But when dawn broke on the day of our departing, when we took our places in the long procession, it was not the priests nor the King who stood by to wish us farewell and bestow travel blessings.
No, it was the prophet Tza. And his words filled me with fear once more.
*
He crumbled this morning as we began, poor lad! Crumbled like soft sandstone beneath the hands of an unskilled sculptor.
It was the moment he made mention of his mother. Tears sprang into his eyes and his voice broke. Soon sobs shook his body and he hid his face in the blanket.
I said, “Mokomba, it is well. We will leave this task. This is too hard for you. Come, maybe it will help if we go and sit on the roof in the sunshine? Or walk beside the sea?”
Perhaps my own mother was mistaken? Perhaps silence is the best way to ease the heart. Especially a heart so young and so torn apart with tragedy and loss.
But then he wiped his face and sat up with his back straightened. He said, “No, Shafiq. The story must be told. And what you said is true: if not by me, then by whom?”
I picked up my pen once more as he began afresh: “So let me speak about the problem with my sister Raii.”
As I wrote, I thought: Aah, but this Mokomba is not the coward he believes himself to be. No. Perhaps somewhere deep in his spirit, there is rock as strong as his father’s granite.
But now.
There is a strange thing I have noticed with Mokomba’s telling. He ends the day’s dictation at strange points. Always half through an episode. As today now with this matter of the prophet Tza. Why did he not continue and give the prophet’s words?
When I was a young boy, our tutor set us to read the chronicles of some explorers and travellers. Like that of the great Ibn Battuta. And too, I read the chronicle written by my great-uncle. So I have experience of the methods to be used.
The correct manner, the natural manner, of a chronicler would be to tell exactly what words it was that the prophet Tza spoke. To complete this part of the tale. Yet Mokomba leaves this question hanging in the air of our small room.
I wonder why. I would like to ask him. But I do not wish to disturb the flow of his story. Especially when he finds it so painful.
Now I must wait until tomorrow to hear what this man said.
Because even though I was there too when Tza spoke, lined up in that long procession, I paid no attention. I was too busy with my own dark concerns.
Mokomba is correct. That night of the King’s command, I went out to the forest edges to walk alone with my thoughts.
“Perhaps now it is time I take my leave of Zimba Remabwe? Now, before this wild escapade led by the arrogant Shumba, in whom I have little faith.” So ran my mind.
I have the heart and the blood of a traveller. To see new places, to experience different ways of life – that is my goal, as it was the goal of my grandfather and my great-uncle. But my grandfather and my great-uncle set off with respect and humility. Not with arrogance.
Arrogance is a dangerous quality to carry into the unknown.
Arrogance will not invite the blessings of almighty Allah, nor any other god worshipped by man.
No, I thought there among the dark forest trees, better to continue my travels in other places. For I was not bound so strictly by the King’s command, being a foreigner and with a king of my own back in Egypt. Well, not a king but a Mamluk sultan and his council.
Yet in the dark shadows of that forest, I made my peace. I could not abandon my friend ReDombo. No, if he must take this journey, then I must share it with him.
Aah yes, and the singing and dancing and drumming there outside the cave of Mmwahhari!
I stood some distance away, of course. I was not allowed to set my feet on the holy hill. But still the music reached out to wrap itself around me.
Sometimes I believe it is the music of Zimba Remabwe that held me there all those seven years. It made me a captive with its chains of golden sound. It imprisoned me in dungeon walls built of joy. And the rhythmic beat of the drums tethered me to the ground so I could not escape.
Yes, the music!
In my home country, music is a thin and dreary affair. It does not touch the soul. For certain, we have our great learning: our astronomy and our mathematics, our libraries bursting with knowledge. And, yes, all this is food for the mind.
But the music of Zimba Remabwe, that was food for the very spirit! How could I turn my back and walk away? As I could not turn my back and walk away from my friend ReDombo.
Allahu Akbar.
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