Black Mamba Boy Page 6

  “Your father has too much music in his soul for this kind of life. Your mother did too, but she tried hard to drown it out. Life here is too hard, everyone is peering over the horizon, but one day, inshallah, you will also see how wide the world is.”

  “But where is my father?”

  “Far, far away, in a town called Gederaf in Sudan, beyond Ogaden, beyond Djibouti, many months’ walk, son. I heard that he was fighting in Abyssinia but now it seems he is in Sudan trying to become a driver again.”

  “Can I go to him?”

  “Allah, how could I let you do that? I owe it your mother to make sure you don’t come to any harm. She is watching me, I feel her here”—Jinnow placed her hand on her stomach—“she is like a light there, you understand, son? Your mother, Kahawaris . . . sometimes the dead are more alive than the living; no one really dies, not while there are people who remember and cherish them.”

  Jama was ready to explode, cooped up in the compound, he needed a job so that he could add to his mother’s money and find his father. He scoured the barren town for places to work, but shops and homes operated on the most basic level of survival and there was no room for such luxuries as paid servants. The market consisted of a handful of women laying out dying fruits and withered vegetables on dusty cloths in the sand, sitting in the sun gossiping, collecting their meager income in their laps. The market brought everyone together to trade, all of Hargeisa’s Aji clans—the Eidegalle, Habr Yunis, Habr Awal, Arrab—emerged from the wire perimeters that the British had built around their encampments to keep them apart. The eating houses were the haunts of Hargeisa’s men, who were offered only two dishes whatever their wealth, boiled rice with either boiled goat or camel. The cook would serve as waiter and dishwasher as well and would earn a pittance for all three jobs. Children and young men mobbed them for the leftovers, pushing the smaller ones out of their way. Men chewed qat constantly to stave away the nagging hunger in their stomachs, so they wouldn’t succumb mentally to it, wouldn’t humiliate themselves. Late in the afternoon, the steps of the Habr Awal warehouses were clogged with men talking over one another, laughing, and composing epigrams, but later as the qat left their bloodstreams they became morose, reclining like statues as the town darkened around them. Even with qat, the fear of hunger determined every decision, where to go, what to do, who to be. Destitute nomads would come in from the countryside and sit under trees, too exhausted to move any farther. If it was a Monday and they could drag themselves to the white offices of the Sha’ab in the southwest of town, the district commissioner would hear their appeals, and bestow four annas on the most deserving.

  Jama thought himself tough but the youth of Hargeisa were desert-hardened, belligerent brawlers, uninterested in small talk with strangers, and the boys his age just wanted to sing and dance with the market girls. Not finding any companionship inside the compound or outside, Jama retreated deep into himself and made his mind his playground, fantasizing all day about the father he had somehow lost. Conjuring his father was a pleasure: his strong muscles, gold rings and watches, nice shoes, thick hair, expensive clothes could all be refashioned on a whim, he said and did only what Jama wanted without the intrusion of reality. The fact that his father was alive made him everything Jama could want, while seeing his mother in his mind’s eye was agonizing; he could recall the way she smelled before dying, the sweat running down her temples, the fear she was trying to mask from him.

  Jama had seen young boys working in the slaughterhouse, ferrying the carcasses of freshly killed animals to the eating houses and market. He watched the couriers, their necks awkwardly bent by the weight on their shoulders, their feet frantically shuffling forward, propelling whirlwinds of sand up their legs. The work was hard and dirty, but Jama resolved to get money by whatever means necessary.

