Nadifa Mohamed - Black Mamba Boy

“Go and find twine so we can go out to sea,” he ordered.

Jama sat on the seaweed-strewn sand while Abdi and Shidane tied the planks into a makeshift raft. Together they pushed the rickety contraption out into the undulating sea. “Bismillah,” he whispered, holding on desperately while Abdi and Shidane propelled him forward, kicking up masses of foam and spray. When the boys tired, they clambered on, panting beside him, their faces upturned to the rising sun. Jama turned on his back and smiled a contented smile, they floated gently on the young waves and linked arms, water droplets scattered over their skin like diamonds.

“Why don’t you learn to swim, Jama?” Abdi asked. “Then you can come pearl fishing with us. It’s beautiful down there, all kinds of fish and coral, shipwrecks, you could find a pearl worth a fortune.”

Shidane shifted position and the raft spun around with him. “There aren’t any pearls down there, Abdi, we’ve looked everywhere, they’re all gone, taken by the Arabs. Look at those stupid Yemenis, they don’t deserve a boat like that,” he sneered. “If we had a gun we could take everything those fools have.”

Jama lifted his head up, saw a sambuk hurrying back to port with crates piled up on its deck. “Get a gun, then,” he dared.

“Ya salam! You think I can’t? I can make one, boy.”

Jama pulled himself up onto his elbows. “What?”

“You heard me, I can make one, I’ve been watching the soldiers. Some people are always active, always thinking. It’s simple for someone like me to make these Ferengi things, you get a piece of hardwood, make a hole all the way through, get gunpowder, stuff it into the hole, then fill one end with pebbles and in the other put a lit string, then blow fools like those into the sea.”

“More likely you would blow your burnt futo into the sea.”

“Laugh all you like, you big-toothed Eidegalle donkey, I will be the mukhadim, if you are lucky you can be my coolie.”

“Yes! We could be shiftas of the sea, covered in gold. Wallaahi, everyone will shake when they see our ship,” Abdi said, firing imaginary bullets at the sun.

Jama felt water against his skin. “Yallah, yallah, back to the beach! The twine is loosening,” he cried as the planks fell apart.

Abdi and Shidane sprang into action, grabbing his arms and bearing him aloft like two well-trained dolphins.

Walking out into the dust and scorching heat, Jama instinctively headed for the warehouse district. He kicked a can down the streets of Crater, a town in the heart of a volcano. Sunlight reflected against the tin roofs of the warehouses, blinding him momentarily. The smell of tea, coffee, frankincense, myrrh swept up the hill and swathed him in a nauseating, heady mix. As Jama reached the first warehouse, bare-chested coolies chanted while they pushed heavy wooden crates onto the backs of lorries. After standing outside Al-Madina Coffee Stores for a moment, Jama walked through the stone entrance and peered into the darkness. Sunlight splintered through the roof, illuminating the dust rising from the coffee beans as they were tossed to loosen the husks. A field of underpaid women in bright, flowery Somali robes were bent over baskets full of beans, spreading them on a cloth and removing stunted ones before the coffee was exported. Jama weaved around them, looking for a woman with smallpox scars, copper eyes, canines dipped in gold, and inky black hair. He found her in a corner, working on her own with a sky-blue scarf holding her hair back. She brought his head down to kiss his cheek, her soft, freckly skin brushing against his.

Ambaro whispered in his ear, “What are you doing here, Goode? This isn’t a playground, what do you want?”

Jama stood in front of her, legs entangled like a flamingo’s. “I dunno, I was bored… do you have any change?” He hadn’t been thinking of money but now he was too embarrassed to say he just wanted to see her.

“Keleb! You come to my place of work to hassle me for money? You think of no one but yourself and may Allah curse you for it, get out now before the mukhadim sees you!”

Jama turned on his heels and ran out the door. He hid behind the warehouse but Ambaro found him, her rough dry hands pulled him against her. Her dress smelled of incense and coffee. He let his tears soak through to her skin.

“Goode, Goode, please, you’re a big boy, what have I done to you? Tell me? Tell me? Look at the life I’m living, can’t you take pity on me?” Ambaro asked softly. She pulled his arms up and dragged him to a low wall facing the sea. “Do you know why I call you Goode?”

“No,” lied Jama, hungry to hear of the time when he had a real family.

“When I was pregnant with you I grew incredibly large, my stomach stuck out like you wouldn’t believe, people warned me that a young girl of seventeen would die giving birth to such a child, that you would tear my insides out, but I was happy, at peace, I knew I was expecting someone special. Following camels around is terrible work and I got slower and slower. I was often separated from my father’s large caravan and would hobble with my swollen ankles until I caught up with the family. But maybe in the eighth month, I was so exhausted I had to stop even though I had lost sight of the last camel. There was an ancient acacia in a savanna called Gumburaha Banka, and I sat under the old tree to rest in the little shade it provided. I sat and listened to my heavy breath fall and rise, rise and fall. I was wearing a nomad’s guntiino and the side of my stomach was exposed to the sun and breeze. Then suddenly I felt a smooth hand caress my back and move toward my belly button, I looked down in shock, and hoogayey! There was not a hand but a huge mamba curling around my belly. I was scared its heavy body would crush you, so I didn’t move even one inch, but it stopped and laid its devilishly wise face against you and listened to your thumping heartbeat. All three of us were joined like that for what seemed like a lifetime until, having decided something, the snake flexed its sinews and slipped down my body, and with a flick of its tail it disappeared into the sand. I wanted to name you Goode, meaning Black Mamba, but your father just laughed at me; he liked Jama because it was his best friend’s name. But when you slithered out with your beautiful dark skin and your smell of earth, I knew what your name was meant to be. I kept it as my special name for you.”

Jama melted in the warmth of his mother’s words and he felt the liquid gold of love in his veins. He was silent, not wanting to break the spell between them, and she carried on.

“I know I’m tough on you, sometimes too tough, but do you know why I ask things of you? Things that you don’t understand are good for you? It’s because I have such high hopes, you are my good luck baby, you were born to be somebody, Goode. Do you know the year you were born became known as the year of the worm? Fat worms poked their noses out of the earth during the rainy season and came out to consume the grass, the trees, even our straw houses, until, finished, they suddenly disappeared. Everyone thought it was a sign of the end but the elders said they had seen it before and it was barako, as the rains would be plentiful afterward and our camels would breed fantastically. One old woman, Kissimee, told me that as my child would be born in the thick of that plague he would have the most beautiful luck, as if he had been born with the protection of all the saints, and he would see the four corners of the world. I believed her because no one knew that woman to ever make a false prophecy.”

Despite the beauty of her words, Jama felt his mother threading pearl after pearl of expectation into a noose that would sit loosely around his neck, ready for her to hang him one day. He pulled in close to her for an embrace and she wrapped her golden brown arms around his mahogany back, rubbing her fingers along his sharp spine.