Black Mamba Boy (21 page)

“You shouldn’t have stolen from us, little nigger,” said the one called Fiorelli. “We are trained killers.”

Shidane stared up at them, his jaw tense. Alessi kicked Shidane in the side of his face and the bone shielding his eyeball was crushed. Shidane stumbled to his feet, blood pouring out of his eye.

Tucci had left the shack and come back with a metal pole and a small tin. “Musulmano, I thought your religion forbade theft, don’t they cut off your arms for that?” he said, twisting Shidane’s hands as if to tear them off. “I guess if you’re so hungry we should feed you. I’ve got something you’ll love so much you will be licking your lips for days.”

Shidane, blind in one eye, rocked back and forth and squirmed about like a snake cut in two. Tucci pried open the tin and pulled out slick, gristled slices of pork, shoving them down Shidane’s throat. Shidane choked on the dirty meat and the oily thick fingers in his mouth. Fiorelli hefted the pole and hit the back of Shidane’s head with it. The boy keeled over onto his side. Alessi took hold of the pole and struck Shidane’s kneecaps until he heard the loud cracks he was looking for. At this Shidane began to beg.

“Per favore, buoni Italiani, smettere,” he pleaded, and for that Alessi bludgeoned his mouth until all Shidane’s beautiful teeth were obliterated.

“Are you frightened now? Don’t you wish you had never stolen from us?” whispered Alessi as he pried Shidane’s mouth open into a ghastly smile.

“Let’s strip him,” suggested Tucci tentatively.

“Yeah, look at him twisting around like a bitch in heat,” said Fiorelli.

As they stripped Shidane, Abdi was marched out of the compound by the clerk. “Ascaro, where is the other ascaro, signore?” asked Abdi desperately.

“Get out,” shouted the clerk. “I am going to make sure you get your punishment, too.” He kicked Abdi in the behind. Abdi skirted the wire perimeter, trying to catch sight of Shidane. He saw the clerk enter a rusted shack and soon walk back to the depot, his expression stern and hard.

When the clerk peered into the gloom and saw the naked young askari, raw flesh where his eye and mouth should be, he nodded to his colleagues but didn’t know why. Many would pass by the shack when they heard what was happening in there. Some hung around to watch but most drank in the sight and then scampered away like little boys who had seen up their teacher’s skirt but didn’t want to be caught staring. Shidane floated in between dreadful consciousness and a watery dream world that glided around him, pulling him into a narcotic stupor before it evaporated and he fell back into his flesh, his eyes two glowing coals in a dying fire. He could feel his shinbones splintering with each strike and then his innards were raped with the pole. At this his soul died and he waited for his body to follow it. They were relentless; they toiled over him like mechanics pulling a car apart for scrap. They needed to see how
his strange, beautiful black body operated so they tore it up, raided it; it took hours, but they were dedicated laborers and this was perhaps their last chance to do something other than stack boxes. Fiorelli delivered Shidane back to his pagan God with a blow to the back of the head that sent mosaic shards of bone into Shidane’s brain, extinguishing his fifteen years of dreams, memories, and thoughts. Once Shidane had stopped twitching and the Italians realized the fun had ended, they looked at the dull, cumbersome cadaver lying at their feet and left the shack aroused but unsatisfied. They washed their hands at the faucets near the latrines and agreed to meet later at the army brothel. It was left to two anonymous Italians to drag out the corpse and dump it outside the perimeter fence. Abdi, waiting there, saw the crumpled naked body laying facedown in the dirt but didn’t approach it; he had prayed and prayed, so he did not believe that it could be Shidane. Only after a group of Eritrean askaris kicked it over and he could hear them saying “Somali, Somali,” did he approach. It was a clumsy approximation, a human stain, not the boy he had loved and grown up with. This was something a hyena had chewed up and spat out.

While Shidane was stolen from this world, Jama too was battling with Izra’il, the angel of death. His time came in a dark mountain cave; British rockets lanced through the black sky to seek him out, lighting up the clouds with lethal white arcs of death. The rockets chased each other, hurtling with indecent speed until finally one snub-nosed missile smashed into the door of the cave just as Jama tried to slam it shut. It forced its way through, splitting the steel door open. Jama got up, eyes blinded by the light and heat. He was covered in what felt like
blood, his arms and torso were slick with it, he believed he was dead, and his first thought was one of disappointment. The soul was pulled away from the body just to be dumped in a dark, echoing void. He stumbled and felt something yielding underneath his foot, and kicked it away in panic.

