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If the hyena roams and the guinea fowl roams, someday there will be an encounter
That Sunday morning, with sunlight streaming through her curtain and warming her heart still chilled by the misery of the night before, Binta sat on her bed trying to convince herself that what assailed her was not the smell of giant cockroaches. Having concluded that she would never find them, no matter how many hours she invested in the hunt, she got out of bed and lit Indian incense. Then she said a special prayer to God to avert whatever catastrophe lurked in the shadows. She went out to water the blue petunias, and sat on the veranda. That was where Ummi and Fa’iza came to join her. They sat watching the finches hopping in the yard, their chirping filling the morning. Two brown doves perched on the power cable watching the little birds pecking at the grains in the sand with avuncular condescension.
Ummi sidled up to Binta and whispered in her ear, ‘You know what Fa’iza did last night?’
Binta shook her head. She stole a glance at Fa’iza touching the delicate flowers, her face bright, and calm.
Ummi cupped her mouth around Binta’s ear. ‘She was busy all night playing with paints.’
‘Yar gulma,’ Fa’iza’s voice was without malice or anger. She did not even turn to look at Ummi.
Ummi’s eyes widened a fraction. ‘Hajiya, I am not a gossip, am I?’
‘Of course not.’ Binta patted the girl on the head. ‘Fa’iza, how is your painting coming along?’
Fa’iza smiled. ‘My painting? Oh, you’ll see. When I’m done.’
‘Being mysterious, are we?’
Fa’iza beamed again and said nothing.
‘Yauwa! Hajiya, you said yesterday we would be going to see Khalida and Zahra. Are we still going?’ Ummi took hold of her grandmother’s hand and looked into her eyes.
‘Of course, yes. You and Fa’iza will go. Munkaila should be home today.’
‘And you? What will you do when we are gone?’
Binta sighed. ‘I will have time to rest, dear.’
Fa’iza looked at Binta, and in the brief moment their eyes locked, Binta saw the knowing look in the girl’s eyes. She was convinced that Fa’iza knew what she would be up to. She looked down at her hands and fidgeted. How long had Fa’iza known?
Fa’iza rose. ‘I’m going in to paint before we leave.’
Binta kept her eyes averted.
‘Let me go and watch,’ Ummi rose and went in after her.
Binta remained by the petunias feeling the weight of her heart pulling her body towards the damp earth, like the slender green stalk of a flower overwhelmed by its blossom. She wanted Reza, of that there was no doubt. She craved what they had. It mattered to her that at the twilight of her sexual life, her desires had finally been unleashed. She was inching closer to his redemption – her redemption, to making him a better person. And all these people, including her niece, who had no inkling of the lifetime of deprivation she had endured, now looked at her with eyes that gleamed with accusations. It was getting to the time when she would have to make a choice between who she was and who she wanted to be. That she had to confront these choices so late in her life was lamentable. But, in the final analysis, there was really only one option – an end to the affair, a new beginning for her, elsewhere, far away.
But once Reza called her, not long after Subhi, to announce his imminent arrival, she knew she did not have the strength to go through with her decision.
A little blue butterfly had settled on the petunias, its yellow-speckled wings flapping. It took off and flew away, past the power cables and up into the grey skies. The pigeons had left and only a couple of finches remained on the fence, chirping intermittently.
After salaaming loudly at the gate, Mallam Haruna pushed open the side door and seemed surprised to find Binta in the yard. She stood up when she saw him and waited with a scowl on her face as he approached, smiling expansively.
‘Hajiya Binta—’
‘Kai Mallam Haruna!’ There was fire in her voice. ‘What do you want here?’
‘Haba Binta! I just came to—’
‘Oh, you came to see the great whore, is that not so?’
‘Why are you talking like this?’
‘I know all the things you’ve been going round saying about me. Have you come to laugh in my face now, eh? Look, I don’t want to have anything to do with you. Just allow me to whore myself to whomever I please. Leave my house and never come back. Munafiki kawai.’
