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?