Season of Crimson Blossoms (14 page)

Reza saw the consternation on Marufu's face give way to terror when he recognised him. He saw the generator partially hidden by Marufu's bed and smiled. He approached Marufu, certain that there wouldn't be any interruptions with Dogo, Joe and Gattuso standing guard just outside.

Marufu's resistance was feeble. He got a blow in, on Reza's jaw, but Reza hit him with precision. The assault was swift and the damage was done way before Mama Marufu came out screaming like a deranged woman, startling the drowsy sun and the indifferent chickens that had just settled down in the roost.

‘Ah! Do they have to sing about everything?' Ummi lamented from her place on the floor as she watched the actors on TV singing and dancing in the Hindi style that Hausa film-makers had also adopted.

‘This is so lame,
wallahi
.' Kareema curled up on the couch next to her sister. Abida was in sky-blue lace, Kareema in royal blue.

Fa'iza, baffled, looked at the Short Ones. ‘Lame? This film?'

It was Abida who, equally disgusted, tackled Fa'iza. ‘
Kwarai kuwa
. How can you come home and find your wife in bed with some idiot and just stand there singing like a moron?'

‘It's prayer time.' Binta, who was sitting across the room from Hureira, delivered her observation in a solemn tone that suggested she wanted the crowd to disperse.

‘
Wai
! Prayer time? Come, let's go pray.' Fa'iza rose. She realised that she wasn't enthralled by the movie after all, since Ali Nuhu was not in it. She waited for the Short Ones to rise and together they headed for her room, swinging their hips as they went.

Abida hissed. ‘I would rather be reading my novels than watching this crap.'

‘Sure, sure.'

Hureira watched them disappear into the room and close the
door behind them. She turned to her mother with a questioning look.

Binta nodded, as if assenting to Hureira's unarticulated assertions. ‘Those are the kind of friends Fa'iza keeps.'

‘
Lallai kam
!' Hureira nodded and made clucking noises.

Binta, too, rose to say her prayers, and because it was that time of the month for her, Hureira, nursing a mild grouchiness, was left with her daughter, watching the tedious film crawl to a climax.

In Fa'iza's room, the girls took turns saying their Maghrib prayers. While Abida sat on the rug supplicating, Fa'iza sat on the mattress flipping the pages of the new cache of novellas the Short Ones had brought hidden under the folds of their hijabs. Kareema stood before the mirror patting her face. When Abida was done, Fa'iza took her place on the prayer rug and performed her Salat. And then it was Kareema's turn. After saying Salaam, she sat on the rug supplicating endlessly.

Fa'iza tired of waiting for her to finish. ‘
Wai
! A long prayer like this? What were you praying for so earnestly?'

‘Things.'

‘Boys?' Abida asked.

Kareema smiled. ‘Maybe. What woman doesn't pray for a good husband?'

‘Sure, sure.'

Fa'iza was excited. ‘Who is he?'

Abida smiled, batting her eyes like a repository of secret things. ‘She has many.'

‘Sure, and so do you.' There was pride in Kareema's understated smile, and in her voice as well. Then she turned to Fa'iza. ‘How many do you have, Amin?'

Abida giggled. ‘She's still drooling over Bala Mahmud.'

‘Me? Bala Mahmud? Of course not.'

‘And do you know who Kareema has been drooling over?'

‘Kareema? Who?'

‘Should I tell, Kareema?'

Kareema smiled and shrugged. She rolled on the mattress.

‘Reza,' Abida whispered.

‘Reza? The San Siro guy?'

‘Sure, sure.'

‘Isn't he soooo handsome?' Kareema's eyes lit up with the incandescence of dreams.

‘Handsome? But he's—'

‘Sure, I know, I know. But it's not like I want to marry him or anything, you know. Just tripping, the way you go on about Ali Nuhu.'

‘Me?'

‘Sure.'

‘I saw him the other day, Reza, you know.' Kareema stirred the conversation back to herself. ‘He looked at me and you could tell there was something.'

‘Something?'

‘Sure. A connection, you know. A spark.'

Ummi came in with a dish of couscous, which she placed in the middle of the room and left. She returned with a jug of water and cups and then ran back to the living room. The girls sat around the plate, folded their legs and ate in silence. But each time Fa'iza looked up, her eyes met Abida's.

‘What?'

Abida shrugged. ‘Are you all right?'

‘Me? Yes.'