  He woke up early one morning, the sky gray and the air still cool, and snuck out of the room, Jinnow’s snores chasing after him. A hyena-rich darkness covered the town and Jama could feel jinns and half-men at his back stalking the alleys, making the hairs on his neck stand on end. He sped to the slaughterhouse, the cries of camels and sheep growing in volume as he got closer, and he summoned up an image of his father: tall, strong, elegant in uniform, a smile playing on his dark lips. The slaughterhouse was empty of people; only the penned-up animals, waiting since nightfall for their deaths to come, acknowledged him, fixing their pleading eyes on him, sticking their flaring nostrils into the air. Jama felt the impending bloodshed sizzle in the air and rubbed down the tiny hairs on his lower spine as they nervously stood up, as if they were frightened conscripts standing to attention before a bloodied old general. He paced up and down, avoiding the eyes of the animals, turning his back to them, counting the stars as they one by one bowed and left the stage. As the sun rose, more tiny figures emerged from the dawn horizon, approaching Jama with hostile eyes. Jama looked around with satisfaction as he realized that he was among the tallest of the motley crew of boys that had formed, waiting for the butchers to come and make their selection from them. With the same swift appraisal of strength and value that they had for livestock, the butchers would pick their couriers for the day. The Midgaan and Yibir boys, those too young to understand that they would never be chosen, were insulted out of the lineup: “Get out of here, you dirty shit, go and clean some latrines!” They moved away, forming a separate line, silent and enraged. The oldest porters were camel herders who had been possessed by jinns in the haunted desert and were now forbidden from approaching the camels. The smallest were barely five years old, bewildered little children who had been dumped in Hargeisa by nomad fathers keen to toughen them up. They had been ripped from their mother’s arms and now slept huddled in groups on the street. Hungry and lonely, they followed older children wherever they went, their fathers occasionally visiting to ask, “So, how much have you made?”

  The butchers arrived already smelling of blood, and with an impatient slap on the shoulder and a grunt they pushed out of the line the boys they would employ that day. Jama was one of the straight-backed chosen few. The unlucky ones slunk away to their mats or patches of dirt and prepared to sleep away the day and its insidious hunger pangs. Jama walked toward the killing ground but hung back, hoping to avoid seeing the actual slaughters. A man shouted, “Hey you! Whatever your name is! Come here!”

  Jama turned around and saw a broad, bare-chested man kneeling over a dead camel, still holding on to its reins as if it could make an escape.

  “Jama, my name is Jama, uncle.”

  “Whatever. Come and take this carcass over to the Berlin eating house for me. Wait here while I prepare it.” Jama stood back and waited as the butcher took his cleaver and cut off the neck and legs, removed the skin from the camel’s torso and emptied it of heart, stomach, intestines, and other organs that only the poorest Somalis ate. The carnage shocked Jama, its efficiency and speed making it even more dreadful, he stood before the giant, naked, gleaming rib cage, frightened and awed by its desecration. The butcher got up, wiping his red hands on his sarong before picking up the rib cage and balancing it on Jama’s head. Its weight made him stagger and the soft, oozing flesh pressed revoltingly onto his skin. Jama pushed himself forward, trying to not career around, but the heavy load drove him left and right. He stopped and pushed the rib cage down his neck onto his shoulders and held it wedged there as if he were Atlas holding up the world in his fragile arms. The broad bones jutted into Jama’s back, and blood trickled down from his hair onto his shoulders and down his spine, making his brown back glisten with a ruby luster. His nose was filled with the dense, iron smell of blood and he stopped against a wall to retch emptily. Blood dripped onto the sand, decorating his footprints with delicate red pools, as if he were a wounded man. He finally reached the eating house and hurriedly handed the rib cage to a cook through the window. The cook grabbed it as if it were weightless and turned back to his talking and chopping without acknowledging the human carriage that had brought the delivery to him. Jama wa
lked back to the slaughterhouse, a grimace set on his face, his arms held away from his body so that they wouldn’t rub and release the metallic stench. He delivered four more carcasses that morning and by the end he resembled a little murderer covered in the juices and viscera of his victims. Jama carefully tied his hard-earned money in the bottom of his sarong and walked home. The blood dried quickly in the noon sun and his hair and skin began to itch, he rolled his palms over his skin and the blood peeled off in claret strips. The insides of his nails were choked with dried blood and his sticky hair attracted fat, persistent flies, their buzzing causing an infuriating pandemonium by his ears. Jama had grown used to his own high, rich smell but the scent of death clinging to him was unbearable. Knowing that the precious water in the compound was only occasionally used for bathing, he hurriedly removed as much of the filth from his body as he could, using sand to clean himself as the Prophet advised. He arrived at the compound door and it was opened by Ayan before he had even knocked, she had fresh cuts on her face and one of her plaits had come apart, her wavy hair fanning out over one side of her head. “Nabad Jama,” she enunciated slowly, looking into his eyes intensely. “Where have you been? You look tired, and what is that in your hair?” She reached out to touch but he slapped her hand away.

  “Get off, you idiot,” he said gruffly, walking away to Jinnow’s room. He could hear Ayan skipping behind him, her rubber sandals clapping the earth. “I’ll get you one day,” he threatened. Tired and hungry, he just wanted to collapse onto his straw mat. Ayan continued to follow him until, unable to contain herself any longer, she exploded with her news. “The ginger cat is pregnant! She’s not just fat, there are kittens in there! Come and see, Jama! Come.”

