The Magic of Saida Read Online Free PDF Page A

It might be a good idea to start his day early so he could end it early, that’s how it was done here. Evenings emptied the streets, all life disappeared, only the spirits were about. He glanced towards the Island. He listened to the waves and the wind, the odd voice in the dark; revived his memories of his life as a boy here, as he drank the tea the waiter had brought him in a very English service, only for him.

• 4 •
    Kinjikitilé, the jingle of a dancer.
    One morning while their mothers organized how he could help her with her lessons, he showed her his mother’s anklets. Mama did not dance, they were her mementoes from another life. What was he thinking? He took the anklets from their place on the shelf and jingled them in his hands, and grinned at her; showing off. The girl took them from him, started rhythmically to stamp her feet, chanting
o-o-o-o
like a traditional ngoma dancer, but softly so as not to provoke the mothers. Jhun-jhun … Kinjin-kinjin is how he would recall that moment. Kinjin-kinjin, she took up his challenge. The innocence. The mischief. The provocation. Without a word spoken, or even the thought articulated, he was hooked on her. He was hooked on that look, that manner, that moment in their lives. It was to see that face again, howsoever ravaged by age, that he would travel thousands of miles, abandon his practice.
    “I want this Saida to be a madamu, a teacher,” Bi Kulthum, her mother, was telling Mama.
    Mama and Bi Kulthum were as close as two sisters, and unlike as any two women could be in Kilwa. Both were without their husbands, Mama’s, an Indian doctor who had absconded, Bi Kulthum’s, a trader who had died of fever. Bi Kulthum shared a house with her parents, Mzee Omari and Mwana Juma. Like most Swahili women she came out in a black diaphanous bui-bui, full length over her dress, only her long face exposed; Mama wore a dress always and used a colourful khanga to cover her shoulders and head when necessary. She was the modern one. But now both had their heads uncovered,as they sat in the front portion of the room that was the entire house, Mama on the broken-down sofa, Bi Kulthum on the chair opposite. The barred window in the front was wide open, looking out upon the tree.
    “Mwalimu, eh!” Mama exclaimed approvingly. A teacher! Well indeed! “And she will stand up straight and command with a ruler.” She laughed gaily at the thought, gave a clap of the hands. “Weh, Saida!—do you listen? That would be very good. Then, my sister, my son Kamal will be very happy to help her.”
    This was the request Bi Kulthum had come with. Saida should be a teacher, with Kamal’s help, and God willing. Saida’s schooling thus far had been sporadic; she had attended when she or her mother had felt like it. Now Bi Kulthum had been struck by this whim, this ambition for her daughter. She said to Mama, “Your son is a gift to you from Allah the Merciful, even though he does not have a father.”
    “Truly,” replied Mama and made a brief gesture of spitting on the floor. Bi Kulthum followed suit. It wouldn’t do to invite ill luck.
    He enjoyed watching them this way, so much at ease with each other; it gave him pleasure, and a sense of comfort. The world was a glad place. Mama husky-voiced, and strong; fleshy in a nice sort of way; darker. Bi Kulthum angular in face, like her daughter. Her eyes fascinated him, more flashing purple than black. Her speech was more formal: she would say
Allah
to Mama’s
Mungu
.
    After three decades, these scenes came vividly to him.
    He was a lonely child, I observed to him.
    Yes, he admitted, though he did have companions to play with. But essentially lonely and very attached to his mother. They were a unit—Hamida and her son Kamalu. He had often wondered, what did people say about Mama and him behind their backs? The abandoned twosome. When will Hamida forget her Indian doctor and accept one of her admirers? A woman needs a man, whatever she