When the bidding began, he looked among the crowd. They were hungry for obedient black flesh. So he gave it to them. They had scowled at him before, but not this time. He knew what to do. He’d learned what they rejected, what they hated most. So, unlike before, he wore the look of sympathy. That was the submission they had wanted, the surrender they’d been after. An expression of joy would’ve been disingenuous. Happiness would’ve looked unbelievable. Bliss, inconceivable. Love, unthinkable. Contentment, unsustainable. These realities didn’t move them. All they sought was his compliance, his acquiescence. So Atiba yielded. In exchange for the loneliness of the stall and the provoking of Death in the midnight hour. He conceded, in exchange for death without libation or life without elation. He assumed the mask of passivity and pale people pitied him. That was the only expression of love they knew.

Among his people, he’d been the trickster. The time bender, the reality shifter, the mind regulator. At every ritual he’d been called upon to illustrate the depths and dimensions of the Fon. He’d acted out people and situations, causing even chiefs and governors to laugh at themselves. He’d mimicked voices and behaviors so precisely others marveled in awe. He’d worn costumes and recreated war battles that resulted in solutions elders could not find. His talent was becoming everyone else in order that the community might see itself. Now, here, in another place and time, in a much more desperate hour, his skill would save again. But this time it would save himself.

Pale men smiled and nodded. Atiba bowed. A few women applauded, as if an achievement had been realized. Bidding escalated. The crowd inched forward with pleasure. Atiba held his pose. They began to touch him sensually, first his feet and ankles, then, on the platform, his head, chest, and thighs. All the while Atiba sneered. It wasn’t a broad, welcoming grin, but a slight, meek, concessionary smirk that made them believe what they had once only assumed: He needed them. He wanted them. He was grateful for them. And for that, the bids went higher. Atiba went further in the performance, studying not only their eyes but himself behind their eyes. He was a thing to them, an object of their ownership, and if only he could accept that, they would love him. But he would never accept that. Yet he knew, now, that if he acted like he did, and his vodu favored him, he’d get the same reward.