Ancient, Ancient

by Kiini Ibura Salaam

  Mama kisses me. “Don’t cry sweet baby, daddy will be fine.”

  But I just cry harder because I know he won’t.

  Mama hugs me. “Go downstairs with your sister and brother, sweetie. Let me talk to daddy.”

  But I don’t move. I’m terrified daddy will tell. Mama pushes me toward the door, but my body is stiff as a old oak.

  “Go ’head, honey,” she says. “Go on downstairs.”

  “Can I tell daddy something first, mama?”

  “Go ahead, Rosa.”

  I force myself to walk close to the bed.

  “Don’t tell, daddy. Don’t tell mama and I promise, I’ll fix it.”

  Daddy grunts. He can’t see my fingers crossed behind my back. It’s not that I don’t want to fix it, it’s that I can’t. If daddy dies, things are gonna get real bad. But I can’t let mama find out what I did. Not ever.

  I go downstairs and sit between Benny and Lola on the couch. Benny is crying, Lola is picking a scab on her knee.

  “You think Daddy’s gonna die?” Lola asks.

  When I don’t answer, she shoves me, but I still don’t say nothing. When the ambulance sirens get close, Benny stops crying. Before they even pull up in the yard, I feel a fire burn inside me. I don’t say nothing to Lola, but that’s how I know daddy died. Mama screams loud and we all tense up. When mama comes downstairs, she don’t say nothing. She points the ambulance people to the stairs and sits on the couch with us. She spreads her arms wide and squeezes us tight.

  That night I dream of mama. Her face close to my face, we giggling and talking girl talk. But then I feel the string of my pouch pulling at my neck. My eyes fly open. Mama’s face is close to my face, but ain’t no giggle in her eyes. She’s hanging over my bed, and her hairline is all sweaty. She looking at me like she don’t know me—like I’m not me, not a girl even, just some stubborn piece of meat she’s tugging on.

  My hands fly up and I grab my pouch. Mama hiss out some air before she speak.

  “Be sleep time, Rosa,” she say.

  “I know, mama, but I can’t sleep with you wrenchin on my neck.”

  “Take it off, then,” mama say, like she daring me or something.

  “Mama you know I always sleep with my pouch.”

  Mama closes her eyes like she can’t look at me while she’s talking. Silence hang between us for so long, I think I’m dreaming again. Then mama open her eyes. She look at me like she searching for the truth.

  “You just a child,” she say. Then she blink all the pity out her eyes, and her voice get hard again.

  “Empty out the pouch, Rosa.”

  My heart starts beating double time. I start to cry.

  “Why you want me to do that, mama?”

  “I can’t survive no more bad news, Rosa,” she say with her teeth all clenched up. “It all got to come out tonight, so when the sun rise tomorrow, it’s done.”

  I start crying harder then. Mama stop talking and lick her lips. One second, she look like she want to love me, the next second she look like she want to kill me. Her hands are shaking like she been wrestling with the Devil himself.

  “Rosa, there’s some things in life that’s too troublin to understand and too wicked to look straight in the eye. You just a baby, and God knows I don’t want to witness to this, but I can’t lie to myself no more.”

  Mama gives me a soft look, then evil steal back into her eyes. “You shoulda stayed asleep, Rosa, and let me find out on my own.”

  My legs start twitching cuz they wanna run right out the room. But they trapped in the twisted up sheets. Besides, there’s no way I could get past mama. Not tonight. I take a big ole gulp of air trying to slow down the hurt rushing out my chest.

  “I can’t,” I whisper, and I look at the wall ’steada at mama. I wanna say—“Mama, I can’t”—but I don’t know if she still be my mama after what I done to daddy.

  Mama rise up to her feet then. I can feel the anger crackling off her like lightning. “I never had no cause to hit you before, Rosa, and tonight is not the night to start. Now hush up and empty out that pouch.”

  I don’t want her to be mad at me, but it’s like my whole body is yelling “No!” I hunch my shoulders over and cover the pouch with my hands. Next thing I know, mama is on me. She’s scratching my face and neck trying to rip off the pouch. When mama finally get a good grip on the pouch, it don’t make no noise. All the protest is coming from the draw of my breath and the thump of my heart.

