Born on a Tuesday (8 page)

After the late evening prayers Jibril was with Malam Abdul-Nur for a long time. I could not sit or eat or sleep. My mouth was bitter and my stomach felt as dirty as the gutters we cleaned.

When Jibril came in afterwards, he took off his shirt. He did not say a word. When he turned and I saw the new wounds on his back, tears began to roll down my eyes. I knelt down and begged him.

‘I thought you had run away Jibril!'

Still, he did not say anything. But there was no anger on his face or in his eyes. He just sat on the bed and leaned against the wall with his shoulder. I swore that I would go back and tell them it was me who found the book and brought it to the room.

‘It is OK,' he said finally, ‘everything is over now. I already admitted that the book was mine. He has beaten me already.'

All through the night, I could not stop tears from coming from my eyes.

It is midday. Sheikh calls me on the phone and asks me to come to his office immediately. He always says, ‘Come when you are done with whatever you are doing.' I wonder what I have done wrong. I try to think if there is anything he asked me to do that I have not done. There is nothing I can think of.

‘Salamu alaikum. You sent for me,' I say as I walk into his office.

As I turn and see my aunt's husband, Shuaibu, with his forehead full of wrinkles, I know that something bad has happened.

‘Sit,' Sheikh says.

‘Allah has caused us a death,' Shuaibu says, avoiding my eyes.

Shuaibu says my Umma suffered much. She stopped eating altogether and threw up anytime they tried to force-feed her. I thought that I would slump over if ever I heard that my mother had died. But hearing now how much she suffered, I feel both sadness and relief in my heart. Relief because Allah has taken away her suffering.

Allah is merciful.

Sheikh wants to come with me and Khadija's husband. But he has to stay for the fundraising. He asks me to leave immediately.

Shuaibu waits outside while I go to the room to get a few things. I put my notebook in my bag first so that I do not forget. As I pack, it does not feel like I am the one stuffing the clothes into the bag. It feels like a film and I am watching myself.

MY WORDS

NAME: Ahmad (Dantala)

PATRON.

1. Regular customer: a customer, especially a regular one, of a shop or business.
   
2. Sponsor: a giver of money or other support to somebody or something, especially in the arts.
   
3. Roman slave master: in ancient Rome, somebody who had given a slave his or her freedom but still retained some rights over the former slave.
   

Sheikh is a
patron
to plenty plenty peoples. He is a patron to Malam Abdul-Nur who is the one keeping all the money for the mosque committee. They have put Malam Abdul-Nur to take care of the six donation boxes around and outside the mosque which
have
has
have FISABILILLAH on the body. It is Adamu and Sheriff that bring the boxes. Adamu and Sheriff are carpenters in the central market. Adamu is Sheikh student and he used to stay at the mosque too until like three years ago when he finish learning how to be a carpenter from the old carpenter who died when there was cholera last year. Sheikh is Adamus patron too. Even as Adamu is not living here again, Sheikh still have control over him. He (Sheikh) send Sheriff to be Adamu boy and to live with him when he run
ran
away from home and refuse to be a Shia like his father. That is the first time I am hearing of a Shia changing to a real Muslim. If you
aks
ask me, many of the people changing, especially the
Christen
Christian people who come on Fridays to be changed when Sheikh is doing his preaching they come because they think they will get plenty money when they change to Islam. Sometimes Sheikh find work for them in office or give them money to start business, but sometimes they do not get anything. And when they do not get anything sometimes they go back to where they came from. Like Isaac who came from Kaduna and change to be a Muslim and was around the mosque for like one month thinking maybe he will get something. He
is
was complaining about the people who get things or work or money and one day he just pack his things and dissappear. Sheikh say some body saw him in Kaduna where his family is. He has changed back to being a Christian again. I do not understand how somebody can change from thinking that Allah
have
has a son and then go back and continue thinking that Allah has a son again. All of the wood things in the mosque and in Sheikhs house is
build
done by Adamu and Sheriff. Sometimes he gives them money like when it is a big job. But when it is small things like donation boxes, they refuse to collect any money from him. Because he is their PATRON.

