How to Escape From a Leper Colony

by Tiphanie Yanique

  Later when Simon’s carving was touched and picked up he would understand what a violation it really was. He had seen the American tourists haggle and haggle as if it was a game. They would laugh or look hurt alternatively, as though this wasn’t a livelihood. As though they didn’t have more dalasi in their purses than the entire shop had in its safe.

  In the back was what Uncle Omar called the studio but everyone else in the town just called it the workshop. This is where the assistants sold things to Africans. Bed frames, tables, shelves, and coffins. All these things were made to order. Back there Omar trained the three boys, all like brothers in the art of wood. Omar’s wife and children were in England. She was working and it was said that the children were going to school. Sometimes his wife came home with fancy clothes and gifts even for the boys in the shop. Things like soaps and creams and T-shirts. Omar’s children never came home.

  Of the three boys, Simon Peter was the newest addition. He was still learning to make shelves when the senior boys were making coffins and fancy tables. Only Uncle Omar made the carvings that the rich people bought for decoration. That, he said, was art. Simon was in awe of it. Uncle Omar, as he told the boys to call him, didn’t use the big graceless tools that the boys used for tables and shelves. He used little dainty knives, he caressed the pieces, he spoke to them. Simon would pocket little pieces of wood and try to copy Omar’s designs. Copy the “We All Are One” and the “Brotherly Love.” Those were his favorite. When he went home on the holidays he presented these crude interpretations to his mother, who passed them around to her co-mothers before giving them finally to his father.

  The shop was like home. Simon Peter went to school in the day and came home to the shop at night. He worked in the shop and Omar paid his school fees and fed him. In his first and only year with the shop many things happened to Simon Peter. One was that he did very well on his exams and was offered a scholarship at a Catholic boarding school in the country. His brother had been offered a scholarship before him. This kind of thing made his parents proud, but his brother had not been able to take the scholarship because his parents did not want their sons taught by the white man. They had seen what it did to other young men. How they learned the European ways and forgot their own. They had decided that Simon Peter would teach and run a wood shop in their village. But they did not have their wish. Simon Peter ended up going to the boarding school even before his year of apprenticeship to Omar was over.

  He had done so well on his exams that the school would be willing and pleased to take him mid-semester. Besides, the schoolmasters were happy to save the boy from the drudgery of the wood shop. At the boarding school the Catholic priests will notice his quiet piety. Notice his love for art and nature and encourage his path to seminary. He loved art, it is true, but he will avoid the other young boys for reasons unrelated to piety.

  His brothers in the shop were Kebba and Valentino. Valentino was allowed to put the final coat of paint or varnish on tables. He was in charge of dusting and polishing the carvings in the front room. He was the boss of them. Kebba was happy to have someone younger. Someone whom he could show around and be more important than. And Simon Peter was happy to oblige. Valentino was so talented and so lucky, and though Omar made it clear that his sons would inherit the shop it was easy to see how Valentino might manage to usurp the never-come sons. That would leave Kebba and Simon Peter as Valentino’s servants. But now at least they had each other. Though never completely.

  On the first day: “This is your bed, Simon Peter.” Valentino showed him to the floor in the corner. Kebba looked away as he made his own bed by laying down a piece of cloth over a bed frame. He smiled a small shy smile when he looked at Simon. But he did not offer any help.

  In the morning Valentino was already up. Not bothering to wake them so they could impress Uncle Omar. Kebba went to Simon Peter and shook him from the floor. “You have to make your own bed.” Simon Peter thought he understood and started to fold the clothes he had laid down as cushion. “No, no. I mean you have to build your own bed. You sleep on the floor until you learn how to make a bed frame. Then you can begin to save for a mattress.”

  “But I won’t be getting paid. Uncle Omar is using my money to send me to school.”

  “Then I don’t think you’ll be getting much good sleep.”

  Simon hadn’t wanted to cry but he recognized in Kebba a small kindness that made him feel a burn in his chest like he might cry. They worked side by side that day and every day. School was only until 1:00 p.m. and then Simon went to the shop. The other boys would have been working all day already. They wouldn’t even seem to notice when Simon slipped in beside them to watch. But then they would mutter to him to fetch this or do that.

