Tashi & Son Electronics
Commercial Avenue, Bamenda
Sunday, September 6, 1999 08:00 AM
Sunday in Bamenda sounded like a choir.
From the valley below, the bells of the Catholic Cathedral rang out deep, bronze gongs that echoed off the hills. From the ridge above, the Presbyterian church answered with a lighter, faster rhythm. And from the storefronts down the street, the Pentecostals were already warming up their amplifiers for a marathon of shouting.
Inside the shop, it was quiet.
Tashi stood by the door, adjusting his tie in the reflection of the glass cabinet. He wore his Sunday Best: a dark grey suit that was slightly shiny at the elbows, and shoes polished to a black mirror. Liyen stood next to him in her Kaba Ngondo a flowing dress of pressed wax print. She wore her headwrap high, like a crown.
They looked like success. They looked like a couple who had electric lights, a truck, and a full safe.
It was the Sunday Masquerade.
"We will be back at one," Tashi said, picking up his Bible. "Do not open the door. Do not sell anything. It is the Lord's Day."
"Yes, Papa."
"And wash the uniforms," Liyen added, looking at the pile of dirty blue cotton in the corner. "If you go to school dirty tomorrow, Mr. Ngu will feast on you."
They unlocked the door, stepped out into the bright morning sun, and locked us back in. Click-Clack.
The sound of the lock echoed. We were alone. Two rats left in the burrow while the lions went to parade.
We hauled the buckets to the backyard. The sun was already hot on the red earth. It was a good drying day.
We didn't have Omo or expensive detergent. We had a bar of blue "Savon Bamenda" rough, caustic soap that smelled of palm oil and wood ash.
I sat on a low stool, scrubbing my shirt with my left hand. It was slow, frustrating work. My right arm was still in the sling, useless. Collins squatted opposite me, attacking his shorts with the vigor of a man trying to erase a crime.
Scrub. Scrub. Splash.
"This red dirt," Collins muttered, wringing out a pair of shorts. "E di stick like sin. Why school uniform must be light blue? Why not brown? Or black?"
"Because dirt is a lack of discipline," I quoted Mr. Ngu. "If you are clean, you are obedient."
Collins snorted. "If you clean, you no di work. Na so."
He slapped the wet shorts onto the washing line. He was shirtless. For the first time, I really looked at him. He was fifteen. His chest was broad, muscles defined by years of lifting gearboxes and carrying scrap. But his ribs showed. He was strong, but he was thin. Thinner than he was three weeks ago.
"Collins," I said.
"Weti?"
"Why don't you go to church?"
Collins paused. He dipped a sock into the soapy water.
"Church na for people wey get family," he said.
"You have family," I said. "Your grandmother. In the village."
Collins stopped scrubbing. He kept his hands submerged in the water. He didn't look at me. He looked at the bubbles.
"Grandmami don go," he said softly.
"Go where? To the farm?"
"To the ground, Nkem. She die two months ago."
The silence in the yard was heavy. A lizard scurried across the wall. The church bells rang in the distance.
"I didn't know," I whispered. "You didn't say."
"Weti I go talk?" Collins shrugged. "She sick small. Then she cough blood. Then she sleep. My uncle them bury am for village."
He picked up the soap. He scrubbed the sock violently.
"After the cry-die, my uncle look me. He say, 'Collins, you fit stay for village, hoe farm. Or you fit go back Bamenda. But if you go Bamenda, no come back here. We no get chop for extra mouth.'"
He wrung the sock out. His knuckles were white.
"So I come back."
"To the garage?"
"The garage close," Collins said. "Massa Joe sell am. I go for Tashi. I say 'Boss, I fit wash truck?' He say 'Wash am.' So I wash am. Night reach, I no get place. I sleep inside the Unimog."
I stared at him. Three weeks ago, during the Eclipse, I had seen him sleeping in the truck. I thought he was guarding it. He wasn't guarding it. He was living in it.
"And when we sold the Unimog..." I asked.
"I sleep for floor," Collins said, pointing to the Lab window. "Next to you."
