Harmattan

by Weston, Gavin

I stood up to greet her, relieved to see that she was beaming brightly at me. She did not look like the bearer of bad news.

  ‘Pardon me, Mademoiselle Sushie,’ I said, smoothing down my pagne and trying not to appear flustered.

  ‘I know I’m not meant to be here,’ she said, ‘but I’ve got a package for you, Haoua. Remember Maggie, the Peace Corps nurse you met at Goteye? Well, she was out at the camions post this morning to pick up some medicines and Head Office had sent this too.’ She handed me a rectangular package about the size of a goat’s head. ‘I think it’s been lying in Niamey for a week or two.’

  I recognised the writing on the heavy brown paper immediately, and the familiar stamps with pictures of the Queen of Ireland, looking sideways and wearing a crown that looked like it was too small for her. Miriam had said that perhaps the queen’s mother had had a much smaller head, because she had heard that such fine jewels were often handed down from one family member to another – much like our Mickey Mouse tee shirt. ‘It’s from Katie and Hope,’ I said.

  Sushie nodded.

  ‘Shall I open it now, or wait until the others come home?’

  ‘It’s your call,’ Sushie said, sitting down on a plastic crate.

  I sat back down on my mat and examined the package. It had been wrapped carefully, the paper folded neatly over and then taped at both ends. Two blue and white airmail stickers had been placed below the row of queens’ heads and I now noticed that my friends’ names and sponsor number had been written in thick, black letters on the underside of the package. On the front, underneath the airmail stickers, my name and the Vision Corps International address had been written in the same black letters. There was something beautiful and mysterious about it, even though I had a fairly good idea what it contained.

  ‘What do you think, then?’ Sushie said. ‘Do I get to see what’s inside now?’

  ‘Katie said they were going to send me some shoes,’ I said. ‘I think it’s my new shoes!’

  ‘Wow!’

  I smiled as Sushie handed me her pocket knife and winked. Together, we carefully removed the wrapping paper and tape, and inside there was a white box, with a sturdy lid which I removed.

  I had never owned a proper pair of shoes before. All my life, I had walked on my bare soles or in a pair of plastic sandals which had previously belonged to Adamou. And yet lying there, before my eyes, in a nest of thin, white paper, were the most beautiful shoes I had ever seen. And they were mine!

  ‘Aren’t you going to try them on?’ Sushie asked, after I had stared at them for some time. ‘In the US we call them sneakers.’

  I lifted one of the sneakers out and held it close to my face. It smelt clean and new. ‘May I?’ Sushie said. She took it from me and held its sole against my foot.

  ‘Looks like they’ll fit. You must have made a good drawing.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. And yet I still did not dare to put them on. Although they were clean and new and white and pink and wonderful, they were also hard and strange to me. I examined the perfect stitching running across the smooth surfaces, the tiny holes punched along the seams, the ridged soles and the three pink stripes on either side of the main body of each shoe. Then I looked at Sushie. I had seen her wear similar ones. ‘I will wear them later,’ I said, deciding that I wanted to be alone when I squeezed my feet into them for the first time.

  She shrugged. ‘ Toh.’

  ‘There are other things in the box,’ I said, setting the shoes down carefully on my mat and wrapping them in the thin paper again.

  We found a plastic frog with a tube attached to it. Sushie showed me how to make it jump, by squeezing air through the tube with a little bulb. There was a label, which said ‘Adamou’, attached to one of its legs. There were some more magic bubbles, with no label attached, six little packages of candies and a book for Fatima.

  I was playing with the frog when Sushie waved a piece of folded paper in front of my face.

  ‘Did you see this, Little One?’ she said.

  I took the paper from her and unfolded it. It was a letter. A small photograph fell on to my mat. I picked it up and looked at it. The face of an old man – an anasara man – stared out at me. He wore thick-rimmed spectacles and a long, pointed moustache which was curled up at the ends. He was wearing some kind of uniform and had medals pinned to his chest. I showed it to Sushie.

