Akata Warrior

by Nnedi Okorafor

  Murphy stepped over a fallen tree and stopped at a large black puddle in the soaked vegetation. “You see this here? It’s not water.” He brought a piece of yellow paper from his pocket, rolled it up, and stuck the end into the black liquid. Then he brought out a box of matches. When he used one to light the wet part of the paper, it burst into violent flames. “Whoo!” he exclaimed, dropping it on a dry patch of vegetation and quickly stamping it out. “See that?” he said as he stamped. “What is that? This place is already mutilated by oil pipelines; now the forest and waters are poisoned.”

  “So all it would probably take to set this whole forest and the towns near it on fire is dropping a match in the wrong place,” the journalist said, looking very worried.

  “Correct,” Murphy said with a bitter chuckle. “We won’t do that, though.”

  “I should hope not. I don’t even think you should have lit that paper just now.”

  Murphy nodded, a bit out of breath. “I needed you to see, though. Give it a few days and the very air will be flammable. We have more than one oil spill every day here. In an area that’s already polluted,” Murphy said. “These oil companies are so sloppy in their mining of crude oil. They don’t care. It’s not their home. This new spill happened last night! It is not as big as the Exxon Valdez spill, but it is very, very bad. You see for yourself, do you see anyone here? No one is doing anything about it.”

  Sunny sighed as she watched, trying not to think of her own problems. As Anatov said, the world was bigger than her. In some parts, the world was literally dying. Her father held his bowl of groundnuts down for her and she took a few. As she shelled one of them, he offered his bottle of beer. “Need a sip?” he asked.

  When she looked up and met his eyes, they both burst out laughing. He took a gulp and put the bottle back on the side table, and Sunny popped a groundnut into her mouth.

  The only woman interviewed spoke in Pidgin English and had a shell-shocked look about her. But her words made Sunny’s skin prickle and her head feel light. “I come to see the water las’ night. Wetin my eye see na one big thing wey be like animal as it dey descend into the water from air. Like some masquerade tin’. Ah-ah, mek these people stop wetin dem dey do, o . . . Because it don begin to attract evil, o!”

  The woman’s words hit Sunny hard. She opened her mouth and took a deep breath. A “masquerade thing” descending into the crude oil-soaked water? Was this Ekwensu? Did that Lamb woman just tell all of Nigeria that she’d seen Ekwensu? Sunny remembered when she’d encountered Ekwensu last year at the shrine beside the gas station, the oily, greasy smell, like car exhaust. Sunny could imagine Ekwensu tearing open a tanker and then bathing in the freshly spilled crude oil, a substance toxic to the flesh of the earth. If Ekwensu had just forced her way into the mundane world, such a “bath” would probably strengthen her.

  Sunny moved closer to her father. He took another deep gulp of his beer and belched loudly. “This is not normal,” he said. “Everything in that creek will be dead by tomorrow, the people are getting poisoned, the whole place could go up in flames. It’s not even on international news.”

  Sunny slowly got up, her legs feeling like jelly. “I should finish studying,” she said. Her father grunted, his eyes still on the TV where they were now talking about a murder in Lagos.

  The next morning, when she received her daily Leopard newspaper, she didn’t find one mention of the oil spill in the entire paper. Her father was right; this wasn’t normal at all.

  17

  BOLA YUSUF

  “Thank goodness it’s this way,” Sunny said, rubbing a hand over her drying Afro. She absentmindedly took out the Mami Wata comb and used it to pick her hair out a bit. They were walking down a dirt path that ran through the forest that they usually took to get to Anatov’s place.

  Orlu sucked his teeth. “If it were back in Leopard Knocks, we’d find a way to get there.”

  “Tired of having to ‘find a way,’” she muttered. “Just want to be normal, like everyone else.”

  “It’s not far now,” Orlu said.

  They were walking side by side, shaded by the thickening trees. Sunny suddenly felt glad that it was the middle of the day. Who knew what was lurking in the bush. She giggled nervously to herself.

  “What?” Orlu asked.

  “I . . . I was just thinking, what could be worse than the river beast?”

  “Sunny, there are crazy dangerous beasts like that in these forests, too.”

