“Binti,” I heard the Night Masquerade growl. “Girl. Small girl from big space.”
I moaned, breathless with terror. My oldest brother, father, and grandfather had seen the Night Masquerade at different times in their lives. My father on the night he became the family master harmonizer over two decades ago. My oldest brother on the night he’d fought three Khoush men in the street outside the market when they’d wrongfully accused him of stealing the fine astrolabes he’d brought to sell. And my grandfather, when he was eight years old on the night after he saved his whole village during a Khoush raid by hacking the astrolabes of the Khoush soldiers to produce an eardrum-rupturing sound. Only men and boys were said to even have the ability to see the Night Masquerade and only those who were heroes of Himba families got to see it. No one ever spoke of what happened after seeing it. I’d never considered it. I’d never needed to.
I ran to my travel pod and pulled out a small sealed sack I’d used to store tiny crystal snail shells I’d found in the forest near my dorm on Oomza Uni. I dumped them onto my bed, where they crackled and began to turn from white to yellow as they reacted to the dry desert air. I bristled with annoyance. I’d brought the shells to show my sisters and now they’d be dust in a few minutes.
I pushed them aside and put the pieces of my edan into the transparent sack, wincing at their clinking and clattering. The gold sphere with its fingerprint-like ridges was still warm. I paused for a moment, holding it. Would it melt or burn the sack? I put it inside; the sack was made from the stomach lining of a creature whose powerful stomach juices could digest the most complex metals and stones on the planet. If it could withstand that, it certainly could contain my edan’s warm core.
I’d just put the sack into my satchel when there came a hard knock at my door. I twitched as the noise sent me back to the ship when the Meduse had knocked so hard on my door. I covered my mouth to hold in the scream that wanted to escape, then I shut my eyes. I took a deep lung-filling breath and let it out. Inhaled again. Exhaled. No Meduse at the door, Binti, I thought. Okwu is outside and it is your friend. The knock came again, followed by my father’s voice calling my name. I ran to the door and opened it and met his frowning eyes. Behind him stood my older brother Bena, also frowning.
“Did you see it?” my father asked.
I nodded.
“Kai!” Bena exclaimed, pressing his hands to his closely shaven head. “How is this possible?”
“I don’t know!” I said, tears welling in my eyes.
“What is it?” my mother asked, coming up behind him, rubbing her face. The otjize on her skin was barely a film. Normally only my father would see her like this.
My younger sister Peraa peeked from the staircase. She was the eyes of my family, silent and curious about all things. Had she seen it, too? I wondered.
Somehow, my father knew she was there, and he whipped around to shout, “Peraa, go back to bed!”
“Papa, there are people outside,” she said.
“People?” Bena asked. “Peraa, did you see anything else?”
Before she could respond, my father asked, “What people?”
“Many people,” Peraa said. She was out of breath and looked about to cry. “Desert People!”
“Eh?!” my father exclaimed. “What is happening tonight?” Then he was storming down the hall to the stairs, my brother rushing after him.
“Wait,” my mother said, holding a hand up to me. “Go in, apply otjize. Put on your pilgrimage attire.”
“Why? That’s not for . . .”
“Do it.”
Peraa was still standing at the top of the staircase, staring at me. I motioned for her to come, but she only shook her head and went downstairs.
My mother’s eyes migrated to my otjize-rolled okuoko.
“Do those hurt?” she asked.
“Only if you hurt them.”
“Why’d you have to do it?”
“Mama, would you rather I died like everyone else on that ship?”
“Of course not,” she said. She seemed about to say more, but instead she just said, “Hurry.” Then she turned and quickly headed down the staircase.
* * *
I applied my otjize and put on my pilgrimage clothes. The otjize would rub off onto my clothes making tonight the outfit’s official event, not my pilgrimage, blessed on this day by my otjize. So be it, I thought. Before I went out to the front door, I snuck to the back of the house. Okwu was waiting for me. “There are people standing around your home,” it said in Meduse.
“I know.” I resisted staring at the desert woman yards away watching us. Tall with dark brown skin that looked so strange to my eyes because she wore no otjize, she looked a few years older than I, possibly in her early twenties. Her bushy hair was a sweet black and it shivered in the breeze.
“I watched them arrive,” Okwu said. “One asked me to come out of my tent. When I did, he spoke to me in Meduse. How do people who live far from water know our language?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Did . . . did you see anything near the house? Standing where my window faces?”
“No.”
“Okay,” I muttered, turning from him. “Hold on. I need to see something.” The desert woman watched me as I slowly walked to the spot where the Night Masquerade had been. “I’m just checking something,” I said to her.
“Even if you ran, I’d catch you,” she said in Otjihimba, with a smirk. “You’re why we’re here.” She motioned to Okwu. “And to see that one.”
“Why? What did we do?”
She only chuckled, waving a hand dismissively at me. I stopped at the spot where I was sure the Night Masquerade had been. The sand here was undisturbed, not even a light footprint. It was breezy tonight, but not so much that footprints would disappear in minutes.
“Binti,” I heard my mother call.
“Okwu, meet me in the front,” I said.
“Okay.”