  ‘Goodness!’ she said. ‘He looks kind of important. Like the president or something!’

  I handed her the letter. ‘Will you help me with this, please, Mademoiselle?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ***

  Hope Boyd

  Member No. 515820

  Ballygowrie

  Co. Down

  N. Ireland

  BT22 1AW

  26th March, 1999

  Haoua Boureima

  Child Ref. NER2726651832

  Vision Corps International

  Tera Area Development Programme

  C/O BP 11504

  Niamey

  Republic of Niger

  West Africa

  Dear Haoua,

  We were really pleased that you sent us the outline of your foot, as Katie suggested. Dad took us to the shopping centre yesterday and we chose these trainers for you. I hope you like them. (Katie and I argued about which ones you’d like best, but finally we agreed on these ones. My friend Sorcha has a pair just like them.)

  I have enclosed a photograph of our Papa, who died a few months ago. I photocopied it in our school library at lunch time today. He was our father’s father’s father and he was a very brave, clever and funny man.

  (He used to read a lot, and work in his garden, but he was almost blind for the last year or so of his life, so he could not do his favourite things any more.) He is quite young in this photograph. It was during the war. (My dad says I have to tell you which war, because there have been lots of wars in Africa too. It was the Second World War and Dad says that some of that was even in Africa!)

  We’ve been wondering how your mother is now. I’m sure she missed you and your family while she was in hospital. I hope you are still enjoying school, and that your project was successful. Write soon, if you can. We love hearing from you!

  Lots of love,

  Hope.

  ***

  Sushie folded the letter again and handed it back to me.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. I opened it and peered at the unfamiliar scratchy blue marks on the paper, not French and certainly not Djerma. I felt saddened by Hope’s news about this great man who was her father’s father’s father. I had not even known my father’s father because he had died before I was born. I laid the letter out on the mat in front of me and looked again at the little photograph. ‘He looks stern in this photograph,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. He’s got that Salim look about him!’ Sushie said.

  We both laughed – myself a little nervously.

  ‘Hey, you look stern in the photograph I took of you for the VCI records.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I guess we can all read a face wrong sometimes. These kids obviously loved this old man.’

  I nodded. Then I sat in silence, lost in my thoughts while Sushie trimmed her fingernails with one of the little tools on her pocket knife.

  Somehow I had not expected to hear that my friends’ great grandfather had died. It was as if I had – foolishly – believed that no harm could befall these children and their family. That, somehow, they were protected from pain and suffering.

  It was then that I felt a great wave of fear and panic wash over my entire being. ‘Sushie!’ I said.

  She looked up.

  ‘I have to see Mother!’

  Sushie sighed. ‘I did try talking to your father about that, Haoua.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  She shook her head.

  I stared hard at the photograph of my friends’ dead relative, but I did not speak.After some time had passed, Sushie broke the silence. ‘Hey. Haoua?’ she said, cupping my ch
eek in her hand.

  I opened my mouth, but instead of words, a great surge of anxiety and pain erupted. I closed my eyes tightly as I felt Sushie’s arm pulling me towards her, and when I opened them again I saw that my tears had dripped on to the letter and smudged Hope’s name.

  ‘I am not crying for myself,’ I said.

  ‘I know that, Little One.’

  ‘Why will he not let me go there?’

  ‘He said you could not go alone and that he has no money.’

  I sat upright and looked at Sushie.

  She leaned back and wiped tears from my face with her pale, bony thumbs.‘I wish Abdel would come and take me to Mother,’ I said.

  Sushie nodded, then spoke quietly. ‘Haoua. You do know how ill your mother is, don’t you?’

  ‘But she is going to get better!’

  Sushie sighed. ‘I know Monsieur Boubacar has spoken to you in school about HIV/AIDS. I know you understand what is happening to your mother.’

  I shut my eyes, put my hands over my ears and tried not to listen, but Sushie gently eased them away from my head.

  ‘Even if you could go… you might not get there on time.’

