Black Mamba Boy

by Nadifa Mohamed

  On a stagnant day, Jama returned home from work to find Ayan in Jinnow’s room, standing on tiptoe, her eyes ringed with stolen kohl, her raccoon eyes widening as she saw him staring at her while she snooped through Jinnow’s things. The beautiful silver kohl bottle rolling on the floor separately from its ornate lid.

  “Thief! Thief!” shouted Jama, filled with horror that she might have found the hidden money. “What are you doing? You thief!” he said as he lunged at her.

  Surprise had frozen a ridiculous expression on Ayan’s face, her eyebrows arching like the spines of frightened cats and her gap-toothed mouth hanging open. Jama pulled her arms behind her back, lifting her thin, dusty feet off the ground.

  “Let me go!” she cried.

  “What do you want in here? What are you looking for? Has someone sent you?”

  “No, no, please, Jama, I was just looking, wallaahi, let me go!” she begged. Jama in confusion held on to her. Ayan was strong and supple for a girl but she was no match for a feral street boy. He was too embarrassed to check her body for the money, so seeing the imposing dark wood wardrobe with the key in the lock, he opened the door and shoved Ayan in. He quickly turned the key and stood back, shaking, with sweat beads trickling down his forehead. He stared at the wardrobe door as Ayan kicked and shouted to be let out.

  “Jama! Jama! Jama! Let me out! I can’t breathe!” said her muffled voice.

  Jama gathered himself, and with a jabbing finger said, “You are staying in there, you dirty thief, until Jinnow comes back and checks you.”

  Ayan screamed long and loud, her erratic breathing and convulsive tears clearly audible in the room. Jama wiped the sweat off his brow and walked out of the room as Ayan continued to wail and weep. “It’s dark! It’s too hot. I’m going to die. Murderer! Murderer! Jama the Bastard Murderer!”

  Jama waited and waited outside Jinnow’s room while inside the cupboard Ayan gulped down the warm old air and emitted a low, strange whine. Her jail was lined with nuptial gowns and undergarments given as part of ancient dowries, the relics of dead loves and youthful dreams of glamour and romance. The velvety blackness around her shifted and made room for its young visitor. She felt like she was at the bottom of a deep, deep well, too deep in the earth to ever be found, and panic washed over her in rapid waves. The noon prayer came and went as did the afternoon prayer, and it was not until it was nearly time for the sunset prayer that Jama could hear Jinnow’s voice rising up from a commotion in the courtyard. Jinnow walked down the hallway followed by a loud troupe of compound women, with a beleaguered look on her wrinkled face.

  “Have you seen Ayan? Her mother can’t find her,” Jinnow asked.

  Jama looked up, and it was only then that it occurred to him how long he had spent on that doorstep and how long Ayan had spent in her makeshift prison. Jama got up creakily on weak legs. With slippery fingers before a roomful of expectant females, Jama turned the key on the wardrobe lock. Immediately a stink of urine swelled out of the hot, stuffy cell. There lay Ayan, barely conscious, her head flung back, her too-red tongue lolling. A collective gasp surged from the audience and Jinnow shoved Jama violently out of the way to get to Ayan, she shook Ayan and kissed her face until the girl’s eyes snapped open and a long scream coiled out from her. Ayan’s mother grabbed her child and hugged her suffocatingly against her bosom. “May God break your back, you devil,” she said over Ayan’s shoulder, her eyes ringed with antimony shooting daggers of hate deep into him.

  Jama stuttered, “She’s a thief, Jinnow, check her, she was trying to steal my money.”

  “May God break your balls, you lying bastard, you are cursed by all the saints,” screeched the mother. “Oh tolla’ay, tolla’ay, my poor child. May God put you under the ground, you eunuch, you devil!”

