Harmattan (4 page)

‘Don’t you want to give it to him yourself, Abdel?’ my mother asked.

‘You give it to him, Mother,’ he said, sternly, pressing a roll of CFA into her other hand. ‘Now hide this well.’ He had been sending money home whenever he could, but I had overheard my mother telling one of our neighbours that my father often gambled it away.

My mother gently touched his face. ‘My Abdel,’ she said, softly.

In the flickering light, I realised that she looked tired, frail even.

‘Hush now,’ my brother said, lifting his bag as he stood up. He paused then, looking sadly at Mother. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when Bunchie died…’

My mother nodded silently. It was no secret that Abdelkrim had been our grandmother’s favourite and that he had been equally fond of her.

After we had finished clearing up, we walked across the village to Monsieur Letouye’s house, where a fairly large and excited group of villagers had already gathered outside. Monsieur Letouye was not, he often reminded us, a rich man, but his brother – who had made a pilgrimage to Mecca and was, therefore, an
El Hadj – 
traded in minerals and lived in a large, concrete house in the French quarter of Niamey. Monsieur Letouye’s brother was keen that both his family and the people he had grown up with would know just how well he was doing, and so he had set Monsieur Letouye up in business with Wadata’s only ‘shop’. In truth the shop was little more than a market stall, but Monsieur Letouye’s brother had supplied enough building blocks, tin and timber to enable Monsieur Letouye to construct a small but sturdy lean-to, and so ensure that his few products would be protected from the sun by day and from pilferers at night. Many of the villagers whispered that it was sinful to see such things better housed than they themselves were, but none would complain to Monsieur Letouye’s face; to do so would have risked the privileges that we enjoyed.

The shop sold kola nuts, peri-peri, peanut butter, Solani, ginger water, kerosene, thread and other bits and pieces. Occasionally Monsieur Letouye also acquired coffee, teabags, candies, first-aid kits and the like, but there was an understanding among the villagers that one did not enquire as to how he had done so.

Above the hatch, which Monsieur Letouye opened faithfully every morning (except Fridays) at ten o’clock, a Coca-Cola sign had been nailed, upside down.

Monsieur Letouye did not actually sell Coca-Cola – few of the villagers had ever actually tasted such a product – but he knew what the sign meant and, until I had learned to read, I too had considered it a very handsome thing.

It was in the hope of watching television that the growing crowd had gathered.

This was a treat that Monsieur Letouye permitted on special occasions. If, however, he was in a bad mood, or it was widely known that he had not done much business at his shop for some time, we knew not to expect so much as a glimpse of either Monsieur Letouye or his television set. Occasionally he would try to charge for the privilege, and there would be great arguments between the adults before the set would be turned on.

Everyone in Wadata knew that Abdelkrim had returned home and everyone who saw him greeted him warmly (even Monsieur Letouye), so it was naturally presumed that this evening was a special occasion.

My brother helped Monsieur Letouye carry the large black television from his house to the centre of his compound, where they placed it on a table in the hope that everyone could at least get a glimpse of the screen from time to time. Two of Monsieur Letouye’s neighbours followed them outside with a heavy car battery to which the cables of the television set were attached with metal clips.

In all there must have been sixty or so of us present that evening, representing some ten different families. Some people had brought their own plastic chairs. Others sat on crates or logs, while we children mostly squatted on palm-leaf mats nearer to the set. Even Sushie and Richard stopped by Monsieur Letouye’s compound to introduce themselves to my famous brother. Miriam and I became quite giddy when Abdelkrim came and joined us on our mat, but when the Kung Fu movie started we settled down and watched in silence – even though the picture rolled and the sound crackled and hissed like a snake.

The movie was followed by a weather report and news broadcast. The presenter – wearing thick, black glasses and a grey suit and tie, and seated in front of a swirling, flowery backdrop highlighting his ochre-coloured shirt – announced that there had been some unrest in the south-eastern town of Diffa. By now, though, most of us children were so tired and fidgety and the din of squabbling infants was so loud that little attention was paid to either the dandy or his story.

