But you not a little girl anymore, Mistress Komwono say, and on a different day that mean a different thing. For the girl find herself wondering not when she stop being a little girl, but when she start. The chicken never once say she was a little chicken, nor the goat say look how I was a feeble goat. Who was there to tell her but her brothers and Miss Azora? And to Miss Azora, girlhood was a waste of time, a clumsy state that a smart female should shed quick. But be joyful she would say, for some of them prefer you look like little girl.
Mistress Komwono tell her several times that her ultimate use is beyond this house, but she like this house. And her words leave her wondering if the mistress training her to be a gift to a nun house, or a camp of elders in exchange for a life with more gold coin, which the mistress love to count. Hear Mistress Komwono. Imagine it, eh? she say, grabbing some coins. Imagine a house where all the master bring to it is his name. Not coin, not note, nor cowrie. His name is his only use. Griots, who record family history in verse and song, can trace his line right to the forming of Fasisi itself. Komwono, the cheetahs of the old savannah. If only they was real cheetah. If only they was a real anything that one can buy or sell or give. But still many doors open, and few shut when you have the name Komwono.
And this master. They did all become one man, the men who come to her room, so she couldn’t tell him from another. They fall asleep on her cloud before they even bother to talk, and those who try to talk didn’t think she was worth talking to. After all, that hole is not the one they pay for, unless the woman is Dinti. And the one who didn’t talk and didn’t drink the wine rape her. She leave a mark in her mind, a memory of their smell if not their faces, and a vow to visit them one night with a knife. But when she see this master, she couldn’t determine if he is the first man, or the last, or any of them. See him, that is, not meet him. She never meet him, even the first time she see him. The slave say to her, Girl, don’t even look his way for he is man who used to get summoned to the royal court. And when Sogolon ask why he don’t get summon anymore, the slave just say who are you to expect a lord of the middle lands to lower himself by explaining anything to you? A girl like you must be like the air to a man like that. Which mean I must never be in his way, Sogolon think, for though she saying them, none of those words come from Nanil.
But while she can’t remember this master, she mark how he remember her. See it all over his face, especially his eyes that pop open when he shocked, shift when he crafty, squeeze tight when he angry, go blank when he pretending, and close when he deny. At least it never wink with desire, which she still fear will come. All of this the mistress see as well, and take so much pleasure in it that Sogolon start to wonder if this is a game. Hear them, in the bedchamber where the master is setting to go to his second rest, and the mistress is dressing and doing her own umchokozo, dotting a line of white ochre from her left brow down her nose, her lips, to a final point on her chin. Someone of prominence she is about to meet, or something of prominence she is about to do.
“Wife, you just find this common girl and bring her back like she is some pet a family dash away?”
“Husband, you are the one who lose the talisman. I merely go to find it.”
“And end up with this girl?”
“So it look. Maybe the gods have decided to bless us with some fruit. Good too because I found her—”
“Maybe the gods find you a thief.”
“Then she is most crafty, dear husband. How did she pick it from around your neck?”
The master quiet for a while. Then he ask, “W-w-where you find her?”
“Just some ditch, husband. There she is right beside the talisman like she keeping watch over it. Looked like a sign. Trust the gods.”
“Some ditch? Which ditch?”
“A ditch is a ditch, dear husband.”
“She can’t stay in this house.”
“And where shall she go? She is just a girl not being put to use. The house is getting bigger, the need for servants greater. What is she to you?”
“Me? I don’t even know the girl.”
“Well, you always say you want a child.”
“I never say that, oh.”
“True. The word from you was, Barren bitch, where are my children? You going to kill my family line. Well it is a new day for you and for this house. Children may come yet. Or one is already here.”
“That is no child.”
“She’s somebody’s child.”
“I don’t like her.”
“You don’t know her.”
“Fuck the gods, woman. You setting to spite me?”
“Spite? How so, husband? She said she found the talisman in the same ditch we found her. Surely this is the gods’ work. I say to myself, Wife, why would your husband be walking near some ditch? In the Gallunkobe quarter? How the necklace fall off his neck when the string is not broken? Why would he be walking at all? But the gods always say trust the husband to lead in truth, so trust is what I choose to do. But given how this girl protected what is safe to me, to us, surely a man known for his good works as you are, would see good done to her.”
“Then throw her three gold coins and send her off.”
“Like some whore?”