Kabu Kabu

by Nnedi Okorafor

  Arro-yo blended in easily but her sandaled feet hurt. She wasn’t used to so much walking and she was hot in her long blue summer dress. For a while, she watched people sell everything from bottles of sweet smelling oil, to foul smelling meats, to wood, flora powered generators, to budding potted plants, to milking goats, to everything else. Children ran about, some with purpose, others for play. People shouted, laughed, and the air smelled of perfume, water vapor, smoke, and sweat.

  In so many ways, this place was like West Africa. But in many ways it was not. For one thing, the skyscrapers here were easily higher than any edifice found even in Asia or America. And they would grow higher, for they were actually large sophisticated plants. When she first came to this place, Arro-yo’d gone up to one of them and actually touched its walls. It was solid but still had the yielding roughness of plant flesh.

  In all of Ginen, especially the city of Ile-Ife, the people had accomplished something more advanced than any society Arro-yo had seen in her many travels: A happy weaving, interlocking, meshing of technology and plants. A true symbiotic relationship between man and flora.

  It was a strange man who had told her the path to Ginen.

  “The people there is lost,” he said, taking a puff from his cigar. His breath had been horrendous and Arro-yo thought he knew it. “Used to know how to communicate with all them plants, trees, bushes. They forgettin’ things now. Black folks is the same wherever they go.”

  Arro-yo smiled to herself. She always felt this way when she was in the city of Ile-Ife. This was a city of legend. As the strange man had said, legend had it that the people of the land used to be able to talk to its creative plants. Arro-yo shook her head. Legend also had it that many people of Ginen used to be able to fly and they were called Windseekers. But Arro-yo knew, even in these civilized days, if someone were revealed to be a Windseeker, he or she would be plucked from the sky and tied to a tree until death came.

  Before Arro-yo came here, she’d been in Louisiana. Very few people there had heard of Ginen. Those who had were either afraid to talk about it or spoke of it with a hushed reverence. Centuries ago, though the number of different languages amongst them was many, most of the Africans dragged to America knew the word Ginen. As they were forced to forget, it came to be known as the mythical Africa, their heavenly homeland from which they were taken and to which they’d return after death.

  Some remembered it as the world of the dead under water. A Hades Atlantis. Still, some didn’t view it as a physical place at all. Instead it was the realm of consciousness that the mind was taken to when he or she was being ridden by a deity. After several visits, Arro-yo knew that no one ever got it right; unless they were one of the very very few who had been there and back. Ginen was the mother of the motherland, where Africans migrated from, Africa’s Africa.

  She stood for a moment thinking about all the things she had in her blue satchel. She liked to collect small items whenever she visited. She was sure she could barter with something. Maybe one of her earrings that looked like raindrops from the ocean. They glinted in the sun in such a way that she suspected she could buy a lot with them. She sat down in a grassy area reserved for picnickers next to a woman talking loudly on her red palm-sized portable. That was when she felt the tug.

  Like a fishhook embedded in her mind. When it had her, she couldn’t turn away. The more she struggled, the deeper it dug. Her guard went up like a spiked gate around a house. The sun was high in the sky, roasting all the sellers, buyers, browsers, and observers but now the sun seemed too bright. It splashed everything and everyone with light. But to Arro-yo, the feel of the crowd was good. Nothing worse could happen in this place other than someone getting overcharged. But still, she scowled. She scanned the milling crowd.

  All these people. Do they come every day? There were entire smiling families walking about, moving tightly together, as if they were one creature. Small trees blooming with sugary smelling lavender flowers stood here and there in the market, like sentries posted to keep watch. The ground was carpeted with bright green grass that stayed healthy and fragrant even with all the trampling. It was a beautiful place. But something was suspect. Her mind was like radar.

  Where is? . . . There.

  When her eyes finally found him, the young man was staring at her and he was frowning, his nostrils flared as if he smelled something unpleasantly familiar. She was suddenly sure he’d been following her for a while. He’d spotted her the moment she landed in the forest. Just outside of the city. For several seconds, they just stared at each other.

  Black . . . like me. But not African, she thought. His clothing . . . he’s from here. Same shade. He carries a rucksack. He wears green, dark green. All green. Hmmm.

