Who Fears Death (32 page)

I’ve always disliked this story. And since Binta’s death, I’ve come to hate it.

HER DEATH KEPT LUYU FROM FANASI’S hut for two weeks. And then one late night, I heard them enjoying each other again.

“Mwita,” I said as quietly as I could. I turned to face him. “Mwita, wake up.”

“Mmm?” he said his eyes still closed.

“You hear?” I said.

He listened, then he nodded.

“You know who it is?”

He nodded.

“How long have you known?” I asked.

“What does it matter?”

I sighed.

“He’s a man, Onye.”

I frowned. “So? What about Diti?”

“What of her? I don’t see her sneaking in there.”

“It’s not that simple. There’s been enough pain.”

“The pain has only just begun,” Mwita said, growing serious. “Let Luyu and Fanasi find joy while they can.” He took my braid in his hand.

“So if you and I have a fight,” I said. “Would you . . .”

“It’s different with us,” he said.

We listened for a while longer and then I heard something else. I cursed. Mwita and I got to our feet. We crawled out just in time to see it happen. Diti pulled up her red rapa, clutching the knot on the side as she strode to Fanasi’s tent. She walked swiftly. Too swiftly for me or Mwita to catch her and at least prevent her from seeing the full sight of Luyu, sweating and naked, straddling an equally sweating naked Fanasi. He was clutching Luyu as he sucked her nipple.

When Fanasi saw Diti over Luyu’s shoulder, he was so shocked that he clamped his teeth down on Luyu’s nipple. She screamed and Fanasi immediately released his teeth, terrified that he’d hurt Luyu and horrified that Diti was standing there watching. Diti’s face contorted in a way that I’d never seen. Then she grabbed her face, digging her nails into her cheeks and let out a terrible shriek. The camels jumped up faster than I’ve ever seen any camel do and ran off.

“What . . . look at you! Binta’s dead! I’m dead . . . We’re all going to die and you do this?” Diti yelled. She fell to her knees sobbing. Fanasi carefully gave Luyu a rapa to cover herself, touching her breast briefly to see the damage that he did. He pulled a rapa around his waist and cautiously watched Diti as he climbed out of the tent. Luyu quickly followed. I gave her a dirty look. I helped Diti up and walked her away from everyone.

“How long?” Diti asked after a while.

“Weeks. Before . . . Papa Shee.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, eh?” She sat down in the sand and sobbed.

“This is life,” I said. “It doesn’t always go the way you think it will.”

“Ugh! Did you see them? Did you
smell
them?” She stood up. “Let’s go back.”

“Wait a while,” I said. “Calm yourself.”

“I don’t
want
to be calm. Did they look calm to you?” She flashed a look at me.

Seeing what she was thinking in her eyes, I held up my finger. “Hold your tongue,” I said firmly. “Hold your blame, eh?” When things grew unbearable, she always blamed me. My temples throbbed. I stood up. Right in front of her, not caring what she saw, I changed into a vulture. I hopped from my clothes, looked up into Diti’s shocked face, squawked at her, and flew off. A wind gusted in from the west. I rode it, exhilarated. It was so windy that for a moment, I wondered if a dust storm was coming.

I passed an owl. It was flying so fast southeast, fighting the wind, that it barely gave me a look. Below, I spotted the camels. I thought about flying down to greet them but it seemed they were having a private discussion. I flew for three hours. I never asked what exactly was said when Diti went back to everyone. I didn’t care. I landed where I’d left my clothes, glad Diti didn’t take them with her. They’d blown several yards away.

The first thing I noticed when I returned to camp was that only one of the camels was back. Sandi. “Where are the others?” I asked her. She only looked at me. Everyone else sat around the rock fire, except Mwita who was standing looking bothered. Diti’s eyes were red and glassy. Luyu looked smug. Fanasi sat near Luyu, holding a wet cloth over the side of his face. I frowned.

“Have you all settled it?” I said.

“I am the witness,” Mwita said. “Diti has spoken the words of divorce to Fanasi . . . after she tried to scratch his face off.”

“If I were a man, you’d be dead,” Diti growled at Fanasi.

“If you were a man, you wouldn’t be in this situation,” Fanasi shot back.

