North of Dawn

by Nuruddin Farah

  As she heads up the stairs, Mugdi wonders if Waliya has offered her condolences to Himmo, who had been so kind to her. At least Saafi and Naciim were there. They have all the heart she never will.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Timiro, carrying riyo in a sling, Kaluun, and Eugenia are all back in Oslo with the aim of paying their respects to Himmo the day after the funeral. They set out in a rental car driven by Mugdi, with Naciim in front, Kaluun, Eugenia, and Timiro crowded in the back, and Riyo in her car seat. Gacalo and Saafi have spent the night at Himmo’s, keeping Himmo and her children company.

  On occasions such as this the sexes are segregated, with the women gathered in the inner chambers of the house, the men in the front, and the young folks in a separate location. Beneath the hush that dominates the scene is a continuous hum, resembling the buzzing of unsettled insects. The Somalis, many of whom arrived here as refugees, never expected something like this to happen in Europe, least of all in Norway. Now nothing matters more than togetherness, as if mere proximity might stave off the sadness that has befallen the family.

  Himmo feels deeply moved at the sight of Kaluun, whom she has not set eyes on for a very long time, and the woman he introduces as his partner, Eugenia, whom she has met only once before, many years ago in London. A fine-looking woman dressed exquisitely in black that matches her beautiful dark skin. Eugenia removes her Armani sunglasses as they touch cheeks, and Himmo’s forehead collides with the edge of her large hat, which reminds Himmo of one of the fashion items in the form of headwear African American women put on for church. Now Eugenia brings out a Kleenex with which she wipes away her tears and says, “I loved Mouna too and will miss her. I’m so sorry that the bad man killed her.”

  Touched, Himmo finds it hard to contain her emotions and, overwhelmed, does not know where to turn or what to do when her eyes, brimmed with tears, lock on Riyo, Timiro’s little girl, who has just woken up in her car seat. Himmo stretches her hand out to touch Riyo’s, but the girl is wary and she avoids all contact. Timiro unstraps the harness tying Riyo down to the car seat and makes an attempt to deliver her into Himmo’s waiting embrace. Riyo, however, resists being handed over to a stranger and makes a fuss.

  Just then, as if on cue, Saafi appears on the horizon and with a bottle in her hand, stands in the doorway, waiting for Timiro to tell her what to do. Riyo follows her mother’s eyes and, spotting Saafi, welcomes “the bringer of the bottle” with a radiant smile; she wants to go to Saafi and Saafi is ready to receive her, take her away, and feed her in another room.

  Then, in the protracted silence following Saafi’s and Riyo’s departure, Himmo’s daughter, Isniino, walks in, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes that have gone red from crying. She acknowledges the guests’ presence, going around hugging, kissing, and shaking hands with the timidity youngsters feel when they are meeting their parents’ friends. At one point, she exchanges murmured words with Himmo, who appears enclosed in the tattered fabric of sorrow.

  Then half a dozen Urdu-speaking women, all shawled and dressed in the proper Islamic way, arrive together, fanning out and filling the living room.

  One says to Himmo, “Everything happens for a reason. We have come to pay our respects and to tell you to trust in Allah and He will give you strength.”

  Soon a group of Himmo’s colleagues arrive, and the women rise in unison and take their leave.

  Himmo seems rather shaky; at one point she excuses herself to her visitors and shuts herself inside Mouna’s room. Perhaps she is remembering the last time she saw her daughter, when the girl was exuberantly happy and full of life.

  Mugdi thinks once more of Kari, from Giants in the Earth, her baby buried in his mother’s best skirt, as they could afford no coffin. He wishes he could think of something less distressing when Himmo returns, sits down next to him, and sobs. He is silent for a long time, waiting for her body to stop trembling before uttering the standard Islamic phrase spoken by those offering their condolences. She murmurs a few words that he cannot make out, words similar but less intense than those she used yesterday.

  With the front door of the apartment open, people come and go, taking turns to speak to Himmo and sit by her side. Then she excuses herself once more, and her departure elicits an immediate reconfiguring of the conversation. Kaluun turns to his older brother and says, “Is it true what the newscasters are saying—that at no time in the recent past have Norwegians felt more united than after this tragedy?”

  Mugdi replies, “You hear that kind of thing a lot, but we need time to know if this oversubscribed idea will hold. In any case, you’d be naive to expect this to last forever.”

  “Still, no politician worth the name will openly admit to supporting Breivik,” says Timiro. “Every one of them will put visible distance between Breivik’s action and the Progressive Party, to which he belonged for a long time.”

