He doesn’t realize what he’s doing. He doesn’t know he just told me something I hadn’t considered—that the families of our captives have not yet reported them missing.
No one is looking for the men.
Their families think they’re still traveling from one village to another.
We have a few days before they’re declared missing and Kosawa and every village they were supposed to visit on their trip comes under suspicion.
I could hug Austin right now—what a revelation for a moment like this. Based on this information, I deduce, we have enough time to return to Kosawa, lead the men into Jakani and Sakani’s hut to erase their memories, and send them on their way. By the time the men return to Bézam, Austin will have written our story and sent it to America.
* * *
THEY LIED TO US WHEN they said that the soldiers would come for us if they didn’t return to Bézam after the village meeting. They lied to us because they could. What means did we have to know the truth? How could we have known that they weren’t scheduled to return to their homes that evening? That their next stop was another village where they would tell the people that change was coming, something the people would wait for—for how long? Until the day a lunatic tells them to walk out of their wide-open prison gates?
Who sent the two soldiers? Perhaps a government person in Lokunja when the men didn’t show up for a planned meeting? Perhaps the overseer at Gardens, because the men were supposed to spend the night in his house but never showed up? But if that were the case, wouldn’t the overseer have alerted the Pexton office in Bézam? Why didn’t he? Perhaps the overseer told someone in the district office but that person didn’t take his concern seriously, thinking the men had decided to abscond from their duties and enjoy some village fun. Is it possible the soldiers believed the story we concocted with Woja Beki? Or could it be that the people in the Bézam office suspect the men are missing but don’t yet want to tell their families, lest the incident turn into an ugly drama? Nothing is inconceivable in this country. I’m not skilled enough to untangle the whos and whys, but one thing is certain: everyone hopes the men are doing their job somewhere, no one thinks they’re in Kosawa, and if the men were to be declared missing, who would think that the people of Kosawa have the audacity to take representatives of Pexton prisoner?
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.