DESOLATE

1. Empty: bare, uninhabited and deserted.
   
2. Alone: solitary, joyless and without hope.
   
3. Grim: dismal and gloomy.
   

Jibril is
DESOLATE
these days. The room is desolate too. He (Jibril) comes back when it is night and then he is removing his eyes from my eyes when I look at him. He is talking back to me with
MONOSYLLABLES
(words consisting of one syllable: a word or sentence consisting of only one syllable, e.g. ‘Yes' or ‘Me'). Sometimes when he come back I see his face
swelling
swollen or his eyes red like palm oil or tomato and I have stopped trying to ask why his brother slaps him. I can only guess. I hate guessing. I hate to not be sure of
things
something.

I am wanting to use DESOLATION in a sentence. I cannot
not
think how to use it. Jibril will not help me when I
aks
ask him. Just like that the things he knew yesterday he does not know today. He
has
have even stop speaking English with me and when he see Malam Abdul-Nur coming, he move away from me. It is hard when you have made only one person your friend and that one person is not talking to you. It is not as if you can just meet the other boys that you
did
do not talk to and just make them your friends. They cannot understand me the way someone like Jibril can understand. And what will I say to those other boys? What will we talk about? They cannot read English, they cannot read Hausa. They do not know words. They laugh at foolish things, they play foolish games like someone messing during prayers or tying a person hands when they
have sleep
are sleeping.
have slept. Jibril will not share words with me. I am DESOLATE.

GIBBERISH

1. Nonsense: spoken or written language perceived as unintelligible or devoid of sense.
   

There are many many things I think are GIBBERISH. Like Christians saying Allah gave a woman
pregnant
pregnancy to give birth to Prophet Isa (Jesus). Like the hadiths that the Shia people create to show that they are correct. Like all that dancing and singing that some
Tarikas
darikas
Dariqas do that resemble what the Christians do in church.

But what I also think is nonsense is what Malam Abdul-Nur says, that we should stand up and fight against the goverment because they are not doing anything about the Muslims that are killed by those Berom people in Jos and that we should burn all the drinking places and the mosques of those who are not agreeing with us. Especially the burning part. I have done this before and I cannot have that feeling in my body again. He says that those who work for this goverment in any position are working for Shaitan and are making themselves enemies of Islam. I don't know what he means because we all get money and food from Alhaji Usman who is doing contract work with goverment and who is the Governors friend. And Sheikh is in the State Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board which is also like working for goverment.

The worst for me is that he is calling the people who send their children to university kafiri when he know that Sheikh went to the big university in
Egipt
Egypt. Sheikh heard him once and told him to stop talking like that and told him that there is nothing in the Quran or Sunna that says that it is haram(sin) to work for goverment or to go to university. Sheikh spoke for long about how Muslims need to get knowledge anywhere they can find it so that they can grow stronger in the world and not be defeated in learning or in science. The only haram is when men and women are sitting together in the same classes or stay together in rooms or when boys are allowed to enter girls rooms. Malam Abdul-Nur agreed and said sorry. But I have heard him continue saying this nonsense things when Sheikh is not around, saying that all the election and voting is kufr and haram and teaching in university is haram and all working for government is haram. And some people have started agreeing with this nonsense.

Even as he is not talking to me, I asked Jibril what he feel about what Malam Abdul-Nur say. He opened his mouth to say something but he did not say anything.

SHRUG

1. Raise and drop shoulders briefly: to raise and drop the shoulders briefly, especially to indicate indifference or lack of knowledge.
   

