I was preparing for what was to come. Still, I couldn’t ignore the time bomb about go off in our camp. One evening, I went to Luyu, who was washing clothes in her bucket.
“We need to talk,” I said.
“Talk, then,” she said, wringing out her rapa.
I leaned closer, ignoring the drops of water that hit my face. “I know.”
“Know what?”
“About you and Fanasi.”
She froze, her hands deep in the bucket’s water. “Just you?”
“As far as I know.”
“How?”
“I heard.”
“Oh, we’re not loud like you and Mwita.”
“Why are you doing this?” I said. “Don’t you know what . . .”
“We both want it,” Luyu said. “And it’s not as if Diti cares.”
“Then why all the secrecy?”
She didn’t say anything.
“If Diti finds out . . .”
“She won’t,” Luyu snapped, looking hard at me.
“Oh, I’m not going to tell her. You will. Luyu, we’re all as close as you can get without living on top of each other. Fanasi and Mwita talk. If Mwita doesn’t know, he soon will. Or Diti or Binta will catch you. What if you get pregnant? There are only two men who could be the father here.”
We looked at each other and then burst out laughing.
“How did we end up here?” I asked after we got ourselves under control.
“I don’t know,” she said. “He’s wonderful, Onye. It might be because I’m older but oh, the way he makes me feel.”
“Luyu, listen to yourself. This is Diti’s husband.”
She sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes. Later on that night, I briefly woke up to hear Luyu sneak into Fanasi’s tent. Soon after they were at it again. This would only come to a bad end.
CHAPTER 38
WE CAME TO ANOTHER TOWN AND DECIDED to go in for supplies.
“Papa Shee? What kind of name is that?” Luyu asked. She was standing too close to Fanasi. Or maybe Fanasi was standing too close to her. He always seemed to be no more than a few steps away from her these days. They were getting lax.
“I remember this town,” Mwita said. He didn’t look as if the memory was a good one. He looked at Luyu’s map as she held the portable over her hand. It was hard to see in the sunshine. “We’re not far from the beginning of the Seven Rivers Kingdom. This is one of the last towns we’ll encounter that won’t be . . . hostile to Okekes.”
Not far from us a caravan of people traveled to the town, too. Several times during the day, we’d heard the sound of scooters. Once, the camels had grown extremely agitated, roaring and shaking their dusty hides. They’d been behaving strangely of late. The previous night, the camels woke us up when they started roaring at each other. They’d remained kneeling but they looked angry. They were having an argument. When we got to the town, they refused to go any closer. We’d had to leave them a mile back while we went to the town’s market.
“Let’s make this fast,” I said, pulling my veil over my head. Mwita did the same.
There were all styles of dress and I heard several dialects of Sipo and Okeke and, yes, even Nuru. There weren’t many Nuru but there were enough. I couldn’t help staring at them with their straight black hair and yellow-brown skin and narrow noses. No freckled cheeks or thick lips or strange colored eyes, like Mwita’s and mine. I was a little confused. I’d never imagined Nurus walking among free Okekes in peace.
“Are those Nurus?” Binta said a bit too loudly. The woman with what was probably her teenage son glanced at Binta, frowned, and moved away. Luyu elbowed Binta to shut up.
“What do you think?” Mwita asked me, leaning toward my ear.
“Let’s just get what we need and get out of here,” I said. “Those men over there are looking at me.”
“I know. Stay close.” Mwita and I were both attracting an audience.
A sack of pumpkin seeds, bread, salt, a bottle of palm wine, a new metal bucket, we managed to buy almost all we needed before the trouble started. There were plenty of nomads, so it wasn’t our style of dress or our way of speaking. It was what it always was. We were looking at dried meat when we heard the wild yell from behind. Mwita instinctively grabbed me and Luyu who stood on his other side.
“Eeeeewuuuuuu,” an Okeke man shouted in a deep deep voice. “Eeeewuuuuuu!”
His voice vibrated in my head in an unnatural way. He wore black pants and a long black caftan. Several brown and white eagle feathers were stuck in his long thick dada hair. His dark skin glistened with sweat or oil. The people around him moved aside.
