How Beautiful We Were(32)
“Do you not understand the words coming out of his mouth?” the driver shouts. “Are you deaf? Listen: there are no upright men in Bézam. No one there cares whether your children live or die. How else can we say it so you’ll understand?”
“You’re telling us that everyone in Bézam is a bad person?” Manga says.
“I’m telling you that you can go to Bézam and lie on your belly and crawl from one end of it to the other and cry all the tears you have in your eyes and nothing will change for you. The big men will take the gifts you bring, and they’ll say thank you and they’ll give the meat to their cooks to prepare. While they’re eating it, they won’t even remember why you gifted them the food in the first place. Your children will continue dying until there are no more children left. These men right here in this room”—he gestures to the three Pexton men—“they’re all you’re going to get from Pexton.”
I turn to Lusaka. He’s looking at Kumbum, trying to decipher whether he agrees with what the driver has just said.
“How do you know all this?” Lusaka asks the driver. “Why are you so sure?”
The driver perks up as if he’s been waiting for years to pontificate on this topic.
“You think you’re the only ones suffering?” he says. “Villages and towns all over this country are suffering for one reason or another. You have no clean water. The village over there has soldiers raping its daughters. That other village has some other corporation cutting down its trees; the soil is eroding away. Or maybe precious stones were found under their land, and soldiers arrived with a government decree to secure the area and in the process killed people because…Do they need a reason? My wife—her ancestral village, it’s not far from mine, in Bikonobang District—the government says they want the entire village for some project about protecting animals, everyone in the village needs to pack up their things and go find somewhere else to live. What do you think the people there can do about that? Nothing. Dozens of them travel to Bézam and cry and beg for help—you know what happens? They’re told to go home and wait, help is on the way. So they go home and wait. And wait. Sometimes they return to Bézam, countless times. But nothing’s going to change. Not for them. Not for you. You can go build a new country if you don’t like this one; the people who own this country, they like it just the way it is.”
I look at the driver but I can’t figure out why he’s saying the things he’s saying. Is it spite? Is it anger? Is he inflamed that we dare dream of a new life when he has resigned himself to the belief that an idyllic future is not the birthright of the likes of him and us? He must be convinced he’ll never be more than a driver, a small man who picks up scraps of food falling off the plates of big men. His father must have shown him how to pick up scraps; soon he’ll teach his son how to do the same—smile, nod, take whatever they give you, thank them profusely, ask no questions, let them know they own the air you breathe.
“There is one thing you can do,” Kumbum says.
“What can they do besides make more room for graves?” the driver asks.
“Help me sit up,” Kumbum says, grabbing my arm. Given his condition, I wonder if it’s time to unbind his hands, but I banish the thought—we have everything to lose if my attempt to show mercy leaves us outwitted.
When Kumbum winces in pain, Lusaka dashes out and returns with a pillow, which he puts against the wall for the sick man to lean on.
“I have a nephew,” Kumbum says, looking at me. “He can help you.”
“Is he with the government or with Pexton?” I ask.
“He’s not with anyone. He’s a newspaperman. He can write your story.”
“How’s that going to help us?” I ask. “Your driver just said that no one in Bézam cares about our story.”
“The people who’ll read the story are not in Bézam. They’re in America.”
“America?”
“Yes, America, the country of Pexton. My nephew works for a newspaper that is read by many people there….” He pauses, as if, having used too much air, he needs to await a new delivery. “American people like to hear stories of what’s happening in faraway places, so my nephew tells them stories about what’s happening in our country.”
“So your nephew is a Bézam man who works for American people?” Pondo asks.
Kumbum shakes his head. “No, he’s an American man….It’s a long story. His father is an American man, his mother was my sister….He moved here from America a few years ago….His story’s complicated. Please, just trust me, go see him.”
“Why should we trust that he’ll write the truth?” I say.
“Because that’s the kind of person he is. When you meet him, you’ll see for yourself. If there’s a story that he thinks needs to be told, he’ll tell it. He’s not afraid. He attends all sorts of meetings in Bézam to learn about people and write their stories….”
“And if he writes about us and the American people read our story—”
“When the American people read about what a corporation from their country is doing to children in our country, they’ll be angry. American people like to take action. Some of them might want to help you. I don’t exactly know what they’ll do, but—”