Black Mamba Boy Read online

  “Don’t worry, Jama, you will get a fat belly one day, just look at mine,” Idea said, lifting his shirt over his stomach and slapping his sagging belly. “I could make a fortune dancing for old Yemenis, don’t you think?” he chuckled. “Come, help me cook lunch, there is some meat today.”

  Jama trotted over to Idea’s side and handed him the ingredients to chop and kept watch over the lamb as it sizzled with the onions and spices. While washing the dishes, Jama turned to Idea and asked, “How can I get to Sudan from here?”

  Idea laughed. “Sudan? What do you want in Sudan?”

  “My father is working there, I am going to visit him.”

  The smile fell from Idea’s face. “Do you know how far it is, Jama? Our people have been thrown to the four winds. You will have to pass countries where there are wars being fought. Even passing through Djibouti is dangerous. Last year three hundred people were killed in one day when the Somalis and Afars took to their spears again.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Idea shook his head. “What makes you so sure?”

  “I can do anything, Idea, I can do anything at all. I walked across the desert by myself, didn’t I?”

  “And look at the state you were in! I thought that someone had left their rubbish under the tree and there you were, passed out. Look, Jama, stay here and you will be fine, stay in Aden you will be fine, stay in Hargeisa you will be fine, but go through Eritrea or Abyssinia and you will see things you don’t want to see. Wait here—let me show you something.”

  He returned with a frayed book, the spine dangling. “In this book are pictures of our land drawn by Ferengis.” Idea flicked through the green-and-blue pages until he found the image he wanted. “See this horn sticking out the side? This is where Somalis live. Next to us are the Oromo, the Afar, Amhara, Swahilis down south, all of our neighbors.”

  Jama peered over the map, which made no sense to him, How could mountains, rivers, trees, roads, villages, towns be shrunk onto a little page?

  “Sudan is here.” Idea plunged a fingernail into a pink country. “We are here.” Another nail pierced a purple spot. “Everywhere in between is controlled by Italians.” Idea smoothed over an expanse of yellow. “All this is an abattoir. The Italians are devils, they might imprison you or put you into their army. I read in the papers every day that ten or fifty Eritreans have been executed. There isn’t a town or village without a set of gallows. They kill fortune-tellers for predicting their defeat and the troubadours for mocking them. A frail Somali boy will be like a little bite before the midday meal to them.”

  “Well then, I will take a knife.”

  Idea stifled a laugh. “And you will kill them all with your knife?”

  “If I have to, I will.”

  “You remind me so much of my son, Jama.”

  “You have a son?” said Jama with a pang of jealousy.

  “I had a son.”

  “What happened to him?”

  Idea shrugged. “I took him to be vaccinated and a few days later he died. He was a healthy, clever boy just like you, there was no reason for him to die.”

  Jama could see tears gathering in Idea’s eyes, so he put his arms around him, holding him tight in his thin arms.

  _______

  As night fell, the neighborhood filled with lights and music, drumbeats picked up speed and then stopped abruptly. A lute was strummed lightly as men walked past the house. Children, infected with excitement, came out of their homes giggling and chasing one another, getting hot and dusty before being called in for their baths. Incense burners were placed on the street to repel the smell of rotting waste that overpowered the town as soon as the sun came down. The shacks built above the open sewer seemed to palpate and shrink away from the rank churning stench that shimmered beneath them.

  “Yallah! Let’s go, there’s a wedding,” shouted Amina when she returned from work. She poured water into a tin bath for Jama to wash, and he went to work with soap, lathering and rubbing away at his skin, trying to remove the never-ending layers of dirt. The red soap was new and hard, and Jama played it up and down his ribs as if he were a zither, until his bones jangled and his red skin hummed. He held his mother’s amulet far away from the water but dared not take it off in case jinns stole it.

