by Keisha Bush
Fatou walks into the room and replenishes everyone’s cups with ice and bissap.
“Maimouna, you are blessed with such a good girl,” her sister-in-law says, taking a long drink from her glass.
“I know.”
“Dear, make me another batch of the bissap and gingembre, when you can.”
“Yes, ta-ta,” Fatou says with a small curtsy before leaving the room.
“Maimouna, I couldn’t allow myself to agree with you about Ibrahimah, or I would have lost my strength and fallen apart over Étienne going to Dakar. I had to believe, but it was selfish of me.”
Maimouna looks at her sister-in-law and realizes that they are all the same. Lying to themselves, pretending things are fine when they are not.
She sighs. “Sister, Ibrahimah is coming home.”
The woman looks up, confusion clouding her face.
“What do you mean? You cannot have your son back. There is no one, other than God, who would dare question the authority of a marabout. You are without power, unless the marabout himself decides to do right by you and we know he will not.”
“Ibrahimah is coming home. That I can promise you, and no one will take my child away from me again under the guise of religion, or the old ways.”
The four women sit in the silence evoked by Maimouna’s statement.
“Did you hear a marabout approached Madame Keita about taking her two sons and she staunchly refused, with the full backing of her husband? More people are refusing to send their boys to daaras, and good for them. These marabouts are abusing our traditions for their personal profit. There are no blessings in suffering for someone else’s gain,” Madame Touré says.
“The tides of change are coming. It is time that women take their suffering and use it for the good of all, not just to promote their own agenda,” Maimouna’s mother says, rising.
Maimouna stands up and offers her hand to the older woman, who brushes her help away.
“I may be aging but I’m not dead yet! I can get myself up, young woman. I’m off to take a nap; sleep is the elixir to a long, youthful life. Cheat yourself on that and nothing in this life matters, as you won’t be around long enough to see it!” she exclaims.
“It is good your mother is here with you, Maimouna. No woman, or man, can find the strength to conquer the wickedness in this world without family,” her sister-in-law says.
“I am fully aware of my blessings,” Maimouna says, looking at her sister-in-law.
The women spend the rest of the afternoon talking, and by the time she takes her leave, Maimouna’s sister-in-law seems to be in a more peaceful place.
Over dinner that evening the girls cannot contain their excitement.
“We should have a big party for Ibrahimah when he gets here,” Binta says, her cheeks puffed out with millet.
“I think your brother will be very tired,” Idrissa says.
“Why can’t we just go get him? How is he coming home, and with whom?” Fatou asks.
The desire to go find her baby tugs at Maimouna, and her mother pats the top of her hand.
“It doesn’t work that way, my love,” Maimouna’s mother says. “He has to come home on his own so that he can stay. Your parents are still beholden to familial and cultural tradition.”
“Papa, will you let Ibrahimah stay?”
Everyone knows the rules. Talibé are not allowed to return home, and if a boy should return home, even if the marabout relinquishes the boy early, it is the responsibility of the father to send him back or find another marabout who will take the boy as a disciple.
“We will find a solution,” Idrissa says, looking over to Maimouna.
“I don’t think it will be difficult,” her mother says.
“I am surrounded by the strongest women on Earth. How did I find such blessings?” Idrissa’s eyes fill with tears.
Maimouna grabs Idrissa’s forearm and squeezes it gently.
“You are a lucky man, Idrissa, and smart enough to know that strong women are a blessing and not a threat,” his mother-in-law says with a chuckle.
“We love you too, Papa,” Fatou says.
“Me too,” Binta says, her mouth full.
“Me—” Aisha spills rice onto her lap.
“Girls!” Maimouna scolds.
“Mama, did you hear that Madame N’Diaye’s daughter has returned home?” Fatou asks, changing the subject.
Maimouna looks over at her eldest, forgetting Aisha’s mishap. “No. Isn’t she just visiting?”
