CHAPTER 43

NEITHER DITI NOR LUYU RETURNED THAT NIGHT. Fanasi sat all night staring into what was left of the rock fire. He was still there when I got up the next morning to brew some tea. “Fanasi,” I said. My voice startled him. Maybe he was sleeping with his eyes open. “Go sleep.”

“They haven’t returned,” he said.

“They’re fine. Go sleep.”

He stumbled to his tent where he crawled in and stopped moving, his legs still sticking out. I was in the bath tent, halfway through rinsing soap from my body, when I heard one of them return. I paused.

“Glad you could make it back,” I heard Mwita say.

“Oh, stop,” I heard Diti say.

Silence.

“Don’t try and make me feel guilty,” Diti added.

“When have I ever said that you shouldn’t enjoy yourself?” Mwita asked.

Diti grunted. “Has he been here all night?”

“He waited for both of you all night,” Mwita said. “He just went to sleep.”

“For both of us?” she scoffed.

“Diti…”

I heard her go back to her tent. “Leave me be. I’m tired.”

“Suit yourself,” Mwita said.

Luyu returned three hours later. Diti was sleeping off whatever it was she was sleeping off, probably a combination of intercourse and palm wine. Luyu looked refreshed, escorted by a man about our age. “Good morning,” she said.

“Afternoon,” I corrected her. I’d spent the morning in meditation. Mwita had gone off somewhere. I presumed it was to find either Ssaiku or Ting.

“This is Ssun,” she said.

“Good afternoon,” I said.

“Welcome,” he said. “Last night, your singing, it gave me good dreams.”

“When you finally went to sleep,” Luyu added. They grinned at each other.

“He was waiting up for you,” I said, motioning to Fanasi.

“Is that Diti’s husband?” Ssun asked, cocking his head, trying to see him.

I almost laughed.

“I hope he didn’t mind that my brother took Diti from him for a night,” he said.

“Maybe a little,” Luyu said.

I frowned. What kind of norms and rules do these people have? I wondered. Everyone seemed to be having intercourse with everyone. Even Eyess wasn’t of Chieftess Sessa’s husband’s blood. While Luyu and Ssun talked, I quietly walked over to Fanasi and kicked one of his legs hard. He groaned and rolled over.

“Eh, what is it?” he said. “I was sleeping nicely.”

Luyu gave me a very dirty look. I smiled at her.

“Fanasi,” Ssun said, walking over to him. “I had your Luyu for the night. She tells me that you may take offense.”

Fanasi quickly got to his feet. He swayed a little but at full height, he was taller and more imposing than Ssun. Instinctively Ssun stepped back. Diti peeked out of her tent, a smile on her face.

“Take her as long as you want,” Fanasi said.

“Ssun,” I said. I was about to reach out and take his hand but then thought better of it. “It was nice to have your acquaintance. Come.” I walked with him away from our camp. He maintained his distance of a few inches from me. “Have my brother and I caused trouble?” he asked.

“Nothing that wasn’t there already,” I said.

“In Ssolu, we follow our urges. I’m sorry, we’ve neglected to consider that you all aren’t from here.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “You may have set things back in order with us.”

That evening, Luyu moved back into her tent and we were forced to use Binta’s tent for bathing.

Those days leading up to the retreat were the worst for the five of us. Diti, Luyu, and Fanasi refused to speak to one another. And both Luyu and Diti continually disappeared during afternoons and evenings.

Fanasi befriended a few men and spent evenings with them talking, drinking, feeding the camels, and especially cooking bread. I didn’t know Fanasi was such a good baker. I should have. He was a bread maker’s son. Fanasi made several types of bread and soon women were asking for his bread and to be taught how to make it. But when in our camp, he kept to himself. I wondered what was on his mind. I wondered about all three of them. On the surface they seemed okay but it was only Luyu who I felt really was okay.

Living with the Vah people was odd. Aside from no one touching me, I loved these people. I was welcome here. And I got to know names and personalities. There was a couple living in a tent near us, Ssaqua and Essop, who had five children, two of whom had different fathers. Ssaqua and Essop were a lively couple who argued and discussed every issue. They called Mwita and me often to settle disputes. One of the arguments they called me to settle was over whether the desert had more areas of hardpan or sand dunes.

“Who could answer that?” I said. “No one’s been everywhere. Even our maps are limited and out of date. And who’s to say everything is desert.”

“Ha!” said Essop, poking his wife in the belly. “See, I was right! I win!”

Children in the village of Ssolu ran amok, in a good way. They were always somewhere helping or learning from someone. Everyone welcomed them. Even the very young ones. As long as a baby could walk, he or she was everyone’s responsibility. I once saw a child of about two get fed by her mother and then run off to explore. Hours later, I saw her sitting to lunch with another family on the other side of the village. Then that evening, I found her with Ssaqua and Essop and two of their children, eating dinner!

Of course, Eyess visited me often. We shared many meals together. She liked my cooking, saying that I used “so much spice.” It was nice having a little shadow, but she always grew annoyed when Mwita came and took some of my attention from her.

What made Ssolu most comfortable for me was what made them different from any society I knew. Everyone here could build a rock fire. They just knew how to do it. And when I’d sung, people had been pleased and amused when the bird landed on my shoulder. The idea of my singing having such a calming effect on them didn’t bother them.

The Vah weren’t sorcerers. Only Ssaiku and Ting knew the Mystic Points. But juju was part of their way of life. It was so normal that they felt no need to ever fully understand it. I never asked them if they knew these minor jujus instinctively or had been taught. It seemed a rude question, like asking how one learned to control his urine.

My mother had been like the Vah in how she accepted the unanswerable and the mystical. But when we got to Jwahir, to civilization, it had become something to hide. In Jwahir, it was only acceptable for elders like Aro, the Ada, or Nana the Wise to know juju. For anyone else juju was an abomination.

What would I have been like if I grew up here? I wondered. They had no issue with Ewu people. They embraced Mwita like one of their own. They gave him hugs and handshakes, patted him on the back, let their children hang around him. He was wholly welcome.

Yet, they could not touch me. Even in Jwahir people would brush against me in the market. When I was young, people were always tugging at or feeling my hair and I’d had my share of fights with other children. This was the only issue I had with the people of the nomadic town of Ssolu.