Black Leopard, Red Wolf (Dark Star Trilogy)

TWENTY-TWO

And that is all and all is truth, great inquisitor. You wanted a tale, did you not? From the dawn of it to the dusk of it, and such is the tale I have given you. What you wanted was testimony, but what you really wanted was story, is it not true? Now you sound like men I have heard of, men coming from the West for they heard of slave flesh, men who ask, Is this true? When we find this, shall we seek no more? It is truth as you call it, truth in entire? What is truth when it always expands and shrinks? Truth is just another story. And now you will ask me again of Mitu. I don’t know who you hope to find there. Who are you, how dare you say what I had was not family? You, who try to make one with a ten-year-old.

Oh, you have nothing to say. You will push me no further.

Yes, it is as you say, I was in Mitu for four years and five moons. Four years from when we left the boy in the Mweru. I was there when this rumor of war turned into a real war. What happened there is something you can ask the gods. Ask them why your South has not been winning this war, but neither the North.

The child is dead. There is nothing else to know. Otherwise, ask the child.

Oh you have nothing left to ask? Is this where we part?

What is this? Who comes in this room?

No, I do not know this man. I have never seen his back or his face.

Don’t ask me if I recognize you. I do not know you.

And you, inquisitor, you give him a seat. Yes, I can see he is a griot. Do you think he brought the kora to sell it? Why would this be the time for praise song?

It is a griot with a song about me.

There are no songs about me.

Yes, I know what I said before, I was the one who said it. That was a boast—who am I that I would be in any song? Which griot makes a song before you pay them? Fine, let him sing; it is nothing to me. Nothing he sings I will know. So sing.

Thunder god mystic brother

blessed with tongue, and the gift of kora.

It is I, Ikede, son of Akede,

I was the griot that lived in the monkeybread tree.

I been walking many days and many nights, when across it I come,

the tree near a river

I climb up and hear the parrot, and the crow, and the baboon

I hear children

laughing, screaming, fighting, making gods hush

and there up top lie a man on a rug.

What kind of man is this?

not like any man in Weme Witu, Omororo, or even Mitu.

And he said,

are you looking for beauty?

I said I think I found it

And hark, the man laugh and he say

the women of Mitu find me so ugly,

when I take the children to the markets they say

Look at that ugly family, look at those wretched beasts,

but that one khita, ngoombu, haamba he have hair like a horse.

But I say, beautiful wise bountiful women

plump in bosom and wide in smile

I am not a zombi, I am pretty like kaolin clay

and they laugh so hard, they give me doro beer and play in my hair

and I tell you, in none of these things I find any offense.

And I say to him

This tree, do you live in it?

He say, There is no you, only we and we are a strange house.

Stay with us as long as you wish.

When I climb through a hole and sit in the spot

I see he coming, bringing back meat

I say, Who is the man so sour with the eye of a wolf?

Who curse him so?

But children little, children big, children who is but air

run down the tree and stampede him

and don’t care that he cursing would scare the owl.

And they jump up on him and sit on his head, and rest under his arm

And I thinking these children have big feelings for this man,

and the sour face gone.

And the Wolf Eye climb up the top and stop when he see me,

and keep climbing.

And when he reach the top, he see the other man,

and they put lips together, and open their mouths,

I know.

The one with the wolf eye, he is the one

who says, The night is getting old, why are you not sleeping?

The sun is in the sky, why are you not waking?

Food is ready

when are you going to eat it?

Did the gods curse me and make me a mother?

No he blessed me and made you my wife,

the one called Mossi say,

and the children laugh, and the Wolf Eye scowl

And scowl, and scowl, and scowl into a laugh.

I was there, I see it.

And I see it when they chase all the children out and say go,

go to the river now,

and stay ’til the sun start to shift

And when they all gone, they think I gone too

For Mossi speak the Wolf Eye own tongue

Se ge yi ye do bo, he say

Se ge yi ye do bo

Let us love each other

For they two, they grab each other and kiss lip

then kiss tongue,

then kiss neck and nipple

and lower.

And one was the woman, and one was the man,

and both was the woman, and both was the man,

and neither was neither.

And the Wolf Eye, he rest his head in Mossi lap.

Mossi, he be rubbing the Wolf Eye’s chest.

They just stay there looking at each other,

eye studying eye.

Face at rest

maybe they sharing a dream.

One day Wolf Eye call them all together.

Children, he say, come out from the river

and present yourselves

you not raised by the jackal or the hyena.

And each child present me his name,

but their names I have all forgotten.

This is what Wolf Eye say.

He say, Mossi I am Ku,

and a Ku man can only be one kind of man

and Mossi said to him, How are you not a man

what do I grab between the legs

Mossi make joke

Wolf Eye not making joke.

He say

I been running, I been hiding, I been looking for

something that I don’t know, but I know I looking for it

And I don’t know, but every Ku find it

but there is blood between me and the Ku

and I could never go back.

So he call the Gangatom

And the Gangatom chief say, Nobody ever wait so long,

I’ve been waiting all my life, Wolf Eye say.

And Wolf Eye pull his tunic and say,

Look at me, look where there is woman,

And when I cut it off I will be a man

and Mossi he catch a fright, for he think if this is what make him love him,

But Wolf Eye say, Everything between me and you,

eastern man, is not down there, but up here,

he say and point to his heart.

