Caravan

by Dorothy Gilman

  "Missy, I hear nothing. Nothing," he repeated.

  "I didn't imagine it," I told him. "You must have fallen asleep."

  "No, Missy, Amina gave me medicine to keep eyes open. No sleep."

  We had reached stalemate. I said limply, "Well, I'm terribly glad to see you, Bakuli, and thank you for watching."

  "Amina bring food—and Isa come, see?" He turned to watch them walk toward us and his glance fell to the bowl. "Bowl not broken, Missy."

  I shrugged. "I have no ettama for that, Bakuli, the bowl will not break and no spirits will break it. And," I added, "there were jackals here in the night."

  He did not comment but he looked worried, thinking perhaps that I was halfway to madness. Isa reached us, and following a quick glance at the bowl he gave me a look in which I read triumph. Amina was kinder, she said, "Sanu da dajia, " meaning "greetings to my weariness"—and I was certainly weary after the terrors of the night. She had brought corn gruel, and once this was set down beside me Isa said, "Zô. "

  I watched them walk back to the village through the scrub and sand and nothing felt real to me anymore. When they disappeared I was engulfed by such feelings of loneliness and despair that I burst into tears. Crying hard I lay down on the warm earth and sobbed until it felt as if every emotion had been wrung out of me; I lay there, eye to eye with the stones I'd made into designs the day before; I touched the pale blue one—it was hot from the sun—and picked it up to examine more closely, finding it as smooth as glass. I wondered if the winds had polished it or the sands, or both. Sitting up I leaned back against the post, calmer now, still holding the pale blue stone. Sunlight filtered through the acacia leaves, touching my left cheek, and I sighed. Utterly drained now of rebellion I gave myself up to whatever must happen; half a day and a long night had passed, and once this was repeated I would be untied but the bowl would not have broken.

  I looked for the green stone, and then the brown one, seeing how differently they had been worn by time; some of them had lines and rough edges, others were smooth, like jewels, really. Earth gems, I thought. As the sun rose higher in the sky the spider returned, passing me by, and I laughed. "Gizo-gizo, " I called after him.

  Soon, dropping the stones, I simply sat and looked at them, feeling the warming earth beneath me, the great space of blue sky over me, and as I sat there, letting go of all but the moment, something in my mind shifted, clicked, and like a switch turned off all thought. I found myself looking at the clay bowl and seeing it—really seeing it— with a feeling of unshakable serenity and sureness that was neither concentration nor meditation. A strange power was being released, I could feel it, and it was flowing effortlessly from me to a clay bowl that no longer had a name or a use but was a shape of great beauty, fashioned out of the earth and vibrant with earth colors.... My mind stood as still as the caught-breath silence before a storm: time no longer existed and for a succession of moments or hours this circular shape and I were linked together by a communication that softly deepened into communion—and then abruptly the storm broke. Like a tidal wave all my thoughts and anxieties swept back into my head again, the shape was only a drab bowl and I was literally earthbound. It was over.

  But not quite: the bowl had broken open and lay in shards on the ground.

  I stared at it, bewildered. No spirit had done this, I was sure of that, but neither could I say that I had done it— certainly not consciously—yet no hand had touched it, the earth had not shaken and I remained alone. The bowl was shattered but of much more importance to me just then was what had taken place inside of me. Something new and unknown had shown itself—but what?—and when I'd stopped struggling—was this important?—an inexplicable power had been tapped.

  I sat very still and thoughtful, stirred by this, awed by it.

  This, I thought, is real iko. And it is in me. In all of us, I thought, not yet realized.

  Then I remembered the enaden's performance at the feast before we crossed the Tassili n' Ajjer, and how they'd held red-hot irons to their bodies without being burned or scarred, and I wondered if this was their secret. I wondered many things, I was flooded with startling new considerations. I thought of the mysterious events of the night and of how Isa's face had betrayed his hope that I would not survive this test from the spirits of the shrine, and I wondered if he knew better than I the power I'd just met with—this was a humbling thought—and had tried to use it on me. Looked at from this perspective—upside down, so to speak—certain events acquired a crazy logic. There had been those dreadful shadows and cries in the darkness when Bakuli had insisted no human or animal had been near me. I wondered if they could have come from Isa's mind, projected with just such a power into mine. I remembered what had happened to me at the hill of rocks near Abalessa— really there was no end to this now—and I knew that I could accept that too, it had been a beginning.

