Season of Crimson Blossoms (7 page)

‘Guys just came, you know.' Gattuso tugged at a yellow plastic band on his wrist.

‘How much have you made?'

‘We sold everything. That guy, Johnny from the university, came and bought a lot.'

‘No credit, I hope.'

Gattuso reached into his pocket and put a thick roll of money in Reza's outstretched hand.

‘Saved some for us? We need to charge up a little, you understand.' Reza, with serious commitment, set about straightening out the notes, one after the other.

Gattuso, looking at his friend's face, got the impression that Reza derived some pleasure from the task. ‘Sure, trust me.' He waited for Reza to count and tuck the money away in his pocket.
‘The new policeman said he wanted to see you. He said he would be waiting.'

‘What on earth for?'

‘Don't know. Corporal Bako has been here twice now. This man wants to prove stubborn,
wallahi
, he is playing with fire.'

‘Don't worry about him, Gattuso. I have spoken to the boss about him, you understand. I'm sure that's why he is looking for me.'

‘You spoke to the boss?' This time, Gattuso scratched his glistening beard. His experiment with black dye on his browning, malnourished hair left it shiny and matted, jet black against his dark skin.

‘Yes. He wants us to prepare some guys. We are going for some rally.'

‘Elections are drawing near then?'

‘Yes, very soon. So get the boys ready, I have arranged for a bus to come for us tomorrow morning, you understand?'

Gattuso nodded, cracking his knuckles in his palm.

‘Is this all the money there is?'

‘
Wallahi
, that's the whole of it.'

‘All right. Let me go see this idiot policeman.'

‘I'll come with you.'

‘No, don't bother. There's nothing, no problem.' Reza started heading out of the room.

‘How much for the new shoes?'

Reza looked down at his shoes and shrugged. ‘Not expensive.'

‘What happened to the old ones?'

‘Lost them.' Reza hurried away before Gattuso could rattle his comfort with another intrusive query he would not be inclined to answer.

Assistant Superintendent of Police Dauda Baleri was sitting behind the scratched-up table in his little office when Reza walked in, grinding his teeth. From the way the policeman was crooning into the phone, Reza knew there had to be a woman on the other end. When Baleri looked up and saw him, he frowned and said he would call back in a few minutes.

The office smelt of fresh paint and Reza looked around to see the light glinting off the wall. There was something about police stations that he could never get used to, perhaps some intangible markers of illegality filed away in the dank air.

‘New OC, new paint.' Reza sounded unimpressed. To him and the boys, whoever was in charge, regardless of rank, was the ‘Officer Commanding'.

‘Reza?'

‘OC?'

A small storm gathered on Baleri's brow. He did not like this weed merchant who had just interrupted his talk with Christy, whom he had been trying to persuade to marry him. She had refused his advances first because he had remained jobless five years after graduating from the university. Then, when out of desperation he had applied to the police and had been taken on as an Assistant Superintendent, she was reluctant to marry a policeman. Baleri was getting desperate. And now he had to put up with this weed dealer, who was trying to make his first post uncomfortable. He watched the thug pull out a chair and sit down opposite him. Baleri's frown deepened.

‘You, you want trouble, eh?'

‘No trouble, officer. You wanted to see me?'

‘Yes, yes. You are making trouble for me and I don't like it.'

‘Me? Making trouble? How?'

Baleri thumped the table between them, attracting one of the officers sitting outside on the bench. ‘Problem, sir?'

The ASP shook his head and waved the constable away.

‘See, my DPO has been calling me, saying his boss has been calling him about this nonsense San Siro business. You want to make trouble for me, eh?'

‘You understand, OC, I don't know where you came from, but before you, there have been OCs here and we never had problems, you understand. But you, you just came, raided my place, confiscated my goods, harassed my boys, took my money, locked me out—'

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I know.' Baleri tapped a biro on the table, pounding out the rhythm of his frustration. He looked up at the calendar on the wall for some time – three weeks into his
new post and he had to negotiate with an insufferable weed dealer over the right to do his job. He turned again to Reza. ‘Ok, from now on, no more trouble. You do your business but don't disturb the neighbourhood, don't disturb my men and don't disturb me. Every Friday evening, four o'clock on the dot, bring the small something for protection and you and your boys can go smoke yourself to hell. No fighting, no shouting.'

