Black Mamba Boy

ASSAB, ASMARA, AND OMHAJER, ERITREA, OCTOBER 1936

The passengers gathered their bundles and children while the crew ran around preparing for landing. Jama stood up and walked to the bow. After docking, a man in a vest announced, “Assab, Eritrea.” Jama had to keep pushing back the clamoring bodies behind him, who crushed him as they yelled to be let off. Finally, a gangplank was placed against the vessel and the gate released.

Jama followed the other passengers, mainly Afars returning to see family in Dankalia, but a few Somalis and Yemenis were mixed in with the crowd. Jama’s attention was caught by a gigantic board on two poles. A helmeted head with menacingly large nose and heavy lantern jaw in a white face were all Jama could make out in the growing darkness; European writing encircled the image. Jama noticed other men raising their right arm to the picture so he did the same, wondering why anyone would go to the effort of painting such an ugly Ferengi. Jama sidled up to a Somali man, barely distinguishable from the Afars apart from his shapely teeth that had not been filed Dankali-fashion. The Somali man looked askance at him. “Yes, boy?”

“Uncle, I am looking for a clansman, do you know an askari called Talyani?”

“Talyani? I know of one Issa man named Talyani but the devil knows where he lives, ask at the police station,” the man replied.

“What do you want? It’s too late to be begging, isn’t it?” shouted a voice behind the door.

“I was sent to you by Idea in Djibouti, I am his nephew, can you help me go to Sudan?” Jama said, his voice higher than normal. The heavy door was unlocked and Jama stepped in.

Talyani’s home was immaculately clean. Sitting on the floor was a young woman with a baby suckling at her breast; she gave a polite nod to Jama. “You can stay for a few nights. The boat to Massawa is due soon. This is my wife, Zainab, and my son, Marco.” Talyani was neck-achingly tall, he wore only a short sarong and his strong legs and hulking back were thatched with wiry black hairs.

“Get him something to sleep on when you’re finished, Zainab, and food, too. I’m going to bed.” Talyani disappeared into the dark hallway but then came back. “You’re his nephew, huh? On what side?”

Jama thought quickly. “On both sides. My mother is Amina’s half sister and my father is his brother.”

Talyani twisted up his eyebrows but let it go. “We’ll speak properly in the morning.”

Jama let out a long breath. He was lucky Talyani had not asked him to recite his grandfathers’ names. The house was silent, only the baby’s sucking disturbed the air, and Jama stood awkwardly near the door. Zainab moved quickly and quietly around the room, arranging blankets on the floor for him.

“Let me help,” Jama offered. Zainab shook her head, her hair falling across her face and casting a shadow, but he could pick out another shadow within it, the purple-black print of a fist around her eye.

While she laid out a plate of rice and stew, Jama gazed at her baby. Marco’s round cheeks were shiny and smooth, his little chin resting on the blankets he was coddled in, and he slept like a king without a care in the world. Jama ate in silence while Zainab fluttered around, fetching water and straightening furniture that was already straight. They could hear Talyani through the wall, clearing his throat and making himself comfortable, reminding them he was still there. The plates were quickly emptied and Zainab spirited them away, washing them immediately. She returned to pick up her baby and hesitated at the doorway.

“Is there anything else you need?” Her small face as she turned around was that of a teenager, with puppy fat and pimples.

“No, thank you,” replied Jama, wondering how much older than him Zainab was.

The room looked strange in the early-morning sun, bare and shiny, as if it had been licked clean. Black-and-white photographs of Talyani in the uniform of a colonial soldier, an askari, stood proud in varnished wooden frames, the schoolboy socks pulled high up toward his knees, a strange tall hat on his head. His hair was black and wavy like an Italian’s, hence his nickname. He was a smiling colonial mascot in costume and Jama couldn’t imagine him pouring sand into the engines of Italian trucks or spitting in their food the way he would. Talyani must be like the ones Idea mentioned, thought Jama looking at the pictures, the ones who gunned down the Abyssinian farmers and children.

Zainab became melancholic as the day of Jama’s departure approached. She told him he had been her first guest since she had arrived in Assab, and she envisioned a long stretch before anyone else came to visit. While Jama picked the stones from the rice or washed the vegetables for her, Zainab let slip little details about her life. She had been a market girl in Burao, and was planning to run away to Aden when Talyani proposed marriage. There was still something of the market girl about her; she spat regularly into the yard, swore and gesticulated extravagantly with her toothstick. She told him she had nearly forgotten what it was like to have someone to talk to and do things with. Her teenager’s life, with its cast of sisters, aunties, friends, and neighbors, had come to an abrupt end when she married, a sacrifice she had made without any real knowledge of what she was leaving behind. Her friends had been impressed with her bravery in leaving Somaliland and so had Zainab, until she realized that she was in thrall to a drunk and would only ever see the four walls around her and the ceiling above her head. Talyani, on the other hand, had freedom and a life in the outside world but he was rude and patronizing to their Afar neighbors, families who were largely opposed to the Italian invasion of their country. Talyani sang Italian songs loudly in the backyard and had taken to giving the Fascist salute to passersby. If it wasn’t for the baby, Zainab would have stowed away on one of the steamboats and hotfooted it back to Burao.