“Make way for him,” a man said.
“Make way,” a woman shouted.
You know what happens next. You know it because you’ve heard me speak of a similar incident. I still had the scar on my forehead from it. Was this the same town? No, but it might as well have been. Not much had changed since my mother had had to run with me, an infant, from a crowd of people throwing stones.
I don’t know when they started hurling stones at Mwita and me. I was too in the moment, staring at the wild man who could put his voice in my head. A stone hit me in the chest. I focused my responding anger on that man, that witch doctor who had the nerve to not recognize a true sorcerer. I attacked him in the same way I’d attacked Aro years ago. Ripping and tearing. I heard the crowd gasp and someone screamed. I stayed focused on the man who’d started it. He had no idea what was happening to him because he didn’t know the Mystic Points. All he knew were children’s jujus, baby tricks. Mwita could have done away with him without blinking.
“What are you doing?!” I heard Binta scream. This brought me back to myself. I fell to my knees. “Do you all know who this is!” Binta shouted at the crowd. Across from us, the witch doctor collapsed. The woman beside him shrieked.
“They’ve killed our priest!” a man shouted, spittle flying from his mouth.
I saw it sailing through the air. I was stunned. Who would have the audacity throw a brick at a girl so beautiful that her father couldn’t resist her? With such perfect aim? The brick smashed into Binta’s forehead. I could see the white. Her skull was caved in, brain tissue exposed. She fell. I screamed and ran for her. I wasn’t close enough. The crowd burst into motion. People running, throwing more bricks, stones. A man came at me and I kicked him and grabbed his neck and began to squeeze. Then Mwita was pulling and dragging me.
“Binta!” I screamed. Even from where I was, I could see people kicking her fallen body and then I saw a man take another brick and . . . oh, it’s too horrible to describe. I screamed the words I’d spoken back in Jwahir’s market. But I didn’t want to show these people the worst of the West. I wanted to show them darkness. They were all blind and that’s what I made them. The entire town. Men, women, children. I took the very ability that they chose not to use. Mostly everyone went silent. Some clawed at their eyes. Some still reached around trying to inflict violence on whoever they could touch. Children whimpered. Some people shouted things like, “What is this evil?” or “Ani save me!”
Bastards. Let them stumble around in the darkness.
We scrambled through the confused blind people to Binta. She was dead. They’d smashed her skull, punctured her chest, crushed her neck and her legs. I knelt down and put my hands on her. I searched, I listened. “Binta!” I shouted. Several of those stupid blind people answered me as they stumbled toward my voice. I ignored them. “Where are you? Binta?” I listened some more for her confused terrified spirit. But she was gone.
“Where is she?” I shrieked, sweat pouring down my face. I kept searching.
She’d left. Why did she leave when she knew I could bring her back? I wonder if she understood that bringing her back and healing her would probably have killed me.
Eventually, Fanasi nudged me aside and picked her up, Mwita helping to take her weight. We left the town blind as they’d always been. You must have heard rumors of the famous Town o
f the Sightless. It’s no legend. Go to Papa Shee. See for yourself.
When the camels saw us carrying Binta’s body, they roared and stamped their feet. We set her down and they sat around her in a protective circle. The next few days were a muddled blur. I know we somehow managed to pull ourselves together enough to move away from Papa Shee. Sandi agreed to carry Binta’s body. I know that at some point, we spent a day digging a six-foot hole in the sand. We used our pots and pans. We buried our beloved friend there in the desert. Luyu read a prayer from the electronic file of the Great Book in her portable. Then we each took turns to say something about Binta.
“You know,” I said when it was my turn. “Before she left, she poisoned her father. Put heart root in his tea and watched him drink it. She set herself free before leaving home. Ah, Binta. When you return to these lands, you’ll rule the world.”
Everyone just looked at me, still in shock that she was dead.
My headaches returned after we buried her but what did I care? Binta had had the same fate, death by stoning. What made me so special? As we walked, I made it a habit of flying above and returning to everyone whenever we decided to stop. Sandi carried my things. All I could think about was the fact that Binta had never known the loving touch of a man. The closest she’d come was that night in the tavern in Banza, when she’d been so brazen. And then because of me, defending me, she died.
