by Keisha Bush
“Ibrahimah, my baby, come to Mama so we can get you into clean clothes before dinner.”
“My kind sir, what is your name?” Idrissa asks as Maimouna leads Ibrahimah by the hand to go bathe.
Ibrahimah looks up at the stranger in the light as he passes; the man’s face is greasy with sweat, his eyes cloudy and dull.
“Marabout Ahmed,” he says with a quiet smile.
Ibrahimah follows his mother out of the living room.
* * *
—
An hour later, his plate cleared of any remnants of the grilled mutton or the bed of fried onions and petit pois that it sat within; Marabout Ahmed wipes his mouth with the white cloth napkin.
“Dinner was nekh.”
Maimouna smiles at the compliment.
“It’s the least we can do, after all that you’ve done for our family.” She rises to prepare the children for bed.
“I should get going,” Ahmed says, standing.
“Where are you staying?” Idrissa asks.
“I’m a guest of the N’Diaye family. I’m here for a few days.”
“Well, please let me know if there’s anything I can do for you while you’re here. My family is at your disposal.”
Ahmed smiles as Idrissa walks him to the door. Before stepping into the night, he spins on his heels.
“Actually, there is something I would like to request of you,” Ahmed says.
“Oh? What is that?”
“I have a daara in Dakar and I’d like Ibrahimah to return with me. We talked the whole way back from the beach. He’d make the perfect student. His cousin is a student in my daara. Ibrahimah is just the kind of disciple I’m looking for. I believe our meeting was Allah’s will.”
“Or perhaps, my brother’s will,” Idrissa says, looking at the empty doorway that held the silhouette of his wife just a moment ago.
Walking out of the door to work the next morning, Idrissa tells Maimouna about Marabout Ahmed’s request, but before she could respond Madame N’Diaye appears at their front door, blurting, “My daughter is getting married!”
Maimouna stares after the retreating figure of her husband.
“The wedding is scheduled for tomorrow!” Madame N’Diaye continues, needing no encouragement.
The twenty-two-year-old girl will be the third wife of a rich Senegalese businessman. Madame N’Diaye cannot believe her family’s luck. Already, the girl has received a dowry of two and a half million francs, along with an abundance of jewelry, perfume, housewares, and other gifts.
“My daughter is such a good girl,” Madame N’Diaye boasts. “She’s given me several gifts already.”
Maimouna shifts her gaze and her attention to the pressing task in front of her. She has twenty-four hours to make three hundred fatayas, her ever-popular meat-and-fish patties, her secret being a local Guinea spice that her husband is able to procure for her from a vendor that specializes in spices, at a market located down by the Casamance River, more than two hours away. Maimouna is happy for her neighbor, but Marabout Ahmed’s request hangs heavily on her mind. She thinks back to Friday’s afternoon mosque. She did not see Marabout Ahmed there, nor had she ever met him. She thinks back to her sister-in-law’s comment. Perhaps, her in-laws had been planning this all along. She rubs the back of her neck and walks into the kitchen.
“Binta! Aisha!” Maimouna calls from the back of the house. “Go fetch water from the well. Fatou, start mixing the dough. Ibrahimah, my baby, stay close to me. I don’t want you out of my sight, you hear?”
Maimouna welcomes the distraction of cooking. Flour is poured into a large metal industrial bowl. Another bowl is filled with spices while Fatou cleans the meat and then uses a meat masher to decimate the tough muscle of mutton. Buckets of water appear, and Aisha and Binta sit rinsing the onions, peeling and then cutting them. Everyone knows their task and so the day passes quickly, and the familiar choreography that has preceded so many past village occasions takes command of Maimouna’s home. Ibrahimah picks up a cooked patty that has fallen on the floor, and then sprinkles flour on the table before his mother lays out the dough.
“Ibrahimah! Are you eating the fatayas again?” Binta exclaims.
