Black Mamba Boy

by Nadifa Mohamed

  Jama climbed the ladder, throwing himself into a corner of what was essentially a large wooden crate containing goats, chickens, mangoes, onions, qat, and huddled men. There was a stirring as the child boarded; eyes peeped out and looked him up and down before falling back into sleep. The metal bars around the crate dug into Jama’s neck and stopped him sleeping, so he turned around and bade farewell to his homeland, a captured prince exiled along with goats and chickens. His land had been carved up among France, Italy, Britain, and Abyssinia. Somalis gathered beside wells to discover what was happening to their world, they learned about the machinations of the Ferengis the same way they had heard about Islam, only now the message wasn’t salvation but calamity. The coming tragedy was hinted at by the burning, mustard-scented winds blowing in from Abyssinia, the silence of the great League of Nations gossiped about by nomads in the desert.

  The British had built the road to ease their passage into and out of their possession, and now Jama trundled along it, making slow progress toward the artificial border between Somaliland and Djibouti. The sun had fully reclaimed sovereignty over the sky and shone down on her subjects. The smell of grease, petrol, and rot drifted into Jama’s nose but he forced the bile back down his throat, willing this journey to come to an end.

  DJIBOUTI TOWN, DJIBOUTI, SEPTEMBER 1936

  No border or sign alerted Jama to the fact that he was in a new country, it was just a feeling of going under. The lorry moved along with its nose pointing down, down until it straightened out in a plateau of bewildering heat. Djibouti looked even more barren and fearsome than Somaliland, and the few trees that dared exist held up their arms in defeat. The earth was bleached white and the few comforts that the Somali desert shyly held out, blossoming cacti, large matronly bushes, lush candelabra euphorbia, were here maliciously denied. The air had a corruption to it, a mingled scent of sleaze, sweat, and goat droppings. Jama could hear people talking in a strange language over the din of road drilling. To his amazement they drove past a knot of reddened European men in tight little shorts, grown men in shorts so small that they nearly revealed what Allah had commanded be hidden. They stood, hands on hips, thick mustaches bristling under their boxy hats, ordering around a group of sweating Somali workers. Jama’s neck craned back to look at these men as the lorry sped past, certain that it was his first glimpse of the dangerous, womanly men of sin he had heard about in Aden. Jama’s hands gripped the planks of the crate as he watched the mysterious men retreat into the distance.

  A man with moss green teeth waved him back down. “Fransiis, Fransiis, settle down, they’re just Frenchies, country boy, haven’t you been out of the wilderness before?” His mocking bloodshot eyes stayed on Jama as he sat down and self-consciously composed himself.

  A breeze blew into Jama’s face, the smell of salt blowing in from the Red Sea, and the warm wetness of the air gave him an impression of traveling through a town at the bottom of the ocean. The lorry slowed down in traffic, and arms and legs grew out of the blankets around him, stretching and straightening. They had reached their destination. Their lorry sat sadly in the traffic, after so many miles of whistling along clear desert roads, chuggering out sooty smoke from its rattling exhaust pipe. They climbed out of the back, passing a few coins to one of the many arms sticking out of the driver’s cab, heads all fixed ahead, cheeks bulging with masticated qat. Jama felt like fainting; the heat from the vehicles pushed up the temperature by a few more unbearable degrees. Cars and lorries were strung in a neat chain while army vehicles tried to weave in and out of the line, their horns blasting a path through, and muscled pink forearms waved directions at the uninterested crowd. Drivers had left their seats to converse but now they jeered at the pompous legionnaires. Still only on the outskirts of Djibouti Town, Jama could already feel its bustling energy. He approached the beginning of the traffic jam and saw its cause; European soldiers manned a checkpoint and were nearly taking apart the vehicles in search of smuggled goods. Ignoring the complaints and abuse of drivers, banana crates were jimmied open, livestock were released from their pens, sleeping travelers were patted down. Amid all this commotion Jama eased his way around the checkpoint behind the backs of armed legionnaires.

  A wide boulevard opened up before him. Jama dawdled along, enjoying the novelty of paving slabs under his feet. In Hargeisa the ground was made up of a hundred different types of sand but there was not one paving slab in the whole town. Here, palm trees grew by the side of the street, evenly paced out like guards. Buildings stood in the distance, with a style at odds with Somali or Adeni construction; they were curvaceous and tall, and built to last much longer than the edifices of the British in Hargeisa. This town was conjured up from the fantasies of its conquerors, a home away from home despite the anti-European climate; a provincial French town picked up and dropped into the hottest place on earth. Stalls were laid out by the street under grass awnings, groups of women sold just watermelons, or just bananas, or just oranges.

