Diondray's Discovery

by Marion Hill

  I appreciated his honesty as he laughed. He knew how much I hated the term ants. People should never be compared to insects, and if Uncle Xavier ever came around here to see these folks, he would never see them in such a derogatory manner.

  Trayvonne patted down his blow-out hairstyle. It was the largest I’d ever seen, big even for the west side. It was large enough that birds could nest in there. I wished I could grow mine as large as his.

  “You will have another shot tomorrow, bro. I promise that the audience will be different.”

  “Sure about that?” I said as a woman arrived at the bench.

  “Trust me,” he replied as he got up from the bench to embrace the woman. “Portia, say hello to my bro, Diondray Azur.”

  “Hello,” she said and smiled at me.

  I recognized Portia from the reading. She was the woman in the sky-blue outfit. I should have known she was associated with Trayvonne. He never lacked for female company and always got the best of what the west side had to offer.

  I waved back as they turned to walk away. Trayvonne patted her voluptuous behind, and she giggled. I just shook my head and hoped tomorrow’s reading would be better.

  “WHAT’S IN THE DARK will always come to the light. Things can only stay in the dark for so long. Eventually the light will find its way through,” I said from the podium.

  I noticed the head nodding and smiles of agreement on the faces in the audience. I took that as a positive sign after yesterday.

  “That’s right, Mr. Azur.”

  I searched the audience for that voice and saw my critic from yesterday smiling at me in agreement. I didn’t think I was going to win him over so quickly.

  “That’s why it’s important to stick with the truth,” I continued. “The truth can reveal. The truth can expose. The truth can hurt. And the truth can lead to freedom.”

  “Right on, Mr. Azur. Truth is freedom.”

  The audience clapped, to my surprise. I didn’t know I had won them over so quickly. I’d thought they were going to mark me as a bad themily reader and it would take several readings to get their approval back.

  I glanced to the right of the podium, where Trayvonne and Portia were smiling at me. He was right again. I should have known by now to trust him. He had a connection to these people unlike anything I had ever witnessed before. I wished our family could connect to these people like that.

  I had more to read, but the audience had already begun leaving. I’d recovered from yesterday’s reading, and they’d only needed those few words at the beginning in order to give their approval. I was not marked. A relief.

  I stepped off the podium and was greeted by Trayvonne and Portia.

  “Trust me, bro,” Trayvonne said with a wink. He was holding Portia, who was wearing a solid pink outfit. I nodded. “Of course, you were right.”

  “That was really good, Diondray,” Portia remarked.

  “Thank you.”

  “That was good, my nephew.”

  I looked over to the left of Portia to see where that comment came from. “Aunt Maxina, what are you doing here?”

  “I had to see for myself. I hated the way Xavier and Olivia treated you at your birthday dinner. I wanted to see you in your element.”

  She had a look of affirmation on her face. No one from my family had ever come see me do a themily reading. And for Aunt Maxina to show up was especially surprising.

  Trayvonne patted my shoulder as he and Portia left, arm in arm. Aunt Maxina and I stood there and watched them walk away.

  “Your message about the truth touched me,” she said. “I have to show you something about our family that you need to know.”

  Chapter 3

  I DIDN’T HEAR FROM Aunt Maxina for ten days after the surprise visit to Aliki Park. Then she called one night to say what time we would meet in the morning. She mentioned again how those words from the themily reading had touched her.

  I arrived at Ama’s Faddar just after the sun rose. Aunt Maxina had said on the phone that morning would be the best time to have full access to the building.

  Ama’s Faddar was the spiritual home of the city and the tallest building in Charlesville. It towered over all the other buildings, and its position on Ama’s Way, next to the Bay of Charlesville, made it feel remote and impenetrable.

  A cylindrical building, Ama’s Faddar had an opening on the top floor, called Ama’s Lookout. That was where the oraki, the city’s spiritual leader, went to pray to Ama, the God of the Sky and Stars.

  The oraki had a direct connection to Ama and communicated his instructions and teachings to the people of the city. He had the responsibility four times a year of taking the life charts from every newborn in the city and praying to Ama for his blessing and their fulfillment.

  The oraki held up those life charts through the opening at the top of the tower and remained until Ama brought his essence down from the sky to bless it. He could remain for days or even months, waiting on Ama.

  I arrived at the main entrance at the bottom of the building where Aunt Maxina was waiting for me. She was dressed in a black shawl with gold trimming. Aunt Maxina smiled as she handed me a shawl.

  I pulled the shawl over my clothes. It was a sign of respect for Ama. Nobody entered Ama’s Faddar without a shawl. It could have brought misfortune to that person and their family for such a disrespectful act.

  “How did you get full access to Ama’s Faddar?” I asked as we entered.

  She shot me an incredulous look. “Aren’t we the Azur family?

  “Yes.”

  “There is nothing in this city off-limits to us,” she replied.

  “I thought only the oraki had access in here,” I said as looked around on the ground floor.

  I had never been inside of Ama’s Faddar, and the curiosity I felt about this place only grew as I took in the reality around me. The walls were black from floor to ceiling, and tiny yellow lights like stars covered the entire area. I felt like I had entered into space.