Jama was woken on his last morning by the clatter of pots and pans crashing to the floor. Talyani’s voice rang through the house as he shouted at Zainab in the kitchen.

“Didn’t your mother teach you anything, you idiot! Pick these things up, I didn’t buy them for you to destroy.”

Jama covered his ears to block out Talyani’s viciousness and chased after his sweet dreams. Talyani’s boots approached. “Are you ready? I have places to go,” he said. Jama slunk out of the covers and went to the basin, the water washing away the last vestiges of his dreaminess.

They waited outside while Talyani secured two large locks on the front door. Marco kicked his legs out from his mother’s hip and gurgled with excitement at feeling fresh air on his skin. Zainab squinted up at the cerulean sky. Her red clothes made her look young and free, but she held on tightly to her son. Jama could not imagine Zainab growing old in this town.

Assab was buffeted by hot, dry winds blowing in from the volcanic black deserts of Dankalia. Maybe Assab was too close to that apocalyptic waste for the Italians to make much effort, despite it being their first imperial foothold since the Caesars. They had bought Assab for a moderate sum from the Egyptians. Its buildings were ancient and crumbling, stained gray and deformed by the unrelenting wind. The people were a ragbag of wanderers: Abyssinians looking for work, Yemeni fishermen following the shoals of the Red Sea, nomadic Afars with their teeth filed into points, Somalis on their way to somewhere else. Although it was a busy port like Djibouti Town, most people slept long into the day, and those up and about had a pinched, frustrated look on their faces, angry at missing the epoch when this area was one of the richest on earth. As part of the Axumite Empire, Assab, many centuries ago, had exported rhino horn, hippo hides, apes, and lions to Rome, Egypt, and Persia.

A cargo boat swayed to the side of them, its paint shedding swaths of metallic leaves. It was the only vessel moored and it seemed to have come in to die, heaving and sighing as heavily as it was. Talyani stopped and handed Jama his flimsy two-lire ticket, his pass to his father.

“The journey will take about half a day. I will find someone to escort you to Asmara. Wait until you see that place, wah wah!” he explained, eyes blazing. “The Italians have turned it into one big paradise; there are picture houses, hotels, shops that sell whatever you could want to buy.” Talyani left to find Jama an escort for the rest of the journey. He returned quickly with two other askaris, young men with smooth skin.

“These boys can accompany you some of the way, they are going to their new barracks in Asmara,” said Talyani, proudly tapping them on the back. “This little boy is going to Sudan, his father is working there. Must be in Gedaref, many Issa have gone there to work for the British. There is a train from Asmara to Agordat, and then a bus will take you over the border into Sudan. The roads are fantastic now, the Ferengis have brought progress to this country at last.”

Talyani shook Jama’s hand, nearly crushing it. “Maybe you will become an askari, like your father and me.”

“My father is a driver, not an askari,” corrected Jama, put off them by Talyani’s example.

Zainab shook Jama’s hand, and he boarded his second ship. Talyani marched on ahead and Zainab reluctantly followed, turning back to wave intermittently, her sad smile bright in the morning light.

Underneath his feet Jama could hear the bleating of sheep and their hooves jittering on wooden planks. He crouched down away from the hot wind and peeped through the cracks in the wood. He could make out bony noses and fluffy bodies in the shafts of light cutting through the hold, and an oily scent drifted up in the heat. The young askaris climbed the gangplank, their heavy slow steps belying their age. Look at all those hot clothes, thought Jama, and he felt faint just looking at them. The ship slipped its mooring quickly and with little warning, leaving behind hollering stragglers who raced along the quay to catch up with it, holding their sarongs up between their legs. “Masaakiin, poor men,” muttered Jama as he watched them desperately gesticulate to the laughing crew. Jama stretched out on his stomach, sea spray cascading over his back, and tried to pursue that morning’s lost sleep.

The shriek of seagulls made Jama sit up, he was surrounded by families eating lunch, and he wiped the drool from his cheek. Ahead of him lay mountains and hills higher than he had ever seen, reaching beyond the clouds. Underneath the Eritrean mountains nestled a pretty whitewashed town, its jetty reaching welcomingly out into the sea. As Massawa got closer, Jama could see an island of elegant arches and stuccoed white palaces looming over another island crammed with shantytowns of corrugated sheets and wooden planks. The rich town and poor town were tied together by a concrete umbilical cord. A sign faced out to sea, and one of the askaris leaned forward, trying to pick out the words on the salt-scoured board. “The pearl of the Red Sea,” he recited slowly. Jama smiled at the glamour the sign promised. Dhows plied the placid sea and birds fluttered, pecking at snails on the mud flats surrounding the causeway. They entered a maze of streets, the askaris leading the way, through dark mysterious alleys that suddenly opened up into light-filled squares and then led back into darkness. Jama looked up. Some of the houses had wooden shutters and intricately carved balconies, and one had a mammoth, onion-shaped dome sitting squat on its roof. Ancient mosques, their walls uneven with repeated whitewashing, stood separate from the homes, like dignified grandparents sitting on the street watching the world go by. The silver cross of the Orthodox Church shone a supernatural white on the skyline, behind the star and crescent of a mosque. Jama let out a happy sigh at the covered market bedecked with bright awnings over the stalls, goods neatly laid out on tables like booty recovered from Aladdin’s cave. Despite its antiquity, Massawa was tidy and well kept, with pockets of incredible wealth hidden like teeth in an infant’s gums. Servants piled in and out of the grand homes of Armenian, Arab, Jewish, and European merchants. Everywhere there was the sound of quiet and profitable industry. And yet, nearby lay shantytowns where sparsely filled cooking pans burned easily and Italians in shiny boots idled about in cheap bars, nursing glasses of beer.