I see the way Jibril
is
sometimes
looking
looks when his brother say these things, the way his neck is moving when he swallows spit like someone who is trying not to say something that is in his mind. I see him and I swear there is no
INDIFFERENCE
(lack of interest in something: lack of interest care or concern) or lack of knowledge in his eyes. He knows what he is thinking but he is fearing to say it, even to me. I can see he does not like it, his eyes do not agree when Malam Abdul-Nur talks about burning, he is grinding his teeth, like me. So when I ask him and he SHRUG, I know that he is lying. I know why he is lying. Me too I will shrug too if Malam Abdul-Nur was my brother. There is something that worry me these days, something I don't have knowledge about. It is how Jibril disappears many nights and doesn't say where he has gone especially when his brother travels.

DISCOVERY

1. Something learned or found: something new that has been learned or found.
   
2. Process of learning something: the fact or process of finding out about something for the first time.
   
3. Process of finding something: the process or act of finding something or somebody unexpectedly or after searching.
   
4. Somebody recognised as potentially successful: a previously unknown musician, actor, performer, or other person who has been identified by somebody as having exceptional talent or unusual beauty.
   
5. Recognition of potential for success: the recognition of somebody's exceptional talent or beauty, leading to that person's fame.
   

In all these years, there are many things I did not know that made me open my mouth like how new babies open their mouth. I DISCOVER things these days. Like how Malam Abdul-Nur married quietly last year and have stop
liveing
living in the single room in front of Sheikh's house. Like Malam Abdul-Nur has another wife and daughter outside of Ilorin.

I saw Jibril with two small bags of rice, from
inside
among the rice that Alhaji Usman usually sends to share on Fridays. Even though he still was not talking to me I asked him where he was taking the rice. At first he said it is none of my business. But then his eyes fell down and he started to play with his hands until he started talking and told me everything even the things I didn't ask him. How Malam Abdul-Nurs wife came from one village in Kwara and he did not allowed her to go out or see anybody even other women and she cannot speak Hausa at all at all. How Malam Abdul-Nur was married to another woman before he changed to a Muslim and just disappeared from Ilorin. How the woman stopped talking and became
crazy
mad after she heard that he lived in another town and
is
was
is now a Muslim. How the woman was like a
mummy
mother to Jibril and paid his school fees.

I nearly cried when I heard these new things.
And then when I heard about the woman going mad I started telling all the stories inside my head, how my own Umma stop talking and is now more mad each time I go back. How they tie her to the bed until when she need to go to toilet or bathroom or to walk around. They say if she does not walk around her legs will become useless.

Jibril told me he wanted to run away to somewhere far away where his brother will not find him. He said that I should follow him and run away. His brother have two guns under his wife's bed. Jibril said his brother
he
was talking about burning the Shia people mosque on the other side of town because they abused him in their preaching.

I told him I have nowhere to go. Sheikh is my father. I will not leave my father. I asked him if he will still be a Muslim when he goes. He closed his eyes and then he said yes. He said he likes being a Muslim.

I don't know why I asked, but in my mind I was thinking of how old Jibril was. So I asked him. He said twenty. And I wanted to be the same age with him so I said, I am twenty too. We look like the same age.

I told him that I saw
his brother
Malam Abdul-Nur remove money from the box at the back of the mosque. I was thinking whether to tell him or not. I thought he will be angry or he will try to say it is a lie. But I saw what I saw. Not once, but twice Malam Abdul-Nur open the donation box and remove money and put in his pockets when he thought no one was looking. Jibril did not look up when I said this. He waited. Then he said that he already knows.

The Land of the Dead

I do not know how to behave towards Shuaibu.

I am grateful that he made the six-hour trip to tell me that my Umma had died. I am grateful that he paid for the white cloth and the gravediggers. While it is hard to forget how he abandoned Khadija because of Umma's sickness, I am sad that because of Umma he had problems with his wife. I want to dislike him. It is easier to dislike him, easier to just tell myself he is a bad man who hated my mother. But I ask myself, What would I have done if I were Shuaibu? What would I have done if the wife that I married no longer had time for me?

