Born on a Tuesday (9 page)

‘Honestly, I am thankful. Our malam is very kind and has a good heart. The room that they gave me I share with only one person, the younger brother of Sheikh's deputy. I don't have a problem of food or anything.'

‘Have you learned any trade?'

‘No.'

‘Why?'

I have never thought of learning a trade before. Maybe because Sheikh has given me everything I need and hasn't asked me to work on his farm like the rest of the boys.

‘You know that if anything happens to that malam of yours, kind as he is, when his property is being shared among his family, you will not even be called. You will be out on the street in a minute. The sooner you start learning a trade, the better for you. You cannot remain a boy to a malam forever. You will marry and have your own family. What will you feed them? Or is it your malam who will feed your wife and children?'

I nod. For the first time I think of what I would do without Sheikh.

Dogon Icce has changed over the last few months. There are now two boreholes, one dug by the local government chairman situated near the village head's house and another which Khadija says was paid for by the politician Shuaibu is working for. He was a former member of the Sokoto State House of Assembly who now wants to contest for the House of Representatives.

Everything is greener now because of the rains. The footpaths have been eaten by the grass and there are little puddles everywhere. Lizards run across footpaths and on walls, all looking very busy. Sometimes I wonder if these animals look at us too and wonder what we are doing moving around. Gobedanisa used to like killing lizards and opening their stomachs to see what was in them. Sometimes he would find one that had tiny eggs in it. Gobedanisa and Acishuru used to place bets with their wee-wee about who would first kill a lizard with eggs in it. I too started killing lizards with them. I think I might be going crazy but it seems like every lizard is looking at me. Maybe they can feel that I once played games with their lives. I asked Sheikh about this and he told me this hadith: ‘There is no man who kills even a sparrow or anything smaller without its deserving it, but Allah will question him about it.' He asked me to read about it. I like that Sheikh always asks me to go and read more about anything I ask. From his library he brought out a small book which had a chapter called ‘Animals in Islam' and said if I could read English he would have given it to me. That was the day he found out I could read English. I told him I had been learning it with Jibril. He was so happy. ‘You will go far, insha Allah,' he said. Then he said that his library was mine and gave me the book. In it I read another hadith which I cannot forget, and that makes me now scared of killing anything I will not eat: ‘He who takes pity even on a sparrow and spares its life, Allah will be merciful on him in the day of judgement.' But sometimes, Allah forgive me, I miss killing lizards.

I am thinking of an English book in Sheikh's library that I really want to read called
Baba of Karo
, which is still wrapped in transparent polythene. I don't know if Sheikh will let me tear it open or if perhaps he wants to give it to someone else. The back of the book says that it is a life story of an old Hausa woman and it stretches from the late nineteenth century until the first half of the twentieth.

I asked Jibril about centuries and why it is that the nineteenth century is made up of all the eighteen hundred years while the twentieth is made up of all the nineteen hundred years. This is confusing. The way Jibril kept stuttering while he was explaining it made me sure that he too didn't really know.

Since Sheikh found out I know how to read English, everything has become different. He gives me the key to his office when he is going out. There are things he tells me—his plans for the future—that scare me. Big plans that I am not supposed to tell anyone. The school is only the beginning of what he wants. ‘As far as Niger and Mali' is how far he wants to take this movement. The movement will organise our operations but Sheikh is also tired of people referring to him as a ‘dan Izala. Yes he studied once under the founder of the Izala movement, but ‘I am not an Izala,' he says. He wants the movement to set him apart.

It is good to be away from all the noise around the motor park in Sokoto. Here I can hear my heart beat and when a metal bucket drops on the floor at night the sound bursts into the silence like something exploding. Silence is good, but sometimes noise is also good.

The sugarcane here is sold in long, fat pieces. The way the skin is scraped you would think they had competitions for who could scrape the cleanest. Few things are like sugarcane. When I want to chew it, I do not like having one or two small sticks because that will just make me want more and if I cannot have it, then I will be irritated that the longing for it has been created in me. But these long fat ones, they make you remember Allah's goodness. I wonder sometimes if aljanna will have sugar cane. In Bayan Layi, I asked Malam Junaidu about this and he said that, insha Allah, aljanna will have sweeter things. I still wonder what things can be sweeter than this sugar cane. Perhaps it is just santi talking—santi is an enjoyment of food that makes you close your eyes and say and do foolish things—but I think that maybe we should know if aljanna will have sugar cane.

