No Heaven for Good Boys

by Keisha Bush

  “The girl was so nice,” his mother would say.

  His mother would be proud of him and the new things he learned today. Soon, he will return home, and when he does, he will tell her everything he saw, how the lion licked his hand, the cheetah couldn’t outrun its captors, and the red bird sat on his knee.

  The morning air is cool against the nape of Ibrahimah’s neck; his body aches in symphony with the churns of hunger that assault his belly. Marabout Ahmed has returned from his travels, and the lazy days of the week before, and the visit to the zoo, are but a distant memory. Across the street, nestled beneath the shade of a large tree, sits a vendor with a bounty of fruit at his wooden stand. Ibrahimah salivates at the sight of the bright-yellow bananas and plump, juicy mangoes. He does not have enough money to buy any food, as he has yet to meet his daily quota of three hundred francs for Marabout Ahmed. He assesses the vendor; the man seems nice enough to possibly give him a piece of fruit for free. His eyes linger on the colorful ensemble of food, but before he can ask, someone calls out.

  “Boy!”

  Ibrahimah turns his head in the direction of the voice. Two older Talibé boys are running toward him and his heart stops a moment; they aren’t brothers from his house. With mouths wide, baring teeth, he knows these boys are determined to take what he’s got—even if it’s not much. He flees, turning down Rue Deux, a quiet residential street lined with single-family homes, but the two boys are not far behind, their legs are longer than his. Clouds of dust trail behind him as he crosses over asphalt to dirt roads. Pebbles and stones scrape at his callused soles.

  “Stop now and we won’t beat you!” one of them calls out.

  Clutching his red tin tomato can in one hand, a twenty-five-franc bronze coin in the other, Ibrahimah dashes across the busy road with nary a glance to check for oncoming cars. A moment’s hesitation would give the boys the gain they need to catch him.

  The four sugar cubes that he’d been saving in his can fall out of it. His heart skips another beat as he questions whether to stop and pick them up. Marabout takes four cubes with his morning café, but gifts don’t replace his daily quota of three hundred francs. Money is everything. Ibrahimah doesn’t stop.

  The billowing dust sticks to his sweat-drenched body. His oversized T-shirt, his only piece of clothing, is filthy and plastered to his frame, but he’s lived out on these streets too long to be ashamed of what he looks like. He glances behind him once more to check on the boys. To his surprise they’ve stopped to pick up the fallen sugar cubes. With a bolt of strength, he pushes his body harder and takes the next bend in the road, disappearing behind La Piscine Olympique.

  A quarter mile later he stops, on Rue PE Vingt-Trois, to catch his breath behind a navy-blue Peugeot, parked up on the sidewalk beneath the shade of a tree. Wedged between the car and the cement wall that caches its owner’s house from passersby, he replays his narrow getaway in his head. He peeks out to see if the two boys are still in pursuit, but after several minutes pass, he’s convinced the coast is clear. He abandons his quiet hideaway in search of rich people and his cousin, who was supposed to come back and get him.

  The wide one-way street, lined with two-story houses, soon fills with the sound of young Wolof men dragging their plastic-flip-flopped feet across the pavement, calling out the inventory of the wares they have for sale. The aroma of hot shawarmas and fresh-baked chocolate croissants from Les Ambassades entices anyone within thirty feet of the restaurant. Cars honk their horns incessantly with impatience. Sizing up the pedestrians, Ibrahimah spots a young white woman bouncing along to a separate beat all her own. Checking the road to make sure there are no other Talibé around, he approaches her.

  “Money for my marabout,” he mumbles in Mandinka.

  When tired, Ibrahimah reverts to his native tongue without even realizing it. The young American woman looks down at him. She doesn’t need to understand the words. No one can mistake the sight of a Talibé: the economy-sized red tin tomato can, bare callused feet, shaved heads patched with eczema, skinny bodies, and faces of children without love.

  “Je n’ai pas d’argent,” she says, looking straight ahead as if he isn’t there.

