I tell Austin everything except any of this.
Halfway through the questioning, I pull out the lukewarm bottle of water in my bag and take a sip. I need my voice to be steady as I describe the children’s symptoms and the recent oil spills that seeped into the farms of three families. I tell Austin what the big river looks like now, green and flowing sluggishly under layers of toxic waste. I tell him how meager the next harvest is likely to be and how, because of the bad harvests, we use most of what little money we have after paying taxes to buy food in Lokunja.
When I’m done talking and Austin is done writing, he informs me that he’ll write the story tonight and send it to America first thing in the morning. His friends in the newspaper office there will do some research to make sure that, in the absence of evidence, our story can be substantiated by known facts. They might also try to talk to the Pexton people in America, to hear their side of the story, but, knowing what their response will likely be, the people in the newspaper office might decide to print only Kosawa’s side of the story and tell Pexton’s side separately if they so choose. Ultimately, Austin says, the decision on whether or not the story will be printed will be made by the big men at his newspaper. All he can do is write the best story he can and hope that everything flows smoothly and the story he writes is deemed worthy to be printed. If that happens, the American people might be able to read about us in a matter of days.
I look at him. I cannot speak. I have only thoughts. I’m thinking that the impossible just happened: Our story might be read across the ocean. We will be unknown no more. We will have names. Kosawa will be identified. Our departed children will be heard of—how long before salvation arrives for the children who are still holding on?
I repeat to Tunis and Lusaka everything Austin has said. They cannot believe we just found a champion in someone who wants nothing from us. No baskets of gifts. No kneeling. No pleading. No promises of land.
“When are you going back to your village?” Austin asks me.
I tell him we came to Bézam only to see him; now that we’ve seen him, we’ll be leaving right away. We’ll get on the first of four buses in the next couple of hours.
“Can you stay till tomorrow evening?” he asks.
He wants to write the story soonest, send it to his people, and make himself available in the event they want to publish it immediately and need him to do more work on it. Then he’d like to come with us to see Kosawa. He’ll bring his camera and take as many pictures as he can, because with pictures he’ll be able to write a second, more in-depth story. He wishes he had a place for us to sleep tonight, but he lives with a friend in a small space. I tell him not to worry. We’ll sleep at the bus stop and be here to meet him tomorrow. We’ll sleep on a pile of garbage if we must, for a chance to reclaim our land.
The Children
We didn’t know he was dying. Never would we have called him the Sick One if we’d been aware of how infirm he was—half dead, in fact. We’d been sick, we’d seen our brothers and sisters and friends get sick; nothing about it was worth mocking. We only gave him that name because we could think of no better name for a man whose body offered us passing chances at superiority, and we needed it, as a salve for our heartache.
We were playing in our compounds when we heard that a meeting of the men needed to take place immediately. Our mothers looked at our fathers, seeking an explanation for the urgency, but they got nothing. After our fathers had left for the square, we tried to ask our mothers what they thought might be going on, but they scolded us to hurry along and start our evening chores. We were sleeping by the time our fathers returned home. The next morning, on our way to school, was when we learned from our older siblings, who were discussing it with each other, that the Sick One was sick and Lusaka and Bongo and Tunis had gone to Bézam to look for medicine for him.
We had no jokes to make about the Sick One that day—we wished on him every bit of health within the grasp of men. We would even give him some of our health, we agreed, if he promised to return it. All day in class, we daydreamed that Sakani had made a potion for the Sick One, and that it was flowing in his veins, crushing his disease. When we returned home, though, we overheard the women saying that Sakani had refused to go to Woja Beki’s house to treat the Sick One.
Why would Sakani refuse
