The Book of Phoenix

by Nnedi Okorafor

  “My wings feel . . . oh, I love how they feel,” I said. I waded out further and lay back in the water and floated on my back, my dress billowing around me. It was amazing; I intuitively knew how to swim. I didn’t sink, the water carried me. The ocean was my father. The sky was my mother.

  “Water is life,” Saeed said, as he floated with me. For minutes, we were like that. Right on the edge of the ocean, on the precipice of something so much grander and long-lived than us. We could both feel it. Tomorrow was going to be something big, but for the moment, we were in a safe place. The water carried and cared for us. As I looked up at the moon, the ocean all around me, Saeed my love beside me, my brother not far away, in that beautiful place, the joyful salt water of my eyes mingled with the salt water of life.

  It was the happiest moment in my life. There was sunshine pouring through me. Sunshine of the morning, not sunset. Life, not death. Tomorrow would be different.

  I can’t tell you how it happened. It’s a blur in my mind. As if I became one with the ocean. Saeed and I. We shed our clothes at some point. We swam further. He’d learned to swim in the Nile and, like flying, swimming was built into my DNA. Neither of us feared the ocean though I knew there were things inhabiting it that not even human beings had glimpsed.

  His skin was cool and his mouth tasted like sweet fruit and salt and his hands felt like the ocean’s rough waves. I didn’t know my body could do what it did. I had no idea it could feel what it felt. He kissed my lips, my chin, my neck, my breasts, and every part of me sang. I glowed, lighting up the fish below us. My wings stretched out in the water. I lay back as he lay on me. I carried us both.

  Saeed pulled my hips to his, holding me down as my wings stretched. He wouldn’t let me fly off even if I tried. I wasn’t just on fire, the whole world around me was aflame.

  There was pain and then there was heat. I opened my mouth and inhaled the ocean air.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I whispered. How could he understand what I was seeing? How could I explain it?

  I was still seeing the night on fire.

  When he finished there was blood, and we moved out of the water. I wasn’t sure what he’d done to me, though it felt right. Was this sex? I’d read about it in several of the books I’d consumed in Tower 7. I hadn’t screamed. I didn’t feel dirty or sad or guilty. I didn’t feel I’d lost anything. I wanted to ask Saeed what it was we’d just done, but I didn’t. I felt refreshed with salt water. I felt clean. Even my wings seemed to glow a deeper gold red. Why lose that feeling by talking about it? My wings felt like a thousand pounds when I got out of the water. I shook them and they felt a little better.

  “Will they dry quickly?” he asked, worried.

  “I’m not worried,” I said, smiling. As we walked to our room, I heated my wings and steam rose from them in a soft mist. By the time we got to the door, they were dry. I shook the salt from them and stretched them out wide.

  “Look!” Saeed said, running his hands over the feathers. “The color!”

  I held them out and looked at the tips. I was not glowing but the golden red was so brilliant that it made my eyes ache. Even in the darkness, it was like seeing blood. I gasped. It was not only the color. My wings felt light and loose and powerful. I shook them out, again, and folded them behind my back. Pulling them close was easier than ever. A few old feathers fell to the sand and Saeed picked up the biggest one.

  “Mine,” he said.

  I laughed. “If you want it.”

  He put it into his pocket after he put his shorts back on.

  We went inside. The shower was wide and open and I had no problem fitting in here with him. He bathed me from head to toe. Avoiding my already clean wings, he lathered my skin and then he rinsed me. Three times. Almost like a ritual.

  Then he did the same for himself. After, he washed his hands, then arms, then his feet, then his face three times. “It’s the only thing I remember my father teaching me,” he whispered to me when he finished.

  He dried me with one of his towels. Then he dried himself. “I feel stronger when I touch you,” he said, as he rubbed shea butter into my skin. “You’re always so warm.”

  “And you are always so cool,” I sighed. His flesh didn’t warm when it touched mine and the cool sensation of his hands moving along my body was heavenly. We lay in bed and fell asleep before I remembered to tell him that I loved him.

  CHAPTER 18

  Deus ex Machina

  I went flying before the sun came up, an hour before we would leave.

  I’d woken up beside Saeed, my body sweetly aching. I couldn’t enjoy it, however. My eyes were open wide. I was seeing something terrible, again. I was seeing what I’d seen while with Saeed in the ocean. The world was on fire. Even the air. I couldn’t breathe because the air was being sucked from my lungs.

  I gasped, my mouth wide and Saeed’s hand came across my waist and held me tighter while he slept. It didn’t help.

  I quickly but quietly slipped out of bed, threw on my dress and stepped outside. The night was warm. It felt close, pressing against my body. Behind me, the first and third man I’d ever loved slept. I fought the urge to go back and join him for a last two hours of rest. But I was seeing something terrible and to return to him would only prolong the vision. I needed the sky.

  I cocked my head and listened to the ocean crashing against the earth for a moment. Then I opened my wings and took off. The air was light, and I immediately found a nice strong thermal. I flew faster, as if my wings were on fire and I was trying to put them out. My entire body burned and that image was still in my mind.

