Binti: The Night Masquerade

by Nnedi Okorafor

  That is far.

  “I know.”

  What do you want?

  He sighed. “It’s fine. What do you want?”

  The ship vibrated, the ceiling creaking and the floor flickering with stripes of blue purple and pink. Glee. Mwinyi smiled. I want to fly, New Fish said. Go far.

  Mwinyi lay on his belly, his hands still pressed to New Fish. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

  Yes. But … no. Will you please tell me about Binti? My mother told me much. You tell me things too.

  And so it was an hour before Mwinyi went back to the escape of sleep, as he told New Fish all he knew about Binti. He even told New Fish how much he loved her and finished by surprising himself. He did want to go to Oomza Uni. It was far from the home he wanted to return to, but it was where a part of Binti also lived. He told New Fish that he wanted to meet her friends and her mathematics professor. He wanted to see where she collected the clay she used for otjize. And when he finally did lie on New Fish’s soft welcoming flesh, he slept even more deeply than before and the dreams he had were full of beautiful flashing colors and a soothing hum.

  * * *

  Neither Mwinyi nor Okwu could bring themselves to go into that room. As the days passed and they got closer to Saturn, the idea became less and less savory. For Mwinyi, he could only imagine what her body looked like or how she smelled in that warm jungly room full of plants, soil, and according to Okwu, microbes.

  For Okwu, opening that room meant it was time to set Binti free. Neither Okwu nor its fellow Meduse, who were most of the time thirsty with war, wanted to send this peaceful girl human on a journey on which they could not join her. And Okwu couldn’t bear to part with its partner. Not at this time, when things had gone so far.

  Nevertheless, when the equivalent of three days had passed and New Fish excitedly told Mwinyi that they were approaching Saturn’s ring in an hour, it was time to face reality.

  It’s time, New Fish excitedly rumbled.

  Mwinyi, who’d been watching Saturn approach through the star room window, felt his spirits drop. New Fish had been moving and now she came to a stop, hovering in deep space. Waiting. Mwinyi found himself a bit annoyed with the ship’s overly cheerful demeanor, especially in the last twenty-four hours. But he said nothing. New Fish was a young living ship, a creature born to travel far and fast, and she was in space for the first time. How could he blame her for feeling free and adventurous?

  The walkway to the breathing chamber was narrow and the left side was lined with windows that showed the blackness outside. Okwu led the way.

  “I don’t know if I’m ready for this,” Mwinyi said.

  “No one is ever ready for such a thing,” Okwu said. “But we will send her on her way to her next journey.”

  Mwinyi saw Binti’s faces in his mind, with and without otjize. He felt his heart would break a second time.

  “Keep moving,” Okwu said.

  When they reached the breathing chamber, Okwu went right in. Mwinyi hesitated and then followed. He shut the door behind him. There, among the lovely plants, irrigated by clean waters that ran throughout New Fish to other breathing rooms, was Binti’s body wrapped in its red soft cloth, lying on the costume of the Night Masquerade.

  “She looks the same,” Okwu said and Mwinyi shivered, understanding exactly what it meant. Her body wasn’t bloating yet. Making an effort not to look at the unnerving Night Masquerade costume, Mwinyi put the transporter on the floor beside her body and powered it up. Within a second, it shivered and then buzzed softly. Binti’s wrapped body and the Night Masquerade costume lifted off the ground.

  Mwinyi sighed. “Okay,” he muttered, his voice thick. He gave her a gentle push and she smoothly glided toward the door. Mwinyi stopped her, looking at Okwu.

  “What?” it said. “We must do this fast.” It moved quickly toward the door. The door slid open and Okwu squeezed through. Just outside the room, Mwinyi could see it let out a great blast of gas and inhale it back in. Then it let some out again, as it moved away from the door.

  Mwinyi looked down at Binti. He inhaled and held his breath; he didn’t want to smell her. He reached down. He had to see her face one more time. He did not care if it was bloated from death or even eaten by organisms that lived in the breathing room. He had to see her, to truly say goodbye. He flipped the red cloth aside. He stared. He let out his breath.

  Her okuoko were writhing like snakes.

