How Beautiful We Were

by Imbolo Mbue

  * * *

  There are two other men with Lusaka in his hut when I arrive—my uncle Manga, and Pondo, who is married to Woja Beki’s only surviving sister. Lusaka has relied on the wisdom of the two elders since the captives came into his custody nine days ago, and I see no reason why I shouldn’t do so as well, having known them all my life to choose right over wrong often. The men avoid my eyes as I pull a stool to join their circle.

  “He’s dying,” Lusaka says the moment I’m seated.

  “Who?” I ask.

  “The Sick One,” he tells me. “My wife just finished cleaning his vomit. He’s been vomiting all afternoon. You touch him, he’s hotter than a pot of boiling water.”

  Manga and Pondo turn their eyes on me. Their look says: You’re the leader—lead us out of this situation.

  “We need to make a new plan,” Manga says.

  “I’ve tried everything, they won’t talk,” Lusaka says. “Last night I said to them: We don’t need a long list of names anymore, just give us five or six names. The Leader looked at me as if I were a bowl of rotten food. The others barely opened their eyes.”

  “Maybe if we try beating them—” Pondo says.

  “Beating them?” Manga says, sneering as if his age-mate has just uttered the unutterable. “One of them is dying and you want us to beat them—”

  “If we don’t get any information out of them, then what was the point of taking them prisoner? Wouldn’t everything we’ve put ourselves through have been in vain?”

  “Nothing’s going to be in vain,” I say.

  “So we’re going to keep them here till they die?” Pondo asks. “Is that the new plan? Sooner or later more soldiers will come looking for them. They’ll ask more questions. Only the Spirit knows what they’ll do to us when they find out.”

  “They’ll never find out if we don’t let them find out.”

  “You think Pexton is just going to accept that its men are missing?”

  “Bongo, what should we do?” Lusaka says. He’s whispering. We’re all speaking in low voices, though we’re keeping no secrets from the rest of the village.

  My resolve weakens. I’d feared that one thing or another might not go as well as we’d planned, but I hadn’t considered the possibility of any of the men dying on us.

  * * *

  —

  Our plan, the plan the men of Kosawa have agreed on, is simple: keep the captives until they give us the names of men in Bézam who can help us. We want nothing else from them. Just names. After which we’ll set them free. That was the plan we made after we stepped out of the twins’ hut the morning following the village meeting. We’ll never know why Konga didn’t show up to join us that night as we assembled with our spears and machetes, ready to die for Kosawa, nor will we ever know what the twins did to us, but we have no doubt that whatever they did is what led us to the revelation that this battle would be fought not weapon against weapon, but weapon against wisdom.

  Upon getting the names of our potential benefactors, a delegation will travel to Bézam with gifts of smoked bushmeat and dried spices and yams, bottles of palm oil, and eggs from our fattest hens. We’ll offer these gifts to the men. We’ll speak openly to them, since the captives have attested to us that they’re men of power, yes, but also men of conviction and good hearts. Once we enter their offices, we’ll go down on our knees and sing their praises before pleading with them to come with us to our village: Come see it for yourselves, the desolation of our children. We’ll offer them Woja Beki’s house while they’re with us. We’ll repaint the house; our women will clean it and fill it with roses and sunflowers—it will have a scent befitting our esteemed guests. The house may be far from Bézam, but it will look and smell like what we imagine the finest houses in Bézam look and smell like, a conjecture we’ll come upon based on pictures of houses in America from the children’s schoolbooks. Woja Beki will stay in the house with them—we’ll spread his family across our huts, asking our women to swallow their bile. We’ll tell the big men that our wives and mothers and sisters will cook for them only the things they desire to eat. We’ll assure them that Woja Beki will treat them as the honored guests that they are, and that will be the truth—when we had presented this idea to Woja Beki as part of the condition of his release, told him that we would need to do with his house as we deemed necessary for the sake of accomplishing this mission, he had agreed; we’d suspected he would delight in the privilege of entertaining powerful men from Bézam.

  We’re not beggars, but we’ll travel to Bézam and lie prostrate before these men, kiss their feet no matter how dusty their shoes, because we need their help if we’re to grow old on our land. We’ll make several trips to Bézam if need be; we’ll continue traveling and pleading and gifting until we succeed in bringing at least one big man from the government and one powerful man from Pexton to Kosawa. When they arrive, we’ll make a feast to welcome them and present them with parcels of land. After that we’ll lay our sick children at their feet, beg them to protect these helpless ones. We may be proud, but our pain has abased us, and we will do this and more for the sake of our descendants.

  * * *

  —

  The responsibility for mining the crucial information from the Pexton men fell upon Lusaka. We believed that if the men could come to see him not as a foe but as someone bent on ensuring their freedom, they would be more willing to talk to him. If there was indeed anybody the men could trust in Kosawa, it had to be Lusaka—Lusaka was after all the one who, once we brought the captives to his hut on the night of the village meeting, had asked Konga if Konga could kindly hand over the car key. Konga had tossed the key to Lusaka as he walked out of the hut, not to be seen again since then. Before joining us in front of the twins’ hut, Lusaka had led three men to the school compound to search for the Pexton driver. They had found the driver walking around in the darkness, searching for the key. Lusaka had shown him the key and told him to come along; the driver put up no resistance as he was escorted to join the other captives.