  When he came out clothes were strewn everywhere; even on the floor, the clothes looked festive and special. There were fabrics shot with silver or gold thread, lacy underskirts, sequinned shawls; dresses cut in daring, flashy, modern ways, deep purples and turquoise, pinks and jade greens, yellows and ruby reds. Amina came into the room looking like a queen, her hair out of its scarf, magnificent gold earrings dripping down from her ears to her neck. A low-cut red dress, glittering with red sequins, fell loosely from her body; gold bangles cascaded as she threw her arms up in delight at Jama’s shiny clean face. Amina left the room and returned wielding eyeliner and a tin with a reclining lady on it. She passed these to Jama to hold.

  “Open the kohl for me, my sweet,” Amina said. He carefully unscrewed the lid, passed the ornate tip to Amina, and she painted her eyelids with a sweep of black.

  “Now rouge, please,” she said, admiring her work.

  Jama had never seen rouge before and fumbled with the tin, eventually snapping it open and holding out the red goo to Amina. She dabbed some on her fingers and rubbed it into the small apples of her cheeks, her mouth thoughtfully open, and Jama savored her soft breath against his face. Amina’s skin looked dewy but her bewitching black eyes belonged to a wild woman like Salome.

  “Get your sandals on, Jama, quickly, quickly,” Amina ordered. Jama awoke from his reverie and looked behind him. She had bought him enormous sandals, with brass buckles at the ankles.

  “Thank you, aunty,” he said as he struggled to put the heavy sandals on.

  Idea followed them into the night. He wore a baggy beige suit that glowed in the darkness, and Amina had put on oily Yemeni perfume that hung sweetly in the air behind them. She sauntered along, greeting her neighbors as they came out of their houses, gossiping and pinning up their hair. The wedding was to be in the center of the African quarter, at the Hotel de Paradis, and the beat of a drum and the soaring of a female voice could already be heard from the hotel. Young women in high heels tripped up and down the road, ferrying makeup, clothes, and rumors to one another. Around the veranda of the hotel, poor people lingered, their clothes dusted off and their faces spit-shined, hoping to slip into the banquet unnoticed. They followed the Yemeni, Somali, and French guests up a spiral staircase to the roof. The view from the top reminded Jama of the gowned and bejeweled English that he used to see dancing on the rooftops of the expensive hotels in Aden when he retired to his rooftops with Shidane and Abdi. Those hotels always had African bawabs to shoo away anyone who looked too poor or too black. A band sat in the corner, the drummer chewing qat and the female singer humming softly to herself. They soon realized that the men and boys were drifting toward the back to give the women the prime seats at the front. Idea took Jama’s hand and led him to the wall. The whole neighborhood had turned out to celebrate the teacher’s wedding. The women of Djibouti stalked around him with their perfect makeup, wearing layer after layer of glittery clothing in the sweltering heat. They were so wild and free in comparison with Hargeisa women; they were crude, they flirted with men, jeered at their manhood and their mothers, nothing was safe from them. The food was laid out on tables along the side and the men hung close, pinching small cakes and samosas when the women were not looking.

  The marriage was between a Somali man and a Yemeni woman, and Idea said that it might be a difficult match, as the Yemeni women all seemed to be around three feet tall. The band got up and played a popular song that got the crowd clapping and ululating, then the couple came up the stairs. The bride was wearing a large European dress that swamped her tiny frame, her husband wore a dark suit and a fantastic smile, and both had fragrant garlands of jasmine around their necks. They were led forward by their serious-looki
ng mothers and seated on gold thrones. The bride’s friends and female relations rushed up to fuss around with her gown, as guests lined up to kiss and embarrass the groom, and place money in his lap. When everyone, apart from Jama and Idea, had gone up to harass the couple, the food was handed out. Whole families had turned up without invitation to partake of the banquet, and the families of the bride and groom gave freely so as not to bring any bad luck to the marriage. Frenchmen sat together, looking uncomfortable, grasping their expensive presents between their legs.

  Idea turned to Jama. “What do you think of Djibouti?”

  “It’s too hot and the Ferengis look stupid but I like you.”

