by Imbolo Mbue
Think about it, Pexton isn’t acting alone. They only have power over us because our government gave them power over us. The government gave them our land. The government sent the soldiers that afternoon. The government hanged our men. If we were to get Pexton to leave, wouldn’t the government return in another form to continue smothering us? Which means that our ultimate enemy is not Pexton, it’s our government. That is not to say we shouldn’t take a stand against Pexton, it only means we need to take a stand against the government too. I know this is going to sound outrageous, you’ll probably think it’s far beyond our capacity, but what if we started a movement to bring down His Excellency’s government? What if we were to send a message to Bézam that we won’t take it anymore?
I believe we can do it. We may be the only village breathing air poisoned by Pexton, but their pipelines pass through other villages and spill in them too. Soldiers are menacing innocents everywhere. The entire country is suffering under the yoke of His Excellency. Millions want him gone. That’s an opportunity right there. We can join forces with people who are as ready for change as we are. Rouse them to get out on the streets and demand a new country. I’ve studied such movements; they have happened in America and Europe. People have gone out onto streets and changed their countries by marching. It’ll likely take us months or even years to get multitudes of people marching, but with proper planning, we can do it.
We’ll start in Kosawa and the sibling-villages and travel as far across the country as we can. I’m confident that, once word starts spreading, people will start realizing that they don’t have to accept anything, they have choices, they can do something about their government. That’ll be the most crucial element for the movement, because only the people can uproot His Excellency. Only the people can free themselves. We need to open their eyes to their power.
Do you agree with me? I desperately hope that you do, as I’ve been musing on this idea for years, but it’s only now that I have total certainty that the Spirit has called for me to do it, for us to do it together.
I’ve discussed my vision with my friends here, and they’re excited about it. We’ve talked about past movements and the lessons I could gather from them. They’ve recommended books for me to read. One of them introduced me to his uncle, a man who was involved in a movement in America that led to the passage of laws that gave everyone in the country the right to be treated equally. The uncle said to me: if it can happen here, it can happen there; humans are mortal and so are the systems they build. Then, in a manner that reminded me of Teacher Penda trying to demonstrate how Americans talk, he added: you gotta never stop believing, baby. Change’s gonna come.
But Austin, whenever I discuss my ideas with him, tells me that I need to ignore the history of movements in Europe and America and instead closely study such efforts in countries that resemble mine.
What you’re proposing isn’t a small movement, he said, it’s a revolution.
Movement, revolution, I don’t care what it’s called, my country needs it, I replied.
But look at what revolutions have done to countries all around yours, princess, he countered. Look to the south of your country, a land where power once lay in the hands of a few. Good men rose up and fought so that wealth might be spread evenly. Did it happen so? Didn’t wealth simply pass from the hands of a few to a new set of hands of a few? Look at the country to the east of yours, where rebels stormed the presidential palace with guns given to them by their overseas backers. They desecrated the palace, sent its inhabitants into hiding. They put bullets in the chest of the man who for long had trampled upon them. They lifted their guns and cheered their new freedom: victory at last, victory at last. What happened next? Didn’t tribes turn against tribes, villages against villages, no strong man between them to force a peaceful accord? Look at how the children of that country are now wasting for scarcity of food. Look at how the women there have been turned into slaves for men who once fought for the liberation of all. If you were to ask these people, would they sing the praises of a revolution?
What makes you think your revolution will produce different results? he says. Why add to people’s woes with a pursuit that’s all but bound to fail?
It hurts when he says such things. It hurts more to know he’s saying it to keep me in America. I see the desperation in his eyes when he holds me and tells me that he can’t let me go. We’ve been together for almost eight years. It’s been wonderful, but he’s known from the very beginning that the part of my heart that belongs to Kosawa belongs to Kosawa only, though if any man could steal it, it would be him. I don’t allow myself to think of the day I’ll say goodbye to him. Just listening to him trying to dissuade me in an effort to protect me, wrong as I know he is, causes my tears to build up. But I can’t shed any tears. There will be no tears until the struggle is over.
I know what I’m suggesting in this letter sounds like a mission that will consume the remainder of our lives, but I’m willing to dedicate my life to it if you are. We might not live to see the day Kosawa or our country comes out of its darkness into light, but we’ll forge forward believing, because there’s no other way to live.
* * *
—
There’s no other way to live, we wrote back to her.
What she was suggesting indeed sounded daunting, we said, but we’d rather fight and die than live as cowards. We would follow her and trust that whatever plan she had in mind would give us new lives—that was why she had gone to America, to bring back for our benefit what she had learned. We cautioned her that it was unlikely people across the country would share her enthusiasm for toppling His Excellency, not wanting to call his wrath upon their towns and villages, but we wouldn’t know until we spoke to them.
