Season of Crimson Blossoms (17 page)

‘I know, I know.' He turned to face her. ‘You understand, what purpose is there in going to school if not to make money?'

‘It is to get an education.'

‘And what use is an education without money?'

‘Money isn't everything, you know.'

‘You understand, all these people going to school, it's because they want to become big men someday. Look at Bulama with his useless diploma; he can't even feed his wife.'

‘Who's Bulama?'

‘He is my father's son, you understand. He spent all those years in school and got this diploma in something, I don't know what, and now he can't even do anything about our sick father. I am the one doing everything. Me! You understand, me, the one who didn't finish secondary school, me, me!'

She looked down at her henna-dyed hands, at the reddish-brown nails. When she looked up, she saw that Mr Ibu was busy making a fool of himself on the screen, but he did not interest
her. She looked at the lampshades now, at the intricate designs on them and she bit her lower lip.

‘I suppose I should be leaving now.' But she didn't move.

Reza turned back to the window. There was a squat gardener in the distance, dressed only in a vest, pruning the hedges. Reza was enraptured by the man's shears, how deftly he used them, how he sent bits of twigs and leaves cascading in his wake. He imagined snapping those giant scissors at someone's throat, imagined the splash the blood would make, and shook his head.

Behind him, Binta shifted on the bed. ‘Why must you compare yourself to your brother?'

He said nothing for a while. ‘Have you seen how many graduates there are running around with their silly ties and stupid file holders looking for jobs? People are just wasting their time when they could have been doing something else with their lives, you understand.'

She looked at him, as if he were a stranger in Reza's body. ‘My children went to school. Munkaila, he went to school too, and if not for his education, I don't know what would have become of us.'

‘I'm not your son, you understand.'

Binta's eyes widened and she shrank into herself, suddenly seeming smaller on the bed.

The noise from the TV filled the room and the moment stretched into a dreary eternity, for Binta at least. Finally, she rose and threw her veil over her head and slung one end over her left shoulder. She made a move for the door. Reza hopped in front of her and held his arms out by his sides uncertainly. They stood awkwardly for a moment.

‘Don't go.'

‘Just get out of my way, Hassan.' She sounded resolute.

‘I didn't mean to sound … you know, the way I did.'

‘It doesn't matter.'

‘Just … don't go.'

‘You know, if you want to smoke your life away, there's hardly anything I can do about it … especially since I'm not your mother.' She walked past him and closed the door behind her.

She stood in the corridor and dabbed at her eyes with her veil. A uniformed maid was walking towards her so she sighed and hurried away.

Outside, under the sun-bleached parasol, Mallam Haruna sat on the bench looking out across the street. The music of the legendary Mamman Shata poured out amidst the static from the radio in his hand. Shata was at his impish best singing
Gagarabadau,
heaping assorted insults on a rival in love.

Allah ya tsine ma, tsohon mazinaci

Sai na badda ka, da kai da zuri'ar ka!

Mallam Balarabe had been standing over his wares, haggling with a buxom woman. They were laughing at a joke Mallam Haruna, preoccupied by other concerns, was too far gone to catch. He wasn't even listening to Shata's invective-laced lyrics. When he saw Binta emerge from the hotel, he stood up abruptly. He made as if to go after her but then halted.

‘Is there a problem?' Mallam Balarabe turned to him, holding a hoop earring.

‘No, nothing. Nothing.' But Mallam Haruna stepped off the kerb and stood by the side of the road. He watched Binta hail an okada and mount the pillion. The machine whisked her away, leaving in its wake a trail of white smoke that lingered in the air tenuously before dispersing.

Mallam Haruna went back to the bench and sat down. ‘
Lallai kam
!' he exclaimed for the umpteenth time. He threw one leg over the other and proceeded to shake his foot.

He had barely settled into this routine when he saw Reza emerge from the hotel. Mallam Haruna jumped to his feet yet again and hurried to the roadside as if he would rush across the street. Reza also hailed an okada and hopped on. When he, too, zoomed off, Mallam Haruna seriously contemplated slapping his cap on the ground and trampling on it. But he took off the cap with one hand, wiped the sweat off his razor-scraped scalp and put the cap back on. Then he turned and left, without even a word to his host, who was still engaged with the buxom woman.

