One Shadow on the Wall

by Leah Henderson

  At first the water was refreshing and cool against his skin, pressing his clothes to him. Then the current pulled him down, quicker than the netting that was sailing beside him. He reached out for it, but it moved away on the wave of water created from the thrust of his hand. Fish swam frantically inside the net as he reached out again. As he held his breath, his cheeks puffed out on each side. He kicked his legs behind him. Panic strangled his bones. Not being a strong swimmer, he had never been deep in the water alone. Cheikh or his father had always been at his side.

  Mor’s arms flailed, dragging him deeper. A stinging burn shot through his lungs. He squeezed his eyes shut; then they flew open. The salt water was a flame against them.

  You are a cuttlefish, my son. . . . His baay’s voice joined him, a distant echo in the water. You have almost a dozen arms with tentacles that stretch around the world. If you cannot reach the sky with one, try another.

  Mor threw his hand in front of him, sweeping it through the water, clutching nothing. Reach out again. She will not claim you. Mor listened, and tried his other arm. He felt the coarse plastic netting graze his palm as it moved through his fingers. He closed his hand tight around it, and his body launched through the water as Demba pulled the net.

  When Mor’s head broke the surface, Demba released the net and reached for Mor. Most of the trapped fish sprang to freedom, wiggling out of the parting net, slipping by Mor’s legs. Demba did not try to grab any; instead he dragged Mor inside the boat. Mor’s sneakers squeaked against the starboard lip of the gaal. Demba hit him high on his back, dislodging most of the water Mor had swallowed. It stung as it raced up his throat. He coughed and spit up what felt like a river. Demba hauled the netting into the boat next to Mor. Drenched from head to toe, Mor created more of a puddle in the bottom of the gaal than the caught fish that flapped around, trapped in the net. A third of the fish that had traveled through the water with him had escaped. Now there was barely enough to layer the bottom of the hull. Mor knew from watching fishermen so many times when they came into shore that a full hull was the sign of a prosperous day.

  Demba stared at him hard before turning away. He struck a match and used the flame to heat coals sitting in a makeshift burner secured by a thin wire to an inside corner of the boat. After blowing on the coals until they glowed a dazzling orangey red, he wedged a kettle on top of the pile. He crammed tea leaves inside the kettle and filled it with water from a plastic bottle. Leaving it to heat, Demba divided the fish evenly among two net bags and hung them over either side of the boat. The fish’s tails slapped at the water.

  When the water in the kettle bubbled, Demba filled a tin cup with tea and offered it to Mor. He puffed out his cheeks and blew at the steam rising in front of Mor’s face.

  “Jërëjëf,” Mor thanked him through chattering teeth and numb lips. The metal scorched his wet fingers, but the heat felt good. He wrapped the bottom of his soaked T-shirt around the cup and blew over the rising steam. His mother had always said green tea was the cure for everything: a fever, a chill, or even a tummy ache. So Mor sat gratefully sipping the hot liquid. It calmed his still-thumping heart.

  The boat swayed with the waves as they lingered. Birds squawked overhead, eyeing the fish, and fishing trawlers’ horns bellowed in the distance. Demba gathered the netting back into his hands. Mor’s legs sprang up to his chest as the netting slithered past his feet. He was about to hurriedly finish his tea and help Demba, but Demba’s intense gaze pressed him down. Mor obeyed, his body mimicking the rock of the boat as Demba threw out the netting again. It disappeared like sugar dissolving in liquid as the ocean consumed it. Mor huddled in his seat, away from the edge, and clung tightly to the warmth of the empty cup. When Demba snatched at the cord around his wrist, Mor made sure one of his hands had a firm grip on the plank below him. Demba dragged the net up over the lip of the boat, but the belly of the netting held far fewer fish than it had the first time it was submerged. Mor could not bear to look. It was his fault Demba had lost his fish.

  The fish flopped at Mor’s feet as Demba sorted them. Mor ducked his head in shame. He felt useless in this boat, drinking this man’s tea.

  After a time he felt Demba’s eyes on him and realized he was shaking. Squeezing his fists in his lap, he tensed all his muscles, hoping to stop his shivers. But it was no use. Soon Demba started the engine and directed the boat toward the shore. The other boats were still casting their nets as Demba and Mor motored by. The hulls of their gaals were filled with jerking fish.

