My satchel hangs like a noose around my neck, holding the entire extent of the personal belongings we are allowed: two long-sleeved cikis and two short, all ruddy brown linen with orange jacquard embellishments around the collar and cuffs, with the school crest upon the right shoulder. Two matching sets of pants. A few pair of underwear. A sleep gown. Three notebooks filled with twice-blessed paper. A set of defting sticks. A cup, a bowl, a spoon. One comfort item, and a note from home.
For my comfort item, I’ve chosen a pocket mirror, not to stoke my vainglory, but as a quick source of glass shards should the need arise. Kasim has picked a whole carton of individually wrapped Jak & Dee’s dehydrated samp and beans. He eats them right out of the packet when he’s stressed. And instead of a loving note from our mother, we’d both gotten a slur of cusses, punctuated with “how could you?” and “I raised you better than this!” I wanted to explain to her why we had to leave, but how could we tell the woman who birthed us, who raised us the best she could, that her sons were beset by demons? And yet beyond her anger and disappointment, the way she looked at us, it was like she could see those monsters inside us as she slammed the door in our faces. Yes, it stings, but Kasim and I have to focus on figuring out a way to quiet our minds while wielding our powers. Then we can make it up to her.
We draw sharp stares from all directions. There is an unspoken social order about things, the way students move in packs, the paths they take, who yields to whom when those paths intersect, but it is well beyond my grasp. We wear the clothes, but we definitely do not walk the walk. And I can barely stand to walk at all, the way these loafers pinch at my toes. Kasim stumbles along as well, scratching at his collar, like his grace has been left behind along with the rest of our possessions. He walks so close to me that our arms brush. The proximity is like a breath of fresh air. We may have next to nothing, but we have each other, and that’s more than enough.
We near the administration building, another brown mound of old brick and thin panes of dingy glass, evoking images of the simple wooden huts our ancestors once dwelled in. Don’t get me wrong, the place is immaculate, but the buildings cannot escape the burden of their age. We ascend a short set of stairs, our heads passing directly under a Welcome to Gabadamosi Preparatory banner. When I open the door, the dimly lit rotunda is abuzz with school staff scurrying across the packed dirt floor, flitting in and out of the glass doors of offices carrying stacks of precariously high paper and wearing impossibly wide smiles. That all grinds to a sudden halt as each and every eye falls upon us disappointedly. Whispers stir about as we pass, referring to us as those boys before we even get a chance to identify ourselves. Apparently, Uncle Yeboah had called in a huge favor from one of his welshing buddies who sat on the school board. Together they pushed through a Religioning Exchange Program that took poor secular kids from the comfy and immersed them in Grace’s shadow for a quarter. He’d spent many multiples of the money he’d offered to us to pay our tuitions via “scholarship,” bribe the proper officials at Gabadamosi, and keep his name from it all in any shape or form.
One quarter. Or what’s left of it. Ten weeks is all the time we have to learn all we can, and hope that it’s enough.
I place my hands on the front counter and nervously touch one of the pens held by a gilded cup bearing the school’s crest—a bird-faced cheetah with a snake for a tail, wielding a long knife. “Hi. We’re Auben and Kasim Mtuze. It’s our first day.”
The receptionist behind the desk forces a smile upon eir face, but would have had an easier time squeezing water from a rock. “Welcome, new students.” The receptionist smacks eir lips like the words have left a disgusting aftertaste. “Munashe!” ey calls out, annoyed.
A smallish wooden door opens, which I’d thought was a maintenance closet, and out comes a young woman dressed in a high-quality yet ill-fitting blouse, neck adorned with a chunky kola nut necklace, and slacks with their cuffs skimming the floor. Her hair is pressed and fashionably unkempt, though I get the feeling that this was not her intent.
“Hello,” she greets us, face aglow with the compassionate gaze of a child’s doll. She looks a few years older than Kasim and me. “You must be Auben and Kasim. I’m Munashe, recent Gabadamosi alum, class of ’09. They couldn’t get rid of me, and now I’m a new student liaison. I can show you around and answer any of your questions. I’m at your beck and call.”
We shake hands. She seems sincere enough, and her face doesn’t have that look like we’re polluting up the place, which makes me both trust her and feel immediately warier at the same time.
