When Bee returned in mid-afternoon, she proved more skeptical. “The general is out all day at a military exercise with the new recruits. I wonder if Sanogo knows that?”
“Why do you ask me questions to which you already know the answer?”
She tapped me on the arm with her painted fan. “To annoy you, dearest.”
We dressed in bright pagnes and matching blouses, me with my hair braided back and Bee with her curls partly covered by a yellow scarf that complemented her sea-struck blue-and-green pagne with its schools of stylized fish. We might have been any two local gals walking with a pleasant uncle through the late afternoon heat, except, of course, that we weren’t. We conversed amiably on neutral subjects like batey, batey, batey, and batey. Sanogo did not ask about the cacica’s imminent arrival at the border or the great areito by which the Taino queen would celebrate her son’s marriage to a humble Kena’ani girl of no particular lineage or wealth. Maybe he had spies in Taino country tracking the progress of the cacica and her entourage. Maybe he had spies in the general’s household. Maybe this was just a social visit.
We crossed the harbor in a boat rowed by four silent men. The water was so greasy it was opaque. Bits of rubbish fetched up against the prow as we passed boats and ships tied to moorings. The university lay across the harbor on an artificial island, a vast stone plaza rising from the muddy brown shallows and further reinforced by stone walls. There was only one water gate by which boats could approach, and we waited in line to put in under an archway fitted with a portcullis drawn up and secured by chains. After passing under the archway, we pulled up at a stone pier under the watchful eye of friendly uniformed watchman smiling the way folk do when they know they have the right to bash your head in if you so much as look at them in a way they decide to take offense at.
“Commissioner, no need to ask yee errand. Who is these two pretty gals?”
“Nieces of Professora Habibah ibnah Alhamrai.”
They laughed as at a good joke but let us disembark and pass down the pier to a second gate, also manned by watchmen, who waved us through. Beyond the gate lay a public square paved in stone and inhabited by young men napping in the shade of trees.
“This is more like a fortress than an institution of learning,” said Bee. “Who is the university protecting themselves against?”
Sanogo smiled his most pleasant smile. “The Council. By a decree passed fifty years ago, the Council cannot interfere with the university. The university guards its independence.”