The Newcomers: a novel of global invasion , human resilience, and the wild places of the planet

by Pamela Jekel

  Baako nodded. He knelt by his father’s side, his eyes red and full of pain.

  Chase ran back to the jeep, threw it in motion, and bumped it up the gully. When he reached Baako, he saw that he had pulled his father into a sitting position, holding him upright, facing the rising sun. He had his mouth close to Jomo’s ear, speaking something to him. Chase hesitated for a moment, not wanting to intrude, but he could hear the hyena moving closer. He got out of the jeep and said, “We have to go.”

  They carried Jomo to the truck and laid him gently in the back, covering him with a tarp. Baako got behind the wheel, and they drove silently back to camp. Before them a few giraffe loped off with the motion of a rolling ship, silent and unconcerned. As they drove, Chase looked up and saw a clear contrail in the stark blue sky. The first he’d seen in years. Somehow, it made him furious, it was so out of place, so futile. Man did not belong in these African skies, scarcely belonged on these plains. Somewhere, people were flying again, but it was all so unimportant, given the large death that lay in the jeep behind them.

  Baako and Chase drove more than two hours back home in near silence. Both of them wept quietly, off and on, until by the time they reached the gate to the farm they felt they could keep calm. Yet when the dogs ran to greet them, baying joyously, Chase felt his throat constrict again, and when Asha came to the door, waving happily, he saw Baako throw the jeep into park, slam open the door, and run into his mother’s arms. Whatever he said to her caused her to wail in anguish and run to the back of the jeep. Chase got out to go to her, but she had ripped back the tarp and stood staring in horror at Jomo’s body. Desta came out the door and hurried forward. Chase caught her by the shoulders and held her while she began to weep fiercely, tossing her head side to side in denial. Baako took his mother in his arms and led her back into the house, calling for Peter.

  Peter came running, Jata behind him, and Asha quickly spoke to them in Kikuyu, as the family gathered in the living room. They sat down, they’re eyes averted from each other. They could hear Jata wailing in the kitchen, as Peter went out to the jeep.

  After a long silence and the weeping abated, Asha asked, “How did this happen?”

  Chase said, “The bull charged from the tall grass, Jomo tried to protect us and shot him, but he kept coming and gored him. Baako killed him finally, but it was too late.”

  Baako said, “It was Chase’s shot that killed him. The bull would have had me too, except for him.”

  Chase shook his head. “That’s not how I remember it.”

  Asha waved her hand. “It doesn’t matter.” Her voice roughened. “Did your father die quickly?”

  Baako’s eyes welled. “Less than a minute, I guess.”

  Desta asked, “Did he say anything.”

  Baako’s voice was hoarse. “No. I’m sorry.” He wiped his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  “How did you spend your last evening together?” Asha asked, her voice wistful.

  “Just talking by the fire,” Baako said. “It was good. He was excited about the hunt. He knew the herds were across the river, and he was spot on. We went right to them. We found a zebra herd, and Chase shot one, but then the buffalo must have been right on top of us in the grass, and we never saw him.”

  “No more of the nyati,” she said. “Speak instead of your father. While the memory is still fresh.”

  Baako cleared his throat, reaching for calm. “We had that tinned stew and peaches. Baba told a story about a python catching a bushbuck. Some hyenas came close, and we heard the lions, but nothing ventured into camp.” He dropped his eyes. “And he asked me if I still hated Chase.”

  The hard word seemed shocking in the silence. “And what did you reply?” Asha finally asked.

  “He said that he was over it,” Chase said. “It was all good.”

  Baako shook his head slightly. “No. Tell her the truth.”

  Chase murmured, “I’m trying.”

  “Try harder.” Baako raised his head and looked at Chase with an open gaze. “I was afraid of you. Afraid of what you might take from me.” His smile was thin. “It’s not as though there isn’t a long history of that, right? Whites taking from us…but all this time, we could have been friends. Brothers. As my father wished.” He leaned back into the chair and sighed. “You could have let the bull gore me as well. Why didn’t you?”