  “Why do you not stay and continue to catch?” Mor asked. His teeth chattered as the wind whipped against his wet skin.

  Demba stared at the approaching shoreline.

  “I’m fine,” Mor continued, biting down to stop his teeth from rattling against each other. “The sun has dried me. Look.” Mor set the metal teacup down and held out his hands, wiping away visible beads of water. “The tea has warmed me and settled my nerves.” Mor’s eyes turned from the beach back to the water and then up to the sky. “There is still a full day of light. I can work,” he rambled.

  Demba stared past him and did not change the course of the boat.

  Mor felt sick to admit it, but the fishermen were right. He had gotten in the way.

  And he didn’t deserve a coin or a fish.

  WHEN Demba’s boat butted the nearly deserted shore, he shut off the motor and jumped down to the wet sand. No other fishermen were in sight, only children smeared in soap bubbles bathing in the tide. Demba motioned for Mor to stay seated, and without help he pulled his gaal back on land to the very spot it had been that morning. He lobbed the three net bags of fish into three buckets of shallow water and set them in the sand. Then he hoisted Mor out of the boat as if he were a baby. Mor wanted to squirm out of his grip and get down himself, but his body felt as malleable as one of his sisters’ rag dolls. Even still, when his feet touched the sand, Mor reached for one of the heavy pails, ready to lug it up to the market area. Demba’s dreadlocks swung as he shook his head in refusal. Mor let the handle drop. Part of him wanted to run home and never look back at the beach again, and another part of him wanted to drop in the sand where he stood. However, when Demba grabbed the buckets and ambled up toward the roadway, water droplets plopping in the sand behind him, Mor trekked in the line of splotches, turning where Demba turned. Oddly, they headed away from the beach and the fish stalls.

  “Shouldn’t we go that way?” Mor pointed beyond a cluster of women sitting and standing along the roadside, hoping to grab shoppers before they reached the chaotic market. Big plastic tubs, each a color of the rainbow, sat on the ground in front of them, filled with fish to sell. “I know you don’t have much, but I am sure you could get something for them.”

  Demba kept moving away from the women and turned down a path hidden by high white walls.

  “Did you hear me, sir?” Mor asked, almost jogging to keep up with Demba’s strides. “You may not get much, but even a little—”

  Demba dropped one of the buckets next to Mor’s foot, causing Mor to hop back. About eight fish sucked at the water inside the pail. Then Demba grabbed the handlebar of a rusty old bicycle that leaned against the wall. It was the same bicycle Mor had seen him riding on the path to Mahktar. A tiny bell looped around the center bar jingled, and a hefty man came out of an open door across the path.

  “Ah, it’s you, Demba. You are back early, no?” The man rubbed his thick hands together. Sprouts of hair grew from the backs of them. “I thought someone was out here messing with your bike. As always, I was ready to chase them off for you.” The man chuckled, his plump belly bouncing up and down.

  Mor couldn’t see him chasing anything, except perhaps a fish across his plate. The man rubbed his engorged stomach and stepped out on the path. “Not many fish today, I see. But I suppose you find it enough.” The man shook his head and turned back toward his door, kicking at a tiny swatch of fabric that blew out of his shop. Peeking inside, Mor saw three men at sewing machines with
yards of cloth stacked around them. The hum of Demba’s voice melded with the noise of the churning machines.

  When Mor turned back around, Demba had secured a pail handle to each end of the handbar, and one was strapped tight with cord to the middle bar of the frame. To Mor it looked as if it all would topple over at any minute. Demba pointed to him, then to the handlebar. Mor stepped away, unsure. The man looked at Mor and smiled in surprise. “Found yourself some help, have you, Demba?” Demba didn’t respond, but the man didn’t seem to want, or expect, an answer.

  Then Demba glanced back at Mor.

  “Go ahead, get on,” the man from the clothing shop said, coming out of the doorway with a blue plastic bundle. “The day does not wait.”

  Feeling guilty about losing him a full day on the water already, Mor stepped on the front tire and climbed up on the handlebar. The cold metal pressed into the backs of his legs.

