Season of Crimson Blossoms (13 page)

She remembered the first time she looked at this child of hers, wrapped in a fluffy shawl in the hospital, and understood what the joy of being a mother really meant. Even though Ummi looked like her father, a man Hureira now loathed, she felt the glow spreading inside, filling her up.

The screen went blank. Mother and daughter instinctively looked up at the light bulbs that were now dead. Yet another power cut.

Ummi whined. Hureira sighed and got up. She opened the door and went out to the generator shed. She saw the blackened side of the shed where the generator exhaust had been blasting since it was installed there. She saw the expanding blotch of machine oil that had trickled from the generator. But the machine wasn't there. She looked behind the shed and then at the gate that was still latched shut. Then she looked around at the fence.

‘What do you mean the generator is gone?' Binta rushed out of the room after Hureira had reported her find.

Hureira followed at some distance. ‘We need to call the police.'

Binta looked into the shed and behind it and satisfied herself that the machine was in fact gone. The only person she could think of calling was Reza. ‘Bring me my phone, Fa'iza.'

It was Ummi who found the footprint; evidence that a large-footed miscreant had scaled Binta's fence, yet again.

At San Siro, Reza sat on a bench with a wad of notes in his hands. The young men presented themselves before him one at a time and he handed out a thousand naira note to each of them. He yawned, wearied by all the shouting and exuberant antics he had put on at the rally, as had most of the boys. He wiped away the dust in his eyes and continued to hand out the notes.

But soon the boys, whose scant sense of propriety had been melted by the punitive sun and were now animated by the prospect of getting paid, began to push and shove. Their outbursts and cursing rivalled the noise coming from the flea market by the corner. Reza stood up on the bench and held the notes high above his head. ‘You will keep quiet now and behave yourselves, or I'm not paying.'

One of the rented boys pumped his fist with revolutionary gusto. ‘No way, man! No way! After all this wahala!
Allah ya sauwake
!'

Reza glared at him. ‘You said something?'

The thug looked into Reza's daring eyes, shook his head and withdrew into the crowd.

‘You understand, I don't like this nonsense. That's why I never handle this myself. If Gattuso were here, you would be dealing
with him because I don't like idiots shouting at me because of a little money. Everybody who was at the rally will get paid.'

The chaos dampened by Reza's temper, payment went on without a hitch. Having dispensed the task, Reza retreated to his room. He flopped on the mattress, looking indolently at the giant poster of the AC Milan squad. Eighteen months on the wall – masking the emptiness of the room – had taken some of the gloss off the poster. He turned away from it and faced the door, just as Sani Scholar and Joe came in.

Sani held up the curtain. ‘The bus drivers are here to see you.'

Reza rose and walked past the duo. The two bus drivers were standing by the door, arms hanging by their sides. One was Yoruba and the other Kanuri, but Reza thought they looked alike; the same worn faces, the same sweat-stained jumpers and the same strained eyes. Occupational siblings.

The Kanuri man cleared his throat and spat on the floor. ‘We came for the balance.'

Reza reached into his jeans and counted out some notes. He handed it to him and counted some more for the Yoruba man.

The first man collected the notes and then said in his thickly accented Hausa, ‘Ah, brother Reza, you didn't add the something for the flat tyre.'

‘What flat tyre?'

‘We had a flat tyre on the way back.'

‘So, how is that my fault?'

‘It's your people I was carrying and you know we carried more than the recommended.'

‘Lasisi, it's like you don't want me doing business with you.' Reza was growing irritated.

‘Ah, no. It's not like that.'

The Kanuri man again cleared his throat, but this time, he didn't spit. ‘
Maigida
Reza, you and Lasisi have been together long. This is a small matter.'

Reza whipped out a two hundred naira note and handed it to the man. Lasisi took it and said his thanks. Reza could not help noticing the identical shuffle of their worn slippers on the concrete as they headed back to their buses, back to the sun-beaten blacktop where they fetched their bread, where someday, their bones would
be scraped off and their stories would be forgotten, trampled into the road, like countless others, by the whizzing wheels of time. He shook his head and headed back to the room.

