In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills Read online

  Enoch and Dahla kept her from making silly mistakes when she first came here, worked long hours even when there was no money to pay them. When Nadine was born, it seemed only natural Lillian would be named the child’s godmother, felt right to become her legal guardian after she became an orphan during the slaughter. Naddie started calling her Maman. That was her idea; Lillian would never try to take Dahla’s place. They were all family.

  Dearest Maman, I know you are not fond of email but I had to let you know right away: my algebra teacher allowed for a make-up quiz and I earned a “B”! Of course, my music classes are going well. Opera is my favorite.

  I’m sorry not to answer your phone calls the last few days, but I’ve been so busy with studying and friends. Still, I miss you. Please give my love to Tucker, Rosie and the other children. Je t’aime – Nadine

  Lillian searches the screen for the reply button; it’s one of these on the right. She sighs, rubs her eyes. Not quite a month since Naddie’s been gone, just feels like longer.

  Naddie, I’m so proud of you, earning a scholarship and going off to school in Nairobi. I know your folks are looking down on you, smiling hugely as they listen to you singing and learning more about music. God gave you a beautiful voice, although not the gift of solving algebra equations easily! Keep studying, you’ll do fine.

  I miss you too, more than I can say. I’ll call you on Saturday right after supper—and you will answer your phone. I’ll work at learning computerized mail, too. Everyone sends much love. Remember, the holiday vacation will be here before we all know it. Je t’aime très fort – Maman

  “Oven’s fixed.” Tucker squeezes Lillian’s shoulder. “I’m heading into Kigali for my shift at the clinic. Be back after the weekend. Anything else you need?”

  Lillian places a hand over Tucker’s, fastening his fingers onto her shoulder. She listens to the hum of the children in the gathering room across the hall. “Truth is,” she says, patting his hand before letting him go, “I have every blessed thing I need.” Why then, she wonders, clicking open Rachel Shepherd’s email again, does this note stick with her, impossible to delete? It’s as if Henry himself is reaching out for help.

  Dear Ms. Carlson,

  First of all, I hope I’m not bothering you. I’m trying to get in touch with my father. My mom recently passed away and he’s all the family I have left. I want to tell him he’s going to be a grandfather in three months. Maybe he’d want to know.

  Henry Shepherd worked for the St. Augustine Record for a few years out of college, and one of his photos wound up on the cover of Life magazine. It was beautiful: a girl standing in the light of a stained glass church window, this fierce determination on her face. You’re that girl, aren’t you? Have you kept in touch with my father? Do you know where he is now?

  Lillian pushes away the warm silver keyboard. That’s the problem with this contraption, it only stirs up trouble. Questions that should be left alone. She still has the yellowed newspaper clipping dated March 25, 1965 with the same photo Henry later sold to Life. It originally took her a few seconds to realize it was her face staring back from the front page, right next to Reverend King, his fist in the air as he stood at the pulpit. She still remembers his booming voice, encouraging folks to walk the talk and join him in Selma. Now is the time to take a risk. The headline of the St. Augustine Record read: Making Dreams Come True.

  You’re that girl, aren’t you? Lillian squints at the screen. Is she?

  Everything happened so fast as the sermon ended that day, a crowd of folks heading up to the pulpit to shake hands with the now infamous Reverend King. He had been preaching alongside his father for years at their neighborhood church. Daddy pushed her aside, the look on his face telling her he wasn’t simply in a hurry to join the others. “All right, that’s enough,” he boomed, the echo of his voice able to draw a shiver up her spine even now. “Go on, take your camera and get out.”

  Lillian couldn’t believe her eyes: That white boy was on one knee in the aisle, snapping photos. Snapping photos of her. She saw Daddy’s hand drop onto his shoulder, yank him to his feet. Henry looked straight at her, his dark eyes wide and sparkling. She could have sworn he asked her a question and she held his gaze as if making a promise, counting the beats of her heart—one, two, three, four—to steady her nerves. Time seemed to slow down as the crowd pushed forward toward the pulpit, Daddy trying the best he could to fight the tide, strong-arming the intruder back up the aisle. The boy spun around, nearly dropping his camera, and Lillian snapped open her purse. She slipped her high school ID into the camera case hanging from the boy’s shoulder. She wouldn’t need it anymore.

