Desertion

by Abdulrazak Gurnah

  ‘He’s wounded,’ he said, looking round. He realised he was still smiling, a little excited.

  She was standing by the door, her left arm holding the curtain aside. She had only just woken up, he could see that from the dazed and heavy ook in her eyes, from the roughness in her voice. She took three steps forward and looked at the man searchingly. His eyes were open, glowing like grey pebbles in brine. Gloaming. Then he saw them unmistakably blink. His broken lips were open in the middle of a groan. Rehana retreated quickly and Hassanali could only imagine what mad hope had filled her heart for that brief time.

  ‘What have you brought us, our esteemed master?’ she asked behind him, speaking in her mocking voice. Hassanali involuntarily winced. A day that started in that voice was often long and humiliating. He shut his eyes tightly for a second to prepare himself.

  ‘He’s wounded,’ he said again, turning towards her.

  Her mouth was turned down sourly, her chin clenched. He felt his body stiffening with distaste. He saw her chin lift fractionally, taking offence, and realised that his irritation must have shown. But he had also seen the hurt in her eyes despite her anger, so he released his face and allowed his expression to subside. Perhaps she was angry because she had been disturbed. She liked to sleep in the morning. But really, there was a man in a heap at her feet, perhaps dying, and all she could think of was her sleep. Just then, his wife Malika squeezed out from behind Rehana’s right shoulder and made a gasp of sympathetic horror at the sight of the man, her hand flying to her open mouth. It brought the feeling of a smile on his face, her kindness.

  ‘Wait, you!’ Rehana said, stopping Malika as she was about to step forward. ‘Don’t rush over there. Who is this man? Where did you find him? What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Hassanali said softly, in the placating voice he used with Rehana when she was irritated, and which sometimes irritated her more. He didn’t know how else to speak to her when she was displeased, especially when he could not answer her questions. Even when he did have an answer for her, her scorn made him doubt and dissemble. His faltering now, at this moment, showed even to him that he had been credulous once again. ‘He came fro out there. He’s wounded.’

  ‘From out where? Which direction? Wounded by what? What is he sick with?’ Rehana asked, with a look of scornful incredulity. Hassanali was familiar with the look, and wished he could tell her how ugly it made her face which otherwise was attractive and pleasing. But he had never learned a way to say such things to her without making everything worse. ‘What have you brought us, you and your antics? A sick man turns up from who knows where, with who knows what disease, and you bring him straight to our house so we can all die of what he is dying of? You’re a man of affairs, you are. You’re a man of the world, without a doubt. Have you touched him?’

  ‘No,’ Hassanali said, surprised that he hadn’t. He glanced at his wife Malika and she dropped her eyes. She looked so lovely, so uncomplicated, so young. He felt a kind of agony as he looked at her, something between jealous anxiety for her devotion and a longing to please her. ‘The young men picked him up and carried him in here. But you’re right, I did not think of disease. I thought he was hurt. We’d better not touch him until Mamake Zaituni has looked at him. I’ve sent for her. Malika, keep away from him like Rehana says.’

  ‘Now you’re full of wisdom,’ Rehana said sarcastically, wearily. Then looking at the man lying there, and dropping her voice as if not wanting to be discourteous, she said in a voice approaching a whisper: ‘You put him on the eating mat. What were you thinking of, bringing a sick stranger to us like that, without knowing what’s wrong with him? He might die,’ she said, dropping her voice even further, ‘and his relatives will come to blame us.’

  ‘You can’t expect me to leave a suffering son of Adam out there when we can offer him kindness and care,’ Hassanali protested.

  ‘Oh I forget, you’re a man of God,’ Rehana said lightly, even smiling slightly. ‘Next time take him to the mosque where God will look after him. I suppose we should be grateful you didn’t bring us a stinking savage. Has someone gone to call Mamake Zaituni?’