It was time to go home. As we filtered out of Monsieur Letouye’s compound, each of us thanking him and wishing him God’s blessing, our national anthem boomed out majestically from the television’s speaker, while the images of President Bare Mainassara and the Nigerien flag flickered in the darkness behind us. We headed home, tired but happy, Adamou and his friends high kicking, whooping and karate-chopping their way across the village in the cool night air. I linked arms with my mother and my best friend Miriam while Abdelkrim carried Fatima, who was already asleep. A few metres from our compound, my father, who had been following behind, bid us goodnight and turned off in the direction of my school.

‘Where are you going, Salim?’ my mother called after him. ‘It is so late!’

‘I have business with the elders,’ he said, disappearing into the night.

‘Where do you
think
he goes, Mother?’ Abdelkrim said under his breath as we approached the house.

My mother sucked her teeth and went inside.

 3rd August, 1998

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

Dear Haoua,

Thank you for your last letter and the drawing of your chickens! We love hearing from you so much!

We are feeling very sad today because our pet guinea pig (Miles) died a few days ago. (We told you about Miles before, I think.) Katie and I decided to have a little funeral ceremony for him, and on Saturday, after swimmers, we invited our friends Roisin and Anna and our cousin Charlotte over to our house.

We had found a little box in my dad’s workshop and used it as a coffin. Katie put it in our freezer in the garage, but I took it out again because I knew if my mum found it she’d go mad! We buried the coffin in our back garden, down near the duck pond. It was very sad. We had had him for almost three years.

Roisin (whose daddy is a priest) said a prayer for Miles. I couldn’t stop crying for ages.

Some good news: we are going to visit our friends in Dublin for Christmas. There are lots of shops there and really cool things to do. We can’t wait!

Katie is at the dentist now but she sends her love and will write again soon.

I hope you are all well there.

Lots of love,

Hope

XXX

***

I could not get Abdelkrim’s story of the ‘magic’ camera out of my mind the next morning. My Irish friends had continued to send photographs of themselves, their family, their home, their animals, and I was keen for them to hear – and see – that I too was growing, learning and proud of my family, friends and country. When we had first encountered Sushie, she and her Vision Corps International people had given me a number and photographed me for their files and records, but I did not like this photograph; it showed me wearing a grubby, striped blouse and looking confused and sad.

I did not feel sad then.

When I had finished my millet gruel and cleared up our dishes, I discussed my plan with Mother before putting on my best
pagne
and setting off happily for school.

‘Remember, child; your father will not be happy if you are very late,’ Mother called after me. ‘And stay away from the river!’ she added.

‘Don’t worry, Mother,’ I called back. ‘I will be fine. Be sure to tell Madame Kantao that Miriam is with me.’

She shook her head in an exaggerated and exasperated manner, and went back into the house. Somehow, it struck me that it was not just concern for me that she was expressing, but a genuine desire for my father to be as happy as possible – even though he now seemed incapable of recognising this fact and seldom seemed to care.

At first, Miriam was not keen on my idea because she was not wearing her best clothes – although I thought she looked fine.

‘If you had suggested this last night, I would have known, Haoua!’ she complained.

‘Please, Miriam,’ I said. ‘My mother has forbidden me to go alone. Besides; you will be able to send a picture to your sponsor too.’

She seemed unconvinced. ‘I haven’t heard from my sponsor in over a year!’

‘But perhaps a photograph will encourage him to write more often.’

‘And perhaps he’s just a lazy oaf – like so many men,’ she said.

‘Well, you can give it to your mother then.’

She tutted. ‘My mother won’t even know where I am!’

‘I’ve asked Azara to tell her,’ I said. ‘Come on. You look very pretty.’

She was wearing a dark blue
pagne
, with a repeating pattern of azure flowers.

