The Starlet (I)
She had to admit that ever since she became an actress, she had been aware of the invidious remarks of Kano people concerning film stars. A moralistic society, Kano did not brook opposition from any quarters with regard to non-religiosity of any kind. She could still remember how the pious citizenry-and even young adults and […]
She had to admit that ever since she became an actress, she had been aware of the invidious remarks of Kano people concerning film stars. A moralistic society, Kano did not brook opposition from any quarters with regard to non-religiosity of any kind. She could still remember how the pious citizenry-and even young adults and adolescents at that-prevented whom they called “a misguided German troublemaker”, Reverend Honke, from coming “to blaspheme” in the City of Dabo. If Hausa filmmakers were aware and deluded directors could care to remember that, why should they shoot films that attracted bad names for stars and starlets? Why did they encourage the audience to see them as no “better” than Hindu and Hollywood film stars? She had been called to her face a “harlot”, an “alley cat” and “the cursed one”.
As the luxury bus sped on its way to Lagos, Beebee-her real name was Binta Manu-shuddered about that third appellation. Her father had indeed cursed her for her insistence to act in Hausa movies. She wondered whether her fellow actors and actresses lived with the same abomination, too. It was worse than Aids. At the beginning, her father, a retired and widowed civil servant, had approved of her joining show biz, as pensions were, if at all, then paid in arrears. A full-blooded Fulani, she had also been “very hot property” to directors, who cast her in innumerable films because of her beauty. The old man had become alarmed when Beebee began to keep late nights or even spend days away from home at out-of-state film locations. Like most Kanoites, he had never thought well or been favourably disposed to the acting venture. When he watched a box-office film, starring Beebee and Labee-his real name was Labiru Malmo-that had brought in millions, he had been appalled at the manner the duo danced lasciviously throughout the movie, rather than act respectfully and tell the story of a playboy, who defies his rich parents to marry a slut of a girl that the film was seemingly about.
Barau Manu had for a long time been incensed by Kannywood. “The show business,” he argued, “projects bad morals-and remains amateurish, childish and amoral. The movie business is still new but it fails to draw on a sound local tradition to back it up. Such home-grown fare as the Magana Jan Ce series, filmed by the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and Shaihu Umar, shot by Umar and Lyndersy, can serve as good models for the Hausa movie. But the filmmakers have chosen to ape Bollyyood melodramas-and even that not the feature length (2-3 hours), the direction (skilled development) and the story line (a single story rather than a patchwork of unrelated bits and pieces).”
In relation to their amateurishness, Beebee’s father criticized directors for lacking sound movie sense and producing “crude” films lacking development-and lasting, at most, for only 80 or 90 minutes. When half of that was wasted on passionate but senseless and mindless, artless and reckless dancing, he wondered what a director had to show to tell a story. “Nothing. The audience watch sweaty boys and girls jumping up and down without finesse, without grace. Viewers are also short changed for not being entertained for their pennyworth with a good story line and fine acting, witty dialogue and terrific photography ala a John Ford western”. Father had been an avid cinema-goer in his youth.
Thus, when a “clean” government took over power in Kano and began to pay pensions earlier than tenured salaries, he ordered his daughter to marry and abandon her lucrative career in Kannywood. He didn’t trust Labee, who might be Kano-born but had such “loose” morals that led the old man to question the claim made that the actor was truly Hausa. Could the boy be Muslim and Hausa and still dance like an effeminate transvestite who cooks, talks and bats eyelashes like “a woman of easy virtue”?
On Beebee’s refusal, her father developed a severe case of high blood pressure. Additionally, and to make matters worse, he became consumed with moral outrage when his neighbour, who banished his brother for the same reason, told him the kind of life led by the Bollywood and Hollywood film crowd.
The starlet seized the opportunity to sneak in and out when her sedated father lay asleep until one morning when she slunk in and found him fully awake.
“Where have you been?” he asked calmly, showing that he was on the speedy way to recovery.
“At a film location.” She didn’t lie and was still clad in the new clothes she had acted a dance session with Labee. Such clothes were normally donated to the wearers.
“Didn’t I forbid you to appear in amoral films?” He now began to shout. His neck tendons bulged out; his eyes began to redden; his body began to shake all over.
“Baba, I’ve nothing else to do.” She calmly stifled a yawn.
“Didn’t I ask you to marry and go back to God?” he raged. “Remember the ancient mosque at Ayodya, India. It was demolished by a crazy mob with their bare hands on the vain excuse that it was built on the ruins of the temple of a monkey god. What business do Hausa filmmakers have to copy the idolatry that is Indian cinema? Kano is 99.99% Muslim. What about that boy you told me about?”
