You Can Do Anything

Ever since Fatoumata was little, she's loved the days when the whole village repairs and reinforces the houses and buildings to be ready for the rainy season. Everyone helps, and they are sticky with mud and when each house has gotten a new layer and glistens in the sunlight, she feels reborn.

The first light peeps over the horizon and Fatoumata blinks when she steps outside. She turns back to the door. Inside, her niblings are laughing. Grandfather Demba stands in the doorway with his cane, but with a straight back. The russet skin of his forehead gleams in the little light.

"It'll be a good day," he says. "You'll have enough time. The young Sira and Soma already have some experience."

"I know," Fatoumata replies. "I'm not afraid we won't finish or that it won't go well. But the old Awa needs help." And not only she does. There's so much that can go wrong.

"The neighbours will help her too." Demba is silent, but she senses he has more to say. "You're a good engineer, Fatou. You were good enough for Gao, you're good enough for your own village." Fatoumata inclines her head. She knows she's good enough. She went to the city last year because she'd managed to repair a wall nobody else had been able to. But what if she can't do it again? What if she disappoints? "You will do well, girl. The old Awa won't get wet during the rainy season. Come and eat before you start fetching water and mixing mud."

They don't touch, but his words feel like a hand on her shoulder. Her eyes are damp and she can't look at him. "Thank you, grandfather. I'm coming."

Demba shuffles inside and in the muted light of the central lamp, she sees him sit down next to mother around the bowl with barley porridge. The sky is still dark and empty, and the other houses are covered in each other's shadows. Because of the thick walls of mud, sand and clay, silence still fills the streets where soon everyone will run and laugh. Blood is rushing in her veins and she wants to run to the river, feel the cool mud under her feet and let out a cry that causes the waterfowl to fly up and the children to cheer. It'll be a good day.

***

"Catch me if you can!"

"Noooo! Help!"

The small children are running around and splashing each other on the river's edge. Some children help out by mixing the mud or carrying the water, but the youngest ones play, with open mouths and mud in their short frizzy hair and lots of cheering. On the low fishing boats that have been drawn onto the bank, some village elders are talking, but their gazes rest on the children.

Fatoumata bends and fills her big jar. No time to dawdle; they're far from done. On her way back to the village, she crosses the train tracks that weren't there yet last year. The rails meander in the area between the villages and the water as a second, iron river and each day, a train passes that rides between the big trade cities. In Gao, they let her help with the building of a station, and in long breaks, she asked endless questions about the tracks and the trains. Since she's been home again, only a few days, she has looked every day at the train that thundered past the village and it always fills her with awe.

In the village, Fatoumata pours part of her water into the large bowl in which they mix the mud. Kadidia and Soma are already busy. She crouches and puts her hands in the mud, which contrasts sharply with her umber skin.

"How was the city? Did you have to mix mud there too?" Fatoumata looks up. It's Soma who asked the question. He's Kadidia's oldest son, and she keeps wondering how big and young at the same time her nephew is now. She scrapes her hand along the bottom of the bowl and when she takes out her arm, the mud is dripping. Too runny. She adds sand, and Soma and Kadidia mix. "Fatou?"

"I also mixed mud in the city, but it was different." She moves her fingers through the mud and the consistency is more solid now. Soma has stopped mixing. "They had a big machine in Gao. We had to put water and sand and loam in it and then the machine mixed everything until it was good mud for building." They didn't even have to carry water from the river because there were pipes.

"A machine? Really?" Soma looks at her with big eyes, and Kadidia's hands mix more slowly. "Could you build all on your own? Did you build a palace?" Fatoumata gets up and fills a smaller bowl with mud. Father and mother started at the east side, still in the shadows when they began but now in the sun. From now on, it's a race to finish before the afternoon heat. She crouches next to the wall and fills a crack with a fresh layer of mud. Soma runs after her. "Fatou! Tell!"

She suppresses a laugh. "I didn't build a palace. I did build a school, but not on my own. There were a lot of us, so we could build fast.

