by Marlon James
“That what you want? A hero?”
I have word from your father and your brother.
I stopped the horse.
“Are they disappointed again? Do they hang their heads in shame in the underworld? They never seem to change, my father and brother.”
I have word of your sister.
“I have no sister.”
Much has come to pass since you took yourself from your mother’s house.
“I have no sister.”
And she has no brother. But she has a father, who is also her grandfather. And a mother who is also a sister.
“And you say I am the one bringing shame to his family?”
What do you want?
“I want you to either kill me or shut up.”
What kind of man has no quality?
“For a spirit, it staggers me how much you care about what ordinary men think. You talk about purpose like the gods shat it out of a divine ass, then gave it to man as if they would know the difference. I had a purpose, given to me by my blood, my father and my grandfather. I had a purpose and I told them to go fuck themselves with it. You use that word purpose like there is something noble to it, something of the best gods. Purpose is the gods saying what kings say to men they want to rule. Well a thousand rapes for your purpose. You want to know what’s my purpose? To kill the men who killed my brother and father, leaving a grandfather fucking my own mother. To kill the men who killed my brother, because they killed him because he killed one of theirs. Who killed one of his, who killed one of theirs, and on and on while even gods die. My purpose is to avenge my blood so that one day they can come and seek vengeance on me. So no, I don’t want purpose and I don’t want children born in blood. You want to know what I want? I want to kill this bloodline. This sickness. End this poison. My name ends with me.”
I am your—
“You are an Anjonu and you bore me.”
Something like a scream came through the bush. The same leaves brushed past my arms, the same smells slipped past me. I came to a clearing I had just walked through. Trees were deceitful in these parts.
You close your mind the way a furious child closes his fists.
We came upon another clearing, where the grass was low and the air was evening. Or early morning. The Darklands was always dark, but it was never night. Not deep night, never a noon of the dead. In the clearing, built around the base of an assegai tree, stood a hut, plastered in cow dung. Dry, but carrying a fresh stink. Behind the hut, flat on his back with his legs spread wide, was the Ogo.
“Sadogo?”
He was dead.
“Sadogo?”
He was asleep.
“Sadogo.”
He groaned, but still slept.
“Sadogo.”
He groaned again.
“The mad monkey, the mad monkey,” he said.
“Wake up, Sadogo.”
“Not, not, asleep … not … I do not sleep.”
Truth, I thought this was sleep making him sound mad. Or maybe the worst dream, where he did not know he was asleep.
“The mad monkey …”
“The mad monkey, what did he do?”
“The … mad … the … mad … he blew bone dust.”
Bone dust. The Anjonu tried to make himself my master with that once, but the Sangoma’s protection was on me, even in this forest. He then studied more wickedness, trying to uncover what the Sangoma’s enchantment did not cover. He says he speaks to your head, even to your spirit, but he is just a lower demon who despises his form and who works an Ogudu spell on whoever is cursed to cross his path. He blows the bone dust and the body goes to sleep, though the mind is awake and in terror.
“Sadogo, can you sit?”
He tried to get up but fell back down. He lifted his chest again and fell back on his elbows. He paused and his head fell back like a sleepy child’s until he snapped himself awake.
“Roll over and push yourself up,” I said.
If bone dust did this to an Ogo, left him drunk, then the other two must be sleeping deeper than the dead. Sadogo tried to push himself up.
“Slow … slow … great giant.”
“I’m not a giant. I am an Ogo,” he said.
I knew that would rile him. He pushed himself up to a sit, but his head started to swing.
“Giant is what they call you. Giant!”
“Not a giant,” he tried to shout, but his mumble ate the words.
“You are not anything, drooling on the floor.”
He stood up and wobbled so low that he grabbed the tree. We would not make it out of this forest if we had to run. He shook his head. A drunkard he would have to be, then. If anything he could fall on our enemy and that would be no joke.
“The mad monkey … bone dust … inside … put them … insi—”
“The others are inside.”
“Huh.”
“Inside the hut?”
“I already said.”
“Don’t get testy with me, giant.”
“Not a giant!”
That made him straighten right up. Then slouch again. I went over and grabbed his arm. He looked down, swung his face around as if the strangest thing had landed on his arm.
“Bone dust is a favorite trick of the Anjonu, but you will be as new in five flips of an hourglass. You must have been under its wickedness for some time now.”
“Bone dust, the mad monkey …”
“You keep saying that, Sadogo. The Anjonu is a wicked, ugly spirit, but he is no monkey.”
The thought jumped in my head. The Anjonu likes to torment, but he torments with blood, with family. Why would he bewitch the Ogo, the Leopard, even the boy? The Darklands have the dead, the never born, the spirit-like, and those let loose from the underworld. But because I have not seen many, I forgot that it is also infested with every vicious creature born wrong. Worse than the bat men sleeping and drooling.
“Can you fit inside?”
“Yes. I tried to leave before but fell … fell … fell—”
“It will not be long, Ogo.”
