“In the spare room down here.”
“Brilliant,” Padmini says. “How exciting!”
Salif is up on his feet. “Breakfast?”
“Yes, please.”
“What can I offer you?”
“Tell me the available options.”
“Tea or coffee to begin with. And then you can tell me whether you would like oatmeal or an omelet.”
“I would like tea with milk and oatmeal,” says Padmini.
“I’ll make the tea, then, and Auntie will make the porridge.”
“You surprise me, darling,” says Bella. “Making oatmeal porridge is a lot easier than making an omelet.”
“I’d be happier if you made it,” he says all the same.
Just as Bella rises to oblige him, Dahaba walks in with Valerie not far behind. “Morning, everyone,” says Dahaba. Valerie silently waves and then slumps into a chair. She says, “I had an almost sleepless night, my daughter kicking me every time she turned. And when I tried to get away and return to my bed, she wouldn’t let me.”
“Mum snored as loud as a coal train,” says Dahaba.
“How did everyone else fare?”
“Very well,” says Salif.
“And you, Pad?”
“Slept well, thank you.”
Dahaba is leaning against the back of Bella’s chair. Bella says, “Come sit, my sweet, and I will make breakfast for you and your mum.”
Valerie asks for bacon and eggs, and Dahaba opts for the same. Bella shoos Salif away and brings Padmini her tea and then her porridge. She steals a furtive look at her watch and reminds herself to call Mahdi soon. Once she has served breakfast to the stragglers, she goes upstairs for her credit cards and wallet, and then takes her leave of everyone, saying, “I’ll be back soon.” She gets into the car and turns on the engine; then, while waiting for Cawrala to respond, she rings Mahdi. He promises he will call her back with the name of someone who can get the job done quickly.
He calls her back when she is in the process of leaving the camera store with her purchases. He tells her the name of a contractor he recommends and says the man will call her shortly. And he does when she is on her way to the supermarket to buy more milk, fruit, soft drinks, sugar, tomato ketchup, and bacon and eggs. He says, “It’s your lucky day today because, as it happens, we’ve just had a cancellation of a big job; the building where my electricians and plumbers were working collapsed. We can have an electrician and a plumber at your place in the next couple of hours if you give me your address.”
“I’ll be there,” she says.
“Mahdi is a good friend,” he says. “We’ll look after you.”
When she gets back home, she is delighted to see that she has hardly been missed. The four of them are playing cards, Valerie and Dahaba as one team and Padmini and Salif as the other, their rowdy noises reaching her even before she comes through the door.
She takes some of her purchases into the spare room and stores the rest in the pantry and fridge.
She says, “Anybody need anything?”
Dahaba asks, “Like what, Auntie?”
“Tea, coffee, some other drink or food?”
Salif says, “We’re okay, thanks.”
“We’re not okay,” says Dahaba. “I would like a Diet Coke.”
Valerie says to her, “Can’t you get it yourself?”
They stop playing cards while Dahaba gets her drink, and then Valerie’s mobile phone squeals. She looks at the identity of the caller and then she says, “I must take this call.” She leaves the room for privacy, and when she returns a few moments later, she is wearing the expression of a mourner. “Something terrible has happened,” she says. And then she says to Padmini, “That was Ulrika. We need to get back to the hotel pronto.”
“What’s happened?”
“BIH has been raided and there have been arrests.”
It is as though the two of them were speaking another language that the others cannot follow.
Bella offers them a lift.
“Can I come with you?” asks Dahaba.
“Not this time, darling,” says Bella.
But Valerie and Padmini decline her offer and insist on calling a taxi instead.
—
The electrician and the plumber show up half an hour or so later, not only the two of them but the contractor himself and two additional workers. Bella gives them the sketch of what she wants done, and the men unload their tools. The plumber and the electrician write up the list of what they will need, and the contractor takes off to get the materials. Before long, the sound of hammering and male voices brings Dahaba and Salif down from their rooms. Before nightfall, Bella tells them, they will have a darkroom.
“Super,” says Salif. Bella begins to explain the process to them, but Dahaba loses interest in the technical difference between pre-digital and digital photography, and the mention of landmark names such as Kodak does not excite her. “It sounds like the difference between typewriters and computers,” she says, before she drifts back upstairs.
Bella tells Salif about the darkroom Giorgio Fiori’s friend built her, and how Fiori taught her the basics of photo development.
“He wasn’t a photographer, was he?” asks Salif.
“My father taught jurisprudence, and his specialty was the theory of law, or rather the principles on which Roman law is based. Photography was just a hobby for him. But what got him initially interested in photography was his enthusiasm for the history of image making and his interest in the reproduction of images in a variety of forms: in photography, in drawing, in painting, and in design patterns borrowed from African traditional societies. He had an early hand in the design of the fabrics that would become fashionable in West Africa.”
“He was a brilliant man, your father?”
“He was indeed.”
“I thought he taught in Somalia, where he met your mother,” Salif says. “How did West Africa figure in his life?”
“He taught in Mali before coming to teach in Somalia,” Bella explains, “and it was in Mali that he developed his interest in Dogon art.”
“Dogon? What is Dogon? Who is Dogon?”
Bella answers the question with exemplary patience, as if she were a teacher. “The Dogon are a people known the world over for their exceptional wood sculpture, and their art revolves around their high ideals. Theirs is an art not meant for public viewing, so it can be seen only in private homes and sacred places. Dogon society puts great value on the symbolic meaning behind every piece.”
Salif nods his head in appreciation, and Bella recalls how Aar spoke in an adult, sophisticated way to his children even when they were tiny. He would say that it was important that you talk to children the same way you talk to grown-ups. Children have the ability to catch up to you faster than you can imagine, he believed, and they remember tomorrow some of the things you speak about today.
Bella says, “So my father was the first to show me sculptures from the Dogon in Mali, sculptures whose forms excited my young mind. I decided then to become an artist. At first I thought I would pursue my ambition as a sculptor or painter, but finding my pursuit of these two modes of artistry challenging, I lowered my expectations and tried my hand at photography.”
“And he built you a darkroom?”
“He taught me to treat the darkroom as both a sacred space and my own domain, my secret place,” says Bella. “He discouraged me from allowing anyone else access. He spoke of the darkroom as though it were a tomb, a secret space not to be exposed to the eyes of others, lest it should be compromised.”
Just then the doorbell rings. It is the contractor, who has come back with the items needed for the darkroom. Now the noise the men are producing increases tenfold. Bella hears the contractor shouting, “What have you been doing all this time? I don’t want to disappoint Mahdi, who will be expecting a good report from her on our work. So get on with it.”