Terminal Justice (24 page)

THE LARGE FOUR-WHEEL-DRIVE VAN PULLED UNDER the canopy at the front of the lobby. The driver exited the vehicle, opened the passenger door, and waited, his body erect and his head held high.

“Off we go,” A.J. said as he led the small procession to the vehicle.

The driver, a tall, thin man with a perpetually murky expression, drove slowly along the paved road, occasionally steering around a pothole that might jar his passengers. He spoke not a word, but hunched over the steering wheel and squinted myopically down the road.

They passed through the heart of Addis Ababa with its high-rise and mid-rise office buildings from which Marxist banners once hung. The center of the city was much like any other major city in an industrial nation. Its streets were broad and paved. Cars, many of them vintage Volkswagens, Volvos, and Mercedes, lined the curbs. It was clear that some of them had not moved for quite some time. They passed a Mobil gas station, a large bank building, an Ethiopian Orthodox church, a mosque, and hundreds of pedestrians.

David found the pedestrians the most interesting. Many wore Western garb and would fit in to any city back home. Others, especially the Muslim women, wore either white shawls over their heads and shoulders or heavy black coverings that revealed only their eyes. Unlike cities in the States, all the pedestrians were slim;
there was not a single overweight person among them. None seemed especially famished, but it was clear that food was still a rare commodity even in the largest city of Ethiopia.

Once outside the city, the scenery changed from concrete commercial buildings to open country with green trees and brown, coarse grass. Here, David saw pedestrians too, but unlike those in the city, these were dressed in clothes that were old, faded, dirty, and often torn. Mothers carried children on their hips and wore bandannas over their heads, tied in knots behind. He also saw a small village of huts with brown-thatched roofing. The people walked aimlessly, their hopes of subsistence farming dashed by the persistent drought. David looked across the seat at A.J., who gazed sadly out the window.

A.J. gave more specific directions to the driver. When he heard where A.J. wanted to go, his murky expression darkened all the more.

“I know the area,” he said cautiously. “It is bad, and the road is not good. At least fifty kilometers are rough dirt road. I’ll take you back to the hotel.”

“No,” A.J. uttered firmly. “You will take us where I’ve told you.”

The driver scowled, said something in Amharic, which David took to be other than a compliment, and pressed on. It wasn’t long before the driver’s prophecy became reality. The body of the long van squealed in protest of the cracked and eroded pavement. The passengers bounced off one another and the interior of the car, at times hitting their heads on the ceiling. David turned to ask the driver to be more careful, but saw that he was already intently peering over the steering wheel and doing his best to steer around the worst of it. The jarring they were receiving was the result of the driver being forced to choose between the lesser of the two evils.

“They should put this ride in at Disneyland,” Peter said. “I don’t think I’ll be able to walk when we’re done.” David empathized with Peter. His back hurt, especially over his kidneys.

“Could be worse,” A.J. said. “We could be driving your car.”

“How much longer?” Kristen asked.

“My guess would be another hour,” A.J. replied. “I think we’ll all live.”

David had his doubts. Not only did his body hurt, but his stomach as well. David was prone to motion sickness, especially as a child. As an adult he could ride in planes and cars with only minor discomfort. This, however, was asking his stomach for more than it could endure. He wondered if anyone else was suffering as much as he. Kristen looked thoroughly shaken, but still together; Peter was jostled and clearly uncomfortable. Only A.J. and Sheila seemed unfazed. Sheila simply gazed out the window as if lost in thought.

The remaining time passed with agonizing slowness, especially after the van veered from the maintained road onto a dirt lane. The vehicle’s air conditioning spared them the September heat, but it could not spare them the bruises they received with each new teeth-jarring bump.

The camp was located in a small village of thatched huts and canvas tents. It was very much what David had expected. The sun had passed its zenith and was following its daily downward path, lengthening the shadows.

Strolling down the central lane of the camp, he listened as A.J. gave the team a briefing: “We work with many of Ethiopia’s ethnic groups. We feed and provide medicine to the Sidamos, Oromos, Somalis, Amharas, Afars, and the Tigreans. We do so year in and year out. Even in nondrought years, five million Ethiopians depend on the half-million tons of grain provided by other countries. Experts call that a ‘structural food deficit.’ That means there’s a gap between the food the country produces and the food it needs so that its people don’t starve. But that’s only part of the problem. There are other matters that must be addressed.”

“What else is there?” Kristen asked. She had a video recorder raised to her eye and was panning the compound.

“That road we were just on is a perfect example of the problem. Ethiopia needs more than food; Ethiopia needs a way to distribute that food. Of all the countries that face chronic famine, this one is in the best position to end the suffering. It has a new and responsive government, the second largest population in Africa, and possesses a wonderful geography that if properly harnessed …”

David ceased to hear the discussion as he wandered from the group. A little boy, a profoundly pitiful little boy, had caught his eye. He was no more than five years old and was seated on the ground between two tents, playing with a small rubber ball. David was fascinated with the lad who seemed oblivious to the world. The boy moved hardly at all, but sat in the dust with his legs spread before him, holding the small rubber ball in his tiny black hands.

David didn’t know why, nor could he tell when it happened, but his senses became more sensitive. Noises and voices sounded louder, even the wind, warm and thin, seemed to take on a new life. The tents of the compound seemed whiter, the sky seemed bluer, the smell—the stark near-putrid odor of poverty—seemed more intense. Even the ball that the little boy held in his hand took on new detail, revealing the abuse of years in its elastic hide.

