One Shadow on the Wall

by Leah Henderson

  After pushing the can far under the bed, he placed Amina’s pamphlet back in the pages of her book and left the barak. His mind was filled with numbers and days.

  He had less than three months. About eighty days.

  As he turned down the main roadway, Mor heard the raised voices of his friends again and the scampering of feet, but this time he cut down a side path, ignoring them.

  He walked until he heard the commotion of the market. Even though he was still far from the fish area, the stench of drying fish clung to the air. There was almost no escaping it, but a few steps ahead the buttery scent of frying dough rose from a crackling pot of oil that sat on a barada burner. Waiting to cross the road, Mor stopped next to the street vendor in her apple-green head wrap and teybass dress. She bent over the pot, humming and singing softly to herself while rotating the tiopatis in the large fryer. Mor’s hand moved over his stomach as it belted out its own song.

  The little balls of dough danced in the popping oil, reminding Mor of when his yaay used to make them. He’d often sat cross-legged in the dirt, eyes wide, as she’d rolled the hot balls in granules of sugar. He had loved to watch the sugar crystals melt from the heat and oil, creating a sweet glaze. These were slightly different, though. Lying on a yellowing, grease-soaked newspaper, these freshly cooked tiopatis were tossed in powdered sugar and coconut flakes. He was not sure how long he’d been staring at them when a white-coated ball that resembled a scoop of shaved ice wavered in front of his eyes. The tips of the vendor’s fingers were encrusted with globs of clumped sugar and shaved coconut. Mor wished they were his own, so he could lick off the sugary heaven until his fingers gleamed brown again.

  “Take it, and run along,” the woman ordered. “I cannot have you drooling over my cooking grease.” She clucked her teeth and dropped the tiopati into Mor’s hand. The powder left a trail of white on his palm, but it quickly disappeared when he gobbled up the fried dough and ran his tongue over the powdered path. Swallowing down the last taste, he smiled at the woman.

  “Don’t think you are getting another.” She shook the dripping spoon at him. “I have hungry mouths of my own, you know.” She crouched down and used the spoon to turn the frying dough over in the grease to brown evenly.

  “No, ma’am.” Mor gave a slight bow. “Thank you for the one you shared. Jërëjëf.” After thanking her, he nodded slightly and stepped sideways, away from her mixing bowls, and crossed the street. His stomach gurgled, and he wished he had taken more of the bread or even a few extra sips of the powdered milk Tanta Coumba had given them the day before. But he’d wanted his sisters to have enough.

  Knowing he needed to focus and sell the tàngal, he tried to push all other thoughts from his mind. The roadways and paths of Lat Mata bustled. No one could ever get lost in the main center of the village. It stretched only as far as a stone’s throw in each direction. But enough people passed through that Mor saw many unfamiliar faces. Lat Mata had the largest market area within a day’s walk, so many came here to buy and sell their wares. The market was fortunate to be on the main road used by hauling trucks, car rapides, ndiaga ndiaye, and tourist vans. There was always plenty going on. Sometimes Mor and his friends used to sit and watch it all, eating a dripping sweet mango in some stitch of shade. But not today. As the streets swelled with people, Mor knew he was at a perfect spot to sell. Opening a bag of sweets, he traipsed up and down the side of the road.

  “Sweeties here. Buy your sweeties here. Fresh from the city. Buy your sweeties here,” he called in a singsong voice, bumping elbows and shoulders with people as he went.

  “Excuse me, miss,” he asked one woman with a heart-shaped birthmark over her eye. He had never seen her before, but he thought the heart was a good sign. “Would you like to buy some hard candy? I have pineapple, banana, mango, coconut, cherry, and more. . . .” She shook her head and picked up speed, but smiled as Mor fell in step beside her. “I also have ones with a gooey chocolate or caramel center. Those will probably go quick. You sure you don’t want to buy one?” The woman shook her head no again. “Okay, then.” Mor’s smile slipped a bit. “Thank you,” Mor said, letting her pass. He dropped his head a little and was about to turn and slink away when a hand touched his shoulder and he heard a soft voice.

