Moon Witch, Spider King, page 35
“We not fighting any war.”
“You know what I mean. Ever since a hyena troop turn on their own men near a hundred years ago. Well I not about to become either palace toy or army berserker.”
“That man who ride with you all them years was a marshal.”
“He was a scout. And there at my pleasure, not the army’s. Plus he don’t ride with us anymore. Don’t you hear what I am saying to you? Where I want to go, being me can’t get there.”
“Then go somewhere else.”
“You and your simple head and your simple answers.” He give me a bashful smile, but he is insulting me, and he know that I know. He annoy me so much that for the first time that day I try to stand up, but my knees buckle. He rush over to grab me, forgetting the cub on his head, who jump from him to me as he grab my waist.
“Where you think you going? You still too weak,” he say. I really want to make distance between me and him, but my knees don’t agree. He help me back down on the rugs, all tender, which surprise me still. Outside, Yétúnde is still talking to the midwife, who still don’t make a sound. I know they talking about me, talking about how I try and fail to become number one woman, even though that is something I never want to be. I know that before these children come, she was worrying about losing favor with her husband, but now that two of these children born beasts, she is still the reigning woman of the house. It don’t matter how many times I tell her that I don’t want to be in charge of this house, she could never hold the thought in her head for long, the thought that a woman could want or would want anything else. I try to be a motherly woman and not think of the donga.
“And you think nobody know?”
“The lions know. Maybe. Perhaps. Didn’t ask.”
“They know. How you can think they don’t now? I would know a woman even in the dark.”
“Fine. As you say, they know.”
“Is not about what I say. Is—”
“Quit this talk, Sogolon.”
“Or what you going do, roar?”
He furious for one blink, but then burst out laughing. Funny it is for real. He stoop down to me.
“This was long time past. Kwash Kagar send troops to smash a rebellion in the Purple City. Every general say take Lake Abbar by night, by boat, sail east and storm the city. From behind, they say. Beremu was the only one who say that Lake Abbar’s current always push boats west, and people would see us from a day away. And what is the Purple City but one big lighthouse. He even told the general about the caves running under the lake. You know what that general say? The only sound I need from a berserker is a roar. Five hundred soldiers slaughtered before they even reach land, because nobody want to take the counsel of a fucking cat. They even lock him up for unruliness because he wouldn’t stop growling about it. You know what it is like to never be listened to?”
A hundred and one things I could say right now. A hundred and one things.
“Well, that fate is not for me, you hear? I refuse it. I have standing in this form.”
I laugh.
“What? What now?”
“You call it a form. A shape like any other. Who is me to tell you who is you?”
“You know the work, being me? You know how you never have to think about breathing, but you have to think about how you dress, or what you say? That is me wearing the skin of a man. I have to will my own skin to settle.”
“Is it so as a lion?”
“No.”
“Shame can never settle.”
“Is not shame, woman. I know . . .”
“You know what?”
“Quit this talk, I say.”
“You have three others,” I say, and he hop over to the other bundles, while this cub find my breast again. Keme grin so wide as he look inside each bundle, his brand-new children. Is the first I seeing it, but the feeling come to me that many women see it before me, the look in his eyes and his grin that say, These come from me.
“Look at the hair on this one, and he not even the lion!”
“Not yet,” I say to myself. He is cradling all three now, shushing the first girl as she start to cry—I know her cry already—and there it is on his face, a new look I never see before, that I can’t find words for. Like surrender, but not, or like sweet bliss that come after he cum, though it is not that, or like relief, or satisfaction maybe, though I don’t know what that look like. Or maybe it is a look that only fathers get when they see their pride—the word just come out of me, as if I was already accepting all this. He is grinning and grinning, and cooing and making a sound that take me too many blinks to see is purring. Who is this man before you, the new man who come to the house for the first time in three years? say a voice that sound like me. Here is truth. With his other children he really is the lion, now that I think about it. He play with them as be his pleasure, he tell them which street not to walk on, and which men not to trust, and jump in front of them when a snake slither into the yard, but most day he don’t even see them.
“Show him to me,” I say.
“Which one?”
“Not the baby, you. Show me he that you hiding.”
It take him a while before he see what I mean.
“Here?”
“Listen to you, you sound like a virgin around a boy.”
“You don’t know a thing about that.”
“Stop delaying it and let your children see you as you.”
“This is me.”
“That is how you want people to see you. Them two things not the same.”
“Girl, I tell you I don’t change for—”
“This not the army, and I not your commander. Children should see their father, even if is just once.”
