The Magic of Saida (31 page)

Kamal would remember shaking Assamoah’s hand, Mr. Fernandes having brought him forward. “What’s the noose for?” the writer asked, giving a gentle pull to his red tie, and Mr. Fernandes explained, “He’s our head prefect. We’re encouraging him to take up history or literature, but he wants to be a doctor.” “Wise decision,” said Assamoah. “You can be sure to do good with medicine.”

Mr. Fernandes looked embarrassed.

No, Kamal was not the one who wrote about New York. He had written a sentimental story about an orphan who after many adventures discovers that his father is the tailor who works in the neighbourhood. But when the boy comes to this important realization about his life, the tailor is on his deathbed. Inspired by Bollywood.

There were other writers Palangyo brought. And once a member of the Black Panthers came from America, whose message about his country seemed incomprehensible to the boys. But he did teach them the Black Power fist salute. The following week the boys went around giving the salute to each other until Palangyo announced in assembly one morning that anyone caught raising his fist would get caned on the back of his hand. But what should they see on the front page of the paper a few months later but a picture from the Olympic Games in Mexico City of two black athletes standing on the medal podium, their fists raised in the salute Palangyo had banned.

Kilwa seemed far away in the past. The future beckoned.

Kamal completed his final school year, passing the national exams with flying colours, as they said, and was admitted to study medicine at Kampala’s prestigious Makerere University. Of all the boys and girls his age in the entire country, he was one of the hundred or so who was going to university. Congratulations from everybody, friends, teachers, neighbours. He was setting out on his own, to another city, another country, to be his own master. He had known only Kilwa and Dar es Salaam thus far, only the coast. His cousins with pride and excitement, and a good bit of envy, plied him with advice for his life away; Zera Auntie shed tears even as she prepared
him and took him to My Tailor for his first suit; and Jaffu Uncle eyed him with a wry look that said he had done his duty by his cousin, adopted his half-caste bastard and sent him off into the world to become a doctor.

With pride in his achievement there came also a sense of being alone again. His life with his family, with whom he had spent seven years in three rooms, was over now. He was different, and adopted—what kind of relationship would there be between him and them? After he graduated he would be sent off to work somewhere by the government. He would have his own home and earn his own money. If he returned, it would be for short periods.

There was also some trepidation at leaving Dar, whose every street and gulley he knew to the last crack in the sidewalks, for a foreign place, even if it was in East Africa. They did not speak Swahili in Uganda. He knew only one other boy who would be going to Kampala that year, and a girl in the neighbourhood he had never spoken to. Kampala was not close, it took two days by bus, via Nairobi. That was the fare that came with his government scholarship.

Before he left, it occurred to him that he should visit Kilwa and see the folks there. Let them also take pride in his success. Mama, he knew, was in Lindi with her husband and new family. Would she care to hear his news? He wasn’t sure. He would meet Saida. What would she be like? How would they relate? He vacillated: Maybe I shouldn’t go—what’s the point now, after so many years? But no. I have to go to see her.

“By all means go and see your folks in Kilwa,” said Jaffu Uncle. “They should see how well you have done. And in the future you could go to India and see your other folks—our folks—in Verawal.”

There was a curious, almost bemused expression on Uncle’s face, acknowledging more than ever before that the boy was indeed different, and yet it was not an unkind look he gave but one of concern. What lay ahead for this boy? Could he ever shed off his past?

“Will you be going to Lindi, to your mother?”

“I don’t know.”

His uncle did not reply, simply grunted.

Kamal would always wonder what exactly Uncle knew about his mother; what she meant to him, his absent Indian cousin’s African woman, Hamida, who could never belong in the family. What did she tell him when she gave away her son to him? Were there any conditions to the transaction?

“Is my father still alive in India?” Kamal asked.

Uncle was waiting for it.

“He is, but it’s been ten years since I heard from him. I can’t tell you how he will receive you if you went to him.”