Cutlery clinked. More couscous disappeared from the plate. Then Kareema looked up from the food. ‘Amin, how soon can you finish these books?'

‘Me? Well, it's Saturday. You could have them back by Monday, at school.'

‘Sure. Great. Then I will give you one in English.'

‘In English?'

‘Sure. Mills and Boon.'

‘All right.' But when Fa'iza looked up, she saw that Abida was looking into her eyes, yet again. And it occurred to her that Abida's eyes shone with empathy, not pity, an assuring gleam of understanding like a beacon meant only for her. And she knew that it was because of what Abida had seen in her Secret Book. Fa'iza looked down at the vanishing mound of couscous.

But Abida too had seen how Fa'iza looked at her. She, too, felt what Kareema had, only moments before, referred to as a spark, a connection. ‘Do you still dream?'

Fa'iza nodded.

Kareema looked from her sister to Fa'iza. ‘Dream? About what?'

‘Nothing.' Abida sipped some water. ‘Just dreams.'

The glare in Kareema's eyes was accusatory but it faded as noise from the gate reached them. Apparently, someone was intent on barging in. Fa'iza was startled, her eyes widened. The girls ran out of the room and found Hureira standing by the front door, peering into the courtyard.

Binta emerged from her room. ‘Who's there?'

‘Some men.'

‘It's Reza.' Abida, having joined Hureira by the door, and familiar with Reza's physique, was able to make him out in the dim light.

Kareema pushed her way through, desperate to catch a glimpse of the man who, with increasing regularity, had featured in her fantasies. The women came out and gathered by the front door, their apprehension lost in a maelstrom of curiosity.

Reza and his cohorts, clearly excited, as evidenced by their boisterous demeanour, approached and set down the generator, not too far from where the women were huddled. The San Siro boys stooped in greeting. Binta answered, her pleasure concealed behind the faint smile that made only the corners of her lips tweak. She kept her eyes on the generator, away from Reza's face, as Dogo proceeded to recount how they recovered the machine. Gattuso and Joe fetched a rag from the clothes line and wiped the machine clean. Kareema inched closer to the boys, closer to Reza.

Finally, Binta, unable to contain her excitement, clapped her hands together. ‘Thank God for His mercies. May Allah bless you all,
samari
.'

Hureira peered over her mother's shoulder. ‘Is it still working?'

Reza stepped forward and unscrewed the lid of the tank, shook the device with some gusto and was rewarded with the sound of the fuel splashing against the sides of the tank. Binta saw the blood on his knuckle and shivered. She wanted to reach out and take his hand.

Reza worked briskly, unmindful of the blood. He tilted the generator so that the little fuel left in it would run into the carburettor. He set it down again and screwed the lid back on. He balanced himself, legs slightly apart, and pulled the starter. The
machine sputtered and quietened. He pulled again, and again, and finally, the engine coughed and roared.

‘
Allahu Akbar
!' little Ummi exclaimed.

Fa'iza had missed being traumatised by the blood on Reza's hand, for she was looking at his shoes. She was certain, even in the dim light, that they were the same ones she had seen at the front door the other day; the ones that had disappeared as mysteriously as they had appeared.

Abida stood looking at the kosai browning in the boiling oil. Sani Scholar's mother, Jummalo, was sitting before the open flame, adding salt into the bean paste and stirring it with a ladle. She beat the ladle on her open palm and held it up to her face. Her tongue flicked out to have a taste. Satisfied, she nodded. ‘Some customers want it a bit more salty.'

Abida smiled into Jummalo's tired eyes and wondered if she could help. She pushed the damp firewood further into the heart of the flame with her foot. A furious column of white smoke rose into the mild morning air and drove back the children waiting for the kosai to be ready, their money clenched in their little fists. They stepped back, waving away the cloud.

Kareema did not budge. She remained by the flame, disregarding the smoke wafting in her direction.

‘The firewood is not dry enough.' Jummalo stuffed bits of plastic into the flame. ‘Kareema, get away from the smoke.'

Kareema was impassive. ‘What good woman can't withstand smoke?'

‘Sure, sure,' Abida's voice was cheery.

Kareema had woken in a sullen mist that morning and Abida, when she was going out to get kosai for breakfast, had dragged
her out of the house to help her get over her dour mood. Kareema hadn't responded to her attempts to start a conversation. Abida knew it was something that would quickly pass. It always did.

She reached for the stripped twig Jummalo used to flip the frying balls, but Kareema beat her to it. So she stood back and watched her sister flip the balls deftly as if she had been doing it all her life.

