Black Leopard, Red Wolf

don’t belong to this house

And in this way

Tracker and his kin set off for his mother

What a sight we must be in Juba!

But that is not the story

For Tracker stagger ten times before we get to the gate.

And Mossi hold him up ten times strong

So they get to the door

and a girl open the door who look like him

that is what me and Mossi think

And she don’t say nothing, but she let them in

and jump out of the way when the Ball Boy

roll through, and the Giraffe Boy had to duck

and in a blue room

she sit

looking old and weak but her eyes look young

When did he die? Tracker ask.

When a grandfather was supposed to die, she say.

And he look at her like he have something to say

And his mouth quiver like he have something to say

And Mossi start to move we out of the room

like he have something to say

But Tracker stagger again and this time he fall

And she stoop down and touch his cheek

One of your eyes didn’t come from me, she say

and what come out his mouth was a wail

And he wail for his mother

And he wail for his mother

And night come for day

And day come for night

And still he wail.

Hear me now,

I stay in the monkeybread tree ten and nine moons.

The day I was leaving the children cry,

and Mossi hang his head down low

and even the Wolf Eye said, But why do you leave your home?

But a man like me, we are like the beast,

we must roam,

or we die.

Listen to me now.

The day before I leave,

A black Leopard come to the tree.

Stop him.

Stop him now. Stop him or I will find a way to end everything this very night. And then you will know nothing about how anything ended.

I will tell you what happened next.

I will tell you everything.

TWENTY-THREE

I want it known that you made me do this. I want to see it written in a tongue that I recognize. Show me. I will not speak until you show me. How will you write it? Will you note what I said, or just say, The prisoner said this? Stop talking about truth—I fed you truth all along, but as I said before, what you want is story. I have given you many, but I will give you a final one. Then you can talk to her and send us to burn.

In this story I see her. She walked like somebody was following her.

Why do you stop me?

Did you not hear the griot?

The Leopard came to visit me and seduced me with talk of adventure. Of course he was all cunning—he is a leopard. And I went with him to find a fat and stupid man who sold gold and salt and smelled of chicken shit, who had vanished. But he had not vanished. Fuck the gods, inquisitor, which story do you wish to hear? No I will not tell you both. Look at me.

I will not tell you both.

So.

She walked as people who think they are followed walk. Looking ahead when she reached the mouth of each lane, looking behind when she reached the foot of it. Slipping from shadow to shadow, as she moved down a still street. Floating overhead the raw burn of opium, and flowing on the ground, the overspill of shit water. She tripped and grabbed her cargo tight, ready to brace for the fall rather than let it go. The sky had a ceiling in this place, a hundred paces high in some parts, with holes burrowed through to let in the white light of the sun and the silver light of the moon. She stooped below a torch beside a door, shifted underneath, stood up again, and scraped her back along the wall like a crab, to the corner.