Joe and Sani followed him. They stood by the door. Joe's face bore the weightiness of one about to broach a heavy subject.

‘What about the guys?' Joe stepped forward.

Reza slumped on the mattress and said nothing.

Sani shifted on his feet. ‘They have spent the night in a cell, they must have learnt their lesson.'

‘Is the cell your father's house?'

The two men looked at each other, stunned by the anger in Reza's voice. But the confused expression on each of their faces, despite the circumstances, amused them. Joe started laughing. Sani, too, joined him. They fell to their knees and laughed long and hard until they broke the tension and Reza, tickled by their hysterics, smiled.

‘You understand, I told everyone that this policeman is looking for ways to make trouble for us but Gattuso and Dogo, stupid as they are, went and started a fight.'

Joe stopped laughing. ‘It has already happened, Reza.
Ka yi hakuri mana
.'

‘If they wanted to fight they could have taken it elsewhere, not here in San Siro, you understand. Making all that noise and drawing the police here like that.' Reza shook his head. ‘How could they be so stupid?'

Sani sat down and stretched his legs on the floor. ‘It will not happen again,
insha Allah
.'

Reza made a face showing the extent of his disgust. ‘You don't understand. I don't like going to the police for anything. Anything! Now if I go to bail them, this OC will think he is doing me a favour.'

Joe bowed his head. ‘It will not happen again.'

Reza sighed and rose. He walked out of the door and headed for the gate.

Outside the police post, ASP Dauda Baleri sat on a bench, flanked by some of his men. He was tending to the irritations of the shaving bumps that plagued his neck and sullied his mood. He saw Reza approaching, looked the other way and caressed his
jaw, scratching and grimacing. When Reza stood before them and offered a greeting, Baleri grunted in reply.

‘OC, I came to see you.'

Baleri took his time rising and Reza followed him into his austere office. The smell of fresh paint that had filled the air when Reza last visited had been replaced by the smell of mosquito coil and stinking shoes. From outside, the stale stench of urine from the corner where the officers peed wafted in with the occasional breeze.

‘I am here to bail my boys.'

Baleri sat back in his chair and picked up his pen. He twirled it in his fingers with the satisfied air of one savouring a victory sure to come. ‘So they are your boys?'

‘Yes.'

‘I see.' Baleri swivelled on his chair. ‘I see.'

The cheap clock on the wall marked time with the apathy of a wearied device. Reza turned to look at it. It had the photo of a stern-looking policeman in it as the clock face, with ‘Congratulations' boldly written across it. The other writings were too small for him to read from where he sat. He turned back to Baleri.

‘You see, these boys were disturbing the public peace, using dangerous weapons and causing grievous bodily harm,' Baleri began. ‘We are going to take them to court.'

‘To court?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well then.' Reza rose. ‘In that case, there is nothing to talk about, you understand.' He caught the alarm that flickered in Baleri's eyes. The officer must have found the thought of losing the extra he would make from the transaction disturbing. It would be the weekend soon enough, a period during which every decent crook knew that the average policeman would be desperate to make some quick cash. Reza turned and made for the door, certain that Baleri would not let him leave just like that.

The officer's stuttering voice reached him as he got to the door. ‘But – we don't have to go that far if—'

‘How much?' Reza turned. He saw the battered pride flash in the policeman's eyes. But it was gone in an instant, consumed by the brazenness of avarice and desperation.

Baleri named his price and watched as Reza counted out five
one thousand naira notes and put them on the table. He picked up the money and shoved it in his breast pocket. He gestured to the seat Reza had just vacated and cleared his throat.

Reza sat down.

‘You see,' Baleri opened his hands imploringly, ‘this is a small matter. If you had been paying the protection fee, none of this would have happened. When your boys started fighting and trying to kill each other, we would have gone and settled the matter there. No need for all this, eh.'

Reza tapped the soles of his shoes on the cement floor.

‘You see,' Baleri went on, ‘we all know how these things work. You scratch my back, I scratch yours, like that, eh, but you, you are proving stubborn.'

