See the girl. Count the days. Her own mind yanking her back in the library touching the boli and coming away with goat blood. Chicken too. Blood is streaming down the wall. Follow where it come, go the other way, up where it going down and you see his toes, then legs, then nightshirt. The beam sticking out of his chest, the arms open wide, and the eyes still looking but not seeing. She too frightened to call his name, or to call for help. She turn to the entrance and he is walking in with a frown, eager to get to work and hoping she will get out without him having to tell her. He is walking in, noticing her, and he scream, You are nothing but a thief. This is not happening, look at him on the wall. Seeing his empty eyes up there make Sogolon wonder what plot he did have for the day. What he mean to do as the sun rise, like it rising now, where would he be around noon. When a person dead, you kill the future too. Not her, she thinking, she didn’t kill nobody. She need to walk backways out the room, yes back out, erase every step she make into the room, undo herself. But as she reach the doorway Sogolon still. The master, still and stiff. Sogolon already wondering what lie at the end of this day when his left foot twitch. Then his right. Then he lift his head and try to scream, but out of his mouth come blood thick like honey. His head jerk, his hands jerk, Sogolon run.
Outside in the courtyard she make it just beyond the entry when her whole body lurch forward and she vomit. She retch and retch, even when no vomit coming. The day is approaching and nothing is stopping it, and Sogolon, once her belly stop trying to empty her, remember that people soon be up, who never wake before her, but always get up first to sneak off and do business with the master if he didn’t come to her in the night. Sogolon jump up, kick dirt over the vomit, and run back inside. She sneak over to her bed cloth and cover her dusty feet. Sogolon turn her body away from the slave girl, and stare at where the floor meet the wall until slave girl shuffle. The fuss of her brushing dust off her nightclothes, trying to walk silent to the bowl of water in the cookroom, dipping her hand in the water because she don’t want to make splash, and sniffing herself, then sniffing again, under her armpit perhaps and wiping them, then her chest and her legs and her koo, grabbing her bed cloth, rolling it up and walking over to the cupboard, opening it up to a creak, closing it, tiptoeing, pit-patting out of the room, her feet getting quieter as she walk farther until there is no sound, just Sogolon counting footsteps she don’t hear, and wondering how many steps take the girl to the east side of the house, if she moving constant or stopping, because Nanil is always careful not to rouse nobody, then counting how many steps from the outdoor passageway to the indoor passageway, past the welcome room, past another corridor leading to the marriage bedroom, past some cracked tiles that the mistress keep nagging the master to replace, until she finally in front of the library. Nanil will knock their secret knock on the door. She will wait two breaths, maybe three. She not looking at anything but the ground, and step into a spot, pull up her dress, kneel, go on all fours, waiting for three blinks, maybe four. Sogolon still lying on her side, on the floor watching where the floor meet the ceiling, and waiting for it. She wondering why it don’t come. Maybe in the room is possibility and something else happen in there, or nothing at all. But then Nanil scream. And scream, and scream again, and Sogolon stay still as the tears run out of her eyes. Nanil still screaming. Then nothing. Then a quick creak from a door swinging open, follow by it slamming into the wall. What kind of devilry going on in my house? the mistress say. I going to discipline that damn girl and that damn . . . The mistress trail off. Sogolon waiting for it to come and it do. Now the mistress bawl, and bawl and bawl again, and now footsteps thunder through the corridors. The twins running into the street to find help. The feeling seize Sogolon again, and she jump up and run outside just in time to vomit in the archway.
So the mistress cry the whole day. She summon Sogolon little after noon, and say, Amuse me with something you learn in the bush. Sogolon confused. She say she don’t come from no bush but the mistress say, Then why you always smell like tallgrass? and laugh out loud and hearty though Sogolon didn’t find it funny. She used to smell like dirt, and now she smell like whatever flower she can find, but she never smell like no grass.
“Amuse me,” the mistress bawl, and fall off her own chair and stay there until the cook and a twin run in and pick her up.
“Why you didn’t help her up? Is any fool anywhere so worthless?” the cook say.
Within three days the smell coming from the mistress room is beyond stink.
She never supposed to be in the library. She have no business in that room. The master have every right to be in his own chambers, she do not. She come through the door of her own will, which make her the subject of his. Those sound like words that would come from the master, not her. But if the master didn’t touch her, he would be here right now, ignoring her. A voice that sound like her remind her that the mistress tell her not to refuse him. If she didn’t go in the room without permission like some common thief, nobody would be there to tempt the master but Nanil. You bring evil on yourself, and you bring evil on him. Shut your mouth while he show you what your holes is for and just say to yourself that these are the things that must happen to you. No. I didn’t do anything, the wind do it. The wind do it.
The weight of thinking turn Sogolon into a stick. She don’t know she in the cookroom until the cook shout more than once, Get out the way, you stupid little girl, don’t you see everybody busy with their sorrow? Just then the mistress stagger into the cookroom, with her sister shouting behind her. She can barely walk, and her eyes look lost, like she looking at yesterday. She almost fall on Sogolon, grabbing the girl’s tunic and almost bringing them both to the floor. “Is you kill me husband, talk truth! I say to talk truth. Is you? You done kill my master, you done kill him.”
The mistress breath is foul. Sogolon, still holding her, blink once and tears run down her face. The mistress pull herself away and grab the cook. Is you kill me husband, talk truth! I say to talk truth, is you? You done kill my master, you done kill him, she say. She grab the cook and try to shake her, but the cook’s figure is mighty and she only shake her dress. Sogolon watch her staring at the cook and realizing she not demanding, but begging. The mistress let her go and set off outside when she see one of the twins. Two sisters cut her off. They don’t have to drag her this time. The mistress hands fall to her side, and she walk back to her room.
Two things happen in the quick. The burial of the master and the summons to the royal court. The night of the funeral Sogolon wake up to see that the lamp in her window blow out. On the morning of the rites, the sisters dress the mistress in black. She is to stay in black for nine moons. Near evening the men come back with another cow. They slaughter it right there in the courtyard, letting the blood run where it choose to run. This is what the women do. After they kill the cow, they cut up the flesh, chop the bones, and cook the whole thing in three pots with guinea pepper, garlic, soumbala, peanut butter, and salt. Then every person related by blood or by law eat. They sit on the floor in the house, in the walkway, in the dirt of the courtyard, and out in the street. They swoon and marvel at the wonderful taste, and speak words of praise for the master, who now become one of the ancestors, watching and making judgment of both the living and the dead.
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