San Siro shook off the lethargic cloud that had hovered over it for a few days and, coaxed by the music of the itinerant Mamman Kolo, became an agitated beast panting in the gathering dusk.

Reza heard the noise – music riding on the back of the evening breeze into the ears of passers-by – from some distance. When the chorus came, it was in the burnished voices of euphoric men long given over to the lure of ganja and assorted dope, punctuated by ecstatic whoops and delirious laughter.

Only Mamman Kolo with his old tambourine and the skills of a snake charmer could stir San Siro, that slumbering beast, into such a state of frenzy. Reza leaned by the entrance and, as he expected, the place was packed with twenty or so men dancing to Mamman Kolo's bawdy lyrics and the beats of his tambourine. Reza luxuriated in air made thick and indolent by the aroma of weed. He smiled as he took in the men puffing on joints as they swayed to the music. In the corner, groups of boys were sucking
sholisho
glue and cough syrup while passing on joints. Young girls vending food or Zobo drinks stood with trays of wares deftly balanced on their heads, watching the dance.

In the middle of the throng, Reza could see the fountainhead of
the revelry. Mamman Kolo never stopped smiling as he delivered the solo and beat the tambourine on his bony hand, sometimes raising it high above his head. And when he saw Reza, his smile broadened and he skilfully wove him into his lyrics.

Reza, too, danced into the centre of the circle as Kolo sang his praises.

Kai bari dan uban mutum

Reza dodon kwalawa

Sara daya ya zub da goma

Reza raised his arm and symbolically sliced the air with it as if with a machete. A multitude of smoky voices rose in raucous acclamation. Reza stuck a fifty-naira note on Kolo's sweaty forehead, danced a few more steps and then pushed his way through the crowd.

Gattuso was standing by his door nodding to the tune. There was a frown on his face as he took money and handed out joints to two boys. They clamped their fists in their open palms in reverence as they walked past Reza, who nodded acknowledgement and patted Gattuso's bare shoulder, feeling his hand bounce off the taut, rubbery muscle.

‘Reza, Reza!' Gattuso greeted. ‘You are back. How is your old man?'

‘The old man will live, I think.' Reza turned again to take in the crowded courtyard. ‘I see Kolo is here.'

‘Yes, you can see business is moving. I think he comes with djinns, the son of a whore.'  

Mamman Kolo could strike up an impromptu party with a tap of his tambourine. And that was good business for San Siro. He was a peculiar fellow, Mamman Kolo. It was rumoured he came originally from Zaria. He would arrive when least expected, bringing along his trusted tambourine, a
joie de vivre
and anecdotes from far-flung places. He would talk about his adventures with itinerant showmen who roamed with reptiles and made children mount live hyenas to dissuade them from bed-wetting. He would talk about his sojourns with the ladies of easy virtue in Eko, the donkey-eating folks of Ezamgbo, the marabouts of Agadez, his escapades with the fishermen of Busa and his days in the illegal
mines of Kebbi. But of his parents who left him an orphan, he would say nothing.

And just when he had sufficiently doused the place in his buccaneering romanticism, Mamman Kolo would up and leave unheralded in the night, so that the boys would wake up to his profound absence. For days afterwards, they would sit in the shades and, with languid eyes, talk about the days of flushed flowers Mamman Kolo had gifted them.

When Reza had left San Siro two days before to see his ailing father, the ambience had been suffused with an intangible melancholy, the sort that could linger if nothing dramatic happened. He now looked at the bubbly crowd and nodded. ‘Yes, he comes with djinns.'

Gattuso cracked his knuckles. ‘Your old man is better, you say.'

‘Yes, he has been discharged. He will go for check-ups once in a while, you understand.' Reza turned and tried to enter Gattuso's room but the burly one was reluctant to make way.