“No, she arrived this evening. The women were talking about it at the well. She ran away from her husband. His two other wives treat her bad. One threw acid in her face and cut her cheek with a blade. The husband does not believe it was his second wife that did it to her and accuses that she did it to herself for attention.”
“Madame N’Diaye may be a fool, but her daughter does not deserve that,” Maimouna says, clucking her tongue and looking over at Idrissa.
“Well, my husband is not going to take additional wives. I want a husband like Papa,” Aisha announces.
“It’s terrible, they say. Her husband sent her home and says he wants a divorce. They say she is distraught.”
“Madame N’Diaye was too caught up with her own self-righteousness to realize her daughter needed her,” Maimouna’s mother says. “Take this as a lesson. Women are just as dangerous as men, even more so at times. A woman who is jealous or insecure will attack you, maim you, hurt you physically, spiritually, or emotionally if she feels threatened.”
“The world is under a constant siege of wickedness,” Idrissa murmurs.
After dinner, while the girls clean up, their grandmother takes a tuft of herbs and roots and burns them throughout the house.
“How do we protect ourselves when Maam is not here?” Aisha asks Fatou.
This is something that has been on Fatou’s mind for months.
“I think it’s important to learn the old ways. It’s why I follow Maam around, to learn how to use the roots and spells. Not for dark magic, but for protection. Look at how she has helped our family.”
Aisha and Binta contemplate their older sister’s wisdom.
“A powerful woman knows how to protect herself,” Fatou says.
“And when to ask for help,” Binta adds.
“No one will ever split us apart. We will always protect and help one another, even if we do not always agree,” Fatou says to her two younger sisters.
“Including Ibrahimah?” Aisha asks.
“Yes, including our baby brother. We will never let anyone take him away from us again,” Fatou says.
Fatou sticks her hand out and the other girls place their hands on hers.
“And we will never break this bond,” Fatou adds.
“Never,” Aisha says.
“Never,” Binta replies.
“Girls!” Maimouna calls out from the living room.
“Na’am,” Fatou replies.
“Come! Your papa is going to read to us.”
The three girls trample into the room to find their parents nestled together on the sofa and the Quran open on their father’s lap. Idrissa opens the Quran to where he left off the night before.
“O ye who believe! It is not lawful for you to inherit women against their will; nor should you detain them wrongfully that you may take away part of that which you have given them, except that they be guilty of a flagrant evil; and consort with them in kindness; and if you dislike them, it may be that you dislike a thing wherein Allah has placed much good.”
The girls form a half-circle on the floor in front of their parents, excited for the future that lies in wait.
Ibrahimah walks out of the sanctuary of Aria’s yard and back into the streets of Dakar. The fingernail-shaped moon dominates the starless night. He fee
ls comfortable in his new pair of pants and sandals. He hugs his red tin tomato can to his chest with one hand while the other rests inside his pocket clutching the green toy. He walks down the street brooding about his next move; find Fatik and ask his friend to go with him, go to Marabout’s house and sleep, then first thing in the morning set off for his village.
It is too late in the day to try to leave now. Aria told him it will take fifteen hours, an entire day, to get there. “You’ll have to take a Car Rapide to the depot and ask for the sept-place that will take you south, cross the Gambian border, and take a van to the ferry to cross the Gambian River, and then another sept-place to the southern side of the Gambian border to cross back into Senegal, and then a sept-place from there to your village. Do you think you can do this by yourself?” she asked.
“I will go with an older boy from my house,” Ibrahimah said.
“Do you want me to write it down?”
“Yes, please.”
“Give this paper to any elder lady if you get lost along the way.”
A Car Rapide passes by and honks its horn; a thin young man hangs off the back of the van, looking for passengers to pick up. The ride would get him to Marabout’s house faster, but there are so many pickpockets among the passengers at night that he wouldn’t be safe by himself. Ibrahimah hugs his riches closer to his body and thinks about what he will buy for his family with the money. The dark evening sky and broken streetlamps veil his body from inquiring eyes. Two men walk by, immersed in their own discussion, unaware of his small, silent footsteps moving past them. To be ignored in the day is much different from the anonymity of the night. He imagines Étienne walking beside him.
