Every drop of blood is r.., p.1
Every Drop of Blood Is Red: A Novel, page 1
PRAISE FOR UMAR TURAKI
“Every Drop of Blood Is Red marries a thrilling, twisty premise with a moral inquiry about where we’re taken once we reach the end point of vengeance. Umar Turaki is among the most dazzling and inventive novelists I’ve come upon in years.”
—Kevin Chong, The Double Life of Benson Yu
“A mysterious disease sweeps through an African village in Umar Turaki’s debut novel. Estranged siblings reunite to band against this insidious illness, highlighting the power of the everyday in this terrifying yet elegant read.”
—Good Morning America
“Such a Beautiful Thing to Behold is ultimately a redemptive and uplifting text about what family means. The characters draw apart and come together again, showing an astonishing and moving amount of resilience. Though some of the characters commit unimaginable acts, their determination to prevail perfectly matches our own, and that brings great solace.”
—Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star
“No matter how terrible the circumstances . . . Umar Turaki isn’t glossing over the reality of how bad this situation could get—the changing perspectives kick in at exactly the right times to break the tension and allow a little hope back for the reader . . . It’s a beautiful book, and even more impressive as a debut.”
—Mystery & Suspense
“Such a Beautiful Thing to Behold is dark and gloomy, but also packed with tiny moments of joy and curious revelations that show life is always worth living. This is a pandemic book that shows the ugliness of the world and the way we can turn against those who need our help the most, but it also shows the power of love and the importance of forging bonds when everything seems lost. Turaki has taken the classic pandemic novel and infused it with his own brand of hope, and that makes this a must-read novel.”
—LOCUS
“There is an aching beauty woven into the lyrical prose of this novel that lingers with the reader beyond the last page. Against the richly drawn canvas of a landscape rendered vividly and with meticulous detail, a story unfolds of a family and community faced with both outward and inner desolation. Compelled to untangle the difficult questions of what it means to be both human and humane in the face of unspeakable cruelty and horror, one is drawn in and held by their resilience, courage, vulnerability, and tenderness and the inimitable power of the ties that bind.”
—Colleen van Niekerk, author of A Conspiracy of Mothers
“Such a Beautiful Thing to Behold is a stark, powerful novel about family, resilience, and survival in the face of nearly insurmountable odds. Turaki’s engrossing storytelling will draw you in from the very first page, and the siblings’ determination to escape their grim fates is as harrowing as it is hopeful, reminding us that even when faced with all matters of adversity and tragedy, humanity will still seek a way to forge ahead and prevail.”
—Kirthana Ramisetti, author of Dava Shastri’s Last Day
“Grim, beautiful—a stunning novel.”
—T. L. Huchu, author of The Library of the Dead
OTHER TITLES BY UMAR TURAKI
Such a Beautiful Thing to Behold
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Otherwise, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2024 by Umar Usman Turaki
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Little A, New York
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Little A are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
Transliterations of the Holy Qur’an taken from Auran411.com.
ISBN-13: 9781662508110 (hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9781662508103 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 9781662508127 (digital)
Cover design by Erin Fitzsimmons
Cover image: © Golubovy / Shutterstock; © Benjamin Harte / ArcAngel; © Azigbo Waves Photography
First edition
For Tong & Salma
Contents
Start Reading
Stirring into the . . .
BEFORE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
AFTER
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
Acknowledgments
About the Author
And I the believer was also the doubter; For often have I put my finger in my own wound that I might have the greater belief in you and the greater knowledge of you.
—Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
Stirring into the morning and sitting up in bed. It is still raining. The light curls weakly around the edges of the curtain, strangled by the deluge. No bar of light under the bathroom door to suggest it is occupied, but still going to it and knocking. After looking inside, padding to the living room. She isn’t there either. She isn’t in the kitchen. She isn’t in the dining room. Opening the front door and standing on the verandah, watching the rain shatter against the Honda.
Going to rouse the boy, but his bed is empty. Checking every room in the house. Then searching the compound, circling the house multiple times. Not caring for an umbrella and getting soaked through within seconds. At the gate, clutching the padlock and shaking it. Unyielding as ever.
At night, he raises a lamp in the dark and stares at the cake. He had forgotten how large it is, how much space it takes up. In the harsh white gaze of the electric lamp, the cake’s light-green coating takes on a bluish, ghostly haze. He is struck by the level of detail in the work. Little lines of golden yellow gild the edges of all three tiers. He gets a knife from the kitchen and stabs it. Carves out a wedge the size of his thumb. The butter icing isn’t too sweet; the cakes tastes rather good. Cutting a triangular slice that fills his hand, weighs it down. Raising it to his mouth and taking bite after large bite. Grainy, like sandpaper against his throat as he swallows, but it is a good cake. A very good cake. Another slice. There is suddenly salt in his mouth. Where did it come from? He sniffs loudly.