Reza shook his head and Baleri gaped.

‘You understand, OC? You took my money and my goods. I know your men sold my stuff to those boys at the junction. You took my things and sold them and you ask me to pay for protection. The others never took my stuff, that's why I paid them. But not you, you understand? Not you.'

Baleri leaned forward, astonished by Reza's audacity. ‘You want to spend the night in the cell? I will shoot you now and nothing will happen.' But the impotence of his own words rang louder than his voice.

‘What sort of night has the bat not seen?' Reza delivered his words flippantly. ‘You want me to pay for protection? Bring back my money and my goods, you understand. We can't be doing something while you are doing something too. It won't work that way.'

Baleri snapped the pen in his hand. ‘Ok, don't pay up and see!'

Reza shrugged. ‘OC, we've been in this business for long. Long before you even joined the police, you understand. We know people and you know it. What I say is only fair but if you think you can harass me, fine.
Allah ya taimake ka
.' He pushed back the chair and was rewarded with the irritating screech of wood on concrete. He rose and looked down at the fuming officer before walking out, thankful to escape the nauseating smell he always associated with police stations. He paid no heed to the five uniformed men sitting outside, even when they made furtive gestures to draw his attention.

When Hajiya Binta peeked through her window to see who had disturbed her gate, she saw the Short Ones letting themselves in and laughing as if they were walking into their own house. Kareema and Abida swayed their hips, just as Fa'iza was now in the habit of doing. Binta, peering through the curtains, wondered why the girls felt the compulsion to torment themselves in such a fashion, even when there were no ogling men to tease. She scoffed, pouting and clucking at the back of her throat, drew the curtains and lay down to rest her eyes, tired from watching the needle jumping all morning as she worked on her machine. Moments later, she heard them salaaming at the door.

Fa'iza emerged from her room smiling.

‘Kareema. Abida.'

The Short Ones smiled. They were in the same class as Fa'iza but were considerably smaller since Fa'iza had, of late, been sprouting like a reed. Kareema and Abida – born of the same father to different mothers – carried on like twins, dressing in matching outfits of different colours, Kareema persistently in the darker shades. They conducted themselves with the air of evolving women who knew, with a certainty bordering on arrogance, that they were beautiful. And they did not really care what the world
thought of their height. Or what their mothers thought about their closeness.

Kareema was born first – by three days. But her mother, Aisha, was actually the second wife. Alhaji Babangida, their father, had married Zainab first. After a year without being blessed with a child, he married Aisha. The co-wives took the competition to heart and were soon racing each other to see who would first have a baby, seducing their husband each night and wearing him thin after his day's exertion at work, until he started faking trips and spending nights in hotels by himself, recuperating from too much sex. After Kareema was born a girl, Zainab desperately willed the child in her womb to magically transform into a boy.

After the birth of Abida, there was a race to see who would deliver the first son. Zainab won at the third attempt. That race was succeeded by the competition to deliver the most children, a contest that resulted in the two having thirteen between them. As the children grew, the mothers limited their interactions to flashes of hostile glares, while Kareema and Abida would be out on the veranda playing with stuffed dolls, much to their mothers' dismay. When the girls turned eight, and had refused to inherit their mothers' caustic quarrels, as their younger siblings had, Aisha did something dramatic. In a misguided attempt to disabuse Zainab of an unfounded claim of potent witchery, Aisha smacked her with a broom. A huge fight broke out. Neighbours, attracted by the ruckus, rushed in to break up the fight and were baffled to find the indifferent girls before Aisha's dressing table, painting their faces with the radiant colours of girlish dreams.

‘What are you doing, Amin?' Abida caressed the lace fringes of her short hijab.

The Short Ones always called Fa'iza by her surname, which had originally been Aminu before Fa'iza decided to streamline it. Fa'iza Amin sounded slicker. Of course, she wished she could be more avant-garde without desecrating her family name. And the hallowed memory of her beloved father.

‘Me? I was trying to get some sleep until I heard your voices. Let's go to my room.'

‘What about Hajiya?' Kareema flipped her scarf over her shoulder.

‘Hajiya? She's inside.'

Announcing their intentions to greet Hajiya Binta, the girls started making their way to her room.