  I had met with no spirits here but I had met with my self. And with iko.

  When they came bringing food Amina saw this at once, and I think Isa did, too. He might say—as he did—that the spirits of the shrine had forgiven me and had spoken, shattering the bowl, but his eyes were thoughtful when they met mine and there was no mockery in them now.

  As for me, I had been given a glimpse of what I would call Mind Magic for want of a better word, not aware yet, for I was young, that in obscure corners of the world there were others—saints, mystics, psychics, fakirs, healers, even charlatans—who already knew of this.

  12

  I had pleased Bakuli, whose eyes were shining with pride—my family, I thought, and smiled back at him, and then I was untied and free to leave the shrine, which I frankly did not care to see ever again. Scarcely capable of walking I was helped back to the compound by Amina and Bakuli, leaving behind a crowd of excited villagers staring at the broken bowl.

  I had pleased Amina, too. Once back in the hut she began a long and animated conversation with Bakuli, whose gift for languages both Amina and 1 depended on heavily. At the end of this Bakuli told me solemnly, "Amina say 'Bako yanâ dû kibâ'—the stranger has strength. She make good medicine, Missy. She know charms, spells, medicine to heal. She say you have good iko so you be good to teach such. She want to teach thee."

  This sounded a better exercise for my thoughts than the work in the fields and the water carrying that I'd been doing, and I agreed at once. I was curious, too, remembering how ill I'd been when I reached this village, and how Amina had quite possibly saved my life with her medicines and her care.

  In this way I became attached to Amina as her apprentice and all during the season of the cold and windy hüntürü she taught me her medicines, beginning first with the incantations spoken over each herb to give them power. These I learned by rote, but even knowing the little I did of Hausa I could make absolutely no sense of their meanings so that I came to believe what Bakuli had told me earlier, that the power attributed to them by Amina lay in their sound, and certainly the sounds covered a variety of octaves. Each incantation that I faithfully memorized began with an appeal to the collective spirits called the 'iskoki—this much was clear to me—but what followed would remain forever gibberish to my ear. In any case, between the incantations and the medicines, Amina cured Shehu's baby son of fever and a rash, and during the cold and dust of the hüntüru even Isa was among those who came to Amina with bad coughs that she eased.

  She taught me to work, with leather, too, which was more important to her than I'd realized, for living in such barren thorn country she had to acquire many of her herbs by trade with others. It was community work to slaughter the goats and tan their hides, but a portion of the skins were Amina's to dress and decorate. Dressing the leather was as hard as hoeing in the fields: using the brains of the goat I would rub the skins hard and then rub them again and again with damp sand. Next, with knife and awl and a polishing stone Amina would begin her work of cutting, dyeing and fringing, making really handsome leather bracelets, sandals and belts that she would trade when an Arab merchan
t, such as the one who saved Bakuli and me, stopped outside the village with his camels or donkeys and his trading goods.

  If I had expected great changes in me from my experience at the sacred shrine I was to be disappointed; I was both too young and impatient for the solitude that was obviously needed to court its recurrence, and soon enough I found it difficult to believe that it had happened at all.... The medicines became of more interest to me, although due to the gaps in my Hausa it was Bakuli who often had to translate for Amina when his own work was done.

  One evening when Amina was showing and naming her various herbs to us, Bakuli took particular interest in a pouch of small red seeds, in fact I heard him draw in his breath sharply at sight of them.

  "Where you get these?" he asked Amina, and then, fumbling for Hausa words, "Yaya—how? Iná—where?"

  They came from far away, Amina told him, and she had bought them with her leather goods from a traveling merchant.