I am belching and chewing and swallowing. I reach the very last bit and it falls from my hand. As I struggle to save it from reaching the dusty floor I step on it. I want to scream. I am annoyed. There is something about the last piece of anything. It is like the enjoyment is summarised in that last piece—it is the final thing that makes the experience complete. Except if you deliberately throw it or give it away, losing that last piece is like going on a long journey to deliver a message, then finding upon arriving that you left it at home. I pick up and examine the piece of sugar cane that I have stepped on. It cannot be saved. Reluctantly I throw it back to the ground. All the santi is gone with that last piece.

I am sitting with Shuaibu and two other men on the large mat in front of his house just after maghrib. The older man with a full white beard starts talking about Alhaji Usman. At first I do not realise it is the same Alhaji Usman I know, until they start talking about the things he has, like his brother's fish farm in Kebbi, which is really his.

‘I hear he is contesting for Senate,' Shuaibu says.

‘I thought it was governor,' the man with the white beard says. The other man has fallen asleep.

‘No, it is Senate. I hear he has been speaking to people.'

‘Is he not the one whose first son left the house to join the big Shiite malam in Sokoto?'

‘Yes, him. Ah, he has since disowned that son. His other son works in England. That one doesn't want to come back.'

‘Allah forbid,' the sleeping man mutters. ‘I would rather an aggressive Izala who takes everything literally than a Shiite who creates a different religion out of Islam.' He makes chewing movements and dozes off again.

‘I don't blame his son for not wanting to come back, everything is tough here,' the old man says.

‘But everything is tough everywhere,' Shuaibu responds, ‘don't you listen to BBC Hausa? They too complain.'

‘Hmmm. I hear the man builds mosques all over Sokoto.'

‘Or is he doing it to buy votes?'

‘How does that concern me? Allah knows what is in his heart. All I can see is that he is building mosques and helping people.'

‘Your talk is true.'

I do not know if Sheikh knows. From being with him all these years I know that he doesn't like to openly support any candidate. During the last elections he gathered all the people who come to his mosque and gave a speech at the primary school football field. Even though he said that everyone should go out, register and vote and let their wives also go out and vote, he did not say anything about which candidate to vote for.

‘Let your women study,' Sheikh said, ‘and let them vote. Let them learn how to read. The wives of Christians read and write and our wives cannot even read the Quran. There is no sin if a man accompanies his wives to go and queue up to register or to vote.'

Some men didn't like what he said at first. But after he explained the importance of numbers in elections, most people were convinced about letting their wives go out to register and to vote. All of us who follow Sheikh voted for the same party. But he told us he would not force anyone to do anything. I wonder what he will do during the next elections, especially if Alhaji Usman is really contesting.

My phone rings as we are praying isha. Shuaibu looks angrily at me and turns away. Thankfully the prayer is just about to end. It is Jibril. I call him back but he does not respond. Then he sends a text.

‘Sheikh's car was attacked! They shot him!'

I keep trying his number but he is not picking up. I cannot breathe.

‘Is Sheikh OK?' I text back.

‘I don't know. But Umar and Sambo are dead.'

Umar and Sambo are the two big men who have been guarding Sheikh when he goes out or when he travels. I keep trying to call Jibril until the phone says that his number is switched off.

I throw two oranges from the tray of food into my packed bag for when I get hungry on my way back home. I put the little knife in the side pocket of the bag. Peeling oranges with my fingers has always been difficult for me. I always make a mess of it.

I cannot eat or sleep or stop my hands from shaking. As soon as the sun rises I will leave this place. Shuaibu will say that I am acting all crazy because I'm more upset that they have shot my malam than I was when my own mother died. I don't care. I just need to get out of this village as soon as possible.

TERRIFY

1. Make somebody very frightened: to make somebody feel very frightened or alarmed.
   
2. Intimidate somebody: to coerce somebody to do something by using threats.
   

Women TERRIFY me. Even though Sheikh have take the book I still think of the Every Woman book. Since I read this book, all women make me
fear
afraid. All the things that happen in their bodies like MENSTRUATION (I can never pronounce that word) make me feel like when they are walking around their bodies are always doing something or growing something or making something. I think that women are strong to be walking around and doing their work with all those things happening to them. Women should not work.

Many things TERRIFY me. How easy it is for Malam Abdul-Nur to say the word kill especially when he is talking about the Shia people and the Dariqas. When Sheikh travel and Malam Abdul-Nur is the one preaching, he say plenty bad bad things about them. I believe that the Shia people and Dariqas are wrong in the way they are doing their Islam. But I
did
do not agree with the way Malam Abdul-Nur is talking about them like he will kill all of them if he catch them. He says that the Shia people are more bad than the Christians. I don't understand how a Muslim can be more bad than Christians who believe that Allah
have
has a child. He says that the Dariqa people worship human
been
being and put the picture of their leader Inyass all over their house and car and
machine
motorcycle as if Inyass is Prophet Mohammed. Everyone is
fearing
afraid of Malam Abdul-Nur and of how he is shaking when he is talking. But it is easy to forget where you are when he is talking because his preaching is very sweet and he knows all the Sunna and Quran. I think he likes to TERRIFY people.