He look at me with a battle-loss face and place the children down. I sit up, not expecting anything, but expecting everything. He clutch his stomach and start retching so quick that I jump, thinking he is going to fall or vomit. He cough and choke and cough, then jerk, and jerk, and jerk again, then do a drunk sway, about to topple, then fall hard on one knee, his back to me. He heave again, and moan something low and death-slow. I try to get up, but he wave his hand behind at me fierce, telling me to stay. This thing come over him like waves, reminding me of me only this morning. He start to huff and huff, blowing out whatever punching him down inside. I regret that I ask him. In all these three years I never see so much of a whisker, which mean if he ever did change, it was from a time even further from that. Not true, my voice say. He been changing every day since before I know him. The Keme that I see every day, that is the change, that is the form that never can settle. He throw off his chain mail and pull off his tunic so hard that it tear. His buttocks I see first, spread wider and long, as if water is rushing under his skin, filling out his thighs and his legs and packing muscle upon muscle and sinew upon sinew. Then hair rush down his lower back and race down him past his cheeks into a tail while he growl and howl. Hair burst from his head, lighter and straighter than his usual hair, a grain field growing wider and wilder. Not hair, mane is what to call it, and it ripple across his back and meet his hip, while his skin burn off the brown for gold and his back widen like the head of cobra. Keme turn to me as his neck turn into a tree trunk and his ear pop open big, and round, and furry. The black in his eyes vanish and his forehead rush over his face, shoving his nose down as it widen and he snort out of it. Whiskers sprout above his mouth and gold hair sprout below. His little belly, which come after three years of two women taking care of him, vanish in a washboard. He try to stand and stagger at first, for he was still changing, but stand he do as a fire of gold hair break out on his chest, spread to his belly, and gush above his cock. Twice the man he was before and the most beautiful of anything I ever did see, woman, man, or beast, considering that Keme’s looks give me fire from before he first forget me.
“Bigger,” I say and look right between his legs. For a blink I think he is Beremu and without voice.
“Trick of the hair,” he say.
“Such things never trick a woman,” I say.
He stand up before me, fearless looking, but fearful too. He look around twice, though this room have no window. He scratch his chest but the hand stay there and I know he is unsure what to do with it, what to do with himself.
“You don’t change into a full lion.”
“I am a full lion.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Some people neither night nor day, Sogolon. Some people not—”
“Set-out point or destination, some people is journey.”
“You know words like that would never come to me. What you looking at is the only way I don’t feel like being me is labor, like I holding myself together all the time.”
His words making sense to me. I want to say I understand, though some people can’t abide by or afford staying in the middle, for that too costly, but I push that away. Besides beast or man, perhaps the problem really is or. The hair, the tail turn his buttocks into a tease. I wish right there that I was friends with Yétúnde so I could ask her woman things, like how it is that I lying here torn open from what this man do to me, and all I want is for him to come over to me right now and do that whole thing again. I want him to rush me and smell like me like prey, and lick all the way around me neck. I come this close to whispering that there is more than one hole to a woman, and more than one use for such a kingly cock. The thought make me laugh out loud and then wince in pain for letting my head run wild when I know not a thing going happen to this body for at least six moons if not longer. Nothing other than sleeping, crying, avoiding death, and surrendering milk to four who know nothing but hunger. That first moon, the suckling also bring on a pain that make me almost scream for goat milk. Here is truth, one night of birthing leaving me so spent that I thank gods that these babies too young to know that sometimes I so tired that I think twice about feeding them. And the pains from my body trying to decide what shape it will be in from now on, is enough to make me feel that thinking about fucking is foolish. The lion standing in my doorway all but make me forget that this was a mighty day and nobody more surprised that I survive it than me.
“You making me forget that this night is about you,” he say.
“I going own many more nights. This one can share.”
“No clothes fit when I look so.”
“Cowskin will stretch. Besides, you see no lion in clothes? Call your children.”
“For what, for them to see me like this?”
“They little, not slow. The way they crawl, scratch, and romp, you likely wasn’t fooling them neither.”
He turn to the doorway, still unsure. He still buckling a little. He still the young boy who decide one day that only way he could show himself was to hide himself.
“Keme.”
“By the gods, woman, wait,” he say. Even his snap has the mark of a lion. “Children,” he shout.
“No, not like that. Call them, I say.”
He turn to me again, and I smile, hoping that it will wash the doubt off his face. Then he lift his head, and roar.
FOURTEEN
I see the Aesi. Two times now it come to pass.
The first was the day of the Nanosi, the eldest of the elders, the oldest people of the North, who still live in the dry plains between Fasisi and Luala Luala. Kwash Kagar decreed it so, that those who first broke stone to build the North should have one day where they take to the street and conquer the city once more. In dance and drum of course. And even if they did sharpen the dull spear, switch the ceremonial sword for a real one, and take the string from the kora and return it to the archer’s bow, they would have no use for this kingdom anyway. At some time in the age, three or four dynasties before Akum, the Nanosi abandoned the city they build, and returned to the dry plains to hunt, gather, and run with the oryx.