“You should get along with the tour, then,” the receptionist says briskly. “We’ll send all of the necessary paperwork over to your dormitory.” Ey brushes me away with a finger flick, then sets about polishing the spot on the desk where I’d leaned . . . and tossing the pen I’d touched. The receptionist straightens the remaining pens, shuffles paperwork, neatens eir tight afro with a pat, waxes on a smile.
“Don’t mind them,” Munashe whispers to us. “I wish I could say they usually aren’t quite this awful, but then I’d be a liar.” She gives us an impish smile, then bids us to follow her to the exit. “It’s just that everyone is a bit on edge. Gueye Okahim is paying a visit to Gabadamosi today. It’s all very exciting. Rumor has it that he’s seeking out an apprentice. Perhaps one of our students will catch his eye.”
“Gueye Okahim?” Kasim asks.
Munashe stops so quickly, I run right into her back. “Seriously? You don’t know who Gueye Okahim is? For the glory of Grace, this exchange program couldn’t have been any more prudent. Gueye Okahim is the Man of Virtues at the Sanctuary. The man who stands directly in Grace’s shadow. Who has been thoroughly touched by those Hallowed Hands. Who speaks His word. Also a Gabadamosi alum, I have to add. Class of ’71.”
Munashe takes Kasim by the hand and eagerly bids us forth. “Come on. We don’t want to be here when he arrives. I can’t even imagine the extent of the school’s embarrassment if his first visit in nearly five years involved a couple of sec-heads. No offense.” Munashe pushes open the front door, and stiffens as she looks out. Coming up the stairs is a man clad in dark purple sequined robes that kiss the ground, his thin black thighs peeking from the slits upon either side. A collar of stiff pheasant feathers frames his head like a lion’s mane. Hints of age dance lightly about his wizened eyes, though no evidence of his years exists anywhere else upon his chiseled face. His hair is shorn, except for a smooth bald band straight through the center, where the symbols of the seven virtues have been branded front to back. The one for grace overlaps onto his forehead.
Munashe immediately falls to her knees and makes the quick gesture we have seen our uncle do enough times. Kasim and I exchange a worried glance, and in the instantaneous language shared by twins, decide that we should at least make a minimal effort to fit in. We also go to our knees, but refrain from the religious gestures.
It soon becomes apparent to the three of us that we have chosen to show our respect right in the doorway to the building so that it is impossible for the Man of Virtues to pass. I slowly start to stand, but Munashe tugs me back down by the collar of my uniform. “We can’t move until he’s passed,” she rasps to us. “Or until he’s addressed us to do so.” Unless the Man of Virtues intends to step over us, it will have to be the latter. He will have to speak directly to Kasim and me, and we have no idea what to do or how to respond. “Don’t look at anything besides his feet. Say nothing other than ‘Yes, Amawusiakaraseiya.’”
Say what?
My eyes stay fixed upon glimpses of bare feet peeking from beneath Gueye Okahim’s robe. The feet stop inches away from us. I hear the amused smirk on his face as he says, “Arise, my children,” in a voice full of intonation and power.
We comply thoughtlessly, like puppets pulled by strings.
The scurrying of many feet fills the rotunda behind us. I dare to part my glance from Gueye Okahim’s feet to see the small army of school administrators wit
h horrified faces.
“Amawusiakaraseiya,” Munashe says, a quivering mess. “I am incredibly sorry you have been inconvenienced by these students. Please—”
“There is no inconvenience. I am here to be among the students and to witness how the Hallowed Hands have touched the minds and souls of our young ones. You,” Gueye Okahim says, lifting my chin up with one of his ageless fingers. “I trust this fine institution is seeing to your religioning in an adequate manner?”
“Yes—” I try to get my mouth around the title, but the syllables refuse to cohere. I do the next best thing I can think of “—sir.”
I swear I hear Munashe gritting her teeth at me.
“And you.” Kasim’s chin is lifted as well. “Do you feel your time here has brought you closer to Grace?”
Kasim grimaces, his mind churning over one of his sideways truths. “It certainly hasn’t brought me any farther away, Amawusiekeseiya.” The word slips effortlessly over his lips.
The air in the room is sucked thin by a collective gasp.
