Born on a Tuesday (12 page)

New Spaces

My dreams are strange. I dream that Sheikh has asked me to clear my things from my room in the mosque and move to one of Alhaji Usman's many blocks of flats. The house already has a bed, a cupboard, a fridge and a table and chair. Inside the compound where the house is, there are two three-bedroom flats and three two-bedroom flats. Then there is a little apartment that has a bedroom, a small parlour, a tiny kitchen and a toilet and bathroom. Just when I lie on the bed I wake up from the dream and I am in my room in the mosque. But then, I realise I am still dreaming. I wake up from that dream and discover that the first dream is actually real and that all the things I am dreaming about are actually true. The only difference is that in my dream the colour of the walls is different. It is hard to explain. I just don't believe it sometimes that all of this is real.

I cannot decide how best to arrange this room. This is the third time in a few weeks I am changing the position of the bed and the reading table. I think the bed right by the large window is best but I have been unable to sleep since I put the bed here. Thoughts of someone breaking in through the window and jumping onto my head or body make it difficult to sleep even though this bed is the best I have ever slept on. I have only ever slept on mattresses. Sometimes I am also scared I will roll over and fall onto the tiled floor.

I always thought, because of how Malam Abdul-Nur had a toilet inside his office, that I could never manage with the smell of shit inside a room, but I see now that having a toilet inside the room is not such a bad thing. All you need to do is close the door when you need to use the toilet. Using incense helps. I like the little pieces of wood soaked in essences from Maiduguri. Their incense is nicer than the cheap incense sticks from India, which make my chest hurt when I inhale a lot of the smoke. The toilet is narrow but everything in it is so white, sometimes I just go in there and sit down on the toilet seat to read an old magazine. On the right side, divided by a plastic curtain, is the shower.

I had come with nails thinking that I would need to hang a few things on the wall. But taking one look at the smooth, clean walls, I knew I could not bring myself to use nails. Moreover the cupboard has space for everything I have.

Sometimes I feel like I chose the wrong colour for this room. Sheikh had asked me when they were renovating the apartment before I moved in. White gets dirty easily. It is the same reason I am always afraid to wear a white caftan. You wear it once and by evening it is already dirty. Jibril likes to lie on the bed and suspend his legs on the wall. Every time, this leaves stains and when I tell him he gets upset and doesn't come back or call me for two days. But I like Jibril. He doesn't stay upset for too long. Good thing is, the walls are so smooth you can use a rag soaked in detergent to wipe off the dirt.

Going through my old newspapers, I stumble on that piece of paper with the phone number my brothers left behind when they disappeared. I stare at the paper so long, I start to see their faces. The faces are not the faces of people I know, who grew up with me in the same house. I want to call but I do not know what to say.

It is 9 p.m. when I hear the knock on my door. I realise it is Sheikh when he calls out my name. The room is a mess and I scramble to put things in order.

‘Salamu alaikum,' I say to him as I open the door.

‘I have bothered you, ko?'

‘Ah, Sheikh, how can you bother me? You can never bother me.'

‘Why does the whole place smell like this?'

‘It is from the kitchen, Sheikh. I bought a new stove.'

‘A new stove? To set the house on fire?'

He laughs and pulls his grey beard.

‘I was cooking Indomie.'

‘Burning Indomie, you mean.'

I laugh and offer him a chair.

Since the shooting, his wrinkles and the grey hairs on his head have multiplied. He looks around the room and asks if I like the house. This is the first time he has come here since I moved. The place is perfect, I tell him. The only problem was the lock on the front door, which I have had changed. There is an expression in his eyes, the look of one with something heavy or unpleasant to say. He rolls his prayer beads.

‘Allah has blessed us,' he begins. ‘A while back when I first mentioned the movement, people thought I was crazy. Now we have thousands of members and everyone wants me to do something for them. They all come under the cover of night to my house—commissioners, even the deputy governor. The last money I sent you to deposit—that was from him.'

He pauses and clears his throat.