  Chase shrugged. “It was your bullet that stopped him.”

  “I ran. You shot, my brother. Ninasahau asili.” I will never forget.

  They sat in silence again, each lost in personal memories.

  Peter came into the room, his old hat in his hands. “M’emsahib,” he said in the old, respectful way. “Bwana is ready now.”

  Asha led them to the cold storage room where Jomo had been washed, dressed in a white kikoi, cotton wrap, as was their custom, and laid on the table. She said to them, “We will say our private prayers for your father, my husband, and your friend. Peter, you and Chase will build Jomo a fine coffin from the timbers of his barn. And then we will carry him to his resting place at Our Lady.”

  “We won’t bury him here?” Desta asked. “Where we can see him every day?”

  “Your father would want to rest in consecrated ground,” Asha said. “He was a faithful Catholic and District Commissioner. Others will wish to pay their respects. Now, we will pray.” She spoke woodenly, as though she was far away in her thoughts. Instinctively, they knew not to jar her from that protection.

  They stood by Jomo’s side for many long moments, praying in silence. Chase said the Lord’s Prayer in his mind, and then he remembered the first time he saw Jomo more than three years before, saw him standing with “MAATHAI” printed boldly on his chest, felt his handshake, heard his voice. It felt like only a few months and also a lifetime ago. He had felt safe with this man. That feeling had never faltered. He wondered if he would ever feel safe again. Of course, Jomo would tell him that a man makes his own safety, that no man is ever truly safe, but each man must take his fear and go on anyway. Jomo would know just what to do right now, just what to say. Chase put his arm around Desta’s shoulders, feeling them quake under his touch. He gently drew her closer, hoping that she could take strength from the fact that she was not alone.

  Asha said finally, “Kwisha.” It is done. She turned away from Jomo’s body. “Each of you, try to eat something. Grieving is better on a full stomach. I’m going to call the elders. I’m certain your poor bibi did not expect to outlive her son. And then I’m going to lie down.”

  When she had left the room Baako asked Chase, “Do you need any help?”

  Chase shook his head. “Not unless you just want to.”

  Baako took his sister’s hand and led her from the room. “No. I’m sure you’ll do the job right.”

  Chase went out to the barn where Peter was already choosing the wood for the coffin. With few words, together they built a box that would hold a man, sanded it carefully, and Peter brought sheets from the house to pad the inside.

  “Should we paint it or something?” Chase asked.

  “That would not be our custom,” Peter said. “We will color it the same as the red dirt for Bwana.”

  After they stained the coffin, Asha came to the barn and pronounced it kabisa. Perfect. Peter and Chase together lifted Jomo into his coffin, carried it into the living room, and Jomo rested there until the next morning, when Peter drove him into the Nyeri Provincial Hospital mortuary.

  The next four days was a blur of friends and relations arriving, food coming and going from the tables, every spare cot filled with guests, cars coming up the driveway and light planes landing on the airstrip, flowers and fruit baskets and letters arriving, and through the confusion, they somehow managed to smile and even laugh. Asha said to them, “You can’t help how you feel, but you can help how you behave. People will remember your father through you,” so the Maathai family comported themselves gracefully in their grief.

&nbs
p; At Our Lady of Consolata, Archbishop Kiromu delivered a requiem mass for Jomo, who now was called Mzee, respected elder. Many members of the provincial and district government attended, paying their respects to Asha and the family with sad dignity. The voices rose in the hymn “Kirikano gia tene na tene”, Memory Eternal, as he was laid to rest in the cathedral burial ground.

  Asha stood tall and silent, and Chase could feel the strength coming from her, cloaking her children, shielding them and also holding them up. No one wept, not in public. Finally, it was indeed over, as Asha had foretold; the clan departed, friends went back to their own lives, and the Maathai farm was silent once more.

