The Gunny Sack

by M G Vassanji

  A. A. Raghavji—Nuru Poni—who in his younger days had been one of the first to wake up and walk to mosque at four, as his nickname “Nuru” attested, now preferred to sleep through the night, having been taken over—relatively speaking—by an agnostic phase not unrelated to the changes taking place in the country.

  Every morning A. A. Raghavji’s son, Alu Poni, waited for Sona and me outside the Moonlight Restaurant which blared Arab music and rattled with tea cups. The three of us would then begin the first part of our trek to Boys’ School, along pot-holed, dusty Viongozi Street. It was cool, at seven in the morning, the sun still behind the white-washed mud houses on the right. There would be a steady trickle of business at the Arab corner stores.

  Exactly halfway on our journey, just before Viongozi Street opened into sun-drenched Morogoro Road and joined former Cameron (now United Nations) Road, we stopped to pick up Jogo. Sitting at the front, in the store that was more a stall outside a mudhouse, sat Jogo’s father, the subject of A. A. Raghavji’s letter, his meagre goods within easy reach of him. He would be perched on his seat at the till, serving jiggers of kerosene to his African customers, or packets of tea and sugar or matches. Occasionally he would yawn loudly and sigh, “Oh God, make me good!” He had a dirty, unshaven face and wore thick glasses that magnified his eyes. Ever since the letter appeared in the Herald, he had begun to be called “The Disturbance.” What he shouted in the morning were not “incomprehensible utterances,” as A. A. Raghavji well knew. He began with Arabic verses in his old and croaky voice, horribly mispronouncing, and then, perhaps bored of saying words he did not understand, made up prayers and poetry first in Gujarati, and recently in Swahili. But A. A. Raghavji, as his son reported, could not sleep. He woke up and waited for the first utterances in the distance to begin, and thenceforth agonized as they approached, relentless until they reached a peak under his window and then receded. After which he could not go back to sleep. His letter’s notoriety and its fame spread. It was said, especially by those who could not read English, that he had called old Jogo a machar, a mosquito and a djinn. Neighbours refused to sign his petition, and he became short-tempered and testy.

  “He is brushing his teeth, he’ll be out in a moment,” Jogo’s mother would announce when we asked for him in the morning, and shout, “Abdul! Your friends are here!” Politely we would decline the offer of breakfast, and when the wait got too long, accepted a drink of water. Finally Jogo would emerge, grinning, swinging his school bag, his wet hair hastily combed, with gummy eyes. He was watched by his fat mother. He was solid, round and dirty. Except on Mondays, his shorts were never clean or pressed, his collars were always frayed, his shoes, when he wore them, dirty. He set the pace for the rest of our journey, telling bawdy jokes and inventing stories. He was our educator in sex. To learn from him was to hear dialogues among insects and fruits that had visited wonderful and hair-raising places in the anatomy, and had lived to tell the tale.

  They were earth and ether, Jogo and Alu, but their fathers’ quarrel had not rubbed off on them.

  My friend Alu, I would have to coax him to come to films with me whenever I could wrestle a permission out of Kulsum … He was tall and frail. With puberty he became awkward and bespectacled, sweating from his palms and back. He carried a handkerchief in his hand when he wrote, which he also used to sniff with. When he shook hands, which he rarely did, he pocketed the drenched hankie and proffered a limp hand. In those days, with an Elvis hairstyle kept in place with a ready comb, his one dream was to be able to play the guitar and sing. From somewhere he obtained the specs for an electric guitar and had a piece of wood cut to shape by a carpenter. For a few weeks he bored us with talk of frets and bridges and keys as he waited for the equipment to arrive at the music shop. It never arrived, and he refused to consider another instrument. The wood with the bridge stuck on it lay near his bed while he waited, until gradually he gave up the project. An image of dead seriousness clung to him. A wraith. Awkward and gawking, giving off a faint odour of damp garlic, but obstinately persistent: a future professor, yes, but Elvis, no.

  We were treated to our first and last tea at the house of our neighbour Uncle Goa. He brought the invitation shyly one day, a message from Madam.

  “A birthday?” smiled Kulsum knowingly.

  “No. Goodbye,” he smiled back from the doorway.