In the night yesterday some people put X in red paint all over the mosque wall. Sheikh say that maybe it is just some bad boys in the area but Malam Abdul-Nur say it was the Shia people. He say that since Sheriff leave the Shia people and come and join us they had been saying things, bad bad things about us. Sheikh asked him (Malam Abdul-Nur)where he heard this and Malam Abdul-Nur kept talking about how bad they are and how they are making trouble in other countries. Then he start saying we need to protect ourselves. Always he will be saying we need to protect ourselves. I do not know what the meaning of that is.

Before Sheikh take the book I
am
was talking with some boys in the motor park who all agree that letting a girl rub your penis until sperm come out can make the girl pregnant. They said the sperm enter women through their skin. I tried to explain to them what I read about women in the book. But I don't know what CONCEPTION is in Hausa and when I said it in English they all start
laughting
laughing and saying I was trying to deceive them by talking nonsense they cannot understand. I wanted to show them the book, but then I did not want everyone to know that the book is in our room. So I left them alone and let them keep thinking I was saying rubbish. And now Sheikh have take the book. They are hopeless those boys.

Blood for Blood

I am lying down with my bag in the open area of the hospital. I am exhausted from waiting and from travelling. Jibril has gone home to do some work for his brother. The two men from the mosque guarding Sheikh's room are not allowing anyone through except his family, Malam Abdul-Nur and the hospital staff. I am not going anywhere until I see Sheikh.

As I step outside to pee by the bushes, I see a crowd of Sheikh's followers gathering in front of the hospital and many police cars driving in. The police are pushing people back and keeping them away from the hospital gate. I walk past the ward where they say the oldest patient in the hospital is. Everyone says he has been here for many years. Sometimes he goes unconscious for months and just when they think he might not make it, he wakes up. Only Allah knows what type of sickness that is that makes a man go to sleep for months.

I stand in front of a large tree behind the hospital wards and start to pee. I don't want to squat because the grass is thick everywhere around. Suddenly a tall, fair girl in a light green hijab appears from behind the bushes. I struggle to turn away but I am right in the middle of peeing and cannot stop it. My caftan drops from under my chin and I pee all over myself. The girl is embarrassed too and turns away. As she walks past in the direction of the shops that sell provisions, she covers her face and giggles. I go to the tap to try and rinse off the urine.

‘I am afraid,' Jibril texts.

‘Me too,' I reply.

I want to ask him why he is afraid so I can tell him why I am afraid. I am afraid that if Sheikh dies, Malam Abdul-Nur will change towards me. Alhaji Usman may stop sending us money and the new movement will die before it has even started. I do not know where I will go or what I will do. I can't even get in to see Sheikh and no one will tell me anything about how he is. It feels like Khadija's words are already coming true.

I see the girl who just laughed at me pass by in the hallway of the wards. She is carrying two large bottles of water. She has a mole on the right side of her face and has a pointed nose like I see in the pictures of Indian actresses. Her eyes—it is her eyes that make me freeze. They are bright and look like a deep gully, the type that pulls you and makes you dizzy when you look down into it. Everything has slowed down—it is taking forever for her to walk past. She walks right through the men guarding Sheikh's ward and into the room.

I lie down on one of the benches and use my bag as a pillow. The crowd outside is getting more and more agitated and there are sirens blaring all over the place. Images of my last day in Bayan Layi keep flashing in my mind. It is getting harder and harder to block it out. These days the face of the Big Party man that I struck stays in my head. I wonder about his wives and children. I wonder if they still remember him or if like my father's face, his face is fading from their heads.

There are two gunshots in quick succession. People in the crowd are screaming. I run to the part of the wall that has hollow bricks and peep. I see one policeman waving his gun in the air. The nurses are asking people to stay down. People begin to scamper to safety away from the shots. A hospital attendant drags me by my clothes and asks me to stay down. More shots are fired and by the fifth shot we are all on the ground, some praying, some screaming, some crying.

‘Police are shooting here,' I text Jibril.

I keep looking at my phone for the message that says my text has been delivered. I try to call him. His phone is switched off. It is annoying when I call someone and their phone is switched off.

