Black Mamba Boy (16 page)

“Why did you leave the bloody goat in front of the door?” snapped Jama as he brushed dirt off his scraped knees.

“I need some entertainment, don’t I? Stuck in this smelly hot kitchen all day,” replied the cook, laughing harder at Jama’s peeved face.

“I’ll get you back, you dameer, just you wait and see!” shouted Jama, taking the hot plates outside. Pain and irritation scrambled Jama’s usually perfect memory, and he handed the plates to the soldiers who shouted loudest for them. A young Italian at a table of officers took them out of Jama’s singed fingers, his dark olive hands passed lightly over Jama’s, and his dark eyes fixed on the boy. Jama looked back at him. The soldier had a thin goat face, his nose was long and hooked, his eyebrows unruly. His lower lip was fuller than the top and he chewed it ruminatively.

“You’re that boy from the bus, aren’t you? Who nearly got thrown off?” the soldier asked in Arabic. Jama stayed silent.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” he continued.

“Stop talking to the Africans,” interrupted the Italian’s companion. He slapped Jama hard on his bony rear and shouted, “Move it. Move it!”

Jama stole a glance at the first Italian before running back to the kitchen, he had recognized him, it was the gangly man who had persuaded the thieving bus driver in Agordat to let him board.

“What’s the matter, Jama? You look like you’ve been bitten by a devil,” said the cook.

“One of the Italians keeps staring and talking to me.”

Cook laughed, “Shayddaans! Here, give me that glass on the side,” Jama handed it to him. Cook turned his back and slowly dribbled urine into the glass, mixing it with tea and sugar and handing the whole concoction back to Jama.

“Tell him it is free, our special drink for special customers.”

Jama laughed with sadistic mirth. He took the glass and placed it gently, deferentially in front of the gangly Italian; “For you, signore.”

The Italian raised an eyebrow, “Well, I guess he does recognize me after all.” He drained the amber filth down his throat in a few long gulps and Jama felt a pang of unexpected guilt at the sight.

The last few Italians were clearing out of the teahouse and hungry askaris waited under the shade of a dying acacia. Jama kept away from the gangly Italian after handing him the dirty drink, he hadn’t even told the other boys what he had done. Jama felt a hand on his shoulder and jumped when he saw the man looming over him.

“Thank you for the drink, it was kind of you,” the Italian began. His lips were wet and Jama turned his face to the side fearing his breath. “You Somali or Eritrean? I still can’t tell yet.”

Jama drew a shape in the sand with his big toe. “Somali,” he mumbled.

“You speak Italian? You after a job?”

Jama shook his head and carried on looking toward the side; he had seen and heard from askaris the value of keeping your distance from the Italians.

“Suit yourself, but the offer is open if you want it,” said the Italian with a shrug. His black-haired, long fingers felt in his breast pocket and emerged holding delicate wire-framed glasses. Jama watched from the corner of his eye as the fingers fumbled and placed the beautiful glasses on his too-long nose. Jama coveted them. It looked as if a metal-and-glass butterfly had decided to spread its translucent wings across the hard, bony face, giving the Italian a kinder, more thoughtful appearance. With his second pair of eyes in place the Italian strolled
off, acknowledging the salutes of the askaris with a loose salute of his own.

After that day Jama watched the Italian. The Fascist legs splayed open in languorous authority, the booted feet playing with each other, crushing beetles underfoot with a satisfying crunch. Jama’s legs were stiff, tired poles compelled to keep moving, his feet so dry, gray, hard he could barely feel the ground underneath them. The Italian clinked a beer bottle against his friend’s. Jama collected glasses from the broken tables. More and more Fascists and askaris were being sent to fight the guerrillas, and the teahouse had a portentous, melancholy atmosphere. The Ethiopian Arbegnoch were a menace to the Italians; they overran forts, ambushed checkpoints, invaded garrisons. The army of ghosts in white shammas was impossible to fight; with the mournful faces of Coptic saints, the patriots skewered Italians on homemade bayonets. They materialized and vanished as if they had wings under their homespun cotton. Near Omhajer, the famous Abyssinian fighter Abraha and his men in their lion skins stalked the Italians, and like lions they picked off the last man or the last vehicle in a convoy. The trees hid them, the leopards warned them, the wind swept away their footprints.

