come in Obora Dikka moon, in the Basa star. I swear it. He said blow kohl breath in the face of anyone who asks of Basu Fumanguru.”
“Why would anyone ask you of Basu Fumanguru?”
“Nobody ask until you.”
“Tell me more of this man. What colour his robes?”
“B-black. No blue. Dark blue, his fingers blue. No, blue in the fingernails like he dyes great cloths.”
“Are you sure he was not in black?”
“It was blue. By the gods, blue.”
“And what was to happen next, Ekoiye?”
“They said men would come.”
“You said he before.”
“He!”
“How would he know?”
“I was to go back to my room and release the pigeon in the window.”
“This story grows more legs and wings by the blink. What else?”
“Nothing else. Am I a spy? Listen, I swear by the—”
“Gods, I know. But I do not believe in gods, Ekoiye.”
“This was not to kill you.”
“Listen, Ekoiye. It is not that you lie, but that you don’t know truth. There was enough venom spewing from your mouth to kill nine buffalo.”
“Mercy,” he said, weeping.
Sweat made him slippery in my hand.
“The ever-dry Ekoiye breaks into sweat.”
“Mercy!”
“I am confused, Ekoiye. Let me retell this in a way that adds up to sense, for me and perhaps you. Even though Basu Fumanguru has been dead three years, a man in blue robes hiding his face still approached you, little more than a moon past. And he said, Should anyone speak of Basu Fumanguru, a man you would have no reason to know, take this antidote, then blow viper-soaked kohl dust in his face and kill him, then send word for me to pick up the body. Or not kill him, just put him to sleep as we can collect him as garbage mongers do for a fee. Is that all?”
He nodded, over and over.
“Two things, Ekoiye. Either you were not supposed to kill me, only leave me helpless so they can squeeze fact from me themselves. Or you were supposed to kill me but ask deeper questions before.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don—”
“You don’t know. You don’t know anything. You don’t even know if the antidote, the poison killer, kills the poison. Here I thought you were a wise boy trapped in an unwise life. No antidote ever kills the poison, Ekoiye, it only delays it. The most you live is eight years, maybe ten, pretty one. Nobody told you? Maybe there is not too much venom in you, and you live ten and four years. I still don’t understand why they came to you.”
Now he laughed. Loud and long.
“Because everybody comes to the pleasure monger later or sooner, Tracker. You cannot help yourselves. Husbands, chiefs, lords, tax collectors, even you. Like a pack of hungry dogs. Later or sooner you all come back to who you are. Like you pushing me down and fucking the little he-whore rough because you were a dog even before that eye. You know what I wish, man-fucker? I wish I had venom to kill the whole world.”
When I let him go he screamed all the way down. He would not be dead—the fall was not high enough. But he would break something, maybe a leg, maybe an arm, maybe a neck. I went back the way we came, passed under the same sounds of men fucking every last coin into wet rugs, and bolted the hatch behind me. The pigeon that he kept in a bamboo cage by the small window I took out and held gentle. The note wrapped around her left foot I removed. At the window I let it loose.
The note. Glyphs, the like I had seen before, but could not remember it. I pushed the birthing chair into the darkest corner of the room and waited. The window looked large enough. The door would mean that others knew about this arrangement, among them, Miss Wadada. I thought on this hard. Nothing could have happened under Miss Wadada’s roof without her knowing of such. But this too is so of the Kongori. If I did kill Ekoiye tonight, she would still welcome me tomorrow with a Take off those robes so I can see you, big stiff prince, and then send me off with her newest girl-boy.
Even as night grew deep the heat still crawled around, leaving my back sticking to the seat. I peeled off the wood and almost missed it, the kick of feet on the wall. Climbing without ropes, a man perhaps under enchantment, where whatever the foot touched became floor. Hands