Halim’s knees were bleeding again. He touched a finger to the scratches as an angry voice filled the air. A scrap metal merchant was picking up rusted aluminium rods off the ground and cursing at the top of his lungs.
“The stupid child wasn’t watching where he was going!”
Halim glared up at him but held his tongue. He hadn’t been looking where he was going. Even now as he glanced up at the merchant’s angry face, he could see the silhouettes of tens of hawks turning slow arcs in the Dakar sky behind him. Halim’s eyes followed one bird that had broken off from the group and was locked in an aerial dance with a crow.
“Are you listening to me? Talibés are ruining this city.”
The merchant had picked up one of his rods and was shaking it in the boy’s direction. Halim shot up and gave the merchant a wide grin before turning and sprinting down an alley. He was used to adults being angry at him. Sometimes it was because of his dirty clothes. Most of the time, it was because he was bumping into them while he craned his neck, looking up.
He didn’t want to go back to the Daara tonight to give his coins to Serigne Moussa. He didn’t want to sleep in the stuffy room with all the other boys, but what choice did he have? He had slept on the street enough to know all the dangers of being outside. Thieves and stray dogs were worse than the small room where twenty boys lay head to foot. Then again, Serigne Moussa wasn’t on the street. Halim hadn’t been pulled out in the middle of the night yet by the old man, but it was only a matter of time. Every night he went back could be the night he was chosen.
He would give anything to fly with the hawks and look down at Dakar from above for once. Every day at sunset, they filled the sky like silent sentinels of the city. The only thing they cared about was catching a mouse before they vanished to their nests on the roofs of the tallest buildings. Tonight would be different. He wouldn’t go back to the Daara, or find a street corner to sleep on. Tonight, he promised himself he would be a hawk.
Halim wandered the streets downtown, searching for a tower to climb, but any building that was tall enough had security guards who hurled abuse at him whenever he got too close. He almost snuck past one guard before he was caught and knocked on the head for his trouble. As the day wore on, Halim became resigned to the fact that he would have to take a chance on the Daara and hope that he would make it through the night without Serigne’s hungry eyes following him. He had reached the oldest section of the downtown area, with decrepit half-completed buildings scattered around like hollow stalagmites. He was about to give up his search when he saw it, the perfect building. It was a burned-out concrete slab that rose twelve stories, with the doors and windows boarded up. There were no guards in sight because there was nothing to guard. It would have to do. The Imam’s voice was floating through the city as people paused for Maghrib prayer.
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Halim shot a furtive glance around to make sure no one was watching him, then darted to the side of the building to find a way in. He circled slowly and found a wall that had uneven cement blocks jutting out that could make a ladder up to a hole that never became a window. He scrambled up, putting a few more scrapes on his legs. The sky had an orange tint as the sun began to set, and Halim peered in by the glow. Empty paint cans and water sachets were strewn around. From the smell, someone had used this place as a toilet at some point; or something had died inside.
Halim tumbled in and checked his pockets to make sure he still had his things. One matchbox with three matches inside and the last few bites of a lamb sandwich he had been nibbling on since morning. His stomach rumbled as he looked at the sandwich but he stuffed it back into his pockets and looked for a way up. He stepped through the room into the hallway and could see an elevator shaft, with thick cables that snaked up into darkness. He inspected it with apprehension and looked around for another way up. Further down the hall, a jagged cement staircase curved up out of sight.
The windowless stairwell had been built in the very centre of the building and was so dark that he climbed as much by feeling as by sight. Loose rubble and trash nipped at his feet, trying to trip him up. He stumbled a few times on his climb but went up the first five floors without issue. On the sixth, a feral cat hissed and darted into a room. It startled him and he almost fell back down, just catching himself. By the eighth floor, the rubble was grabbing at his ankles and cackling every time he tripped. He stopped to strike a match and get a better look at the path. His heart sank. The staircase ended there. Whoever owned the building must have run out of money before they could finish the stairs, and now they stood like a haunted cliff in the centre of this giant shell.
As he stood thinking about what to do next, the match burned down to his fingertips. He yelped and dropped it, watching it fall for a few floors before it vanished. He lit his second match and looked around the space. There was the elevator shaft, grinning at him. He sighed and stepped toward it for another look. If the hanging cables were strong enough to hold him, he could probably shuffle up with his feet on the walls. The thought of entering the elevator shaft sent shivers down his spine and he turned around, dejected. At the thought of heading back down, Serigne Moussa’s face filled his mind and he stepped up to the hanging cables. He cursed and reached in to grab a cable. A shower of dust rained down and he stepped back coughing, but it held. He mumbled a Fatiha and began to climb. After one floor, he felt confident.
Only three more to go.
By the tenth, his arms were starting to burn.
Two more.
At the eleventh, his whole body trembled from the effort and his foot slipped on the wall. He caught himself, chafing his hands on the wire, and made a final push up and out of the shaft before collapsing on the floor. He looked up at the rusty blue door that led to the roof and dragged himself up, hoping it wasn’t locked. It creaked open at his touch. The sky was filled with hawks. He had never been this close to them before, and at this height, he could see each one clearly in the last of the day’s light. A pair of them spun together in play, while another dove out of sight to catch something on the ground. They all floated on the wind, heads snapping back and forth in search of prey.
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He heard the chirping of chicks nearby and crept slowly toward a dried-out water tank that was lying on its side. He saw a nest inside with three chicks, still blind. He took the sandwich from his pocket and crept toward them. He got as close as he dared and tossed the meat into the nest while he ate the last of the bread. The chirps grew louder as the chicks began pecking furiously at the gift. Your mother will help you with that when she comes back, he thought.
He walked over to the edge of the roof and looked down at the city for the first time. Taxis fought their way between cars and groups of men sat by the roadside, sipping on café touba. A sea of rooftops spread out before him, dotted with sheep that were being prepared for Eid. Everything seemed so distant.
He didn’t want to go back down. This rooftop would not solve his problems but he felt safer here than anywhere else he had been in a while. He stepped back from the edge as hawks began to land on the roof around him. He walked as quietly as he could back to the blue door and sat just inside it, watching them return home. He felt a pang in his chest as he watched the older hawks feed their young. They looked like real families. Halim leaned against the wall and watched the raptors until he drifted to sleep with a smile on his face and a tear in his eye.
