Oh, you have nothing to say. You will push me no further.
Yes, it is as you say, I was in Mitu for four years and five moons. Four years from when we left the boy in the Mweru. I was there when this rumor of war turned into a real war. What happened there is something you can ask the gods. Ask them why your South has not been winning this war, but neither the North.
The child is dead. There is nothing else to know. Otherwise, ask the child.
Oh you have nothing left to ask? Is this where we part?
What is this? Who comes in this room?
No, I do not know this man. I have never seen his back or his face.
Don’t ask me if I recognize you. I do not know you.
And you, inquisitor, you give him a seat. Yes, I can see he is a griot. Do you think he brought the kora to sell it? Why would this be the time for praise song?
It is a griot with a song about me.
There are no songs about me.
Yes, I know what I said before, I was the one who said it. That was a boast—who am I that I would be in any song? Which griot makes a song before you pay them? Fine, let him sing; it is nothing to me. Nothing he sings I will know. So sing.
Thunder god mystic brother
blessed with tongue, and the gift of kora.
It is I, Ikede, son of Akede,
I was the griot that lived in the monkeybread tree.
I been walking many days and many nights, when across it I come,
the tree near a river
I climb up and hear the parrot, and the crow, and the baboon
I hear children
laughing, screaming, fighting, making gods hush
and there up top lie a man on a rug.
What kind of man is this?
not like any man in Weme Witu, Omororo, or even Mitu.
And he said,
are you looking for beauty?
I said I think I found it
And hark, the man laugh and he say
the women of Mitu find me so ugly,
when I take the children to the markets they say
Look at that ugly family, look at those wretched beasts,
but that one khita, ngoombu, haamba he have hair like a horse.
But I say, beautiful wise bountiful women
plump in bosom and wide in smile
I am not a zombi, I am pretty like kaolin clay
and they laugh so hard, they give me doro beer and play in my hair
and I tell you, in none of these things I find any offense.
And I say to him
This tree, do you live in it?
He say, There is no you, only we and we are a strange house.
Stay with us as long as you wish.
When I climb through a hole and sit in the spot
I see he coming, bringing back meat
I say, Who is the man so sour with the eye of a wolf?
Who curse him so?
But children little, children big, children who is but air
run down the tree and stampede him
and don’t care that he cursing would scare the owl.
And they jump up on him and sit on his head, and rest under his arm
And I thinking these children have big feelings for this man,
and the sour face gone.
And the Wolf Eye climb up the top and stop when he see me,
and keep climbing.
And when he reach the top, he see the other man,
and they put lips together, and open their mouths,
I know.
The one with the wolf eye, he is the one
who says, The night is getting old, why are you not sleeping?
The sun is in the sky, why are you not waking?
Food is ready
when are you going to eat it?
Did the gods curse me and make me a mother?
No he blessed me and made you my wife,
the one called Mossi say,
and the children laugh, and the Wolf Eye scowl
And scowl, and scowl, and scowl into a laugh.
I was there, I see it.
And I see it when they chase all the children out and say go,
go to the river now,
and stay ’til the sun start to shift
And when they all gone, they think I gone too
For Mossi speak the Wolf Eye own tongue
Se ge yi ye do bo, he say
Se ge yi ye do bo
Let us love each other
For they two, they grab each other and kiss lip
then kiss tongue,
then kiss neck and nipple
and lower.
And one was the woman, and one was the man,
and both was the woman, and both was the man,
and neither was neither.
And the Wolf Eye, he rest his head in Mossi lap.
Mossi, he be rubbing the Wolf Eye’s chest.
They just stay there looking at each other,
eye studying eye.
Face at rest
maybe they sharing a dream.
One day Wolf Eye call them all together.
Children, he say, come out from the river
and present yourselves
you not raised by the jackal or the hyena.
And each child present me his name,
but their names I have all forgotten.
This is what Wolf Eye say.
He say, Mossi I am Ku,
and a Ku man can only be one kind of man
and Mossi said to him, How are you not a man
what do I grab between the legs
Mossi make joke
Wolf Eye not making joke.
He say
I been running, I been hiding, I been looking for
something that I don’t know, but I know I looking for it
And I don’t know, but every Ku find it
but there is blood between me and the Ku
and I could never go back.
So he call the Gangatom
And the Gangatom chief say, Nobody ever wait so long,
I’ve been waiting all my life, Wolf Eye say.
And Wolf Eye pull his tunic and say,
Look at me, look where there is woman,