In her response, she said that she’d learned from Austin to focus not on what was or what might be but on what is. Still, she admitted that she had moments when she thought about her father and her uncle and all those whom Kosawa had lost, and she couldn’t help being afraid that our village might lose many more before this was all over. But the memory of our departed also gave her strength. She said:
Last week, Austin read me an essay he’d written as homage to men like my father and my uncle. In it, he spoke of how brave men were falling all over the world, the sacrifices of their lives going to waste as new forms of greed and recklessness overtake the old ones. What will become of those who rise to take the place of the likes of my father and my uncle? Flickers of progress are brightening lives in isolated corners of the world, yes, but a universal solution eludes us.
As much as Austin and I argue on how best to free ourselves and those around us, we agree on everything else. We agree that too many humans are losing awareness of their true nature, leading the most rapacious of us to see the rest as feasts to be devoured. I am consoled, and further broken, by what I’ve seen in America, by the awareness that Kosawa is only one of thousands of places to be so thoroughly overcome; that places mightier than us have been broken far more severely. I still attend meetings in the Village every week, and at every meeting we ask ourselves: What do we do now? What do we do after we’ve done all we can and seen no change? What will our children do after they’ve done what they can and failed, just as our fathers failed before us?
Austin won’t stop begging me to stay in America. He says I could make money and send it to you. He thinks it might actually be better if we sold Kosawa to Pexton. How can he understand? Money will do what it can, but what we want isn’t just to be left alone. What we want is to own our lives and strut like the sons and daughters of leopards that we are.
* * *
—
After we received that letter, whenever we thought of her words and her belief that we had every right to dignity and respect, our chests puffed out and our shoulders went high. Later that month, the entire village echoed her when we all gathered to celebrate the rite of passage of a genera
tion of boys entering manhood.
The manhood passage was always one of our favorite celebrations, because it reminded us of who we were as a people and the kind of life we were created to live. We laughed whenever we reminisced about the night before our passage, when we were taken deep into the forest by male relatives and left there. Some of our age-mates had tried to follow their relatives back home, and the relatives had whipped them and threatened to tie them to a tree. None of us were allowed to return home till the sun rose. We spent all night calling each other’s names amid inexplicable noises and smells, struggling to find one another in the darkness, scared we’d step on a snake or a scorpion. Those of us who found friends huddled with them against a tree, shivering; we weren’t allowed to take a blanket, though the rituals always took place in the rainy season. If we couldn’t find a friend, we climbed on trees for safety, or sat up all night hugging ourselves, too scared to lie down alone. By morning, we were covered with mosquito bites but proud that we’d proved ourselves fearless. Walking to the village, laughing, we interrupted each other and shouted to be heard, eager to share our tales of survival.
We returned to the village to the sounds of our mothers’ cheering, though they had no reason to fear that we wouldn’t return—no Kosawa boy had ever failed to return to the village the night before the celebration. Still, the drums beat hard, and aunts and older sisters sweated in the kitchen as they cooked. But we couldn’t eat yet. We couldn’t hug our mothers. We weren’t even allowed to go to our huts. We were ushered directly to the square by our fathers and the elders. There, we sat on mats under the mango tree. We were not allowed to move or to speak, because manhood would require us to practice stillness. Only hand gestures were allowed if we needed to go use the toilet, after which we returned to our sitting position, hungry and cold. We sat there all morning and afternoon, until the hour the village was ready to commence the celebration.
Our last test began after all of Kosawa, plus friends and relatives from the sibling-villages, had gathered around us, a crowd of hundreds.
Every eye on us, we stripped down naked to walk on hot coals.
We had to take forty steps across the coals, displaying no shame or agony, because as men we would need to hold our heads high despite the world’s gaze, and channel our pain wisely. Our fathers had advised us to walk fast on the coal, but when the time came, few of us could; most of us ground our teeth with every step, and at least a couple of us leaked urine. At the completion of this test, our mothers and other female relatives wrapped loincloths around us, and our fathers and other male relatives carried us home, where our burnt soles were cleaned and bandaged after we took a bath.
When we returned to the square, dressed in red, it was to the sound of the village anthem, everyone dancing and singing: Sons of the leopard, daughters of the leopard, beware all who dare wrong us, never will our roar be silenced.
Before the eating and drinking began—the part we’d been dreaming of all night in the forest and all day sitting in silence—we knelt before the elders. They laid their hands on our heads, poured libations, and anointed us the next generation of leopards. When we arose after the anointing was when we entered manhood. We knew, though, because our fathers had told us, that the rite of passage alone did not make us men. We knew we would only become men the day we became responsible for other lives, when we acquired wives and had children and looked at them and realized we were worth nothing if we couldn’t give them everything. Now that we were men, we repeated this often to the younger generation, that the rite of passage was merely the door being opened for them to enter manhood—they would need to remind the world over and over of the blood of the leopard within them; otherwise, they’d be forever boys.
