Ruffian Dick

by Kennedy, Joseph; Enright, John;

  Hamerton motioned me over to his window and gestured down to the courtyard. There I saw a wretch who had been chained to a cannon for the past four years. His bonds had been arranged so he was unable to either stand upright or lay down. Needless to say he had gone completely mad many years ago and I could not understand how life still flickered in his awful body.

  “Come away from the window now Dick,” Hamerton sighed. “There is nothing anyone can do about the situation. A garrison marine named Michael O’Shaughnessy, an Irishman like myself from the same little town back in Cork, planned a mercy killing of the man in the yard after the first few months of his captivity. He told me of his plans over drinks one evening and I had later mentioned the possibility, in passing, to a Mazungera chief.

  “‘Oh no, Lieut. Colonel,’ the chief said, ‘that must never happen. It would be considered a big insult and an interference with tribal ways.’ He looked at me very sternly and said, ‘This would bring about many, many bad things to all the whites on Zanzibar; terrible things, Lieut. Colonel.’

  “So, instead of killing the man, the softhearted O’Shaughnessy has been providing some shade and extra food and water for him over the years. He also cleans up the man’s tiny area to keep the flies and dogs at a minimum. I’m afraid Michael himself has gone a bit mad from the task after all these years and I question if he is even fit for a return to Ireland. For the love of God, Burton, we can’t even allow him near the munitions any longer.” Hamerton’s face twisted into one of resolve. “It’s Africa, Dick. It’s the breathless heat and the cruelty and all that’s wrong with God’s Children. And it’s all right here before us.

  “It will eventually kill the man in the yard and poor Michael, and me … and you if you stay here long enough.” He gulped down the last of his whiskey and said “Jea-sus, let’s get on with some better stuff, shall we?”

  He led me out of the garrison and through the labyrinth of the city. The pestilential vapors of the streets were almost unbearable and the pervasive staring at us from every doorway always suggested trouble. “I am going to introduce you to someone, Dick, someone who is clean and decent … and indescribably beautiful. She is the daughter of my old friend Haj Siam; her name is Shihab, and I will ask that she take care of you.” We pushed through the crowds on our way out of the city proper. “Her father has kept her away from the savages of this place, and if I weren’t so old … well, you’re not too old, are you Dick?” His laugh degenerated into a consumptive cough.

  We found Haj Siam seated in front of his whitewashed mud home on the outskirts of the city. His wide smile on our arrival displayed only two teeth. He grasped Hamerton’s hand and shouted “Allah akbar, God is Great” and “Peace be upon you, Armud Hammulsbad,” then leaned inside the door and yelled, “Shihab, come Shihab. Now is time for Colonel Hammulsbad.”

  Milnes, I shall never forget my first sight of this woman Shihab. She was perhaps nineteen, tall, full and muscular, with perfectly brilliant white dentist’s teeth and a drop-dead coquettish demeanour. Her house tunic fell slightly off her left shoulder and was cut low enough to reveal the tops of her cafe au lait breasts; she had blue stars tattooed above both nipples. Shihab was a Galla from Abyssinia and I had heard the stories about these famous and highly coveted creatures in Egypt long before I ever set foot in East Africa. For good reasons, Galla girls are said to fetch up to a thousand Spanish dollars at the slave bazaars, when available. Only a few Arabs could afford such a price but those who could readily paid when the occasion presented itself. It is claimed that their skin is always cool, even in the hottest of weather, and this alone would be sufficient cause for celebrity in this part of the world. But this is a trifle compared to their other famous talent.

  The Arabs call them kabbazah, which means “a holder.” You see, Milnes, the Galla women have learned to develop their constrictor vaginae muscles, so that when sitting on a man’s thighs she can induce orgasm without moving any other part of her person. Needless to say, this has all the men wild and they have made the Galla girl into something of a goddess. It is a miracle that Haj Siam has been able to keep the hounds away from Shihab, even though his compound is well armed and she in the company of bodyguards at all times.

