The Apex Book of World SF 2 (7 page)

When they reached
Kalé's home, a security guard told them, "The Minister is not here. He is at a
party." The guard refused to give them directions but Katulo remembered the
house that had been playing music. He backtracked with Eyo until they reached
it. The door was open. They walked upstairs. The house was crammed with people.
A servant handed them both bottles of beer. Eyo looked from the bottle in his
hand to Katulo.

"It's all right. I
won't tell anybody." Eyo smiled and took a big gulp. His face contorted at the
bad taste.

"It gets better,"
Katulo assured him.

He looked around the
room. It would be hard to find Kalé. He wove through the tightly packed group.
At the end of the room he saw two young men who were seated at a table that
seemed to be the epicentre of the celebration. One of them had probably got
married, or maybe they had both won some sport? Faces Katulo could recognise
surrounded them. He had seen them in newspapers though he wasn't sure of their
names. Someone at that table would surely know where Kalé was. As he went to
the table, Katulo realised he should probably congratulate the two youths being
honoured. He stopped a staggering man with a pimpled nose. "What is this party
for?" he asked.

The man laughed and
Katulo inhaled the stench of beer. "You don't know, Old Father? Yesterday, some
of those Tutsi animals were making trouble. Those boys there beat them down
good. Made them run like the cowards they are."

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."

"What?"

"Maybe you can learn
to Wake?"

"Me?" Eyo's body was
a string pulled taut.

"It is a small
chance," Katulo said firmly. He did not want Eyo to get his hopes up.

"Can I try now?"

"No."

"What better time is
there to learn?"

Katulo laughed. "All
right, you can try, but do not expect anything."

"What do I do?"

"You were about to
skin the rabbit. Go ahead."

Eyo's left eyebrow
perked up.

"I am not trying to
trick you. All Wakings need two things to make them happen. One is an action.
The other is a memory. You cannot Wake anything you have not done. It is not
enough just to have watched. I could not, for example, Wake a birth because I
have never given birth. Do you remember the first time you skinned an animal?"

"Yes."

"Tell me about it.
Tell me everything you remember."

"It was at my uncle's
farm. It was just a chicken. My brother lopped off its head with a machete. I
knew chickens did not die immediately but it was something else to see it. It
wriggled and flapped its wings. Blood poured out of its head; it should have
been red but I remember it being dark—nearly black—and smelly. I wanted to run
away but my brother was watching. He wanted me to run so he could laugh at me…"
Eyo broke off. "Oh, I just realised. I plucked the chicken; it's not like a
rabbit."

"It's close enough.
Think of as many details as you can about that chicken. Think of what the
feathers felt like and how slippery the blood made your fingers. Remember what
your saliva tasted like. Think of that moment as though you were reliving it,
and as you do so, begin to skin the rabbit. It is hard to do but to Wake, your
mind must be totally in the past and totally in the present. The old memories
in the land want to live again but you have to be a conduit."

It was hard for
Katulo to try to describe what he did when Waking. So many things were
happening in his body when he performed a ceremony that it was impossible to break
them down. Katulo saw Eyo close his eyes in an effort to concentrate harder. "No.
If you close your eyes you are blocking one of your senses and focusing too
much on your memories. The present moment is just as important. You must see
the rabbit in front of you and everything you are doing.

Eyo opened his eyes
and the knife slit the rabbit's throat. He cut a line across its abdomen.
Katulo watched intently, and he felt with his other senses. He felt in the land
for any shift.
Of course it won't happen,
he warned himself. Eyo, stuck
his finger into the rabbit's lacerated belly and pulled, at the same time he
pushed the blade right under the fur. Eyo continued through the motions of
skinning and Katulo realised nothing was going to happen.

"It's…" he began
but then stopped. He felt a slight shift. Nothing large, but for a moment he
felt a burst of nausea.

Eyo stopped. "I
guess I can't do it."

"You just did,"
Katulo said. He was winded.

"You don't have to
say that."

"I'm not lying. You
did it. I can't believe it."

"I didn't see a
ghost."

"That comes much
later. You Woke an echo of the revulsion either you or some other boy felt the
first time that they skinned an animal. I could feel it." He was now shouting
with joy. He embraced Eyo hard. He had passed on every other skill he knew in
one form or other, but he had never been able to find an apprentice for the
most valuable. He realised now just how much he had underestimated Eyo because
he had not seemed naturally bright. It took him longer to grasp simple concepts
than other apprentices. Katulo had tested each for their capacities to Wake but
he had not even considered testing Eyo.

Katulo began
planning to cancel all other instruction for Eyo. Every lesson would now be
about Waking. The rest could wait. Tomorrow, they could… And then Katulo
stopped dreaming. Tomorrow he had a more important task. Tomorrow he had to try
and use reason to stop violence from returning to Burundi. Harsh memories
slipped back into his conscious mind.
No,
he thought, reaching forwards
and taking the now skinned and skewered rabbit from Eyo. He thrust it into the
fire. There was a spark and a sizzle. Right now, he decided, he would just
celebrate; he would laugh and eat well with Eyo. Let all the pain and tears
come tomorrow.

7

When they got back
to the village, the first thing Katulo did was check on Chama. He still was not
conscious, but his breathing was easier. He let Eyo sleep—the boy had found it
difficult to sleep in the forest—and went looking for Osati. He expected him to
be at the market. It was the place where most people would be gathered on a
Saturday morning. When he reached the market kiosks, his theory was confirmed.