CHAPTER 39
THERE’S A STORY IN THE GREAT BOOK about a boy destined to be Suntown’s greatest chief. You know the story well. It’s a Nuru favorite, no? You all tell it to your children when they’re too young to see how ugly the story is. You hope the girls will want to be like Tia the good young woman and the boys like Zoubeir the Great. In the Great Book, their story was one of triumph and sacrifice. It’s meant to make you feel safe. It’s supposed to remind you that great things will always be protected and people meant for greatness are meant for greatness. This is all a lie. Here’s how the story really happened:
Tia and Zoubeir were born on the same day in the same town. Tia’s birth was no secret and when she came out a girl, her birth was nothing special. The child of two peasants, she was given a warm bath, many kisses, a naming ceremony. She was the second child in her family, but the first child had been a healthy boy, so she was welcome.
Zoubeir, on the other hand, was born in secret. Eleven months earlier, the Suntown chief noticed a woman dancing at a party. That night he had her to himself. Even this chief, who had four wives, could not get enough of a woman like this, so he sought her out and had her over and over until she became pregnant. Then he told his soldiers to kill her. There was a rule that decreed that the first son born out of wedlock to the chief must succeed him. The chief’s father had avoided this rule by marrying every woman he bedded. When he died, he had over three hundred wives.
However, his son, the current chief, was arrogant. If he wanted a woman, why should he have to marry her first? Honestly, was this chief not the stupidest man on earth? Why couldn’t he be happy with what he had? Why couldn’t he focus on things other than his carnal needs? He was the chief, no? He should have been busy. Anyway, this woman was three months pregnant when she outran the soldiers sent to kill her. Eventually, she came to a small town where she gave birth to a son she named Zoubeir.
On the day of Zoubeir’s and Tia’s births, the midwife ran back and forth between their mothers’ huts. They were born at the exact same time, but the midwife chose to stay with Zoubeir’s mother because she had a feeling that this woman’s child was a boy and the other woman’s child was a girl.
No one but Zoubeir and his mother knew who he was. But people did sense something about him. He grew tall like his mother and loud-mouthed like his father. Zoubeir was a natural leader. Even at a young age, his classmates happily obeyed him. Tia, on the other hand, lived a quiet, sad life. Her father often beat her. And as she grew older, she grew lovelier and her father began to have eyes for her too. So Tia grew the opposite of Zoubeir, short and silent.
The two knew each other, for they lived on the same street. From the day they saw each other, there was an odd chemistry. Not love at first sight. I wouldn’t even call it love. Just chemistry. Zoubeir would share his meals with Tia if they found themselves walking home together from school. She would knit him shirts and weave him rings from colored palm fiber. Sometimes they would sit and read together. The only time Zoubeir was quiet and motionless was when he was with Tia.
When they were both sixteen, there came news that the chief of Suntown was very ill. Zoubeir’s mother knew there’d be trouble. People liked to gossip and speculate when a potential power shift was involved. News of Zoubeir possibly being the chief’s bastard son soon reached the ailing chief. If only Zoubeir had lowered his head a bit or kept a quieter profile, he could’ve peacefully returned to Suntown when the chief died. It would have been easy for him to claim the throne.
The soldiers came before Zoubeir’s mother could warn him. When they found Zoubeir, he was sitting under a tree beside Tia. The soldiers were cowards. They hid yards away and one of them brought his gun up. Tia sensed something. And right at that moment, she looked up and spotted the men behind the trees. Then she just knew. Not him, she thought. He is special. He will make things better for all of us.
“Get down!” she screamed, throwing herself over him. Of course she caught the bullet and Zoubeir did not. Tia’s life was snuffed out by five more bullets as Zoubeir hid behind her body. He pushed her off him and ran, swift like his long-legged mother seventeen years before. Once he was running, not even bullets could catch him.
