Blackheart Man, page 34
Parental instinct woke Thandiwe that morning, to the sound of her daughter softly moaning.
Thandiwe was out of her own hamaca in an instant, and at her child’s side. Kaïra had recovered from being poisoned by that vile Veycosi, but she was strange now, thoughtful and standoffish. Thandiwe had strung Kaïra’s hamaca beside her own, the better to keep an eye out for her daughter.
Kaïra groaned and clutched at her belly. “Ma,” she whimpered, “it hurts.”
“Let me see.” She pulled Kaïra’s boubou up. There was a red and angry lump below Kaïra’s belly button. Thandy reached to touch the lump. Kaïra howled and twisted away from her hand. From even the brief touch, Thandiwe could feel how warm the swelling was. “Mama-ji,” she murmured. Was this because Cosi had poisoned her? Thandiwe called out to wake her own mother, Filiang. After some minutes, a bleary-eyed Filiang, her hair in night-plaits, came to see what had happened.
Kaïra was sweating and pale, her body burning up with fever. Little more time, she was no longer talking sense, only tossing back and forth and muttering pieces of words. Thandiwe and Filiang tried to give her mobby to drink, to bring the fever down. But Kaïra wouldn’t swallow. And the swelling kept growing bigger. When the skin over it began to crack, Thandiwe sent for the doctor.
Filiang said, “Maybe she making a baby?”
Thandiwe shook her head. “Not like this.”
For her part, Kaïra knew none of what was happening. Her belly had been paining her, yes. It had been for a few days. But she paid it little mind. She and her bannas had a children’s war to coordinate. Plus, her mind had been in fugue for some days, disjointed by the overdose of Reverie. She had come back to herself to find Chynchin’s cullybrees touching down, and a living and a dead army making havoc in Carenage Town. Everything was different. Her thinking, too. She and her bannas could follow each other’s half thoughts and finish each other’s sentences. Why did everyone else think so slow? Then the danger and excitement of the children’s battle, and the recovery of Chynchin, with so many dead, so much destroyed. A world overturned. What was a little bellyache, to that? She remembered climbing into her hamaca that night, wincing a little. Falling asleep dreamless. She did not remember the pain that made her call out for her ma.
The woman standing just inside Thandiwe’s door with her doctor bag was middling in age and in height, wearing a dark pai-jama and matching tunic, their weave uncharacteristically plain for a woman of Sindhu blood. She wore earrings, but no rings, necklace, or bangles; nothing that could get in the way while she worked. That is, she dressed as surgeons of the bokor class did: in whatever fashion they pleased, but the garments were simply styled and in dark colours that hid bloodstains until the garments could be washed. A surge of alarm swelled Thandy’s throat. “You’re a surgeon?” she asked the woman. “Does my Kaïra need cutting, then?” In the time it had taken the woman to arrive, the crack on Kaïra’s belly had split apart farther. There was little blood, just glimpses of more flesh inside the wound. Thandiwe’s mother, Filiang, was sitting with the semi-insensible girl to make sure she didn’t pull at it.
“Siani Thandiwe,” the bokor replied. “You don’t remember me?”
Thandiwe stared at her. Her features were familiar. The calm set to her posture. The long, slim nose that had broken and healed back a mite crooked. The ironic set of her mouth, which Thandiwe somehow knew could on a sudden turn to a wide, warm smile. “Siani Zu… Zunaiya?” Thandy asked.
And there was that smile she now remembered. “Exactly so!” said the bokor. “You going to let me in?”
“Oh! Of course!” Thandiwe stood aside. Zunaiya entered, alert and looking around. Zunaiya had been one of the bokors present when Kaïra was born. It had been their job to assert whether she was, in fact, a twinning child.
Just then, Kaïra called out, “Ma? Where you deh?”
“Coming, Kaïra!”
Zunaiya said, “I presume that’s my patient?” and headed in the direction of Thandiwe’s sleeping room, Thandy trailing after her. Over her shoulder, Zunaiya said, “We been keeping an eye on the little one from since she born.”
“Who, we?”
“The bokors who confirmed she was a twinning child.”
Kaïra was awake, tossing her head back and forth and blowing out little breaths. Filiang held one of her hands, trying to comfort her. Kaïra’s face was twisted in pain. “What happening to me, Ma?”
