The Wanderer's Lullaby

Part 1 - The Wanderer

I remember the warm wind upon me as a child.

It would sneak into my robes, run along my skin, and cool all the spaces that struggled to breathe against the radiating heat of the desert. For its gift, the wind had a cost, and would take my strength as its own for its long unending journey…

Sapped of the boundless energy that made me myself, I would stumble groggily, rubbing my eyes towards my mother. She would be seated atop a reed matt beneath the shade of an Acacia tree outside our home. Without so much as a word, I would lay on the matt, rest my head in her lap, and shut my eyes. I would feel her tousle my hair, smile, and ask me questions that needed no reply. As I would begin to doze, I would hear her lullaby soothe me, allow me to escape the heat for a moment with a slow mesmerizing melody…

This trinket of sapphire and gold…

That would draw me in.

The greatest treasure in the world…

Slowly carrying me off...

Now it sits in my hand

Withering with the sand...

This trinket of sapphire and gold .

And I would be lost in her lullaby...

Once upon a time,

In a land far from mine,

A Jewel was beset

Upon a crescent Owl’s chest.

And its eyes turned to phire,

And its wings solid gold,

And it became

the greatest

treasure

in the world…

This trinket of sapphire and gold.

The greatest treasure in the world…

Now I hold its chain

Rusted from the rain

This trinket of sapphire and gold…

This melody from long ago hums in my head at any standstill, murmurs in my ears when my mind is at rest and escapes from my lips when there is nothing. It fills the absence in places the wind cannot reach and joins her in singing to the many places that it does.

It was only a song. One I felt was not so unique to my mother, but a lullaby that all elders must have sung to ease their children into dreamful sleep. But whenever I found my friends singing or humming or dancing to other familiar songs their mothers had shared, I might propose this one that was too slow, too somber, or too unfamiliar… and after looks of displeasure, I would concede to joining them in singing the other songs they knew best.

When I asked my mother why the other children did not know this song, she explained to me that when she was a child a wanderer had come to the village. Where all the other families had closed their doors and hidden their stools for fear of outsiders, her mother brought hers and welcomed this strange man to sit and sip water. He was fatigued, breathed heavily, and was not quite so young with disheveled grey hairs that matched his cataract eyes, but my grandmother did not fear him. She did not subscribe to these rumors of witchcraft that the other elders so often spoke of... or perhaps, more accurately, her kindness simply superseded her suspicions.

The man was grateful and gentle, he did not speak much but seemed kind. He did his best to converse with my grandmother, but his eyes were closing with the clay mug in his hand, and his body was swaying over the stool in exhaustion. My grandmother went to bring the reed matt outside and encouraged the man to rest on it beneath the Acacia tree. The man politely refused at first insisting he be on his way, but my grandmother informed him the next village was ten kilometers away, the next road was forty, and the water he drank would prove little use against the afternoon heat of the desert. The man reluctantly complied, laid his head down, and rested.

The wanderer slept until the sun went down, and still, he did not wake. Not quite so bold to invite him into her home at night (my grandmother was kind, not foolish) she brought out a pillow and blanket for the man and laid them at his side.

When he awoke the next day, it was already afternoon. My grandmother spent the morning harvesting maize from the fields, returned to find him still sleeping, dropped two cobbs at his side, and left once more to fetch water from the borehole. The wanderer sat up in a daze appreciating a good night’s rest and began picking at the maize when a child wandered over. My young mother approached where my grandmother might have been and found a man seated there instead. With sleep overcoming her and little alternative, she crawled on the matt and rested her head in his lap. The wanderer sang a little lullaby, and my mother slept soundly.

When my grandmother returned with one bucket atop her head, and another at her side to find the wanderer eating maize and my mother sound asleep in his lap, she began to laugh. The wanderer smiled back with chunks of maize stuck in his teeth and my grandmother nearly doubled over spilling water as she placed down the buckets. When she composed herself she said the wanderer could stay for dinner, tell her about his travels, and possibly stay (sleeping outside of course) for a few days if he wasn’t a bum and helped with chores. The wanderer graciously accepted.

For six days the wanderer woke up in the mornings to help in the field, in the afternoon he would fetch water, and in the evening he would find firewood before the sun went down. In between, he would listen to my grandmother gossip, sing to my mother during her naps, and tell stories around a fire to the gathered village children. The other villagers were not particularly pleased that their children were visiting this stranger, but he hadn’t committed any notable offense yet, so they begrudgingly managed their discontent from afar.

On the seventh day after dinner, when most of the village slept, the wanderer spoke to my grandmother. Seated beside the fire, in hushed tones, he confessed that he had a treasure and people would be chasing him for it. He was eternally grateful for her hospitality but would leave that night. If anyone came to ask, my grandmother should tell them the wanderer had simply passed through, never stayed, and headed into the desert. My grandmother wished for him to stay, but thinking of her daughter, did not ask. She offered to pack him a bag, but he declined, thanked her, and simply walked away. My mother hidden behind the doorframe, watched these events unfold and claimed the wanderer strode ten paces beyond the flickering fire where the darkness of night basked and stood still. And though she was young, and though it was dark, my mother says she watched the shadowy form of a man slowly turn, change, and transform into an owl before flying away into the desert. My grandmother heard her daughter’s audible gasp at the door, rushed over to scold her, and made her swear not to tell anyone what she saw that evening.

