“Do you have any words of wisdom?” Cinnamon said. “What should we be doing?”
“Hell if I know,” Redwood said. “All we had was fantasy…”
“Who’s cutting the fool now?” Aidan chuckled. Iris did too. It wasn’t funny.
The orca slipped off the kitchen island and spewed out The Chronicles.
Iris picked up the heavy tome. “A new chapter has appeared, beyond ‘River Pirates.’”
Aidan squinted at tiny handwriting. “Wanderer wants us to read nineteen together.”
“It’s too late.” Klaus struggled up from the collapsed cushions. “I must go home.”
“Me too.” Marie jumped beside him. “I have homework I better ace or else.”
“Or else what?” Professor Iris said.
“My parents want a doctor in the house, not another worthless, starving artist.” Marie rolled her eyes. “Roaming the streets with a tin cup would be such a waste.”
“Owa,” Klaus said.
“Like your sister?” Cinnamon spied a sleek version of Marie hugging the toilet bowl.
“How do you know about her? Did I tell you —”
“I feel her on you,” Cinnamon said.
Marie shrugged. “You and Klaus have real issues.”
Bullshit. Quit fronting. Sekou wavered in front of her.
“No, it’s not a big deal.” Marie insisted.
I’m on to you, sugar.
Marie glared at a ghost who was hardly there. “My parents don’t get it, Sekou. I love science, so why am I singing Whitney Houston, Madonna, and Prince? Mega parent angst — what if I cut my hair like Salt-N-Pepa? What if I’m not smart enough for the real world?” Cinnamon and Klaus snorted. “If I get a B in Algebra, can I be a doctor?”
Sekou came in brighter. Algebra comes from al-jabr as in Kitab al-jabr wa’l-muqabalah, The Book of Restoring and Balancing by Al-Khwārizmī, a Persian mathematician.
“What’s with the drive-by shootings, dictionary boy?” Marie said.
Writing recipes for the unknown as a function of the known, you’re all over that. Logic and patterns. Sekou was gone before the s had faded.
The elders didn’t say if they saw/heard Sekou or not. They hit the other problems. Marie had no real difficulty solving math mysteries. Unreasonable expectations and poor sentence structure in the crappy textbook sapped her confidence. Figuring out the logic trick without second guessing herself was key.
“Is this cheating?” Marie asked.
“You’re doing the work,” Professor Iris declared.
Aidan was a conjure man with his banjo. He played music from Title Under Construction, and in no time Klaus could sing his part regardless of the wild harmonies they threw at him. Redwood hoodooed the phone with her storm hand and called the Masudas. Mrs. Masuda, despite not wanting her daughter to run away to the theatre, was thrilled to talk to a silent movie star. Redwood worked her mojo on Vati too. He was expansive and invited everyone over for dinner, Saturday in two weeks.
Klaus drew a finger across his neck, as if slitting his throat.
“We’ll protect you,” Marie whispered, full of Algebra and Glamazon bravado.
Cinnamon picked up the receiver. The line was dead.
Redwood clasped Marie’s hand. “Cinnamon tells me you’re a great actress.”
Surprise darted across Marie’s face. “You told her that?”
“Feel your hand now,” Redwood said. “Feel every bit of you while you’re at it.”
“That’s a theatre game,” Klaus said, “feeling self with self.”
“Right.” Marie closed her eyes to do this. “I got this. Wow.”
“Believe in how you feel right now.” Redwood let Marie’s hand go.
Concentrating, Marie strained her muscles.
“Relax.” Redwood stroked away tension. “If sparks start to fly, act like ain’t nothing happening. You two practice this too.”
Cinnamon and Klaus were already doing it.
“Now feel your power together.”
They opened their eyes, clutched hands, and touched their heads together.
“What you call yourselves? Mad Squad?”
“Mod Squad,” they said in unison. “How did you —”
“A conjure woman can hear underneath things.” Aidan lifted the violet orchid from the altar and held it in the center of their circle. Close up, the flower seemed fresh, alive. “Miz Garnett left this flower on my busted rocking chair.” Aidan leaned over Cinnamon. A shadow fell across his face. He looked older than grizzly hills at sunset. “I’ll take you to see Raven tomorrow, if you still want to go.”