  Soon as the pouch leave my body, I gets to shaking. I’m shaking so hard it feels like the whole house is trembling with me. I don’t know who starts to wailing first, and I don’t know who is the loudest. All I know is when daddy burnt harmonica hit the floor, me and mama turn inside out. All our hurts like to drown us in that room. I go hot, I shiver with chills, I get ate up by fear—wild, hungry fear—worse than when daddy was coming to my room that second time. When I can’t take it no more, I just start to yelling. I yell so hard my throat start to close up on me. Then mama voice break through all that noise. I can hear her screaming, “Why? Why? Whyyyyyyyyy?”

  I’d do anything to make mama understand, but my mouth is numb. I can’t tell her the truth. If I tried to explain, the words would rip me right down the middle and break mama into a million tiny pieces.

  “Ask daddy why,” I whisper and my whisper cut through all that screaming and wire up the air with electricity. Mama’s chest is heaving like something evil is truly inside her. Sweat is pouring off her like the wet on a jelly jar fresh out the icebox. The rhythm of my breath scatter all over the place. My throat feel like roadkill, and I can’t gather up enough air to keep my lungs going. The last thing I remember is mama staring at me with a look I don’t ever want to see again. Then my eyes roll back in my head and my body just give out.

  Next time I see mama is at daddy’s funeral. First time I’m seeing Benny and Lola, too. Soon as mama see me, she look at me real hard. Not mean or scared, but just studying real serious. Maw-Maw’s been fattening me up with pound cake and gumbo, but I don’t think that’s why mama’s staring. I think she trying to peel me open with her eyes, trying to figure out if her little girl is still inside me. I want her to see I’m still me, I want her to love me like before—but if she don’t, I won’t fall to pieces like I thought I would before Maw-Maw got her hands on me. Maw-Maw give me peace and trust and plenty of hugs and kisses. She never look at me funny or make me feel like she suspect me of harboring the Devil. She told me all God’s children got they miracles and they struggles, and sometimes those two be the same thing. Then she brush my hair and tell me not to trouble myself with worry.

  After the funeral, Lola and Benny sit there gobbling up big plates of fried chicken with red beans and rice. They act like they don’t miss me at all, but I catch them staring at me when they think I ain’t looking.

  After the eating’s done, Maw-Maw unwrap three cakes. I snatch up a piece of one and sneak off. I can’t take mama’s stares or Benny and Lola’s looks no more. Don’t know who else know I ain’t been home, but I don’t want to feel nobody’s prying eyes picking me apart.

  I find a corner next to the china cabinet in Maw-Maw’s sitting room. Ain’t supposed to carry no food in here at all, but I mean to eat private, even if it gets me in trouble. Before I take my first bite, I feel somebody hit me on the shoulder. I look up, but I’m scared to look back. If I’m leaning on the wall, can’t nobody hit me from behind, can they?

  I wait awhile, but nothing happens. I break off a chunk of cake. That’s when I feel that tap tap on my shoulder again. This time I turn and look back. Ain’t nobody there. I get up and move to the other side of the room. I settle down and bite into Maw-Maw’s cake real quick before that ole tapping can stop me. While I’m chewing, I hear daddy’s voice inside my head.

  “It good Rosa?” he say.

  I jump and look around. Daddy laugh.

  “You can’t see the dead, Rosa.”

  “Daddy that you?” I whisper
.

  Daddy don’t say nothing. I take a sad look at my cake. Look like don’t nobody wanna let me eat in peace. I get up and take my cake to the backyard. Soon as I get outside, daddy start talking again.

  “Rosa, you have to forgive me.”

  I slam my plate down on the picnic table.

  “Me? Forgive you?”

  “Yeah, I wanna go where my soul supposed to go, but…”

  Daddy fall silent. My lip starts to poke out like it does when I’m feeling prickly.

  “Rosa, you holdin me back.”

  “That’s why you sneakin around here tappin on my shoulder at your own funeral?”

  “Rosa, I need you to forgive me so I can go where I need to go.”

  I go quiet on that one. Me forgiving him make it seem like he didn’t do nothing wrong.

  “You gotta tell mama what happened,” I say and cross my arms.

