My Friend Matt and Hena The Whore

by Adam Zameenzad

  The winds lift her up and play with her and they mix into one another till both sand and wind dance round my dancing Grandma.

  The whole village stops everything and gathers round to watch the sand and Grandma dancing with the winds. Even the missionary bloke is there standing with the school Master. He has on a vest and flappy shorts, but there’d be no point in crawling under and peering up to see his balls. We’ve tried that before. Many times. He always has knickers on underneath. Besides at this time it’ll be too dark up his legs, even for pink goolies to show up proper.

  Soon the sand gets her own back at Grandma and makes her restless by thickening and twisting and turning and dancing faster and more furious round and round Grandma herself, daring her to do better.

  We wonder for Grandma’s feet are quick but they are light; not heavy enough to raise all that dust and sand. Neither are the winds so strong this time of the year and this time of the night.

  But the wind and the sand do get more active and it’s puzzling. It gets more puzzling as the sound of the wind turns to a strange roar that gets louder by the breath.

  Suddenly someone shouts, then all shout. They are all looking towards me. I am worried at first but then find out what’s going on. No one’s looking at me, they’re looking behind me. I jump and turn at the same time.

  I see the reason of the dust and the sand and the wind and the roar. It’s a car. In it is Joti, waving his arms about and shouting like he used to when I was a little boy and he mucked about with us lot.

  Soon half the people in the village are up and dancing round Grandma Toughtits and the other half up and dancing round Joti.

  Joti is smiling all over, moving from one place to the other, from one person to the other. ‘Hello Uncle’ here and ‘Hello Grandma’ there. Kissing this one and shaking the arm of another out of his shoulder socket. ‘You’ve grown up, haven’t you!’ to this little mite and, ‘Won’t you ever grow up?’ to that big lad.

  This goes on for ever and ever, while all the time I’m tagging along trying to hold his hand and even actually holding it now and then. Uncle Jam now appears on the scene. Joti and him are hugging and kissing and laughing and crying all over each other; wiping their eyes and noses all the time – Joti with his silk handkerchief that sticks out of the back pocket of his tight jeans and Uncle Jam with the end of his shawl.

  My Mam and Dada now join in the crying and laughing. Even Grandma Toughtits has got over her dance, said her thanks to the Spirits, and come over to be with the family.

  The rest of the village decide to let the family be alone together and slowly drift away, inviting Joti over for the big village feast to be held the next day in his honour.

  But where is Aunt Tima?

  Everyone’s been so busy showing joy over Joti they’ve forgotten Aunt Tima. Where is she?

  We find her sitting by herself, legs stretched out in front of her, back resting against the broken stone wall which runs through the east of the village; no one knows why, no one knows since when. Her eyes are open looking far out searching for Joti. But they do not see him when he comes.

  Aunt Tima is dead.

  Aunt Tima, big and bouncy and strong Aunt Tima, sits dead by the old stone wall.

  Whether her heart burst with sorrow on account she thought Joti isn’t coming or whether it burst with joy when she heard shouts saying he’s here, we’ll never know.

  *

  The feast next day was the biggest ever held in the village. Old Muslims, new Christians, even the Children of Moses – all came, and brought food and fruit and music and dance and love and memories to honour Joti as Aunt Tima would’ve done; as if Joti was everyone’s son come back home.

  Anyone who could move and breathe danced all night to keep company with the Spirit of Aunt Tima as it waited for the Spirits of trees and mountains and rivers and the Earth to take her away till she was ready to come back again as one of them.

  Joti’s gone back to the big city and the season’s changed sooner than we thought; but there’s still no rain and we’ve not yet seen the missionary bloke’s balls. Nor heard him speak of them either, in polite talk or in his sermons.

  Not that we truly expect him to speak of his balls when he’s teaching religion – in school for all the children or in the centre of the village for the grown-ups – but he does speak of such strange and wonderful happenings that we won’t truly be surprised either if he does mention them. Especially when he speaks of this great power in us. He says it comes from the Holy Ghost, which is like a Spirit.