In the bus to Dogon Icce I didn't say a word to him. I nodded and shook my head and smiled and shrugged in response to everything he said. And at some point, when he wouldn't stop talking, I pretended to fall asleep. He was talking to me like a man, not like a boy, not like he used to talk to me. He tried to explain everything as if we were members of the same majalisa. When he came to Shiekh's office, he kept putting his hand on my shoulders, as if he had cared for me all my life. I wished, astaghfirullah, that I could push him into a deep well full of soldier ants. But these few hours have calmed my mind and I let it all pass. Allah judges the intentions of the heart.

There is no feeling in my heart or in my head when I meet my brothers Maccido and Hussein. Even with their beards, I recognise them the moment I see them. Hussein's eyes have become more like Umma's; his eyes are deep and have dark circles around them. Their arms are muscular. They look like they have been doing hard exercise.

There are no words between us, only nods and handshakes and salaams. I do not know what to say to these men who have become strangers, who I know nothing about apart from the fact that we used to live in the same home a long, long time ago.

None of us arrived in time for the funeral. The body had started to smell and the men decided to bury her. It is late when we meet and almost time for maghrib prayers.

In the open mosque, we stand shoulder to shoulder, toe to toe, all of us fairly the same height, Maccido only slightly taller than Hussein and I. As we begin to pray, they each drop a small clay tablet in front of them. I am staring at their feet, neat and smooth like those of rich people; there isn't a crack on their heels. The rumours that Shuaibu says he has heard about my brothers are true. They press their foreheads against the tablet as we are praying, refusing to allow their heads to touch the mats; I cannot help staring when I notice that their arms hang down instead of being folded below the chest as we pray. It is all new to me, this Shiite way of praying—like a different religion.

In front of Shuaibu's house, we spread a large mat which is really four mats sewn together. People pass by and pay their condolences. Everyone is so kind in this village. When the last person leaves, we start to talk.

‘What of Hassan?' I ask.

‘He travelled. He is in Iran.' Hussein says quickly.

Maccido looks at Hussein and shakes his head.

‘He died. Last year.'

Suddenly I feel my chest fill up with air and my eyes widen.

‘What happened?' I ask.

They both put their heads down.

‘What happened?' I ask again.

‘We were all in Lebanon for a course. Then Hassan had an accident and died. Please don't tell anyone. We are telling you because you are our brother.'

Maccido is the only one explaining.

‘Why? What happened? Why are you not telling me the truth? What kind of course?'

‘I am sorry. Please understand. It was a normal Muslim course. We were doing a parade and Hassan had an accident and died.'

‘Where was he buried?'

‘There. In Lebanon.'

‘May Allah forgive him,' I say reluctantly.

For the first time since Shuaibu told me Umma was dead, I feel that pain in the nose that comes before tears. I cry for the brother that I did not know. I look into Hussein's face. The last time I saw them, Hassan and Hussein were identical. I try to imagine how Hassan could have had an accident during a ‘course.' They are quiet, refusing to tell me what really happened. I know they are lying. Yes it is Allah's will who lives and who dies but young people do not just die like that without an explanation. My head is spinning as I think of the many things that could have happened, why they were in Lebanon and what made Hussein mention Iran.

Shuaibu has asked Khadija to come live in the house where he and his other wife stay. It is a new house, twice as big as the old one. People say he has been working for some local politician and gets a lot of money.

We roll the mat and take it into the compound. They have put two large mattresses for us in the room adjacent Shuaibu's. I see Khadija briefly as we head in. She has creases on her forehead and grey hair in her eyebrows. There are no smiles left in her eyes, only dullness. She stoops slightly as she walks with a plastic kettle in her hand.

‘Sleep well,' she says to us as she makes her way to her room across the open courtyard from ours.