He looked at me then. His eyes were clear, devoid of self-pity. Just the flat, hard look of a survivor.
"I no get place, Nkem. I no get Pa. I no get Ma. I no get village. If I leave this shop... I be street boy. I be Big John pikin."
He pegged the sock on the line.
"That is why I carry the water," he said. "That is why I sit with small pikin for Class Six. Because Tashi give me uniform. He give me roof. If the price for roof is 'Ouagadougou'... then I go learn Ouagadougou."
I looked at my own shirt in the basin. I thought about my anger at the system. My frustration with Mr. Ngu. My shame at the acid burn. It all felt small.
I had a father who sold a truck for me. I had a mother who sold gold for me. Collins had a patch of concrete floor and a bar of blue soap.
"Collins," I said.
"Yes, Engineer?"
"Ouagadougou is the capital," I said. "But the main export is Gold and Cotton."
Collins frowned. "Why you tell me that?"
"Because Ngu will ask on Monday," I said. "And if you know the export, maybe he won't hit you."
Collins nodded slowly. "Gold and Cotton," he repeated. "Ouaga... Gold... Cotton."
"And the square root of 144 is 12."
"12. Like the Apostles."
"Yes. Like the Apostles."
We finished the washing in silence. We hung the blue flags of our surrender on the line to dry in the sun.
11:00 AM
The clothes were drying. The yard was hot. We went inside the cool, dark shop.
We were hungry. The breakfast biscuit was long gone. There was no food. Tashi had locked the pantry.
I sat on the counter. Collins sat on the floor, leaning against the safe. The safe that held 150,000 francs.
Collins tapped the heavy steel door with his knuckle. Ting.
"Money dey inside," Collins whispered. "Plantain chips. Bread. Meat pie. Fanta."
"It's the Seed," I said automatically.
"Seed fit rot if nobody plant am," Collins noted.
He wasn't suggesting we steal. He was just stating a biological fact. He looked at the battery bank. The voltmeter read 10.1 Volts. The needle was deep in the red.
"If the light die," Collins asked, "how we go fix radio? How we go make the 100 francs for market?"
"We won't," I said. "No power, no soldering. No soldering, no rat money."
I looked at the shelves. Empty thread boxes. Dusty "Zombie Lights" that nobody wanted because they cost 5,000 francs and kerosene was 150.
We were trapped. The 150,000 francs was useless if we couldn't spend it. The 100 francs we earned was useless if we couldn't work.
"We need a project," I said. "Something that doesn't need electricity. Something we can sell."
"We sell water?" Collins joked. "We get bucket."
"No," I said. "Something better."
I looked at the pile of scrap in the corner. The stuff we hadn't sold. Old plastic casings. Broken speakers. Magnets. And the Acid. The dangerous, dirty acid we had drained from the batteries.
"No more acid," Collins said, seeing my eyes. "Tashi say no chemistry."
"Not for batteries," I said. "For cleaning."
I remembered the chemistry of the dump. The bleach. The reaction. I remembered seeing the women at the stream scrubbing their pots with sand because they couldn't afford steel wool.
"Collins," I said. "Do we have any copper pipe left? Small pieces?"
"Maybe small pieces. Why?"
"And the Zinc sheets from the old roof?"
"Plenty dey for yard."
I slid off the counter. My brain was waking up. The "Dopamine Critical" warning from Gemini was fading.
"Batteries make electricity," I said. "But electricity can also make things. It's called Electroplating."
"Big English again," Collins sighed.
"We can turn old, rusty iron into shiny metal," I said. "We can make old spoons look new. We can make rusty bicycle parts look like chrome."
"People go pay for that?"
"In Bamenda?" I smiled. "People love shiny things. Junior loves shiny things. Mr. Cletus loves shiny things."
I looked at the safe. We didn't need to open it. We just needed to use the trash we already had to make the world a little brighter.
"Tomorrow," I said. "After school. We open the Tashi & Son Plating Division."
"Plating Division," Collins tested the word. "E sound expensive."
"It sounds like 500 francs," I said.
The church bells rang again. Mass was over. The lions were coming home. But the rats had a plan.