  Idea took Jama’s hand. “I like having you here, Jama. Why don’t you stay with me and Amina? I’ll teach you to read and write. You can always find your father when you’ve got taller and bought yourself a bigger knife.”

  Jama set his face against this seduction. “No, Idea, I can’t wait, I have been waiting my whole life. I want my father now. What if I wait and he dies?”

  Idea understood, he patted Jama’s hand. “All right, Jama, I tried. Let’s see tomorrow how we can get you to Sudan without having your head blown off halfway there.”

  The party carried on late into the night, with the women dancing scandalously, broiling inside their hijabs and expensive dresses. Market boys who had not been allowed into the wedding occasionally pelted them from below with handfuls of gravel, and secret lovers took advantage of the crowd and confusion to sneak off together. Amina finally led Jama and Idea back along the dark road to their house, ignoring the illicit susurrations around them. A few sunburnt French legionnaires skulked around in their dirty white shorts, whispering up to their girlfriends’ balconies to be let in. Jama looked up at the sky. Beside the moon was a bright star he had never noticed before; it flickered and winked at him. As Jama squinted he saw a woman sitting on the star, her small feet swinging under her tobe and her arm waving down at him. Jama waved to his mother and she smiled back, blowing shooting star kisses down on him.

  _______

  Idea walked on ahead to the docks at L’Escale, his arms swinging loosely by his side, absentmindedly patting Jama’s hair. Jama tried to keep up with him, all the time wondering if he really did want to leave.

  Amina had woken Jama up before she left for work, and passed him a lunch wrapped in cloth. “Good luck, Jama, I hope you meet your father, but whatever happens, don’t lose faith in yourself. You are a clever boy and with a bit of luck you will live a good life,” she had said before smothering his face in kisses. He had not washed his face after, and those kisses still burned red on his skin.

  Jama peered up at Idea’s face. The lopsided smile was still there but there was no joy in it, his eyes were in pain. Jama grabbed Idea’s hand as it swung beside him and held it, thinking secretly that if he didn’t already have a father, he would have chosen to be Idea’s son.

  Idea looked down on Jama. “When you go to Eritrea, you will see even more clearly, there are Ferengis who think that you don’t feel pain like them, have dreams like them, love life as much as them. It’s a bad world we live in, you’re like a flea riding a dog’s back, eventually you will end between its teeth. Be careful.

  “Above all, Jama, stay away from the Fascists.”

  “Fascists? What are Fascists?”

  “They are disturbed Ferengis who do the work of the devil. In Eritrea they have tried to wipe us out, in Somalia they work people to death on their farms, in Abyssinia they drop poison from their planes onto children like you.”

  Jama nodded, but he couldn’t comprehend not being alive, not feeling pain or happiness, not feeling the gritty earth beneath his feet. Perhaps these Fascists should be avoided, he thought, but he didn’t really believe that they could hurt him. The very first Ferengi Jama had met had worked at Aden’s Steamer Point. The white man had stuck a sharp needle in his arm and worn gloves to handle him but the Somali man accompanying Jama to Aden had said it would protect him from disease. Maybe white doctors couldn’t be Fascists, Jama thought to himself. They reached the watery expanse of L’Escale. Passenger boats and larger merchant ships were being loaded and unloaded. The porters shouted at one another in Somali and Afar and sang work songs originally composed for nomadic toil to make their loads easier to bear. Idea and Jama stopped at the edge of the concrete. Jama bit his lip and his feet wavered in the air before stepping down onto the decking. He thought about telling Idea that he had changed his mind and wanted to stay, but he knew that he could not bear the betrayal of exchanging his real father for another.

  Idea conducted Jama through the crowd. “We need to find out which boat is going to Assab. We have a clansman there, an askari called Talyani. Tell him you are my nephew, he will help you get to Asmara and from Asmara you can take the train.”

