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  Gwennie’s Girl

  Brenda Fitzpatrick

  Austin Macauley Publishers

  Gwennie’s Girl

  About the Author

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Copyright Information ©

  Acknowledgments

  Rwanda

  Geneva

  Wars in Europe

  Sam and Rome

  Gwennie and Nanna

  Turkey

  Nightmares

  Ahmed

  Exhaling

  Healing

  Trust Me

  Enough Now

  About the Author

  Brenda Fitzpatrick is an Australian writer and teacher with extensive experience in refugee camps and conflict zones. She left her home when invited to join a humanitarian organisation in Geneva. From there, she travelled widely around the globe and lived in London and Zimbabwe. She helped bring international attention to the reality of women and girls in war, and her reports were circulated to/by United Nations, government and non-government agencies.

  Her book Tactical Rape in War and Conflict was judged to be groundbreaking. She has a PhD in International Politics, and Gwennie’s Girl is her first novel.

  About the Book

  This is a visceral, engaging and demanding debut novel by a well-travelled author with first-hand experience in a variety of war zones.It is the story of Lizzie who is no hero. She is a coward who has fled Australia, an abusive and loveless existence and the sorrow of being abandoned by her loving mother, Gwennie, and her redoubtable nanna. She lands a job in Geneva, travelling to war zones and refugee camps, and gradually comes to relish her new independence. Physically, Lizzie survives. Emotionally, she shuts down, closing her mind to memories, nursing anger and feeling of guilt, and determined never to let herself be vulnerable again. She has what she thinks is a one-night stand with a war photographer.But eventually she has to choose whether to stay safe in emotional isolation or take another risk—trust someone else. After all, she is Gwennie’s and Nanna’s girl. The decision is made.

  Dedication

  For Gwennie and Mary Jane, who would have loved to be in a “real” story and are the only “real” people in it; and for my beautiful children and grandchildren, who encouraged me to write it.

  Copyright Information ©

  Brenda Fitzpatrick (2019)

  The right of Brenda Fitzpatrick to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781528968539 (ePub e-book)

  www.austinmacauley.com

  First Published (2019)

  Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

  25 Canada Square

  Canary Wharf

  London

  E14 5LQ

  Acknowledgments

  This book has been inspired by experiences related to me by women who sometimes sat on hard earth or concrete floors, who sometimes held my hand, told me their stories, the stories of their sisters, daughters, mothers and “women they knew”.

  Rwanda

  It was Ngara, 1994. Lizzie stood on the bridge dividing Rwanda from Tanzania. In memory, the bridge was high above the water line. She watched the constant flow of bodies, torsos and unmatched limbs drift, get caught in eddies and slowly turn on down the river. Macabre dancers in currents and whorls of the river. She had not registered earlier that black bodies turned grey when bloated. Corpses rotted in villages and fields. Girls and women were raped, violated. Survivors fled, crept with broken skin, broken spirits across the bridge, climbed the hill to the suppuration of a chaotic camp and manifold despair. She knew again the stale smell of her own old fear. Punches were pounding her breasts. A voice echoed from the past. ‘Why don’t you just die, you bitch? Die and save us all a lot of trouble!’

  She took a deep breath. Enough. Suck it up. That was another place, a time long ago. Gwennie would tell you to get over it.

  Here, the metallic, African sun pinged off the struts of the bridge, and just beyond the border of a massacre, it fell upon the piles of blood-encrusted pangas, farming tools rusting in the full glare of murderous frantic heat. Weapons of execution, savage brutality, remnants of lives snatched at the final steps into apparent refuge from those who made it to the river. The slaughter was on record. Too late now to make any real difference—just use words and images to document, hope it might help somehow. Faint hope.

  On the bridge, into the grim silence, Sam, the photographer in the team, asked the question, ‘What the hell are we doing here?’

  As if Lizzie had any answer. Even as she felt him behind her, sensed the male presence, felt his hand reach out for her throat—no, just her shoulder—she flinched, registered his confusion, could not explain.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Sam. ‘What are we doing with this world of ours? We’ve taken the shots and written the copy—but what good do we really do?’

  He was voicing the sense of helplessness that seemed to wash over all the professionals. There was no buzz, no adrenalin rush, no glamour or excitement. Only a deep despair.

  ‘You tell the world about us!’ screamed one of two Rwandan volunteers standing behind them.

  Lizzie saw the tears streaming down the woman’s face. ‘You tell the whole truth about us. That we are people who love our children, who cry for our dead and for our sins. You tell them we are not all murderers. You tell them of our sorrow that runs deeper than this river.’ She gestured to the bodies. ‘Maybe that is my cousin. Maybe that is my best friend. What causes people to become devils? Will you ask that question? Will you?’

  The cry dropped into silence and rippled on the surface of the water until it faded downstream with the evidence of her agony and the shame of a world community that now salved its conscience with blue plastic and beans. Lizzie and Sam and the others stood silent, leaving the women to hold each other and watch the stream.