  Jama turned around and gave her the most belittling dead eye he could muster, before going into Jinnow’s room and slamming the door shut behind him. He heard Ayan squeal in frustration before trundling back to the main courtyard. There was a stillness in the air, the compound was silent, cobwebs floated from the ceiling, cockroaches scuttled into crevices, everyone was dozing. The droning of insects in the air was punctuated by the hammering and ratter-tattering speech of workmen building a house nearby. The smell of charcoal, onions, meat, tea boiling with cloves and cardamom drifted from underneath the door. As Jama dozed, images of Hargeisa appeared in his mind, the roughness of hot rocks and thorns underfoot, the soft prickliness of camel fur, the taste of dates, ghee, hunger, a parched mouth surprised with the taste of food.

  _______

  A young woman arrived at the compound while he slept, she carried her slim possessions in a bundle on her back and looked ready to collapse. She was one of Jinnow’s nieces, who had recently run away to marry a man from another clan.

  “Isir? What are you doing back here?” shouted one of the wives.

  “That man doesn’t want me anymore, he’s divorced me.”

  “You see! Has he given you your meher, at least?”

  Through the thin walls Jama was wakened by the compound women scurrying around. “She has been possessed, I can a see a jinn in her eyes, call Jinnow,” they cried. Jinnow brought Isir into the aqal, and Jama pretended to be asleep but watched as Jinnow inspected Isir, rubbing her hands all over her body, half doctor, half priestess.

  “How do you feel, girl?”

  “Fine, I’m fine, just keep those crazy women away from me,” Isir said; she was dressed in rags but her beauty was still intense.

  “What happened?”

  “That idiot, that enemy of God says I am possessed.”

  Isir caught Jama’s eyes peeking out from under his arm and he shut them quickly.

  “Has he given you any of your dowry?”

  “Not one gumbo.”

  In the dim light, the women looked as if they were ready to commit some mysterious deed. Jinnow gathered herbs from her leather pouches and told Isir to eat them. She left Isir to rest and called the other women of the compound. As the neighborhood alaaqad with shamanic authority, they could not refuse her.

  Isir shook Jama. “Are you Ambaro’s son?”

  Jama nodded. Isir’s large brown eyes had the same burning copper in them as his mother’s had.

  “Go and listen to what they’re saying for me,” she demanded.

  Jama went as Isir’s eyes and ears. “Our sister needs us, she has been afflicted by a saar, we must exorcise her tonight, as her husband is not here you must bring perfume, new clothes, halwa, incense, amber, and silver to my room to satisfy the jinn. I will conduct the ceremony,” proclaimed Jinnow.

  “She’s always been like this, it’s the price for her beauty.” Ayan’s mother laughed. “Isir has always been leading men on, and now one of them has finally put a curse on her.”

  “Nonsense,” shouted Jinnow, “she is of our blood, we cannot stand aside when she needs us. What if a man threw you out with the rubbish?” The compound women grumbled but agreed to prepare the saar ceremony.

  Some cleaned Jinnow’s room, some cooked, some borrowed drums, others collected the gifts. When the children had been fed and sent away, Isir was led by a procession to Jinnow’s room. Jama was locked out, but with a pounding heart he climbed the wall and walked over the roof until he could lean over Jinnow’s window. The room was brightly lit with paraffin lamps, smoky with expensive incense. Jinnow had brought more old women, mysterious crones with shining dark skin and strong hands. After the incense had been passed around, and the gifts presented, Jinnow took the largest drum and pounded it intermittently while shouting out instructions to the jinn. Isir stood in the center of the room, looking stiff and nervous. With every command the old women chanted “Ameen” and the young women clapped. Then the old women brought out small drums, got to their feet, and started drumming in earnest. Jinnow stood behind Isir, grabbed her around the waist and forced her to dance, the crowd ululated and danced with them. Jinnow tore off Isir’s headscarf and pulled at her hair. Jama watched as Isir’s movements took on a life of their own. Jinnow was an inch away from her face, shouting and crying, “Nin hun, nin hun, a bad man, a bad man, never tie yourself to a bad man, we told you he was useless, useless while you were brave and strong, Allah loves you, Allah loves you.” Isir’s tears flowed freely down her face; she looked like a lost little girl to Jama. Jinnow spun around Isir with more energy than he could have imagined, steam was rising from the women and no one noticed his head hanging upside down in the window. Isir had her head flung back, her eyes half-closed but staring unseeingly into Jama’s, she was saying things that Jama could not understand. Jinnow was encouraging her, shouting, “You are carrying this load on your back and you are staggering around with it like a tired camel, stop here and pass your load to me! Send him out of your soul! You are full of ghosts! Spit them out! Get your freedom, my girl!”