  “Don’t forget this.” The man shuffled forward in his slippers, holding out the package. “These are the dresses Yvette Maal requested for her eldest daughter’s wedding. Each of her girls will catch the eyes of all when they wear them.”

  When Demba took the bundle of wrapped cloth, Mor flung his hands to his sides and clenched the bar beneath him. Demba seemed unconcerned with the wobble of the bike as he secured the package to the back rack. Mor watched him closely. Although his lips rumbled every second with words piled in strange ways, Mor noticed that Demba hardly spoke them to others. So far his conversations had seemed to be meant for him and the air. His flowery words of “honey-watered moon” were like the poems and songs Mor’s yaay used to whisper late in the night as he and his sisters fell asleep. But like he did with some of his father’s riddles, he wondered what they meant.

  “Oh, and grab more roots for the pain in my knee. . . .” The man winced, cupping his kneecap with pudgy fingers. He lifted his head to the sky. “I can feel rain coming.”

  Mor looked up, but there were no clouds overhead. With a stream of mumbles and nods, Demba pedaled away.

  The buckets were covered with mesh screen lids, and on every bump water splashed through the slits in the wire veils. As Demba followed the main road out of the village, Mor did not ask where they were headed. He knew he would not get an answer anyway. Or if he did, probably not one he would fully understand. Instead he let the breeze and sun warm his damp clothes.

  Demba whispered, “Sun knows the notes to play with its golden heat.”

  The rhythm of his mumbling mimicked the sway of the bike and the churn of the pedals. It grew louder when they hit a pebble and quieted to a murmur when they rode through the tall grasses.

  On their ride they passed a fruit vendor, a roadside barber, and a tire stall. When they reached a butcher stand with a skinned goat hanging from an iron hook tied to a tree, Mor looked away, thinking of Jeeg and Fatima’s tears. He settled into the rhythm of the bike, ignoring his nausea. Flecks of dirt flinging into his eyes and nose pestered him, but after a while, to his surprise, Demba’s rambles about fish, skies, muddy water, and moon slivers started to relax him. He found them as natural as the birds tweeting in the trees and as expected as the buzzing of a fly.

  As the bike traversed yet more uneven dirt paths out into dusty fields, Mor began to think it was a never-ending journey. The backs of his legs were getting bruised and sore from being jostled against the bar, and soon the intense heat made him light-headed and sluggish. He squinted, trying to ease the motion in his head. Demba, however, did not seem to mind the scorching sun or the constant juggling act of teetering buckets as they went farther and farther away from the water and Lat Mata.

  Just when Mor thought the little bit he had eaten for breakfast was going to launch up his throat and greet the afternoon, Demba slowed the bike. Mor did not need to figure out Demba’s gestures this time. He flung his body off as soon as Demba put his foot on the ground.

  Mor wasn’t sure where they were. It seemed like they’d ridden for days, though judging from the height of the sun in the sky, it had been only a few hours. Dry, hot air pressed against him. The smell of the sea had all but vanished, unless he stood over the buckets of fish. And with his stomach churning, he decided not to breathe in the fish too deeply. They had traveled inland in a direction he had never gone. It made no sense that Demba would go so far when he could easily sell his fish closer to home. Even though Mor thanked Allah for the chance to be on the water, he didn’t understand.

  He tried to ignore his confusion and hoped his head would just stop rocking. He could barely hold it up or keep his eyes open. In the distance four circular mud-constructed houses poked their heads above the high grass and the bundles of branch fencing around them. Off to the side was a wooden stand with clear yellow, green, and orange glass bottles resting on its shelves. The light bounced off them, throwing sparkles of color across the ground. The man seated on a wooden stool next to the makeshift gasoline fill-up stall bowed his head hello.

  Three boys in T-shirts that reached their knees rushed toward them, each prodding a rolling hoop with a hooked stick. Demba untied the center bucket and propped the bike against the gasoline stall.

  “The wheels rest their spinning.”

  The attendant nodded. “Fine, fine.”

