Shadow Speaker, page 20
They reached the top of the hill and the view pushed away all Ejii’s question about their conversation. She was reminded of an old photo of the pre–great change New York City skyline before the two tall towers were destroyed by airplanes. She’d always marveled at how huge those two towers were, and she never thought she’d see anything close to that great city. But what she was looking at surpassed New York City by a thousand times! Her time with Allah had not shown her this part of Ginen. Maybe Allah had wanted her to experience her first viewing of it as a human being.
“It’s like . . . the Cross River Rainforest near my home mixed with the glowing buildings of Tokyo,” Dikéogu said.
“Please, can we stop for a moment?” Ejii called to Buji, Gambo, and Jaa.
“Of course,” Buji said. “One’s first sight of Ile-Ife should always be given a moment.”
“Is that what it’s called?” Dikéogu said.
“Or you can call it the Great City or just plain Ife,” Buji said.
“But Ile-Ife is a city in Nigeria,” Dikéogu said.
“No, that’s the name of a town there,” Jaa said. “This is a city. The real thing.”
The skyline glowed as if the buildings themselves were made of a luminous material. The tallest skyscrapers reached aggressively for the sky. People and cars moved about in the streets below. Trees and bushes and plants grew between the buildings. Thick green-brown vines linked every building like the veins and arteries. There were wide screens on the sides of buildings that flashed undulating designs.
The people did look West African, though their styles of dress were wholly unfamiliar to her. She saw a woman wearing a heavy-looking dress made of tiny beads, a man with vine bracelets like Buji’s, a woman wearing a dress that flashed with blue fist-sized mirrors. Lastly, she focused on the downtown area. She looked at the tallest tower and zoomed her eyes in as much as possible. When she saw the cellular make-up of the building, her suspicions were confirmed. “They’re all plants!” she said.
“The tallest one is the Ooni Palace,” Buji said. “That’s where the meeting will be. On the top floor. It’s the government’s center. It’s over a thousand years old.”
“Do they still grow?” Dikéogu asked.
“Mhm,” Buji said.
“I see the top,” Ejii said. “Oh!” The very top of the Ooni Palace bloomed into a giant soft-looking flower with a blue center and long purple petals.
“The blossom is a digital transmitter for the whole kingdom,” Buji said. He cocked his head. “Do you see anything else near the top?”
“White birds, owls but with thicker feathers,” Ejii said.
“It’s almost a mile into the sky,” Buji said. “So it’s very cold.”
“Lower down I see . . . are those ants? They’re white and really really big!”
“Ogoni ants. They maintain the Ooni Palace,” Buji said. “That tribe of ants has been living on and caring for it since it sprouted. Those ants can be deadly if anyone tries to hurt their sacred plant. They’ve killed more than a few people over the years.”
“So there are people in there? In a giant plant?” Dikéogu said.
“Yes. They’re sturdier than Earth buildings. They may not be as clean, but they smell better, unless some creature defecates in a corner,” Buji said, with a chuckle.
“We have to go in there?” Dikéogu whispered to Ejii.
“If they let us,” Ejii said.
“I hope there’s a balcony.”
“Are you sure you want to go outside when you’re a mile in the sky?” Ejii asked.
“I’ll wear a coat.”
CHAPTER 20
The Village of the Red One and Her Chiefs
They rode well into the Ooni Kingdom, very close to its heart. Jaa, Buji, and Gambo’s village was in the downtown part of the city, just before the first plant tower. But Ejii was overwhelmed far before reaching their village. It started when they entered the city boundaries, the more rural part of the Ooni Kingdom behind them.
When they’d entered Ginen, they had come into what Buji called Northern Ooni. Here, Ejii got her first up-close look at Ginen’s people. She was reminded of Agadez, because people spoke loudly and laughed freely, restaurants were open for business, goats and hens walked about, and the air smelled of cooking oil and goat droppings.
