CHAPTER 1
YOONIR
Aileen Muhammad
She had run with every ounce of yearning as she fought the image in her mind of his precious soul, in pain and on the run. But she arrived just in time for him to raise his eyelids and look straight into her being, and in seconds his oxygen seemed to leave.
The reflection screamed in the water. Saba looked down and there it was, right beside him, his image wavering on the surface of the water. The warmth of the day jabbed at her ribs. The breeze would have been pleasant but she looked into the shore of the river, startled, as she placed her forehead to the ground. Shadows had begun to crawl. The heat was heavy and her exhaustion settled right beside her heart. The vision was real, and Saba was jerked from real time and wept for the loss of her love.
The heart stopped pumping and there he was with the breeze of evening coming to him, and the sun coming down on him looking like rain crossing over across his whole body swaying there, with the willow branches hanging low towards the water. Yoonir, who planned his freedom moment to moment. Yoonir. His face still shining and the water lit with the sun. The water breathing silver tracks with his image interrupted by red from the blood that dripped from his neck and back.
The sun's radiation like his words, advising, speaking in different languages, always searching for the new ones who would know or the old ones whose words were like gold. To Yoonir, the earth was moving only because of the great star calling, the great mind being and the evident succession. For Yoonir, captivity was the current challenge, no reason for anger, but a time to plan, a time to study and a time to be aware of the new animals in their life. Ones who mirrored with a blank, aimed their arrows low, missed the center but manipulated to gain whatever they needed operating without consciousness, and, as if the cycle of life and death had no beginning, or, as if the law within the air, beside the cedar and under the ground were not connected.
Yoonir planted the Quran behind the shack in front of the white rock to the left of the cedar tree. In 1822 he was given the book by the old slave Rakiyyah known as Ruby. Rakiyyah had moved into the big house as the head caretaker, but she wore the mask and used the slave master's need to be important to get her way. Eventually she made contact with the West Indian traders and secured the Qur'an for Yoonir, and she made secret alliances with travelers who were agitated with the slave trade and who brought her news and gave her secret gifts from Mali. The Dogon's mark was over their eyes cautious and aware as they wore the mask when enslaved. And that's how Yoonir got that book. Often Rakiyyah would come to the slave quarters with a bowl of chicken bones and gravy for the slaves bringing it to them in a basket and at the bottom lay a towel folded over a book, jewels or instructions.
She had watched his twisted neck hanging from the tree for almost 40 minutes. Then she got soaked with him. Soaked with his memory like blood and smeared with his treasures bruised and despised by the pale faced animals. He was the example. The strong one under suspicion. But with every blow, the strong got stronger. Appearance was able to deceive their captors. That was one gift they had. The slaves on the Whitmoor Plantation were not deceived. They were alive and at all times planning their travel to a place where they could love again. With instinct and development. With concern and development. Unharnessed. Pure. Unafraid.
The year before two men from the Maroons crept onto plantation grounds after midnight and met with them bringing them food, books and jewels. They let them know the star to look for, the cycle of the moon to wait for and when they would return. Yoonir was their friend and brother from their homeland.
But after Drew, riding on his horse brought him back that day, one might have thought Yoonir may not make it. The men and women and children in the field looked over at him trampling down the road with Drew close behind him on his horse, sneering and laughing hollering at Yoonir, calling him "Yoba" and swinging his whip in the air. Yoonir's face ran with his guts spilling across his brow, his feet stumbling upon themselves, his backbone gone.
Later that night Saba crept into his shack as she always did and held his hands. His eyes embraced her and she waited to see if he could speak. He smiled and she nestled against his chest, listening to the knocking and the blocked blood flow. She knew better than to advise him for he was the helper and inspiration to them all. He was their sign that a Dogon is never broken. He was their memory, their future and the life that made them remember and smile in the face of terror.
Now as Saba reviewed the events, she remembered the bird screeching, heard from the wooden shack late in the afternoon. She rose from her Maghrib prayer and went to the window. A screeching call that irritated her and made her stop her formal submission to prayer. In that stopping her heart ached and a chill blew into the room. It was late on a Sunday afternoon and her work was done. The window showed only the small cedar tree and beyond that was a haze of clouds and stretched shadows crossing the rows of shanties where her people lived. A mist had settled and she heard the voice of Yoonir travelling right to her insides.
"Mama" she called out loud, "He's leaving. Yoonir is leaving us" And it wasn't her birth mother but it was the woman who taught her to survive. It was the woman who covered injury and tried to prepare her for the opposites. The living in this place and the memory of life in her home. The conflicts of memory and existence, of love and betrayal, of conquest and servitude and of freedom.
"Wait Saba, wait for us to travel with you" But Saba tore through the wooden door and dug through the dirt road as if her racing might save him. She ran with love tangled around her throat and a symphony elevating her disposition, knowing he was leaving. Maybe he was caught reading or maybe caught teaching or maybe caught by an old slave-catcher who knew him from the islands and knew what he did. She ran and stumbled and took off her hand-made moccasins and went faster. Then she stopped at the crossroads. Which way was it? She stopped long enough to hear the wind still her heart. And she rose back up and went left down the old road that led through the woods. Those woods that echoed the men and women that were violated and hung, and the multiple gatherings that witnessed hangings smiling with their children. She ran with the new wind gusts another mile.
But as always,...
