How Beautiful We Were

by Imbolo Mbue

  I hope the love that dwells today in my heart remains forever, but if it doesn’t, may this letter serve as a testament that there once was a day when all I wanted was for peace to reign. Tomorrow I may wake up in pain with a mind crowded with images of what we’ve suffered, and I may want nothing more than to punish Pexton. I may wish I hadn’t sent you this letter, but it’ll be too late. You may have read my words and decided to join me in freeing Kosawa without causing pain to anyone; without any word, thought, or action that destroys another. You may have vowed never to break or burn again, because you would have come to wonder if I was wrong, if we were all wrong to believe that we could seize freedom through destruction.

  Or maybe you’ll read this letter and toss it into the fire, considering it nothing but the ramblings of a lost woman, wondering why you’d ever given so much credence to my words. I ask you only to search your hearts, ponder the idea of reclaiming our land with the love that flows in our blood.

  I see it clearly as I write this, what we must do. I see us marching to Pexton, singing, dancing in front of soldiers. We may cry, or get angrier, but our fury will be from a place of love for ourselves, for our birthplace. From this love we’ll demand our rights, and we shall win.

  If we should die, let it be that we died for peace.

  I’ll always be one of us,

  Thula

  * * *

  In our response and final letter, we told her it would be better if we discussed what she was suggesting in person. We revered her intelligence, but we recognized her words to be those of a woman about to bid farewell to her beloved, having been so altered she can only speak of love. None of us believed we could win this fight with talks of kindness and singing and dancing. The time for friendliness with our enemies had come and gone.

  One of us had recently been approached by a soldier who whispered to him that he could help us get guns. Guns would allow us to do more than break and burn—they would make Kosawa safer. We had pondered the soldier’s offer and decided that it was an investment worth making. Still, we thought it best to wait and ask Thula for the purchase money in person. That was why we said little to her in our final letter; we merely told her that we’d heard all she’d said and were thankful that she had found peace.

  We confirmed to her that we’d be at the airport to welcome her on the day of her return, and that we’d already told our wives to starch and iron our best outfits. When she visited Kosawa a week after her return, to truly be home again, our friends who had long ago left the village would be there to join us in celebrating her homecoming.

  * * *

  —

  Our wives had already decided who was going to cook what. A couple of goats would be slaughtered, the village square swept. Our children who were born after she left wanted to know everything about her, their Thula. What rejoicing there would be that day in Kosawa.

  And it was, though our joy began sooner than everyone else’s, when, at the airport in Bézam, standing next to her family, we watched her come out through the gates and into our arms. She had left as a seventeen-year-old and was now on the verge of twenty-eight, a woman in years lived but not in looks, for she still looked girlish, her face smooth and free of creases. She was as thin as ever, though the largeness of her eyes was more apparent, her smile bigger and brighter, her hair stringy and long, all of which made her beauty more uncommon and alluring. She cried as she hugged us. Her mother and brother cried. It had been so many years, ten years, a lifetime.

  When she and her family arrived in Kosawa a week later, we beat the drums hard, and Sonni and the elders poured libations, and we all marveled at how she had returned so unlike the girl who had left Kosawa and yet entirely like the girl who had left Kosawa, still in possession of the worst singing voice, but no longer of few words, happier, dancing with the women, playing with the children, free, a bird back in its nest.

  * * *

  We brought up the necessity of acquiring guns on the second day of her visit. It was at night, after one of our wives had fed us and we had moved to the village square so we could be just the six of us, sitting under the mango tree, above which a half-moon looked terribly lonely. A few days before we went to Bézam to welcome her home, we had argued about the best way to present our request to her—as a group or one to one, considering the amount of persuasion that would be needed. Ultimately, we decided to do it together, confident that the transformation she’d written to us about was temporary. How long could she sustain the belief that we could love our way to freedom?

  It didn’t take many minutes for us to realize we’d been mistaken in doubting her.

  There was nothing but conviction in her eyes as she spoke about great men whose lives and works she’d been studying closely, men who had changed their countries without committing acts of destruction or shedding blood. We could do it too, she said, by bringing our enemies to our side, breaking down the wall that stands between them and us, showing them that our children are their children, their children are our children; that was what her father died for, to tell people in Bézam that truth.

  She would have talked till morning if one of us hadn’t interjected to say that, though we agreed with what she was saying—and we’d certainly join her in uniting citizens to oust His Excellency—we also believed that it was time for Kosawa to acquire guns.

  * * *

  —

  Who are you going to kill? she asked after a long silence.

  Only those who seek to hurt us, we said. Soldiers had arrived in Kosawa and slaughtered our families and friends, and we could do nothing. They threatened our lives, and we could do nothing. They had humiliated us countless times in front of our children, and every time we could do nothing to them, because they owned guns and we didn’t. They swaggered into our village, and we had no power to tell them to leave. Didn’t she think that it was only prudent for us to be able to stand up against them in the future?