‘You understand, OC, last time we talked about this, I told you I have no problem with you people. But you took my stuff and sold it to the boys at the junction, and you took my money and harassed my boys. There was no respect in that.
Ko kadan
.'

‘Ok, ok. That has happened. Now we can move on.'

‘If you bring back my stuff and the money you took, you understand. But for now, release my boys. When you bring my things, we can talk business,
ka gane ko
?'

Baleri nodded and bit down on his lower lip. He called in one of his officers and ordered him to release the San Siro boys.

Reza waited outside while Gattuso and Dogo, bleary-eyed, collected their items and strolled out of the cell. They were heralded by the smell of frustration, tinted with the odour of clothes dampened by overnight piss. His anger towards them had been quelled when he realised that trouble was inevitable – all that ganja coupled with muscly hotheads, there were bound to be some sparks and some confrontations.

He slapped the palms of the three policemen sitting on the bench outside and shared a joke with them. When they were cackling, he reached into his pocket for a thousand naira note.

‘For soft drinks.' He made a magnanimous gesture that included them all.

One of the officers grabbed the bill out of Reza's hand and tucked it into his breast pocket. Then he looked furtively at the door of Baleri's office.

‘Reza, Reza,' the officers hailed and slapped his hand.

Gattuso walked out of the police office, bristling with rage. ‘You let me spend the night in the cell.'

Reza started walking away. ‘And I will do worse next time.'

But Dogo, gifted with the sobriety only a night in the cell could confer on someone of his disposition, nodded reverently. ‘Thanks, Reza.'

‘Next time you guys want to fight, take it elsewhere. San Siro is not a fucking battlefield.'

Reza's phone chimed, this time a more subdued tone than the bawdy one that had shamed him at Binta's, and he reached into his pocket. He looked at the screen and glanced up at Dogo and Gattuso. Dogo had bent over and was dusting off his jeans, but Gattuso looked at him as he cracked his knuckles. Reza turned away and put the phone to his ear. He walked away from them as he talked.

When Reza shoved the phone back in his pocket and returned, Gattuso noticed that he was grinding his teeth.

But it was Dogo who spoke first. ‘What's wrong?'

‘Some mamafucker hit the house I asked to be left alone.'

‘Which house?' Gattuso cracked his knuckles.

‘Hajiya Binta's.'

‘The one with the green gate?'

‘Yes, God damn it!'

‘What did they take?'

‘They took her generator.'

‘
Lallai kam
!' Gattuso clicked at the back of his throat and crashed a clenched fist into his palm.

‘Find the generator and find out the
dan shegiya
who did it. Bring me the mamafucker, you understand. Ask Ibro the generator repairman. Let him tell us what he knows, who has sold a generator, who bought one. Anything, you understand. I want that little prick now. Now, God damn it!'

They found the prick by evening – only he was not little. Marufu was the large-limbed fellow who fancied himself a footballer. Every
morning and evening he would wear his studded boots and bare his red shin guards as he jogged ostentatiously to the football field. Once in a while he came to San Siro for a fix or to trade off pilfered items, such as condoms he had stolen from a pharmacy. Having met a football agent who claimed he could arrange a trial for him with Belgium giants Club Brugge or Anderlecht, Marufu saw an opportunity. But it would cost more than Mama Marufu's milling machine and his father's security man salary could afford. So Marufu, driven by desperation, took to scaling fences. When he tried to sell his loot to Elvis the barber, word got round to San Siro.

Reza, standing in the dimming light of day, took one last drag from the joint in his hand and passed it on to Gattuso. He, too, took a long drag and passed it on. Finally, when it got to Dogo, he smoked the last of it, crushed it under his shoe, and threw dust over it with the blade of his machete. Joe took a swig from his bottle of schnapps, screwed on the top and shoved it into his back pocket. Reza led the way. They went past Mama Marufu's milling machine standing in the gathering dusk and dust at the front of the tenement compound. They passed by Baba Alade the thrift collector's room, which he shared with his two wives, past the identical twins' room and past Mama Marufu's and the chicken coop in the corner. They kicked in the last door on the left, where Marufu, just back from his evening training session, was eating and watching a replay of the Champions League final.