“
Audu billahi min ash-shaidani rajeem
, I seek refuge with Allah from the Shayddaan,” he stammered. The heat and stench in the cave was infernal, and Jama cursed himself for not having prayed or fasted throughout his short life.

Fresh air blew in through the gash in the door, and he put his mouth to it, sucking the sweet air into his burnt throat. When his legs and arms stopped trembling, he pulled himself weakly through the shredded door. Outside, everything remained the same, rockets still cascaded down, fulminating angrily, striking men and mules. Jama looked behind him and in the phosphoric light saw the bulabasha’s shaved head; it had been blown away, and lay at rest by the blackened, shredded leg of an Eritrean askari. The men were all dead, but they looked like they were playing, their legs splayed in dynamic poses, their shirts ripped open, their limbs entangled without care of rank or race. Lazy dogs, Jama thought, why don’t they get up and walk like me? But then he realized. They were not Muslim, God would leave them where they fell because they had denied him, while Jama could wander until Judgment Day consigned him to his rightful place. So he wandered, fearless, aimless, with the power of a zombie, back down the narrow pathway to Keren. As the sun crept out of its bunker, Jama realized that it was sweat soaking his clothes, not blood, and he carried on walking.

He reached Keren and attracted jeers and laughter from drunks squatting on the sidewalks. He looked like a cartoon
character, his face blackened with ash, his shirt blown open, and his wavy hair, thick with dust, standing on end. Jama kept his head down and wanted to walk straight through town but was stopped.

“Ascaro, which position have you come from, looking like that?” asked the sergeant blocking his path.

Jama’s clothes stank and still appeared to be smoldering. He looked up into the sergeant’s blue eyes. “Arms store number fifteen. The rest are dead.”

The sergeant looked up toward the mountain and tutted. “Go back then, we are still fighting. You can’t leave your position unless you have been told to. When will you askaris learn some fucking discipline? It’s because of you people that we’re losing this war.” He took a long breath. “Take another uniform and some food from the supply depot, get the men at the depot to arrange a few other askaris to go with you.” He ripped off an order sheet and thrust it into Jama’s hand. Jama’s eyes bored into the sergeant’s back.

Askaris marched past Jama with shifty glances in his direction as if he would spontaneously combust, but he had fought off death, and inside he was triumphant. His life took form around him again, his heart beating, warmth returning to his skin, and all around Italians bellowing commands and insults. He tried to imagine the expressions on Shidane’s and Abdi’s faces when he told them that he had miraculously survived while all the others had been turned into mincemeat.

He smoothed down his hair and approached an angry-looking Somali. “Uncle, where is this depot place?”

“Waryaa, look at the state of you, tolla’ay, what have they done to us? Fuck the depot, get away from here, I’m warning you to stay away from that hellhole. They killed one of us there
last night, in cold blood, a young boy like you. Run now, if you know what’s good for you,” the man raged.

The uncle seemed crazy. He was wearing an army shirt with a ma’awis wrapped around his waist, and he kept clutching at his groin. Jama roamed all over town until he found the depot, calm, businesslike, and sated after the night’s bloodletting. Alessi, Tucci, and Fiorelli were the hardworking, baby-faced army mules that they seemed; they served Jama quickly and politely, even dropping a couple of out-of-date chocolates into his bag as a treat. Jama filled his flask over and over at the tap and then went into the daylight, ready to find Shidane and Abdi and show them the carnage at the cave.

Abdi was close by, crouched down by the perimeter fence. Jama raced up to him, trying to form the story in his mind. He knew that his mother had placed a shield of the coolest air between him and the rocket, but the boys would never believe him. He looked around, needing Shidane to hear the first telling of it, too, when it was still spicy and dramatic.

“Ascaro Abdi, you will never guess what happened to me. Look at me Abdi, look at me.” Jama pulled Abdi’s chin up so that he faced him.

Abdi was muttering and rocking on his heels, covered in dust, his jaw trembling. Jama saw a stain of rust-red blood on Abdi’s shirt. He tried to put an arm around Abdi and gather him closer but Abdi shot to his feet and started yelling. He picked up rocks and threw them with all his might at the compound, and a rock bounced off the tin roof before Jama dragged him away.

“Where’s Shidane? What’s happened, Abdi?”

“Come with me, Jama. You want to see, come with me,” shouted Abdi, and he abruptly began running, Jama chasing after him.

Abdi led him to a clearing beside the road, before stopping and turning toward Jama. It was the first time Jama could look into Abdi’s eyes, and they were chilling. Under the furrowed eyebrows they were wide and lost, behind them nothing, a bare ruin. His mind had been startled from its temple and had circled above before flying away. Jama took a step back, but Abdi grabbed his hand in a hard, clumsy grip and pulled him forward.