  * * *

  I was staring back.

  Chapter 9

  Awake

  I was there.

  Then I opened my eyes.

  “It’s all mathematics,” I said.

  I don’t know where the words came from or why I said them. Mwinyi was staring at me, his mouth agape. “Life, the universe, everything.” I turned my head to the side and caught a glimpse of the Night Masquerade I lay on. The costume.

  Mwinyi reached a hand forward and pulled more of the cloth off me. I looked down too, as he gasped, jumping up and stumbling back. “Okwu!” he finally called. “Okwu! Get in here!”

  I looked toward the door where Okwu hovered, just outside the room. The moment I laid eyes on it, I saw it float quickly back, leaving a great cloud of its lavender gas as it went. Then I could hear it puffing it out, sucking it back in, puffing it out, sucking it in.

  “Binti,” Mwinyi whispered. “What … is this really you?” He had tears in his eyes, his lips were quivering. I’d been watching him move about the ship for hours. It had been as if I were swimming, rolling, floating in the tree. Then I was pulled into this place, this ship, and it had embraced me with delight. And I’d seen Okwu and Mwinyi moving about, both of them so sad, numb, and quiet. I’d followed them here and opened my eyes.

  I sat up as he stared at me. I touched my left arm. I had a left arm. Mwinyi sank to the floor, his back against the slender trunk of a young tree with tough rubbery-looking leaves growing from a hole in the floor. A tree that looked oddly like an Undying tree. Home, I thought as I pressed my chest. I remembered most clearly when the Khoush fire bullet hit me in the chest. The punching, then stabbing pain, and once inside me, it had hungrily bitten at me with its fire. I pressed my soft breasts now, beneath the red dress I wore. I rolled to the side and touched the sticklike hand of the Night Masquerade costume. I held it with my left hand, kneading the actual sticks used for the knuckles with my fingers.

  I nearly laughed now when I thought back to that moment when I’d stood at my bedroom window staring down at the Night Masquerade that first time. Deep down a tiny, tiny voice in me had wondered if something were wrong with me, if my spirit was that of a man’s, not a woman’s, because the Night Masquerade never showed itself to girls or women. Even back then I had changed things, and I didn’t even know it. When I should have reveled in this gift, instead, I’d seen myself as broken. But couldn’t you be broken and still bring change?

  I powered down the transporter beside me and it lowered me to the ground. I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer to thank the Seven for Their Mysterious Mystery. Then slowly, my muscles creaking and aching, old otjize flaking to the floor, I stood up. I had legs, too. I felt the ship rumble, the leaves, flowers, stems, and branches around us shaking. I felt the ship’s voice more than heard it, in every part of me, but especially my chest, left arm, and legs. “Hello, Binti,” it said. It spoke in Khoush. Mwinyi looked around and then back at me.

  “New Fish is speaking to you, isn’t she?” he asked. “I can hear her, but barely.”

  I nodded.

  “Hello,” I said aloud, not sure how else to speak to it. “You are New Fish? Is that—”

  “Yes. Third Fish’s daughter,” she said.

  “I died,” I blurted. “I remember. They had agreed to stop fighting and then something happened and they started fighting anyway. They forgot about me and I got caught in the crossfire. I don’t know if Khoush or Meduse killed me…” I paused, as more of those moments returned to me. I’d seen flashes of blue
and red, felt heat and cold. I’d been shot by Meduse and Khoush alike. “How is it possible that I’m standing in your breathing room looking at Mwinyi. Breathing.” I held out my arms to him and immediately he rushed over.

  He gathered me in his arms.

  “Microbes,” I heard Okwu say from the door. It stood in it, filling it up completely as it floated.

  “Okwu,” I said, feeling my okuoko writhe. And for the first time I knew how to do it. I sent the small spark toward it and it popped in a series of blue sparks at its tentacles. Okwu’s dome expanded, filling the doorway even more tightly, and then deflated.

  “My mother said it would happen if they put you in my breathing chamber, because I am so young,” New Fish said. “That is why she sent me instead of coming herself. She would have broken through the curfew gate they set up for all launch port ships once the fighting started. My mother isn’t afraid of her bond to the Khoush. But she knew. And she saw your soul when everything happened on your journey to Oomza Uni. She calls you the ‘gentle warrior’ and believes our union would bring Miri 12s forward.”

