The Magic of Saida (12 page)

“Poor man,” Mama said. “But he doesn’t behave himself. Now these school clothes—you iron them.”

He took over from her. “And if I burn them?” He smiled slyly.

She eyed him. “Then you don’t go to school. You work as a servant for the Indians.”

“Did you also go to the German school, Mama?”

“I was not born then! Do I look as old as Mzee Omari?”

No she didn’t. Which was why the suitors came, and why, whenever she went to the Indians’ stores, she took him along as her chaperone, for he had heard her complain that some of them were lechers, sitting in their shops in their loincloths, looking out at the women and scratching their balls.

“Hamida, my sister—we are defeated. That is what I have come to inform you.”

Bi Kulthum made her dramatic announcement as soon as she had sat down and taken a moment to settle. She had on, as usual, the flowing black bui-bui over her dress, revealing only her long face and her rather beautiful hands.

“What now?” replied Mama, sounding amused. “What has defeated you, my sister? And it’s you who always cheers us up.”

“We have discovered that our daughter is not capable,” Bi Kulthum said, more calmly. “She will not make a teacher. And so Kamalu will not have to knock his brains out trying to teach her. Eh, Kamalu?” She looked at him.

Saida, sunk quietly beside her mother on the broken sofa, both her hands stylishly on one knee, cocked her head and gave the barest smile at Kamal that only he could sense, that said, Now how will you deal with this. He had been playing outside when they arrived and he had followed them in. He went to the back to bring water for the guests.

Mama gave a hard look at Bi Kulthum. “Dada’ngu, my sister, are you sure? Have you thought carefully? Is this your own or someone else’s thought you are telling me?”

Obviously Mama suspected Mwana Juma, Saida’s grandmother, behind this change of heart. But Bi Kulthum reassured her otherwise.

“My own, in truth,” she said. “I have observed this girl of mine, and I tell you she is not capable of learning complicated subjects. Better she be instructed in what will make her a good Muslim wife.”

“You will teach her, then,” Mama said, with mild sarcasm, “the etiquette befitting a good Swahili wife.”

“Enh. It is time, my sister.”

Bi Kulthum was wrong about her daughter. Saida was not dull, she simply was not very keen to divide and multiply numbers, or to read and spell English, or know who was the prime minister of England, or what was the capital of Norway. The kind of knowledge Kamal could rattle off with ease. What she possessed instead was something else, that captivating innocence and joy that was a different knowledge. What she decided to learn she learned easily.

The two mothers were both looking at him where he had come to sit, on the floor at the outside doorway; he could sense Saida’s eyes upon him too, that mischievous gaze. What will you say to my mother? It was Saturday afternoon; outside, the street had turned quiet. He wanted to tell Saida’s mother that they would work harder, Saida would for sure learn from him and become a teacher. She should give Saida a second chance.

As he was thinking this, Bi Kulthum said, “Tell your mother, am I saying the truth, Kamalu? Eti, can you make her a teacher of English?”

Kamal said nothing.

Bi Kulthum smiled slyly at him, as though having read his heart.

A kahawa seller came by outside, briskly rattling his cups together to announce himself, and was called—“Weh, Kahawa!”—by Bi Kulthum and entered the room and filled our four little cups of coffee, sprinkling them with ginger powder from a shaker. Mama, having hers, met Kamal’s look through the swirl of vapour over her cup. She turned to Bi Kulthum, who had just finished with the vendor.

“In that case, Kulthum, let me teach the girl some sewing. That will be of use to her. It will bring her extra cash when she is older. We women always need it.”

Bi Kulthum’s eyes lit up and she leaned forward. “Do that, then, sister. Do that. I will send her to you as usual and she can learn sewing instead. What more does a girl want to know about numbers, as long as she can count her money? Who needs alithimetiki”—she pronounced the word derisively in the Swahili manner—“who
needs it? And we won’t need English either when the British go. Eti, who speaks German now, besides the old ones?”

“To each his aptitude,” Mama responded philosophically, not wishing to argue. Then she added, scanning Saida with a kindly glare, “Your girl will soon be a young woman.”

Much was implied in that statement.