Nevertheless, here there was no Islam, and that meant no mosques and no people on mats kneeling and praying. There was no Arabic writing on walls, the camels had longer necks and some had black hair, and there was no sand. There were people talking to devices that weren’t made of plastic and wires, they looked like pal-sized curved green and orange flat gourds with screens. Ejii had seen a few of these in the Agadez market. The streetlights were large light-producing plants shaped like white trumpets. Ejii wondered if the lights in the homes were also a plant byproduct. Even a group of men sitting on a porch playing cards had a giant lily lighting their game.
Ejii laughed when she heard the music coming out of shops, restaurants, and from people’s porches. Hip-hop. “Buji,” she said. “Isn’t this music from Earth?”
“Earth and Ginen have always exchanged bits of culture. Even before the great change. Through secret openings.”
“Like in the United States?”
Buji nodded. “One or two, but most are in the Sahara Desert.”
The people of the North wore beautiful flowing dresses and pants and shirts that clicked with tiny mirrors. Some had round mirrors sewn into the hips of their pants, others had them embroidered into the hems of their skirts and cuffs of their shirts. One proud-looking woman had a whole dress made of mirrors.
Ejii tried to ignore the Ginen cars that zoomed around them on the street. Their speed terrified her. Buji said they weren’t even made of metal; instead they were made from a tough fiber called hemp. “You crash in a Ginen car and you usually drive away,” he said. “They’re very safe. That’s why a lot of drivers aren’t very careful.”
There were different types of plants everywhere, between houses, on top of houses. She even saw a tree that grew through a house’s roof. Ejii wondered how the place was kept so tidy. Then there were the people. Since they had entered Ginen, a crowd of people had followed them.
“What’ll you do?” a man shouted. “The Golden Dawn is useless as golden urine!”
“They can do nothing,” another man answered. “We’re all doomed.”
“Go back where you came from, and stay there!”
Ejii asked Buji, “How do they know about the meeting? I thought it was secret.”
“Secret?” Buji said. “When the great change happened, there were demonstrations and protests and riots all over Ooni.”
“That was when many found out that Earth existed,” Jaa told Ejii, shaking a woman’s hand. “It was a shock. Most people thought Earth was a myth.”
“Since then, to avoid riots, the chief has kept the people informed,” Buji said.
“Please, try your best, Red One,” a woman said, coming up to Jaa.
“I will,” Jaa said. A red flower fell from the sky into the woman’s hands.
“We are counting on all of you!” the woman said.
As they moved along, Buji pointed out that the people of the North were distinctively different from his people of the Northeast.
“Ooni’s divided along ancient lines of trade and art into five parts,” Buji said. “Historically, the Northwesterners are great cooks. The Southwesterners love beads. The people of the Southeast work with metal. Northerners work with mirrors. My people, the Northeasterners, are botanists. We cultivated most of this whole city.”
“Many built this city, husband,” Jaa said. She turned to Ejii and Dikéogu. “One of Ooni’s biggest problems is tribalism, when one tribe thinks it’s better than other tribes.”
Buji rolled his eyes. “It’s understood that Ooni is more than its tribal parts.”
“Not always,” Jaa said.
The people of the North were very proud and always looking at themselves in their mirrors as they followed, talked, walked, and chatted. Most of the time, their comments were aimed at Jaa, Gambo, and Buji. But a few looked at Ejii with suspicion. Someone even made the same sign that people back in Kwàmfà made to ward off the “evil eye,” circling a hand over his head and snapping. Apparently shadow speakers also carried a stigma in Ginen. What was odder was the way they treated Dikéogu.
“Sunny day,” many said to him. Jaa said this was the traditional greeting, similar to saying “Good afternoon” or “Hello.” Many children pointed and smiled at Dikéogu; a few girls blew kisses at him and said, “Rain is life.” Dikéogu shyly nodded and smiled, not knowing what else to do. Ejii bristled, imagining scaring those girls with her eyes.
“Why do you think they like me so much?” Dikéogu asked.
She shrugged, annoyed. She didn’t want kisses blown at her, but she didn’t want to be treated like she had some contagious disease either. An old woman walked up to them when they stopped to cross a street. She handed Dikéogu a white flower with a red center. “For you,” she said, grinning widely enough to show all her white teeth. “Rain is life.”