Pain darted through the room, zapping everybody, worse than the sparks from Marie’s fingers. Miz Redwood lifted her eyes to the thunderbird shadow flying over the kitchen island. Klaus and Marie held their breath and squeezed closer.
Klaus hummed Aidan’s song:
I see the light, a right bright ole light
A light at the end of the tunnel
It ain’t the train, ’bout to run you down
It ain’t the train, so don’t turn around
It’s the break of a brand new day, hey!
“It’s an Ohrwurm, a worm stuck in my ear, sorry,” Klaus said.
“Sure, I’ll go see Daddy,” Cinnamon mumbled.
“Ohrwurm,” Aidan said with a Georgia drawl. “Yeah.” He pointed the orchid at Redwood and Iris. “Nobody else want to go with me. They got their reasons. I understand, but —”
“I said sure, didn’t I?” Cinnamon shouted.
“All right then.” Aidan nodded at everyone, light back in his spirit. He pressed the orchid into the middle of his journal pages. “Let’s get to the tales of the great Wanderer. See what them Dahomey folks got in store for us tonight.”
“Yoruba has one pronoun, oun, for he and she.” Iris smoothed down a folded corner on the new Chronicles pages. “The Wanderer is oun.” She put plaid glasses on her nose and read The Chronicles out loud. Nineteen was her favorite prime number.
CHRONICLES 19: Carnival Visions
All versions of Paris converge on one ending. I was sprawled on the dock in hot starlight, uncertain of truth, of a path to take; Abla floated in the Seine, yelling:
“Kehinde is a coward who betrays everyone. She sent Ekundayo, a woman who trusted and loved her, to face guns with no protection. Now you wear Oshun’s comb, a desecrated trinket. Bob has terrible secrets too. He will betray and abandon you! Wanderers and warriors should disdain sentiment. Love is folly.”
I closed my eyes on Abla’s torment and dreamt. Kehinde and Bob wrestled, half naked on the war god’s field. The iron lady was referee. They wore short skirts with beads at their waists and throats. Bob’s hair was as red as flame-tree foliage. Inky, iridescent splotches dribbled across his face and arms and down his chest and legs. He was the Spotted Man in full light. Kehinde’s deep purple lips curled over knife-sharp teeth. Her nipples were also dark violet. A red feather was tucked in the crown of her braids, for Eshu. She was La Femme Sauvage, warrior ahosi stolen from herself, feeling nothing. They lunged at each other. Lightning arced from black clouds and lit up their bodies. Bob pinned Kehinde’s shoulders; she wrapped muscular thighs around his head. A ghostly ringmaster smacked a fiery whip against their ribs. Sparks got caught in tight ringlets of hair. Silver smoke snaked around rippling muscles. Bob and Kehinde broke apart and circled each other.
The Champ de Mars hosted a dime museum carnival. The field was jammed with giant warriors, tiny cannibals, men with piebald skin, broad-chested dwarfs, two-headed amazons, tree-dwelling ape people, and water women with fused legs and webbed feet. These freaks put on mock battles in between spears of lightning. Ten thousand spectators hung from the Eiffel Tower and shrieked. People too poor or too timid to venture far from civilization were much entertained by the regrettable but inevitable demise of noble savages and freaks.
Kehinde drew her cutlass, and Bob seized a bayonet. The crowd roared and tossed metal a
nd paper offerings for a fight to the death. Kehinde and Bob scrambled to scoop up the tribute, slashing at each other. Ribbons of blood decorated their bodies. I screamed at them to stop. The aje roared fire. Clouds burst and smothered the aje’s breath with water crystals. A snow horse charged out of collapsing clouds and zigzagged down a white hot bolt. Iron hooves stomped other acrobatic freaks to pulp, and the mob applauded. Kehinde and Bob were the last ones standing. The horse charged them. Shouting, waving my arms, I lunged into its path, not as aje, but as my Taiwo-self. The horse slammed into my chest and shattered. Kehinde held a cutlass to Bob’s neck. He had a dagger at her heart. I choked on balls of hail.
“We can’t give up,” Kehinde shouted in English.
“Of course not,” Bob replied. “We sacrifice for Taiwo.”