“To this day, nobody knows why,” Keme say, except I can hear the wonder in his voice and the envy in his sigh. He looking like himself as we wait with the crowd for the Nanosi, but still take to soldier form when he head to the royal enclosure, or when his men come for him. I forbid him from wearing anything but himself around me or his children since that first day, and the last time he approach them as a man, they all scream. Even his older children grab and tug any hair they can grab, and squeal when he growl and pretend to gnaw them. Sometimes he greet them as lions do, rubbing neck to neck. My shaggy son, who we name Lurum, now have hair the color of wheat. One of the cubs, who we name Ehede, sometimes speak one word, sometimes two, but two years later neither cub change in any way other than growing bigger, and a two-year-old lion no woman would call small. Lurum’s eye grow from brown and white to white and brown, and he stop hiding that instead of fingernails, he have claws. The children have that sweet blindness to each other where they don’t care how each one look, even if playing rough with a lion soon lead to scratches upon scratches, bawling because a tail get yank too hard, and crying because one child’s pet turn in to another child’s meal. I start to wonder if there be any chance of schooling for any of them, for who will take to teaching a child that could kill her with one bite? The house continue as the house do, for all but one.
“You take him looking like that?” Yétúnde ask me one time, almost a year after my children born. Surprise me she do, for other than to ask about grain or if I going to kill a fowl for dinner, she stop talking to me. I don’t know how to answer her.
“Well you know what them say. Silence mean consent,” she say.
I want to say to her that only man who force woman say words like that, but she is the first wife and I not even a wife. She snap at Lurum once, and when I say to her, Don’t snap at my boy, she go and tell Keme that I call her sour. Twice she scream at the cubs to take their nasty stinking self out of her kitchen for they bound to piss and shit on her floor, and she wonder which of their parents they get that from. Ever since that night, Keme take to walking like the man he is, even reporting to the barracks, where he say some don’t speak to him anymore, some speak to him for the first time, and some asking if he can still drink masuku beer. No complaint come to him in word or rumor. If anything my eyes, ears, and nose even more keen, he say. But walking out in the city like a true lion was another hump to climb over. I say to him that leopards walking tall in Taha district, and everybody know how loose and without morals they be.
“I can’t stop thinking I am naked,” he say.
“Be like the lion,” I say.
“Stop thinking I naked?”
“Stop thinking.”
He look at me with the face that say, Only you like to think so crazy. But I watch him stand up straight and catch himself in the underside of his shield. You not taking off clothes, for nothing should be on you, I whisper to him, which somehow make him listen better. So many questions come to my head that I stay myself from asking, including one about his balls that make me laugh. Furrier than before, the voice in my head say, and he look puzzled when I giggle.
“Whose permission you waiting on?” I ask him.
“Permission? I don’t need permission. I am the lion.”
“Then go be the lion.”
When he finally go outside as himself, Beremu jump him in surprise. Half lion and full lion they lunge at each other in love, rubbing head and neck and side together before they both frighten the whole street by running off. And the house continue as the house do, for all but one.
* * *
—
Then go find woman who love fuck beast,” I overhear one night, not loud, but clear enough that it reach the person she intend it for. He don’t seek my bed that night, but he come after, and I say that it is indeed true, that this is the only way I will take him. Poor Yétúnde thinking that as a lion he would maul her, when he is even more gentle. And he lick every single thing. Indeed one night he didn’t even see that his tongue was fucking me to the point where tears set loose. True it is indeed that I never could get my fill of him that way, the crown of hair glowing in lamplight, the whiskers against my neck, the breath waking up my skin in the cold night, the field on his chest, the twin mountains of his bottom, and the tuft of tail between them that I grab as I look down in the shadows to see his cock going in and out, up and down inside of me. Perhaps he is too gentle, for I want him to roar when he cum but he never do. And Yétúnde find reason to burst into flame over anything. If you want raw meat, go eat from your mother, she shout at the cubs when they spit out the cooked lamb, but to tell true none of the children, not even hers, like cooked flesh much, and is not because she couldn’t cook. Yétúnde is the kind of woman who would never say anything to a grown woman’s face, so she say to the children instead and hope the message get back to me. One time Lurum, for he speaking now, ask me what his name be. I say silly boy it is Lurum. Lurum from who? he ask and I ask why.
“Miss Yétúnde say we can’t take our father’s name. Take it where, Mama?”
“I don’t know where she want it to go,” I say to him and smile. “Anybody ask you, you is Lurum of Adu, just like your daddy. And listen to me. Anything you want to know about yourself, you ask your mama.”
He nod and run off, the matter rolling off his back like water. My fury take me all the way to outside her chamber when I remember that she is the first wife and I am no wife. I leave her to her ways but shout so much louder when Keme and me fuck that night that Matisha, my young girl, start shouting that a bad dog is in Mama’s room.
Which is to say that a day would surely come when this woman turn so stink with malice that the whole house decide it have to get away from her, her own children included. First I am thinking, What luck of the gods is this that today of all days there is ceremony in the streets? But right before we leave I realize that is not luck at all, but Yétúnde sensing laughter and light, and pleasantness in the sky, and deciding to be all things opposite, for that is how she is now, hunting down smiles like prey and mauling everyone. “Come, children, who want to see the great hornbill?” Keme ask and they all jump and hop and tumble and shout.