And the chief say,

What you asking for not old,

what you asking for new.

You is Ku

and you have no father.

In this way you enrage the gods.

Says the Wolf Eye:

The ceremony to become a man

is in praise of the gods, and so

how could any god be mad.

So Wolf Eye,

The Gangatom prick the cow and spill the blood

in a bowl

Wolf Eye drink one then two

he drink and wipe his mouth.

The next day come,

For him to jump the bulls.

They line them up, twenty strong

plus ten more for he take too late to be a man

You have to run on the backs of bulls and you cannot fall,

For if you fall, the gods laugh

So Wolf Eye,

He naked in oil and shea butter.

Then praise the gods, he run

bull back to bull back, one two three four

five six seven more.

And the people cheer and rejoice

The elder say all these moons you in the in-between place

and there is no shame,

but middle is nowhere.

But some of the elders, they say

he not coming from the enki paata.

He not been wandering for four moons

as a boy supposed to do before he become man

where on him be the mark that he kill the great lion?

And the chief, he say, Look on him

and you see the mark of him killing lion and everything else.

So the elders, they sit quiet, though some still grumble,

and the chief, he say to Wolf Eye

You never wander for four moons

So stay for four nights

in the open and with the cows, sleep in grass, stand on dirt.

And on the five morning

they come for him

and they bathe him from the bucket, with an ax head in it

to cool the water

And now as be the custom, the men say,

big man fitting in boy skin

to become a man, but look he is a fool.

As be the custom, the men say,

look at him little boy kehkeh, it not ready to be a man yet.

He can’t work a woman koo, better he dig an anthole.

As be the custom, the men say.

Is that why you have husband and not a wife?

Is you the wife?

Strength now, Wolf Eye. Anger is weakness.

So in come the cutter ready for the event

sharp with one knife

the Wolf Eye, he have no mother,

so the chief wife, she be the mother.

She send ox hide for him to sit on

and that way not shame the gods.

They lead him, yes they lead him

past the cattle kraal

past the houses of great elder

up to a little hill where on top is a hut

and he say

Kick the knife, and we will kill you.

Run from the knife

And we disown you

The grand cutter, he take chalk and mark a line

from forehead to nose.

The grand cutter, he take milk and pour all over the Wolf Eye.

The grand cutter, he grab the slain and pull, and pull

he say, One cut!

Kick the knife and we will kill you.

Run from the knife and we will disown you.

He say, One cut!

And the Wolf Eye, he grab the cutter arm

and he say, No.

Listen to me, he say No.

The man in the mountain and the women in the river

hear a whisper that drop like thunder

and everybody quiet.

The Wolf Eye say, The sum of my days

is all about cutting the woman out

Cut her out of me

cut her out of my mother

cut her out of all who walk and carry the world

And he look down at him maleness

crowned at the top by femaleness

and say

What in this make wrong,

how is this not the will of the gods

and if it’s not the will of the gods

then it is the will of me

he look at Mossi and say

You tell me I cut all woman out

from my mother to whoever pass the house

when it is I who leave my mother

and I who would now cut away my own self

and with this he get up

and with this he leave the knife

and he walk away

and the people silent for he still a fierce man

But Mossi trouble him more

Soon as they come back to the tree

this he say,

Stop thinking you have peace

you know what I mean

and Wolf Eye say he don’t know. So stop

and Mossi say, Why tell me stop if you don’t know

And in this way Mossi nag Tracker

And nag and nag and boy he nag

and Tracker raise his hand to strike Mossi

and Mossi say, Nobody has ever loved you finer

but lay that hand on me and you will see it cut off

and shoved in your mouth.

Fine, Tracker say, I will go

just to stop you from being the cockatoo.

And the day come when he turn to go

And he stagger, and he fall, and he say

Come with me or I will fall in the bush

And Mossi go, and the children go

and even me go for Tracker say, Don’t act as if you

don’t belong to this house

And in this way

Tracker and his kin set off for his mother

What a sight we must be in Juba!

But that is not the story

For Tracker stagger ten times before we get to the gate.

And Mossi hold him up ten times strong

So they get to the door

and a girl open the door who look like him

that is what me and Mossi think

And she don’t say nothing, but she let them in

and jump out of the way when the Ball Boy

roll through, and the Giraffe Boy had to duck

and in a blue room

she sit

looking old and weak but her eyes look young

When did he die? Tracker ask.

When a grandfather was supposed to die, she say.

And he look at her like he have something to say

And his mouth quiver like he have something to say

And Mossi start to move we out of the room

like he have something to say

But Tracker stagger again and this time he fall

And she stoop down and touch his cheek

One of your eyes didn’t come from me, she say

and what come out his mouth was a wail

And he wail for his mother

And he wail for his mother

And night come for day

And day come for night

And still he wail.

Hear me now,

I stay in the monkeybread tree ten and nine moons.

The day I was leaving the children cry,

and Mossi hang his head down low

and even the Wolf Eye said, But why do you leave your home?

But a man like me, we are like the beast,

we must roam,

or we die.

Listen to me now.

The day before I leave,

A black Leopard come to the tree.

Stop him.

Stop him now. Stop him or I will find a way to end everything this very night. And then you will know nothing about how anything ended.

I will tell you what happened next.

I will tell you everything.