How Beautiful We Were(20)
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“Our dear soldiers,” Woja Beki calls out as he hurries toward the front. “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting.”
The soldier with the piglike cheeks shrugs and keeps on smiling.
“How can I waste the time of important men whose jobs don’t allow them even two minutes to spare?” Woja Beki continues. “I’m truly sorry, my dear soldiers. I was visiting a friend, and before I knew it I fell asleep in his house. Fortunately, these fine young men woke me up. They tell me that you’ve come looking for the Pexton men? Is it true what I’m hearing, that they haven’t been seen since they left our village?”
Both of the soldiers nod.
“I’m shocked to hear this. How can it be possible, when they left three days ago? This is absolutely unbelievable. I can’t…I’m just…I have no words. None of this makes any sense. Please, let’s go to my house so we can talk about it,” he says, as he gestures in the direction of his house. “I’m glad my people have been keeping you company, but it’ll be better if we can speak in private, don’t you think?”
The soldiers nod again and turn around to follow Woja Beki.
“If you don’t mind, my dear soldiers, I’m going to bring along these three young men to serve as witnesses to everything I say,” Woja Beki says, as he gestures at Bongo and the two men who just escorted him to the square. “You must understand, a man in my position needs witnesses before he opens his mouth, lest his words be distorted.”
The soldiers look at each other and shrug again, which makes me wonder if they’ve been sent to do nothing but nod and shrug. Looking at them and their air of nonchalance, I realize the men of Kosawa were not unwise to leave their weapons at home—there’ll be no need for spears and machetes in today’s proceedings. The soldiers have guns, holstered on their right hips, but they look nothing like men who possess any knowledge of, or interest in, pulling out the guns, never mind using them on us.
We remain standing in the square as Woja Beki and the five men walk away. Woja Beki’s voice is vibrant as he unleashes words he hasn’t had a chance to use in days, speaking so fast his sentences have no pause between them. “My shock is so great dear soldiers but we’ll sit down and my wives will make us a good meal and we’ll put our heads together and try to figure out where the men could be because there’s no way men can vanish going from one place to another and I can tell you that in all my years I’ve heard no such story and believe me when I tell you that I’ve heard every sort of story there is to hear and my people standing over there will swear that the men got into their car with their driver and left after the meeting and the men said they were going home and I woke up the next morning and pictured them eating the breakfast their wives had prepared for them before going to their offices but you’ve come here to tell me that no one has seen them since that day and I can never understand how it’s even possible….”
After the group disappears behind a hut to take the path that leads to Woja Beki’s house, my friends and I turn to each other, befuddled. What is Woja Beki doing here? Why is he speaking on our behalf? Is he no longer our enemy?
I look at our men. They wear no confusion, only satisfaction, because, clearly, what they wanted to happen is happening, and even if their children do not understand it, their plan is working, and as long as the Spirit remains benevolent, victory will be theirs.
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We don’t know how long we’ll be waiting for Bongo and the others to return from Woja Beki’s house, so my friends and I decide to make ourselves comfortable in case our wait stretches for hours. Waiting has become us—we’ve been waiting for one thing or another since the day we were born; what is one more wait of a few hours compared with a lifetime of waiting? Grandmothers and grandfathers, leaning on their canes, ask us to run back home and fetch their stools. Mothers ask daughters to bring back mats for them to place under the mango tree so they can sit and stretch their legs; also balls for toddlers to play with, to keep their boredom at bay. Older sisters and younger aunts who had hurried to the square with babies balanced on their hips, some of the babies naked except for the napkins tied around their buttocks, ask their little sisters and nieces to bring an outfit for the baby, and a banana, too, in case the baby gets hungry, and also the straw baby-carrier.
The children of Kosawa run off in every direction. I return with a stool for Yaya and a cup of water for Juba, but most of my friends return with baskets containing assorted items, for they share a hut with parents and multiple siblings and aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents, huts to which their families add rooms with every new marriage so newlyweds can have space to share with their future children, and grandparents can keep their bedrooms, and unmarried aunts and older sisters and female cousins can have a room of their own while waiting to be plucked by a man, and unmarried uncles and older brothers and any other male relatives can be in the back rooms with separate entrances, no one ever needing to leave home unless they choose to.
Mama and the other mothers, having made themselves comfortable on the mats beneath the mango tree, whisper among themselves. Our oldest grandparents lean close to speak into each other’s ears. Some of my friends’ older sisters, girls who recently exited childhood and now walk around with the glow of new womanhood, exchange coy glances with boys who’ve decided they’re no longer boys and are thus ready to prove they can do to a woman everything a man can. Eyeing the giggling girls, the soon-to-be men lick and pucker the lips on which stand countable strands of hair until a parent notices them looking at each other in a way people aren’t allowed to look at each other unless they’re ready to have babies, at which point the shameless adolescents turn their eyes away from each other and pretend that the only thing on their minds is the fate of Kosawa.