  As Jama walked on, the street came to life, market boys argued and fought, young mothers with chains of copper coins over their foreheads sat outside chatting as their babies slept. Old women shuffled around barefoot, discreetly begging, suited men came back home for siestas and to await the qat deliveries. A pretty mosque with red and turquoise banners flying from its minarets gave out the aadaan; water was sold from the backs of dozy-looking donkeys like in Hargeisa. No one paid any notice to the eleven-year-old, as this was a town accustomed to a constant tide of newcomers, Yemenis, Afars, Somalis, Indians, French colonials, all feeling that this town belonged to them. There were clashes, love affairs, and friendships among the communities but there was also just plain indifference.

  Jama wandered around, happy to be back to the energy of Aden, getting a thrill from the taxis whizzing past, the wet heat wrapped around his body. The shops and stalls, their bright goods laid out for admiration, pulled at him. If it wasn’t for his hunger to see his father, he would have disappeared into the market’s crowded alleys to find friends among the filth and chicanery. Nosy goats peered out from doorways, nibbling delicately on vegetable peels and oily paper wrappers as they silently observed the passing crowd with inquisitive eyes. Their thirsty, frustrated kids jittered around under their feet, trying to grab at their hoisted teats, the milk commandeered for human enjoyment by red, blue, or yellow cloth guards tied around their mothers’ dripping udders. The crush of life around Jama was breathtaking, after the space and wide horizons of Somaliland. It seemed bizarre for so many people to be concentrated in one place. And the noise! It was as if he had been deaf for months and his ears had cracked open, allowing a cacophony of shouting, swearing, music, and arguing to pour in. Men stood around corners in knots, leaning against crumbling walls, their thin chests sticking out from unbuttoned shirts, sweat cascading down their fine features, qat stalks clamped between their teeth, their eyes followed market girls, probing and prodding them as they sashayed past.

  Jama sat under a palm tree and scanned around for another lorry, but he was at the heart of a vast shantytown and could see no way out. Under the shade of the palm, surrounded by noise and movement, everything started to swim around Jama, donkey carts traversed the sky and birds flew with their backs to the ground. Jama’s eyes rolled back and his head slammed onto the dirt.

  _______

  When he woke up, Jama realized he had been moved. He was in a small damp room, facing a peeling blue door that creaked on its hinges with the breeze. Through the dim light he saw a cat with a leopard coat dart out into the street as clattering footsteps approached. Jama shut his eyes quickly as a man and woman entered. “What have you done, Idea?” the woman gasped.

  “I found him outside, Amina, he had collapsed under the palm tree. I tried to wake him and give him water, but he was dead to the world, so I brought him in.”

  The woman rushed over to Jama and placed a hand on his head. “Honey, you’re burning up, what’s wrong?”

  Jama mouthed words at her b
ut nothing came out. She put a glass of water to his mouth, and it burned as it slid down his parched throat. “I’ll get him some rice.” She rushed off, agile legs like springs beneath her, uncovered hair flaring around her in black and gray rivulets. The husband stood over Jama, his mouth lopsided, Jama staring at it from the corner of his eye. When he smiled a row of golden teeth peeked out, and a smile inched across Jama’s face at the memory of Shidane and his silly tale of smugglers hiding diamonds within their gold teeth. The husband, thinking that the boy was smiling at him, released his full, droopy, manic-looking smile, his eyes twinkling in the dark room. “So, who is this strong young man?” the wife called out.

  “This boy has come to be my ally, Amina, so I won’t be bullied anymore by you and the hags you call friends,” replied her husband in a deep voice.

  “Ignore him, my son, he’s unemployed,” teased his wife.

  “Jama Guure Mohamed Naaleyeh Gatteh Eddoy Sahel Beneen Samatar Rooble Mattan,” stated Jama proudly. The man and woman nodded approvingly, hiding their amusement.

  “And who are your people?” asked Amina.

  “Eidegalle.”

  “Ah, a noble Eidegalle has fallen into our Issa hands. Don’t you know our clans are at war?” Idea laughed. Jama was entranced by this eccentric man and his outlandish face. When he was serious, he cocked his head to one side and his mouth was set in a sad slope, but then he would explode with mirth, and his eyes, nose, lips, and teeth would fly in different directions. Jama quickly learned that this man could speak English, French, Afar, and Arabic as well as Somali, but spent his time cooking, cleaning, and loving his wife, who worked as a cleaner in a colonial office.

