by Marlon James
“I know.”
“Can we trust him?”
“He looks like a trustworthy beast.”
“If he lies, I will bring him down with my jaws and make supper out of him.”
The buffalo snorted and started kicking up his right front leg in the water.
“He jests,” I said to the buffalo.
“A little,” the Leopard said. “To this man’s house with us. These robes make my balls itch.”
* * *
—
Sadogo sat on the floor in his room, punching his left palm with his right hand and setting off sparks. I stepped into the doorway and stayed there. He saw me.
“There he was. I grabbed his neck and squeezed until his head popped off. And her, her too, I swung this hand, this I hold up right here and slapped her so hard that I broke her neck. Soon the masters would gather seats and men and women who paid cowrie, and corn, and cows to watch me execute women, and children, and men with my hands. Soon they built seats in a circle and charged money and cast bets. Not for who would best me, for no man can ever best an Ogo. But for who would last longest. The children their necks I breaked quick so they would not suffer. This made them mad—who would watch, for they must have it, don’t you see? Don’t you see, they must have show. Curse the gods and fuck them all in the ears and ass, they will have a show, that is what I tell you.”
I knew what would happen. I left the Ogo. He would be talking all night, no matter the misery such talk caused him. Part of me wanted to give him ears, for there was depth there, things he had done that he buried wherever Ogos bury their dead. The Leopard was already grabbing his crotch when he went in the room with Fumeli. Sogolon was gone, and so was the girl and the lord of the house. I wanted to go to Fumanguru’s home, but did not want to go alone.
There was nothing to do but wait on the Leopard. Down the stairs, night crept up without me even seeing it. Kongor plays as a righteous city under sunlight, but turns into what all righteous cities turn into under the dark. Fires lit up patches of the sky, from the Bingingun far off. Drums at times jumped over roofs, and above the road, and shook our windows, while lutes, flute, and horns sneaked in under. I did not see a single man in Bingingun all day. I went out the window and sat in the sill, looking across to rooms with flickering lights, few, and rooms already dark, many. Fumeli, wearing a rug, walked past me carrying a lamp. He returned shortly after, passing me again carrying a wineskin. I followed him, ten and two or so paces behind. He left the door open.
“Grab your bow, or at least a good sword. No, make it daggers, we go with daggers,” I said.
The Leopard rolled around in the bed. On his back he snatched the wineskin from Fumeli, who did not look at me.
“You drink palm wine now?”
“I’ll drink blood if I wish,” he said.
“Leopard, time is not something we have to lose. Kwesi.”
“Fumeli, tell me this. Is it ill wind blowing under that window, or is it you speaking in a tone that sours me?”
Fumeli laughed quiet.
“Leopard, what is this?”
“What is this indeed? What is this? What is this, Tracker? What. Is. This?”
“This is about the house of the boy. The house that we are going to visit. The house that might tell us where he went.”
“We know where he’s gone. Nyka and that bitch of his already found him.”
“How do you know? Some drums told you? Or a little whore whispered something before sunset?”
A growl, but from Fumeli, not him.
“I go to only one place, Tracker. I go to sleep.”
“You plan to find him in dreams? Or maybe you plan to send your little maiden here.”
“Get out,” Fumeli said.
“No no no. You do not speak to me. And I only speak to him.”
“And if the him is me, then I say, you don’t speak to him or me,” the Leopard said.
“Leopard, are you mad or is this some game to you? Are there two children in this room?”
“I’m not a chil—”
“Shut up, boy, by all the gods I’ll—”
The Leopard jumped up. “By all the gods you will . . . what?”
“What is this relapse? First you are hot then you are cold, you are one thing, and then you are another. Is this little bitch bewitching you? I don’t care. We go now and argue later.”
“We leave tomorrow.”
The Leopard walked over to the window. Fumeli sat up in the bed, stealing looks at me.
“Oh. So we are in these waters again,” I said.
