Uhuru Street (20 page)

‘How can Lateef afford to come here so often?’ Fahndo had asked me.

‘I wonder,’ I replied. ‘Perhaps we’ve seen the last of him for many months.’

‘You mean you don’t know he is in town?’

It was Friday. When I went to mosque that evening I saw him in the library, sitting on the checkout table talking to Farida.

The second festival of the year – in December – is the lesser one. But this one, over just last night – this morning – was a rip-roaring success highlighted by a public slaughter. Lateef arrived bearing gifts. A wonderful white and blue woollen shawl for Farida. Adidas shoes for her boy who was overjoyed. Shirt and denim jeans for the brother, perfume for the women. Santa Claus from Saudi in a ghalabayeh. I said as much with barely disguised venom at the gift ceremony at the brother’s. At the dandia that night he appeared in a dashing embroidered kurta, looking brilliant under the lights, his round face and grin and slight paunch going well with the loose fit. It would have been churlish not to let her play the dandia with him, a generous guest; although intensely jealous, I did try to possess her and lost form.

I had not yet proposed to her, of course. In my reticence I was being modest, but also I did not hasten because I was confident of the prize. Now I saw it slip from me. It was not what she did, the graceful woman, or said, but like a checkmate at a grandmaster’s
game where nothing is obvious and all understood. If I needed any convincing, I got it when the Adidas-clad Karim let it drop that Lateef had been persuaded by his uncle to stay at their place – why waste money on inefficient hotels?

My game is up. For me now the permanence of this weekly ritual, this breathless empty reclamation of the streets instead.

Note
: Swahili words are denoted (S); those denoted (I) are Gujarati or Cutchi. The last vowel is always pronounced.

Abunawas
a trickster figure in stories told in Muslim countries

Asian
term used for people of Indian descent

askari
(S) policeman, watchman

ayah
maid

bana
(I) Indianised form for
bwana
(S), used in exclamations, as in ‘man!’

banyani
(S) derivative of
banya
(I), name of the Indian trader class

bao
(S) an African board game, played with stones etc

bapa
(I) father

bhajias
(I, S) Indian fried snack (pakoda)

biriyani
(I, S) a rich aromatic dish of rice and meat

bwana
(S) sir

chappati
(I, S) flat Indian bread

chora
(I) ‘boys’ or servants

dahkun
(I) from dakini, a witch or she-devil

daitya Kalinga
(I) the devil Kalinga of an Indian legend

duka
(S) shop

dukawallahs
(I) shopkeeper

Eid
Muslim festival

European
used for white people

ghalabayeh
white robe worn by Arabs

ghee
(I) clarified butter used for cooking

Goan
a native of Goa in India, usually Christian in East Africa

hanisi
(S) impotent; faggot

jambo
(S) how are you?

jamhuri
(S) republic

kanza
(S) long white robe made of thin cotton

Kaunda suit
the type of suit worn by President Kaunda of Zambia and popular in Tanzania

kismet
destiny

kofia
(S) cap

kurta
(I) long Indian or Pakistani shirt

maghrab
(I) dusk

mama
(S) mother; term of respect for an older woman

mhogo
(S) cassava

mnada
(S) auction; market

mshamba
(S) a farmer; uncultured

mzee
(S) old person; a term of respect

nandeali
(I) a prayer for help

pachedi
(I) a light cloth worn over a dress, used to cover the head; can be used as a veil

pina
derivative of pinafore

pipa
(S) barrel

sala
(I) expletive, used for a person, as in ‘You!’

salaa
(S) prayer

samosa
(I) a stuffed, fried triangular shaped snack

tasbih
(I) praying beads (rosary)

uhuru
(S) independence

vitumbua
(S) plural of kitumbua, a sweet fried bread

M.G. Vassanji was born in Kenya and raised in Tanzania. Before coming to Canada in 1978, he attended M.I.T., and later was writer-in-residence at the University of Iowa in their prestigious International Writing Program. Vassanji’s fiction to date comprises five novels and a book of short stories:
The Gunny Sack
(1989), which won a Regional Commonwealth Writers Prize;
No New Land
(1991);
Uhuru Street
(short stories, 1992);
The Book of Secrets
(1994), a national bestseller and the winner of the inaugural Giller Prize;
Amriika
(1999); and, most recently,
The In-Between World of Vikram Lall
(2003), which won The Giller Prize.

Vassanji was awarded the Harbourfront Festival Prize in 1994, in recognition of his achievement in and contribution to the world of letters, and was in that same year chosen as one of twelve Canadians on
Maclean’s
Honour Roll.

M.G. Vassanji lives in Toronto.