  “Like so,” Kebba said. Showing him the mechanics of a coffin. “It’s the easiest thing we do. You get their height, their width, and their weight. Then you know how to cut. Always leave more room because sometime the body bloats, depending on the cause of death. Sometimes it shrinks. But we don’t always know the business of the corpse. Always give at least three inches all around just in case.” Most often the coffins were made for Christians, for secular Muslims who thought coffins sanitary, or for those from mixed families like Simon’s.

  Two months into Simon Peter’s assistantship, the body came. Simon had already been home and given his mother the miniatures. He kept his favorite one in his pocket at school and caressed it as if it were a pet mouse. After the body came, that one time, all their lives were changed. The coffin was made by Valentino. When Simon came home from school he found Valentino sawing at a large board of mahogany. For an entire three days Valentino had put aside his normal duties to make a coffin. Simon didn’t understand why thick heavy wood, usually for stools or walking sticks, was being used for this. When Simon went to the front there was Kebba gently polishing the “Seller Woman with Basket” and “Thinking Man” with a reverence that Simon envied. Simon caressed the little figurine in his pants pocket. It looked at though he was touching himself inappropriately. Kebba pretended not to see.

  The shop was in confusion because the premier assistant was not doing the premier work. When Simon went to the front room Uncle Omar barked at him. “Boy. Go finish that table for Mrs. Anidiye. And ey, don’t disturb Valentino. He is building his father’s coffin.” Finishing the table was a huge promotion. The table was a fine one and the end nubs of the legs still needed to be carved out. Then the legs had to be attached. Then the whole thing had to be sanded down and varnished. Simon went to the workshop and sat down before the table. He daydreamed as he worked. He thought about his mother and his sister sitting at a table this fine. As he worked he gritted his teeth. It was easy to forget Valentino working only feet away.

  Valentino did not weep. He did not shake. He made the coffin with quiet care. It was a magnificent coffin. Not like the ones the shop usually made. This was like the ones they made in the capital. It was like a little shed for just one person. The lid was a door. With a handle for you to open. “The House of Valentino Bodji Sankareh, Senior” was painted on the door with a fine brush. “Private property” on the next line. And it was no normal door. It was like the door to the rich people’s houses. It was like the doors in the expatriate neighborhoods. Thick with sheen over it so it would last and resist termites. With designs on it. Intricate things no one knew Valentino could do. Swirls like on walking sticks. Two swords crossing at the blades. After Valentino fell asleep on the third night Kebba and Simon Peter peered at the coffin that was really a mansion’s entrance. They stood above it, open mouthed, in awe and jealousy of its craftsmanship.

  All three boys slept with the coffin that night before the body came. But Simon Peter did not sleep well. It seemed as though the door would open and a family would come crawling out, not sure how their front door ended up in the middle of the workshop. He dreamed that he knocked on the door. No one answered and so he opened it. And when he walked in it was a big white house with fancy paintings right o
n the walls. Angels flying around. And he walked the halls and he was wearing shoes. Rich grown-up shoes that clapped on the ground and made a loud dignified noise. When he woke up Valentino and a group of men were bringing in a large body that was stiff and stinking. It smelled like rotten flowers. Kebba and Simon pretended to stay sleeping even though the men were quarreling loudly with each other. It was still in the middle of the night. They opened the door and Simon, peeking out from a pair of pants that were his blanket, almost cried out. He looked over at Kebba and Kebba was looking at him. The men rested the body down. Then with more loud quarreling they hoisted the coffin out. And then Valentino was gone.

  The shop was quiet and for a minute Simon thought he’d go back to sleep since tomorrow was school. But Kebba climbed out of his bed and went over to the full bed where Valentino had slept. He patted the mattress. He sat on the bed, a transgression he would not have attempted just earlier in the day. Then he watched Simon right in the face as he lay down on the bed and pulled the light cover over himself. Simon wanted to climb onto Kebba’s bed frame which was nicer than the floor. But Simon didn’t dare. Not yet. He had a transgression of his own.

