The Liminal War

by Ayize Jama-everett

  “We’re going to the beach,” I tell Samantha.

  The beaches of Somalia are their greatest national treasure and every Mog kid knows it. I fear the day Europe descends on these white sand shores again. The afternoon tension of the market is quelled by the lapping waves of the Red Sea as shiny little black boys in T-shirts and shorts yell and scream at the ocean, begging it first to carry them away, then return them to shore. Mico’s assembled crew sits under a large umbrella provided by a British-educated Somali entrepreneur. He’s returned home to participate in the “tourist boom” predicted by all, by opening a beachside cafe. Of course he’s in love with Samantha. I grow a complex but subtle mucosal-and-skin-filtering system so I can strain out her pheromones and focus.

  Liminal bodies shine, radiate a power barely contained by flesh. In the Nordeen days I trained myself to recognize it from miles away. It’s been a while, but after twenty minutes I feel the old tingle, the liminal tug, by a black, gray, and red coral outcropping.

  “Found him.” I stand.

  “Drink coffee,” Bingy admonishes Mico as he stands. “Yah an gwan vex da boy by coming in mass. Healer man and I stand sufficient.”

  Ninety in the shade even with the sea breeze as we walk across the beach and Bingy is unfazed. He lets his dreads fall and children follow us again. This time not to pilfer but to wonder. The prideful stride of the Jamaican makes me want to overhaul his dopamine pathways so that he can keep that strut forever. But there are so many ways to lose a prideful swagger. Bingy marches into the ocean toward the small coral outgrowth almost unconscious of the waves. I wade in behind him, trying to stay standing.

  The coral is slippery and sharp as we climb above the water. Ahmadi has the unconscious skill of a Liminal, growing spongy algae to sit on as he focuses on a small thin plume of sea flora sprouting up from the coral. His obliviousness to our presence is predictable. The seventeen-year-old outweighs his peers by fifteen pounds. Malnutrition has never touched him. Even his shirts and shorts are branded. In these lands, Ahmadi is rich, and the affluent are rarely observant. I have to speak to get him to raise his rust-covered head.

  “Ahmadi.”

  “Taggert?” He asks with a distracted smile, then stands and hugs. “You . . . you were a dream of my childhood for years.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “Whispers on the wind of a healer walking the slave lands.” He notices Bingy, then notices something else about him.

  “They call him Bingy man. He has an offer for you.”

  “A . . . a root. I don’t know if there are words for what I see.” He tries first in Arabic then in Bendairr. Even then, he stutters. “There’s a root in a fungus that reacts through him.”

  “What him say?” Bingy asks. I translate best I can. The Dread nods and bends low to examine Ahmadi’s foliage effort. “Ask if him make this from plant?”

  “We just saw him do it,” I tell him. Bingy stays quiet until I do what he says.

  “No, it was in the coral, growing in the spirals of the shells of the dead animals. I just made it strong enough to break through. I was working on making it more tolerant of direct sunlight.”

  Again I translate. Happy with what he hears, Bingy pulls a Manna joint from his hair and hands it directly to the kid.

  “What is it?” Ahmadi asks me but keeps his eyes on the Manna in his hands.

  “Him and his friends call it a god.”

  “Allah?”

  “Allah is a word,” Bingy says, indicating that I should translate. “Buddha, Jesus, Yahweh, Jah, all dem vocabulary of man. The truth of this world, beyond them vocabulary and written word of man I and I feel with Manna. Dis a true and living god.”

  I translate it all. Probably badly. Bingy pulls a lighter from his dreads before he speaks again.

  “But this choice. You are Liminal, so you cannot smoke casually, or be coerced into such. To smoke I man’s Manna is to join will with the Manna. I man be bound for life. No distance, no other loyalty can interrupt the joining.”

  I’m shocked as I translate. So this is the dance they’ve been doing with Tamara and me. I was so concerned Mico’s people were trying to get us to smoke. In reality, they probably don’t want to deal with us forever.

  “Have you?” Ahmadi asks.

