The Ghosts & Jamal

by Bridget Blankley

  ‘Hey, boy,’ the cook called to him. ‘Looks to me like you were about to be somewhere else. Don’t you like my stew?’

  ‘Yes, sir, it’s good stew, sir. It’s just …’ Jamal didn’t know what to say.

  ‘It’s just not your mama’s stew, hey?’

  ‘Not Auntie’s stew, sir. My mama died when I was little, but my auntie makes good stew.’ Jamal thought about the smell when Auntie fell on the fire. ‘Made good stew, she made good stew, sir, and soup. Her soup was the best thing she made. It was …’ Jamal didn’t know how to tell the cook about Auntie’s soup.

  The cook smiled as if he knew exactly how Auntie’s soup tasted. ‘Hmm, it takes good soil to make good soup and the soil you grew in is always the best.’

  The cook called the kitchen boy over. ‘You keep stirring that pot. If it burns I’ll beat you.’ The kitchen boy’s eyes widened. Jamal guessed that, nice as the cook seemed, he’d beaten the boy before. Then, after slapping the kitchen boy’s head, just to remind him what might be in store, he called Jamal to the back of the kitchen.

  ‘Now, young man, let’s see if we can make soup like your auntie made you, shall we?’ The cook took a small pot from the shelf and added chicken stock, two spoons of cooked tomatoes and some chopped onions.

  ‘So, we have the base, now we need to make it taste like home.’ The cook took a plate and put little piles of spices on it until it looked like a red and yellow map of the mountains. Then he poured out a cup of water and gave it to Jamal. ‘This is what you do,’ he said. ‘You dip your finger in the spice, then taste it. Like this.’ He touched the top of the reddest pile of spice with his little finger, then sucked the spice till his finger was clean. Jamal could see the cook’s eyes beginning to water.

  ‘Then you tell me if …’ The cook’s voice had gone quiet and slightly squeaky. He coughed. ‘If you remember that spice in your auntie’s soup. And don’t take too much, you understand? These spices are hot.’

  Jamal nodded and carefully tried the first pile of spice. He left the one that had made the cook cough and started with one that was bright yellow. It was soft as the dust that covered moth wings. It wasn’t hot like chillies, but it still made his tongue sting. It was bitter, like the mixture that the health worker gave him to kill worms, almost like the taste of ants when you crunched them between your teeth. It wasn’t a bad taste, but it wasn’t the right taste for soup. He shook his head.

  ‘Have a drink then try another.’

  Jamal did, trying one spice after another, eventually selecting five different spices that reminded him of auntie’s soup.

  ‘Good,’ said the cook. ‘Now some bitter leaves. Try these. Should we add these? Or these ones?’

  And so Jamal and the cook spent the rest of the morning making soup. They stopped when the soldiers came for their lunch. Began again when the cook and the kitchen boys had their rice and stew. Jamal did not have any stew; he wanted to wait for the soup. But he did have a bowl of rice, and a small plate of fried plantain, just to keep him going till the soup was ready.

  After lunch and after the cook had told everyone else what to do, they went back to the soup. It had been cooking slowly while they had been eating and Jamal thought that it tasted better, but still not right. Eventually Jamal said that the soup tasted just like Auntie’s. It didn’t, not really, but it nearly did. The cook told Jamal that he wouldn’t be able to match Auntie’s soup perfectly because he didn’t have her cooking pot. Jamal thought he was just making excuses but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t think that would have been fair, not when the cook had tried so hard to make him food from home.

  Jamal sat under a tree, the one where the lizards hid in the bark. The soup was good, almost as good as Auntie’s. It still didn’t taste of the river fish but Jamal had to admit that it was very good. He put down his spoon and wiped the inside of his bowl with his finger - he didn’t want to waste even the tiniest amount. Then he put down the bowl and started to cry.

  Learning from a Fish?

