Up on the boulder, Aminah searched for faces from Botu. The group was unfamiliar. Suddenly, their captors whipped them and shouted at them to move. Aminah didn’t understand the language, but the word “Babatu” was repeated. It was a name she’d heard in Botu, a man who was feared by the people of the caravans. If these ruthless horsemen were also afraid of him, he had to be a terrifying person. As that group left, any hope she had harbored dwindled.
Their horsemen led them to a patch of bald rock and one of them approached three women sitting behind large pots. Aminah couldn’t see what was in them, but she had sat behind enough pots to know the thick, gurgling sound of boiling porridge. The horseman returned and, with his accomplices, divided the captives into smaller groups and sat them before oval troughs smeared with the muddy dregs of the previous group’s leftover porridge. The women slopped the thick porridge into the troughs and the hollows steamed. Aminah cupped her hand to scoop the scalding gruel, blew on it, and led it to Issa’s lips. He shook his head and pinched his lips shut tight. No matter how much she begged him, he wouldn’t eat. The sight of the skin puckering above his lips began to annoy her. She felt a strong urge to slap him. Hassana swallowed a handful of porridge and twisted her face but kept eating. Finally, Aminah ate what Issa rejected. The millet porridge was sour, with no sweetness. After eating, they were led to larger holes, where water had collected, and from that they quenched their thirst. For the first time, Aminah’s mind and body had pause. Something about having a full stomach calmed her. She thought of Baba and Na, wondering what had become of them. She had left things incomplete with her mother. And then she hadn’t called her out of the room. How would she ever right that?
When the horsemen said it was time to go, Aminah got up, feeling full. Not satisfied, like after a good meal, but her body had more energy to keep going. Then down the hill they went. Below them spread groves of trees nestled in lush green grass. It was never this green in Botu, where Aminah wished she could return, and strangely, the sentiment of loss and nostalgia made her hope the big water would come soon. She didn’t know what future it held, but she just wanted to stop walking.
Issa fell. He didn’t trip or stumble. His body was sucked down, as if called by the earth. His skeletal form stacked itself against the gray metallic sheen of the rock. Aminah stared at the way his bony legs had crisscrossed, as if someone had delicately arranged him into a neat pile. It was Hassana who got down and tried to revive him. When they realized Aminah and Hassana were stalling, a horseman and porter raced over, shouting. As they drew closer, they saw what had happened. The horseman muttered and dismounted. He peeled Hassana off Issa and picked him up as if he were a bird. They carried him, then flung him over the rock. Above the rock, the circling vultures. Vultures were attracted to death. Aminah imagined below them was a cemetery of people like Issa who hadn’t found the strength to go on. She pictured skeletons stacked on skeletons or flesh on skeletons, in Issa’s case. Suddenly cold and afraid, she took Hassana’s hand, small and dry, and tried to think of something to say to comfort her sister, but more to comfort herself. She felt the heaviness of her tongue. She swallowed several times, before words could come out.
“Maybe this is better for him,” she said. “He was so weak.”
“I hope he comes back as spirit walker to haunt these people,” said Hassana, snatching her hand away to wipe her face, wet with tears.
When they left the rocky place, dying began to seem an attractive option. Running away was too costly; Aminah was so disoriented she didn’t know which way home was, and she could fall into a worse situation. The name Babatu was frightening, if even these horsemen were afraid. And how would she do it? Die? Swallow a poisonous bark? But she looked at Hassana and blocked her thoughts. They needed each other.
* * *
—
They arrived at a body of water, wide and unending. A gull flew down, settled on its glassy surface and glided away within minutes. Was this the big water? A porter waded ahead with a long stick and a horseman followed. The water reached the porter’s shins, and the more he walked, poking the water with the stick, the higher it rose. When the water was level with his chest he waved at the horseman and changed direction. There, the water reached his neck, so he went back to his original path. She watched with wonder and anxiety; presumably they would have to do as the porter did.
