Granite

by Jenny Robson

  This began a heated argument.

  The Arab sailors insisted it was not Arabs who were slavers. No, it was the Yemenic and Mamluk mercenaries. And they were not true Arabs and not true Muslims. They were the ones who traded in human flesh.

  “Do not say ‘Arab slavers’!” said Fazeem, the chief navigator. “There are no such beings that exist!”

  In the midst of this, with Shumba shaking his head, the diviner rushed up and shouted in his high voice. “We must depart. With speed. This place is thick with evil. The very air is foul with wicked spirits such as I have never encountered before. Quick! Before we too are contaminated. Before the evil seeps into our blood and bones and tissue.”

  And so we left the village of Dom Bashabeng to its lonely silence in the gathering gloom of evening.

  And so we continued our long journey towards the sea of sunset.

  The sun grew so hot that the sand beneath our feet burned like fire coals. Shumba decreed it was time for night travel. So by day we slept under the shade of rocks when we could find them. And by night we walked through cooler air. To the call of night owls and the squealing of bats. And strange sounds that we could not identify.

  Around us the sand rose in small hills that were difficult to cross.

  “Sand dunes, that’s what they are.” So you told us, Shafiq. “Yes, and they move constantly as the wind shifts the sand grains, never staying in a single trustworthy place. So travellers cannot mark their pathways.”

  You said, Shafiq, that back in your home country people heard the sounds of these dunes as they shifted. And the people knew it to be the voices of the desert-devils.

  I suppose you saw my eyes widen in fear. For you said at once, “But not here, Mokomba. No, the devils of the Sahra would never come this far south. There is more than enough space for them in the great Sahra.”

  Early one morning, after a long and weary night of walking, a slave-scout stood high on a dune ahead of us. He shouted, “The sea! We have reached the sea and the village of the not-witches!”

  Beside him, up on that dune, there appeared a line of people. Maybe ten in number and all old and wearing strange clothing. And smiling in the grey early light, smiling toothless smiles and waving wildly.

  Tshangani did not seem to find them frightening. He raced ahead, fighting his way up the dune sand. Filled with new energy as if he had not been walking all through the long night. Calling to me, “Come, Mokomba! I want to look at this sea and all its water that tastes of salt. Imagine!”

  But I did not race behind him over that final sand dune. Not only because of the line of not-witches barring my way.

  But also because I heard my father’s voice behind me, raised and full of anger. Such as I had never heard before, not in all my winters.

  Redombo, my father, stood amongst a group of slaves with their many and various burdens.

  “I cannot believe this! How can such a thing happen? It is beyond all decency!” he shouted and his whole body trembled with his rage.

  *

  Let me at the least complete Mokomba’s tale of Dom Bashabeng. So that one less question is hanging in the air of our small room here in Sofala.

  We never discovered what happened to the citizens of that hill town.

  On our return journey, Shumba sent slave-scouts to investigate. They came back to report, “The village is empty still. And now even the chickens and the goats lie dead.”

  So Shumba led us by a different route and Dom Bashabeng was just a distant hill far off to our right. Half hidden by a dust-storm. It was a sad thing, this: an empty village full of questions without answers.

  And who knows? Perhaps the answer is a simple matter after all. Perhaps simply the people of Dom Bashabeng grew weary of their hill, weary of the dust and the winds that skimmed across the sand, weary of the grey and thorn-scattered vegetation? Perhaps they found another hill in a part of the land that was more pleasant and green? Perhaps they are happy and prosperous and content in some other place they now call home?

  But no one will ever know.

  This is why I work tirelessly to set down Mokomba’s chronicle. I do not want to imagine that one day strangers will walk between the magnificent walls of Zimba Remabwe, saying: “Who built these structures? And where are the builders? What became of them? What was the cause of their disappearance? Mamluk slave traders? Or bloodthirsty northerners? Or evil spirits?”

  No. Visitors of the future must know the story of that great city’s tragic end. They must have the answers.