Although it had been repaired in several places, it was quite pretty, but I had to agree that it was not her best. Mine, however, was a deep orange and cinnamon, with a wonderfully drawn aeroplane design, repeated in rust red. With the money that Abdelkrim had been sending home, my mother had ordered a bolt of the cloth from Monsieur Letouye when I had first started school. Richard had told me that the name of the aeroplane was
Concorde
and that such a machine carried rich westerners from one side of the world to the other in minutes. I was sure that he was teasing me, but still I loved this design. I had covered my head with a matching piece of fabric, and around my neck I wore a string of blue and yellow and white beads which I had made at school with the help of Monsieur Boubacar.

That afternoon, as soon as class ended, we set off from Wadata at a brisk pace. The sun was still high in the sky and the sands still soft underfoot, but we marched on with determination, knowing that the sixteen kilometre journey to Goteye would take us quite some time. Halfway there, we came to a great bend in the river, where we stopped for a short rest and Miriam helped me to dig a thorn out of the sole of my foot. We drank a little of the water which we carried in small gourds strung around our waists, chatted for a while – about school, the previous evening’s movie, Abdelkrim, my father’s rumoured desire to take a second wife – and then resumed our journey.

The remainder of our route ran close to the river and I enjoyed being near the hulking, listless water with its less familiar sounds and smells. I was mindful of my mother’s warning, but equally aware that, as a child, she too had experienced its allure. In spite of its stagnant shallows, dried up
wadi
tributaries and shores littered with man-made debris of every kind, it still filled me with awe.

The Touaregs gave the River Niger its name:
Egerou n-igereou –
they called it:
river of rivers
. For centuries their camel trains have carried heavy tablets of salt across the Sahara, through the Ténéré Desert and the Sahel, until finally they reach the mighty river – the third largest in all of Africa, Monsieur Boubacar had told us.

The tribes of my country – Djerma, Hausa, Kanuri, Touareg and Fulani – had shared its wonders since the beginning of time, when, it was said, giant crocodiles, ten times as large as Fawako, had hunted in its waters and even pursued fishermen overland, through the thick forests which once covered the Sahel. It was said that there were bones of such creatures preserved in a museum in Niamey.

Happily, there was no sign of such a monster – or indeed Fawako – but, just about two kilometres from Goteye, we came across a group of vultures, furiously picking at a carcass of some kind. Miriam and I armed ourselves with sticks and threw stones at the birds to frighten them away. With a chorus of indignant screeches from their gory beaks, they scattered reluctantly, their sinister silhouettes hovering above us all the while we investigated. When we drew closer we realised that their find was a baby giraffe, although there was very little of it left to inform us of the fact. Why we wanted to gape, I do not know; we already knew what death looked like. It was not a pleasant sight, of course: several torn remnants of the animal’s once beautiful hide hung, like bloody rags, from its ribcage. I wondered what had happened here: where the creature’s mother had gone. Giraffes are a rare sight in the Sahel. Half a kilometre away from the village, we encountered two fishermen who were preparing their lift nets for the evening’s trawl. Their pirogue had ploughed a deep furrow in the mud as it had been dragged out of the water, and all around it the shore was strewn with buckets, bits of timber, lengths of twine, plastic sacks and strange-looking tools.

‘Ira ma hoi bani! Mate fu?’
one of them greeted us. ‘Where are you off to, little sisters?’ He was an elderly man – fifty, at least – with a kindly face and a thick, white beard.

We addressed the fisherman and his younger colleague respectfully, and enquired if they knew where we might find the
mulat o
or the American woman who had photographed my brother and his colleagues on the ferry the previous day.

They laughed, heartily. ‘Ah! You mean Monsieur Longueur,’ the younger man said – fondly, I thought.

‘Monsieur Longueur?’ Miriam repeated.

‘Go to the
dispensaire,’
the older man said, with a smile that revealed his missing front teeth. ‘There you’ll see the tallest fellow in the world!’