‘Come, let's talk about money.' Reza pretended not to notice the obstruction. When he pushed past Gattuso, he saw Rita, whom almost all the boys had had, sprawled on the rumpled sheets of the mattress. She scrambled into a sitting position and made a show of patting down her dishevelled hair. It was long and lustrous, and fake.

‘Reza.' Her eyes avoided his.

Reza looked at the smoothness of her exposed thighs and surreptitiously grasped his crotch.

‘Rita.' He stood uncertainly for a moment. He then turned and made for the door.

Incidentally, Dan Asabe, who had never had Rita, and seemed to harbour no desire to, was ambling just outside. He stood aside to let Reza pass. Dan Asabe bowed, inadvertently presenting his head, and the machete gash he had sustained from the rally.

It was this scar that interested Reza, who considered it skeptically. ‘Your wound is healing.'

‘Yes, it is.' Dan Asabe's bow deepened as Reza walked past him to his room, where Gattuso joined him.

The two men stood awkwardly for a minute. Outside, another
ecstatic roar rolled on for a minute and died down to the sound of Mamman Kolo's tambourine and his soprano voice.

‘You want to have—'

‘No,' Reza barked. ‘Let's talk about money.' He slumped onto his mattress.  

Gattuso sauntered further into the room and sat down beside him. When they had finished balancing the accounts, Reza took the thick roll of money proffered and tucked it into his back pocket.

‘I will travel tomorrow to get some new merchandise, you understand.'

Gattuso thought Reza seemed edgy and smiled. He drew closer, his smile taking on a dubious hue. ‘Let me get you something.' His eyes gleamed. ‘It's good stuff,
wallahi
.'

Reza looked at the new AC Milan poster glistening on the wall while he waited for Gattuso's return. He had put it up a couple of days before his trip. The old one had been taken down in a solemn ceremony witnessed only by Sani Scholar, who was given the honour of disposing of it. Being that Sani had no such reverence for the poster—he had no concept of empty spaces that needed to be occupied, bland spots that needed to be covered—he had shredded it and thrown the pieces into the garbage.

Gattuso came back with a wrap of nylon, still smiling. ‘Just pour some of it in a bowl of fura. It will enhance your performance.'

Reza looked at him skeptically.

‘Really, try it. If you like, I will ask Rita to come over so you can try it out.'

‘No, no.' Reza threw the wrap on his mattress.

‘So, who are you going to do it with?'

When Reza looked at him, Gattuso laughed and slapped him on the arm. The force of the blow made Reza recoil. Gattuso laughed some more and headed out to the girl waiting in his room.

Reza leaned on the doorjamb to watch the bustle outside. Kolo was tired, his voice was strained, but he kept going. The boys swayed languorously to the music like animated seaweed. Reza was thinking of breaking it up when he spotted Corporal Bako lurking by the entrance in a manner befitting a stray dog. One of the boys saw the policeman too and shouted; ‘
Wara, wara
!'

Some of the boys made to bolt, but Reza's voice rose above
the din as he shouted for them to stop. The music ceased. The boys turned to the policeman and saw how unsure of himself he seemed. Reza stepped forward.

The policeman walked up to him and smiled coyly. ‘Reza, the OC says you should keep the party down.'

There was a lull, in which a boy, dazed by dope, wobbled and slumped. The tambourine went up again and Mamman Kolo sang:

‘OC, the mamafucker!

Sucks his father's cock.'

A thunderous cheer went up and the cowed officer withdrew under a blanket of jeers. After he had left, Reza asked for the party to break up.

Some of the boys left, swaying to the ganja fumes curling in their heads like the melodies of a snake charmer's flute. Others took refuge in the corners, puffing odorous fumes into the darkening skies.

Mamman Kolo came and sat with Reza on the bench in front of the rooms. Soon they were surrounded by other boys, who sat down on the floor when there was no more space on the bench.

Kolo proceeded to recount tales of his exploits in the Kebbi mines, where they dug gold for shifty Chinese contractors, whose pitch of voice Kolo found particularly amusing and made efforts to mimic, to the delight of the San Siro boys.

