Black Mamba Boy (31 page)

“Forget it, boy, we’re leaving this ship at Port Talbot. All the work is here, why do you want to return to stinking Egypt? If you stay on, it will be without any of us,” said Abdullahi.

“So what are you going to do?” asked Jama.

“Get another ship from Port Talbot or Hull. We get English wages on ships from England, a quarter more.”

The prospect of even greater pay was seductive but Jama worried that Bethlehem would give up on him; a year had already passed without any contact between them. She wouldn’t wait anymore, he thought. What if she had found someone else, he wondered, a Kunama or some rich Sudanese merchant? Any imam would consider Jama’s disappearance abandonment and grounds for divorce. As a child Jama had wanted desperately to have wings, and to go home now was like asking Icarus to set fire to his wings mid-flight, but he could not fly forever and keep Bethlehem.

Without the distraction of the refugees and soldiers, the
Runnymede Park
was now an ordinary freighter and the typical tensions in a mixed crew became clear. The British cooks would prepare pork alongside the Muslim men’s food, the British would mock their accents and skinny bodies, the drunken behavior of the ABs was abhorrent to the Somalis. The ABs liked Jama, though, his youth brought out a paternalistic kindness, and his inability to understand their insults meant his happy, ingenuous demeanor was not hardened.

They pronounced his name “Jammy.” “Hey, Jammy”; “You finished, Jammy?”; “Want a jammy biscuit, Jammy?” They enjoyed using his name, and as the chill of the North Sea deepened it was “Want a jumper, Jammy?” and “Bet you’re not used to this,” with exaggerated shivers.

The older Somalis told Jama that he was being mocked but he found it hard to care. His earlier fear of the white men had subsided; the British had given him work, high-paid work, and for that they could say what they liked. The ABs were positively loving in comparison with the Italians he had worked for, they never hit or humiliated him, they were nothing to be scared of despite Brendan the donkeyman’s efforts. Brendan stalked around after the Somalis, his large baby blue eyes threaded with red veins. Buck teeth stuck out from his puckered mouth, and his hair was balding in patches across his skull. The Somalis called him Sir Ilkadameer, “Sir Donkeyteeth,” to his face, and he would glow at the “Sir,” believing Ilkadameer to be a native term of respect.

Sidney would call the Somalis to join the rest of the crew for cigarette breaks and Jama would converse slowly in sign language and broken English. Sidney was especially friendly to Jama, though when he invited him to his cabin, Abdullahi forbade him to go; he will make you drink whiskey, he warned,
but Jama went anyway. Sidney had a large cabin to himself underneath where the cage had been, and on the white wall he had stuck up pictures of white women in underwear that made their breasts point like goat horns. The only other picture on the wall was a yellow hammer and sickle on a red background. “You know what that means, Jama?”

Jama thought it must be something to do with his work, maybe he was a farmer as well as a sailor, but he shook his head, not wanting to embarrass himself.

“It means I believe that workers like you”—he poked his finger in Jama’s chest for emphasis and then pointed at himself—“and me should unite, together, understand?” His fingers were now knotted, caressing one another.

The smile fell from Jama’s face. The intertwined fingers meant only one thing and he didn’t want that, but what about the naked women, perhaps they were just to disguise Sidney’s real intentions?

He turned to the door but Sidney grabbed his shoulder. “Hold on a second, take this.” He shoved a fat dictionary into Jama’s hand. “I’m sure you’ve been about a bit, I would like to hear about it someday.”

Jama took the dictionary and ran out, giving a cursory “Tanks much” to Sidney.

For Jama, the rest of the journey to Port Talbot couldn’t have been more peaceful. He met Sidney occasionally in the smoking room, and when he didn’t repeat his hand caressing, Jama brought the dictionary with him and asked for help in learning to read it. Sidney read out articles from
Time,
following the words with his finger while Jama peered over his shoulder. The smell of cigarettes and the pleasure of reading would forever
become entwined for Jama. Not only were his eyes being fed with new sights but the magazine articles poured news from the world into his mind, he listened to Sidney as if he were a sorcerer divining events in tea leaves, and he began to see his place in history. He now understood that the war that had ravaged Eritrea had blazed across the world. Jama stared at the photographs of Hiroshima, Auschwitz, Dresden. Naked children screaming with hollow mouths appeared in all the photographs, calling to each other. African, European, and Asian corpses were piled up in the pages of the magazine beside adverts for lipstick and toothpaste. Already the world was moving on, from somber black-and-white to lurid color.

