3.1 Badi

Next morning it was rumoured that he climbed over the wall and entered Tailor Don’s daughter in her room. Some even claimed he stole gold.

That tall brown neighbour stood talking to Aunt Nabila while he sat for breakfast. His grandma was there too. They were both shocked and amused. Muaz was after all a very naughty boy or very silly.

In fact, that day many girls appeared around the house of Donveli perhaps to have a look at him. Everyone knew as it was gossiped around the village.

Muaz picked his cousin and headed to Women’s Lane. A howl in a falsetto voice alerted the duo, “Hoah!” and someone clapped from behind but there was nobody in the byroads.

They turned to Sirat Magu and came across Kish unexpectedly. She crossed the road in front of them with gold on her neck and wrists.

“Hey Kish!” called Muaz, “Kishala!”

She noticed them and sturdily threw her face in the opposite direction. She did not look. Kish stiffly kept her face turned away and continued to walk.

Nazima burst in chuckles dropping out a wide mouth, “E faraii belee!” she teased, “Shy born! Shy born!” Whatever that meant.

E faraii belee – meaning ‘she looked away’ is a downright expression of unfriendliness. It’s not that of a body language to express feeling or shyness. It was trend. It is not instinct. It just means, ‘I’m not your friend,’ or ‘I don’t want to talk to you.’

Nazima carried on snickering.

“Shut up!” he slammed the girl, “Last night she told her father that she invited me.”

“She’s lying,” uttered the girl.

“I know but she wanted to save my neck.”

On the beach, he met the Malé crowd and Wafig. He spent that whole day with them and Nisha took some advantage on him. Drew him close and dropped on the sand, her long black hair fell on his lap and that was the warmest feeling he had. She arrested him in a manner to avoid Wafig who spent last three days on her tail.

 

He woke up in the middle of the night. It was hot inside the room with no windows or ventilation. And he was sleepless. He checked the time; four forty-five and it was dawn. Muaz stepped out through the French window and leisurely walked up to Giruva Magu carrying his little flashlight. He observed an early twilight sky beneath the canopy of leaves to his right and to his left, it was totally dark. He was positioned under the gooseberry tree. When his eyes adapted to the darkness, Muaz began to witness a faint movement in the distance.

A shimmering light dancing near the mosque – approaching or not.

Then he lost the sight. He switched on his flashlight and spot on he caught a figure moving. At one point he began to realise that that movement was not attached to the ground but hanging in mid-air. Progressively Muaz captured a pair of walking legs touching the ground. He switched off the light.

It stopped. It came to a standstill few yards from him on the other side of the road and released a giggle, “Kiki kiki!” Water spilled from the pitcher hanging in mid-air.

He turned on the light. White legs lit in the beam in front of him. Legs crossed.

She dropped her kandiki tucked between the lips and exposed her shoulders. A black kandiki wrap that she wrapped around her trunk and covered her bosom. In the darken background it absorbed to give an impression of a torso-less woman and a pot hanging in mid-air. She was topless.

“Farida!” he mumbled.

“I fetched water from the mosque well,” uttered the woman.

“Is nobody at the mosque?” Muaz asked because she posed half-naked.

“Some folks are already in the mosque.”

He switched off the light.

She said, “I have sticky rice at home. Come!”

“Where is your home?”

“Three gates from here,” she pointed.

“Alright,” he joined her, “Why aren’t you wearing a blouse?”

“Not permissible at the hour.”

“It’s hot!”

“I heard you’re interested in that girl.”

“Oh no! That was totally a mistake. Someone deceived me.”

“I can help.”

“Because you’re the band leader!”

“I am. And she’s a wonderful girl.”

“She doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“Come on! Girls talk,” she said reaching the gate. “This is my place. Come in!” There was a set of joli placed on the road beside the low wall boundary.

