How Beautiful We Were(87)
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The laborers’ tribulations became increasingly evident to us after all their wives left. We heard them coughing on the bus, the exact cough Wambi used to have. We saw their eyes watering, like ours used to. We heard about rampant drilling accidents, which resulted in deaths so gruesome body parts had to be packed in plastic bags. Many were the men who survived accidents and returned to their villages with missing arms and legs. We heard reports of their nonaccidental deaths too, but if these deaths were because of the men’s proximity to the poison, we never knew—Pexton would never have wanted us to know. What we knew was that, for every dead laborer at Gardens, there were ten men in distant villages waiting to replace him, raring to partake in the riches from America. Gardens was always full of men dressed in oil-stained uniforms, covered in dust, dreaming on.
In the months after we escalated our attacks, we saw in these men’s eyes how acutely they feared us. They might not have recognized our faces, which we always masked during our incursions and ambushes, but they had to know it was us—no one else in the eight villages hated them as much as we did. If our eyes caught theirs—say, at the bus stop—we looked downward and pretended to examine our fingers. Yet they struggled to breathe around us. How could they not? Their woes were many: they had Pexton standing above them, barking at them to drill to the last drop or go home; we stood in front of them, hiding nothing of our detestation; toxins swam within them, preparing them for a death they could only hope wouldn’t soon arrive. Their wives and children were afar, waiting for money for sustenance, praying to their ancestors to make the men as prosperous as those who had worked at the oil field decades before and returned to build brick houses. Until then, though, their wives lived husbandless lives, their offspring grew up like fatherless children, their parents died without a farewell.
How often did the laborers question the value of their lives? Did they cry at night in regret? Whenever we saw one of them at the bus stop with a packed trunk, having decided that the prospect of riches was no match for a simple life of love and quiet, we knew not whether to admire the man or scoff at his weakness in fleeing.
* * *
A MONTH BEFORE THAT FIRST meeting with Mr. Fish, the men of Kosawa had an assembly. The Sweet One and the Cute One had called for it, telling us that there was an incredible development they wanted to inform us about, the breakthrough we’d been waiting for.
They told us that the Restoration Movement people in New York, having grown tired of Pexton’s broken promises, had filed papers with an American court to force Pexton to clean up our land and waters and start sharing its profits with us; the Restoration Movement intended to argue that because Pexton was profiting from our land, we were entitled to a portion of whatever the company earned from the oil it sold. But Pexton was under a new leadership that was determined to show the world that fairness was at the core of their business. The new leadership had decided it wanted no court case—they were ready to work with the Restoration Movement to finalize an agreement. Under the agreement, we would not be receiving an envelope of cash, as had years ago been given to our mothers and fathers. We would receive, instead, a percentage of all the money Pexton made from our land from that day forward. We’d get a percentage every single year.
At that first meeting with Mr. Fish, his interpreter confirmed all of this.
He said that, though the two sides had not yet agreed on what the percentage would be, there was no doubt that everyone would agree on the right percentage.
“Approximately how much would it be?” someone shouted.
The interpreter whispered something into Mr. Fish’s ear. Mr. Fish nodded and whispered back into the interpreter’s ear.
“Mr. Fish says it’s hard to know what the percentage will be,” the interpreter said. “You have to remember, Pexton has a lot of people who want its money. The government in America wants some of it. The government here wants their share. All the people who work for Pexton, they need their monthly salaries. But your share is also very important, because together we inhabit this valley, and we must do so peacefully.”
Questions came from every direction: Did the people in Bézam know of this pending agreement? What did they have to say about it? Were they going to tax our percentages? Why weren’t they present at the meeting?
“Pexton wants to do what’s right by you,” the interpreter responded. “Sharing profits with communities is not something corporations do, but we’re going to do it, because that’s who we are. We don’t care if the government of this country supports or does not support our plan. Governments do whatever governments want to do, that’s just life. At Pexton we believe our duty should be to people first, not to governments.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” one of us asked. “Isn’t it the government who gave you our land?”
“Yes, of course, in a way,” the interpreter said. “But Pexton is Pexton, and His Excellency’s government is His Excellency’s government. We operate by our own principles. As a company, our mission is to do what’s best for the world—that’s why we’re here today. After this deal is final, if you need help from us on how to use your money to improve your lives, we’ll gladly send people to help you. If you’d like to move to Lokunja, or buy land in one of the other seven villages—”