by Marlon James
“Wolf Eye, you look younger in the daylight,” Nyka said. He smiled and winced as he touched his bottom lip.
I said nothing. Nsaka Ne Vampi looked at me. I thought she would nod but she just looked.
“Where is the Ogo?” I said to the slaver.
“By the river.”
“Oh. Ogo are not known as bathers.”
“Who said he bathes?”
The slaver ran to Fumeli, who was trying to jump back on the horse.
“Young fool, stop. One horse kick, you go down and down you shall remain. I tell you true,” he said.
The slaver waved us over. The man who fed him dates came out of the caravan with a sack slung over his shoulder and a silver tray carrying several leather pouches. The slaver grabbed them one by one and threw them to us. I felt the texture of silver coins, heard them clink.
“This not your reward. This is what my bookkeepers have portioned out for your expenses, each according to your ability, which means you all received the same. Nothing is cheap in Kongor, especially information.”
His date feeder opened a sack, pulled out scrolls, and handed them to us. Nyka refused and so did Nsaka Ne Vampi. I wondered if she refused because he did. She talked much those nights ago, but said nothing now. Fumeli took one for the Leopard, who was still a Leopard, though he was listening.
“That is a map of the city drawn to the best recollection, since I have not been there in years. Beware of Kongor. Roads seem straight, and lanes promise to take you where they say they go, but they twist and snake you, and bend into places you will not want to go, places of no return. Listen to me good, I tell you true. There are two ways to get to Kongor. Tracker, you know of what I speak. Some of you will not. When you head west and get to the White Lake, you can go around it, which will add two days to your journey, or cross, which will take a day, for the lake is narrow. That is your choice, not mine. Then you can choose to ride around the Darklands, which will add three days to your journey, or ride through, but it is the Darklands,” the slaver said.
“What is the Darklands?” the boy Fumeli said.
The slaver grinned, then lost his grin. “Nothing that you can conceive in your head. Who here has been through the Darklands?”
Both Nyka and I nodded. We went through it together many years past, and neither of us would talk of it here. I already knew I was going around it, no matter what the others thought. Then Sogolon nodded.
“Again. Your choice, not mine. Three days’ ride to go around the Darklands, but one day to go through. And with either, it would still be three more days before Kongor. If you go around, you will head through nameless lands not claimed by any king. If you go through you will also travel through Mitu, where men have put down arms to ponder the great questions of earth and sky. A tiresome land and a tiresome race, you might find them worse than anything awaiting you in the Darklands. It will take you a day’s ride just to get out. But this again is your choice. Bibi here shall come with you.”
“Him? What shall he do? Feed us what we can reach for with our own hands?” Nyka said.
“I go for protection,” he said.
I was surprised at his voice, more commanding, like a warrior’s, not like someone who was trying to sing like a griot. This was the first time I really looked at him. Skinny as Fumeli and wearing a white djellaba gown past the knee, with a belt tied around the waist. From the belt hung a sword, which was not there the last two times I saw him. He saw me looking at it and approached me.
“I have never seen a takouba this far from the East,” I said.
“The owner should have never come west then,” he said, and smiled. “My name is Bibi.”
“Was that the name he gave you?” I asked.
“If that ‘he’ is my father, then yes.”
“Every slave I know, the master forced on him a new name.”
“And were I a slave, a new name I would have. You think me a slave because I feed him dates? He has me playing his deceits. People say much to a man who is less than a wall.”
I turned away from him, but that meant facing Nyka. He walked off a few paces, expecting me to follow.
“Tracker, you and me, we both left something in the Darklands, eh?” he said.
I stared at him.
“He should have left his woman tip,” Nsaka Ne Vampi said, and I was furious that he was telling her things about me. Betraying me still. They walked off, even though the slaver opened his mouth to say more.