“I tell you,” Bi Kulthum agreed. “She is going to cost me.” She perked up and smiled. “But she has a gift, Hamida—she knows the magic of the Book. You bring her a shida, a problem that’s ailing you, and this girl will find a prayer for you.”

“W’allahi! I will try her skill, then.”

And that was that. Mama and Kamal did not exchange a word on the new arrangement. Saida would arrive Sunday afternoons and do some stitching. Then Mama would tell her, “Before you go, Saida, do a little studying.” And add an afterthought, the same one each time, “Don’t speak to your mother about it.”

Saida would come and sit on the floor with him and struggle with the math or a reader for some time. Sucking on her pencil. She would tire and he would bring out his Juzu and read a page or two of Arabic with her; then he would write something and she would check it. Sometimes they did the puzzles and coloured pictures in the
Sunday Standard
’s children’s section, presented by “Uncle Jim.” He read old news to her—the papers came from Dar es Salaam and sometimes were months old, Mama occasionally buying them in bundles from a vendor who came by. Sometimes he read to Mama, too, in English and Swahili. She did not know English, but it gave her pleasure just to hear him speak it.

“That’s what she was,” he said softly to me, “Mama’angu … my mother. She could feel my aches even before I did. She read in my eyes that morning my worry that, if Bi Kulthum had her way, Saida would cease coming, and so she arranged something, right then and there. Which is why I could never understand … why she …”

“She what?”

“Abandoned me,” he said.

When she heard him read in English, did she see the foreigner he
would become? The man who, walking the streets he occupied in his childhood, would get followed by kids shouting “Mzungu!”—meaning not white man in his case but foreigner, perhaps American. If she had sent him to a madrassa he would have sat on the ground with other little boys wearing kanzus and caps, chanting their lessons like automatons. They would have made fun of the stern mwalimu and feared him as well. He would have made friends with some of the boys. Would he have been better or worse off than what he became?

A well-known and affluent doctor in Edmonton: the thought came to my mind just as he asked, “What do you think?”

“I don’t know, really. One of those hypothetical questions, isn’t it?”

The instinct was to say he would have been better off back home and rooted among his people, but on the other hand, more rationally, surely the opportunities he had had could not be so easily dismissed. I couldn’t help thinking of the American rock idol Madonna’s adopted African child. Surely he will do well?

“I think you’ve done well,” I said. “The rest is hypothetical.”

In the comfort and freedom allowed us nowadays, it’s easy to be cynical and harsh: those who left us for abroad during our worst times under a suffocating bureaucracy, when we had to queue up for a loaf of bread or half a kilo of sugar, and suffered the tribulations from our war with Uganda, when we rightly threw Idi Amin out, deserve no sympathy from us. But this man before me demonstrated how complicated a real life could be in our times, how painful the idea of belonging. I myself am attempting to send my youngest child away for his education, and I worry, Will he return? As what?

When did he know he
loved
her?

On Sundays he would join a few Indian boys from his school who gathered to play on the grassy plain at the edge of town, past the Germans’ and on the way to the Sharrifs’ graves, a path he had taken with Saida during their noontime outings. He got along with all the boys, though their nickname for him was the diminishing Chotaro, half-caste; he laughed it off, most of them had a nickname, some
much worse than his. The local fat boy was called Moon. Kamal was no good at cricket but he could leave them helpless and paralyzed with his speed and moves with a football. One Sunday when he arrived on the ground, he saw to his horror the boys encircled around a frightened Saida, taunting and trying to push up her dress. With an angry shout he had run into the fray to rescue her. And got beaten up, for he was one against seven or eight of them. He was thrown to the ground, Moon was brought to sit on his face and pound him. But Saida escaped. That’s when he knew he loved her. Kamal could have brought his African friends from the neighbourhood to beat up the Asians; the next day in school he sensed their nervousness, as they tried to patch up. Why did he not take his revenge for the humiliation? He could not say. Years later, he met Moon briefly in Edmonton, when he tried to sell him a life insurance policy; they pretended never having met before.