“Thank you,” Dikéogu said, taking it. Ejii rolled her eyes. “Buji,” Dikéogu said, once they were far from the old woman. “What’s all this about?”
“Later,” he only said. “Keep smiling and saying thank you.”
It was obvious when they crossed the border into the northeast. One moment there were proud mirrored people, then what seemed like a moment later there were quiet, friendly people with plants growing around their wrists. All of them had dirt under their fingernails. These people had more encouraging words than insults. And they must have had things to do also, because few followed them. Here, the buildings were far more elaborate. There were sweet-smelling flowers growing in complex patterns, graceful multi-storied homes, and large buildings that were really farms.
A spiky cactus fence surrounded Jaa and her husbands’ village. Jaa said that all the homes within the village were part of the same giant blue plant. When they got to the cactus fence, Buji climbed off his camel, stepped up to the fence, and touched one of the cactuses. The cactus’s thorns retreated into the body and the cactuses in front of him bent to the side and flattened themselves to the ground.
“They remind me of plants we had in my village,” Dikéogu whispered to Ejii. “You touch them and they wither, then they go back to normal a few minutes later.”
“I’ll bet the cactuses only wither for people who live here,” Ejii said.
“Welcome to Osizugbo, our village,” Jaa said proudly.
The camels stepped over the flattened cactuses. Once they were over the gate, Jaa touched the cactuses and they came back up. Quickly after that all the commotion began.
“Ah, ah! He’s here, o! And he’s brought his lovely crazy wife!”
“Who are these two children? Has it been that long?!”
“Let me look at you three!”
“What were the wastelands like?”
“Did you bring us anything?”
“The girl is a mau girl. And so young!”
There was singing, dancing, hugging. All the people who lived in Jaa and her husbands’ village had some kind of twisted hair, be they long dreadlocks or short bumpy twists. Ejii and Dikéogu were squeezed by several people.
“Everybody, back off. Let us see our sons and daughter,” a short woman with a rough voice said. She was Jaa’s height. Behind her a man, also quite small, followed.
“Papa, mama,” Buji said, grinning.
His parents looked him over. “The wastelands have somehow kept you young,” his mother said, patting his cheek.
“Not so young. Look at his forehead. Got lines like ant trails,” his father said.
“I am so glad to see you,” Buji said, giving them each a tight hug.
“Gambo!” his mother said, grabbing and hugging him. “My second son.” She planted a kiss on his forehead.
“You look beautiful, Mama Nyambe,” Gambo said, kissing her hand. “Papa Nyambe,” Gambo said, giving him the handshake of respect by grasping his hand and snapping fingertips afterward. “It’s good to see you.”
Mama Nyambe turned to Jaa. “Oh, and here she is!”
Jaa and Buji’s mother stood looking at each other for a moment. Then Jaa knelt down and bowed to both Buji’s parents. They looked very pleased.
“She’s learning,” Buji’s mother said. Papa Nyambe tapped Jaa on the forehead and Jaa got up.
“Who are these two?” Buji’s mother asked.
“This is Ejii Ugabe from Kwàmfà village of Niger, and this is Dikéogu Obidimkpa from Arondizuogu village of Nigeria,” Jaa said. “They’re our students.”
Mama Nyambe stepped up to Ejii, who stood a little taller than her. Still, she looked straight into Ejii’s eyes. Mama Nyambe’s face was a deep brown, wrinkly, a small mole on her left cheek, and brown eyes with long eyelashes. She smelled of honey. Ejii couldn’t help but read her a little, though she was beginning to wonder if it was really “reading” anymore. At first there was sweetness. Honey. Buji’s mother loved honey. She was a honey seller. And her heart was as sweet as her honey.
“It’s great to meet you,” Ejii said. She smiled broader than she wanted to as she tried to play off the slight dizziness in her mind.
“Sunny day. Welcome, mau girl,” Mama Nyambe said, holding Ejii’s hand. She put an arm around Ejii, holding her up. She laughed and shook her head. “Nosy girl.” Then she took Dikéogu’s hand and said, “Welcome, rain boy.”