The dream dissolved. Crusty eyes parted —
Night had fallen at the water’s edge. The last glow of the home star turned a few clouds the color of bruises. La Seine reeked. My arm dangled in refuse. I was thirsty and achy, but illness had left me. I stood up and fell on my face. The fever had taken the strength of my muscles when it departed.
“Taiwo must be here, somewhere,” Kehinde said nearby.
I scanned the docks. A tiny man held a lantern at a giant’s thigh. A bearded woman with thick hair covering her arms poked into broken crates. A two-headed man (fused twins?) on a white horse looked backwards and forwards. I blinked, hoping to banish phantoms. The dream had been fluid, an edited spectacle. What I saw now was disjointed and random. A young girl, sleek as a fish, pulled herself from La Seine as a two-headed woman marched up the boardwalk with a lantern in each of three hands. A fourth hand held a leash on a long-eared dog who sniffed the air. The water woman shook stringy hair and sprayed droplets of slime about.
“Watch it!” A soprano and an alto shouted as a lantern sputtered. Not identical twins.
“It’s too dark to find anything down here except trouble.” The water woman scratched the dog’s ears. “Isn’t that right, Floppy?”
“Eshu taunts us.” Kehinde’s voice again. I could finally see her.
“Sorry, Ma’am. I don’t like saying this.” The piebald man wagged his head. “Anything could have happened to your friend.”
“Taiwo is near.” Kehinde held up Oshun’s comb. It had fallen from my braids.
My throat was too constricted for sounds. Shadows concealed my presence. How would they ever find me? I crawled toward Kehinde. Foul-smelling containers blocked a direct path. I dragged myself around obstacles and across the filthy road. Time dragged also. Kehinde conferred with the piebald man and furry woman. Floppy licked my face, slapped a bushy tale against my ribs, and barked at the alto.
“Is that you?” Bright eyes and white teeth in two dark moon faces smiled. “We come out here in the middle of the night to rescue you and here you’ve found us.”
I rolled into Kehinde. Clutching her thighs, I pulled myself to standing and fell into the circle of her arms. She offered a flask from her belt. I sucked down the sour brew then whispered, “I worried that you, Bob, and everybody were gone upriver to the Lady Atlantic, and I’d never see you again.”
“Why would I abandon you?” Kehinde hugged me.
“You’ve abandoned others.” I drenched her shoulders with forbidden tears.
“That isn’t our fate.” She poured libation to the master of uncertainty. “I praise Eshu, the wonder-worker who makes a whistle from the head of a serpent and calls you to us.” She stroked my damp face and put Oshun’s comb in my hair. “Eshu offers only the challenges we can meet.” We tasted lips and tongues too briefly.
“I’m no longer ill. The fever has fled. I can walk, if you let me lean on you.”
“What foolishness!” She had hired a coach to carry me back to Montparnasse. “Raymond throws a party to celebrate our voyage tomorrow.”
A horseman rode ahead to spread the good news. The coachmen eyed my soiled, raggedy clothes and wrinkled his nose, yet refrained from putting up a fuss. The ride to Montparnasse was longer than I remembered. When we stumbled in the door, the front room was packed. Raymond had asked other giants, spectacles, and defeated ones to search for me. His colleagues (friends?) lived nearby, many in the same building he lived in. After a long day of masquerading, they had prowled the docks for hours, interrogating anyone for word of une Femme Sauvage. Now they gathered to celebrate the return of the Lightning Eater. In their versions of Paris, I had saved a whole crowd from the lethal bolts on several occasions.
“We are here because of you,” they shouted.
“I don’t recall these heroic deeds,” I stammered.
“After swallowing all that lightning, of course not.” The two-headed singer let Floppy lick me again.
Praises were shouted to Jesus and the saints, to Allah and the God of Abraham, and to Eshu and Oshun. Musicians picked up stringed instruments, drums, and flutes. Worn-out masquerades put on their dancing shoes. Trays of food floated by, filling the air with delicious anticipation. I held in a torrent of tears for Kehinde’s sake.
“You need a bath, demon,” Somso said. “What have you been wallowing in?”