“I don’t know, my love. This siani is a bokor. She knew you when you were born. Maybe she can help you.” Thandy knew her smile was tight. She wasn’t fooling her child.
Zunaiya approached the hamaca, resting her doctor bag at the picken’s feet. “Hello, Kaïra. What a way you turned out comely! Let me have a look at where the pain is.”
When Zunaiya lifted the boubou, Kaïra looked down at herself and exclaimed in horror. “Is what that?”
Thandy and Filiang only gaped, speechless. A lump of fleshy skin was protruding from the wound. Zunaiya nodded. “Exactly what I thought.” She patted Kaïra’s cheek. “Don’t fret, picken. You going to be all right. The pain should be less soon. The fever likely going to come down by itself. Things progressing the way they should.”
Kaïra, tears streaking her face, wailed in confusion, “What things? What progress?”
Then she writhed in pain and cried out as the wound opened out little more.
Thandiwe’s heartstrings ached to hear her picken in such agonies. And Zunaiya was smiling! What kind of monster could be happy to see a child in such straits?
Kaïra whimpered once, softly. Then she looked down at her belly and gasped. “Ma,” she said, “look, look!”
Zunaiya’s grin grew even broader. “All my days as a healer,” she said to Kaïra, “I only ever see this once before. I just never thought it could happen to a twinning child. You, sweetness, are even rarer and more precious than we knew.”
She made space for Thandiwe and Filiang to see. Filiang gave a soft scream. For herself, Thandiwe couldn’t remember what she was thinking at that moment.
Pushing out of the crack in Kaïra’s belly was a boy-sized cocky and balls. Her mind a torrent, Thandiwe looked to Zunaiya for an explanation.
Zunaiya sighed happily. “Your daughter is now your son,” she said, as though that made all clear.
And Kaïra laughed, like the weight of the world had been taken from her.
* * *
“I decided to take the name ‘Oteng,’ ” said the picken. “It sound fine, nah true?”
Veycosi was having trouble keeping up with his notes as the three people recounted him the story. For one thing, it was so wondrous that he was entirely absorbed and kept forgetting to write. For another, an excitement had begun welling up in him the instant he realised what had happened to Kaïra-that-was. It tickled at his insides like tabac smoke, till he had to let it out. He clasped the picken’s hand between his two. “So now you don’t have to be the next Mamacona! You can be what you want!”
A silence fell around the room. Oteng’s face darkened and he cast his eyes downwards. “Is so I thought, too. But Siani Zunaiya say I still have to do it.”
Thandiwe scowled at Veycosi. “My… son was born with a responsibility. Unlike you, he hews to his.”
“Yes, Ma,” said the boy. Didn’t she mark how disconsolate the prospect made him? Were Kaï—Oteng his, he would be petitioning all and everyone to get the child released from this career he had not sought and did not desire. Veycosi understood how a youthful Thandiwe, knowing herself with child, might seize upon a fanciful story to make her life more exciting. Women’s wombs quickened every day. In Chynchin, it was a matter of rejoicement when it happened. Just not of such renown that there would be dancing in the streets.
But to have a child who would become a god; now that was a thing of which people would take note. Fair enough. Yet Thandy was a mature woman now, and still seeking to achieve fame by foisting an unwanted life onto her child. Veycosi still missed Thandiwe something awful, though now he was thinking there might be an advantage to not marrying himself to one such as she. He couldn’t disdain her overmuch, though. Hadn’t he committed his own acts of overweening folly, thus bringing harm to those he loved? One thing was clear: Thandiwe loved her child fiercely. She was a better mother than he would have been a father.
He dragged himself out of his melancholy thoughts by asking Bokor Zunaiya, “How did all this come about?”
“Because we have no other,” she replied. “On the day Oteng was born, my fellow bokors took the child from Siani Thandiwe to examine him, so we could confirm or deny whether he was a twinning child. And in truth, Oteng was identical to his mother in every way. I marked, though, that the child’s privates were of uncertain sex. Mind you, no two sets of privates are identical. But this variation was out of the ordinary.”
At this, Oteng looked abashed. Zunaiya smiled at him. “Apologies, lad; I not making mock, merely avowing that you are truly unique. That is a beautiful thing.”