  There is enough paper here in the corner of our room. Enough containers still filled with ink. And it is still a long time before the winds will be right for the journey back to my homeland. So Mustapha says.

  So yes, let me tell of those old people, those not-witches who lived under feeble shelters there on the shore, there beside Shumba’s boat which they were paid to guard. Paid in provisions enough to help them survive.

  I was interested to hear their stories. And happily there was time. Shumba and his sailors and his slaves needed several days to repair and ready the boat. Such a strange-looking boat, so different from the dhows that ply the sunrise sea. Long and shallow and ungainly. Sometimes I stared at it and shook my head, wondering how we would all fit in between the oars and the sails and ropes that cluttered its deck. Wondering how it would possibly keep afloat on the wide, wild seas beyond.

  I sat with the not-witches and interrogated them in a gentle fashion, with a slave from that area interpreting for me.

  An old shrunken woman spoke first. “Back in my home village, there was terrible sickness amongst the children. Many were carried off in death. And I was blamed. Our diviner pointed me out. He said I had magicked this evil because I had no children of my own and I was envious. But I know nothing of magic and spells. Still, they burned my hut and chased me away into the desert.”

  An old man spoke next. He had strange eyes that looked in two directions at once. “With me it was the matter of the lightning that struck our sacred tree. They said I called down the lightning. Because I walk alone at night. But I walk alone at night because I have no friends and I cannot sleep for sadness. Yet I also was chased away from my home. By my very own clansmen.”

  Such sad stories! Ten times over. And now they must live out their days guarding the boat of the arrogant Shumba, living between sand dunes and sea, and far from their own communities.

  “But we are not witches,” they all swore. “We are just old and poor and cast aside. And without family to speak on our behalf. We have been falsely accused. If we knew spells, would we not punish our accusers? But see, our accusers prosper while we suffer. So how can we then be witches? What sense is there in that?”

  It is a strange thing. In my town in Egypt, we call none witches. Such a label is unknown.

  We have wise old women who are consulted in troubles of the heart and troubles of the body. They dispense herbs and potions and advice. We have old men who read signs in the stars that can tell the future. But these people are treated with respect. They are not chased out into the desert with their homes burned behind them.

  And too, in the lands of India and China, there are no accused witches. My grandfather never mentioned such things when he spoke of his travels east.

  It seems this matter of witches is only present here in the lands of the Jenz. Here, and in the lands of the Crusaders. The Milk people, as Mokomba calls them.

  Yes, my great-uncle told me terrifying tales from his journey west. There in a town called Wittelsbach, I think it was. Some such strange-sounding Germanic name.

  My great-uncle watched as three old Germanic women were dragged into the open town square. All three were screaming and weeping, “This is untrue. We are not witches, as God is our judge. We have no dealings with the devil. We are just old and poor and simple. And without any power.”

  But still they were all three tied to wooden poles. And dry twigs and leaves were piled up around them and set alight. While they scre
amed through the smoke and the flames eating into their bodies and begged for mercy and pity.

  Most horrifying of all, these townspeople of Wittelsbach had brought their children to watch. Their children! And the children laughed and pointed with great delight at the dying agonies of the not-witches.

  “Truly a barbarous people, young Shafiq,” my great-uncle told me. “Savage and cruel and devoid of mercy. That smell – that smell of cooking human flesh and hair, it will stay with me forever, along with the sounds of laughing children, as Allah is my witness!”

  Many nights after, my boyhood dreams were filled with the screams of old women in flames. My mother grew angry at my great-uncle.

  “How can you, Uncle? He is only a child. How can you fill his head with such gore? When I next go to market, I will take young Shafiq with me.”

  There on the bone-white sand with the sea rolling blue and grey and wild beyond, I listened to these stories. And it seemed the not-witches were glad for an audience to hear their tales of woe. While Tshangani and Mokomba frolicked in the cold waves, then raced to lie on the warm sands. With all the exhaustion of our long, long walk forgotten.

