Many, many miles away, darkness began to fall on my father, Céléstin Anatole. A tall man, wiry, tough, he stood behind a table. The table was missing a leg and rested against his body. Céléstin daren’t move in case it collapsed and everything on it scattered across the dusty ground.
He looked down. The table, covered with a tattered cloth, held a disparate collection of bracelets and clothing plus a pair of crushed and battered running shoes. Every unsold item was a bitter reminder of the debt he must repay.
Most stalls in this section of Ilala market were stocked, like Céléstin’s, with second-hand ‘odds and ends’ gathered from across the city. And many of the stall-holders were in debt, like him. They owed every penny they made to local businessmen, if the qualification of being a businessman is wearing a suit and having more money than the people around you. If, however, the qualification is the kind of work you do, then my father owed his debt to gangsters and smugglers.
Céléstin missed his home. Lake Tanganyika was over five hundred miles away and his home in Katanga even further. But no matter how much he missed it, he’d never return. Everything he missed was gone, replaced by violence and fear.
‘How’s business?’
Céléstin, expecting a visit from his debt collectors, shifted suddenly, coughed loudly, and half his wares tumbled to the floor as the table slouched.
‘Ah, sorry,’ said his friend, Godwin, a fellow stall-holder, bending to pick up the scattered jewellery and clothing. ‘I did not mean to surprise you. Your cough’s getting worse than my old father’s, my friend.’ Godwin was always quick with a joke and he looked up with a twinkle in his eye as he replaced the merchandise.
Whilst the market moved from tables and stalls into brown and broken suitcases and the last customers headed home, the two men, dressed in cream-coloured Kanzu and black jackets, swapped stories of the day’s trading and shared a handful of spicy roast nuts.
The Kanzu, a long dress that gathered the city’s dirt like a fly trap, along with the Kofia cap, was not familiar to Céléstin. The polyester made him sweat under the hot sun and by the end of the day he felt just like his table – ready to tumble. But without them, he found it hard to sell anything to the local hagglers. He did all he could to fit in. He spoke the little Swahili he had learnt in every greeting, he ate the local food. It was all part of working hard, all part of earning money and paying off the debt.
‘Have you heard anything?’ The two men’s talk turned to important matters.
‘Nothing,’ Céléstin replied. ‘But I don’t expect to, not for a while, at least.’
‘You think she made it, though.’
Céléstin let out another hacking cough before he replied. ‘They tell me she did.’ “They” were the nefarious businessmen to whom my father owed his debt. He ran a hand over his greying hair. ‘And I trust.’ Just a few short years ago his hair had been jet black. They say that pain and anguish turn the hair grey.
Godwin cracked a wry smile. ‘Your faith is vast indeed if you trust them.’
Céléstin shook his head. ‘I do not trust them. I trust Him,’ he said, pointing heavenwards. Another spate of coughing ruined his sad smile.