“KB.”
“Is that his name?”
“His real name is Kabir Kabir. I put out signs but when he failed to respond I took the bold step and proposed to him. It happens that he’s what our fans call the cleanest, the purest and the most pious actor who can sanitize the Hausa film industry. I never believed that until I proposed to him. He had violently spat in my direction. He missed my elegantly shod feet by only a few inches. He called me a whore, the offspring of the wind-answerable to no one.”
“That’s what you are!”
“Baba!” she wailed. “You call me that, too!”
“I’ll do worse!” he shouted, catching hold of his chest and breathing torturously. “I’ll curse you if you refused to do as I wished!”
“Baba, be careful about your blood pressure.” She began to walk over to him.
“Don’t touch me!” he wheezed, weakened by illness and overcome with fear for failing to raise a God-fearing daughter.
“KB will only marry a chaste maiden who fears God and cultivates impeccable manners. Those are his very words. He ascribed them to a hadith.”
“I’ve failed woefully by not raising you as one.” He began to cry. “When did you pray last?”
“I can’t remember, but-”
“Curse you then!” he thundered. “Curse you! Get out of my house! You can fly to Hollywood for all I care! Still, hell for you and your ilk will be a more suitable address! Leave so that I can start to pray fervently in want of Divine absolution! Leave-”
But it wasn’t to be. The sick man had collapsed and died before a horrified Beebee could offer him any help.
She reminded herself, as the bus stopped briefly at Jebba Bridge for refreshment-the starlet bought fried fish only; she was watching her weight-that she didn’t regret staying away from the three-day mourning period. Her relatives had disowned her, too. They made her very angry and resentful. She made a vow to deal not only with them but with KB and Kano people for daring to insult her. As she couldn’t attack them alone with great devastation, she had embarked on the journey to Lagos to seek the help of Sunny-his real name was Sanusi Lagos-the only Kanoite who featured in Nollywood movies. As a reminder and as the bus approached the infamous city-infamous for once earning the notoriety of being the dirtiest city in the world-she quickly texted a message to him to meet her at what in bad Nigerian English she called “the motor park.”
On alighting, she saw him walk over to her. She embraced him passionately but was disconcerted to see him decked in gaudy baggy cotton atamfa print fashion.
“Sunny!” she gushed.
“Beebe!” he crooned.
They embraced yet again and attracted curious glances here and there in the crowded motor station.
“You promised never to set foot in Lagos ever again,” said Sunny, as their taxi set off for Victoria Island.
“The eminent days of Lagos are over,” she replied. “Abuja is the place to go now.
“Don’t forget that Lagos is still the commercial capital of Nigeria. In fact, its number plate says it’s the centre of excellence.”
“You know that in your heart of hearts it isn’t.”
He interrupted her to speak to the driver, who instantly changed directions.
“You’ve changed, Sunny,” said his companion shockingly. “Having lived all your life in the south, you only manage to maintain a shaky link with Kano by speaking a Lagos accented Hausa. You’ve become sophisticated. You’re slowly turning Yoruba, which you speak fluently. You don’t drop your aitches though. What did you tell the driver?”
Sunny laughed. “You should learn Yoruba, too. It’s as easy as Hausa is said to be.”
“Never,” said his interlocutress with a shudder. “After my business with you- Oh, I remember: what did you tell the driver?”
“He thought I was an alien like you who didn’t know the way-”
“So he took a long road-”
“Yes, like a London cabbie to charge me more. But I set him right.”
At his white swanky flat, he sent all the domestic staff away, saying that his “wife” had come from faraway Kano.
“What brought you to Lagos?” he asked Beebee over their whisky on the rocks.
“I’m here to shock Kano,” she said, sipping her drink with a delicacy that made her interlocutor laugh. “I’m here to shock prudish Kano.”
“What did they do to you?” He refilled their glasses.
“My father cursed me-”
Sunny sucked his breath in a whistle.
“And KB insulted me, calling me a whore. This is what we will do.”
The plan of attack put Sunny in stitches; he cared more about Beebee than all of Kano and what its people believed in. He instantly dialled Busybody-his real name was Bosse Bodde-to come and play a role in the final episode of the salacious drama. And feeling slightly inebriated after finishing the whisky bottle, the show biz artists got down to action.
Kamal lives and writes in the suburban Ungogo of Kano.
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