Zunaiya continued, “I was the oldest of the lot of bokors assigned this task. In my decades of work I’d heard of this kind of thing, had even witnessed it once; a boy who looked to be a girl until his nature came down at puberty. But all our knowledge told us that since the child was Siani Thandiwe come again, an eventual boyhood was impossible. We all know Chynchin is home to the unlikely, though. So we decided to confirm her as a twinning child, but to keep an eye on her. If the twin goddess had chosen to make the next Mamacona a boy, who were we to gainsay her?”
Thandiwe made a noise of satisfaction at that. Oteng said nothing.
And then Veycosi knew what his true penance should be. His heart beat fast when the idea came to him. Would he be ready? Would he be allowed? Mama-ji, please say he would.
Jolting Veycosi out of his thoughts, Thandy said, “Is time we leave.”
He gasped. “So soon? I have a favour to ask you and Oteng.”
That was the wrong way to word his request. He knew it immediately the words poured forth. Sure enough, Thandiwe snapped, “We have nothing more to give you, and nothing we owe you. Oteng, come away.”
“Thandy, please listen to me. Just for a minute? I don’t want to, can’t, ask forgiveness. I know that. I just want to do what Mamacona would want.”
Thandy’s furious eyes met his. “You lie. You have no faith.”
“A-true,” he replied, “I don’t.” He mentally berated himself. He was botching this. She needed truth from him, not wiles. He tried again. “But I don’t need faith in gods to know what I need to do now.”
“You know is not me you betrayed,” she growled, “but this boy. This trusting picken who never did nothing but love you!”
Tears were never far from Veycosi’s eyes nowadays. “I know.”
She took Oteng by the hand and began walking away. As she pulled him along, Oteng said, “Ma, please hear what he have to say? For me? Please?”
She stopped, looking down at the hard tile floor of the gaol infirmary. Veycosi didn’t dare hope. Thandiwe remained so for some seconds, her back to Veycosi. He could hear her sniffing back tears. Then she dashed her hand across her eyes. She didn’t turn to face him, but muttered, low, “State your piece.”
He explained what he wanted to do, while Oteng, precious Oteng, Mamagua’s son Oteng, looked then at Veycosi, then at his mother, his face alighting with wonder. Once he’d laid everything out, Veycosi said, “I will be out of here in time for the Mamapiche parade. If the council says yes, then it is arranged. Will you let me do this?”
Oteng agreed immediately. Thandy took longer, but when she finally admitted to herself Oteng’s true feelings about his coming fate, she let the decision be his. In that moment, she was utterly beautiful in her love and care for her child.
“Thank you,” said Veycosi.
Sleep was scarce that night. The usual phantom pain, certainly. But it remained largely in the background, muted by the foment of his mind as he conceived and refined the plan the way he wanted to present it to the council. If they agreed, he would free Oteng.
* * *
It was Tierce, flush with the joy of being a student, who found in the Colloquium’s archives the sources Veycosi needed, copied down the details and drawings, and brought them to him in the gaol. Two of the inmates were women of the fisherfolk, handy with sail-mending needle skills. They were given the duty of cutting and sewing prototypes at one-fifth, one-quarter, and half size. The pickens took these and launched them from the trees around the gaol. They all fell and burst apart. Veycosi recollected that the last time he had experimented this way, his calculations had been so wrong that he’d nearly burst the reservoir open. His heart lurched into his throat then; a similar mistake this time would mean death.
Tierce seemed affronted when Veycosi explained his dilemma the following day. “Why wouldst thou not ask one’s… my help?” ee said. “I am studying the stars, look you.”
Veycosi frowned, not seeing the relevance.
Tierce rolled ir eyes. “I must almost daily do calculations of the movement of objects in space.”
Of course. So that was another aspect of his plan he needs must give over to another. It chagrined him until Tierce showed him ir scale drawings. He had to admit was a comfort to know he had company in his endeavour.
A new half-size prototype, loaded down with a rockstone, made the trip successfully, to applause from the inmates working that day in the gaol’s farm.
* * *
There you have it; Acotiren consumed Datiao and her own soul case, thus pushing shut the gate between the real and the numinous, the gate that occasionally creaked open a smidgen to let the two commingle for a space. That was normal. It was only in Chynchin that for two centaines the gate had gaped open wide enough to make the place a locus of the uncanny. No more, though. This country is like any other now. Obeah may work sometimes, but mostly not. Acotiren will live and die now, like any other human being. A dropped watermillion probably will not bounce, but will crash to the ground and burst open, dashing its sweetness to be crushed underfoot.