The police start to disperse the crowd. Slowly people get up, dusting their clothes and sighing. Some are laughing embarrassedly because of how they screamed like babies during the shooting. I walk back to my bench.

The girl in the green hijab comes out of the ward with a stainless steel plate in her hands. I feel like the bench is about to collapse as she walks directly towards me. She hands me the plate, which has rice and beans with stew and fish. For a moment I hesitate, then stretch out my hands to take the food.

‘Let me find a cup to get you water,' she says.

‘Are you here for Sheikh?' I ask.

‘You don't know me?' she asks, ‘Are you not the one who stays at the mosque?'

I can't remember seeing her. I know that Sheikh has four daughters, two of whom are married, but I have never seen any one of them.

‘How is he?' I ask.

‘He just woke up. They got him in the chest and right arm.'

‘Is he talking?'

‘Not yet. They have gone to get blood. They say he lost a lot of blood but, insha Allah, nothing will happen to him.'

She turns and walks away. I want to ask her name but I feel like this is the wrong time. She has fire in her blood, this one. There is no pity or worry in her voice. She looked defiant the way she bunched her lips and lifted her finger when she said: ‘Insha Allah, nothing will happen to him.'

Alhaji Usman comes into the hospital ward with two armed policemen behind him. He is wearing only a caftan instead of his usual babban riga and he looks very grave with his hands behind his back. I get up to greet him but he doesn't seem to recognise me. The two men guarding the ward give way to let them through.

Jibril calls me back. He is whispering and panting. I cannot make out anything he is saying and then the line goes dead. His phone is switched off when I call him back. Now I am really scared and I call Malam Abdul-Nur's number. His number too is switched off. I take my bag and leave the hospital.

On the road leading away from the hospital, there are dozens of policemen. Black smoke rises from burning tyres. They are not letting any motorcycles pass in front of the hospital, and cars are stopped and searched. I walk quickly, hoping to turn off this street and find a motorcycle or a Keke Napep. Then a skinny policeman shouts, asking me to stop, aiming his gun at my chest. I stop.

‘What are you carrying?' he screams.

‘Nothing,' I reply.

‘Open it!' he orders.

I zip open the bag.

‘Turn it upside down!'

I hesitate. He cocks his gun and I turn the bag upside down. A few clothes fall to the ground.

‘Everything!'

I shake until the bag is almost empty.

‘Throw it on the ground and put your hands behind your head!'

I obey and he kicks the bag around while still pointing his gun at my chest. The little knife I took from Shuaibu's house rolls out as well as my money wrapped in a paper. He looks at the knife, looks at me, then reaches forward and kicks my knee so that I fall to the ground. He kicks me in the stomach so hard I throw up all the rice and beans and fish I have just eaten.

‘Get up,' he says. ‘You want to stab me with a knife ko?'

‘It is for oranges!'

He slaps me and asks me to run. I leave everything behind, running and stumbling. Two other policemen laugh as I do.

On many walls there is the inscription Haqiqi in either charcoal or red paint. In front of the mosque I see a new huge white sign with ‘Jama'atul Ihyau Islamil Haqiqiy' written in bold blue letters. The logo is a crescent and a star. The low fence is being built up and there are concrete blocks, cement bags, tiles, heaps of sand and rocks in front of the mosque. Inside our room the new paint still smells fresh and there are two new beds and mattresses. This is not the room I left a few days ago.

Jibril is not here and his number is still switched off. I am fidgeting. Even the motor park is quiet. Malam Abdul-Nur's office is locked. I ask the other boys in the mosque if any of them has seen Jibril. I hear the boys laughing behind me when I turn away. I never pay them heed. If I wasn't so desperately looking for Jibril I would not even speak to them.

As darkness falls, people gather in front of the mosque. Mostly people I do not remember seeing. Malam Abdul-Nur arrives in one of Sheikh's buses with two huge bearded men on either side of him and Jibril following closely behind. My eyes meet Jibril's and he looks away.

Malam Abdul-Nur leads the prayer. I have never seen so many people in the mosque in my life. The mosque is fuller than the huge Juma'at mosque on Fridays. There are people standing outside on either side of the mosque. My stomach hurts from the policeman's kick—I do not know if it is this or the sheer number of bodies in the mosque that is making it difficult to breathe. The two huge bearded men are standing guard and not praying with the rest of us. They are scanning the crowd, angrily, grinding their teeth as if to scare anyone planning on attacking Malam Abdul-Nur.

No one moves after the prayer. One of the bodyguards brings Malam Abdul-Nur a chair while Jibril sets up the microphone. It is as if everyone knows something I don't.