Ibrahimah looks up at his sister with big owl eyes and puffed-out cheeks.
“Binta, leave your brother alone. Here, take this finished batch and put them over by the door. Be careful, they’re hot.”
“Fatou, how is dinner coming along?”
“Almost done.”
Fatou, having long since finished mashing the pile of meat, has started grilling the fish for their own meal that evening.
“My goodness, you all are busy!” Idrissa exclaims, arriving home from work and entering the kitchen.
Maimouna looks up from the large bowl of spices and ground meat she’s mixing together.
“How was your day, my love?” she says over her shoulder.
“Good. I harvested eggplant and tomatoes. There should be enough for the week.”
“I need a break from these onions,” Binta says with tears in her eyes.
“Well, go see if Fatou needs help,” Maimouna replies.
“Ibrahimah, what are you doing in the kitchen with the women?” Idrissa quips.
Ibrahimah looks up at his father from the floor, his cheeks puffed out, full of more fataya.
“Let us be. We have much to do. As a matter of fact, my strong husband, perhaps you can go fetch two more buckets of water for us.”
Idrissa kisses Maimouna on the cheek before walking out of the house to do her bidding.
* * *
—
Having worked through the night, with a short break for dinner and to put Ibrahimah to bed, Maimouna and her daughters bring the last batch of fatayas to Madame N’Diaye by noon. The bride’s festivities are just beginning. Pleased with herself, Maimouna places the generous payment inside her brassiere. Two-thirds of the money will go toward the freezer they’re saving for, since the miniature refrigerator they have now is no match for the twelve-hour rolling power outages the village experiences on a regular basis. The remainder of the money will buy extra rice, oil, eggs, and bread for the month.
She catches a glimpse of Marabout Ahmed sitting in the foyer; he’ll bless the bride and groom later in the evening, but Maimouna goes outside. She has nothing to say to him. She regrets allowing the children to go to the beach on Friday, and curses her lack of foresight—she should have been keeping cowrie shells under Ibrahimah’s bed for protection, especially after her dreams.
Maimouna sits down beneath the canopy. Guests arrive in Saloulou from as far as Touba and Dakar, both of which are more than a thirteen-hour drive away, depending on which route one takes. Women wear long silk flowing tops with traditional ankle-length wrap skirts to match. Overstarched boubous in elaborate designs saunter by. Pointy-toed, high-heeled shoes sink without mercy into the loose earth. Layers of expired makeup from France and America give the women washed-out skin tones that remind Maimouna of Morticia from The Addams Family. The entire village has been invited. A wedding is not celebrated in any other way. Everyone is there to see, and be seen.
Idrissa cannot afford to buy Maimouna the most expensive materials for the latest fashions, but he works hard to give her and the children a life to be proud of; her girls go to school and don’t have to work as maids to bring in extra income for the family, and this year Ibrahimah will start school with his sisters. After spending a respectable amount of time enjoying the festivities, she bids her neighbors goodbye; she has to finish preparing dinner. As with many traditional men, Idrissa only eats food cooked at home by his family.
She puts the rice onto the fire and fries a small piece of meat. The crackling sound of the oil reminds her of the days when she lived in Dakar with her uncle Youssef. She remembers watching the American television shows
The Cosby Show, The Addams Family, and Dallas during her free time, her aunt’s shrill voice interrupting Bill Cosby’s jokes; her constant demands of Maimouna never-ending. It amazes her how she ever came back to live in the country that stole her youth; how she left her mother and Guinea a second time, fourteen years ago. She hears the feet of her children bounding through the house.
“Ibrahimah!”
“Na’am!”
“Come, my baby.”
Ibrahimah appears in the doorway.
“You want to drink?”
“No. I want to go play with Moussa.”
“Where are your sisters?”
“Outside.”
“Stay with me a while.”
“But Mama! I want to go play!”
Ibrahimah stomps his foot in defiance, his face contorted in displeasure at Maimouna’s request.
