It requires that we go back further than we are capable of taking you without great sacrifice to our shape and number—which we are willing to do if necessary. It is, after all, our responsibility. Certain promises were made. Certain mistakes bear our names. If we can avoid it, however, if we can rely on your best sense, which lies so dormant in you that we are not sure it can be woke, the undoing of time would neither be called upon nor necessary.
To begin, we just need you to do one thing:
Remember.
But memory is not enough.
II Kings
The council gathered at the royal hut. No one had the time to put on ceremonial robes of fine fabrics, skins, and furs. They came as they were: the women with heads that weren’t completely shaven, the men with their penises dangling behind skirts instead of tubed and tied firm against their navels.
They all sat on pieces of cloth that formed a circle around a large pot of palm wine. King Akusa’s six wives darted back and forth between pouring the wine into small bowls and handing them to council members, twelve in all. B’Dula spoke out of turn.
“We should kill them all.”
The king shot a damning glance his way as the others shifted uncomfortably on their behinds.
“You never fail to insult the ancestors, B’Dula. Nor yourself.” King Akusa rubbed her hands together and took a breath. “I called this meeting and you did not even think to give me the respect of speaking first. Surely, your saltiness from so long ago does not still cloud your reason. You could not possibly have forgotten your lessons so completely. Kill a visitor and bring down the ancestors’ wrath. Kill a neighbor and start an unnecessary war. This is a time for careful contemplation, not childish rage. You will be silent or be gone.”
B’Dula sank into himself. He considered the fact that he had been bested by the king in battle and so would not test her resolve.
“Now,” she continued. “The Gussu broke with tradition and brought strangers into our midst without proper notification, it is true. But the penalty for this is not death, but expulsion.”
Some of the council members nodded. Those who agreed with B’Dula made no gesture at all. Semjula, one of the eldest of the Kosongo, and also a seer, took a sip of wine.
“With your permission, King.”
King Akusa nodded. Semjula stood. Her frame was bent. She was the color of the soil just after a downpour. Her breasts hung down as a testament to her life and the lives she nourished. Her red jewelry, not nearly as dark as blood, rattled as she used a stick with the head of a snake for balance.
“Death is the wrong answer,” she said in a heavy voice. She wiped her free hand on the green skirt wrapped neatly around her hips. “But I have a very bad feeling about sending them away, too. The voices tell me that we are in an impossible position. Whatever we decide to do, it should wait until after Elewa and Kosii’s ceremony. That will give us a few days to think about how to proceed.”
“Thank you, Mama Semjula. I wonder, too, if I should send word to the Sewteri and warn them,” the king pondered. “Maybe send a messenger.”
All nodded.
“Where are the . . . visitors now?” King Akusa asked.
“Still in the guard’s hut, my king,” Semjula answered.
The king turned to Ketwa. “Did we feed them?”
“No, my king,” he answered.
“Well, let us not be inhospitable and cause fire to rain down upon us. Fix them some fish and banana. And bring them some palm wine.”
* * *
—
Kosii gathered the leopard-skin cape made from a recent hunt that he had traveled far to wash in the river. After, he had set it to dry, pounded it until it was smooth, and all with the skill of his mother, Yendi, who taught him how, he draped it about his shoulders. He arranged the peacock feathers carefully in a circle. He decided to wear the jewelry crafted by his eldest sister’s expert hands because Yendi was fond of turquoise and paid close attention to detail. His medicine stick belonged to his father, Tagundu, passed down from his own father. Kosii would be expected to pass it to his firstborn child when the time came.
On his face, Kosii spread the red clay of the earth: a line across his forehead, horizon; two dots on each cheek, sun setting, moon rising; and a short vertical line on his chin, foundation. All of this was to express not just his sincerity but his willingness to protect his betrothed. He smiled. Elewa’s aunts were the most difficult to convince. Seven women, but one giant mind that was as immovable as a boulder and brighter than any light in the sky. Kosii knew that he was not the fastest runner, nor were his hunting skills as sharp as some other members of the tribe. But he was a great strategist and the key was in assuring them of the benefits of such an asset in the kinship circle. Furthermore, there was nary another Kosongo who had his proud, young heart. Nor could they be as tender, and certainly the aunts would want that quality to be present in anyone who even dreamed of holding their nephew Elewa.