They crossed a longer causeway into mainland Massawa. This part of town seemed plainer, more residential, where everyone went to rest after all the allurements of the old town.

“We’ll get a lorry along this main road,” said one of the askaris.

It didn’t seem like much of a main road to Jama, it was barely wide enough for one vehicle. Jama stared at the horizon. His father could just appear around the curve, it was more than possible that he drove up and down these roads, he thought. It wasn’t a busy road, and the sound of anyone approaching made Jama’s heart lurch. One of the askaris ran out into the road to flag down a lorry, and seeing the uniforms, the driver stopped. Jama quickly glanced up into the cab; “Not him,” he reassured himself, and they all piled in. The lorry left behind the vast depression in the earth that had begun in Djibouti, and creaked and screeched to manage the incline. The driver recited Al-Fatiha under his breath, while the askaris joked to hide their fear. The lorry nearly lost its balance as it clambered up, scraping its underside as it righted itself.

“It never gets easier,” said the driver through gritted teeth.

Jama, at first terrified by the precarious highway, began to enjoy it, calling out hazards. “Look! A pothole! And over there some loose rocks, be careful, driver!”

He could hear the driver’s heart pounding near his ear and the gears of the vehicle crunching beneath him. The askaris, relaxed by Jama’s vigilance, fell asleep, their heads lolling from left to right in unison.

“Hey, you’re good at this, little boy. You wanna work for me?” the driver said. Jama exchanged smiles with him in the rearview mirror.

After a few hours they finally reached the manicured avenues of Asmara. Everywhere new houses sparkled, the paint on them barely dry. Large Italian villas were painted in mouth-watering reds, corals, pinks, yellows; blossoming purple-and-white flowers flowed over their walls. It was the tidiest, most fertile place Jama had ever seen. A cool breeze breathed in through the driver’s window. Trees rustled at the side of the road, cleaners swept the immaculate sidewalks, and there was so much paving that everywhere seemed covered in patterned stone tiles. Jama looked around, and all the shops were run by Europeans, the town seemed to belong to the fat-bellied men with upturned mustaches sitting outside the shops. Women in dresses that exposed their arms and legs cycled up and down the gentle slopes. The only Africans he could see were the street cleaners.

“It’s strange, isn’t it? Don’t worry, they have been generous enough to leave us a scrap of land farther down,” said the driver.

Jama leaned across the askaris so he could see more clearly through the dirty window. Three-story buildings with columned fronts towered over the lorry as they passed down the main avenue. A huge cathedral with an iridescent mosaic cross appeared before them, and women in black-and-white gowns stood on the steps picking at their prayer beads as the church bell tolled. Large-eyed Eritrean beggars sat by the wall of the cathedral, swathed in dirty white shammas.

Jama shouted, “Look! Gaadhi dameer!” and pointed excitedly as a donkey cart drove past, the donkey cantering and swishing its tail, a small boy holding the reins. A little piece of Hargeisa transported to this foreign town.

The driver found the way to the African reservation and slowed down. “Where do you want me to drop you off?” he asked.

“Farther down, where the Somalis are,” answered one of the askaris. They drove on and drew to a halt outside a tearoom full of Somali men.

Jama let the askaris pay his half lira for him. The driver beeped the horn for Jama. “Nabad gelyo, peace be with you,” he called out before the lorry pulled away.

“Are you going to pay for the food, little man?” one askari asked.

Jama begrudgingly picked out a few coins from Idea’s handkerchief. He expected adults to always subsidize him, but these teenagers had no manners. “Get me a lot, I’m hungry,” he demanded.

The askaris returned with full plates. “Who are you looking for here?” asked the taller askari.

Jama shrugged, confident that someone would take him in. “Anyone, an Eidegalle, I suppose.”

“I’ll go and ask in the tearoom,” the tall one said, getting up. Jama could see him circulating around, shaking hands, making jokes. The askari came back a while later, trailed by a lame man with a basketful of charcoal in his hands. They exchanged salaams.

“An old Eidegalle woman lives this way, but I warn you that she can be difficult,” said the charcoal seller.

The houses in the reservation were small and packed together, with animals tied to poles outside. “It’s this one,” said the new man, stopping at a beehive-shaped tukul with a rush mat serving as a door.

Jama shook the rush mat, and the askaris stepped back as an old woman with a hard face and humped back pushed aside the mat.