Inside the hut smelled not like cow dung, but like meat saved in salt. Inside the hut, brightness like day came through, but from nowhere, and it lit up one red rug in the center, and a wall of knives, saws, arrowheads, and cutlasses. The Leopard, facedown on the rug, his back covered in spots and the back of his arms bristling fur. Trying to change but the Ogudu gripped too strong. His teeth had grown long and stuck out from his lips. Fumeli lay on his back in the dirt floor. I stooped down beside the Leopard and touched the back of his head.
“Cat, I know you hear me. I know you want to move but cannot.”
I saw him in my mind, trying to move, trying to turn his chin, trying just to move his eye. The Ogo, still wobbling, came through the door and hit his head.
“A dung hut with a door?” he said.
“I know.”
“Behold, anoth … nother.”
Another door in line with the first on the other side of the hut. The Ogo leaned too far and stumbled. He braced himself against the wall.
“Who locked this door? Who infested it … with so many locks?”
The door looked stolen from the hut of someone else. Locks and bolts went all the way down to one side, from the top of the door right down into the earth.
That is—
“That is what?”
“Wha … what is what?”
“Not you, Sadogo.”
“Then wh … my head keeps rolling out to sea.”
You know this door.
“Stop speaking to me.”
“I’m not … talking to you …”
“Not you, Sadogo.”
There are only ten and nine such doors in all the lands, and one in this forest you call the Darklands.
“Sadogo, can you carry the Leopard?”
“Can I—”
“Sadogo!”
“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.”
“I’ll carry the boy.”
<
br /> The ten and nine doors, surely you have heard of them.
“Another trick.”
“Who do you talk to?” Sadogo said.
“A minor demon who will not be quiet.”
“I worked for slavers once,” Sadogo said.
“Not now, Sadogo.”
“I … do not know why … my head keeps rolling out to sea. But I have seen many days working for a slaver. I stopped a slave revolt once all by my own, with these hands you see here. They said I could kill five and not affect their profits so I killed five. I don’t know why I did it. I know why I killed them but … my head goes out to sea, I do not know why I was in a slaver’s employ …. Did you know there are no female Ogos … or I have found none in all the lands I have seen …. Know this, Tracker … why do I wish to tell you, why do I wish to tell you so? I have never … ever … never been with a woman, for who can the Ogo mate with that he does not kill … and if this does not kill her …”
He lifted up his skirt. Long and thick like my entire arm.
“And if this does not kill her, giving birth to an Ogo surely will. I do not know my mother, just as no Ogo knows. The King of the South tried to breed a race of Ogo to fight in the last war. He kidnapped girls … some very young … some not childbearing age … wickedness, witchcraft, noon magic. Not a single Ogo he produced, but monsters now roam. We are not a race … we are a mishap.”
“Grab the Leopard, Sadogo,” I said.
The Ogo stooped, still wobbly, scooped the Leopard by the waist, and slung him over his right shoulder. Fumeli, as light as I thought he would be, I slung over my right and picked up his bow. The Ogo went to the door and stopped.
“The mad monkey …”
“Sadogo, there is no mad monkey. The Anjonu was trying to trick you.”
Kafin ka ga biri, biri ya ganka.
“The mad monkey …”
“Sadogo, do—”
“The mad monkey … outside.”
Before you see the monkey, the monkey has seen you.
The scream again. A long EEEEEEEEEEE that screeched through the leaves. I went to the door. The creature was maybe two hundred paces away and moving very fast. Faster than a galloping horse and coming to the door. His arms flailing about, his legs hopping long leaps, his knees almost hitting his chin. Sometimes he stopped and pushed his nose in the air, catching a smell on the wind, then looked our way and dashed again, gnashing and spitting. His thick tail swishing, whipping away. Skin like a man’s, but also green like rot. He ran headfirst, two eyes popping, the right small, the left bigger and smoking. He screamed again and the ghost of birds flew off. Too fast. Ripped cloth flapped all over him.
“The door, Sadogo, the door!”
Sadogo threw off the Leopard, slammed the door, and dropped the three bolts across it. A bang hit the door like a lightning bolt. Sadogo jumped. The creature EEEEEEEEEEE’d again, threatening to deafen every soul close.
“Shit,” I said.
The walls of the hut were stick leaves and dry shit. The creature would punch a hole right through it as soon as he saw that he could. It banged and banged and the old wood started to crack. He EEEEEEEEEEE’d again and again. Sadogo picked up the Leopard.
“The door,” he said.
I thought he was pointing to the front door, but he nodded at the back. The creature punched a hole through the front door and pushed his face against it. Face shaped like that of a man bred with a devil. His left eye really did smoke. Nose punched in like an ape’s and long, rotten teeth. He snarled and spat through the hole, then pulled away. I could hear his feet, his footsteps quicker and louder, running, right into the door. The hinges broke, but did not break off. His face pushed through the hole again. EEEEEEEEEEE. He ran off to charge again.
Sadogo grabbed each lock and ripped them off the back door. The mad monkey rammed into the wood and his whole head burst through. He tried to pull himself but was stuck. Now he looked up at us and yelled and screamed and snarled and I could hear his tail whip against the hut. We turned to the back door and all the locks Sadogo had ripped out appeared again.
“He will get through the door the third time,” I said.
“What kind of magic is this … what kind of magic?” Sadogo said.