  Jamal left his bowl under the tree and headed for his room. Usually he wouldn’t have dared to leave his bowl in the compound but he guessed the cook might forgive him this once. And if he doesn’t forgive me, I don’t care, Jamal thought. Even if he shouts and screams and hits me like he hit the kitchen boy. Because even if he does he still won’t be as frightening as Grandfather. Jamal threw a stone at a lizard. He missed.

  ‘I wasn’t even aiming at you,’ he said. ‘I was just throwing the stone and you happened to be there.’ He couldn’t even manage to be mean when he wanted to. Jamal needed to find somewhere to think. He went up to his room and looked around. No one was watching. He slipped inside and took his book from the top of the little cupboard where he kept his things – clean shorts, some pencils and one of the small black pebbles from the mountain. He squeezed himself under the bed and realised he must have grown since he’d been on the base. When he arrived he could hide under the bed easily, but it was difficult now. If I stay at this place much longer, he thought, I’ll have to find somewhere else to hide.

  He opened his book and touched the patterns with his finger. He realised that the patterns kept repeating. When he first got the book, he thought that every pattern and every page was different, but as he’d started to look more carefully he could see this wasn’t true. On some pages he could find the same pattern again and again. There was one that looked like a monkey in a tree, its tail hanging down below the branch, and there was a butterfly, sometimes with its wings open, sometimes closed. That picture was only on a few of the pages. The book had fallen open on his favourite page. It had a fish jumping out of a stream. Sometimes the fish was trying to catch a fly, sometimes it wasn’t, but it was the same fish and the same stream.

  He heard footsteps and looked out. He could see a pair of feet. He knew if he kept quiet the feet would go away. People never thought to look down – they were adults, they didn’t know about hiding under beds. The feet walked away from the bed and Jamal went back to his book. He wanted to look at the patterns again. He was sure they must mean something, tell some kind of story, if only he could work it out. He decided to start with the fish. He turned the pages until he found a pattern where the fish was near the edge of the page, then he followed it across the page and back again. Jamal liked this fish, it was definitely the best of the animals in the book. The fish was always trying to get the fly even though he never quite reached it. Maybe this fish is like a boy, Jamal thought. Maybe it’s like a boy who wants to find ghosts and who keeps going even though people keep stopping him.

  ‘You are talking rubbish, Jamal,’ he said out loud. ‘It’s just a pattern, it doesn’t mean anything. The judge was right: you are simple.’ He shut the book as hard as he could and punched the bed frame above him – and then he found out he wasn’t alone.

  ‘Ow!’

  The woman with the tired voice leant down and peered under the bed. She frowned at Jamal.

  ‘Oh, I thought you’d gone. I mean, I didn’t know,’ Jamal said.

  ‘Good, because I wouldn’t like to think that you meant to punch me.’

  Jamal wondered if he should explain that he wouldn’t ever have punched her on purpose but he wasn’t quite sure if she was serious. She got off the bed and knelt down, looking right at him.

  ‘You’re not simple, Jamal. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you are. You have been sick. You might always be sick or you might get better, but you are not simple. You should go to school if you can and then you can learn to read your book and understand the stories.’

  She smiled. ‘How about coming out from under the bed?’

  Jamal was surprised that someone who looked so tired would say such nice things to him. When his aunties were tired they would shout at his cousins and shout at Jamal. Sometimes they would even shout at his uncles, but his uncles shouted back. Sometimes they even sat by Jamal’s hut and drank palm wine and then made Jamal promise that he wouldn’t tell. He wasn’t
sure why. All the men Jamal knew drank palm wine and they all pretended they didn’t, especially on the days when the Imam came to visit. But it was too late now. He couldn’t ask them why it was a secret when everyone knew. The woman with the tired voice and the tired face hadn’t shouted at him, she had told him to go to school. He made up his mind to think about what she said. But going to school would have to wait. He had important plans to make and not much time to make them.