“Who are you?” she asked brusquely. Jama recited what he knew of his lineage, skipping over grandfathers and mangling old-fashioned names. He explained that he was en route to Sudan and just needed somewhere to sleep for the night.

“What does a little runt like you want in Sudan?” the old woman challenged.

“I am going to find my father,” Jama shot back.

“Are you sure you have one?”

The lame man was laughing with the askaris as they returned to the tearoom. Jama turned to march away from the old witch.

“Wait, wait! Don’t take an old woman’s words so seriously. You can stay for a night. My name is Awrala.”

They sat far apart in the hut, listening to the couple next door fighting until they also fell quiet. Jama, feeling overwhelmed by the silence, cracked. “How did you get that hump on your back?” he asked.

Awrala cackled. “Ha! You see, boy… my father came here to be a farmer — well, that is not completely true, he actually got bored of the hard work very quickly and made us into farmers. I spent all day like this.” She demonstrated the bentover posture, balancing her hands on her thighs.

“From the age of five to eighteen, I plowed, and sowed and watered and harvested, hard work like you young people would never believe,” Awrala boasted.

Jama wanted to tell her about all the carcass-delivering he had done in Hargeisa but he left it. A light in her eyes had switched on.

“Then the Italians came and took over his land. Finito! Boof! It was gone, all that hard work wasted. It was beautiful land, so much water and life, unlike our own barren country, but I am still bent over, over a broom now, cleaning Italian villas. Do you want to feel it?” she said, laughing.

Jama was taken aback but his fear of her had gone. He walked behind Awrala, and she guided his hand over the hump. It was as hard and knobbly as a tortoise’s shell, and seemed a heavy thing for such an old woman to be carrying around everywhere. He tried to knead it under his hands but it was too firm.

Awrala chuckled under his fingers. “Enough now, it’s ticklish, get some sleep.”

“Do you want me to tread on your back?” offered Jama, pitying her poor misshapen spine.

“No, no, your weight would break me,” she said, stifling a yawn. She arranged their blankets on the floor and curled up under hers.

“My head is killing me,” Jama whispered.

“Don’t worry, sleep it off. You’re not used to the altitude here,” she replied sleepily.

Jama, unable to sleep, tried to keep Awrala awake. “Don’t you have children?” he asked.

“No, after three husbands I accepted I was barren,” replied Awrala, clicking the beads of her tusbah.

“Why don’t you go back to Hargeisa, then?”

Awrala perked up. “Why should I? I’m not Somali anymore. The place where you are born is not always the best place for you, boy. There is nothing in our country. I have got too used to the rain, hills, and cool air of Asmara. I’ll be buried here.”

Jama listened to Awrala’s breath whistling through her teeth. He understood the desire to find the most beautiful place and stop there. He imagined what Sudan must look like, its rivers, its tall trees and great markets, until he finally fell asleep.

The morning air was frosty and hazy, the grass wet with dew. Everywhere stood moldy green stumps where trees had been cut down for firewood. A smell of burnt coffee and charcoal emanated from the little dwellings, acrid in the sharp air, and Jama coughed and hawked along with the men emerging from the huts. The heat from Awrala’s tea warmed his stomach but his face, fingers, and feet were numb. It was as cold as an October morning in Hargeisa. He had always wanted to see the rumored ice fall from the sky during the dry season, but wondered why God didn’t send the ice to Aden where it was needed more. They left the African reservation and walked down a steep hill; they passed women and girls marching sure-footedly uphill, carrying bundles of sticks and firewood bigger than themselves, their torsos bent over with the strain. To Jama they looked like bewitched women taken over by monstrous humps, with tentacles trying to reach out to other victims. A bus sped past, and the women jumped quickly out of the way as it skidded dangerously close; the bundles on their backs fell apart. At the front of the bus a few white faces peered out while all the black passengers were squashed in the back. Awrala led the way with a speed that made a mockery of her age, pushing people out of her way. As they got closer to the railway station, Italians appeared, porters trailing behind them with suitcases and large trunks. The station was crammed with workers and travelers milling around like termites. All the men wore hats even though they might be barefoot. On the platform, Jama found the iron beauty that would take him to his father; she had a snub nose and big round eyes, and shone radiantly green through the cloudlike steam.

Jama ran to the train and Awrala pulled him back, scared it would hurt him. “Let me touch it,” he exclaimed.

Wrenching his arm away from her, he stroked the side of the locomotive. Watched by the Italian engineer and Eritrean fireman inside the engine car, the little boy greeted the man-made snake. The inside of the train’s head contained shiny brass instruments, glass circles with fluttering needles and a big leather seat. Behind him came the sudden, shrieking call of the train’s whistle, and he jumped, his feet rising from the ground in shock. He turned back to the engine and the two men waved.

As they walked the length of the train, the carriages got less grand, the number of seats increased, the vases on the tables disappeared, and when Awrala stopped they stood next to the last carriage. She had bought his ticket and he thanked her quietly as she gave it to him, he knew that she didn’t have much, and he made a mental note to ask his father to repay the money. She waited for him to find a wooden bench and then left, propelling herself through the crowd. The carriage quickly filled up, people sat on the floor, stood wherever they could, held their goats between their knees, stuffed squawking chickens into the overhead storage.