“How funny you talk,” Fumeli said. In my mind my hands were at his throat.
“Yes. In those waters, as you’ve said. We go our own way to find the boy tomorrow. Or we don’t. Either way we leave here,” the Leopard said.
“I told you about the boy. Why we need to find—”
“You tell me many things, Tracker. Not much of it any use. Now please go where you came from.”
“No. I will find what is this madness.”
“Madness, Tracker, is you thinking I would ever work with you. I can’t even stand drinking with you. Your envy stinks, did you know it stinks? It stinks as much as your hate.”
“Hate?”
“It confused me once.”
“You’re confused.”
“But then I realized that you are full from head to toe with nothing but malcontent. You cannot help yourself. You even fight it, sometimes well. Enough for me to let you lead me astray.”
“Fuck the gods, cat, we are working together.”
“You work with no one. You had plans—”
“To what, take the money?”
“You said it, not I. Did you hear him say it, Fumeli?”
“Yes.”
“Shut that fucking ass mouth, boy.”
“Leave us,” said the Leopard.
“What did you do to him?” I said to Fumeli. “What did you do?”
“Other than open my eyes? I don’t think Fumeli seeks credit. He’s not you, Tracker.”
“You don’t even sound—”
“Like myself?”
“No. You don’t even sound like a man. You’re a boy whose toys Father took away.”
“There’s no mirror in this room.”
“What?”
“Leave, Tracker.”
“Fuck the gods and fuck this little shit.”
I jumped at Fumeli. Leapt onto the bed and grabbed his neck. He slapped at me, the little bitch in him too weak to do anything else, and I squeezed. “I knew you consulted with witches,” I said. A big, black hairy mess knocked me down and I hit my head hard. The Leopard, full black and one with the dark, scratched my face with his paw. I grabbed at his neck skin, and we rolled over and over on the floor. I punched at him and missed. He ducked right down to my head and clamped his jaws on my neck. I couldn’t breathe. He clamped and swung his head, to break my neck.
“Kwesi!”
The Leopard dropped me. I wheezed air and coughed up spit.
The Leopard growled at me, then roared, almost as loud as a lion. It was a “get out” kind of roar. Get out and don’t come back.
I headed for the door, wiping my wet neck. Spit and a little blood.
“Don’t be here tomorrow,” I said. “Neither of you.”
“We don’t take orders from you,” Fumeli said. The Leopard paced by the window, still a Leopard.
“Don’t be here tomorrow,” I said again.
I went to the Ogo’s room.
* * *
—
Bingingun. This is what I learned from the Kongori and why they hate nakedness. To wear only skin is to wear the mind of a child, the mind of the mad, or even the mind of the man with no role in society, even lower than usurers and trinket sell
ers, for even such as they have their use. Bingingun is how people of the North set a place for the dead among the living. Bingingun is the masquerade, drummers and dancers and singers of great oriki. They wear the aso oke cloth underneath, and this cloth is white with indigo stripes, and looks like that with which we clothe the dead. They wear net on the face and hands, for now they will be masquerade, not men with names. When the Bingingun spins and makes a whirlwind the ancestors possess them. They jump high as roofs.
He who makes the costume is an amewa, a knower of beauty, for if you know the Kongori they view everything through the eye of what is beautiful. Not ugly, for that has no value, especially ugliness of character. And not too beautiful, for that is a skeleton in disguise. Bingingun is made from the best of fabrics, red, and pink, and gold, and blue, and silver, all trimmed in cowries and coins, for there is power in the beauty. In patterns, braids, sequins, tassels, and amulets with medicine. Bingingun in dance, Bingingun in march, make for transformation into the ancestors. All this I learned on my travels, for Juba has masquerade, but they are not Bingingun.