  I was about to answer, when we heard voices at the entrance to our compound. It was Fatima, accompanied by Amina and little Narcisse Kantao. I was delighted to see that Miriam had joined them. They looked happy and excited as they skipped across the dust towards us.

  Sushie leaned over, winked, and quickly gave my face another wipe with her palm. ‘What have you all been up to?’ she said.

  The girls giggled, as if they had agreed to keep some great secret to themselves. Little Narcisse began singing to herself, dancing around to her own rhythm, until Sushie began to clap along in time and approval. Suddenly Narcisse became shy, and stood plucking at her pagne and staring only at her feet.

  Fatima grabbed at her and began to tickle her under the arms. She wriggled furiously – like a monkey caught in a snare.

  ‘Hey, you girls,’ Sushie said. ‘Haoua’s had a letter from her friends in Ireland, haven’t you, Haoua?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And they’ve sent a gift for you, Fatima.’

  They all clambered around my box and began to examine my shoes and Adamou’s frog. I gave Fatima her book and shared out some of the candies. Sushie took a little green one and told us that they were called Jelly Beans and that they were her favourite. I was glad that Miriam was there to keep an eye on Narcisse, otherwise her little fingers might have dirtied my shoes or torn the beautiful wrapping paper or bent the pages of my sister’s book.

  After she had flicked quickly through every page, Fatima looked up and addressed Sushie. ‘This is a very strange book,’ she said.

  I peered over her shoulder and wondered if it contained stories of witchcraft and evil spirits, like the one which Monsieur Boubacar had thought inappropriate for my class.

  Much to the delight of Amina and Narcisse, Sushie had been blowing bubbles, and the girls were in awe of their oily colours and the way they popped. ‘I think that’s a counting book,’ Sushie said. She reached out to take it and studied the front cover.

  ‘Hmm,’ she said, setting the bubbles down, ‘ When Sheep Cannot Sleep by Satoshi Kitamura. Looks interesting.’

  On the cover was a picture of a mouton – a sheep – lying in a proper human’s bed.

  It was dressed in a shirt with blue and white stripes. Flowers and grasses were growing all around the bed, and in the distance were some trees and an evening sky of blue and orange.

  ‘Why is the animal in a bed?’ Fatima asked.

  ‘And why is it wearing clothes?’ Amina said.

  ‘I guess it’s tired.’

  ‘But it’s a sheep!’ I said.

  ‘I think Satoshi Kitamura is just having a bit of fun.’

  Narcisse had the book now and was turning the pages a little roughly while Fatima looked on in concern.

  ‘Gently, Narcisse!’ Miriam said, easing her sister’s fingers from the book.

  ‘Is Sat-osh-i an Irish name?’ I asked.

  ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Sushie said. ‘Sounds Japanese to me.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Narcisse made a baa-ing sound and pointed at a picture of the sheep talking to some cicadas.

  ‘Will you read it to us, Mademoiselle?’ Miriam said.

  Sushie stood up and shook her head. ‘I can’t my friends. Sorry. Maybe you can bring it to my compound later on and I’ll read it then. But I’m not supposed to be here at all.’ She snapped closed the lid of the bubbles and handed them to me. ‘We’ll talk again soon, Haoua, okay?’

  ‘Toh,’ I said. ‘Thank you for bringing the package, Mademoiselle.’

  After Sushie had gone, we girls sat looking at the book for some time. I thought the pictures were very strange but I liked Fatima’s book nevertheless. The animal looked quite sad in some of the pictures, frightened in others. In one picture it was standing at the end of a long corridor of many doors. In another, it was sitting at a small table – similar to the few we had in my school – drawing pictures with brightly coloured pencils.

  ‘Look!’ Miriam said, ‘It’s drawing one of the pictures in the book!’

  She was right. On the next page the animal was looking at a wall of pictures – all of which were tiny copies of the pages of Fatima’s book. I leaned forward and counted the tiny pictures. There were fifteen. Then I counted the coloured pencils on the previous page.

