“Catch up with your sleep, Leopard,” I say.
That night, when the Tracker set out, I follow him. Bunshi not above giving people working together different instruction, but for a man who only this morning couldn’t move, he moving strong. I would think he sniff something out but he is yet to go to Fumanguru’s house. Truth, the Tracker is moving at his own pace, near slow. The voice want to tell me that I have better things to do, but when I ask her like what, she shut up. Bunshi tell this Tracker to do something as soon as he reach Kongor and he setting about doing it. The Ukuru cloth that was on his bed is now around his waist and over his head like a hood. Surely with my smell, he can tell I am on his tail, but from what I know, if he don’t choose to lock on my smell, then mine is just like any other. So I follow him as he trace steps I already step, visit places I already go to, come to knowledge I already know. In the Nimbe quarter, he try to talk to a boy, who shout Bingingun without stopping. Then his feet take him to a place I would never expect. A place that a market woman done with her day say is Mistress Wadada’s House of Pleasurable Goods and Services.
A whorehouse.
* * *
—
The next day, Leopard shouting how many times he must smell the Tracker on the archer’s cock. The fight brewing, I thinking to stop it, then I think better. The Tracker don’t deny it, he just don’t know why the Leopard putting this appendage over their friendship. The boy don’t know what appendage mean, but he know it not good. He say something, but loose is all I hear. Fuck the gods and fuck this little shit, the Tracker yell and jump at the archer, who is useless without his weapon. Leopard change full cat and knock him over. Tracker is slapping and punching but in the quick Leopard clamp his jaw on the Tracker’s neck.
“Leopard!” I shout.
The Leopard drop him. The Tracker, coughing, turn to leave.
“Don’t be here tomorrow,” he say. “Neither of you.”
“I don’t take orders from you,” the Leopard say.
“Don’t be here tomorrow,” the Tracker say, then stagger out.
* * *
—
And then Bingingun come. Somebody who know Kongor only by name would be surprised and aghast by the festival, because yes what just flash past him is bare breasts and what just slap that woman’s thigh is a real penis. A man here for just a day would scream hypocrisy, not knowing that it is the pious nature of Kongor that beget a thing like Bingingun. Only in a place like Kongor, where everybody lock themselves down so tight, would they burst so loose. Only in a place like Kongor, and at a festival like Bingingun, would I spend most of it in the alleyways and gullies, because that is where men drag off girls under the cover of bright colors and noise. I watch them as they pass, the barrel drummers and bata drummers, small bata drummers, grounding the chant and calling to dance. Behind them jump the actual Bingingun. Watch the trickster and his tricking robes keep sucking in, then blowing out in a new color, the Ancestor King in royal purple, hiding his face behind a curtain of cowries, and more jumping as high as a man is tall, in red, gold, pink, and blue, and silver, in bush, coins, braids, tassels, and amulets. Face nets to hide what man see, hand nets to hide what man do. The drummers shift the beat and the whole procession change. Bingingun cut loose. In a half moon they will whip a woman for doing these very things, yet give the man only a warning to not let himself fall prey to temptation. I catch up to the Tracker, this time with the Ogo, and lose him in a wave of masqueraders. But I know where he go and is about time. Fumanguru’s house. In the morning he will tell me that he and he alone know where the boy had been going, and where he will appear next. He will also tell me how the Fumanguru house die, as if he discover it first.
By morning, the Leopard and the archer both gone. The Tracker and the Ogo return in the evening. The Ogo, happier than I ever see him, go straight to the massive meal I never see this old man cook. Her fellowship dwindling by the day, but even this don’t bring out Bunshi. My guess is that as long as the one person she deem irreplaceable is still willing, then everybody else can go. So going is what I spend most of the day thinking about. I was set to go only five days ago. Bunshi have her reasons for not telling these men who they are looking for.
And this girl, Venin. She taking to things most girl like, running down to markets to wrap her fingers around precious fabrics and fragrant oils, not knowing that she can’t take something without paying first. I want to follow the Tracker but instead I have to follow her, sometimes to pay the merchant before he scream thief. Or whip up a wind (not wind) when the seller start to chase her. In all of this she is unmindful, thinking I am only following her to check her freedom. Not follow! is all she shout, for now she resisting all things Sogolon, especially teaching. I can’t control her so I think to consult a witch to put on a spell that make her fall asleep if she walk too far, but that would leave a sleeping girl at the mercy of whoever find her.
Give me the girl. Jakwu.
“Murderer, I don’t know them kind of sorcery.”
You don’t need no craft. You need to get out of the fucking way.
I should be waiting until the Tracker wake to hear what he will do, or see where he will go. But instead I go as soon as first light, looking for the hut behind the house of a witch who will put a spell on the girl. I don’t do it with pride. But I do it. The witch don’t take kind to me finding her out, and is not until I threaten to not only reveal that she is a witch but also a man, that she open the door.
“Kongor is for the pious. No witchcraft going on here,” she say.
“So let us not call it a spell, then,” I say and enter without her invite. In my wineskin, a piece of the string the Zogbanu use to tie Venin up. After the ritual, the witch braid it into an anklet and dip it in incense.
“Tell her it is a gift,” she say.
Jakwu know something is afoot.
Give me the girl now, he say.
“Now? How come you the only one that want the girl?” I ask. “Also, for years upon years there was a whole army of malcontented men in my head waiting to strike me down. Now there’s only you. What you do?”
Jakwu, never one for answering questions I actually ask him, quiet again.