2.4 Hot Fiesta

One o’clock in the morning, Ashwar steered him to the house called Chandni on Sirat Magu. They walked unobtrusively through narrow lanes. A house that stood by the corner of Miskii Magu and Sirat Magu to the north of the cemetery. A boundary not existing on the rear side though a gifili wall concealed the house. A bright moon hovered high over the western sky giving ample light. He noticed Kimbili House looming from the opposite side of the playground.

Meanwhile, the show continued and reaching its end. This evening The Pink Sharks wore the same style in different colours; yellow and white. Ashwar whispered to him that she had gone home.

“That wall shelters her gifili. There is a door to access her room. You just go and enter without knocking. Can you do it?” asked Ashwar.

“Climb over the wall?”

He nodded.

That was customary too. Muaz heard about his friends on jaunts to these islands come across farfetched adventures. He didn’t hesitate. He reached the crude wall and grabbed a hold, his toes on the rocks, flung over and disappeared in a jiffy.

Ashwar stood shocked.

Then he heard an echo, “Ashwar! Ashwar!”

“I am here!” Ashwar whispered behind the wall, “Don’t shout!”

“Ashwar! Get me out of here!”

“What?”

“I’m in trouble.”

“You go and enter the room.”

“Climb over the wall.”

“What?”

“Help me!”

He looked around for a helpful tool to stand on and finding none tried the wall. He grabbed the top and pulled his weight good enough to pop his eyes over the wall. “Where are you?”

“In here, in the well.”

“What?”

“I fell into the well.”

“Shit!” and he tried to pull a little more to take a better look because the well was right beneath him. At that point he lost his grip and dropped back.

To save costs, sometimes folks installed a single asphalt water well to serve two gifili. In this case, the gifili to the south wasn’t built and the half of the well bedded underground. This crude wall that stood between them was the divider. Muaz tossed over the wall and dropped straight into the other half of the well.

“Get me out of here!”

“I’m coming! I’m coming! Don’t shout! Just hang in there!”

He grabbed a chair from another lawn, placed it beside the wall by a corner and hauled himself up on the wall, muttering, “His mother’s mucosa! I wasn’t expecting all this trouble tonight!”

Ashwar lowered himself down into the gifili and finding a ladder he hurried to lower it into the well.

That instant, he heard her father’s voice as loud as it could be, “Is anyone in there?”

Ashwar dropped the ladder into the well and ran to hide behind some bushes in the shower garden.

The door opened and Don entered concurrently as Muaz climbed up from the well.

“Who is there?” he shouted and rushed to reach this intruder. He grabbed him by the wet collar. “Who the hell are you?”

“I…I am Madiri, Madiri…”

Ashwar almost burst in laughter and he tried to hold back sending a wobble to his belly in the dark.

Muaz stepped on the bath stone and Tailor Don maintained his hold by the collar. “What are you doing in here?”

“I fell into the well,” muttered Muaz. He wore a white pair of bell-bottoms and a light green shirt. In the concert front, he was in fashion. On the contrary, here he looked preposterous dressed like that and totally wet.

“You don’t fall from the sky! You drop over the wall! Why did you climb the wall?” asked Don angrily and continued to say, “I know why. You stole my cat. And you want to steal another one tonight.”

It was by chance his luck. A week ago, Tailor Don lost one of his fluffy kittens he kept in the house that he bought from India. Only reason someone would steal a priceless kitten like that would be to sell it in the capital. Don caught the thief.

This was a stone house though the walls weren’t plastered. Don summoned him to the forefront. His wife, his children, all gathered and gawked at this wet fellow.

His wife thought, “He must be a visitor from the capital.”

One of his daughters disclosed, “He is Mantha’s grandson.” This daughter, Vishala, maintained their shop on Sirat Magu next to the house. She wore chains of gold around her neck and gold on the wrists.

“Is that true?” enquired Tailor Don, “Are you his son, Harun’s son?”

Muaz nodded in utter embarrassment.

“What were you doing in there?”

“Ashwar threw my slipper over the wall.”

“Liar!’ cried Tailor Don, “You are peeping on my girls! What do you want?”

Kish miraculously responded to say, “I told him to come, bappa!” She still wore her dance costume.

That was the only way to calm down Tailor Don. Kish hardly knew a thing about the note Ashwar passed to him that morning.

“Is that so?” asked Don.

Muaz dropped his head totally ashamed.

And Don fired back, “Why can’t you use the gate like any decent fellow? Can’t you see the gate! You walk in through that gate. Nobody will stop you. Now get the hell out of here!”

Muaz walked out slowly through the gate.