  Shumba stood by his boat, shouting at the slaves as they hammered and tied and knotted.

  “Careful, fools! Do it right or you will be flogged! There must be no mistakes!” He rubbed at his arm-stump in irritation. “There is a long journey ahead and this sea is treacherous.”

  Yes, a long journey ahead. And at its end, if we survived, the land of the Milk people, who burned their old women in plain sight of their children!

  Allah protect us!

  6. Across the sunset sea

  Yes, and so high on the sand dune, the not-witches were greeting Shumba. On their knees and clapping their hands as if he were some great and generous chief.

  And my friend Tshangani was already disappeared over the dune’s brow. Still calling out, “Hurry, Mokomba! What a sight it is, this great ocean!”

  But I turned instead to where my father was trembling in his fury.

  “How can you bring such shame to our family?”

  Raii! It was my sister Raii, there amongst the gathering of slaves. Dressed in a slave tunic herself, with her head shaved clean and with slave markings painted on her cheeks. Burdened with a basket of live chickens that squawked and flurried their wings.

  My father’s rage was immense. “And how will you ever find a husband after this behaviour? If it becomes known that you slept amidst male slaves night after night! Who will marry you, foolish girl? Your mother is right. No noble daughter should harbour such a degrading spirit.”

  Raii was turned about, despite her pleading, and sent eastward and home once more to Zimba Remabwe. In the company of my father’s most trusted slave – a eunuch, stripped of his manhood and therefore no danger to what was left of my sister’s reputation.

  “Deliver her to her mother,” my father ReDombo instructed the eunuch. “Tell my wife she must keep this wicked girl confined to our compound until my return. No matter how long in time that is.”

  I shook my head at my sister and her foolish ways. She is like a small child, I thought: a small child who complains that the sun is hot and the rain is wet and the night is dark, as if such things can be altered. I worried too that marriage offers would not be made for her. It is a painful thing for a woman to stay unmarried and unwanted. I did not want my dear sister to suffer such a fate.

  “Go well,” I called after her. But she ignored my farewell.

  Then I ran over the dune to join Tshangani at the edges of the frost-cold sea waters. So cold that I struggled to find my breath again! But such delight! For a time I forgot about the fear ahead of us. We splashed and jumped and laughed like small children. While Shumba shouted at us.

  “Do not go far, you boys. Stay close to the shoreline. The ground under the sea is a treacherous thing. It has sudden pits and slopes that you cannot see. And do not drink the water or you will thirst forever and strange sea creatures will grow inside your bellies. Bigger and bigger until you burst open.”

  Then he returned to shouting orders at his slaves working on the boat.

  That boat! It was as long as our home compound, wider than a royal granary hut. Yet beside the sea it appeared a weak and flimsy thing. The sea was more vast than the whole of the country surrounding Zimba Remabwe. Without end. And constantly moving. I shuddered in dread many times at this voyage to come.

  And what can I say about those first days of our sea journey? We sat in our appointed places, with my father and Chivhu in the foremost part of the boat, with Tshangani and I close to the back. And there was little space to move freely. But in those early days I had no wish to move.

  Sometimes the air was still and the sixteen oar-slaves must strain and struggle to move the boat forward. While Shumba shouted, “One and over. Two and over.”

  Sometimes there was wind and the Arab sailors would raise the sails to catch it, tying knots of rope in complicated patterns. While the oar-slaves rubbed their muscles and sighed with relief.

  But always beneath us the waves churned and pushed and pulled at the boat. Many times I vomited over the side. Until it seemed my very entrails must have become part of the swirling salted water. Tshangani also. For those first days, my friend’s bright spirit was lost to him.

  “Give it time,” said the oar-slave who sat closest to us. The sail had been raised so he had some breath to speak. “You will grow accustomed to this endless rocking. Believe me. When you next step on dry ground, it is the ground that will feel strange for being still.”