  That girl in the church window had been her inspiration for years, especially when she first came to Africa and was teaching English at a mission near Nairobi to children who needed shoes and a full stomach far more than prayer. She wanted to help change the world, and stayed at the mission for four years until she was certain—in a naïve way that living here has cured her of—that she knew how to really make a difference. Sometimes now, she stares into the mirror, not at the silver sheen on her black hair, not at the fine lines becoming deep grooves like a roadmap of her troubles hanging onto Kwizera, but searching for the light that was in her eyes in that photo. The certainty. Was it trick photography? She used to tease Henry, but it was true: he did spark the light in her eyes. He made her believe, even after Reverend King’s assassination, that she could make a small but real difference in the world. She’s done that for forty-eight orphans over the years. She could do it for one more abandoned child now, couldn’t she?

  She has the words set just right in her mind. She’ll tell that gal about the man who helped her turn ten acres of clay and rocks into a farm, and a brick building with a leaky tar roof into a home for dozens of children, off and on for eighteen years. She’ll say that Henry never forgot her. It’s the truth, but a version that might bring some comfort. Satisfy her.

  What comes most easily, as Lillian’s fingers roam slowly over the keyboard, is a list of the things she loved about Henry: His sense of adventure, the way he’d go off for weeks or months at a time in search of mountain gorillas and golden monkeys. His generosity, giving her most of the money he earned shooting nature footage for TV commercials and nature films, to keep Kwizera going. His booming laugh, it was contagious, the way he made the children giggle at his preposterous stories about talking animals.

  Your father sat for hours on the bank of the river that winds through the forest fringing our backyard, watching and waiting with his trusty camera. His theory was that if he sat there long enough, his body became like another appendage of the thick tree trunk he leaned against, his scent blended in with the smells of eucalyptus and pine. Eventually, a shy aardvark or okapi might show up to drink, or a herd of majestic kudu with their twisty antlers and slashes of white—like war paint—under their eyes.

  Lillian stops typing and absentmindedly rubs her index finger on the spot at the nape of her neck where Henry could set off a cascade of shivers down her spine with his light touch. Sometimes, they would take a picnic to the tall mopani tree at the bend in the river—their special spot—where a window of sunlight opened up for an hour or so midday. Her heart quickens as she calls up the breeze rustling the leaves above, Henry’s low, soothing whisper in her ear. Lilly, my sweet Lilly. Reminds her of the rush of the water. That river’s been silent for years, choked with blood and bones, broken glass and garbage. Tears.

  It’s mesmerizing, how the words disappear backwards as her finger presses the backspace key until the screen is a blank slate.

  Dear Rachel, I wish I could help you, but I haven’t seen your father in two years. He lived here for a while, but I don’t know where he is now. What I do know is that he loves you, always has and never stopped. I sincerely hope this gives you some comfort to know that. I’m afraid it’s all I have to offer.

  Lillian closes the computer screen. No, she isn’t the girl Henry Shepherd photographed in E
benezer Church. She hasn’t taken that photo out of the old metal suitcase in the attic for two years, and she can’t afford to start looking back now.

  THREE

  { September 15, 2000 }

  RACHEL SMILES AWAKE: A TINY FOOT, DEFI-nitely a foot, arcs across the interior of her belly. Serena’s three a.m. calisthenics. She tugs at the waistband of her pajama bottoms. “Tell you what,” she whispers. “Let me get a few more hours of sleep and then I’ll finish that story about the kickboxing ballerina who flies to the moon with a spacecraft full of animals.” The movement stops and Rachel imagines a miniature palm pressing against her own hand, slapping a high-five. It’s crazy, this connection that’s been growing right along with her baby during the past month. So different than the first pregnancy: ten weeks of expecting, waiting to feel like a mother. And then, nothing. Nothing at all.

