Muezzinland (7 page)

"He is not dead," she said. She sniffed at his loins, which were damp. "He has been with a woman recently." She examined the rest of him, then made her diagnosis. "He is a magician, an illusionist. His soul has been removed and put into some external object. If we cannot find his external soul he will stay like this forever, in a deathly trance."

Horrified, Nshalla put her hands to her mouth. "But… but what can we do?"

Gmoulaye's eyes narrowed. "Is it our job to save him? He is suspicious, an agent of your mother's as you have yourself admitted—"

"I only suggested it."

"—and not worth the effort."

Nshalla covered the body with the bedsheets. "We've got to find his soul," she said. "We can't leave him."

"He's a vagrant, a thief, a con-man. His soul is probably some wrinkled little toad with bad breath. Let him go! Is this not what you wanted, Nshalla, to be free of him? We can leave Ouagadougou tomorrow and be on our way."

"No," Nshalla said. "I have to save him. He's helped us get this far."

Gmoulaye spat upon the floor. "With his own static-box in Ashanti."

Nshalla shrugged. "That might not have been him"

"Do not be so naive, girl."

"Don't call me a girl!"

Bristling, they confronted one another. Then Gmoulaye said, "You can sleep in here tonight to protect him. I shall sleep in the other room."

Nshalla collected her belongings without a word. Locking Msavitar's door she departed the inn, making down the Chemin du Gourounsi until she stood in the forest where her father had spoken.

"Ruari!" she softly called. "Ruari, it's Nshalla."

His face appeared before her, so real she had to remind herself he was just dynamic software. "Daughter. You are in difficulties."

"I'm in trouble. Msavitar's soul has been stolen by a prostitute. I have to save him."

"A prostitute? No, only a powerful magician can make an external soul."

Nshalla considered the events of the day. "D'you know a weird man called Massamba?"

"I am searching. Hmmm… Massamba Kouyate?"

"Yes. He called himself the Baron. He frightened us."

Ruari nodded. "Baron Samedhi, perhaps. Yes, he would be a sufficiently powerful man, strong in vodou. Doubtless he was gloating over you. The prostitute must be his assistant."

"He said I would never be Empress and that Accra would be razed."

"We are following a dangerous path," Ruari said. "Have you lost anything?"

"Yes. How did you know? My ring. And all my money, though that was mother's doing."

"The agency is unimportant. You must lose four other—"

Nshalla had put her hands to her belt. "My dart pistol! My dagger! Gone."

"You must lose two other things. You must sacrifice two precious items, my daughter, and then you must steal the lute of the Baron. Msavitar's soul is inside. Somehow, I don't know how, you must transfer the soul from the lute to Msavitar's body."

"D'you know what's going on?"

"I have an idea. Do what I say, then leave the town. I will speak with you once more concerning this matter, and also about your earlier questions. Now hurry!"

Nshalla ran. All she could think of was the cora. She must steal the cora. But she did not know where Massamba Kouyate lived.

Perhaps her transputers could help. If she accessed local webs she might find information. In Msavitar's room she picked up her belt transputer, but saw that her backpack had been moved… and the analytical transputer was gone.

Five sacrifices. One remaining.

The room's eyes were set into the wall by the door. Nshalla linked her transputer up, accessing local data, addresses, names, descriptions, but finding nothing. After an hour she gave up. Evening was approaching, so she went downstairs to take a leisurely meal, which she washed down with millet beer.

Mmwo Ogbegu Ndjock knew of Massamba but would say nothing more. Her expression indicated that she considered him a bad man, not to be dealt with. Nshalla departed the inn and walked to the central crossroads, where she sat to consider her options.

She heard footsteps behind her. It was evening, not dark, but gloomy; she turned to see Massamba Kouyate and an expensively dressed woman. Nshalla knew who this would be.

She decided not to initiate conversation. The couple walked away, turning into a passage off Residence du Naba in Maouema quarter, and Nshalla, wanting information, followed. When they stopped she stood a few metres away, in silence.