‘Ah, ah, Kareema, Abida.' Binta, who had no intention of letting them into the room where her indiscretions had manifested, filled the doorway in her saffron-coloured hijab.

The girls knelt to greet her and answered in the affirmative when asked about their mothers' wellbeing. But all through the exchange, Binta's eyes were on the
soyayya
novellas rolled up in Abida's hand.

‘Don't you girls tire of reading these books? What value do they add to your lives anyway?'

‘I asked them to bring them, Hajiya.' Fa'iza, quite conversant with Binta's mistrust of the Short Ones and their corrupting influence, stood behind her friends.

‘They are the only things Fa'iza reads and now she even dreams of writing them someday.' Binta's eyes danced over the tops of the girls' bowed heads. ‘And she had wanted to be a doctor, you know.'

When the girls said nothing, Binta asked after little Ummi and seemed satisfied when she was told that the girl had gone to the neighbour's house to play. Kareema and Abida rose and stiffly walked off to Fa'iza's room, carefully placing one foot directly in front of the other and resolutely keeping their hips from swaying.

‘Let me see them.' Fa'iza shut the door and hurried over to the girls standing in the middle of the room.

Abida was amused by the desperate look in Fa'iza's eyes as she held out the books to her. Fa'iza shuffled through the titles:
So ko Kiyayya? Me Ne Ne Aibi Na?
and
Bilkisu Mai Gadon Zinari
. Fa'iza's shoulders slouched and she pouted. ‘I've read all these, apart from the part two of
Mai Gadon Zinari
.'

‘Oh, well, you are in luck.' Kareema sat down on the mattress. ‘That woman who rented the second part has just brought it back. I will send one of my sisters with it later.'

From their bedrooms, the sisters ran a lucrative lending library of
soyayya
novellas, stacks of which they had accumulated over the last two years, renting a book out for the price of a box of matches per day. But with Fa'iza, they were generous and let her borrow whatever titles she wanted for free.

‘Have you finished the others you borrowed?' Abida took her place on the mattress beside her sister.

Reluctantly, Fa'iza handed over the books and sat on the floor opposite the Short Ones. ‘The others? Finished three. Will finish the rest soon. Don't you have anything else by Anty Balki Funtua?'

‘Oh, sure.'

‘Sure, she's good.' Kareema nodded. ‘But sometimes she can be – a bit far-fetched.'

‘Sure, what with the glass floors and all.' Abida agreed.

‘I like her stories anyway.' Fa'iza smiled. ‘Get me some of her latest.'

‘Sure thing.'

‘Sure, why not? But you have to give these ones back. Other people have been lining up for them.'

‘Sure, and we need the money, you know. My aunt in Kano will be sending new books and we need to pay up.'

‘
Kwarai, kwarai
.' Kareema was looking at her henna-dyed fingernails.

Fa'iza kept shifting her eyes from one sister to the other to keep up with their sure-sure. She wondered why two people would want to be so similar. Yet she admired them for it, as she envied them their army of siblings and their living parents. The thought made her lonely.

‘What?' Abida looked into Fa'iza'a face.

‘Oh, nothing.'

‘She's missing her boyfriend,' Kareema laughed.

Fa'iza gaped. ‘Of course not.'

‘Sure.'

‘Yeah, sure. She still doesn't have a boyfriend.'

‘Sure she does.'

‘Sure. Bala Mahmud.'

Bala Mahmud was the adorable boy in her class who always seemed desperate to help Fa'iza with her assignments and was eager to lend her his notes if she fell behind with schoolwork.

Fa'iza shrank at the suggestion. She had never thought of him in that light, really. Thoughts of Ali Nuhu had not left room in her heart for the likes of the boy who could barely express himself
when in her presence. Not that he was much of a talker to begin with. ‘Bala Mahmud? He's just a nice boy.'

‘Sure. As if we are kids.' Kareema smirked and waved her hand dismissively.

‘Sure.'

‘He's not my boyfriend.'

‘Sure, all right.'

‘She's in love with Ali Nuhu,' Abida laughed. Kareema joined her and the sisters high-fived. Fa'iza laughed shyly and denied her infatuation with the actor.

‘Sure. That's why his face is all over your room.'

‘My room? Well—'

‘Well, what?'

Fa'iza smiled coyly.