The village was decorated in blue. Berry-dyed cloth hung from the thatched roofs of surrounding huts. Lobelia was gathered in bunches and spread along the perimeter of the village square. Everyone in the village was there, all dressed in red, except Akusa, who, as king, wore bright yellow.
Handsome Elewa sat on a lavishly woven rug with his mother, Dashi, on his left and his father, Takumbo, on his right. The rug told the story not of battle—though, at first glance, the woven images of raised spears in the hands of those holding them seemed to indicate such. However, the direction in which the spears were pointed, to the left, specified both protection and supplication. Behind the spear holders was a giant orange sun, setting, not rising. And this was what the spear holders were both guarding and worshipping. Elewa looked down at the rug and touched it, hoping it would transfer some of its strength, prepare him for the responsibilities he and Kosii were about to take on.
They were born guardians, Takumbo had told him. The whole village knew it from the moment he and Kosii met as barely-walkers. The way they took to each other and remained as inseparable as a tortoise and its shell. Only with great violence could they be split, which all of nature would frown upon. It was providence, their connection, for the last guardians had transitioned a few seasons before, valiantly, during the mountain war, and there was no one in the village to guard the gates, not just the formidable ones here, but also the ones between here and the invisible place where the ancestors sing, dance, and drink palm wine for all eternity.
Elewa looked at his father, whose eyes were glassy from tears that welled but did not fall. Takumbo smiled.
“You make us proud,” he said.
Dashi patted Elewa’s hand and then fixed a stray dreadlock that escaped from its place behind Elewa’s ear. She checked his face paint, licked her thumb, and then used the moist part of it to wipe away an imperfection in the line on his chin. Takumbo inspected his medicine stick, looked at Dashi, and nodded. Dashi leaned back to get a better look at her son.
“There,” she said. “You are ready now.”
Elewa stood up and helped his parents to stand. The three of them were as sturdy as trees when they rose. Kosii arrived, walking through the gathered crowd, flanked by Elewa’s seven aunts, with Kosii’s family bringing up the rear. Just as he reached where Elewa and his parents were standing, Semjula made her way to the front of the audience. She had a hollow medicine stick in one hand and her cane helping her to walk in the other. She balanced herself and then held her stick high and ululated. The crowd returned her cry. And then the ceremony began.
Elewa and Kosii danced toward each other as the rest of the crowd stepped back and formed a wide circle around them. Elewa and Kosii shook their sticks, which, filled with dried beans, rattled like snakes. The tribe provided a hand-clapping rhythm. Elewa smiled. Kosii bit his bottom lip. They circled each other, never losing the beat. Elewa kicked his foot, casting dirt in Kosi
i’s direction. Kosii stomped and kicked dirt back toward Elewa. Then they approached each other.
They placed their rattling sticks on the ground, lined up so that they were parallel. Then Kosii grabbed Elewa and they tussled. The crowd was elated; they clapped rapidly, creating a staccato rhythm. Kosii was on top, then Elewa. They rolled around on the ground, one unable to best the other. And just when the frenzy had reached its pinnacle, the clapping stopped. Kosii and Elewa stood up. Dirt stuck to their bodies; they looked celestial, like human-shaped pieces of night. Panting and smiling, they turned to each other and laughed. The whole village laughed with them.
Semjula stepped forward, this time with a thick vine rope in her hand. She made her way toward them and stopped where their medicine sticks lay on the ground before them. She placed her cane down on the ground parallel to theirs.
“Give me your hands,” she said in her strongest voice.
Kosii held out his right hand, Elewa his left. Semjula held up the vines and displayed them to the village. Many nodded. Dashi and Takumbo clung to each other.