  ‘There are fourteen pencils and fifteen pictures,’ I said. ‘Sushie was right. It is a counting book.’

  Miriam flipped back through the pages until she came to an image of the sheep standing before a large, eerie house. ‘And this house has twelve windows!’ she said.

  ‘Walayi!’

  Narcisse pointed to the next page. ‘Shoes!’ she said.

  The animal was running down a grassy hill between thick, dark trees and bright red flowers.

  ‘Hah!’ Miriam said. ‘This mouton is wearing shoes like yours, Haoua. Two pairs of them!’

  ‘I think that it just has white feet,’ Fatima said.

  ‘Shoes,’ Narcisse repeated.

  The others continued to flick through the book, discussing each picture in detail and discovering something to count on each page, but my mind had begun to wander. As I looked at the pictures of the animal climbing a ladder, or cooking chickpeas, it struck me that this shoe-wearing sheep could do just about anything. And it was then that I made my decision.

  I shared out some more of the candies and then gathered up my sewing tools and half-repaired garments, Adamou’s frog, the bubbles, my shoes and the letter and photograph from Hope.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Miriam asked as I stood up.

  ‘Inside,’ I said, ‘to think.’

  I hid the rest of the candy in my bedding and put my letter and photograph safely away with my other treasures. Then I put the little plastic frog on Adamou’s bedroll. I had left the shoes in their box on one of the chairs in the living room and now, as I lifted the lid to look at them again, I felt myself waver. I sat down on the floor and took one of the shoes from the box. I decided to try them on, but not walk in them. My feet slipped into them with ease. Although they felt strange, it was also as if my feet knew and felt safe inside them. I imagined myself running to school or walking to the river for water in such a fine pair of shoes. They had straps with fuzzy material on the underside that caused them to attach themselves like magic to the top of the shoe. When I pulled at these straps there was a noise – like ripping fabric – and I thought for a moment that I had damaged them. I wanted so much to keep them on; to walk through the village, parading my fine shoes and to see Souley’s face when she saw me wearing them. I wanted to be able to write back to Katie and Hope to tell them how useful they were, how beautiful and strong. How happy they made me.

  Instead, I took them off, wrapped them up in the fine paper, put them back in their box, tucked the box under my arm and went to look for my father.


  25

  On the far side of Wadata, just beyond the flat ground where the market traders gathered, the boys of the village often congregated for bouts of wrestling or soccer matches. No one had a proper ball – Monsieur Richard had promised to bring a new one back from Niamey the next time he went there – and the sprawling teams played barefoot, but often these events were exciting enough for the menfolk of the village to be found on the sidelines, placing wagers on one team or the other or urging on the grappling wrestlers. We girls sometimes joked that it seemed difficult to distinguish one sport from another.

  It was here that I found Father and cousin Moussa. They were sitting crosslegged on a large mat, playing dominoes with several of the elders.

  ‘What are you doing here, Little One?’ my father called above the hullabaloo of the ball players nearby.

  ‘I need to speak to you, Father,’ I said.

  ‘Can’t you see I’m busy? Haven’t you got chores to do?’

  ‘I will get back to my chores immediately, Father. But first I want to show you something.’

  At this, Moussa slammed a domino piece down onto the mat and then fixed his gaze on the box under my arm.

  My father stood up, shaking his head, and excused himself from the party. As he walked towards me, the boys’ soccer ball – a raggedy sphere of tightly rolled rags – landed a metre or so in front of him, skiting dust towards the domino players.

  ‘Walayi!’ he said, lifting the ball and kicking it back over to the boys, ‘What is it, child?’‘Can we go somewhere quiet to talk, Father?’ I said.

  ‘We can talk here,’ he said firmly.

  ‘It’s about Mother.’

  He sighed, then indicated that I should follow him, and when we had walked down the slope to the edge of the Tokunbo family’s compound, he stopped and turned to face me again.

  ‘Well?’ he said, eyeing up my shoebox.

  I was nervous but determined. ‘This is from Katie and Hope – my friends who write to me – remember?’