  But there she was before me, fresh and happy and in no way undone by her surroundings. Her father and Hamerton were engaged in friendly conversation but I was so distracted I do not recall even being introduced. It must have happened for later the old man came over to us, placed my hand in Shihab’s and said, “Hammulsbad’s Raheed Burjom is guest of Haj Siam. You stay here for us, yes?”

  “Yes, yes indeed,” I answered.

  “Good luck, Dick,” Hamerton said. “This should help expedite your Kiswahili lessons. Oh, and Burton, I do beg you to be careful. Remember, the black lion often sleeps in a pretty nest.” I had no idea of what this meant, but I thanked Hamerton and told him I would be on guard.

  “Bakooh Salaam,” he said, and I never saw him again.

  I spent the next month with Shihab at a modest house in her father’s compound. As I began learning Kiswahili and she a bit of English, we wasted entire days eating fruit in the shade and talking of Zanzibar, the coast, and about the lives of the people she knew. Conter fleuretts were expected throughout the day and evening.

  One day she pointed out a woman who looked terribly ill and during a general discussion of her condition the term “black lion” was mentioned. I asked Shihab what was meant by this and she made a coy gesture which indicated that it had something to do with the genital area.

  “Gonorrhea?” I asked.

  “Oh, no Raheed Burjom, that is with everyone and is not even considered a disease here in Dhakilak.”

  Black Lion is their term for syphilis. They fear it most because the affected part will be destroyed. “In just three weeks time, no later,” Shihab said, and she covered her mouth with the palm of her hand and giggled. “You lose your nose as well. You see, it is quite fatal.”

  The day eventually came when I had to leave, and I promised Shihab that whatever else happened I would come back to her again.

  “You will never now, forever,” she said sternly with what might have been a tear in her eye if her womanly constitution was congruent with the temperament of our own ladies back home. With this, she turned and disappeared into the shadows of her house.

  I passed old Haj Siam on the way out and he asked that I wait for a moment. He came up, looked me over very carefully and asked, “Colonel Hammulsbad, what has become of your young friend, Raheed Burjom? You know,” he whispered, “I believe Shihab like him. Maybe now is the time for marriage.”

  Just then Shihab ran from the house shouting my name. She rushed close and with a look on her face somewhere between sadness and resolve, hooked her finger in the belt loop of my trousers and said, “Raheed, I cannot let you go now; not before you meet someone—someone very important.”

  I told her it was best we break from each other now before things became impossibly complicated but she pressed her index finger against my lips and shook her head. “It is for your life, Raheed, for what is to come. You see, it is about your fate.”

  She had a few words with her father, who then promptly disappeared and returned a moment later with a sturdy-looking and well-armed native. I could only imagine this was the important someone I had to meet and that my life as well as my fate on earth was indeed being placed in his hands. With bandoleer crossing his chest, his rifle, knife, sword, and whip, this would be the man brought in to secure my lasting bonding with Shihab. He gave every indication of being one of those chaps who was far beyond any hope of reasoning with, and in fact every inch of his thick frame broadcast that there would be no possibility of debate on any matter whatsoever. It was rather a tense moment, as you may well imagine.

  But nothing is as it seems in Africa, and perhaps even more so in Zanzibar. The assassin turned out to be one of Shihab’s much-needed body guards and was summoned not to cement an on-the-spot marriage but to
accompany us to an exceptionally dangerous place on an already dangerous island.

  Any movement in Dhakilak is dodgy business, but with Shihab along it became an event. She was one of those women males stop to stare at, a woman whom even timid men feel bold enough to approach and a creature that bold and hungry men absolutely wish to consume. When people interrupted their routine to look at the Galla She-Goddess, the pedestrian traffic flow bunged on the already constricted medieval streets and from the clots of ragged humanity came hands that would attempt to stroke, pinch, and pet or purloin, needy hands, the greedy and grimy hands of Africa in heat.