  “What will you do to us after we’ve given you the names you want?” the Round One asked Lusaka when he went to them with our request.

  “We’ll give you your car key and wish you a safe journey home,” Lusaka replied.

  The Leader scoffed.

  “We will,” Lusaka said.

  “Liar,” the Leader growled. “Where are the beds you said you’d have for us? Where are the graves of your dead sons? Do you even have dead sons?”

  “I wish I had no dead sons.”

  “The moment we give you any names, you’ll kill us,” the Sick One said.

  “We don’t kill other humans,” Lusaka replied. “That’s what you do, not us.”

  “You won’t get away with this, I promise you,” the Leader said. “Your punishment will be severe.”

  “If you swear not to kill us, I’ll tell you what you want to know,” the Sick One mumbled.

  “Shut up,” his superior said.

  “Don’t be afraid of him,” Lusaka said. “Tell me.”

  “The car,” the driver said. “Please, don’t let anything happen to it.”

  “We took your car to a safe place a couple of days ago, somewhere the children cannot touch it,” Lusaka said. “I have the key, right here in my pocket. I swear by every one of my ancestors that when you give me the names we need I’ll lead you to the car, hand you the key, and wish you a safe journey to Bézam.”

  The Leader burst out laughing. “So you think after you send us on our way all will be forgotten? ‘Goodbye. Travel well. Wasn’t it wonderful for us, keeping you prisoner in our village?’ ”

  “All will be forgotten,” Lusaka said, then turned and walked out of the room.

  * * *

  —

  There was no point telling the men how all would be forgotten. No reason to inform them t
hat, upon leaving Lusaka’s hut after providing us with the information we need, and just before re-entering their car to return to the capital, they will spend an hour or so in Jakani and Sakani’s hut. We will lead them to meet the twins blindfolded and they’ll remain with the twins until their memory, from the time they arrived in Kosawa for the meeting to the time they enter their car to return home, is wiped away. So thoroughly washed off that when their families and friends ask them about their travels—what they’d said and done in Kosawa, why their trip had been longer than expected—they’ll respond that they’d had car troubles which needed time to resolve; otherwise, it had been the usual trip—they’d said this, done that, nothing special, they were now just glad to be home.

  Their families and friends might not know how to interpret the men’s insouciance. They would confer with each other, asking how it could be possible that all four men were offering such scant details. Or maybe those who love them will ask each other no questions. Ultimately, no one will know what to think, and even if they contemplated it, nothing would be traceable to us—not one human will know what happened to them except the people of Kosawa. And if, for reasons now unbeknownst to us, Pexton and the government decided to send soldiers to ask us why the men had no recollection of the days when they were missing, we’d once again assemble in the square and express shock about how strange and inconceivable it was that the men had vanished after departing our village meeting; how unfathomable the times in which we were living.

  But all that will come later, after we’ve made it to the next step of our plan.

  For now, what matters is keeping the men alive and getting the names.

  * * *

  —

  I tell Lusaka and Manga and Pondo I need to step out for air while I ponder what to do about the Sick One. I sit on a bench and consider what Malabo would do if he were here.

  “Take me to the men,” I say to Lusaka when I re-enter his hut.

  At the back of the hut, outside the kitchen, Lusaka’s wife and his sole surviving son sit in the twilight. The boy is drying his eyes as he listens to whatever his mother is saying in a soothing voice. Lusaka, ignoring them, unfastens the rope keeping shut the back room door. I enter the room with him and Manga and Pondo.

  As my eyes grow accustomed to the darkness, I see the Pexton men and their driver sitting in separate corners of the empty room.

  I haven’t seen them since the night of the village meeting. The Leader is sitting with his back against the wall, shirtless. His head is down; his hands and feet are bound in front of him. The plate of food beside him is uneaten. Across the room, I see their urine bucket. I’d been concerned about how they would be able to eat and urinate and scratch itchy spots with their hands bound, but Lusaka had assured me that they would do it just fine, that as prisoners they weren’t entitled to maximum comfort. Every morning, Lusaka gets two male neighbors to help him walk the hostages, one after another, to the toilet. Once they’re within the palm-frond walls, he unbinds them and gives them as many minutes as they need. The Round One and the Sick One make good use of their time in the toilet. The driver, however, never fails to complain that his feces is shy and won’t come out unless he’s left alone. To this, Lusaka responds that if the driver doesn’t go during his turn he’ll have to hold it, because Lusaka is going hunting, in which case the driver will have to clench his buttocks till evening. Every morning, upon hearing this, the man grunts and grinds his teeth and pushes until he can do so no more.

  The Leader, for the entire time he has been in the back room, has refused to stand up and walk to the toilet. So resolute is he in displaying his superiority that he’s been rejecting most of his food and surviving on the residues of whatever lofty lunch he ate before arriving in Kosawa. It becomes evident to me, as I look at him, that his bitterness and pitiful haughtiness must be the result of years of holding on to vast amounts of odious matter in every bit of his body.

