Samir Jeraj
House of Rust
Khadija Abdalla Bajaber’s debut novel The House of Rust opens with our heroine Aisha going to sea with her beloved father Ali, a fisherman. As his only child, he teaches her how to gut fish but gives her an ominous warning as he throws one she accidentally mutilates back into the sea, telling her that “everyone must have their share”. Years later and following the death of her mother, teenaged Aisha is living with her grandmother, Hababa, and father. When Ali does not return from fishing, she goes in search of him, embarking on a magical and horrifying journey into the sea.
Bajaber, who studied journalism at university, was intent on becoming an editor to develop her writing. She believed that as an editor, she could “be the alchemist in the process that turns writing into publishable, readable Kenyan writing.” On graduating, however, she discovered that the publishing houses in Kenya were more focused on educational and religious texts than fiction. Although this was a devastating blow to Bajaber, she continued to write. This time, however, she turned her focus to her hometown of Kenya’s oldest city of Mombasa – where my father was also born.
The Old Town, where the story takes place, is an under-loved part of Mombasa. The wealthy inhabitants who lived in grand houses have moved further out into new developments on the island of Mombasa or the north coast of Nyali, where White Europeans used to dominate. “I wanted to create a story that spoke so intimately to Mombasa and the philosophies of the city,” Bajaber says.
Mombasa’s streets are filled with people selling fried snacks, making and repairing clothes, hustling to make ends meet and supplying the city with their raw energy. “I kind of wanted my writing to say, ‘I see you, I see what you do for this for the city and the communities here,’” Bajaber says.
The novel’s characters are drawn from the coastal city’s fishermen, their families, the fearless shark hunters and even the crows, goats and spirits that inhabit the city. “The supernatural is something that’s not all that separate in terms of culture and religion and belief,” Bajaber says. “I love fairy tales and folk stories the most; anything that brings in the extraordinary and makes it believable.”
But her work is far from conventional folklore, insisting that she “didn’t necessarily intend to write a fairytale.” Influenced in part by one of the author’s favourite books, Deathless, she claims that Catherynne M. Valente’s novel creates a world that is “fantastical yet believable” and is also steeped in the culture, folktales and history of her homeland of Russia.
Throughout her journey, Aisha’s guide is the mysterious “scholar’s cat” Hamza, whom she regularly feeds. He brings Aisha a bone made of bones for her to navigate the sea. They first encounter a sea creature that her father had, long ago, struck a bargain with to guide him to the best fishing spots in exchange for a share of the catch. However, after the creature asked to take Aisha as his child bride, Ali stopped bringing her to sea.
Central to the novel is Bajaber’s exploration of women’s experiences. While Aisha’s grandmother is hard and strict – the protector of female modesty – her late mother is often described as “wild”. Aisha herself doesn’t fit in either, and even the crows and goats refer to her as the “weird girl”.
“Growing up as a girl, Mombasa can be very hectic and very restless and very punishing, sometimes, because you have all these rules,” Bajaber says. Grandmother Hababa personifies this dualism, being both “ridiculous and wise”, strict but loving – and it is her, not Aisha, who has a love story, turning the conventional fairytale on its head.
The other source of help to Aisha is the charming and enigmatic Zubair, one of the shark hunters who knew her father, but who knows much more than it appears. He is described as knowing many mystical secrets, such as how to cure heartbreak and how to reveal someone’s true self.
“I wanted Zubair to have a very storied life,” Bajaber says. The shark hunters of Mombasa have long been a source of curiosity for the author. “Seeing it live, all the sharks, and how involved and excited they [the shark hunters] are, and you realise it’s a whole culture.”
Bajaber remembers as a child seeing them bringing in their catch and loading it up. “All these fishermen suddenly came in, they had their boats, and they were all carrying sharks. I’d never seen so many sharks before and I’ve never seen them dead,” she says. Bajaber also insists that fishermen are “not just romantic figures going on to into the ocean and catching fish.” For her, they are part of the fabric of the city. “I feel like they are Mombasa’s lifeblood. They are what keeps things going.”
As Aisha and Hamza continue on their journey and face the grotesque Sunken King, who takes the form of one of the thousands of children he has dragged down and drowned from ships over the centuries. Aisha flatters him by claiming she is a writer who will tell his story until she finds out the Sunken King chewed up her father’s fishing boat and spat it out – deeming it and Ali unworthy of eating.
The final creature is the terrifying Baba wa Papa (the father of sharks), who has swallowed Aisha’s father. When she cuts him, thousands of baby sharks devour Baba wa Papa. Ali is returned, but gravely ill. On returning to the shore, Zubair is enlisted to cure Ali of his sickness by cutting open his heart and letting his love of the sea flood out. Several fish come out too, and Aisha puts one – alongside the grotesque eye of one of the monsters she encounters – in a jar to remember that her journey wasn’t just a dream.
“The supernatural is something that’s not all that separate in terms of culture and religion and belief,” Bajaber says. Ideas such as possession, the Evil eye, and majinni (spirits) are all commonplace to the people of Mombasa. She says: “It doesn’t require me to step into a different sense of mind to suspend disbelief and be like ‘there could be majini’, I know, I don’t have to see them.”
While Ali teaches Aisha how to sail so she might seek out the House of Rust, the mysterious snake Almassi gives her the key in exchange for taking her place with Hababa as her shadow. Before Aisha leaves, Hababa finds her and reveals she knows the shadow is not her granddaughter. They reconcile, and Aisha’s shadow joins her again before she leaves for the sea.
Since its publication, The House of Rust has found success and won the inaugural Graywolf Africa Prize, awarded to a debut African novelist. Now, Bajaber is still considering the different forms her future work could take. “I think I’ve been so distracted, trying to do everything, or trying to think about doing everything. Now I need to settle down,” she says.
Whatever may happen, Bajaber is certain that the coastal sensibility of Mombasa will continue to inspire her writing. “Everything that I love in life is in Mombasa,” she says. “But everything that seems actively out to destroy me, is in Mombasa, too.”
Samir Jeraj is an author and journalist based in the UK, with family connections to East Africa. He is a staff writer at The New Statesman and a commissioning editor at Hyphen.
Khadija Abdalla Bajaber is a Mombasarian writer of Hadhrami descent and the winner of the inaugural Graywolf Press African Fiction Prize. Her work has appeared in Enkare Review, Lolwe, and Down River Road among other places. She lives in Mombasa, Kenya.
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