Harmattan (39 page)

‘And the others. I promise. Tell them for me, won’t you?’

I nodded, hesitantly, afraid that my father would catch my eye. ‘When will you come for us, Abdel?’ I said, my voice shaky and broken.

‘Soon.’ He put his hand up then and smiled his lovely smile. Then he started the engine and pulled away from our compound in a great cloud of dust.

The car turned in a slow, wide, dusty circle and then bounced its way back up the track towards the school and the Big House, Archie Cargo’s pale hand just visible above the roof, waving a sad farewell to Wadata.

I followed along its tyre tracks until I came to the edge of the village, where I stood watching until the vehicle disappeared, taking with it my brother and my only hope.

Later that night, when all the mourners had finally dispersed and the house at last lay quiet but for the familiar sound of the cicadas and the crackle of sparks on the dying fire outside, I lay on my bedroll and listened to
La Voix du Sahel
on my little radio and tried not to think about the tumultuous events of those last few days. I was concentrating hard on the Malian musician Issa Bagayogo’s strange song ‘
Ciew
Mawele
’ when the presenter of the broadcast cut in with an emergency newsflash.

Mesdames, Messieurs: we have just received news that the president of Niger,
Ibrahim Bare Mainassara, has been shot dead in what some are claiming to be an
apparent coup attempt. However, Prime Minister, Ibraim Assane Mayaki, has
described Monsieur Mainassara’s death as a ‘tragic accident’ and has announced that
parliament has been dissolved and that all political activity has been suspended. A
government of national unity is to be formed in a few days…

Suddenly it seemed that everything I had once thought of as permanent, solid, reliable, had begun to fragment; that anything could change, at any moment.

As I held my little radio tightly in the palm of my hand and tried to imagine a life with my brothers and sister in Niamey, I could not then have known that I would never see Abdelkrim again: that he would be killed in a skirmish just a few days later; and that my father – who had publicly disowned my brother and banished him from our family – would seize the opportunity to continue with his plan.

The assassination of President Mainassara did not affect Wadata a great deal at first but, with the new Wanke government attempting to clean up any resistance, the whole country became increasingly dangerous, and many foreign aid agencies ordered their employees and volunteers to get out of Niger. I was numb. My mother was gone. My brother was gone. I could not believe that I was to lose Sushie also.

I was married only a matter of weeks after Abdelkrim’s death, and just days after my twelfth birthday. There was barely time to think about the terrible events that had plagued my family before my father and Alassane were making arrangements for the ceremony that would take place in our village at the end of the rainy season. The bolt of cloth that my father had purchased was brought out. Alassane’s sisters fussed and schemed and instructed Monsieur Letouye about measurements and alterations for the various garments. Souley and her cronies taunted me relentlessly, informing me that I was still an unimportant little runt, a
boro dungurio
, even though I was to marry a rich man.

Adamou insisted that our grandmother Bunchie had been right and that our family were cursed because her mother had picked the flowers from a baobab tree when she was a young girl.

Fatima became withdrawn and argumentative.

Whenever I raised the subject of the marriage my father simply dismissed my concerns. ‘Be still, child,’ he would say. ‘Do not question my judgement. Already I see these young boys looking at you. I will not have you falling into…
adventures
and gaining a reputation. If that happens, no one will want you and I will have failed to fulfil my duties as a father! Cousin Moussa is a fine man with a good business. You will join his household and be a credit to our family. You will want for nothing and, in so doing, you will be helping us also. And you will obey him as your husband, just as you obey God!’ He refused to discuss the matter further.

I went to Miriam’s house and begged Madame Kantao to help me, but there was nothing she could do. She told me that she had talked to Monsieur Kantao and that he was not against the idea. I said nothing at the time, but I thought that the news did not bode well for Miriam and little Narcisse. The crops had been poor and there was less food in everyone’s bellies.

I pleaded with Sushie to speak to my father and she did so, willingly, passionately, but he would not be swayed.

On the one occasion that I defied my father, I paid for my actions dearly. One evening, at dusk, I slipped away into the bush and hid beyond the pastures. Alone in the cold and the dark with the smell of fresh dung wafting around me and a chorus of cicadas ringing in my ears, I huddled on the dust, waiting for the warmth and light of the new day, when I planned to start walking towards the
camion
post. In truth I had no clear plan, but the thought had occurred to me that if I could find my way back to the capital, track down Archie Cargo and persuade him to take me to Efrance’s house in the shanties, she might let me live with her: where I could help her with her baby daughter, work alongside her and, one day, perhaps, take Fatima out of harm’s way too. Anything was better than the thought of being Moussa’s wife. I could not even bring myself to think about what that might mean. I knew that I would miss Fatima and Adamou desperately, but I also knew that if my father got his wish, I would lose them anyway.

As Fate would have it, it was not to be. Despite the cold, I fell asleep. Two of the elders found me. They bound my wrists and dragged me back to my father.

‘You have let me down, Haoua,’ he said. His eyes were cold, as if the
Shadow
People
had taken his soul away.

‘You must beat her, Salim!’ Alassane said. By now she spent most nights sleeping in my mother’s bed, and my brother and sister and I had to endure the sounds of she and my father rutting like goats in the darkness.

My father did not beat me. Instead he confined me in the bedroom for three days. I knew better than to protest, or to venture outside. I was left with a pot to piss in and given a small dish of boule and some water once a day. My radio was confiscated. I never saw it again. I think my father had begun to feel threatened by it.

I spent my time thinking about my mother, worrying about my brother and sister and imagining how our lives might have been, living together in the capital with Abdelkrim as our guardian. I read and re-read the letters in my bundle and wished that I could hear from Katie and Hope again. When I heard any sound outside, I hid them quickly, for fear that my father might remove these from me too. No one was allowed to visit or talk to me, but on the afternoon of the third day, while my father and Adamou and Fatima were elsewhere, Alassane entered the room, holding something behind her back.