She turned and walked away. When she reached the door and turned to look at him, he was gaping, shoulders slouched, his eyes full of hurt. And surprise. She went in and slammed the door so hard that the noise rattled him out of his shock.
In the living room, Zahra and Ummi struggled to keep Khalida away from the glass of crimson blossoms they had set up on the coffee table. Khalida shrieked and kicked each time they prevented her from tampering with the glass, which had also caught Fa’iza’s fancy. She sat on the couch and looked at it, contemplating how best she could capture its essence in her paintings.
Munkaila, who was listening to the news about the kidnapped niece of Alhaji Bakori, was irritated by the shrieks of his little daughter.
‘For God’s sake, shut that girl up and let me listen to the news.’
Sadiya pulled the child onto her lap and soothed her. ‘Allah sarki! So this girl has finally been found.’
‘This kidnapping business is becoming too much.’ Munkaila’s eyes tarried on the beautiful girl on the screen. It was the picture of Leila Sarki that the TV stations had been using since her kidnap. He turned away when he noticed that Sadiya was eyeing him with habitual jealousy. ‘Imagine that it took them this long to find her.’
He listened, with a smirk on his face, as the police spokesman came on air to explain how their raid on a mansion had forced the kidnappers out of hiding and how their security blanket had compelled them to drop the kidnapped girl outside a hospital where his vigilant men found her.
Sadiya shook her head. ‘Alhamdulillah, they have found the girl alive.’
Munkaila’s phone rang. It was Hadiza. When she asked how work on the new house was progressing, he talked about the challenges of having his furniture, lampshades and chandeliers shipped in from Paris and his rugs from Turkey. He asked her what colours he should paint Hajiya Binta’s quarters, especially her bedroom. But Hadiza sounded distracted.
‘It’s Hureira, she explained. Her husband called to say she’s been making trouble for him since her return.’
‘That stupid girl.’
Hureira had told her husband she would rather drink a gallon of poison and set herself ablaze than have him take a second wife. But he had already completed the matrimonial arrangements and was not inclined to alter them. His integrity was at stake. Besides, Hureira was incapable of providing the peaceful ambience a family needed.
Munkaila thought these threats perfectly within Hureira’s capabilities, considering her propensity for irrational undertakings. He remembered how, when they were young, she had set his jeans ablaze when he ventured to predict that she would not find a man stupid enough to marry her. He resolved to call her and talk some sense into her. ‘Have you told Hajiya, yet?’
‘I can’t reach her on the phone.’
‘Ok, keep trying, I will call Hureira and talk to her.’
He dialled Hureira’s number but she did not take the call, so he sat there grinding his teeth.
Sadiya, familiar with her husband’s temper, fetched him a glass of water and hoped he would not end up hurling it against the wall, as he had done several times in the past. He was not that enraged yet, but in this state, she knew it wouldn’t take much to tip him over the edge.
The intercom buzzed and a voice announced that there was a certain Mallam Haruna at the gate demanding to see Alhaji Munkaila.
Sadiya and Fa’iza took the children upstairs and Munkaila rose to receive his guest.
Mallam Haruna smiled shyly and stooped to shake Munka
ila’s hand. Munkaila was used to men older than his father showing him deference because he was of good fortune. He noticed Mallam Haruna’s starched kaftan and gleaming cap and knew the man was out to make an impression. When he asked how Mallam Haruna managed to get his zanna cap in such excellent state, the man beamed.
‘So you didn’t know that that is what I do for a living. I wash caps for the senators and honourable members, all these top politicians, wallahi kuwa.’
Munkaila smiled indulgently. ‘That is very interesting. I have given my caps to be washed and they have been brought back in such an unwholesome state that I have felt discouraged. I shall have you wash my caps instead.’
Mallam Haruna, in the fashion of one who luxuriated in the company of moneyed men, sat down and talked at length about the skills of caring for caps and the calibre of people who appreciated the services he rendered.