  Isir carried on weeping while the compound women danced around her, clapping their support and flushing out their own grief.

  Isir became a small ally against the compound women; she slept in the same room as Jinnow and Jama and joined in on their late-night conversations.

  “I used to sleep right there next to Ambaro, where you are now, Jama, plaiting our hair, tickling each other.”

  “That’s right, that’s right,” encouraged Jinnow.

  “Jinnow would throw a slipper at us to quieten our laughter.”

  “They had no sense of time.”

  “Do you remember, aunty, how she would read our palms? Telling us all kinds of things, how many men we would marry, how many children we’d have. She scared the other girls with that talk.”

  Jama sat up on his elbows and listened attentively to the women.

  “It’s because she had the inner eye and she didn’t soften or hide what she saw. I saw it in her from an early age, I watched her read the future in shells when she was not yet five, grown men would come and ask her to tell them their fate. Did she tell you all this, Jama?” Jinnow asked.

  Jama scanned his memory. “She only told me that I had been born with the pr
otection of all the saints and that a black mamba had blessed me while I was in her stomach.”

  “That is all true, you had a very auspicious birth, every kaahin and astrologer envied your signs, even Venus appeared the night you were born.”

  Jama rested his head on his arm and sighed loudly. If only he could meet his father, he would believe all of their fanciful words.

  Jama went to the abattoir every morning, and his eagerness and industriousness meant he was always picked out, creating enemies for him among the other hungry children, but only a few resentful slaps or gobs of spit landed on him. Jama saw the sweaty, smelly work as a kind of test that, if passed, would entitle him to see his father, a trial of his worth as a son and as a man. He wrapped all of his abattoir money in a cloth and hid it inside a tin can in Jinnow’s room. The bundle of coins grew and grew in its hiding place, and he could feel the reunion with his father approaching, whether his father came to him or he went to his father, Jama knew it was fated to be. He read it in the clouds, in the entrails of the carcasses he delivered, in the grains of coffee at the bottom of his cup.

  After work, he often wandered around town, sometimes as far as the Yibro village that nestled against the thorny desert on the outskirts of Hargeisa. He walked through the pariah neighborhood looking for signs of the magic that Yibros were said to possess, he wanted some of their powerful poison to use against Ayan, to watch her hair and nails drop off. Jama peered into small dark huts, an outcast among outcasts, hot dark eyes following his progress. But there was no magic to be seen, the Yibros had yet to find spells that would turn dust into bread, potions to make their dying children live, or curses that would keep their persecutors at bay. An Aji boy in their midst could easily bring trouble. If a hair on his head was hurt, a pack of howling wolves would descend on the village, ripping and tearing at everyone and everything, so they watched him and hoped that his curiosity would quickly be satisfied. The village had only recently stopped mourning for a young man killed by Ajis, his body cut up and the flesh put in a basket outside his family’s hut. His mother collapsed when she brought in the basket and realized where the plentiful meat had come from. His head was at the bottom, broken and gray. No blood money could be demanded by them because they were not strong enough to threaten vengeance, his father went to work the next day as he did every day, smiling to hide his fury, bowing down to men who had dismembered his child. Jama saw that the village was full of women; Yibro men were usually laboring elsewhere, hammering metal or working leather or in the town cleaning out latrines. The children sat outside, picking their noses, their stomachs stretched to bursting point, destitution the way of life. The clan handouts that kept other Somalis afloat were absent here, as the Yibros were so few and so poor. Ancient superstitions meant that Aji Somalis ostracized Yibros and Midgaans and other undesirables without any thought; Yibros were just Jews, eaters of forbidden foods, sorcerers. Jama was only dimly aware that these people received a payment from families like his whenever a male child was born and that a curse or spell from a Yibir was more powerful and destructive than from anyone else. Jama could see why they were feared, their clothes were even more raggedy than his, their shacks open to the cruelties of the August heat and the October freeze, their intimacy with misery deeper than that of anyone else.