  Heading toward the children and the homes, Demba whipped his head back, and his dreadlocks wrapped around his neck and shoulders like a scarf, then slipped back down. The children giggled and hid behind the tallest boy, letting their hoops collapse in the dirt. Their eyes focused on Demba as if he shone; then they moved their attention to Mor, who stood right behind him. For no reason Mor could explain, he felt proud to be with Demba, who strode across the dirt like a lion hunter.

  “You ride with him?” the oldest boy asked Mor, jutting his chin toward Demba’s back.

  Mor nodded, feeling more important with each step. He ignored the ache and chills running through him.

  “He just let you?” The inquisitive boy fell in beside Mor, the smaller boys acting as his tail.

  Mor shrugged, wishing the boy would stop talking. He was loud and his words pecked at Mor’s temples.

  “Do you go on the water, too?”

  As Mor nodded, the boy added, “Can you ask to bring me? I want to be out at sea, not here farming this dry dirt. My family has lived here so long that my father and grandfather know no other way, but this is no life for me. They will not see reason. I am the oldest son.” The younger boys still peeked from behind him.

  Mor stared at the boy. He had both his father and grandfather with him, and they wanted him with them, to teach him. Mor could not understand why the boy would want different than that.

  He rocked his head, about to speak, but it throbbed. His head felt like it was still in the boat. Mor found it hard to listen.

  “You all right?” the boy asked, leaning too close to Mor’s face, making him go cross-eyed.

  Mor stepped back and wiped his hand across his upper lip and brow; they were covered in sweat.

  “You don’t look okay,” the boy continued. His head weaved in and out of Mor’s focus.

  “I am,” Mor said, though he wasn’t completely sure. He quickened his pace to catch up to Demba but soon slowed, unable to catch a breath.

  The other boys helped Demba with the buckets of fish.

  “Maybe you should have Demba make you a tea or something. He knows all the plants and berries to use. My grandmother has shown him everything since he was young.”

  Mor was curious about Demba and these people who seemed to know him so well, but right then his head demanded more attention than his curiosity.

  A woman with skin as smooth as a pebble rushed from one of the small mud-walled houses, swinging a small pouch. The boys resembled her in every way, from their long, slender faces to their deep dark-brown eyes. She clutched the ample fabric of her yellow boubou in her hand as she shuffled across the dirt, stopping only to eye the fish the smaller boys carted away in the buckets.

  “Aww, my friend, you are
here.” She took Demba’s hand in hers and pressed her cheek to his shoulder before pulling away. Demba stood still, letting her. “Do you have my daughters’ dresses?” she asked. “They’re restless like lion cubs, eager to see.”

  He gestured for Mor to retrieve their bundle from the bike. Then a girl whose face looked as if it could have been chiseled from the same piece of wood as the boys’ and the woman’s ran up beside them. She grabbed the bundle as soon as Mor freed it, and raced away, smiling. The woman grinned as the girl giggled, yanking the plastic from around the fabric, a group of girls around her.

  “My daughter’s manners have run away with her. Forgive Bintou,” the woman said. Then she glanced at Mor and seemed to forget her next thought. “Idrissa?” The name hung in the air; then she brushed it away with the shake of her head wrap. “Of course he is not. Idrissa went with Allah many sunsets ago. But he looks so much like him.”

  “Guèlew lii yobouna lepp,” Demba said.

  “Yes, yes, I know,” she said, looking at Demba. “The breeze does carry all things. Even what we do not want to let go of.” She stared at Mor then. “Since we know you are not Idrissa, what is your name, young one?”

  “Mor Fall,” he spoke up, though his throat felt like he had not had a sip of water in days.

  “It is a pleasure. I am Yvette.” She rested her hand over her heart and smiled. Then she patted Demba on the shoulder. “Come, come. You know she waits for you.” She and Demba started back toward the gathering of houses. “Come, Mor. You are most welcome as well.”

  Mor followed behind, even more curious. But the more he thought, the more his head felt pressed between two rocks. When they got to the houses, Mor wobbled, and leaned on the wall for support. A woman with wrinkles like folds in a dress sat on a large stump. A cloth was draped over her lap. Bark and leaves lay in piles as she plucked petals from a light-green stem. Her face brightened when she saw Demba. Taking her hand, Demba closed his eyes and bent forward, pressing it to his forehead in greeting.