But perhaps because Reza already knew what was happening in the room behind them, he imagined he could hear, beneath the din of the enthralled boys, the passionate noises Gattuso and Rita were making.

Kolo held up a hand for silence. ‘
Wallahi,
I will pay anything to hear those people sing. I can imagine how awful it would sound.' He made screeching sounds and beat his tambourine to accompany the laughter that greeted his mimicry.

Reza rose, went to his room and dialled Binta's number on his phone. The phone rang almost interminably. He dialled again, and when he got no response, he hissed and shoved the phone back in his pocket.

He went out and sat with the boys as Kolo enthralled them until the glow of the setting sun spread across the sky like gold dust thrown from beyond the horizon.

It was at that time that Marufu came shuffling in. The click of his walking stick on the concrete filled the sudden silence. He winced each time he set down his heavily bandaged left leg. He looked at the space before him as he laboured forward. It was Dogo who first overcame his shock and rose to challenge the intruder.

‘What do you want here,
barawo
?'

‘What did he steal?' Kolo grinned.

‘Condoms!'

‘Shut it, Dogo,' Reza barked.

But Kolo cackled, his laughter lingering, drawing in the others who laughed with more restraint because of the scowl on Reza's face.

Marufu tried to stand straight. ‘I want to speak to Reza.'

‘Well, then, speak up.' Reza could barely contain himself. ‘Whatever you have to say, you can say it in front of the boys, you understand.'

Marufu shuffled forward, sat down on the floor and proceeded to tender his apologies for jumping Hajiya Binta's fence. ‘
Wallahi,
I didn't know you had asked for that house to be left alone. You know me, I wouldn't have.'

Because Reza said nothing, Marufu had to repeat his excuse all over again, adding details he had left out the first time.

‘Well, Reza,' Kolo cleared his throat, ‘he has apologised. You know, we have all been caught in situations where we needed to jump fences occasionally. But since he has promised not to cross you anymore, please forgive him.'

The boys all chipped in a word for Marufu while he sat before Reza with his head bowed.

Reza sighed and cracked his knuckles. ‘The way we do things, there has to be order, is that not so? We can't all be doing things anyhow, you understand?'

The boys nodded.

‘When I say a house is off limits, there's a reason for it. We are not fools, you understand? But Marufu knew this and went to steal that woman's generator. There are consequences for things like this. Marufu could have been dead by now, but I said, well, this is Marufu, the footballer, our friend. We should just teach him a lesson.'

‘He has learnt it,' Kolo offered, and the boys nodded.

‘
Haba
Reza, I'm really sorry. It was the devil, I swear.' Marufu looked up with imploring eyes.

Reza shifted on the bench and looked at the expectant faces turned to him. He shrugged. ‘Next time you fuck with the devil and cross me, you are dead-dead.'

Dogo jumped before Marufu, drew out his dagger and drew a line inches from his neck. Marufu flinched and the boys laughed.

‘It's time for prayers.' Kolo stood up. ‘After, I'll have some ganja.'

Later, while he sat in his room and allowed his senses to float off his fingertips to uncharted shores, listening to Mamman Kolo talk about the women of Cotonou, Reza thought about his mother.

He tried to remember her touch, her hands on his as she loosened his hold on her jilbab, but all he could remember with certainty was the exotic smell of her perfume. It was the only time he recalled touching his mother. And the last time he had seen her, three years back, it was that memory from fifteen years before that had decided the fate of their encounter.

His father had called him and asked him to come home, saying that there was an emergency. When Reza arrived, he found his mother cross-legged on the rug in his father's sitting room. He caught the gleam of gold in her teeth as she smiled at him. He turned and walked out, increasing his pace when he heard her calling after him, until he was sprinting through the dank alleyways.

Now he sat on his mattress, with Mamman Kolo's voice eddying in the background, and tried to reconstruct her face from that encounter. He tried to recall her shock when she saw him turning away from her but all he could remember was the dark line of kohl around her eyes, the slanting scarification on her cheek and the gleam in her teeth.