People I didn’t know hauled buckets of hot water so that I might wash away the filth of my ordeal. Melinga enjoyed the luxurious warm tub with me. Kehinde plucked out splinters, rubbed my body with rough cloth and fragrant oils, and dressed me in a silky gown from the East, a cool night breeze against irritable flesh. I was too exhausted to sit up on my own. More sleep was out of the question; this party was in my honor, and I wanted no dreams. Kehinde propped me up on pillows in a cavernous chair where, as honored guest, I might watch everyone drink rum, sing, dance, and tell what they called war stories. Luigi breezed in and out, relieved that my fever had past.
“Where is Bob?” I asked. I didn’t see Liam either.
Kehinde massaged my head. “Did you really believe Bob or I would abandon you?”
I wanted to lie, so I remained silent.
“You think so little of us?” Kehinde braided my hair into tight rows. “Bob would never leave Paris without you. Neither would I!”
“Bob and Liam still search for you,” Somso said. “Kehinde sent Raymond to collect them. Otherwise they’d be out all night.”
“Bob loves you. I swore a blood oath. ” Kehinde stormed to the banquet table.
“You’re right to doubt her. Warrior life ruins a woman.” Somso tapped her feet to the drums. “All day, the child hollers for you. When you are returned to us, she sleeps quietly.” Melinga nestled in my lap, snoring under the music and loud talk.
“She changes faster every day, a dependable miracle,” I said. “Go enjoy yourself.”
Somso eyed a dark woman with a stripe of pink flesh running from forehead to neck, across a shoulder, and presumably on to the pink bare foot she tapped. Somso leaned close. “These horrors should have gotten tangled in their umbilical cords and strangled. Sane people don’t celebrate deformity or abominable twins.”
“Audiences come to see a spectacle. I don’t know if that is celebration.”
Somso grunted at me and Melinga. “The company I keep, who am I to talk?”
“Are we all monsters to you?”
Bob and Liam burst through the door, holding each other up. Raymond came behind them, a keg of spirits in his arms. Bob almost dropped Liam when he spied me. He propped the Irishman against a wall near Kehinde and stumbled close. I tasted rum in his breath as he sank to his knees and laid his head against my shoulder.
I kissed his forehead. “I’m well. You won’t need to sneak me aboard in the luggage.”
The two-headed woman sang a duet. Raymond tugged Somso’s hand. Resisting his enormous smile and the infectious music proved impossible. Somso stomped into the center of the dancers. Kehinde scowled at me from the banquet table. This too, I decided, was love.
Bob clutched my thighs, breathing into my neck. He was one drink away from drunk. Another man hesitated in the doorway. His stringy black
and grey hair was braided into a heavy rope down his back. He wore clothes for celebration. A smile overtook his face. I recognized him.
“He was on the docks this morning,” I said to Bob. “He didn’t betray me to Luigi. I owe him thanks.”
Bob waved at him. “Ghost Dog was the alternate plan.”
“I don’t understand.” I nodded to Ghost Dog who returned the gesture.
Liam was several drinks beyond drunk. “Gentlemen and fair ladies!” He cracked an imaginary whip. The guests grew quiet. “Here is the Ghost Dog, a full blood Oglala Sioux Indian from the Wild Wild West, further west and more wild than Chicago!” He drew Ghost Dog into the room. “This rough riding, hard shooting, fearless brave will join our august company as we traverse the seas heading for the New World. Captain Signor Luigi is eternally grateful to Ghost Dog for foiling dastardly River Pirates who tried to cheat him out of the profits Les Femme Sauvages made for him. As reward, Luigi offers Ghost Dog a berth aboard La Vérité and moments of glory on the Chicago stage.” Liam pulled off a boot. “Luigi, God bless him, is about as Italian as my big toe.” He wiggled it. The crowd howled.
“Why is this funny?” I said.
“Luigi is Walter Williams, late of Toronto, Ontario.” Bob leaned against my legs. “He changed his name to spare the family. Luigi has more show business flair.”
“Ole Walt could lie the sweet out of sugar and sell his mother’s bones to the devil.” Liam sniggered over Bob. “Why’d you change your name, Bobbie boy? Didn’t want to be Bamidele, the Spotted Man from that lost tribe in Abyssinia, anymore? Tired of cooning so now you’re the happy shepherd to wild beasties?” Bob shoved Liam away.
“You were a masquerade in a freak show?” Abla was right about Bob’s terrible secrets. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“He did private shows too.” Liam leered at him. “For lusty ladies and gents.”
“Shut your ugly mug,” Bob said.
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