The ball was painted with gay colors of blue and red triangles and stars. It reminded David of a ball he had as a child. It had been his favorite toy, and he used to sit quietly on the carpeted floor of his parents’ home and stare at it just as this young boy was doing. There was something therapeutic in the presence of the toy. David had been able to project himself through his imagination onto the surface of the small sphere. In his mind it became a new world, a place all his own. It was something David did when he was sad or troubled or if his parents had scolded him. As he grew older his toys changed, but his imagination worked the same. It was then that David realized that all little boys could perform the same feat of
magic—mentally projecting oneself to an imaginary world devoid of pain, frustration, and fear. That’s what this little boy was doing. He was mentally disengaging from reality, if just for a short time.

As David watched the lad, a younger child approached. There was enough of a resemblance between the two to make David believe they were brothers. The younger boy, whom David judged to be about three or four, waddled on bare feet to his brother. He was crying, wailing in desperation and deep-seated fear. There was a loneliness in the cry, a tone of utter despair that no three-year-old should feel.

David recognized this emotion too. As a child not much older than the crying boy, he had become separated from his mother in a department store. To his young eyes the shelves of goods and the long aisles seemed an impregnable maze. He cried out for his mother but heard no response. He wandered to the end of one aisle and looked down the rows of shelves. People, tall as trees to him, walked past without comment. Panic set in, and David, in abject frustration, sat down in the aisle and wept deep and bitter tears. He had been left alone; he knew it. His mother had forgotten him, and he would forever be surrounded by strangers. He had wanted to go home, to his room, to his bed, to his family. But now he never would. He had been as sure of that as he had been sure of anything in his life—until he heard his mother’s voice. “Why are you crying?” she had asked. “I wasn’t that far away.”

Perhaps that’s all the little crying boy needed. Perhaps he just needed someone to take him by the hand and lead him to his mother. David could do that. After all, they shared a common bond. They both had felt the fear of loneliness, of a premature separation from their mothers. As an adult, David knew that problems like this were really a function of an overactive imagination, but the emotion was nonetheless real.

David decided to help. Moving farther from the others, he walked the short distance to the small lane formed by the rows of tents with the Barringston Relief logo stenciled on them. He was
unsure of what to say. Most likely the boys could speak no English, but surely they would understand a smile and a gentle touch. As he approached the children he looked down the corridor between the tents and saw that the boys were not alone. A woman dressed in a white halter top and a brown ankle-length skirt was reclining on a mat. She lay still and unmoving, and David was puzzled how she could sleep through the shrieking and the sobbing of the youngest child. Surely she could hear the cries of her own child.

Smiling at the two boys, David stroked each of them on the head and said gently, “It’s all right, guys. There’s no need to cry. Mother isn’t far away.” The five-year-old looked at him through vacant eyes, the three-year-old continued to wail in long and loud ululation.

Stepping past them, David approached the reclining woman. She lay on her right side, her head resting on her outstretched arm. She lay still, unaware of David’s approach. Squatting down beside her David said, “Excuse me.”

The woman didn’t respond. She was young, perhaps in her early twenties, and her sunken cheeks and thin arms gave testimony to weeks of malnutrition. “Excuse me,” David said again, but still no response. He reached out and gently touched her frail arm. The woman rolled over onto her back, not by her own movement but because of David’s gentle touch. A swarm of flies took to the air. The sight of the woman caused David to bolt upright and gasp. The woman stared at him through one partially opened eye that could no longer see. Her body was rigid, and the pernicious effects of rigor mortis had set in, causing her to sneer through the constricted muscles of her face. She was dead, something her children understood long before David.

He stared in disbelief at the corpse before him and felt his senses shutting down. A few moments ago every one of his senses had reached levels of new awareness; now they were rapidly closing in an attempt to preserve sanity and to lessen the emotional shock that raced through every fiber of his body and every avenue of his
mind. The crying of the boys faded into silence; the light of the day dimmed; the air became heavy and unbreathable. David closed his eyes, but not before seeing scores of flies settle on the body again.

“David?” A distant and dim voice said. “Are you all right?”

David felt no need to respond; he remained motionless, silent, and kept his eyes tightly shut.

“David!” The voice said louder, and then the words took on an authoritarian tone. “Open your eyes, David. Open them right now and look at me.”

He felt his body being shaken. “Now, David!” It was A.J.’s voice. He knew that voice, he trusted that voice, so David opened his eyes, but instead of looking at the man in front of him, he let his eyes drift back to the woman’s corpse. “No, David, I said look at me.”

The sounds were returning: the crying, the speaking, the buzzing of flies. David looked up at the tall man in front of him and blinked several times. Tears were beginning to run from his eyes, unexpected tears that streamed down his face. He blinked again, clearing the moisture from his eyes, and saw A.J., concern deeply etched into his face, looking back. David stared into his eyes and saw strength and power and resolve, all coated in a blanket of tears.

“Are you with me, David?” he asked firmly.

David nodded weakly. “I’m sorry. I feel like an idiot. I … I don’t know what my problem is.”

“Nonsense,” A.J. said, physically turning David around and walking away from the dead woman. “It’s to be expected. This is your first trip and your first contact with this kind of death. I remember my first time clearly: I threw up several times. At least you held on to your breakfast.”

“The day is not over yet,” David replied weakly. He felt hot and wiped the perspiration from his brow. “I thought she was sleeping. I wanted to help the kids. I had no idea …”

“You’re an admirable man, David,” A.J. patted him on the back. “You showed some wonderful qualities in that little act.”

“I don’t feel very admirable.”