  Jamal was sure that his grandfather would not come down the mountain to fetch him. But the soldiers would go and find his grandfather. He was sure about that because the soldiers all seemed to be afraid of the judge. Next he tried to count the days in his head. It would take a day to get to the mountain and a day to get back. He didn’t think that the soldiers would try very hard to find his grandfather but he thought that they might pretend to look. Maybe they would find somewhere to stay for a few days or maybe they would go home to their mothers while they could. He was sure it would be at least a week and probably more, before they came back to say that Jamal was alone. But what if they found Grandfather? What if Grandfather was afraid of the soldiers? What if, instead of hiding in the cave or throwing rocks, he came here with the soldiers? What if Jamal had to go back with him? No, no, no, Jamal didn’t want that; he had to find the ghosts and that meant leaving here and finding where they lived.

  And what if the soldiers couldn’t find his grandfather? What had the judge said? Something about sending Jamal to ‘Anof-anage’. He hadn’t heard of that place. It might be very far away: how would he find the ghosts if he was sent away again? He decided to ask the cook where it was. The cook was clearly very clever. He managed to feed everyone and always have food left over to sell at the gate. Yes, Jamal thought, the cook would know where Anof-anage was.

  The judge said they would send him there while he was waiting. Would they do that today or tomorrow? How soon? He ran after the woman with the sad voice. He would ask her. Did he have one day, or two, or even three?

  There had been other children in the compound when he first arrived but they had already gone. Jamal thought they had been sent to a kind of jail. From what he had found out by listening to the cooks and the cleaners it was a special jail for children, where the guards were very strict mamas instead of policemen. He wondered if he would be sent there. Jamal was sure that some of the cooks made up stories so maybe they were making up stories about the jail, but, just in case, he had to get away before they locked him up with the other children.

  He went outside, but the woman with the sad voice had gone. He picked up a stick and started making shapes in the dust. The shapes could have been anything, or they could have been a list of things that he wanted to find – a bag, a bottle, some coins, or was it some akara and a ball – or maybe a pile of dough balls? As he thought, the shapes became less like pictures and more like squiggles. Then the squiggles turned into patterns and the patterns turned into the marks from his book. He was looking at the patterns when the soldier came back to talk to him.

  ‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘You should keep practising. You’ll be writing soon, especially if you pay attention when you go to school.’

  Jamal looked up from his drawing; he thought she had come to tell him that he had to leave.

  ‘Don’t look so worried, Jamal. I only came to tell you that a patrol has been sent out to find your grandfather, but we haven’t found a place to send you yet. You will have to stay here until Friday.’

  Jamal grinned. Friday was good. Friday meant he had almost a week to get ready.

  ‘See, you have three more days to enjoy Cook’s stew. Now run and play.’

  Jamal ran to where the cooks were making supper; there was no one to play with but he was always welcome in the kitchen. He heard the soldier laughing. He wondered if he looked silly when he ran. Why else would she laugh at him? Jamal thought.

  He helped the kitchen boy to peel the vegetables then they threw stones at cans till supper was ready to be served. When he had eaten his supper, he slipped through the tables and went up to the old cook. He was drinking tea and chewing something – not betel, his teeth weren’t red - but something. The cook spat it out. Yuk!

  ‘You want Afiba? He’s cleaning up. You can help him if you want, but don’t stop him working or you’ll both feel the back of my hand.’

  So that was the kitchen boy’s name. Jamal had never heard him called anything but ‘boy’. Jamal hadn’t called him that – it seemed too rude. He’d just say ‘Hi’ and Afiba said the same thing back. But it was nice to know his name. Not much use now though, thought Jamal. Not now I’m going away.

  ‘No, sir. I was looking for you,’ Jamal said. ‘I get so hungry in the night. Is there anything left from supper?’

  The cook lifted his hand and Jamal flinched away from the blow, but instead of hitting his ear the cook put his hand under Jamal’s chin and shook his head.

  ‘Growing at last, eh? I can remember being a boy, you know. I was always hungry too. I tell you what, I’ve got a few bean cakes left. I’ll wrap them in newspaper and you can hide them in your locker.’