  As I flew in the warm air, I cooled. My bright wings glowed a little but I relaxed. Soon all I could feel was the ache of my body from Saeed’s deep touch. I rolled in the sky, the air caressing me. “Saeed,” I whispered, my eyes closed, my hand on my belly and between my legs—the two places where I felt him most strongly.

  I opened my eyes to find the winged man flying beside me, dimly lit by my light. Watching. My heart flipped, but quickly calmed. I said nothing as I removed my hands from myself. And we flew higher. Then we slowed down, soaring.

  “Today will be your day,” he said. He spoke with his lips and a straight face. No smile. No frown. Raw fact.

  “How do you know?”

  He chuckled.

  “Will you help?” I asked.

  “My place is not here, not today,” he said.

  “Then where?”

  “New York.”

  I considered asking the obvious, which was “Why?” but I really didn’t care. All I cared about was that he was not going to help us. What was he here for then? What was he? “Who are you, Seven?” I asked, frowning.

  “You need to focus your anger,” he said.

  “I’m not angry.”

  “Oh, you are angrier than any woman I know,” he said, perceptively. “And that is good. But you need to focus. If you remember none of what I tell you, remember that.”

  I spoke nothing. But in my mind I said, “I will.”

  “Let’s land there,” he said, pointing down. It was black over the ocean.

  “Where? I cannot . . .”

  “Just follow me.”

  We flew down, and I could hear it before I could see it—waves rushing onto sand. I nearly crashed into the beach the tiny island was so dark. Right off of St. Croix. There was not one light on it. No one lived here. A mile or two across the water, the lights of St. Croix shined brightly.

  “You know the beginning of war, but you don’t know how it will end,” Seven said, as he looked across the water.

  “Sometimes,” I whispered. “This doesn’t matter.”

  “It always matters,” he said. “The beginning and the end always matter.” He paused for a moment and sat down on the beach. This was the first time I’d ever see
n him put his body to rest in any way, I realized. He’d always been standing or flying. Except for those moments before I freed him from the glass dome and when he contained me between his wings when I burned. I sat beside him.

  “I do not remember my beginning,” he said. “I was born in the Wassoulou region in South Mali. I grew up thinking I’d become a mechanical engineer. I wanted to create a car that could fly and run on recycled garbage. I went to the Université Mentouri de Constantine in Algeria, and this was my major. I was the second in my family to go to university.

  “My sister, she’d left home six years before me. She wanted to become a singer. It was her destiny. Her mother, my father’s first wife, died right after giving birth to her. But before she went, she predicted that Nahawa would touch the world with her voice, that she would be a famous singer. My father’s family was completely against Nahawa’s singing, though her voice was sweeter than any you heard on the radio. My family was not of the jali tradition, that’s a caste of people who have music in their blood. They even resorted to traditional magic to prevent her career. But it was inevitable. Her first album was a hit all over the country and soon after that, she left home to record more overseas. None of us ever saw my sister again. It’s as if the world swallowed her up.

  “So you can understand why my leaving sent my entire family into chaos. We did not know if my sister was dead or alive. To me, she was dead because she cut herself off from us. I knew her well. She had always been ashamed of our simple desert life. She did not speak this to my parents but she did to me and my five brothers. She was the only girl. My mother worked Nahawa hard. But she was smart in school and she knew how to ask questions.

  “When I went to school, my parents would not let me leave unless I performed all these binding rights. Once in university, my life changed in a way that I cannot explain to you. What I can tell you is that I found my other family in Algeria. A secret society. In my region they were called Leopard Society. What I also discovered in university was that I was an athlete. In my hometown, I was known as one of the top wrestlers. But by the time I got to college, with all the food that I was able to eat with my scholarship money and from working as I studied, I grew tall and big.

  “I began to compete in my society’s tournaments and became a champion. I graduated with my degree in engineering, but by then my champion status took over my life. I visited home, and my family barely recognized me. I showered them with gifts and love. They knew that I was part of something but they could not know I was within the Leopard Society.”

  He paused and looked at me. I couldn’t help but smile. I had a thousand questions for him, and he knew it.

  “I cannot tell you more than the name of the society,” he said.

  “Why?”

  He only shook his head. “To make a long story short, I eventually made it to the highest competition. The two hundred and forty-sixth annual Zuma International Wrestling Finals in Abuja, Nigeria. To get there, I had to win fifty matches against top wrestlers, and I had to pass the seven academic tasks. It was a competition of brains and brawn. You could not win without knowing books, without study. I got there. I remember that day.” Then he went quiet.

  Minutes passed but he did not say more. He just kept staring out at the water. I was still wrapping my mind around the idea of this man being human. He didn’t say how many years ago all this was but it couldn’t have been that far. The times he spoke of seemed modern. So how did he become what he was, though? Tower 7 had created me, but I simply could not accept that it created Seven. He just didn’t seem like a speciMen in the same way that Mmuo, Saeed and I did.

