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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.
* * *
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Her vision for the revolution was for it to begin officially on a day we would call Liberation Day. On that day, men and women from towns and villages in our district and surrounding districts would gather in Lokunja. She would invite a newspaperman, the man who had taken over Austin’s job. The newspaperman would take pictures and chronicle the rebirth of our country. If Liberation Day went well, we would have more rallies in other towns and in as many districts as we could, until we were ready for men and women to march in protest on a single day, in every town, in every village, all across the nation, fists clenched up and chanting, until the walls of the regime fell down flat.
She believed it was possible, far-fetched as it seemed. She was aware that it might take more than one revolution, or more than one century, to change our country, but that was no deterrent to her, only a motivation to continue the work the past generation had started so that future generations might complete it and never stop building upon it. She said to us often: America and the prosperous countries in Europe did not become what they are today without generation after generation of people fighting and dying for peace.
During those years of laying the foundation for Liberation Day, our weapons remained hidden. There were occasions when we were tempted to retrieve them and head to Gardens, often on days when Kosawa seemed devoid of joy because of death or worsening sickness or a bad spill. At such times, it appeared morning would never come. Conforming to the darkness around us seemed to be our only choice. Whenever our wives showed us the meager harvest from their farms, whenever we looked at the gas flares and imagined toxins coming for our children, we spent long nights fantasizing about putting holes in laborers’ heads. Our faith became the thinnest of threads, in danger of snapping at any moment, but we hung on to it as hard as we could. We prayed to the Spirit to keep us from falling, because we couldn’t fall; if we hoped to soar again, we couldn’t fall. And for Thula’s sake, we could not bring out the guns. Our day will come, we told each other when we got together late at night to dream while all of Kosawa slept.
* * *
IN BéZAM, THULA TAUGHT AT the government leadership school during the day and, in the evenings, invited her favorite students to her house to talk about revolutions. They were her new Village Meeting, she told us. With them she discussed her favorite books; and to her they swore that they would join in fighting for Kosawa. We were happy that she had devotees in Bézam, but we doubted that these students’ interest in our struggle came from a pure place. None of them came from a village like ours. They had gained entrance into the school by virtue of their connections to powerful men—when did people ever rise up to put an end to their own privilege? Still, the idea of ending the reign of the man whose servants they were about to become, the monster their fathers bowed to during the day and cursed at night, must have been what lured them to Thula.