Accusation (20 page)

From the waiter who appeared at her side not in a jacket but something that more closely resembled a white lab coat, Sara ordered a beer, a St. Giorgis. Rain began to drum against the windows. An Ethiopian man in a business suit stopped by her table and asked her where she was from. She said Canada.

Every journalist she knew who’d worked overseas had performed the toe-touch, a kind of lie. She had, on more than one occasion, the last time on the road to Damascus, of all places. St. Paul had had his conversion, and Sara had sat in the back of a car being driven from the airport into Damascus, close to midnight local time, desperately listening to interviews recorded by locals on the ground and brought to her by her fixer so that she could scribble notes taken from them and claim to have been on the ground in Damascus, which she was, technically speaking, when she signed off on the piece two hours later, even if she’d never left her hotel room or spoken directly to anyone she quoted.

In interviews people had lied to her. The Pakistani ex-army officer: I know nothing of those bombings.

She did not know what she would find at the orphanage. She would allow Gerard’s suspicions to enter her, his intimations of the worst, but not give in to them. She had to permit him the possibility of belief while maintaining her own vigilance. She should at least be able to confirm whether or not Raymond Renaud had visited. She’d come searching for ground truths, whatever the search would bring. She did not know what she hoped to find.

Two cinder-block pillars flanked a wrought-iron gate. Over the gate a wooden sign arched like a rainbow, hand-lettered words across it,
Hope Village
in English, and presumably the same in Amharic. As soon as Alazar stopped at the gate and rolled down his window to shout at the watchman, children tumbled out of the bushes — in T-shirts, sweaters, a padded vest, an old duffle jacket, all brown with dirt. There were children everywhere. It was as if the bushes had turned into children, who came running toward the car, shouting. They ran their fingers over the dust-covered, mud-spattered metal, and, spotting Sara, cried, Mother, how are you? Mother, we are hungry. We come with you. The watchman opened the gate, shooing the children away with a stick, while Alazar, with a sideways grin, said, I told him you have an appointment.

They pulled up to one side of a wide dirt compound. Beyond them, an Ethiopian woman in a flowered dress watered greens in a vegetable garden with a plastic bucket. Low buildings, some of whitewashed cement, others of prefabricated metal, formed a loose circle around the yard. An enclosure of fencing was visible in the distance: some children were secured inside the ring while others were desperate to get in. A white Toyota truck napped beneath one of two trees, and at the sight of the truck Sara’s heart leaped, but on second glance it was bulkier than Raymond Renaud’s as she remembered it from Juliet’s videotapes.

Everything appeared outwardly in good repair. The red dirt that sprayed up the white walls looked to have been splashed by water thundering down in recent rains and tumbling unchecked from the runnels in the metal roofs. A chicken strutted across the ferrous earth. Through the door of one of the closest buildings stepped a white man in a pale-blue shirt, who stared at them with belligerent surprise, then hurried in their direction.

Something about his clothing, the button-down collar of his pale-blue shirt, his tan trousers, identified him as American. Of a certain kind. Almost blond. Not quite handsome. A too-strong jawline. When Sara stepped out of the car, he adjusted his expression. She might be a wandering idealist with money to give. As she approached, he held out his hand. Richard Langley. Welcome to the Hope Village. Do you know about our work with orphaned children? Would you be interested in a tour?

She asked, though she recognized his name, if he was the director. He said he was. She handed him her card. She said she’d met Gerard Loftus in Addis, and he’d told her what had gone on between the former director and some of the boys, and she wanted to talk to him about it. He stopped. Everything open in his face shut down although he went on smiling. He didn’t want to talk about it, yet if he refused to talk she might accuse him of trying to cover up a crime. She knew it. He knew it. Then she would pull out Gerard’s other revelation: that all those who worked at the orphanage had been told not to talk. That he seemed so taken aback suggested that she was the first of her kind to arrive.

You can’t be surprised that Gerard would speak to someone, that he’d want to get the word out. I’m here because I want your version of what’s gone on.

