Nadifa Mohamed - Black Mamba Boy

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 walked 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!”