Austin took pictures of everything: The bullet holes in the dead as they were being washed. The twins’ clasped hands. Parents kneeling by their children in parlors for a final goodbye before the sealing of the coffins. Thirteen coffins waiting in front of thirteen freshly dug holes. Children clinging to their parents’ coffin before they were lowered into the ground, begging them to please don’t go, please come back.
Our families from the other seven villages ran to us when they heard of the news. They came a day after the burials. Austin captured their faces when they went to the square and saw red patches of land where the earth had drunk the blood of our people.
* * *
AUSTIN WENT BACK TO BéZAM two days after the funeral and returned in a truck with his uncle’s eldest son and other relatives. The men dug up the Sick One so he could go rest in the land of his ancestors. Austin had a message for us from Bongo; a friend of his in the government had helped him get into the prison to check on Bongo. When Austin came to the hut and told us that Bongo was alive and hopeful of his freedom, Yaya’s tears flowed in silence; she ate for the first time since Bongo’s arrest. We’d been certain that the soldiers had taken the Four to a place where they’d be handed the worst possible death, but Austin told us to eat well and sleep well and try not to worry, Bongo would be home again before long. He looked into Yaya’s eyes as he spoke, Yaya’s hands in his. Though Yaya did not understand his words, she understood his countenance of certainty.
Austin called a quick meeting of the families of all the captured men and told us to be strong—help was coming soon. The moment his pictures appeared in the newspaper in America, our story would be news there, and Pexton would be put to shame.
He was right. Two months after the massacre, the Sweet One and the Cute One, along with the man from the neighboring country and the man and woman from America, arrived for that first meeting.
The Sweet One and the Cute One—we can never forget their goodness. How they kept coming to visit the families of the dead and the imprisoned. How they sat in silence in every hut, knowing that no words could accomplish what their presence had. When we cried they looked to the ground, and when we offered them food they ate it.
Their dedication convinced us that the day of our restoration was nigh.
* * *
THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE IN AMERICA read our story. Hundreds called the Restoration Movement office in Great City to find out how they could help us. That is what we learned, based on the report the American man and woman brought during that first meeting. Mothers called, crying, after they read about our children. Young people marched around Pexton’s office, shouting: Shame on you, Pexton; shame on you, murderers. We were no longer alone. Many stopped buying oil from Pexton. Money flowed to the Restoration Movement for our salvation. People who had seen Austin’s pictures told other people, and those other people passed the story to their friends and neighbors. The Sweet One told us that the American people were like us, they passed stories from mouth to mouth, and that our story was spreading faster than a fire set off by a dry-season spill.
Pexton swore they had nothing to do with the massacre, but Austin’s story in the newspaper had pictures of documents that proved their alliance with His Excellency. The more Pexton tried to argue that their business relationship with His Excellency did not mean that they endorsed the slaughter of peace-seeking people, the more people believed our story and the more money poured in for our salvation.
The Restoration Movement would use some of the money to cover all expenses related to getting our men out of prison, the Sweet One told us. They would allocate part of it to pay for a bus to take us to Bézam every three weeks to visit our prisoners. After their release, the Restoration Movement would use the rest of the money to hire the best American lawyers to fight Pexton until it met our demands. We cried our first tears of relief during those meetings, though so mingled was our hope with our sorrow that we couldn’t exhale.
* * *
—
The Sweet One and the Cute One took us to Bézam every three weeks, as promised. Yaya, with her last bit of strength, went to the kitchen on every one of the early mornings before the trip to supervise the food I was cooking for Bongo. We packed for him fried meat and smoked chicken, things our relatives in other villages had brought to us, to share in our suffering. We packed fruits we had dried under the sun, so he could eat them when he ran out of his leftovers.
The trip took one day, since we didn’t have to change buses. Sometimes on the ride, the Cute One read letters American people had written to us, willing us to be strong, reminding us that our battle was theirs too. He showed us pictures children there had drawn for us. One of them was of a little man and a big man, the little man standing and smiling while the big man was tumbling because the little man had sent his little spear into the neck of the big man. The Cute One told us that the child’s teacher had taught him in school that, every so often, little men do triumph. We forced ourselves to smile: we had learned no such thing in school, it had never been so in our lives.