  “Union?” I asked. Again, another connection.

  “What’s she saying?” Mwinyi asked. “I can’t quite—”

  “Shhh,” I said to Mwinyi, still holding him.

  “Come up to my Star Chamber and I will explain,” New Fish said.

  * * *

  I sat on the Star Chamber floor looking out the large window before me. This was where Mwinyi had been staying and I could see why. I stared out at the distant Saturn as I drank a second cup of water and finished a bowl of dried meat. The water tasted soily, having been drawn from one of New Fish’s wells, and the meat was spicy and tough. It was delicious. I didn’t have to ask to know that this was meat someone from my town had supplied for the journey. Goat meat, sliced thin and cured in an Osemba smokehouse.

  I had followed Mwinyi up the corridor, marveling at New Fish’s young interior design. I soon slowed down, overcome with a thirst and hunger so strong that I felt as if my body were trying to consume itself. By the time we reached the Star Chamber, I’d sat down right there in the middle of the room and could say nothing but “Water,” and then when I had that, “Food.”

  As I ate and drank, things around me cleared and soon I was just chewing on the meat because it was tasty. Mwinyi sat beside me, eating a handful of dates. Okwu hovered near the other wall of windows, chicken bones scattered on the floor beneath it. I’d never actually watched Okwu eat; Okwu liked to go off and eat alone and for a while, I’d wondered if it ate at all. Thus, seeing it consume the roasted chicken it had brought up from storage had been a sight. Meduse eat like delicate old ladies, slowly picking at and drawing in the meat bit by bit with their okuoko. Watching it eat had brought me my first real smile since I’d sat up and had a living body to smile with.

  “Okay,” I finally said, taking one more gulp of water. “I’m listening.” I looked at my right arm, flaking the remaining old otjize off to reveal my dark brown skin.

  “Wait,” Mwinyi said. “Before New Fish speaks to you, Okwu and I want to tell you what happened after you … after they killed you.” He frowned, a pained look on his face. “I can’t believe I can say that to you. ‘Killed.’” He let out a breath.

  “I know,” I said. But somehow, out there in space on New Fish, with a Meduse and an Enyi Zinariya master harmonizer, it all seemed so bizarre, what was the added detail of me coming back from the dead? “When one dies, the Seven take you, no matter who you are. You join the whole again. The wilderness. You don’t come back.”

  “Meduse always come back,” Okwu said, quietly. “We reincarnate.”

  “Do you remember the Seven?” Mwinyi asked, ignoring Okwu. “The Principle Artists of All Things?”

  “I do,” I said. Seeing the shock on Mwinyi’s face and the puff of gas that Okwu blew out amused me. They hadn’t expected me to say that; however, I did remember. “But tell me what you need to tell me.”

  When he got to the part about my family, I screamed. I jumped up, knocking over my cup of water. I didn’t know where to go, so I just stood there. I just stood there. My chest tight, the heart inside it beating strong again. My legs strong. My flesh naked. My okuoko, which were now past my waist, vibrating. I pressed my hands against the sides of my face. Then I lifted my dress to my knees and did my village’s fire dance, stamping my feet hard to make my anklets jingle. When I looked at my legs, I saw that I didn’t have any anklets. I danced anyway, hearing the jingling in my mind.

  “I spoke to the Root,” Mwinyi laughingly explained as I danced and danced with joy. “And it opened up. And we were able to get everyone out.”

  “Everyone,” I said, stretching my hands toward the window, toward outer space. “No one was hurt?”

  “Everyone was well,” Mwinyi said.

  I whirled around, ran to him, threw my arms around him, and kissed him long and hard. And through my okuoko, I threw a blue spark, the size and shape of a large tomato, at Okwu. I jumped back and began to dance again and when I saw Okwu vibrating its dome with laughter, I danced harder. My family was alive! My family was alive! The Root was alive, even if the house built on it had been burned to ash. We survive.

  “How?” I asked.