  “Whew, all right, I will take one if you regain that beautiful smile.”

  Mor’s head rose as he turned. The young woman with the birthmark held out a coin. His eyebrows lifted, and his cheeks pulled back in a gigantic smile.

  “That’s better,” she teased. “Can I have a coconut one, please?”

  His smile began to slide from his lips again when he searched the bags. He’d asked Fatima to take out all the mushed wrappers and all the wasted candies she had already sucked on the night before, but her sticky little fingers had taken all the coconut sweeties, too.

  “I’m sorry, but I do not have any left, although the mango and pineapple are very nice. Perfect for this hot, hot day.” He shoved his fingers into the bag of sweets, searching for an amber or coral wrapper.

  “I guess a pineapple will do.”

  As she said the words, Mor’s fingers found an amber wrapper.

  “Here you are.”

  When the woman paid, she said, “Try not to let that smile drop again.” Then she strode away.

  Encouraged, he called out to everyone he passed, eager to tell them about his wonderful treats, hoping to sell out of the chocolate-centered ones, his most expensive, but no one else listened or cared for what he had to say or sell.

  Then a pudgy-cheeked man, scratching a sothiou over his teeth, marched toward Mor. Holding the candy bag in front of him, Mor rushed for the man, only slowing his steps when he was about to crash against the man’s round belly.

  “Would you like to buy some tàngal?” Mor asked, trotting backward as the stranger continued forward. “I have many tasty flavors. Would you like to try?” Mor waved the bag under the gentleman’s nose. “All the important men of the city select them to eat.”

  The man leaned forward, smelling the faint mix of flavors. “How much are they?”

  “Ten francs apiece, sir.”

  “Huh, even five francs is too much.”

  “But they are special tàngal. Not what the others sell,” Mor added, glancing at the other vendors on the street selling everything from batteries and gum to pots and pans or delicate flowers sprouting in brightly colored fresh-flower hats.

  “And what makes yours so special?” The stranger’s breath came out in huffs.

  “It is the best the city has.”

  “And how would you know what is best in the city?” The man stared down at Mor, eyeing his freshly scrubbed oversize soccer jersey, which Amina had mended the night before. “You do not look as if you have ever been farther than this path.”

  It was true Mor had never been in a ndiaga ndiaye that traveled to the big city, the far-off places he’d heard about in school, or even the ones closer to home, but it didn’t matter. He was certain his tàngal was some of the best. Why else would they have such sparkling and crinkly wrapping with wax coating on the inside for when the candy got sticky?

  “My bàjjan told me,” said Mor, wiping a hand across his face to make sure he had no dirt on it. “Try one. You’ll see.”

  The man shoved his chubby fingers into Mor’s plastic bag, almost splitting it, giving Mor no chance to snatch it closed. Before Mor had even blinked or noticed what flavor the stranger had popped into his mouth, the man was pushing past him.

  Mor scurried backward, then spun to the man’s side.

  “That will be ten francs, please.” Mor stared at the man, hoping he’d pull his coins from his pocket. It was change he sometimes noticed tourists and women in fancy boubous discarding at the bottoms of their bags, but he needed every centime.

  “I am giving you no money,” the man scoffed. “You told me to try, and try I did.”

  “But, sir, I am selling the candy,” Mor said, getting slapped in the arm by
the fabric of the man’s boubou as Mor ran next to him.

  “Well, you should have said ‘buy’ not ‘try.’ ” The man lifted his chin.

  Mor could see the candy rolling against the man’s cheek.

  “Sir,” Mor said, stepping in front of him. “You knew I was selling them. They are ten francs apiece.”

  “Get out of my way. I do not have time for this.” The man’s hand met Mor’s chest, pressing him back. “Next time you will know to say what you mean.”

  Mor had stumbled again.