“Ibrahimah!” Fatou calls out from the front of the house.
“Fine, go with your sister. But don’t wander far from her. Fatou!”
“Na’am!”
“Ibrahimah is coming. Don’t let him out of your sight!”
“Na’am!”
Her two children trample out the front door and the house is quiet.
Maimouna thinks about their options as she flips the meat. They are indebted to Marabout Ahmed, that much is true. He found their son, and now he wants the very thing he’d just returned to them, but Ibrahimah is the one thing she’s unwilling to give up. She cannot bear the thought of parting with another child. She pushes the guilt of Aisatu’s death from her mind. The toddler died in her sleep. There was nothing she could have done to save her. Maimouna has to focus all of her energies on Ibrahimah and her three girls, and the boiling rice before her.
When Maimouna first moved to Dakar she was eight years old and her uncle Youssef promised her mother he would take care of her and send her to school. Her first summer there, the city was hot with barely any rain. Maimouna gave her all, learning to cook the traditional Senegalese dishes, cleaning and running errands for her aunt and uncle. She had dreams of living in a house like the one she saw on The Cosby Show. She would go to college in America, find a rich husband, and become a lawyer. When the month of August arrived, she could barely contain her excitement, even while dusting the living-room furniture while her aunt read a magazine.
“What are you so happy about these days?” her aunt asked.
“School. I can’t wait! I will buy pencils and notepads. I will study hard and get the best grades. Mama will be so proud of me. When I become a lawyer in America, I will call for Mama and we will live in a big, fancy house.”
“You, go to school?” Auntie folded the magazine against her lap. “Where did you hear that?”
“Uncle is sending me to school. It is why I’ve come to Dakar.”
“Well, that’s news to me,” her aunt said, picking up the magazine again, which had Whitney Houston on the cover. “We have no money to send you to school. Youssef is still searching for work. We can’t afford it. You watch too much television. This is your reality—go start dinner.”
“But if I’m not going to school, why am I here?”
“You’re here because your mother is too poor to feed you, so now you’re my burden. If you want to avoid living in the streets and prostituting for food, you’ll earn your keep around here. Now go start dinner before I send you back to that shanty in Guinea.”
Maimouna was running out the front door into the street before she knew what she was doing.
“Maimouna, get back in here!”
With the unforgiving sun on her back, Maimouna’s dreams sank into the earth beneath her feet. She looked around, a scared and clueless eight-year-old. She could hear the ocean off in the distance and ran toward it, determined to run until she found Guinea, and her mother.
“Something smells good,” Idrissa says, leaning over to kiss her.
She closes her eyes at the touch of her husband’s lips and smiles.
“Come with me,” she says, covering the rice and setting it to a simmer.
In their bedroom she takes off his shoes and rubs his feet. Idrissa closes his eyes, leans his head back, and grunts in appreciation after his thirteen-hour day on the farm.
“How was your day?” he asks her, lifting his head.
“It was good. I got all the fatayas done in time and received several additional orders from the neighbors and visitors.”
“Wonderful.”
“I think we’ll have enough to buy the freezer this month.”
Idrissa forces a smile. He looks at her quietly as she rubs his feet. The silence is heavy between them. She knows what she has to ask him, but says something easier instead.
“Are you ready to eat?”
“When am I not ready to eat, my love? I’m a lucky man,” he says.
She brings him a plate and sets it down in front of him on the coffee table.
Join me, he gestures.
“I can’t.”
“Try, it’ll do you good.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We cannot refuse,” Idrissa says, rolling a ball of rice with his fingers and plopping it into his mouth.
“We cannot send him away. I can’t survive the loss of another child.”
Maimouna sits down next to her husband.
“You wouldn’t be losing him. It would just be for a little while.”
“I couldn’t live a day without him.”
“My family will not back us up on this. You know my brother’s son is already one of his students, and although Ahmed is not our marabout, to refuse would be an embarrassment to my family. My brother could take back the land my father had him lend me.”