  Jinnow’s head sank down and fat tears rolled down Jama’s face. Young women bearing water and cloths dragged Ayan from her mother’s grip and took her away to revive and clean her. Ayan’s mother stretched out to her full height and with a long sharp fingernail pushed up Jama’s face. “I want you out of here, or I swear to God I will cut your nasty little thing off.” The courtyard women departed, leaving behind them a miasma of hair oil and incense.

  Jinnow pulled Jama into a crushing grip and kneaded his back, shoulders, and neck, violently and soothingly. She told him to lie down but he didn’t, he pulled away and took one last hard look at her. Jinnow’s small eyes were framed with short, feathery eyelashes, her skin looked like old paper, moles spread over her cheeks and nose, and three of her front teeth were gold; she was an elderly Ambaro. Jinnow and Isir left their room to placate Ayan’s mother, and Jama grabbed his stash of money and snuck out behind them as stealthily as a cat. There was a deep, false silence echoing across the courtyard but he could see twinkling eyes peeking out behind curtains and doors. As he walked out into the sunset, a bitter wind flicked at his threadbare clothes and drew goose bumps from his skin. Stars grew smaller and dimmer above as paraffin lamps were placed on windowsills down the street, burning like golden fireflies trapped in cages. Jama heard Jinnow calling him back and glanced over his shoulder, Jinnow stood in the street barefoot, her arm threadlike as she held it aloft. He waved to her, trying desperately to communicate his gratitude and love, but he ran on. It fell into Jama’s mind that he wasn’t a child anymore; he needed to learn how to be a man. Jama reached Naasa Hablood, the Maiden’s Breasts, the conical twin hills overlooking Hargeisa, and peered below to see the lamps and lights of the town disappearing into the gauzy brown haze of a dust storm. The wind licked and slapped the cowering nomad tents while the white stone houses stood pompously amid the flying rubbish, but eventually the whole town disappeared as if it were just a mirage from an old Arab tale; and just as easily Jama was spirited away from family, home, and homeland.

  Sand scratched his eyes and blurred the path as it danced around the desert in a frenetic whirling ballet. Jama’s sarong was nearly pulled off by the mischievous sand jinns hiding within the storm. He covered his face with his sarong and managed to make slow progress like that. The dust storm had turned the sun a dark orange, and it crept away below the horizon to be replaced by an anemic moon. Jama stumbled across the hills, kicking rocks away with bare feet, giant thorns poking and prodding dangerously. Desert animals scurried around looking for refuge, their small paws scrambling over Jama’s sand-swathed feet. Exhausted, Jama stopped and collapsed onto the sand. With nothing but the howl of the wind around him, he fell asleep, the cold scratch of the storm still assailing his arms and legs. When he opened his inflamed eyes it was the hour before sunrise but he could see a tarred road laid out in front of him as if jinns had prepared it while he slept. It had been strewn with sand, leaves, and twigs by the departing storm. The wind had calmed and the temperature was mild. He stood up excitedly and scanned the road, left to right, right to left, hoping for the round lights of a lorry to emerge, but there was no light apart from the white of the moon. The tar was cool and smooth against his desert-sore feet and he walked slowly while the sun returned joyously to the east, its rays lighting the undulating road until it took on the appearance of molten gold.