  She stood up, keeping her eyes on him, and began to walk. He followed her, maintaining the same distance whichever way she moved. It was as if he could read her mind; he knew every direction she’d go. She dodged a man carrying a bunch of ripe bananas on his shoulder but she kept her eye on her follower. He in turn kept his eye on her as he maneuvered around a woman carrying a large plastic looking gourd of water on her head. He didn’t take his eye off of her even as drops of cool water dripped onto his clothes. Arro-yo walked fast through the market, a bubble of tension expanding in her chest. She was moving so fast, her neck craned in one direction, that she got a cramp in her ribs. However, she kept moving.

  She made it to the market outskirts onto the paved street. The farther she walked, the more the market and the city tapered. It happened fast, as if the city had run out of energy. The number of electric cars that passed by slowly dwindled to nothing. Arro-yo was glad because the flat vehicles sped horribly fast and had no regard for pedestrians. The bartering along the street was less passionate, the sellers looked less hopeful and the buyers looked less interested. The buildings got smaller, growing in less artistic shapes. They went from large expansive structures with thick foliage walls and fleshy radio antennas and leaf-like satellite dishes poking from to the roofs to less looming building, living quarters, apartments, houses, homes, broken down homes, empty lots next to homes, forest. By the time it was just the two of them, they were surrounded by palm trees, brambly leafy bushes, and only the sound of birds, insects and the occasional snort of what lurked behind the foliage.

  The road had gone from perfect black paving to bumpy red orange dirt. Arro-yo glanced behind her. The Ooni palace and several of the tall buildings were easy to see, especially the top of the palace, which bloomed into a giant blue disk of a flower with purple petals. The city of Ile-Ife was a series of smaller buildings looming around the purple palace like an audience surrounding a performer.

  He walked on the other side of the road, directly across from her now, only a few yards away. He was taller than Arro-yo, slightly, and even through his flowing attire, she could tell was capable of moving fast. He had long fingered hands, veins raised against the skin. He was strong. His sandals slapped the dirt as he was easily able to keep up with Arro-yo’s fast long legged pace. His green pants that managed to span past his ankles were caked with red dirt from the road, as the hem of Arro-yo’s long blue dress was. There was a small mirror about the size of a fist embroidered into the left hip of his pants and smaller coin-sized ones around the cuffs of his shirt.

  If he doesn’t explain himself soon, he’s a dead man, she thought.

  “Who are you?” he said from across the street with a nod of his head. “Why do you track me?”

  Arro-yo frowned, keeping her eyes straight ahead. The young man’s voice was low but it made the tips of Arro-yo’s fingers tickle. It had an edge to it and she wondered where he hid his weapon because he surely had one.

  “I’m not tracking you,” she said. She stopped walking to face him. They stood quiet, glaring at each other. He was an invasion of her space. Arro-yo never traveled with a companion.

  “Your actions tell me otherwise,” he said.

  Arro-yo shrugged. He wasn’t making sense.

&n
bsp; “I don’t care. I go where I please,” she said.

  “As I do.”

  “Then please go.”

  “If you do not follow me.”

  Arro-yo paused. Her blood pressure was rising. What an insult, she thought. What would I follow him for?

  “What is your name?” he spat.

  “You best ask me that, more politely. I’m growing tired of you.”

  For the first time, his face softened. Just the tiniest bit. There would be no slashing and killing tonight, she thought. She relaxed. She didn’t like killing.

  “Tell me your name and I’ll tell you mine,” she said.

  He took a step closer and she held her hand up.

  “Stay there,” she said.

  He shrugged.

  “Ruwan Sanyi,” he said, puffing up his chest. “Originally of the Northern people.”

  “Originally?”

  Ruwan looked away.

  “I was not made to live my entire life in a place that is older than time but it is where I am originally from, yes.”

  He stepped back, crossed his feet and sat down in the middle of the road, looking up at Arro-yo. He held out his hand and nodded his head. She looked down at him for a moment, humphed and then sat down across from him cross-legged. When she met his eyes, only two feet away, she shivered, as if there were several fingers tapping her neck. His eyes were a dark brown, almost black. As far as she could tell, he had a lot of hair and it was held in a green net. His long legs butterflied out and Arro-yo wondered how he was able to sit so comfortably cross-legged. She would have to stand up in a few minutes.

