The Camel Bookmobile

by Masha Hamilton

  Siti’s ears cocked back to show she was listening. Mr. Abasi found this gratifying.

  “I’ve spent years—my whole life, really—observing these visitors. I admit I used to envy them their small, obscure privileges—complimentary perfumed shampoos provided by the game lodges, and drinks served in tents looking out at the sunset. I envied them, too, their self-satisfaction. By the end of their safari adventures, they always seemed to feel quite—intrepid, that’s the word. They went home content that they’d weathered the African experience, and happy enough to leave the Africans behind.”

  Siti grumbled deep in her throat.

  “I don’t mind being left behind,” Mr. Abasi said. “What I resent—what I always resented in people—is their insincerity.”

  Siti ducked her head, setting her dangling coins jangling and pitching Mr. Abasi forward. He managed not to fall off.

  “Straighten up; I’m not talking about you, Mother,” he said. “You were sincere—but way overblown. Anyway, don’t get offended with me. It’s Miss Sweeney I want to talk about. She’s a different sort of foreigner. She couldn’t be less interested in safaris or complimentary shampoos. And she doesn’t even look like the others. It’s as if she’s just shuttled in after a long trip from a more primitive place, with her dark, frizzy hair flying. No camouflage colors for her—instead, it’s that purple bag loaded with poetry books. She’s sincere, all right. Also annoying. Now, go this way.”

  Mr. Abasi could tell from the angle of the sun that they had strayed a little too far east. As Siti turned slightly to get back on track, he rubbed his eyes, suddenly noticing that the glare of the day made them water. “I’ve been sleeping poorly, waking early every day,” he said. “But what do you expect? I know that if anything happens, they’ll blame me. Yes, me! Even though I’ve opposed this whole operation from the start. I’ll be answerable.”

  Siti gave a cry that almost sounded sympathetic.

  “What might happen? Too many possibilities to count,” Mr. Abasi said. “She could be abducted by shifta. Mauled by a baboon. An irritable goat could gouge her. She could eat something poisonous or contract a mortal disease. An elder could put a fatal curse on her. She could be taken as a second wife.”

  Mr. Abasi felt his own shoulders sag under this recounting of potential disasters. For a while, man and camel—or mother—traveled in silence. At last, Mr. Abasi recovered enough to go on. “I’m not cut out for this,” he said, “overseeing a white woman’s misguided cultural rescue mission.”

  Siti stopped, looked back at him, winked, and bared her teeth. How well Mr. Abasi knew that false, knowing smile. His mother had warned him on many occasions that becoming a librarian was a mistake, involving too much needless pressure. She’d wanted him to sell small electronics instead. “But don’t listen to me,” she’d said more than once in an icy voice. “Better to be a man who talks only to himself. That way, you’ll never be contradicted.”

  “Well, I admit it,” he said now. “This part of the job is mad. Allowing her to trim a lion’s mane would have been wiser.”

  But what did he mean by the word allowing? Women—all women, as it turned out, and not only his mother—were untamable. It would be best to simply disregard them. “I’m trying,” he said aloud. “I’m trying to forget about her.”

  Siti tossed her head in a knowing way.

  “No, Mother, nothing like that. She’s only a responsibility,” Mr. Abasi said. “I’ll be perfectly happy when she’s gone.”

  The camel gave a skeptical hiss, spitting a soft spray of saliva.

  “Oh, be quiet,” he said, irritably. And, remembering how much his mother hated silence, he refused to talk for the rest of the trip.

  Scar Boy

  TABAN LOOKED UP FROM HIS DRAWING AND COCKED HIS head, listening to the footsteps make a partial circle around his home and pause. The steps sounded light, so he doubted they belonged to a man. Man-steps worried him most right now. He could always peek through the holes in the wall and see who it was, of course. But he didn’t want to be reduced to peering from his home like a cowering bush rat. He took four slow breaths before the steps shuffled, then moved away.

  “They’re hovering,” he said softly.

  Badru lifted his head from his bowl of millet and studied Taban questioningly.