“So that you may never be cleaved,” Semjula said and she wrapped the rope round and round their wrists until they were securely joined. She took a step back. She placed her medicine stick on the ground so that it lined up with the three sticks already there.
“Now,” she said, signaling with her wrinkled hand. “Come.”
Elewa and Kosii took deep, simultaneous breaths, and then they leaped, clearing all four sticks. The entire village erupted in ululation. Elewa and Kosii beamed. They turned to each other and embraced, seemingly for this life and for the next.
King Akusa raised her fist in the air and the drummers in the rear of the crowd began drumming. The crowd split in two, clearing a path for Kosii and Elewa. They danced down the opening, followed by their families, then the king, and then the rest of the village. They all danced and danced and danced until they were wet with celebration. Then they headed toward the king’s hut.
It was bad fortune to keep the intruders captive in the guard’s hut as the rest of the village celebrated. King Akusa found it harmless to allow them to partake in the bounty and merriment. She thought it would, in fact, illustrate just how charitable her people were and please the ancestors. Fierceness should always be tempered with kindness; that was wisdom. An unwise king was the mark of shame and this she would not be.
She offered her own hut for the celebration, for it was the largest and it would, after all, please Ketwa because Kosii was his favored nephew. The ground before them was covered with unfurled banana leaves, stretched out for the length of the more than one hundred Kosongo who sat cross-legged at either side. Others stood just behind. There was not a space on top of the leaves that was not taken up by some dish. Ketwa and Dashi made sure that each was impeccably prepared. Fish, quail, stewed coconut, banana, wild rice, mango, ackee, bread, mashed yam, honey pudding, and lots of palm wine. The king sat at the head and Elewa and Kosii—newly bonded, still roped by the wrist, each feeding the other with his free hand—sat at the tail.
Each member of the tribe took a moment to walk over to Elewa and Kosii and leave a gift with them: colorful feathers; headdresses made of dried, braided, and studded palm leaves; tall spears with elegantly pounded heads. A great pile formed around them and had to be moved in order for them to continue eating. King Akusa’s wives laughed as they cleared away the gifts and placed them near the entrance. They would help them take the gifts to their new dwelling in the morning.
The king, meanwhile, kept the three ghosts and their guide to her right, her spear-throwing arm, where she could keep close watch on them. The one called Brother Gabriel was talkative. He constantly turned to the Gussu chattering in an insufferable language that grated on her ears. How the Gussu could tolerate or decipher it she did not understand.
The Gussu—who said one of his names was Obosye, as the Gussu had many names for many different uses—seemed exasperated at one point.
“Enough,” King Akusa said to Obosye. “He will now direct all questions about my tribe to me. You will translate.”
Brother Gabriel spoke to her in very soft tones. Each word did not seem so much spoken as smiled. And although she did not immediately admit it to herself—and, later, would judge herself harshly for having missed it—his smiling frightened her.
“Queen Akusa,” Gabriel said, but Obosye had sense enough to change the title back to its appropriate form. “A lovely village you have here. And this ceremony—thank you for allowing us to partake.”
The king nodded.
“If I may be so bold as to ask: What is the nature of it?” he asked. He gestured toward Elewa and Kosii. “Are these two being initiated into manhood? Is this a warrior’s ritual?”
King Akusa nearly spit out her wine. She put down her cup and chuckled.
“How could it not be obvious even to a stranger? Does your own land lack even the most basic of traditions? Their courtship has been witnessed and approved by generations of ancestors. They are bonded.”
Gabriel’s eyes widened.
“Bonded? Does she mean wedded?” Gabriel looked to Obosye to clarify the translation. Obosye merely nodded.
“But they are two men,” Gabriel protested. “These are the seeds of Sodom.”
The dead are silly, the king thought. Silly, foolish, and reckless, which was perhaps why they intruded here now. Cast out from wisdom, they wandered, confusing everyone they encountered, like the Gussu who had forgotten who he was and stumbled his bare behind into the village without announcement and brought the skinless with him. She took a gulp of wine. She then pinched off a piece of fish and dipped it into some of the mashed yam. She put it in her mouth and then looked at Brother Gabriel. She chewed for a long while, so long that Obosye, Brother Gabriel, and the other two grew visibly uncomfortable.