There is silence in the room as we try to arrange the mattresses to sleep. I know it is not his fault but I am angry at my father for sending us to different places. It scares me that I cannot remember his face when I want to be angry with him. I remember him, the things he used to say, his loud voice, but his face is blank in my head. It feels so strange being in the same room as my brothers, who know many things that I don't. They speak to each other in this strange type of Hausa that I barely understand. It sounds like they are singing and dragging the words forcibly from their mouths. I am glad I do not speak this way.

I am angry that my brothers stopped visiting Umma. Maybe if she saw all of her boys she would not have stopped trying to eat, stopped trying to live. Maybe all our faces put together would have been strong enough to break the chains that kept her mouth sealed. What is the use of coming now when they could not visit when she was sick? My head is bursting with questions and I am not sure which to ask first. The anger in my chest is struggling with the questions in my head and stopping them from coming out one by one.

‘Are you both still in Tashar Kanuri?' I ask.

‘No,' Hussein answers. ‘After Tashar Kanuri we went to Zaria, and then to Lebanon and Iran.'

‘When our malam in Tashar Kanuri died, people started giving Shiites a hard time there so we decided to move to Zaria, where Shiites are many,' Maccido adds.

He has brought up the issue I have been reluctant to talk about. No one likes Shiites in Sokoto. Everyone believes they are dangerous, especially those of them who go to Iran to study and the Shiite malams who take money from Hezbollah to fight Dariqas and Izalas. Even Sheikh preaches against the way they pray only three times instead of five and how they act so uncivilised during the festival of Ashura, covering themselves with mud and dirt, flogging themselves, even wounding themselves to mourn the killing of Imam Hussein in the battle of Karbala.

‘Why do you people observe Ghadir Khum, why do you elevate Ali among the Prophet's companions?' I ask. I really want to know.

‘Well, from the hadith of the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam himself,' Maccido begins. ‘I know you yourself have studied under malams, so I am sure you must have heard the hadith: Of whomsoever I am the mawla, Ali is his mawla. O Allah! Love him who loves Ali, hate him who hates Ali.'

‘Yes but the Prophet did not praise Imam Ali alone; he had also praised Imam Abu Bakr, Imam Umar and Imam Uthman at different times. There are hadiths that show this. That praise does not make Imam Ali the khalifah. The Prophet did not choose a khalifah to succeed him.'

‘Do you really think the Prophet would have left such an important decision to chance? You think the Prophet wanted his people to fight over who would succeed him? Wasn't Imam Ali the only blood relative of the Prophet among the caliphs?'

The way Maccido is speaking with his eyes wide open and Hussein smiling like someone who has just dug up a bag of money, I know I cannot win this argument. It is not that I do not have things to say—about Imam Ali or the fact that they pray only three times a day, combining zuhr and asr in the day time and maghrib and isha at night. I have heard Sheikh debate these things many times and I know the answers and the verses and hadiths to use to counter Shiite teachings. But if you bring up a hadith that clearly says that they are wrong, they will say that the hadith is not authentic. And what can you say when someone says your hadith is fabricated. I am exhausted from arguing and I stop talking. Maccido and Hussein go on and on.

It shouldn't have been like this. I should have been happy to see my brothers, not exhausted or suspicious or confused.

‘If you come with us, we can find a place for you, a comfortable place. I know it is hard to understand being a Shiite at first, because everybody spreads lies about us and accuses us of things we do not do, but once you have understood the main things, everything becomes clearer, wallahi.'

I do not respond to Hussein. There is nothing to say to this offer. Maybe I should just respond in kind and ask them to leave their lives, wherever it is that they now are, and come to Sokoto to live under Sheikh. I turn away and begin to roll the prayer beads in my fingers, counting.