“Yes, welcome. Now, come in, all of you,” Buji’s father said.
Ejii couldn’t stop looking at the walls. They were light green and soft looking, like padding. Inside was larger than Ejii had thought. There were three stories, reachable by an uneven staircase. There were red tapestries, red floor rugs, red wooden masks, and red statues. There were ferns with red flowers growing in every corner, their green leaves free of dusty spores. There were all sorts of red flowers growing through the tables. The lights grew on long stems and tilted their glowing centers to shine pink light into the room. But it was the wall that Ejii was most interested in.
As Buji sighed with happiness, glad to be home, Jaa and Buji’s mother discussed cooking dinner, Gambo and Buji’s father talked about going to the late night market, and Dikéogu looked at a bowl-like plant growing on the banister, Ejii walked over to touch the wall. She still couldn’t believe that the house was a plant. Jaa said she’d personally planted it years ago.
“Right now, there is a room about the size of a closet next to the master bedroom,” Jaa had said. “In a few years it’ll be another two rooms.”
Aside from it being a plant, there were all sorts of wildlife inside it. Ejii saw large bright blue spiders, transparent-skinned geckos, lizards with long metallic-looking nails, and all sorts of beetles. She even saw a tiny red-orange monkey clinging to the ceiling; it ran off the moment she stepped toward it. Jaa said that having creatures in the house was good. In an Ooni house, one was never more than a foot away from some creature.
“Nothing will bother you here if you don’t bother it,” she’d said. “But don’t be surprised if something decides that you are interesting to watch, bathe with, or even spend the night with.” She smiled. “And watch where you step. We sweep up every morning and evening, but creatures must void themselves whenever they must.”
She looked more closely at the plant wall. It was so green. She could see the individual bits inside each cell. Chloroplasts, she thought, remembering what she’d learned about plant cells in school. They contained chlorophyll. She pressed her finger against the wall. It was tough but not like wood or concrete. It felt alive.
“It closed when I touched it!” Dikéogu said from the stairs. “And did you see the size of that gecko that just ran up the wall? What the hell else lives here?!”
“Ejii, you can stay in this room,” Mama Nyambe said, when they went to the second floor. “I’ll get you some towels so you can wash up.”
Ejii looked into the room and grinned. It was plain, with only a mirror, a large bed with a white blanket, and an empty closet. But it smelled like lilacs because there was a large lilac bush growing in the center of it, its leaves having spread across the ceiling. A green grasshopper with long antenna and short thick legs rested on one of the flower bunches. There was another on the window.
“Don’t worry about the grasshoppers. They won’t bother you and they sing a nice tune at night when in the mood,” Mama Nyambe said. She motioned Dikéogu to the room next to Ejii. “And you, rain boy, can sleep in here.”
He shook his head. “I . . . I can’t sleep indoors,” he said. “I . . .”
“Oh, no problem,” Mama Nyambe said. “Come on. Follow me.” She led them back downstairs and outside to the back of the house. The garden took up the whole yard. And the yard fed into the neighbors’ yards, which also had gardens, though not as well kept.
“An abode seed is cultivated to grow into a home,” Mama Nyambe said. “That’s nothing new. But that woman, Jaa, no one knows how she did it, but she somehow made this abode seed sprout into multiple homes. Her plant has kept many families together.”
Ejii thought of what had happened in the desert with the mango seeds and, again, noted just how much she and Jaa were alike. She walked over to where the house narrowed into a very wide vine that plunged into the ground. Next to the house were five large white boxes. Ejii could hear the bees softly buzzing inside.
“Honeybees,” Mama Nyambe told Ejii. “Don’t worry, they’d never hurt a fly unless provoked.”
Sitting in the center of the village’s yards was an enormous tree with a trunk wide as a house itself. It looked like a monkey-bread tree, its wide low branches fanning out as if it wanted to give all the houses a big hug. Buji’s mother led them into the garden. Dikéogu flicked on his flashlight to see his way. He still tripped over a tree root.
“Dikéogu, you can sleep out here, or wherever you like,” Mama Nyambe said. “We have all kinds of animals that live around here, but none will hurt you.”