‘But that is not why I am here. Sometimes we get carried away. I want to ask you a favour. These people around me, apart from Malam Yunusa, I don't expect them to tell me the truth. They are all too loyal. Loyalty is good, but I want someone who thinks too. That is why despite all Malam Abdul-Nur's atrocities I kept him. His thoughts may sometimes be evil, but he thinks. And for a while he kept everyone in line. It is he who organised most things around here. He knows how to organise. But you, I want to ask from you one thing. Tell me what you do not like or understand. Anything. I know you are loyal. But I also know that you think.'

My heart is beating so loud it feels like he must hear it. I do not want to think that he is testing me. Sheikh is not one to test a person.

‘Ya Sheikh, you have been kind and good to me . . .'

‘No, Ahmad,' he interrupts, ‘I do not want to hear about my kindness and goodness. Tell me about my badness and about the things that worry you. Talk to me. Man to man. Tonight there will be no preaching. Only talking, man to man. Tonight I am just your friend.'

‘OK, Sheikh. Maybe the biggest issue in my mind is the money. Why do you take money from these people? Also, why have you kept Malam Abdul-Nur close? I know you have explained that, but I still don't understand. Allah forgive me, but he is not a nice person.'

‘Good. I see our relationship will last long. The money. About the money. When I first started, I used to reject money. All of it. Even from Alhaji Usman. But you know what I have learned, Ahmad? Poverty does not make a man decent. Poverty is not piety. In the same vein, money does not make a man evil. A man's character is not defined by what money he has or does not have, but what decisions he takes in spite of having or not having. There are people who have lived a life of abject poverty who will be the first at the gates of hell. But even now there are people whose money I cannot accept because they tie obligations to it. I can take your money, but you will never control me. If Alhaji Usman were to do something I thought was evil today, I would be the first to condemn it.'

He starts to cough, first gently then wildly. I fetch some water for him to drink. He coughs a little more before it stops.

‘And as for Abdul-Nur, our history is long. When I was a teacher at the College of Islamic Studies I went for a conference of Islamic Studies teachers in Ilorin. On the last day of the conference I was so fed up with the town and didn't want to sleep in Ilorin even though it was late. On the way, just outside Ilorin our vehicle had a flat tire and we were attacked by some armed robbers. I got a knife wound and we all ran into the bush. I bled so much, I fainted. It was Malam Abdul-Nur who found me and took me into his house and they called someone to treat me with herbs until I got better. All the while everyone thought I was dead. It is Allah who destines all things but I could have died if it was not for Malam Abdul-Nur. I was in that village for one week. And as we kept in touch, we argued about Christianity and Islam until I convinced him that Islam was the right way. You see, it is hard to let go of such a person.'

I have never seen Sheikh like this. It is like something has been loosened within him, like he has stripped his skin to let me see the blood that flows beneath it.

‘I know,' he continues, ‘I know that he sometimes takes our money. I know what he thinks about jihad. If you let him, he would attack this minute. But I try to keep him in check and let Allah judge him. I think in all of this, his heart is still good.'

I sigh and sip some water.

‘Do you have any more questions?'

‘Nothing else comes to mind, Sheikh.'

‘But promise me that if you are uncomfortable with anything, you will tell me.'

‘I will, Sheikh, I promise.'

‘We need to do something about you trying to burn down this house, eh?'

I laugh. He gets up to leave.

‘Seriously, Ahmad, this cooking business is not for you. I will ask them to keep a portion of food for you every evening. Just drop your food flask in the morning and pick it up in the evening.'

‘Ah, thank you, Sheikh.'

He smiles and as he walks out the door he says, ‘I cannot have an unmarried deputy, you must think about this and tell me if there is anyone in your mind, otherwise we can arrange something for you. You are young, but you are mature enough to marry. The earlier the better.'

I walk him out of the gate. His two guards are sitting on the pavement and get up as soon as I open the gate.

‘Think seriously about it,' he says as he walks away.

