Everfair (38 page)

No other aircanoes were due during Daisy's shift. Performing maintenance with the crew filled her afternoon. Her relief showed at sunset.

Walking was almost the equal of labor as a breeding medium for poetry. Reaching home, she hurried to her basket of blank paper and her always-full fountain pen, her sole luxuries. A chorus had presented itself to her, complete with six variations. She had only one stanza as she sat to write, but trusted more would come. And soon they did.

Rosalie returned sometime during the composition of the second verse. Daisy heard Rosalie, saw her in a sense when she raised her head from the page. Most likely she greeted her daughter too, at some point—certainly when Rosalie brought her a gourd of fragrant steamed fish and vegetables, she spoke as if continuing a conversation Daisy couldn't recall starting.

“Of course I'll stay awake till you're ready to read it aloud. You always ask me, and I always do.” Speedily forming and dipping her balls of fufu, Rosalie seemed suddenly African. Which just proved how false was the dichotomy Nenzima, Josina, and the rest professed to sense in Everfair's people. Race should not, could not,
did
not divide them. The next stanza was the perfect one in which to express the sentiment—

By the speckled lamplight, Daisy laid out the poem's final draft to let the ink dry. Glancing up, she saw that Rosalie had strung their beds without her noticing. Her daughter's sagged. “Rosalie?” Daisy whispered, and was rewarded with a frowsy face staring down over the hammock's headbar. She checked her repeater. Five minutes to midnight. “Go back to sleep. It's no matter.”

But Rosalie shook her tousled curls. “Read it,” she insisted. “I'm listening. As ever. Let me be the first.”

 

Kisangani, Everfair, January 1917

Mwenda had come so far. Josina had helped him renew contact with his spirit father, and because of this he would go further. Princess Mwadi had retrieved the original shongo for him. Later it would be given to her brother, his heir. He fondled the wooden haft and considered the past, the future.

The poem was ending. The Poet's voice increased in volume and she once again repeated a long stream of words:

“Then let us put the War away,

This wicked game we shall not play;

We'll sport no more as wanton boys,

Abandoning such murderous toys,

And we'll live as God intended,

We whom Heaven has befriended.”

Mwenda had learned English at the prompting of the Mote, when they'd made it his country's official language—a problem, but one put off to be dealt with after the tyrant's overthrow. And still unconfronted. For the moment, he merely listened, his favorite queen beside him.

Of the others present, only Old Kanna had formed part of the king's original court. With Nenzima and Loyiki, he had counseled Mwenda and Josina separately, in advance of the current Grand Mote. Though Mwenda alone bore responsibility for deciding his realm's destiny.

Politely, King Mwenda applauded the Poet in the whites' accepted style, hand on hand. Flesh on metal. It served to spotlight one of the most important differences between him and many of his subjects.

As planned, it was Loyiki who brought up the first question: “How can we offer a surrender no one has asked us for?”

“But they
will
ask for it,” Mademoiselle Toutournier replied. “The motion we consider is merely for us to prepare ourselves—”

“How can you
know
?” Unexpectedly, his hand's inventor, Tink, stood from his chair. Mwenda listened and watched him as he had learned to do so well from Josina. “Nothing has happened yet. America entered the war only just last November; have you found out a method of predicting the future?” Strands of his straight black hair escaped its bindings and fell across his shoulders as he walked rapidly back and forth along the room's edge. Evidently his passion was too much to conceal. But in which direction did it run? “There may be a truce! A cease fire! Anything—you can't be sure—”

“Or is this another instance of your spying?” asked George Albin. His lips were pressed thin. He meant the word as an insult.

“You don't approve?” Mademoiselle smiled as he flushed. She would take it for granted that her sister Josina did approve of an activity she herself engaged in. And therefore King Mwenda also. “All I am saying is that if, in the eventuality—the very likely eventuality—that the war in Europe—which is the only theater in which Europeans are interested—should be decided in favor of the Entente, we must expect to acknowledge to them our defeat.”

