“We might not,” Lusaka agrees, “but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”
“Why try when you know you’re going to fail?”
“Isn’t it better to try and fail than to do nothing?”
“What we need isn’t one more failure, Lusaka Lamaliwa. The world is crumbling under the weight of failures. Look around you. What do you see besides failures? Do we need more of them?”
“No, but we need people bigger than us to join our fight.”
Konga throws his head back and laughs. “Someone bigger, someone smaller, someone neither big nor small, which is better?” Lusaka looks at me—should we attempt a response to a madman’s riddle? “You call yourself small,” Konga goes on. “And you say it with no shame.”
“There’s no shame in admitting that we’re in need of help from those with the power to free us,” I say.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Konga says, as if he’s heard such rubbish too many times. “But let me tell you something, sweet child. Something you may never have heard before and might never hear again after today: we are the only ones who can free ourselves.”
Right, I say to myself—the children die on, the gas flares rage on, the pipelines spill on, we’re in danger of annihilation, and we’re fully capable of freeing ourselves.
“That is all true, Konga Wanjika,” Lusaka replies. “Our ancestors passed on to us great powers, and we can indeed do much for ourselves, but the thing is that we haven’t been successful at it with Pexton. If we can tell our story to the people in America—”
“They came from America and destroyed us, and now you want to go to them and beg them to come save us?”
“It’s not the same people,” I say, though what I really want to say is that we have to leave now. “The people who own Pexton and the people who’ll do whatever needs to be done to make Pexton stop hurting us are two different kinds of American people.”
“But they’re not different, beautiful young man,” Konga says, walking closer to me and looking into my eyes—for the first time in my life, I feel as if he’s seen me, not merely noticed me as one of dozens of young men in Kosawa. “You do understand that all people from overseas are the same, don’t you? The Americans, the Europeans, every single overseas person who has ever set foot on our soil, you know they all want the same thing, don’t you?”
How does he remember the Europeans when he has no memory?
“You’re young,” he says. “Someday, when you’re old, you’ll see that the ones who came to kill us and the ones who’ll run to save us are the same. No matter their pretenses, they all arrive here believing they have the power to take from us or give to us whatever will satisfy their endless wants.”
“Are you saying—？”
“I’m saying you should turn around and go back to your huts. Tomorrow we’ll continue fighting for ourselves.”
Tunis looks at me beseechingly. I can tell from his eyes that Konga has convinced him. He wants to return to his hut. He’s ready to abandon our mission because a madman thinks we can defeat His Excellency and an American corporation all by ourselves. I’m tempted to tell him to hurry back to his wife and children and forget about ever joining our fight. I want to assure him that if his children were to die the stain of their blood would be on his palms forever. The words almost leave my tongue, but I hold them back and breathe it out—a man’s anger is often no more than a safe haven for his cowardice.
I thank Konga for his advice and tell him that we did not pack our bags for this journey only to return to our beds, mission unaccomplished. Lusaka nods. We’ve done everything we could possibly do and considered many options, I say. Going to Bézam today seems the best viable option we have left.
“There is a way that seems right to a man,” the madman calls out as we turn our backs on him to continue our journey, “but in the end it leads to destruction.”
We keep walking. Just as we settle on the path to Gardens, Tunis says what I’d seen in his eyes. “Perhaps we should heed Konga,” he mutters, looking at the ground.
“Go home,” Lusaka screams at him before I have a chance to respond. Lusaka is pointing toward Kosawa, his voice trembling with rage. “Go home, and after you’ve buried two sons you can come back and let me know whether it’s better to listen to a madman or to listen to your heart. Turn around right now and never return.”