  Now that I understand. Holy Spirit is the best Spirit of all, I think, but I daren’t say it in front of Grandma Toughtits. She says there isn’t one Holy Spirit on account all Spirits are holy. But I believe there can be one Spirit holier than the rest, just as the missionary bloke is holier than the rest of us people. It is this which makes me want to have my soul saved, but as I’ve said I daren’t.

  Not like Matt who just goes and believes in this Holy Spirit and gets his name changed and his head drowned in water and no matter about his family. In fact so great is his faith, says the missionary bloke, that soon his sister and Dada and aunts and uncles follow his example. The missionary bloke says he’s never seen anything like this before where a little boy changes the mind of grown-up folks where he’s failed. And he’s not the only one thinking that, for more people listen to Matt when he talks of God and Jesus and love than listen to the missionary bloke talk of sin and redemption and resurrection – whatever they mean. Maybe he speaks the language better, maybe it’s more than that. Maybe he has some power in him. Even with just two ordinary balls.

  Power, that this missionary bloke says comes from the Holy Spirit and from our Father the great God and from his son the great Lord Jesus. But he don’t speak of no power that comes from having three balls.

  He does speak once or twice of the Trinity, which I don’t understand at all but which Matt says means three. Now we don’t reckon he’s talking of his balls or anyone else’s either. But it does make us believe that three is stronger than two and maybe that’s why white men are kings, as Matt says, on account that they have three instead of two. Balls, that is.

  Anyway, the fact remains we’ve failed to find out.

  We go back to our little tree on our little hill and ask for more time to keep our promise.

  But Golam’s heart is not much in it any more. His Mam is having difficulties feeding the cow which gives them their milk. Milk they change for food with Leku’s family – the Children of Moses.

  To tell the truth we’re all a bit down these days on account our grown-ups are a bit down these days.

  Evenings are getting colder and up on our little hill we wrap our shawls tight round us as we sit thinking our own thoughts, looking down at the village for no particular reason that I can tell you. All except Matt who’s looking the opposite way.

  Even Leku is with us today, looking down at the village.

  Suddenly Matt’s back gets all tensed up. I can tell for his back is resting against mine.

  ‘What’s the matter now?’ I say in my what’s-the-matter-now voice which I keep for Matt when he’s being difficult.

  Not that he’s being difficult today, only not looking where we’re all supposed to be looking, but still, I like to talk to him in that sort of a voice once in a while.

  Matt don’t reply which is unusual so I look up at his face to see where his mind is. His eyes are so sharp they could see through my head if it were in the way.

  ‘What’s the matter now?’ I say in a different voice this time, all eager and really wanting to know.

  ‘There are people coming to the village,’ he goes, so soft I hardly hear him.

  I take a quick look that way.

  ‘I don’t see anything,’ I say.

  By now the others have smelled that something is going on and are gathered round us, looking in turn at Matt and towards where he is looking.

  ‘I see nothing,’ goes Golam.

/>   Leku says he can see the dust rising far away to the left of the Dry Hill. The Dry Hill is to our east about as far off as the woods are to the west.

  ‘Can it be the travelling people?’ I ask.

  ‘Silly,’ goes Hena, ‘they go back at this time of the year, not come!’

  ‘Well they’ve been neither coming nor going for many years now, so maybe they’ve started doing things different.’ I say one of my longer sentences. I think she needs it.

  ‘Not for many years, only two,’ she corrects me. ‘Besides, the travelling people never change their ways.’

  ‘Then how come they’ve stopped coming? That’s changing their way, isn’t it? Tell me now, isn’t it?’ I’m really chuffed at catching her out, for once.

  She spoils it all by saying, ‘I suppose you are right, for once.’