Malam Abdul-Nur starts to speak, first slowly, but increasingly the veins of his neck begin to bulge like fat millipedes under his skin. He starts with a sermon about shirk, about how people worship other persons apart from Allah.

‘There is nothing worse than shirk, and in this matter some Christians are better than the Shiites. You know there are some Christians who don't elevate Prophet Jesus to the position of Allah and they believe that there is no one worthy of worship but Allah. They just don't call Him Allah. Surely then, the Shiites, who set up gods in opposition to Allah, are worse than Christians. Allah says in the last verse of Surah Al-Fath: Mohammed is the messenger of Allah and those with him are severe against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves.'

All around there is silence and you can even hear people breathing. The only thing that breaks the silence is the thunderous sound of ‘Allahu Akbar' that follows. There are goose pimples all over my skin. Malam Abdul-Nur is in total control of the crowd. He starts to cry when he talks of our brothers who were shot. He is wagging his finger and he is crying.

‘What have we ever done to the Shiites? What have we ever done but be merciful to them? We do not even follow the command of Allah to be severe against them. How do they repay our mercy? By killing our brothers. By shooting our Sheikh on the very day we launch our movement. But they cannot stop us. They cannot stop Jama'atul Ihyau Islamil Haqiqiy!'

The crowd roars and begins chanting, ‘Haqiqiy! Haqiqiy!' The fat man sitting to my right is chanting and crying and wiping his tears with his stubby fingers.

I wish I wasn't sitting right in the centre of the mosque, where everyone will see me if I get up. The hot tears that are flowing from my eyes down my cheeks—I do not know where they are from. But I know they are not from the sermon. I am trapped—in this mosque full of anger and tears, in my body full of pain, in my head full of confusion, in my heart full of fear. I do not know anything. I do not know what is happening to Sheikh or what Jibril is thinking.

As the crowd begins to disperse I sneak away to the hospital.

There are two policemen where the bodyguards were standing earlier in the day. I lie down on the bench opposite the one I sat on before, which is now occupied by two older women. I turn, facing the wall, still wincing in pain from the kick, and start to see my mother again.

Sometimes I wish I knew why Allah does his things. Why He lets good people get shot and bad people get all the glory; why He lets bad people have such gifts like the power to move crowds and convince people and make grown men cry. It is His earth.

Early in the morning I walk around the hospital to look for a mosque. There is one not far from the gate. By the time I finish my ablution, the prayer has just begun. I quickly join the row of six men behind the man leading the prayer.

I wander around a bit afterward before I go to where the shops are to see if any one of them is open. In the first open one I see, a man is scooping sugar into little transparent polythene bags. I think he was one of the men I prayed with at the mosque earlier. His eyes are lined with tozali. I will check the dictionary in Sheikh's office when I go back for the English word for tozali. As our eyes meet he rests his left wrist on his waist like a woman. He reminds me of the ‘dan daudu who shouted at me when I went to watch dambe a long time ago. Maybe he is a ‘dan daudu too.

‘What do you want?' he asks and calls me samari, young person. I hate being called samari. I hate the way he sings his words with an annoying lisp.

‘Batteries, the small ones.'

‘How many?'

‘Four.'

I turn around and see the girl from yesterday standing behind me.

‘Good morning,' she says.

‘Good morning,' I reply.

‘Yesterday you just left my plate and cup and went away.'

‘In the name of Allah forgive me. I didn't see you when I was leaving.'

‘No problem. It is OK.'

‘How is Sheikh?' I ask paying for the batteries.

‘He woke up last night. He is stronger now, Alhamdulillah.'

‘Alhamdulillah!'

She asks for two big bottles of water.

‘I wish I could see him,' I say.

‘Why can't you see him? I know he will be glad to see you.'

‘The men won't let me in.'

I pay for her water. ‘Thank you,' she says and adds, ‘follow me. Don't say anything. Just follow me.'

I walk behind her into the ward, inserting the batteries into my small radio. She turns around and asks me to hold the bottles of water. I don't know why I didn't think of it. I feel embarrassed.

‘He is our relative,' she says to the policemen, who look at me suspiciously.

She doesn't wait for them to say anything. ‘Come,' she says and walks past them. I look down as I walk between the two officers.

There are two women in the room. One of them I know is his wife. She is making pap beside the bed. Sheikh looks strange without anything covering his head. His right arm is wrapped in bandages, as is the right part of his chest. He stretches his left arm and I take it with both my hands, slowly, afraid to hurt him.

‘Where have you been?' he says, smiling.