“This sound like madness.”
“Madness only because I just a girl, and he know math and science and sit on the right hand of the King. You still trying to find memory. Nothing going come to you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Everybody have beginning and end. Except him. Now everybody forget you father’s sister, and the man who marry her.”
“What happen to them?”
“He take them.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“And how it is that you’re the only one who know?”
“I sure I not the only one.”
“Disappearing aunts, and their—”
“Who win the battle of Bornu?”
“We win, girl. Every child sing that song from they can sing.”
“But who is the commander? Who win the King’s favor for that victory?”
“The King win that victory for Fasisi. You forget, I was there. I saw the roads line in silver and gold. I see every man get a cape and every woman get gold and salt.”
“And you still can’t tell me which commander—”
“I said my father win the damn war!”
“I not talking about war, I talking about a battle.”
“Stupid little girl, how in the name of the gods would you know?”
“From you. You talk about your father all the time, so that everybody would know that Kwash Moki is nothing like him. Your father win war because he can be wherever and trust his commanders all over the realm. A good army of men and a better army of pigeons is all you need to win a war, that he say according to you. That’s why he can be fighting in Mitu and win a war in Omororo. So you say to those women you used to think is your friend, back when I was just a fly on outside shit to you. But I remember.”
“I don’t remember no damn Olu.”
“Is not that you don’t remember any commander. You don’t care also.”
Emini laugh. “And the Aesi is to be blamed for that too? Maybe I should put blame on him that I don’t care for jollof. I tire of this talk,” she say.
“I tired long before you,” Sogolon say.
They travel over a small hill, cutting through thick bush that don’t see much people, before going down into a valley that nobody tell them the name of. Rain come down gentle and soothe her, even as water drip through the linen. Outside and not far off, apes are keeping their distance, but frowning as if expecting deceit. Sogolon pull away from the window. This part of the forest is so thick with dark leaves and gray mist that it throw upon her the mood of evening, even though it is noon.
The wagon stop. They look at each other for an answer that won’t come from either face. A crack at the back of the wagon and they both jump. A door neither notice before open, and the curtains hiding it blow out of the way. A divine sister step in, her head wrapped so tight that Sogolon can’t make out her face, even though she hide neither nose nor mouth.
“On this day you wash,” she say.
Sogolon not washing again. They better kill her first. When they find that dagger on your arm, they will kill you for sure, say the voice that sound like her. She don’t move. Emini don’t move either.
“On this day you wash,” she say again, louder, and strike the floor with her staff. Neither woman move. The sister start to wave her staff, as if she expect to use it. These women love violence. They want it, Sogolon know. So she start to rub against the strap around her arm to loosen the dagger hiding in the robe.
“Don’t make me say it three times,” the sister say. Sogolon rub and push against the strap. Emini stand and sigh.
“I thought the sisters were pure,” Emini say.
“Nobody is pure, but yes, we work toward divine purity, like the goddess who has never been touched. Clean on the out as we aspire to clean on the in.”
“Ah. So woman blood clean now?”
The woman face drop, like she just taste something rotten.
“I on my moonblood, which make me impure. And if you touch me, you impure too. Maybe you sully yourself just by coming into this wagon. How long it take to purify yourself after being sullied? Three moons? Five?”
The sister say nothing. She look as if she is about to hit her own face with the staff. She turn and leave without saying a thing, her slam of the door being the final word.
“On my way to becoming a nun and yet I still lie. What kind of sister am I going to be?” Emini ask. Sogolon still standing there, holding the dagger in her fingers.
The route through the valley forest stretch from dawn to dusk. Emini never look out the window, not even once. Sogolon working out that bafflement in her head. How it is to head to a destination, not wanting to know anything of the journey. The King Sister don’t want to see all that she will have to forsake. But seeing what she will forsake is all Sogolon want to do, for she didn’t choose to forsake nothing. She look at the forest outside, knowing these people will ask her to abandon bitterness as well. She won’t do it, even if she have to pretend to. The bitterness burn at the base of her throat and sometimes leap into her head like wildfire. The bitterness make her know that she is where she is, and someone is responsible. Her mother, her brothers, Miss Azora, the man she couldn’t drug who then rape her, Mistress Komwono, Master Komwono, Master Komwono’s cock, which lead to the princess, this royal whore, these women in white and their nasty, cleansing hands, spirits of ground, spirits of river, gods of land, gods of sea, even gods of sky and the otherworld. All of them. Bring down lightning and thunder, because she blaspheming and she don’t care. The bitterness is new blood, green maybe that rush through her legs and straighten her back. The bitterness make her hold on to herself, even as the white women try to take that away. Let them take it away from the King Sister. The closer they get to Mantha, the more she seem to want it all gone.
“Who you murder in your dreams?” Emini say. It rouse her up, though she would swear sleep never reach her.
“W-what?”
“The look on your face, like you want to lock somebody in a hut and burn it.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
“Who say you was?”
The wagon start moving. Sogolon don’t remember when they stop, so now she wonder if indeed she is in some kind of sleep, and if her face is showing so much what her mouth is telling. The King Sister scratch right under her rib again, something that Sogolon remember only when she do it. At first she think that it must be because she never wash, for there is nobody to wash her, and what a thing it must be to never have to wash yourself. The thought wither when she remember that she don’t wash in a while either and the white women who washed her put rancor between her and water. Emini scratch the second time.
“This don’t feel like mountains. We not any cooler,” she say.