Part 2 - The Desert

In six days, at seven years old my mother managed to learn the lullaby the wanderer would sing. She sang it to herself and no one else for years fearing her own mother's chastisement until I came along... and then she shared it with me. So you’d understand my perplexion when twenty years later and twenty years removed from my village, with life having forced the hand of a Grade 9 drop-out, I found myself sitting alone at a bar hearing those words again.

This trinket of sapphire and gold…

…being absolutely butchered by a man reading a paper.

The greatest treasure in the world…

I sauntered over, only slightly drunk, gripping my beer bottle tightly and informed him the melody was incorrect. I composed myself when I realized there were two of them, but I slammed the bottle down on their table fiercely. They asked where I had heard this song, I told them I knew it as a child. They asked me where, and I told them from a man passing through the village of Mbutu. They asked me to sing it for them properly, and I did. They asked if there was a man with grey eyes hiding in Mbutu. I told them there was nothing hidden in Mbutu, but I knew the man they sought and he was last seen… traveling… fairly recently… into the desert.

I knew the desert well. I had been chasing money since I left my village at 14. When they offered me payment to guide them mentioning boundless wealth if a man and his treasure were found, I haggled for more before accepting their offer. My one condition was avoiding Mbutu. There was nothing there, and I was unwilling to return before I could tout my successes. We were all in agreement and arrangements were made.

We marched through the desert for two days following the stars of my childhood. I intended on taking them in a large circle rather than all the way through. If we did not find treasure by the end of the third day, I would kill these men in the desert, take whatever money they had, and find my way back with more money in my pocket. A part of me was hopeful, however. A part of me hoped to find this grey-eyed owl man, the one who sang to my mother, helped my grandmother… but I was not foolish, nor was I kind. The apple had fallen far from the tree.

On the third night, the moon was full. We sat on our bags around a fire as I imagined how I would kill these men in their sleep. One of them asked me to sing the lullaby all the way through. I had refused until now. The warm wind reminded me of my childhood, the moon reminded me of my mother’s smile, and I could not help but sing the words up into the starlit sky...

What happened next could have been the madness of the desert, it could have been the dark shadows playing tricks, but a single owl suddenly appeared with blazing blue eyes and wings that shimmered under the lunar light. It landed and sat comfortably in the fire before us and as I began to stir, I remembered a verse long-forgotten… But before I could say anything more, one man lunged over the fire and grabbed at the owl. The owl dodged him, dug his talons into his outstretched arms, and carried him off into the night. The other man got up and instinctively gave chase through the desert, and I remained unmoved murmuring to myself…

If I hold too tight

It will disappear from sight .

If I chase too close

It taunts me

Like a ghost .

If I leave it be

The greatest treasure I will see

Among trinkets of sapphire and gold.

I remained seated and unmoving for what felt like ages. The wind told me the owl would return, and it did. It landed once more in the fire, turning the flames blue, and I made no motion towards it. I stood perfectly still as the wind, the fire, and the sand enveloped the owl and created the shadowy but unmistakable form of my mother seated beneath a tree, touseling the hair of a child in her lap. I heard her laugh like music, I saw her smile like the moon, and I began to weep. I left that place. I took nothing that was not my own, and I began my long march out of the desert.

Part 3 - Home

I returned home for the first time in twenty years. The journey took three days and required the kindness of many strangers along the way.

When I approached my childhood home, I saw my mother seated on the reed mat beneath the shade of our Acacia tree. She looked haggard and worn. The skin next to her eyes had wrinkled and sparse silver hairs sprung out from her headwrap, but her smile was the same. She welcomed me. I grabbed a stool from inside our home and joined her beneath the tree. I told her all about my adventures in the desert and what I saw, and she smiled and gasped and exclaimed at all the right moments. She then shared with me the village gossip and how the families from my childhood were doing, and who had recently become pregnant, and how the crops and rains were plentiful this season, and how wonderful it was that I had come to visit…

Without so much as a moment of silence, she then asked me to go into the house and bring cups of water for both of us. I found only one plastic cup on the table and another full of silverware. I turned the second cup over to dump the silverware out and among scattered spoons, forks, and a single knife, out fell two gems the size of eyes, blue as the desert night sky. I ran outside and showed them to my mother.

“What is this?!?” I asked.

“Likely what you were searching for in the desert,” she replied casually.

“How did you get this?” I asked again, stunned.

My mother shrugged, “The wanderer gave it to me before he was chased away.”

“BaMa! why didn’t you tell me you had this?”

“You knew,” she said. “You’d seen them as a child, you just paid them no importance…”

I was dumbfounded and exasperated. I searched for the right words, but could only muster another question.

“BaMa, this is worth thousands! How could I not have known?”

My mother sighed, shook her head, and sang,

I told you every day,

What’s most precious

withers away…

Leaving pieces

Of sapphire

and gold.