Jama fidgeted, worried that his bladder would get too full and he would end up wetting himself. The final whistle shrieked and the train juddered to a slow start. Jama sat next to the window and watched as Asmara, green and calm, disappeared into the distance. He thought sadly of Awrala resting underneath its earth one day, unable to enjoy her beloved hills. Tall, regal trees lined the tracks and little villages flashed by the window, as did shepherds leading fat brown cows through fields and glades. Shimmering streams meandered across fields, birds waded along their banks while women bathed. Children chased one another on their way to school, along the roads flanking the massive Italian-owned plantations, the land suddenly dominated by wheat for miles. As the track climbed higher, the land became dustier and drier. Jagged gray mountains pierced the sky, isolated tukuls nestled in their hearts.

The train tracks worked their way along fine, crumbly mountain paths, a dead donkey or camel sometimes lying far beneath them. Everywhere Jama looked there was another giant mountain, rippling with muscular strength, each competing with the next in attaining proximity to heaven, as God had enjoined his creation to do. The peaks looked ascetic with heads shaved of greenery, having long forgone water and the pleasures of life, silently awaiting the day when Allah would bless them for their piety. “Manshallah, praise the Lord,” uttered Jama, awed by God’s genius. All around him was paradise, full of what was good in the world as well as bad. Life is just this, Jama thought, a long journey, with lightness and darkness falling over you, companions all around on their own journeys. Each person sitting passively or impatiently, wondering whether the tracks of their fate would take them on a clattering iron horse to their destination or would sweep them away on an invisible path to another world.

At Keren, many of the passengers got off, eager to get to the great market before it became crowded. The sweatiness inside the carriage got off with them and Jama stretched out his legs for the rest of the journey to Agordat. After Keren, the train began a long descent down to the plains and the heat rose again. The train screeched down the escarpment. The wheels against the tracks sounded like knives being sharpened and the metallic hiss put Jama’s teeth on edge. A young Eritrean man played idly on a stringed rababa. It sounded like an angel’s harp, and Jama turned to watch him play for a while. The rocking of the train made Jama’s eyes heavy but he was too excited to sleep.

The train inched into the small station of Agordat, its sleek paint coated in fine brown dust, steam glistening over the black locomotive like perspiration. Jama disembarked. A large mosque dominated the skyline of the simple town and a bustling market was already in full swing. The turbans and Arabic arches reminded him of Aden. The only people he could see not wearing turbans were dressed in long, beautifully colorful shirts with ballooning trousers, selling crocodile skins. Jama approached them. “As-salamu alaykum, where can I get a bus to Sudan?” he asked in Arabic.

The reply was heavily accented, full of tahs and ehs. “Past the suq, there is a main square where the buses leave from, but it will only take you as far as Omhajer, you will have to get a lorry across the border.”

Jama became curious. “Where are you from, sahib?”

“I’m Takaruri, from a place called Kano, a Muslim place on the other side of Africa. Fifty years ago my grandfather and his people passed through many countries on their walk to Mecca. By the time they reached here, they had run out of food and money, so they settled, hoping to make enough money to cross to Arabia. By Allah’s command, one day we will.” The man laughed.

“How far is it from here to this Kano?” pursued Jama.

“Three years’ walk,” said the man, his face somber.

The square was a dun-colored plot of land, empty of people apart from two Eritrean askaris and a coffee seller. A small rusted bus baked in the sun, and two white-eyed gulls watched the scene from a telegraph wire, the red of their beaks looking painted-on amid the ocher-and-khaki dourness of the square. The driver turned up after the sun had passed its zenith, his trousers and vest gaping with holes, a peaked hat on his head. He didn’t acknowledge anyone but boarded the bus and stretched across the backseat to sleep, covering his face with a handkerchief. Jama felt his head pounding from the sun; sharp pain skewered him from temple to temple, his tongue was parched and swollen. He bought water from a vendor and watched a young woman enter the bus depot, a metal suitcase in her hand. A unit of young Italian soldiers marched in behind her. White light reflected violently from the suitcase, panning over him and the Italians like a searchlight. The bus coughed into life and Jama and the woman rushed to be first on; the driver held his arm across the door, blocking their way, and gestured to the soldiers. Jama didn’t comprehend and jumped aboard when the driver’s arm dropped. The driver approached, shouting and jabbing his finger in Jama’s face, gesticulating to the rear seats. Jama turned his face away and blanked him out, the driver grabbed him by the wrist and tried to pull him up, and Jama slapped his hands away and spat in return. The Italian soldiers watched the commotion; some laughed, most just stared. The driver led Jama to the door and pushed him out of the bus. He landed squarely on his feet and unleashed a torrent of abuse in Somali at the driver and the watching soldiers. “Baboons, what you looking at? May Allah break your spines, you debauched donkey fuckers.”

