How Beautiful We Were(68)

It’s not only the cold that baffles me. This is a place where people stand in lines for everything, those who arrived first standing at the front, no one paying attention to who is oldest or neediest. The faces are of so many colors; sometimes, when I look past the colors, I swear I see a young man who looks like one of you, and it makes me happy. Yesterday, I saw this woman—she had the same smooth, skinny legs with feet pointed in opposite directions as Old Bata. Seeing such things brings me great joy. I wish it happened more often. There are afternoons when I remain in my room for hours because the thought of the distance between here and home is more than I can bear. In my bed, with my eyes closed, there is no distance. But then I rise and I remind myself that I did not come here to wish for what I’d left behind. I came here to find what I’m searching for, and I get it every day, in my classes, and in the books I’m reading, and in a meeting of students who believe they must do something about the things they cannot accept. It is there I’ve made some friends. Together we talk about what we must do for our peoples.





Some of my friends come from far away too and are as lost in this city as I am, even though they’ve been here for three, four years. Some of them are from America. They left their towns and came here to be lost and to be found, because there’s no better place to feel as if you belong, and yet feel terribly alone, than New York. It’s a sad feeling, wanting to be part of a strange, new world, while looking at it from a distance, watching those who’ve conquered it walk with high shoulders. Sometimes I take a bus from school to see what the rest of the city looks like. I look out the bus window at happy children and trash cans stuffed with the wastes of people with little time to spare. There’s a great deal of speed over here; everyone seems to need to be somewhere sooner than is possible.





The roads here all have names, and the houses have numbers. I laughed when I first saw it—I couldn’t imagine why we would ever need to put numbers on our huts. The names of streets are written on green boards, perhaps for the benefit of newcomers like me, those who need signs to help them navigate the city so that they may one day find their way out of it. The people around me seem to have no appreciation for this distinct orderliness of their world. I’ve never yearned for such order, since we have no need of it, but now that I see it—houses built in straight lines, streets as parallel as bamboo poles, everything with a name, days structured from sunrise to sunset—I recognize it as beautiful in its own way.





There’s also a river here, running along the city’s east side and past its southern tip. On the riverbanks are tree-shaded benches on which sit men lacking homes and women hoping for husbands, and people like me, gazing at the water. It is to this river that I go when I long for the quietude one can only get from the place of one’s birth. It is where I’m sitting as I write this to you.





I must go back to my room now. The schoolwork here is harder than we had in Lokunja, but it’s good for me. In a class I’m taking we’re studying one of my uncle’s books that I loved, the one called The Wretched of the Earth. I’m rereading my old copy and finally understanding it, thanks to all the lectures and class discussions. What this man has to say about what people in our situation ought to do, I’m in awe of it—my friends and I spend hours dissecting his ideas. I hope all Kosawa children will one day read this book; it’s a whole new way of thinking. Tomorrow a friend is taking me to a meeting. It’s in a part of the city called the Village, but my friend says that this Village is nothing like Kosawa. I’m fine with that—to be in a place named for the sort of place I’m from is enough.





Thank you for continuing to take care of my mother and Juba and Yaya. I know you do it not for me but from the goodness of your hearts, but I thank you still. When you reply to this letter, please ask my mother if there’s anything she would like to say to me that she wouldn’t be comfortable dictating for the Cute One to write down. I don’t think she has anything to say to me that she can’t say to him, but I don’t want her to ever worry that she can’t tell me certain things. I know that you will relay to me honestly, and completely, all the news that I need to know.





Have there been any births since I left? Marriages? My welcome in this place has been good, and while I won’t stay here a day longer than I need to, I’m glad I’m here now. Every day I learn new things. I don’t know how, but I’m convinced this knowledge I’m acquiring will do something for our people.





I’ll always be one of us,





Thula





What gladness her letter brought us. We could see, even on paper, that America was changing her. She was using more words, allowing us into what was going on behind her eyes. Perhaps being surrounded by friends who were like her in ways we weren’t had set her free to talk about things she couldn’t in Kosawa. Perhaps living alone had created in her a longing to talk more. Whatever the case, she could no longer be the inscrutable Thula we knew if she hoped to survive the life of an outsider. No matter the cost, the time had come for her to let in the world if she hoped to return home with what she sought.



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