  Sunny quickly reached into her pocket for her juju knife. She fretfully babbled, “What . . . what kind of beasts? Are they big? Hidden like the lake beast? Do you think the lake beast would . . .”

  “Put that away,” Orlu said, chuckling. “The worst things around here and in Night Runner Forest come out at night, just after dusk. Relax.”

  When she still wouldn’t put her knife away, he took her hand, and every hair on Sunny’s arms and neck stood up. They walked in shy silence for the next five minutes, watching the trees or their feet. Then they came to a clearing in the trees. A large black solid steel gate stood here, with an image painted on each of the two doors. On the left was a painting of Mami Wata herself. She was more the Uhamiri version that Sunny didn’t see very often. Instead of the long straight hair and Indian features of the more popular image of Mami Wata, the traditional Uhamiri version had skin black like a beetle’s wings and long bushy dreadlocks that floated behind her like powerful-looking brown vines. She was grinning with white teeth and holding her long fin against her human torso.

  On the other door of the gate was the contrasting image of a brown-skinned man with thick matted hair wearing chains around his ankles and wrists. Sunny frowned. The man had to be onye ara, a person suffering from madness.

  “Bola’s a Mami Wata priestess,” Orlu said, seeming to read the question in Sunny’s mind. “So she’s a healer.”

  “Of what? Like malaria or . . .”

  “No, stuff Lamb doctors can’t address. You know, people suffering from being ogbanjes and women who can’t have children no matter what the doctors do . . . and”—he pointed at the gate—“madness. A lot of Leopard People are struck with it. Maybe from some juju misfiring or someone being bitten by something in our forests, whatever. But Bola’s also a really strong oracle. Her predictions and visions are never wrong, when she has them.”

  She can do all that and she married a bookstore owner? Sunny wondered. But then again, these were Leopard People. A bookstore owner was probably like marrying a brain surgeon.

  Orlu knocked on the gate, and a minute later a tall woman wearing a long blue skirt and a white blouse peeked out. “Good afternoon,” she said. She looked right at Sunny with such intense eyes that Sunny took a step back. Orlu nudged Sunny with his elbow.

  “Good afternoon,” Sunny said. “We’re . . . I’m here to . . .”

  “I know. She’s expecting you,” the woman said. “Remove your shoes and come in.”

  Sunny slipped off her sandals and, upon stepping past the gate, she felt it. First in the ground beneath her feet that went from warm to cool and almost damp. Then there was the rush of humidity; it was almost as if her skin’s pores opened up and began to drink. She’d stepped onto sacred ground . . . or something. She opened her mouth and inhaled. When she looked at Orlu, he was frowning and picking his shirt from his skin.

  In the center of the compound was a moderately sized white house. The ground around the house was neatly packed red dirt, tall wild bushes growing against the compound’s wall. They were led around to the back where they entered a room with wooden benches. It must have been some sort of waiting area, for several women and men, some young, some old, sat on the wooden rickety benches in various states of anxiety and misery. One woman wearing a dirty orange-yellow wrapper and matching top was crying into the shoulder of another woman dressed in a yellow blouse and jeans. A man in a sweat suit jumped up
and then sat down when they walked in. Another man dressed like a rapper was talking to himself, pulling at his skinny jeans and biting his nails.

  One man even bore a striking resemblance to the madman in the painting on the entrance gate’s door. He sat on the floor in the middle of the room, his long, unruly, matted hair flopped over his shoulder. He wore nothing but raggedy brown pants and a torn, dirty black T-shirt. He even had shackles on his wrists and bare feet.

  “She will call you,” the woman who’d led them in said. “Sit.” Then she left.

  Orlu and Sunny took a spot on the bench, squeezing between the crying woman and the mumbling man dressed like a rapper. After a few moments, Sunny realized he was actually speaking Arabic to himself.

  “Glad I called and told my mom I’d be home late,” Sunny said.

  “Yeah, but we could be here all night,” he said. “I’ve heard of . . .”

  The door opened. “Anyanwu!” the little girl standing in the doorway called. “Who is Anyanwu?”