“Of course, to tell you true, there are rumors. The last place eyes have seen him was not even Kongor, but not only eyes see. I told you before. You can follow the trail of the dead, who was found dead and quickly buried, sucked out like juice from a berry. There was word of a boy and four others in Nigiki, one time long ago in Kongor. But find him and bring him back to me in Malakal where—”
“You no longer ask for proof of his death?” I asked.
“I will be at the collapsed tower. This is all I have to say. Sogolon, I will speak to you alone,” he said.
Sogolon, who had not said a word up to this point, went off with him to the caravan.
“I know you need no help to get to Kongor,” Nyka said.
I was already looking west, but I turned around to see his face. Always a handsome man, even now with white hair peeking under his chin and brushing across the top of his plait. And his swollen lip.
“Here is a question only you are fit to answer. Though you never was one for words, which is why you used to need me. If you take the way through the Darklands, how many of you will make it to the other side, hmm? The Leopard? Cunning as a cat but too hot as a man, his temper makes him foolish. Like a young you, no? The crone talking to master slaver? She going to drop dead before you even get to the lake. So, that little boy over there, who fucks him, you or the cat? He will not even mount a horse, much less ride it. That leaves you with the slave—”
“He is not a slave.”
“No?”
“He said so.”
“I did not hear.”
“You did not listen.”
“So the man who is not a slave and the Ogo, and you know how much trust one can put in an Ogo.”
“More than one can put in you.”
“Hmm.” He laughed. Nsaka Ne Vampi stayed back. She noticed that I noticed. I also noticed he said you, not us.
“You have made other plans,” I said.
“You know me better than I know myself.”
“Must be some kind of curse, knowing you.”
“No man has known me better.”
“Then no man has known you at all.”
“So you wish to settle this now, hmm? How about it? Right here. Or maybe down by the lake. Or shall I expect you to come quick in the night like a lover? Sometimes I wish you did love me, Tracker. How can I give you peace?”
“I wish nothing from you. Not even peace.”
He laughed again, and walked away. Then he stopped, laughed yet again, and walked over to a huge, filthy tapestry that was covering something. Nsaka Ne Vampi climbed the chariot and grabbed the reins. Nyka pulled off the tapestry, revealing a cage, inside of which was the lightning woman. The Leopard saw her too. He trotted right up to the cage and growled. The woman scrambled to the farther side, though there was nowhere to go. She looked like a woman now. Her eyes were wide as if fright stuck itself on her face, like those children who were born in war. Nyka pulled the lock. The woman pushed back even farther and the cage shifted with her. The Leopard trotted away and lay in the dirt, but still he watched her. She sniffed around, looked around, then sprang out of the cage. She spun one way and then the next, looking at the caravan, the trees, the Leopard, the man and woman in the same blue, then jerked her head north, as if somebody just called her. Then she ran, barely on her two legs, hopped over a mound, leapt as high as a tree, and was gone. Nyka jumped on the chariot, just as Nsaka Ne Vampi whipped the reins, and the horses galloped away. North.
“The lake, not west?” Bibi,
the date feeder, said.
I did not answer.
This boy was going to scare his horse into galloping, throwing him and breaking his neck. I wasn’t about to teach him. The Leopard was no use since he stayed the cat, spoke to no one, and ran off as far as he could get from us while still hearing us. Sogolon would need help mounting a horse, I thought. Or she would attach some cot or cart to carry herself and whatever it was witches carry, maybe the leg of a baby, shit from a virgin, the hide of an entire buffalo stored in salt, or whatever she needed for conjuring. But she strapped a deerskin bag over her shoulder, grabbed the saddle horn with her left hand, and swung herself up, right into the saddle. Even the Ogo noticed. He of course would squash ten horses just by sitting on them, so he ran. For a man of such height and weight he made almost no sound and shook no ground. I wondered if he had bought a gift of stealth from a Sangoma, a witchman, a witch, or a devil. These were strong horses, but only good for a day’s ride at a time, so two days to the White Lake. I tied the second supplies horse to mine. Sogolon had gone ahead of us, but the Ogo waited. I think he was afraid of her. Bibi jumped off his horse and tied a sisal rope from his saddle to the bridle of one of the horses carrying supplies and told Fumeli to mount it.