‘If you tell your father that I’ve been here I swear I’ll kill you!’ she hissed.

She thrashed me so hard with a stick that I could not lie on my back for days afterwards. I taught myself to sob without a sound.

27th September, 1999

Haoua Boureima
Child Ref. NER2726651832
Vision Corps International
Tera Area Development Programme
C/O BP 11504
Niamey
Republic of Niger
West Africa

Dear Haoua,

Please accept my apologies for not being in contact with you for so long. I have been thinking about you and talking to my children, Katie and Hope, about you. I am sorry, also, that we have been misspelling your name in some previous letters: that was really the fault of Vision Corps International! Anyway, I’m sure you didn’t really mind too much.

Katie and Hope have just had their thirteenth birthdays! It seems like such a short while ago that they were babies, and that their mother and I had to bath, feed and change them! Now they are taller than their mother and continuing to grow fast.

How are you getting on at school? It would be great to hear a little about what you are learning and what you like to do best. I think I told you that I am a teacher, so it would really interest me to know more about your school. Perhaps you would like to make a little drawing of the school for us? We still have the little map of Niger that you drew, and your fingerprint and all of your letters.

We also still have your photograph on display in our house, so you are part of our family!

I hope that your parents and your brothers and sister are well . I hope your father’s crops have been good and that your mother is fully recovered and happy in her work once again. Is she still house keeping? That’s hard work too, I know: as well as my job, I am kept busy – washing, cleaning, cooking and looking after Katie and Hope.

Unfortunately their mother and I no longer live together, which has been sad for all of us, but we are trying to stay happy anyway! The children live with me for half of the week and with their mother the rest of the week. I suppose you will think that very strange, and indeed it has been strange for us too. But we are beginning to get used to it now.

I seem to remember that your father keeps some chickens, Haoua? We also have a few, which we keep as pets, and for eggs. I have a problem with one of our chickens at present: a young cockerel has declared himself ‘king’ and has bullied our older cockerel away from the hens! He hurt the older bird badly. The old cockerel has recovered, (Katie and Hope call him Cassidy), but he cannot live with the other hens now. One minute everything was peaceful in our garden and the next, poor Cassidy was almost dead! Maybe we’ll just have to make him into soup!!! Or perhaps the younger bird should be made into soup and Cassidy returned as king: I think, however, we are all too frightened of the younger bird to try to touch him! We had some ducks too, but last year, when the snow was lying thick on the ground and food was hard to come by for many wild animals, a fox killed all of them!

Well , Haoua, I will close now. It is very early in the morning here. Outside, the birds are singing, but it is still dark! It is very cold here at present. Winter has come early. We have water piped right into our house, but when I went to get some, earlier, it was frozen solid! I have to go and do some work now, but I will try to write more often.

Katie and Hope will be home later today and perhaps they will also write to you again. Meanwhile, you take care. Best wishes to you, your family and your beautiful country.

Yours affectionately,

Noel Boyd

P.S. Enclosed please find some sweets, a packet of sunflower seeds and, since you liked the first one so much, another little solar-powered calculator – which needs no batteries! Perhaps you will want to give this one to a friend?

***

Numbness enveloped me on my wedding day. I was left alone in my father’s house and covered with a large, scratchy blanket that I had never seen before. Outside, in our compound, I could hear the village griot loudly reciting an ancient story about marriage.

Our neighbours celebrated wildly and I felt the stomp of their feet on the ground, as they leapt and shook and twirled in the excitement and excess of the day.
The day
. My day.

Their day. They howled and shrieked and trilled into Monsieur Letouye’s microphone and, like the mating call of some deranged bird, the microphone squealed back at them.

Then the pace changed. The ground ceased to vibrate. Accompanied by much laughter, Alassane’s tuneless voice led a chorus of women in the
Camel Song
.

Someone struck up the rhythm on a
tendi
and then a water drum, a
tassinack
flute and an
imzhad
joined in. My mother used to sing the same song to us when we were little.

Her voice was so much sweeter.

The door of the house lay open. Light filtered into the room through the dividing curtain leading into our living area. I sat forward on my little stool and, lifting my veil, tried to peer through the curtain to the frenzy outside. Occasionally I caught a glimpse of a whirling figure, a splash of indigo and blue, a blur of teal and gold. A bead of sweat trickled from my brow, down my cheek and across the corner of my mouth. I caught it with my tongue, tasted its saltiness. The room was muggy, the air stale, yet, despite the heat, I realised that my stomach was knotted, empty, cold.

I pulled the blanket close around my shoulders and listened now to the storytellers. I thought about all the weddings that I had attended with my family, in Wadata and the neighbouring villages, and about how little concern I had had for those brides as I had danced and feasted with the rest of the revellers. Bouchra Hassane, Nabila Djambe, Rekia Salamatou: where were they now? What had become of them? I shivered again.

Late in the afternoon, when the dancing and singing and storytelling had stopped, I knew that all the men-folk would be sitting outside in our compound, huddled between the clay granaries, preparing to seal my marriage to Moussa Boureima officially. I knew that Moussa himself would not be there. He would be waiting for me in his house in Niamey. I had no idea how I was to join him. I knew that his family – his mother, his brothers, his sister and cousins – were all outside. And that they had brought many gifts: fine leather sandals cured with camel piss, western-style dresses, fabric, succulent fruits, all wrapped in swatches of deep blue cloth. I knew that his family would offer my father a symbolic bride price (a small part of the total sum payable) and that then, the ceremony finally over, both families would exchange candies and kola nuts as a gesture of goodwill.