  Old creaky pilgrims with red beards and white shrouds piled into a small dhow, the boatman filling every square inch of space with penitent flesh. Idea spoke a litany of languages to different officials, trying to find out where the boat to Assab was leaving from. They followed the curve of the harbor around to a quieter area, where a small steamship painted yellow waited on the water. “It’s this one, I think,” called out Idea. He rushed on ahead, skipping up the wooden gangplank.

  Jama watched him accost a couple of bare-chested sailors before stopping a Somali man in a peaked cap. Idea counted out francs from his pocket and pointed out Jama, waiting by the ship. The captain waved him over with an expansive sweep of his hand.

  Idea waited at the top of the gangplank. “I wish I could make you stay, but this will have to be goodbye for a while, I guess. Learn how to read, Jama. I was hoping to teach you while you stayed with us, but you deserted me. Anyway, come here.”

  Idea patted Jama’s cheek and put a handkerchief full of coins into his palm. “It’s not much but it will help.”

  Jama held back his tears and hid his face in Idea’s paunch, his heart raced and he held on to Idea’s soft, warm stomach for as long as he could.

  He boarded and found a shady place on the deck. “I wish I could run away with you but that woman has me bewitched. Don’t forget me, Jama, learn how to read!” Idea called before he turned his back and returned to Amina. Jama watched Idea’s figure recede into the distance, his feet jiggled by the shaking engine underneath. There were a few passengers mingling about, and a couple of crewmen smoking cigarettes beside the railings. Jama approached them, feeling forlorn all of a sudden. He placed an imaginary cigarette between his fingers, tilting his head back and pursing his lips like the sailors, and invisible smoke curled into the sky. When the sailors finished their cigarettes Jama went to investigate the boat. He followed the small steps leading to the lower deck and tiptoed inside, the smell of old fruit and tobacco emanating from behind shut doors. He wondered where the anchor was kept when they were at sea. It must be an ancient, holy-looking thing, he thought, silver encrusted with green barnacles. He wandered to the end of the walkway and peered through a hatch in the floor. It was black, but Jama could see a figure hunched before a furnace in which a small orange fire blazed, naked apart from a pair of shorts and busily piling up chunks of coal, oblivious to the boy behind him. Jama understood that Djibouti was kept so hot by troops of little men like him feeding underground fires. He left the fireman to his sweltering work and crept away to the upper deck to rest under the tarpaulin next to the bulkhead.

  He dreamed happy dreams, dreams in which he disembarked from the ship to find a grand black car crawling to a stop before him. The passenger door was clicked open by a suited arm, a solid gold watch ticking and beaming against the dark skin of the driver. All those promises his mother had made about him being the sweetheart of the stars looked to him as if they would finally come to pass. He was becoming a man and needed a father to light the way. Jama had so many questions for Guure. Where did you learn to drive? What is it like in Sudan? Why did you not come back for me? Jama felt ready to explode; his sentence was finall
y over.

  The boat shook violently then steered away from the harbor; the wait had been interminable. Jama’s mouth tasted sour and his tongue was dry and cottony. He ate the lunch Amina had prepared for him, putting the cloth over his head against the sharp sunlight. The boat cut a clean line through the clear, green-tinged sea, gliding like a rich European dancer on the rooftops of Aden. The boat journey seemed too easy to Jama; he mistrusted ease and comfort. Jama concentrated on the shoreline, hoping to make out some landmark, something he would recognize from the stories he had heard from Idea, but he recognized nothing. Later, as the sun traveled to the west, painting broad sweeps of pink and orange and red and purple across the sky in its wake, islands appeared on the horizon. Islands ringed in fine white sand, the leaves of lazy-looking palm trees swaying heavily, the gentle coral reefs around them lashed by the dueling waves of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Jama counted seven small islands and realized happily that they were the seven wicked brothers. Idea had told him that they had been evil pirates whom God had caught in a raging storm and turned into islands to be forever whipped by the violent winds and waves of the Bab el Mandab Strait, the Gate of Tears.