  She scooches closer to Mick, picturing the baby rolling along like a synchronized swimmer. And then, it’s an older girl she sees in her mind’s eye, seven or eight, who has her fair skin, a barely visible dusting of freckles across high cheekbones. Hopefully, Serena will inherit Mick’s blond hair and athletic prowess, her eyes the color of pecan shells and love of music. She stretches an arm past her protruding belly and over her husband’s chest, slows her breath to match his. Their daughter will be the best of both of them.

  It seems like moments later when conflicting scents nudge Rachel fully awake. Definitely strawberries, green tea—God, how she misses coffee—and a tinge of something sharp that makes her nose wrinkle. She peels open one eye, looks at the collie splayed out at the foot of the bed. “Well, Louie?” She’s almost afraid to see what her husband scrambled into the eggs today. “Spinach?”

  “Nope, kale,” Mick shouts from the bathroom, the buzz of his electric razor clicking off. “More iron. I checked online.”

  Rachel hoists herself up, bulldozes the pillows into a backrest with her elbows, and then reaches past the tray on her bedside table featuring green-flecked eggs—old tennis shoes, that’s the smell—for something more appealing: her new iBook, a consolation prize from Mick for making it through a full month of bed rest. Tangerine orange, lighter than her clunky PC and, best of all, instant Internet—no dialup! How it works is a mystery but she doesn’t miss the screech-and-clang DSL soundtrack, like a train wreck on acid and it took forever to get online. Now, she imagines there’s a genie inside who magically connects her to the world she’s mapping out on the screen.

  Colorful islands of icons dot the upper right-hand corner, chat room icons (parenting, music, and local happenings) have their own archipelago nearby. The upper left is AOL Nation: Instant Messenger, mailbox, and a folder of saved emails. Across the bottom are files of clip art, news items and music reviews she’s written for a few ezines to add to her GeoCities web page. It used to be devoted to the New York music scene, but now she’s moving more toward a mommy-and-baby theme. She hovers the cursor over a folder labeled “recipes.” Kale? Maybe not. She opts for the mailbox, lit up like the North Star as the email program kicks in.

  Her pulse ticks up, a message materializing before her eyes. “Mick, check it out. Lillian finally wrote back.”

  Her husband strolls into the room knotting his tie, brow creased. “Rwanda Lillian, my father’s…” Rachel waves her hand, unsure what this woman is or was to Henry Shepherd, and scrolls through the brief email.

  Mick reads over her shoulder, and then kisses the top of her head. “Sorry, babe. Looks like a dead end.”

  “He lived at her farm,” Rachel murmurs. Was Lillian her father’s mistress? Wife? “Wonder why he left. This sure doesn’t tell me much.”

  “That’s probably the point. She’s telling you to leave it alone.”

  “But why?”

  “Maybe your dad’s not such a great guy. Merilee certainly didn’t think so.”

  “True,” Rachel says softly. Her mom couldn’t say enough bad things about Henry Shepherd. Always was irresponsible. No big surprise that he up and left, leaving her with an eight-year-old girl to raise alone. Never sent the full amount of child support. He didn’t bother to send a birthday card or Christmas present after the first year. And yet, Rachel remembers racing home from school to check the mailbox, excited and hopeful… When did she stop hoping?

  “Ray, I know you’re going stir-crazy stuck in bed,” Mick says. “Sign up for that Accounting 101 class, or real estate, that’s another great part-time career. Read the new baby books my mom sent. Finish knitting that blanket—”

  Rachel raises her hand. Point taken.

  Mick sits on the bed and pats her shoulder, like he can’t reach his arm around her. Rachel surveys the dark blue expanse of the computer screen, the icons where she can set anchor for an hour or two and then move on, to fill the long days alone. If only he would reach around her. Hold her. Stay home for a day or two.

  He pecks her cheek. Discussion over. “Don’t forget to turn on the IM so I can check in quick between meetings. And take it easy today, okay?”