Kamal returned to Kilwa by bus, speaking an Indian tongue now, and he put up with an Indian family, old acquaintances of Uncle’s. As he came off the bus he was met by a man called Bandali, of the same age and manner as Uncle, who had come with a servant and escorted Kamal to his house, where he met the family and was given
a large breakfast. Afterwards, as soon as was politely possible, with skipping heart Kamal stepped out. The Bandali house was one of the large white buildings on the street of the Indians, where Kamal had come wandering during Ramadan evenings when he was little with a tray of kashatas, an African street-vendor boy. And Saida came with her tray of tambi. Opposite the house was the local khano; he knew what to call that Indian prayer house now. He took a side street to the harbour and stood on the edge of the square looking out to the sea. A warm, gusty breeze lashed at his face. The tide was in and furious, the dhows had all taken to the sail. He strolled about and came to stand, musing, at the place where he would sit on the grass some evenings and listen to Mzee Omari recite his
Composition
. In the beginning, Bismil … It seemed so distant now.

Everything looked the same, yet it was not. Most of all, he had grown up and could stand detached from his past. He could say, This was so, and This was not so. He recalled how he had resisted leaving Kilwa.

He reached the walkway along land’s edge alongside the creek, where the sea went meandering into the mangroves. Unthinkingly, a map in his head, when the walkway ended he cut diagonally in towards the old German cemetery. He idled there awhile, perused the names on the graves, and then after some hesitation—for old times’ sake—he climbed down the depression back towards the creek and found the lagoon he had known as a child.

And there she was.

How did he know it was she? A young woman the right age, the right build (he guessed), wearing an orange and green khanga round her shoulders and head; and that thin face, oh still so much the same. That searching look. And how did she know he had returned? As he approached her she kept staring at him, intently.

“Saida—ni wewe.” It’s you. His voice breaking.

“Kamalu. You’ve returned? A grown man …?”

Hadn’t he turned cold in that world away, hardened by his loss and his fights and the taunts he suffered until he had proved himself; hadn’t he emerged from his ordeals a modern, suave, successful young man? Hadn’t he left the past behind—the past which had cruelly turned him out? Hadn’t he stopped talking to that wall next
to his bed, to which during his early days in Dar he would turn in the night, full of distress, seeing there his once closest companion? Whence this emotion now, uncontrollable; these childish tears rolling down his cheeks? All he had lost and missed and imagined in Dar, all that had been torn away from him became the burden of this sudden wave of grief. The familiar streets of Kilwa, his mama at home, the sound of the sea and the poet … and Saida.

“Polé, Kamalu. Why are you hurting?”

“I don’t know.”

They sat down a distance from each other, already aware of their transgression. You don’t meet a Swahili Muslim woman on a beach in private. She was beautiful, he observed, though small; the features fine and angular, the skin a dark brown. He smiled at her. “How is your mother?” he asked.

“She’s well. And your people in Dar es Salaam?”

“They are well. And you? Have you been well?”

“Well.”

“And your bibi? Mwana Juma?”

“She went to Lindi.”

“And my mother?”

“She went to Lindi also.”

She tilted her head to gauge his reaction, and he had the urge to reach out across all the four feet of safety between them and take her delicate hand into his. Before them in the distance, a bright and clear sky rose above the wall of dark green mangroves. There was the sound of distant waves. All else was quiet and still, the shallow water at their feet, the bushes around them. This had been their hideaway, and it still protected them. He wondered what it would be like if the rest of the world did not exist, Dar es Salaam didn’t exist, and he had not gone away but grown up here in Kilwa.

“What are you thinking, Kamalu?”

“Did you remember me when I went away?”

“Mm-hm.” In that way of hers.

“Did you feel sad?” he persisted.

“You went away to be Indian …”

“I was sent away by Mama. You know how unhappy I was.”

“And while you were away? In the big city?”

He gazed at her, looked away, said nothing for a long while. And then: “Every night I spoke to you … Couldn’t you hear me?”

“I could hear you. My mother said she wanted to send me away too.”

He laughed.

They sat in silence.

“Kamalu, I am happy you have come back. Now I have to go and cook.”

He was surprised. “Doesn’t your mother cook anymore?”

“I have to cook in my own home. For my husband when he comes back.”