Abdi’s face was ripped open by a smile. “Look, there was nothing here when I buried him, and now this bush.” Abdi pointed at a huge sprawling shrub, its grasping leaves violently green and alive.

“Who did you bury here?”

“Shidane, of course. I buried him myself. Where were you, Jama? We could have saved him.”

Jama started to tremble and Abdi stared at him before pulling a disgusted face and turning back to the bush. “When I left, nothing, and now this.”

The bush frightened Jama, it seemed to grow in front of his eyes, and it shone independently of the fading light.

“Who killed him, Abdi? What happened?” said Jama numbly through his tears.

“Who do you think, idiot? The people I saw you with at the depot, they ate him and threw out what they didn’t want.”

They were in a valley, desolate, gravelly and full of craters, and for a moment Jama felt like they were standing on the face of the moon.

“Let’s go, Abdi, come with me, let’s go to Egypt. I have enough food on me, come, get up, let’s go, enough,” coaxed Jama in a panic. He felt cold and dead again.

“I would rather die than eat their food. I’m staying here with my blood, you can go where you like.”

Jama’s sobs became louder and louder but Abdi just snarled at him, “Leave me alone, take your stupid noise somewhere else.”

“I’m not leaving you,” cried Jama. “What happened? You just went on an errand, Abdi, what happened?”

In a monotone, Abdi told him about the rice, the shack, and the noises, and by the end Jama understood and could look into Abdi’s eyes without flinching. As evening fell, a large full moon sat imperially in the sky, glaring down at them, and as Jama collected firewood, Abdi picked up rocks and threw them at its white, pockmarked face. His feet kicked up fine dust as like a dancer he leaped up at the moon. Jama turned his back on him and got the fire blazing with a box of matches Shidane had given him. Afterward he held the box tight in his hand and prayed for Shidane’s soul. They both slept without eating, as if in sympathy with Shidane, who would never eat again, or boast about his cooking again, who was now a meal for worms. Jama wrapped Abdi in his new shirt and lay down, nearly on top of the fire, afraid that the chill inside him would freeze his heart. He could not sleep. Morbid thoughts ran through his mind; life was tenuous, there was no value to it, each day brought the threat of annihilation, or the loss of those you loved. He eventually fell into a sleeplike state, beside the smoldering heap of the burnt-out fire. At dawn, Jama woke as cold as death, his feet in the tight roots of the bush. As he paced around, waiting for Abdi to wake up, his feet gained feeling; they were like the hooves of a racing camel, like Guure’s feet, not happy unless they could feel miles of earth passing underneath them every day. Ambaro always said, “The only thing that comes to you if you sit around is death”; this was his family’s only philosophy. Jama felt an urgent need to empty his bowels, and walked away
to relieve himself. From where he crouched, Abdi appeared consumed by the bush. Jama quickly finished and ran to wake him up.

“I told you I was staying here,” Abdi snapped. His eyes were still vacant, but now he hit and pinched himself, and muttered prayers under his breath, seeming embarrassed by Jama’s presence.

“You can’t stay here, they will throw us down the mountain as deserters. You can’t do anything for Shidane now, let’s go,” Jama begged.

“You go, I will catch up with you,” stuttered Abdi. Jama was keeping him from something and he was growing agitated. Jama looked around him, at the gray mountains echoing with the distant din of guns, the dusty road snaking away. He gave half of his food ration to Abdi, held his skinny body for an awkward embrace, and then walked away.

Jama took off his mutilated army shirt and marched away from Keren, jumping into bushes when he heard convoys approaching, chasing after traders who fled on their camels when they saw the half-naked mad boy pursuing them. At nightfall he stopped, lost and hungry. With his dwindling flour ration he made gloopy tasteless pancakes, threw them down his throat and ate sweet, yellow meke berries he had picked along the way. Unable to lie still, he started walking by moonlight as well. He had long left the straight slave-built road and now just followed the magnetic pull of the stars. As the sun came up he saw more evil, corpses crushed by British tanks rushing to victory, the dusty white tracks still visible on the black men. Jama broke into a cold sweat and struck out in a different direction. The
straps of his sandals had broken, and the loose soles rubbed against his blistered feet. He sucked on stones to ease his parched throat. By a ravine he staggered to a stop and fell asleep, lullabied by the gurgling water. For a long time Jama heard whistling, but in the no-man’s-land between sleep and wakefulness, he ignored it. When the whistling turned into humming and laughing, he shot up. He scanned around: nobody, just scrub and silence. He lay down again, only for the whistling to start as his head touched the ground.