“Soon, when I ask you again what your name be, take no offense.”
This is the longest she walk so far. He forgetting? She wonder. They take a brick path, which lay out in swirls that take them through a confusing garden, for the path split into paths, which split into more paths, like branches, though it look like a dry up river and streams. Plants and flowers, some she never see before. He look like he still remembering, for she wouldn’t want to get lost here. The garden path lead to a bridge over a river that look too neat for the gods to make. The bridge lead to three flight of steps that he bounce up quick, but it make her heart threaten to burst out of her chest. They get to a landing, which lead to three more flights, and another path, and the thin castle. Now that it is near, it is even taller, the top floors lost in clouds.
“You, why you following me?” he say, not mad or wary, just curious.
“You tell me to follow you. That you might forget.”
“Ah yes. I don’t remember, but your face look like one to believe. Follow me.”
Inside his room, which is one whole floor. As wide as that room with the princess’s friends, with large windows, and tile floors, and great chairs and stools and benches, and rugs. Also this. Everything covered in black writing, red in some parts. Every wall marked in coal and ash, and ink, all the floor tiles mark in dye, all the cushions marked as well. She don’t know how writing read, but starting to see what it might mean. Some of the writing is smooth and full, and so fat with ink that it drip, while other writing like scratching, like he trying to write as quick as he think. She don’t know, but those scratches so mad they blur out. Word, glyphs, marks, drawings of horses and spears and chariots and war.
“Sometimes when I start a line, I forget what it’s about before I finish,” he say. “Then I wait a day, I think a day, then just finish it with something else.”
“You rush because your head fleeing from you. What it say on the jug?”
“Ask for milk if it’s the end of the quartermoon. Is it the end?”
“No. On the table? You carve it with a knife.”
“We? We . . . treaty with Wakadishu. Never sign.”
Sogolon is liking this. A whole house telling her things as it is telling him things. Sometimes she can see a mark and guess the word or part of it. “This is grand what?” she ask.
“Grand hall. I don’t like banquets. People make a game out of what I remember.”
“You remember that?”
“The fetish priest tell me that my curse is that I still remember that I forget. Peace won’t come until I forget that I forget. Or die.”
“This is great what?”
“Great backside. The lady Itulu has a great backside.”
“But a small mind,” Sogolon say, and he laugh.
“What your name?”
“Sogolon.”
“Sogolon. Somebody name you that?”
“Leave my name be, old man. You write all this?”
“I write all what? Wait. Hark. Look in the window.”
On the window is the gentlest looking writing. It make him smile.
“Yes, according to the window I write it all. Funny things. Soon as I read it I remember some of what I write. Especially all the things in red.”
“Blood?”
“No.”
He pick up a cushion, read it, then go to his bedroom. Sogolon follow, though her first thought was not to. He lift up a rug of zebra skin and on the underside is small red writing.
“What it say?” Sogolon ask.
“It say not to share it.”
“What is it that you not to share?”
“You think you clever?”
“I just a girl.”
“You don’t look like you just anything. You could be their friend.”
“Whose?”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know.”
“I not nobody friend,” she say and turn to leave. “I gone,” she say also.
“Wait! I mean no. When evening come, being alone is a sickness. I don’t know why. That memory never comes back. It says don’t trust them. That is what it say. Don’t trust them, especially the Aesi.”
Sogolon don’t know what to make of that. All she know is that the Aesi watch her too long. Not like the other men who want to mess with her koo, but he want to get inside her too.
“She say I can never go,” he say.
“Who?”
“I don’t know, but she say it to me every night when I dream. Sometimes when I wake up. I can’t go because nobody here will know her.”
“What she look like?”
“A dream. Don’t sit there.”
She jump quick from the stool, then turn to look at it. Like any other stool.
“For sure a sadness wash over me when I sit there. But I know it. It feel like it is for me alone, like some part of me is over there. Some part of me that gone now. You want to know why I telling you deep things. Soon I won’t remember that I tell you. I might even forget your face,” Olu say.
Still looking at the stool, Sogolon say, “So tell me, then. Why that thing around your neck?”
“What?”
“The necklace. Around your neck. Why?”
He touch it light and look come over his face that she can’t figure. He press into it deeper, tap it, then press again, all the time looking like is his heartbeat he pressing for.
“A necklace. Around my neck.”
“Who put it there?”
“Must be me. Who else? I don’t know. I don’t know what it’s for. Why does it need a for?”
“Then take it off.”
“No.”
“Women who attend the princess say is a wedding necklace.”
Olu laugh. “The only thing I married to is war. Woman don’t know nothing, she is woman. I am tired.”
He lower himself to a cluster of cushions and fall asleep quicker than a blink. Sogolon know she should leave, but want to stay. She should leave things alone, but want to look. Again, at the walls and curtains and floor all covered in his writing. She look at the zebra skin and wonder why he have to tell himself not to trust the Aesi; perhaps a warning from the Commander Olu of an older day. She look at him again and make quiet steps to the bedchamber. Inside is a bed, a large one, too large for even a man of mighty size like the commander. But clean, where everything that make to shine, shine. But the floor cover with writing, and smudge from where he rub out with his foot. Right above the bed another of them is hanging, and she almost miss it, for the silver is now pale. A wedding necklace exactly like the one around the commander’s neck. He mumble from outside and startle her. Back in the welcome room, the cushions and rugs make a pool and he floating in it. Over by his side Sogolon feel to sit by him, to watch over him, to take care of him, even. This here lover of war.
“War too important to leave to soldier,” he say on a breath, startling Sogolon again. But his eyes still closed, and he still above and below the cushion pool, one leg under a rug, the other kicking out.
“War too important to leave to soldier. . . . You think you can . . . no, no, no, I leave purple for your sort . . . no, no, no, woman, no. Ha ha ha . . . feather make you look like the peacock. . . . How can I mock the likes of you? A nose like yours?”
He turn on his side and what come next, come out as a sigh.
“Oh Jeleza. Jeleza, Jeleza, Jeleza,” he say.
SEVEN