  She shook her head.

  No, she said. We can’t do it. If we are to stand for peace, we are to stand for peace at all times. How can we speak of making peace with them while planning to kill them?

  We’re not planning to kill them, we said. We won’t resume any attacks on Gardens. We won’t threaten the laborers. The guns will be solely to protect ourselves in the event of another attack. We cannot keep on speaking of peace while we remain defenseless—that would be reckless and absurd. His Excellency and Pexton have no qualms about spilling our blood for their gain; why should we not seek to combat that? We hope the day will never come when we do likewise to them, but we have to be prepared for it.

  We promised her that if she provided the funds for the guns we would do all we could to see her vision of a revolution come true. As soon as she gave us the word, we would start meeting with village heads in our district and nearby districts to listen to the stories of their people’s woes of mudslides caused by government mass deforestation; lands under seizure by decrees; dying children; raping soldiers; schools with collapsed roofs. We would ask the village heads if they wanted to join us to defeat our common enemy. It’s possible some of them would dismiss us after hearing us say that we hoped to bring down His Excellency by marching. We imagine elders laughing in our face and saying: Oh, you young people, you still have the strength to be angry, what a luxury—wait and see how much angrier you’ll be when your teeth start falling out. But we would persist, no matter the ridicules, because we believe, as she does, that victory is possible. Without the guns, though, we couldn’t commit ourselves to her ideals.

  * * *

  —

  Whatever joy she had brought to Kosawa was gone from her face the next morning.

  Still, she forced herself to smile during the meeting she had with the entire village just before she left to return to Bézam to start her government job. Standing in the square, beside Sonni, she told the gathering that the time had come for
us make our final push to save Kosawa. She said she would need everyone to join in the efforts as much as their bodies allowed—the village stood a chance only if we were united. She promised to come back as often as she could.

  After she was done talking, before she got into the car with her mother and brother, our wives and children took turns hugging her. She stooped to receive blessings from the elders, who assured her that they were behind her, the ancestors and the Spirit were behind her, all of Kosawa would add their strength and hope to hers.

  * * *

  She returned for a visit a month later, but she had no response for us about the guns. We got no response the next month either. Eager as we were, we did not pressure her, for it was obvious in her demeanor how torn she was on the matter. The state of Kosawa only compounded her indecision—the graveyard had doubled in size in her absence; a few huts that had once been crowded with families now stood empty and derelict; so much oil had spilled into the big river that the little ones no longer called it the big river, they called it the sad water. Thula did her best not to reveal her despair; it was important to her that the village see her optimism at all times. Repeatedly, she asked everyone to believe. But what use is mere belief? Without us, she could do little for Kosawa. She had the vision and funds, but we had the muscles. Our friends and siblings were fleeing, or praying for miracles, or resigned to whatever fate His Excellency had drawn for them—they all wanted better lives, but none of them were willing to pay the utmost price for it.

  We were the ones who had no fear of death, the ones who recognized that, whether we chose to sit back and do nothing or stand up and fight, we’d end up dead, so why not fight? Sometimes we wondered what it was that separated us from the others, why other men our age with ample vigor were unwilling to risk their lives in pursuit of that which is paramount and just. We could only surmise that it had to be something in our spirits, a thing the Spirit had decided not to give all humans for reasons we didn’t attempt to conjure. But this thing in our spirits, it couldn’t protect us from the agony of waiting, year after year, for our suffering to reach its finale.

  Kosawa had been fighting Pexton since we were children; our land was poisoned even before we were born. Few were the days of our lives that weren’t nestled between oil spills and deafening gas flare roars. Countless were the hours when we spoke of little else but Pexton. We had worried and hoped and gained small victories and endured many losses, yet little was changing. The Kosawa of our dreams remained a mirage. During our student days at Lokunja, our teachers had spoken often about the approaching new millennium, how the world would be different then, and we imagined it would be so, because in the eighties the year 2000 seemed seventy-seven lifetimes away, but now it was only eighteen months away, and instead of strutting into it, we were crawling.

  Only the mercy of the Spirit kept us from losing our resolve, for it gave us reasons to smile in the laughter of our children, the appearance of rainbows that left us in awe, the birth and marriage celebrations that filled Kosawa with gladness in the days before and after, the euphoria on full-moon nights when we took out our drums and our children skipped around the square while the elders cheered and our wives twirled their hips, causing our groins to stiffen.

  At times like these, we thought little of how many years of waiting still lay ahead; we thought mostly of how blessed we were, what boundless promise life bore. Such moments reminded us that, no matter how long the night, morning always comes.

  We thought often, also, of how blessed we were to have Thula.

