How Beautiful We Were

Elali was the kind of girl who would spread her legs for any man offering something of worth. According to his source, Elali had been with at least seven men before me. I did not speak to Malabo for days after he said all this to me. He had voiced his disapproval of every girl I’d brought home since our father died—he thought me too focused on superficial traits—and now I’d finally found a woman profound in every way and he’d rejected her too. Elali wept when I asked her if Malabo’s tale was true. She asked me, between tears, if I believed the story. Of course I didn’t. I loved her. It was for her sake that I applied to the training program, and rejoiced when I was accepted. Weeks later, I moved to a town on the other side of the country, only to fail my qualification exams at the end of the yearlong training, which meant I couldn’t be a teacher, I was free to return to Kosawa and carry on as a hunter.

I returned home with nothing but humiliation, my bamboo suitcase, and four books I’d found in front of the program office one evening. I made the books mine after no one came forward to claim ownership of them; they had probably been left behind by a member of some European delegation that had visited the program to assess it.

The books now sit on a wooden stool in my room, reminding me of how far I traveled, only to return home. They’re replete with big words that don’t resemble English, so I’ve read only one of them, a picture book about a place called Nubia that existed before many places on earth, a lost kingdom that had worship-worthy women called Nubian princesses. I used to read the book to Thula, before she decided to stop coming to my bed in the morning and curling up against me, but mostly I read it to Elali, my Nubian princess. She didn’t leave me after I returned, but she never let go of her dream of living in a brick house. A Pexton laborer made her dream come true.

—

All the English words I know desert me. I cannot figure out the polite way to ask this person in front of me if he or she is a man or a woman. The person has long hair, matted into stringy bits and running down both sides of a pretty oval face bearing a straight nose; his or her skin is light and smooth, testifying to an easy childhood in a place where the sun is tender. I cannot make a determination based on the person’s clothing, since in this city women wear trousers and men wear blouses. I decide she must be a woman—what I’m hearing isn’t the voice of a man, though it isn’t quite the voice of a woman either.

“Please, forgive me,” I say in English, hoping my enunciation is clear. “I am just confused because we are looking for a man; his name is Austin.”

The person chuckles and says, “I’m Austin.”

“Oh, Mr. Austin, please, I am so sorry. Please, I was just confused….” I’m about to drop to my knees to ask for forgiveness for my insult, but he grabs my shoulder before I reach the ground, smiling. “Common mistake here,” he says. “Don’t worry about it. And, please, call me Austin. Did you say you have a letter for me?”

“Yes, from your uncle,” I say as I pull the letter out of my bag.

“My uncle?” He looks surprised. “How do you know my uncle?”

“He came to our village, to help us.”

“Oh, right, of course, for his job. Is he still there?”

“He was…” I hope he doesn’t notice the fright in my eyes as my tongue goes heavy in my mouth. How do I answer such a question? How many lies must I tell before this is over?

“When did he leave?” The letter is in his hands, but he’s looking at me.

“I…I don’t remember….”

Why is he asking all these questions? Is he truly a newspaperman, or someone the Sick One hopes will figure something out and turn us over to the government?

“Was your village one of the first ones he and his team visited?” he asks. “I really don’t know much about what he does, except that he goes on a tour of villages.”

“Yes…one of the first,” I say. “He stopped in our village, and then he left to go to another village.” My heart pounds hard with every word I utter. I fear he will ask me more specific questions. He glances at Lusaka and Tunis as he speaks, but they don’t understand much of what he’s saying, and in their discomfort they’re scarcely blinking, leaving me responsible for presenting a relaxed appearance for us all.

I convince myself that Austin is asking all these questions because American people love to initiate light, meaningless conversations when they meet someone for the first time, so the person will like them and give them what they want; I read it somewhere. Austin doesn’t need to know about what we’ve done to his uncle because there’s nothing for him to know. No Pexton men are being held captive in Kosawa, I say repeatedly to myself. I convince myself I’ve never been inside the back room of Lusaka’s hut, and even if I were there, I didn’t see anything besides a pile of firewood in a corner.

“I get the feeling he’s ready to retire, considering his health issues,” Austin says. “But he’s got a family, and jobs like his don’t come easy.”

I don’t know what he means by “come easy,” but out of respect I can’t ignore anything he says either, so I nod with my head bowed. When I raise my head, I meet his eyes. State your mission, Bongo, I tell myself. Now.

“Our village is dealing with a bad situation, Austin. That is why we came to see you,” I say. “Your uncle thinks that you can