  “I have thought about your reading since we last met. I didn’t know you could speak so eloquently, purposefully, and passionately.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Those people were captivated by your words,” she continued as we reached an elevator. “The truth does bring freedom, my nephew.”

  I nodded as we entered the elevator. “Are we going to Ama’s Lookout?” I asked.

  “No, my nephew,” she answered sharply. “That’s the only place in the city we don’t have access to. We are going to another room. There is something you must see.”

  We exited the elevator and walked a short distance to the end of the hallway. She rubbed gingerly on the door, and it opened.

  The room looked similar to the main room downstairs. However, there was a podium in the center of the room that had glass encircling it.

  “What is that?”

  “The truth, my nephew,” she said and pulled open the glass. “This is the Book of Kammbi.”

  The words meant nothing to me. “The Book of Kammbi?”

  “This book reveals a part of our history that has never been talked about before. And as you said so eloquently, the truth is freedom.”

  She handed me the Book of Kammbi. It looked old and worn. The cover was the same color as the walls, and the book felt like it could rip apart at any moment.

  “I believe that book will change our city’s destiny, and you will be responsible for that change,” she said. “Our history as a family has not been told completely.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked as I returned the book to her.

  I stared at Aunt Maxina and tried to read her face. Did she understand the implications of what she had just said? I knew our history. Charles Azur and Mother Adrianna, were the ancestors who founded our city and began our family’s rule. The city was named after Charles. What was Aunt Maxina saying? She began to read aloud. “Oscar Ortega, who came from the South Country, arrived north of the Great Forest about two-hundred fifty years ago. H
e lived amongst the Mayza tribe, and over a period of time, became one of them. While they taught him the ways of the tribe, Oscar taught them about his god, Kammbi.”

  “What does that have to do with our family?”

  Aunt Maxina lifted her eyes from the book and stared at me with the look I’d seen over years at the dinner table. It demanded I remain quiet.

  “Oscar became close to a young woman named Adrianna. She was fascinated by him and became his companion for many years. A short time after becoming his companion, Adrianna was pregnant. He was shocked and horrified by her pregnancy. Oscar revealed to her that his wife, Sophia, who lived back in the South Country, would have to know about their tryst. And he would have to return to his homeland to tell her,” she continued.

  “Where did you get this fiction from?” I said incredulously.

  She didn’t look up from the book. “Oscar told Adrianna he had committed an act of passha, and he had to seek reconciliation with both his wife and Kammbi. While he returned to his homeland, Adrianna gave birth to a boy on the fourth day in the month of Beru. She named him Charles.”

  “Are you saying that this Book of Kammbi tells the real origin of Charles?”

  “Yes,” she answered and closed the book.

  I stood up and began pacing the room. “ Are you telling me that Sidney Azur is not Charles’ father? This man from the north, Oscar Ortega, is his father. How did you come to believe this? How did this Book of Kammbi get here?”

  “Sit down, my nephew,” she said and reached for my hand. “I knew you would have a lot of questions. Remember what you said in the park. You said we must stick with truth. And now I’m honoring that request.”

  I stopped pacing after that comment. She had a point. If this was the truth, what kind of freedom would it mean for the family, the city, and me?

  “Diondray, I have always suspected that Charles’s origin and background were different than what I heard growing up. My father, your Great-Uncle Myro, hinted to me and Olivia that our history was more complicated than was ever spoken about around the family home.”

  “My mother knew about this too.”

  Aunt Maxina nodded. “So does Xavier. But they refuse to believe it. Charles and Mother Adrianna are sacred to them, and there’s no room for any other interpretation.”

  “So if this is true, what does my reading have to do with it?”

  “I wasn’t finished yet, my nephew.”

  She turned her eyes back to the book. “Oscar returned from his homeland with his wife, Sophia,” Aunt Maxina continued. “She forgave his act of passha but demanded that Adrianna and the baby leave the Mayza tribe. The elders agreed with Sophia.

  “At least two thirty-day cycles had passed when Adrianna and Charles left the tribe and made it through the Great Forest. They arrived at the Kammara Sea with the help of the leopard, Reuel. Adrianna and Charles were famished and worn out from that voyage. They were rescued by members of the Makala tribe. Sidney Azur, the leader of the tribe, took the woman and the child as his own.”

  I got up from sitting and pulled the shawl closer to my body. It felt like I was inside of a freezer. Ama’s Faddar’s air-conditioning worked very well.

  “Oscar Ortega is Charles’s father? Then why did he allow Adrianna to be banished from that tribe?” I started pacing.

  “To answer your first question, yes. To answer your second question, I believe his act of passha was the reason,” she answered and looked up from the book at me.

  “What is an act of passha?”

  “First, stop pacing. Your energy level is too frenetic and out of balance with your life chart.”

  I didn’t want to stop. I was listening to an alternate history I had never heard before and trying to wrap my mind around the possibility that it could be true. If so, why would my family hide this history?

  “Please, my nephew, sit. You were born under the sign of the Water Bearer and can be open to new information and change.”