  Two mornings after Jomo’s funeral, Asha called her family together in the living room. She sat in the side chair next to Jomo’s, as she always had. His chair, conspicuously empty, caught a ray of light from the window, as though spotlighted for a moment, and then as the sun moved, the shaft of light disappeared.

  Chase was sitting next to Baako on the sofa in his usual place. Desta came in the room last, and Chase noticed how much she had changed. She moved modestly, although her body was full and ripe as a woman’s. She was solid through the shoulders and hips, with small hands and feet and a round face like Wangari Maathai. She was becoming beautiful, in her own way, even in her sorrow. She sat on the carpet, curled at her mother’s feet.

  “I was very proud of our family in these last few days,” Asha began. “You all did your best to make our guests comfortable, and you met your responsibilities with dignity. Your father would have been proud of each of you as well.” She put her hand on Desta’s shoulder lightly. “We should speak now of the future, yes? I’m sure you each must have questions, and I now must make decisions. As we always have, we will hear what each person has to say. Chase, you are a member of this family, and so of course, you are a part of this discussion.”

  Chase nodded.

  “I am going to stay on the farm,” Asha said. “Perhaps we will need to sell it as time goes by, but for now, it will give me comfort to be where your father and I raised our family. Desta will, of course, stay with me until she is finished with Fourth Form, and then she will likely go off to university. Baako, your applications to university are almost complete, and I think you will probably be attending university in Nairobi, perhaps Catholic University?”

  He shrugged. “It depends on my scores.”

  “You will do well, I’m certain. Peter and Jata will stay with me, of course, and Peter will manage our planting this season. Your father’s pension will not be as much as his salary was, but we will still be comfortable. Baako, do you have a mind to keep the farm?”

  “I had hoped to be here all my life,” Baako said. “Baba and I spoke of it often.”

  “I know you did,” Asha nodded. “We shall see how your studies go, then. People say it’s a bad idea for a widow—“ and here, her voice caught for a moment. Desta put her hand on her mother’s hand. “For a widow to make a big decision very soon after her husband’s passing. So for now, we shall stay as we are. As we were. We all need that, I should think.”

  Baako glanced at Chase. “You should tell her,” he said.

  Asha looked up and waited.

  “Actually, one of the subjects that came up our last night together was what I was planning to do,” Chase said. “I don’t want to go to university. I plan to build my place and work my land.”

  Desta said, “But you’re so smart! It would be such a waste.”

  “Chase, we can afford to send you to a public university,” Asha said. “If it’s a matter of money—“

  “No, it’s not that, and I do thank you for the offer. I have no interest in it, so that would really be a waste. I told Jomo that, and he understood.”

  “But what about your family?” Asha asked. “What happens when your father passes? Who will take care of your mother and your sister?”

  “That’s a tough one,” he admitted, dropping his gaze. “I know you won’t like the answer, but I can’t plan my whole life around taking care of my mother and my sister. My home is here now. If my father’s gone, maybe they’ll come here or something. I’m not going back there.”

  Desta’s jaw stiffened. “That’s cold.”

  “Samahani,” Chase murmured. Sorry.

  “You surprise me,” Asha said, her brows raised, her face still. “At first, you insisted you would return home. Lately, I know you said you would not return to America, but somehow I thought you might change your mind, now that the alien ships are gone.”

  “I don’t blame him,” Baako said.

  “Really.” Desta frowned. The skepticism was obvious in her voice.

  Baako shrugged. “He’ll figure it out.”

  Asha sighed. “I suppose we all will.” She patted Desta’s shoulder and rose from the chair. She turned to look at Chase again. “We will have to hire someone to work with Peter; there’s too much for him to do alone, once Baako leaves. Would you like the job?”

  “Absolutely,” Chase said.

  “Well, it would appear that we have a plan, then.” She walked from the room.