  More minutes passed, and I began to grow restless. I had to get back to Saeed and Mmuo. It was nearing time. I can slip if I need more time, I thought. But something in me didn’t want to chance that. Today felt more solid than usual. I didn’t want to break it up by jumping around in time.

  “We fought,” he suddenly said. “We fought to the death, me and my opponent Sayé. The audience was screaming for blood. Then he killed me.”

  “Huh?” I said, looking at him. “You . . .”

  He nodded. “I died. My opponent punched his fist into my chest and smashed my heart. I felt every ounce of it. Then I fell forward and died. You know death, Phoenix.”

  I nodded.

  “I went there,” he said. “To the wilderness. I went there with honor. I’d fought an epic fight, though I lost. My opponent was my equal. I remember a joining, a song that called me to become one with God.”

  I must have frowned because then he said, “How is it for you?”

  “I remember nothing,” I said. “But I don’t believe in God.”

  He laughed and patted me on the shoulder.

  “So what happened next?” I asked.

  “I came back,” he said. “Not as you do. I did not burn to ash. My heart was smashed. My body was down but otherwise intact. I opened my eyes. The first thing I thought was of my wife. She had been in the audience watching. Then I felt warmth on my back, the pain. I followed my instinct which was to heed the call of the sky, and I flew off.”

  “Why . . . ?”

  “In my tradition, very rarely, but often enough to have a name, when a champion dies on the wrestling field, he will sprout wings and become a saint. A guardian.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of my choosing,” he said.

  “Choosing,” I said slowly. My mouth hung open as I realized.

  He nodded. “You did the same thing when you let them ‘capture’ you and bring you from Ghana to the United States,” he said.

  “How long did you let Tower 7 hold you?” I asked.

  “As long as I needed to be held,” he said. “Until you came along.”

  “Why? Why were you waiting for me?”

  “Because you are change, Phoenix. Wherever you go, you bring revolution.”

  He stood up and I stood with him. It was time. But I wasn’t done asking questions. “What did Tower 7 do to you?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “They could do nothing to me.”

  I wanted to ask how they caught him but honestly, I didn’t really care. What did it matter? The Big Eye saw us all as brainless and nonthreatening. Seven sought captivity. Learning of his capture would give me no insight.

  “Will you come with us?” I asked again.

  “No.” He spread his wings. “I am guarding New York.”

  “Why not Mali?”

  “Africa bleeds, but it will be fine,” he said. “I go where I am most needed.”

  I opened my mouth to ask more questions but he shook his head.

  “Your questions are answered. It’s time for you to return to the others.”

  We flew in silence. The sky was brightening. Now I could see the island that we’d left and across from the island was St. Croix. Tower 4 was on the other side.

  “Today you will have to make a hard decision,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you are unsure of what to do, go with the choice that hurts your heart. It is the correct one.”

  “Why?”

  “You will know. It is not a matter of not knowing. It’s a matter of doing.”

  As we approached the hotel we slowed down. I felt good flying beside him. Seven was unpredictable, mysterious, and hardly around but he was as close to a teacher as I would have, and he was powerful. Things felt balanced and right when I was near him. Nevertheless, he left me. One minute he was there, the next he was not. He did not give me any words of wisdom, ask about our plan, or even wish me good luck.

  • • •

  Saeed and Mmuo were sitting on the beach-front table waiting for me. Mmuo and I ate a breakfast of fried fish and yams. Saeed ate a bowl of rust chips. I didn’t tell them about the winged man. It just didn’t seem important. When I look back, maybe I should have. He’d
told me something more important than anything we were doing that day.

  But I could never have known. Not until it was too late.

  CHAPTER 19

  A Luta Continua

  I flew high above.

  Tower 4 was shaped like a rose. Layers and layers of rounded winding walls, a labyrinth. And the most experimental speciMen were at its center, in the bud. That’s where we would start. Genetic manipulation was the specialty here. Saeed still wouldn’t tell me what he’d seen in this place and the only way he’d managed to escape was because security was lax. “As long as I kept my head down, they didn’t suspect a thing,” he’d said. However, that was back then. With all that was happening with the other towers around the country, we didn’t think this was the case anymore.

  The water grew choppier the closer we got to the coast of St. Croix’s eastern point, though there was virtually no breeze. From above the sight was even stranger. The waves moved like nothing I’d ever seen. They were rhythmic but too organized. I’d flown across the ocean, the motion of waves was etched deeply into my memory. Normal waves did not move in mile long curved lines as these did. And these pulsed as they broke on the shores that flanked Tower 4. On the other side, a narrow road led to the building’s entrance and there was a large parking lot.

  The Tower sat on the eastern point of the island, Point Udall. This was the eastern-most part of the United States, the first part of the country to usher in the New Year. In 2000, a memorial had been built here with a giant sun dial. But then LifeGen had bought the land for the building of Tower 4 and all that was torn down. The land here was different from the rest of the island, the plants almost desert-like. And in certain parts of the year, all the greenery went brown as the plants regenerated. It was going through that phase now. From high above, it was a brown splotch on a green island. As I moved in, I wondered if the browned trees and plants were a result of something more sinister.