  For years Rehana had treated him as if he was foolish. It was not always so. It was once she grew to be a woman that she spoke to him as if he was sluggish in understanding, as if he was an incompetent in the world. He had thought it amusing at first, Rehana playing at being grown-up, in league with their mother who had turned tetchy with age and widowhood. In the meantime, he laboured day and night to preserve their honour and put food in their mouths. That was another thing he never dared to say, that he laboured as he did and for his thanks they berated him for incompetence in the face of the world. In time, Rehana hardened into her disdainful manner and Hassanali unavoidably became resigned to her scorn. He did not know what else to do. It was not only time that made her so scornful. No, it wasn’t. It was Azad and Hassanali’s part in that. Sometimes her voice swelled through his body and made his eyes water with helplessness.

  ‘Yes, someone has gone for her,’ he said. He glanced at Malika, and she gave him a quick look of recognition then looked away. Is there coffee?’ he asked her, to speak to her and to get away from Rehana.

  Malika nodded. ‘I’ll make some,’ she said, and moved in an exaggerated careful arc around the moaning body towards the braziers.

  In the slow moments in the shop, when he had tired of telling the rosary to pass the time, he could not resist ripples of anxiety that swelled up from nowhere to stifle his breath. They concerned unpredictable and often petty matters. At these times, a small thing handled for too long grew large and troublesome, and one of these things was a dread he had that Malika’s recognition would one day also turn into disdain.

  Rehana lowered herself on to a stool by the back door and leaned against the wall with a sigh, waiting for Mamake Zaituni. Hassanali turned slightly away from her, suppressing feelings of guilt. He was too quick to accept blame. He should harden himself against these unspoken accusations. He leaned against the awning post and looked at the grey bundle of a man he had brought home. He remembered his pleasure at having him there in his backyard and it made him smile to think of Hamza trying to steal him away. Hamza could not resist that kind of thing, always competing, always showing off. Would Hamza have tried to steal the stranger if he had been a stinking savage as Rehana said? He thought not. Hamza had a mouthful of notions about the savage, among whom he had travelled and traded in his younger years: how unpredictable his anger was, how reckless his greed, how uncontrollable his hungers. An animal. Would Hassanali himself have brought him home? That thought made him grin. Of course not, they were all terrified of the savage. Everyone told savage stories all the time. No one survived out there in the open country except the wild beast and the savage, both of whom feared nothing, and of course the fanatical Somali and Abyssinian Hubsh and their relatives, who had long ago lost their reason in endless feuds. He glanced at Rehana, and saw that she was watching him grinning to himself. She shook her head slowly at him, her eyes large and awake now.

  ‘Masikini,’ she said. ‘Poor you.’

  ‘I was thinking of Hamza,’ he said. ‘He wanted to take him to his house. That old man, he always wants to be first.’

  ‘And you stopped him, didn’t you?’ she said, sarcastic awe in her voice.

  At that moment there was a call over the yard wall. Mamake Zaituni had arrived. When Hassanali opened the door, he saw that the elderly magi were settled on the rope bed to await events, and that the two young men were hovering behind Mamake Zaituni as if to protect her from harm. The healer bustled past him, tiny and tireless, reciting prayers in a steady undertone, paying out her life’s spool. Hassanali had not expected the crowd waiting outside. He waved them away, making his gesture ambiguous in case anyone took offence, and closed and bolted the door.

  ‘Is all well in there?’ That was Hamza, making himself heard over everybody as usual. Hassanali opened the door again and hushed them g
en y, but he was pleased to see that the three elderly men were on their feet, and the two young men had good hold of the rope bed and were about to lead off. He waved goodbye and shut the door quickly.

  ‘Hassanali, when are you going to open the shop?’ Jumaane asked over the wall. They wanted him out there as soon as possible, so they could get a report on what was going on.

  ‘I’m coming, my brothers,’ he called back.

  ‘We’re going to pray,’ Ali Kipara called out, perhaps to tempt Hassanali to join them.

