Katulo suddenly could not breathe. The man was still talking but he could not hear it. Shock filled him with a sensation like panic. No. No. No. No. It couldn’t be. Out of the corner of his eye Katulo saw someone approaching him. It was Kalé. He had a thick grey beard and the curls on his head were white. His facial expression was taut with urgency. “What are you doing here?”
Katulo could not answer. Eyo answered for him. “We came to see you?”
“You can’t be here. I’ll talk to you outside.” Kalé was a large-bodied man. What was once a boxer’s frame of heavy muscle was now composed of layers of fat, but he still looked menacing. Once outside, Kalé instructed Eyo, “Wait here? We need to talk alone.” He grabbed Katulo by the collar and dragged him into the darkness of an alley. “Do you know how foolish it was of you to come here? You know what might have happened if you were recognised?” Kalé paused. The concern gave way to a smirk. “Still, it’s good to see you.”
“What would have happened? Would I have been beaten for being a Tutsi, too?”
“I know you are angry, but that in there is just politics. The anti-Tutsi groups are very popular. Those boys are guests of honour and for show. They don’t have any real power.”
“They have to be punished.” Katulo’s voice had risen in volume. “That’s why I came here. They nearly killed someone.”
“Nonsense, it was just immature childishness.”
“Right now he’s in my clinic.”
“I am sorry, Katulo.”
“You should not be the one saying it. There is a lot of anger and it could escalate into disaster. Those two have to be put on trial.”
“Impossible.”
“Chama may die?”
“I told you, it’s political.”
“They are savages.”
“They did not start it. Those Tutsi boys were causing trouble.”
“Those “Tutsi” boys?”
Kalé looked down, embarrassed. “It’s complicated. You live in the rural areas. It’s simpler there. Here, there has been unrest. Tutsi labourers refusing to work, demonstrations, things like that. People are fed up.”
“That gives them the right to assault people who are protesting peacefully?”
“Peacefully? They were throwing stones, breaking windows.”
“Did they hurt anyone?”
“They could have.”
“They will, Kalé.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Think, Kalé. The ones from my village who were attacked are thinking “revenge” now. They will do something, something very stupid, and they will make someone else start thinking revenge. It will keep going like that until it loses control.”
“Then stop them.”
“How? They were the ones attacked. It has to be those boys in there.”
“Then we will leave it alone and hope it passes.”
“How can you say that, Kalé? You and I are maybe the only people old enough to remember what it was like.”
“This is nothing like that.”
“Maybe it started like this and if people had just tried to take control of it…”
“You’re just fantasising, Katulo. You were also a boy. You had no idea of the political and social forces that caused the fighting. You only saw the results. Burundi was a child then. We are older now and things will not lose control.”
“Two boys who almost killed another are being congratulated instead of punished. I say it’s already out of control.”
Kalé was now visibly irate. “Look, I’ve already said…” He started to leave.
“Wait.” Katulo placed his palm on Kalé’s ribs. “I understand there are a lot of political things at work. You aren’t in charge of the policies your party makes, but what if I could get the boys who were protesting to apologise? Could you get those boys, if not to stand trial, to at least apologise? That would not pacify everyone, but it might be enough.”
Kalé thought for a moment. “I don’t know.”
“Can you at least try?”
“All right.”
“Thank you.”
The two old friends exited the alley and parted ways.
“Did it work?” Eyo asked.
“I don’t know. We need to return home immediately.”
“You said we would stay here tonight?”
“I thought we would, but not anymore.” Katulo remembered Kalé’s words: You know what might have happened if you had been recognised?
“It is late,” the boy pleaded.
“It took us five hours to get here. It’s what, seven now. We can make it before midnight. If we get tired we can make camp on the way and walk the rest of the way tomorrow.”
“Why can’t we—”
“We have nowhere to stay.”
6
In Siranja forest, Katulo saw Eyo was lagging behind. “All right, we’ll stop here.”
Relieved, Eyo let his pack drop to the floor.
Katulo began picking up fallen branches. “I’ll get a fire started and set up camp.”
“A fire?” The gaze Eyo gave Katulo was one that suspected him of insanity. In the heat it was an understandable reaction.
“All I have is dried fruit. I thought you might try and catch some game.”
Eyo agreed. “I am hungry.”
“We should have taken food from that party before we left.”
“Why do people like beer anyway?”
“You get used to it.”
“Why would you do something so unpleasant over and over again until you got used to it?”
“Good question.”
Eyo took out a hand spear and went off in search of game. Katulo set up the tent. He realised now that he had placed too much hope in Kalé. He had thought it would be so easy: Kalé would use his influence, the boys would be tried, and then everything would calm down. “Even an eighty-nine-year-old man can be naïve,” he mumbled.
Eyo returned after half an hour. In his hands he carried a dead rabbit. He tossed it beside the fire Katulo had roused, and then sat. “There is something about this forest?”
“What do you mean?”
“The trees don’t look right. They’re so pale, thin, and tall. They seem like they are moving even when there is no wind. Also, when I was hunting, I felt something… I don’t know…sort of…sad.”
Katulo was instantly more attentive. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. What is it about this place?”
“There is a story that says that long ago when the gods still walked the earth there was a great divide between them. The gods split into two groups and fought a terrible war for a hundred years. The continents were torn apart. The war ended with a great battle right here. Thousands of gods were slain. After the battle, the blood and rotting flesh of the dead germinated the earth and trees sprouted that had trunks of bone.”
“They do look like bones.” Eyo reached out and touched the bark of one of the towering trees. “Do you believe the story?”
“All stories have some truth in them, but also some that is not true. You said you felt sadness?”
“It’s less now that I’ve stopped hunting, but it’s still there. I feel like I want to cry but I don’t know why.”
“I feel that, too, whenever I enter this forest.”
“What does it mean?”
“Something terrible did happen in this forest once. I do not know whether it was between gods or between men but the land here is weeping. I told you that the land remembers everything. Something left a stain here.”
Eyo nodded and quietly reached through his bundle. He took out a knife.
Katulo debated whether to say what was on his mind. Part of him told him not to hope—not to dare hope… “It means something that you can sense the sadness in the land.”