—
“Yaya will never survive if anything happens to you,” I said to Bongo.
He held my hand and promised me nothing would happen to him. In that brief moment, I heard Malabo saying those same words. “I’ll be all right,” Bongo said, and Cocody, sitting next to me, nodded. Things were moving well, he reminded me; the Cute One had said that His Excellency had promised to set a date for the trial as soon as possible. He wiped his eyes and forced another smile. Tell Yaya not to worry, he said.
On the day the Sweet One and the Cute One told us that a trial date had been set, we rejoiced. We prayed the Four would get sagacious judges before whom they would prove their innocence. If any of them had committed a crime, then all of Kosawa had committed a crime, and we would pay for our crime as one people. We would never allow our own to suffer singularly for our collective deeds.
The elders decided to send a delegation to the trial, to serve as witnesses for the Four and argue that we had all seized the Pexton men, and we had all held them captive, and we had all killed the Sick One, and we had all stood by and watched as Jakani and Sakani thrust spears into the four soldiers. We would accept any sentence. We would ask only that it be fair, that the crimes of those who had pushed us into our transgressions be considered first if those who judged us were to call themselves just.
The trial date was set almost a year to the day after the massacre. We took this as an omen from the Spirit that this cycle of dry months and rainy months in which we’d nearly run out of tears would soon be over. We’d had other years of suffering more than we thought ourselves capable of bearing, and we knew more tough years lay ahead, but this year that had almost made us believe we were objects masquerading as humans—how desperately we wanted it gone. Despite comporting ourselves for decades, despite never resorting to beastly deeds, we hadn’t succeeded in persuading our tormentors that we were people deserving of the privilege of living our lives as we wished. But the trial—it could give us a major chance to convince them to rethink us, get to know us for who we are, and in the process find us worthy of reclaiming the pleasure of quiet existence we’d lost.
We woke up that morning and put on our best clothes.
On the way to Bézam, we beseeched the Spirit for mercy, and thanked the Spirit for promising us justice in unspoken ways. Thula came with me—I wanted never to forget the moment when she and Bongo walked out of that prison, hand in hand, smiling.
When we got to the courthouse, a guard met us in front. He led us through a corridor and showed us an empty room in which to sit.
He left the room and shut the door.
We sat there in silence: Thula and I; Lusaka’s wife, two of his daughters, and his sole surviving son; Gono and Woja Beki’s two remaining wives and four of his younger children; five elders to speak for Kosawa. The guard hadn’t permitted the Sweet One to enter the courthouse, saying that for circumstances like this only one representative was allowed to come inside the building. The Sweet One had wanted to protest, but the Cute One told him to go back to the office and to report to Great City what was going on.
In the bare room we sat, dreading the verdict and desperate for it to arrive.
We avoided each other’s eyes, our hopes so fragile we dared not break them with a whisper. But we couldn’t stay quiet forever. We were just starting to converse in low tones, wondering if the trial would be held in that waiting room, when the door opened and a different guard walked in. Without a word, he handed the Cute One a letter and hurried out of the room. The Cute One read the letter. His hands shook as he held it. He dashed out of the room. We soon heard him shouting at the guard. The guard shouted back at him, but their words were indistinct to us from the other side of the walls.
We looked at each other.
“What’s going on, Mama?” Thula asked me.
Woja Beki’s first wife looked at her son and asked him to go find out what was happening. Gono went outside. He remained outside with the Cute One. From the silence, it appeared they’d gone to another part of the building. We waited for over an hour. When they returned, Gono read to us what the government had written in the letter:
We wish to inform you that the four accused were hanged to death earlier this week for the kidnapping of four employees of the Pexton Corporation and for the death of one of the employees, Kumbum Owawe, and for their complicity in the murder of four soldiers of the republic. Our fair and balanced team of judges, representing the people of our country, deliberated for hours after listening to all witnesses, including the kidnap victims and the accused, before finding the accused guilty of kidnapping and murder and accessory to murder. The judges concluded that the accused did what they did in an attempt to extort money from the Pexton Corporation, a corporation that has done nothing but bring opportunities to the village of the accused and our country. The judges determined that the accused must pay for their crimes, for all those who seek to hurt the republic must be made to pay a price. They were hanged after they’d each made a statement asking Pexton and the people of our country for forgiveness. They asked that their families learn from their
