The Extinction of Menai

by Chuma Nwokolo

  ‘Our grandmother says,’ said Deen, ‘he must sleep here.’

  ‘We will,’ said Tobin. ‘Tell her she is very kind. We will go tomorrow.’

  ‘No, no, your father, we will dig grave for him. Our grandmother says, the body he will smell. No good at all.’

  A dust cloud appeared in the distance, just ahead of a roar of engines that precluded further conversation. The younger children grew excited, crowding into the square, where two minibuses apparently driven by frustrated rally drivers arrived in a scream of tyres. The menfolk debarked whooping and sharing sweets.

  They were wary of strangers, too, but easily won over, and they cheered at the prospects of a party. More interpreters emerged from the new arrivals, who all worked in Bede. As the night wore on, three more buses arrived. The funeral bow acquired yet another string as music was added to the mix.

  Feeling a little inadequate, David and Tobin went to their truck to root for food to contribute to the feast. David uncached some packets of yoghurt, and Tobin hauled out a cured joint of beef. As they made their way back, they heard the unmistakable sound of a wooden xylophone. Tobin stopped momentarily, then hurried down to the square. Aziondi, one of the new arrivals, was playing a thirty-six-pane wooden xylophone strikingly similar to the mananga. The xylophonist petered to a stop when he noticed Tobin’s reaction. The whole assembly was suddenly muted.

  TOBIN RANI

  Sudan | 27th April, 2005

  Their amazement grew as I produced the Mata’s mananga. I set it up opposite the New Arian xylophone. The natives touched it and marvelled. ‘Do you buy in the souk?’ asked Aziondi.

  I shook my head vigorously. ‘From our father’s father’s fathers. And yours?’

  Aziondi nodded. ‘The same.’ He turned and uttered a sharp cry. A youth ran off, and the assembly sat down to wait.

  David and I, though uncertain what we were waiting for, sensed that the time for questions was past. We sat down, feast forgotten.

  Ten minutes later, a tall middle-aged man arrived on a scooter with the messenger behind him. The grey in his hair was mostly powdered grain. His gown was dirty white. But he wore a coal-black necklace and carried himself with an air of quiet dignity. He seemed to have been well briefed and walked slowly around the mananga, inspecting it closely, then sat in the chair produced for him. He addressed a question to Deen, with a steady stare at us, and got a blast of quick-fire Aria from a dozen sources. He raised his hand and into the ensuing silence said in English, ‘Please play.’

  I drew the mananga’s arms from their sockets and looked into the Mata’s skies. Not for the first time, I wished that I, and not Tume, had been the chosen one, but I was descended from the lineage of the crown prince, and that lineage could never produce a mata. Three times Mata Nimito had chosen, and all three had predeceased him. Perhaps had I never gone away to Dundee, had I married and settled early, the end would not have come, at least in this lifetime.

  I turned my thoughts away from regret then, and the skies turned from grey to grey, from a darker shade of white to a lighter shade of black. I was not dying, I was living. Mata was not dead, he was sleeping. The Menai were not extinct, could never go extinct . . . here were brothers after all. Perhaps had David and I followed the wadi south—or even further north—we might have found another hive of cousins. The blood of Menai was diluted, yes, but sprinkled throughout Africa. And, through Laura, Europe. Even the Tuareg with the dozen daughters . . .

  I drew the right arm from the upward sweep of the panes down, slowly, once, twice, finding the pane I wanted by ear, testing it, and only then looking down and beginning to rain my thoughts on the mananga.

  I knew then why the Mata often spoke of himself in the plural. It was never he alone that spoke, that remembered, that gave the torqwa. It was the whole agglomeration of his ancestry giving tongue to the moment.

  As I played, I felt my spirit buoyed, felt a skill alien to my lived experience, connecting, through a mananga designed by matas older than Nimito, to burn a rhythm in the air. As for the music that issued, I had not thought myself capable of the joy of it, with Nimito’s cold body in a zippered bag. So I played, with expiation, knowing my life would end. So I played, with abandon, knowing my music would never end, calling the desert sands that held my ancestors’ bones to witness, calling the Arian blood that was kin to Menai to boil . . .