Kasim flushes. “What? I said that right, didn’t I?” he whispers to Munashe.
Her mouth gapes, then opens and closes like a dying fish. “I throw myself upon your mercy, Amawusiakaraseiya. It is my fault. These students here do not know any better. They are exchange students sent over from a secular school in a nearby comfy. They do not mean any offense.”
“None is received. It is a good thing for His hands to reach into the hearts that need Him the most. It is good to meet you both. I am called Gueye Okahim by birth, Amawusiakaraseiya by His hands. You may call me Gueye if it is easier for you.” He presses both of his hands around mine.
“I’m Auben, Gueye. Auben Mtuze. It is an honor to meet you.”
“Likewise,” he says with a major helping of humility.
“I’m Kasim Mtuze,” Kasim says. “We’re brothers. Twins.” He stands next to me, his arm pressed against mine. It is like we are a united front in Gueye Okahim’s presence, and together we might get through this unscathed.
“Kasim? It is interesting that parents raising a child in the secular way would give him such a highly religious name. Controller of temper it means in ancient Sylla.”
“There were a dozen Kasims at our former school,” Kasim says with a shrug. “I think it was a popular name at the time.”
Munashe stands tight-lipped, her wide eyes drilling into Kasim’s. I think a “Yes, Amawusiakaraseiya” was meant to go there. Sweat beads prickle upon her forehead, and I’m sure she’s stopped breathing.
Gueye Okahim looks us over intently. We have caught his eye, and definitely not in a good way. “Yes, perhaps,” he says with a short bow. “May Grace walk with the both of you.”
And then he takes his leave. As soon as he is out of sight, Munashe hyperventilates. She attempts to speak at us between her quick and desperate breaths, but all that comes out is a broken string of indistinguishable consonants and airy vowels.
“That was an absolute disaster,” she finally wheezes. “But it’s all my fault. It’s always my fault. Sorry, boys. I’ve got a mess to repair. Here are your class schedules.” She shoves crest-embossed folders into each of our hands. “There’s a map tucked inside. Come to me if you have any questions . . . just not today!”
10:30 a.m. Introduction to Ancient Sylla
As a work of art, our map is a masterpiece, hand inked onto a fine piece of parchment, detailed down to the leaves on trees and the rock-trimmed borders of the pathways. As a tool for traversing the sprawling campus, it is absolutely useless. Each rotunda building is indistinguishable from the next. Munashe has written some notes upon it that I’m sure were meant to be helpful, but her penmanship is completely illegible. Our only saving grace is that the classroom rotundas are open-air, and as we pass, we catch bits of the instructor’s lectures. History, scriptures, literature, some stilted antiscience version of biology. Finally, I hear words that do not cohere, and Kasim and I duck inside.
We catch the instructor midconjugation, stabbing a long piece of chalk against the words on his chalkboard. “Jomealah Mtuze na Jomealah Mtuze,” he says, and introduces himself, I think, as Jomealah Aguda. His tongue whips Sylla at us, and I can only infer that he wants us to take a seat. Desks full of students wrap around the edge of the rotunda, and of course the only two empty ones are right next to Jomealah Aguda’s desk.
Back at our old school, you could always tell the first-year students by the look of overwhelming confusion in their eyes. The first-year students at Gabadamosi are not like that in the slightest. They beam as Kasim and I wedge our way into the undersized desks. They introduce themselves warmly, despite the blatant interruption we’ve caused, and then listen intently when the instructor resumes the lesson. But there is a silent ferocity moving behind their eyes, and even though the majority of them barely come up to my chin, you can bet I won’t be swirling heads in any commodes anytime soon.
We are already two weeks into the quarter, and everyone has partnered off, so Kasim and I are paired together for exercises, and that’s fine with us. We take turns asking the question “How are you?” and responding with a set of replies.
“Sedu ka e moro?” I ask Kasim.
“Nari em mmadi,” he replies for the billionth time. I am well. “Sedu ka e moro?”
How am I? I feel like we’re adrift together in a sea of stilted conversation. I put my hand upon Kasim’s, wondering if he feels the same crippling bewilderment I do. I know it will pass, but right now all I see is an endless horizon of watery swells and no way out but down. I want to tell him that, but Jomealah Aguda rewards the mother tongue with a lash of a ruler across our knuckles, so I respond in the few words of Sylla that I do know. “Nari em mmadi.”