I turned and headed back into the Root.
Blood
The Desert People surrounded the Root the way groups of lake crabs surround their egg-filled holes when the eggs are ready to hatch. There were about seven of them that I could see, probably more on the other side of the house. Some were men, some were women, and all had skin that was “old African” dark, like my father’s and mine. They wore the traditional goat-pelt wraps around their waists, blue waist beads, and blue tops. Around their wrists, they wore bracelets made from shards and chunks of pink salt found in dried lakes deep in the desert. None of them wore shoes.
Straight backed, faces stern, they stood silent. Waiting. And though it was very late in the night, a few neighbors had come out to see what was going on. Of course. By sunup, the village’s bush radio would carry the word to all of Osemba that Desert People had come to the Root. Khoush communities in Kokure might even hear about it. I felt Okwu’s presence not far behind me as it came round the house. I turned and nodded at it.
My father was speaking with a tall old woman. Behind her stood two camels with packs on their backs. I watched for a moment, as the woman’s hands worked wildly while she spoke. Sometimes, she’d stop speaking entirely yet her hands would keep going, moving in circles, jabbing, zigzagging, sometimes harshly, other times gently. This was the way of the Desert People, one of the reasons the Himba viewed them as primitive and mentally unstable. They had no control of their hands; the elders said it was some sort of neurological condition. When the old woman saw me, she smiled and then told my father, “We’ll bring her back by tomorrow night.”
My mouth fell open and I looked at my father, who did not look at me.
“How will I know?” my father asked.
She looked down her nose at him. “Such a proud son you are.”
My father finally looked at me. My mother grabbed my hand. “Not going anywhere,” she muttered. I was sh
ocked by so much that I could only stare at her. “We just got her back!” my mother told my father.
“You people are so brilliant, but your world is too small,” the old woman who was my father’s mother, my grandmother, said. “One of you finally somehow grows beyond your cultural cage and you try to chop her stem. Fascinating.” She looked at my father. “Don’t you remember what happened with your father?” She straightened up. “Your daughter, my granddaughter, has seen the Night Masquerade.”
My sister Peraa, who was standing beside me now, gasped and looked at me. “You did?” she whispered.
I nodded at her, still unable to speak.
She grabbed my other hand. “Is that why you—”
“No, she hasn’t!” my mother snapped.
The old woman chuckled and her hands twitched and began to move again, zigzagging, punching, waving. The astrolabe around her neck bumped against her chest, not once touched by the woman. “Why do you think we came out here? There are rituals to be performed.”
Even from where I stood, I could see that her astrolabe was one that had been made by my father. The unique slightly oval shape, the rose-tinted sandstone, this was an astrolabe he’d made some time ago. My mother must have noticed this too, because she turned and gave him a dirty look.
The other Desert People standing close by all laughed, some of them making the strange hand motions. I looked back at Okwu and frowned. Several of my relatives had now gathered, none of whom wanted to stand near Okwu. It stood behind them all, but beside it stood one of the Desert People, a bushy-haired boy of about my age.
“We’ll take your daughter, our daughter, into the desert,” my grandmother said. She turned to Okwu. “Your daughter, too. She will speak with our clan priestess, the Ariya. We bring her back the night after this one.”
* * *
My mother wept and my father had to pry my hand from hers. Seeing her weep made me start to weep. Then Peraa started weeping. My brothers just stood there and I saw my sister Vera angrily walk away. More neighbors came out and there was self-righteous nodding and some mumbling about me bringing the outside to the inside. I heard a gravelly voiced friend of my mother’s loudly say, “She should have stayed there.”
Okwu said nothing. Nothing at all.
Hinterland
I was walking into the desert with the Desert People.
I turned back to the Root, my legs still moving me up the sand dune. I could still see my brother’s garden, my bedroom window, and even the spot below where the Night Masquerade had stood. Then we were moving down the sand dune and I looked back until I couldn’t see the Root any longer. “What am I doing?” I whispered.
My grandmother was walking beside me, tall and lean as a tree. “Did you bring otjize in your satchel?” she asked.
“Yes,” I quietly said, patting my satchel.
She laughed loudly. “Of course you did.” She moved her hands in front of her face, a smile still on her face, and I frowned, watching her. She said nothing when we were walking up the second sand dune and I took out the jar and began to reapply it to my arms and face, the places my mother had held me and tears had run.
Contrary to what my family thought, I knew exactly who I was going to see and I needed to look my best when I saw her. I had been eight years old and terrified when I met the Ariya completely by chance. She was the first person to whom I’d shown my edan, even before my father. She hadn’t called it an edan, she’d called it a “god stone” and said I was lucky to have it. And now I was being brought to her with the thing in pieces.
* * *
There were dangerous creatures in the hinterland, and at night many didn’t sleep.
A lean boy about my age and height named Mwinyi was charged with protecting the group. He was the one whom I’d glimpsed standing beside Okwu. Unlike the others who had dark-brown hair like me, Mwinyi had a head of bushy red-brown hair and I couldn’t tell if the color was due to his hair being full of the desert’s red dust or if this was its natural color. And he had a thick matted braid growing in the middle that was so long it reached his knees. It swung about his back like a snake when he walked. I couldn’t understand how this boy was going to protect a group of nineteen adults until I saw what he could do.