  “They’ve been hovering for the last two days. Haven’t you noticed?”

  Badru stared at him for another beat, then shrugged.

  Taban knew his brother had no idea what he was talking about. Maybe Badru didn’t even believe him. Badru hadn’t developed a sixth sense about the footfalls. He’d never needed to—he didn’t spend as much time within these walls, sensing what lay outside.

  Taban had been studying the footsteps for years. He could tell a person’s size, sex, age, even mood. He was long accustomed to the usual pattern: the vibrations approached, picked up speed as they neared, and swerved slightly away as though his hut were barricaded by an invisible ring of poisonous knobthorn bushes.

  The steps closest to his hut were always the shortest and quickest. Fear made feet move faster.

  But lately, the footsteps had begun to follow a different path. They advanced toward his home, much nearer than before, and paused for as many as ten of Taban’s breaths before reversing and moving away. Taban felt the clear warning in that pause. They wanted the books. The white woman’s presence had made their desire more urgent. They thought Taban was useless, expendable, and maybe even evil. Eventually, the footsteps wouldn’t hesitate; they wouldn’t retreat.

  Sometimes he thought he should simply leave before the situation became treacherous—not only for him, but for his father and Badru too. They weren’t as watchful as he had become; they wouldn’t even recognize the danger until too late. They shouldn’t be sacrificed.

  But where would he go? How would he survive, day to day?

  And besides, what about Kanika?

  Kanika’s footsteps were what first attracted his attention. Her walk was light, almost tripping, and she always headed in his direction without pause. She’d never treated him with fear, never scurried away. His father’s heavy steps spoke of sorrow and guilt; Badru’s were short and controlled. Both reminded him of what he was. Of everyone in Mididima, it was Kanika who treated him like any other person. He couldn’t resist that.

  Now he heard footsteps again, a man, drawing near, stopping. This time Badru noticed too. He looked up and caught Taban’s eye. They sat silently, staring at each other as they listened. It made Taban think of bush rats cowering while the hook-beaked martial eagle looped overhead; and as much as he hated the feeling, he knew Badru hated it more, because Badru was less used to it and felt he didn’t deserve it.

  Taban wished he could apologize, but he felt himself involuntarily harden against the blame he could see in his brother’s eyes—not only for the books, not even mainly for the books. For the hyena. For being what the hyena made him. And for how that had affected Badru’s life.

  Badru waited until the steps walked away. Then, in one fluid movement, he stood, kicked the bowl he’d been eating from, turned, and pushed out the door.

  Taban sat quietly in the empty hut. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Then he bowed to his drawing again.

  The Drum Maker

  ABAYOMI WAS HEAVY-EYED AS HE WALKED BACK TO MIDIDIMA. He’d been tired before, lie-down-on-the-ground, let-the-earth-take-him exhausted. But he’d always known that he had something to do next, and he’d known what it was, and that certainty had been like a drink of vigor. This time, when he thought of his next step, he lacked confidence. He changed his mind as easily as tall grass swayed in the wind.

  He’d left the settlement at noon the day before and returned in the middle of the night to sit alone inside the kilinge. In houses around him, people slept—his sons, his friends, Jwahir. He’d watched the fire for hours, hoping his heart would calm, but the flames were mocking. “What do you want me to do?” he’d asked without any clear sen
se of who “you” was or what form an answer might take. No one replied.

  He’d thought, unreasonable as it sounded, that someone would reply.

  He’d left again before anyone had awakened, and walked in a widening spiral around Mididima until the muscles in his legs shivered with a desire for rest. He’d thought about staying away for another night. Hiding until decisions were made, until issues were resolved without him, and then coming back to find what fate had left him.

  But he couldn’t this time. He was heading back, within sight of his own home now. He had duties.

  First, he had to speak with Taban about the missing books, and right away. It had already become too much a topic in Mididima. But he dreaded questioning Taban. He’d paid no attention to the books—for all he knew, his son had actually handed them over and was being accused without cause by those who’d never trusted him anyway. And besides, because Taban spent so much time inside, alone, he should be allowed his books if he did still have them. Abayomi didn’t want to be the one to take them away.