  The next day Simon arrived from school and dropped his bag in the corner of the workshop beside his pile of bedding. That afternoon Uncle Omar was distracted and heartbroken at the loss of his most promising assistant. He had kept the shop closed for the day, with a purple wreath at the entrance. Inside, Uncle Omar was instructing Kebba, his new lead assistant, in the making of something that days earlier Kebba had only dreamed of making. Simon slipped by and went to the front room. He had been in there before. He had helped with customers. Smiled at them. Carried their heavier purchases to their cars. It smelled like wood polish. It smelled like Simon imagined wealth smelled like. It was dark. The tall “Wise Man with a Stick” seemed as though he would reach out and hit him. The “Washer Woman with Baby” seemed poised to scold him. The shop did not sell religious pieces. Uncle Omar was a secular type but still he would not make wooden crosses or cedar rosary beads, even though they sold quite well elsewhere. He didn’t believe in creating images of prophets or God. Simon Peter pulled his little figure out of his pocket and rested it on a shelf. It stood out. It looked odd but he thought it looked beautiful. It was soft and smooth in unexpected places after weeks of rustling in his pocket.

  “Tino is not coming back,” said Kebba that night. Simon had exams the next day and all week. “You can have my bed if you want.” But Simon didn’t go to Kebba’s bed. He was afraid that Valentino would come back. Simon wasn’t afraid that Valentino would hurt him or that Mr. Omar would be mad. He was afraid of insulting Valentino by participating in this move up. He was also a young man of principles and it seemed wrong to take over Kebba’s bed when he had not earned it. He didn’t like that Kebba had taken over Valentino’s bed. But that night Kebba gave him a gift. Kebba let him study his books by candlelight. Valentino had always said “Lights out” with a gruff and final voice.

  For days Simon had the dream again and again. Of opening the coffin door and walking down the glowing hallway. Sometimes he would stop to study the pictures, which were of old wise men. But the hallway just kept going and his shoes kept knocking and if he lifted his hand he could see that he was wearing a black Western-style suit.

  “What does the dream mean?” he asked Kebba one night as they sanded down a set of dining chairs.

  “It means you’re going to be a big man. Someone who travels.”

  “Really?” said Simon with hope and unease. He dreamed the dream again that night with less foreboding than before.

  One Saturday, the boys awoke and took their normal bucket baths, sharing the soap. The tourists came all week but on Saturdays the boys took charge so Uncle Omar could have a break. Today was the first day that Kebba would take money. He wore a new shirt that Uncle Omar’s wife had brought from the U.K. It said “London Lover.” Kebba was proud of the shirt but the letters were sticky and felt heavy on his chest. They made him sweat so that he often had to stretch out the collar and blow cool air down the front.

  That day a black man came in. He was an American, they could tell right away by how he walked in and went to look at something before he even greeted them. The boys stood taller so he could see them. He smiled at them but only waved his hand and said “Just looking” in his clipped English. He was American but in the face he looked like a Malinke. Each boy looked at the man in his silly short pants and close-shaved head and wanted badly to sell him something. Kebba was the seller. Simon was only there to help carry things. He sat in a corner with his maths book but he looked at the man and thought he was a fine-looking man. He wondered with shame if the man had children. If the man wouldn’t like to take him and Kebba just for a visit to America. As the man moved silently around the shop this desire changed. Simon felt his stomach tighten. He looked over at his little figure on the shelf and felt afraid for it. Usually, the Americans made a lot of noise. Often they laughed and asked for the address of the shop—promising to tell their friends. Others treated Uncle Omar with a reverence that was fine to see. They would ask for the meaning of each piece and Uncle Omar, who was honorable, would say if there was a meaning and would say “No, it is just for its prettiness” when there was none. This man was different. He didn’t touch each piece. He walked around with his hands clasped behind his back. He bent to a stool and studied it closely with his eyes. He seemed to be smelling things. He seemed to be circling around a small ball of two men embracing as for wrestling or camaraderie—it was not clear. It was Simon’s piece. The man seemed to be narrowing in on Simon’s piece and now he was picking up Simon’s piece and touching it and Simon’s eyes welled and he felt ashamed as though someone had pulled down his pants and touched him in front of his whole village. His heart pumped hard and he held his breath. His eyes did not leave the hands of the man, wrapped around the thing he had made.