Just after the early morning prayers, I am sitting in Sheikh's office reading a
Daily Trust
newspaper from last week. I do not know why every newspaper needs to have a sport section. It annoys me to hear boys who can barely afford to eat fight over Arsenal and Manchester and Real Madrid. Does any one of those footballers or clubs even know they exist? Sometimes, especially when boys gather behind the mosque in the morning, arguing about which club is better, I want to come out and just pour cold water on their bodies. This is the one thing I cannot stand about Jibril: he loves everything about football. He knows the names of all the players and how much each of them earns. He has a huge stack of sports newspapers, which he buys without fail. I know that when he asks me for fifty naira, that is what he wants to buy. I have told him that I can give him anything except for money to buy sports papers.

People are shouting right behind the window of Sheikh's office—they do this especially when Sheikh is not around. The commotion is getting louder and I walk out to see what it is. As I approach, I see boys in a circle around two people. I move closer and see that it is Jibril squeezing someone's neck inside his arm and giving head butts. The other person is struggling, trying to use his knee to hit him in the stomach.

‘Kai! Kai! Kai!' I scream, running through the circle.

‘Jibril! Jibril! Leave him,' I scream, pulling his right arm. The other person is one of Sheikh's new bus drivers in the motor park. Jibril's grip is too firm. I get a stick and whip them both on the legs and back. They both let go and the driver falls to the ground; his eyes and lips are swollen and blood trickles from his nostrils. Jibril has bite marks on his right arm.

The driver is panting and shouting, ‘Bastard! Infidel! Stupid infidel! Offspring of an infidel!'

I walk over angrily and whip him three times on the back, until he stops screaming. Jibril points at him and says, ‘Next time I will kill you!' I slap Jibril across the cheeks and just when he opens his mouth to complain, I slap him again, then drag him by the arm, away from the crowd. Everyone is silent and people begin to disperse.

‘Are you crazy?' I ask as soon as we get into the room. ‘Do you see what you did to his face? What will I tell Sheikh now? That you blinded his driver?'

‘You heard what he was calling me! You heard him!'

‘So what? So what if he insulted you? Do we go blinding everyone who says something bad to us?'

He lowers his head, wiping the blood on his body with his torn caftan. I take a look at his bite marks. They are deep and ugly.

‘You should go and let Chuks treat those wounds.'

He throws the torn, bloody caftan on the ground and picks up the plastic kettle from the side of his mattress.

‘I am sorry I slapped you so hard. You know that if I hit only him, they will say that I was siding with you.'

He puts on his slippers and leaves the room. I walk out after him to look for the driver who was hurt. I find him sitting against a tree, with four boys talking and observing his wounds.

‘You need to go and have your wounds treated,' I tell him.

‘Chuks has not opened yet,' he slurs.

‘Go into the compound. He has his room there. He will come out. Don't worry, I will pay for it. It will not be more than two or three hundred.'

‘Thank you.'

‘Don't thank me. You should know better than to call a Muslim an infidel.'

‘It was what he was saying. He was supporting America. He was saying Osama should not have attacked America. That Osama caused the world to start hating Muslims.'

‘Is Osama your brother? Are you the one who sent him? Are you the one who decides who is an infidel and who is not? You have become Allah, no?'

The other boys are grumbling and mumbling things I cannot hear.

‘What did you say?' I ask one of the boys mumbling.

‘Nothing,' he says, turning away.

After the zuhr prayer I stare at the piece of paper with my brothers' phone number again. I dial and stop it twice before finally letting it ring.

‘Salamu alaikum. Who is speaking?' It is Hussein's soft voice.

‘It is me, Ahmad.'

‘Ahmad?'

‘Dantala.'

‘Oh, sorry. Dantala, how are you doing?'

‘Fine. Why are you whispering?'

‘I am in the hospital. Maccido is injured. Soldiers shot at them last night.'

‘La ila ha illallah! How is he?'

‘I don't know. They are trying to remove the bullets in his shoulder and arms.'

‘Where are you, what town? I can travel to wherever you people are.'

‘You don't have to come, Dantala.'

‘Are you crazy? What do you mean I don't have to come? Where are you?'

‘General. General Hospital here in Sokoto.'