  Still, it wasn’t fair to leave Badru, as spirited as he was, to defend his brother. Badru had long ago adopted the attitude of the attacking jackal, but it was feigned. Without Taban, Badru might now be learning to read with Matani. He would have been a thoughtful man, like Matani’s father. As it was, the hyena’s attack had disfigured Badru as well as his brother, though Badru’s were scars of defiance. He disdained authority as Abayomi never had. Abayomi only hoped this wouldn’t become his defining trait.

  “Hello, Abayomi,” one of the men called out as he entered the settlement. He nodded greetings. He didn’t expect any questions about where or how he’d spent his night, and certainly not why. His neighbors, he knew, would accept and even honor his need for time apart; after all, no other man here had charge of children. As for his feelings for Jwahir, no one would guess. She’d already been taken, and he’d been unmarried so long he doubted that his maleness even occurred to anyone anymore. Besides, except when the Camel Bookmobile was visiting, he and Jwahir had been discreet.

  Before he went home, he stopped to drink some of the water stored in plastic containers and kept under a small ramada. He shook several empty ones before he found one with water still inside. He’d been thirstier than he’d realized. He drank so quickly that a drop dribbled down his chin and dropped into the earth.

  “The boys are fine?” he asked his cousin Chege.

  “I saw Badru this morning,” Chege answered. “All was well.”

  Abayomi felt only slightly reassured. Chege’s observations of the boys were superficial, he knew. Chege had not been forced to become half-female as Abayomi had, so he wouldn’t notice unless the stench of death emerged from Abayomi’s home. Abayomi’s sons needed their father. They always had, in different ways, and they would go on with that needing for three more years. Then, together, they would join their age group and leave him for month after month to herd cattle outside Mididima, and to form new, grown-up alliances. Already, Badru went to the dances that the young sometimes had beyond the settlement borders. Taban did not, but when the time came, he would follow tradition and go with those his age to herd cattle—he had to, if he hoped to become a man in Mididima.

  That was a time Abayomi dreaded. He feared being alone—he could admit that to himself now. Of course he had a role among his people as the maker of drums, and a place in the procession of his ancestors. But after his boys left, no one would be next to his side when the sun rose. No voices in his hut, no arguing, no laughter, no shared meals.

  No one his age slept alone. He should have married Jwahir long ago, before life got this complicated. Panic and a promise got in the way.

  As he turned from the ramada, he saw the women walking past on their way to the crops. He averted his face, then glanced their direction, trying not to stare, hoping to appear casual. His eyes quickly found Jwahir. Her hips swung forward with each step, then rocked slightly back. His gaze slipped up to the beads around her neck, then to her face. Such a combination of silkiness and determination. She, too, was watching him, but out of the corner of her eye so as not to be obvious. Still, he felt the question in her sideways glance, in the way she moved. He gave her the slightest nod. Her face softened. Her lips curved.

  Yes. After all the unsettled, pondering hours of night, it had been resolved that simply. In that nod, a commitment was made. He’d told her yes, even though he didn’t know how he would bear the consequences.

  Abayomi remembered first noticing Jwahir. She thought it was the day of the Camel Bookmobile’s initial visit, and he hadn’t told her otherwise. He didn’t know how she’d react if she knew that his desire had begun more than a decade before.

  It had been one morning a bit after sunrise. His wife, pregnant with their second child, had already milked the cattle and made breakfast for Badru. Abayomi had just risen and gone outside. There he’d seen Jwahir singing under a tree. She had her back to him; she’d thought herself alone. She was eleven. He couldn’t imagine why she wasn’t working with the rest of the young women. Later he would learn she had a knack for slipping away from work.

  It wasn’t her singing that drew him; her voice, in fact, lacked harmony to his ear, and the lyrics she’d invented were about picking mushrooms after a rain. But as she raised her arms, rotated her shoulders, and swayed her spread legs, the rhythm in her body ran through him like a gulp of palm wine. He was moved by her obvious self-confidence, and by the balanced flow of her body as she danced her feet together and then divided them again. He’d crouched in the shadow of his home, watching until she quit singing and wandered out of sight.

