January 23rd, 1776
Awoke today to find Bono and Olakunde at my side; Bono has told Olakunde of my fiddling and spake in the most flattering terms of my abilities as a musician. Olakunde and I talked of music, though with little success, me knowing none of the terms of Oyo musicianship and he knowing none of ours, save those few learned when he was taught to coax a British drum to speak in the English military style by the drummers of the 14th.
He did tell us of the great orchestra which played at the court of the Alafin, the Emperor of Oyo, for which Olakunde’s father had played the fife. Olakunde explained, “Alafin of Oyo a very great man. He so great man, no man ever see him sit or see him stand. No man ever see him eat. No man ever see him talk. When he wish for talk, he whisper, he whisper him thought, and he eunuch men sing it out to every body. He hold the iru kere over him mouth and whisper through it.”
Bono inquired what the iru kere might be.
“Cow tail,” said Olakunde. “Holy. He hold it over him mouth and whisper by it. We call it iru kere.”
“Sure,” said Bono. “Our King also speaks through a cow arse. We call it the Prime Minister.”
I thought this jest low; not least because it merely confused Olakunde, who understood it not, and he delivered some looks of confusion before I reassured him and bade him to ignore Bono’s whimsies.
I asked Olakunde to describe the country of Oyo, as I had begged my mother when she lay upon her sickbed; and he replied with some confusion that he did not know what I wished him to recount; to which I replied that I wished to know any fact of its solidity: the nature of its cities, the smell of its dirt, the diurnal round of its people, any small chore my mother might have engaged in. And so I asked questions and he spake as Bono sat by soberly and listened.
Olakunde told me of the cities, that they are moated and have great walls, and are surrounded by rings of forest which are designed to repel the incursions of horsemen; and he spake of the mansions of that place, where many families of one geniture live together around one fine atrium. He told me of the language and its singing, as had my mother when she lay close to death, her one final gift to me.
He related that the manner in which one sang a word designated its meaning, so that ilu, a word for drum, might, sung differently, signify a town; that ayan, a cockroach, might, differently lilted, represent some smell; and so with iya: which was at once, depending on the singing, a mother or a separation.
When Olakunde had left to receive his meal, Bono said to me, “You find out what you need to know?”
I considered, but did not speak.
He asked, “When will you know enough?”
“When, for the first time, I finally know and understand her.”
“Then it’s a long time you will wait.”
“I do not understand the least particle of her.”
He said, “Who understands any other body?”
“Do you understand your mother?”
“My mother ain’t one of the world’s great mysteries. She likes a good lot of butter and prefers sons to daughters.”
I nodded, and laid my head back upon my blanket. He observed that my gaze was fixed absently upon the stanchions, and after a time grew tired of waiting, and asked me what I thought of.
Said I, “Is not a mother always just a separation, differently sung; for is not our exit from the womb the —”
“Sweet mercy in a firkin!” swore Bono. “Not another word of your damn metaphorizing! By God, don’t you have vomiting to do?”
“I was observing merely that —”
“You wax philosophical and I’ll shove my elbow in your mouth.”
And thus Bono cajoled me into smiling. He told me of some altercation on the deck, a comic encounter in which “the spotted Serjeant Clippinger” faced off against one of the corporals of the Queen’s Own Loyal Virginians and was forced to retreat with apologies. He enlivened an hour, and then departed to mess with our fellows.
I write this sitting up upon the flock-bed I have been lying on with the sick. I have every hope for a quick recovery.