  Bakuli nodded. "They be from my country," he said. "Zambezi country! They be no busungu—poisonous, ee?" Since he'd slipped into Bemba for this, only I knew what he was saying, and while he went through a pantomime with Amina, clutching his throat and rolling his eyes, I picked out a few seeds and examined them.

  Bakuli turned to me. "You swallow like that, no harm. You crush and—Kai! you die fast and nobody know how. Nobody."

  We both looked questioningly at Amina, who only shrugged and moved to open the next pouch. Bakuli and I exchanged glances; he grinned, nodding yes to my unspoken question, and moved in front of me to hide what I did next, for I helped myself to more of the red seeds and dropped a handful of them into the pocket of my barracan.

  We had just acquired our first defense against harm, and during the next weeks I would add to our cache.

  Now my worldly belongings consisted of two finger puppets—two now, for I had given Isabelle to Shehu as a gift—a silver Hand of Fatima, a new headscarf, the curious stone I'd taken from the hill of rocks near Abalessa, my compass, and a collection of hard red seeds. So much had I changed that it felt like wealth to me, for not so long ago I had possessed much less and had come near to losing even that. My head might be shorn of hair to preserve me from lice and my clothes be in tatters, I might be lean as a boy and dark as an Arab, unrecognizable to anyone in Boston or Tripoli, but I was still alive and so was Bakuli.

  Wealth was strictly relative; I would remember this.

  And so I grew more settled, for it was not an unhappy village in which to live. Despite its strange customs and trials, there was no underlying melancholy such as I'd sensed among the Tuareg. I might feel captive but it was not by them, having been delivered to the village half-dead. Amina would often sing as she worked—I liked this—and if she resented her husband taking a new young wife, I would frequently see her and Halma gossiping and laughing together.

  There was this too: the next time the drums beat I did not flee. It was to be a wasá. Amina told me, and what this meant I didn't understand, but I knew that an Arab trader was camped outside the walls that night, and with him was a handsome young man who had been made much of by the villagers that afternoon. He was a Hausa from the South, and a Muslim, for I had seen him pray at sundown. The young unmarried girls had teased and flirted with him, being much impressed. Amina said he was also a dan tauri and this was the reason for the wasâ, which would be something to see.

  And see it I did.

  It took place under the stars, which pleased me, and the firelight made a garden of color out of the bright head kerchiefs and shirts and tunics surrounding it. Only the performer, the young Hausa named Akulu, was bare-chested, and what came first was what Amina called Praise-Singing, which sounded like a poem to me as Akulu chanted it to the chief: The drum drums health, The drum drums wealth. He takes his wife six hundred thousand cowries.... The drum drums health, the drum drums wealth. He takes his son six hundred thousand cowries.... The drum drums health, The drum drums wealth.. . .

  After this the drums began. Four of the villagers had calabashes which they beat with their hands, and five of them had proper drums made of hide stretched taut across wood and beaten with sticks; these were of varied size so that their kadë-kadê spoke with different voices. The drummers began casually, almost idly until they found a rhythm, and as they developed it the villagers began clapping their hands to the beat. There came a shout and Shehu moved out of the circle, clapping his hands high over his head; Amina joined him, and then Halma and Bakuli and Kadiri and Isa, and soon everyone was dancing to the music, clapping, moving, laughing, swaying. Except for me, but I sat quietly and watched, seeing the most ecstatic of them all to be the strange Hausa who twirled and leaped with something like real joy.

  This Hausa who was a dan tauri.

  An hour later when the drumming and the dancing stopped I would learn what dan tauri was and I would again be puzzled and moved, for this man Akulu knew the same secrets as the enaden. What a performer he was! He sat first on the earth, cross-legged. Drawing out a knife he grasped a stick and with a flick of his wrist he sliced the stick in two, showing us how sharp the knife was, and then—stripped to the waist as he was—he drew the knife across his bare chest and it left no cut behind it. This was only his introduction, however. He next stood up and Isa handed him a long knife that he himself had sharpened. Akulu accepted it with a smile and a bow, and this time he drew the knife very slowly across his body, and deeply enough to leave a visible cut behind it, and even I could see there was no bleeding. What's more, even as we watched— what a shout went up at this!—the cut we had seen healed itself and disappeared, leaving no sign.

