by M G Vassanji
There is one way to teach such kids a lesson. They trail behind you in school and all over town, expect you to protect them from other kids, and then play you off against your elders. I landed one resounding smacker across his cheek and off he went howling to report: but only the lesser crime. This obstacle overcome, I went off to where Ahmed awaited me at the staircase and placed the shilling in his sticky palm.
We went up and I followed him into the cave that was their flat. I had never been behind those doors before and I did so then with some trepidation. I looked behind me nervously as I entered. Inside, it was strangely quiet, and dark. The windows there, except for one or two of them, were always kept closed. Some of them were boarded up with boxtops and plywood. The curtains were drawn that afternoon and light was barely visible through them. I walked behind him without looking right or left in what I knew, from the plan of our own home above, to be the dining room. We turned right into a bedroom. There were three beds in it each alongside a wall. He made for the one to our right. I followed. In it was Varaa.
He started making signs with his hands, and the soft clucking half-words that only they understood. It seemed that she was in on the deal. She gave a grunt of annoyance and drew back her legs, bending them at the knees. He let her dress slip back and parted her legs further. Then he lighted a match and handed it to me. Shadows moved on the walls as he did so and our three silent figures emerged sharply in the dim orange glow of the fluttering light. I moved in with the flame. The darkness between her legs had disappeared to reveal fleshy brown thighs and a panty-less crotch covered lightly with a black fuzz. On her face was an anxious look – wild eyed, open-mouthed.
Suddenly he smacked the back of my hand and the match dropped to the floor; greyness returned.
‘Put it out, stupid, and let it smoulder – or you’ll burn her fuzz!’ he yelled in irritation.
He lighted another match and handed it over. I waved it smartly in the air, once, and the flame died. Then sweating profusely in that dark and stuffy bedroom, with trembling hand and breath held back, as if trying to light a potentially explosive primus stove, I edged closer with the smouldering matchstick.
The Relief from Drill
For a few months Aloo brought a sense of plenitude to our lives. He made us taste from bounties which we had felt were beyond us. But at what a cost. A cost to himself in terms of the shame and humiliation, the fall from grace. And to myself, his elder by two years, dutybound to play the watchdog, the cold-blooded conscience that noted and faithfully reported.
The idea had perhaps entered his mind, that good things could be had cheaply and need not be bought in the expensive stores downtown, when my friend Azim brought home a gramophone from the mnada.
The mnada was an open-air market in the African section of town. It was a square bustling with activity, uproarious with catcalls and jeers and bargains being struck, festooned with brightly-coloured cloth and lit up in the night with the yellow light of kerosene lamps. It was packed in on three sides by rows of mud houses and accessible on the fourth by a short alley. As you came up this alley, missing potholes, avoiding banana and orange peels and other rubbish, giving right of way to carts of fruit and other wares pulled by men with impatient voices and straining backs, a brilliant and unsettling display of furniture suddenly came in sight. Folding chairs, sofas and tables, all functional – simple, roughly finished, varnished cheap red or gleaming yellow – lay exposed to the world and the weather. In front of this display, alongside the road and the open gutter ran a line of fruit and peanut sellers. Behind the furniture in small make-shift stalls and spread out on racks, crates, and on the ground, were the other articles on sale: new and used clothes, shoes, glass beads, mirrors and plastic jewellery; Japanese perfumes with exotic-sounding Arabic names, in bottles that cracked if exposed to the sun; toys, and even used appliances. Many a common thief had been chased through these grounds. Music bands sometimes used the ready audience here to begin their rounds of the streets in the evenings.
It was while walking through this market, with no intention whatever of buying anything, that Azim and I were shown the gramophone, treated to a song, and then persuaded to buy it at a giveaway price. He was the more impressionable I believe. ‘Wait here,’ he commanded me in great excitement. ‘I’m going home to get the money.’ The loquacious vendor he silenced with ‘Don’t sell it, I’m coming right back!’ Meanwhile I was given a stool to sit on and treated to the scratchy record one more time as we waited. It was called ‘Ribbons and Things.’ For the next few weeks we heard it over and over again, before Azim could induce his father to part with more money for a modern short-playing record.