Sometimes Sidney stopped reading and reached for a map. “Over here in Burma was the worst hell, North Africa was a picnic in comparison. I can handle desert heat but a man isn’t made to fight in a jungle, gave me the fucking willies. Me and the Somalis in the battalion were going barmy. When you can’t see the sky or feel a breeze it does something funny to a fella. The Japs would just appear out of nowhere, slit your throat, and jump back into the bushes. Look, a Somali mate put this on my arm.”

Sidney rolled up his sleeve and revealed a dark blue snake cut into his flesh. Jama touched the livid serpent resting on Sidney’s biceps like a python bathing on a hot boulder. It reminded him of the signs nomads cut into their camels. The snake was Jama’s totem; perhaps Sidney would put one on his arm.

“I thought I was gonna die in that place, honestly and truly, I’m surprised to be sitting here, between Hitler and Hirohito I thought my number was up.”

Jama rolled up his sleeve, and gestured between his small hump of a biceps and Sidney’s.

“You want one?” laughed Sidney.

“Si.”

“You worked for Italians, eh? Well, I’ll make more a hash of a tattoo than an Italian would soldiering. Better you get one done in London.”

Jama took the map out of Sidney’s hands, found the pink spot Idea had said was Somaliland, moved his finger along the Red Sea coast, beyond Gerset, into Sudan and Egypt, to where a sea separated his old world from the new.

Sidney put his blackened fingernail in the blue sea of the cold north. “That’s where we are, lad. Right up in the North Sea. You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?”

Jama nodded.

Sidney ripped a piece off the map, took a pen out of his shirt pocket. “Jama, I live in London, by the river in Putney. If you ever need anything, come by and give me a bell.” Sidney wrote down his address in awkward capitals and gave it to Jama.

Jama walked the perimeter of the deck. The searchlight was switched off and a full moon beamed down on the sea, its reflection floating on the indigo waves. Light from the ship scintillated and sent stars over the water. Jama breathed in the cold salty air, found Bethlehem’s star, and blew a kiss to it. A whale cruised in the distance, cutting slowly through undulating waves, and Jama turned around to show someone the whale but the deck was deserted. He had never imagined such creatures existed, but every day brought new wonders, monsters and knowledge. Bethlehem would never believe his stories. How could he explain the size of a whale to her, how it shot a geyser from its back, how it lived in ice-cold water? Jama closed his eyes and pictured Bethlehem’s nighttime routine; she would check her chickens were safely locked up, then the
goats, she would then take the half-empty pan off the fire and store the remains for breakfast. The day’s labor over, she would find Jama’s star, send her love, and then stretch out her lovely limbs on the mat that still smelled faintly of him and sing herself to sleep.

The
Runnymede Park
hung close to the white chalk of England before reaching the Irish Sea, the Bristol Channel, and Swansea Bay. Beyond the tubes, funnels, and chimneys of the steelworks, thick smoke hung over Port Talbot. Jama went to Captain Barclay and received his fortune of eighty pounds in an envelope thick with notes. Another hundred pounds and he could live like a suldaan in Eritrea. When Captain Barclay asked if he would be staying on the
Runnymede Park
, Abdullahi, the serpent in paradise, whispered in his ear, “The next ship will earn you twice this one. If you stay on for a woman you will be the biggest fool in the world.”

Jama wrung his hands, looked over his shoulder at the broad sea, squeezed the envelope in his pocket. “I’ll come with you.”

Captain Barclay shook their hands in farewell and gave Jama his leaving card; his behavior had been marked down as “Very
Good.” Jama stepped down onto his Promised Land and put a handful of cold earth into his pocket to take back to Gerset one day. Sidney gave Jama a salute as he left for the train station, a canvas sack thrown over his strong back.