That day of the fight, when he returned home dusty and bleeding, there was a man in the house. He was one of the several polite gentlemen who had recently come courting Mama. She always told them that she was married but her husband had gone away. Perhaps he was lost at sea, like Sinbad, but until she was certain, she could not remarry. She told Kamal now to go to the back and clean himself and return, which he did, and then she introduced him to Bwana Bakari, from Lindi. Bwana Bakari was a tall man in bush shirt and neatly pressed trousers and a cap. He had a pleasant voice and manners to match. Kamal got to share with the two adults a cup of tea and biscuits—a rare treat, brought by the visitor—and he had to report on the fight. Bwana Bakari was impressed, though he said fighting Indians was easy.

Kamal had heard it said to Mama that a woman without a man was a nobody and always at risk, like a warrior without a shield. A mumé was necessary. And Mama would reply that she had her mumé, he was none other than her own Kamalu.

One day Bi Kulthum had come visiting with another woman, perhaps having brought a proposal. In the middle of their conversation, she leaned forward and said something in a low voice to Mama and sat back in triumph; the other woman gave a laugh and clapped her hands once, loudly, in approval; their looks declaring, QED. You have no argument, Hamida.

Mama threw a glance towards Kamal and said, “I don’t have the urge.”

Did she really believe he was all she needed? Did she have plans for the two of them, a future for him in which she would also be around? What made her give them up, give
him
up?

He had said it was Saida who had called him back, but it was very obvious to me when I heard him speak of his childhood that he came also to confront his mama, even if that meant only to return to his birthplace and recall her in his mind.

“Welcome,” called out the young woman from the medical store as they arrived, sounding distinctly friendlier than before. Lateef proceeded with an elaborate greeting, rather obvious in its flirtatiousness, during the course of which she laughed rather pleasantly. Kamal had learned that she was called Amina. “She’s waiting for you,” Amina said, stepping out of the shop, and led them by a side alley into a yard at the back that was shared by several houses. The house behind the shop had a cement porch, on which sat three middle-aged women around a fourth and much older one seated on a stool. A wooden post behind her supported the metal roof that gave the porch its exclusive shade; the rest of the yard bathed in a brilliant glare. The older woman was wearing a black bui-bui, her forearms lay on her knees, the hands joined in front. She had the demeanour of a judge, and she’d been waiting for them. Only the skin near her eyes indicated her age; and her hard stare.

Ali, her son, walked in, and stood with Amina.

“Bring them chairs,” the woman commanded, and Ali went inside one of the rooms and brought out two chairs. The three other women had already got up and disappeared into their houses.

“How are you, Mama Fatuma?” said Kamal, and she murmured, “I am well,” throwing a distracted, dismissive glance to her side.

Not the most amicable of circumstances.

“Thank you for seeing me, Mama,” Kamal continued.

She turned to Lateef. “So this is the daktari?”

“Yes, he’s the doctor,” Lateef replied. “The same one I told you about. His name is Kamalu. He grew up here in Kilwa, then went overseas to America. He’s one of us.”

“That’s true, Mama Fatuma,” Kamal said. “I am from these parts.”

“Nzuri,” the woman said. “Good … Sometimes my stomach hurts.” She pointed briefly towards the area.

Is this what she had expected of him—a consultation? Had she misunderstood his purpose? He didn’t think so. She had yet to look directly at him. He was the foreigner, whether born here or not, everything about him suggested that to her, and he was well aware of that. But she could use him. Kamal glanced at Lateef, who came immediately to the rescue.

“Bi Fatuma, the daktari will examine you some other day, if you want him to. You know some women don’t want men doctors to examine them. But if you wish, he will look at you another time. He has a question for you. It is very important to him—he has come all the way from America to ask you.”

Outside on the street a customer was demanding service. “Weh Amina, are you closed or what? Why is no one here?” Amina hurried out to the shop. Water was brought by Ali in a jug. Kamal and Lateef exchanged another look. This was not a time to refuse water, to tell the watchful hosts that only bottled water would do for the daktari’s delicate stomach. Kamal took his glass and drank quickly, curry aftertaste and all.

“I am looking for a woman called Saida,” Kamal began, hiding a grimace. “Her mother was Bi Kulthum, and her grandfather was Mzee Omari the poet.”

“Mzee Omari was a teacher,” Fatuma corrected him. “You know we don’t have anything from him. No papers, nothing of the sort. Now what do you seek from Saida?” This time she looked at him.