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The first night of the Gurrandala moon she wash, thinking she would go to the street donga. A day full of sun leave the water warm even in deep night. Neither cook nor slave wash, so the stall is empty, three walls on three sides that open into the backyard. They build it between the grain keep and the cookroom, which can mean many a thing, but mostly that no man will see a woman when she being private. Since no man, surely none with standing like the master, would ever go near the cookroom or the grain keep. Mistress Komwono say that out loud one day, and from then the master don’t bring himself to the room. Is Nanil who take herself elsewhere when morning come near. The mistress make sure the stall is a place with beauty and purpose, with a pattern of gold coins in a row, then shells, then back to gold and so on. The floor, cut from stone, is smooth, and at the top of the middle wall, rising just above Sogolon head, is a thin, hollow bamboo that water run through. So she wash. Longer because it is late night with nobody awake. And when she done washing, a sight she see in the stall. Herself.
The cook say the mistress buy the large silver food plate over seven moons ago, but not to present her bountiful food. She hang it in the bath stall so a woman can see herself. Sogolon can’t guess why any woman would want to watch herself when she wash, yet watch herself is what she do. Long after stepping out of the way of the water, she still in the stall, regarding. Miss Azora make sure none of her rooms have nothing that would cast an image lest a man see himself and lose his nature over either the sight of his flabby body, or the weight of his guilt. But this is not a place for any kind of man gaze. So she gaze. She lower her head to see the hair, almost to her shoulder until she roll them into bumps. The face that make her guess her age, except that is not her guess, but the mistress. The cook say to Mistress Komwono, Surely Mistress she can’t be more than ten and one. To which the mistress say, No, her mind too crafty for somebody that young, but too raw, too much heart and too little mind to be older than ten and five. Ten and three then, Sogolon whisper to the dim mirror of herself. In the dim torchlight she can’t make out much. Her shape, still strange to her, with shoulders that remind her of a young stick fighter. Narrow waist and narrow hips, not the hips to promise a man eight children. Legs looking ready to run with little heed. The torchlight throw itself on her breasts, which she never see reason to look at, but she catch the mistress looking, plenty a time, and suspect she thinking of the master. She really wish she could remember him, and what kind of talk he bring to the room before she quiet him. Something scatter across the yard, and her heart jump. A cat.
See the girl regarding herself. Sogolon touch her neck, her breasts, touch her koo and think about the mistress words coming at her again. She feel to touch each place of her body and ask it, what is your employ? Nanil the slave say her body is for plenty babies. The cook say, This little slave whore is already beginning to show, but Mistress won’t banish her from the house, even when the master demand it. How it be that this woman don’t do as her man will it, she ask the cook. Because he have no will, and in Fasisi, where the master and mistress marry, a bride keep her fortune if she wish, so the master have no wealth either.
Three women. The mistress, the cook, and the slave. Sogolon regard all three and think perhaps this not about who she is, but what she want. The mistress want a good word to one day come so that she can return to Fasisi with no loss of face. She wait for that good word every day, listening for the faint beat of drums, watching for boy heralds passing her house, or pigeons flying overhead, but never pitching on her roof. The cook want nothing more than to cook and laugh at people. What the slave want, she don’t know. What Sogolon want, Sogolon don’t know. Perhaps she want to talk, to flee, to walk up the side of that Tower of the Sparrowhawk, all the way to the top, and see as far as the end of the world. She tell the cook for she need to tell somebody, only to hear her say, Listen to this, girl. Is because you have no grooming. No mother to raise you. Sogolon listen but hear No mother raising you to never ask what you raising me for. She look at herself and shudder at the thought that these women make her glad she don’t have no mother.
She think of the cat that just ran across the yard who only live to eat, piss, shit, just like the master. But her koo is a hole and he have something to put inside it. The mistress don’t want children, it seem, but fine with how to make them. She and the master go at it like war every quartermoon or so. Otherwise he fuck Nanil until it start to look like he bothering her. Then he go harder. Sogolon standing in this water stall for too long, and the night is going deeper, darker. Trying to think about what she want only to have thoughts of the master overthrowing it. She want to move. She don’t know what that mean, but she want to move. She want people to know her only by her trace.
Who tell you that you get to want? a voice from inside her ask. No woman in Kongor get to want. One time she hear the master in the welcome room tell other man that there are people who ride the edge of the sand sea on horse and strange beasts, and they cover their faces with a veil, and their hands with witch marks, and sometimes men will love men, or the beast that they ride, or sometimes their sisters. But they call no land home. They plant no grain, and build no keep, and even when they stand still, they moving slow. Sogolon like that. Moving slow while standing still. She see it and know it. She was already moving, running, leaving, coming, vanishing, dashing, walking, slipping, all of it is moving.