  An hour later, frustrated at having sold only one tàngal, Mor leaned against the corrugated metal over a closed shop’s door, watching as a miniature air-conditioned bus pulled off the road in front of him. Within seconds a tide of black bodies in vibrant magenta-, peach-, and indigo-patterned fabrics swarmed the side of the white bus. The young girls thrust their arms forward, trying to be the closest to the glass when the bus driver swung the door open. The girls’ excitement rose and their bodies pressed forward as it folded back.

  A line of pink-faced tourists, like the other toubabs he often saw, exited, smeared head to toe with thick layers of white lotion. The white tourists attempted to push through the determined mob of hawkers but got ensnared instead. Young girls holding out earrings, tissues, tangerines, nuts, and other wares locked around them. When the tourists moved, the girls moved with them. Mor was about to go over and try to sell some of his candy when the bus driver jumped down from the bus.

  “Dioggal fi!” He waved his hands through the air, screaming, “I tell you this every time. Get away from my clients and my bus. Stop being pests!”

  “We’re just trying to make a living like you,” a seller shouted back as one of the tourists reached for two rectangular purses she held, made from strips of plastic bags. Mor noticed that even though the bus driver was upset, most of the tourists enjoyed all the attention, and those who didn’t reboarded the air-conditioned bus.

  “Well, do it away from my bus,” the driver countered. He took another step, ushering the girls away as they shouted prices to the toubabs that were well over those they would have charged someone from the village.

  Reluctantly they scattered, moving aside a few feet, watching the tourists as they glanced around the area or took pictures of things Mor thought were a waste to capture in their fancy cameras. Then he noticed one tourist, separated from the others, crouched down, holding tightly to her bag. She was admiring a bundle of braided and beaded bracelets displayed by color in front of a slender girl with twisted legs who sat on a blanket a ways back from the road. A pair of wooden crutches rested behind her. She smiled up at the woman and nodded when the tourist reached for a stack of bracelets, handing the girl three five-hundred-franc coins, which was over seven hundred times more than what Mor held.

  It gave him an idea, though.

  He wandered farther down the busy roadway, away from the bus, and stopped at an empty corner. Still in the heart of the traffic, it was ideal. It was a natural stopping point before people crossed the road. He searched a pile of scattered scraps, yanked out a white square of cardboard, and tore away the soggy edges. Then he dragged over an old oil drum crusted with rust and placed the cardboard on top of it.

  He unfastened the knots on each plastic bag and watched as candy spilled from their mouths. There were individually wrapped white mints that gleamed like the moon, and others shaped like succulent fruits. Of those, Mor thought the papaya and banana treats would taste the best. From the last bag he grabbed a few tàngal with a hard outer shell and a creamy chocolate or caramel center. This bag was the prize of them all, and he could charge a few francs more for one of those. He arranged them into a multicolored line.

  Against the white surface of the cardboard, the shiny wrappers of copper and silver stripes shimmered in the sun, and the amber, electric-orange, lime-green, and canary-yellow foils drew the eye of everyone who passed. Mor found a long stick in the dirt and banged it against the side of the drum.

  “Sweeties for sale. Get your tàngal here.”

  “How much for one?” a man asked, stopping at the corner.

  “They are fifteen francs,” Mor said, having raised his own prices.

  “How ’bout I trade you a pack of tissues for two?”

  “But I don’t need tissues, sir.” Mor looked from the bag of tissues the man waved in front of his face. The man was swallowing hard and staring at Mor’s tàngal.

  “I don’t have anything else.” The man rummaged through his pocket and found ten francs and a bit of fuzz clinging to a button. “How ’bout these and the rest of my tissues? Will that do?”

  Mor thought a moment, looking at his table full of sweeties. He had sold only one piece in over an hour. “You can have a cherry one.” Mor picked a bright-red wrapper off the cardboard, knowing there were many more cherry treats sitting in his bag.

  For the next couple of hours, in a blur, a stream of elbows, shoulders, hands, and faces passed by his makeshift stand, but few people stopped to buy.

  Mor refused to give up. He continued a steady beat on the old oil drum and slowly managed to sell a handful of the treats. Most went to a man who popped one of the caramel-filled candies into his mouth and turned back around, fishing in his pocket, ready to buy three more.

