A man sit on a small stool, but spread wider than a buffalo. Mark how he sprawl in the dirt, wash in the river, and lean by a tree. Mark how he stand to piss and squat to shit. How he swing him arms wide when he walk. He will call you with a voice that reach up a hill even though who he speak to is a breath away. Mark how he will pick nose, grab balls, and scratch ass, then dip that finger into the soup without thinking, for thinking is like fear, and fear is for womanfolk. So I was a man spreading my two leg when I sit or squat, as if left leg had hatred for right, and walking like each step was a stomp. And gripping the bulwark like I about to ride it, grabbing the boom like I was about to swing on it like a monkey, and not even frown when one of the crew fart, or toss the shit bucket the wrong way, or joke that the wife belowdeck look like one of them from the near east that have her koo cut out before she reach ten and two. Too hard and too easy, being a man. Too easy to spit, and snore, and fart, but too hard to remember. And too foolish sitting in a pose begging for kick.
And this ship. Bigger than most dhow because it was a merchant vessel, but also because of the cargo it usually carry.
And this crew. After the captain, the quartermaster, who dress more eastern than the captain and look more so as well. Younger and taller and lighter, with higher cheekbones and a straighter nose, and wearing a turban he didn’t take off, a blue boubou tunic one day, a black one the next, and always black yata breeches. And a saber hanging from the shoulder, which he tap every time my eye land on him looking at me. The big cook who hide his big belly under his big agbada, while the boy cook hide his boy frame under a sheath that tie at the waist with a small rope. The young boy with picky hair, full now of teeth and an always frighten look, like he was set to flee anytime, which was every night the quartermaster not too drunk to rape him. A medicine man who look like the cook, except for the two feather sticking out of his hair, the four cheetah hide he wrap himself in, and a sword that no healer supposed to need. He come up for air two time, then decide the air below was better, for he never come back up again. As for the rest of the crew, ten men though sometimes I count nine, for they all look alike, some barefoot and in white breeches they roll up for walking, the rest barefoot and in white skirts they sometimes don’t wear, all of them without shirt. In the hot day, no pants neither.
And then there was the navigator, the last man I see when I sleep and the first when I wake, standing at the bow in the night, and the stern in the day. A man from Malakal, I judge from the tongue, though the checia on his head was from lands above the sand sea. Not old, for his face was smooth like a boy, and with almost no hair, even on the brow. But not young, for in his eye was a grave look from seeing too much. Next to the captain he was the only man from whom I would choose to have words, so I follow him belowdecks. He open the door just as I raise my hand to knock.
“Magic, or fate?” he ask, smiling.
Candlewax light, but also two lanterns burning fish oil. The room, spreading the whole width of the hull, must be the biggest on the ship. That he be the one in it and not the captain confirm everything I suspect about the rare wisdom of this navigator. But the room is full with so much paper, chart, map, and scroll, and books on top of books in towers that soon topple, that it looked like the smallest on the ship. I didn’t see them until they fly around me, surveying my face and my eyes, one of them even landing on my shoulder before flying off. The one staring at me with blue skin and blue wings with markings like runes. The one flying off from shoulder with pearl skin but green wings. Both of them as big as my elbow to my fingertip.
“How you feed a Yumboe at sea?”
“Look here. With no grub, no cricket, no locust, maggots will have to do. And a ship’s galley bring no shortage of maggots.”
The Yumboes, both of them female, look at him like they about to vomit. They flap their wings so fast it look like balls of light dancing to the window.
“Truth? They just steal my fish. Fish bigger than the two of them. Nobody warned me about their enchanted appetite.”
“Your slaves?”
The navigator laugh out loud. The Yumboes let out a little hiss.
“My wives.”
He know that I would have a hundred questions. He look at me like he readying himself to answer them.
“What use quarter of an astrolabe have?” I ask and watch him looking at me like he is now the one with the questions.
“Correct enough,” he say picking it up. “Correct enough. They even call it a quadrant. More useful. In these seas there’s no North Star to follow at night, so we must use the sun in the day. Surprised that you would know the like of either.”
“Because I am Bintuin?”
His laugh say to me, don’t take me for a fool.
“You lucky that this quartermaster only fancy holes with a boy attached to it.”
He step past me and grab a map. The Yumboes grab the two ends and hold it up by the only empty space on the wall. He hammer it down, then start to travel from land to land by finger.
“Hear this. I get paid more coin than every man on this ship, except the captain. You know why? Any navigator can reach east or west. All you need is a piece of wood and some string. But north from south? Few, only a few. Most seamen, even if they good, just follow the sun, or flee from it, then guess. Bad for a ship, bad for a crew. A voyage of nine days turn into mutiny at nine weeks.”
“You tell me this because—”
“Don’t take me for a fool. How the others don’t see, I want to know.”
“Don’t take much to be a man.”
“Men know this?”
He look at me like this is a game that he not playing, but want to see who win. For the first time on this ship I unwrap the kaffiyeh from my face. He raise eyebrow and smile, his face saying you look better than I was guessing. Long time since I care how a man take my looks.
“How soon you need to get to Omororo?”
“The captain say this voyage was nine days.”
“Captain change his name to navigator?”
“Then how long?”
“Depends on when this same captain will go back to listening to me. At present he not. But you. I tell you before, I read things. I see what the sky don’t want to show. Right now the only thing on you is weapons. You know that kohl dust have a smell, you just hope nobody here know it. I starting to feel sorry for whoever you looking for.”
He sit down. He content with all he just say.
Navigator do many a thing, but more than anything else, he watch. Whatever happen next at sea, whether from sky or sea or the action of men, that was all he was going to do.