“How much money will we get, then?” one of the elders asked.
“I don’t know,” Thula said. “Carlos says there’s no way of knowing. But if these hedge-fund people are open to lending us money, it’s because they believe we have a strong case and they’re confident their percentage will be many times what they lent us.”
Everyone was silent for several seconds. “Do these people in America understand that money is really not what we’re after?” another elder asked.
“Money is the only thing the courts in America can force Pexton to give us,” I said before Thula had a chance to speak. She never seemed to feel it was a burden to explain everything to everyone, but I longed to relieve her of this task whenever I could.
“Juba is right,” she said. “The American courts can only make Pexton give us money, and then we can decide whether to use the money to clean the village. If we get a big enough sum, we can pay for people in America who know about cleaning lands and waters and air to come and look at the village and tell us what our options are.”
“But why can’t the courts just make Pexton leave?” the first elder said. “I know you said it doesn’t work that way, but there has to be some law in the American books that says that people have the right to live peacefully on their lands. Can’t this man Carlos look for this law in his books and ask the judge to apply it to our situation?”
“I’ll ask him, Big Papa,” Thula replied. “Carlos understands that restoring the village is what we’re most after, and I trust him to do his best to see that that happens.”
“If you trust him,” Sonni said, “give him our permission to do what he must.”
The day that Carlos filed the new lawsuit passed with less fanfare. I picked Thula up from a classroom after her lecture, and she showed me the fax from Carlos telling her to buckle up for the ride. I hugged her; we drove to see our parents, who hugged her and told her to get some rest—who knew how long it would take for the lawsuit to drag itself from court to court? They asked her to try not to think about the lawsuit, or the country.
She couldn’t. There was too much to do.
After Liberation Day （which she spent every spare minute preparing for, and spoke about nonstop, in the three years after Carlos filed the lawsuit）， she formed a political party to pressure His Excellency into holding an election, the first presidential election in our country’s history. She named her party the United Democratic Party, though her devotees called it the Fire Party, for how often she shouted “Fire” with her clenched fist raised high. Her hope was that she would find enough supporters across the country to form local chapters of the party, ultimately resulting in a strong national presence. From within the ranks of the party, someone would arise who would stand up against His Excellency and defeat him in a democratic election. Elections in the country were still a fantasy—His Excellency retained the right to have the only political party—but my sister believed it crucial to declare her movement a party, albeit an illegal one; it was imperative that her party be ready to go against His Excellency when he finally called for an election.
Together with the Five and her Village Meeting students, she held a rally in a town outside Bézam, exhorting people to join her in being the fire that would burn down the regime in the voting booth. She spent her vacation time that year, the entire month she was off, doing similar events around the country. But her party would never take root outside the western part of the country. At some stops in the north and the east, no more than a dozen people attended. Imitators were springing up nationwide, many hoping to gain a popularity as large as hers and use it to enrich themselves. In Bézam and throughout the southeast, few people dared to align themselves publicly with her for fear of His Excellency. The eyes of other tribes were also opening; they wanted one of their own to be their leader, a man with a familiar name, not a woman they barely knew. Wasn’t it time every tribe started looking out for itself? they wondered. My sister tried to argue against such thinking. She tried to contend that the country might be made up of dozens of tribes but it was still one nation, a garden with flowers of assorted shapes and colors and fragrances, in unison forming an exquisite beauty. Few listened—unity seemed too vulgar a notion.
Mama and I worried for her daily. Sometimes I slipped cash into her driver’s pocket when she was leaving for a trip. “She’s my only sister,” I said. “Please, watch over her.” The driver nodded. He had seven daughters; worry was all his wife did.