I stood next to Sadogo and studied this door. There was magic, but my nose was no help in unraveling its making. I whispered an incantation I never remembered hearing before. Nothing. Nothing like the house back in Malakal. Something from the Sangoma’s tongue, not mine. I whispered it again so close my lips kissed the wood. A flame sparked at the top right corner and spread around the entire frame. When the flames vanished, so had the locks.
Sadogo went past me and pushed it open. A white light shot through. The mad monkey EEEEEEEEEEE’d. I wanted to stay and fight him but I had two asleep and one about to fall down in a blink.
“Tracker,” Sadogo said.
The light lit the whole room white. I picked up Fumeli. The Ogo took the Leopard and stepped through first, then I hobbled behind. A crash behind us caused me to turn just as the front door broke off. The mad monkey charged in screaming, but as his chipped fangs reached for the back door, it slammed itself shut, leaving us in darkness and quiet.
“What is this place?” Sadogo asked.
“The forest. We are in the for—”
I went back to the door behind us. What could it be but a mistake to do so, but I opened it anyway, just a little, and looked inside. A dusty room, with stone tiles, and from floor to wall stood books, scrolls, papers, and parchments. No broken door. No mad monkey. At the end of this new room, another door that Sadogo pushed open.
Sun. Children ran and stole, market women yelled and sold. Traders eyed a good deal, slavers squeezed red slave flesh, buildings squat and fat, buildings skinny and looming, and far off a great tower I knew.
“Are we in Mitu?” Sadogo said.
“No, my friend. Kongor.”
ELEVEN
Leave the dead to the dead. That is what I tell him.”
“Before or after we went in the Darklands?”
“Before, after, dead is dead. The gods tell me to wait. And look—you alive and unspoiled. Trust the gods.”
Sogolon looked at me with neither smile nor sneer. The only way she could care less would be to try.
“The gods had to tell you to wait?”
I woke up when the sun sailed to the middle of the sky and forced shadows underfoot. Flies buzzed about the room. I slept and woke three times before the Leopard and Fumeli woke once, and the Ogo could cast off the sluggishness of the Ogudu. The room, dim and plain, walls the brown-green colour of fresh chicken dung, with sacks packed on top of each other all the way to the ceiling. Tall statues leaning against each other, sharing secrets about me. The floor smelled of grain, dust, perfume bottles lost in the dark, and rat shit. On the two side walls facing each other, tapestries ran to the ground, blue Ukuru cloth with white patterns of lovers and trees. I lay on the floor, above and under blankets and rugs of many colours. Sogolon stood by the window, in that brown leather dress she always wore, looking out.
“You leave your whole mind back in the forest.”
“My mind is right here.”
“Your mind not here yet. Three times now I say to you that journey around the Darklands take three days, and we take four.”
“Only one night passed in the forest.”
Sogolon laughed like a wheeze.
“So we come three days late,” I said.
“You lost in that forest for twenty and nine days.”
“What?”
“A whole moon come and go since you gone into bush.”
And perhaps this, like the last two times she said it, was where I threw myself back down on the rugs, stunned. Everything not dead had twenty-nine days—a whole moon—to grow, including truth and lies. People on voyages have long returned. Creatures born got old, others died, and those dead withered to dust in that time. I have heard of great beasts who go to sleep f
or cold seasons, and men who fall ill and never rise, but this felt like someone stole my days and whoever I should have been in them. My life, my breath, my walk, it came to me why I hate witchcraft and all magic.
“I have been in the Darklands before. Time never stopped then.”
“Who was keeping time for you?”
I knew what she meant behind the witch double-speak. What she said, not out loud, the word inside the word, was who in the world would care for me that they would count my days gone? She looked at me as if she wanted an answer. Or at least a half-wit answer she could reply to with a full-wit mockery. But I stared at her until she looked away.
“A whole moon come and go since you gone into the bush,” she said again, but soft as if not to me. She looked out the window.
“Trust for the gods be the only reason why I here for a moon in Kongor. If it was my will over the gods, this whole place and every man in it would burn. Can’t trust no man in Kongor.”
“Can’t trust any man, anywhere,” I said. She flinched when she saw I heard.
“My gratitude for waiting in a city that does you ill,” I said.
“Not for you I do it. Not even for the goddess.”
“Should I ask who?”
“Too many children in Kongor don’t have an end to they story. That older than two hundred years, that older than when I was a child. So let this be the one child who story have an ending, no matter how grim, and not be another one that wash up with no head when the floodwater roll back.”
“You lost a child? Or were you the child?”
“I should have make distance between me and this city. Make distance four nights after you didn’t show. Last time I walk these roads a man of good breeding pay five man to steal me so he can show me what an ugly woman was for. Right there in Torobe. Couldn’t beat him wife because she from royal blood, so he bond me for that.”
“Kongori masters have always been cruel.”
“Low-wit donkey, the man was not my master, he was my kidnapper. A man would know the difference.”
“You could have run to a prefect.”
“A man.”
“A magistrate.”
“A man.”
“An elder with a kind ear, an inquisitor, a seer.”
“Man. Man. Man.”