  DAVID BALSAM

  Sudan | 27th April, 2005

  Eventually Tobin faltered and Aziondi’s instrument picked up, and the musical sparring began. Young men, excited by the challenge, pulled up their instruments, musicians launching off one another’s apogee to hit supernatural heights, until every living soul within earshot was caught up in the fervour of it.

  Save for David. He watched from a distance, the only person who was not dancing. His spirit was anchored to a weight that music, however elemental, could not shift. As he looked at his watch, it struck the hour.

  He was fifty-five years old.

  TOBIN RANI

  Sudan | 28th April, 2005

  By the small hours, the small children had drifted off to sleep. The small tea fires were dead, and xylophones and ancillary instruments lay around like the discarded implements of a sated sex. People slept where they lay. There were houses aplenty, but the flat roofs and open air seemed best suited for sleep. The dawn arrived, borne on an insectless breeze from clear skies. In the distance, a small generator coughed into life. The sun was low and cold, but experience had taught us, David and me, that it would be a brief respite.

  At first light, kettles and cups of tea appeared, followed an hour later by trays of food. Presently Aziondi was making conversation, pointing at the seated man stuffing a famished hand of ful and flat bread into his mouth, ‘This is our Djatou; Djatous they know everything, but him don’t know you.’ Then he laughed uproariously.

  The mocked man smiled long-sufferingly. ‘Who are you?’

  I dipped a cup in the large gourd of yoghurt. I was hoarse from the previous night’s singing, but my spirit was ecstatic. ‘I will tell you a true story.’

  Deen turned and called, and there was a drawing together of mats. He interpreted my words and was corrected by Aziondi. There was an angry exchange over translation rights, fevered by the prestige of the occasion. When that was settled, I began.

  ‘All this I am saying is true, or my name is not Tobin of Menai,’ I started, unconsciously slipping into the formula.

  ‘Aga, aga, aga.’ The echoed response startled me. Distant doors opened and closed, and my audience grew.

  ‘In the beginning, we were the Kingdom. We paid no tribute to anyone. Nations brought gifts to us. Our hero was Crown Prince Xera. Even among the tall and brawny people of the Kingdom, Xera stood out as he grew. It seemed unfair, at least to his younger brother, Mera, that the first in line to the throne of the Kingdom was also the most handsome in all the land. He was to be king when his father died. And his father ailed. But he was yet to marry.

  ‘There was but one lass whose wit and fame, whose rising height, whose beauty could appose, without embarrassment, all the charms Xera could bring to a wedding feast. That girl was Aila Numisa, third daughter of the chief of Tarasa, who lived well beyond the suzerain power of the king of the Kingdom but not beyond the shroud of his fame. Perhaps you have heard of Tarasa?

  ‘As was their tradition, Prince Xera set out with a large caravan to impress his in-laws. Hundreds of slaves, courtiers, craftsmen and artists, camel loads of gifts and more. And his Mata as well, for in all their travels, the princes went with their Mata, their . . .’ I looked at that worthy, ‘. . . their Djatou? That is the way the stories of the ancestors come down to their descendants.’ Nods rippled through his listeners.

  ‘They travelled two weeks to the wedding and were a full week in festivities. On their way back, they were met by a desperate rider, a bloody messenger from the Kingdom, bearing news that invaders from Egypt, their age-old rivals, had overrun and destroyed the Kingdom.
Everyone the groom’s party knew was dead. The invaders were even then riding towards the marriage party to exterminate the heir to the throne. Our hero was to flee for his life. He wanted to return to fight for his honour, to wrest some vengeance for the blood of his fallen people, but wisdom prevailed. He fled for his life, for the life of his new bride and her train from Tarasa, for the life of his faithful courtiers, his bronzesmiths, his warriors, his counsellors . . . for the life that the People could live through their seed.

  ‘He fled southwest to the valley of Ser, where he lived out his years. That is why the leaves of the trees of the valley of Ser are ash. They were changed by the grief and the curses of our hero, the Crown Prince.’

  A small voice asked a question whose translation threw me briefly. I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. We called ourselves the People. We called our country the Kingdom. It was the only kingdom, of its mammoth size. When there is only one thing, the thing does not need a name. It is like asking the name of the sun.’