Come into my office. He still held up her business card.

Sara leaned through the open car window and told Alazar she’d find him if she needed him and he offered up a comradely if guarded smile.

Richard Langley led her into the building from which he’d appeared. Inside, the air was awash with the loud whirr of old and bulky computers, the high-pitched buzz of bluish fluorescent lights. In an outer office, he introduced her to his secretary, Mrs. Fesseha, a grey-haired Ethiopian woman, who nodded hello, and Barney Wilcox, a pink-faced Englishman on a volunteer placement, whose enthusiasm subsided when Richard Langley failed to offer any explanation for Sara’s presence.

Inside his office, he shut the door but did not switch on the overhead light. There was clearly power, since lights were on in the outer office, so this meant he’d made a choice. He was not going to do anything to make her feel welcome. If he didn’t turn on the lights, maybe she would leave faster. He stepped behind a large wooden desk, the kind a teacher might have in a classroom. The squat bulk of his computer, also switched off, lurked on a side table to his left. A pad of yellow paper lay open on the desk’s surface. From the window to his right, which opened onto the side of the building, he would, at an angle, be able to view the front gate and any arrivals. Facing him, Sara saw only the white cement wall and metal roof of another single-storey building. She wondered if he’d been sent out by the foundation to clear up the wreckage that had been left by the former director, if he was seen as the sort who would be good at this, or if he had chosen this assignment. He wore a wedding band, she noted. If he had a family, had he brought them along? A low shelf, beneath the window, held a few books: Stendhal’s
The Red and the Black
, some Ian Fleming.

Richard Langley motioned her toward an armless wooden chair, a student’s chair, in front of his desk. Please take a seat, he said.

He placed her business card in the far corner of his large grey blotting pad. He did not offer her anything to eat or drink, no tea, no water. He seated himself, and the straightness of his back had its own force. A man, Sara thought, who liked things to go his way, his strength and weakness being that he wasn’t bendable. What exactly have you heard? he asked.

She took her tape recorder out of her pocket, placed it on the desk, and asked him if he minded her taping their conversation. Richard Langley stared at the recorder as if it were a small, spiky creature and said, Go ahead.

Gerard told me what he’d observed, the boys going to the former director’s house, that he talked to Abiye and helped him write a statement and go to the police. That the former director left or took off. He attempted to help other boys who were also victims. He implied he was fired because of this.

Gerard wasn’t fired. He was asked to leave and offered severance. I told him it was impossible for him to go on working for an organization he seemed to want to destroy.

Destroy is a strong word.

Yes, he said. But he didn’t retract it.

The place seemed very quiet for somewhere full of children. The children, or most of them, were presumably in classrooms on the grounds, in other low-slung white buildings. Sara’s experience of orphanages, in Haiti, for instance, had been of more mayhem, smell, need, children wandering in compounds that were not — what was the word that Alazar had used — neat. Of course the nature of her visits had been different: she had usually been on tours, taken to see the children.

How are you funded? She wanted to get to the matter of Raymond Renaud but had to take her time.

Through private donations. We’re a charitable organization.

And you’ve been out here how long?

Me? I was brought out four months ago. I was at headquarters in New Jersey the two years before that. Before that at our Village in the Punjab.

Do women work for the organization? Or here, in the Village? Gerard didn’t mention any.

Yes. You saw Bethlehem in the garden.

Bethlehem?

The cook. She was watering vegetables when you drove in. I am alert to the need for gender balance in staffing, particularly in the case of international hires. And volunteers. Though we remain dependent on whoever wants to venture to a remote place like this.

It wasn’t really that remote, Sara thought. There were tourists and businessmen at the hotel, and the town itself was relatively large. The orphanage was set off on its own perhaps five kilometres outside of Awassa but wasn’t inaccessible. She said, Gerard described a situation, an abusive situation that was systemic or at least that went on for a couple of years and involved a number of boys.

