said Abdi sadly. ‘I think she’s ill.’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll go tomorrow. We’ll all be going back to Berbera soon anyway, the dhows are already leaving for Somaliland. I can’t wait for this year’s fair, coffee from Harar, saffron, tusks, feathers from our great Isse Muuse, Garhajis with feathers, myrrh, gum, sheep, cattle, ghee, and the Warsangeli with their bloody frankincense. And all those Arabs and Indians to pickpocket before our morning swim. Are you not going, Jama?’ asked Shidane.
‘No, I’m staying here, in the big city. I’ve got nothing to go back for,’ lied Jama. Shidane stared at him, a smile pulling at his mouth.
‘Where is your father anyway? Why did he run off? Was it you or your mother that got on his nerves?’
‘Shut up, Shidane,’ Jama replied sternly. Shidane picked on people the way he picked at scabs, desperately trying to get to the red, pulpy stuff underneath. Jama hated Shidane when he was like this. Shidane’s mother was a prostitute in a port brothel but he still never dared insult Shidane back. The boys never took Jama with them when they visited Shidane’s mother but Jama had followed them once, he watched from behind a post as Shidane and Abdi embraced a small woman in a Ferengi shirt, her red hair flying in the breeze. She was surrounded by the hard-living women of the port who drank, chewed tobacco and qat and attracted sailors by shaking tambourines and dancing. Shidane’s mother looked like a lost bride with her red lips, kohled eyes and copper jewellery, but behind the make-up was a face that had lost all innocence, bloated and yellow with alcohol.
Shidane’s father had been killed by a British bomb left behind from the campaign years earlier against the Mad Mullah, and the rage that this had spawned in Shidane sometimes made his temper flare up as brightly as magnesium. He would seek out fights and get pulverised, Jama and Abdi would then huddle silently around him, tentative, as he wheezed and swore at them for being cowardly, stupid, pathetic, his eyes bloodshot with held-back tears. Jama and Abdi loved Shidane, so they tolerated his foul-mouth, his unreasonable demands, his cruelty; he was too charming to hold a grudge against. His gigantic eyes could be so sincere and full of compassion that they could never stay angry with him for long. Without Shidane and Abdi, Jama’s days would be long, lonely and almost silent, they had insinuated themselves deep down into his heart and Jama fantasised that they were his brothers. The only time they were separated now was when Shidane and Abdi went to Steamer Point to dive for pennies. Cruise ships on the way to India or the Far East stopped off in Aden and idle passengers would throw coins into the water to watch the gali gali boys risk their lives to collect them. Jama occasionally watched them, Shidane dangerously sleek and elegant in the water, Abdi struggling always with a mouthful of saltwater. After hours in the sea they would come ashore with their cheeks full of coins and spit them out at Jama’s feet; it was begging, but they made it look beautiful.
At Shidane’s instigation the gang would sometimes go looking for trouble. Indian kids, Jewish kids, and Yemeni kids, all lived with their parents however poor they might be. It was only the Somali children who ran around feral, sleeping everywhere and anywhere. Many of the Somali boys were the children of single mothers working in the coffee factories, too tired after twelve hours of work to chase around after boisterous, hungry boys. Their fathers came and went regularly, making money and losing it, with the monsoon trade. With no parental beatings to fear, the Somali boys saw the other children as well-fed and soft enough to harass safely. Jama, Shidane and Abdi liked to prowl around Suq al-Yahud and the Banyali area as well as old Aden. Today, they penetrated the Jewish quarter, walking under the flapping laundry crisscrossing the alleys, looking for boys their age to fight. The Jewish boys looked so prim and proper in comparison to them, over-dressed with little skullcaps balanced on their heads, books tucked under their arms as they returned from yeshiva.
Shidane picked up a stone and lobbed it at one. ‘Hey Yahudi, do they teach you this at your school?’ he said with the secret envy of the illiterate. Abdi and Jama although hesitant picked up smaller stones and threw them as well.