Jummalo too seemed impressed by Kareema's dexterity. ‘Maybe I should hire you to help me, Kareema. You do it so well,
wallahi
.'

Kareema's expression remained bland. ‘I am a woman.'

Abida turned her face away from the white smoke and sighted Hajiya Binta down the lane in her hijab, hovering about the entrance of San Siro. She watched Binta look around furtively and, even from that distance, Abida could almost see the worry on the older woman's face. Finally, she saw Binta put her phone to her ear.

Kareema had sensed that her sister was enthralled by something. She looked up and saw Binta and she, too, became curious. When Jummalo noticed that the flipping had stopped halfway, she also turned to see what the girls were looking at. She collected the twig from Kareema and continued flipping, casting occasional glances at Hajiya Binta in the process.

Down the lane, in his room, Reza put on his shirt and wiped his face. He reached for the broken mirror and peered into it. Then he hurried out to the waiting woman at the entrance. She appeared distressed and afraid, constantly looking over her shoulder.

Binta looked at his face that bore the evidence of sleep – swarthiness and bleary eyes. ‘You were sleeping.'

‘Is everything all right?'

‘Yes.' She nodded. ‘Yes, yes. Everything's fine.'

‘Are you sure? You look worried.'

‘Let me see your hands.'

He was taken aback by the urgency in her voice and dumbly held out his hands, palms facing the morning sky. She drew a circle in the air with her finger and he turned the hands over, his face betraying his curiosity.

‘I thought you were hurt, from last night.'

‘Me? I'm fine.'

‘There was blood on your hand.'

He turned his hands over and looked at them, screwing his face up thoughtfully.

‘You were in a fight, weren't you?'

‘No, not a fight.'

‘You were. I saw the blood.'

‘Oh, just taught him a lesson, you understand.'

‘You didn't—' she couldn't finish.

But he saw the word in her eyes and smiled. ‘No, no. He just won't be troubling anyone for a while.'

‘I don't want you getting into fights, Hassan.'

‘Ok.'

‘You are sure you are not hurt?'

‘I'm all right,
wallahi
.'

‘Ok, I just wanted to check on you, and to say thank you.'

When he looked into her eyes she bowed her head. She did not want him to see that she had agonised over him all night. ‘I've got to go now. I told them I was going to buy bread from the store.'

‘I want to see you.'

She looked around, at the muddy gutter slinking past in the middle of the dirt road, at the strips of plastic bags sticking out of the damp earth, at the sodden mud about her feet. She sighed. ‘So do I.'

‘When?'

‘I don't know.'

He sighed.

‘You haven't prayed this morning, have you?'

He looked down this time.

‘Please, go now. Say your prayers.'

He nodded. She turned and started walking away, chased by her desire to hold him in her trembling arms.

Further up the lane, Abida glanced at Kareema and they turned to look at Jummalo, who had been watching over her shoulder. Kareema retrieved the twig and continued the business of flipping kosai in the pan with dedicated solemnity. The white smoke, as if terrified of the sullen mist about her, drifted away up into the vast heavens.

Reza was shocked when he saw his withered father stretched out on the bed. He knelt down and held the old man's hand. It felt weak, not like the hand of one who had grappled with bulls most of his life. He could not believe that in the twelve months since he had last seen his father, the old man could have been reduced to this decrepit amalgam of skin and protruding bones.

He had been on the prayer rug that morning, offering supplications to Allah, when the call came. His sick father was calling for him so he had a quick shower and made the hour and a half journey to Akwanga, this place where he was born.

The lanes had seemed narrower than he remembered. The buildings, too, seemed smaller. His father's house appeared like a giant concrete coop with large patches of flaking paint. He had stooped slightly to get through the door. And with little patience, he had tolerated his father's wives, Talatu and Lubabatu, as they feted him, offering food and drinks. He had looked at them, at their faces and the shifty eyes that betrayed their deviousness, and moved on to his father's room.

He sat holding the old man's withered hand, waiting for him to wake up from his drugged sleep. Those hands had hoisted him into the air every morning and pressed him into an embrace. Now he watched the narrow chest rising and falling, drawing in breaths in staggered wheezes.

Reza leaned back in the chair and was staring ahead into the space before his eyes when Lubabatu came in with a covered dish and placed it by the bed.

‘How is he?'

Reza mumbled. He rubbed his eyes. ‘What did the doctors say?'

