She resumes her rocking. “You know nothing of pain. You are a child. You have no idea.” She clamps her mouth shut.

We sit there, with insects buzzing around our heads, looking back at my broken and burnt old home.

For just a moment I can squint and see the way it might look, if we hadn’t had to run away: Curtains in the window. Two flowerpots framing the door like at Cathi’s house. My mother hanging laundry. I look beyond, in the direction Cathi says the militiamen still are, into the forest.

I take a deep breath. “I may not remember you. But I remember that night.”

Cathi inclines her head just slightly toward me, watches me from the corner of her eye.