  * * *

  The house was so different with Jomo gone. Chase found reasons to spend more and more time at his own place, now that the walls were up and the roof was on. He began to spend the night there occasionally, so he could chart the movement of the sun for the solar panels placement, even cooked his supper there over a fire, when he wanted to continue working until dark. Baako was leaving for Catholic University in Nairobi in a month. Chase knew that he would be working more hours with Peter soon; better to get his own place finished up before then, if he could.

  One afternoon, Desta walked up the path to his place alone. He was surprised to see her, at first alert that Asha might need him for some emergency. But she ambled, rather than hurried. He watched her approach and met her on the porch.

  “It’s almost finished,” she said, looking around. “It somehow looks like you.”

  “Yeah? How’s that?”

  “Sturdy. Everything in place and just so.” She ran her hand over the porch posts. “Smooth, so one can touch it with no splinters.”

  He shrugged. “If you’re going to do it, might as well do it right. Your dad always said that.”

  She smiled. “Yes, he did.” She sat down and gazed out towards the river. “So you’re really going to live out here all alone?” She turned to stare at him as though he were truly strange to her.

  Her black skin was shining, her teeth large and white, and her lips were buff-colored on the inside. He imagined that other more private areas on her body were the same color. A revelation, an unwanted intimacy. “Sure,” he said.

  “Such a smart boy in so many ways,” she said. “So dumb in others.”

  He turned away from her. “I guess.”

  “Everything depends on something,” she said. “Nothing stands alone. I should think one would learn that lesson quick enough in Africa. Even the largest banyon anchors itself in the earth.”

  He leaned back, tilting his chair and putting his boots up on the porch post. “I’m pretty anchored, I’d say.” He decided to wait her out.

  “Once Baako goes, it would be better for a man to be in the house,” Desta said. “Peter is getting older. My mother would be more comfortable if you stayed with us.”

  “Did she send you to say that?”

  “Of course not. But you know it’s the truth. In two years, I’ll go off to university as well, and then where will she be? Alone in that big house, with two aging servants? I should think you’d see your duty clear.”

  “Ah,” Chase said. “My duty. Finally, someone said it.”

  “Well, what of it? I call it selfish to take from my family and then simply abandon us when you have all you need.”

  “So. If I’m not going to go back and take care of my own family, the least I can do is stay here and take care of yours?”

  She laughed suddenly and tipped her chair back to match his. “You’re such a fool
, you don’t even recognize a gift when it’s offered. It’s a blessing to have a duty, to have a family to care for, not a burden. It is a privilege to be a brother, a son. A man. My father certainly knew that. I should think you would have learned that much from him.”

  “I’m happy to help out when I’m needed,” Chase said. “Your mother offered me a job, and I’m grateful. But I’m staying on my own land.”

  She shook her head and tipped her chair back down. She stood with her hands on her hips, smiling out towards the river. “It’s so odd,” she said. “You can fix everything but yourself. See you.” She walked back down the path and did not look back.

  * * *

  Two male cheetahs watched the clump of Thomson gazelles move closer to the rocks where they waited. The spotted cats were three winters old, bachelors, and skilled at hunting in tandem. Of their litter of six, they were the only survivors. It was late afternoon, and the plains shimmered in the heat. Once dusk came to the Mara, they would take refuge in their rocky lair away from the leopard which patrolled this territory. They heard its rhythmic rasping coughs just often enough to make them wary. Even two of them fighting together would likely not survive the leopard’s attack, not out in the open.

  A young puff adder also lived in their rocks. Unlike the cobra, which was nervous, high-strung, and uneasy around cats, the puff adder held its ground. Irascible and slow, it would not give way if they came too close and would bite without hesitation. It was a thick snake, light in color, well-marked with a dark diamond pattern, two feet long, a female. Nocturnal, it only came out when the cheetahs had gone to cover. Soon, it would breed. The brothers knew that they must find new shelter before that occurred, but this region of the plains was rich with game, and they were reluctant to move the hundred miles it might be to a strange territory. It had been hard enough to find this one.