  Tell the truth, Lizzie. This time tell the truth—all the truth and don’t hold back because you are afraid of what people will think. Tell the real story this time, for these women. Gwennie would tell the truth.

  Lizzie felt herself being dragged back into that whirlpool as she listened to this good woman despair. She caught herself. Stop. Suck it up. Suck it up. This is not your story. This is different. Your story had a different ending. Stop thinking about yourself. Suck it up. Tell their stories, not yours. Get over yourself, girl. Take a good look around and remember this is not your story—and this time you could help someone else recover, maybe stay safe.

  Lizzie and the world had seen CNN and the newspapers full of the massive tragedy that was Rwanda and gasped at the scale of the slaughter. Even a public increasingly inured to images of war and suffering recoiled as comfortable living rooms were flooded with footage of refugee flows that outnumbered anything they had ever seen. There was material to satisfy even the most voracious demand for sensational violence and human pain. Hutu killed Tutsi. Tutsi retaliated. Neighbour killed neighbour. Teachers killed students. Families killed relatives: husbands, wives, nieces, nephews, cousins. Clergy killed or betrayed members of their congregations. Murders occurred in churches, in sacristies and on altars. Whites were evacuated. The wife of a missionary cried, ‘There are
no devils left in Hell. They are all in Rwanda!’ The local women must have heard that comment.

  Lizzie read the report of a Canadian journalist who had seen UN soldiers stand watching as a woman was dragged past by a gang of men. The woman screamed for help but the soldiers could do nothing because they were under orders not to get involved in the fighting. Other UN troops were shot down when they tried to protect a local leader as she fled from the gang who caught her and murdered her. At one stage, this camp at Ngara in Tanzania held a quarter of a million refugees and was being called “the largest refugee camp in the history of the world” but within weeks it was overshadowed by others in Zaire.

  Lizzie had been sent to lead a group consisting of a two-man Norwegian Television crew, a freelance photographer and a Kenyan journalist. It was Lizzie’s role to encourage these media boys to present stories that showed the courage and strengths of the refugees rather than only presenting Africans as victims or murderers. She was also to carry US $10,000 in small bills to give to a local group that was desperate for funds in hard currency.

  She would not be able to declare it. Seemed innocent enough. The team would all meet in Dar es Salaam and Lizzie flew via Nairobi. She had gone through the usual checklist: visa? (Yep); passport? (Yep). Her old one was full so she had a brand new sparkling one, with loads of blank pages. In the rush of the changeover she did not follow her usual practice of stapling her Yellow Fever Certificate to the back page. It didn’t matter because the visa office had told her it was not required in Dar for an Australian passenger from Switzerland.

  At least, she thought it didn’t matter.

  The flight stopped over in Nairobi for less than an hour and passengers were forbidden to disembark. They eventually arrived in the grime and chaos of Dar es Salaam in the early hours of the morning. The queue shuffled slowly towards the immigration booth. Lizzie handed over her documents fairly absent-mindedly expecting the customary pause and the entry stamp.

  ‘You cannot enter.’

  Lizzie jerked to attention, ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You cannot enter. You have no Yellow Fever Certificate.’

  ‘I don’t need one. Your representative in Geneva advised me very clearly that I did not need it. I have come from Switzerland.’

  ‘You stopped in Nairobi.’

  ‘I was only in the airport for less than an hour. I did not leave the plane. That was the planned routing of the flight, and I was assured I did not need the certificate. Anyway I’ve had the shots. I just haven’t brought the certificate.’

  ‘You cannot enter.’

  ‘Yes, I can. Please check the regulations.’

  ‘Stand aside.’

  Lizzie was livid. She knew she was right, but she also knew that was not always what was important. What the hell was going on here? She saw two other impatient-looking Europeans also waiting. It took over an hour for the remaining passengers to be processed through the barrier. Each of the other two men waiting was called into a small office and eventually exited. As the second man passed Lizzie, he shrugged and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. Money. The official wanted a bribe. That was the game. Ooh shit! Lizzie had a credit card and an agreement that the local host would cover all costs, and she had declared she had no currency. She could not bribe her way out of this without admitting a false declaration. If she went to the toilet and unpacked some cash from the belt under her clothes, she could be called on that false declaration. Ooh shit!

  Now it was Lizzie’s turn to be beckoned into the grubby, dusty little office where the immigration official sat behind a desk. What followed was a repeat performance of the earlier exchange. Lizzie asked to see the supervisor. This was the supervisor. He said perhaps they could come to some arrangement, and Lizzie pretended she didn’t know what he meant. They were definitely at stalemate. Then he played another card.

  ‘You must have another injection.’

  ‘Wha-at?’

  ‘If you want to enter, you must have another injection.’

  ‘How? Where?’ Lizzie was now confused.

  ‘You must have the injection here. I can administer it.’ He lifted a decidedly less than clean cloth from a dusty enamel bowl and pointed to a syringe.

  You have to be bloody kidding, mate! I faint from injections in sterile Swiss clinics. If you think you are going to jab me with that rusty object you have another think coming. I’ll get back on the plane. I’ll just go home. Stuff the assignment if it comes to a choice of that or you coming anywhere near me with that needle. Am I starting to panic? You bet I am.