‘Dr. Linus said—'

‘What Dr. Linus?'

‘You know Dr. Linus, the one at the pharmacy.'

‘He is not a doctor, he just sells drugs!'

Luba blinked rapidly and shifted on her foot. ‘Well … well, he said your father has chronic malaria.'

‘He doesn't know crap about anything! He sells paracetamol and ampiclox and stuff. He doesn't know crap about anything!'

Her eyelids fluttered again.

‘God! Don't tell me you haven't taken him to a hospital.'

When he saw her eyelids fluttering yet again, he rose and walked out of the room. He went to the back of the house and lit a cigarette.

He had been seriously ill once, long before he became Reza. His thirteen-year-old body, ravaged by typhoid and malaria while his father had been away grappling with bulls, lay for days on a tattered old mattress, wasting, wishing for death.

In a delirious blur, he had seen his stepmothers shoving drugs into his mouth, pushing plates of food at him. He had closed his eyes and refused to open them until he was certain he was in heaven. But when, after an eternity, he felt himself levitating, he opened his eyes and saw his father's one good eye, filled with love and concern, looking down at him.

‘Hold on, son, don't die on me.'

The next time he opened his eyes was in a hospital, with his exhausted father sleeping in a chair next to him.

The old man woke up with a smile and held the boy's hand. ‘Welcome back, Hassan.'

‘Father, I thought I was going to die,' his voice was weak.

His father squeezed his hand. ‘No, no. I won't let that happen. You are going to grow up and be someone special. You will make me proud in my old age, my son.'

His father had kissed him on the cheek that day.

Reza took one last drag on the cigarette and crushed it underfoot. Then he went in search of a cab to take his father to the general hospital.

Flanked by his mother and sister, Munkaila put his hands behind his back and went round the house, scrutinizing the fence in the manner of a politician inspecting a government project. Fa'iza and Ummi stood by the door watching him stamp his immaculate leather half-shoe every now and then.

The smirk on his face deepened and he shook his head. ‘We will have to put razor-wire on this fence.'

Fa'iza watched Binta look back over her shoulder at the fence
and then down at her foot. Munkaila reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He punched the buttons and put it to his ear.

The labourers came a little later. They perused the fence, then retreated to a corner to confer with Munkaila. He counted out some money, handed it over to them and they hurried out of the house.

Each time the men came to work, Binta would retreat to the bedroom and lie on the bed with a book. On her bedside table, the novels and self-help books she had read continued to pile up on top of Az Zahabi's
The Major Sins
. Hemingway was a favourite she returned to often. The struggle of the old man against the fish had taken on a new meaning in her mind because she could relate to him, to his battle against the ravages of impending senescence. She was him. In her heart, there was a part that would fight to stretch those golden years.

‘Hajiya, they are putting on the wires!' Ummi shouted out one afternoon, her voice loud enough to wake her mother Hureira, who had taken to sleeping most of the day. Ummi held up the curtains, her eyes wide with excitement.

‘Get away from here!' Binta hissed and turned her face to the wall.

Mallam Haruna came that night and sat down with his radio on the veranda. Binta took her time coming out. This time she did not flap her hijab to herald her arrival but just sat down. When she did not complain about the radio, Haruna left it on, pressed to his ear. He was so involved in the news that he didn't notice that she did not even greet him. She rested her shoulder against the column and waited.

‘
Allah ya kyauta
.' He sighed and switched off the radio. ‘There is so much nonsense going on in this country, I tell you.'

She said nothing.

Up on the fence, the cat was walking majestically through the wire loops as if they didn't exist. It was the first time Binta had seen the completed work, this reinforced fence that imprisoned her scented dreams. The cat sat down, meowed once and began its chaperoning duties.

‘Can you believe what is happening in this country, Hajiya!'
Again, there was the inflection in his voice, towards the end of the sentence, which made his question come out like a statement.

She said nothing.

‘Imagine these people, running around on motorcycles and gunning down local chiefs. These Boko Haram people, you must have heard about them!'

She said nothing still.

When he tired of waiting for her response, he cleared his throat. ‘And the governor in Borno State wants to ban okadas, so these people won't be running around shooting down people like that. And you know, they told us they had suppressed these people, they had wiped them out, now see what is happening.'

Binta grunted.

After a while Mallam Haruna caressed his beard. ‘Love is a wonderful thing, you know.'

This time, she looked at him, her curiosity hooded by the shades of night.