Mallam Haruna went back to the bench and sat down. ‘Lallai kam!’ he exclaimed for the umpteenth time. He threw one leg over the other and proceeded to shake his foot.
He had barely settled into this routine when he saw Reza emerge from the hotel. Mallam Haruna jumped to his feet yet again and hurried to the roadside as if he would rush across the street. Reza also hailed an okada and hopped on. When he, too, zoomed off, Mallam Haruna seriously contemplated slapping his cap on the ground and trampling on it. But he took off the cap with one hand, wiped the sweat off his razor-scraped scalp and put the cap back on. Then he turned and left, without even a word to his host, who was still engaged with the buxom woman.
PART TWO
The miseducation of Hassan ‘Reza’ Babale
(1986 - 2011 and beyond … perhaps)
19
The playground of stallions is no place for the crippled donkey
San Siro shook off the lethargic cloud that had hovered over it for a few days and, coaxed by the music of the itinerant Mamman Kolo, became an agitated beast panting in the gathering dusk.
Reza heard the noise – music riding on the back of the evening breeze into the ears of passers-by – from some distance. When the chorus came, it was in the burnished voices of euphoric men long given over to the lure of ganja and assorted dope, punctuated by ecstatic whoops and delirious laughter.
Only Mamman Kolo with his old tambourine and the skills of a snake charmer could stir San Siro, that slumbering beast, into such a state of frenzy. Reza leaned by the entrance and, as he expected, the place was packed with twenty or so men dancing to Mamman Kolo’s bawdy lyrics and the beats of his tambourine. Reza luxuriated in air made thick and indolent by the aroma of weed. He smiled as he took in the men puffing on joints as they swayed to the music. In the corner, groups of boys were sucking sholisho glue and cough syrup while passing on joints. Young girls vending food or Zobo drinks stood with trays of wares deftly balanced on their heads, watching the dance.
In the middle of the throng, Reza could see the fountainhead of the revelry. Mamman Kolo never stopped smiling as he delivered the solo and beat the tambourine on his bony hand, sometimes raising it high above his head. And when he saw Reza, his smile broadened and he skilfully wove him into his lyrics.
Reza, too, danced into the centre of the circle as Kolo sang his praises.
Kai bari dan uban mutum
Reza dodon kwalawa
Sara daya ya zub da goma
Reza raised his arm and symbolically sliced the air with it as if with a machete. A multitude of smoky voices rose in raucous acclamation. Reza stuck a fifty-naira note on Kolo’s sweaty forehead, danced a few more steps and then pushed his way through the crowd.
Gattuso was standing by his door nodding to the tune. There was a frown on his face as he took money and handed out joints to two boys. They clamped their fists in their open palms in reverence as they walked past Reza, who nodded acknowledgement and patted Gattuso’s bare shoulder, feeling his hand bounce off the taut, rubbery muscle.
‘Reza, Reza!’ Gattuso greeted. ‘You are back. How is your old man?’
‘The old man will live, I think.’ Reza turned again to take in the crowded courtyard. ‘I see Kolo is here.’
‘Yes, you can see business is moving. I think he comes with djinns, the son of a whore.’
Mamman Kolo could strike up an impromptu party with a tap of his tambourine. And that was good business for San Siro. He was a peculiar fellow, Mamman Kolo. It was rumoured he came originally from Zaria. He would arrive when least expected, bringing along his trusted tambourine, a joie de vivre and anecdotes from far-flung places. He would talk about his adventures with itinerant showmen who roamed with reptiles and made children mount live hyenas to dissuade them from bed-wetting. He would talk about his sojourns with the ladies of easy virtue in Eko, the donkey-eating folks of Ezamgbo, the marabouts of Agadez, his escapades with the fishermen of Busa and his days in the illegal mines of Kebbi. But of his parents who left him an orphan, he would say nothing.
And just when he had sufficiently doused the place in his buccaneering romanticism, Mamman Kolo would up and leave unheralded in the night, so that the boys would wake up to his profound absence. For days afterwards, they would sit in the shades and, with languid eyes, talk about the days of flushed flowers Mamman Kolo had gifted them.