Massamba plucked a pistol from the sound hole of the cora gourd. Nshalla froze. She had been spotted. Massamba pointed it at her and laughed. The woman approached, looking Nshalla up and down. Then she took off her dress. Underneath she was naked, though her navel was pierced by silver rings. She trampled her dress in the mud, then ripped it with her teeth, all the time smiling, chuckling to herself, as if this were a bizarre theatre. Then she pulled at Nshalla's dress, until it flopped upon to the ground. Nshalla stood shivering in her underwear. But she understood that this was part of an enactment, perhaps the final sacrifice. She must hold her nerve.

The woman put on the dress, then returned to Massamba. The pair strolled off, chatting to one another.

Nshalla stood perfectly still. How could she continue to follow them? If they saw her they would lead her astray.

Her father had told her to learn the language of symbols. The street was dirty, muddy in places. Nshalla looked down and saw that next to the dainty prints of the woman's bare feet lay a row of coffin shapes.

Massamba Kouyate's boots were not coffin shaped. The aether was altering her perception, despite the inorganic nature of the evidence. This was the first time Nshalla had ever experienced such a transformation. She realised that the sheer complexity of Ouagadougou's aether was altering her vision. Here, it was not a cultural electromagnetic ocean to be tweaked by the biograin hierarchies of conscious individuals, it was itself a manipulating entity with a semantic agenda of its own. Massamba Kouyate was linked with death. Black. Coffins. Perhaps he could be found at the cemetery.

Nshalla ran back to Inn Founi Kouni, where she grabbed spare clothes from her backpack. Gmoulaye watched her, but said nothing. In minutes Nshalla was out in the street, making for the cemetery, her heart thumping.

It stood nearby, close to the ruins of Maouema's mosque. A great concrete wall surrounded it, set with wooden masks bearing a striking similarity to Massamba's face, and this made Nshalla wonder if a cultural identity was being promulgated by the aether. Massamba in reality could be anybody. He could be weak. This thought made Nshalla feel more confident.

She walked into the cemetery and looked around. The moon was high, waxing, illuminating the gravestones. Nobody in sight. She began to follow the path leading into the centre of the cemetery, until after some minutes she heard a thunking sound. From the safety of a tree she saw a man digging a grave; Massamba, his woman at his side. She scanned the vicinity. The cora leaned against a bush on the opposite side.

Nshalla crept around the pair, giving them a wide berth. It was easy to lift the musical instrument, but difficult to move silently. They did not notice her. Once out of earshot she returned to the cemetery entrance and slipped out, first ensuring that there was nobody in the street to spot her.

Back at Inn Founi Kouni, Gmoulaye followed her into Msavitar's room. Nshalla shut and locked the door, then said, "You know what this is."

Gmoulaye was frightened. "That man's cora."

"Inside this lies Msavitar's soul. We have to transfer it into his body."

"How?"

Nshalla did not know. She shook the cora. It rattled. Wriggling her right hand through the hole she felt around, to discover a number of objects. One by one she pulled out her dented gold ring, her bank, which had been cut in two, a fragment of her dress, the smashed pieces of her analytical transputer, a pistol butt, and a blade. But there was nothing else.

"These are all your possessions," Gmoulaye said. "Leave them be. They may have evil upon them."

Nshalla hardly heard. Her thoughts were bent elsewhere. If there was nothing else inside the cora, the instrument itself must be the external repository of Msavitar's soul. In that case, she must play, play music to bring him back to life.

She settled the cora upon her lap and tried a few chords. A warm, buzzing thrum emanated from the speaker of the cora's power amp. Immediately she disliked it.

"He moved!" Gmoulaye said, rolling her eyes.

Indeed he had. Nshalla played more. Msavitar began to roll and turn, murmuring in some foreign tongue. Nshalla played more chords, but received the impression that Msavitar was in pain. On impulse she disconnected the solar batteries. The cora was now a pure, acoustic instrument, and when she played shimmering arpeggios a smile came to Msavitar's face and he began to breathe deeply. Nshalla plucked for a few minutes, then put the instrument down.

"I cannot play the cora," she told Gmoulaye. To her surprise there were tears on her friend's cheeks.

"It was the most beautiful music."

Nshalla knew then that she had not played the cora. The music had been composed by the aether of Ouagadougou.

They slept through the rest of the night.