Three hours after we’d scaled that first sand dune, the pack of wild dogs came. There were at least thirty and you could hear them coming from far away. They yipped and barked with the confidence of a pack that didn’t need stealth to catch food or stay safe. They spotted and came at us without hesitation. Only I was terrified. Everyone else simply stopped and sat down on the sand, including the two camels. My grandmother put her hand on my shoulder to keep me calm. “Shhh,” she said.
Mwinyi was the only one standing. Then he walked right to the dog pack, his hands moving in the Desert People way. Not slowly. Not quickly. In the soft moonlight, the sight was mystical, like watching something right out of the stories my father liked to tell during the Moon Fest. I couldn’t hear him clearly, but I heard him speaking the language of the Desert People. He laughed as the dogs crowded him, sniffing and circling. Then Mwinyi said something and every single one of them stopped moving. And they were looking at him, at his face, as he spoke softly to them.
Then, just as suddenly, every single dog looked at us. I gasped and pressed my hands to my gaping mouth. I softly spoke a few choice equations and dropped a degree into meditation, just enough to stop shaking. I wanted to see this with all my senses and emotions sharp. Mwinyi was speaking to the dogs who would have harmed us. Several of the dogs near the back yipped agreeably, took one more look at us, and then went on their way. The others followed after a moment.
“He’s a harmonizer?” I asked.
My grandmother looked at me. “We don’t call them that.”
“Then what do you call him?”
“Our son,” she said, standing up. Mwinyi waved at us and we continued on our way. As we walked, I reached my hand into my pocket and touched the pouch full of my dissembled edan. Even in pieces, it was as much of a mystery to me now as it was when I’d found it . . .
Destiny Is a Delicate Dance
. . . nine years ago. I was out there that morning because I’d grown profoundly angry and run away from home. No one knew that I was angry and no one realized I’d run away. What had upset me was so trivial to my parents and older siblings that they didn’t even realize I was upset. There was to be a dance at the Annual Wind Fest and though all of my age mates were participating, my parents and older siblings had decided it was best for me not to take part in it.
The Diviner had officially tapped me as the next family master harmonizer the week before and so much had already changed about how I was treated and what I was allowed and not allowed to do. Now this, all because I had to “sharpen my meditating skills and equation control” when I was already able to tree faster than my father.
Nevertheless, one does not argue with elders. Thus, I had accepted the restriction quietly as I had accepted being tapped as the next master harmonizer, despite the fact that I could never own the shop because I was a female. Shop ownership was my brother’s honor. For our family to prove that it could produce a next generation of harmony brought fortune and great respect to us, so I was proud.
But I wanted to dance. I loved dancing. Dancing was like moving my body in the way that I saw numbers and equations move when I treed. When I danced, I could manifest mathematical current within me, harmonizing it with my muscles, skin, sinew, and bones. And now the opportunity had been snatched from me for no other reason besides, “It’s just not for you.” So I woke up that next morning, dressed in my weather-treated wrapper and top, wrapped my otjize-rolled locks in my red veil, quietly packed a satchel, and walked out of the house into the desert before anyone got up.
The desert wasn’t a mystery to me. I wasn’t supposed to, but I went into it quite often. Sometimes, I went to play
, other times I went to find peace and quiet so I could practice treeing. The desert was largely responsible for why I’d gotten so good at treeing so young.
If my family had known that I went out there regularly, instead of going to the lake like all the other children, I’d have been punished with more than a beating. I was smart and stealth even back then. That early morning, I tiptoed into my parents’ room and told them I was going to sit by the lake and watch the early crabs run about. Then I went outside and instead of going toward the lake, I went the other way, into the desert.
I liked the desert in the morning because it was still cool and it was still. I could go out there and my mind would clear like the sky after a violent power-outing thunderstorm. I would rub an extra-thick layer of otjize on my skin and go out sometimes as far as five miles. My astrolabe would start beeping and threatening to alert my parents about my whereabouts if I went any further. I’d see nothing around me but sand, not even the tops of the tallest Osemba buildings, which weren’t very tall anyway.
In my childish anger, I was never going to return home. In my mind, I was becoming a nomad, wandering in the desert and letting the sand and wind take me where it would. And as I walked, sometimes, I would dance as I hummed to myself. My feet took me on a two-hour walk north, past the dried cluster of palm trees visible from my bedroom, the patch of hardpan where I’d once found an old seashell, to a place I’d discovered months ago, where a group of gray stones jutted out of the ground like flattened old teeth.
The stones were large enough to sit on and arranged in a wide semicircle that opened west. I’d never asked my parents or schoolteachers about them because then I’d have to tell them where I saw such a thing. I came here often. Sometimes, I brought my small tent, set it up in the middle of the semicircle, and sat inside it while gazing out at the desert as I practiced equations, algorithms, and formulas for mathematical currents that I’d use in astrolabes I was making.
Binti, The Complete Trilogy: Binti ; Home ; The Night Masquerade Page 16