At the end of the street he steps back into a sea of streetlamps and passing cars. Approaching the On the Run parking lot, the area is filled with the smell of food cooking, the sound of music, drivers filling their cars with gas, and Talibé scattered amongst customers and the downtrodden. A Mauritanian woman with smooth, light-brown skin and high cheekbones carries a baby on her hip with her free hand stretched out, begging. Across the street several adults lay their cardboard mats down alongside the computer store, where they sleep until just before the shop opens in the morning. Ibrahimah spots Fatik and rushes up to his friend.
“Aye,” Ibrahimah says, tapping him on the shoulder.
“Ibrahimah!” he says, turning with surprise, “where were you all day?”
“I went to see my ta-ta.”
“Oh,” Fatik says, not caring who this ta-ta is in particular.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for food and money, what do you think?”
Ibrahimah digs into his tomato can and hands Fatik a five-hundred-franc coin.
“Here,” Ibrahimah says, “take this.”
“Thanks!” Fatik says, turning the coin around in his hand before it disappears into his own can beneath a dirty, torn cloth. “Where’d you get the money?”
“I’m going back to my village in the morning,” Ibrahimah says, ignoring Fatik’s question.
“South?”
“Yes. Come with me.”
Fatik’s twelve-year-old body stiffens and he takes a step back.
“I don’t think so. Marabout will kill us if we try to run away.”
“He won’t know for at least two weeks. He went to find more boys. My mama waits for me in the village. I have to go. She will let you stay, if you come.”
“Your mama can’t protect us from Marabout. No one can. Not even Allah,” Fatik says, shaking his head.
“There’s nothing good here for us if we stay.”
“But Marabout will punish us if we run away.”
“Marabout is wicked, that’s why Abdoulaye and Étienne are gone. We’ll die too if we stay.”
Fatik looks around to see if anyone can hear them, but the scuffle for money and food distracts the other boys and adults.
“If you don’t like it with my mama, you can say you want to go back to Marabout. You know the way better than me. You have to help me.”
Fatik rolls his eyes up toward the midnight-blue sky and then looks at Ibrahimah with doubt on his face.
“I don’t think this is a good plan. If it was, Étienne would have run away with you a long time ago.”
“We didn’t have money before.”
“What? Five hundred francs? That’s not enough.”
“I have more.”
Ibrahimah pulls the cloth back and tips his can so Fatik can peek inside. Fatik looks up at Ibrahimah, his mouth formed into a small circle.
“Wow! How much do you have?”
“A lot.”
“Where did you get it from?”
“Allah.”
Fatik is silent for a moment.
“Okay,” Fatik says after a beat, “I’ll go with you, but first let me find food.”
Ibrahimah looks across the parking lot of On the Run. The same evening crowd of Talibé and women begging plays out like the cartoons he would watch at Moustapha’s house. Elmer Fudd chasing Bugs Bunny, again and again. This is the last evening he will spend scavenging for food and the leftover change in someone’s pocket, or being afraid to return to Marabout’s house because he is short his daily quota. He is the rabbit and he will finally get away.
* * *
—
Once Fatik tires of searching for food, they return to the safety of Marabout’s house to get a good night’s rest before embarking on their journey, but instead of sound sleep Ibrahimah is restless throughout the night. The mosquitoes buzzing around his ears go unnoticed as he imagines the moment when he walks down the sandy road to his family’s house, the smell of his mother when she wraps him into her embrace and the sound of his sisters’ voices. He’s had to smother his desire for home for so long, now he can hardly breathe in anticipation. He clutches his red tin can to his chest.