  “I would like this and that tall thin man with the long beard,” the man said to Kebba. “How much?” Kebba named an exorbitant price for the tall man without hesitation. “And this?” said the man holding up Simon Peter’s ball of two men whose heads met at the neck. Their arms disappearing into each other’s shoulders and sides.

  Kebba leaned forward to look at it, pretending he wasn’t noticing it for the first time. “That is special piece,” he said, simply beginning his haggling routine.

  “How much?” said the man in a tone that the boys were not sure how to read. Perhaps it was impatience, perhaps it was desire. Such nuances of culture interfered in communication even when the same language was spoken.

  The man left with Simon’s figure and with the tall thin man. He did not want Simon to help him take it to the car that was waiting, and for this Simon was relieved. Simon said to himself that he would not make anything again. Well, he would make coffins and tables and things people commissioned. But he would not make something that existed just for its prettiness ever again. He felt now that this was too much to lose. He did not know how Uncle Omar dealt with the loss, but Simon Peter decided he would not make that kind of pain a recurring one.

  He did not dream the dream of the door and the hallways that night but the next morning he woke up in Valentino’s bed with Kebba. He did not know how he ended up there, but there he was. He woke to it slowly. He felt Kebba’s thing on his bare behind and Kebba’s hand wrapped around him and resting without aggression on his thing. Simon hollered. He did not holler because he wanted to incriminate Kebba, really he didn’t. But because he had been dreaming of the man who took his pretty thing and when he woke the hand on him felt as though it was that man’s hand. Simon thought maybe he was in America. He hollered out of a kind of happiness, then a kind of shock at the removal of his dream, then a kind of disappointment, then finally out of a kind of shame. He tried to pull up his pants and rub off the feeling of Kebba’s thing between his buttocks cheeks. He continued to shout.

  Uncle Omar came in from the front room where he
had been going over the money Kebba made, unable to remember the figurine Kebba insisted he had sold. When he came into the workshop he saw, and knew, and Kebba began saying, “He climbed into my bed. The sinner. The dirty boy.” And Simon Peter began saying, “No. He pulled down my pants in my sleep.” Omar took a piece of plywood and smashed it against both their heads until they slumped to the floor and saw blackness. Simon was sixteen. He did not know it, but he was older than Kebba by two years.

  Simon was saved. The next day he went home to his parents. Mr. Omar drove him, head bandaged. When he arrived at his mother’s door he was hurled out like a bag of trash. Uncle Omar went to talk to his father. His father called him to his house. Uncle Omar was there and his mother came with him.

  His father spoke with a big voice. Simon Peter did not know his father’s voice so well and now it seems a voice of which to be afraid. “Mother Simon you must leave. This is a man’s business.”

  But Simon’s mother would not leave. “This is my only son. You sent him to the city and he comes home to me with a bandage on his head. I will not leave. I did not leave when he was coming into this world. I will not leave now.”

  Simon wanted his mother to leave. He did not know what kind of punishment was given for sodomy but he had read the Qu’ran at his father’s feet. He imagined they would cut off his thing, and then it took all his will not to swoon. He knew he could be pushed out into the street to wander—that would be a mercy. He did not want his mother there to hear his punishment.

  “He has passed his exams highly. We had intended for him to work here in the village as a teacher. But now that cannot be. He cannot stay here. He cannot teach other children. Our shame will be a secret from the whites. They would like him to go to their school in the hills. A boarding school. It will be paid for. He already has the Christian name his mother gave him, so that is good. He is going. He is going and perhaps they will help him.”