by Keisha Bush
A warm breeze passes by and he opens his palms and pushes his hand against it. Following Étienne into Liberté Trois, they stop in front of a small dark makeshift restaurant filled with the aroma of rice, tomatoes, peanut oil, and fish. Inside, the woman working at the register greets him with a smile. Ibrahimah doesn’t look up into her face until she walks over and strokes his cheek.
“Ta-ta!”
He can’t believe his luck. He thought he’d never see Aria again.
“It’s been a long time, Ibrahimah. I miss you too much, my chou-chou,” she gushes as she bends down and scoops him up in her arms. “How did you find me? Are you here all alone? I heard you were very sick.”
“Where’s Moustapha? Did he come back from America?”
Aria clucks her teeth. “No, I don’t believe he and his parents will be back for a long time.”
“Oh,” Ibrahimah replies, dropping his head.
“No matter, we have found each other again. That is good, yes?”
“Yes!”
Ibrahimah smiles up at the gentle older woman who reminds him of his mother. She leads him to the back of the restaurant and sets a platter of food in front of him, along with a cup of Fanta orange soda. Ibrahimah’s eyes pop open wide.
“For me?”
He never thought he would eat Aria’s delicious food again.
“Yes. So, you can get strong again.”
“I have no money.” Ibrahimah frowns with worry.
“You are my baby,” Aria says, placing her hand to her chest. “Whatever I have is yours. Having you near me is a blessing from Allah. Eat!” She heads back to the register to attend to her customers.
Ibrahimah cups his hand over his face and prays for Aria. He is sure his mother sent her to him. He sits down and puts a small amount of rice in his mouth. His appetite is not what it used to be.
“This is a good surprise,” he says, smiling.
Étienne pushes a piece of fish to his side of the platter.
“I’m okay.” Ibrahimah looks around. Inside the small dark room of the restaurant sit a long table and eight chairs where customers can eat. The restaurant space is attached to a small house and opens up into a backyard; the tiny unpaved area has a single patch of grass surrounded by arid earth. A big luscious mango tree sits in the center, keeping the space cool and shady, and a ram stands nearby eating the lonesome patch of grass for its lunch. Ibrahimah puts a piece of fish in his mouth and chews it slowly and steadily. There is a lull in the restaurant and Aria returns.
“Ibrahimah, I asked around about your parents,” Aria says.
“My mother is alive,” he says, not looking up from the food.
“Oh? How do you know?” she asks, her head cocked to the side.
“She told me when I saw her.”
“When did you see her?”
“In my dream. She’s waiting for us in the village.”
Étienne looks at Aria and then Ibrahimah.
“Us?”
“Me and Étienne,” Ibrahimah says, motioning to his cousin.
Aria raises her eyebrows.
“Ahh, I see. Étienne has come back for you?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, after you eat go inside the kitchen; beneath the sink something waits for you.”
A customer rings the bell at the counter and Aria heads back.
Étienne stands up and beckons for Ibrahimah to follow him. Ibrahimah stuffs a piece of fish into his mouth and follows Étienne into Aria’s kitchen. Étienne points to the cabinet door.
“What?”
Étienne rolls his eyes in exasperation, pointing. Ibrahimah falls to his knees, swings the door open, and finds a small black box inside. Ibrahimah stares at the box a moment, then like the switch of a lightbulb, it all comes back to him.
“Moustapha!”
Ibrahimah enters the code their friend taught them, and the safe clicks and the door flies open. On the top shelf sits a small green man. It’s the G.I. Joe Ibrahimah used to play with while they watched cartoons. A rush of love and joy fills his chest.
“Moustapha left this for me?” Ibrahimah laughs in delight and surprise. “I thought he took our money to America.”
They had close to five thousand francs left in there from the bounty of cash they had raised during Ramadan. He won’t have to work so hard for a while. When Ibrahimah looks back inside the safe, he bends down to look at the back of the bottom shelf. Expecting to see five thousand francs he’s shocked to see a multitude of ten-thousand-franc bills, neatly stacked. Before he can process the weight of the situation, Ibrahimah slams the door shut and shakes his head, as if trying to wake from a dream.
“Étienne…”
Silence fills the space around him.
“But Étienne”—Ibrahimah struggles to catch his breath—“we’re rich! Did Moustapha leave us all this money?” Ibrahimah squeals.
Étienne shakes his head no.
“Where did it come from?”
Étienne is quiet, a dark shadow falling over his eyes.
“Well, I can go home to my mama now,” Ibrahimah says, and stands up straight. He pauses a moment and thinks of going to see Moustapha in America. He looks over at Étienne, but his cousin frowns at him. No, Étienne is right. He needs to see his family first, and then they can go to America. Ibrahimah opens the safe again and stares at the money; when he looks back up Étienne is gone.
“Étienne.”
Ibrahimah gets up and looks around the neighboring rooms for his cousin.
“Étienne? Étienne!”
He returns to the kitchen and sits expressionless on the floor of the kitchen until Aria comes searching for him.