But Munkaila was not disposed to banter. Especially not coming from a man harbouring the incongruous notion of wanting to marry his mother. ‘Mallam Haruna, is there something in particular you want to discuss?’
Mallam Haruna assesed the smirk on the younger man’s face and cleared his throat. ‘Oh yes, yes. I can understand that, since I am a serious-minded businessman myself. But as you know, the tale of the spider is always about his wife, Koki. I am here to discuss issues that concern your mother, and her reputation.’
Upstairs, in her room littered with mementoes of Munkaila’s many foreign trips, Sadiya sat down with Fa’iza and enquired after her health. She wondered what could be responsible for the calm Fa’iza exuded. She wasn’t certain if it was something they should worry about as she knew insanity was often garbed in the robes of enlightenment.
‘Me? I am fine, wallahi,’ Fa’iza smiled.
‘Have you given some thoughts to what we discussed last time, about seeing my uncle?’
‘Your uncle? Oh no. I don’t think that will be necessary.’ Fa’iza got off the bed and went to look at an ornamental blue orb with intricate gold designs placed on the bedside drawer. ‘This is beautiful. Does it have a use?
Sadiya smiled. ‘No. It’s just decorative. Your cousin bought it from a Syrian in Paris.’
‘Paris? I hear that’s a lovely place. I would like to go there someday.’
‘You will insha Allah.’
Fa’iza sat down and patted Khalida, who was sleeping on the bed. ‘Aunty Sadiya, how long do you think before Alhaji finishes the new house?’
Sadiya smiled again. ‘You want to come live with us, in the new house?’
Fa’iza sighed. There was nothing she wanted more than for Hajiya to move away from that house, from the temptation that assailed her there. ‘In the new house? Yes. I want us to leave that place.’
‘Well, I am sure in the next month or so the house will be completed. Your cousin is really anxious to move in. He’s got work going on there every day.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. And you know, the house is going to have a fountain in the courtyard. It’s going to be lovely, you need to see it. He is importing the furniture from Paris and the rugs from Istanbul.’
‘Istanbul? That’s Turkey, right?’
‘Yes—’
Munkaila burst into the room. Sadiya recoiled, for his face had that expression of menace he assumed when he was in the frame of mind to smash her glasses against the wall. But he turned to Fa’iza, who cowered when he unleashed the thunder in his throat. ‘What am I hearing about this dan iska called Reza?’
Binta rested her head on his chest as he leaned his back on the headrest. She sighed. And Reza sighed too. Their lovemaking had been awkward; their kisses were perfunctory, lacking passion, as if they were strangers to each other’s bodies.
He caressed her shoulder absently with his fingers and stared at the wall. Memories of his first time in the house, when he had pricked her with his dagger, assailed him. He searched for the scar on her neck in vain.
‘I am sorry.’ The words tumbled out so fast they surprised him. He put his arm around her and squeezed her to his chest.
‘Sorry? For what?’
‘For the first time I came into this room. For what I did to you.’
Her silence stretched into the fields of reminiscence. She thought of her life before the day he had first scaled her fence, how different it had been since then; how, in equal measure, she had been happy and despondent; and how she had to bring an end to this affair that was, of late, causing her more distress than happiness. She sighed, ‘Things happen for a reason.’
Reza held her tighter and buried his face in her greying hair. Thoughts of his sick father came to him, how badly he smelt from his illness. He wondered if he himself would repulse his grandchildren if he ever grew to be that old.
She played with the curly strands of hair on his chest, picking at one after the other and stretching them to their full length. She basked in the comfort of his being there, of the masculine scent he exuded. But this sensation passed when the shadow of her recent encounters crept into her mind. And the cause of all this opprobrium was the man on whose chest her head rested. She sighed again. ‘Were there people outside when you came in?’
‘Just some kids playing. There were some men talking, you understand—’
‘They saw you?’
‘No. I walked past twice. The third time, they were gone. I was careful. It was easier climbing the fence though.’
She sighed. ‘Yes. But now the wires are there. We have to be careful, Hassan.’
