by Marlon James
He nodded yes.
“When we were dead—”
He looked up and snorted.
“By dead I mean not dead, I mean when Sogolon was of a mind we were dead. She must have found others. Are you one of her others?”
He nodded yes.
“And already you have sharp thoughts about how I dress. I must say you are a particular buffalo.”
He went off in the bush, his tail whipping flies. I heard a man’s heavy footsteps through the grass fifty paces away and sat by the banks, my feet in the river. He moved closer; I pulled my dagger but did not turn around. The cold iron of a blade touched my right shoulder.
“Nasty boy, how you deh manage the things?” he asked.
“Deh managing them fine,” I said, mocking his tongue.
“You lost? You look like is so.”
“That be how me look?”
“Well, partner, you trotting round here, no robes on your person, like you mad or you a boy-lover, or a father-fucker or what?”
“I just washing my foot in the river.”
“So you looking for the boy-lovers quarter.”
“Just washing my foot in the river.”
“For the boy-lovers quarter, that be, it be where now? Hold that bridle. We has no boy-lovers quarter round here.”
“Eh? You sure you talking true? ’Cause last time me in the boy-lovers quarter, my eyes peep your father, and your grandfather.”
He slapped the side of my head with his club. “Get up,” he said. At least he wasn’t about to slay me without a fight. On his back he strapped two axes.
Shorter than me by almost a head, but in the white bottom and black top of a Seven Wing. My first thought was to ignore his anger and ask why the Seven Wings assemble, since not even the wise Sogolon knows. He then said something to me in a thicker voice than before.
“Dats what we going do with men laka you?” this wing said.
“What?”
“Who you want me to send your head to, boy-fucker?”
“You wrong.”
“How me wrong?”
“About me being the boy-fucker. Most time is the boys who fuck me. Hark, but there was this one, best in many a moon, so tight believe you me I has to stuff a corncob up to ease the hole. Then I ate the corn.”
“Me chop off your bolo first, and then your head, then throw the rest of you in the river. How you liking that? And when you parts flow down de river, people going say luku laka pon the boy-fucker shoga rolling down in the river, don’t drink from the river lest you become boy-fucker too.”
“Chop me with those axes? I have been looking for iron as fine as such. Forged by a Wakadishu blacksmith or did you steal them from a butcher’s wife?”
“Drop the knife.”
I looked at this man, not much taller than a boy, confusing stout with muscular and dashing shit on my quiet morning. I dropped the dagger in my hand and the one strapped to my leg.
“I would love to greet this sun and bid it good-bye without killing a man,” I said. “There are some people above the sand sea who have a feast every year where they leave a space empty for a ghost, a man who was once alive.”
He laughed, pointing the club at me with his left hand, and pulling an ax with his right. Then he dropped the club and pulled out the left ax.
“Maybe me should be doing the killing for you mad tongue, and not you perverse ways.”
He waved his axes in front of me, swinging and swirling them, but I did not move. The mercenary stepped forward just as a wad of something hit the back of his neck.
“Aunt of a donkey!”
He swung around just as the buffalo snorted again, and nose juice hit the warrior in the face. Eye-to-eye with the buffalo, he jumped. Before he could swing an ax, the buffalo scooped up the warrior with his horns and threw him off far into the grass. One ax landed in the field. The other came straight at me but bounced off. I cursed the buffalo. It was some time before the warrior sat up, shook his head, rose to his feet, and staggered off when the buffalo rushed him again.
“You took your time. I could have made bread.”
He trotted off and slapped me with his tail as he passed. I laughed and picked up my new axes.
The house had woken up by the time I got back. The buffalo stooped in the grass and sunk his head on the ground. I said he was as lazy as an old grandmother and he swished his tail at me. In a corner near the center doorway sat Sogolon, and a man I assumed was the lord of the house. Bisabol blew out of him, expensive perfume from lands above the sand sea. A white wrap around his head and under his chin, thin enough that I could see his skin. A white gown with a pattern of the millet plant, and over that a coat, coffee dark.
“Where is the girl?” I asked.
“Down some street, annoying some woman, because clothes remain something that fascinates her. Truly, old friend, she never ever seen the like,” Sogolon said.
The man nodded before I realized she was not speaking to me. He took a puff of his pipe, then handed it to her. The smoke from her mouth I would have taken for a cloud, it was so thick. She had drawn six runes in the dirt with a stick and was scratching a seventh.
“And how is the Tracker managing Kongor?” he asked, though he still did not look at me. I thought he was speaking to Sogolon in that rude way men who are rich and powerful can speak about you right in front of you. Too early in the day to make men test you, I said to myself.
“He not one for the Kongori custom to cover his snake,” Sogolon said.
“Indeed. They whipped a woman . . . seven days ago? No, eight, it was. They found her leaving the house of a man not her husband without her outer robes.”
“What did they do with the man?” I said.
“What?”
“The man, was he whipped as well?”
The man looked at me as if I had just spoken in one of the river tongues even I don’t know.
“When do we go to the house?” I said to Sogolon.