You know how the story ends. He escaped and went on to become the greatest chief Suntown ever had. He never built a shrine or a temple or even a shack in the name of Tia. In the Great Book, her name is never mentioned again. He never mused about her or even asked where she was buried. Tia was a virgin. She was beautiful. She was poor. And she was a girl. It was her duty to sacrifice her life for his.
I’ve always disliked this story. And since Binta’s death, I’ve come to hate it.
CHAPTER 40
HER DEATH KEPT LUYU FROM FANASI’S hut for two weeks. And then one late night, I heard them enjoying each other again.
“Mwita,” I said as quietly as I could. I turned to face him. “Mwita, wake up.”
“Mmm?” he said his eyes still closed.
“You hear?” I said.
He listened, then he nodded.
“You know who it is?”
He nodded.
“How long have you known?” I asked.
“What does it matter?”
I sighed.
“He’s a man, Onye.”
I frowned. “So? What about Diti?”
“What of her? I don’t see her sneaking in there.”
“It’s not that simple. There’s been enough pain.”
“The pain has only just begun,” Mwita said, growing serious. “Let Luyu and Fanasi find joy while they can.” He took my braid in his hand.
“So if you and I have a fight,” I said. “Would you . . .”
“It’s different with us,” he said.
We listened for a while longer and then I heard something else. I cursed. Mwita and I got to our feet. We crawled out just in time to see it happen. Diti pulled up her red rapa, clutching the knot on the side as she strode to Fanasi’s tent. She walked swiftly. Too swiftly for me or Mwita to catch her and at least prevent her from seeing the full sight of Luyu, sweating and naked, straddling an equally sweating naked Fanasi. He was clutching Luyu as he sucked her nipple.
When Fanasi saw Diti over Luyu’s shoulder, he was so shocked that he clamped his teeth down on Luyu’s nipple. She screamed and Fanasi immediately released his teeth, terrified that he’d hurt Luyu and horrified that Diti was standing there watching. Diti’s face contorted in a way that I’d never seen. Then she grabbed her face, digging her nails into her cheeks and let out a terrible shriek. The camels jumped up faster than I’ve ever seen any
camel do and ran off.
“What . . . look at you! Binta’s dead! I’m dead . . . We’re all going to die and you do this?” Diti yelled. She fell to her knees sobbing. Fanasi carefully gave Luyu a rapa to cover herself, touching her breast briefly to see the damage that he did. He pulled a rapa around his waist and cautiously watched Diti as he climbed out of the tent. Luyu quickly followed. I gave her a dirty look. I helped Diti up and walked her away from everyone.
“How long?” Diti asked after a while.
“Weeks. Before . . . Papa Shee.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, eh?” She sat down in the sand and sobbed.
“This is life,” I said. “It doesn’t always go the way you think it will.”
“Ugh! Did you see them? Did you smell them?” She stood up. “Let’s go back.”
“Wait a while,” I said. “Calm yourself.”
“I don’t want to be calm. Did they look calm to you?” She flashed a look at me.
Seeing what she was thinking in her eyes, I held up my finger. “Hold your tongue,” I said firmly. “Hold your blame, eh?” When things grew unbearable, she always blamed me. My temples throbbed. I stood up. Right in front of her, not caring what she saw, I changed into a vulture. I hopped from my clothes, looked up into Diti’s shocked face, squawked at her, and flew off. A wind gusted in from the west. I rode it, exhilarated. It was so windy that for a moment, I wondered if a dust storm was coming.
I passed an owl. It was flying so fast southeast, fighting the wind, that it barely gave me a look. Below, I spotted the camels. I thought about flying down to greet them but it seemed they were having a private discussion. I flew for three hours. I never asked what exactly was said when Diti went back to everyone. I didn’t care. I landed where I’d left my clothes, glad Diti didn’t take them with her. They’d blown several yards away.
The first thing I noticed when I returned to camp was that only one of the camels was back. Sandi. “Where are the others?” I asked her. She only looked at me. Everyone else sat around the rock fire, except Mwita who was standing looking bothered. Diti’s eyes were red and glassy. Luyu looked smug. Fanasi sat near Luyu, holding a wet cloth over the side of his face. I frowned.