My Friend Matt and Hena The Whore

by Adam Zameenzad

  *

  They make very good pictures. The black reporter from the white world shows me my first ever white people’s newspapers and magazines. The pictures of the children we see in front of us are the pictures of the children we see in front of us.

  We’re told these people are from the north-east where the food and war situation is the worst in the country.

  Till it’s time for us to start for Bader, Matt spends all his time with the little children. Hena spends her time with her parents. Golam and I run errands and do little jobs for the doctors and nurses and reporters and anybody else who wants anything done.

  The two white doctors in Gonta don’t think we should be going to Bader on our own. They say it is a big city and we will get into trouble and end up worse than at home.

  We tell them we have a cousin there who’s doing very well for himself and who will look after us.

  The black reporter from the white man’s world backs us up saying he’s met our parents and knows we tell the truth.

  We show them Joti’s picture next to the big car in front of the big house. And we show them his name and address.

  They say we should not try to walk it or ‘do anything silly like that’. They say they’ll buy us a ticket each and put us on the next bus to Bader whenever it comes.

  The white folk say it is a broken-down rotten old bus, filthy and unsafe; but I’m truly thrilled at the thought of travelling on it. So much so that I nearly forget my worries and my sadness and my fears and think of my hopes.

  Golam comes running across the open stretch between the tents and the brick buildings, nearly tripping on the bodies rolled up log-like in dirty white sheets.

  A bald boy, with sores on his head where you and I have hair, looks up in true surprise at Golam as he jumps over him. The boy, who is as long as I am tall, lies on the same spot since the day we came.

  Only his eyes move.

  The white doctor and her golden assistant tell me he is hoping to join the rest of his family soon.

  ‘The bus is coming,’ shouts Golam, running and flashing a smile. I haven’t seen him smile like that in a long time.

  His teeth are not as glinty white as I remember them in my mind’s eye.

  As he runs his hair don’t bounce much either.

  I suppose that’s what happens when you get old. Not true old, like Grandma Toughtits. You grow a new kind of beauty then. But sort of in-between old, like thirteen.

  ‘The bus is coming. The bus is coming,’ shouts Golam.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I say.

  Golam is never sure of anything. He was always like that, even as a child. He’s been much worse recently. I’m sure he’d get confused if you asked his name twice and then added, ‘Are you sure?’

  Of course I didn’t mean to do that.

  I only said ‘Are you sure?’ like one says ‘Are you sure?’ without thinking too much about it.

  His chest is going up and down and he’s not breathing regular. I don’t think he’s run for some time and his body’s having problems dealing with it. His stomach is jumping up and down like a chicken with its throat cut.

  I feel a strange sick feeling in my own stomach when I see him like this.

  I see him lying down like the bald boy with the sore-covered head waiting to join his family.

  I shake the sight out of my eyes.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ says Golam, forgetting about the bus and looking at me with worried eyes.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say, ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asks Golam.

  It makes me smile. ‘Sure I am sure. Where is the bus?’

  ‘Can you see that dust over there?’ Matt says, pointing far away towards our village. ‘That’s the bus.’

  ‘Let’s get our things sorted out,’ says Hena, practical as ever.

  I begin to feel easy again. I’d started to think Hena and Matt might want to stay on in Gonta, the way they were busy with the folk in the camps.

  Our things are a bag of food each, a leather bottle of water each, an extra shawl each, and a box of pills each.

  The white doctor gave us the pills the very first day we got here.

  She also gave us two injections per person, one on each buttock. My backside hurts when I think of the jabs.

  The golden assistant is by our side now.

  ‘What are you all so excited about?’ he says.

  ‘The bus is coming,’ says Golam.

  He’s flashing his teeth again. They’re still not quite right. But his breathing is better.

  The golden assistant behaves in a very peculiar manner.

  He starts shouting and hollering and waving his arm about and calling, ‘Boota, Karo, Omu – Boota, Omu Karo…’

  Two of our countrymen come running towards us, one from inside the buildings and the other from the camp-site.

  ‘The bus is coming,’ shouts the golden assistant, looking urgently at them.

  They look at him kind of strange.

  We look at him kind of strange.

  ‘The bus is coming,’ says the golden assistant again. Then adds, ‘These kids have to be on it.’

  The moment he says this the others start behaving in the same excited manner.

  ‘OK boss,’ they say, ‘we’ll get on our way and you bring them along.’

  They run towards the rising dust of the approaching bus, faster than they’d come.

  By now the white doctor is here.

  ‘What on earth is going on?’ says she.

  ‘The bus is coming,’ says the golden assistant.

  It is the doctor’s turn to look at him strange. Then she sees us. Now it’s her turn to get excited. Only not so much as the others.

  Even so, it makes me wonder.

  ‘Have the children got their vitamins?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes, Madam Doctor, thank you,’ says Hena.

  ‘Food. Have they got enough food?’ says the doctor, now looking into our bags.

  She feels the food and sniffs it like a cat. Then she throws some powder into our water bottles and gives them a good shake.

  She stands with her hands on her hips and thinks.