  “Good evening, Leader,” I say to him. He does not respond.

  Lusaka and the elders add their greetings to mine; they get no response either.

  The Sick One moans. I move close to him and inspect him. He’s lying on the ground. His shirt is soaked with sweat; he’s shivering. The driver, with his bound hands, is struggling to wipe the sweat on the Sick One’s forehead. The Round One is sitting away from the Sick One, still fully dressed in his suit. He looks into my eyes, expecting me to say something to him, but I say nothing. Everyone hates the Leader most, but ever since the first village meeting, something about the Round One utterly irks me.

  I stoop next to the Sick One and ask him how he’s feeling.

  “Please, help me,” he says. “I don’t want to die here.”

  “What are you sick with? Does anything hurt?”

  He turns his face away. Is he ashamed to say what is ailing him?

  “What’s your name?” I ask him.

  “Kumbum.”

  “Honorable Mr. Kumbum, my name is Bongo. I want to—”

  “I’m not an honorable anything,” Kumbum replies. “I’m a sick man….Please, I need to go home….My daughter is getting married in two weeks, there’s a lot of preparation that still needs to get done, I need to go help my wife, please….”

  “What’s your daughter’s name?” I ask.

  “Mimi,” he says. “My first child.” He sighs. “I’ve been waiting and hoping that the soldiers will come for us. But they won’t. It’s been nine days since you put us here. They’re clearly searching for us in the wrong places; they’re never going to think to start looking in people’s back rooms. I need to go home. I’ll tell you whatever—”

  “You’ll tell him nothing,” the Leader says.

  Lusaka joins me in stooping next to Kumbum. He feels the sick man’s forehead and pulls his hand back. It is evident from Lusaka’s eyes that Kumbum is warmer than he was earlier in the day. Lusaka moves to a sitting position and tucks his legs under himself. I switch from stooping to sitting like him. Manga and Pondo do the same, and we’re all sitting on the ground now, facing Kumbum. We’re looking at him panting and sweating, and, we hope, not dying in front of us. The Round One stares at us as if we’re a spectacle. If only I could gouge out his eyes and bury them inside his fat body.

  “Kumbum,” Lusaka says, softly, “we’d love for you to go home and get ready for your daughter Mimi’s wedding. We don’t want you to die here.”

  “It’s true,” I add. “As soon as you give us the names of the big men in Bézam, anyone who you think we could persuade to—”

  “Please, don’t make me laugh,” the driver says. I turn to him, surprised. I want to ask him who he thinks he is to interrupt our conversation and make us the object of his ridicule, but a man is dying in front of us, and his death might essentially be our death, so, rather than rebuke the driver, I ask, “Why would we make you laugh?”

  “Because you’re talking like people who were dropped from the sky and landed in this country only yesterday,” he says. “No one in Bézam cares about villagers like you, okay? Absolutely no one in the government. No one at Pexton. No one whatsoever.”

  We know this may be the case, but we don’t believe in such absolutes. What sense is there in having total certainty that something is one way and no other way? Who has lived through all the years the earth has existed and seen all possibilities? Though, from the way the driver is talking, one would think that many things in life are absolute and we simply do not possess the intellect to recognize that.

  “Do you understand what might happen after these representatives give you the names and you go to Bézam and plead on behalf of your children?” the driver continues.

  Yes, I understand what might happen, because my brother went to Bézam and never came back, I want to say to him. Yes, we might go to Bézam and never come back—does that mean we should never go?

  “What might happen
?” I ask him.

  He shakes his head and breaks into a derisive laugh reminiscent of the Leader’s. He laughs long enough that he starts coughing. As if they’d rehearsed it, Kumbum starts coughing too. Their coughs—one dry, one with a trace of phlegm at the end—go on until Lusaka runs to his wife’s kitchen and returns with two cups of water. The driver drinks all of his; Kumbum takes a sip when Lusaka brings the cup to his lips.

  “What Tonka is trying to tell you,” Kumbum says, panting at every word, “is that when you get to Bézam, no matter what you say there, people will just laugh at you.”

  “We’re not stupid,” Lusaka says. “We know Bézam is where evil has built its house and where it raises its children. But we also know that good men live there, it’s impossible for it not to be so. We’re simply asking you to direct us to a few of them.”

  “Do you not understand the words coming out of his mouth?” the driver shouts. “Are you deaf? Listen: there are no upright men in Bézam. No one there cares whether your children live or die. How else can we say it so you’ll understand?”

  “You’re telling us that everyone in Bézam is a bad person?” Manga says.

  “I’m telling you that you can go to Bézam and lie on your belly and crawl from one end of it to the other and cry all the tears you have in your eyes and nothing will change for you. The big men will take the gifts you bring, and they’ll say thank you and they’ll give the meat to their cooks to prepare. While they’re eating it, they won’t even remember why you gifted them the food in the first place. Your children will continue dying until there are no more children left. These men right here in this room”—he gestures to the three Pexton men—“they’re all you’re going to get from Pexton.”