The soldiers boarded the bus. An Italian with the long limbs of a spider got on last and spoke to the driver, his dark eyes following Jama as he paced around. The driver shook his head but the Italian continued whispering in his ear. Eventually the driver relented and called over to Jama, reeling him in with his arm. Jama hesitated, his anger seething like a nest of snakes. The driver escorted Jama to the back; the gangly Italian smiled as he walked past, his dark eyes framed by thick black eyelashes. Jama gave him a small smile in return. When he was seated safely in the blacks’ seats the driver held out his hand, rubbing his fingers together. Jama counted out a reasonable fare and gave it to him. The driver held up the money to the soldiers and ridiculed him; he started gesturing to the door again so Jama gave him double the amount. Crestfallen, he counted out the remaining money in his lap with hunched shoulders. The sister fucker had bankrupted him.

The soldiers grew boisterous, shouting and jumping from seat to seat in play fight. Most of them were in their late teens and full of fizz. They lit cigarettes and sang raucous songs; they seemed like holidaymakers rather than an imperial army. Any passing girls were subjected to catcalls and groins pressed against the bus windows. The older soldier at the front of the bus looked on with fatherly good humor. But they left Jama alone, seeming to forget about his presence completely as the bus followed the course of a wide river west toward Sudan. Despite the hot plains, the river nourished enough earth to feed farms and wild date palms. Cows, rare in Somaliland, here grazed happily in large herds. The end of the trip was quiet; the soldiers had tired themselves out with laughing and now slept on each other’s shoulder, trickles of drool staining their uniforms. After passing idyllic riverside villages tilled by dark-skinned, brightly clothed people, Jama arrived at a checkpoint outside Omhajer. It was the last stop in Eritrea. Armed Italian soldiers boarded the bus. They made a show of looking over Jama and the woman. Through the dirty window more Italians could be seen waiting behind sandbags, a machine gun aimed at the bus. A checkpoint guard shoved his watch in the gangly soldier’s face and gesticulated to the darkening plains. The young soldiers peered out of the sand-blown windows and reached for their guns. Their officer placed a calming hand on the checkpoint guard’s shoulder, but he thrust the hand away, angry cords in his neck protruding as he continued to rage. The young Italians were silent, and the Eritrean woman whispered in Jama’s ear — patriots had attacked the checkpoint and stolen a truck. Jama stifled a giggle behind his hand.

Omhajer was swamped with military tents and food stalls run by former askaris. The town swung to a military beat and sweat glistened on the men’s unshaven faces. The pulse of the town stopped for a moment when the Eritrean woman disembarked the bus: cobblers stopped cobbling, merchants stopped selling, and jaws paused in midsentence. Men who had got used to the hard angles of male bodies now fixed their eyes on undulating curves, and nearly died of delight. The woman felt the heat of their eyes burning away her clothes and rushed down the dusty path toward her village. Jama saw Somali, Eritrean, and yellow-skinned Libyan askaris standing about, but none looked friendly, their faces were contorted and imbecilic with lust.

Behind the straw back of a stall, Jama counted his abattoir money and let out a desperate sigh. It was barely enough to buy food, never mind pay for another bus or lorry into Sudan. Jama sprinted out into the streets, cheetah-fast, hunting for groups of Somali askaris, running close to a clump before realizing they were Eritrean and skidding on his heels. Askaris turned and watched the strange boy run in and out of alleys. A Somali askari yelled out, “Hey, what are you looking for, kid?”

“A clansman, an Eidegalle askari!” shouted Jama.

The askari laughed. “Well, you can stop running, you’ve found one!” Jama ran to him; the soldier had a kind face, he put a thin hand on Jama’s head.

“Why are you looking for me, then?”

Jama cleared his throat and began, “I need help finding my father, he lives in Sudan but he used to be an askari.”

“Who is your father?” interrupted the soldier, a cigarette in his hand.

“He is Guure Mohamed Naaleyeh,” panted Jama.

The soldier exploded in laughter, coughing out a dark haze. “You’re Guure’s son?” he said, eyes round in delight.

Jama nodded, folding his arms around his bare chest.

“Waryaa! Everyone come and look! It’s Guure’s son!” More laughing men approached Jama, they slapped him on the back and manhandled his shoulders.

Jama stayed silent as they poked him and pointed out his father’s nose, or argued over whether Jama had the same slouched posture. They were close enough for Jama to smell the wood smoke and sweat on their uniforms. The first askari broke through the crowd and pulled Jama away. “Where have you come from?”

“Hargeisa.”

“By all the saints, do not lie to me.”

“Wallaahi, I swear, I came from Hargeisa.”

The askari was silent, and Jama could hear the others throwing his father’s name around as if he were a long-lost brother.

The askari held Jama’s hand. His dark skin matched Jama’s exactly, and their slender fingers merged indistinguishably. Jama looked hopefully into the man’s thin, angular face. “Your father is a good friend of mine, of us all. He was always telling me about his son, his strong little warrior, he would threaten us with your vengeance, but look at you! You’re nothing but a few bones strung together.”

“I would kill for my father,” Jama protested. “Anything he wants I would do! How can I get to him?”

“There are no buses to Gedaref, only military vehicles, and the Italians do not allow passengers, but you can get a ride with one of the Sudanese merchants here. It is only a few hours’ drive, but they leave only once a week and they charge a hefty sum,” the askari explained. Jama’s heart was racing. He didn’t want to spend any time in this garrison town but it was dawning on him that he would be forced to.