“You are my husband, his father. Protect us.”
“My love, I am trying the best I can. Only Allah has the power to ignore familial and societal obligations,” Idrissa says.
Maimouna falls silent and Idrissa uses the remote to turn the television on. Her mind slips back to the time she tried to run away. Hunger and fatigue sent her back to her uncle’s house two days later.
“Ton-ton, is it true? Am I not going to school?” she asked.
“Maybe next year, my niece, I just can’t afford it right now. But continue to be a good girl and do as my wife tells you. The rewards will come. Wait and see. Allah will bring plenty of blessings for you, Insha’Allah.”
Later that evening, stepping out into the warm night, the sandy floor gives beneath her feet. Idrissa slaps his arm, killing a drunken mosquito. Blood splatters across his arm and hand.
“Eck!”
Maimouna fishes a tissue out of her purse and wipes the gore off his arm. The lights beneath the canopy shine bright, welcoming a new wave of freshly dressed attendees. Ten hours since the festivities began and the food and drinks still flow. The drummers have calmed their beat to a mellow fever, considerate of neighbors who may wish to sleep. The groom has yet to arrive to claim his bride.
Idrissa’s brother comes by to greet him. “Salamalaikum.”
“Malaikumsalam.”
“How goes you, little brother?”
“I am at Allah’s will. And you, big brother? How goes it with you?” Idrissa asks.
“Good, good.”
Maimouna and her sister-in-law follow the men inside Madame N’Diaye’s house. A constant flow of guests moves in and out of the room with monetary offerings for Marabout Ahmed, who sits in the corner of an oversized sofa with dark sunglasses on. Idrissa and his brother sit down next to him while the women sit across from the men and Madame N’Diaye buzzes about the room offering everyone food and drink.
“I leave for Dakar tomorrow,” Ahmed says.
Idrissa does not respond. Maimouna’s heart skips a beat; this cannot be happening.
“My Étienne
has been Marabout Ahmed’s pupil for five years now,” Idrissa’s older brother says.
“And a fine young man he is turning out to be,” Ahmed says.
“Yes,” Idrissa replies, “I’m sure he is, but we’re not comfortable sending Ibrahimah to Dakar. Ibrahimah is our only son. He’s just turned six, too young to be so far away from home.”
“Too young? No man is too young to learn the Quran and the responsibilities of life.”
“I agree with you, brother,” Idrissa states in a quiet tone. “That is why my children learn the Quran with me already.”
“You’re just a farmer, what do you know of the Quran?” his brother snorts.
Maimouna’s sister-in-law sits nodding in agreement with her husband.
“We have a house full of girls. We just lost Aisatu. If something should happen to Ibrahimah…” Maimouna says.
She pulls on her wrists as sweat trickles down the side of her face. The walls of the room look garish and menacing, the air smells of bleached skin and cheap perfume.
“Aisatu passed months ago,” Maimouna’s sister-in-law says, finally opening her mouth, “and this is different. You are young enough. Have more children like I suggested before. You’re too attached to these children, it’s not healthy.”
“I know enough of the Quran that I don’t need to send my son away, brother. We’re not beggars. We work hard to teach our children to have dignity,” Idrissa says.
“Are you calling me a beggar for sending Étienne to Dakar to live as a Talibé?”
“No, my brother, that is not what I mean,” Idrissa says.
Maimouna sits unblinking, her back is stiff; the glare of the light pricks at her eyes.
“Hard work will teach the boy humility. Desire for ungodly things is corrupting our people. Living the life of a Talibé ensures Senegal will have a legion of men devout to Allah and his word, able to overcome obstacles and the influences of the wicked,” Ahmed says.
“We’ve heard stories of how difficult life is for the Talibé in the city. It is unnecessary. We don’t want that for our son,” Idrissa says, looking his brother in the eye now.