The Girl in the Road (15 page)

What's your real name? I asked.

You were agitated. You said, My real name is Yemaya. It's my real name because it's the name I've chosen for myself. So it conquers my birth name—

I was distracted and turned away from you.

—and my parents' friends in their bourgeois air-conditioned condos—

I saw a line of cars coming from a long way off. You were getting louder and louder, a soundtrack to the vision.

—would never believe me, because my father is a good man, all but abandoned by his addict of a wife—

Yemaya, I heard everything you said but I was staring down the road at the line of shiny black cars.

—and meanwhile he has one daughter, and how lucky she is to have such a good father, such a privileged education and a nice car, just one girl in the house—

There were little flags waving from the front corners of the hood of each car. The cars turned one by one, and in every car that passed, a window rolled down and someone looked out at me in black sunglasses. I regarded them each in equal measure behind my pink sunglasses. Then they rolled up the windows again.

—and every time it happened I wanted to run out into the desert and die, and I swore I'd never let myself feel that way again, and to live, I realized I had to leave. I finally had to leave. I had to decide to be free. Mariama, look at me. Do you understand what I'm talking about?

Yes, I said, because I recognized my mother's words.

We were both running away, Yemaya.

We returned to the trucks. All three of them were lined up, facing the desert, ready to go again. I was so happy to be there. So happy to have come. So happy to be leaving again. Here in this dusty city everything was perfect. We were between goodness and goodness, and I had my sweets, and we were to be on the road again by nightfall. I never wanted it to end!

I didn't tell you, but I began to fantasize about living with you when we reached Ethiopia. That we would live together in the white cotton dresses with crosses in stained-glass colors. I would have a special room just for them, where I'd close the door and just look at them.

The green, I'd wear to dance.

The blue, I'd wear to swim.

The red, I'd wear to bed.

Nothing compared to those days. Nothing before and nothing since. It's the only time I ever remember the kreen disappearing altogether, and I felt like a normal child, instead of one with a tumor where the sea snake didn't go down.

A few days after we left Ouagadougou, you started agitating to go north. Just one truck out of the three, you said. Francis fetched Muhammed to discuss the matter.

The second truck is half-empty, you said. You can transfer the cargo on the third truck, and we'll take it north to Agadez, and then rejoin you in Kano.

Who's “we,” mademoiselle?

You turned to Francis. Can you drive this truck?

He snorted. He couldn't believe how bold you were, just marching into a situation and giving orders! But he said yes.

I'll pay, you said to Muhammed. I'll pay Francis for his work, I'll pay for the gas, I'll pay you for rental of the truck, and I'll pay you a sizable honorarium for your generosity.

Mohammed looked pleased. But he asked, What in Agadez is so important?

Beauty, you said.

Beauty, mademoiselle?

You've heard of the Wodaabe. (It was not a question.)

They're herders.

Yes. They hold a festival at the end of the rainy season. It includes dancing and a contest of beauty.

Yes, I've heard of it.

I would like to attend.

Surely you would win.

It's not a contest for women, Mr. Getachew, it's a contest for men.

Whereupon Francis proclaimed, I will only drive you there if I can enter to compete and win your love!

Oh, Yemaya, you gave him such a withering look. But once you turned back to Muhammed, Francis gave me a wink. I saw that some game was going on whose rules I didn't understand.

How long do you plan to take? said Muhammed.

You plan to be in Kano when?

The thirty-first.

Then we will plan to meet you in Kano on the thirty-first.

Muhammed held out his hand, and you shook it.

I was delighted that there was no discussion at all of where I would go. Of course I was going with you and Francis, to Agadez, to see the beauty.

What a desolate country we passed through! There was no beauty anywhere that I could see—not compared to what I'd seen before. The land was flat, crumbly, and all one color, and the people we passed seemed tired. The sky wasn't even blue. It was whitish, like an albino's skin.

But our mood could not have been more spirited.
We
were the color in the landscape! Francis drove, and you and I took turns sitting up in the cab, or leaving him alone to sing along loudly and passionately to the one Teddy Afro CD he persuaded Samson to leave behind. When we stopped, he wrote down the lyrics in Amharic and made me sound them out. When I could pronounce each word, he told me what they meant: Tey fit atenshigne eferalehu: Don't turn your back, I am afraid. When I pronounced it correctly he rubbed my head and said, See, you're already speaking your new mother tongue.

How many languages do you speak? I asked.