“You didn’t go last night?”
“Not to Fumanguru’s.”
She turned away from me, but I would not be flashed off by these two.
“This grand peace is walking on a crocodile’s back, Sogolon. Is not just Kongor and is not just Seven Wings. Men who don’t fight since the Prince was just born are getting word that they must reach for armour and weapon, and assemble. Seven Wings assemble in Mitu as well, and other warriors under other names. The Malakal you left, and the Uwomowomowomowo valley, both now gleam from the iron and gold of armour, spear, and sword,” the man said.
“And ambassadors roam each city. Sweat not from heat but from worry,” she said.
“This I know. Five days ago four men from Weme Witu come for talks, for all come to Kongor to settle disputes. Nobody see them since.”
“What they disputing?”
“What they dispute? Not like you to get deaf ears to the movement of people.”
She laughed.
“Here is a true thing. Years before this skinny boy’s mother spread her koo to piss him out, right before they mark the peace on paper and iron, the South retreat back to the South.”
“Yes, yes, yes. They retreat south, but not full south,” Sogolon said.
“The old Kwash Netu give them back a bone. Wakadishu after conquering it.”
“I was just in Kalindar and Wakadishu.”
“But Wakadishu never liked that arrangement, not at all. They say Kwash Netu betray them, he sell them back to slavery under the southern King. They been bawling for years upon years and this new King—”
“Kwash Dara looking like he hear,” she said.
“And all this movement up north making the South rumble. Sogolon, word be that the mad King’s head is again infected with devils.”
This was annoying me more and more. Both were s
aying things the other already knew. Not even discussing, or reasoning or arguing or repeating, but finishing each other’s thoughts, like they were talking to each other but still not to me.
“Earth and sky already hear enough,” Sogolon said.
“You talk of kings and wars and rumors of war as if anybody cares. You’re just a witch, here to find a boy. As is everybody, except him,” I said, pointing to the lord. “Does he even know why we’re under his roof? See, I too can talk around a man as if he’s not there.”
“You said he have a nose, not a mouth,” the lord said.
“We waste time talking about politics,” I said, and walked past them inside.
“No one speaks to you,” Sogolon said, but I did not turn back.
Upstairs one floor, the Leopard came towards me. I couldn’t read his face, but this was a long time coming. So let us have it out, with words or fists or knives and claws, and whoever is left let him have at the boy, you to fuck him, me to beat him with a shit stick, and send him right back to whatever thing shat him out. Yes, let us have this. The Leopard ran up, almost knocking over two of the dozen statues and carvings in the hallway, and embraced me.
“Good Tracker, I feel I have not seen you in days.”
“It has been days. You couldn’t pull yourself out of sleep.”
“This is a true word. I feel as if I was sleeping for years. And I wake to such dismal rooms. Come now, what sport is there in this city?”
“Kongor? In a city pious as this even the mistresses seek marriage.”
“I already love it. Yet is there not some other reason we are here? We hunt a boy, do we not?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I remember and I do not.”
“You remember the Darklands?”
“We went through the Darklands?”
“You were one for harsh words.”
“Harsh? To whom? Fumeli? You know he likes when we spar. Are you not hungry? I saw a buffalo outside and thought to kill it, or at least bite off the tail, but he seems an ingenious buffalo.”
“This is very strange, Leopard.”
“Tell me at the table. What happened these few days since we left the valley?”
I told him we were gone a moon. He said that was madness and refused to hear any more.
“I hear the gap in my belly. It growls obscene,” he said.
This table was in a great hall, with plate after plate of scenes covering all the walls in the room. I got to the tenth plate before I saw that these works of the grand bronze masters all showed scenes of fucking.
“This is strange,” I said again.
“I know. I keep looking for one where the cock goes in the mouth hole or the boo hole but I couldn’t find any. But I hear this is a town of no shoga. How could that be tru—”
“No. It’s strange that you remember nothing. The Ogo remembers everything.”
The Leopard, being a Leopard, ignored the chairs and jumped up on the table, not making a sound. He grabbed the bird leg from a silver tray, crouched on his heels, and bit into it. I could tell he did not like it. Leopards eat all things, but there was no rush of blood, hot and rich, spilling into his mouth and over his lips as he bit into it, which always made him frown.
“You are the one strange, Tracker, with your riddles and half meanings. Sit, eat porridge while I eat—what is this, ostrich? I’ve never had ostrich, could never catch one. You said the Ogo is remembering?”
“Yes.”
“What does he remember? Being in the enchanted bush? I remember that.”
“What else?”
“A great slumber. Traveling but not moving. A long scream. What does the Ogo remember?”
“Everything, it seems. His whole life came back to him. Do you remember when we set out? You had a problem with me.”
“We must have solved it, for I do not remember it.”
“If you heard yourself, you would not have thought so.”
“You are confusing, Tracker. I sit and eat with you, and there is love between us that until now was the kind we never had to declare. So stop living in a squabble so little that I cannot remember it, even with you prompting me. When do we go to the boy’s house? Shall we go now?”