Then it was time for Nenzima to placate everyone, as she so often did. She called on them to continue discussing the point and to delay the vote till the next Grand Mote, eight markets off. This was, of course, agreed to.

There should have been nothing more after that, but before he could signal Old Kanna to make the request to close proceedings, the Poet said she wished to bring up another matter.

“A happier matter,” she went on, frowning, “and one we ought to be able to decide more quickly: today, in fact.

“I want us to proclaim a national holiday. We—we have never had one.”

“Ah.” Tink sat again. “Yes. That's a very good idea. Our martyrs should be remembered.”

“Thank you. That is more or less the idea. A nonreligious celebration, it goes without saying.” So why had she said it? “The date of August 13 seems best.”
Why was the Poet choosing that specific date,
the king wondered,
and using the white calendar?
These were answers of the sort his queen had been teaching him to seek out. Answers he had learned to care for more as his seasons increased.

“Even if we do continue fighting, we will have to halt temporarily then, with the rains at their worst. Before that, we'll have time enough to make our inaugural Founders' Day—”

“Our—what did you call it?” Queen Josina leaned forward with apparently detached interest.

“Founders' Day?” The Poet hesitated. “We could certainly use another name for it, if you think that would be better. Something with a more traditional or local association?”

“A traditional association with our founding?” Josina looked and sounded genuinely puzzled. “The king's line began several generations ago, but we celebrate that under no particular name and on no particular day. What is the significance of August 13—for you?”

The Poet's face drew in like a flower done with the day. “It's when Jackie died—Mr. Owen, the father of our country.”

Silence. It was not for Mwenda to speak. But Old Kanna hissed.

“I beg your pardon?” The flower of the Poet's face stirred in its drooping.

“I believe,” Mademoiselle Toutournier said, “that many of our citizens might rather give that title to the king.”

“Yes,” affirmed the queen.

Mwenda rose. “You may go now.”

“But the Mote—the holiday—”

Mademoiselle took the Poet's arm and steered her toward the door. “It's over, Daisy.”

 

Usumbura, Urundi, September 1917

Thomas brought only five of his brides with him. They shared their own house, at the end of a short path connecting to the house where he slept. For none of the four days and nights they'd stayed here so far had he escaped seeing a Sapeur as he slipped from one side to the other. Thomas's admirers were subtle. It almost could have been owing to chance that some emulator of his style was always standing nearby, waiting for a glimpse of the smartly be-skirted general visiting or leaving his harem. Thomas returned the salute of one, a white-shirted dandy in a charcoal-colored kilt leaning against the wall of the emptied building at the compound's entrance. Not a guard, but beneath the man's grey derby shone watchful eyes. Perhaps the Sapeurs' presence was for the best.

Shutting the door on the glaringly bright sunset, he took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the dimness of the women's house. Fatoumata, a devotee out of Mali, had insisted on covering the windows with chalk-smeared sheets to keep out malign influences. Perhaps she was right to do so—no assassins had attacked him yet. But tomorrow he would have to appear in public to play his part in Everfair's surrender to the British rulers of this colony.

He had attempted uselessly to refuse King Mwenda's commission. It hadn't helped his arguments against coming that he'd flown missions over Urundi and beyond. But being here on the ground was different. It made him much more vulnerable, despite the many men gathering to admire him. Well, if he died at the age of sixty-eight, that wouldn't be such a tragedy, would it?

Fatoumata's sleek, smooth back aroused him. While Nenzima, more of an age with Thomas, massaged and oiled his hands, he reveled in the roll of the younger woman's muscles as she bent to rub his feet. Then a third of his consorts—Uwimana, meaning “daughter of God”—but which god?—soothed his temples with soft fingers, circling, circling, slower, wider, brushing upward over Thomas's shorn head.

