Free Song for Night by Chris Abani

my father on it, even though my uncle must have worn it last. I pulled it over my head and it fell to the ground like a ballroom gown. I hitched it in my belt to keep from tripping, but still it swept the floor. I slipped one knife into the pocket of the robe and wrapped the others carefully and put them under the robe, tucked into the belt of my pants. With one last look at the empty house, I stepped out.
    Barely a mile away, a man grabbed me. I didn’t know what he wanted and I writhed like mad, trying to get away. I attempted to bite his hand but he delivered a stunning blow to my head. As I tried to grab my robe away from the man’s clutches, my hand slipped on something hard and cold: the knife. I felt its sharp cut on my thumb goading me to action. I retrieved the knife; its gentle sag in my palm the weight of my decision. I struck. The first cut sliced off the man’s finger, splashing surprised jets of blood onto his robes. A terrifying rage came over me and I slashed wildly, ripping gashes deep in the man’s arms and face. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. There was blood everywhere. I broke free as the man convulsed and died. His face and arms crisscrossed with cuts. With a cold detachment that surprised me, I stuffed the bloody knife into one of my pockets.
    I headed rapidly for the train station. The city center was alive with mobs. Fires burned everywhere, some from Igbo-owned businesses, others from cars or piles of goods seized from the markets. There were even some Igbos tied to flaming crosses, their screams pitiful. The night sky was a red glow. It must have been at least midnight and yet both the old and new towns were alive with people like red ants crawling over a lump of sugar.
    The ancient city was split into two distinct parts. The old city held the old sultan’s palace, the central mosque, and the Islamic university, and was home only to the Fulani. Only they were allowed to live or conduct business in the old city. In fact, an infidel who so much as walked through there was courting death. The new city was called Sabon Gari—infidel’s quarter. It was here that all the non-Muslims lived, conducted business, and had their churches. It was the commercial hub of the city.
    I had to cross five miles of Muslim-controlled territory before I got to the trains. Soon enough, I was stopped by a mob.
    “Who are you?” one of them asked me in Hausa.
    “Sheik Rimi’s boy,” I replied, also in fluent Hausa. The Fulani backed off. Sheik Rimi was important, not only because he had the sultan’s ear, but also because he was the feared ideological leader of the suicidal jihadic Maitasine sect. I only knew his name because my father hated him with a passion. Passion that was expressed in his use of the Arabic word walahi, and the way he used it, it snaked into the air and snapped back like a whip.
    “Walahi! Fundamentalists will be the end of us all,” he said.
    I figured it couldn’t hurt to use the sheik’s name in this situation, and it paid off. For a while anyway.
    “It might be dangerous to mess with one of his boys,” one of the mob said.
    “But up close, this one definitely looked like an infidel,” another said, advancing.
    “Prove it,” the Fulani challenged. “Prove you are one of us and that the blood on your clothes belongs to an infidel dog and not a believer.”
    “How?” I asked.
    “Sing the call to prayer.”
    In my best voice I began the call to prayer. A hush descended on the crowd as my voice went from a childish soprano to a cracked and smoky alto and then back again. The cracks teased some with memories of loves lost and dreams turned rancid. To others it was a caress that burned. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, a man screamed: “Stop! Somebody tell him to stop!”
    The Fulani youth who stopped me initially pushed me roughly on my way. The rest of the trip to the train station proved uneventful. No one else stopped me. There was a train idling at the station