  A rumbling sound reverberated along the road and then the “daru daru daruuu” horn of an invisible lorry pierced the morning air like a cockerel cry. Jama ran down to meet it, and narrowly avoided its gigantic hood as it careered around the bend and raced past. Standing in its sooty trail, Jama wondered how long it would take to get to Sudan, if he had enough money, if he could get food and water on the road. He only knew to walk away from Hargeisa, everything else was a mystery. He walked up the side of a hill, rocks slipping under his feet. He tripped on the skeletons of goats killed by earlier droughts; their bleached rib cages jutted out of the dirt like teeth and inside them tiny yellow flowers sprouted from cacti. The desert terrified him, the silence, the boulders marking nomad’s graves, the emptiness. Jama scampered farther up, hoping to find human company by following the goat droppings left by a passing herd.
As he climbed higher the Maroodi Jeeh valley was spread out beneath him, and he scaled the large granite boulders believing that he would be able to see Sudan from the summit. He squinted at the strip of blue on the horizon, unsure whether it was sky or sea. The land looked eerie from this height, dry riverbeds snaked across the earth as far as the eye could see, acacia trees grew bent and stunted in tangled, harassed-looking clumps like old widows begging. Massive stony-faced boulders sat squatly amid nothing. Towering termite mounds, the zenith of insect genius, stood tall and imposing like bleak apartment blocks. A nomad’s house built from branches and straw had a high fence around it, keeping out emptiness. A raw breeze prickled Jama’s skin, and dark purple clouds dotted the sky. To the far east shone a spontaneous river, fed by rain falling on the distant Golis Mountains. Vultures swooped above the river, praying for drowned bodies. In the water, opals and emeralds glinted. Small villages had grown alongside the road, the fragile dwellings placed so close to its edge that it seemed the speed of a racing lorry would blow them away. Here and there forgotten paraffin lamps burned dangerously in the makeshift homes. Far off to the north galloped British colonial officers in khaki, looking for warthogs to set off their game of pig-sticking. Warthogs were rarely seen in the country anymore but the British were even more elusive, generally preferring to hide in their Raj-style government bungalows from the heat and bloody foreignness of Somaliland. The sight of the groomed Arabian horses sweating in the scrub, tormenting the poor warthogs, saddened Jama and he climbed back down the hill to the road.

  Jama walked and walked. No more cars or lorries passed by and he didn’t see any camel caravans, but he carried on stubbornly. The clouds pursued him, gathering in speed and strength, an army dressed in black marching across the sky, conquering the blue. Straight ahead of him the sun got heavier and larger like a hot old lady wobbling before her knees finally buckled. He reached a ruined Oromo town, its once grand buildings fallen down and forgotten. Jama crept into the old mosque, the wood rotting and clay bricks disintegrating around him. He rested on his haunches and sat there like a madman amid the dirt and debris, bats flitting in and out of the silent pulpit and spirits murmuring behind his back. He watched as the wind blew life into an old snakeskin and it slithered away to find its old self. Thirsty and frightened, he regretted running away and was now tempted to return to Jinnow. He found a well and peered into its gloomy mouth. He suspected it was full of rubbish—twigs, rubble, a dead rat—but he was so thirsty he dropped a rock and heard the delicious reply of water. Jama leaned further over the lip of the well, the old wall crumbled underneath him, and he fell head first into the stinking pit. He spat and blew his nose but the bitter water had already gone down his throat. He scrambled out, terrified the whole thing would collapse on him, and went back despondently to the ghost mosque with scratched arms and a vile taste in his mouth. Only when his mother’s sleeping body appeared beside him, her ribs rising and falling in peaceful slumber, could he finally close his eyes. At the darkest hour of night, the sky cracked and revealed a blue-and-white secret kingdom. The high heavens and low earth were joined by a sheet of conquering raindrops, followed by a thundering marching band that seemed to be playing drums, cymbals, violins, and reedy flutes whose notes fell down and smashed against the gasping desert earth, battering down an angry song of life. Jama was awoken by this miraculous concert heralding the end of the dry season, and sleepily turned onto his back to receive his benediction. Rain splattered against Jama’s lips and he opened his mouth to drink it in, he heard happy laughter echoing around him and saw drenched jinns cavorting and dancing with abandon.

  Jama placed his feet in the large footprints the jinns had left behind. Left, right, left, right, he rode high on long thin legs. All around, large iridescent pools had formed from the night’s rainstorm, looking like mirages in the drifting heat of the day. Jama stopped regularly to marvel at the sudden deluge and examine his face in the water’s silky surface, he picked at tough karir berries and drank rainwater. The mountains had become pyramids of blue and dark purple under the rain clouds and it was with a joyful heart that Jama walked through the downpour, washing away the memory of months of grime, slaughterhouse blood, and misery. A caravan of wet camels, wooden bells clanking, sloshed past him, the young herders casting a quick suspicious look his way as they jumped over puddles. Jama followed the group discreetly, hiding behind the long legs of an old camel carrying a sick woman bundled up in hides. The caravan stopped at a saint’s tomb and began unloading, the women taking charge of the tents, the children watching the sheep while the men wrestled with the camels. In the mornings the camels would be called by name, and with a heave and a groan they would get up and amble over to their proud owners.

