How Beautiful We Were(67)

Pondo said no more on the matter, not even when gossip began leaping from hut to hut about how Manga and Sonni had visited some men late at night to convince them that Pondo was too old to lead us. Pondo was realizing, perhaps, that the village now belonged to the young, the old would soon depart, why argue against that? But if the Spirit were to be merciful, he might live long enough to see the day of our restoration.



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WE SPOKE ABOUT IT DAILY, from the time we were seventeen, about the day we would repay Pexton in full. On verandas and in the village square and on our way to the forest, we spoke of what we would do to the Pexton people. What we would do to His Excellency. We fantasized about burning down buildings at Gardens, killing laborers, acquiring guns and going to Bézam and killing high-level government people. Such thoughts soothed us, the mere idea that we could make them fear us. We kept these fantasies to ourselves, for, though our heartache was no greater than everyone else’s, we knew that, unlike us, our families and friends were clinging to the idea that there was no virtue in hurting our enemies. The massacre had so broken the village that Sonni and the elders had decided that our only recourse was to leave ourselves in the hands of the Restoration Movement, believe them when they said that they’d never cease fighting for us. Sonni repeated this during meetings, that help was on the way. But we didn’t want to wait for kindly Americans. We doubted that their hatred for Pexton burned as fiercely as ours did.



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We were talking about such things one evening in early 1988, on the veranda of one of our huts, when Thula came to tell us, with her very own mouth, that she would be going to America in a few months’ time. If anyone else in the eight villages had said it, we would have laughed—Go to America to do what? we would have said—but because it was Thula, and because her countenance did not change after she said it, we did not doubt that it was true, that Thula was going to America, to read even more books. We hooted and hugged her and asked her if she would come back to us with a new skin color. She chuckled, and said that would be impossible.

We sent the news to our friends who had left Kosawa.

They were all there, three days before her departure, when Sonni gathered everyone in the village square, just after sunset, to rejoice for Thula Nangi, our Thula, who was going to America. We roasted three porcupines in an open fire, the women brought trays of fried ripe plantains, the men brought palm wine. All evening long we sang and danced. One of us was going to soar, and someday we’d all soar because of her.

Our fathers and grandfathers took turns pulling Thula aside to tell her what she needed to know about life in America, intelligence that we had no idea how they came upon. Thula listened to all of them, nodding—“Yes, Papa,” “Of course, Big Papa.” When one of them told her never to look directly at the moon in America, for it contained a magic that could shrink her nose and make it hard for her to breathe, she bowed her head and nodded, saying, “I won’t look, Big Papa; I don’t want to ever have a small nose.”



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We couldn’t all get on the bus to Bézam with her—there were not enough seats—but two nights before her departure, we went into her bedroom, the back room of her family’s hut, which used to be her uncle Bongo’s. All of us age-mates who were still alive were there—girls who had become wives and mothers, some with second babies growing inside them; boys on the verge of becoming men who would one day lead Kosawa.

We sat on the bed and the floor and remembered the times we had lived through. We talked about our lives before Wambi died, those days when we used to bathe naked in the rain, when there wasn’t much worth fearing. We mourned Wambi, and all of the others now gone, the latest the month before in childbirth. We went through the list, name by name, story by story, and we dabbed at our tears. Then we laughed about the morning we’d put a dead rat on Teacher Penda’s chair. And all the mischief we’d done. We took turns hugging each other, and hugging Thula as she cried—we’d never seen her so happy and sad at the same time. We sang to her, and she promised us that she would never forget us, though we told her that we didn’t need her to say it, we knew in our hearts that she would take us with her wherever she went. At the night’s end we shared one long hug, as we prayed that we’d someday be together again in Kosawa.



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HER FIRST LETTER TO US arrived three months later. In it, she told us about her flight, how the airplane was much louder and bouncier than our textbooks had suggested. She talked about how the people in the Restoration Movement office had made a welcome meeting for her, in their office—they all wanted to hug her, and she’d hugged them. She said that though the food they’d served had little flavor, she’d been happy to eat with them, to be among people who knew her through the story of her people.



About Great City, she wrote:


I find it hard to imagine that New York City and Kosawa exist on the same earth and that I’ve been in both of them and lived such different lives. If it weren’t for my memories, I’d swear that the previous days of my life were a dream, as there is nothing around me to confirm that I am who I think I am. The cold is enough to make me forget that I’ve ever been warm. What can I compare it to? Imagine being so cold that the hearth in your mother’s kitchen, a bowl of vegetable soup with cubes of smoked meat thrown in, and the laughter of your family are not enough to give you warmth. Every time, before I step outside, I brace myself. One breath and all warmth is gone. I long to run back to Kosawa, but I didn’t come here to flee. I take in the air slowly. I tell myself that, one day, I’ll be warm again.