At dawn, Nshalla was woken by a hammering on her door. A babble of voices brought a presentiment of trouble, but she dressed and opened the door. Twenty or thirty people stood outside, and they shook their fists and shouted when they saw her. At their head was Mmwo Ogbegu Ndjock, an expression of anger on her face.

"You have brought shame upon the town," she said. She waved her arms, and continued, "Begone from here. You are not welcome. Pack your belongings and go."

Nshalla said nothing as they did as they were bid. Msavitar had been woken by the noise. He seemed his usual self. Quickly, they checked their belongings, few though they were, then hastened down the stairs to the front door of the inn. In the street a hundred or more town residents were waiting. They ran to Chemin du Yatenga, the road that led north, suffering shouts of abuse, a few clods of soil, and some rotten yams. Nshalla had no idea what had turned their mood but she was not going to argue. In ten minutes they were able to pause, standing at the margin of the forest. A few boys had followed them, but Msavitar chased them off. As he did so Nshalla caught the strains of music, heavy, yet melancholy, played with virtuoso skill on a distorted cora.

At a slower pace they walked into the coolness of the trees. Expecting to see her father's face, Nshalla dawdled, stopping occasionally to look up through the leaves at symbol flocks ascending into the blue sky. As before, Gmoulaye and Msavitar went on ahead.

Then Ruari was with her. She stopped, said, "Father?"

"I'm here, daughter. So, you have been chased out of Ouagadougou by the mob?"

"Yes. Why did they turn on us?"

"You were part of a tale."

Nshalla nodded, remembering the cultural incident outside Ashanti City. Now she understood why she had wanted to save Msavitar.

Ruari continued, "Because you are the daughter of an Empress your life briefly followed the pattern of Gassire, son of King Nganamba of the dynasty of Faso. An old sage told him he would never be king, and that his city, Jerra, would one day be ruined. He was told to go into the savanna and listen to the woodcock, then learn the language of the birds. In this way he was to hear the first refrains of that epic song, the Dausi. Then the sage told him to buy a lute, which he did, but when he went to collect it, it was silent. The lute maker pointed out that he had only made the body of the lute. It had no spirit. It was up to Gassire to provide that spirit, so as to make music. Gassire had to sacrifice blood to make it sing. Later Gassire went to battle, losing six of his seven sons. He carried their bodies home, allowing them to bleed over his lute. But then Gassire was exiled from Jerra. He became a herdsman. As he watched over his flock he heard distant music, the music of the Dausi."

Nshalla said nothing.

After a while, Ruari said, "Doubtless you have made the equivalences. The Baron stole Msavitar's soul, possibly by means of deep hypnotism. Since the focus of events was the cora, there was only one way to return that soul to Msavitar's body. Even I was dragged in, telling you, as the sage told Gassire, to listen to the voices of the birds, that is, the spirits. Had you not made those sacrifices you would never have gained power over the Baron's cora and released Msavitar's soul."

Nshalla looked upward again. Symbols flitted between branches like drifting leaves. She felt that she had been through a storm. Her mind was confused. The twittering, pattering, flickering symbols seemed a pale imitation of the deeper chaos in her mind. She felt that, though she was wide awake, she urgently needed sleep, deep sleep, like that after a long bath. Her mind had been disturbed like the contents of a pond by a stick, and it would take time to settle.

She understood that all visitors to Ouagadougou felt like this. Used to a passive aether, they would here be battered and bruised, just as she had been. In a sense, she had suffered an invasion.

"Do you have any information for me?" she asked.

"I have," Ruari answered, "and it is not good."

"Tell me the worst."

"Msavitar is an agent of your mother's, as you suspected. He was told to capture you when she returned from Lagos—she heard your letter and was furious. He was given a static-box, which he used to attack you in Ashanti. It was the failure of that attack that made your mother sack him. Released from service, he had little option but to ingratiate himself with you, hoping for reward, hoping perhaps to slit your throat at some time suited to him."

"But the enemy on the riverboat."

Ruari's ghostly head nodded. "That was a second agent of your mother's. His task was to eliminate Msavitar and collect you, then return you to Accra."

"So mother wants me back?"

"Of course she wants you at the palace, almost as much as she wants this Mnada daughter."

Nshalla sighed. "I shouldn't have used my bank. She'll trace me."