“Yesterday you wer—”
“Kwesi!” his arrow boy shouted, and dropped the basket he was carrying. Maybe I did forget his name out of spite. He came over to the table, not looking or even nodding at me.
“You are not well enough to be eating strange things,” he said to the Leopard.
“Here is meat and here is bone. Nothing is strange.”
“Go back to the room.”
“I am well.”
“You are not.”
“Are you deaf?” I said. “He said he is well.”
Fumeli tried to glare at me and fuss over the Leopard with the same face, but it came out as him fussing a little over me and glaring a little at the Leopard. Even when it was not funny, this boy provoked me to laugh. He stomped off, grabbing his basket on the way out. One of his little parcels fell out. Cured pig, I could smell it. Supplies. The Leopard sat down on the table and crossed his legs.
“I should lose him soon.”
“You should have lost him moons ago,” I mumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing, Leopard. There are things I must tell you. Not here. I do not trust these walls. Truly there are some strange things here.”
“You’ve said this four times now. Why is everything strange, friend?”
“The black puddle woman.”
“It’s these statues that bother me. I feel like an army is going to watch me fuck at night.”
He grabbed one of the statues by the neck, and grinned that wide smile I couldn’t remember when last I saw.
“This one the most,” he said.
“Grab your bird,” I said.
We wrapped our waists in cloths and walked south to Gallunkobe/Matyube. The freemen and slave quarter, also the poorest, except for vulgar houses that spread wide instead of tall for freemen with much coin, but no noble air. Most of the houses were one room or hall, and packed so tight that they shared the same roof. Not even a rat could squeeze between each wall. The towers and roofs of the Nyembe quarter made it look like a huge fort or a castle, but no towers rose in this quarter. Freemen and slaves had no need to watch anyone, but everyone needed to watch them. And despite having the most men and women sleeping there at night, by day it was the emptiest quarter, freemen and slaves at work in the other three.
“When did Bunshi tell you such a story?”
“When? Good cat, you were there.”
“I was? I don’t . . . yes I do remember . . . memory comes forth, then slips away.”
“Memory must be one of them who heard what you do in bed.”
He chuckled.
“But, Tracker, I remember it as if somebody told me, not as if I was there. I have no smell of it. So strange.”
“Yes, strange. Whatever that Fumeli makes you smoke, stop smoking such.”
I was happy to talk to the Leopard, as I always am, and I did not want to bring up the sourness of the days past—one moon past, a fact that staggered him every time I said it. I think I know why. Time is flat to all animals; they measure it in when to eat, when to sleep, when to breed, so missed time to him feels a board with a huge hole punched out.
“The slaver said the boy was his partner’s son, now an orphan. Men kidnapped the boy from his housekeeper and murdered all others in that house. Then he said the house belonged to his aunt, not his housekeeper. Then we saw him and Nsaka Ne Vampi try to pry information out of the lightning girl, who we set free but then she jumped off a cliff and landed in Nyka’s cage.”
“You tell me things I know. Everything but this lightning woman in the cage. And I remember thinking
for sure this slaver lies, but not about what.”
“Leopard, that was when Bunshi poured herself down the wall and said the boy was not that boy, but another who was the son of Basu Fumanguru, who was an elder, and on the Night of the Skulls the Omoluzu attacked the house and killed everyone but the boy who was then a baby and who Bunshi hid in her womb to save him, but then she took him to a blind woman in Mitu who she thought she could trust, but the blind woman sold him to a slave market where a merchant bought him, perhaps for his barren wife, but then they were attacked by men of malicious means. A hunter took the boy and now none can find him.”
“Slow, good friend. None of this I remember.”
“And that is not all, Leopard, for I found another elder, who called himself Belekun the Big, who said the family died of river sickness, which was false, but the family was eight, which was true, and of it six were sons and none were just born.”
“What are you saying, Tracker?”
“Do you not remember when I told you this on the lake?”
The Leopard shook his head.
“Belekun was always liar and I had to kill him, especially when he tried to kill me. But he had no reason to lie about this, so Bunshi must have. Yes, Omoluzu killed Basu Fumanguru’s family, and yes, many know this including her, but that the boy we seek was not his son as he had no young sons.”
The Leopard still looked confused. But he raised his brow as if a truth suddenly struck him.
“But, Leopard,” I continued, “I have done some looking and some digging and somebody here in this city also asks of Fumanguru, meaning they asked to be told if somebody asks, which means the closed matter of the dead elder is not so closed, because one thing remains open, this missing boy who is not his son, and though he may not be his son, he is the reason why others search for him and why we search for him and given that Fumanguru was an annoyance but not a real enemy of the King, whoever sent roof walkers to his house was not there to kill the family but was there for the boy, who Fumanguru must have been protecting. They too know he is alive.”
I told the Leopard all this and this is truth, I was more confused by the telling than he was by listening. Only when he repeated all that I said did I understand it. We were still ankle deep in the water when he said, “You know this buffalo stands behind us as we speak.”