His eyes closed. A powerful yet languorous thrill surged through him, like warm wind through an opened door. His clothing slipped away, and the women's ministrations became defter and more direct. His manhood received caresses from multiple hands and mouths—too many for him to distinguish among them without an effort he no longer cared to make. Wet, supple delight surrounded him, skin to skin, breath to breath. No hurry, no pressure save that building within, which would crest and spill over in the fullness of its own sweet time.

When all activity ceased.

Rousing himself from his repletion, Thomas found Nenzima ready, as usual, to dress him in a clean shirt and skirt. The shirt's long sleeves—suitable to Usumbura's high elevation—were pressed into neat creases, the canvas skirt printed with the star-and-river pattern frequently painted on barkcloth. Having escorted him back to his bed, she once again removed the garments to hang handy on pegs till he would want them in the morning.

Three pegs. Since their arrival, the top peg had been empty. Now it held the most extraordinary object. “Nenzima?”

“Yes, husband?”

“What is—this?”

“It is for you to wear to the surrendering.”

Gingerly, Thomas removed the thing from where it was suspended, finding at the center of its fountaining, two-and-a-half-foot-long, blue-black feathers an everyday square hat. “Loango wishes this?” Yoka had remained in Everfair to minister to the thousands of faithful there, but in his stead others such as Nenzima offered Thomas much-needed spiritual advice.

“It would make for good alignment.”

Then yes. Mindful of past punishments, Thomas resolved to accept this obliquely given divine instruction immediately and unconditionally.

*   *   *

Usumbura was too small for a dedicated British consulate. The formal surrender was to take place in the mayor's offices. Thomas and his entourage arrived first and waited for the governor in the gardens for some minutes. A growing crowd of dandies in kilts and ascots and tailored morning coats, wearing ruffled cuffs and spats and glossily polished shoes, swarmed around him, staring in awe at his enormous hat. The stork-faced mayor joined them and made pointless conversation about the statuary he was going to install along the graveled walkways bordering future plantings.

An appreciable time after the mayor's clock had struck noon, a thrumming drone floated down from the eastern hills. Its loudness increased as its source came nearer: a motor truck colored a drab, brownish green. Eventually this drew to a squealing halt before the steps to the mayor's offices. Out of the passenger compartment climbed a white man with yellow hair who looked about a little confusedly, then appeared to recognize Usumbura's mayor.

“Apologies if I'm late. Bally lions in the road—pardon my language. Oh, but since there aren't any ladies … since you're not—” A fit of coughing and a bit of play with a large handkerchief saved him from having to finish either sentence. Folding the handkerchief away, he held out his right hand. “Major Christopher J. Thornhill. You're Lieutenant Wilson, I take it?”

Thomas made no effort to shake the offered hand. The hat prevented a close approach. “I was promoted two years ago,” he explained. “My new rank is that of general.” Thornhill must know that. He must also be aware of Thomas's sartorial eccentricity, which made his remarks about “ladies” a deliberate attempt at insult.

Fortunately, Thomas had no intention of being insulted. He had died and been reborn. Other experiences paled to nothingness in comparison. Without further comment, he turned to enter the building, waving major and mayor ahead of him. The feathers just barely cleared the frame of the double doors from the outside. The narrower interior door simply wasn't wide enough, but remembering Nenzima's strict enjoinders that morning, he left the hat on, merely pushing the feathers into temporarily vertical positions so he could pass through.

A large, rectangular, European-style table occupied most of the room. Thomas feigned interest in the portrait of a bearded white man hanging on the free wall, watching from the corner of his eye as Thornhill chose his seat. Not at the table's head, as would have been the least remarkable choice, but along the side nearest the door. Interesting.

Sitting with his back to the plaster wall, Thomas was happy to have the table's broad expanse between them. He had no reason for his instant dislike of the major, other than Thornhill's clumsy attempts at deriding his costume and pretending ignorance of his rank. These and the major's boasts of his extensive “African studies” were standard tactics, and ought not carry any weight with him. Yet when, at the proper moment, he laid his written surrender before the man, Thomas found himself turning his head so that the hat's widest extensions brushed against the major's face.