  We never feared she’d toss her hands in the air, forget about Kosawa, and return to Bézam telling herself that she had done her part and failed. That was never who she was. She had the fortitude of the sun—no matter how dark and thick the clouds, she was confident she could melt them and emerge in full glory.

  * * *

  Six months after her return was when she gave us the money for the guns.

  She did it without ceremony. She simply took out an envelope while we were sitting in one of our huts. In it was the full amount we had requested to buy five powerful guns and sufficient ammunition. She said nothing as we stood up, one after another, stooped next to her, bowed our heads, took her hand in ours, and expressed our gratitude. When she did speak, her tone was stern. She told us that we were not to use the guns without her permission. We were not to use them for anything but the defense of our lives and those of our families and friends. No one was to know that we owned guns until the day it became imperative that we use them. We were never to say she gave us the funds to buy them. If we were to kill anyone with them, may the Spirit be her witness that she never gave us her blessings to take the life of another human. We gave her our word.

  The next morning, one of us went to Lokunja to meet with the soldier who’d approached him about the gun sale. The soldier agreed to get us five guns, though not before making it clear that if the government found out that we had guns we’d be dead. He’d also be dead, he said, and he’d rather not die for our sake; he was merely a broker, doing what he needed to do to supplement his government salary and take care of his family. One mistake from us and he would be ruined. We assured him we’d be careful.

  On the day he brought us the guns, we met him deep in the forest.

  When he took the guns out of his bag, our mouths dropped open in awe. There they were, at last. Smooth-skinned. Perfectly weighted. Blacker than crude. We turned them in our hands. We held them upside down and sideways. We looked at each other, the look of men who in an instant had been born again. The soldier showed us how to use them. How to clean them. How to prevent jams. The magic of the weapons’ telescopic sight. He told us how, with the telescopic sight and suppressor, we could kill from afar, soundlessly, leave no trace of our culpability. We never knew such a thing was possible. The soldier told us his dealer in the neighboring country had personally altered the guns for us; he’d explained our situation. We had the best guns for our money.

  We marveled at how good it felt to hold them. Killing suddenly seemed the most natural thing. Imagine: one pull of the trigger, one less enemy. Four, five bullets in one body; four, five layers of pain shed from our hearts. Their blood spilling, someday no drilling. Their children fatherless, our children free to live. That evening, in the forest, we received our ordination as slaughterers. The Spirit was there. We felt it. The spirit of the Four. The Six. They were there at the moment it dawned on us that the battle would no longer be fought on uneven terms. When our chance arose, and it would, we would slaughter them the way we once feared they’d slaughter us. Soldiers, laborers, His Excellency’s people—how many would we kill? While they remained on our land, would we get tired of killing them? It seemed unimaginable that we, who were once trembling children, had gained the ability to stand supreme over other mortals, but we were not unworthy of it. No, we were deserving of the thrill of inflicting on them the suffering they’d exacted on us. But we wouldn’t do anything just yet. We’d given Thula our word. We’d await our opportunity. The weapons would have to stay hidden in the forest.

  After the soldier left, we dug a hole and buried the guns and ammunition.

  We left the forest that night excited about joining Thula to start laying the groundwork for a revolution, for we knew that if marching and singing and dancing failed, we would have a recourse. How glorious it felt to be powerful.

  * * *

  Over the next three years, Thula came from Bézam as often as she could, and we traveled with her to other villages to talk about her vision. Everywhere we went, men seemed perplexed that an unmarried woman—a girl, judging by her size—could be so bold as to tell them that their lives and their children’s future would be brighter if they joined her in her mission to free our country. Once, an elder asked her how many children she had. When she said none, he asked her when she intended to have them. When she said never, the men burst out laughing. The American books in your head
, one of them said, look what they’ve done to you. You know, my son is looking for a wife, another added; he likes them small like you, so that if you do anything stupid one good slap is all it’ll take to straighten you out. His friends collapsed in giggles. A third added that he’d gladly take Thula as a fourth wife if she was still single in a year. It was evident to us that they resented her, a woman who thought she could be happy without the likes of them—how dare she? But Thula, our Thula, if she was humiliated, she did not show it. Not even her brow twisted in perplexity. She let them talk, and when they were done laughing, she told them that when our country was finally free she would gladly take on three husbands.

  Strangers were not the only ones asking her about her plans for her womb.

  Our age-mates, the women especially, never ceased to let her know that they could help her find a good husband. Her former relationship with Austin was known to all, evidence that, at the very least, she had desires common to other women. Whenever she visited, in smoky kitchens across the eight villages, in parlors and on verandas, rocking her friends’ children on her lap, she sought to explain to them that she was married to her purpose. What do you mean, you’re married to your purpose? they asked. She couldn’t explain except by saying that she was at peace with the life she had.