Harmattan (17 page)

More laughter.

‘Well,’ Alassane said, ‘where is this wonderful cloth then? Every night you promise to show it to us, and every night you appear at my house empty-handed.

What’s wrong? Is it so cheap that you’re afraid to let us see?’

‘Yes,’ her sister leered, ‘show us what you’ve got, Monsieur Boureima!’

Adamou sat up again. ‘Which one is that?’ he whispered.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Hamidou? No, Flo, perhaps. Who cares? They’re all witches.’

‘They’ve brought alcohol here!’

‘Father won’t touch it. Moussa’s already consumed a lot of sorghum beer, but Father declined.’

‘Yes, but
now
he’ll tolerate it in his home.’

‘Because of
them
,’ I replied. ‘It’s their fault.’

‘It’s not what he taught us.’

‘No.’

‘It’s not our way!’

‘No.’

‘And it’s not what Mother would want. None of this is!’

‘No.’

‘Father’s a hypocrite!’ he said, slapping the ground, hard.

‘Be quiet, Adamou,’ I said. ‘Even if you don’t get us into trouble, you’ll wake Fatima again!’

He kicked at his blanket and then lay back down.

‘You know, Adamou,’ I whispered, some time later, ‘Abdelkrim drinks alcohol sometimes. I saw the bottle.’

But Adamou did not say anything.

The laughter continued outside.

‘Where’s the lovely Flo?’ Moussa called out.

‘She’s busy.’

‘Busy
, eh?’

They cackled like hens.

Alassane and Hamidou began a tuneless chant. ‘Get the cloth! Get the cloth!’

‘Get the damn cloth, Salim,’ Moussa said.

‘Yes, Salim. Monsieur Moussa wants to see this wonderful cloth too, of course!’ Alassane said.

‘I’m getting it! I’m getting it!’ I heard my father say. ‘I told you I’d get it and I’m getting it!’ He made a curious noise – like a wild animal yawning – and then added, ‘You won’t be able to see it properly in the firelight anyway!’ Then the faint light of a kerosene lantern swept across the curtain which divided our two rooms, and I heard him enter the living room. ‘Where is it? Where did I leave it?’ he muttered, as he rummaged around noisily.

I knew what he was looking for. He had returned from Niamey with a large bolt of fabric, more beautiful even than anything I had ever seen Monsieur Letouye display at his shop. He had left it in the corner of the room in a big, black, plastic sack and, when he was out one day, I had sneaked a look inside. The fabric had a fine pattern of pink and white flowers, with pretty wisps of green foliage trailing across the entire design. There was enough material in the bag to dress a whole family – in both
pagnes
and head wraps.

It must have been very expensive. I could not imagine how Father had paid for it.

I knew what it was for and it filled my heart with dread.

As the light disappeared from view, Adamou sat upright again. ‘So,’ he said, ‘it
is
true. He
is
going to marry that witch!'

I lay awake for hours that night, listening to the jokes and laughter of my father and his friends and worrying about my poor mother. I tried not to picture her lying frail and ill and lonely in a hospital in the city. Instead, I recalled memories of her singing as she toiled, smiling as she watched television at Monsieur Letouye’s, dancing at the end of Ramadan. It was not easy. The images in my head altered themselves – like in a dream – and each time I saw my mother looking well and strong, my mind took her face and twisted it, and left it with an expression of pain and weariness. Perhaps, at times, I
was
dreaming, but in order to dream one must sleep, and if this was sleep, then it was a sleep which offered no rest.

I tried to imagine what the shoes that Katie and Hope had promised to send me would be like, but I could not concentrate on such things. And it was then that I cried.

Gasping great lungfuls of air, in an attempt to stifle my sobs, I shook uncontrollably.

In truth I wanted to scream at my father. There were other Wadata women whose husbands had taken more than one wife, but none of those women were lying in a hospital in Niamey, and none of them were my mother. I was angry with my father, and had he not been outside that night, I think I might have walked into the desert and howled at the sky.

Instead, I lay there praying that God would save my mother and bring her back to Wadata, and tried to ignore the demons inside my head that told me this was never going to happen.

