Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed

Author:Nadifa Mohamed [Mohamed, Nadifa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9781429979795
Google: X6Z8pI4R0GQC
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 8730156
Publisher: Picador
Published: 2009-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

“You’re late, Alfredo!” barked the Italian as Jama ran in one morning. He avoided looking at the angry red face. He had developed a terrible fear of invoking someone’s unrestrained anger; he knew what some people were capable of and hated being around reckless fury. He didn’t try to explain that his sickness had still not left his body. “Scusami, signore,” muttered Jama as he reached for the fly whisk. Jama caught his breath as the Italian grabbed the karbaash and struck him on the palm. Tears shot out of Jama’s eyes and his hand curled up like a leaf in a fire. The Italian stared into Jama’s eyes and Jama stared back, waiting for a glimmer of remorse.

The Italian slowly sat back down, his face calm and unworried. “You dare be late once more and see what happens to you.”

Jama looked down at his palm. The skin was churned up like a freshly dug field, he could see the meat of his hand and the sight made him retch.

“Filthy brat! Get some sand and clean that up.” Jama staggered out. A Somali clansman stopped him in the street and washed his cut and wrapped a clean cloth around it. Jama was sobbing in pain and the clansmen tried to calm him.

“Ilaahey ha ku barakeeyo, God bless you, he will stop you hitting the ground, he will keep your head up,” chanted the clansman. “Go right back inside, Jama, and show him that you are a man. We will get our time, that stupid man doesn’t realize how vindictive we Somalis are.” He smiled and held Jama loosely against him.

“Go now, life is long.”

Jama returned to the office with a scoop of sand and threw it carelessly over the curdling vomit. He refused to make eye contact but picked up the whisk with his good hand. He felt proud and brave as he endured the stinging in his hand, he kept his chin up like a soldier.

It is hard to avenge yourself on someone you fear when everything about them, their height, power, possessions, confidence, imposes a sense of your own inferiority. Even a child’s imagination shrinks in the presence of terror. Jama returned every day to be bullied and shamed, despite the humming sickness in his bones he was like a moth drawn to the harsh light of the Italian’s power. Every day askaris were brought in, and Jama would watch over Silvio’s shoulder as he sentenced them to hanging or flogging or some original torture that he had devised. The Somalis, Eritreans, and Arabs were like dumb little children in front of him. Jama studied the way the Italian operated; he learned that neither physical ugliness nor moral weakness mattered in the world of men. A man was respected if other men feared him, and the Italian had somehow cracked the mystery of manufacturing fear in people. He was unpredictable and uninterested in the camaraderie of his peers, he reminded Jama of a wild boar, always on the verge of attack.

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