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

by Pamela Jekel

  “December is a scorcher here! How long did it take you to get used to the flip-flop of the seasons?”

  “Not long,” Chase said. “When you’re so young, you get adjusted quick.”

  They walked together in silence, but it didn’t feel companionable to Chase. It didn’t feel like old silences with his father, when he felt safe and didn’t need to know what was coming next. Chase could still see him in his mind’s eye as he remembered him, looming in the dark doorway of his room after kissing him goodnight, quiet and tall and standing guard over them, a sentinel between all of them and whatever bad might come in the night. He slept easily then, dreaming the dreams of a boy who was safe and loved. Now, he knew that safety was just another dream, an illusion that seemed bigger than it ever was in reality, like the size of their house or backyard. A mirage, like heat waves that looked like the salvation of water in a barren land.

  “You’ve changed so much,” his father finally said softly, half to himself.

  “So have you.”

  Jack sighed and ran his hand through his thinning hair. “I guess I have. You’re not a child anymore.”

  Chase was tempted to reply, You’re not a man anymore, but he just nodded and kept walking. There was no reason to add cruelty to his refusal to follow his father’s wishes. He felt guilty enough. He knew that every word between them would be turned over and over, examined in quiet moments the rest of their lives, looking for clues, for understanding, for forgiveness. He was determined to do this like the man Jomo had raised.

  “It feels weird to see you carrying a weapon,” Jack said. “You don’t go anyplace without it?”

  “Oh yeah,” Chase said. “But not walking through the bush.”

  “I guess you’re used to it.”

  “To what?”

  “To killing.”

  Chase shot him a wry glance. “You got that right.” He decided to soften his tone. “Look, I know it’s not something you do much at home I guess, but it seems natural here. Everything has to eat, and something has to die for that to happen. Here, cowardice can get you killed. Stupidity can get you killed. Arrogance can get you killed.” He looked up the trail. “It’s pretty simple, really. I find it comforting.” He realized as he said the words how true they had become for him.

  Ahead in the path where the brush pushed closer, Neddy had stopped and was growling. Chase saw something moving slowly across the dirt, a snake. He called Neddy to him, downed him on the trail, pulled his panga from his belt and gestured with it, blocking his father’s steps. “Perfect example. There’s a puff adder.”

  His father froze and peered ahead. “Wow. Pretty good camouflage. It wouldn’t be hard to walk right onto it.”

  “And you probably wouldn’t make it back to the farm before you collapsed,” Chase nodded. He stepped forward, approached the puff adder from the side, and as it hissed violently, puffed itself up, and coiled to strike, he hacked it with his panga, sliced it again swiftly, and kicked the head into the brush. It was a female. He parted the brush with his panga on both sides to be sure it wasn’t being trailed by a male and then gestured his father forward. Neddy began to forage in the bush, growling and worrying the dead snake.

  Jack stood and looked at the thick, headless body, half-covered with weeds. “Big sonofabitch.”

  “Actually,” Chase said, “she’s probably only a few seasons old. They get to be about five feet.”

  Jack scuffed the head with his shoe. “I guess you had to kill it.”

  Chase chuckled mirthlessly. “This isn’t a zoo, Jack. This is Africa.”

  “Yeah. I got that.”

  They kept walking, and as they approached Chase’s land, his father noticed a row of newly-planted trees. “Is that your orchard?”

  “Part of it. Mangoes. They’ll bear in another year. You know that if you put a piece of game, even the toughest warthog, between two slices of a mango, by nightfall, it’ll be sweet and tender?”

  “No, I didn’t know that. How’s your soil here?”

  “Pretty fertile, by the river. We’re here.”

  Chase walked ahead, not wanting to see the look on his father’s face, as they rounded a bend in the trail and the cabin came into view. He strode up on the porch, set his rifle against the pole, sat down in the cane rocker and gestured to the other chair. “Mi casa es su casa.” His father stepped up on the porch and looked around.