"A school." Soma pouts. "That's not impressive."

"No? It was a really big school."

"How big?"

"Longer than ten houses next to each other and three houses high."

"Wow. That's really big. Was the machine just as big?"

"No, it was as big as me."

Soma's eyes jump between her head and her feet, still crouched. "Was the spirit in the machine just as big?"

Fatoumata laughs. "I don't know. Have you ever truly seen a spirit? Not just movement or light, like in the lamps, truly seen."

Soma thinks and turns slowly on his axis, as if he can spot a spirit like that. "No," he says eventually.

"Me neither."

"Don't they teach you to see the spirits of your ancestors if you become a construction engineer?" a new, deep voice asks. Fatoumata looks back and she almost drops her bowl in her hurry to put it down.

"Djouma!" She runs at him and hugs him. "Mother said you were selling cotton in Teme and Djamata."

"Your mother was right. Did you miss me?"

Fatoumata pushes him away. "I thought you'd be here when I came back from Gao."

Djouma shoots her a lop-sided smile. Mud sticks to his russet cheek, from her arm. "How should I have known that you'd return while I was gone?" He studies her. "You look good. Happy. Your voice is higher. Did you ask for advice on how you could ask the spirits for help?" Fatoumata nods, a sudden lump in her throat. "And?"

"There's a ritual. Every month. Helps with my voice and how I look. And there are surgeons who might ..." She gestures at her body. The idea fills her with anxious hope, that maybe doctors exist that could give her the body she wants, when she has known since she was little that she is a girl.

Djouma hugs her again. "That's amazing news. I'm happy for you, Fatou."

When he lets her go, she steps back. "Will I see you tonight? I have to ..." She points at the house where Soma has taken over her task, with his tongue pointing out between his teeth. "And I promised to help the old Awa, and maybe more people."

Djouma laughs. "She helps out the village one time in an emergency and can go to Gao to become a real engineer, and then she thinks she has to build the whole village on her own. I'll go do my part of the work, before you do it in my stead." His eyes twinkle and he walks backwards and disappears between the houses. Fatoumata shakes her head, but she feels calmer than in the morning, a giggle caught in her chest. It's a good day.

***

The rain taps steadily on the roof and even though it's dry inside, the air feels humid. Fatoumata stretches her legs and tries to shake off the noise, but it forces itself on her like a fly, over the play of her niblings next to the wall and over the voices of her family. Rain is a blessing, a necessity, but she is not made to sit still inside. The spirits in the lamps are restless too. Every time the light flickers and a shadow glides over her hands, she loses her concentration on the robe she's adjusting. Her monthly ritual has given her breasts and she hopes to emphasise her new feminine curves a little with her robes.

The lamp flickers and Fatoumata looks at the other side of the living quarters, where the children are playing. They have smooth round stones from the river and sticks and polished pieces of bone, and the stones regularly change hands. Coumba, Fenda, Sira, Waraba, Kwame, Yaa, Saran, ...

"Where is Soma?" Her question tumbles out before she can think. The conversation ceases.

Mother looks at her and then behind. "I don't know." She stands up and checks the sleeping quarters, but Fatoumata already knows he's not there. He would have heard her.

"Soma is outside," a thin voice says. Yaa has big eyes and she seems about to burst into tears. Father holds out his hands for her and she hides her head in his neck, while he strokes her hair. The shadows deepen the lines in his face and his grey hair seems lighter in contrast.

Fatoumata's gaze darts over the rest of her family, four generations who communicate in silence. She gets up. "I'm going to look where he is." Mother nods.

Kadidia and her partner Kofi stand up as well. "We're going too."

"Be careful," grandfather Demba says. His dark eyes are serious but calm, and Fatoumata gratefully borrows from his strength and stability.

They each wind a scarf around their head against the rain and brave the storm. It's afternoon, but the sky is a dark grey and everything is bathed in a strange light. Their feet sink into the mud and Fatoumata can hear the river, even though it lies hundreds of paces from the village and usually has a slow current. In a normal rainy season, the village is safe from floods, located on a natural terrace and far enough from the river, but Soma is a curious boy. He can't sit still, just like her.