The horseman beckoned everyone over. Some immediately splashed into the water while others tarried, and this caused a wave of confusion. Hassana and Aminah were pulled into the water. A girl panicked. She would only be shin-deep if she stood. She floundered and kicked and swallowed water. A horseman cantered over and whacked at them all, until even the struggling girl stood up. A foolish grin spread on her face when she realized the water was still shallow. The man next to her held her right hand, Hassana took her left, and they waded deeper. The girl grew agitated again towards the middle, where the water was as high as their necks. She went under, dragging Hassana down with her, and came up gasping as she pushed Hassana down. The girl was sucked down again, but Hassana still hadn’t come up. The man and Aminah hauled them up and unwrapped the girl from Hassana, who wriggled free and desperately gulped air. When she recovered, she smacked the girl’s face. The man pulled the girl away, and Aminah grabbed Hassana. For the rest of the crossing, the man carried the girl.
The water eventually came to an end. From what they had heard earlier, the big water had no beginning and no end. And they would be put on a big boat. It was not the big water. Crossing had exhausted Aminah. She wanted to yell at the horsemen, ask them why. She walked but she felt as if she wasn’t in her body anymore. She wanted the earth to call her as it had called Issa, because she was tired, because she couldn’t do it alone.
They arrived at a forest of trees with trunks like paths to a sky covered by thick leaves. They heard rustles, whistles, chirps, ribbits, trills, clucks and barks. The noises grew louder, as if the forest’s animals were closing in on them. Aminah was relieved when the forest opened up into a clearing with several rectangular huts. Women washing clothes in a small stream didn’t glance up at them. Some children came forward and ran alongside the human chain until they grew tired. Because they had arrived in broad daylight, Aminah knew these people would be spared. The people they met in the daytime always helped the horsemen.
They were funneled through a narrow path between two homes that opened up to a square, where five wide but short trees stood almost in a straight line. They were untied and led to three trees. The other two held other captives, but no Husseina. All but two horsemen went away. The woman who had mentioned the big water was tied to the same tree as Hassana and Aminah. They were in the shade, until the sun moved high in the sky and beat down on them like the anger Otienu would unleash if a woman offered him a sacrifice. Just as suddenly, rain clouds gathered and burst open on them, before disappearing as fast as they came. What was this place? What had they all done to be punished like this? That was the only reason Aminah could think of for their troubles. That each of them had wronged someone. But what about poor Issa, who never hurt any living thing? Why did he die? Was dying a way of sparing him? Was dying better than living as they were? This was not a life. Not a destiny.
The weather cooled, the sun began its descent, and the square filled up. Men came in and out of the huts that lined the square and studied the new arrivals tied to the trees. They whispered to the horsemen.
That afternoon, several of the captives were unshackled and went with some of the men who had come out of the huts earlier. They never came back. Aminah told Hassana to hold her hand and not let go.
Evening fell. Hassana and Aminah relaxed their grip when no one else came. Mosquitoes feasted on them. Two women brought them leaves with some kind of sweet yellow tuo and stew, and that meal tasted like the best thing Aminah had ever eaten.
“Ah!” exclaimed the big-water woman. Aminah almost jumped out of her skin, thinkin
g some animal had climbed onto her neighbor’s body.
“I’m bleeding. I usually know when it will start, but these people have affected my timing, everything.”
She cupped her fingers and then dug her nails into the soil near the tree’s exposed root. When the hole was as wide as her palm and deep enough to fit her whole hand, she sat over it and lifted her wrapper. Aminah hoped her own blood would stay inside her, for as long as it needed to. She didn’t want to be walking around with blood running down her legs.
That night, she slept better than she had in a long time.
“I didn’t sleep,” said Hassana the next day. “I heard animals howling and creeping closer.” She’d pictured the animals coming to maul everyone as they slept, and had kept watch.