And apparently we the twinned god persist, as gods do anywhere there are people whose faith brings them into reality.
In addition, do forgive my sister. In her frustration at your deafness to us, she played a Mamapiche trick on your memory. You were never attacked by a caiman. You have no caiman scar on your foot. No matter, though, sith you no longer have that foot.
* * *
“Remember, lad,” said Jacob. Goat was kushed down. He patted her saddle. “She going to come up on her back legs first, then her front ones. So she going to tilt down, look you, then straighten out as she lifts up. Put your hand on the tarfa in front of you, and keep that arm straight.”
The peak above wasn’t the highest point on the mountain range, but it stuck out the farthest. It suited Veycosi’s purposes well. The stone Mamacona sisters stood on the hill farther above; the same place where they’d ever stood, calmly overlooking a Chynchin so changed, Veycosi marvelled that they still cared to remain there, rather than leaping off into the sea that was Mamagua’s domain.
Veycosi regarded the frame of wood and fabric on Goat’s back that was the saddle. “Maybe I should just climb the hill myself.”
Jacob gave him the blankly knowing look of one who’d raised an own-way child. “As tha will’t, lad. But Goat and I will come alongside.”
So off they went. Veycosi struggled with each step, trying to handle the weight and discomfort of his new peg leg. Behind Veycosi, Gilead, Maitefa, Daffyd, and Oteng struggled under the floppy weight of his latest folly. Gza trailed along beside them, alternately carrying and dropping four long lengths of rope and four of supple bamboo. Veycosi could have had Goat tote the lot for him, but the pickens had begged and reasoned with him until he let them.
One of Veycosi’s crutches slipped in the shale. Down he went, with a cry. That had hurt! Maitefa and Oteng dropped their burden and ran to him. “No, don’t help me,” he told them. “All is well.” Jacob just looked on calmly. Veycosi managed to clamber upright. He resumed the torturous climb.
The second time he measured his length in the hillside dirt, Oteng came and knelt by his head. Gently, he said, “I did the sum. At your rate of progress, it going to take you almost three hours to get to the top. Parade will finish long since.”
Veycosi was sweaty with the effort. His fine new boubou was smeared with dust. He’d scraped the palm of one hand. The ache at the base of his stump had progressed from sullen to insistent. Oteng said, “If you ride Goat, we will reach in fifteen minutes. Enough time to break fast and get set up.” Then he held an arm out to help Veycosi stand.
It was the adultish reasoning that unnerved the most. With a grumble, Veycosi let the picken help him. Oteng bade Jacob and Goat come over. It needed almost the whole party to get Veycosi securely onto Goat’s back. He hadn’t reckoned on how challenging it would be to grip the saddle with one lower leg gone. He nearly slid off a few times, but did finally find the trick of it. They continued up the hill, with Jacob guiding Goat by her lead. The camel stepped smartly today. Maybe she liked the new foot wrappings. Jacob had informed Veycosi that camels’ feet were suited to deserts, not the rocky hills above Carenage. So then, by way of apology for taking her up into the hills in her bare feet the night of the battle, Veycosi had had her feet shod in lengths of soft woven canvas.
The day was a fine one; light clear as glass, the sky blue, the sea breathing calm and deep. Fishing boats dotted her breast. Fewer than usual; boats had been stove in during the skirmish.
The Colloquium had agreed that under the circumstances, this history he was recording counted as finding a new tale to equal the worth of the book he’d drowned in the reservoir.
Pain occupied much of Veycosi’s life nowadays. His stump hadn’t yet built up enough callus. It frequently chafed to rawness where it rubbed against the heavy wooden leg Bokor Zunaiya had had carved for him. The itchy ache in his phantom leg was, for some reason, worse at night. He would wake weeping from it and reach for Ma’s bitter tea brew, which she left in the jug by his bed. He’d rather have slept in a hamaca, but the shape and movement of one currently made his injury ache intolerably. Ma and his das had taken him back in so they could look after him while he was recovering. He daily thanked whatever gods might be that they had decided to take that ocean trip after all. They had even convinced the yardman Adam and his family to join them. Their timing had been perfect. Now they were back with stores of rice that war-riven Carenage needed.