  “You built this all by yourself?” His father opened the door and looked at the shadowed interior. “This is amazing, son.”

  “Thanks. I had some help on the trusses. But it’s basically my design and my hands on most of it. The foundation stones come from the river, the lumber I scrounged from the farm or the village, I bought or bartered what I had to, the roof tin came from another farm a few miles away, some old shed they were replacing.” He patted the porch pole. “Some of it, from the trees right here on the land. I’ll be putting more solar panels on the roof, when I can get them. But it’s good for now.”

  “I’d say so,” Jack said. “I was expecting maybe a thatched hut built of mud. This is really something.” He stepped down off the porch again and looked at the cabin from several paces away, then stepped up again and went inside.

  Chase stayed in his chair.

  Jack came out and sat down, shaking his head. “I am very impressed. You’ve done a great job. I always knew you had mechanical talent, but I have to say, I had no idea you had this kind of determination. This had to have taken you months to finish.”

  Chase shrugged. “No big deal. Jomo made it all possible. Ten acres of good riverland, and a skill saw. He gave me everything I needed.”

  Jack dropped his head. He sighed and took the other seat on the porch.

  Chase looked away, unwilling to modify his statement.

  Finally, Jack gestured to the limbs overhanging the porch. “What tree is that?”

  “Baobob. The seeds have fifty-percent more protein than meat.”

  “So between your mangoes, a garden, and baobob seeds, you’re set.”

  “And fish and game and eggs. I’ll be getting some chickens from Asha just as soon as I can get the coops built.”

  Jack fell silent. He sat and rocked for a moment, watching the river. “This sure isn’t how I pictured it.”

  “What?’

  “Our reunion.”

  “What did you think I meant when I said I wasn’t going back? That it was like Miranda when she said she wasn’t going to eat her peas?” He put his boots up on the porch pole and leaned back. “I guess you still don’t know what it was like,” he added softly.

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  Chast thought a long moment before replying, so that he could keep his voice gentle. “The last time I saw you and Mom was at the train. They put us in a room, so we could say goodbye.” Chase was speaking half to himself, half-aloud, his eyes gazing out into the distance. “I was trying to be brave, but I could hear kids and parents crying all around me. Mom started to cry. I saw a mom pull a kid out of the group, and the dad was arguing with her and trying to yank the kid out of her arms, and finally she let go and fell down, wailing on the ground. You and mom left, and they put us on the train. But some of the parents didn’t leave; they ran after the train, crying, and the kids were crying, too. The escorts tried to calm everybody down, but the little kids couldn’t stop screaming. The faces of the parents grew smaller and smaller as the train pulled away. But you guys had already left.”

  “I didn’t think your mother could take anymore,” Jack said wearily.

  “Yeah. Well.” He turned to face him, his face calm. “I dreamed of you every night for years. In my dreams, we were always together. And then I’d wake up, and I was alone. Finally, I made myself stop dreaming those dreams. I’d put my fists under my hips so the circulation in my hands would be cut off, and the pain from that would wake me up before the dreams could start.”

  Jack considered that silently. “What was the camp like?”
/>   “Lots of angry soldiers trying to take care of lots of grieving, panicked kids. They put us on the ships in the middle of the night, so the starving people who were living in shacks by the docks wouldn’t see us. But they saw us anyway, and they shouted at us and pleaded to go on the ships, and the soldiers had to shoot into the air to keep them off us while we loaded. I saw some raggedy guy fall into the water next to the ship, and no one tried to help him. I guess he drowned.” Chase picked up his rifle and began to clean it absently with his shirt. “So. I lost my home, my family, my country, and my identity all at once.”

  “We were trying to save your life,” Jack said. “You know that. And look at you! You’ve done very well. You graduated from high school, you’re healthy and strong. We sent away a child, and you’ve become a man.”

  “I stopped being a child the minute you put me on that train. And I’ve never really felt a part of anything since. Except maybe this land.”