Our next exercise involves a worksheet and conjugating various common verbs: eat, sleep, play, walk, and run, among others. Pencils scratch busily upon paper. After ten minutes of staring at the foreign words, the letters start to blur into one another. I sit up and try to wipe the haze from my eyes, and notice a note being passed among the students. The note is carefully unfolded, read, and silently recreased and passed along again. Coarse glances are shot in our direction. More specifically, in Kasim’s.
“Everyone is staring at you,” I whisper at Kasim during our next partnered exercise.
Kasim has noticed, too, and looks pained. Before he can respond, Jomealah Aguda is upon me. “Nagi gei Sylla biko, Jomealah Mtuze!” His wooden ruler raps across my knuckles, and stings more than I thought it would. Though I was the offender, he gives Kasim a tight-lipped scowl, then flits off. His skin is as dark as mine, but he looks of Rashtra descent. His nose too sharp, his hair too straight, his face too pointed. He tries to hide it with layers of scarves, but here he is, a foreigner from a whole nother continent, telling me how to speak the language of my ancestors and having the nerve to tie my tongue so I can’t console my own brother.
My tongue may be tied, but I can help lighten the mood. I flip to the glossary of our textbook and look for cuss words. Of course in a first-year intro course, there are none, but that doesn’t stop me from improvising.
“O bu kume apka oke,” I say with a smirk, enunciating like a four-year-old. He’s a ball sack.
I watch with delight as Kasim looks up the words. He smiles devilishly at me, then starts flipping through the glossary for his response, his fingers zigzagging along the page. “O bu qeajiji kume apka oke,” he says. He’s a hairy ball sack.
Kasim and I play back and forth like this for the duration of the class. Honestly, it’s the most fun we’ve had together in a long time. When the bell tolls, I’m sad to pack our things away.
“Which one of you is Kasim?” comes a high-pitched voice from behind us. We turn to see the sweetest sliver of a girl, golden-brown afro like a halo about her head, so much of it that it probably weighs close to what she does.
“Nagi gei Sylla biko, Chimealeh Ibore!” Jomealah Aguda calls from his desk as he grades our exercises.
&n
bsp; The girl harps back at him, one hand on her hip, in what sounds like decent Sylla. Definitely better than what she could have picked up in the last couple weeks. Jomealah Aguda rolls his eyes at this, and immerses himself in his paperwork.
“I’m Kasim,” Kasim says, looking down his nose at her with interest. As he does, I notice that three other students have stayed behind after class, and are slowly packing their satchels, trying to look inconspicuous. Her crew, no doubt.
“So are the rumors true?” the girl asks, all limbs and cuteness, like a baby antelope, though her jackal-esque stare speaks otherwise. “You called Gueye Okahim a false prophet? Right to his face?”
We literally stepped on campus a little over two hours ago, and we’re already rumor worthy.
Kasim’s brow rises. “I addressed him by the proper title.”
“It’s Amawusiakaraseiya, not Amawusiekeseiya. Maybe it sounds the same to your Sylla-deaf ears, but there’s a lot of difference between Divine Prophet and False Prophet. I only hope you didn’t manage to tarnish Gabadamosi’s reputation in the process.” The girl sucks her teeth at us, then stomps off, her entourage falling in line behind her.
“Well, that’s a relief,” I say to Kasim as I stuff my book into my crammed satchel. “Here I was worried about sticking out for being a poor kid from the comfy, when I should have been more concerned about the tongue of my blasphemous brother.”
“That’s not funny, Auben. They hate me, not you.”
“We’re in this together, brother. If they’ve got a problem with you, then they’ve got a problem with me.” I look down at my schedule. “Looks like we’ve got our lunch hour.” My finger traces over the map. I find the cafeteria situated on the opposite side of campus. “Looks like a hike.”
“I don’t really feel like eating right now.” These are words I’ve never heard come out of Kasim’s mouth. Gluttony has always been the one way Kasim allowed his greed to shine through unabashedly. He’s not doing well. A lot worse than he’s letting on.
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