The mnada was not a respectable place to shop in because of the type of people believed to hang around there – jobless Africans from the districts, and thieves. Boys sometimes went there in search of cheap things: footballs or cricket bats, in a last desperate bid to outfit a budding team. And then, popular belief had it, especially in the Indian shops, that the newer and more decent articles there were ‘hot’ and for that reason dispatched quickly by auction every evening. If an item was stolen from your shop, the chances were that you would find it in the mnada by evening. You could even send your servant to buy it back.
But Aloo convinced us that most items there were not stolen: the police came regularly to check. And if you knew the vendors there personally, if you befriended them, you could get just the selections you needed. The right sizes and the proper colours. He had started visiting the mnada regularly, on his way to check our box at the post office, and gave enticing reports of the cheap items on sale there. Finally he was given permission to buy, but only what was necessary and he started bringing home the stuff.
The question whether the goods were stolen was easily laid aside and for a few weeks the quality of life at home improved appreciably. Precisely those things we could not afford to have – whose absence betrayed our modest status, try as hard as we might to hide it – we could now get cheaply. At half the price or less. Mother, who worked alone in the store all day to make ends meet, did not have the heart to deny us these luxuries, these gifts that practically begged to be received. It was as if a rich uncle had unexpectedly turned up in town.
Aloo and I were soon newly outfitted for the coming Eid festival. Eid was always anticipated with great excitement all over town. In the few weeks preceding it, right up to the eve of the great day, shops stayed open late to make the most of the joyous season, while sewing machines hummed feverishly in their interiors and outside as bleary-eyed tailors worked overtime for anxious customers. But that season my brother and I were into ready-made importeds. The mnada gave us crisp white nylon shirts, made in Japan, and black ties to wear with them. The shirts had stiff collars and cuffs, and black plastic cufflinks. Next came leather shoes, with studs and steel inserts in their soles. Stretchable, nylon socks, which were new just then, followed.
Some weeks later, with the Eid behind us and business back in the doldrums, and school charging full steam ahead, came another treat – this time a potent relief which we had long awaited and fought for. It was our release from the irksome stiffness of our school shirts which, at Mother’s orders, were sewn in our shop once a year from thick white drill to last through to the following year with continuous wear. How much we resisted wearing these dreadful garments which when new stood out like the starched khaki of the police! They gave us the dubious distinction in school of being the only two boys in drill. But wear them we had to and Mehroon, my sister, even had our initials sewn in black on the tails to keep us from squabbling first thing in the morning. These shirts saw their remaining days on the playing fields and in the streets. They were replaced by new, ready-made ones of soft cotton called ‘Fuji’.
Aloo brought chocolates and orangeade, ‘Oxford’ compass boxes and ‘Baby’ pens. Straw schoolbags were abandoned for satchels made of plastic. The girls did not prosper as much as we did. Their clothes could only be sewn at home or at a dressmak
er’s from material bought downtown. Such speciality items the mnada appeared not to have. Once, though, Mehroon got some bras when she enquired of him about a particular brand. He was the expert. He could tell us what could be afforded and what had to be done without. And like a father in our fatherless household he brought home the goodies. He went alone on these trips; I never accompanied him, feeling shy and too embarrassed to venture into the bustling mnada to shop for the home.
We used to walk to school, the two of us: along two long streets, a walk of about three miles. First came Livingstone Street, a dirt road passing mainly through an African neighbourhood, then the paved United Nations Road that passed through a Hindu then a mixed rich locality. Near the end of Livingstone Street we would pick our friend Meghji up – which meant waiting impatiently at the door for him while he got dressed or had his breakfast. They were a poor family, their store a long narrow booth at the front of their house, flush with the street. There his father sat as we arrived, dispensing kerosene and matches and sugar and muttering from time to time, ‘Oh God, make me good!’ His mother was very fair and fat.
