Nadifa Mohamed - Black Mamba Boy

The rose torn from its bush wilted in the stifling heat and Jama tore it apart petal by petal. “Hey, do you remember that flower merchant we worked for last Ramadan?”

“That shithead, how could we forget him? We are still waiting for our pay. We can’t all flutter our eyelashes at the women like you, Jama. ‘Good evening, aunty, any flowers for you, aunty?’” mimicked Shidane. “Sickening!”

Jama held his finger to his mouth. “Be quiet and listen, Shidane. I heard that he is now a seaman and earned enough on one voyage to take two wives and buy a large house in Sana’a.”

“Two wives!” said Shidane with a whistle. “That ugly sinner! I would be surprised if he managed to trick one blind old baboon into marrying him.”

Abdi creased up at his nephew’s cruel tongue. Abdi’s face was usually set in a grave, contemplative expression, but then with a flicker of light in his eyes, a crooked smile would crack it open, revealing teeth that tumbled over one another.

Jama had enjoyed carrying the big baskets laden with jasmine, frangipani, and hibiscus from door to door in the cool quiet twilight, smiling at the pretty wives and daughters of wealthy men in the rich neighborhoods. By nightfall his skin and sarong would be infused with an intoxicating smell of life and beauty. He returned home to decorate his mother’s black hair with the crushed pink, red, and purple flowers at the bottom of the basket that the rich women didn’t want. The bruised petals were the only gifts he had ever brought her; with the flowers he could make her beautiful, run his fingers through her hair and over the soft skin of her neck, his fingers scented with jasmine.

As the three boys padded down the street, a racket broke the silence of the neighborhood. A woman’s screams rose above the general shouts and Jama nervously looked at the others. A small middle-aged woman darted around a corner, running barefoot past them with the front of her gown ripped open revealing an old gray brassiere, her face contorted in unseeing terror.

Behind her chased a group of older men, one of them bearing a knife, another a thick cane. They hollered after her, “Ya sharmuta! Whore! Adulteress! You have brought shame on our street. By God, we will catch you.”

Behind them a ragtag bunch of children came, some crying, some cheering and laughing. This human storm engulfed Jama and then flowed away just as quickly. Jama stood still, bewildered by what he had seen, his head still turned in the direction of the lynch mob.

“Let’s chase them!” shouted Shidane, and they pelted after the crowd. “Which way did they go?” Jama asked, trying to pinpoint where all the commotion had gone.

The screams were piercing when they reached the dirty alley where the woman had been cornered. Her children clung to her, a howling, shaking little girl holding her mother around the waist, and a teenage boy desperately trying to put his slight body between his mother and the man holding the knife. Shidane pushed through the crowd to the woman, the knife frozen in the air above their heads.

“Let go of her!” he screamed. “Let go of her, you son of a bitch.”

Jama saw the man with the cane slap Shidane around the back with it, and the other thug held him back as the old man cursed and lunged at Shidane: “Get away from here! Ya abid, slave,” he raged.

The crowd of excited children shifted around Jama, their eyes wide with terror and joy at what they were seeing. One boy kept climbing Jama’s back for a better look but he threw him to the ground. Abdi was hanging from the arm of the man with the cane. Jama, worried that Abdi would be beaten, grabbed hold of the knife man’s arm and sunk his teeth in. He bit harder and harder until the knife dropped to the ground. Shidane picked it up and dragged Jama and Abdi away, into the night, the dagger tucked into Shidane’s ma’awis.

The next day, the boys stalked the outdoor restaurant of Cowasjee Dinshaw and Sons like a pack of stray dogs. They flanked the seated cosmopolitan diners, who had ordered heaped plates of rice with chicken, spaghetti with minced lamb, maraag with huge hunks of bread. The clinking of full glasses and chatter drifted up into the air along with faint arabesques of cigarette smoke. Jama wiped his salivating mouth and made eye contact with Shidane, who was standing behind the table of a suited Banyali merchant and his elegantly sari’d companion, her juicy flesh peeking out from underneath her fuchsia choli. The boys had barely eaten or drunk anything for days and they had to restrain their desire to knock the waiters down and snatch the steaming plates from their hands. The waiter took the white towel hanging over his forearm and flicked Abdi roughly around the back of his legs with it. “Yallah! Yallah! Leave our customers in peace,” he shouted. The boys pulled back from the restaurant and regrouped at the palm trees lining the road. Abdi gestured toward the Indian couple, who were settling their bill. Jama and Shidane sprinted to the table and in one swift movement tipped two plates of leftover spaghetti into their sarongs, which they had pulled out into makeshift bowls. Abdi collected all the bread and then ran after Jama and Shidane as they scrambled up the road. They stopped the instant they realized they were not being pursued and dropped down by the side of the road with their backs against a wall. They pulled the food to their mouths as if they would never eat again, silently and with a fixed attention to the meager meal in their laps. Abdi tried to pick spaghetti from Jama’s and Shidane’s laps but had to dodge their frenetically moving fingers. They in turn grabbed at the bread in his hands, and it was only after he shouted in despair that they slowed down and allowed him his share of the booty. Jama and Shidane wiped their greasy fingers on the sand beneath them and watched as Abdi lethargically finished off the scattered bread crumbs. Jama’s eyes scanned over the little boy’s protruding ribs and matchstick-thin ankles and wrists. “Abdi, why do you eat like a chicken? You’re always getting left with the crumbs, you have to be fast!”

“Well, I would eat more if you two pigs didn’t swallow everything before I can even sit down,” Abdi replied sullenly.

Abashed, Jama and Shidane giggled but did not meet each other’s eyes.

“I want to go see my hooyo again,” said Abdi sadly. “I think she’s ill.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll go tomorrow. We’ll all be going back to Berbera soon anyway. The dhows are already leaving for Somaliland. I can’t wait for this year’s fair: coffee from Harar, saffron, tusks, feathers from our great Isse Muuse, Garhajis with myrrh, gum, sheep, cattle, and ghee, and the Warsangeli with their bloody frankincense. And all those Arabs and Indians to pickpocket before our morning swim. Are you not going, Jama?” asked Shidane.

“No, I’m staying here, in the big city. I’ve got nothing to go back for,” lied Jama. Shidane stared at him, a smile pulling at his mouth.

“Where is your father, anyway? Why did he run off? Was it you or your mother that got on his nerves?”

“Shut up, Shidane,” Jama replied sternly. Shidane picked on people the way he picked at scabs, trying to get to the red, pulpy stuff underneath. Jama hated Shidane when he was like this. Shidane’s mother was a prostitute in a port brothel, but Jama still never dared insult Shidane back. The boys never took Jama with them when they visited Shidane’s mother but Jama had followed them once, he watched from behind a post as Shidane and Abdi embraced a small woman in a Ferengi shirt, her red hair flying in the breeze. She was surrounded by the hard-living women of the port who drank, chewed tobacco and qat, and attracted sailors by shaking tambourines and dancing. Shidane’s mother looked like a lost bride with her red lips, kohled eyes, and copper jewelry, but behind the makeup was the bloated, yellow face of a drunkard.