I said all this to the Ogo because we followed a procession on the way to the house so that a man as tall as he would not look strange in the torchlight. He still looked strange. Five drummers in front setting the dance—three beating barrel drums, a fourth beating a double-skin bata, and the fifth beating four small bata tied together to make a sound pitched high like a crow call. Following the drummers came the Bingingun, among them the Ancestor King in royal robes and a cowrie veil, and the Trickster, whose robes turned inside out to another robe, and yet another robe, as the Bingingun all swirled and stomped to the drum, boom-boom-bakalak-bakalaka, bakalakalakalaka-boom-boom-boom. Ten and five of this clan shuffled to the left then stomped, then shuffled to the right and hopped. I said all this to the Ogo so that he would not start talking again of whom he had killed with his hands and how there is nothing in this world or the next like the sound of the crushing of skull. Sadogo’s face was lost to me in the dark, and as he stood taller than the torches, he waved his hands in the air with the Bingingun, marched when they marched, and stopped when they stopped.
Here is truth. I did not know which house was Fumanguru’s, other than that it was in the Tarobe quarter, north of the Nimbe boundary, and that it would be almost hidden by massive growths of thornbush. I said, “Good Ogo, let us look. Let us walk street to street, and stop by which house burns no light and hides in branches that will prick and cut us.”
Outside the fourth house Sadogo grabbed a torch from the wall. At the ninth house I smelled it, the fire stink of sulfur, still fresh in its scent after so many years. Most of the houses on this street stacked themselves tight beside each other, but this stood apart, now an island of thornbush. Larger than the other houses, from how it looked in the dark, the bush had grown wide and tall, reaching all the way up the front door.
We went around the back. The Ogo was still quiet. He wore his gloves, not listening when I said they were no use against the dead. Look at how they failed to save you from Ogudu, I thought, but did not say. He tore away the branches until it was safe to climb. We jumped the back wall and landed in a thick blanket of grass. Wild grass left to grow tall, some of it to my waist. Omoluzu had without a doubt been here. Only plants that grew off the dead grew here.
We stood in the courtyard, right beside the grain keep, with millet and sorghum gone sour from getting wet from many rains, caked with rat shit and fresh with rat pups. The house, a cluster of dwellings, five points like a star, was not what I expected in Kongor. Fumanguru was no Kongori. Sadogo placed the torch in the dirt and lit up the whole courtyard.
“Spoiled meat, fresh shit, dead dog? I can’t tell,” the Ogo said.
“All three, perhaps,” I said.
I pointed to the first dwelling on the right. Sadogo nodded and followed. This first dwelling told me how I would find the rest. Everything left the way Omoluzu left it. Stools broken, jars crushed, tapestry ripped down, rugs and clothes torn and thrown about. I grabbed a blanket. Hidden in the smell of dirt and rain two boys, the youngest, perhaps, but the smell went as far as the wall and died. All the dead smell the same, but sometimes their living smell can take you to the point where they died.
“Sadogo, how do the Kongori bury their dead?”
“Not in the earth. In urns, too big for this room.”
“If they had a choice. Fumanguru’s family might have been dumped somewhere, appalling the gods. Maybe burned?”
“Not the Kongori,” he said. “They believe burning a body frees into air what killed him.”
“How do you know?”
“I killed a few. This was how it went. I—”
“Not now, Sadogo.”
We went to the next room, which, judging by the Mojave wood bed, must have been Fumanguru’s. His wall was all scenes—hunting, mostly—carved into the wood. Shattered statues and books on the floor, and loose paper as well, probably torn out of the books. Omoluzu would not have cared, but the third, fourth, and fifth person to visit this room would have, including Sogolon, whom I smelled since we stepped into the master room, but I did not tell the Ogo. I wondered if, unlike the others who had been here, she found what she was looking for.
“Word was that Basu Fumanguru wrote many writs against the King. Twenty or thirty articles in total, some with testimony to his wrongdoing from subjects, and nobles, and princes he wronged. There was a man who I had words with. He said that people searched for the writs, and that is why he was killed. But what little I know of Fumanguru tells me he is no fool. Also surely he would wish his words to not die with him,” I said.