  Sunny froze. She stood up and the little girl turned to her. The girl was about six years old, but she stood as if she belonged there and it was normal for her to order adults around. She even carried a clipboard. “Are you she?”

  “Well, I’m Sunny, but my . . .”

  “Yes or no?” the girl asked, holding up a pen.

  “Y-yes.”

  “Come this way, then.”

  Sunny looked back at Orlu, who hadn’t gotten up. “Come on,” she whispered. “I’m not going by myself.”

  He got up and the little girl didn’t stop him from following. She showed them down a narrow hallway with ocean-blue walls, and Sunny felt her eyes begin to water. She brought out the handkerchief in her pocket just in time to catch her sneeze.

  “Sorry,” the little girl said. “There’s Catch ’Em in the walls. Eze Bola has had a few problems with imposters. People who are allergic always get sneezy here.”

  She wanted to ask the girl what constituted an “imposter” because maybe she was one now, but instead she asked, “What does Catch ’Em do to imposters?” She blew her nose.

  The little girl giggled mischievously. “You don’t want to know.”

  The girl led them to a large room with graceful high ceilings, white walls, wooden floors, and nothing in it but five white wooden chairs. They were arranged in a circle with blue cushions on the backs and seats. Bola Yusuf sat in one of the chairs, one leg crossed over the other.

  Upon seeing her, Orlu stopped.

  The little girl professionally grasped her clipboard. “Come on,” she said, walking in. She motioned toward the chairs. “Have a seat, please.”

  Sunny followed her halfway across the room and then turned back to Orlu. “Come on,” she whispered.

  Orlu shook his head. He looked scared, sweat beading on his forehead.

  Sunny bit her lip and frowned. “Geez, how old are you?! They’re only boobs!”

  It seemed to take all his effort to put one foot in front of the next. When he reached Sunny, she grabbed his hand and dragged him with her to Bola.

  Bola was a thin middle-aged woman with long brown braids, three dark lines engraved on each cheek, and a large white oval painted across her forehead. She sat calmly in her chair wearing nothing but a flowing white skirt that reached her ankles. Her long skinny breasts did indeed hang well below her waist, touching her lap. She wore several blue and white bead necklaces that rested on her chest.

  “You all look like students, and students can be stupid,” she said in a hard voice. “So no photographs while you are in my compound. The last time someone did this, they angered Mami Wata and died in an accident upon leaving.”

  “We . . . we’re students, but we’re not here to study you,” Sunny said.

  “Good. Temitope, leave us now.”

  “Yes, ma,” the little girl said, then she walked out.

  “What is wrong with you?” Bola suddenly asked Orlu. He was sitting stiff as a piece of wood and looking at anything but Bola. “Haven’t you ever seen a woman’s breasts before? Weren’t you ever a baby?” She lifted and swung them from side to side. Orlu looked as if he was going to pass out, and Bola laughed a loud raucous laugh. Before Sunny could control herself, she burst out laughing, too. She clapped her hands over her mouth and looked apologetically at Orlu. Then another giggle wracked her body, and her eyes began to water from the strain of holding it in.

  “Look, boy, I am the servant of Mami Wata, goddess of the water, and as black Americans like to say, this is how we roll,” she said. She looked at Sunny. “Did I say that right? You’d know better than me.” She winked.

  “Yeah,” Sunny said.

  “Relax, Orlu. Okay?”

  Orlu only nodded, looking at the ground.

  “I’m glad you brought him with.” She paused, narrowing her eyes at Sunny. “My husband has spoken of you. Can you read the Nsibidi book he sold you yet?”

  Sunny nodded.

  “I like your hair comb,” she said, grinning.

  “Thanks.”

  “Now, you know I can’t do a divination reading for you without you having something to give, right?”

  “Oh,” Sunny said. She reached into her pocket. “Of course. I don’t have much but . . .”

  “No, no, no, not chittim, not even your Lamb money,” she said. “I want a story . . . one from Anyanwu.”

  “Huh?”

  “I have heard of Anyanwu, that she may not be a good teller of stories, but she has good stories to tell.”

  “I . . .” Sunny looked at Orlu and then at Bola.