  “Money for my marabout,” he mumbles again, this time in Wolof, the widely spoken dialect in Dakar. If he accepted every refusal he received, he’d never raise any money. His legs do triple time to keep pace with her long-legged strides.

  “Va-t’en!” she snarls.

  He’ll follow her to her destination if necessary. Foreigners don’t like to be followed, and just as he expects, within moments she heaves a sigh of exasperation and digs through her straw bag with the letters J C R E W at the bottom. Ibrahimah doesn’t know what the letters say but he assumes it’s English, because that is what Americans and British people speak.

  She drops a hundred and fifty francs into the red tin can, ignoring his outstretched hand. Without thanking her, Ibrahimah turns to the next person on the street, but the young Ivorian college student with the armful of textbooks walks past him in the direction of Dakar University. A ghost among thieves, beggars, and vagabonds, Ibrahimah is months past the hurt of being ignored. He walks farther down the road and approaches a Senegalese woman selling peanuts on the sidewalk beneath a tree that offers her thin shreds of shade. Her dark, smooth skin is taut and healthy; she looks like the women in his village. She offers him a small packet of peanuts. He takes it and offers her one of his coins but she tells him to keep it.

  “Thank you, ta-ta.”

  “What village are you from?” she asks.

  “Saloulou,” he says, proud that he remembers his home.

  “My village is near there. You remind me of my son when he was your age.”

  Ibrahimah sits down on the curb near the base of her table, eating the nuts. It’s high noon and the sun beats unrelentingly against the earth. Pedestrians and cars alike are few on the road during lunchtime. When the packet is half-finished, he twirls the plastic closed and sets it in his can. With a quick survey of the area to ensure that no Talibé are lurking nearby, he takes his money out of his can. He has three small silver franc pieces and a big bronze coin—almost enough for Marabout. Ibrahimah remembers back when he was just a baby and did not know anything about money. He just liked how shiny the coins looked. Now he knows the value of a franc. He squints up at the sky and smiles. Soon he won’t have to care about money or his marabout. Ramadan is near, marking his seventh birthday. “One year,” his father told him before he left for Dakar with Marabout Ahmed. Just a year and then he can return home.

  “Ibrahimah!”

  He looks over to his right to see Étienne bounding down the road toward him.

  “Étienne!” he cries, and jumps up from the curb.

  Étienne slings his arm across Ibrahimah’s shoulders. “Where’d you go? I was looking all over for you.”

  Ibrahimah relays the story of his narrow getaway to his older cousin.

  “You’re lucky you run fast!”

  “I ran faster than a cheetah,” Ibrahimah says, smiling.

  “You can’t wander off like that. You were supposed to stay at the parking lot of On the Run. I can’t protect you if I don’t know where you are.”

  Ibrahimah nods while keeping pace with Étienne’s longer legs. He got distracted thinking about his family, Marabout, and food. His mind goes to sleep during the day sometimes and when it wakes up everyone is gone.

  They pass by a woman getting ready for the lunch rush and Ibrahimah tugs on Étienne’s arm. She has a table set back from the road and a small grill. The smell of roasting meat fills Ibrahimah’s nostrils, and his mouth becomes wet.

  “Maybe,” Étienne says.

  A dirty white hen runs by screaming as a rooster chases it around in circles, cock-a-doodle doodling. Étienne approaches the woman.

  “Ta-ta, money for my marabout, or food?”


  Étienne’s eyes wander to the sizzling grill behind her. The short, stout woman wears a colorful head wrap that matches her green-and-yellow ensemble perfectly. Her round face is pleasant and her eyes twinkle when she speaks.

  “You’re the first person to ask me for food today. This is my teranga for the day,” she says, handing Étienne a meat patty.

  Étienne motions to Ibrahimah, who lingers behind. Noticing the tiny boy for the first time, the woman calls him over and also hands him a patty. Ibrahimah takes it and begins to devour it. The meat burns his mouth but he doesn’t care. Étienne nudges him in the side.

  “Say thank you. A rude Talibé is a hungry Talibé.”

  “Yah,” Ibrahimah says with a mouth full of patty, the flavor of the perfectly seasoned ground lamb reminding him of his village. “Thank you, ta-ta.”

