I convince myself that Austin is asking all these questions because American people love to initiate light, meaningless conversations when they meet someone for the first time, so the person will like them and give them what they want; I read it somewhere. Austin doesn’t need to know about what we’ve done to his uncle because there’s nothing for him to know. No Pexton men are being held captive in Kosawa, I say repeatedly to myself. I convince myself I’ve never been inside the back room of Lusaka’s hut, and even if I were there, I didn’t see anything besides a pile of firewood in a corner.
“I get the feeling he’s ready to retire, considering his health issues,” Austin says. “But he’s got a family, and jobs like his don’t come easy.”
I don’t know what he means by “come easy,” but out of respect I can’t ignore anything he says either, so I nod with my head bowed. When I raise my head, I meet his eyes. State your mission, Bongo, I tell myself. Now.
“Our village is dealing with a bad situation, Austin. That is why we came to see you,” I say. “Your uncle thinks that you can help us, so he wrote this letter. He wants us to tell you that, please, can you help us?”
I’m sweating as I say this. I urge myself to plant my feet firmly on the ground. Whatever you do, don’t falter. Stay upright. My mind collapses still: What if there are soldiers in the building? What if they’re hiding somewhere upstairs? I won’t be surprised if they walk out any minute now and take me to wherever they took my brother.
“Would you like some water?” Austin asks. My discomfort is obvious. I shake my head, even though I’m thirsty. I can’t be so reckless as to ask too much of him.
“Let’s have a seat,” he says. He starts walking toward a corner of the room where there’s a round table and three metal chairs. He tells us to sit on the chairs, then hurries up the wooden stairs and brings a fourth chair. While he’s gone, we say nothing to each other. My shirt is soaked. Sweat is running down Tunis’s and Lusaka’s faces. Tunis starts biting his fingernails. We’re about to share our story with a newspaperman.
Austin unfolds the letter from his uncle after he returns; I’d already read it to make sure it contained no betrayal. He displays neither shock nor excitement as he reads. I look at my hands and tell myself to be still—trembling hands never won a battle. Lusaka looks at me and nods at me, to tell me that I’m doing well, I’m not failing.
Austin excuses himself after reading the letter. He runs up the wooden stairs again and returns with a book and a pen. He wants to know more, he says. He wants to know every detail, from the day Pexton first arrived in Kosawa to the day the last child died. I speak, and he writes. One question follows another. How many children have died? I try to remember; too many, I tell him. How many do I think? I ask Lusaka and Tunis. We do a quick count, but we cannot come up with the exact number. I tell him Lusaka lost two sons. He looks at Lusaka, who averts his eyes. Tell me about his sons, he says to me. I tell him how Wambi was the best arithmetic student in his class. I tell him about Lusaka’s firstborn son, who, like other mischievous boys in the village, loved to give the family’s dog palm wine and laugh as the dog got disoriented. I tell him Lusaka’s sons were very close and were looking forward to entering young adulthood together and moving from the room they shared with their little brother to the back room of Lusaka’s hut. I do not tell him that his uncle was dying in that same back room a couple of days ago. I only tell him about Woja Beki. I tell him about the size of Woja Beki’s house, and the jobs Woja Beki’s sons have in Bézam. I do not tell him that his uncle is in Woja Beki’s house as we speak, and that I pray his uncle survives whatever is ailing him, for everyone’s sake.
I tell him about Malabo. I tell him how Malabo left Kosawa with his best friend and four other men over a year ago and never came back. You must miss your brother terribly, he says. My brother was a great man, I say; he made me angry, he made me happy, the world will never see the likes of him again. Austin says he’s sorry for my loss, for all of our losses. I nod, realizing how much it still hurts.
He tells me he has no brothers or sisters, but he has cousins whom he’s close to. He ran into one of them earlier in the day, he says. She was running late to an appointment to try on her wedding dress, but she couldn’t resist standing on a street corner to excitedly tell him the latest wedding news, most notably that the wife of a government minister would be in attendance. She said her father should be back in a few days to go to the village and pick up two cows for the feast. Did his uncle gush to us about the upcoming wedding? Austin asks me.