  Bola gasped and said, “Oh. I see it now.”

  Sunny nodded. “Something happened to me.” She felt her face flush hot, her eyes filling with tears. “I feel lost.”

  “You are,” Bola said, growing very solemn. “How long have you been like . . . this?”

  “Two days,” Sunny said, her vision blurring from the tears. When she blinked, she saw that Bola was staring hard at her.

  “But . . . it should have killed you,” Bola said, her eyes wide.

  “What are you talking about?” Orlu asked.

  “My spirit face,” Sunny said. “She’s gone. I can’t call her up! That’s why I couldn’t cross into Leopard Knocks on Thursday. That night, I tried working even a small juju and couldn’t! And Anyanwu is gone and . . .”

  The shock on Orlu’s face was so much that Sunny stopped talking.

  “All this time?” Orlu asked. “Since Thursday? You haven’t had a spirit face?”

  “Tell me what caused it,” Bola said.

  When Sunny told her all about the river beast, what she’d seen, and the bead hitting her in the face, Bola said, “This explains the oil spills in the delta.”

  Sunny nodded. “Ekwensu.”

  “We all sensed Mami Wata’s fury yesterday morning,” Bola said. “Yeeee, there is work to do, o.” She sighed deeply and shook her head, looking troubled, and then looked up at Sunny. “Keep talking. Spit it all out.” Sunny told her the details about her battle with the djinn in the basement and her previous encounter with the lake beast.

  “Kai!” Bola exclaimed, clapping her hands to enunciate her outrage, when Sunny finished. She got up and paced back and forth. “This is something new. This is something new, o.” She started speaking in rapid Yoruba to herself.

  Sunny felt Orlu’s gaze burning a hole into the side of her face, but she refused to meet his gaze. She wished she’d had him stay in the waiting room.

  “Okay, okay, o,” Bola said, sitting back before Sunny. “Focus,” she whispered to herself. “There is so much.” She took a deep breath as she gazed at Sunny. Then she exhaled, pointed at Sunny, and said, “Okay. You. Sunny Nwazue. I know of this problem you have. Never witnessed a victim of it who still carried life, but I know the condition. It’s called dou
bling. It sounds like a misnomer because you have lost a part of yourself, but your spirit face is just not here. So in a sense, you’ve been doubled. Ekwensu did it to you.

  “She threw one of her beads at you. The moment it hit you—” Bola snapped her fingers loudly enough to make Sunny jump. “Anyanwu was cut from you.” Bola narrowed her eyes and tapped at her head. “Ekwensu is smart. It was the only way to distract Anyanwu enough so Ekwensu could push out of the wilderness without having to deal with Anyanwu while she was weak. But Ekwensu took a great risk, too. If you had caught that bead, you and Anyanwu could have destroyed Ekwensu right then and there. That bead was one of her iyi-uwa, her power.

  “Anyway, it’s done. She’s in the world and you have been doubled, the connection between you and Anyanwu has been ripped apart . . . but somehow you both live. Your Anyanwu is out there. I don’t know where she is.”

  Sunny felt ill. “Will she come back to me?” Sunny asked. Then she asked the question that had been nagging her since she realized Anyanwu was gone. “Even if the bond is broken, why would she leave me?” Tears welled up in her eyes again, and Orlu took her hand. “She’s gone. I don’t even feel her near. If this could kill me, why would she leave? Why . . .”

  “Anyanwu is old,” Bola said. “I know of her. All the elders, priestesses, priests, know her, Sunny. The ancient will travel; it is not for us to question. Especially with Ekwensu now probably able to occupy the mundane world and the wilderness, too.”

  “But . . .”

  “Usually, I require payment for my services,” she said. “My payment today is that you’ve shown me something I have never seen before: a living Leopard Person with no spirit face. I’d have said this was an abomination an hour ago, but you have taught me otherwise. Debt paid. Plus, I want to see what the cowries tell me about you.”

  She stood up and stretched her back. Then she brought out some cowries from her skirt pocket and moved to an open space in the room.

  “So what is it that you especially want to know, Sunny? Aside from how to find your spirit face?”