Dirty Feet - Edem Awumey [40]
They spent three peaceful years in the village, though they continued to be the Dirty Feet. Until that season when rain was scarce on the plateaus, where it was plentiful as a rule. And the seers and wise men who were consulted, and the villagers, and all the signs in the sky concurred that the paucity of rain was due, without a doubt, to the Dirty Feet. Who must have been afflicted by a curse. It had been right to welcome them for a few days, but letting them settle there had not been the best idea in the world. And the village notables went to see Chief Gokoli. To ask him to send the strangers away.
“Chief, should we let them stay in the village, when all the signs and sages say . . .”
“. . . that it is because of them the soil is dry and ungenerous this year?”
“Should we allow them to stay and watch our fields burn, our rivers and wells dry up?”
“Allow them to leave in their wake a hundred years of epidemics, many seasons of torment and tears?”
“Dead cities, knives of hate, the incessant groans of a woman pregnant with a three-horned child who will not leave her belly, a downpour of scorpions.”
“Is it possible for our hospitality to be boundless and hence for us to let all these things take place?”
“Should we go on offering shelter to these charlatans, who will continue to destroy all our lands to the point of exhausting them and murdering the world?”
Thus they were forced to leave the village of Chief Gokoli. And ended up on the coast. His mother told him that his father, Sidi, had gone still farther, for reasons even more obscure. And she spoke of the letters from Paris. Askia never saw those letters. But why Paris? Was it because, as his mother had apparently learned one day — he did not know how — Paris was a Mecca where thousands of Dirty Feet arrived after exodus, roads, hunger? And the letters, did they exist only in his mother’s fantasies, she who was at times more clear-sighted as to what had happened to Sidi? One day, Kadia Saran, her eyes fixed on the ocean shore, spoke these words: “Askia, he has abandoned us. To escape beyond the bounds of the Gulf of Guinea. I’ve been told that he embarked on an old tub called Bonne Espérance and that, at this very moment, he is in a South African diamond mine near Kimberley, where they say the precious stones engender fortunes, happiness, and wretchedness. I picture him, his dry body stooped over, digging in the dirt with a pickaxe. He wears a safety helmet and an orange suit because down there they have serious companies that know how to do things according to the rules. He is digging and hopes to find the biggest, most beautiful stone, which will earn him a reward from the mine owners. I imagine it happening this way, my son, because for thousands of seasons I have had no news from Sidi.”
47
ASKIA REMAINED seated on the cellar floor. He wanted to keep vigil by his friend. The serenity and peacefulness of his face were striking. Petite-Guinée was happy. Now. Askia was sad that he was gone, but he had no right to be selfish. He rejoiced at this ultimate happiness that had come to Petite-Guinée. He wanted to hold this wake with joy in his heart, as was done for the righteous in his father’s land. They say there that the wicked die forgotten and alone. That was not the case for Petite-Guinée. He died surrounded by the images and laughter of children. Askia guessed that his friend had begun by sitting on the table, chatting with the children in the photographs. He confessed to them that he had not realized he