Putting what remains of the second slice on the table, going outside through the kitchen. The lamp held aloft, its white light a beacon sweeping the path before him. His steps are calm, purposeful. He finds a metal rod in the generator room. It fills his grip nicely. Smooth and light like aluminium. Raising it over the cake, bringing it down like a final judgement. A dull, thick smack. Like a palm connecting loudly with a great expanse of skin. Raising the rod again, bringing it down. It sinks deeper into the cake each time it falls. Placing the lamp on the floor for the ease of both hands. Sweat springs forth, irrigating his skin. He swings from every conceivable angle. Stops only because his heart will if he doesn’t. His chest heaves like a strange animal that’s trying to break away from him. There are flecks of cake and icing on the walls, like a child’s version of a fresco. The cake looks like a building whose top two floors have been bombed, laterally and from above, the roof blown off. There is a deep, uneven gash in its side, revealing a layer of golden-orange tissue. The ground floor is all but intact where her name had been fiercely inscribed with careful, trembling hands.
BEFORE
1
Jos during the rainy season is mischievous and merciless. The weather changes on a dime. The rainwater unlocks deep scents trapped in the ground for half a year. Everything is lush. The rocks are clean, each pockmark a perfect blemish in the grey igneous faces. The sky and the landscape beneath it have a scrubbed appearance, as if someone took a brush and some soapy water to a dusty relief. At dusk, bats living in the grand trees around the old zoo and museum leap into the air, filling the sky.
When it rains—particularly on Fridays, it seems—the city descends into traffic chaos. Pamson had noticed this. Gridlocks ensuing at major intersections. Farin Gada Roundabout, Hill Station Junction Roundabout, even Old Airport Junction Roundabout. Especially Old Airport Junction. Pamson knew this, which was why he took a long detour from Farin Gada through Rukuba Road. The buildings fell away as he drove up the incline, replaced by bush, planted fields, and rock-crusted hills. Every now and then, a fleet of houses would erupt out of the wilderness, reminding him of unrelenting change. On this Friday, the raindrops were big as they rolled down his windshield. By the time he had waved to the soldiers at the Miango Road–intersection checkpoint, the bumpy road had fully conceded to a smooth coating of asphalt. He floored the pedal and the BMW cruised on, passing more fields and properties in development, more change, all the way home.
Rahila was lying on the sofa, dozing to the sounds of the TV. He stood there for a moment, dripping lightly with rainwater, and watched her. She had always been a stomach sleeper, but since her pregnancy bump had grown too big, she’d learned to sleep on her side. He watched the rise and fall of her breathing. In her six months of pregnancy, he hadn’t been allow
When he came out of the bathroom, Rahila was in the room, making the bed. He had tried not to comment on her housekeeping in recent months, how sloppy it had become. Every time he was tempted to complain, his tongue would be stilled by the rift that lay between them, the rift he had made.
“Your food will get cold,” she said in Hausa.
“I had to take a bath. This rain.”
The rain continued to pound the roof as he ate his dinner. He’d cleared half the plate of yam pottage when Paul entered the dining room from the kitchen. His hair gleamed with water.
“Uncle, there’s a girl at the gate. She says she’s here to see you.”
Pamson paused in his chewing. “A girl?”
“Yes.”
“What girl?”
“I don’t know her. She just said she wants to see you.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“Who did she say she wants to see?”
Paul looked at him, confused. “You.”
Pamson rolled his eyes and spoke patiently. “Which name did she give?”
“Mr. Dareng Pamson.”
Pamson turned his head and looked out the window. The raindrops crashed on Rahila’s CRV a million pellets at a time. Rather than risk getting wet from going to the gate, he told Paul to bring the girl to the front door. He stood on the porch and waited. He could feel the spray of the rain on his feet, endless tiny pinpricks. He moved back until he was flush against the wall. Could a woman like Mary, well into her thirties, objectively be described as a girl? Would she dare come here? How would she have gotten his address? But the figure that stepped through the curtain of rain wasn’t Mary. She was drenched through even though she was standing under Paul’s umbrella. She was probably in her late teens or early twenties. Her clothes were plastered to her body, her blouse, her hijab. She had a nose ring and henna-adorned hands. But more than anything else, it was her eyes that arrested him, the way they landed on him and moved over him, combing, knowing.
“You go about without an umbrella at this time of the year?” Pamson said in Hausa. “You don’t know Jos?”
She wiped water from her face and shook her head. “The sun was shining when I went out. Not even up to an hour ago. Are you Mr. Dareng Pamson?”
He waited for her to say more, but she stood there with her arms folded around her, shivering. Her eyes boomeranged over the house itself, the compound, then returned to him.
“Yes,” Pamson said at last. Paul was watching him. He nudged his head a fraction toward the door, indicating that Pamson should invite her inside.
Once they were inside, she asked if she could use the bathroom to dry herself. Paul said she could use the one in his room and led her away. Pamson stood there, wondering if he might have met her somewhere before. Her slim figure made her look quite young. He wouldn’t have put her past twenty-three. But nothing in her features was familiar to him. What would Rahila think if she saw her? It didn’t help either that the girl was so good-looking. The best thing was to dismiss her quickly. Before Rahila came out of the bedroom.
