“I hate Bézam, I hate government people, but this man sounds like a good man,” she said. “And I think Juba would be happy to have a new father.”
“Don’t do this for Juba. Do this for you.”
“What about you? I’m not going without you. Will you be happy in Bézam?”
It was then I told her my plan.
* * *
—
You won’t be happy when I tell you where I’m going to, dearest husband, but I must go.
You left that village long ago and came to the place where I was born and made it your home. You told me, often, that my people were more of your people than yours had ever been to you. Why did you leave? I asked you when we first met. You said you never belonged there. I pondered your answer—was not belonging ample reason for a man to visit his ancestral village so seldom? Was your all-consuming sadness the reason for your cutting your relatives off, or a result of it? I didn’t understand why you were so determined to have none of your sons know much about your kin when there was no visible quarrel, no obvious falling-out involving you and your siblings and their children. I asked you repeatedly. Again and again you told me that there was no story to tell.
But there is, my dear husband. There is a story.
Why didn’t you tell it to me?
Why did you choose to bear your pain alone, when you had me to share it with?
How could you not have let me hold you, and weep for you?
* * *
—
My husband’s grand-niece, a woman named Malaika, was the one who told me the story; it was her grandmother who raised my husband after his parents died.
Malaika has been visiting me since Bongo was taken to Bézam. We had never met before my husband’s funeral—she came to it along with his living siblings and several relatives whom my husband hadn’t spoken to in decades. When I asked Malaika why no one in that family ever came to visit us, she said my husband had made it clear that he didn’t want them to have anything to do with his new family. I told her that I understood, and that, now that my husband was no longer around to dictate to us, we could see each other as we pleased. She returned only once after the funeral to visit me, but when she heard about the massacre and Bongo’s arrest, she began coming more often. After they killed Bongo, she came and she slept on the floor next to my bed, alongside other relatives from all eight villages. She helped in feeding me and bathing me; she was the one who made the mixture that allowed me to sleep for a few hours and escape the torment of the realization that my children, both of them, were dead.
One evening, not long ago, she came to visit. Somehow, we started talking about her grandmother, my husband’s sister. Malaika told me that her grandmother, before she died, was desperate to talk to my husband one last time and tell him that she was sorry.
“Sorry for what?” I said.
“For everything that happened,” she replied.
“What everything?”
It was then she told me the story my husband’s sister told her before she died, a story the sister had never told anyone. A medium had told the sister, while she was wasting away with a large mass in her belly, that she needed to tell someone the darkest secret in her stomach in order for death to come, so she had told her granddaughter days before she died. She revealed what happened when my husband was seven years old.
* * *
—
You went to her one evening and told her what an uncle had done to you. How the uncle had asked you to go hunting, and how, once you were both deep in the forest, only bugs and birds in view, under an iroko tree, the uncle had untied his loincloth, spread open his legs, and said his manhood was itchy, could you please itch it for him? When you shook your head and averted your eyes from the swollen organ, he said he couldn’t believe you wouldn’t help him after all the gifts of fruits and nuts he had given you, he hadn’t shown any other boy in the village as much generosity as he had shown you, he thought you were friends, how could you not help him in his time of need? When you started crying, he told you that if you didn’t take the manhood in both hands and start rubbing it, he would leave you alone in the forest for beasts to feast on your flesh. That was how he got you to do to him things a boy should never do to a man.
You sobbed as you told your sister the story.
When you were done speaking, she asked you no questions. She merely told you never to repeat the story to anyone. When her husband, the man you called your father, came back from a family visit, your sister made you repeat the story to him. He too said what your sister had said, that the story must not be told. Not in their lifetimes, not in your lifetime. The uncle who had taken you into the forest was one of the heads of your family. He had two wives and nine children. No one would believe your story. Even if someone believed you, your sister and her husband said, what would they do about it? Would they undo what the uncle had done to you? They believed you, they said, because they knew you were a good child. But they also knew that the uncle was a good man. Whenever there were conflicts between family members, your uncle was the one who resolved them. He was a dear friend of the village head and one of his counselors. The village was what it was, safe and prosperous, because of men like him. Did you want to see the village fall into disarray because he’d done something you did not like? Wasn’t it more important that everyone bore whatever they could for the sake of the family and the village? Your sister’s husband told you to wipe your eyes, show them that you were a strong boy. Look at your body, your sister’s husband said, did the uncle leave any scars? You shook your head. So there’s nothing for you to dwell on, then, your sister said. As soon as you let go of the whole episode, there would be nothing worth talking about.