  ‘Here,’ she says at last, ‘here is some money.’ She holds out some money.

  We don’t know what to do with it.

  ‘Take it,’ she says. ‘You will need it when you get to Bader. It isn’t much but it will do you till you can find your cousin.’ Hena takes the money, looks at it for a long time, then folds it and tucks it into her blouse.

  The golden assistant takes Hena’s hand in one hand and Golam’s hand in his other hand and says to all of us, ‘Come on, I’ll take you to the bus.’ Matt and I walk behind him.

  On our way we pass the bald boy. His eyes are more open than before but they don’t move any more. Nor blink when flies bite into them.

  We soon find out why the grown-ups are so excited about the bus when we get to the other side of the camp, outside the little wooden shack where canisters of petrol and water are kept. This is where the bus stops. There is a whole crowd of people waiting there. The bus finally appears, making its way with some difficulty through its own dust.

  It is full with people inside. There are people sitting on the roof. The doorless entrance at the back is blocked with people. There are people clinging to the side of the bus.

  Before the bus can come to a stop everybody runs towards it like a herd of thirsty cattle towards the water-hole.

  A sort of battle starts between people wanting to get off and people wanting to get on.

  No one is actually trying to hurt another, but then no one is actually thinking of another.

  Many of those struggling to get off are in trouble as they are sick or bringing their sick children to Gonta in the hope of white man’s cure.

  A tall man forcing his way out of the bus gets his head caught in the robe of another man trying to climb over everyone else to get on the bus. The tall man don’t enjoy his face being rubbe
d against the other man’s doodas and flails his arms about to free himself. As he does so the other’s robe is ripped apart showing one surprised ass sitting on one surprised head. The face hanging under the head is being tickled by the parts hanging under the ass.

  There is a scream of pain from the man with the robe torn from the crack of his ass down. He claims he has been bitten by the other, who screams back calling him a liar. By now they are face to face instead of face to dingus, the one on top having slid down the other’s head. He reaches for the throat of the tall man. There is a great hoo ha and soon they are grappling with one another, rolling on the sand as they fall. They are shouting and swearing something awful. The one with his ass framed in the ripped robe is on top getting an extra tan where he don’t need it even less than anywhere else.

  As some gather round to watch the display, the other get a chance to get on the bus somewhat easier.

  The men on the roof are looking down with no particular look on their faces.

  The two men sent by the golden assistant have got on the bus through the door by the driver’s seat. He lets them in, then quickly locks the door after them.

  Once in, one of them looks around for an empty seat, finds one and stands guard by it. The other leans out of an open window and yells out to us. We rush to him and he yanks us up, one by one, and pulls us in through the window.

  The four of us are made to sit on this seat meant for two, which is not easy with our bags even though there isn’t much meat on any of us. One of the men gives us our tickets.

  We say our thank yous to the two men and they leave the same way they came.

  When everyone who can get in, gets in, the driver and his helper get out of the bus, stretch their legs, look at the engine, get petrol and water for the bus, and some tea for themselves.

  There is a bad smell inside which is not just people smell, but sick and shit smell.

  We can also see sick and shit.

  As a matter of fact we are sitting on some. And there is some under our feet.

  By now we’re all so packed in we cannot get out or even stand up properly without being crushed down by other people.

  Hena looks so upset that I think that she’s going to add her sick to what’s already there.

  I almost begin to cry. I wish I was home.

  Golam looks like he’s about to faint.

  Matt tears off part of his shawl and tries to clean the place up a bit.

  Hena seems to take control of her feelings and helps him.

  I think we might have been better off walking, but Hena – back to her practical self again – says it’s too far and through deserts and dry rocks that burn during the day and freeze at night and that we are lucky to be going on the bus.

  I still wish I was out of there and maybe back home.

  I say my thoughts.

  Matt says nothing.

  Matt hasn’t said much at all during the last few days. That is strange for Matt. He also looks strange.

  I’m beginning to worry for him.

  It seems like hours before the driver and his helper get back on the bus.

  We think the bus is going to start after all, but it don’t.

  Then it does. Then it don’t. Then it does. Splurts and coughs and jumps and dances and moves and stops again. Hiccups and moves again. Hiccups and moves again. Moves until it’s on its way at long last.

  Hena is sitting by the window so she’s better off, but the sun is coming through that side and soon she’ll be boiling. Matt and Golam are in the middle and badly squashed. I am on the inside edge of the seat and half falling off. My ear’s stuck firmly in someone’s bum.

  Then I turn to see who it is, my nose goes up him. I’d rather it was my ear so I turn my head towards Golam again, who’s next to me. His body next to mine don’t bother me any more.

  There’s an old man sitting in front of us. He’d been turning round to look at us when we were cleaning up the floor, throwing the mess out of the window on Hena’s side.

  When the bus is safely out of Gonta the old man turns round again.

  Only this time he don’t just look, he speaks.

  He speaks in a strong voice. It is not the voice of an old man.

  ‘Count yourselves fortunate,’ he says in his strong voice, ‘you sit on the shit of the blessed.’

  ‘What does he mean “blessed”?’ says Golam softly in my ear.