“You found your surprise?”
“Yes.”
“Moustapha was so worried about giving you boys this safe when he was leaving. There was little time to prepare before they left. I searched around for quite some time but finally found who your marabout is and that’s when I learned you were sick, and found Étienne.”
“Oh.”
“What’s wrong, little one?”
“I want to go home, but with Étienne.”
“You’ll see your family again soon. Don’t you worry. And your cousin will always come back to look after you. Death cannot break the bond of a love so deep.”
Ibrahimah nods, though he questions everything that has happened.
“I will give you a bath later. I have some clothes that will fit you.”
“Pants?”
“Yes, pants, my chou-chou.”
The bell rings again, signaling another customer. He’ll ask Fatik tonight to go with him; there’s no way his friend can refuse him once Ibrahimah shows him the money. He can do anything as long as he has money. Money fixes everything. Ibrahimah searches out a piece of cloth and wraps the bills in it. Étienne did good. Ibrahimah leaves a stack of ten-thousand-franc notes on the kitchen counter beneath a carton of eggs for Aria. Tears blur his vision as he walks back to his plate of food. His G.I. Joe sits on top of the bounty of money inside his red tin tomato can. He can already taste the ocean air of his village.
His bags are heavy, his black boubou soaking wet, his feet covered in mud, and his face is set in a scowl when he discovers the door is locked. When he bangs on it, green paint chips fall to his feet. Hawa swings the door open, the baby strapped to her back. Her eyes open wide with surprise.
“What are you doing here?” she blurts.
Ahmed barrels past her. “Get my bags,” he growls, motioning behind him.
Upstairs he pulls his clothes off and steps into the shower. The cold water does nothing to calm him down. Towel-dried, in a plain blue ankle-length dashiki, he lies down and goes to sleep. The sound of the rain outside the window rages through the night.
The smell
of eggs and café wakes him in the morning. Downstairs, the contents of his suitcase are drying on the clothesline in the sun. His wife arrives with breakfast, her eyes nervous. The house is quiet; no birds sing outside the window, no fresh ocean air sweeps through the room.
“Your mother went out for a bit to visit friends. The maid is at the market. I have to go to my papa. He is having pain. The kids are at school.” Hawa pauses a moment and then adds, “Hassan is upstairs in bed, he has a fever.”
She stands over him, twisting the hem of her shirt, and glances up at the ceiling. Ahmed grunts at her and stares at the black television screen. He stuffs the food into his greedy mouth; a smudge of butter sits on his bottom lip and bread crumbles down to his chest.
“If I had known you were coming, we could have prepared. How long are you here?”
Ahmed’s heavy breathing fills the air.
“Well, we’ll make your favorite tomorrow for dinner,” she mumbles to herself. The baby strapped to her back stirs. She swings her hand behind her and caresses its bottom.
“I’m going. The maid will return any moment.”
Beads of sweat sprout up across his forehead. The heat taunts everything within its midst before the late-afternoon rain. A spider crawls up the wall behind the television. Changing its mind, it turns to the window and exits in one swift move. A copy of Le Quotidien sits beside him, crispy and warped.
Ahmed is sitting in the same spot when the afternoon heat arrives; the food residue on his plate has hardened and his robe is drenched in sweat—the open window brings no relief. The sound of a thud above his head catches his attention. He walks upstairs, slow and meticulous, and pokes his head into Hassan’s room.
“Papa! I didn’t know you were home.”
“I am. Why are you home?”
“I have a fever.”
Ahmed steps into the room. Hassan sits on the floor playing with a toy truck Ahmed brought home last Ramadan. His sons are no less deserving than the president’s children.
“You like your truck?”
Hassan smiles big, his two bottom teeth missing. Ahmed sits on the edge of the twin-sized bed and stares at the boy. His breath deepens, heat rises from his groin into his chest.
“Who do you love more, me or your mother?”
Hassan looks up at Ahmed with a quizzical look. When he sees the look in Ahmed’s eyes, he lowers his gaze.
“You, Papa, I love you the best.”
* * *
—
The afternoon sun has been replaced by clouds and Ahmed steps into the shower a second time that day. The water rains down on him, mixes with sweat, and washes away the evidence. There’s nothing to worry about; he’ll recover his lost money with more boys. Later he will calculate how many more Talibé recruits he needs to make up for the lost income. With his towel wrapped around his waist he walks into his bedroom.
“Mother!” Ahmed says.
She stands in the middle of the room, body straight as an arrow, face frozen as stone.
“What are you doing in here? Are you okay?” Ahmed looks around the room for something to cover his body.
“I would like a word with you.”
“Yes, madame,” he says to her, retreating.
Downstairs, he finds his mother in the living room, a kettle on the coffee table with two cups, sugar, and milk. She motions for him to sit down next to her.
“Why are you here, my son?”
“I have some business to attend to. I’m only here for a few days.”
“I see,” she says. “I had a dream. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but now you are here.”