  Idea was the man’s name, or to be more precise his nickname, given to him by his childhood friends because of his intelligence. He had been a teacher in government schools until, disheartened with the uses that the colonial government made of that education, he had put down his chalk and become the only male wife in Djibouti. Idea saw that the schools did not disseminate knowledge but propaganda, blinding the young to any beauty or good in themselves. On hard benches the children were taught everything French and nothing about themselves; they were only dark slates to be written over with white chalk. He spoke to Jama as if he were talking to an old friend. In fact, so beguilingly that Jama lost his guarded manner and told him things in return; how he was going to find his father, why he had left Hargeisa, and how he had learned Arabic and a smattering of Hindi and Hebrew on the streets of Aden. They spoke animatedly in a Somali interlaced with Arabic, attracting Amina’s mockery. “Oh, here he goes again! Always showing off, why don’t you use that babble babble to get a job, eh? No use knowing those birdy languages if you just sit at home.”

  Amina’s husband held up a finger. “Jama, let me tell you one thing, while you stay with us, ignore everything this woman says. I swear she is the most ignorant woman you will ever find, she thinks that you make mules by mating donkeys with dogs.” Amina and her husband both cackled at each other’s insults.

  Idea prepared that night’s dinner, and it was the best food Jama had ever tasted, fresh spicy fish served with warm, honeyed roti, a dip made from crushed dates, and another sauce of softened banana. Jama picked at the fish bones until there was nothing left on them. It was a world beyond the slop that the male cooks in eating houses served, and Idea looked delighted at the impact that it made on his guest. “Jama, I bet you have never eaten fish before, eh? Just rice and a little bit of camel or lamb. We Somalis have such a wide coast but we hate fish, why is this?” asked Idea ruminatively.

  “I have eaten it before! We used to steal anything we wanted from the cafés in Aden.”

  “Good for you, but Jama, I see nomads—Somali and Afar to be fair—holding their noses! Actually holding their noses as they walk past the fish market, and you can see their stomachs caved in with hunger! By God, it makes no sense!”

  Jama, feeling full and content, leaned back, his stuffed stomach poking into the air. The paraffin lamp was lit and the adults stayed up talking softly into the amber-lit night. The last thing Jama noticed was a downy cotton sheet being laid over him.

  In the morning, piercing white light flooded through the window. Jama dozed while Idea opened the curtains, swept the floor, prepared anjeero, and sang songs in different tongues. He was already dressed in a crumpled European shirt and trousers that swung a little above his ankles, thick-strapped brown leather sandals on his feet. Amina had left for work and Idea bumbled around the room, looking at a loss. “So, Jama, what are we going to do today?” said Idea, flicking his hands as if he were scattering his words over Jama, who looked around the room, at the stack of dusty books in the corner, torn pages sticking out of them, at the clothes neatly folded on a shelf, at the pretty gilt-edged mirror with black dots on its surface, and shrugged his shoulders. They sat looking at each other for a minute before Idea said, “Come on, get washed up, I’ll show you around town.” Jama washed his face, brushed his teeth with his finger, and poured some water over his chest and arms.

  “The tour will start here from my house, the center of my world,” declared Idea in a clear, authoritative voice. “This mosque ahead of us was built by the Ottomans, heard of them? No? The descendants of Usman, those plump Turkish lords of the east and west. The little flags are meant to represent Islam’s power in all four corners of the world.

  “This alley leads to Boulevard de Bender, where our resourceful women sell everything from green chilies to stuffed cobras, pomegranates and leopard skins, medicines and love potions, absolutely everything,” boomed Idea. “I’m sure there are probably even a few souls to be found. There are definitely bodies; the Arabs here sell little boys your age to their cousins over the sea.”

  “Do you miss being a teacher?” Jama asked.

  Idea stopped walking and looked down on Jama. “No. When I was a teacher I was working for people who had no respect for me or anyone like me.”

