Selamault’s grip on your shoulder tightens. You look up, search her eyes. Her pupils roll back. Her eyelids flutter. Selamault’s entire demeanor darkens, a serious shadow overtakes her. Her limbs shake, her body convulses with a thin tremor. Scared, you move to steady her. Selamault’s story is shrouded in rumors, but you know she was a Black Dove. Of the line of oracles, the Libyan Sibyls. You have seen this response before. During a bembe, a drumming party to call down orisha entreating them into the body of an initiate. Only very rarely into noninitiates. It was how they gave counsel. Or provided divination.

“You aren’t meant to stay with us. Your journey is your own. Through it, your people may be unified,” a voice not Selamault’s said.

Selamault coughs again, the violent shudder of each spasming hack snapping her out of her spell. In her dignified way, she reaches for a sani-sheet and covers her face while she continues to hack. Once the fit passes, she deposits the napkin in the recycling bin. Without a word about her trance pronouncement, she turns to leave, allowing you a last moment with Xola in private.

You stare at him, then to the bin. Something stirs in your emi. An intuitive leap you can’t explain. You don’t know what possesses you, but you fish out Selamault’s sani-sheet. You want to have her sputum tested.

You suspect that Xola’s death might not have been from natural causes.

11 BEKELE CHIKEKE
The Cypher

It was funny how people talked about the dead.

“Fuck your piece of paper.” Mom was half out of her seat, her finger wagging the air at no one in particular, recounting the time Camara Xola shouted down the Mars delegation over a treaty negotiation. She leaned forward, cocking her head, imitating Xola’s odd head tilt for when he wanted to place someone in the center of his limited cone of vision. “I can sign all the pieces of paper you want, but to me, it’s just something else to wipe my ass with. Either we’re in relationship or we’re not. A piece of paper won’t change that. How many pieces of paper did Native Americans sign? How’d that work out for them?”

Bekele knew how this story ended. Mars and Muungano had been in alliance ever since, with no paper trail to show it. There was no signing ceremony, only two leaders shaking hands, then having coffee together.

Mom and Dad laughed, the way they used to.