Free Born on a Tuesday by Elnathan John Page A

Sheikh doesn’t like people from the mosque going to his house. Only those who are very close to him like Malam Abdul-Nur know the house well.
    There is a boy in a tight yellow T-shirt standing outside the mosque in plastic sandals with two yellow-and-black striped polythene bags on the ground between his feet. He is staring at the mosque. His mouth is bunched and his nose widened like someone who has been punched just before a fight is forcibly broken up. His cheeks are bony and his forehead is lumpy and he has scars, like someone who has been in a lot of street fights. It is easy to tell from his knuckles that he has wounded himself a lot from punching people in the mouth. He is about the same size as me.
    Malam Abdul-Nur peeps from the mosque and motions to the boy to come in. He hesitates. Malam Abdul-Nur then shouts something in a language I don’t know. The boy slowly picks up his bags and walks towards us, frowning.
    Right in front of the mosque the boy stops again. Malam Abdul-Nur grabs him by the hand and drags him inside. They walk into Sheikh’s office and shut the door. I go back into the mosque, curious. I pick up a broom and sweep, climb a stool to remove cobwebs—every excuse to come closer to the office and hear what is being said. I hear nothing.
    They are in the office for about an hour. Malam Abdul-Nur emerges first from the office followed by the boy and then Sheikh. I pretend to continue sweeping.
    â€˜Ahmad. We have a guest. His name is Jibril.’
    â€˜Gabriel!’ The boy interrupts Sheikh.
    Malam Abdul-Nur glowers at the boy and reaches to slap him. Sheikh restrains him.
    â€˜He is Malam Abdul-Nur’s brother. From Ilorin. He will stay with you in the back room. Pull out a mattress from the store for him.’
    I drop the broom and head to the room behind the mosque. I move my little radio, my bag which Sheikh gave to me and the photo of Sheikh Inyass I found one day on the ground at the motor park. The photo of Sheikh Inyass is identical to the one Umma had in her room in Dogon Icce. I unroll the mattress Abdulkareem and Bilal shared when they were here, lay it on the right side of the room and cover it with the only other bedsheet. I am thinking as I move things around whether to call him Jibril or Gabriel.
    He opens the door and drops his bags by his feet. I stretch out my right hand. He is still frowning and looking around the room. He shakes my hand but lets go almost immediately.
    He doesn’t unpack. He doesn’t relax. He doesn’t stop frowning and bunching his lips. I see the horizontal scar that runs from the side of his mouth right across the right half of his upper lip and I think of Gobedanisa and the scar that Banda gave him. Suddenly I want to tell him my stories of Bayan Layi that I have not told anyone, so he can tell me his own stories of how he got his scars and where he comes from.
    I want to say something but my mouth won’t open. It is like waking up in the night from a bad dream and I cannot scream or get up or move any part of my body because it feels like someone is pressing me down. I am always scared when that happens.
    I can’t sleep. I roll over and find the boy restless and slapping his body to fight mosquitoes. The ceiling fan is off because the noise it makes in my ear is like bottle tops being scraped over concrete. But it keeps away the mosquitoes. I turn it on and give him one of the cloths I use to cover myself. He looks up with his puffy eyes and takes it from me.
    The ceiling fan is grating away and the boy has started snoring. The combination of the two noises creates a sound like a song—not as bad as just the ceiling fan alone. Like groundnuts and tiger nuts. Eating groundnuts alone makes my chest burn but together with tiger nuts they are nice and taste like milk that has a bit of salt in it.
    Many memories float in my head. Memories of when all of my family was still in one house in Dogon Icce. When Maccido