A few askaris returned to Omhajer to report back on the front, where the Italians had turned against their own askaris when they could not catch the spectral Abyssinians. One man had seen the Italians force askaris to lie down one on top of another in the muddy water of a narrow river so they could cross along their backs, the men at the bottom drowning, murky water gurgling down their throats.

In this dangerous climate, a few of the lazier boys had been let go, but Jama had held on to his job. The gangly Italian and his stumpy friend got up and stretched out their arms, yawning
with afternoon ennui as they picked up their rifles. The other Italian had dark patches of sweat growing out of his armpits, groin, and back.

“Waryaa! Hey, you,” shouted the tall Italian at Jama in heavily accented Somali. “We are going hunting, come and collect what we shoot, there will be a few coins in it for you.”

Jama walked over to the cook, who was standing on the veranda, a cigarette in his hand, and piled all the glasses at his feet.

“I’m off now, I might earn some real money with these Italians,” said Jama as the glasses tumbled against one another with a soft tinkling. The cook took a deep drag on his cigarette and smoke drifted from his nostrils. “Keep your wits about you, Jama. Run away if they start behaving strangely, or you might return as one of their wives.” The cook pursed his lips and blew out a long plume of smoke. “Seriously, be careful, Jama.” The cook winked before putting out the cigarette with his calloused bare foot and padding back to the kitchen.

They walked in line across the Eritrean plains, Jama slowing down to maintain the requisite distance behind them. The shorter Italian was breathing heavily and going red in the heat, a black swipe of hair plastered to his forehead. “This little boy reminds me of my greyhound, both long, lean, black. God, I miss that dog, he knew me better than anyone,” he puffed. “Might be dead by the time we get home. Poor Alfredo, he had problems pissing when I left. I’ll never find a dog like him again.”

The tall one didn’t respond, but took off his glasses to wipe condensation from them.

“Are you a dog man, Lorenzo? City boys never truly understand animals like we do, it’s about understanding what their eyes are telling you, you have to know what an animal needs better than he does. Look at this little black face with us. If we
told him to walk over there, he would do it, because he knows that we know better than him.” He stopped to take a swig from his water flask.

Lorenzo stopped ahead of him and took a gulp as well. Jama looked away to hide his thirst but the tall Italian walked over to him and thrust his flask into his hand.

Jama drank, wiped the top of the flask with his sarong, and handed it back to the tall Italian with a small nod of thanks. Jama’s grasp of Italian was sketchy but he understood that these two soldiers were fighting their own private battle. Their arms moved all the time and they threw out their words as if they were grenades. With their fast rat-a-tat speech and whirring arms, they seemed as mechanical as all the other things the Ferengis had brought to Eritrea.

They carried on marching. The grass was high and rustled against their legs as they passed, crickets made small talk within it, birds sunbathed stock-still on branches. Jama noticed a venue of vultures flying overhead, following an imperceptible trail of death. The Italians were after big game, zebras, leopards, maybe one of the few elephants still left in Eritrea, anything to boast about back home. They walked and walked, unable to see anything bigger than a rat.

The short Italian, drenched in sweat and frustration, threw his hands up. “Enough! Enough walking! Let’s stop. We’ll just shoot what we find.”

Lorenzo looked around, there was nothing, just yellow grass and blue sky. “We’ve walked this far, Silvio, why stop now? Near a stream there would be better game,” he reasoned, still walking on ahead with Jama a respectful distance behind him.

“No, no, absolutely not, I am stopping here, tell Alfredo to scare up the birds or something,” panted Silvio. Lorenzo sighed and gave Jama his instructions.

Jama gingerly walked up to a spindly tree and gave its trunk a gentle shake. Nothing stirred. “What’s he doing? Tell him to make some goddamn noise,” barked Silvio with growing irritation.

“Make noise, run around,” said Lorenzo in Somali. Jama felt stupid but he ran around, yelled out, kicked at the grass, beat the scrubby bushes with a stick. A few sleepy birds rose drowsily off their nests and flew straight into a volley of rifle shots, their proud chests blown into a cloud of feathers.

“More, more!” shouted Lorenzo. Jama whooped and swooped.

“That big tree over there now, throw stones at it,” said Lorenzo. Jama ran over to it and did as he was told. A large shape shifted behind the leaves, a leopard hiding in the branches, its ears on end. Jama leaped back and pointed into the foliage. The leopard came scrambling down the trunk, its muscular back gold and black. Lorenzo and Silvio fired shot after shot, but the leopard sprang out of range, just a shadow in the long grass.