A short man with a white-and-black cloth thrown over his left shoulder came with one of the horsemen. The horseman whipped Aminah, ordering her to stand. She grabbed Hassana’s hand and the two of them scrambled up. The men studied them and said something to the horseman. They left and went to the other trees. The short man returned. He came and went three times, and Aminah could see the horseman shuffling his feet back and forth, losing patience. Hassana clawed Aminah’s palms, and Aminah prayed and prayed to Otienu.
“These two,” said the short man in Hausa, pointing to Hassana and Aminah.
The horseman patted the man on the back and they went into one of the houses on the square. Eventually, Hassana and Aminah were untied from the tree and led away by the short man. Aminah wished, then, that she were Husseina, able to share dreams with Hassana to hatch a plan to escape.
A donkey and cart were tied to a tree.
“Get on,” said the man. “Not far from here.”
Aminah climbed up and then helped Hassana. They sat on a jute sack, next to a white ewe and the forest closed in on them as they rode away.
Wurche
A week after she was married, her father and his soldiers, backed by the Dagbon army, galloped to Salaga–Kpembe to declare war. Wurche was not allowed to leave the compound, not with her father’s enemies at large. The old women of Dagbon, who were trying to plump her up in preparation for childbearing, were adamant about keeping her cloistered. She swallowed the large chunks of beef without telling them that her body never put on weight. A week after the war started, a messenger was sent to summon Mma, Wurche and the rest of the family back to Kpembe. Wurche was glad to be out in the open and back on her horse, but what she saw in Salaga saddened her. Houses had crumbled to ash. Walls were pocked with bullet holes. The soup that was Salaga was reduced to bones and char. Etuto had won the war, but the prize they’d been fighting for had lost its shine.
“Wo yo!” said Mma behind Wurche.
Wurche kicked her shins against Baki’s flank and the horse shot off. Mma shrieked and grabbed Wurche’s waist. They flew by the main Salaga market, the Lampour mosque, the smaller market, her teacher Jaji’s quarters, and galloped up the road to Kpembe. All the months of doing nothing, of being bullied and force-fed, were crystallized into the rush of fear washing over her.
Mma’s crossed arms pressed into Wurche’s belly as she screamed that Wurche had lost her mind.
When they got to the top of the hill, fifteen minutes later, Wurche’s fears were not assuaged. The palace was, surprisingly, still whole, but its people were not. Several men loitered about the courtyard, some of them limping, others cleaning their guns. Two men were examining an arrow sticking out of another man’s shoulder. Only when she saw her brothers did she calm down. She reined Baki in and Mma scrambled down. The old lady bent over, gasping, holding her chest as if she were about to keel over and die. Dramani rushed to her, and she grabbed his face to make sure he was real. Then she pressed him to her chest. Wurche went to Sulemana, who hadn’t picked himself up to greet them. His face was contorted in pain. His leg, raised on a pouf, was gashed open. She touched the skin around the wound.
“Gun, knife or arrow?” she asked. Sulemana winced and brushed her hand aside.
“Arrow.”
“Where is Etuto?” she asked, fearing the worst.
“Celebrating,” said Dramani.
“Wo yo,” said Mma now seeing Sulemana. The old lady burst into tears and wrapped her flesh around Sulemana’s head.
Wurche asked why no one had taken care of Sulemana’s wound and he said Etuto had poured rum on it, that there were other people with worse injuries who had to be seen to. She rushed out of the palace, searching the dry grass for signs of life. Mma had showed her useful plants for curing wounds, but the dry season had already sapped life out of the bush and the war had only worsened things. She found nothing. When she went back, Mma was still in tears, clutching Sulemana, looking around at the soldiers. It was only when Wurche said he could lose his leg that the old lady let him go. She headed to her room and Wurche followed.
“A room needs to breathe or it dies,” said Mma as Wurche sneezed through the dust. “I can’t believe we’ve caused another senseless war.”
