WAYÉTU MOORE
Lai was hidden in the middle of forests when the Vai people found it. There was evidence of earlier townsmen there, as ends of stoneware and crushed diamonds were found scattered on hilltops in the unexpected company of domestic cats. But when the Vai people arrived from war-ravaged Arabia through the Mandingo inland, they found no inhabitants and decided to occupy the province with their spirits.
On a plot of land one mile long and one half mile wide, they used smelted iron to build their village—a vast circle of houses constructed of palm wood from nearby trees, zinc roofs, and mud bricks to keep them cool during the dry season.
During the day, the Ol’ Pas sat together and drew lines and symbols in the dirt that represented how many moons it had been since the last rainfall or the last eclipse, or other wonders of the sky. They waited for the spirits to reveal themselves in nuances and uncover secrets of the land and its animals.
Among many things—like which Poro warrior would best lead upcoming defenses against local tribes so that the Vai army would return with cattle, harvest, and captives to help tend the village rice farms—the spirits also told the Ol’ Pas to take care of the sensitive animals of the province, specifically cats. The Ol’ Pas then divulged to the villagers the news they gathered from the spirits.
Ol’ Ma Nyanpoo never listened.
Before Gbessa was born, Ol’ Ma Nyanpoo—bitter and widowed—was living only two houses down from Khati, Gbessa’s pregnant mother. Ol’ Ma Nyanpoo had a pudgy orange cat whom she beat to numb her loneliness. The village elders warned Ol’ Ma Nyanpoo of what the spirits had told them about cats, but she disregarded them—she was powerless to her pride, and she hoped she would make the spirits angry enough to reunite her with her deceased love.
When Kano, Cholly the fisherman’s slave, knocked on Ol’ Ma Nyanpoo’s door to deliver to her the fish that her nets had caught, the pudgy cat stared hoggishly at the tin bucket. He hid behind the fire pit as Ol’ Ma Nyanpoo closed the door in Kano’s face and inspected the bucket for any sign of pilfering. When the cat’s head peeked around the pit, she grabbed a fish from the bucket and waved it at him.
“You will not touch it!” she yelled, shaking the fish. Scales, salt water, and blood flew, and the cat dodged Ol’ Ma Nyanpoo’s warning. That night, when Kano finished his chore of cleaning fish for Cholly’s wife, he blew the light from the last lantern away. The whistle his compressed lips made married the pungent smell of fish and journeyed through the village circle to Ol’ Ma Nyanpoo’s house, awakening the cat. The cat arose from the corner where he had been lying and probed the room. In the dark, his cold nose led a desperate search for Ol’ Ma Nyanpoo’s bucket of fish.
Ol’ Ma Nyanpoo’s leg twitched, and she snored expletives into the night. Alarmed, the cat positioned himself to run in the event that she leaped from her sleep to beat him with the redwood handle of the porch broom. But she remained in abysmal slumber in the murky room. The cat proceeded toward Ol’ Ma Nyanpoo’s fish, disregarding the likely retribution on the following day, when she would discover that her fish were gone. When he finally reached the bucket, he lifted himself up to its rim, careful not to scrape the edge with his nails. His eyes were large, his mouth ready, when a hard blow threw him across the room.
“I told you, enneh-so?” Ol’ Ma Nyanpoo asked, lighting her lantern. The cat tried picking himself up, only to meet another hard slap to his head. He stretched his claws and hissed at the old woman. She struck his head once more and the cat shrieked, this time waking a neighbor, whose inquiring voice and lantern moved slowly toward the village circle.
The cat, determined to escape her fury, scurried over to the fire pit.
“Oh no!” Ol’ Ma Nyanpoo said. “You’n going nowhere.” She dragged him out from behind the fire pit by his tail. In the village circle, neighbors gathered outside of Ol’ Ma Nyanpoo’s door, baffled at what would make the old woman so angry that she would beat the poor cat in the middle of the night.
“I will teach you! You will feel it!” she said. The cat screeched, unable to escape the bitter widow. The neighbors’ tongues became sour, their ears warm, disgusted at the Ol’ Ma’s audacity in offending the spirits. Cholly knocked on Ol’ Ma Nyanpoo’s door, but she ignored him and continued beating the cat.
“She will kill the thing,” said