‘Aloo is sick!’ she observed one day when I arrived alone.
‘Yes, Auntie,’ I said, ‘he stepped on a nail.’
She saw us off as usual from the doorway, hands on her hips, the flesh on her fat arms loose and dangling at the sleeves.
We had walked past the crossroads, having observed from a distance the clock in the fire station office and decided to quicken our pace, when in his inimitable way Meghji made the revelation.
‘Your mother surely gives Aloo a lot of money to keep, bana. He walks like a rich man! A whole wad of dough – he should not show it around.’
Perhaps his mother had asked him to say this. My heart sank. The doubt that had lurked in my mind like a thin mist whose presence I could barely sense now became concrete and dark and precipitate. I did not say much and we continued on our way, he telling bawdy jokes and I listening.
That afternoon I told Mother. Her face tightened, becoming white in a gesture we had learnt to recognise as more of sadness than of anger. Mehroon was also there in the store. She was Mother’s chief lieutenant and self-styled executor. Often, a tyrant. The news gave her a particular thrill.
‘Salah!’ she exclaimed. ‘How dare he cheat us!’
And her mind went through all the schemes he could have used to pilfer the cash. She did not hit upon the truth just then. Nothing was said for the next few days about the matter. Mother was noticeably quiet waiting for Aloo’s next move. But neither he nor Razia nor Firoz suspected anything was amiss or the reckoning that lay ahead.
A few afternoons later, Aloo said he would go to the mnada. First he went upstairs to the flat for a bath. Mehroon’s eyes lit up. She looked at Mother who was behind the counter near the cash box. Ten minutes later, as she timed it, Mehroon took the spare bunch of keys from Mother and followed Aloo upstairs. What happened there we heard from her. She opened the door and went in. The bathroom was to her left, and he wasn’t in it. But she knew exactly where he was. She went to the sitting room which also served as Mother’s bedroom. It ended on one side in a wedge-shaped corner against which was placed a huge wooden closet that closed off a small triangular area at the back. At the back of the closet, in a small access between the bottom and the floor, Mother kept some cash: for emergencies and long-term debts. To get to the cash you had first to climb up over the six-foot closet, crouch under the ceiling and jump down into the small area behind. You had to be small which meant only Aloo and I could be used for the task. In that small area Mehroon found him. How she got him to come out she did not tell us, but we could guess. Her word was command.
She came downstairs triumphantly, holding him by the hand, and took him towards Mother. All the while he looked down, and I could feel his cheeks burning with the shame.
‘Ask him what he was doing!’ Mehroon proclaimed to us, releasing him with a shove.
That night while the rest of us sat in the sitting room around the radio talking in low tones to ourselves, Mother got up abruptly and went to the other room where with lights off he was in bed, hoping perhaps to fall asleep before the inevitable. He had gone through much during the rest of the afternoon and at dinner – Mehroon’s taunts and questioning as she extracted from him all the accounts of his purchases and the details of his exploits that had now come to an end.
It turned out that he had bought most of the things downtown at regular prices. The mnada he had used mainly to quote cheap prices. The difference between what he quoted and what he actually paid he had made up by taking from the savings behind the closet, which were almost all used up.
My heart contracted and I grieved silently as I heard Mother say something in a heavy voice in the next room; and after that: ‘Will you do it again?’ twice in succession. Then the sound of smacks as she slapped him on the thighs with a leather slipper, and his wailing reply, ‘No, no.’
She returned to the sitting room, her face white, her lips pressed.
The Driver
He parked the stationwagon outside the goldsmith’s shop and a bunch of schoolboys in rumpled, soiled uniforms of white and grey tumbled out of it from all sides. He watched them take off in all four directions for their homes. Then he carefully wiped the oil from their hair off the seats, locked the car doors and sauntered towards Nurmohamed’s store across the street.