The Somali men found their way to Port Talbot’s main street, and people observed their progress as if they were invaders. Jama felt very conspicuous; everyone was so pale, their skin looked cold to the touch. It was September but a chilly wind swept through the cramped streets and vague specks of rain floated on the wind. Workmen spat and made obscene gestures as the Somalis walked past, and wild-haired women stood in doorways, some holding their brooms out in front of them like weapons, others with come-hither looks in their eyes. The Ferengis’ clothes had been made for fatter people, and large holes gaped in their stockings and the cardigans had been patched and darned. They found the Eidegalle hostel, a damp, brown building in a particularly poor part of town. Here they would sleep, eat, socialize; it was their bank and post office, their only sanctuary while they stayed in the Wild West. A Welsh woman named Glenys worked for Waranle, the hostel owner. She was a bubbly woman, her blond-white hair curled and face painted every day. Glenys enjoyed using her smattering of Somali: “Maxaad sheegtey, Jama?” she would say in her singsong voice, “What you saying, Jama?”

The older men did not enjoy going into town. “What’s the point? They look at us as if our flies were open.” Only rarely could Jama persuade Abdullahi to take him out. Abdullahi would always wear shirt, tie, waistcoat, best suit, and trilby to impress on the locals that he might be colored but he was a gentleman of means. Jama eschewed the stiff, itchy jackets and knitted hats that Glenys tried to force on him. He hated the smell of damp wool, and this foreign cloth brought his skin out
in red welts, so he went out in just his thin Egyptian shirts, to everyone’s disapproval.

“Look at this, Jama, another sign, ‘No Blacks.’ There aren’t any other blacks in this town but us! Let’s go back to the hostel,” fumed Abdullahi, pointing out the handwritten sign on the pub door.

“This is just like Eritrea.”

“Of course, and you’d better get used to it, it’s like this all over the world for black men.”

A girl was watching from a café doorway and beckoned them over. Abdullahi tugged at Jama’s sleeve to ignore her, but Jama could not, he walked over to the entrance and sat down at the wooden table.

“There’s nothing to smile about, Jama, she’s just too desperate to refuse our money,” Abdullahi chastised him as he ordered two teas and sat in his finery, looking forlorn amid the cheap clutter.

They finished the tea and Abdullahi left a penny tip for the waitress. “Thank you, sirs!” she exclaimed and bowed before them. It was the first time a Ferengi had ever bowed to Jama, so he gave her another penny to see what she would do. She kissed Jama on the cheek, closed the café door, and ran with her money over to the grocer’s.

Abdullahi laughed. “That’s probably the biggest tip of her life.”

“Honestly?”

Abdullahi continued, “Oh yes, they have a saying in this country, all fur coat and no knickers, understand? On the outside everything looks grand and pompous, but underneath . . .” Abdullahi waved his hand disgustedly.

“Underneath it’s just abaar iyo udoo-lullul, hardship and banditry, yes, I understand.” Jama laughed.

_______

After their few excursions outside, Abdullahi said it was too cold for him. He would not venture outside until there was another ship to sign on to. Jama became miserable in the hostel, he brooded on his loneliness and felt as if Bethlehem was lost to him, separated by time and distance. He sank deep into melancholy, and spent all his time in his freezing bed, in a room that stank of damp and gas, a sooty old paraffin heater burning all day giving him headaches and nosebleeds. Out the dirty window he could see the faded green hills, molting in patches like a sick jackal’s fur, kissing the low dark sky.

One day, Glenys knocked on his door. “You all right, Jimmy? Haven’t seen you downstairs for days.”

Jama pulled the blanket up to his neck; he didn’t understand what she wanted.

“You’re looking right peaky, lad, get up and I’ll take you out for some fresh air, you can’t keep this fire on all day with the window closed.” She threw Jama’s clothes at him and walked out.

The sailors were playing cards downstairs; they wolf whistled when they saw Jama and Glenys walking out together.

“Waryaa! Where do you think you’re going with her?” Abdullahi yelled.

“I think she is going to take me to her doctor,” Jama stuttered.

“That better be it, Jama, you come straight home after you’ve seen him.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying, Abdullahi, but you should keep your nose out of things that don’t concern you,” said Glenys before bundling Jama out.

Glenys was twice Jama’s age but she aimed to show him a
grand old time. “Doctor? Doctor?” attempted Jama a couple of times, but Glenys had other ideas, they had ice creams and donkey rides on the beach, and climbed the foreboding hills, she showed him the violently green countryside and the fat Welsh sheep.

Finally she treated him to afternoon tea. “See, you didn’t need any stuck-up doctor, did you?” Glenys giggled, happily buttering Jama’s scones for him.