The askari read the dejection in his face. “We can get a message out to him, though, tell him you’re coming.”

Jama’s eyes reddened. All the fatigue and strain and misery of the journey had reached a crescendo at its near end and came pouring out. He turned to hide his face, and the soldiers looked to one another for solutions.

“Don’t worry, while you are here, you are my guest, you will sleep in my tent, eat my food, learn how to be an askari; this is the least I could do for Guure,” proposed the first askari.

The askari led him to a long row of identical canvas tents, stopping at one of them to pull aside the flap. “This is it, have a rest. If you need me I will be five tents down on the left. I will bring you a bite to eat soon.” Jama entered the gloomy tent and collapsed onto the dirt floor.

After a night on a sweaty borrowed mat, with soldier food lying badly digested in his guts, his skin red and swollen from the attacks of mosquito hordes, Jama decided to get up. His arms, legs, and back ached but he needed to find out more about his father. He shook the flap of the tent the askari had directed him to the previous night, and a man’s voice shouted, “If you are not the devil, come in!”

Jama went inside; five men were on the floor, bundled over one another in the cramped space. “Hello, Guure’s son,” the askari said; other askaris groaned, placed their arms over their heads to block out the sound disturbing their sleep.

“Hello,” said Jama, looking around the spartan tent, pleased he was finally someone’s son.

“What brings you here so early?” asked the askari. He reached in his trouser pocket for his toothstick, a thin twig with a splayed fibrous end.

“I want to know more about my father,” replied Jama, as if it was his due. He squatted in the corner and waited as the man eased the toothstick over each tooth, spitting out its fibers.

“You don’t even know my name yet, you little suldaan! I’m Jibreel. Guure is a great friend of mine, he is a happy, generous man, and the best company you can find. When we marched, we used to jostle to be close to Guure, so we could hear his jokes and impressions. He mimicked everyone to perfection, especially the Eritrean bulabashas — time would just fly by. He was always first to start off the marching songs. Do you have a beautiful voice like him?”

Jama shook his head regretfully.

“He talked about you a lot, you know. He would sometimes get word of you from askaris who had lived in Aden and knew your mother. He was proud of you.”

Jama wanted to ask Jibreel if his father had ever explained why he did not send word to them or ever visit but he became embarrassed and instead asked, “Isn’t he a driver?”

“Maybe. You need identity papers and money and other things, we all left home with only the clothes on our backs, maybe in Gedaref it’s easier. A group of them disguised themselves as Sudanese traders and snuck off in a truck, pissed off with the Italians and their stupid white-man, black-man laws. They want you to step into the gutter when they approach, say master this and master that. I think Guure left just after he saw an Italian sergeant make two askaris drink his piss as a punishment. That’s the way here, it’s not a life but it’s better than death, but good on Guure for getting out… The longer you stay, the less of a man you become.” A sleepy soldier repeated this dozily after Jibreel.

Jama’s appetite for information grew as it was fed. “What does he like look?” he asked with bright eyes.

“He is smallish, stocky, looks young for his age, your kind of brown, he has a big head, strange yellowish hair, strong arms, big teeth like you.”

Jama’s face contorted as he tried to picture his father, but the image was too sketchy to be satisfying, and not as handsome as the man in his fantasies.

Jibreel laughed. “Don’t tax yourself, you’ll soon be able to see him with your own eyes. Your presence here is big news, so it won’t take long for someone to reach Guure and tell him you’re on your way. It’s unlikely he will be able to get back here — they don’t take kindly to deserters — but we will have a collection and see if we can help,” he said with a wink.

Jibreel put a cigarette to his mouth and Jama watched the way he held it between his lips, struck a match, and let tendrils of smoke escape from his nostrils as he inhaled. “Let me have a try.”

Jibreel handed the cigarette over with an amused smile; Jama put it to his mouth and sucked too hard, smoke shooting up his nose, singeing all the soft membranes. His eyes watered terrifically and his lungs burned; it was as if he had shoved his face into a thick fire. Jama stifled his coughs and shamefacedly handed back the cigarette.

Jibreel continued to laugh at him, so he returned to his tent and chewed over everything Jibreel had said.

As a frontier town, nestled between the borders of Abyssinia, British Sudan, and Eritrea, there was wildness to Omhajer. Every day some askaris would arrive while just as many deserted. It was the Wild West of Eritrea. Jibreel told Jama of the suffering he had seen. Refugee women and children picking undigested grain from cow dung, emaciated men with bodies like mobile skeletons sitting on the road and expiring, their eyes wide open. Gunfire occasionally rang out from the checkpoint and the prison before it was drowned out by market trader calls and donkey brays.

One day, a week after Jama had arrived, Jibreel appeared dusty and panting, but the herald of good news. “I have just received a message from Guure passed on by a returning Somali merchant. He has become a lorry driver for Ilkacas, a Habr Yunis man in Sudan. The merchant told Guure that you were here in Omhajer.” Jibreel took Jama’s shaking hands in his. “Your father is coming to pick you up.” Jama’s heart fluttered around his rib cage as he drank in this blissful news. He grabbed hold of Jibreel’s waist and squeezed him tight, unable to communicate his joy in another way.