  “Scout’s honor.” Rachel raises her hand in a three-finger salute. How much trouble could she get into, marooned in bed?

  Why? THE QUESTION PROPELS RACHEL through the morning as she explores the hinterlands of Alta Vista, excavating bits and pieces of information to populate a newly discovered territory. Smack in the middle of the screen is a green folder labeled with bold letters: RWANDA. Her eyes keep darting back to Lillian’s email, like a compass, open in the corner of the screen. Why did her father wind up at her farm? Why didn’t he come home again? Why won’t Lillian help her to find him now?

  This isn’t the first time Rachel has searched for signs of her father online over the past five years, since a handful of search engines opened up the borders of the Internet. Other than a few photo credits in nature magazines, she’s come up empty. It’s as if the man she vaguely remembers building campfires in the backyard and sitting on the edge of her bed as she fell asleep at night entered the Witness Protection Program. He simply disappeared. But now she’s discovered a new way into his life: Lillian. The fact that Henry Shepherd’s mistress or wife—or whatever—is pushing her away only makes Rachel more determined to figure out what she’s hiding.

  One web link after the next reveals snippets about Lillian: Guest speaker at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. An Op Ed piece in the International Herald Tribune, titled “Is Forgiveness Possible?” A note of thanks on the website of a Rwandan woman who grew up at Kwizera, and is now studying at the London School of Economics. But no photos. That’s what she really craves. What does Lillian look like?

  “Jackpot!” she says, an article from the Jacksonville Times popping up on the screen. There’s a thumbnail photo: a petite black woman sitting on a bench in front of a field of sunflowers, surrounded by children. She’s wearing a traditional African batik skirt and matching green T-shirt, her hair in a soft shoulder-length bob, the same head held high and chin jutted out as the girl in the magazine photo. Rachel imagines that her father took this photo, perhaps also wrote this news story about a brave woman from Atlanta who built a home for the youngest victims of Rwanda’s tumultuous history of civil war. The brief article with no date brings up more questions.

  “Maybe if I ask her some specifics.” Rachel scratches the furry canine belly sprawled out beside her. Louie wriggles closer, like he’s actually interested, while she pulls up Lillian’s email again and hits the reply button. She quickly types the questions her mother has forbidden all these years: Why Rwanda? What was he searching for? And, what exactly did he do there? She stops typing, erasing the words as Merilee’s pat explanation comes back to her: He has a new life now. Believe me, we’re better off without him—forgetting him.

  Rachel studies the grainy online photo. There’s a glint in Lillian’s eyes, a knowing, as if she’s sharing a secret with the photographer. A wonderful secret. Perhaps, the matriarch of Kwizera, like Merilee, is also still trying to forget the man she never stopped loving. “Lillian, is i
t okay…if I call you?” She tries the question aloud, fingertips clicking on the keyboard, “if I call you? One phone call and I won’t bother you again.” Fair enough, right?

  By the time Mick returns in the evening, Kwizera-land is populated with a half-dozen articles about Lillian and several images of wildlife with her father’s name in the photo credits. “It’s not much, but this is the first real evidence I have that he even existed after leaving us,” she says, showing her husband a photo from National Geographic dated 1983: a family of gorillas climbing a hillside blooming with purple and yellow wildflowers. Several in the clan appear to be youngsters. One gorilla, likely the mother, is carrying a baby on her back. A huge silverback gorilla glances over his shoulder, his arm raised, as if inviting the photographer to come along on their adventure. Rachel imagines her father waving back to the animal, running up the hillside after them.

  Mick shakes his head as he reads the email. “You can’t send this, Ray.”

  “Because?”

  “She already said she can’t help you. There must be reasons.”

  “I don’t accept that.” Rachel taps the send button. “He’s my father. The last living relative I have.” Her husband’s face crumples. “Blood relative,” she adds.

  Mick heads toward the bathroom. “You know my family is your family. At least, they want to be.” There’s the sputter of water, the snap of the shower door, but her husband’s still talking.