  “Smoked? No. But I know someone who has.”

  “Is she . . . happier than others?” the kid asks, still not looking at me. He is obsessed.

  “No,” I say plainly. But then, “She does have more of a sense of place. Purpose. I love her, if that counts for anything.”

  “You love her but don’t share her god?”

  “The world is weird. I can’t tell you not to smoke. Bingy’s people had knowledge of someone like you in the world. I brought them here. Say the word and I’ll take them away.”

  As the kid thinks, he transforms his algae seat into a bouquet of rose-shaped blooms. Still, his attention is locked on the Manna. I translate everything for Bingy as we wait. The Dread just nods and looks out to the setting sun. It takes a while, but the Somali speaks.

  “You say they heard about me. How?”

  “That one saw you in a vision.” I point to Bingy.

  “Tell him I saw him in a dream,” Ahmadi says. I translate, and Bingy offers the youth the lighter.

  “I nah need ya na longer, healer,” Bingy says as soon as Ahmadi takes his first hit. “Manna speak the first tongue. Translation nah necessary.”

  I head back to shore, noting the decreased temperature of the water already. They’ll be on that coral for a while. The beginning of the evening cool competes with the ebbing tide for my attention until I hear Mico’s familiar, almost flamenco, plucking. Of course Mico and his crew can’t keep a low profile to save their own fucking lives. A decent-sized crowd attends the place where surf and sand meet by the ex-pats’ café, surrounding a seven-foot bonfire. All of them singing and playing music with more abandon and better percussion than the Eel Pie crew. Still, the Rainbow collective is more syncopated, coordinated.

  “Do you know Zaar?” Munji is on me before I can ask what the hell. I shake my head. “It is as if a bad spirit is in someone and so they must be healed. In truth, the spirit is not bad, it is only that he wants to fight—”

  “Whatever,” I interrupt. “Bit of a scene, no?”

  “This?” He laughs at me. “Wherever Mico goes, he must play music. I would sooner ask you to stop healing.”

  The old Arab slaps my back—no questioning about Bingy—and escorts me into what looks like part intervention, part séance, with Mico playing chief-therapist-weird-guitar-player. It’s a long-neck four-string instrument with a massive half gourd for its body. The girl writhing in the sand and near the ash is small and thin, dressed in a powder-blue dress. She’s the cousin of the café owner, according to Munji. The beachfire lights show her eyes are possessed by a bright red glow. Her deep contortions in the sand scare most of the onlookers. When she plays with the hot coals of the fire in her hands, others cry. Mico keeps playing the music that dements her. She curses in no language I’ve ever heard, but Mico just sings coolly back to her in Arabic. When she has enough, the girl—the thing inside of her comes for Mico. He shouts a cloud of his smoke in her face. I know it’s not English he’s speaking just like I know it’s not his god speaking. Still I understand.

  “Hold fast, Cushite! I am the champion of your mother, nurturer of your entire pantheon. The child you may empower but do not think to harm me. I would have you as my ally, but you would not survive as the enemy of my god.”

  He says it in perfect rhythm, almost as though the entire encounter were planned, with no halt in his strumming. Samantha reminds the frightened drummers to continue their beats from the periphery of the crowd. Mico’s lips move, but I can’t hear him anymore as he advances toward the thing in the girl. His words are only for It. The girl’s body posture betrays not admonishment but appeasement, compromise, and finally affection. Mico hands the long-necked guitar to
another man just before he, the girl, and the spirit inside her hug.

  “You see?” Munji says with a characteristically heavy back pat. “Before the spirit plagued the girl. Now he is her ally. He will protect her; aid her family and her generations. Plus we can call on him for aid. Simple.”

  “Suppose I told you I don’t believe in spirits or gods?” He laughs almost non-stop until we make it back to the plane, Ahmadi in willing tow.

  “You know the world you’re introducing him to?” Fatima, sitting in her pilot’s chair, demands of me.

  “World of smuggling and border bandits?”

  “Far worse, asshole. What happens to that boy is on you now.”

