A crash, a scream, and then out the door, two Green Guards with swords out, then two more grabbing the arms of a struggling woman. She naked. Why they always naked, I wonder as first she kick and kick, then do the opposite, make her legs go lifeless as they drag her from the house. No woman in Fasisi go about their daily business with no clothes on, not even the whores. But every time soldiers come, or Sangomin, or guards, or men looking to rein in a wayward daughter or wife, they always rip her clothes off before dragging her in public. Is not like people in Fasisi have any feeling about nakedness, but the sight of it irritate me like nothing ever before. So much that I don’t realize that the wind that whip up into a twister with enough dust to hide them is coming from me. Some of the crowd scatter, the rest root their heels in the dirt to throw stones, hurl spit, and scream at the witch who take away too many men, cook stew with that missing girl’s heart, and hoist her ass up in the air on night with no moon so that street dogs can fuck her from behind. Plus who know what craft she was doing this very morning with her moonblood? A woman throw a stone that hit a guard, who strike her straight in the face with the blunt edge of his sword. That push the crowd back and hush them to a grumble. Another day they would leave their outrage for this witchfinder, who don’t care that people can see through his thin cotton and know which body parts wearing jewelry that nobody ever see wear jewelry before. And the woman, older like they almost always be, and judging from the whispers and grumbles, alone. A punch or a kick to the chest of all four Green Guards and they all stumble, bringing the woman down with them, but she get up first. Some people watching say, You see the witchcraft? Is like she just bounce back up and run. Which she do, and a Green Guard jump up and hurl his spear, but trip before he let it go, sending it upward. The crowd scream and scatter when they see it coming down toward them, bursting through a Green Guard’s calf. The others try to chase her, but the little dirt and mud burst from the ground and blind them. I walk away before anybody see me sweating from all this doing, when ahead of me I see him.
Now I thinking of necromancy, or what people in Kongor call white science. For all I seeing is the back of him, and yet that back is sending me so far gone in memory that even his smell come back to me. Seeing the past blinding me, and I almost run into a cart as it barrel away with the driver cussing. He still ahead, down this lane, but then he quicken. I quicken as he walk to a trot to a slow run, though he not once look back. I don’t know if he’s running from me, but now I running, and carts, mules, donkeys, old men keep barging into my way. If I stay in this lane I going to lose him. He break for a left and I cuss, knowing I going to lose him until I get to that side lane and see a dim dead end.
Nothing but garbage, rats, broken wood stalls, and the back side of shops, storerooms, and taverns. No sign of him. I am almost at the wall when a twig snap behind me. He holding a thick piece of wood with nails sticking out of it.
“Who you? Turn around—slow! A woman? Why you following me?”
“I didn’t want to think it was you, but look at you now. Where you been keeping, Olu?” I ask.
He glare at me, and even when he ease his face, a slight frown remain.
“Olu sound like a man you know,” he say.
“You don’t remember me?”
“Yours don’t look like a forgetful face.”
“What you saying?”
“I saying that I know that everybody taking to rob the old these days, even woman. And I only look weak. Only thing you going get from me is this plank in your face.”
“Soon, when I ask you again what your name be, take no offense. You say that to me once. Say not to take offense when you forget me,” I say.
“I don’t know you. Or this Olu.”
“So what you name?”
“How this your business? I making tracks between me and you. Don’t follow.”
“Wait? It really all gone? I here thinking you dead, that they finally wash you from this city, and you been here all this time. The gods take away your memory finally, eh? You finally reach it where you forget that you forget.”
“Forget. I know what today is, and yesterday, and the day before that. I know the King birthday gone and the Queen’s coming. And I know my address just as much as I know not to tell it to you, thief. I warn you, send me to the gods and you coming right with me.”
“Fuck the gods. He get to you. He couldn’t smudge you out the first time, but nobody did believe a word you say anyway, not even you. Call yourself mad when he was the one that take away everything that make sense.”
“You sound a whole heap of mad right now.”
He turn to leave and I dash after him.
“You really don’t remember nothing? Nothing at all?” I say.
I grab his elbow. Maybe he see that I grab him as if I know him, but he didn’t turn to strike me.
“Woman, I really want to wish you well.”
“How the Butcher of Bornu get brought this low?”
He pull away from me. Desperate to grab anything, I take his hand.
“You still have charcoal under your fingernails.”
“Lady, let me go.”
“You have three scars on your back, same length, and slant.”
“W-what? How you know that?”
He grab his back, feeling for a hole in his shirt. I feel both at once, that he is slipping away and that he already gone.
“You tell me that it was a warrior with a three-blade dagger. You kill him with the point edge of your shield.”
“Now I know you mad. Kill? Dagger? I faint just from the sight of chicken blood. Make tracks between us, woman, or I going shout that you attacking a feeble old man.”
“You not feeble! You is Olu.”
“And you is mistaken. Or mad. Either way that is your business.”
“Jeleza.”
“That your demon? Praise the gods, why you send this woman to torment me?”
“You don’t have no yesterday? You don’t ask how you come to a warrior’s scars and a fighter’s body?”
He laugh so loud it bounce off the walls.
“This body? Whoever fought me did clearly win. Be off with you, woman. Better yet I will be the one who leave.”
He back away from me as he leave, eyes making four with mine. Back in the lane he turn and dash off. I don’t follow.
Two moon pass since I see Olu, yet my mind won’t leave him alone. He take up so much space that I forget what I was doing in Taha district. Olu perplex me when he not troubling me, and it take two moons to see why. At first I was thinking that it was because he still handsome, because whatever burden he was carrying vanish from his back. Before, at the royal enclosure, Olu was a sign for me to remember; uncanny since he forget his own wife. And yet his wife didn’t forget him. Couldn’t leave him. His wife make me think that memory was sometimes a ghost offering a gift you don’t always want, instead of a possession you already have. I didn’t know why such a sad situation give me mirth until I realize that it was not mirth, but relief. That somehow the ghost of not forgetting triumph even if nobody see or understand the victory. The ghost win in dreams, which is why he used to chant Jeleza, Jeleza in his sleep and not know what that mean when he wake. Somebody might call this hope. Just a speck when despair is an ocean, but maybe that speck is all one need. That speck but a pebble in a shoe, but it prick at you with every step. Somebody drive that speck out of the commander and take not just his wife and his name, but even the memory that he forget. The Aesi.