The Talking Drum

by Lisa Braxton

  “Happy Thanksgiving,” Mustapha announced weakly.

  “I am thankful, Uncle,” he said, wiping away tears with the back of a bandaged hand, “thankful that you take care of me.”

  “I come down this morning with provisions,” Mustapha said. “I try to rouse you, but you are hard sleeping.” He set the tray on a small table at the foot of the bed and handed Omar a glass of bissap juice. Omar was parched. He carefully took the glass between bandaged hands and pressed it to his lips.

  “I help you.” Mustapha reached for the glass.

  Omar shook his head. “I can do it. I shall not want to be treated like a child.” He drank the juice without stopping.

  Mustapha went upstairs and brought back a refilled glass. Omar drank it halfway down. Then Mustapha placed the food tray on Omar’s lap.

  “Who is she?” Omar asked, referring to the woman across the room.

  Mustapha sat down on the cot across from Omar. “She is living in building on same block as you,” he whispered loudly. “The fire brigade is working on your building, and hers catches fire. Her husband burn up in there. He does not have a chance.” He glanced over his shoulder. “That is her son. I think he is having shock. After they get out of hospital they have no place to go, so they staying here. I have five cots here from Bellport Rescue Society. When more people are discharged, they give me more.”

  “Do they know what happened?”

  “A building with no people go up first, then yours. Everyone else run out. You were only one left in the building they rescue. Then three more fires. Very bad. Some say it is so windy, after your building is on fire, the wind is blowing the fire to every building on the block. I think something is suspect. A rotten fish pollutes the whole kitchen.”

  “You think it was the arsonist?”

  “Your landlord, Fullerton, owns one of the other buildings that burned. Fullerton wants to get insurance money before the city takes the properties. I am sure of it.”

  Omar took a bite of his fritter while pondering what his uncle was telling him. “I thought he wanted to make things better for us. Instead, you say, he kills people to get the insurance money?”

  Uncle Mustapha looked at the floor. “My Esmé pass away soon because of them. The hospital has her on machine until her family gets here from Dakar.”

  Omar felt a deep pang of sadness at the news about Esmé. He thought about her family coming to America to bury her and for Uncle to have to say goodbye to his goddaughter.

  He put his half-eaten fritter back on the plate. “When shall your renters upstairs be leaving town? I can move there soon? You will need this cot for others.”

  Mustapha shook his head. “They are booked until after Christmas. But you are welcome to stay here in the cellar as long as you are needing to.”

  The woman began wailing. It grew louder and echoed off the cement walls. Her son edged closer to hug her, but she pushed him away.

  “She is grieving her husband,” Mustapha said. “Nothing comfort her, not even her son. She cry until she exhausts.”

  “Fullerton is a bastard,” Omar said.

  Eventually, the woman’s sobs subsided. She muffled her whimpers in her blanket.

  “She will eat nothing?” Omar asked.

  Mustapha shook his head. “She is here four days. I think that in time she eats. Maybe some of the other victims keep her company when they getting here. They take her mind off her troubles when…”

  Mustapha stopped mid-sentence and craned his neck at the window even though there didn’t appear to be anything visible through the caked dirt. Omar waited for him to finish his thought, but he didn’t. He got Uncle’s attention back by tossing his napkin on top of his food. Then Mustapha looked at his shirt pocket and pulled out an envelope. Omar recognized the handwriting. It was Ndeye’s, the woman in his village who transcribes letters for his mother.

  “Fama send me this,” Mustapha scolded. “She say she never hear from you for not seven months.”

  Omar didn’t want to tell his mother the news about Natalie abandoning him and the lack of progress with his drumming career. She would tell Ibrahim. His father would be disappointed, so he’d stopped writing.

  “You did not write to her, did you?” Omar asked. “You did not tell her about the fire?”

  Mustapha’s eyebrows bunched into a knot. “Of course I do not tell her these things. That is up to you.”

  “I do not know what to say to her.”

  Mustapha glanced at his bandages. “You cannot write right now. Tell me what to say, and I write down for you when you are ready.”

  Mustapha put the tray back on the table at the end of the bed. “I have some news for you, and it is not good,” he said, his voice breaking.

  Omar sat up.

  “The court dismiss our lawsuit. They say we do not have a case, that city give us plenty options where to live. We cannot stand in the way of eminent domain.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Mustapha blinked back tears. “There is nothing I can do. Petite Africa will be no more. Condemnation beginning soon.”

  “But they will give you something for your property?”

  “They settle with me, yes.”

  They sat in silence for a while.

  “I must find a place to live,” Omar said. “When do you have to leave?”

  “They give me a few weeks. I leave early next year.”

  Mustapha looked around the room. “This place is my life. I sleep here, I eat here, I run restaurant here, I live with my wife, your Aunt Samir, here. We raise Ansa here. Now I have nothing.”

  After Mustapha left, Omar lay back down on his side. Since the fire, he had a hard time staying awake more than a couple of hours at a time. The room was getting cooler. He carefully pulled the blanket back over him so it wouldn’t rub up against his scabs. He dozed off thinking about how defeated Uncle Mustapha seemed.