An old man sat in the foyer digging into a chest of madisela – chewing nuts; an addiction. A thatched hut with a low roof and four rooms, floors filled with coarse white sand. A faint kerosene lamp lit on the wall.

Farida said, “Say hello to my father,” holding the pitcher on her head with both arms raised, “Bappa! Here’s Mantha’s grandson.”

“What is your name?” coughed the old man.

“Muaz,” replied the young man.

“Have a chew!” he offered.

“I am going to eat.”

She went around the cabin to the kitchen shelter to leave the pitcher of water. Then she appeared from the corridor and ushered him into her bedroom. There were three separate beds and two of her kids sleeping under mosquito nets. Doors screened with pieces of drapery.

“Sit!” she said reaching for the oil burning lamp and flipped its wick to strengthen the glow that filled the room. She tucked her kandiki and undid it, dropped it on a chair.

She stood bare naked in the shimmering light. A silver girdle wound around her hips in thirteen folds. Her buttocks round and big, shoulders toned, hair thick and curly long, biceps full and those legs slim and shaped. An athletic build, five feet four inches tall. Muaz hadn’t seen a woman as beautiful as this. His eyes kept roving all over her backside as she dug into a drawer and picked a long golden necklace – the traditional necklace.

“Excuse me!” she said, “I have to wear this when I interact with people.” She stepped up to him and tossed the long necklace over her head, then threw that strong hair from under it.

“Why is that?” he questioned.

“It’s a fanditha for self-protection,” she touched a silver locket hanging on the silver girdle.

Muaz stirred feeling tense. He could not take his eyes off her skin. “What happens if you don’t?”

“You might not see me. I am under the influence. And so are the girls. Life is normal and nothing to worry. Sometimes I just don’t feel comfortable without them.”

“Who decorated you with those charms?”

“Your grandma.”

“Noxious!”

“I go get you sticky rice,” she turned sturdily and disappeared behind the curtain.

She returned with a plate of sticky rice and sat down next to him, pulled a knee to the bed as she passed him the dish. She patted him on his back, “Do you want to sleep with a girl?”

He muttered nervously, “No, no…”

“I can arrange it. Any girl, even Kish.”

“They do like you say?”

“Of course, that’s the rule,” she fluffed in her full lips – a natural red.

“Do you teach the girls to dance?” he wished to change the topic.

“I do. Bandiya is not all that easy as it seems. It’s a synchronized dance generated on rapid footwork, turns and body movement, forming patterns,” she dropped her legs and got on her feet, “This trademark swing from left to right throwing the hair is a tricky move. When you spin at that speed throwing your body around, you put a step up and press down with your toe, like this, to bring your body to a sudden halt that throws you out in a lurch and your hair blows away. You cannot notice a pause because the reverse turn is already in effect. I’ll show you.”

When Farida demonstrated this move, it not only flew her hair but those sensual anatomies projecting in his way took flight from east to west. This eminent twist was so fast that in few seconds the sand on the floor got disrupted and shovelled around.

“Wow! That’s terrific! That was swift!”

“I told you! Well, it is light up there, Muaz.”

“Right, I must go. Thank you.”

“See me tonight after the show.”

He nodded and stepped out with his light. Like she said, it was light up there. Muaz came across the old man in the sand-filled foyer.

“Come, my son! Have some nuts!” old man said.

Muaz sat beside him and helped himself into the miniature chest, slitting nuts and wrapping in betel leaf. The old man dug his knife into a film canister and reaped a sticky substance that he heated under a kerosene oil lighter and mixed with his tobacco.

“What is that?” enquired Muaz.

“Opium,” said the old man, “Roll a thin long bidi, you have a pleasant evening. If you roll a short fat shutta, your day is upside down.”

“Let me try!”

Muaz rolled a short thick joint with impractical fingers. He lit it and stepped out. He barely made it to his lane. He felt a lightness in his head and the foliage of the gooseberry tree rotating around his face, the stone walls swaying. He hit bed and slept the rest of the day.