Nadifa Mohamed - Black Mamba Boy

The depot clerks led Shidane to a tin shack in a corner of the compound, the corrugated metal buckled and cracked in the heat, and the door resisted but eventually admitted them with a shriek. The hut stank of urine and the only light came from the chinks in the metal, but Tucci lost no time in getting a coil of wire that was hanging from his belt and tying Shidane’s hands behind his back. It was only then Shidane’s bravado faltered and he let the smile leave his face. Fiorelli kicked Shidane’s feet away from under him and the others laughed. Shidane could smell alcohol on their breath.

“You shouldn’t have stolen from us, little nigger,” said the one called Fiorelli. “We are trained killers.”

Shidane stared up at them, his jaw tense. Alessi kicked Shidane in the side of his face and the bone shielding his eyeball was crushed. Shidane stumbled to his feet, blood pouring out of his eye.

Tucci had left the shack and come back with a metal pole and a small tin. “Musulmano, I thought your religion forbade theft, don’t they cut off your arms for that?” he said, twisting Shidane’s hands as if to tear them off. “I guess if you’re so hungry we should feed you. I’ve got something you’ll love so much you will be licking your lips for days.”

Shidane, blind in one eye, rocked back and forth and squirmed about like a snake cut in two. Tucci pried open the tin and pulled out slick, gristled slices of pork, shoving them down Shidane’s throat. Shidane choked on the dirty meat and the oily thick fingers in his mouth. Fiorelli hefted the pole and hit the back of Shidane’s head with it. The boy keeled over onto his side. Alessi took hold of the pole and struck Shidane’s kneecaps until he heard the loud cracks he was looking for. At this Shidane began to beg.

“Per favore, buoni Italiani, smettere,” he pleaded, and for that Alessi bludgeoned his mouth until all Shidane’s beautiful teeth were obliterated.

“Are you frightened now? Don’t you wish you had never stolen from us?” whispered Alessi as he pried Shidane’s mouth open into a ghastly smile.

“Let’s strip him,” suggested Tucci tentatively.

“Yeah, look at him twisting around like a bitch in heat,” said Fiorelli.

As they stripped Shidane, Abdi was marched out of the compound by the clerk. “Ascaro, where is the other ascaro, signore?” asked Abdi desperately.

“Get out,” shouted the clerk. “I am going to make sure you get your punishment, too.” He kicked Abdi in the behind. Abdi skirted the wire perimeter, trying to catch sight of Shidane. He saw the clerk enter a rusted shack and soon walk back to the depot, his expression stern and hard.

When the clerk peered into the gloom and saw the naked young askari, raw flesh where his eye and mouth should be, he nodded to his colleagues but didn’t know why. Many would pass by the shack when they heard what was happening in there. Some hung around to watch but most drank in the sight and then scampered away like little boys who had seen up their teacher’s skirt but didn’t want to be caught staring. Shidane floated in between dreadful consciousness and a watery dream world that glided around him, pulling him into a narcotic stupor before it evaporated and he fell back into his flesh, his eyes two glowing coals in a dying fire. He could feel his shinbones splintering with each strike and then his innards were raped with the pole. At this his soul died and he waited for his body to follow it. They were relentless; they toiled over him like mechanics pulling a car apart for scrap. They needed to see how his strange, beautiful black body operated so they tore it up, raided it; it took hours, but they were dedicated laborers and this was perhaps their last chance to do something other than stack boxes. Fiorelli delivered Shidane back to his pagan God with a blow to the back of the head that sent mosaic shards of bone into Shidane’s brain, extinguishing his fifteen years of dreams, memories, and thoughts. Once Shidane had stopped twitching and the Italians realized the fun had ended, they looked at the dull, cumbersome cadaver lying at their feet and left the shack aroused but unsatisfied. They washed their hands at the faucets near the latrines and agreed to meet later at the army brothel. It was left to two anonymous Italians to drag out the corpse and dump it outside the perimeter fence. Abdi, waiting there, saw the crumpled naked body laying facedown in the dirt but didn’t approach it; he had prayed and prayed, so he did not believe that it could be Shidane. Only after a group of Eritrean askaris kicked it over and he could hear them saying “Somali, Somali,” did he approach. It was a clumsy approximation, a human stain, not the boy he had loved and grown up with. This was something a hyena had chewed up and spat out.

While Shidane was stolen from this world, Jama too was battling with Izra’il, the angel of death. His time came in a dark mountain cave; British rockets lanced through the black sky to seek him out, lighting up the clouds with lethal white arcs of death. The rockets chased each other, hurtling with indecent speed until finally one snub-nosed missile smashed into the door of the cave just as Jama tried to slam it shut. It forced its way through, splitting the steel door open. Jama got up, eyes blinded by the light and heat. He was covered in what felt like blood, his arms and torso were slick with it, he believed he was dead, and his first thought was one of disappointment. The soul was pulled away from the body just to be dumped in a dark, echoing void. He stumbled and felt something yielding underneath his foot, and kicked it away in panic.

“ Audu billahi min ash-shaidani rajeem , I seek refuge with Allah from the Shayddaan,” he stammered. The heat and stench in the cave was infernal, and Jama cursed himself for not having prayed or fasted throughout his short life.

Fresh air blew in through the gash in the door, and he put his mouth to it, sucking the sweet air into his burnt throat. When his legs and arms stopped trembling, he pulled himself weakly through the shredded door. Outside, everything remained the same, rockets still cascaded down, fulminating angrily, striking men and mules. Jama looked behind him and in the phosphoric light saw the bulabasha’s shaved head; it had been blown away, and lay at rest by the blackened, shredded leg of an Eritrean askari. The men were all dead, but they looked like they were playing, their legs splayed in dynamic poses, their shirts ripped open, their limbs entangled without care of rank or race. Lazy dogs, Jama thought, why don’t they get up and walk like me? But then he realized. They were not Muslim, God would leave them where they fell because they had denied him, while Jama could wander until Judgment Day consigned him to his rightful place. So he wandered, fearless, aimless, with the power of a zombie, back down the narrow pathway to Keren. As the sun crept out of its bunker, Jama realized that it was sweat soaking his clothes, not blood, and he carried on walking.

He reached Keren and attracted jeers and laughter from drunks squatting on the sidewalks. He looked like a cartoon character, his face blackened with ash, his shirt blown open, and his wavy hair, thick with dust, standing on end. Jama kept his head down and wanted to walk straight through town but was stopped.

“Ascaro, which position have you come from, looking like that?” asked the sergeant blocking his path.

Jama’s clothes stank and still appeared to be smoldering. He looked up into the sergeant’s blue eyes. “Arms store number fifteen. The rest are dead.”

The sergeant looked up toward the mountain and tutted. “Go back then, we are still fighting. You can’t leave your position unless you have been told to. When will you askaris learn some fucking discipline? It’s because of you people that we’re losing this war.” He took a long breath. “Take another uniform and some food from the supply depot, get the men at the depot to arrange a few other askaris to go with you.” He ripped off an order sheet and thrust it into Jama’s hand. Jama’s eyes bored into the sergeant’s back.