  Mugdi asks Eugenia, “What was your reaction when you first heard the news?”

  Eugenia says, “I was shocked.”

  “With little or no information to go on,” says Kaluun, “we all assumed that the perpetrator was a radical Islamist and we wondered what effect that would have on your lives.”

  Eugenia adds, “A different kind of shock hit me when we learned that the perpetrator was a native Norwegian diagnosed as psychotic.”

  “Isn’t it curious,” says Kaluun, “that when a native European is responsible for such a rampage, every attempt is made to prove that he was suffering from some form of mental disorder or is emotionally impaired. If Breivik is described as mad, then why not describe the radical Muslim groups as mad too? Rather than ‘haters of the West’ or some such.”

  It is Timiro’s turn to speak. “Remember what Jens Stoltenberg, the Norwegian premier, said at Mouna’s burial ceremony: that Breivik turned the paradise island of Utøya into an inferno. That is precisely what both lots do: they turn our world into hell.”

  With Himmo not yet back and Riyo now awake and fussing, Mugdi gathers his granddaughter into his embrace, speaking to her in calming tones.

  Shortly after, Mugdi sends word to Himmo via Naciim that they are ready to leave. And she returns in no time to thank every single one of them and bid them farewell.

  Back at Mugdi and Gacalo’s, Timiro is off upstairs after telling her mother that she needs to take a long, hot shower to ease the exhaustion in her bones after her early flight from Geneva, nursing a colicky Riyo, and then waiting for Kaluun and Eugenia’s plane to arrive.

  “Go. We’ll hold the fort,” says Eugenia.

  When Timiro is gone, Gacalo says, “I wonder if there is more to what is bothering Timiro than mere tension in her neck. Do you and Kaluun know more than Mugdi and I?”

  “I’ve always had the feeling that she is unable to compartmentalize her life,” Eugenia says. “As a single mother with a busy office to run, I think at times she barely knows where she is.”

  “I’m not talking about that,” says Gacalo.

  “Then it is imperative you talk to your daughter,” Eugenia demurs. “No doubt she will tell you if there are things that are bothering her. Or talk to Kaluun, who will definitely know more than I do.”

  A knock at the door announces the arrival of Johan and Birgitta, whom Mugdi ushers into the living room, where Kaluun has already taken a seat. Mugdi offers them all drinks, then he mixes his own.

  Kaluun has a sip of his red wine and then turns to Johan and asks, “Do you think the fact that every police officer assumed the perpetrator was a Muslim terrorist, and did not bother to stop Breivik, who was in police uniform, gave him more time to get on with the business of killing, unhindered?”

  “The fact that no one would suspect a man in an officer’s uniform most certainly played a part in his ability to evade capture,” replies Johan.

  Birgitta adds, “And if it weren’t for those blunders, Breivik might not have killed many of the te
enagers on the island.”

  There is a long silence until Kaluun finds the courage to say, “When you are Muslim and black, in the way Somalis are, you belong at one and the same time to the two minority groups most hated nearly everywhere. This is the reason why the onus is on Somalis to improve their chance of success wherever they happen to be. Ideally, we should do well enough in every sphere. Unfortunately, we are at the lowest rung of every ladder.”

  “We Norwegians tolerate one another,” says Birgitta. “We don’t necessarily feel close to one another. I think it is probably difficult for foreigners to come to terms with this. The darkness of the long winter plays a role as well, let’s face it.”

  Then Johan launches into the story of when he proposed to Birgitta. He says to Kaluun, “Birgitta is from the west coast of Norway and I am from Stavanger. When we decided to marry, it was very difficult to bring our respective families onboard. As communities living apart for centuries, we have mutual suspicions of one another. We perceive ourselves to be different. But we tolerate one another to the extent that we’ve accepted that we are one people.”

  “I too am unable to convince Somalis that the distances between us as members of different clan families are smaller than those separating someone from Kent and another from Yorkshire,” says Kaluun.

  “As colonials, we started thinking of ourselves as Norwegians only after we adopted a flag and a constitution and agreed to live together in mutual tolerance. We were once a colony of Sweden, and of Denmark too, and our loyalties to Norway were often questionable. But since becoming a free country with a constitution, we’ve worked hard at staying united. Basically, we want the immigrants who have joined and become Norwegian to work just as hard at it as we have,” Birgitta says. “The way I see it, when the media questions the loyalty of Somalis or other immigrants, they are accusing them of working less hard at integrating. However, much of what the popular media writes about immigrants is mostly a lie dressed up as truth.”