  ‘Perhaps he means the poor,’ I say, remembering our missionary bloke who used to say something about ‘blessed are the poor’.

  ‘Why should the shit of the poor be any better than anybody else’s shit?’ asks Golam.

  ‘Perhaps because their everything else is worse than everybody else’s everything else,’ says Hena. ‘Anyway, everyone here is poor, near enough.’

  ‘Perhaps he means the Christians.’ I make another try: ‘The ones who’ve had their souls saved. Like Matt here.’

  ‘I don’t see Matt shitting any different now he’s a Christian than when he wasn’t,’ says Hena.

  ‘When did you last see Matt shit?’ I ask, half angry, half curious.

  ‘Come to think of it, when did you first see Matt shit?’

  Hena says nothing. Just glowers at me like I’m a fool or something. I decide to ignore her and think about the unsaved soul of Grandma Toughtits and a great heaviness takes hold of my spirit. I don’t want her soul to go to Pasadena, California, USA.

  ‘I mean the dead,’ says the old man with the strong voice, or the young man with the old face. ‘I mean where the living are cursed, blessed are the dead.

  ‘They died here, the ones who sat here where now you sit.

  ‘This was their last shit on this earth. You have now removed the final trace of their existence from this planet.’

  Golam is more confused than ever.

  So am I, truly speaking.

  ‘No we haven’t,’ Matt speaks for the first time. ‘Man does not live by shit alone.’

  The man looks at him in surprise.

  ‘What do you know of people? Or life? Or death? You’re just a kid,’ he says.

  ‘I have seen many years of suffering in many years of life,’ says Matt.

  The man goes very pale.

  ‘Who are you?’ he says, his voice not so strong, ‘You are not…’

  ‘Who are you?’ Matt interrupts.

  ‘I used to be a lecturer at the Mission College in Bader, now I ride the bus.’

  ‘Ride the bus!’ Even Matt is puzzled at this.

  He says he has nowhere to go and no one to go to. So he keeps going back and forth on the bus.

  He has given all his wife’s silver and gold to the bus people, and in return they let him be on it.

  Also he helps clean the bus now and then.

  He remembers the time when the bus was new and clean.

  When few people travelled on it. Only those who went to the big village to buy or sell; or to change grain for goods; or to the cattle fair or the Spirit Dance.

  ‘Now the bus is dying. And so are the people.

  ‘But neither the bus nor the people are dying as they should – in peace and quiet. The bus is running around when it hardly can. The people are running around when they really shouldn’t.’

  ‘And why not?’ says Hena, quietly angry.

  ‘Because it is best to avoid the futile pain of false hope,’ says the man.

  ‘Sounds clever,’ says Hena, all cold and proper, ‘doesn’t make it right.’

  ‘Sorry,’ replies the man. ‘I didn’t mean to be clever. I was just trying to be… be… fair.’

  ‘Makes it even less right,’ Matt goes.

  The man looks annoyed for the first time. ‘All right then, you tell me what is right,’ he says, ‘and why.’

  Matt looks straight into him.

  ‘I don’t need to tell you what is right. Or to anyone else.

  ‘Everyone knows what is right. Even the clever and the fair, only they make it difficult.

 
‘Nor can I tell you why what is right, is right. It just is. It is its own reason.’

  Matt’s voice is not the voice of a smart-ass, but the voice of an old man.

  The man is amazed.

  ‘Why do you say what you say about the clever and the fair?’ he asks.

  Matt replies:

  ‘We all know what people need.

  ‘The clever give reasons why they can’t have it, which is bad.

  ‘The fair give opinions on what they deserve, which is worse.’

  The man says, ‘I think you are the one I dream of and wake up sweating.’

  Matt says nothing.

  The stones are hot as burning coal. The sand is like the inside of a roaring bread-baking oven, without the life-giving smell.

  But at least there isn’t the stink of shit and sick and sweat. So we’d rather be outside than inside.

  It is three o’clock in the afternoon. The bus left Gonta at about midday. It was meant to be at Bader by the early hours of the evening, after first going south to Mozapu. On the way down and then on the way up it stops every half-hour or so for rest and for cooling the engine.

  This is not one of those stops.

  The bus has broken down.

  Everybody is looking worried and wondering what will happen and when and how we’ll get to Bader. The sick are looking sicker than ever.

  The lecturer man is not bothered. The bus is his home, wherever it is. He’s sitting in its shade, smoking a funny-smelling mix of tobacco and something black I’ve seen Hena’s Dada smoke in the last months of his life.

  The driver and his mate aren’t bothered either. After opening the bonnet of the bus to have a quick look at the engine, and doing a bit of tapping and patting here and there, they too have lit their cigarettes and are sprawling in their seats. They have opened the doors on either side, so it is cool and airy for them in their little section, which is separated from the rest of the bus with a barrier as high as my chest.

  We slide ourselves next to the bus-riding lecturer man. His name is Bill but he likes to be called Mobu.

  ‘Mobu,’ I say, ‘how long are we going to be here?’

  ‘Why isn’t anybody doing anything?’ says Hena.