  This lifted Mor’s spirits.

  But then his energy waned when he looked down at the half-filled table. He still had a whole bag of sweets left in his sack. He looked back up the road and noticed that the young girl selling bracelets was gathering up her blanket. Although the sun had settled lower in the sky, there was still plenty of day left. He wondered if she had sold all her bracelets or if this was the hour she usually stopped. As the parade of people continued their march to and from the surrounding paths, to the beach and market, Mor became determined not to leave until at least half the tàngal on the cardboard were gone.

  Then he could sell the rest another day. It wasn’t a lot, but it was something.

  He wanted to bring even a little back to his sisters, who were probably still down by the water’s edge, waiting while their clothes lay drying on the rocks.

  He wanted them to see he had not stumbled again.

  LATER, after exhausted shoppers and vendors leaving the paths, eager for something to clear the dust from their throats, had bought all his mints and a few of the chocolate- and caramel-filled treats, he realized his table was much emptier. Smiling to himself, he thought it had been a pretty good day. In all he had made 190 francs. Not trusting his pockets, he shoved all his coins into his new sneakers and started gathering up the remaining tàngal, dropping it into the last half-full bag of sweets.

  Then a clumpy shadow spread in front of him. Mor raised his head as a group of boys approached his table. He was sure he’d seen them before.

  “What do we got here?” one of the five boys asked. His teeth jutted out of his mouth like those of a neighing horse. “It looks like he’s brought us some tàngal.”

  “They’re not for you. They’re mine.” Mor swept the bag of sweets into the cradle of his arm. However, he was not quick enough to get all the candies off the cardboard before two of the boys snatched some up. “Give them back.”

  “I don’t think so, man,” a different boy, at the back, with an unmistakable gravelly voice, spoke up. The others parted, giving him a path straight to Mor.

  Mor nearly choked as he swallowed. It was Papis, the boy with the rock. He hovered over Mor.

  Mor clutched his sack to his chest, sure the others huddled around him were more of the Danka Boys. Worry spun in his mind. What are they doing here? Do they recognize me? Are they here for me? he wondered. Didn’t the boy on the wall say one of them was from Lat Mata? Lots of people traveled through Mor’s village; it was the largest en route to the city of Saint-Louis. But then Mor stopped wondering. His question was answered. Standing only a few arm lengths away, with a baseball cap low on his head, was his old friend Cheikh.

  Excitement danced inside Mor, mak
ing him feel like a giddy puppy. Cheikh was home. Mor raced around the cardboard table, charging for his old friend. Forgetting about his candy and the other boys around them.

  “Cheikh, you have been gone so long! Have you just come home? Your mother didn’t say. I have so much to tell you, and I’m sure you have lots to tell me.” Mor beamed as he reached for Cheikh to hug him in greeting.

  But Cheikh answered his question with silence, and his greeting with a quick shove and space between them.

  “Eh, Cheikh, man, do you know this khale?”

  Kid, Mor thought. He was more than just some kid. Cheikh had been his best friend since he could crawl.

  “Yeah,” Cheikh said dismissively. “He’s just my mom’s friend’s kid.”

  Mor bristled. Cheikh acted as if he were a stranger. He wouldn’t look Mor’s way. Confused and hurt, Mor stared.

  Then Cheikh glanced at him from the corner of his eye. Mor couldn’t read the expression etched on his face, shielded by the lip of the cap. “We grew up together. You know. Him following me around.” Cheikh gave a half chuckle.

  Mor couldn’t move, and he couldn’t speak. He thought his ears were no longer working right.

  “Aww, so then he won’t mind if I have some of these candies,” Papis said, draping an arm over Mor’s shoulder.

  “Naw, man, let’s just go. I said I didn’t want to be around here anyway.” Cheikh glanced around as if he expected to see someone else he didn’t want to.

  “What’s the rush?” Papis said. “Your friends are my friends.” He snatched Mor’s sack from him.

  As if his body were on delay, Mor grabbed for it too late, hopping as he reached out. “Hey!”