When Reza had left San Siro two days before to see his ailing father, the ambience had been suffused with an intangible melancholy, the sort that could linger if nothing dramatic happened. He now looked at the bubbly crowd and nodded. ‘Yes, he comes with djinns.’
Gattuso cracked his knuckles. ‘Your old man is better, you say.’
‘Yes, he has been discharged. He will go for check-ups once in a while, you understand.’ Reza turned and tried to enter Gattuso’s room but the burly one was reluctant to make way.
‘Come, let’s talk about money.’ Reza pretended not to notice the obstruction. When he pushed past Gattuso, he saw Rita, whom almost all the boys had had, sprawled on the rumpled sheets of the mattress. She scrambled into a sitting position and made a show of patting down her dishevelled hair. It was long and lustrous, and fake.
‘Reza.’ Her eyes avoided his.
Reza looked at the smoothness of her exposed thighs and surreptitiously grasped his crotch.
‘Rita.’ He stood uncertainly for a moment. He then turned and made for the door.
Incidentally, Dan Asabe, who had never had Rita, and seemed to harbour no desire to, was ambling just outside. He stood aside to let Reza pass. Dan Asabe bowed, inadvertently presenting his head, and the machete gash he had sustained from the rally.
It was this scar that interested Reza, who considered it skeptically. ‘Your wound is healing.’
‘Yes, it is.’ Dan Asabe’s bow deepened as Reza walked past him to his room, where Gattuso joined him.
The two men stood awkwardly for a minute. Outside, another ecstatic roar rolled on for a minute and died down to the sound of Mamman Kolo’s tambourine and his soprano voice.
‘You want to have—’
‘No,’ Reza barked. ‘Let’s talk about money.’ He slumped onto his mattress.
Gattuso sauntered further into the room and sat down beside him. When they had finished balancing the accounts, Reza took the thick roll of money proffered and tucked it into his back pocket.
‘I will travel tomorrow to get some new merchandise, you understand.’
Gattuso thought Reza seemed edgy and smiled. He drew closer, his smile taking on a dubious hue. ‘Let me get you something.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘It’s good stuff, wallahi.’
Reza looked at the new AC Milan poster glistening on the wall while he waited for Gattuso’s return. He had put it up a couple of days before his trip. The old one had been taken down in a solemn ceremony witnessed only by Sani Scholar, who was given the honour of disposing of it. Being that Sani had no such reverence for the poster—he had no concept of empty spaces that needed to be occupied, bland spots that needed to be covered—he had shredded it and thrown the pieces into the garbage.
Gattuso came back with a wrap of nylon, still smiling. ‘Just pour some of it in a bowl of fura. It will enhance your performance.’
Reza looked at him skeptically.
‘Really, try it. If you like, I will ask Rita to come over so you can try it out.’
‘No, no.’ Reza threw the wrap on his mattress.
‘So, who are you going to do it with?’
When Reza looked at him, Gattuso laughed and slapped him on the arm. The force of the blow made Reza recoil. Gattuso laughed some more and headed out to the girl waiting in his room.
Reza leaned on the doorjamb to watch the bustle outside. Kolo was tired, his voice was strained, but he kept going. The boys swayed languorously to the music like animated seaweed. Reza was thinking of breaking it up when he spotted Corporal Bako lurking by the entrance in a manner befitting a stray dog. One of the boys saw the police
man too and shouted; ‘Wara, wara!’
Some of the boys made to bolt, but Reza’s voice rose above the din as he shouted for them to stop. The music ceased. The boys turned to the policeman and saw how unsure of himself he seemed. Reza stepped forward.
The policeman walked up to him and smiled coyly. ‘Reza, the OC says you should keep the party down.’
There was a lull, in which a boy, dazed by dope, wobbled and slumped. The tambourine went up again and Mamman Kolo sang:
‘OC, the mamafucker!
Sucks his father’s cock.’
A thunderous cheer went up and the cowed officer withdrew under a blanket of jeers. After he had left, Reza asked for the party to break up.
