I couldn’t say no more. Instead I tell you that though you packed light, your burden was heavy. Twice you leave the river, one time to Mitu, to a village too small to be on any King’s map. You wouldn’t stop until you reach three small huts, out of which pour many children, with four of them not noticing that they walk on air. A man call out to them and you shudder when you see him, as if you know him. You wouldn’t leave until you saw their field, and a mound of red dirt that mean nothing to any of them. You wouldn’t leave until you grab three of the girls to stare at them and they fuss and pull away from you. And my name is Popele, I feel the flow of all rivers, even the red streams running underneath skin, so I knew you and them was kin.
The first boat leave you behind, so you take another to Dolingo. From there you was to go by horseback straight to the Blood Swamp, but you stop again. Yes I followed you, anybody would wonder what business you would have in that backward sheepherder territory. I don’t think you choose it, maybe it was just the last stop before bush. But you walked all over until you find a man in four huts making a house, who hoard book and parchments that he wrap in goatskin and leather. I see it. You not one for modesty. You lift up your dress, and unwrap a long scroll of linen or parchment, full of marks from your waist. Spin and spin, and spool and spool you do until it was all on the floor. Keep it secret, and keep it safe, you say, because you was wearing it as a reminder of your resolve, but come to see how that was another woman’s fight and you have your own revenge. The book binder didn’t know what you mean, but promise to keep it safe, among his leaning towers of books and scrolls, after you leave him much in silver.
“Tell me what happen after I get to Omororo.”
“Ikede?” Popele say, turning to the griot, who unroll one scroll, then another, then five more.
“My life take up all of that?” I ask and for a blink impressed with myself.
And so he continue.
Day three. We sail in good wind, but this sky was promising nothing. There we was, out to sea in a rotten ship bound for the largest territory of the South Kingdom. A domain under the rule of a King not yet mad, but doom to be as sure as a bird dead in flight must soon fall from sky. Two nights done and seven more to come. This also. People on the ship somehow take me for a man, so a man I am. That was what the quartermaster tell the crew when I reach late, that we missing one man who already pay for his passage, a man with a matter in Omororo.
I rise every morning damp from either dew or sea spray, and head to breakfast before the biggest of the crew get up with meanness from afore and muscle everybody out of the way. Only last supper, one push me down to get to the galley and when I tell him that next time he won’t have a hand left to push, he giggle like a hyena. The cook give us meals at sunrise and sunset, but in truth, there was no difference between the two. Both taste like he scoop slop from the stinking hull itself.
The captain, when I visit his quarters to pay my passage, look me over before he inspect the coin and grumble to himself. The wind blow to me the secret whisper from his lip, that I look too meager to be good slave flesh, so he might as well keep me on deck, for what money is there to be made in trading the likes of him? Plus, from the looks of me I could be a conjurer or wonderman that could curse the ship. From the looks of him, he could be a captain from a wild sea story about a captain. I watch him still eyeing me, forcing me to eye him back. Any other man would look away by now, in the agreement two people make when they talk. You look at me and speak, but look away before you finish, so I look at you with no awkwardness. None of that with this man, for he fix his eye on you like a hawk and didn’t stop looking. Truth, his eye was a red fire in a thick, dark face. Beard red from dye, like a northern monk. Hair curly and wild like he from above the sand sea and tunic like one as well. Yellow and red stripe, covering the chest like a vest and reaching past the knee. Knees bare where there should be pants, but he didn’t see no need to dress just to see me.
“?’Tis a ten-day sail, nine if the gods are kind,” he say though I didn’t ask. “Three hundred sixty and five miles around the horn. Then six hundred before we get to Omororo. Do you understand?”
“You think I born in bush?”
“So you smell. As for me I see no fault. You smell nothing worse than anything else belowdeck. No shame in wherever you’re born or whatever you drop out of. I sail to the East plenty so I count their way.”
“Long time now since I see the East.”
“Long? Surely thirty years have not passed from what I see of your face. You a monk?”
“A Bintuin.”
He shake his head once, like he settle on something. I wonder right then what he, or the quartermaster, or even the boy cook say about me when they talk. Four days I stay out of everybody way, me thinking that the more I out of sight, the more I out of notice. I think wrong. My being quiet make them want to hear more, me out of their way make them stand in mine.
“Bintuin. People who live on sand, but never see the sea? You a peculiar sort. What in Omororo for a man like you?”
“Trade.”
“Now who think who born in bush? Nothing a Bintuin have that anybody in Omororo could want. All you have on you is a sack.”
“I can tell you a lie, or tell you nothing,” I say.
The captain laugh. “Some of my crew, they think you—”
“Think me what?”
“I could tell you a lie or I could tell you nothing,” he say, and wave me away like dismissing a boy. I nod and step out backways, not taking my eyes off him even though he long take him eye off me.
Day five. I am a man like all the other men on board, except the one with a wife, and that wife I only see once, hiding her little head in a massive gele that she had to grab to stop wind from blowing it to sea. Not long after that, the husband, a chief too fat for somebody so young, lock her up in the cabin, like she was just another thing to keep safe. But I sail like the sailors do, sleeping under the shed of the stern, kicking away rats, kicking away the drunk quartermaster prowling the deck for the boy cook to rape, and securing the boom when the captain shout secure the boom, tossing the shit bucket when the captain shout toss the shit bucket, mopping the deck when the captain shout mop the deck, and earning my keep when the captain shout earn your keep, even though I did pay my way with a fat pouch of silver.
To be a man you do as man do. Master one thing and you can fail at everything else, for to be a man is to fail at everything else. Here is the one thing. What man do in all things, more than anything, is take up space, whether he be priest, king, beggar, or hunter. Whether he living or dead. More space than he need, and more space than he will use.
“We can skip that,” Ikede say.
“No, that I want to hear,” I say.