Martine’s farm, I asked myself now, or the third? I was surprised that such an insignificant detail mattered to me, though it was clear that I’d begun to go over my year in Lubanda with the curious sense of searching for small clues.
There is a certain element of investigation in all risk management, of course, but when one’s own actions may increase the risk to another, then the thoroughness of that investigation becomes of prime importance. Had I known that simple rule of risk assessment all those many years ago, and applied it to life itself, I would have acted differently that day on Tumasi Road, facing Martine as she began her walk, the basket on her head bearing her few necessities, as well the Open Letter she was bringing to Rupala.
It had been found in her basket, then retrieved by authorities, one of whom, an army officer, had had it on his desk the day I was questioned. “Did she write this herself?” he’d asked as he nodded toward the paper.
I looked at Martine’s Open Letter . The bloodstains had by then darkened and gone dry, crude evidence indeed that Village Harmony had grown decidedly inharmonious.
“Yes,” I said.
“You weren’t involved in writing it?”
“No.”
“And the one she lives with on that farm in Tumasi.” He glanced at a note on his desk, the name I could see written on it. “Fareem Nebusi. Was he involved in writing this… paper?”
“I don’t know.” I nodded toward the Open Letter. “ May I have it?”
The officer hesitated only long enough to decide that there would be no further attempt to investigate this latest crime, and so no need to keep anything in evidence, least of all a worthless piece of paper. “Of course,” he said finally, then handed it to me.
And I had it still, a dreadful souvenir of my time in Lubanda that now rested in this same drawer, rolled up tightly and secured with a rubber band. I had not thought of taking it out since last putting it there, but that night, only a few days after Seso’s murder, thinking of Tumasi again, of Martine and Fareem and, of course, Seso, I drew it from the dark and unfurled it on the top of my desk.
There it was, the plea Martine had written on behalf of her country, then placed in her basket and set off with down the long, weaving road that ran from her farm to the capital.
In the years since then, I’d rarely thought of Martine making her way down Tumasi Road. Instead, I’d imagined her as evening fell and she left the road and headed out into the bush, where she rolled out her bedding and sat down, took a deep breath and a swig of water, then ate the bread she’d made from the grains she’d grown, and after that, stretched out, faceup, and peered into the overhanging stars. For years that vision had floated through my mind, but now as I thought of it, it arose through the screen of Seso’s death, as if I were now searching not just for Seso’s killer, nor even for whatever it was he’d claimed to have for Bill, but for that elusive, perhaps unknowable, but always painful line that in every life divides what we should have done from what we did.
8
Before going to Lubanda, I’d known that there is an innocence of mind that experience can change, and you will be the better for it—less naïve, for example. The risk is cynicism, of course, a religion whose only sacrament is suicide. But if something, even cowardice, stays your hand from so final an act of hopelessness, you have no choice but to soldier on, a fact Seso’s murder made clear. Besides, I finally decided, it was possible that Lubanda still had tricks to play, an experience, dark and bloody, that wasn’t finished yet. I had no idea what those tricks might be, of course. I knew only that, like an unexplored river, its source lay behind me and its terminus ahead.
It was a Friday night when I made my way toward the Darlton Hotel, a busy evening for most of Manhattan. But Twenty-seventh Street has no clubs, and only a few restaurants,
There is a certain element of investigation in all risk management, of course, but when one’s own actions may increase the risk to another, then the thoroughness of that investigation becomes of prime importance. Had I known that simple rule of risk assessment all those many years ago, and applied it to life itself, I would have acted differently that day on Tumasi Road, facing Martine as she began her walk, the basket on her head bearing her few necessities, as well the Open Letter she was bringing to Rupala.
It had been found in her basket, then retrieved by authorities, one of whom, an army officer, had had it on his desk the day I was questioned. “Did she write this herself?” he’d asked as he nodded toward the paper.
I looked at Martine’s Open Letter . The bloodstains had by then darkened and gone dry, crude evidence indeed that Village Harmony had grown decidedly inharmonious.
“Yes,” I said.
“You weren’t involved in writing it?”
“No.”
“And the one she lives with on that farm in Tumasi.” He glanced at a note on his desk, the name I could see written on it. “Fareem Nebusi. Was he involved in writing this… paper?”
“I don’t know.” I nodded toward the Open Letter. “ May I have it?”
The officer hesitated only long enough to decide that there would be no further attempt to investigate this latest crime, and so no need to keep anything in evidence, least of all a worthless piece of paper. “Of course,” he said finally, then handed it to me.
And I had it still, a dreadful souvenir of my time in Lubanda that now rested in this same drawer, rolled up tightly and secured with a rubber band. I had not thought of taking it out since last putting it there, but that night, only a few days after Seso’s murder, thinking of Tumasi again, of Martine and Fareem and, of course, Seso, I drew it from the dark and unfurled it on the top of my desk.
There it was, the plea Martine had written on behalf of her country, then placed in her basket and set off with down the long, weaving road that ran from her farm to the capital.
In the years since then, I’d rarely thought of Martine making her way down Tumasi Road. Instead, I’d imagined her as evening fell and she left the road and headed out into the bush, where she rolled out her bedding and sat down, took a deep breath and a swig of water, then ate the bread she’d made from the grains she’d grown, and after that, stretched out, faceup, and peered into the overhanging stars. For years that vision had floated through my mind, but now as I thought of it, it arose through the screen of Seso’s death, as if I were now searching not just for Seso’s killer, nor even for whatever it was he’d claimed to have for Bill, but for that elusive, perhaps unknowable, but always painful line that in every life divides what we should have done from what we did.
8
Before going to Lubanda, I’d known that there is an innocence of mind that experience can change, and you will be the better for it—less naïve, for example. The risk is cynicism, of course, a religion whose only sacrament is suicide. But if something, even cowardice, stays your hand from so final an act of hopelessness, you have no choice but to soldier on, a fact Seso’s murder made clear. Besides, I finally decided, it was possible that Lubanda still had tricks to play, an experience, dark and bloody, that wasn’t finished yet. I had no idea what those tricks might be, of course. I knew only that, like an unexplored river, its source lay behind me and its terminus ahead.
It was a Friday night when I made my way toward the Darlton Hotel, a busy evening for most of Manhattan. But Twenty-seventh Street has no clubs, and only a few restaurants,
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