We had set off. Bunshi did not travel with us. Sogolon wore a vial around her neck the colour of Bunshi’s skin. I noticed it when she rode past me. When we were so close our horses nearly touched she leaned in and said, “That boy. What is his use?”
“Ask the one who uses him,” I said.
She laughed and galloped off into the savannah, leaving a scent trail that I couldn’t identify. I was in no hurry to reach Kongor since the missing boy was doubtless dead and in no danger of getting more dead. And they were all annoying me—the Leopard with his silence; Fumeli with his petulance, which I wanted to slap out of his sullen cheeks; this date feeder Bibi, who was trying to appear as something more than a man who stuffs food into another man’s mouth; and Sogolon, who had already decided that no man was smarter than she. The only other choice was to think of Belekun the Big, who tried to kill me when I asked about the missing boy’s father. He knew of Omoluzu and he knew Omoluzu killed the boy’s father, though he might not have known that one has to summon them with serious malcontent. He called to someone as lord of hosts. They never grow less stupid, men who believe in belief. We had not yet set out and there were people who I longed to see less.
That left the Ogo. The larger the being, the less they needed words, or knew them, I have always found. I slowed my horse, waiting for him to catch up. He really did smell fresh as if he was bathing in the river before, even under his arms, which on the wrong giant could knock down a cow.
“I think we will make it to the White Lake in two days,” I said. He kept walking.
“We will make it in two days,” I shouted. He turned around and grunted. Oh, this was going to be the most wonderful trip.
Not that I even cared for company. Certainly not these people. But I spend most of my days alone, and my nights with people I never wish to see in the morning. I will admit, at least to my darkest soul, that there was nothing worse to be than in the middle of many souls, even souls you might know, and still be lonely. I have spoken of this before. Men I have met and women too, surrounded by what they think is love and yet are the loneliest in all the ten and three worlds.
“Ogo. You are Ogo, are you not?”
He slowed his walking and my horse strode beside him. He grunted and nodded again.
“I saw you around the back after your bath, you kneeled before some rocks. A shrine?”
“A shrine to who?”
“The gods, some god.”
“I do not know of any gods,” he said.
“Then why build a shrine?”
He looked at me blank, as if he had no answer.
“Are you here for the slaver, the demigod, or the witch?” I said.
He kept walking, but looked at me and said, “Slaver, demigod, or witch? Which is which, I say to you, which is which. Are you sure the black one is a demigod and not a god? I have seen more of her kind—one was a man, at least he shaped like a man, but are made by the gods. People in the South say that a demigod is a man changed by the gods but not through death, and death is the thing, the fearful thing. I don’t like the dead, I don’t like noon of the dead, I don’t like eaters of the dead and I have seen them, old men in black coats that sweep the ground and white fur around the neck as if they wear the skin of vulture. But she is of a strange kind, whatever you call the animal that is half elephant, half fish, or half man and half horse, that is where you should put her, but the slaver is why I am here, he came to me and said, Sadogo I have work for you, and he knew I did not have work, for in the West what work is there for an Ogo? Yes I was out of work, and at my home, which I left open day and night for who would be foolish to rob from an Ogo, did they not hear we are terrible beasts? But at my home, rather my hut, was the slaver who said I have a job for you, great giant, and I said I am not a giant, giants are twice my height, have nothing between their ears but meat, and rape horses because they think all animals with long hair must be womenfolk and a kick from a horse means there will be much sport in the fucking, so he said again I have work, I need you to find some men who are evil to me, and I said what should I do with these men when I find them, and he said kill them all except for one who is not a man but a boy and to not disturb a hair on his head unless he is no longer a boy. He says to me, Ogo, what he might have changed into will not be man, but something else, something that even the gods spit upon as abomination, and then he said more but I did not understand a thing after he said abomination, and then I said where