  When Mwinyi told me what my mother had said, I stared at him in awe. “She used her mathematical sight?” I whispered. “My mother, she sees the math in the world, she was born with it. That’s where the sharpness of my gift comes from. She was never trained, though. She just used it to protect the family during storms, to fortify the house, sometimes to heal you if you were sick. My mother is so powerful.” I laughed to myself, tears welling up in my eyes. “I can’t believe it! Thank the Seven, praise the Seven, the Seven are great, they make circles in the sand!” That was why I couldn’t see her during my fevered zinariya visions. While everyone else had moved from the walls to get away from the smoke and heat, my mother had gone toward the danger to find the spot that woke the Root’s defenses.

  “I’ve contacted my home,” Mwinyi added. “They are sending people to meet with the Himba. Your man Dele will lead the meeting with them.”

  I paused at him referring to Dele as my “man,” but quickly moved on. “Dele was there?” I remembered. “Oh! Mwinyi, he was the Night Masquerade! I saw him! I saw him!” I wrapped my arms around myself, tears welling in my eyes.

  “The Himba Council did betray you,” Mwinyi said. “But Dele didn’t. He was there as the Night Masquerade to give you hope and strength.”

  I listened in silence as Mwinyi explained. This part I had to let sink in. The Night Masquerade was a secret society of men? And Dele was in it? A part of me still rejected this. That first time I’d seen it from my bedroom window, it had looked like a creature, not a man in a costume. And what of my uncle and my father who had also seen it? Did they know of the tradition too?

  Regardless, I felt good. About everything. The war had begun again, my home would never be what it was, but this, I understood more than ever now, was inevitable. Change was inevitable and where the Seven were involved, so was growth. My family was alive, the Enyi Zinariya were going to meet them and help Osemba survive and evolve. And if any people knew how to survive and evolve, it was the Enyi Zinariya. Osemba would change and grow.

  Dele was not a harmonizer, but he had come of age with me and he had to have learned something about himself after what happened with the Himba Council. He’d just started his apprenticeship to be the next Himba chief and, rigid and traditional as he was, he’d already broken out of the mold when he believed the council had made a mistake. His love and protectiveness of his people was strong enough to push tradition to grow. Dele was ready for what was coming and I felt good about what he’d do.

  It was then that I remembered something else and my heart began to pound like crazy because it had already been three days. There was no going back home with ease. I reached into the pocket of my right hip where I had kept it. I wasn’t wearing the same dress,
but maybe … my shoulders slumped. The edan pieces and its inner golden ball weren’t there. It was lost.

  “New Fish,” I said. “Okay, I am ready to hear your explanation.” I reached into my left front pocket as I sat down. I felt the edge of something sharp. I grinned as I shoved my hand further in and grasped the golden ball. “Thank the Seven,” I whispered. “And thank my family.”

  “I am young and there wasn’t much time,” New Fish said to me.

  Mwinyi was sitting on the floor, with his chest pressed to it, his arms out as he pressed his palms to the floor. “It’s how I hear her clearest,” he said when I looked at him questioningly.

  I nodded at him and looked at Okwu, who just said, “Tell me when she has finished.”

  “I don’t know much,” New Fish continued. “Most Miri 12s never do this. We don’t become more. We are ships because we like to travel, that’s what mother said. Until she harbored you. Then she started thinking. Even before Mwinyi called out to her. So she told me about ‘deep Miri’ and how I had to work it. We have breathing chambers.

  “My mother said that before I was born, my chambers were seeded from her inner plants. Those plants not only produce the gases for us to breathe when we leave planets with breathable atmospheres, but they also carry bacteria, good viruses, and other microorganisms, and these microbes go on to populate every part of my body. But they populate the breathing chamber most passionately when a Miri 12 is new born like me.

  “When your body was placed in my chamber, my microbes went to work. You are probably more microbes than human now.”

  I frowned. “What does that mean? I look and feel like myself. I remember who I am. I was dead, right?”

  “That is the ‘deep Miri’ my mother said would happen. I don’t understand it, myself. But they blended with your genes and repaired you, regrew your arm and legs, then pulled you back. There is one thing, though.” She stopped talking for a moment and I was relieved. I needed to think.