How Beautiful We Were(80)

Manga told me that Sonni said the overseer’s house was as cold as well water in the rainy season. It had white carpet all over, and more chairs than any one house could possibly need. Three men from the district office were there. When everyone had been seated in the parlor, Sonni was given one task only—to make sure that the vandals from his village stopped what they were doing; otherwise, Kosawa would have a lot to regret. But did the young men listen when Sonni brought back the message? No. They insisted that they didn’t know what Sonni was talking about, that they’d never done anything at Gardens, that Pexton had enemies all over the world, it could be anyone.

Nobody believed these children—their intentions were evident in the ashes. Two of them had recently gotten married; their wives went to their new fathers and cried and pleaded for them to ask their sons to stop getting out of bed in the middle of the night to look for trouble. What could the fathers do? Their sons were grown men, with ownership of their own lives. My husband liked to say a man’s feet can never stand on his head, but these children, they reminded the elders that, though that might be so, the feet could go wherever they wanted, and there was nothing the head could do except come along.



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Pexton recently hired armed watchmen, but that only seems to serve as an enticement of sorts to these children. Today it’s a pipeline break. Tomorrow it’s a fire. Two months ago, they waylaid and beat a laborer walking along the big river in the darkness; a supervisor came to speak to Sonni, because the laborer had been so pulped he needed to be taken to Bézam for treatment. The laborer hadn’t seen any faces: his attackers were wearing masks. When questioned, the young men swore they had been in their huts.

Sonni has held meeting after meeting to beg for an end to the destruction. Sometimes these young men don’t even attend village meetings; Sonni’s pleas mean nothing to them. Their mothers have implored them to stop; they’ve threatened to walk around the village naked so everyone can shame their sons for caring nothing for their mothers’ dignity. Some fathers have said they’ll bring out the umbilical-cord bundle. No parents have yet carried out their threats—aren’t we all suffering enough from our collective curse?

In one of the village meetings, the Sweet One and the Cute One begged the young men to find other ways of expressing their anger; they encouraged them to write a letter to the government, tell the government how afraid they are for their futures.

The young men laughed in their faces; they don’t care what anyone who does not share their zeal has to say. They say Sonni is an old man, and that neither the Sweet One nor the Cute One is one of us. They believe Kosawa is theirs, their heritage. They say it’s their duty to fight for its restoration any way they want. But where has all the burning and breaking gotten them? Has Pexton picked up and left? Will they ever?



* * *





EVERYTHING GOT WORSE LAST MONTH, when a child in Gardens disappeared. The soldiers were here before dawn. They went from hut to hut and dragged out every male from the age of ten, barking at them to sit on their verandas and not dare take a step. I heard mothers and wives crying out for mercy, saying their men were innocent. Before I could scream for Juba to run, the soldiers were banging at our door. Sahel opened it. They shoved her aside and pulled out Juba as he screamed. From my bed, my hands stretched out. I cried, “Juba, Juba, please don’t hurt him, he’s only a child, he’s a good boy.” Did anyone hear me? Stand up, and run to the square, the soldiers shouted. The boys and men began running. Women ran alongside their sons and husbands. I could single out Sahel’s voice, pleading for her only son’s sake.



In the square, Sahel later told me, the soldiers made all of the boys and men kneel down and clasp their hands on their heads. The soldiers pointed guns at the backs of their skulls and asked for the whereabouts of the missing child. No one said a word. They asked again. No response. If the males remained quiet, the soldiers said, they would start shooting. Sonni, made to kneel alongside all the others, finally spoke. In his trembling voice, he told the soldiers that no one in Kosawa knew anything about this child, that he was telling the truth. He swore on his mother’s grave. A soldier walked over to him and put a gun to his temple. Sonni closed his eyes, his hands still clasped on his head. His lips quivered as he struggled to prevent the entire village from seeing him cry. He swore to the soldiers that if he got any information about the child’s whereabouts he would come to Lokunja. The soldiers asked him to swear again, on the graves of all of his ancestors. His father, my brother, old as he was, he was kneeling too, beside his son—the soldiers had deemed him strong enough to commit a crime, even though he walked with a cane. Sonni swore three times, louder every time. His own son was kneeling not too far from him—the son who was one of the young men heaping this new tribulation upon Kosawa.

The soldiers, guns still pointed, told everyone in the square to consider their ways. They said that if they deemed it necessary they would gun down every living thing in the village, babies and animals included, and no one would lay a hand on them.



They got into their cars and left.

Sonni pulled himself up. He was shaking.

“Why?” he shouted, looking at the young men beside him, his arms flung wide in frustration. “Why are you doing this to your own people? Haven’t we suffered enough? We’re so close to putting an end to all this and having the peace we’ve long been waiting for. Why ruin our chances when we have good people in America fighting for us?”