  The rainy season had finally arrived; bash bash and barwaaqo, the season of splash splash and God’s rain. Everyone had a sparkle in their eye; necks craned toward the clouds for months could finally relax. For a few months life would be a little kinder and people would have the leisure to recite poems and fall in love. Green shoots sprouted at once and the camels ate as if they were at a wedding feast, glades appeared beside dusty flats that had magically become rivers.

  The saint’s tomb was a simple structure with a large whitewashed dome but it brought together a cosmopolitan mix of travelers; rich men with high turbans and supercilious expressions prayed next to hardworking Yibirs, Tumals, and Midgaans. They came from every direction, picking their way through the muddy tracks left by earlier pilgrims, their figures barely distinguishable from the termite mounds and cacti. Ascetic nomads asked for blessings alongside boozy merchant sailors, home for the first time in years. Countrywomen with bare heads and exposed bosoms howled for fertility as did veiled, sheltered townswomen. Jama moved around in the melee, praying for a father while the women prayed for children. He observed the fervor of the other worshippers and hoped that God could still hear him through the clamor.

  A little distance from the tomb was a hut surrounded by an inquisitive crowd. Jama pushed through and saw a nightmarish scene: an old man had a young boy’s head clamped between his knees; the holy man cut open the boy’s head; a flap of hairy skin fell to one side and he scored back and forth over the skull with his dagger; finally, a square of the boy’s skull came loose from the soft watery pulp of his brain; the old man carefully picked it out and placed it to his side. A woman explained to the silent audience that the boy had fallen off a mountain, had been asleep since and was not expected to wake up, and his father had brought him to the holy man in desperation. The boy lay lifeless throughout the operation, but his father was seated next to him, his eyes wide and white. Jama wished that he were the sleeping boy with his own father bent over in fear and love.

  Jama spent the night at the tomb. Allah’s name was repeated until it echoed everywhere and seemed to emanate from the tomb, the trees, the mountains. From the nomads’ camp he could hear drumming and ululations long after dark, the young men and women dancing under skies that blazed magenta, jade, silver, violet with lightning. The air sizzled between downpours and the young warriors jumped up as high as fleas, throwing their spears in the air, showing off their martial acrobatics. Jama fell asleep with the stars dancing above his head, whirling dizzyingly to the drums and chants.

  The next morning, a man ran around yelling for the people to rise and observe a miracle, the boy had awoken and was speaking again. Old and young crowded around the holy man’s hut and saw the light of the boy’s blinking eyes in the gloom. People shouted out, “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, God is Great,” and brought gifts of incense and dates to the man and his son. The holy man stood aloof from the spectacle; he calmly picked off the beads of his rosary and chewed a wad of qat. When an excited party of worshippers approached him, he waved them away and returned to the cool of the tomb. Jama saw the miracle as proof that of all the tombs in Somaliland, God’s attention was on this one. He raced away expecting his father to be delivered to him, and back on the road, within moments a lorry app
eared, white with bismallah painted in red and yellow along its bumper, asking for the Lord to have mercy on it, and from its mirrors dangled withered jasmine chains whose scent still perfumed the morning air.

  Jama chased after the lorry, waving and shouting. “Wait! Wait! Are you going to Sudan?”

  The lorry slowed down with jeers from the cab. “Of course not. We’re going to Djibouti. If you wanna get in, just get in! Hurry up!” shouted one of the men sardined inside, the reflection of their bodies in the side mirror creating the impression of a hydra.