“These writs are not here?”
“No. Not only that, good Ogo, but I don’t think that is what people were looking for. Remember the boy? Bunshi said she saved him.”
A sword glimmered on the floor. I hated swords now. Too bulky, too much force against wind when it should be working with her, but I took it up anyway. It was halfway in its sheath. I would need to come back under sunlight, for I had nothing now to guide me but my nose. A man was all over this room, Fumanguru perhaps, and a woman too, but their smells ended in this room, meaning they were dead. Outside, I turned to the room beside another dwelling for servants and the youngest children. I could tell that whoever buried the family either did not see or did not care that a servant was under the broken wood and torn rugs. All that was left lying there was her bones, still together, but flesh all eaten away. I stepped in and the Ogo followed me. His head scraped the ceiling. I grinned, tripped over an overturned urn, and fell hard. Fuck the gods, I said, even though a pile of cloths broke my fall. Robes. Even in the dark I could tell their luxury. Gold trim, but thin fabric, so the wife’s. This must be where the servant kept clothes dried after a wash. But there was fragrance in the thin robe that no wash could wash out. Frankincense. It took me out of this room and back into the master’s room and then out into the middle of the courtyard and back into the large room beside the grain keep.
“They’re in there, Sadogo.”
“Under earth?”
“No. In urns.”
With no windows, this room was the darkest, but thank the gods for the strength of the Ogo. He pulled the lid off the largest, which I assumed was Basu, but the frankincense still there told me it was the wife.
“Sadogo, your torch.”
He stood up and fetched it. In the urn, there she was, body curled wrong, with her back touching the soles of her feet. Her skull rested in her hair, her bones peeking out of the fabric.
“They broke her back?” Sadogo said.
“No, they cut her in two.”
The second urn, smaller but bigger than the others, housed Fumanguru. All his bones collected but broken apart. Deep blue robes like a king’s. Whoever buried them stole nothing, for surely they would have taken so luxurious a robe, even off a man diseased. His face bones were smashed, w
hich happened when Omoluzu ripped off a face to wear it. Another large urn housed two children, a small urn housed one. The small child’s bones in the small urn now almost powder, except for his arms and ribs. Like the others, he smelled of long-passed death and fading fragrance. Nothing to preserve or mummify the bodies, which meant the story of infection had spread. I nodded at Sadogo to cover the last urn when just a little thing winked at me.
“The torch again, Sadogo.”
I looked up, just as the Ogo wiped a tear from his cheek. He was thinking of killed children, but not this one.
“What is that he’s holding?” I asked.
“Parchment? A piece of clay?”
I grabbed it. Cloth, simple as aso oke fabric, but not. I pulled at it, but the boy would not let go. He died with this, his last show of defiance, the poor, brave child. I halted the thought before it went further. One more pull and it was free. A piece of blue cloth torn from something bigger. The boy was wrapped in white. I put the cloth to my nose and one year of sun, night, thunder, and rain, hundreds of days of walks, dozens of hills, valleys, sands, seas, houses, cities, plains. Smell so strong it became sigh, and hearing and touch. I could reach out and touch the boy, grab him in my mind and reel from him being so far away. Too far away, my head rushing and jumping and sinking below sea then flying higher and higher and higher and smelling air free of smoke. Smell pushing me, pulling me, dragging me through jungles, tunnels, birds, ripped flesh, flesh-eater insects, shit, piss, and blood. Blood rushed into me. So much blood my eyes went red, then black.
* * *
—
So gone I thought you would never return,” Sadogo said.
I rolled on my side and sat up.
“How long?”
“Not long but deep like in sleep. Your eye was milk white. I thought demons were in your head, but no froth came to your mouth.”
“It happens only when I am not expecting it. I smell something and someone’s life comes to me all in a rush. It is a madness, even now when I have learned to master it. But, Ogo, there is something.”