  The official shrugged and waited. Obviously, he thought she was super stubborn or super stupid not to make “the arrangement”.

  Lizzie decided to come clean, ‘Sir,’ (She could hear Gwennie suggesting that a little grovelling might help at this point) ‘Sir, I have no cash with me.’

  That had his attention.

  ‘There is a man meeting me here at this airport. He might be able to sort out whatever is needed.’

  There was a gleam of interest.

  ‘May I go through and find him and bring him back here so that we can make some arrangement?’

  If the guy outside would pay, Lizzie could fix him up later.

  ‘This is not usual.’

  Yeah, yeah, but you’re going to let me do it, aren’t you?

  ‘Very well. I shall ask the guard to accompany you.’

  Lizzie, minus passport, was escorted to the waiting area where there was one lone man still standing. She identified herself quickly, shook hands, learnt he was her contact from a local church and outlined the situation. He walked slowly to the restricted area with her and their armed guard.

  ‘He just wants a bribe,’ explained Lizzie. ‘If you pay him, I can reimburse you this afternoon.’

  ‘I don’t think it is good practice to bribe officials,’ was the response.

  ‘Well, as a general rule, I don’t either,’ retorted Lizzie, ‘but in the circumstances, what else can I do?’

  ‘You might need to have the shot.’

  ‘You are kidding?! Apart from the fact that he’s bluffing, I am not going to be jabbed with an old syringe!’

  They were back with the official who was looking impatient. This was taking too much of his time. The high-principled churchman looked dully at Lizzie and at the man who had left the bowl uncovered on his desk. ‘I don’t know what else to suggest,’ he said.

  ‘Pay the man!’ expostulated Lizzie. Now she and the African official were in total accord. ‘Just pay the man! Please!’

  ‘I am afraid I can’t do that. It would not be the right thing to encourage this sort of practice,’ he looked sadly at the official.

  So, now what, Lizzie? Do you blow the currency declaration and take your chances or do you get on the next plane home? Or… or? Long ago in your murky career you were a teacher of drama. You know all about histrionics. You can do it, girl. It is worth a try. You can do it.

  Lizzie threw the loudest, screaming-est tantrum that airport, that official, that dull, stolid churchman had ever seen. Once she got started, it was easy because just pretending to panic set off quite a reserve of very real panic.

  ‘You’ll kill me with that needle. You’ll kill me! I know you will. I have already had the shot. I can’t, I can’t have another one. You’ll kill me. Help me, someone. Help me. This will kill me,’ and so on and so on with her voice rising and hysterics apparently very close.

  She screeched, wailed and was well on the way to working herself up into a real state. It was all too much for the official. He knew when he was outclassed.

  ‘Take her,’ he told the churchman. ‘Take her out of here.’ He stamped the passport and stomped out of the office.

  Lizzie let her wails subside, clutched the churchman and headed for the exit. The churchman looked more shocked than the official and did not seem to think he had collected any prize. Lizzie did wonder how he would report back to Geneva but she decided to worry about that when
she got home. Thankfully, this man was only assigned to meet her and take her to a hotel to join the rest of the team. He seemed quite glad to take his leave of a now calm and business-like Lizzie who checked in quickly, thanked him and headed for the lounge to assure the others she was only late, not lost.

  They introduced themselves over a quick rotten cup of coffee. The two Norwegians had gone to check on their equipment. The others looked ready and organised and were relaxed about the job ahead of them. Lizzie liked the look of them, although she wondered about Sam, the photographer who was a lanky New Zealander. There was an air of physical power about him that made her a little wary. Shades of the past, she supposed. Still he had an attractive grin.

  She ran through the list of equipment, double-checking that each of the blokes knew his responsibilities and was properly briefed about what they could expect when they got to the camps. The Norwegians still hadn’t returned, so she suggested assembling fifteen minutes later to head to the small airport where a chartered eight-seater should be waiting for them. She hurried to her room, showered, changed, grabbed her small knapsack from inside her bigger bag, locked away the things she was leaving and was at the door exactly fifteen minutes later.

  ‘That was quick,’ said the big guy, Sam. ‘Here comes the rest of the gang.’

  The Norwegians had a small truck loaded with their gear. They approached the group at the entrance, looked around and the taller of the two (a beefy, handsome, blonde guy) asked, ‘Where’s the boss?’

  He had looked right past Lizzie standing in her jeans with her knapsack. Oh, the invisibility of women of a certain shape and age! Sam pointed to her, and the blonde recovered quickly as he greeted her. Lizzie went through the same details with these two then they all loaded and headed for the plane. When it finally arrived, there was a bit of drama about cargo because the blonde had a huge pack as well as all his equipment but, at last, everything was stowed and they took off with Lizzie in the front seat beside the pilot. Thankfully, it was too noisy for social chitchat so she was able to watch the African landscape of reds and browns, the flat-topped msasa trees and the occasional villages. She saw a wide river snaking below them with a bridge crossing that seemed deserted.