  The boy nodded. He fully understood.

  ‘Our hero grew old. In his nineties, when his hands were only good to crack walnuts and hold a walking stick, a caravan stumbled upon the valley of Ser and told of the Kingdom of the great King Mera. The betrayal was exposed. The subterfuge was known: Egypt never came. His father merely died, and Mera had won his brother’s throne by wile.’

  A sigh rippled when that was translated.

  ‘Our hero’s heart was turned to bile. He called a gathering of his people in Ser. He was too old to fight, but . . . GodMenai! . . . could he curse! He cursed the Kingdom and its usurper, Mera, until he should return to rule. He called his Mata to witness, he called his son as heir. He took his son’s oath that he would grow an army to reclaim in war the throne stolen by cunning, on which day alone the curse upon the land would abate.

  ‘Our hero died. His son, taking his oath to heart, uprooted his people from their peace in Ser and raged south and west like a cloud of anger, conquering and absorbing smaller clans and villages, growing an army that could confront the Kingdom. He won many battles, but he lost enough to keep him too small to confront the great army of his cousins in the Kingdom. He grew old and weak. His hands turned from cracking heads to cracking walnuts. He passed on his princehood and his bloody oath. Thus, each new princehood of Menai was founded on the curse of the mother Kingdom.

  ‘The years of the centuries came and went, and the Menai sickened of blood. Sickened of an oath that set new princes on the trail of bloody war. Sickened of a curse that went northeast to bait a Kingdom they did not know. In the years of the great Mata Asad, the Menai lost their last prince. And they did not crown his son. They did not renew the oath of war. The Menai embraced peace.

  ‘But peace did not embrace Menai. The curses we had sent northeast came back to roost. Our neighbours drove us on. We were the feared rooster that could never be allowed to roost. The palm of vengeance grows slowly in the desert sand, but grow it does. Rivulets of blood flowed down to us from our centuries of war. A hundred years in this oasis, eighty years by that wadi. A generation in this valley, three seasons in that jabel. We took the path of peace and migration. Until we journeyed right up to the lips of the sea, beyond which we could flee no further. Until Mata Nimito led us to Kreektown, to our final camp.’

  I paused deliberately and brought the cup of yoghurt to my mouth. As I drank I looked at my audience, watching the last translation take root. I thought I detected hostility and reserve and wondered whether, perhaps, I should have held my peace. Yet it was too late to stop.

  ‘In that truck lies Great Menai, the last Mata. In his hand lies singate, uninherited. In his brain, wisdom undecanted. All the stories are dead, all the dreams and the histories as well, but he had one wish before he died.’

  ‘What?’ asked the Djatou in a level voice.

  ‘To break the curse of violence on the Kingdom and her spawn.’ I let my hand rest lightly on the desert sand.

  ‘The living cannot undo the curses of the dead,’ said the Djatou harshly. ‘You do not have that saying?’

  Their grandmother raised her voice volubly and at length. The Djatou disputed with her. When they quietened, he looked at me uncertainly. ‘Our grandmother says that a dead king can conquer a city and undo his own curses when he is buried.’

  ‘How is this so? Please explain.’

  ‘Your Mata was a wise man. If a king dies in battle but his army wins the war, he is buried in the conquered city’s mausoleum of kings. In that case, it is not the living that undoes the curse. It is the satisfied spirit of the dead king that rests it.’

  I turned and met David’s eyes. To the Djatou, I said, ‘Your grandmother is a wise woman. So she knows the legend of the Kingdom, then?’

  He sniffed. ‘There are many versions of it around. In some versions we are children of the kingdom of Kush.’ He sneered. ‘Look at us now.’

  I sighed. ‘I am glad you do not think our errand foolish. I am a descendant of Crown Prince Xera. That is who I am. And now, we leave to seek the burial ground of the Kingdom . . .’

  Once again the old woman interjected strenuously. When she finished she rose and blundered off into the distance without waiting for the translation to be made. The Djatou waved his hand in exasperation. Aziondi took it up: ‘She says, “What Field! What Field! A grave is a grave is a grave and the spirit of your great Mata is good salt for our land! Come, I will give you a grave!”’