She picked up a pot filled with little bundles of herbs and a large gecko scuttled out of the way. She ransacked the pot and grunted when she found a packet wrapped in indigo. She handed a strip of cotton to Wurche and they walked back outside. Pressing the herbs together with a splash of water from the well in the courtyard, she lifted Sulemana’s leg and he grimaced as she set it on her thighs. When she began pressing the poultice to the gash, Sulemana poured out a scream so raw it silenced everyone in the compound. Etuto rushed out of his room. Adnan followed; Wurche had almost forgotten about him.
“My family!” slurred Etuto, making his way towards them. Wurche, tasked with tying the cloth around the wound, tried to dodge his rum-laced embrace, but he overpowered her. She gave in to his hug.
“You, my daughter, are the reason I am alive.” He patted her back. His eyes were sunken, drained of joy, even though he was smiling. “I won’t forget that.”
He went back to his room. She turned to face her husband. He’d come out of her room. She wondered if her brothers had assigned it to him or if he’d gone looking for it himself. She didn’t know him at all. She couldn’t anticipate the kinds of decisions he’d make. She hadn’t made the effort to find out who he was behind his mask, but something told her he was a man intent on never taking off the mask. She bent her knees ever so slightly, as a sign of respect, and went back to bandaging Sulemana’s wound.
That evening, the whole family gathered in three circles around bowls of tuo and groundnut soup. Wurche pressed for details of the war. Adnan sat in her circle, next to her. She wondered if she would ever grow used to the idea of having a husband with whom she had to do everything.
“We camped for a night just outside Salaga to do the Gangang dance,” Dramani said. “We looked like fools, but if Nafu and his men came upon us, we’d still be awake. The morning of the battle we wore leather pouches with holy inscriptions that Etuto’s mallam had supplied, and charms we soaked in millet beer and gin. We lined our eyes with kohl and polished our boots.”
“Why kohl? To prevent dust from getting in your eyes?”
“It’s a ritual. We do it to feel confident. Nobody wants to break rituals because it can lead to defeat,” Dramani explained. “Our boots were impressive. Then we lined up. Etuto prepared his rifle-musket. Suddenly, he stood up, thrust the rifle into the air and shouted, ‘If we call death “mother,” we will die! If we call death “father,” we will die! Let us call death by its own name and let it do its worst.’ Then he took a huge swig from his gourd, and passed it on. I took a large gulp. It was horrible.”
“Why? What was it?” asked Wurche. She had to admit that Dramani told a good story. He would probably be a better student for Jaji. Storytelling, Jaji said, was the best way to teach lessons.
“It was a soup of ground monitor lizard mixed with bitter herbs Etuto’s mallam gave him. I swallowed it, wiped my mouth, slung my quiver ov
er my back, mounted my horse and followed Etuto. He had charged forward. We stood opposite a cavalcade of men from our Kanyase line who were allied with the other two lines. Our own uncles. Imagine! At first they seemed intimidating, assembled on their horses, but when I looked behind us and saw Adnan and the Dagbon army bolstering our numbers, I felt confident. I faced the enemy and saw familiar faces: Nafu, Shaibu…Sulemana’s friends. Our friends, really. And yet there we were. Etuto inched towards Nafu’s army. It was their one last chance to talk, but an arrow shot through the air and landed just in front of his horse, making his horse balk.
“Etuto raised his gun and pointed it at the enemy camp. He fired into the air and a cloud of smoke burst forth. I charged forward. Etuto and Sulemana and a line of Gonja soldiers were ahead, waving their rifles in the air before they let out a round of shooting. After shooting, they drew back and were replaced by a line of Dagbon men. Etuto and his men reloaded their rifles. I took an arrow from my quiver. After the Dagbon soldiers fired their shots, we stepped forward and replaced them.”
“Did anyone die?”
“Many people. A man by me went down. A bullet ripped through his neck leaving behind a gaping hole that spat blood as he slunk off his horse. The sun woke up and at this point we were in the Salaga market. Nafu’s men must have realized that they were losing, so they set fire to as many buildings as they could. I am told their followers are still burning houses in Salaga.”
The Hundred Wells of Salaga Page 7