“Maybe . . . maybe I shouldn’t have allowed any of you to come,” I said. They all turned to me. “Maybe it should have been just Mwita and me, neither of us has anything to lose. But you all . . . Binta . . .”

“Yeah, well, it’s too late, don’t you think?” Diti snapped.

I pressed my lips together but I didn’t look away.

“Diti . . .” Mwita said. He swallowed his words and looked away.

“What?” Diti snapped. “Go on, say what you wish to say for once.”

“Shut up!” Mwita shouted above the moan of the wind. Diti gasped utterly shocked. “What is
wrong
with you?” Mwita said. “This man followed you . . . all the way out here! I have
no
idea why. You’re a child. You’re spoiled and coddled. His actions are nothing special to you! You have the nerve to
expect
them. Fine. But then you decide to reject him. You somehow even managed to throw other men in his face. And when he decided that he didn’t want to be treated this way and accepted another strong beautiful woman, you start tearing at people’s hair like some evil angry spirit . . .”

“
I
am the one who’s been betrayed!” She glared at me as she said this.

“Yes, yes, we’ve been listening to you cry about betrayal for hours now. Look at what you’ve done to Fanasi’s face. If his wounds get infected, you’ll blame Onyesonwu or Luyu. So much stupid,
stupid
childish bickering. We’re on a journey to the ugliest place on earth.

“We’ve tasted the ugliness. We
lost
Binta! You saw what they did to her. Maintain your perspective! Diti, if you want Fanasi and Fanasi wants you, go and have happy intercourse. Do it often and with passion and joy. Luyu, the same. If you want to enjoy Fanasi, do so for Ani’s sake! Figure something out, while you still can!

“Onyesonwu was trying to
help
by breaking that juju. She suffered to
help
you. Be grateful! And fine, we are ugly to you; you were raised to think so. Your minds are split between seeing us as your friends and seeing us as unnatural. That’s the way it is. But
learn to curb your tongues
. And
remember,
remember, remember why we’re out here.” He turned and walked away, breathing hard. None of us had anything to add.

That night, Diti slept alone, though I doubt she slept at all. And Luyu and Fanasi spent the first full but quiet night together in Fanasi’s tent. And Mwita and I found comfort in each other’s bodies well into the night. Come morning, the sun was blotted out by an approaching wall of sand.

I WAS THE FIRST TO WAKE UP. When I crawled out of my tent, Sandi was standing there waiting for me. She groaned deep in her throat as I leaned close to her, inhaling the freshness of her fur. “You left your people to stay with us, didn’t you?” I asked. I yawned and looked to the west. My stomach dropped. “Mwita! Come out here right
now!
”

He scrambled out and looked at the sky. “I should have known,” he said. “I knew but I was distracted.”

“We all were,” I said.

We packed and secured our things, using our tents and rapas to protect our flesh. We tied our faces with cloth and tied our veils over our eyes. Then we dug down into the sand and huddled together with our backs to the wind, linking arms and hanging on to Sandi’s fur. The sandstorm hit so hard that I couldn’t tell which way the wind was moving. It was as if the storm settled on us from the sky.

The sand slapped and bit at our clothes. I’d wrapped Sandi’s muzzle and eyes with thick rapa cloth but I worried about her hide. Beside me, Diti was weeping and Fanasi was trying to comfort her. Mwita and I leaned close to each other.

“Have you heard of the Red People?” Mwita said into my ear.

I shook my head.

“People of the sand. Only stories . . . they travel in a giant dust storm.” He shook his head. It was too noisy to speak.

An hour passed. The storm remained. My muscles began to cramp from the strain of holding on. Noise, stinging wind, and no end in sight. Storms didn’t last nearly this long when I was with my mother. They came fast and hard and left just as quickly. Yet another half hour passed.

Then, finally, the wind and the sand died. Just like that. We coughed and cursed in the sudden silence. I rolled to the side, the exposed parts of my skin raw and my muscles exhausted. Sandi groaned, slowly standing up. She shook the sand from her hide, spraying sand about. We all weakly complained. The sun shone down into the giant brown funnel of sand and wind. The eye of the storm. It had to be miles wide.