  “Lots of kids didn’t make it. Miranda did, but she’s never going to be the same either, I guess. Would you have rather been Miranda?”

  “I’d have rather been Moses.”

  Jack stood up and faced him. “How dare you say that to me. You’d rather be dead? Now you are sounding like seventeen. You have no idea what we’ve gone through, just to make it this far. Your mother has aged ten…no, fifteen years at least. We’ve both probably got diseases and infirmities we won’t even know about for a decade yet. You never had to feel the hunger, the panic, and the terror we felt.”

  “And you never had to feel the rage I felt. Guess neither of us have any idea who the other one is anymore.”

  “That’s not true,” Jack said. “You’re my son. Even under that bitterness, you’re my son. Nothing will change that, not ever.”

  “I would think you’ve learned the same lesson I have, Jack. Never say forever and never say not ever.”

  “So you think life’s nothing but false promises?”

  Chase thought for a moment. “Not necessarily. But I do think that you can lose everything, everything in a moment. Nobody will ever convince me otherwise. Or make those kinds of decisions for me again.”

  “I’m your father. I made the best decision I could for our family. I’m certain that as you get older, this will be easier for you to understand. You felt abandoned. I hope that you’ll be able to forgive me. I was trying to save my son.”

  Chase felt his throat thicken. The memories were crowding in now, memories he had tried to erode for years. He pushed the sorrow away and held onto the anger. Anger was safer. “If you want our family to be back together, then bring them here. I can enlarge the cabin, there’s plenty of food, and you don’t have to worry about aliens coming down and killing everybody off.”

  “Is that what this is about? You’re afraid to come home?”

  “They did say they’d be back, or didn’t you get that? And no, I’m not afraid to come home. I am home.”

  Jack sat back down. “Home isn’t about a place, Chase. It’s about people. Your people are not here. Your roots are not here.” He reached over and touched his son’s hand, which was fisted in his lap. “So much anger,” he said softly. “I am so very sorry. I thought you’d come to understand. I hoped you’d realize that we did what we did because we loved you.” He gently took Chase’s hand in his and opened it, looking at the palm. “Your hand is like mine.” He put his own hand open next to Chase’s palm. “See?” Both hands were tanned and callused, both palms had similar line patterns. “We are the same blood. Nothing will ever change that.” He put his hand on Chase’s hand, holding it to his chest. “It doesn’t make any sense to uproot your mother and sister and brother and bring them here to Kenya. What makes sense is that you come to join your family again. All over the world, families are reuniting. Taking care of each other. That’s what families do.”

  “I have a family here,” Chase said, but his words held no conviction.

  “You know that’s not true, even as you say it,” his father said gently. “You’re not a Maathai. You’re not Kenyan, you’re not Kikuyu.” He smiled. “And I hate to break it to you, but you’re not black.”

  Chase glowered and pulled away his hand. “So what. That’s not important.”

  Jack shrugged. “I think you’ll find that it is. This is not your family. This is not even your adopted family. You’re a refugee, and this was never meant to be your home forever.”

  They sat in silence for long moments. Finally Jack said, “We have plenty of time to talk about this and think about it. I want you to know that I respect your position. You have the right to decide your own future. Ultimately, I just want your happiness, Chase.”

  Pretty hard to argue with that, Chase thought. He’s good at this. Always was.

  In the far distance, the lions began their chorus, announcing the end of the day.

  “Listen to that!” Jack said. “How close are they?”

  “Not very. It’s a small pride, and they live in a rocky kopje at the edge of Maathai lands.”

  “Have you ever seen them up here, by the cabin?”

  “Some spoor, is all. It’s Africa. There are lions.” He said it with some pride and mixed disdain.

  After listening to them roar for a few minutes, Chase got to his feet and shouldered his rifle. “Time to get back.”

  Jack was quick to follow him off the porch. “Will we get back before dark?”

  Chase turned his head so his father wouldn’t see his smile. “Oh, probably.”