  “The world has changed too rapidly for us,” he said when we were there that Sunday. “We have decided to go to Lourenço Marques.”

  “We cannot watch our servants turning around and throwing insults at us.” Madam spoke as she stiffly brought the tea and accessories on a large tray, which she proceeded to unload on the centre table. She was a big woman, bigger than Uncle Goa, and a little exertion left her breathless. Kulsum watched with interest as she placed the faded beer mats on the quarter-circle serving stools and brought the cups one by one, aided by her son Brian. (Brian with the blue-green eyes, who was not allowed to play with us.)

  “But we have nowhere to go,” said Kulsum. “We were all born here.”

  “Yes, yes,” Uncle Goa said hastily. “For you it’s different.”

  Gentle Uncle Goa. Kulsum had called upon him only rarely, in emergencies, but then he served with devotion, single-mindedly. He had taken me to school on my first day, when there was no one else to do it. (And together we had bungled my last name.) On the day I went with Edward on our Maulidi excursion at Illala he had driven all over town for a few hours looking for me. He recalled the incident. “Don’t run off again and worry your mother!”

  (Well, Uncle Goa, if only you could see me now … from wherever you are …)

  “So,” said Madam. “I am asking fifty shillings for all the kitchenware and one hundred and fifty for the Singer. The fridge I am selling to someone else.” Kulsum agreed. She had already made other arrangements with Uncle Goa.

  … I sit in the shop, behind Kulsum, tinkering with Kulsum’s “zigzag,” hidden from view by the raised cabinet cover, the bobbin case open in front of me. Kulsum sits on her high stool behind the counter, commanding the two doorways. At this languorous afternoon hour Uncle Goa comes in, in his best uniform, white shorts and shirt and stockings, and black shoes.

  “Well, Mrs. Juma,” he says awkwardly. “I have come to say goodbye.” There is a pause, and they shake hands.

  “Give my regards to Madam,” says Kulsum. “And remember us sometimes.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And thank you for all the help you have given me.”

  “Ah, it was nothing …” He takes two steps, stops and turns around hesitantly. “Mrs. Juma … I have developed a deep respect for you—”

  “I am only a woman, but I do my best …”

  “Something I find hard to say …”

  “Thank you for what you’ve done.”

  “I just wanted you to know.”

  “I know.”

  “Then … goodbye, Mrs. Juma. Give my regards to your children.”

  “Goodbye, Mr. Menezes.”

  “It’s done!” I shout. “The bobbin is fixed!”

  To see your mother from a distance … Past forty, the body is thickening, bitter experience etched in those furrows on her forehead, visited by several illnesses that would never leave her, her medicine box getting more crowded every year with jostling pill bottles, the pills gradually eroding her grief and memory. Think of all those wooers, those men Hassan Uncle would bring during those initial years on some pretext. The first one was surely Mahmed Bhai, the book-keeper, into whose hairy ears we would poke thin long strands from the bathroom broom for fun. Why else would he stand this punishment … perhaps we drove him away. And the others, big and small, thin and fat, mostly it seemed from the interior, they would come, sit for some time, have tea and leave. She accepted no offers, memory was her husband. But she knew how fragile was the reputation of a widow, and she never went to town without either Sona or me with her … long walks to the Downtown wholesalers which we both hated, bec
ause there was no reward in them.

  Sir Richard Turnbull, then Governor General, left; a torch was lit on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro as promised, but its light not as glorious. The country was poor, we were told, and we have waved mother England goodbye. Per capita incomes were thrown about for comparison in political speeches, in the newspapers and finally in school. The enemies of the country were identified. Poverty, illiteracy and disease. Freedom from Hunger! Uhuru na kazi! Self-help schemes went under way.

  Every Sunday a lorry would stop at Kichwele and Viongozi to pick up volunteers from our corner, and people who had never wielded a spade before, Nuru Poni, Ramzan Daya, Nurdin Samji, went happily to build schools and housing schemes wearing khanga shirts and singing ‘E e TANU ya jenga nchi!’

  Those who had waited for Uhuru to throw riches at their feet were frustrated. Hassam Punja still owned his ten or more buildings, new bungalows were going up in Upanga, the new buildings going up on Msimbazi and Kichwele were mostly Indian … and Indian girls were still not forthcoming. The judges were Europeans, the managers of the big companies were Europeans, the headmasters in the schools were also Europeans. What had changed?