They came from all around us, draped from head to toe in deep red garments, as were their camels. All I could see were their eyes. One of them came up to us on a camel. This person rode with a small child in front, a toddler. The child giggled.

“Onyesonwu,” the person said in rich voice. A woman.

I held my chin up. “I am.” I slowly stood.

“Which of you is her husband, Mwita?” she asked in Sipo.

He didn’t bother arguing with the title. “I am,” Mwita said.

The child said something that could have been another language or toddler-speak.

“Do you know who we are?” the woman asked.

“You’re the Red People, the Vah. In the West, I heard many stories about you all,” Mwita said.

“You speak more like an easterner.”

“I grew up in the West, then the East. We currently are heading back West.”

“Yes, so I’ve been told,” the woman said, turning to me.

A man behind her spoke in a language I couldn’t understand. The woman responded and everyone else went into motion, moving away, getting off their camels, and bringing down their burdens. They took off their veils. I saw why they were called the Red People. Their skin was red as palm oil. Their reddish brown hair was shaved close, except for the young children who wore their hair in large bushy dreadlocks.

The woman took off her veil. Unlike the others, she had a gold ring in her nose, two more in her ears, and one in her eyebrow. The toddler leaped off the camel with unexpected agility. The child threw off her veil, exposing her dreadlocks. I noticed that the little girl also had a gold ring in her eyebrow.

“Who are you?” the woman asked the others as she dismounted her camel.

“Fanasi.”

“Diti.”

“Luyu.”

She nodded and looked at Sandi. She grinned. “I know you.”

Sandi made a sound that I’d never heard before. A sort of purring guttural noise. She rubbed her muzzle against the woman’s cheek and the woman chuckled. “You look well, too,” she said.

“Who are you all?” Luyu asked. “Mwita knows of you, but I don’t.”

The woman looked Luyu up and down and Luyu looked back at her. I was reminded of the way she stood up to the Ada during our Eleventh Rite. Luyu had never respected authority.

“Luyu,” the woman said. “I am Chieftess Sessa. That over there is the other one, Chief Usson.” She motioned to a man equally adorned with rings standing beside his camel.

“Other what?” Luyu asked.

“You ask the wrong questions,” Chieftess Sessa said. “You’ve met us at a good time. This is where we’ll stay till the moon is pregnant.” She looked at the wall of dust and grinned. “You’re welcome to stay . . . if you like.” She walked away, leaving us to decide. Around us, the Vah set up tents homier than ours. They were made from shiny stretched goatskin and were much bigger and higher. I saw capture stations, but not one computer.

“The next ‘pregnant moon’ is three weeks from now!” Luyu said.

“What is with these people?” Fanasi asked. “Why do they look like that? Like they eat, drink, and bathe in palm oil and cactus candy. It’s bizarre.”

Mwita sucked his teeth, annoyed.

“Who knows?” Luyu said. “What about their ‘friend’ the dust storm?”

“It travels with them,” Mwita said.

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Why are they red?”

Luyu screeched and jumped as a white-brown sparrow hit her in the back of the head. The bird fell to the ground, righted itself and stood there confused.

“Leave it alone,” Mwita said. “It’ll be okay.”

“I didn’t plan to do anything else,” Luyu said, staring at the bird.

“We can’t stay here,” Diti said.

“We have a choice?” I snapped. “Do
you
want to try getting through that storm?”

We set our tents up where we’d had them before the storm came. Except Luyu. She would stay with Fanasi.

For the first few hours, the Vah constructed their homes like the expert nomads they were. The sun was setting and the desert, even in the eye of the storm, was cooling down, but I refrained from building a rock fire. Who knew how these people reacted to juju?

We kept to ourselves and within ourselves we kept to ourselves more. Diti hid in her tent as did Fanasi and Luyu. Mwita and I, however, sat outside in front of ours, not wanting to look too antisocial. But while the Vah set up, even the children ignored us.

After dark, people began to socialize. I felt silly. Every tent I could see glowed with the light of a rock fire. Chieftess Sessa, Chief Usson, and an old man came to greet us. The old man’s face was etched with the kind of wrinkles that come with age and wind. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were grains of sand trapped forever inside those wrinkles. He looked at me with scrutiny.
He
made me more nervous than the angry-looking and silent Chief Usson.