  His wife had been fifteen when she’d married him, and from the start she’d been a shrewd woman, with none of the naïveté from which he himself suffered. It didn’t take her long to sense Abayomi’s attraction to this younger girl, though he never knew how she guessed, since he’d pushed it quickly from his mind. She made him pledge never to take another wife. He’d been embarrassed to have been so easily discovered, and readily agreed. She’d wanted the vow in blood, though, so he’d cut his finger. She’d sucked it, and had their older son, young Badru, do the same, though the toddler didn’t know what he did or why.

  At the time, of course, Abayomi hadn’t anticipated being a widower—probably never, certainly not so soon.

  Taban had been difficult for his wife from the womb. She’d continued to do all of a woman’s work, but she complained of headaches, of blurred vision. Still, he wasn’t prepared to lose her during childbirth. Though Jwahir delighted him, he still cared for his wife.

  After her death, the village elders proposed that Abayomi remarry immediately so a new wife could help care for his sons. They suggested his wife’s sister. He refused, citing his promise not to take another spouse and his desire to concentrate himself on the still sickly newborn Taban. What attention could he give to a woman now, anyway? The elders argued and cajoled, saying that a man was unfit to care for an infant, but they finally gave up, nevertheless still expecting that he’d change his mind soon enough, once faced with the work of rearing children.

  And indeed, after nearly three years of being a widower, Abayomi found that his promise to his first wife no longer seemed to have meaning. He decided she would want him to have help with her children. He began thinking often of Jwahir, then almost fourteen. He rehearsed how he might propose himself to Jwahir’s father, what he might offer. He was strong, a hard worker, and not a poor man.

  One day, he’d walked far from the settlement, Taban on his shoulder and Badru running behind. He’d let the boys play in the bush while he paced a few steps away, thinking of Jwahir and rehearsing his proposal to a gray acacia tree. It was not the first time he’d practiced to a tree. In the beginning, he’d stumbled over his words, but eventually they’d found their way into his blood, and he could speak easily. In a few days, he thought, he would take his application to Jwahir’s father. Then this handsome, confident, lively woman would come to live with him
and his sons, and he could lie with his head against her shoulder.

  He was so close to accomplishing his dream. The vividness of this image of the two of them together was intoxicating that day as he stood before the acacia. He lost himself in his vision, and he allowed his attention to wander from his boys. It wandered until Badru’s high-pitched scream cut the air, and Abayomi turned, and he would never forget the horror of the sight that met him. Over his little boy, there leaned a humpbacked beast with saliva the color of sunset dripping from the corner of its mouth. Its eyes were small orange fires.

  He sprang forward and killed the hyena—later, he couldn’t even remember how—and then he ran as quickly as he could, Taban in his arms, the terrified Badru clinging to his leg. After he reached the settlement, Badru fled to their home to hide, while he took Taban to Matani’s father.

  Taban recovered, after a fashion. But they all three—father and both sons—bore scars, though Abayomi’s and Badru’s were less visible. Abayomi knew what the attack was meant to tell him. It was a warning: he was not to marry another. If he did, his boys would come to further harm, and next time he would be unable to save them.

  He’d confided in Matani’s father, who urged him to regard the tragedy as a condition of life in the bush, not an omen. He knew the sensibility of the advice, but he could dismiss neither his conviction nor his guilt. He waited for Jwahir to marry. That, he thought, would allow him to forget.

  Jwahir, though, did not marry as quickly as the other women. She grew more beautiful and spurned the young men with whom she’d spent her childhood. Her father had two wives and eight children, but only one daughter. He allowed Jwahir her way. So Abayomi had carried a shred of private hope, mostly unacknowledged even to himself, until Matani returned and the two of them wed. Right before the wedding, Matani’s father died, leaving no one to guess at Abayomi’s despair.