  He was roused later by intense itching from a scab just above the temple near his hairline. His temple ached for days while he was in the hospital; apparently he had bumped up against something during the fire. He tried to rub it with his bandages.

  “That ain’t a good idea. You might get an infection.”

  He opened his eyes. It was Della.

  “Your uncle said it was okay for me to come down. I hope I’m not disturbing you.” Her eyes swept him and then focused on the floor. She seemed uncomfortable. He figured it was because of his injuries.

  Omar pulled himself up to a sitting position.

  “I came to the hospital to see you,” she continued, “but they said only immediate family members were allowed.”

  “Why? Why did you come see me?” Omar cleared his throat. “I am almost a stranger to you.”

  “Strangers need friends, don’t they?”

  Omar held up his bandaged hands.

  “They will heal,” she reassured him.

  “I hope that you are right.”

  “It’s good to see you. When I heard that you were in that fire…” she shook her head, her eyes watering. “I was thinking the worst.” Her attention shifted to the tube of ointment. “What is this for?”

  He explained.

  “Are you using it?”

  He shifted around to get more comfortable. “I have been too tired to be bothered.”

  “Can I sit?”

  Omar shifted over to give Della room to sit beside him.

  She scooted up close to him. He couldn’t help smiling.

  “You have to use the ointment. If you don’t, you won’t heal right.” She unscrewed the cap. “Where did the doctor say you should put it?”

  “My back, my hands.”

  “Can I help you?”

  He nodded.

  Della unbuttoned his nightshirt and let it drop around his waist. She dabbed the ointme
nt on her fingertips and then moved behind him to apply it to his back. He braced himself to feel the sting, but the ointment was soothing, her hands soft and gentle.

  “Have you been doing your exercises?” she asked.

  Omar shrugged.

  “Then you will do them now.”

  Della undid Omar’s bandages and gently applied lotion to his hands. She took hold of his wrists and made Omar bend his fingers back and forth in an exaggerated motion. Omar wanted to cry out in pain, but he thought it would look unmanly in front of Della. “The nurses told me to do this several times a day so my skin shall not get tight,” he said.

  “Right. You don’t want to get scar tissue.”

  “I am surprised you do not run away seeing me like this.”

  Della chuckled. “I used to be a candy striper.”

  “What is a candy stripper?”

  “A candy striper, silly.”

  They both laughed.

  “I used to volunteer at a hospital back when I lived in Arkansas,” she continued. “I volunteered to cheer up the patients. Sometimes the nurses let me come in the rooms when they were tending patients who got burned. They bent the rules for me, letting me in like that. I saw a lot.”

  She helped him back into his shirt, and carefully wrapped the bandages back around his hands.

  He began to feel sleepy but wanted to stay awake. He was enjoying Della’s visit and didn’t want her to leave.

  She reached for the glass of remaining bissap juice and held it to his mouth. As he drank, some dribbled down the corner of his mouth. She wiped it gently with a napkin, bringing her face close to his. He leaned forward, turned his head slightly and gave her a quick peck on the lips. She pulled back, looking surprised, and then smiled. Their eyes locked. She leaned forward and kissed him full on the mouth. Then she gave him wet kisses on his cheeks and his nose before returning to his mouth. Their tongues met and did a gentle tango.

  “I need to go,” she said quietly. “I know you need your rest.”

  He lay back down, his eyes fluttering shut as he watched her climb the stairs. Later, he opened his eyes to see Khadim standing over him. Omar sat up slowly. “As salaamaalekum! How long have you been here?”

  “Maalekum salaam! Happy Thanksgiving, my brother! Long enough to hear you snoring like a warthog,” Khadim laughed. “I hope I didn’t disturb you. I’m just glad to hear you breathing. When they pulled you out of that building I thought you were dead. I thought you were crazy when I saw you throwing your drums out the window. But then I understood. You heard the spirits?”

  “Yes. There was no mistake. They told me I had to save the drums.”

  “Of course. You had no choice.”

  “But did you catch them?”

  Khadim sat down hard on the cot across from Omar. “I did what I could, but some of them exploded. They were like mangoes smashing on the sidewalk. The ones I was able to save I took to my home. When you are better we can take a trip to New York to see Baladugu,” he said, referring to the well-known drum importer. “You can buy replacements.”

  “Which ones did you save?” Omar asked. “The djembe from Papa? The dunduns?”

  Khadim breathed out heavily. “I do not know, my brother, a couple of djembes, one or two dunduns, a couple of tamas. The tamas bounced off the sidewalk and were still in one piece, I guess because they are small.”

  Omar told him about the meeting he was supposed to have with Steve.

  Khadim said nothing for a moment. “So you were booking studio time behind my back?”

  “I have no words to say about this.”

  Khadim shook his head. “We will talk about that later.”

  Omar looked over at the woman who had been crying earlier to see if Khadim’s loud voice was disturbing her. She had stopped rocking and was looking in their direction. Maybe he and Khadim were a distraction for her.

  “I tried to find Natalie. I called out to her. She did not respond.”

  Khadim grimaced. “Natalie? Are you crazy, man? She left months ago. You know this.”

  “I know. But she came back.” He described their lovemaking.