Abiye. Yes. And we now know there were a few others. Three. We have also discovered there are those who said they were harmed and were not. They have confessed to this. They made statements with Gerard’s help, which they now say they did for money. They wanted the compensation money. We’ve brought in a counsellor to talk to them, the victims and all the children. It’s an extremely unfortunate situation. For all of us.

Does Gerard know about this? About the retractions?

The false statements have come to light since he left. He’s been made aware. He could be charged because of it. I can’t comment further since all is in flux.

He’s leaving the country today, isn’t he?

I’m not privy to his exact travel plans. He is leaving.

If he leaves, how can he be charged?

Listen, I’ll grant Gerard this much. I believe he acted in good faith. I am grateful for his bringing this utterly regrettable situation to light. However, he also made a difficult situation worse.

Did anyone else notice what was going on or try to do anything?

Gerard was particularly observant. I cannot fault him in that regard. Most of the local staff wouldn’t know what to look for. They simply wouldn’t think of it. We believed we had a sufficient screening process, but we did not and we have put new measures in place. We wish to be accountable, but, you must understand, there are challenges when screening candidates primarily with overseas experience who wish to hide aspects of their past. And who’ve never faced charges. As an organization we were infected by an evil individual and have, in our own way, been victimized.

Victimized. She was trying to work out Richard Langley’s feelings for Gerard Loftus. She would have said Gerard aroused a mixture of disgust and anger in him, that he thought Gerard a wild card and paradoxically, the intensity of this man’s dislike made her feel warmer toward Gerard.

Infiltrated, Richard Langley said, and held her gaze, and his holding felt like a wrestling match.

What about Mark Templeton, where is he and has he been charged?

That is another thing Gerard did. It’s my understanding Gerard told him about Abiye’s statement and tipped him off. Pure stupidity.

Do you have any idea where he is?

Templeton? I believe he left the country. I wasn’t here when he left.

But you were with the foundation. Wasn’t someone from the foundation in touch with him?

He was asked to leave the organization. We’ve had no contact with him since then.

His hands were very neat, and clean, square-tipped, with clipped nails. He folded a paper clip back and forth between his fingers until it bent.

If he’s elsewhere, can he be extradited here if the charges originate here? Sara was ransacking her memory, and as far as she knew, he couldn’t be.

You’ll have to speak to the police. Or a lawyer.

But isn’t it outrageous that he’s out there somewhere and might do this again?

Ms. Wheeler, I’ve explained it to you. We are not the police or a law enforcement organization. We can’t charge people.

Gerard said he and the rest of the staff were told not to discuss what had happened.

That was our first impulse, purely to protect the children from exposure and further harm, but we have rethought it.

At every instant she had to be a step ahead of him and here was where she had to swoop in closer and not antagonize him, a man set on wresting as much control of the conversation from her as he could. Gerard also mentioned other men, friends of Mark Templeton’s, who came to visit and while here propositioned boys. Someone named Leo Reseltier?

At this, something astonished ran across his forehead and around his mouth, and it was as if he wanted to yank her words out of the air and scrub them from sight.

I said this to Gerard and I’ll say it to you. You need to be very careful what you say or intimate about this situation and us. We have evidence of a situation with one man. He was removed. Or asked to leave. As soon as his behaviour came to light, we took immediate action. There is no proof of anything else. Some boys said maybe there were others, but when asked more questions they changed their story. If you start saying anything, anything potentially libellous about us, well, I suggest you be very careful. And think of the children who are in such need. If, for instance, what you say scares away donors, it is the children who will suffer most. And AIDS is making everything worse. More and more children show up on our doorstep every day. Think about that, and how unfortunate it would be for the children if we were not able to continue this work.

Sara thought, You are also in the business of keeping yourselves in business, as all aid organizations are. And you are threatening me. But she didn’t say that. There’s one man in particular, Raymond Renaud, the Canadian who founded a children’s circus in Addis Ababa, did he visit?