The Last Gift by Abdulrazak Gurnah Read Free Book Online

European foreigners who celebrated birthdays. Were they more important than their Ma and Ba and everyone else in the world who was not a European? No birthdays. But he had to give in in the end, because their Ma made them a cake every birthday and put candles on it, and cooked them special meals, and one year he came home from work to find the kitchen decorated with balloons and a little party in full swing. So he had no choice but to grin in defeat and watch the solemn happiness of his children. Yallah, we have become civilised , he said. Christmas was just as troublesome at first, a wasteful festival of pagan drunkenness, he called it, but one year he secretly bought a small silver tree and some lights, and he laughed with them when they leaped around him with surprised delight. Then after the frenzy, they sat on the floor in a circle, their Ma, Hanna and Jamal, and he began. Hapo zamani za kale. In the old days of antiquity. He had different voices for all the characters. When the cruel man laughed, Ba was raucous and ugly, twirling his pretend moustache and swaggering his skinny shoulders like a brawler. When the beautiful young mother begged for help, he was piteous, wringing his hands and fluttering his eyelids. When the good man put the world to rights, he was commanding, his chin held up in determination and his eyes flashing. It was the crudest play-acting but they loved it, and when he finished he and Hanna applauded and showered him with kisses. He loved it too, their Ba, and smiled and chuckled and called to Ma to rescue him from the children.
    Jamal smiled as he remembered the performance, and leaned forward to touch his father on the arm. What made these moments so funny was that their Ba was not a jolly or loud sort of person. He did not join in and laugh when they were playing their games as Ma did, and he did not like it when they were noisy. Perhaps that was because he was so much older than her. Ma did not mind playing the child, but it seemed a long way for Ba to come down to that. When it was time for TV, he left the room and went upstairs, although it has to be said that it was children’s TV or old musicals on weekend afternoons that drove him away. He stayed for the news. Often he was tired from work, and he was not at home during the day, so perhaps he was not used to having them around so much, yelling and tugging and bickering in the sweet way of children. But he was quiet anyway, and perhaps became quieter as time passed. As he grew up, Jamal sometimes felt that his father’s silences meant that he had disappointed him in a way he was not sure of. How tiresome offspring must be, so you can’t even sit quietly without them thinking that you disapprove of them.
    Anyway, Ba did not like to talk that much. He never answered the phone, or almost never. If he was alone in the house, the phone could ring and ring without interruption until the caller got the message. There’s nobody here, my good sir. Their Ma devised a code to get him to answer when she needed him to. A couple of rings then hang up, another couple of rings and then hang up again, then the third time let the phone ring until he answered. He always answered that call. When they were all at home and having a bit of fun, he would sit there with them but did not usually join in. It was not that he grumbled or disliked it, or not much, he just sat there in his own place, sometimes smiling, maybe throwing in the odd remark, or occasionally grumbling. Unless he had one of his bees in his bonnet, and then you could not stop him until he had had his say. He just talked over any attempt to interrupt him or change the subject, the way you see politicians do when they are asked a question they do not want to answer. Otherwise he sat with his newspaper, or a crossword or a book, when it was quiet enough for him to read, not saying much. That was it, not saying much. He loved reading books about the sea, histories, novels, marine life, stories of