Some of the boys left, swaying to the ganja fumes curling in their heads like the melodies of a snake charmer’s flute. Others took refuge in the corners, puffing odorous fumes into the darkening skies.
Mamman Kolo came and sat with Reza on the bench in front of the rooms. Soon they were surrounded by other boys, who sat down on the floor when there was no more space on the bench.
Kolo proceeded to recount tales of his exploits in the Kebbi mines, where they dug gold for shifty Chinese contractors, whose pitch of voice Kolo found particularly amusing and made efforts to mimic, to the delight of the San Siro boys.
But perhaps because Reza already knew what was happening in the room behind them, he imagined he could hear, beneath the din of the enthralled boys, the passionate noises Gattuso and Rita were making.
Kolo held up a hand for silence. ‘Wallahi, I will pay anything to hear those people sing. I can imagine how awful it would sound.’ He made screeching sounds and beat his tambourine to accompany the laughter that greeted his mimicry.
Reza rose, went to his room and dialled Binta’s number on his phone. The phone rang almost interminably. He dialled again, and when he got no response, he hissed and shoved the phone back in his pocket.
He went out and sat with the boys as Kolo enthralled them until the glow of the setting sun spread across the sky like gold dust thrown from beyond the horizon.
It was at that time that Marufu came shuffling in. The click of his walking stick on the concrete filled the sudden silence. He winced each time he set down his heavily bandaged left leg. He looked at the space before him as he laboured forward. It was Dogo who first overcame his shock and rose to challenge the intruder.
‘What do you want here, barawo?’
‘What did he steal?’ Kolo grinned.
‘Condoms!’
‘Shut it, Dogo,’ Reza barked.
But Kolo cackled, his laughter lingering, drawing in the others who laughed with more restraint because of the scowl on Reza’s face.
Marufu tried to stand straight. ‘I want to speak to Reza.’
‘Well, then, speak up.’ Reza could barely contain himself. ‘Whatever you have to say, you can say it in front of the boys, you understand.’
Marufu shuffled forward, sat down on the floor and proceeded to tender his apologies for jumping Hajiya Binta’s fence. ‘Wallahi, I didn’t know you had asked for that house to be left alone. You know me, I wouldn’t have.’
Because Reza said nothing, Marufu had to repeat his excuse all over again, adding details he had left out the first time.
‘Well, Reza,’ Kolo cleared his throat, ‘he has apologised. You know, we have all been caught in situations where we needed to jump fences occasionally. But since he has promised not to cross you anymore, please forgive him.’
The boys all chipped in a word for Marufu while he sat before Reza with his head bowed.
Reza sighed and cracked his knuckles. ‘The way we do things, there has to be order, is that not so? We can’t all be doing things anyhow, you understand?’
The boys nodded.
‘When I say a house is off limits, there’s a reason for it. We are not fools, you understand? But Marufu knew this and went to steal that woman’s generator. There are consequences for things like this. Marufu could have been dead by now, but I said, well, this is Marufu, the footballer, our friend. We should just teach him a lesson.’
‘He has learnt it,’ Kolo offered, and the boys nodded.
‘Haba Reza, I’m really sorry. It was the devil, I swear.’ Marufu looked up with imploring eyes.
Reza shifted on the bench and looked at the expectant faces turned to him. He shrugged. ‘Next time you fuck with the devil and cross me, you are dead-dead.’
Dogo jumped before Marufu, drew out his dagger and drew a line inches from his neck. Marufu flinched and the boys laughed.
‘It’s time for prayers.’ Kolo stood up. ‘After, I’ll have some ganja.’
Later, while he sat in his room and allowed his senses to float off his fingertips to uncharted shores, listening to Mamman Kolo talk about the women of Cotonou, Reza thought about his mother.
He tried to remember her touch, her hands on his as she loosened his hold on her jilbab, but all he could remember with certainty was the exotic smell of her perfume. It was the only time he recalled touching his mother. And the last time he had seen her, three years back, it was that memory from fifteen years before that had decided the fate of their encounter.