  I stopped pacing and remarked, “Change! What does being born under the Water Bearer have to do with this? You just read from some old book I’ve never heard of that Charles, our founder and the oraki of orakis, has a different father than we believed. The life chart has nothing to do with that!”

  Aunt Maxina smiled and grabbed my hand. She pressed to pull me down. I wanted to break her grip but realized she was risking quite a bit in telling me this history. I relaxed under her grip and sat down.

  She returned to reading. “Oscar Ortega was devastated by the banishment of Adrianna and Charles from the tribe. He prayed to Kammbi for reconciliation with her and his son. Kammbi refused his request because of his act of passha with her. There had to be consequences for that action.

  “However, Oscar’s repentance allowed another way to be established for reconciliation. Oscar wrote these words that he heard from the Eternal Comforter: ‘Because of your obedience in leaving your homeland to come to a new land, I will continue to make your name great. Even though you have lost a child due to your act of passha, you will have a descendant who will unite the entire land. And the people will believe that Kammbi is the Lord of all. Those who always believed in me and those who didn’t believe in me will create a new people, establishing peace and sanctification throughout this land.’”

  Aunt Maxina stopped reading and closed the book. “Diondray, I believe you are that descendant.”

  Chapter 4

  “WHAT IF EVERYTHING you believed can now be questioned? What if everything you have been taught might be a lie? What if the truth you believed is not the truth at all?” I asked the audience.

  It had been five days since I was with Aunt Maxina at Ama’s Faddar. What she read to me from the Book of Kammbi had been on my mind ever since. I had to get my thoughts into a themily and read it to the people here at Aliki Park.

  The month of Carm had arrived, and the heat had subsided somewhat, hopefully in anticipation of the rain we usually received during this time. We needed it. It had not rained since the middle part of the month of Nayur, the first month of the year.

  I took my mind off the potential for rain and scanned the faces of the audience. I was not sure if I should reveal the information I had heard from Aunt Maxina. I didn’t know how they would handle it. Would they believe totally, like she did? Would they reject it, like my mother and Uncle Xavier had? Or could they think there was some truth to it like I did?

  “What are you talking about, Mr. Azur?”

  I searched for where that comment came from. I saw it was my critic from the last reading. Instead of being in his usual spot, he was a few rows farther back. I guessed he hadn’t made it to the park early enough to get his spot. However, his bald head stood out amongst the blow-out hairstyles around him.

  “How do you handle it when what you have been taught proves not to be the truth?” I continued. “Do you confront the one who has told you lies? Or do you continue to believe in the lie you have been taught all your life?”

  “Mr. Azur, you have to confront the one who has told you the lies,” someone else answered.

  I looked for where that voice was coming from. It was a woman wearing an orange plaid shirt, who stood next to my critic. It didn’t appear they were together as a couple.

  “I remember what you read last time,” she said. “The truth is freedom. You must pursue freedom. If you don’t, Mr. Azur, who will?”

  The audience nodded in agreement. I knew I could not turn away from everything I had heard in the last few days. I had to pursue the truth and find out why this history of Charles, Mother Adrianna, and Oscar Ortega was never discussed at all.

  TRAYVONNE AND HIS NEWEST lady friend, Sialia, came to visit me at my place later that evening. Sialia looked like a carbon copy of Portia. The only difference between the two women was Sialia’s height. She stood about six feet tall, and it surprised me that Trayvonne would go after a woman taller than him. When he squeezed her ample behind before they sat down on my sofa, I knew why he had overl
ooked her height.

  “Bro, I must say that was the first time I saw the audience look out of sorts after a reading,” he said as I handed him a glass of mango juice.

  “You noticed it too,” I replied and gave Sialia a glass of mango juice as well.

  “They could sense something was troubling you,” Sialia added.

  “Everything I have ever believed could be a lie.”

  I explained to them about my meeting with Aunt Maxina at Ama’s Faddar. The Book of Kammbi had been in Charlesville all these years, and no one in my family had ever discussed it. Our history as a city and a family was different than I had ever heard of—and our future might be different than I’d ever imagined.

  Trayvonne stared at me in shock, and Sialia shook her head in disbelief.

  “My grandfather was right all these years,” Trayvonne said softly. “Ama, he was right.”

  “Right about what?” I asked.

  “My grandfather used to tell me stories that Charles Azur was not a blood member of the Makala tribe. He and Mother Adrianna came from the north, And that Sidney Azur was not his real father. I thought he was just making it up.”

  “This is getting beyond belief,” Sialia interjected.

  “My grandfather said there was a book that would reveal the true history of how this city came to be. Bro, you know that he is not a descendant of the original Makalas.”

  I nodded and remembered Trayvonne telling me about his grandfather. How my family had pushed the descendants of the original Makala tribe out of the city.

  “We must go visit him,” he said.

  IT TOOK THREE DAYS for Trayvonne to get the visit set up with his grandfather. I spent that time pondering whether I was truly a descendant of Oscar Ortega. I thought about him wanting to reconnect with Charles. Even though he had committed this act of passha, why wouldn’t his god, Kammbi, let him seek him reconciliation with his son?