Dozing off somewhere in the wee hours of the morning, he awakens before morning prayer. He looks to his left where Fatik lies, ready to wake his friend, but instead of Fatik’s sleeping body resting next to him his eyes are met with an empty cardboard mat. Not wanting to wake any of the other boys, Ibrahimah grabs his can—it must have slipped out of his hands while he slept—and rises to see if Fatik is at the hole out back, but before he can maneuver through the sleeping bodies he notices how light his red tin can feels. Fear turns to desperation as he rummages inside with his hands to feel nothing but a packet of peanuts and his toy.
This can’t be. The money he was going to share with Fatik and use to return back to his village is gone. Ibrahimah looks around the room, but Fatik is not there. He runs to the rear of the house and then out front, looking up and down the street. Fatik is nowhere to be seen. Ibrahimah’s eyes glisten and a wail threatens to spring forth from the innards of his belly with each step he takes back to his mat. His body crumples to his mat in defeat and his hand slips on a piece of paper. He picks it up and notices a single ten-thousand-franc note—the bill must have fallen out. Ibrahimah looks into his can again, unable to comprehend how his friend could have done this to him. The G.I. Joe figurine sits at the bottom, standing at attention, ready for battle. Ibrahimah flips the toy around in his hand.
“Étienne,” Ibrahimah whispers, “where are you?”
But Étienne doesn’t come. The room is filled with the sound of sleeping boys wishing the night would never end, because the day brings nothing but hardship and pain. Ibrahimah knows his mother is waiting for him. He has to be strong. He will be eight years old soon. If his friend Moustapha were here, he would figure out a way to find his village. Moustapha was really smart, just like Étienne.
Ibrahimah stands up, puts the money in his right pocket with the directions from Aria, and stuffs his G.I. Joe in the left pocket. The morning prayer fills his ears just as he steps out of the front door with his empty red tin t
omato can, and the determination to find his village on his own.
The veil of night is thick and the ocean roars loud and unforgiving. He is afraid to walk to the edge of the cliff, where the sea crashes up against its bowels, but this is his only escape from the terror that is sure to meet him in the morning. The creature will want more before first prayer. Afterward, it will oust him from the bed back into the roomful of boys, who will avert their eyes at his shame. As they know why he limps, each step more excruciating than the last, killing off a bit more of who he was before.
He cannot tell if the ocean is calling him or threatening him, but tonight, he will do it. He will walk to the edge and jump onto that wave that will wash him ashore to his home, cleanse his memory of the devil, and end his descent into peril. He takes a step forward, but a gust of wind rises up and pushes him back. He looks around but he is there alone. There is nothing to stop him. He can do this. He steps forward again. No wind. He takes another step. Nothing again. Good, he thinks to himself. Taking a deep breath, he raises his arms up to his chest and pumps his legs into a bolt of fearlessness. At the wall of darkness that lives at the cliff’s edge, the outline of his village appears. His mother’s fish patties cook in the oven, the sweet and spicy aroma intertwining and looping upon itself as it stumbles up into his nostrils and lingers.
Just as his foot touches the edge of the cliff, his body is yanked back by his neck with a force so violent, he falls down onto his back. Before he can regain his composure, his body is dragged across the sandy terrain, back across the Rue de Ouakam, the uneven earth, and the pebble-covered road, to the front of the creature’s house.
He has no time to open the door, and so his body is pulled through the solid wooden object, leaving millions of tiny splinters piercing every inch of his soul, dragged back up onto the bed, and slammed down into his body. The creature hovers above him, dripping with sweat.
“You’re not going anywhere,” it spits into his face.
The creature leans down, its breath hot with the smell of a rotting animal, its teeth yellow, gums inflamed. It licks Ibrahimah’s face, then shoves its hand into his neck before lying back down and falling into a sleep, deep enough to satisfy, but light enough that anything more than a tepid breath from Ibrahimah’s body will stir it into action. The wet sheets beneath his body are cold and uncomfortable, but he dares not move. The moon quietly departs to illuminate someone else more deserving, leaving the room in complete darkness.