Perhaps I was angry with God too.

Sleep was finally beginning to embrace me when an angry exchange of words outside jolted me to my senses.
Aunt
Alassane’s voice was loudest of all.

‘No, Salim! You cannot!’ she screeched.

‘Oh, take it easy on my cousin, woman!’ Moussa said. ‘Not five minutes ago you were all over him!’

‘You keep out of it, little fellow! Don’t tell me what to do! You’re nothing but a leech, anyway!’

‘Alassane!’ my father said. ‘Moussa is my guest. All I said is that you should stay here with us…’

‘And why would I want to stay in your filthy little hut when I have a perfectly good house of my own?’

‘With a perfectly good roof…’ Moussa added.

‘And
no
brats!’ Hamidou said.

There was the sound of a bottle breaking.

‘You pig!’

‘I’ve had enough of you people!’ Moussa said. ‘If I’d wanted trouble with women I could have stayed at home!’

‘Well,’ Alassane said, ‘why don’t you slither off back to the city – like the little snake that you are?’

‘Calm down,’ my father said. ‘You’re all drunk!’ He spat, loudly, and then continued, ‘As I said, we’ll come back with you then.’

I heard Alassane suck her teeth. ‘And – as
I
said – you can’t!’

‘Walayi!
You’re so argumentative tonight! Why don’t you just sit down again and relax?’‘No, Salim. I mean it. You’ve got litle enough to offer me–and I’m not the kind of lady who’s used to very little…’

‘Lady?’

‘Shut your face, Moussa!’ Hamidou said.

More breaking glass. Then Alassane‘s voice again. ‘Sort it out or I’m not interested, Salim. I mean it!’

There was a flurry of activity, followed by the sound of muffled voices. Then, finally, silence.

We all needed new clothing, really, but I knew that that was not about to happen – especially when Father had just spent everything he had on cloth for his betrothal.

Sometimes Sushie or Richard brought bundles of garments back from the aid agency depot for distribution from the
dispensaire
but, as Sushie had said, with things as they were in the capital, there were fewer trips being made now. So, when it was quiet one afternoon (Father, Moussa and Adamou had gone off to pray and Fatima was playing with Narcisse and Amina) I sat down on my mat and began to repair Father’s frayed pants and a torn
Mickey Mouse
tee shirt, which had first been worn by Adamou and then by me. The garment was thin and faded but the tear under the arm was small. I decided that Fatima might as well get some wear out of it.

I had not seen a great deal of Sushie for quite some time. My father had forbidden her to come to our compound ever since he had quarrelled with her, so I only saw her occasionally at the market and sometimes waved at her vehicle, as I made my way back from the river and she made her way to Goteye. I rarely got to speak to her.

This arrangement suited me, in one respect: each time I caught a glimpse of her I feared that she might be the bearer of bad news – if not about my mother, then possibly concerning my undoubtedly precarious place on the VCI sponsorship programme.

These thoughts were racing through my mind as I stitched when I suddenly realised that someone was addressing me.

‘Anyone in there?’ It was her.

I stood up to greet her, relieved to see that she was beaming brightly at me. She did not look like the bearer of bad news.

‘Pardon me, Mademoiselle Sushie,’ I said, smoothing down my
pagne
and trying not to appear flustered.

‘I know I’m not meant to be here,’ she said, ‘but I’ve got a package for you, Haoua. Remember Maggie, the
Peace Corps
nurse you met at Goteye? Well, she was out at the
camions
post this morning to pick up some medicines and Head Office had sent this too.’ She handed me a rectangular package about the size of a goat’s head. ‘I think it’s been lying in Niamey for a week or two.’

I recognised the writing on the heavy brown paper immediately, and the familiar stamps with pictures of the Queen of Ireland, looking sideways and wearing a crown that looked like it was too small for her. Miriam had said that perhaps the queen’s mother had had a much smaller head, because she had heard that such fine jewels were often handed down from one family member to another – much like our
Mickey Mouse
tee shirt. ‘It’s from Katie and Hope,’ I said.