  Jamal thanked the cook and tucked his prize under his arm.

  ‘Now don’t go getting grease on the sheets or we’ll both get in trouble, eh?’

  Jamal didn’t expect it to be so easy. He opened the parcel, just to check: there were six delicious bean cakes inside. I’ll just have one, thought Jamal, while they’re hot. It was perfect. Hot and crispy on the outside, while the bean curd was soft and spicy. Grease ran down his fingers as he ate. Maybe just one more, he said to himself. After all, they’re not so good cold and they are very good hot.

  He ran back to his room to hide the food. When he pushed the package into the cupboard the paper caught on the door. A bean cake escaped from the parcel and fell right into Jamal’s hand.

  ‘Guess I’d better eat it now,’ he said, before pushing the rest into the cupboard, right at the back where no one would see them.

  Jamal then went outside to work out how he’d get the other things he needed. But he was shooed back into his room.

  ‘Too late for playing,’ said the nurse. ‘Bed for you, young man.’ There was no arguing with this nurse. So Jamal went back inside and got ready for bed.

  The First Plan

  Jamal didn’t go to sleep, not straight away. He needed to plan what to do next. He didn’t want to run away with nothing – he remembered how hungry he had been when he set off to find his grandfather. He needed to think about where to go as well. He had been following the tracks that the ghosts had left, but the soldiers had brought him here in a truck. The ghosts could be anywhere. How was he going to find them again? He pulled at the cord of his pyjamas; it was a good long piece of string so he could make a list of what he needed to do.

  Find out where Anof-anage was. He tied a knot in the string.

  Get some food for the journey. He tied another knot.

  Find out if anyone else has seen the ghosts. Yet another knot went on the string.

  All this thinking was making him hungry. Jamal leant over and took the last of the bean cakes from his cupboard. He was sure that filling his belly would help him to think. He ate the cakes, licking his fingers when he finished to make sure that none was wasted. At last he went back to his list.

  Get some drinks for the journey. Knot.

  Get a bag, a good strong one, to carry my stuff. Knot, knot.

  Steal a blanket and some spare clothes. Knot, knot.

  He would have to stop adding to the list as there was not much string left. Just enough to keep his pyjamas from falling down. There was one more thing he needed to do.

  Check if the compound door is locked at night.

  He didn’t tie a knot for that. Instead, he slipped out of bed, trying not to make any noise as he walked across the room. He opened the door and the screen door silently. He closed the first door but the screen door slammed shut. Jamal had forgotten about the big spring that shut it tight. He fro
ze, expecting someone to call out. But no one noticed – except one of the colonel’s dogs, and the dogs were always barking at something.

  Jamal started towards the kitchens, wondering if he might find a small snack or two while he was there.

  The frogs were calling as he reached the kitchen and moths were bouncing off the kerosene lamps. He’d have to be back in his bed soon, before the nurse came round to check he was asleep. But he thought he might just have time to see the cook, if he was quick.

  The kitchen was dark except for one small light in the corner. Jamal looked around; there was no sign of the cook. Jamal guessed that the cook had forgotten about the light and he went to turn it off. He remembered when his auntie’s hut had caught fire. They had tried to put it out – they had even let Jamal help, carrying water to the edge of the compound – but it was no use, the hut burnt right down and Auntie Asmel had to share a hut with Auntie Terese. Neither auntie was very happy until a new hut had been built. Jamal didn’t want the kitchen to burn down.

  ‘What are you doing? Get out of my kitchen!’ The voice boomed out of the darkness. The voice was like the cook’s voice, only different. It was slower and more mixed up. Jamal wasn’t sure but he thought it was probably the cook.

  ‘It’s me,’ Jamal called. ‘Are you OK? You sound sick. Shall I fetch someone?’

  ‘Ah, it is my friend Jamal.’

  The cook sounded much less frightening now. His words were still slurred but he sounded much happier.

  ‘You should be in your bed, young man, not here creeping round the kitchen.’