  The woman bends over and touches his cheek.

  “Eat it slow to make it last.” She turns back to her makeshift kitchen to flip the meat over. On a separate fire, hibiscus leaves are boiling. They will leave a dark-red tea that’s sweetened and served on ice. An old blue sheet hangs above her table to protect hungry patrons from the piercing sun and suffocating car fumes.

  The boys sit down behind a car, hidden from the street.

  “I can eat these all day!” Ibrahimah exclaims, the flaky crust of the patty flying out of his mouth.

  “Me too.”

  Ibrahimah’s face turns solemn. “I don’t like Marabout.”

  Étienne stops eating and looks away. “Marabout takes care of us.”

  “Let’s go back to the village. It’s better there.”

  “We can’t go back. Our papas have sent us here. We belong to Marabout Ahmed, he’s our teacher. You think about it too much,” Étienne says.

  “I didn’t do anything bad. I don’t have to stay! My father said I can come home after a year. When Ramadan arrives again.”

  Ibrahimah hits the ground with his free hand to make his point, but drops his meat patty in the process. Diligently picking the flaky food up with both hands, his panic passes once he resumes eating.

  “We’re not here ’cause we’ve been bad,” Étienne says, looking down at the last smithereens of his fataya. “We’re good Talibé. Marabout says good Talibé go to Paradise and we’ll get seventy-two virgins.”

  “Twenty-seven what?”

  “No, no. Seventy-two virgins. Good Muslims go to Paradise when they die.”

  Ibrahimah frowns. “What’s a virgin?”

  “A girl.”

  “How many is seventy-two?”

  “More than the Talibé at Marabout’s house.”

  Ibrahimah scrunches up his face in disbelief. He does not want to live with seventy-two girls in Paradise. He and Étienne barely find enough food to feed themselves now. How is having to share food with seventy-two girls a reward for being good?

  “Where’s Paradise?”

  “In the sky.” Étienne points up to the cloudless blue space above them.

  “Paradise! Where airplanes go?”

  “Yeah,” Étienne says, as if he himself had planned it that way.

  “I don’t want seventy-two dirgins. Would you be in Paradise with me?”

  “It’s virgins. Yeah, I’ll be in Paradise with you.”

  Ibrahimah looks over at an old abandoned truck set upon four cinder blocks, its wheels long gone.

  “Why is everything so hard,” he whines, “and expensive?” Ibrahimah pops the last of his meat patty into his mouth, dusting his hands on his dirty shirt hem.

  “I don’t know.” Étienne furrows his brow in thought. “It was like this before we got here.”

  Ibrahimah stares blankly at the tire of the old car that hides them from any passersby and inquiring Talibé. He recalls standing in the kitchen with his mother and sisters, the feel of the flour on his fingers as he spread it across the counter before his mother slapped the wet dough down. The heat from the oven leaving his body sweaty, his belly always full of something good to eat.

  “God must not like us.”

  “Don’t say that, he loves you,” Étienne says, frowning.

  “If he loved me, I would be in my village with my family. My mother and father love me. My sisters love me. Marabout doesn’t love me.”

  “How can you know what God’s love is supposed to look like? God is bigger than Marabout. His love is stronger,” Étienne says, looking at Ibrahimah quizzically.

  He rarely disagrees with his cousin, but there is nothing Étienne can say to change his mind. If God is so mighty, then he will return Ibrahimah home; until then it seems Marabout has an edge on God, and so believing in God is like believing his empty red tin tomato can will somehow produce food out of thin air and protect him from Marabout’s cane.

  He gets up from the ground and surveys the road for the direction with the most opportunity. He had stopped depending on God months ago.

  * * *

  —

  “Give me money,” Ibrahimah says to the passenger in the taxi, already scoping out the passenger in the next car. His red tin can presses against his chest in a tight hug.

  Étienne nudges him.

  “Allahu Akbar,” Étienne starts, reciting a verse of the Quran in Arabic while holding his hand out, palm facing up.