Jama looked on as it ran past him and away into a dark tangle of thornbushes and aloes. He chucked the last few stones in his hand at the leopard’s back. “For fuck’s sake, chase it, Alfredo, don’t let it escape, tell him, Lorenzo!”

“It’s gone, Silvio, leave it,” said Lorenzo, lowering his rifle.

“Goddamn it!” exploded Silvio. “A leopard! I said if there was one thing I would bring back from Africa it would be a leopard that I had shot myself, and look! This imbecile just lets it run right away. I’m tired of blacks, I really am, I have had it up to here with them.” Silvio raised his fingers up to his neck.

“Calm down, Silvio, it wasn’t his fault, we weren’t fast enough.” Lorenzo pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his face and hands. The gunshots still rang in the air with an electric
effervescence. “Come, let’s collect what we’ve got and go back,” said Lorenzo softly.

“Tell him to collect any birds that are still alive,” Silvio demanded.

Lorenzo gave a long sigh and told Jama to collect them. Jama poked around the grass, found a few birds still moving and guiltily picked them up by their wings, piled them in front of the Italians.

“He wants you to grab one by its feet and hold your arm out to the side,” said Lorenzo as he lit a cigarette. Jama did as he was told, though the bird was nearly half his size and it hung heavily, flapping its wings and struggling forcefully for its life, digging its claws into his palm.

Silvio, a few paces away, brought his rifle up. One of his blue eyes scrunched up into a white and pink fist, he moved his shoulders around and steadied his aim. Jama looked at the rifle barrel pointed straight into his face, flared like the angry nostrils of a charging bull, and bit down on his tongue as he realized what the Italian was about to do. But Lorenzo grabbed Silvio’s arm just as he was about to fire and pulled him back.

“What’s your problem? I haven’t come all this way to let little black bastards lose me my quarry,” shouted Silvio, shoving Lorenzo in the chest.

Lorenzo gave him a few sharp slaps in the face. “Calm down! You’re behaving like a fucking animal. If you’re not careful I’ll send you home with a bullet in your fat peasant behind.” Jama looked on in shock, holding his bladder tight.

“Come on, you son of a bitch, Jew, Jew, you fucking Jews think you are so much better than everyone else, I’ll teach you a lesson,” dared Silvio.

Lorenzo grabbed Silvio by the testicles and wrenched them down until his knees buckled and he cried out. Lorenzo released
his grip and snarled, “Stay the fuck away from me, Silvio, or I will turn you into a Jew with my fucking teeth.”

The tall Italian’s glasses were twisted across his face and his teeth were bared like an angry dog’s. “Hey, boy! Come on! Let’s go!” he shouted at Jama, his voice strained and hoarse.

Jama walked after him, his knees weak. He stepped around the short Italian as he lay on his side in the dry grass, clutching his groin.

The office was inside a khaki tent. A table sat in the middle of the dirt floor with brown files and papers neatly piled on top, a typewriter sitting silently to the left. Maggiore Lorenzo Leon pinched dried tobacco between his fingers and dropped it into the mouth of his pipe. A cup of coffee steamed beside him. Jama waited in front of the desk.

“Welcome, Jama, what can I do for you?” asked Lorenzo, the pipe wobbling in his mouth as he spoke.

“I want to know if you still need an office boy,” replied Jama, using his best Italian. He played down the
kh
and
gh
so common in his own language and mimicked the sibilance with which Italians spoke.

Lorenzo took matches from his shirt pocket and lit the pipe. “Yes, I am going crazy with the dust and filth in here, why don’t you get started now?”

“Si, signore,” said Jama. He stood waiting for an instruction, while Lorenzo carried on smoking his pipe.

“Well?” laughed Maggiore Leon.

“What do you want me to do, signore? And signore . . . how much will you give me?”

“Good question. Let’s start you on five liras a week. You are only a small thing, I don’t expect to get much work out of you.”

Jama’s heart fell. Five liras! It wasn’t worth leaving the café for, and at least he got fed there, but Maggiore Leon seemed to be an important man, and in a place like Omhajer proximity to importance mattered a great deal.

“Start by sweeping the floor, and then I’ll find something else for you,” continued the maggiore. So you’re not so busy after all, thought Jama, his suspicion rising.