Born on a Tuesday by Elnathan John

Author:Elnathan John
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 2016-04-13T16:51:31+00:00

SHEET

I am happy that I know the difference of piece of paper and sheet of paper. It use to worry me. But now I know piece of paper is paper that is not complete that somebody tear to write something and sheet of paper is a full paper that is complete.

KOHL

The English word for TOZALI is KOHL. Jibril say said he has never heard the word before. Sheikh said he has never heard the word before. Nobody has heard the word KOHL before.

Brotherly Love

It is hard to understand how it is that big men feel safe with all the policemen around them. Since we started having all these roadblocks and these policemen, who search cars and make people push their motorcycles all along the road in front of our mosque, I have felt afraid.

I feel more unsafe now than the day our mosque was attacked, the week that Malam Abdul-Nur left for Maradi. I did not sleep that night. People threw firebombs over the fence starting a fire that gutted Sheikh’s office and half of the mosque. I had my key to the office and everyone thought I was crazy when, instead of running out, I opened Sheikh’s office to try and get some books out. But the heat and the smoke overwhelmed me. In all of the things that have been happening, it is this that made me angry—all those books from Egypt and Saudi Arabia and London, all gone. It would have been preferable if my room and all the other rooms got burnt but not Sheikh’s office, which was packed top to bottom with books. That was the day my anger towards the Shiites began. But my fear, it began with those police uniforms, those guns, those roadblocks. My fear was fed each time by the petrified faces of motorcyclists, afraid of being made to do frog jumps for offences as little as looking too directly into a policeman’s eyes. Or being made to roll in the dust while being slapped and kicked.

The day of the attack, Sheikh made one of the drivers take him from the hospital with all his bandages to the field where people had gathered, angry, ready to burn down every Shiite mosque and house. He winced as he screamed. He said he would rather die than have them start a war with the Shiites. At first they wouldn’t listen, but he screamed until he found the words that made them calm, that made them pay attention.

Tomorrow is the big meeting. Sheikh made me get a new white caftan sewn even though I insisted that the one I was planning to wear was still fairly new. I am going with Sheikh to take notes, together with Malam Yunusa, Malam Abduljalal and Malam Hamza, who are all also trustees of Jama’atul Ihyau Islamil Haqiqiy. I am surprised Malam Hamza will be there. The last I heard of him, he was very ill at home. The deputy governor is the chairman of the reconciliation committee set up by the governor to settle the issues between the Shiites and us.

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