  Chapter Seven

  I’m almost as tired of waiting as Tamara. Our flight back was as direct as a smuggler can get, and Eel Pie Island feels weirdly homey now. But we’ve done what the smokeable God wanted, despite Fatima’s warnings. I’ll confess that her declaration reminded me of a younger Ahmadi’s words: “I will die without this land.” But he was a child then. And if there’s one thing adulthood teaches, it’s how to live with things that would kill a younger you. But there’s no proper script for dealing with Nordeen. No strategy to program. We need to find Prentis. Now.

  Mico asked for time to prepare, and given we’d just flown across Africa and back, I had to give it. Tam and I compare notes in a room on the ground floor she’s taken for herself.

  “Fatima chick got some heat on her toward the whole crew. Notice how she won’t step foot near here. Won’t let her da’ come either.”

  “He’s a smoker. She’s not. Look, as Liminals, we smoke this shit and we’re locked in, get it?”

  “Locked into what?”

  “Wish I knew. I’m not sure if they’re all hallucinating or . . .”

  “An ancient fungus God has a consciousness and a cult?” Tam disses.

  “Says the girl who can read minds?”

  “It’s not that something isn’t going on. Just we’ve only got their version of the story. The other side . . .”

  “Is the Alters.”

  “Speaking of, you alright?” I’m about to say fine when I realize I’ve been playing with the curved blades again.

  “I’ll be fine. Just keep your eyes open and your mind shut.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Remember the void of the Alters? Well, imagine the opposite. A million and one voices all at once. What did Mico say he could do? Connect with anyone that ever smoked? You want all of that taking residence in your dome?”

  “Alright. Just saying you’re more OCD with those things than usual, get me?” She wants to back away from me, so I sheathe the blades and instantly feel the better for it. So does she. “You think we made a mistake? Coming here? Trusting Mico and them?”

  “Mico, former smuggler, turned DJ, now head mushroom cult leader who trains baby assassins? What the fuck makes you think I trust him?”

  “But you just gave that kid Ahmadi to him?”

  Three hours later the council meets with us in the underground room with the long rectangular table. If Bingy is to be believed, Ahmadi is resting at his house. Everyone’s cortisol is up.

  “Manna knows the need,” Samantha starts, taking my hand.

  “Yes I!” Bingy chimes in. “And him healer man supplied a strong ally.”

  “A debt is owed,” Mico says cautiously, deliberately.

  “Go on then. Ask your herb where Prentis is,” Tamara demands. I don’t know why Mico is so reticent, but he pushes past it and lights the Manna joint. Once again the smoke inaugurates him.

  “The animal totem is here.” The smoke speaks through him.

  “Where?” Tam stands. “On this island? I’ve checked everywhere.”

  “But not every when.”

  “Old God.” A.C. stands beside Tamara. “You’re saying Prentis was taken out of time?”

  “By the unclean Liminal,” it says with no disgust. Then, “No.”

  “No, what?” Samantha asks for some dumb reason.

  “No, your god won’t help us.” I sigh.

  “You pointed my children to a kindred spirit. I have done the same. Nothing else is owed, healer.”

  “Why do you hate me?” It’s a genuine question. I can’t understand what I’ve done to piss it off so much.

  “You would rip apart space and time for the benefit of one. I will protect my hundreds and their millions by keeping them in proper relation to birth and death. You think too highly of yourself, healer . . . .”

  There’s a fight in Mico, between spirit and smoke. Then smoke and flesh. He trembles and the table shakes. I see what was once a concerto in his body turn to a free-jazz thrash-metal jam session. It’s like a force-of-will hiccup, as though a singular muscle in a body becomes conscious and demands expression. His full lips flatten, his sharp Adam’s apple rises, and with his own voice, Mico shouts.

  “No!”

  No one is secure. Everyone is standing. None of the council has seen Mico like this or ever heard discordance between the man and his God. Even the Alter has a look that approaches fear.

  “That’s not good,” Tam coughs out. I feel her slam her psychic walls down around her brain. Good girl.