  There will be those who remember the three kofias, who gained a brief notoriety at the time of Chief Abdalla’s trial. The Swahili daily, Ngurumo, showed a picture of one of them, with his hand in a peanut vendor’s basket. This was at the rally in support of the chief, outside the High Court. “Is this what they think the kofia is for?” asked the caption. Who else but Jogo? He discovered the photograph himself (who else among us flipped the pages of Ngurumo?) and showed it around, even to the teachers.

  The kofia episode began with a haircut, inspired by Ji Bai’s revelations and the euphoria of Uhuru …

  One afternoon I went to Madhu Bhai’s shop and asked him to cut my hair short, to the scalp. A short koché-koché.

  “What! A new hairstyle this? What new actor or actress dictates this fashion now? Elvis is going bald?”

  “No, no, I just want it short.”

  “Aré—when it grows back, you will look like a real kalidas. Already it is colour you have lack of.”

  “Please cut it, now!”

  “Have you asked Ba?”

  “Yes. She sent me.”

  “Acha. Could be a matter of religion. But you don’t have lice, now? If so, first put kerosene and then come back!”

  “No, no! I don’t have any lice!”

  Madhu Bhai began humming and selecting scissors while I watched myself front and back in the infinite images of the two facing mirrors.

  Madhu Bhai was introduced to Kulsum by Hassan Uncle as a reasonable barber. He first cut my hair on the sidewalk outside my grandmother’s shop in Msimbazi. Then he still went around on foot with his leather case and in “barber’s uniform” of white bush shirt over white trousers, and black cap. You could spot a barber a good half a mile off in his uniform, patiently trudging along or pushing a bicycle, and if you had rather not sit still for half an hour and experience a burning hairline afterwards, you disappeared. Barbers knew when the month was up for their charges and came to remind and set appointments. Then they came looking for you under the staircase or on the roof terrace or wherever it was you were seeking asylum. Madhu Bhai promised his old discounts when he opened his New Empire Hairdressing Saloon. Here we could read old issues of Filmfare and the Illustrated London News. And Madhu Bhai still entertained, with Gujarati bhajans and proverbs and his phenomenal double fart. “Bosch!” he would exclaim in mild surprise at the first release, and then greet the second one with a satisfied “Red Cross!”

  “There,” he said, when he finished. “Fresh as a hot chapati! It will soon grow back. Next time you come, my son Ashok will be here. I am leaving.”

  “You are going? Where?”

  “Bharat! Desh! The old country!”

  “Do you own many buildings there, Madhu Bhai?”

  “Lots. Plenty. But don’t forget to look me up when you come there! My son will tell you where I am.”

  The young Ashok, whom I had never seen before, never had any news from Madhu Bhai, except to say, “He’s well!” He was soon joined by a partner. It was Kulsum, who said with a smile, much later, “You know, eh Kala, that Ashok is as much Madhu Bhai’s son as you are!”

  Alu, Jogo and I started wearing kofias, which were taken from the unredeemed stock at A. A. Raghavji’s pawn shop. Kulsum did not object too much, her father had worn a fez, and some old men from our community still wore them, and the neighbours said it’s a good thing for the boys to integrate a little. But she looked at Begum and Mehroon and said, “The next thing, you two will come home wearing buibuis!”

  Mehroon and Begum had finished secondary school and were working as machine operators, one at TANESCO and the other at the main branch of Barclays Bank. Mehroon had acquired a string of admirers and now travelled in style. Every morning a young man picked her up in a Peugeot and in the evening another one dropped her in his Volkswagen. The curtains in Mrs. Daya’s apartment would start fluttering excitedly at these hours. She called the two men Ashak and Mohbat, lover and friend, although which was which she could never say with consistency. The Volkswagen owner, Alnoor, was the favoured contestant, and Mrs. Daya already saw the day when Kulsum would go nowhere except in the “Volksie.” “Give us a ride now and then,” she would tell Kulsum, “don’t go waving at us like Queen Victoria!”