‘It's cool, I think he's cute.'
Abida, as she sometimes did, switched to English.

‘He's not.'
Kareema sounded unnecessarily belligerent.

Fa'iza's eyes popped. It was the first time, in the eventful seven months she had known the sisters, that she had heard the Short Ones disagree on anything. Overwhelmed by this insignificant bit of history, she opened her mouth to speak but could not say anything.

Abida spoke instead. ‘
What's wrong with him?
'

‘
Blubbery lips
.'

‘
His lips are fine
.' Fa'iza was shocked by her own voice. By its high-pitched ring of desperation, which she hoped would shut Kareema up.

‘Sure they are.' Abida smiled and the undressed sincerity of it pleased Fa'iza.

‘And he's arrogant too.' Kareema was not quite done with her offensive.

‘Arrogant? He's not.'

‘Sure he is.'

‘Sure he's not!'

The sisters had a stare-down that, in reality, lasted all of three seconds. But in Fa'iza's baffled mind, it must have lasted an entire hour. Kareema rolled away from her sister, picked up one of the novellas they had brought and started flipping through the pages.
Abida got up and went to look in the mirror hanging on the wall, the one embellished with stickers of Ali Nuhu's face. Fa'iza picked up the book she had been reading before the Short Ones arrived and took up from where she had left off.

Abida patted down her nose with her palms and, satisfied with her looks, sought something else to engage her attention. Her eyes fell on a notebook at the other end of Fa'iza's mattress. She would not have thought much of it but for the words scribbled on the cover:
Fa'iza Amin's Secret Book
. She went and sat down on the mattress, her back turned to the other girls. She picked up the book and opened it. There were sketches of figures wielding clubs standing over a person on the ground. The felled figure was a little more elaborate, with a distinct beard.

She turned over the page and started reading what Fa'iza had written each time she had been hounded out of her tenuous sleep by the roaring shadows that prowled her dreams, and which were now manifesting in her wakefulness as well.

When the silence in the room grew uncomfortable, Fa'iza looked up and saw Abida hunched over on the far end of the mattress.

‘Abida, please.'

Abida looked up at Fa'iza's troubled face and closed the book. She tucked it under the mattress. They looked into each others' eyes – Fa'iza seeing the glint of understanding in Abida's and Abida, moved, in no small measure by the glimpse of Fa'iza's secret struggles with something she could not name, saw her friend in a new light. It was a significant interlude in which trust and understanding were forged and Fa'iza felt closer to anyone than she had in years.

Kareema scrutinised her dyed nails once more and frowned. ‘I need a razor.'

Fa'iza rose and searched in her make-up basket. She offered the sheathed blade to Kareema and went back to her book.

Abida lay back on the mattress, scowling at the ceiling. ‘So, you want to write?'

‘Me? Maybe.' Fa'iza was still embarrassed that Abida had actually read the repository of her most private fears and terror-laden dreams.

‘Why?'

‘Why? I don't know.'

Abida looked at her sister expertly cutting her nails, collecting bits of henna-dyed fingernails into a little pile on the handkerchief spread out before her. She turned to Fa'iza and asked: ‘What are you going to write about then?'

Fa'iza sighed. ‘Me? Maybe I want to write about other things and other places and other people, about love and people being happy and not—' she was staring past the cream-coloured walls and the meadows beyond into a distant space illuminated only by the light of her imagination. ‘I want to write about beautiful things.'

Kareema smiled with a hint of mischief. ‘Speaking about beautiful things, I know a cute boy.'

‘Who?' Abida sounded eager.

‘Reza.' Kareema's smile took on roguish proportions.

‘Reza?'

‘Sure, he's cute.'

‘
Oh! Shit!
' Kareema exclaimed.

When the girls looked at her, she was holding up a cut index finger, watching the blood trickle down it with a small smile on her face. Fa'iza's eyes widened and curiously her lips started trembling. And then her entire body, as if determined not to be outdone, caught on. Her little hurt-kitten whimpers terrified the Short Ones, who involuntarily drew together.

‘What happened to her?' Kareema's voice quavered.

‘I don't know.'

When little beads of perspiration started sprouting on Fa'iza's forehead and above her upper lip, Abida reached out to touch her. Fa'iza screamed like a vexed djinn in the profundity of night.