“I do not know this word, Sodom. But I can tell by how it leaves your tongue that I do not like it. They are Elewa and Kosii as they have always been. Do you not see their bond? You will humble yourself before that.”
“But respectfully, Queen, they are two men.”
King Akusa would have regarded this as insolence had she not understood that this pale, pale man was evidently ignorant and knew nothing of the world as it actually existed. His vision was limited to this realm. “Two men?” These colorless people had the strangest system of grouping things together by what they did not understand rather than by what they did. He could see bodies, but it was clear that he could not see spirits. It was humorous to observe someone who did not know the terrain but refused to admit it, stumbling around, bumping into trees, then asking who put them in their path so suddenly.
“Impossible,” she said with a laugh. “They are bonded. Do you not see?”
“I think your people would benefit from our religion,” Brother Gabriel said.
The king was not bothered by this, for she believed she understood her own fortitude and that of her people. This Brother Gabriel, who called himself Portuguese—with his imprecise, bland, gibberish language—was a fool, a charlatan, and no number of his clan would move any Kosongo from their position. Besides, the wine had put her in an inquisitive, playful mood. She called to Ketwa and Nbinga and asked them to sit with her as she made room for them on either side. She held both of them by a hand and stared at Brother Gabriel.
“Who shall keep guard of the gates?” the king asked him, smiling. “You say Elewa and Kosii are some kind of problem. Who guards your gods’ gates, then?”
“The gates of Heaven? They don’t open upon blasphemy.”
“Heaven? What an unusual name. And what an unusual place that does not open its gates for its own guard.”
“Be that as it may—”
“Is that what happened to your skin,” King Akusa interrupted. “Did your gods snatch it away for treating the gates as a trivial matter?”
“You
r Highness, I don’t think—”
“Enough.”
The king laughed and lay back into Ketwa’s full embrace and pulled Nbinga’s hand to her mouth and kissed it. King Akusa’s chuckle filled the room. She asked two other wives to prepare another round of food and drink for the visitors, who had already eaten what was previously placed before them. They would need to find a space for them to sleep in one of the greeting huts and then send them on their way in the morning. She reminded herself to also instruct Obosye to tell the Gussu chief to never allow his people to guide bad spirits to Kosongo land. Ever. Such behavior communicated disrespect and, in light of the long-planned ceremony, even contempt. She would be glad to never set eyes on these ugly-skinned people again.
Here is what she did not know:
She did not know that far beyond the green mountains where the lightning frightens, but does not strike, hundreds more of Brother Gabriel’s kind were making their way from the sea, emerging from great hollow beasts whose bellies craved only the darkest of flesh, dredging through seaweed until they met the unwelcoming rock of shore, armed with weapons that pulled the very thunder out of the sky. A journey so long that it was almost forgivable that their appetites were so ravenous and undiscerning.
She did not know that they would devour not just her own people but would wolf down many other tribes as well. Friendly tribe or hostile tribe, these greedy people would not discriminate, could not, in fact, discriminate. To them, her people were all living pieces of ore: fuel for engines of the most ungodly kind but, bafflingly, in the name of a god that they claimed was peaceful. A lamb, they said. She could not know that was merely a costume.
She did not know of what Brother Gabriel’s people were capable, nor did she know what had already become of the Gussu village or why Obosye—who was instructed that if the three demons didn’t return safe and sound within an allotted time frame, his children, even the newborn baby boy, would endure unimaginable suffering in his names—colluded in this deception. No seer, not even Semjula, could have given her an ominous enough warning. No Kosongo elder magic or ancestral intervention could turn a woman into an animal, but these Portuguese, she would soon discover, had access to all manner of craft that was remarkably tailored for performing just such a feat.
The Prophets Page 18