  There to our right, always and ever, we could see the land. In the light of day at least. That was some comfort. In time, the sand dunes flattened. The dead ground gave way to green bushes and then to trees that grew taller and denser. With leaves a brighter colour than ever we had known in Zimba Remabwe.

  “Soon we will reach the land of the Yoruba,” said the oar-slave.

  Martejin, his name was, from a far-away place called Mogadishu. Enslaved because of family debt and passed through the hands of many owners. Some of the markings on his face were branded and cut into his skin. Not just painted as is our custom in Zimba Remabwe.

  “Yes, and then you will see the mouths of great rivers running into the sea. And we will have fresh food and provisions.”

  But often I looked over the back of the boat, there where Fazeem the Arab navigator held tight to the rudder. I looked over all the sea we had already passed through. And I thought how much distance separated me from my home. And more with each day that passed. It made me feel sad and lost.

  “But, Mokomba,” Tshangani tried to cheer me, “Zimba Remabwe will be there waiting for us. Waiting to greet our return. It has not ceased to be just because we cannot see it. So enjoy this journey while it is happening. Enjoy the stories we are storing up. Soon enough it will come to an end. Yes, enjoy!”

  I tried.

  And at that time, there on the boat, you were teaching us, Shafiq. You were trying to make us speak the language of the Milk people.

  You taught us to say, “We come in peace. We come as brothers. We will take nothing from you but knowledge, if you are willing to share it. We mean you no harm. We have no evil intent.”

  That I enjoyed, trying to form those thin, tight sounds with my tongue, my lips. I smiled at the strange noises that came out of my mouth. And such comical faces my friend Tshangani made as he tried to imitate you, Shafiq! I laughed and laughed, and forgot a while about the great distance increasing between my body and my home.

  My father ReDombo grew annoyed with your lessons. “Shafiq, my friend, I am too old for this nonsense,” he said. “My mouth cannot manage such twisting. No, the Milk people must surely have lips and tongues that are deformed. Let the younger people learn.”

  And Tshangani’s father Chivhu grew annoyed too. “Shafiq, you are tricking us. Why are the sounds today different from the sounds you told us yesterday? I am a Storykeeper so my memory is precise. And
I tell you, these are not the same sounds.”

  So you tried to explain, Shafiq. You said many different tribes existed amongst the Milk people. There was the tribe of wild, red-haired men and the tribe of those with sky-blue eyes and sun-yellow hair. And the clans whose heads were shaven whilst their dark beards grew down past their stomachs and as far as their intimate parts. Each tribe had its different name: Frank and Germanic, Neapolitan and Englisher.

  “Each of these tribes has their own language,” you told us. “And when we make landfall in the territories of the Milk people, who knows which tribe we will encounter? We must be prepared. So repeat after me: We come as your brothers …”

  We reached the land of Yoruba at some time.

  I had lost all count of days, with the boat rocking beneath me. I could not even remember whether it was three round moons or four that had shone upon us. But at least by now my stomach stayed inside my body.

  Yoruba, the land of forests and wide river mouths!

  Inhabitants of the region rowed out to us in their small canoes, bringing fresh fruit and salted meat and gourds of saltless river water. They had dark bodies, these Yoruba people, far darker than mine. And wonderful painted patterns on their chests and faces. And strange arrangements of their hair. They greeted Shumba with brotherly affection and light joking.

  “This is the furthest we have ever travelled,” Martijen told us. “Yes, in our earlier trips, this was the point where we turned around and headed homeward. Who knows what lies ahead now?”

  “Not even the Arab sailors?” I asked. “Don’t they know?”

  The oar-slave shook his head. “No, they are all experienced in sailing the sunrise sea. A calm and well-travelled sea. Where my home of Mogadishu lies. That I will never see again.”

  Martijen was silent awhile. But then he brightened. “This Yoruba is the territory where great Shumba lost his arm. Do you want to hear the story? But I will have to whisper to you. Shumba does not want this story spread. No, he prefers the rumours.”