How Beautiful We Were(19)

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ON THE THIRD DAY OF the Pexton men’s captivity, Yaya is taking a nap, and I’m sitting with Mama and Juba in the parlor. We are eating when we hear it, the sound of an engine over the noise of our chewing, something chugging down the narrow road from Gardens.

It’s a sound neither loud nor bothersome, but it needn’t be to be noticeable, because ours is a small village, too little for noises of certain sorts to find hiding places. Even with the oil field nearby, cars seldom arrive in Kosawa, for there is nothing past us, nothing but trees and grass as far as one can travel, which is why the sound of an approaching vehicle is enough to make us pause and change the direction of conversations, speculating on who’s in the car and what they’ve come for.

The food in my mouth turns to garbage.

I look at Mama. Don’t just sit there, I want to scream at her. Stand up. Lock the doors. Lock the windows. Do the triple knot you did the night of the meeting.

Yaya ambles out of her bedroom. She looks at us and walks to the veranda. We all stand up and follow her outside, palm oil from my food dripping down my fingers.



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The men of Kosawa are coming out of their huts. They have nothing in their hands as they move toward the car—no machetes, no spears. Bongo is probably at Lusaka’s hut, likely discussing the minutiae of the anticipated conversation with the soldiers. But shouldn’t a conversation with soldiers involve weapons? I’m tempted to ask one of our neighbors this as he rushes to the square. I want to tell him that he’s forgetting something—he and the other men can’t go out to meet soldiers empty-handed even if they’re hoping for a polite conversation—but as more men come rushing past our hut toward the square without weapons, none of them with the countenance of men about to collide with their doom, some of them chatting and laughing with one another, slapping each other’s backs and rubbing their own bellies to show how well their wives had just fed them, I decide a new form of madness has descended upon the men of Kosawa.

What did Jakani and Sakani do to them right after the village meeting? The twins were supposed to prepare them for the soldiers’ arrival and everything that would ensue, but it seems that, somehow, whatever ritual they did had the reverse effect.

Mama and the other mothers step off their verandas after the men disappear from sight. They whisper, holding toddlers by the hand, babies on their hips and backs. In silence, they start walking toward the square. Though confused, we children follow our mothers, for, surely, they wouldn’t ever lead us to doom. We walk in twos and in threes. I inhale, I exhale, half unable, half unwilling to envision the scene we’ll find at the square.



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The soldiers are out of their car by the time we arrive. They survey us as we approach. They assess the mango tree under which Konga isn’t napping. Where is Konga? I’d asked Mama, but she’d said that no one knows; no one has seen him since the night of the village meeting. He had sent around word for all the men of the village to meet him in front of Jakani and Sakani’s hut, but he never showed up there, leaving the twins to preside over the rest of whatever happened that night, things we’ll never know.



The soldiers look around at the square—at the dusty front yards and slanted thatch roofs of the huts that surround it; at the paths diverging from it; at the powdered earth rising as Yaya and other grandmothers and grandfathers approach with hands gripping canes, walking at the pace of toddlers, none of them in any rush for life or death.



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I’d imagined there would be at least half a dozen soldiers, but there are only two, both dressed in uniforms of green with patches of red and black. One of the soldiers has hair sprouting out of his chin like a he-goat; the other one has cheeks that jiggle like the belly of a well-loved pig. They look neither angry nor happy, simply like men who’ve stopped by to pick up something of little significance on their way to somewhere important.

I see Bongo walking up to the soldiers as the village settles around them.

Bongo offers a hand in greeting. He says something to the soldiers, too faint for anyone else to hear. The soldiers nod. Bongo points toward Woja Beki’s house. The soldiers nod again and smile. I can’t conceive what Bongo could be saying to make the soldiers smile, or how he could will himself to say something smile-worthy to them after what the government has done to Papa. It also makes no sense to me why the rest of the fathers and uncles and grandfathers and older brothers are smiling. I look at my friends, and they all appear as baffled as I am, though, gradually, the looks on our faces change to smiles—nothing seems wiser for us to do in the moment than to join in the smiling. A smile that does not originate from my heart hurts my mouth, but I know I must join in and do my part. We had been taught to do this in school, to follow the leader, and being that Bongo is our leader in that moment, the sides of our lips rise as if pulled up by strings from the sky. Everyone in the square is likely thinking along the same lines, because soon all of Kosawa is smiling alongside the inaudible conversation. Perhaps a few of the smiles are real, but I doubt it—all around me teeth are exposed but eyes are wide open.



Consumed by upholding our grins, we don’t wonder what the next step in the game might be until we look to our right and see Woja Beki walking toward the square, two of the young men who had dragged him to Lusaka’s hut on the night of the village meeting on either side of him. Woja Beki is smiling, the young men are smiling as their steps lock with his, Bongo’s smile broadens, the soldiers smile on, everyone acting cheerful for reasons no one knows except those who started this lethal game.