Tseq’ule Caravan, an Oasis to the South of Tsaha’ota
Nkemi does not take the date just yet; she brushes the last grain of pepper and spice from her fingertips, resting her palms against her bare legs and looking up at Anetol. She does not away from his words, nor does she particularly acknowledge them; they both know he speaks truth. She does not doubt that, anymore, if she ever did.
“We call it dzum’iqe,” Nkemi says. “Drowning in the sun,” she and tilts her head back, looking up at the vivid blue sky above. “There is little that can be done once it comes over you.” She does not look at Ipiwo, not now; her gaze is on Anetol. “There is no cure, but to rest and to drink. The best cure is prevention: the wearing of long clothes,” her small hand brushes his sleeve, “and a hat,” she grins at him, “and the drinking of water before one becomes thirsty.”
Nkemi has drank too much sun, before, and come close to drowning; she remembers hot days of her earliest years, of being a child who did not know her limits, of throwing up until her stomach heaved and ached and cramped. She remembers her juela’s cool hand on her forehead. She remembers, too, her jara’s arms wrapped around her, and her head cradled close into his shoulder, his hand on her back as her mother went to fetch the doctor.
She knows well how to value such memories; there is nothing in all of Vita for which she would set them aside. There is not a smile on her face; this is not a moment for such smiles. But there is a loosening of a small knot inside her chest, a relaxing of a muscle she has all this while held tense, unknowing. This, too, she breathes out; it dries off her skin like the water of the osi.
“I cannot, either, say when,” Nkemi says, simply. “If we are wise enough, we may never know. It is not found in chafing pain or the ache of the legs; it is found in the churning of the stomach, the headache. If you become sick – if you begin to sweat, if your body feels weak, if your head floats – it is best not to tempt such things. Beyond this and the heat may be more than you can bear; such men may see things which do not exist on the horizon, or speak to those no longer with them.”
Her hands take his now, small, gently cupping them; she squeezes.
“You are not alone,” Nkemi promises; she does not think he has forgotten, but these are hard words to speak, and truth lies too in the telling. “You are not the only one to watch yourself.”
Nkemi lets go; she picks her date, now, and nibbles at it, looking at Anetol. “I spoke earlier of the ised’usa of camel riding,” Nkemi says. She tastes the sharp vivid sweetness, the richness of the dark date flesh. “It is not a meditation of letting go of the body; it is a meditation of becoming. It is not of overcoming the body’s weakness with the mind; it is of reaching inside, and feeling that which the body has to offer, and understanding what it means.”
Nkemi eases the last of the flesh from the date with careful teeth, not leaving a sliver behind; this gift, too, she does not wish to waste. She sets the pit down on her napkin, delicately, and smiles at Anetol. “They become trees, in time,” Nkemi says, admiringly, looking down at the seed. “Roa, too, is wise.”