  “What is your name?” he asked again.

  Arro-yo paused, gazing at him further.

  “Arro-yo.”

  “That is not your real name.”

  “No,” she said. “Few can pronounce my true name.”

  He nodded.

  “You know in the north . . . ” he cut himself off and shook his head smiling. “You dress like a northerner and northern women are beautiful like you but, no, you are not from there.”

  Arro-yo chuckled, shaking her head. Women like me are never beautiful, she thought. She knew when someone was trying to distract her.

  If northern men are beautiful like him, I’ll have to make a long stop there. But this man makes my locks want to stand straight up. All I need is an opening and I’m gone, out of here.

  “Come with me,” he said, standing up holding out a hand. “I want to show you something.” He paused. “If you are not afraid.”

  Arro-yo got up quickly, her face scrunching.

  “Afraid? Of you?”

  “Obviously I am physically superior to you.”

  “Don’t overrate yourself,” she said. And she was telling the truth. She didn’t have any fear of Ruwan, at least not physically. She nodded. “Okay, show me what you want to show me then we’ll part ways.”

  They walked for an hour through the trees. By the time they got to the clearing, the moon had replaced the sun. Surrounded by high palm trees and bushes with heavy water-filled leaves, the clearing was carpeted by large red open-faced flowers with fuzzy orange centers. The smell was sweet and lemony. The moonlight gave the flowers a haunted look, lighting up the centers and darkening the petals.

  “This,” Ruwan said with a dramatic sweep of his hand, “is a place I like to come to often.”

  Often? All the way out here? I can barely see the palace. The north must be miles and miles. “It’s nice?”

  Arro-yo put her arms around her chest and took the place in, trying to hide her smile. She had a weakness for natural beauty and she was having trouble resisting the urge to run to the middle of the field and sit down. It would be like wadding into a sea of flowers with only her head above the surface. There was a slight breeze and it swirled the scent into her nostrils.

  “Come, let us sit and talk.”

  She followed him to the center and they sat down. Arro-yo took a deep breath and looked across the field. It really was like swimming in a sea of flowers. They sat for a while both of them looking into the sky at the stars.

  “In my village, when I was young, my great granduncle used to sit us all down and tell us stories,” Ruwan said after a while, rubbing his lightly bearded chin.

  “Yeah, we did the same thing in my village,” Arro-yo said. Under the moon, their garments looked the similar color of turquoise.

  “And what village are you from?”

  “It’s not important,” Arro-yo said.

  Ruwan cocked his head but didn’t press the issue.

  “Do you know of the tale of how the tortoise got its cracked shell?”

  Arro-yo thought for a moment. She knew many stories that her grandfather used to tell the children of the village on full moon nights, when one didn’t need a candle or a flashlight. Everyone would go to the courtyard. Once you sat in the group before grandfather and he began talking, the outside world fell away.

  “Hmmm, maybe a version of it,” she said. Goodness knows that the stories and folktales of Ginen are almost interchangeable with those of West Africa, she thought.

  “The tortoise flies into the sky with some feathers he finds to join some birds having a party on a cloud,” he said. Arro-yo nodded. “When he gets there,” he continued, “he tells everyone that his name is Allofyou. The birds, not being too smart, welcome him and when the food comes and the cook says, ‘This is for all of you,’ the tortoise stands up and goes to eat. When he eats all the food, the birds get angry and throw him off the cloud.

  “And that is how the tortoise got his cracked shell.” It was the exact same story. Ruwan smiled, his eyes watching her. Arro-yo found it hard to smile back. As a matter of fact, the tight hitch of fear in her chest was back.

  “Hmm,” Arro-yo said. “So . . . one should not . . . fly if he’s not meant to.”

  “Yes, to fly one must make himself as light as possible. Greed is heavier than lead.” He paused, putting his arms around his chest. The mirrors sewn into the cuffs of his shirt clicked. “And so is a disregard of tradition.”