  This left me gasping, for here was no carnival trick; once again I had witnessed Mind Magic and it was real.

  "Inà?" I demanded of Amina later, asking how Akulu could have done this.

  To Amina the answer was very simple: a magic charm had made Akulu invulnerable.

  "What charm? Me charm?" I asked.

  Amina did not know what charm, she said, it was a charm that only the 'yan tauri knew.

  This truly excited me for I knew it could be no charm. The man had not gone into a trance, of this I was certain; the music and dancing might have contributed but there had to be more. I sensed a kinship here with what I'd experienced at the sacred spirit shrine, a use of exceptional energies that few people knew existed, a power buried deep and waiting to be disinterred. By what convolutions of thought and command this had been done I couldn't guess, but Akulu, I decided, must somehow have told his body that it would not bleed and that no knife could harm it, and his body had listened.... But how had he spoken to his body, I wondered, or was it perhaps not his body at all that had heard him?

  This occupied my mind for several days and then, being youthful and careless, I put it aside to think about another day.

  And so the weeks went by, the season of the hünturu ended, the dry months passed and the time of planting neared. The grain silos were almost empty now, food was scarce and the skies were watched for signs of rain. Sacrifices were made at the shrines, the blood of animals offered as libation, and clay pots made and presented to the spirits as gifts. Prayers were said and Isa's divining board was busy again. A wizened old man with a lined black face was carried out of his hut to sit each day under one of the acacia trees beyond the gate. Bakuli said he was the village rainmaker, not because he made rain but because for all of his life he'd studied the sky, the clouds, the winds, the sun and the moon; he knew which clouds would bring rain and where it would fall, and which clouds were barren. His name was Funtua and he was old, very old, Bakuli told me solemnly. I was curious and nearly every day managed to find a minute and go out to watch him. When I said, "Sanu da aike, Funtua," he would regard me with amusement and say gravely, "Sanu du rana, bako. " I felt a great gentleness in him that soothed me, and once or twice I lingered, joining him and the boy who kept him company, and we would watch the sky together.

  One day he grunted and lifted a hand to point northward, to
the desert.

  "Mené né?" I asked.

  "Ruwa. "

  Far away to the northeast I saw the flat unbroken line of the horizon and just above it an equally unbroken line of silver that was slowly descending over it like a gauze curtain. A moment later the horizon was obscured.

  "Ruwa, " he said again, nodding.

  The boy left, excited, shouting, and soon half the village was at Funtua's side waiting for his conclusions, but when he spoke there were groans.

  "What did he say?" I asked Bakuli.

  "He say 'ruwa yâ yi gyârâ, ' the rain does good—but not here."

  "Surely it will come south?"

  Bakuli shook his head. "He say it go—" He pointed to the east. "Not here."

  Funtua was right, the rain did not move south to us and the watch was resumed.

  It was the next afternoon when Bakuli caught up with me as I left the village to fill both of Amina's buckets at the well. Usually I went later, with the other women, but who can guess the workings of fate? Amina had been sleeping and cooking at her husband's house for two days and the buckets were empty, whereas Bakuli had just carried a newly made hoe to Isa's compound and saw me leaving the village by the side gate. Together we moved off diagonally across the hardened dry earth toward the wells near the riverbed. It had been a long time since we'd been alone and we chattered away like magpies. Bakuli showed me his hands—"Very good now, Missy, Bakuli make good smitt now"—and I told him the gossip about Isa's daughter refusing to marry the man chosen for her. Having captured a few minutes for ourselves, we left the buckets next to the well and jumped down into the dry riverbed, walked across it and climbed up its high opposite bank. Here we heard shouting, and looking back I saw it was the boy who sat with Funtua by the main gate: he was waving and calling to us. We waved back and resumed our walk until we reached the next dried-up riverbed, one of the many that seamed the area.

  It was then that we heard it. "Thunder?" I said, puzzled and turning to Bakuli.