“You are married?”

“Mm-hm.”

This is what they had done to him. Mama. Uncle. The world.

She moved closer and peered into his face. “Do you think I was given a choice?”

“What is his name?”

“Abdalla Hamisi.”

“What does he do?”

Silence. She stood up and started to climb back up to the cemetery and he followed. She was lithe, he observed, and he was clumsy. When they were up, she waited until the road to the town was clear before heading off.

“Can we meet again?”

“Here, tomorrow. At this hour.”

He followed her a few minutes later, when she was out of sight. As he walked back, his head drooped; he recalled with shame that he had not been sure he should return to Kilwa. Now he was here and found the connection so achingly alive. There was so much to talk about. He didn’t want to think about her marriage, or the difference between them—he educated and on his way to university, an urban schoolboy, almost Indian, and she? There was so much to talk about.

Later in the afternoon he walked the small streets of the town. He greeted elders he met whom he had known, and they politely returned his greetings, but they didn’t recognize him until he mentioned
his mother. He went to his old home, where a government official apparently lived, for there was a flag outside. He went over and patted the old mango tree, bwana mwembe, his companion in the night, the sentry who had watched over him and his mother. Finally he went over to Bi Kulthum’s house, stood on the porch where in the past he would greet Mzee Omari, and called out, “Hodi!” When there was no answer he entered the long corridor through the front door and again called out. “Karibu!” a woman’s strained voice rallied from a room close by, and he entered. It was Mzee Omari’s old room.

He recognized Bi Kulthum immediately. The fair features, the long face. She was sitting up on a bed, and seeing him she immediately covered her head. She was older, a little softer. The room itself bore no resemblance to what it had been; against the window stood a chair and a table with half a glass of water; the walls were bare except for a calendar. And there was the stale odour of human habitation where once he had smelled incense and stark purity.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“Bi Kulthum, I’m Kamalu …”

“Kamalu who?” she shrilled, startling him.

“Hamida’s son, Bi Kulthum.”

“Hamida! Weh Kamalu! By God. Astaghfirullahi …” She looked away with a shake of her head and then turned a searching gaze back up at him. “So it’s you, truly. What do you seek here?”

“I came to visit. And to pay respects.”

Could this be real? Can the world change so much, people alter like this? Where was the cheerful woman who used to come to his house, always with a wisecrack or two and a sharp, knowing gleam in the eye?

“Look at my foot. It’s rotting. And the doctor can do nothing.”

She lifted it for him. It was purple and swollen, like an old piece of cassava, and gave off the rank odour of medication.

“I’m so glad to see you, Bi Kulthum,” he said.

“Glad to see me like this?” She glared at him. “You—you seem well, Kamalu. Your mother did well to send you away.”

“How is my mother?”

She did not reply. He went over and gave her some money.

“Thank you, my son. You were always a kind boy. It was a sad day when you went away … Saida is married,” she said, looking pointedly at him.

He almost said he knew, but came out with a timely “Congratulations. I pray that she will be happy.”

Her eyes twinkled and he knew that she was not fooled. She was never fooled.

“I’ve brought presents for her. I will give them to her when I see her.”

She nodded. As he was leaving, she said,

“You, Kamalu. Your mother didn’t know what to do with you … You should become a daktari and come and heal us poor folk.”

“I am going to be a daktari, Bi Kulthum. Honestly. I am going to Uganda to become a doctor.”

“All the way to Uganda?”

He had brought a smile to her face, though perhaps an ironic one, and he felt gladdened by that.

He went back to his hosts’ house where he had a long nap.

With Zera Auntie he had gone to shop for gifts for her. He bought a dress; a pair of shoes; a belt; earrings, which Auntie insisted be of gold. Only kind, silly Zera Auntie had understood the emotional content of his impending journey. “You have a friend there from before, don’t you?” “Yes.”

He had brought his presents wrapped in a newspaper and placed the package in front of Saida. They were back at the lagoon.

“You studied all these years?” she asked in wonder. “Secondary school, and now you will go to the big school, the university? Aren’t you tired of studying?”