Dzoto’otú, Nutmeg Hill
He thought he knew; he thought he knew the sort of painful longing in the set of thin soft lips, and the wistful aching lines at the edges of his eyes. He went on anyway, because he didn’t know that this was the sort of hurt made better by not knowing. If it was, it was anyway already too late for total ignorance. That was what Tom had had, Aremu realized somewhere along the way, and if he had learned anything from loving the other man it was that that hadn’t been enough for him.
School houses, Tom had repeated, a little crooked tilt to his lips.
The bell rang again; they eased apart. Aremu made to raise. Let me, hey? Tom said, echoes of the Rose in his soft clipped speech. Aremu smiled, and nodded. He ate the last of his pastry, breathing in deep the scent of the meat and flat bread as Tom brought the silver platter to the table.
It smelled good, Aremu thought, very good. Eyo’xaw i’xupo, Tom said, very soft and even, lilting carefully through the vowels and softening the consonants. Aremu looked up at him, wide-eyed, remembering S-sana’hulali husked against his lips a lifetime ago.
Aremu hadn’t had any of his wine, not yet; Tom brushed behind him; and he looked up at the other man, smiling, the words slowly seeping warm into him. “Eyo’ziq i’xupo,” Aremu answered back, smiling. The wind is warm in mine. He didn’t translate it to start, but he would, if Tom asked him to; he would, and gladly.
Aremu reached for the platter; he put some of the meat on Tom’s plate, and only then his own, and slid the warm, spongy bread to the other man. He was back in his seat by the time Tom spoke; his eyebrows lifted, and he frowned, looking down at the steaming spiced food his plate for a moment.
“I had tutors,” Aremu said after a moment. He looked back at Tom, a crooked little smile on his face. “I grew up on Cinnamon Hill,” he wondered if Tom had learned to hear it in him, by now; he knew it was there, still, after so many years.
I didn’t know, he had told Tom, once, years ago, sitting on the edge of the Mahogany and waiting for lightning to strike. He said it differently, now, and evenly, pushing through it. He didn’t know why; he didn’t know why.
“Once they knew what I was,” Aremu said, evenly, “I was sent to the Turtle; I went to a day school there for some months.” His hand was in his lap, now; his fingers pleated at his pants, scrunching in the fabric and letting go.
You don’t have to say it, he wanted to tell himself. You don’t have to say it. The words came out - not spilling out hot and fast, but slow and steady, even, with nothing of the hurt he should not have felt on his face.
“Afterwards I went to one of the preparatory schools in Dejai,” Aremu went on, his face even. “Uzoji convinced his family to support me. At sixteen - Dzit’ereq.” His gaze searched Tom’s face. He went on; he thought maybe he wanted the other man to know, as if his knowing could lighten the burden of it, though he knew well it could not.
“There were two other imbali who started in my year,” Aremu said, quietly. “I was the only one to graduate. Ediwo,” he said, with a funny little ache that could not quite pass for a smile.