The Jewish schoolboys piled up their books in a heap. ‘Somali punkahwallahs, your fathers are dirty Somali punkahwallahs!’ they shouted and started bombarding the Somali boys back.
Adrenaline flowed on both sides, and soon vile insults in Arabic against each other’s mothers were exchanged along with the stones, Jama chipped in with a few Hebrew insults he had learned from Abraham, a boy he used to sell flowers with, ‘Ben Zona! Ben Kelev.’
The Jewish boys had sweat dripping down their temples into their ringlets, and down their backs onto their tunics. Jama and Shidane cackled as they avoided the sharp stones, pushing Abdi out of the way whenever one was targeted at him. Hearing the commotion and obscenities, Jewish matrons came out onto their balconies to hector the little brats. They went un-heeded until one no-nonsense woman went indoors and returned with a large basin, tipping half of the dirty water on the Somali intruders and splattering the rest on the Sabbath-disrespecting Sons of Israel. All of the boys ran away, Jama, Shidane and Abdi fled together, passing fabric shops as they closed for the Sabbath.
Abdi pinched a black waistcoat that was hanging from a nail and they ran even faster, their booty held aloft while a burly, bearded man chased them. ‘It’s the Sabbath, you shouldn’t be running!’ shouted Jama over his shoulder, and Shidane and Abdi roared at his wit.
The man huffed and puffed behind them but eventually gave up, cursing them in Hebrew. ‘You shouldn’t swear on the Sabbath either!’ shouted Jama in a parting shot, as they bolted out of the neighbourhood.
The camel mukhbazar was a small, white-washed greasy spoon serving pasta and rice dishes to Somali migrants. A few round tables were placed inside the mukhbazar and Somali baskets hung from the wall in an attempt at decoration. Most of its customers preferred to stand or sit outside in loud groups, metal plates balanced in their hands. The camel mukhbazar had become a meeting place for all the Somalis who washed up on the Yemeni coast looking for work. Merchants, criminals, coolies, boatmen, shoemakers, policemen all went there for their evening meal. Jama often hovered around its entrance hoping to see his father or at least someone who had word of him. Jama did not know what his father looked like, his mother rarely talked about him. Jama always felt, however, that if he ever had the chance to catch his father’s eye, or watch him move or talk, he would instantly recognise him from amongst the untidy men with shaved heads and claim him as his own.
One windy day as Jama’s legs and feet were being buffeted by flying refuse, he joined a group of men gathered around Ismail, the owner of the mukhbazar. The Somalis were flowing out into the road to the consternation of Arab donkey drivers and coolies, who struggled past with their heavy loads. Jama heard them cursing the Somalis under their breath, ‘Sons of bitches should go back to the land-of-give-me-something,’ one hammal said, Jama fought the temptation to tell the men what the Arab had dared say. He eased his way into the crowd until he was at Ismail’s shoulder. Ismail was reading from an Arabic newspaper, ‘Italy declares war on Abyssinia, Haile Selassie appeals to the League of Nations,’ he translated.
‘To hell with that devilish imp!’ shouted out a bystander.
‘Coloured Americans raise money in churches but the rest of the world turns its gaze,’ Ismail carried on.
‘Good! They turned their gaze too when the Abyssinians stole our Ogaden, if they can take our ancestral land then let the Ferengis take theirs,’ shouted another.
‘Runta! Ain’t that the truth! Look at this small boy.’ Ismail suddenly lifted his head from the paper, and pointed an angry finger at Jama. ‘Selassie is no bigger than him yet he has the nerve to call himself a king, an emperor no less! I knew him in Harar, when he was always running to the money lenders to pay for some work of the devil he had seen the Ferengis with, I bet he needs his servants to pick him up before he can relieve himself in his new French pisspot.’
Jama inched back, the finger still pointed at him as Ismail returned to reading. ‘The Italians have amassed an army of more than one million soldiers, and are stockpiling weapons of lethal capability.’
Ismail stopped and screwed up his face. ‘One million? Who needs a million of anything to get a job done? This war sounds like the beginning