The Magic of Saida Read Online Free PDF

says.
    And then came Kinjin-Saida into his life. Before, they had hardly spoken to each other; now she came to see him, with respect, to learn from him.
    She came on Sundays, around eleven, having completed chores for her mother; she would be washed and dressed up, her hair combedneatly into braids. But barefoot. They would sit down on the floor, the linoleum from his father’s time with its pattern of overlapping squares long having lost its gleam, and he would try to teach her English and arithmetic. He found it hard going; she was easily distracted by the sounds on the street outside, or by his mother working in the other end of the room. Often they got stuck on some simple problem whose concept would simply not penetrate her head.
    “Why should I do it like that?”
    “Because that is the way to do it.”
    “Let’s play. Tucheze,” she would say in a small pleading voice, having already given up in her mind. The gleam of hope in her eyes, the puckered lips ready to smile. The little sorceress.
    “To play? What? Tucheze nini? Sit down and do the sum!”
    Mm-mm. No, with a shrug, the Swahili way. Mm-mm. Aa-aa. She’d push the notebook away, he’d raise a hand to threaten her, and she’d pull the book back to her. He was not a good teacher, he couldn’t have been at his age.
    “Mama, do I have to teach that girl?”
    “Saida? No, you don’t have to. She doesn’t have the brain for it, does she? I’ll tell Bi Kulthum.”
    “No, I’ll teach her.”
    She threw an amused eye at him. “You like her?”
    “She’s only a girl,” he replied scornfully.
    She quickly looked away, but not before he caught the edge of her little smile.
    Mama liked to tease him. He was her little husband. He watched her as she finished hemming the cloth in her lap, cut the thread with her teeth, squeezed the needle into the reel and placed it on her little table of sewing things that stood by the window. She turned to look at him and he could sense her eye caress his face. Then the anxiety overcame her, like a shadow. There were only the two of them, and they had long stopped waiting for his father to return. Dr. Amin Punja had abandoned them.
    As you’ve done your children
.
    That persistent, wifely voice in his head, relentless, all the way here, even after the separation.
    They’re adults, for God’s sake!
    You are going back to the witch and you’ll never return
.
    For a few weeks, he had told her. He would go away for a few weeks. But then single-mindedly prepared to go away not knowing when he would return. Or if.
    And his own father, what did
he
say before he left his wife and child and never returned? What destiny called
him
?
    As an adult, did he ever try to find his father?
    Yes, he said, and left it at that.
    And his mother? Where was she now?
    He didn’t know.
    “Your father came from seafaring merchants,” Mama said proudly. Masultani, mabalozi, waarabu! They were sultans, ambassadors, and nobility, and he did not have the heart to call her exaggeration. Perhaps it was her eyes that betrayed her, that quick glance that shot away. The meagre story that he gleaned from her over their years together was that long ago in the previous century one Punja Devraj, a Gujarati from India, came as a trader to Zanzibar. He became known for his business acumen and honesty, and one day the sultan sent him to Kilwa on a mission. In those days Kilwa was an important place. Caravans arrived all the way from Zimbabwe in the south; from Bagamoyo and Zanzibar in the north; and from as far away as Congo in the west. Ships took away slaves and ivory, gum from the ground, and grain, and even wild animals, for in Europe they liked to look at our animals. Here the story became weak. She couldn’t say what Punja’s mission was, and she couldn’t say for certain whether his family accompanied him to Kilwa. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If yes, what happened to them? They left after he died. Then he died in Kilwa? How did he die? Where is