His father had called him and asked him to come home, saying that there was an emergency. When Reza arrived, he found his mother cross-legged on the rug in his father’s sitting room. He caught the gleam of gold in her teeth as she smiled at him. He turned and walked out, increasing his pace when he heard her calling after him, until he was sprinting through the dank alleyways.
Now he sat on his mattress, with Mamman Kolo’s voice eddying in the background, and tried to reconstruct her face from that encounter. He tried to recall her shock when she saw him turning away from her but all he could remember was the dark line of kohl around her eyes, the slanting scarification on her cheek and the gleam in her teeth.
When his phone chimed, he picked it up, looked at the screen and raised a hand for silence.
‘Yallabai,’ he greeted. There were some noises on the other end and then the senator’s voice.
‘Reza, yaya dai?’
Reza greeted the senator again, unconsciously bowing his head in deference.
‘Reza, where are you, is that noise I hear?’
‘At home, sir, I am at home.’
‘Oh, I thought you were with your girlfriend. You know, you young men of nowadays.’ There was a laugh that resonated down the line. ‘When I was your age, by this time you wouldn’t have found me at home. I would have been out trying my charms on young girls. But now I am left to play squash with old men with sagging bellies. You play squash, don’t you?’
Reza shook his head. ‘No, sir, I don’t.’
‘Then what do you do with your life? Someday, I will bring you to the club so you can see me play. I am a pretty good player, wallahi.’
‘I would like that.’
‘But you must bring me your girlfriend, Reza. Bring her to greet me, ko?’
‘Yes, sir. Perhaps someday.’
‘Yes, we will arrange that, ka ji ko?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Madalla! Madalla! Well, my opponent is ready; let me go deal with him. But, Reza?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You remember what I said about the job you are going to do for us, ko? The last time you came to the house?’
‘You haven’t told me yet, sir.’
‘Yes, yes, I know. Well, you remember Moses, my PA? I will give him the phone and you will talk, but whatever instructions he gives you, make sure you take it seriously, ka ji ko?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘It is very important, Reza, so pay attention.’
Reza heard him asking Moses to take the phone while he went off to his game.
When Moses came on, he explained that it was important they discuss face-to-face and so they arranged to meet. Reza put down the phone with a smile and took a long drag on his joint.
20
An emaciated elephant is stil
l better than ten frogs
There was, Hureira realised, something disturbing about the way Fa’iza bent studiously over her book. Perhaps it was the almost tangible determination with which she held the pen and the way her hand seemed to tremble. From her place on the mattress across the room, Hureira could not see what Fa’iza was writing, but she could see the bold, virile curlicues, the drawings that appeared indiscernible from where she was lying.
When Fa’iza raised her head, Hureira looked away. When she managed to look at the girl again, she saw her casting a haunted gaze at the wall.
Hureira crawled out of bed, avoiding Fa’iza’s line of vision. She walked out of the room, stealing a look at the seated figure out of the corner of her eye and wondering if she should take her sleeping daughter away with her as well.
Hureira knocked on Binta’s door and entered without being invited. She was momentarily taken aback by the sight of her mother seated at the dressing table, staring vacantly at her own reflection.
Their eyes met in the mirror, mother and daughter, and Hureira felt the disapproval refracting off the glass and reaching for her heart. But it passed quickly. Or was her mind playing tricks on her?
‘Hajiya,’ she whispered. ‘Are you sure Fa’iza is all right?’
‘What’s wrong?’
The disinterest in her mother’s voice brushed Hureira’s face, wafted away through the parted curtains, through the window into the sunny courtyard. Hureira shook her head. ‘She was having conversations in her dreams, and it went on all night. Now she is sitting in the room trying to bore a hole in the wall with her eyes. Wallahi, I think she is being possessed by djinns.’
This time, Binta turned and looked at Hureira. She hoped that the incredulity on her face would dissuade her daughter. ‘Don’t be silly, you are too old to be running around saying such nonsense, kin ji ko?’
Hureira stared back. ‘That was how it happened to my neighbour’s daughter, wallahi.’
Season of Crimson Blossoms Page 17