  Khadim chortled. “You do the boom boom with your imagination, my brother. I think the fire roasted your brain.”

  Omar thought this over for a while, and knew it was likely true. After all the time he had waited for Natalie to share their bed again, he wished the dream had not happened. The pleasure it had given him was so cruel. He vowed to push Natalie out of his mind.

  Khadim picked up the tube of cream and read the label. “Is it time for your treatment?”

  Omar explained that Della had applied it already.

  Khadim let out a hearty laugh. “Your American girlfriend came here and helped you out.”

  “She is not my girlfriend. She is a friend.”

  “An American woman would not come here for friendship. She comes here for the boom boom. That is all.”

  “Your mind is on one thing, my friend. Besides, she does not live alone.”

  Khadim moved to the edge of the cot “Who is it?”

  Omar told him about Kwamé.

  Khadim’s eyes got wide. “She is shacking up with the big man that everybody knows, the man who smiles for the TV news cameras?”

  Omar felt that he had told Khadim too much.

  “If he finds out, you will have to fight for your woman. You must heal quick to get ready,” Khadim declared, pointing at Omar’s bandaged hands.

  “I think it would be good for me to get some fresh air,” Omar said finally.

  “Why do you say this?”

  “Walk around, get some air, maybe I can stop thinking about these.” He held up his bandaged hands. “But Uncle says that I am not ready. I need to rest.”

  Khadim glanced at the cellar door. “Mustapha is treating you like his big baby. We can leave for a few minutes, walk up the block, and get back before he brings down dinner. He will not even notice.”

  A walk would be good. Omar recalled how the nurses encouraged him to work on building his strength. After he got into the coat that had been donated to him, Khadim supported him with one arm and pushed open the bulkhead with the other. Bright sunshine blinded Omar momentarily. He gasped at first as he inhaled the cold air that rushed into his lungs. Gradually, he got used to it. His legs wobbled at first, but grew stronger as they walked. They were on Garfield Avenue, blocks away from Le Baobab, but still a good distance from his apartment building.

  “We will go back to Mustapha’s,” Khadim said. “There is nothing to see. It is the same everywhere.”

  Khadim turned back. Omar ignored his friend and pushed forward in the direction of The Commonwealth Arms. He was stunned by what he saw. Façades of buildings stood with missing walls and windows. He walked further and watched neighbors and business owners crawling onto piles of bricks covered in ice, a few weeks later still sifting through the debris, attempting to find something to salvage.

  Khadim caught up to him, but Omar walked ahead to the corner of Pleasant and Garfield avenues. The fire and demolition had erased every trace of The Commonwealth Arms except for the crumbling front steps and some furnishings.

  “I told you, there is nothing here,” Khadim shouted, walking away.

  “You do not know that,” Omar shouted back. He walked behind the asphalt steps careful not to lose his footing. A refrigerator with the door missing lay on its side. He was pretty sure it was from his and Natalie’s apartment. A seagull perched on its frame fluttered away. He stepped around the refrigerator and walked several yards until he got to a pile of bricks. He thought maybe he’d find some items from home, maybe the box of letters he kept from his mother, Fama, but there was nothing to salvage.

  “Come on, my brother. We need to get out of here,” Khadim said, slipping on icy piles of bricks to reach Omar.

&nb
sp; “Someone needs to pay for this,” Omar said. “They had no business destroying our neighborhood, our homes.”

  Omar picked up a brick, flung it as far as he could, and felt the skin tightening along his burned back. He felt weak. He collapsed in the rubble and began to weep.

  CHAPTER 28

  LYING BACK in the recliner while watching a love scene on her favorite soap opera, Somerset, Della thought of the one regret she had about her visit to Omar last week—the kiss. She enjoyed it and kept reliving it in her mind, but she knew it was wrong. She had no business kissing another man. She was still Kwamé’s woman, even if her feelings for him were fading. He was closer to a frog than a prince, but he was good to Jasmine.

  Della knew that Sydney sensed that Della was attracted to Omar. She was right. Omar was a sweet, sensitive man not to mention handsome and well built with those muscular biceps that she longed to run her hands up and down. Since the day at Le Baobab when he sent the drink to her table, she’d fantasized about him. Her fantasies intensified with every conversation. Of course nothing would come of their chit chat. Her life was with Kwamé.

  The front door slammed shut. Kwamé whistled as he tossed his keys on the hallway table. It was unusual for him to be home in the middle of the afternoon, especially in light of his boastful talk that Christmas sales would make up for the lack of much business all year. Kwamé walked into the living room with a beer. Odd. He never drank beer this early in the afternoon.

  “Who’s running the shop?” she asked.

  “Nobody.” He sat down on the couch. “Didn’t open yet.”

  She hit the lever on the recliner and sat upright. She thought it would be better to have both feet planted on the floor for the coming conversation. “What happened?” she asked, trying to sound casual. “You hit the number?”

  He popped open the beer and took a long swig and then plopped the can on the coffee table. She wished he’d use a coaster.

  “How’d you like to move to D.C.?” he asked.

  She sat for a moment trying to process the question. She wondered if it was a joke. “Now, why would I want to do that?”