  “How I’mma do that, Rosa? You the only one that could hear me.”

  A big knot of sobs is welling up in my throat, but I choke it down.

  “You ain’t the only one can’t go where you supposed to. I ain’t been home since you left. Mama don’t even want me no more.”

  “But Maw-Maw takin good care of you, Rosa. I’m nowhere.”

  I turn my back to daddy, which I realize is stupid real quick because daddy is everywhere and nowhere at once.

  “I can’t help you ’til you make mama know I’m not the Devil’s child.”

  “Once I make your mama know the truth, then you’ll forgive me?”

  I sit down on the picnic bench in a heap. I feel like all the air done left my body.

  Finally I say, “Daddy, can I forgive you even if I’m glad you dead?”

  Daddy go real quiet. After while I figure he’s gone.

  “Daddy?”

  Daddy clears his throat. “Did daddy hurt you that bad, Rosa?”

  I nod my head.

  “And you was gonna keep doing it.”

  Then daddy quiet again. Finally he say, “Sometimes right and wrong not so easy to sort out, Rosa.”

  “I’m a child, daddy,” I wail. “I’m not ready for grown up things.” My voice starts shaking, before I know it I’m bawling.

  “It’s alright, Rosa,” daddy say. “I can see you not ready to forgive me. I’m terrible sorry you hurtin so bad. I never meant to do you wrong. I’m gonna go now, but I’ll be back. I’m not gonna push you, but you can’t make me stay here forever. You gonna have to forgive me and let me go where I need to go.”

  I don’t answer, I just sniff real hard. It take me awhile to pull myself together. I look at the tops of the trees. I stare up under some birds as they fly by. I watch a stretch of raggedy-looking clouds float on by. When my tears finally dry up, I wipe off my face and head back to the house.

  When I grab hold of the door, I hear daddy again.

  “Rosa, honey, please promise me you’ll at least think about forgiving me.”

  “I will,” I say tiredly. I ain’t got no more fight left in me.

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  And I’m still keeping that promise to this very day.

  Battle Royale

  It is something about the feathers, how they fall about his bare shoulders. Not bunched on rawhide around the neck, nor bundled on a cord around the waist. Instead they hover cape-like around him, each one undulating like a dark glossy wave every time he shifts. I pretend not to notice his eyes returning again and again to the ugly scar that wings across my chest. Those eyes have a dangerous glint that softens each time it encounters the smooth stretch of broken cells that rises from my skin.

  The nasal twang of the European rings out just behind my back, causing me to return my attention to the room. Daylight filters through the window behind a puffy judge. The benches and tables in the room are thick, wooden, oppressive. Other men of my color sit in rows shackled behind me. The tiny hairs at the base of my scalp quiver and stiffen. What crime have I committed?

  Words like prevalent and supersede grate against my ears as the European tries to explain why the work of the House of Burgesses has changed so radically since me and my kind arrived. I imagine that nasal twang sputtering to a halt upon discovering the true details of my arrival. I did not come on massive creaking ships along with my fellow laborers. I came clinging to the shifting seeds of time. This was my punishment, to drink the terephthalic acid, mount the compo, and travel to a time that Grandfather warned me would make me cry for another chance to obey him back home.

  I knew he’d be right (he always is); I just didn’t know how right he’d be. This scar has become something I caress obsessively as if it were your komboloi, the worry beads you lashed to my wrist while I leaned my head back to drink the acid. Whatever terrible act that begat this scar is long forgotten; yet as I circle my fingers over its contours, I know its presence on this body is no accident. Grandfather must want me to know that ripped flesh—cells forced to separate, then claw their way back together in a lumpy uneven embrace—is the life I escaped. History has been the grace that allows my body—my true body—to remain strong and unscarred. Virtually.

  Virtually unscarred.

  The Battle Royale is not supposed to maim. If you’re good, you never get hit. You duck and dodge, slipping away just seconds before a blade or a heel or a stick hits. It’s a dance, the razors were added for flash, to make the game prettier. You get a lot of bruises, a few players have lost chunks of flesh, but only one death.

  “It’s safe,” I told Grandfather.