  “Can someone else . . .” Mico’s voice whistles out. Bingy replies quickly and lights a joint. Instantly the God occupies the Jamaican’s voice.

  “You’ve forgotten yourself, vassal.”

  “They haven’t done anything wrong!” Mico protests free and clear of his God. “I know you want them on our side, but from the beginning you’ve treated them like criminals.”

  “And you would tear asunder plans millions of years in the making for what?”

  “For the life of a Liminal lost in time,” Mico pleads. “The Liminals exist to hold the important choices of humanity. Why would they choose us if we don’t give them a reason?”

  The god says nothing through Bingy for a while. I’m thinking it’s contemplating until Tam calls its strategy perfectly.

  “Are you seriously giving your boy the silent treatment?” She sighs.

  “I don’t need to explain myself to my vassal.” Smoke-filled eyes blink hard.

  “You tell them no,” Mico says slowly. “But you allow for my dissent.”

  “Bad line of thinking.” A.C. puts his hand gently on his friend’s shoulder. “This isn’t a mortal you’re arguing with. Your cells declared loyalty to the Manna in the desert when you had nothing . . .”

  “And I will serve it.” Mico turns back to A.C., equally as compassionate. “But the Manna needs human hands, human minds, and spirits to enact its will. Well, maybe it also needs some human compassion.”

  “It is my compassion for your species, cultivated over the brief moments of consciousness your race has entertained, that has forged every element of your life, Mico L’Ouverture. From your first breath to now. Mind my will, vassal, or watch that compassion evaporate.”

  “That is a threat from a god. Your god,” A.C. points out.

  Mico crosses the room to get eye to eye with Bingy-Manna. “But that’s my point. We’ve all felt your power. Me more than most. My volition could be annihilated, but still I’m here saying I want to help . . . and I can.”

  “You’ve been indulged for too long. Been given too many freedoms,” the god says. “Ask your indulgence from the void what it thinks.”

  Everyone turns to Narayana, braced by a far wall and shadow. His lips barely move as he speaks. I avert my eyes from the abomination.

  “This is the type of trap I would lay. For most, to travel backwards in time is a perversion, one Nordeen would not dare attempt on his own. An Alter guides him. If you follow, you will be out of your time, distant from your power. Should you run into an Alter, especially one strong enough to command Nordeen, you would not have your people to protect you . . .”

  “Nor myself to aid you,” the Manna speaks.

  “Well, mark this day on your calendar, boys and girls,” A.C. announces. “Th
e wind, an Alter, and the Manna all agree on something. I’m sorry, Taggert, Tamara. I really am . . .”

  “Samantha,” Mico barks back. “What do you say?”

  I don’t envy her. She’s seeing the cost of going against her god being played out before her eyes. Yet she knows; no matter what gets decided in this room, I’m going. She struggles to find the diplomatic answer.

  “I have no useful council to give,” she says gently. “The choice is your own, Mico.”

  “See!” Mico snaps. “Samantha smoked long before me, has a longer history with the god, and still she has doubts . . .”

  “My doubts span both sides,” she confesses, trying not to look at me.

  “You can stop me. Make it impossible for me to attempt what you know I’m thinking,” Mico almost pleads. “But if you don’t stop me, I will try. For your sake. For the sake of the lost Liminal.”

  “For him?” the God asks, pointing at me with Bingy’s long black finger. “For this broken healer with delusions of paternity? The discarded tool of the petulant and unclean Liminal?” It’s weird to hear yourself described with such casual disregard from the mouth of a God you don’t believe in.

  “Not for him. For the girl lost in time with Nordeen. The Alters have at least two Liminals now. So do we, with the addition of Ahmadi. Once again, stalemate. But if we—I—can rescue the girl, at worst we weaken their grip. But at best, we gain one ally.” He looks toward me and Tam. “Maybe more.”

  The body of Bingy walks past Mico to me. Inside Bingy’s body, the Manna makes the collected rage of humanity seem like a hissy fit as it stares at me. The fury of a million minds work their frustration out in the Jamaican’s frame.