  When she jumped up, stepping back, Ruwan jumped up, too, his whole gentle demeanor changing to one prepared for battle.

  “Why do you choose this story to tell?” Arro-yo asked in a flat voice.

  “Do you know another version?” he spit. “There should only be one.”

  “What?”

  Arro-yo froze. She was overcome by shock, anger, confusion and . . . fear. She felt ashamed of her fear. It had been a long time since she’d felt it. But she was a woman of honesty and so she still listened to her instinct. She turned and took to the air. She’d made it as high as the tallest palm tree, her dress grazing its rough leaves, when his hand clasped around her ankle. Then he pulled hard. She whipped her head around, snatching her machete into her grasp and pointing it at his neck. She went completely still when she saw the blade held to her midsection.

  I know this man, she thought. Oh, I know him well.

  He floated up so that he was pressed face to face with her, still holding his knife in place. He pulled off the net that held his hair and it fell down his waist in chunky locks. She knew there were seven. They hovered in midair above the field of flowers in the moonlight, two Windseekers in a stalemate, a mix of blue and green garments blowing in the soft breeze. The palace was in full view but neither of them looked towards it.

  It was in Australia and he was one of those who remembered, like me. And like me, he wanted to travel alone. So I had to kill him. Either that or he’d have followed me wherever I went. Yes, I remember. He had seven thick blond locks that ran down his back like tree roots that grew deep underground. And his skin was smooth and brown like the dark chocolate he sold. And he was stealthy as a cat. He owned a candy shop. That’s how he got me, those chocolates filled with liquor and his familiar scent. Now he’s come back, as this other.

  “You think I didn’t know that you keep a machete made of white silver with a blue handle strapped to the loc
k closest to your neck?”

  Arro-yo paused, waiting for it to come back. She blinked when it did.

  “You keep a two-sided blade with a green jade handle close to your hip,” she said.

  “You are claustrophobic,” he said.

  “You’re afraid of tornados.”

  “You will have no children in this world or any other.”

  “Neither will you.”

  “If you let me love you, you would never leave me.”

  “You’ll never leave me and that’s why I have to kill you.”

  They paused glaring at each other. Their jaws clenching, their cheeks dimpling in the same places.

  “Why do you pursue me?” he asked.

  “I was going to ask you the same question.”

  He exhaled through his nostrils and increased the pressure of the knife on her belly. The sharp tip poked through her dress, drawing blood. She pushed her knife closer to his neck, slicing a thin red line. Ruwan brought his knee up and pressed it hard between her legs, his lips grazing hers. Arro-yo could smell him above the lemony smell of the flowers below. She wondered if he’d brought her here so that the flowers would hide his scent. So she wouldn’t remember him. Or maybe he really did come here often, he loved places of natural beauty just as she did. How could I forget him? she thought. Arro-yo rarely forgot anything. He had smelled strongly of mint. As they hovered above the ground, their lips met in a kiss. Ruwan’s mouth tasted like cool green leaves.

  Their knives held in place, they pulled at clothes with their free hands and pressed closer. Arro-yo balked at her loss of control and then gave into it. For the moment. For the moment she was lost. Lost in him, lost in herself. She sucked at his tongue and remembered a happiness she wanted to forget. Long ago, in a different time and place. With him. Her back arched, her legs wrapping tightly around him in midair, her silver ankle bracelet on her left ankle biting through his shirt into his back. They had yet to hit the ground.

  Ruwan hugged her close and then grasped her locks, pulling them to his face and taking a deep, deep breath. She pressed her lips against his neck, where her knife had cut him and sucked his blood and she remembered that she knew moments in the sky when she traveled with him, side by side. She dropped her knife, as the tears ran from her eyes and he thrust into her. She was trembling, her eyes shut tight as more images came. There were times, a home, in the same place. In a remote place of flowers in Ginen, far from Ile-Ife. He’d killed whoever tried to kill them. He’d always worn green, she’d always worn blue. There were children. They floated to the ground, slowly, following a shower of clothes, intertwined, locked, inseparable, moving to the same rhythm. I need him, Arro-yo thought. But not bitterly.