Kadidia and Kofi call out, but the rain muffles their voices. They pass old Awa in her doorway. She peers at them.

"We don't know where Soma is," Kofi says.

Awa keeps peering and nods before she replies: "I haven't seen him."

Kadidia stops walking. "Could he have gone in the other direction?" Fatoumata hopes so. Away from the river he is safer.

Suddenly, a shrill voice and running steps in puddles can be heard from between the houses, not from the river or away from it, but from the south. "Fatou! Fatou! Ma!" Soma hurtles against Kadidia's legs and Kofi grabs his shoulder and presses him against Kadidia in a weird half embrace.

Soma turns his head to Fatoumata and pants. "The train tracks! Fatou! The river! You have to look."

Her heartbeat hadn't calmed down yet, but now it's in her throat. "What about the tracks?" Her voice is tinny, without any weight.

Soma's voice is equally high when he replies: "I think the river will flood them."

Fatoumata stands still as a gazelle that hopes for a single moment to deceive the lion. If the river floods the tracks, they can be washed away, downstream to the village. It could cause a landslide. And if that happens, houses or even the whole village could be damaged by the heavy iron rails or the mud. Maybe it's already too late. Or maybe she can still do something. Stabilising, anything. She's been to Gao to become an engineer, she should be able to save her village, right?

"I'm going." Her voice sounds more solid again.

"Fatou ..." Kadidia says.

"I have to. You can send help if you want. Ask Djouma."

She starts to run, as fast as she can. The mud sucks on her feet and outside the village, she ends up on a rocky underground, which she can feel through her leather sandals, even though they've gotten an extra protective layer of mud. She's young and fit, but as she advances and has to go down and then up to reach the point where the tracks lie in the floodplain, her muscles start to burn and she has to slow down. How long was Soma gone before they noticed? The tracks are hundreds of paces upstream.

Before she's even at the tracks, she sees what Soma meant. Over a distance of about twenty paces, the railway lies in a shallow area at the edge of the floodplain and water from the rain and the river has gathered there. The original streambed is nearby, a few dozen paces. Behind her lies the village, on a terrace in the landscape like where she is now. About halfway between the village and her position, the river bends away from the tracks. The possibility of the rails being dragged into the village or causing a landslide doesn't seem so bad. Her legs feel weak from relief.

She carefully descends to the tracks, on the slippery ground. The water is shallow here and murky with soil. Up close, she sees the tracks are not just under water, but there's also rocks and sediment on them. Maybe the rails are even bent. And that ... that isn't good. The next train passes before sunset. Do they know the railway is partially in the floodplain? No, of course not. Can she call and can the operators warn the machinist? The village has one telephone, but she doesn't know who she should call and in which city they are, and there's no time to figure that out because the train will already have left and can't return. No, if she doesn't want the train to crash, she will have to adequately repair the tracks herself, so a train can ride over them.

"Fatou!" Djouma appears above her on the rocks and he's followed by about five other friends and neighbours. "What's going on?"

"We have to make the tracks passable for the train. There is no time to warn the train company. Can someone get tools?"

Djouma studies the situation and then her. Fatoumata holds his gaze and keeps her back straight. His otherwise playful eyes are serious. "Okay. You say what we need to do."

First, they start to free the rails from rocks and dirt. Yoxo brings tools and more hands. Fatoumata focuses on lifting the rocks, wiping away the soil, her feet in the water, how there is no dry spot left on her body. She has no solution for the water. Can they build a dam in a short time span that won't break in the rainfall of the coming weeks? Can they clear away the water? She glides her hand under water over the tracks. She hasn't felt significant damage yet.

Djouma comes to stand next to her. "What's the plan?"

Fatoumata climbs up on the rocks from where she had looked at the environment before. Djouma follows her. "Do you think we can shift the tracks so they're no longer in the floodplain?"