Amharic, Arabic, French, some English, and some Oromo. So that's how many?

Five.

Answer me in Amharic.

Amist!

Very good.

I want to speak ten languages.

You can. With enough education.

Or maybe twenty?

Well, the languages are getting all mixed up now anyway, so who knows. How long will Amharic last before it becomes Amhindi? And the Indians don't even speak Hindi, they speak a half-English hybrid. So it'll be Amhinglish before very long.

I giggled. What other languages? I said.

Oh, and then the Chinese will come along and say, Hey, we own half of Africa, we deserve to be part of the new world language, so it'll be Amhinglimandarin.

And then?

And then the Somalis will say, We're right next door to you, what about us?—and it'll be Somamhinglimandarin!

And then?! (By this point I was shrieking.)

And then the Arabs will come along and say, None of you have the least bit of culture!—here's an oud—and so it'll be Somamhinglimandarabic!

Then you shoved open the window to the cab. What is going on up here? you asked.

I'm telling Mariama about the new world order, said Francis. In fifty years everybody will all be speaking a language called Somamhinglimandarabic.

What idiocy, you said to me. But I could tell you were just the littlest bit amused. You closed the window to the cab, a bit more softly this time.

We came to Agadez at sunset and camped on the outskirts of the city. Francis went into town for food while you searched on your sirius for information. Apparently the festival, called Gerewol, was already in progress, and we could only hope to catch the last day of it. You told me that most Gerewol ceremonies had been taken over by the government for tourism purposes, and that it was hard to find a “pure” one, still, which was why we weren't attending the big famous ones in Agadez or Ingall. The locations were secret, but by the time we went to bed, your sirius had given you coordinates.

Francis slept in the cab, up front, with a woolen blanket he'd bought in Agadez with the money you'd paid him in advance. You and I slept as we always did, closer-than-close, like one body. I traced your face with my finger.

Mariama, you said, catching my finger.

Yes?

Did a man touch you? Is that why you ran away?

(What bold questions you asked, with no preamble!) No.

Do you know you could tell me if it were true?

Yes.

But it's not?

No.

You pointed to the little mound between my legs that was split like a camel's lips, and at once it felt hot, like it was coated in cayenne.

Promise me something, Mariama. Promise me you will never give this away easily.

Give what away?

You paused, then said, Your golden meaning.

How can I be sure when to give it away?

You'll know. You'll receive a sign.

From Allah?

No. Don't think of Allah. The divine is energy itself, pouring from one vessel to the next, given mindfully and not mindlessly. Energy is holy. You'll know when you feel it.

I feel it with you, Yemaya, I said.

You sighed and rolled onto your back and said, You're like I was, when I was a child.

So why can't I give it away to you?

You inhaled sharply. That's not right, you said.

It's yours, I said. You can have it.

Mariama, don't say that.

But wouldn't it be safe, to give it to you?

You don't know what you're saying.

I was quiet. But after you fell asleep I cupped my hand over that place, and wondered whether the hot feeling was the holy energy you were talking about.

We were already under way when I woke up the next morning. You and Francis were in the cab, and you'd rigged your sirius to play Angélique Kidjo. I asked you how much longer we had to go, but strangely, Yemaya, you didn't answer. You just kept staring out the window as if you hadn't heard me. You were in one of your moody moods.

Francis noticed. He turned around to wink at me and wish me a good morning. Then he patted the seat next to him and told me to come up. So there I was, sitting with my legs dangling between the two of you, barely able to see over the dashboard, and we were quiet because you were quiet, but then the Afrika song came on, and Francis began to hum to it, and then sing, and by the end all three of us were yelling
shae Mama, shae Mama Afrika!
along with Angélique.

When your sirius told us we'd arrived, Francis pulled the truck alongside the nearest encampment. There were camels tethered, blue tents pitched, and women sitting on woven mats. Francis parked and asked you, What now?

Now we introduce ourselves, you said.

Do you speak their language?

No. But I have Polyglotti on my sirius.

Francis and I hung back as you marched forward to greet three older women who'd stood at our arrival. First you gave them all calabashes, beautifully decorated, and boxes of tea. They seemed mollified but not quite won over. You spoke into your sirius and then held it to them to listen, which immediately the women seized and passed among themselves and said things into it and then smiled when it talked back. I didn't blame them because I'd done the exact same thing when you first showed me your sirius. They all had mobile phones, I saw later, but nothing like this.