She reaches for the kettle and Ahmed tries to do it for her but she waves his hand away. She pours the hot water, the instant Nestlé café already sitting at the bottom of each cup. She drops four sugar cubes into his cup and none into her own. With a splash of milk, she takes a sip. She motions to the other cup and Ahmed obliges.
“Hot drinks in this heat will cool the body down,” she says.
Ahmed looks over at the window, his breath calm and even.
“The rain will cool things down,” he says.
“For you, it will not rain today.”
Ahmed finishes his café in two greedy gulps.
“Mama, I will have to leave you. I have to attend appointments this afternoon.”
“Your father told me something was wrong with you when you were a boy, but I never wanted to believe it.”
Ahmed looks away.
“How could you be so wicked?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Hassan.”
Unable to look his mother in the face, he rises.
“You must be mistaken,” he says. “Perhaps you’re going senile.”
He towers over his eighty-year-old mother, a sneer forming across his face.
“Sit down,” she commands.
“No, I have t—” He leans over, then falls back onto the sofa, clutching his stomach. He looks over at his mother then down at his empty cup.
“Mama?”
Hot fire sears through his body and he doubles over again. A cry escapes his lips as his body heaves for air. His mother looks him in the eye. He stares dumbly into her dark, steely gaze, writhing in pain, and falls to the floor. Drool falls from his lips and dribbles down his chin. His eyes open wide and then nothing. No movement, no sound, no breath. Ahmed lies strewn across the floor. His mother rises, picks up the tray, and walks out of the room. When she returns to the living room with a pot of tepid water filled with herbs, she walks up to Ahmed’s motionless body and dumps the concoction onto him. Her heart beats once, twice, thrice as she sits down onto the sofa and waits.
Ahmed spasms with the same violence as before, gasps for air, and clutches his chest. He lies on the floor for several breaths before he sits up, one hand still on his torso while the other holds on to the edge of the sofa. He hoists himself up and takes a tentative step forward, wobbles a bit, stops, takes a deep breath, and then straightens his body erect. Several beats later he walks over to his mother and bends down to give her a kiss on her forehead like his father would do.
“I gave you life, and I can take it away,” she says.
“Only if I let you,” he whispers into her ear, his hands circling around her throat.
She looks him in the eye as her life hinges on the breath she cannot claim as her own. Ahmed leers down at his mother’s aging body and meets her hardened stare. She does not blink, nor does she stir beneath his assault.
He tightens his grip, clenching his teeth in determination. The clock on the wall screams with every tick. His fingers overlap one another as he wrangles her neck. Sweat rolls down his arms.
Ahmed lets out a soft cry and releases his mother. He takes a step back and looks at her in confusion. She raises her cup to her lips and takes a sip, never breaking her gaze with his own.
Ahmed sits down in the chair across from the woman he just tried to murder, his hands shaking as he searches out his handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his face.
“As you were saying,” his mother says.
Someone knocks hurriedly at the front door, followed by a thunder of footsteps barging into the house. Maimouna looks up to see the stricken face of her sister-in-law looming at the living-room door.
“Maimouna!” she cries.
“Sister!”
“My Étienne. Ya Allah! My Étienne,” she says, coming across the room and grabbing on to Maimouna for support.
“Sit, sit, please,” Maimouna says. She brings her sister-in-law over to the free chair across from her mother and Madame Touré, and sets the distraught woman down. The three women had been discussing Maimouna’s dream, and the rumors coming from Dakar about another Talibé.
“How could he do this?” she asks with eyes that are re
d and weary.
“So, it is true. We just learned the news moments ago, but were not sure it was really Étienne,” Maimouna says.
Madame Touré clucks her tongue. “He is a wretch, and makes all marabouts look bad. I don’t want to say I told you so, but I told you he was no good when he refused to return Ibrahimah!”
“Madame,” Maimouna says pointedly, looking over at her friend.
“I want to blame you, but how could I? With all the dark magic against you, how could you cause this to happen to my Étienne? Perhaps you are a curse because you are not Senegalese. A curse to this family,” Maimouna’s sister-in-law spouts, “but he left my son in Dakar without giving us a chance to bring him here to bury him, or go to Dakar. My son! He is a monster!”
She leans her elbow onto her thigh and holds her head in her hand; quiet tears wet her palm. The women sit in silence. There are no words that can soothe the initial shock of learning your child is dead.
“I did not want to send Étienne, but my husband was adamant. A woman cannot defy her husband’s wishes. I got pregnant again, and lost the baby. And then a second pregnancy failed. On the third attempt I had little Fili, but he was always so sickly. I prayed for God to grant me strength. We sacrifice a lamb once a month. I give to the poor. I keep cowrie shells beneath my bed. I pray. I go to mosque. I’ve tried to do right for my family. What more can a woman do?”
“There is no right way to be a mother. You will fail, and in that failure you gain wisdom to pass down to your daughters so that they may not make the same mistakes as you,” Maimouna’s mother says.