I shivered at his words, thinking, Is he?
Mwinyi groaned. “Haven’t you learned anything from all this? What’d you think I was a few days ago? What did you think of all Enyi Zinariya?” I didn’t respond, so he did. “You thought we were savages. You were raised to believe that, even though your own father was one of us. You know why. And now I’m sitting here telling you how I learned I was a harmonizer and you’re so stuck on lies that you’d rather sit here wondering if I’m a spirit than question what you’ve been taught.”
I sighed, tiredly, rubbing my temples.
Mwinyi turned to me, looked me up and down, sucked his teeth, and continued, keeping his eyes on me as he spoke. Probably enjoying my discomfort with his gaze. “They rushed up to me,” he said. “The biggest one, a female who was leading the pack. She charged at me. When you see elephants coming at you as you sit in the middle of the desert… you submit. I was only eight years old and even I knew that. But as she came, I heard her charge, ‘Kill it! Kill it!’ I looked up and I answered her. ‘Why?!’ I shouted. She stopped so abruptly that the others ran into her. It was an incredible sight. Elephants were tumbling before me like boulders rolling down a sand dune. I will never forget the sight of it.
“When they all recovered, she spoke to me, again, ‘Who are you? How are you able to speak to us?’ And I told her. And I told her that I was alone and I was a child and I would never harm an elephant. The others quickly lost interest in me, but that one stayed. She and I spoke that day about tribe and communication. And for many years, we met there when the moon was full, as we agreed. A few times we met when I needed her advice, like when my mother was ill and when I quarreled with my brothers who were bigger and older than me.”
“What of your sisters?”
“I don’t have any,” he said. “I’m the youngest of six, all boys.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s strange.”
“What’s stranger is that I’m the only one who doesn’t look like he could crush stone with his bare hands,” he said, smiling ruefully. “Even Kam, who’s a year older than me, just won the village wrestling championship.”
I laughed at Mwinyi’s outrage.
“Anyway, during these times, when it wasn’t a full moon, I was able to call Arewhana, that was her name, from far away. She taught me how to do it. It was something she said I could do with larger, more aware animals like elephants, rhinos, and even whales if I ever ventured to the ocean.
“Arewhana taught me so much. She was the one who told me I was a harmonizer. And she was the one who taught me how to be a harmonizer. Elephants are great violent beasts, but only because human beings have treated them in a way that made using violence the only way for elephants to survive. There are many elephant tribes in these lands and beyond.”
An elephant had taught him to harmonize and instead of using it to guide current and mathematics, she’d taught him to speak to all people. The type of harmonizer one was depended on one’s teacher’s worldview; I rolled this realization around in my mind as I just stared at him.
Mwinyi’s bushy red hair was still full of dust and sand and he didn’t seem to mind this, but his dark brown skin was clean and oiled. I’d actually seen him rubbing oil into his skin earlier. I knew the scent. It was from a plant that grew wild in the shade of palm trees and some women used it to flavor desserts because it tasted and smelled so flowery. He carried some in a tiny glass vial he kept in his pocket. A few drops of it went a long way. The oil protected his skin from the desert sun in a way quite similar to otjize, and it brought out its natural glow. I wondered if this plant smell had also set the elephants at ease.
I chewed on this thought, while gazing at Mwinyi. My world had stabilized again.
As I settled on the mat in the tent, I could hear Mwinyi moving about outside while he softly yipped and panted. I watched as the wild dogs got up; soon our tent was surrounded by the group of about eight dogs. None of them slept now; instead they sat up and watched out into the night like sentries.
Mwinyi came into the tent and lay beside me. “Better sleep now,” he said. “I think we have about three hours of safety at most. Then they’ll leave and if there are hyenas or bigger angrier dogs out there, those can sneak up on us.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. Sleep stole me away less than a minute later.
CHAPTER 2
Orange
Every week, the village market opened in the desert. Always at noon, when the sun was highest in the sky. The village was small, but it wasn’t isolated. People came from different villages, towns, communities. But these connected communities were small and all of them were insular, secretive, and happy. And that’s why it worked.
The children loved their mobile phones and social networks; some of them ventured out into the rest of the country or even the world. A few never came back. But most stayed and all kept the area’s secret. There were never any uploaded photos, drawings, paintings, or videos. No blog posts, no interviews, no news stories. No need to share. The people in this part of the country took from the rest of the world, but kept to themselves and explored from within. The people here preferred to venture inward rather than out. Because what was within was already a million times more advanced, more modern, than anything on the planet. And what was inside had come from outer space. Thus, the rest of the country never learned of the friendly “alien invasion,” the friendship that took root and was on full display in the market every week.
Women squatted before pyramids of tomatoes, onions, dried leaves, spices. Men brought in bunches of plantain on their heads, reams of Ankara cloth. The local imam was holding a meeting. Children ran errands and into mischief. And among them all walked twenty-foot-tall, slender beings who seemed to be made of molten gold. They glinted in the sunshine and people sometimes shaded their eyes against the glare, but other than that, these extraterrestrial people mingled easily and naturally.
One girl ran around one of them, stopped, and brought up her hands. She motioned wildly and then kept running. She wove around two women haggling over a yam, squeezed between the group of men listening to the local imam preach, and ran right up to the tall golden figure waiting for her. She smiled and held up an orange whose peel had been cut away. “You bite into it,” she said. “Like this.”
I awoke with the taste of oranges in my mouth. When I opened my eyes, I was facing the desert and I could see the dream that wasn’t a dream retreating from me into the distance, like something sneaking away.
“Why bother hiding?” I muttered. “Why don’t you just ask if you want to tell me stories? I am a student. I will listen.”
I sat up and looked around. The dogs were gone. The sun was about an hour from rising and Mwinyi was already preparing Rakumi for the journey. I sat up and watched him for a moment as he grunted and patted the camel’s back before strapping the saddle onto her. There was a strange moment when Rakumi turned and looked right at Mwinyi and he gazed right into her eyes. Then the camel touched her soft lips to his forehead and turned forward and Mwinyi finished putting the saddle on.
I reached for my jar of otjize and held it before my eyes. So little left. I applied some to my face and a thin layer to my arms and lower parts of my legs, rubbing some into my anklets. If my family saw me like this, they’d be mortified. At least during more normal times. I climbed out of the tent and stretched my back. I was stiff, but okay, having slept about four solid hours.