  “Battle Royale,” he muttered under his breath and went back to his beakers and chemicals and explosions.

  I was forbidden. I was forbidden to battle, but you were there. If I didn’t dance, someone else would have dazzled you with their blades, and I would have disappeared before your eyes.

  So I got cut. Yeah, I bled. But I didn’t break anything. I didn’t have to go to the hospital. I walked all the way home. Trailing blood, and you behind.

  When Grandfather saw me he was shaking. Not from fear, but from anger. Grandmother protested that I needed to heal, but Grandfather would not listen. He dragged me down into the basement, pulled me over the threshold of his lab, and pushed me onto the compo. He was so angry he didn’t notice that my blood had spilled all the way down the stairs, and you behind.

  I drank. I didn’t have a choice. He raged about whipping posts and ignorance. He questioned my right to be free, and you cried. You, who had never even touched my cheek, who I had never even kissed, you cried for me and wrapped your worry beads around my wrist.

  Grandfather has a bad habit of creating the poison before the cure. Now that I am sitting here watching feathers hanging in air, listening to the buzz of legal speech, fingering a scar placed on this body before I entered it, I wonder when Grandfather will bring me back, if he can bring me back. If I will fall faint or asleep and open my eyes to see Grandfather’s face hanging over me—you behind, praying that I survived.

  I hear the man in the feathered cape whisper, “Uexolotl,” and I know it is a curse. A lance thrown down the throat of the haughty European. But the European does not respond; he continues his speech. The realization comes to me slowly, but I grasp it. The magic-cape man—with his brown skin and his shiny black hair—he cannot be seen by the European.

  “He and his kind are dead,” a voice whispers. I look around, but there is no one here. No one who would have whispered such a thing. The men surrounding me do not whisper. Their voices insist and impose. They flail dark-robed arms and toss white-wigged heads. The men shackled behind me are silent.

  “Dance,” the voice whispers.

  “What?” I ask with dry lips.

  “Dance,” the voice whispers again. I listen harder. I may be crazy, keeping company with dead, feathered men. I may be crazy, hearing words on the wind. I may be crazy, but I am certain this is your voice. You, who are not here, but I think you must be reaching for me. I imagine you peering through G
randfather’s murky liquids, whistling into beakers, wondering how you can bring me home.

  I stand.

  “Now dance.”

  Before I can move a muscle, the scar starts to screech.

  “Dance the Royale?”

  The scar wails in guttural tones, begging me to sit. It speaks in a language I can’t decipher, but fear needs no words to be understood.

  “Dip.”

  I don’t know where this scar came from or how it was born, but I know you. I have been waiting to dance for you since the moment I met you. Before you can whisper another word, I dip. My hands flick helplessly, no razors to grasp. A club blurs toward me, and I slide back, snaking my hips low. It crashes against my knee, but it doesn’t matter. I’m in the Royale now.

  They surround me—black robes, rotten teeth, anger. They surround me, but they can’t catch me. The Royale has me. That ancient vibe has slipped into my skin and nested down into my chest. It guides me, showing me the gaps, and I glide through, ducking just when they think I’m captured. Then just like that, the Royale leaves me. It rolls up behind me and shoves me forward. I stumble under the force, and then I run.

  I scramble over benches and climb through an open window. As soon as my feet touch the ground, I take off running. I hear sounds behind me: explosions and shouts. I feel tiny fires shooting past me. The Royale pants behind me, low and fierce. Every pant is like a heartbeat. I dare not still my feet.

  Out the corner of my eye I see feathers flying next to me. They rush, creating a wind that pushes me faster and faster. I run beyond my pursuers. I run beyond the trees. I run beyond the Royale. Then I hear the gritty sound of time grinding into a different gear, or year. My limbs go liquid and lose their speed.

  Intense heat is the first thing I feel, then exhaustion. I feel it down to my bones. Muscles like mush, as if I’ve been walking for miles. To the right and left of me are sand dunes, notched with hypnotizing ridges where the wind has kissed them. Before me is a woman’s back, her head hangs low as she plods along a footpath. I look behind me. More women, a long line of them snaking back further than I can see. They all wear dingy white robes and tattered headwraps. I hold up my arms. The same dingy cloth covers me.