"Over the rocks?"

"Yeah. We'll need to level the terrain as much as possible. And rig up extra parts for the rails because they'll become longer. But the alternative is a dam and scooping out water."

"If you think it's possible, we'll try to help. You are the engineer. All the way from Gao." He smiles at her and it gives her strength.

"Then we try." She has studied for this. These people trust her. She'll have to improvise, but she has her brain, her hands and her village. She can do this.

Fatoumata first draws out on the ground where the tracks will come to lie and calculates how long the new connecting parts will have to be. She sends someone to the village with precise instructions for the smith, and asks for more assistance. They have to split the rocks of the terrace to move them and level the terrain by removing and adding soil, while they stay far enough from the floodplain. With the tools that Yoxo brought, they remove the rails under water and fix them in their new position. It feels strange to barely use her own hands, but walk back and forth to give instructions and supervise and constantly calculate and estimate what's doable.

When there's one long continuous railway again, above the waterline, it's not perfect. They couldn't bend the old parts of the rails, so the transitions aren't smooth. She doesn't know if everything will hold under the weight and the speed of a train. She doesn't know how much the water level will rise before the end of the rainy season. But it's there, and the sun hasn't set yet.

It's still raining, and Fatoumata's whole body feels heavy. She feels trembling under her skin, fast as the heartbeat of a bird in a human hand, even though her hands and her voice are steady.

"What now?" Yoxo asks. Djouma joins her at her side and everyone follows. Her friends, her siblings and their partners, piblings, neighbours. Everyone is looking at her.

"Now we wait until the train is here."

They start a slow walk away from the railway, away from the danger if she has failed. When they stop, Djouma puts an arm around her shoulder and Yoxo holds her hand. Kofi and Kadidia come from the village with food, and Soma walks between them. She's not hungry, but she chews on the bread.

"What did you do?" Soma asks. "Was it difficult?" He sits down on the ground and Fatoumata sinks until she's also sitting. She doesn't know if she can still stand up.

"It was difficult. I hope I have saved people."

"I knew you would know what to do."

Fatoumata laughs at his certainty, his blind faith in her abilities. "Thank you."

From the village someone is running towards them. When the person is near enough and slows down to walking pace, Fatoumata recognises her mother. "Fatou!" she calls.

Fatoumata stands up and starts to run as well. Mother grips her face. "Fatou. Grandfather Demba and the old Awa have managed to call the right train company. The machinist has been warned." Mother's eyes are laughing and she embraces Fatoumata. A sob climbs up in her throat.

Toot! Toot!

Far away on the plain sounds the roar and the horn of the train. The black spot nears fast, sharp despite the rain. Fatoumata looks at mother, back to Djouma, Yoxo, Soma, Kadidia, Kofi. They are all laughing.

She looks at the train and the train drives more slowly than usual, but it's driving on the tracks they made and it roars past and nothing happens.

Soma cheers and then everyone is shouting. Someone starts to sing. Djouma runs towards her and presses her against his chest.

"You did it," mother says.

And when they are home, grandfather Demba shakes his head and says: "You can do anything, girl."

***

Author's Note: This story is set in the same universe as Spirits, a clockpunk setting inspired by West Africa (for this story specifically Mali) in which I plan to set a novel one day. It's a translation of a story I wrote for a Dutch contest. Because of the deadline, I have not done as much research as I would ideally have, both for technical details (I am no engineer, and definitely don't know much about how railways are made) and the rep (West-Africa and trans women). As such, I welcome any and all feedback you might be willing to give me (as I always do), and especially if you are part of the people I'm trying to represent. I am here to learn. The names are currently a mishmash of different ethnic groups in Mali and include Africanised Arabic names, but they, like all other aspects of the story, are subject to change in the novel (or series) based on research and/or feedback.

In general, I'm quite proud of this story and I would love to hear all of your thoughts and whether you would like to see these characters again in a novel, what questions you have, what you would like to see in this universe or with these characters, ...