  Shihab concealed herself as best she could amidst cries of “Galla, Galla” and I fended off advances with nearly every step. But it was the body guard who kept us moving past the fruit stalls and shanty stores of Stone Town. He was not behind hand in clearing our path with the butt of his rifle or whip, and I noticed that just the look of him froze many who otherwise might have had designs on a biologically driven approach.

  My god what a place this is. Bad behavior seemed to be on the ascendant everywhere as we pounded through this old Persian-built town. Amidst the riot of confusion, pushing and grabbing, a gang of joyful children followed not Shihab but most likely my newness, and they sang aloud what they had learned about the better parts of white men. With all arms up and down in rhythm, clapping, dressed in rags or barely at all, they skipped and danced without care or any trace of worry and began to sing, “Ink and paper. Ink and paper are the things we want. Give us paper, make the marks. Give us ink and paper, make us rich.” Many just wished to hold my hand as we walked.

  They were absolutely the happiest children I had ever seen anywhere, and nothing in the civilized West could compare; surely not the dispirited and mean street tykes in London or Manchester, who were no less grubby but entirely absent such unfettered jubilation. Old men at their beads and wearing skull caps watched it all, indifferent to the disorder and the delight. Perhaps in a way this can be considered an exemplary summation of the enigma that is Africa.

  Our destination was still unknown as we passed beyond Stone Town, and as the press and insurgence attending to her presence diminished I was able to ask Shihab where we were going and who we were to meet when we got there.

  “To a village where white men do not go, maybe even they cannot go there, even in times when there is not such a famous man who has come to visit.” She stared ahead as she walked and continued, “The village is called Bububu and the man at visit is Laibon Mbatiany. He is Maasai. My father has asked if he will see you. It is a great favour because the laibon holds great powers, very great powers. It will cost my father many cattle. The Maasai like cattle.

  “Laibon Mbatiany can cure sick people with plants. He speaks directly with Enk-ai, and he gives direction for the future because he knows about such things. My father said that is something you need—you need to know about the future, he could see that.” I asked if this was about our relationship, and she answered, “It is about everything; everything there is.”

  It was straightaway apparent why Bububu was off the white man’s road map. There is an air of general hostility about the place and by the looks on some of the villager’s faces it was almost certain that I was the first white person they had ever seen. Probably my skin color was equated with slavery for they knew of the great ships and their unholy cargo and they all know who the masters of them are, and that it was to these ships the Arabs delivered their sorry captives. No one in Bububu wished to be a participant and so more than a few villagers moved hand to knife as I passed. Shihab and the formidable body guard were very helpful but I was still quite on edge.

  Nevertheless this was all about a meeting with the Great Laibon Mbatiany and after a few begrudging directions we arrived at his temporary headquarters. He was sitting on the floor of a mud hut dabbing at the backside of a young goat. The man’s skin was so black it was almost purple but when he looked up at me I was startled to see that the pupils in his eyes were as white as his hair and my first thought was that the gods simply do not outfit ordinary gentlemen with these sorts of physical astonishments. He commanded my full attention.

  He motioned for me to sit and then in deference to his rank and title went on at great lengths about the goat. Did I think he was a handsome animal? Did I know that his goat father was a great breeder? Does he not have fine testicles? It was a conservation he might have been having with someone else in the village that had been temporarily interrupted and now resumed in mid-thought. I stumbled through a few sentences of reply all the while wondering how this had anything to do with my fate. The laibon then unaccountably got up and left, leaving me in the semi-darkness with the wounded goat. Shihab popped her head into the doorway for a moment but pulled it back as soon as I caught her eye. My suspicions were running wild.

  The great soothsayer returned after a moment and fumbled a bit to adjust some buttons on his gown. When he saw me watching him his sui generis eyes widened and he asked if I thought laibon was a man who did not need to relieve himself.