  Alnoor was bandylegged and chatty, a former opening batsman of the Boys’ School. He wore loose white shirts with sleeves partly rolled and two buttons open, revealing a hairy chest, very much the sportsman. He would leave the car and come in to greet Kulsum, putting back his comb as he entered, with, “So how are you keeping, Auntie? Did you have your vitamins? The legs all right?” Mrs. Daya, having spied him, would sometimes walk in with a pretext (“I have misplaced my needle”) and start bantering with him. “Well, cricketer, how many sixes did you hit on Sunday?” It was a switch to his motor. “Aré, Auntie, this time a clean bowl! All stumps down. Solanki threw a fast bowl, I never even saw it coming! Clean bowl! I tell you Auntie—I’ll have to shape up!” “And this without even being married, you! Your back should be strong, yet!” Mrs. Daya would say. “But Auntie, it’s not the back—that’s still strong, God be praised—it’s the eyes!” “Ah, you’re blinded! With what, now I wonder!” Her only regret was that her daughter was not old enough yet. “Kulsum,” she said. “If your Mehroon doesn’t like him, tell her to hold on to him until my daughter is ready. But don’t give me the spare tire. You keep him!”

  The spare tire was Amin, with the Peugeot, well dressed and proper, with a crisp, narrow moustache. Every morning he waited patiently in his car for Mehroon to come down, reading the Herald. Mrs. Daya reported on his movements. The day he first met her, he gravely shook her hand and immediately earned her lasting contempt.

  The expert fundi, Omari, showed no intention of leaving, still accumulating in his mind the thousands due to him in arrears, and Kulsum still dreaded the day of reckoning. And when he started asking about the rent of the store, she knew the end was near. “What business is it of yours?” she asked in annoyance, and he merely grinned. Idi, Pipa’s former chauffeur, still came around occasionally, and one day his uniform was sewn on our machine. With this provocation the situation reached a head and Kulsum sent for Edward. “Ask him how much he wants. I’ll give him five hundred.” Half of what she had put away for this eventuality. Edward went away, and after work stayed behind. “He says he wants the shop.” She said seven hundred, Omari said no. She said one thousand and no more, he said he would wait.

  One afternoon when Alnoor came to drop Mehroon, Kulsum got in the car with him and they drove to the Labour Union offices, which were in a two-storey concrete structure that had sprung up in a block of African mud houses off Viongozi Street. With her she took all the long, black ledger books, the red tapes wearing off at the binding, containing the tailors’ accounts for the ten years. Under each name, for every
working day, the day’s work, the amount earned. At each month-end, the accounts cleared, with a signature in Roman or Arabic, a blunt cross or an inked thumbprint, and the date. A combined lesson from husband and brother: don’t trust anyone, a signature for everything. The Union officer looked at her books and told Kulsum: “Mama, you don’t owe them a cent. We told them to join up, not to work piecemeal, they laughed at us. Send him to us now.”

  “I don’t need your work from tomorrow,” Kulsum told Omari.

  “I will want my rights.”

  “I have been to the Union office. What you were paid is enough.”

  “We shall see.”

  He came back the next day and pleaded. “Please, mama.” “No,” she told him, “my children are still in school, and we don’t have enough.” “Please,” he said, “I would like to buy my own machine and work from home. Please help me. Your daughters work. You have enough.” “They will soon be married, and I will have no-one then. The boys must finish school.” “Please, mama.” He would not leave. She gave him three hundred shillings.

  It was a triumph for Kulsum. “And Idi, the one with the big head, the educated one with the newspaper: he just stood there, silent. You know what work he does there? He is a driver!”

  A postcard came from Uncle Goa, not from Lourenço Marques but from London. It was addressed to Kulsum, and said, “Our plans changed. Regards to the family, Mrs. Daya, Parmar, Mama Roshan (Mattress), and others.” Kulsum beamed at the picture of Big Ben. It was the first postcard she had received in her life.

  My cousin Yasmin, who had spent eight years with us before going to live with Bahdur Uncle, was admitted for a nursing course in London, and we all took her to the airport. She sat with Mehroon and Begum in Alnoor’s Volksie and they cried all the way. I sat with Alnoor in front, both of us with the grave looks of those driving in a funeral procession. Occasionally we exchanged masculine looks of understanding. Kulsum and Sona came in Amin’s Peugeot, and Bahdur Uncle drove his family in Fateh the Coalseller’s Chama Chetu.