  Ibrahimah picks it up about halfway in, mumbling over most of it. He doesn’t really see the point in trying to learn them, or recite them for that matter; people are going to give, or not, regardless of how much of the prayer he knows. With a friendly face and an inviting smile, the British man searches through his satchel and hands each of them a hundred-franc piece, along with a banana for Étienne and an opened pack of cookies for Ibrahimah.

  Over the next five hours, Ibrahimah follows Étienne’s lead, repeating the same script coupled with empty thank-yous and tepid smiles. When the sun begins its descent, after a long day of work, the sidewalks fill with students, cashiers, errand boys, and street vendors walking four, five, and six miles home from downtown Dakar, forgoing the bus fare of one hundred fifty francs. By the time dusk finally settles, Ibrahimah, Étienne, and some of the other Talibé brothers from their house gather in the parking lot of the On the Run Gas Station & Food Plaza, one of the popular hangouts in midtown Dakar. The South African–owned plaza offers one of the few options for pizza and burgers in the neighborhood of Point E. Foreigners, university students, and locals fill the tables located on the outdoor covered porch to eat beef and chicken burgers, pizza, and calzones for dinner. A mini market sits between the two fast-food restaurants and offers a larger selection of yogurt, juice, soda, and other groceries than the local boutique does.

  Cars line up to fill their tanks at the gas pump while hip-hop music plays over the parking lot. Those taking their pizza and burgers to go navigate through the bodies of Talibé boys and the scattering of Mauritanian and Senegalese women, begging with outstretched palms while the other hand straddles a toddler to their hips.

  Étienne, a Talibé for more than five years now, taught Ibrahimah that he’s better off getting someone’s leftovers rather than spending the money he makes on food. Every coin earned is essential for surviving the day with Marabout. But right now, Ibrahimah would rather sleep than eat or beg for more money. He lies down on the sidewalk, next to the computer shop that sits directly across the street from the action in the parking lot of On the Run, and nods off to sleep.

  “Boy. Get up. You shouldn’t sleep on the curb like that,” someone says, shaking Ibrahimah awake.

  Ibrahimah opens his eyes. Above him, the wide, shiny face of the computer-store clerk looms just inches from his own. The pavement scratches at his cheek.

  “Are you okay?” the clerk says, his eyes feigning concern.

  Ibrahimah sits up. He doesn’t remember falling asleep. He rubs at his eyes and looks around bef
ore catching sight of Étienne, who beckons at him now in a hurried manner from across the street.

  “Thank you, ton-ton,” Ibrahimah, still groggy from his nap, mumbles to the clerk.

  He remembers to look both ways before propelling himself across the road.

  “Come quick!” Étienne urges, once Ibrahimah is within earshot.

  Étienne leads him to the far end of the parking lot, behind the food plaza, out of sight from the Rue de Ouakam, where they find several boys and a small bowl of rice. At the sight of food so near, his senses reawaken. He and Étienne wiggle their way into the circle, pushing and shouting as they clamor for a few handfuls of rice and fish bone. In just moments the bowl is scraped clean. Ibrahimah stands up, hungrier than before, when Étienne reaches into his can, and grabs a big shiny coin.

  “No! Don’t take my money! Give it back.” Ibrahimah hits Étienne’s arm.

  “No, Ibrahimah, we share,” Étienne says, holding it up above his head. “I gave when you didn’t have enough, remember? Don’t be a baby. You have enough.”

  Étienne pushes Ibrahimah’s hands away, warding off his cousin’s flailing arms. Ibrahimah lunges at his cousin, his lips in a defiant pout.

  “Marabout will beat me!”

  “But I don’t have enough.”

  “Give me my money. Here, I’ll give you these peanuts,” Ibrahimah says, shoving the half-empty packet of nuts at Étienne.

  “Look”—Étienne waves the peanuts away—“I’ll buy you a Coca.”

  Ibrahimah raises his eyebrows, his fist suspended in the air. A Coca is just what he could use right now.

  “How much money do I have now?”

  Étienne looks into Ibrahimah’s can and grabs the coins, counting.