  ‘The travelling people don’t come any more,’ says Leku, ‘as they have either eaten or sold their animals. In these dry days they would rather be finding food for themselves than wandering around looking for grass and water for donkeys and camels. My father told me most travelling people are camping outside cities these days, for whatever they can get. He came from Bandugu only the other day. He saw some there as well.’

  Bandugu is an old city to the south.

  Leku’s Dada goes to the city often. There is a broken-down old bus which runs on the broken-down old dust road between Gonta and our village once a week, most weeks. When you get to Gonta you can catch a bus to Bader and from there you can go almost anywhere.

  Leku’s Dada often makes the journey on the bus to Gonta. Where he goes from there, I don’t know.

  It’s something to do with his work which has something to do with buying and selling things for the village: things like matchboxes, and sacks for storing grain, and stone slates and chalks for writing in school, and some cooking spices and lumps of soap and goodness knows what. You have to be quite rich to be able to buy some of the things Leku’s Dada brings.

  ‘I don’t know who they are,’ says Matt, ‘but they sure are heading our way. And by the look of things there seem to be many of them.’

  ‘You don’t think they can be soldiers?’ says Golam in a squeaky voice. Ever since our trip to Gonta he is shit scared at the very thought of soldiers.

  I am too but I try not to show it.

  ‘Soldiers won’t be coming on foot openly like that for all to see. Not with the freedom fighters that hide in the mountain caves on one side and the woods on the other. It’s thanks to these woods and caves that we don’t ever have soldiers coming here. Not even on their jeeps.’

  ‘It’s funny,’ I say, ‘for earlier on it’s the soldiers who were using the woods to hide in.’

  ‘There is nothing funny about it,’ says Hena in her hardest voice.

  ‘I agree,’ says Golam.

  ‘So do I,’ says Matt.

  ‘Me too,’ says Leku.

  I’m sorry I opened my mouth.

  I didn’t even mean funny as in ‘funny’.

  ‘One of these days we’ll get it from the air,’ I say.

  Am I sorry I opened my mouth!

  Everyone gangs up on me so, it’s a wonder I live to talk about it.

  ‘I think I best go,’ says Leku after they’ve finished with me, ‘my family will be waiting for me.’

  Leku can be a good friend, only he spends most of his time with his family doing strange things like always eating together and saying mumbo jumbo prayers three times a day while making funny faces and gestures.

  Golam is supposed to do things like that as well, only he don’t. His mother prays five times a day. Five times a day! Can you imagine that?

  When Leku gets up to go I can see in Golam’s eyes that he too would like to go to his Mam but can’t bring himself to say it.

  Golam has these huge eyes that are truly sad one moment and truly happy the next. They speak all that’s in his heart more clear than words. That and his large white teeth and his thick wavy hair make me want to put my arms round him and give him a kiss and go to sleep next to his body; but I don’t reckon that’s how it should be, and it makes me angry with myself. Anger which I take out on Golam by shouting at him.

  ‘What’re you looking at him like that for with your buffalo eyes? You can go home to your little mama if it’s getting too late for you.’

  Golam nearly bursts into tears.

  ‘There’s no need for that!’ says Hena, putting her arms round Golam – which makes me angrier still – and throwing knives at me with her eyes.

  ‘You can go with him and baby him. That’ll suit you better than being out here with the boys,’ I carry on in my worst voice.

  ‘What’s come over you?’ says Matt, looking at me with that look which stops me doing what I’m doing. Which stops everyone doing what they’re doing.

  The upshot is that Leku, Hena and Golam all go leaving Matt and me alone up our hill.

  I’m so angry with myself and with everyone I cannot say nothing.

  Matt puts his arms around me.

  He can do that so easy. I can never bring myself to do it. Not even if I want to real bad. To tell the truth, the more I want to do it the less I can.

  Matt puts his arms round me and sits. Just sits with his arms round me.

  All my anger goes, and a strange quiet takes hold of me. It feels so good I smile in my heart and put my arms round Matt without thinking.

  ‘I think we’d better go too,’ says Matt, which surprises me.

