“The Widows used another app to stay in touch—WhatsApp—and they would share whatever information came through. One day, someone shared video of a group of children running around in a room and shouting, Bizi! Bizi! Bizi!” She is saying it like she is one of the children, and it is making some of us to be smiling. “Meryem’s breath stopped in her chest. In the video, among the children, was her daughter, Nur. That video was the last time Meryem would hear her daughter’s laugh. They never saw each other again.”

For a long time, Xifeng is saying nothing. And we are stirring and wanting her to be continuing, and that is when I am seeing that she is shaking small small. She is keeping herself from crying. When she raises her head, there is being metal in her voice again.

“Nur and her siblings were scattered all over Earthland China. Nur was brought to the other end of her country: from the northwest to the southeast. She no longer spoke her native language. She no longer identified as Muslim. All of her past was stripped away. She began speaking Cantonese and Taishanese. And before long, she forgot her family altogether.”

My heart is speeding up because I am suddenly knowing what Xifeng is going to be saying and it is like light is shining in my head. Xifeng is revealing herself to me. She is no longer being mystery. Xifeng stands, and now she is looking like leader. Now she is looking like commander of army. Looking at her, I know I will be doing everything I can for her.

“That girl grew up to be my grandmother. And what the Chinese government did to her and her family all those years ago, the Nigerian government is doing to families all over Nigeria right now.” She is pointing into the distance, past the walls that are surrounding us. “In the north, in Borno State, is a facility where the government is forcing cyberization on its citizens. And it is using this process to erase all memory of the war. The war that each one of you”—now she is pointing at us, at me—“fought and bled in. The government is trying to erase all memory of you. But we cannot allow that to happen. We are going to take that facility. And we are going to spread this truth. This country will know who you are. They will remember us.”

Xifeng is looking at me when she is saying this last thing. I am not understanding everything she is saying, but I am wanting to be following her everywhere and doing what she is telling me to do. Even hurting and killing.

CHAPTER

29