  He took back his seat on the floor and resumed dabbing at the goat with a leaf. Without looking up he ask, “Do you know that black is a lucky color?”

  I had to confess that I did not.

  “It is, believe the truth of this.”

  After more silent time with the goat he got up, stood over me and began running his long hands over my head and face as if he were a blind man searching for a tactile identity. Then he reached into his garment and threw some small polished stones on the ground before me. These he stared at with prodigious intensity and with something that might have been a muffled supplication. Then he looked at me with great passion.

  “Haji Siam, he tells me you are in need of direction, the future, how you must act to acquire the wealth all men need. I can feel that he is right.”

  Laibon Mbatiany repositioned the stones with an elongated finger.

  “You are forty years; that is easy to see, and you are a warrior. I can feel that too. Let me tell you something; it is at this time in life when a warrior, my people call them moran, finishes a cycle. Many show sadness at the loss of youth and wild adventure, some even cry at this time. But fools act even worse; they try to make the cycle longer, but it cannot be done by any man without bringing great shame upon him. You cannot hunt in the way of before and you cannot find your manly youth by being inside a young woman like Shihab.”

  I asked if adventure is over for me.

  “Of a kind, yes, it is over. But your head also tells me you are not a fool and so you much recognize the kind of adventure that is suited to you.”

  I told him I like to travel for adventure and before being allowed another word he thundered back that I must travel. “But you also must lay down your sword and use your eyes and your pen to make adventure for all people. You no longer have to do, but you have to be. Do you understand?”

  I confessed a bit of confusion. He looked hard at me with those albino eyes and said, “Leave what was before and be who you are from now until forever. This is the truth.”

  Laibon Mbatiany covered the polished stones with dirt, then carefully recovered one of them, clasped it with both hands and closed his eyes. Everything suggested a summary pronouncement.

  “You must know that you have entered a new cycle and from this place you will take a journey, a very long one across a big land that you have never seen before. But this time it will be an expedition to find not a river or a holy city. This time you will find yourself. On the way along this journey you will find many kinds of people, very strange and different people, who have all come together in the big land for countless reasons. Here you will find Man, and he will reveal what you seek. Your fate is to tell people forever about who Man really is, and soon you will be able to see him as never before.

  “Your journey begins here as a new man and in the end you will tell everyone about themselves and find yourself in the process.”

  By this time the laibon had me
wild with curiosity. How did he know about the river Nile and the holy Meccah? Where I would be going, who I would be seeing and who is this new man I am supposed to be? Why will I find Man if I am already among them?

  Laibon Mbatiany leaned close to me and began to chuckle.

  “Use your eyes to see and your hand to scribe and do not be afraid to let your words flow as you wish. No king or earthly gods will ever be able to change or hide the truth in what you have to say. Speak of all men as they are, be they beautiful or befouled. Find Man—find yourself. This journey will allow you to do that, and from there another wiser one can begin.”

  I didn’t know what to say beyond a callow asking about where another journey would take me.

  “To the end—with your eyes and pen, my friend—until your fate is fulfilled.”

  This seemed all he wished to say on the matter, but he did allow a final comment. “Be alert for the sign that will launch this voyage. It will arrive by messenger in a packet from a friend. It will arrive when you are in your own land, but you will not be there for long. The final sign is that it will come when you are desperate for movement, but do not know where to go.”

  Laibon Mbatiany brushed me towards the door like he would a common fly and said, “Now move-on, and be careful not to disturb the goat.”

  Well, that was Zanzibar and a glance outside the window reminds me that I am still self-exiled in France. Surely this is not the place Laibon Mbatiany had in mind, nor is England or a return to India, Arabia, or Africa. I suppose I must just keep my eyes skinned and await the arrival of the so-called “packet”—if it ever should arrive. Fate is a coy mistress. In the meantime, I shall try and slip back for your party at Fryston Hall as I am most interested in re-meeting the Countess Maria Louise Ramee (Ouida)13. I will give Hankey your best.