Free The Magic of Saida by M. G. Vassanji Page B

around. The oil-painted cement porch and walls were a leftover from a previous, more prosperous era; this had been an Indian establishment once, selling bhajias and samosas. The two men sat at a table on the porch, looking out on the street with their chai and mandazi, objects of curious, passing attention.
    Across from them was the market, looking desolate, three women sitting idly before their meagre heaps of mangoes. It had thrived once, with varieties of vegetables, fruits, and grains. Next to the market a small and crowded store purveyed Islamic music videos. On their side of the street, next door, was a Sufi madrassa. Two smiling little girls, heads modestly covered, entered the establishment, as a chaotic high-pitched chorus let loose inside. Kamal had noticed that he had hardly seen a woman wearing the traditional black bui-bui, of the kind Bi Kulthum and most other Muslim women used to wear; the fashion now was a coloured chador, wrapped tightly round the face and draping the shoulders, over a long dress; it was what the girls in the imported music videos across the street wore (he’d had a peek), what the girls next door in the madrassa wore. The other style was still the khanga going over the head when desired, the way Mama used to wear it.
    He realized he did not feel alien—he spoke the language like a native—but was a returned native nevertheless, and he surely must look alien to an extent, with his grooming, the design of his shirt, the leather in his track shoes; merely from his bearing. Everyone knew everyone else here; he knew not a soul, except Lateef. This had been his haunt, his place, his front yard, where he used to roam around with his kashata tray, she with her tambi. They would sit outside that market to rest during their rounds. He had known everyone here, every shopkeeper, every boy at school, every man andwoman sitting outside on their porch. He had returned to it like a ghost.
    “Let’s go see the family,” he said to Lateef.
    Mzee Omari’s descendants ran the little medical shop two doors away, on the other side of the madrassa. The painted sign over the open serving window named Ali Hasni as the proprietor and gave a postbox number. A poster on one side of the window displayed a happy young couple and recommended a single partner as a preventative against HIV; on the other side some organization extolled the virtues of solar power. This place had been the site of the tailor’s shop, which had supplied Mama with piecework.
    They had been expected, for as soon as she saw them, the woman at the window came out, adjusting her scarf, and went around to the back of the shop, then immediately returned. A man, who seemed to be in his fifties, wearing a cap and his shirt flopping over his trousers, followed her and came to stand with them outside the shop. He was Ali of the nameboard.
    “Ali will help you,” said the woman.
    After the greetings, Kamal said, “I am from these parts, Bwana Ali—I was born in Kilwa. I used to know Mzee Omari.”
    Ali said nothing, wiped his hands in his shirttails.
    “I used to hear him recite. He was a great poet. Was he your grandfather?”
    “We don’t have any of his things,” Ali replied. “No papers, nothing.” He paused, then inquired: “Are you from Dar es Salaam?”
    Kamal nodded.
    “Others have come before you, searching for his papers; white people have come too, from overseas, and I’ve told them we have nothing here.”
    “I just need information, Bwana Ali. I don’t seek papers or anything else. Mzee had a daughter—Bi Kulthum. Did you know her?”
    “Kulthum died a long time ago.”
    His manner clearly indicated that he had better things to do inside.
    “She had a daughter, called Saida. Did you know her, Bwana Ali?”
    There followed a silence, during which Ali threw a long look atthe young woman, who muttered something about people digging the dirt on other people.
    “That Saida,” she then spoke up, “just went away. I