  An old beggar woman leaned on a stick by the mosque wall, her raisin black hand held silently out to them. A young boy sat by her feet, a solitary leg emerging from his dirty shorts, his hair and eyelashes dust-matted. Idea passed a coin to the old woman. “Come on, I’ll show you the sadhu.” Idea picked up his step, rushing through the alley as its nighttime corruption faded into daylight commerce. Bras were removed languidly from balconies and curtains were drawn as the port women bade farewell to the sailors and retired for the day. Idea moved around like a sniffer dog, barely looking up as he shuffled along, until they reached an open road with taxis buzzing by. In between a shop called Punjabi Fabrics and a scrum of black-market, female money changers was one of the strangest sights Jama had ever seen. An Indian man, naked apart from a strip of cloth around his privates, sat on a crate with his feet pressed into his lean thighs. Orange markings were pasted on his forehead and his long white hair was coiled in a snake’s nest on his head. The sadhu’s eyes were serenely closed; a fat hand-rolled cigarette burned in his left hand, smelling musky and herbal. Jama touched the sadhu’s foot lightly with his fingertips, hoping that the mystic’s flesh would bring him luck or perhaps ignite the good fortune he was said to possess.

  “Come on, Jama, on to Plateau du Serpent,” shouted Idea. Beyond the cafés and offices of Place Menelik were the colonial residences, and Idea was keen to walk through this forbidden part of town.

  Idea pointed down to the road, which suddenly became tarred as it approached the European houses. “Take note, Jama, take note of all the little differences.”

  Jama had had many bad experiences with bawabs when he went to admire the big houses in the European settlement in Aden, but Idea had no fear of them. He raised his arm and shouted “Hoi-hoi” at the uniformed Africans guarding the grand houses. They did not respond; staves in hand, they watched Jama and Idea with hostile eyes.

  Idea took a deep breath. “My boy, this is a sad, sordid place. Everything, everyone can be bought here, the poor live above open sewers while the rich frolic
in those European hotel pools, gormless, mindless, empty people. The French have us in their palms, feeding us, curing us, beating us, fucking us as they please.”

  Jama wasn’t sure what Idea wanted to show him but he was getting nervous that the police would come. Idea took Jama’s hand and they crossed the road to a fenced garden. “Look at that, Jama.”

  Under the shade of palm trees hung two swings, a wooden slide led into a sand pit, an empty merry-go-round spun with the breeze. Idea picked Jama up under his legs and threw him over the fence. “Go and play,” he ordered. Jama was caught between childish excitement and adolescent embarrassment, but he obeyed. He tested his weight against the swings then started to push himself a little, worried that he would break the rope and be arrested.

  “Go to the other one now,” Idea called out.

  Jama slid down into the sand pit and then got into the merry-go-round and pushed uncertainly, not sure what the machine was meant to do. A Somali ayah came along with a flame-haired baby in a crow black carriage; an old Indian ayah led a young boy by the hand. The European children were stopped by neighbors who ruffled their hair and rubbed imaginary marks off their skin. Already the children expected to be fussed over and adored and did not smile at the attention. Jama knew that everywhere they went they would be offered good things even though they wanted for nothing. In the shops in Aden, Indian merchants would not allow Somali children over the threshold, while Ferengi children ran in and demanded sweets and toys from Uncle Krishna.

  “I’ve had enough now, Idea.” Jama extricated himself from the merry-go-round and climbed over the fence. Idea seemed satisfied that he’d made his point, and he held out his hand for Jama to hold, but Jama didn’t take it, he wanted Idea to know that he was a young man, not a child.

  The house was filled with a drowning silence, as if there were things going on far away but the sound of them was submerged under meters of water. Jama got up and walked out of the house. He had slept late; the sun was approaching its zenith. He hoped that Idea had gone to the suq as his stomach was already rumbling. Jama walked absentmindedly through the gloomy room and stared at his reflection in the mottled tin mirror. His eyes were sunken and his brown irises were encircled with broad bands of pale blue; his eyes had a look in them that was at once beseeching and proud. Jama’s eyebrows were thick and dramatically arched, his nose wide and flat like a lion’s. His lips were full, and he clenched them together so that he looked manly and serious. His hair was fine and had a blond tinge near the temples from hunger; it had retreated from his forehead, leaving little tufts where his hairline used to be. His chest was embarrassingly bony and he could count all his ribs, and if he turned around all the vertebrae in his spine, too; his arms were as thin, with elbows sharp and jutting. Jama put his fists on his waist and puffed out his stomach and cheeks, to see how he would look as a fat rich kid. He turned to the side and laughed at his pregnant silhouette. There was movement at the door, and he saw Idea watching with his loopy smile.