Sushie nodded.

‘Shall I open it now, or wait until the others come home?’

‘It’s your call,’ Sushie said, sitting down on a plastic crate.

I sat back down on my mat and examined the package. It had been wrapped carefully, the paper folded neatly over and then taped at both ends. Two blue and white
airmail
stickers had been placed below the row of queens’ heads and I now noticed that my friends’ names and sponsor number had been written in thick, black letters on the underside of the package. On the front, underneath the
airmail
stickers, my name and the Vision Corps International address had been written in the same black letters. There was something beautiful and mysterious about it, even though I had a fairly good idea what it contained.

‘What do you think, then?’ Sushie said. ‘Do I get to see what’s inside now?’

‘Katie said they were going to send me some shoes,’ I said. ‘I think it’s my new shoes!’

‘Wow!’

I smiled as Sushie handed me her pocket knife and winked. Together, we carefully removed the wrapping paper and tape, and inside there was a white box, with a sturdy lid which I removed.

I had never owned a
proper
pair of shoes before. All my life, I had walked on my bare soles or in a pair of plastic sandals which had previously belonged to Adamou. And yet lying there, before my eyes, in a nest of thin, white paper, were the most beautiful shoes I had ever seen. And they were mine!

‘Aren’t you going to try them on?’ Sushie asked, after I had stared at them for some time. ‘In the US we call them
sneakers
.’

I lifted one of the sneakers out and held it close to my face. It smelt clean and new. ‘May I?’ Sushie said. She took it from me and held its sole against my foot.

‘Looks like they’ll fit. You must have made a good drawing.’

‘Yes,’ I said. And yet I still did not dare to put them on. Although they were clean and new and white and pink and wonderful, they were also hard and strange to me. I examined the perfect stitching running across the smooth surfaces, the tiny holes punched along the seams, the ridged soles and the three pink stripes on either side of the main body of each shoe. Then I looked at Sushie. I had seen her wear similar ones. ‘I will wear them later,’ I said, deciding that I wanted to be alone when I squeezed my feet into them for the first time.

She shrugged. ‘
Toh
.’

‘There are other things in the box,’ I said, setting the shoes down carefully on my mat and wrapping them in the thin paper again.

We found a plastic frog with a tube attached to it. Sushie showed me how to make it jump, by squeezing air through the tube with a little bulb. There was a label, which said ‘Adamou’, attached to one of its legs. There were some more magic bubbles, with no label attached, six little packages of candies and a book for Fatima.

I was playing with the frog when Sushie waved a piece of folded paper in front of my face.

‘Did you see this, Little One?’ she said.

I took the paper from her and unfolded it. It was a letter. A small photograph fell on to my mat. I picked it up and looked at it. The face of an old man – an
anasara
man – stared out at me. He wore thick-rimmed spectacles and a long, pointed moustache which was curled up at the ends. He was wearing some kind of uniform and had medals pinned to his chest. I showed it to Sushie.

‘Goodness!’ she said. ‘He looks kind of important. Like the president or something!’

I handed her the letter. ‘Will you help me with this, please, Mademoiselle?’

‘Sure.’

***

26th March, 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,

We were really pleased that you sent us the outline of your foot, as Katie suggested. Dad took us to the shopping centre yesterday and we chose these trainers for you. I hope you like them. (Katie and I argued about which ones you’d like best, but finally we agreed on these ones. My friend Sorcha has a pair just like them.)

I have enclosed a photograph of our Papa, who died a few months ago. I photocopied it in our school library at lunch time today. He was our father’s father’s father and he was a very brave, clever and funny man.

(He used to read a lot, and work in his garden, but he was almost blind for the last year or so of his life, so he could not do his favourite things any more.) He is quite young in this photograph. It was during the war. (My dad says I have to tell you which war, because there have been lots of wars in Africa too. It was the Second World War and Dad says that some of that was even in Africa!)

We’ve been wondering how your mother is now. I’m sure she missed you and your family while she was in hospital. I hope you are still enjoying school, and that your project was successful. Write soon, if you can. We love hearing from you!