  That night, Chase lay in his old bed, reading the letters from his mother and Miranda. They were doing their best to persuade him to come home; he did his best to put their words into the same box where he kept their memories and then lock it up and tuck it away. Down the hall, he knew his father slept in Baako’s bed. Or tried to. He rolled over and pulled the sheet over him. He was not going to go down that hall.

  The next day, Chase took his father in the jeep over the Maathai lands, showing him the algafuel station, the py fields, and out onto the plains to see some zebra, giraffe, and wildebeest herds. Jack was delighted with the short game ride and impressed with the algafuel, inspecting the system closely. He asked, “How long did it take you to build this?”

  “Just a few days, really. What took the longest was figuring out the right mix of water and algae and sunlight. That, and how many distillations it needed.” He knew what was coming next.

  “You know we’ve got all the river water and sunshine we’d need to duplicate this system in Georgia. You could do this there, couldn’t you?”

  Chase shrugged. “Probably. It’s not high-tech. But you could do it, too. The plans have been online for a year or more. Just build it yourself. Isn’t the military doing this in America?”

  “I guess. There might be farms all over the country doing it. But I just haven’t seen it up close before.”

  “Yeah. Americans are probably just trying to get the old systems up and running. Get those watts rolling out. Right back to normal. When what they should be doing is setting up massive algafarms all over the country.”

  “When did you get so anti-American?”

  “I’m not anti-American, I’ve just learned that there are plenty of other ways to do things, that’s all. If everybody just goes back to the same-old, same-old, what was the point of all this? All the deaths? Did you ever sit down and question some of the basic premises of your country?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, is a cash economy necessarily a good thing? Is it a good thing that a man spends his life working fifty hours a week to buy stuff that he doesn’t need, when he could work for himself on his own land and feed his family just fine and barter his excess for whatever he can’t grow or make himself? Capitalism isn’t the highest point of man’s evolution, you know.”

  “Oh? What is?”

  “Maybe just cooperation. Like the clans here in Africa. Or the ants. They’ll still be here when every human being on the planet is extinct.”


  “Sounds like communism.”

  Chase grimaced. “That’s just another ‘ism’. I’m not interested in any of it. But I do know that life’s a lot simpler here in Kenya.”

  * * *

  It was the day before Jack’s departure. Peter would drive Chase and Jack to Nairobi, put Jack on the plane, and then they’d bring Baako back for the holidays. Jack and Chase sat on the cabin porch. Already, they’d formed the habit of spending much of the day there, Jack helping to make small improvements, working on the finish details. Together, they had started to clear the land behind the cabin in preparation for the crops which would go in after the worst heat of summer and right before the short rains.

  “I understand your feelings more now, Chase.” Jack was sharpening a chisel on a whetstone. “But I’m asking you to consider coming home, just for a visit. Your mother needs to see you, your sister misses you, and you should at least meet your baby brother. Just a visit.”

  Chase considered that proposal for a moment. He studied his father. A wave of yearning came over him, as he thought of his mother. It was harder to hold onto his anger with his father sitting there next to him, harder to remember why he was so full of fury in the first place. It was true, he’d been safe. He’d turned out alright. If he decided to forgive, he could. If he decided that there was nothing to forgive, he could take that stance as well. “How would I get back?”

  “Several choices. Ships are coming here now from America again, I’m sure we could get you a berth easily enough. There’ll be more flights to Nairobi. I promise we’ll work it out. Just come and see your family again, and then we’ll get you back to Kenya when you’re ready.”

  It was a trap, of course, Chase didn’t delude himself. But it made sense. Hard to say no to a father’s request for a visit. Just a visit.

  “Don’t make me beg you like a child,” Jack said softly. “I’m the father. I’m your father. Let me stay your father, okay?”

  He could scarcely bear to meet his eyes. He turned the request over in his mind repeatedly until it tired him out. “Okay,” he said, more casually then he felt. “Just for a visit.”