When the girl stepped in, she was wearing black sports trousers and a bright-blue T-shirt that said SAY YES TO THE HUSTLE in international currency symbols. Paul’s clothes. Pamson had always hated the irony that the shirt’s owner was anything but a hustler, but the sight of the shirt had never irked him more than it did now.
“You’ve changed,” he said, as though she wasn’t aware of this.
“He offered to dry my clothes for me,” she said, throwing a grateful look in the direction of Paul’s room. Her hair was now exposed—natural hair gathered into a frizzy ponytail.
Pamson showed her the love seat across the room, as far away from him as possible. As she sat down, Paul passed through behind her and into the kitchen. Pamson followed him.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Paul had taken an iron from one of the overhead cabinets. He raised it in defence. “I just want to dry her clothes for her.”
“I wanted her to leave quickly.”
“But, Uncle . . .” Paul indicated the window, where raindrops angrily met their end against the panes.
“Do it quickly. She shouldn’t stay long,” Pamson said. He returned to the living room and retook his seat. The girl’s face was now clear and open, like the poorly lit page of a book placed under fresh illumination. She had large almond-shaped eyes, a small nose like the tip of an arrow, and slender lips. Her eyes seemed to exist in counterpoint with the rest of her face. He could imagine how innocent, even pure, she would seem when she closed them. But as long as they were open, they gave her face a cunning and piercing beauty.
“What can I do for you?” he said.
“Please forgive me for coming to your house like this,” she said. “You don’t even know me. I went to your garage, but they said you didn’t come to work today. They showed me where you live, and when I went out today I promised myself—”
“Who?”
“Sir?” she said in English.
“Who showed you where I live?”
“The woman who sells food there.”
Pamson nearly hissed. If anyone would give up his privacy, of course it would be Maman Ivie. Paul, who had been going back and forth through the living room, entered from the kitchen with a steaming mug and passed it to the girl. Pamson threw him a lethal look as he withdrew from the room, then turned back to the girl.
“What do you want?”
The girl blew on the cup of tea before taking a sip. She opened her mouth to speak and was again interrupted, this time by Rahila’s entrance. Pamson watched his wife’s reaction out of the corner of his eye. She looked at the girl, back at Pamson, back at the girl.
The girl stood up and curtsied. “Good afternoon, ma,” she said in English.
“Good afternoon,” Rahila said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, ma.”
“Sit down.”
Rahila looked at Pamson. He knew she was waiting for an explanation right there and then, never mind that the object to be explained was sitting in front of them.
“Darling,” he began, “this is . . . What’s your name?”
“Murmula, sir.”
“This is Murmula. She was just about to tell me what has brought her here in this rain.”
Rahila sat next to Pamson and took his hand in hers, looked at the girl. “Don’t mind me, my dear. Please continue.”
Pamson’s hand began to feel like a foreign object in his wife’s grasp. When was the last time they had touched like this? When was the last time they had touched at all? She was only marking her territory, effectively declaring that he was taken, wasn’t she? Could he dare hope that there might be more to it?
“In all truth, I’m looking for work,” the girl said.
“Work?” Pamson said.
The girl nodded.
“What makes you think I can give you work?” Pamson asked. “I’m a mechanic.”
“I want to learn about cars,” the girl answered.
Pamson waited for her face to crack into a smile, waited for her voice to tinkle with laughter. But her eyes remained calm, unamused.
“Why?” Pamson said.
“Because I’ve always loved cars. Since I was little.”
“Why me? I’m sure I’m not the only mechanic in Jos.”
The girl sighed and placed the mug on the coffee table. “I’m new in this town. I started by going one by one to garages on Domkat Bali Road, then on Tudun Wada Road. None of them wanted a girl to work for them. The woman that sent me here said you’re a very nice man who helps people all the time.”
“I doubt I’m that nice.”
He felt like the girl could see through him when she nodded and said, “The nicest people don’t always know that they’re nice.” He found himself unable to respond, frozen by the gravity of her gaze. Once again, he felt like he was being x-rayed, as though she were seeing through him and into the deep of his past.
“Tell me about your interest in cars,” Rahila said suddenly in English. “Why cars?”
The girl sighed again, then launched into her speech. “I’ll never forget the first time I entered a car. I was six years old. It was my uncle’s car. A maroon Honda Accord. Eighty-four model. It had maroon seats, maroon everything. Even the steering was maroon. Inside, the car had a new smell, like no one had used it before. But my uncle bought it Tokunbo. He put me on his legs and let me hold the steering. The car started to move. When I turned it, it felt very soft. The car smelled so nice; it sounded so quiet when it moved, like a cat walking. When I turned the wheel left, the car went left. When I turned it right, the car went right. I didn’t understand why it was like that, but I knew it was magic. I promised myself I was going to learn the magic. I haven’t stopped desiring it since that time.”