  Mamake Zaituni kissed hands with Rehana and Malika, although she did not allow either to kiss her hand really, and made sure to kiss theirs. It was a trick of the humble, to kiss the other’s hand and slip yours away before the kiss could be returned. It was her way to show humility even to the humblest that she never allowed anyone to kiss her hand, and it was said by everyone that this was part of her saintliness and one of the reasons God had given her the gift of healing, as He had to her father before her. Muttering prayers to herself, she took her buibui off and folded it carefully, as if it was made of the finest silk and was fragrant with sandalwood incense rather than of the thinnest cotton which smelled of wood-smoke and grease. Her old cotton shawl was tucked tight around her face and then fell down to her wrists, so that only her hands and her sharp-etched face were visible. She slipped her sandals off and stepped on the mat, then walked round the man without touching him, scrawny and bent like an old bird of prey. She said a prayer, to ask for aid and protection against the unknown. Then she asked Rehana and Malika to go inside the house, to spare the unknown man shame, she said. She spoke sharply, irritably, as if they had looked to gain some improper pleasure by hanging around. She was always like that, brisk and definite, never at a loss about what is proper.

  Rehana made an impatient sound but did not resist. The combination of humility and briskness made Mamake Zaituni impossible to refus and she was the one who always had the presence of mind to know what was best to do. She tore the smock with a thin blade without moving the man, tearing him open from collar to ankle. He was light-complexioned and a European. His body was thin and bony, and he looked brittle and strange in the brightening light. At first Hassanali had thought he was one of those fair-skinned Arabs from the north that he had heard about, with grey eyes and golden hair, but when they took his sandals and trousers off, they saw that he was uncircumcised. Mzungu, Mamake Zaituni said, speaking to herself. A European. He was bruised and torn but had no wounds on the front or sides of his body. His belly was so strangely pale and smooth that it looked cold and dead, and Mamake Zaituni’s bony hands hovered over these parts hesitantly, and Hassanali thought it was with a mixture of fascination and dread, as if she would touch out of curiosity. Those were the same tireless hands that kneaded the dough for the bread that Mamake Zaituni made and sold everyday, the same hands that rolled it and tossed it on the griddle, then turned it and later picked it out without burning themselves. The same hands that massaged an inflamed kidney or dressed a bleeding calf or plunged themselves unhesitatingly into human agony. Now they hovered over the pale belly of the man.

  They turned him over on his side. He groaned and opened his eyes, and Hassanali expected a bad smell to come off him, but he smelled of dry meat and dust, of rags left out in the sun for too long, of travel. He must have been lost for several days, to judge by his starved look and the smell of dust and sun on him. There were more bruises and tears on his back, and a deep green shadow around his right shoulder but no wounds, no blood. They eased him over on his back, then Mamake Zaituni covered him with the torn smock and called the women out. She felt his face, and he groaned again, opening his eyes blearily.

  ‘Give him some honey in warm water,’ she said, speaking sharply as was her manner. ‘One part honey, three parts water in a coffee cup.’ She glanced at Rehana and looked away, hardly making contact. Rehana returned her glance with a sneer. Not me, Hassanali imagined her thinking. ‘Then let him sleep. There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s exhausted and thirsty, that’s for certain. He has a bad bruise round his shoulder, so there might be a break or a dislocation. Let the Legbreaker see to that. I’m going to finish cooking my bread, there’ll be people waiting for it. I’ll bring him some soup afterwards.’

  ‘He hasn’t got a disease?’ Rehana said enquiringly, disbelievingly.

  ‘I don’t see any signs,’ Mamake Zaituni said. ‘No fever, or rash, or bad smells or diarrhoea. It may be the sun has dried him out and made him dizzy. Limemkausha na kumtia kizunguzungu. I’ll come back later after you’ve given him the honey, and after Legbreaker has seen him. I’m going back to my bread now.’

  It seemed that the women had no need of Hassanali any more, rattling off instructions to each other while Mamake Zaituni prepared herself to leave. Hassanali left reluctantly, hoping that the man would speak, or would look at him or in his direction. It did not seem right to leave him to other people after finding him. But he could not speak, or at least he had not by the time Hassanali finally passed into the house to go and open the shop.

  ‘Call me if you need any help,’ he called out. ‘And Malika, don’t forget my coffee.’

  ‘Yes, master,’ Malika said, making a parody of obedience.

  And that was how the Englishman Pearce arrived, causing a sensation and a drama that he never became fully aware of.

