The Road Of Smoke

By midnight, Benin City was a city that could not sleep.

Osaze had never seen the city like this. The great wide streets that were usually swept clean every morning were now full of people who had left their villages in the forest. Women with children tied to their backs, old men carrying stools, priests carrying shrines. They all moved toward the palace, as if the Oba's walls could protect them. But there were no walls.

He found Iwebo back in the Igun Street guild, but the old man was not carving. He was packing.

"We are burying them," Iwebo said. He pointed to the floor. The guild had dug a shallow pit in the center of the hut. Inside it were dozens of bronze heads, half-finished leopards, plaques that showed white men with long noses holding guns. They were wrapping them in thick palm leaves.

"Will the earth protect them?" Osaze asked.

"The earth remembers better than men. The white men want to put our kings in their museums in London. Let them dig for a hundred years first."

Iwebo grabbed Osaze's arm. His grip was surprisingly strong. "Listen to me, Osaze. You are nineteen. I have taught you how to read wax, how to read metal, how to read paper. Now you must learn how to read smoke."

He pulled Osaze outside. From Igun Street, you could see to the edge of the city. The night was usually black, with only cooking fires dotting the darkness. Tonight, the horizon was orange.

"They burn everything as they come," Iwebo said. "Farm, shrine, house. They want us to be afraid. And it is working."

A boy ran past them, screaming that the British were already at Ovia River, only one day's march away. Another woman shouted that they had a weapon that shoots like rain. The Maxim gun. The traders had not been lying.

Osaze clutched his satchel. Inside, he now had more than his own papers. After the Oba spoke to him, two other scribes had come to him in secret and given him their own writings. One was a list of all the Oba's lineage going back four hundred years. Another was a drawing of the old city before the walls were expanded. It was heavy. Not in weight, but in what it meant.

"I have to get to the river," Osaze said. "The Oba said to go to Ughoton if the city falls."

"If? The city will fall," Iwebo said bluntly. "You saw the chiefs. Half of them are already arguing about who will surrender first to save their own houses. Ologbosere will fight, but he fights for pride, not for sense. The British have a thousand men. We have courage. Courage does not stop bullets."

"Then come with me."

Iwebo laughed, and for the first time that night, he sounded like his old self. "And do what at the river? Write? No. My place is here. My bronze is here. If they want to take it, they will have to take me with it. But you — you are young. Your eyes are good for paper. The Oba is right. Someone must run."

He went back inside and returned with something wrapped in leather. It was a dagger, but not a fighting dagger. It was a carving tool, long and sharp, used for cutting wax.

"For the road. Not to kill white men. To cut bush if you need to."

Osaze took it. He wanted to say thank you, but his throat was dry.

"Go now," Iwebo said. "Don't use the main road. Use the old hunters' path behind the sacred grove. It comes out near Ikpoba River. From there, follow the water to Ughoton. And Osaze — don't stop for anyone. Not even if they call your name. In war, even your brother can become a trap."

Osaze nodded and started to run.

The hunters' path was supposed to be secret, but tonight it was crowded. He saw other young men from the city, some with bags, some with nothing, all trying to leave before the army arrived. No one spoke. To speak was to be noticed.

Halfway through the grove, the trees opened and he could see Benin City behind him. From here, it looked beautiful. The thatched roofs shone in the moonlight. The palace tower stood tall. It was hard to believe that in a few days, it could all be gone. He thought of the bronze head still warm from the pit. He thought of Iwebo burying his kings in the dirt like yams.

He kept running.

He reached Ikpoba River just as the first light was coming. The river was swollen and brown. There, waiting at the crossing, was a girl.

Her name was Adesuwa. She was the daughter of the man who dyed cloth for the palace. Osaze had known her since they were children. She was supposed to marry a chief's son next year.

"What are you doing here?" he whispered.

"The same as you," she said. She held a bundle too. But hers was not paper. It was a child. Her little brother, maybe three years old, asleep on her back.

"The city?" she asked.

"They say it will fall," he said.

She nodded like she already knew. "My father said the Oba told some of us to leave. He said the white men will kill everyone in the city to teach us a lesson. My mother wouldn't come. She said our house has been there for a hundred years. That the white men cannot move a house."

Osaze looked at the river. There were no canoes. The fishermen had taken them all to the other side to keep them from the British.

"We have to swim," he said.

Adesuwa looked at the water, then at the child on her back. "He cannot swim."

"I will carry him."

"You cannot swim with paper."

For a moment, they just stood there. The smoke from the burning villages was getting thicker. You could now hear a low, distant thumping. It was not drums. It was cannon.

It was coming from the south. The British were firing on the city to scare them, even before they arrived.

Adesuwa suddenly untied the child and handed him to Osaze. "His name is Osaro. If you make it, take him to my aunt in Ughoton. Tell her I sent you."

"What about you?" Osaze said, holding the small, warm body. Osaro woke up and started to cry softly.

"I will find another way. There is a shallow part downstream. Go."

She pushed him toward the river. Osaze didn't want to leave her, but he understood what Iwebo meant. Don't stop for anyone.

He stepped into the river. The water was cold and fast. The satchel of paper immediately got wet. He held it above his head with one hand, and held Osaro with the other, kicking hard. The current pulled at his legs, trying to drag him to the bottom. The dagger in his waist cut into his skin.

Halfway across, a British rocket whistled overhead and exploded over Benin City. The sound was so loud that Osaro screamed. Osaze almost went under.

He made it to the other side, coughing, muddy, shaking. He turned around. Adesuwa was gone from the riverbank. The grove behind her was empty.

He was alone on the wrong side of the river, with a child that was not his, and a bag of wet paper that was all that was left of four hundred years of history.

Behind him, Benin City was burning, and the sun had not even fully risen yet.