The walls are starting to fade and her face is becoming clearer. Someone has broken her chains. She is different from the way she was before she died. Her eyes are not dry or cloudy or lost in their sockets. There is still some flesh on her lanky arms and cheeks. There is that smile deep in her eyes that disappeared with the floods. Her hair is dark and full like it was when Baba, Maccido, Hassan, Hussein and I were all still in Dogon Icce. There is little Hassana on her right and Husseina on her left. I cannot see their faces. Umma does not say any words, but she does not need to: her looks become her thoughts and they move from her eyes into mine. ‘Take care of your brothers,' she says. I want to respond. But she puts her slim fingers over my lips. And she smiles. She can hear my thoughts too. She hears that I do not know my brothers anymore. ‘They are not bad people,' she adds. ‘They are surviving the way they know how, like you.' I nod. A tear rolls down her cheeks. I want to wipe it but my hands will not lift up. She is fading away. I want to scream ‘Umma!' but something has caught my throat and mouth and I cannot. Something has pinned me to the bed and it is getting harder and harder to breathe . . .

I wake up to the sound of sweeping in the courtyard and little girls running around and playing. Maccido and Hussein are not in the room. It is daylight already. I cannot remember waking up this late and missing the morning prayer. They should have woken me up.

Shuaibu is sitting on a mat in the courtyard cleaning his teeth with a long chewing stick and spitting out away from the mat.

‘Salamu alaikum,' I say.

‘Amin, alaikum wassalam,' he replies.

‘I am sorry sleep took me away. I realise I missed the morning prayers.'

‘Oh, I thought you had left like your brothers. Maccido said they were leaving just as I was performing ablution. I asked him if he would not at least pray with us in the mosque and he said they had prayed already. They just walked out. I couldn't stop them.'

‘Where did they say they were going?'

‘Are you asking me? They left the way they came, like spirits. Like a breeze they vanished. This is what being Shiite has taught them. To disregard people. Those boys are up to no good, wallahi. I see it in their eyes. Those were not the eyes of normal people. I can swear it. If it wasn't for our family relationship, would I have let ungrateful Shiites enjoy my home and hospitality? You just be glad they didn't get you mixed up in whatever nonsense they are mixed up in. I don't know how someone can be raised in the right way and decide to go and become a Shiite.'

Sometimes you do a thing and you wish you could step out of your body and slap yourself, give yourself a good beating. That is how I feel for not waking up. I walk back into the room and find that Khadija has kept hot koko and kosai for me. I lift my bag to take out my phone and I discover a rolled-up bundle of money bound with a yellow rubber band beneath it. I open the roll and a white piece of paper with a number on it falls out. I count the money. Twenty thousand naira. That's how much my brothers left me. I fold the white paper and put it in my pocket and drop the money in my bag.

Jibril is on my mind. They must be working like donkeys now because today is the fund-raising event. He has sent me a text in English saying just, ‘How are you?' This is the first time he has sent me a text message and it feels strange reading from him in English, even though we speak a lot of English. Seeing the words on the screen of my phone makes it different. I reply.

‘I am fine. They have buried her. How is the fund-raising?'

‘Fine. Plenty work. We will finish today,' he texts back.

I like speaking in English to Jibril, especially when I do not want the other boys to know what I am saying to him. I miss it. I wish I'd brought something in English to read; it didn't cross my mind because we left in such a hurry.

Shuaibu is out and Khadija sits on her own mat on the right side of the courtyard. She calls out my name.

‘Come and sit with an old woman and tell her stories,' she says.

I am a bit uncomfortable. I do not want her to say things about Umma that will make my nose hurt.

‘Do you know I did not cry?' she begins. ‘What crying will I cry, when tears have been taken away from me a long time ago? Ah, if they had told me that a person exhausts her tears I would have sworn that it wasn't true. I cried for my husband. I cried for Umma. I cried for my empty womb. Every day. So when Umma died, I looked for tears. I hit my chest and shook my stomach, but nothing. The tears of an old woman were finished.'

I start to fiddle. I cannot look in her eyes.

‘Is everything well where you are? Tell me. Don't say fine, tell me how it really is.'