  Hassanali was a small man. He thought of himself as small and a bit ridiculous in other people’s eyes, round and overweight. When the banter started he always struggled against the flow of jibes and jokes, and kept quiet to stay out of trouble. He lived in this state of self-absorbed timidity, expecting mockery and inevitably suffering it. He could not disguise his anxiety and people who had known him all his life knew this about him, and made a joke out of it. They said it was something to do with his jinsi, his ancestry. Indian people are cowardly, they said, hopping about like nervous butterflies. His father was not timid. He had been a hothead in his youth, who sang and danced and raced the streets with anyone, and he was the Indian in his jinsi. It was God who made him like this, nothing to do with jinsi, and who was he to argue. Alhamdulillah. He kept his eyes open, on the lookout for trouble, and thought that that was the best he could do. Over the years he learned a kind of wisdom about the people he lived with, although this did not always keep him out of trouble. He took their mockery kindly, pretended there was no malice behind it, just high spirits and a rough friendliness. Over the years he also learned a mild superiority over his customers and neighbours, despite his diffident airs. He was a small man, without a doubt, but he was a small, cunning man. He was a shopseller, a vocation which inevitably required that he outwit his customers, make them pay more than they would like to pay, give them less than they would like to have. He had to do this too in small ways, nothing blatant or aggressive. When he heard of the ruses and deals the merchants made and the profits that came from them, he quivered with a panicky terror and envy at the risk of it. So they laughed at him and he made them pay, a little. He thought of it as an arrangement that came with the job.

  Sometimes he thought they laughed at him because they could see the pleasure he felt in the tiny advantage he took of them. Sometimes he wished he was something else, a baker or a carpenter, something useful. But he wasn’t, he was a shopseller, like so many others. His father was a shopseller, and his own son, when he had one, would be a shopseller. They were small people.

  When he opened the shop that morning, there were three customers waiting. They flustered him, even though one of them was only a child and the other two were the young men who had carried the injured European to his house, and were now waiting for him to thank them. We’ve been waiting for you all this time, the young men said, and now we’ll surely be late for work. Usually he was able to take his time opening the shop when he returned from the dawn prayers, when there was no one around. It was an elaborate business. The front of the shop was a series of thick planks, each two hands’-breadth wide, eighteen of them in
all. He removed the first two planks and served the child from there. A ladleful of ghee and give my regards to the house. He gave the two young men ten anna each. They accepted the coins but did not move, standing in front of him with suppressed smiles. They were good young men, Salim and Babu. They too had come to his shop on errands for their mothers, like the boy he had sold a ladle of ghee to, and would probably be his customers for the rest of his life. He gave them another ten anna each, and then another before they went away, pleased at the way they had browbeaten him into generosity. It was because everyone thought him richer than he was, and so took his thrift for miserliness. It was a terrible thing to be thought a miser, to be a sinner against God’s injunction that the prosperous should be generous to the needy. People were always paying their few annas and rupees to the shopseller, who sat on his backside all day and night over the mounds of goods they desired, so they assumed all he had to do was pile up the money. That was what was said about shopsellers, that they lived like paupers and hid their wealth in a hole in the backyard.

  Hassanali took the remaining sixteen planks out one at a time, and made a pile of them against the outside of the shop. Then he pulled out the hinged flaps and rested them on the platform of planks, and then arranged the display of goods in their habitual places. Then he arranged himself amid the variety of containers for oil, for ghee, for spices, among straw baskets of lentils and beans and dates, and sacks of rice and sugar. It all took time. Eventually he was done, and his thoughts turned to the coffee Malika had promised him and perhaps a bun or a piece of bread. His thought turned to the man who was lying under the awning in his yard. He felt a pang of inadequacy. What kind of man would leave his home to wander in a wilderness thousands of miles away? Was that courage or a kind of craziness? What was there here that was superior to what he had left behind? Hassanali could not imagine the impulse that would make him wish to do such wanderings. Wa he a fool to leave a strange man, without a voice or a name, in the house with his sister and his wife? If he became violent or attempted the unthinkable, Hassanali’s negligence would be unforgivable. He stood at the doorway that led from the shop into the inside of the house and called for Malika. ‘Hurry hurry, come here now.’