Nadifa Mohamed - Black Mamba Boy

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-looking 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.