I trip back to the floor, stunned. To the second window I scramble as quiet as I can keep it, to see if my noise catch the boy. The boy must be near ten in age now, and yet he staring at his reflection as if this is the first he seeing it, and is not a reflection at all, but another him that keep doing what he do. Of course he splash the water, he, the future King. My mockery must did make a sound, for he look up again. A big, bushy hand grasp his waist and the beast with bat wings take off into the sky.
The voice that sound like me say, Come, make we leave, but I stay. I sit there in that hut and watch day lose to night, which lose back to day again. I stay and watch even as vultures land from sky to start cleaning up the ground. The tree stand still as if nothing even trouble it. I watch Tracker coming back, his hand full of gifts. Watch him as he sniff, but he too far for me to see if his face perplex. Living people have thousands of smell, but all dead people smell the same. I watch him run right up to the tree, see what left of Mossi scattered outside, and faint. I watch him wake up and fall to his knees again, bawling and scream. Then it slip like a loose thought. No! No! No! he shouting, wishing fate away as he dash inside. Things get tossed, things smash, things break. He scream again. Then he bawl so loud that it shudder the river and beyond. He bawl through the day, bawl through the night and the day after. He find enough of Mossi to cradle him, and take to talking to him as if he being stubborn and won’t put his body back together. Come now, magistrate, your children need you. Your children need you. I said you fucking children need you come now! Then he will see what in his lap, the light skin turning gray, the vultures behind him, quiet but insistent, and he bawl all over again. I watch him bury each one with whatever left to bury. A day later that smoke one appear. He chase after her, try to grab her, beg her to stop, then curse her. She keep coming together then breaking apart and not even him opening his arms wide to embrace would stop her mad movements. She break apart and don’t come back together.
Learn this, I set myself on killing the Tracker, but after this, death would come a mercy. And I all out of mercy. It make us one, brother and sister in some way, with all this loss too heavy to ever speak it. I whisper from far, for he never did see me near, that from now on you will ache as I ache. The Sasabonsam come a killing, with a boy on his back. The same boy the Tracker save, I whisper from far, for he never did see me near. And I never hear of a such story where you save someone’s life and in reward they destroy yours. Mighty grief that would make a giant buckle.
But for what happen to the Tracker’s house, the Tracker blame the Leopard. Blame the Leopard for luring him away from the arms of home, as if the cat ever force him to go. I understand his ache, but understanding don’t make me wish it would lighten. I glad he suffer. I glad that seven dead mean seven times and seven ways his grief cut open every day. I look at him, staggering drunk from the one tavern in Mitu, trying to say he will kill the world, but it come out as a torrent of vomit and tears. Pity is a dhow that sail away long time. Fuck the gods and fuck your grief. My only worry is that he would get to the others on my list before me.
But I don’t kill him.
* * *
—
In five years and a moon, war go from rumor to real. Nobody can ignore it for too long because even when you not near battle, war is upon you. Who know what start it, whether it was when ambassadors from Weme Witu go missing in Kongor, or when the South King send four thousand troops to Wakadishu and Kalindar, even though Wakadishu keep screaming they independent and Kalindar is the free movement of people and trade between North and South, not no occupation. Maybe mad people hearing the same things a different way. But battles break out and both claiming victories, which mean neither side winning. The North push back against the South in Kalindar. The South reach above Wakadishu, trod through the Blood Swamp, and set sight on the now weak Dolingo. North have a wiser and more vicious King. South have greater warriors. Battle after bloody battle, none changing the outcome of this war. And then Lissisolo and her rebel army declare war on her brother.
* * *
—
Omororo. Five streets away from the hundred-man-high shrine that people call the thrusting cock. The city where I remember forgetting everything. What the Nnimnim woman don’t tell me until the day I leave is that I can shape the look of my face. With just the palm of my hand I can smooth her out younger, or squeeze the breasts bigger, push the nose to flatter, purse the lips to thicker. I don’t care, a shape is a shape, and while all of them is mine, none of them is me. I look down and see five fingers and that is enough. This place is not even a tavern, or an opium den, but a tearoom. This man not looking for another wife, or mistress, or concubine and even if he do, the tearoom is not where he go looking for her. He don’t walk like a warrior, but he dressed for war, with his shield, heeding his King call that every man should get ready. I tell him that I done come from one of the grassland tribes, I don’t know the North tongue well. My husband gone west to find a lion to kill to prove he can join the society of men even though lion kill get declared murder in Omororo. In the closet—for this was barely a room—he grab and throw me to the bed, for he think in this way he would have me. He promise to lick my clay off. I pull my skirt and he say praise the gods for I thought I was going smell bush koo. I say thank the lords indeed, because I was expecting fish cock. Talk like sex, I tell him and he go on to tell me all he going to do to me, is doing to me, will do to me. He saying things that would make an old me laugh. But is calling my younger self older me that make me giggle. He wasting my time talking so I climb on top of the bed and guide him in me. He still talking like sex when I reach behind myself and tug his balls hard, jolting him. Fuck like you never going set eyes on me again, I say, but I don’t wait, I fuck him. I ram him. I crush him. I am the one who have his legs in the air. I make him start say oh . . . wait . . . I . . . like he the one who whip out more than he can spend. I almost call him a weak bitch but his cock was doing the work. I squeeze him to a cum, which he do, jerking like lightning strike him. Good man he keep saying he is because he stay hard until I cum too. I miss it, but it also shake my nerves, because no matter how much people claim that is you feeling yourself, a cum is still something you giving to somebody, and you give it too naked, too defenseless, too spent. He still below me when I look up and see a black husk in the back of the iron shield he leave in the corner. Looking like Bunshi made out of burned wood about to lick this man’s cock. He shout, What happen? What me do? even after me long fly out of that bed and take off by horse.