“Let go, Jama, I can’t breathe.”

Jama loosened his grip but held on, imagining Jibreel’s lean body was his father’s. Finally Jibreel pried Jama off him and together they looked for askaris to tell the good news to. They handed over celebratory cigarettes to Jama and shook his small hand, Jama could not sit still, could not eat, he laughed hysterically at the askaris’ jokes and grasped them in suffocating embraces. Jama thought about the gifts his father might bring, the stories he would tell, the songs he would teach him, and stayed awake all night.

Lorries came and went regularly from Sudan, with supplies of cigarettes and other necessities, but still his father did not appear. Each day was an ordeal of waiting, each minute, every hour was not fully lived because his heart was suspended between hope and despair. He hung about the main thoroughfare, teetering around on tiptoe, staring into the cabs of arriving lorries.

Jama scrutinized the place his father had tarried for so long. It was a khaki kingdom, with absolutely no women to be seen anywhere. Italians stomped around, their skins tanned to nearly the same color as those they professed to be civilizing, whips made from hippopotamus hide hanging from their belts. Somali soldiers, some young, some approaching middle age, some polite, some rough, greeted him as he passed. Nearby, ancient black veterans from the Italian defeat at Adwa in 1896 sat begging, an arm and a leg amputated by the Abyssinians to punish their disloyalty. Jama walked all over the small busy town, avoiding the more secluded alleys and lanes, before returning to the tent with a handful of sultanas and peanuts pilfered from a Sudanese merchant. Each day he got up at dawn and followed askaris around until sunset. His clansmen made him a communal little brother, patting his head and giving him puffs of their cigarettes. They all knew his father and could recount memories of him. He would be passed on from one askari to another like a pack of cards, only returning to his mat at night, when the booze came out and the soldiers favored more adult conversation.

One windy afternoon, a few days after the news from Gedaref, Jibreel entered the tent, his dark face ashy, and he stared at Jama for a moment. “There is someone here to see you, Jama,” he said.

Jama trotted by Jibreel’s side, kicking pebbles out of the way and waving to his friends, his face burning with white-hot joy. Jibreel was stiff and silent beside him. Jama tidied himself up, spat on his dry white elbows and knees and fluffed up his hair with his fingers. Jibreel’s eyes were wide and shiny; Jama saw the reflection of a flock of crows taking flight in them. A man spilled a basket of lentils as Jama passed, and crouched down to scoop them up, while a group of Somali askaris stood nearby smoking.

“Wait here, he’s coming,” mumbled Jibreel, before joining the other askaris. The minutes ticked by as long as days, the sun’s heat felt like a heavy weight on his head, Jama prayed for his father to hurry up, the Arabic words muddling in his mind as mosquitoes buzzed beside his ears. A man came over the horizon, a small cardboard suitcase hung from his fingers. Jama took tiny steps forward. As the man approached, Jama’s heart sank as he looked up and saw a middle-aged, gray-bearded man staring down at him. His skin was a creamy light brown and he wore a red fez perched on the side of his head; his stomach hung a few inches away from Jama’s face. This was not the man he had imagined.

“As-salamu alaykum, Jama, forgive me, but I come with unfortunate news. Guure’s life has ended, he was on the road from Gedaref when he ran into a military roadblock. He owed a favor to the godforsaken Sudanese merchant who had helped him desert the army, and was carrying weapons to sell to the patriots in crates hidden in the cab, as the Italians neared them he panicked and tried to flee. They shot him there and then. We buried him yesterday in Gedaref. We all live on borrowed time and by the decree of Allah-Kareem, Guure’s time on earth has passed. It was not his fate to see you. Here are his belongings. May Allah have mercy on you.” The man’s words swam around him without meaning. They sounded like the crashing of waves or the gurgle of blood to him, their substance broken up and diluted. Jama crouched down on the dirt, covered his ears; he couldn’t breathe, grief had stolen the air from his lungs, drained the blood from his veins. He clawed at the earth to bury himself.

Jibreel pulled at Jama’s arm but he refused to rise, to open his eyes, and Jibreel withdrew to stand by the wall and wait. At last, Jama inhaled a deep breath and took hold of his father’s flimsy suitcase. The touch of the handle, its shape molded to his grip, its color stained with his sweat, set Jama’s hand aflame. He stared into the stranger’s eyes, and the man nodded and walked away, back over the horizon.

Jama crouched down, bent over the suitcase, his body taking the shape of the boulders placed above nomads’ graves. He untied the string holding the case shut and delicately opened it. He hoped to find his father’s head inside, just so that he would finally know what he looked like. He wanted to press his hand against his father’s stubble, to trace the face that contained the only likeness of his own. Instead, he found a threadbare mauve ma’awis, a few notes and coins, an amber tusbah, a worn-down toothstick, a stringed musical instrument, and a rusted toy car. Jama pressed his face against the grit of the Eritrean wasteland, his journey at a bitter end. The moon hid in shame and left Omhajer in black. One by one, the planets Jama’s life orbited around had spun away and he floated in starless obscurity.