A bicycle speedily crossed his path and came to a wobbling stop a short distance away at the intersection. On the main road, the daily bread cart came creaking into sight, a fellow pushing it from behind and another pulling it. Now it pulled up at the intersection and waited. It was four o’clock in the afternoon and humid after the rains. As he walked he put his hand behind his neck and softly rubbed the sweaty skin there. Wet globules of dirt formed under his fingers. The inside of his shirt collar felt wet to his touch and he cursed at the heat.
Nurmohamed, who had followed his arrival from inside the store, now watched him cross the street. He sat, in a white singlet and a worn, green loincloth, perched on a carseat atop a wooden crate. Through the two storefronts he looked out on the two streets. He was surrounded by his wares, sitting practically in their midst. Crates heaped with grain and spices formed an uneven chequerboard displayed to the main street on one side; a wood-topped counter with a fly-specked glass front containing old yellowing items closed off most of the other side, leaving a small passageway behind him. Tufts of grey hair jutted out from under his soft fat arms. His uncovered chest was a jungle of grey hair, his layered chin had a white stubble, and his white head was cropped close. His hands were in continuous motion. He would put a handful of spice or gum on a piece of square paper, then fold it rapidly, twice, to make a cone, then a third time, and finally tuck the remaining edge in and throw the finished packet into a basket. It would fetch ten cents from his mainly African customers.
From where he sat he could reach and measure out grain for them with a rusty milk can attached to a long handle. And he could extend a small metal tray to collect their money and return change. An old wooden cash box stood on the table in front of him. He did not have to move. They called him Mzee Pipa – Old Barrel. He was known far and wide, Mzee Pipa, the fat Indian shopkeeper of Kichwele Street, who would gyp you of a penny if he could. His weak legs could not carry his weight, and he had to be supported by the driver when he walked.
Inside the store was dark and cool. A large and dirty green tarpaulin sheet hanging from an awning protected the counter side from direct sunlight in the afternoons. Behind him were stacks of old British newspapers, The Observer, The Illustrated London News, News of the World, wrapping paper for sale to neighbouring stores. Behind the papers were gunny sacks filled with grain and behind these, in the storeroom, was complete darkness where no light, electric or sun, ever reached, and where only the servant ventured. There were cupboards on the walls that had not been opened for years. The place was infested with rats and cockroaches. An odour of spice and
grain mixed with cockroach egg and wet gunny permeated the air inside.
The servant, a young boy who sat outside on the weighing scale under the awning, apparently with nothing to do at this hour, looked up as the driver approached.
‘Eh, Idi,’ spoke Nurmohamed in a hardly audible croak to the driver. ‘Now take the food to the mosque.’
It was Friday today, the day of charity, when shopkeepers changed ten-cent coppers into pennies that servants then handed out to the scores of beggars expectantly touring the streets rattling their cans. On Fridays also, Nurmohamed fulfilled a family obligation and he sent his weekly offering to his mosque.
Idi walked towards the back of the building where a side door opened into the courtyard and the stairs. But first he passed it, turning into the open lot behind the building, covered with shrubs, trees and refuse, and stopped beside a pawpaw tree to urinate against the stained, yellow back wall. It was used by the servants throughout the day and the area was covered with a thick stench. He had to hold his breath.
He had used the toilet upstairs several times before, until he was caught emerging out of it once by Nurmohamed’s wife and bawled out. So it was the wall for him, or one of the row of toilets in the mosque courtyard, where he could sneak in unseen. Wait, he had thought then, smarting from the insult. We’ll have our day.
Upstairs the woman was taking her nap in the bedroom. The flat was quiet. All the curtains were drawn and it was cool. On the dining table, which was covered with a red and white checked plastic sheet, was a plate of food covered with a newspaper. Idi opened the pantry and brought out three hardened, stale chappatis and wrapped them in paper. He took the wrapped chappatis and the covered plate downstairs to the store and announced, ‘I’m going.’