  * * *

  THAT MORNING, the minibuses did not go to Bede, and the entire village mustered for the Mata’s funeral. As the sun rose, they sank a grave to the music of an Arian dirge. Beneath the boughs of the great baobab, they sank that grave, between a fork of roots. They broke up the ancient mananga and laid Mata Nimito on a bed of its wooden panes. They set him deep, in a grave as snug as a womb. They laid his singate by his side and the bronze singateya by his head. They spread his red robe at five feet and broke his beaded bib into pellets at four. They slabbed him in sand, with the trunk of the baobab for headstone.

  I looked up, to rein in my tears, and saw New Arians as far as my eyes could see: a field of kindred souls instead of the stones the Mata had resigned himself to. A choir of Arian manangas cued themselves, and the sorrow fell from me like a spent sentence. Mata Nimito was dead, but GodMenai was clearly still alive: for instead of rotting in a necropolis of pyramids, the Mata had been brought home to manure a hive of cousins. This kind of death was also a kind of life, complete with children to play on his grave. The Djatou embraced me and stepped aside for the queue that had formed to condole the chief mourner.

  DAVID BALSAM

  Sudan | 28th April, 2005

  They stood together, the Djatou, David, and Tobin, finishing their bowls of camel milk as the minibuses pulled away from Aria. Fuel kegs emerged from outhouse stores to refuel David’s truck. The professor glanced north at the darkening sky as the Djatou took his leave of Tobin. ‘We have a lot to talk about, my brother across the centuries.’

  ‘Indeed, Djatou.’

  ‘I will mix my dough and put my boys to work. I will be back soon.’

  ‘I will be here.’

  The Djatou shook David’s hand formally and mounted his old scooter, which growled slowly away. David took a last look around the flat countryside and the flat-roofed homes. ‘It is a peaceful place to live,’ he conceded.

  ‘And die. I’m ready now.’

  There was a giggle, but when David turned, a veiled face at a nearby window retreated shyly into a darkened room. He smiled. ‘Maybe death is not yet ready for you.’ He gave up his empty bowl with a smile to a waiting child. ‘There is sky aplenty, but you are no cloudcaster. What will you do?’

  Tobin shrugged. ‘Live. I’ve spent all my life trying to save the Menai from death.’ He gestured at the young children in a semicircle staring at them with unrelieved curiosity. ‘My students. At last my PhD might be useful.’ He offered a leather scroll. ‘Here’s a memento of your trip. The historysong of
Crown Prince Alito’s death. Perhaps you can figure it out for yourself.’

  ‘You once called me your spirit brother. Will you lie to me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I spoke to Professor Reid on the phone. He saw the script you wrote on the walls of your London prison cell. I know you can read this.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Teach me.’

  Tobin sighed. ‘I am under oath to GodMenai. Unfortunately, a lot of African knowledge was protected by secret society oaths. When we began our migration, our writing was one of them.’

  ‘Perhaps this explains the extinction of Menai?’

  ‘True, though if we forced our language on our vassal states these past millennia, we would have erased other tongues too, like any other colonial language—’

  ‘You could teach me: the Mata made me an honorary Menai.’

  Gently, Tobin said, ‘Sure. But you will have to take the oath first. Then what you do with the knowledge will be your own problem.’

  David swallowed. His breath came in shallow draughts. He knew that he stood on the lip of the discovery of his career. He reeled from the shockwaves of temptation. Another book beckoned, the book that would open up not just the world of the Menai but that of the mythical Meroes before them, that would finally rest the plagiarist demons of Genesis of Mythical Africa. Yet he was just gone fifty-five . . . and not quite sure he would survive the day. His inadvertent sabbatical from London had taught him a new respect, and fear, for his ancestral land. He hesitated.

  ‘We have a saying that is not just a saying,’ said Tobin.

  ‘What?’

  He lifted a fistful of sand into the air and let it filter through his fingers. When the fine grains had settled fully, he dusted off his hands. ‘Concerning the old oaths, it used to be said that when you can retrieve every last grain of the sand spilled from your hand—and not an extra grain, then you can break the curse that flows from a broken oath.’