is this boy that you would have me find, and he said I will have men join you, and women too for this is not as easy as it is to say, and I said that it sounds simple enough and I will be back before I miss my house and my crops start to fail, but then I thought of the last man I killed and how his family will soon miss his cruelty and search for him, and when they come with a mob, I will leave many wives widows and boys orphans, so then I thought, let this mission take us for as long as it will take us for I have nothing to return to, and he said then you have that in common with all the others, that none of you have anything to return to, but I do not know if that is true, I do not know any of you, but I have heard of Sogolon the witch of the moon, do you know of her? How did you know she was writing runes? She is three hundred, ten and five years in age, she said this to me and other things too, for people always think the Ogo are simple in the head so one can tell them anything, and this she did; here is what she said: They call me Sogolon, and I had never answered to any other name. They used to call me Sogolon the ugly, until all who called me so died by the same choke in the throat. Sogolon the Moon Witch, who always made craft in the dark, others say. She said she is from the West, but I come from the West and to me she smells like the people of the Southwest who smell sour but the good sour that mixes with sweet, and sparkles life, which you also know because I heard that you have a nose. Does she write runes always? Her hands are never steady, never still. A woman as old as she was expert in the keeping of secrets, so I assumed she had some other reason that she would not say, since coin could not have meant much to her. Then she spoke in riddles and rhyme but there was no art to it. All this time there was no wrath in her, but no mirth either, or pleasantness. I have guessed that she vanishes and returns, as is her way. And that is what I know. You must forgive Ogo. So few people speak to him that when they do he always has too much to say. And …”
And like this Sadogo the Ogo talked through the night. Through our stopping and tying off the horses to a tree. Through us building a fire, and cooking porridge, and losing the star that pointed us west, through trying to sleep, failing to sleep, listening for lions moving through the night, waiting for the fire to burn out, and finally falling into the kind of sleep where he spoke through dreams. I could not tell if it was the sun or his voice that woke me up. Fumeli fell asleep. Bibi, l
ying beside me, was awake and frowning. The Ogo’s voice went lower, with silence eating off the end of his lines.
“From now on I shall be quiet,” he said.
I stared at him for a long time. Bibi laughed and went off in the bush to piss. I rolled myself to a sit and yawned.
“No, please go on, good Ogo. Sadogo. I will have your words. You make a long trip short. You know Nyka?”
His glare was worth it. “I met him a moon before I met you,” he said.
“And he gives you gossip of other people already.”
“When the slaver came to me, both Nyka and Nsaka Ne Vampi rode with him.”
“This is indeed news. What did he say of me?”
“The slaver?”
“No, Nyka.”
“That you can trust the Tracker with your life, if he thinks you have honor.”
“That is what he said?”
“Is it false?”
“I am not the person to answer that.”
“Why is it not? I have never lied but I see that to lie may have purpose.”
“And betrayal? Does betrayal have a purpose other than what it is?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“No worry. It is dead, the thought.”
“This one was in the cart too,” he said, pointing to Bibi walking back.
We saddled the horses and set off. I turned to Bibi. “Tell me this. Your master lied to us about the boy. The truth is he has no stake in the child. But he has much in pleasing Bunshi.
“He is worried by the silence of the gods,” Bibi said. “He thinks he’s displeased them when the gods’ silence has fallen on every house.”
“He should worry more about the silence of all the slaves plotting against him,” I said.
“Ha, Tracker, I saw your face. Few days ago. Much enjoyment I got from it, your disgust. I think you are too hard on the noble trade.”
“What?”
“Tracker, or whatever your name is. Were it not for slaves, every man from the East would be a virgin at marriage. I met one once, this is a true word. He thought woman bred child by sticking her breasts into a man’s mouth. Were it not for slaves, good Malakal would be left with nothing but false gold, and cheap salt. I justify it not. But I do know why it is here.”