When we told Thula about the latest ceremony’s success, she was stupefied that babies she’d carried around the village had now entered manhood. “I’m glad I’m coming back soon,” she said. “I don’t want to return and discover my friends are grandparents.” In that letter, which was her final correspondence from America, she told us of an impromptu farewell party her friends had thrown for her, how her friends had made her cry as they spoke about all the adventures they’d had together, the places they’d traveled across America. For most of the letter, though, she told us about her own recent passage:
Two days ago I went to Austin’s apartment to have dinner with him. We had decided that it would be best if we stopped talking about the fact that I’m leaving in three months, better we just enjoy ourselves as if we’d always be together. Sometimes we succeeded, but I could tell from his sullen demeanor the moment I entered his apartment that it wouldn’t be so that day. While we were eating the fried ripe plantains with beans and mushroom stew he’d learned how to make in Bézam, he took my right hand and told me that he had to tell me something.
Princess, he said. I’m dying.
I scanned his face, words refusing to leave my tongue.
What do you mean, you’re dying? I asked him finally.
I’m dying, he said again. I don’t know when, I don’t know what my cause of death will be, but today, tomorrow, next week, next year, I’ll be dead.
What’s going on? I said. Were you at the doctor’s? He shook his head. My heart quieted; I decided he was just in one of his contemplative moods.
Are you writing a story about death that’s upsetting you? I asked.
Every story I write is about death, he said. It dawned on me today that life is death, death is life—what’s the point of it all?
So you’re not sick? I asked him. He shook his head. A drop of water spilled from my eyes, and he wiped it with his free hand.
We sat there for I don’t know how long, looking into each other’s eyes. Water started rushing out of my eyes, I couldn’t understand why. My body felt heavy, fatigued after a turbulent life. And yet I felt an awakening of my spirit. I began sobbing, and Austin started wiping my tears, which made me sob harder.
He said to me: You’re dying too, princess. We’re all dying. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it all week, how close death is. Doesn’t it make you want to change the way you live? It makes me want to. I want to float through life, untethered from human vanities. It’s unbelievable, you know, what a blip our existence is in the infinite expanse of the universe. It’s baffling, so humbling and liberating, don’t you think? We don’t even matter.
He chuckled and lifted my hand to his lips, to kiss the back of it.
You know what I’m realizing? he said. Living is painful. That’s why we so often forget that we’re dying, we’re too busy catering to our pains. I think it’s one of nature’s tricks—it needs us to not dwell on the fact that we’re dying, otherwise we’d spend our days eating low-hanging fruits from trees and splashing around in clear rivers and laughing while our pointless lives pass us by. Nature makes sure that pain awaits us at every turn so that in our eternal quest to avoid it, or rid ourselves of it, we’ll keep on wanting one thing after another and the earth will stay vibrant. We feel pain, we cause pain, a ridiculous endless cycle. All the misery we cause others, what is it but a result of us dumping our pain on them? I don’t want to do it anymore, living my life by the dictates of my pain. This pain I’m feeling at your leaving, I want to channel it into love. I want to love and love and love, no conditions. I could be dead before you get on the plane, I could die tonight. I don’t mean to be macabre, I’m just trying to learn how to hold on to nothing in life. My entire life has been a game of holding on tightly, and wanting to never let go, and yet losing. It’s painful….My mother, today is the anniversary of her death.
That was the first time he told me the date on which she had died.
How could I rebuke him for never sharing it with me when her passing still so deeply grieved him? His father recently had a fall. Austin flew to see him and spent two days with him at the hospital. I think all of that was on his mind, the thought th
at, with his father’s passing and me returning home and His Excellency not wanting him back in our country, he might live and die alone in America.
If my mother were here today, he said, she would tell you to just love, and be kind to everyone. That’s what she used to say to me every day, and I saw her practicing it. I saw how she smiled at everyone. She smiled even when the weather was cold. She smiled when people in stores stared at her because she didn’t look and talk like them. When her time came, she died with a smile on her face. These past years, the world has tried to tell me that there’s a better way to live; I should act on my pain, because people like my mother are misguided. The world is wrong.
I spent that night at his apartment, sleep elusive, my mind unquiet. It was as if I was living through one of those dreadful nights of our childhood, only this time I wasn’t afraid of death, I was just hyperaware of it, listening to it say to me, I’m coming for you, Thula, get ready. It all forced me to consider: What if Austin is right about life being an endless cycle of feeling pain and causing pain? I don’t want to partake in such a cycle anymore either. All night, I couldn’t stop asking myself: Is our fight against Pexton driven by pain, or by love? Could it be driven by love? Should it?
Yesterday, back in my room, I lay in bed and imagined myself in a space full of beautiful things made of glass. The space was vast, the size of Kosawa. There was nothing in it but me and plates and trays and glasses and vases, colors of every kind, adorned with flowers, row after row of priceless, breakable things. I yearned to break them. I closed my eyes and screamed. I began running around the room. Pulling things off shelves. Smashing them on the floor. Flinging them against the wall. Kicking them. Crying as I broke them. I toppled the shelves. Destroyed until there was nothing left in that room but me and my brokenness. I then sat against a wall and wept until my head ached and my cheeks felt numb. I dried my eyes. I stood up and saw a broom in a corner. I swept the pieces out of the room. There, they dissolved into nothing. I closed the door and I was alone in the empty room. I started crying again, but this time I wasn’t just crying. I was crying and dancing, then just dancing, laughing, my joy abundant.