  ‘Ain’t you going to stay and find out who’s coming our way?’

  ‘They’re still miles away, and walking as they are it’ll be morning light by the time they get here. I think we best go.’

  We get up, walk slow for three or four steps, then break into our fastest run till we catch up with Leku and Hena and Golam.

  Two

  The Outsiders

  When I wake up the next morning the floor is so cold I can feel it through the straw in my matting.

  To tell the truth the matting isn’t much to write about. It’s got these big holes in it. Holes that are getting bigger every night. I’ve had it for as long as I can remember, and before that big sister had it.

  She’s got a new one now, lucky girl.

  Still, I’d rather have my torn one than share with little brother, even though his has fewer holes in it.

  Matt says if I put my matting over little brother’s matting and then we sleep together we’ll both be much warmer, but I’d rather not.

  Matt says I’m a selfish hyena.

  Matt often speaks like a mother. Probably because he’s never had one. His Mum died giving birth to him. He’s never forgotten it.

  I mean, it’s not as if he just knows it, which he would of course. He talks like he truly remembers it. It scares me sometimes.

  Anyway, back to today. I roll over on my stomach, buckle my knees under me, raise my bum and wonder if I’ve something to wonder about for the day.

  As it goes I can’t think of anything, though at the back of my head, just above the neck, I have this feeling there is something very important I ought to be wondering about. I wonder what it can be, but it just don’t come to me, though I get more certain by the breath that there is something.

  The morning’s wind and yesterday’s food and water force their weight on my thoughts and my bowels. I make a sudden leap to the standing position and run out the back door to find a quiet place.

  I even forget to take my little bucket with me for bringing back water from the hole so as to wash up a bit before rushing to school.

  If I’m lucky I may have chores to do for Mam and Dada. The school Master can’t be angry with me for being late if I’ve work to do for Mam and Dada.

  On my way out I’m in too much of a hurry to notice anything.

  When returning, at peace with my stomach, as I enter the outer circle of the village I feel something different.

  I see something different. I see nothing. I see no one.

  Now t
hat’s pretty strange for at this time there are quite a few people about: going out to the fields or putting their donkeys out or milking their cows or mending their ploughs or something.

  Suddenly I remember. Remember what I should’ve been wondering this morning but wasn’t on account I couldn’t remember.

  The people we saw coming towards our village last night!

  I run into the house through the back door and then out from the front towards the village centre. On my way out I can see there is no one in the house. Not even little brother or Grandma Toughtits, both of whom stay home till the sun is well up in the skies.

  I’m hardly two metres out when who do I see but Grandma Toughtits on her way back, little brother on one hip, a big basket on the other, shawl off the shoulders, leather tits hanging lower than last I saw them.

  So is her face, now that I look at it close.

  It’s more than just hanging low. It’s got this look like she’s seen the twin Spirits of Death.

  Even little brother’s mug shows some feeling, which makes a change on account it normally looks like about as alive as last year’s elephant dung.

  Grandma pushes the little brat into my crossed arms and says, ‘Stay with Limu in the house while I gather some food.’

  She practically drags me back into the house, goes into the cooking corner and starts putting whatever she can find to eat in the basket.

  ‘That’s not fair,’ I shout, tears in my voice – it’s not often I dare to shout at Grandma – ‘that’s not fair. There’s something going on and you’re all having fun…’

  ‘Fun,’ says Grandma stopping me half way, ‘fun…’ she repeats, and then suddenly bursts into tears.

  Now I’ve never seen Grandma Toughtits burst into tears.

  I have seen tears flow down her cheeks, like the night Aunt Tima died, but I’ve never seen her burst into tears.

  Soon her whole body starts to tremble, her hands and fingers turn to rubber sap and the food she’s holding falls on the floor, the gasket slides down her hips, the bag of grain tips and the grain rolls out, spreading all round her feet.

  She freezes with a look of horror on her face, stops crying, stops shaking, just turns to stone.