‘We have been careful—’
‘We need to be more careful. People have been saying things.’
Reza grunted. ‘Have you ever seen the sea?’
She raised her head and looked at his face, her eyes wide with bewilderment.
He was looking away into the distance, beyond her walls. When he spoke, it was in the distracted fashion of one given over to baffling reveries. ‘I have been thinking of the sea. All that water; sometimes patient, sometimes raging. All that water, you understand. Can you imagine what it could do?’
‘I saw the sea only once, Hassan. From the little window of a plane on my way to the hajj.’
‘Is it far, Mecca?’
‘Not so much now. Just a little under five hours.’
He sighed and for a while he was silent. ‘She called last night … that woman. She wants me to join her in Jeddah. Imagine. She said she would book my flight and make all the arrangements.’ He chortled. ‘She even spoke to my father and wished him well.’
‘That was nice of her. And what did you say to her?’
His face darkened. For a long while he ground his teeth. ‘You know, I think she is getting lonely, you understand? I told her she would die alone and they would dump her corpse somewhere because no one would grieve over her.’
Binta sat up. ‘That was not a good thing to say, Hassan. She was trying to make amends. You shouldn’t have said that. You should give her a chance.’
But she could see from his face that he was already shutting the door to that conversation, as if he had discovered a draft coming in through a half-opened window, rattling his heart, which had been fossilized by the callousness of fate. She tried to say something that would keep that window open for a little longer but he pulled her to him.
‘I want to see the sea someday.’ He stroked her head absently. And as far gone as his mind was in the blue-green of the sea, he imagined for a moment what it would be like to have Leila lying on his chest. He imagined his hand stroking her silky, scented hair and the colour of the sea reflected in her eyes. He remembered that first girl he had fallen in love with when he was a teenager, the one who had gone on to have that hideous baby. He remembered what being in love felt like, how his heart used to flutter when he saw her smile at him in the coy fashion of a lovestruck teenager. But beneath the waves of sadness, there was a tinge of anger and regret. Anger at Gattuso and Joe and Dogo who, because they feared they would be caught, had abandoned Leila outside a hospital at
midnight. And regret that he did not, in his own way, say goodbye to her.
Binta gripped his hand, perhaps with some unintended force. He looked at her and saw the tint of fire in her eyes; the sort only jealousy could ignite.
‘There is another woman, isn’t there, Hassan?’
‘What?’
She moved away from him. ‘There is another woman.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You are seeing another woman.’
‘Me? What woman?’
She eyed him with such intensity that it made his comportment thaw. ‘There is another woman.’ This time she was certain. ‘The way you touched me just now, it wasn’t me on your mind, it was her. The other woman.’ She got out of the bed and started putting on her clothes. ‘I should have known. The way you’ve been making love to me recently, I should have known. In your mind it was her. Iskancin banza!’
He got out of the bed and calmly collected his clothes piled on the side of the bed, grinding his teeth as he did so. When he was done dressing, he turned to her. ‘I have a lot of things to deal with, you understand. I’ve got these runs, some crazy business I don’t fully understand yet and it’s giving me sleepless nights. Now the job is bungled and I have some explaining to do and I don’t know where to start, you understand? My father is lying in a hospital and I am here, with you. He was the only one who ever gave a damn about me, you understand? And I am here, with you, you understand? I need to be at San Siro now to ask the boys how they messed things up. I turn my back one fucking minute and they mess things up. I need to ask them, you understand? But no! I am here, with you. And look what you are doing.’
Her heart whirled with that tortuous sensation that drives lovers to passion-induced savagery. She wanted to hurl something at him, to make him bleed. But when she looked into his eyes and saw the vortex of emotions, she thought of her son Yaro, to whom she never gave the chance to tell her how confused he must have felt. She went round the bed and tried to hug him but Reza resisted. She persisted until he allowed her to press him to her heart. How could the world not understand what he was going through, how he needed her, how she needed to save him as she had failed to do with her own son? How could they judge her?
Season of Crimson Blossoms Page 27