“If the police could do anything about it, this wouldn’t be happening. You can’t fight an army of nameless, faceless ghosts. Even if you catch up to them, they’re just the middlemen, working for witchdoctors, who are in turn funded by rich, powerful patrons. It’s not a person you’re dealing with, Rodel, or a group of people—it’s a way of thinking, a mindset. And that is the most dangerous enemy of all.”
“So we do nothing? Just accept it and move along? Because it’s not personal? Because it doesn’t affect us?”
“Yes! Yes, you accept it! Just like I’ve had to accept it.” Jack’s eyes raked over me with scalding bitterness. “There is nothing more personal than losing a daughter. You think I haven’t wanted to punish the people responsible for killing Lily? You think I haven’t tried to picture their faces? I lie awake every night, grasping at smoke and ashes, breathing the stench of my own helplessness. So don’t preach to me about being unaffected. And if you can’t handle it, you might as well pack your bags and go home, Rodel, because this is not a fucking tea party in the cradle of Africa.”
I kept my chin up even though it trembled. He wasn’t the only one who had lost someone. I had lost my sister. And by some crazy twist of fate, our paths had crossed—two people with fresh, tender grief, thrown into a hopeless situation, trying to save a bunch of kids when we could barely keep our own heads together.
I laughed at the irony of it. And then I laughed again because I was beginning to understand the hollow, mirthless ways that Jack laughed. But my laughter turned into soft, silent sobs. It was the stoicism that got to me, the acceptance of tragedy—self-inflicted or perpetrated. I had seen it in Jack’s eyes, and then again in the hut, in Juma’s mother’s eyes. Perhaps when you’ve watched the lion bring down the gazelle, time and time again, when you’ve felt the earth tremble with the migration of millions of wildebeest, it comes naturally. You make friends with impermanence and transience and insignificance. Whereas I had never entertained tragedy or failure or disappointment. I resisted it. I forged ahead with the deep conviction that happiness was the natural state of things. I believed it. I wanted to hold on to it, but it was slowly being wrangled away from me.
Jack let me cry. He didn’t try to coax me or comfort me. There was no rushing me, or telling me to stop crying. When I finally got into the car, he gave me a curt nod, the kind I suspect one soldier would give another—an acknowledgment of respect, of kinship, of having survived something big and ugly.
As we drove into the shimmering blue of the hazy horizon, I caught a glimpse of his soul. So many pieces of him had been fed to the lions. And as dark and bitter as it had turned him, he was a gladiator for standing where I would have surely fallen.
BEYOND THE ISLANDS of flat acacia trees, wisps of crimson and violet seeped into a waning sky. Even as night fell upon the vast plains, the light was dazzling and clear. This was the Serengeti, a region of Africa extending from northern Tanzania to southwestern Kenya. Renowned for its magnificent lions and herds of migrating animals, the Serengeti encompassed a number of game reserves and conservation areas.
“We’ll have to stop somewhere for the night,” said Jack. “It will be dark soon. Time to get off the road. We took longer than expected in Baraka.”
Because of my breakdown, I thought.
We were still hours from the farm, driving along the edge of the Ngorongoro Crater, the crown jewel of the Serengeti. Once a gigantic volcano, it had erupted over 3 million years ago and collapsed into a 2,000-foot drop crater. Now the world’s largest intact caldera, it shelters one of the most expansive wildlife havens on earth. Another time I might have paid more attention, but I stared vacantly at the road ahead. I kept thinking of Juma, and how he’d still be alive if Gabriel and Mo had made it—how we’re all connected in strange, mysterious ways. Pull a thread here and a life unravels there.
Jack turned into a campsite as the sun started to set. The sign at the entrance said “Luxury Safari Tents”. Small, dark forms slipped through the grass as the car bounced on the dirt track leading up to the reception. Nights in the Serengeti belonged to the animals, and I was grateful for Jack’s sturdy, enclosed Land Rover.
“Can we get something to eat?” Jack asked at the counter, after we’d checked in.
“Dinner is in a couple of hours, but there are still some snacks from this afternoon in the dining room.”
We headed to the open canvas enclosure and got a table facing the crater. The western sky was turning a pale violet in the sun’s afterglow.
“Would you like something to drink?” one of the staff asked.
“Tea, please,” I replied.
“Coca-Cola,” said Jack.
“I’ll bring them out right away. There is no menu. Please help yourself to the buffet.” The waiter pointed to the table.
I hadn’t thought about food all day, my appetite curbed by the brutal reality of what I’d learned, but my stomach growled as I picked through the leftovers of what must have been afternoon tea. Cucumber sandwiches, little cakes and pastries, sugar-sprinkled cookies.
“Thank you,” I said, when the waiter brought my tea.
I grinned when Jack returned to our table, his plate piled higher than mine.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.” But even as I tried to contain it, something broke loose.
“What?”
“This.” I raised my cup and motioned toward the crater. “A fucking tea party in the cradle of Africa.”