  Mugdi offers to top up her drink, but she shakes her head and says, “No. Maybe another glass of white wine at dinner.”

  Johan says, “However, almost all Norwegians respect Himmo’s strength of character, and they mourn with her because she has lost a daughter in the same way many Norwegian parents lost theirs.”

  Many memories revisit Mugdi: Himmo as a young girl asking him to lend her books to read; Himmo as a basketball player in Mogadiscio, leading her team from the front and scoring points; Himmo visiting them in Bonn on a few months’ refresher course, staying up late practicing her German to ensure that she mastered the language in the shortest time possible; Himmo announcing the collapse of her first marriage, and then her second, both times working hard to pull herself together and succeeding. No matter the challenge, she has always survived, and she produced three wonderful children. The tragedy is that one of them is now dead at the hands of Breivik.

  Gacalo calls them to the table. Timiro appears looking refreshed. When dinner is served and everyone at the table is eating, Johan asks Naciim, “Can I ask a few of the questions that I’ve meant to put to you?”

  “By all means. Please ask,” says Naciim.

  “You don’t answer them, if you don’t want. But if you are able, tell us a bit about Shabaab. I’m curious—did you hate them, love them, hope to join them?”

  “I could’ve joined them, but didn’t.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because they seldom told you the truth.”

  “Did anyone ever try to recruit you, knowing your stepdad was already active in the movement?” Birgitta asks.

  “On the contrary, my stepdad advised me against joining.”

  “Why did he do that?” Kaluun wonders.

  “Though he did their bidding and died serving Shabaab’s cause, my stepdad wanted peace at home and so he mostly kept me out of it. As a general rule, men at the top of the chain of command never recruit their immediate family members into the militia,” says Naciim.

  Timiro asks, “Where are the children of the men at the top of Shabaab’s chain of command?”

  Kaluum says, “As you are all aware, there is a cottage industry of populist politicians in much of Western Europe and in the US who aim their propaganda at the least educated among their citizenry. It is strange but true, that like these populist politicians, Shabaab recruiters also go for the least educated among Somalis: semi-literate adults, school dropouts, boys or girls with no parents. What is more, both groups do not hesitate to spread lies about their ideological foes.”

  “How right you are!” Johan says, reaching for the tumbler of water, only to knock his half-full wineglass onto Naciim’s front, the boy’s shirt becoming beetroot-red. Johan is up in no time, apologizing, dipping his cloth napkin in water and dabbing at the stain.

  Mugdi, too, is up and waiting for Johan to be done so he may sprinkle the entire area with salt. “There’s nothing like salt to remove red wine stains.”

  Gacalo says, “Wasn’t Naciim going to spend tonight with his mother? What will she say? She’ll think we gave him wine.”

  “Wash it, Mum, and then put it in the dryer and voilà, his shirt will be ready to be worn inside an hour,” Timiro says.

  Naciim cuts a calm figure as he says, “Not to worry. I will tell my mother the truth of what has happened.”

  “What if she throws a fit?” asks Gacalo.

  “It won’t be the first time nor will it be the last. But, as you can see, I am still here. In any case, I hate lying, because eventually the lie will catch up with me and then I will speak more lies. And that is no good at all.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  It is eight thirty in the evening when Naciim lets himself into his mother’s apartment and hears a man reciting a Koranic verse and his mother repeating it. He has barely removed the key from the door and taken a step forward when he discerns an abrupt cessation of the reading, a drop so sudden that it puts him in mind of a silk dress falling from its hanger. As he walks into the silence, readying to hurry to his room and change his shirt—for all his bravado at dinner, he would rather not discuss the wine stain with his mother—he hears footsteps coming from the living room and comes face-to-face with Imam Fanax, the man with the lecherous gaze to whom Waliya has promised Saafi’s hand in marriage.

  “There you are,” Fanax says.

  “Fancy seeing you this time of the night in our apartment. What are you doing here? Don’t you have a wife and children to care for?” Naciim retorts.

  In response, Fanax only smiles smugly. Naciim wonders if he can smell the alcohol on him.

  “Where have you been?” asks Fanax.

  “I’ve been at a funeral.”

  “Ah, but the funeral was yesterday.”

  “What’s this? An interrogation?”

  “Your mother said you’d be home and you weren’t.” Then Fanax raises his voice a notch and asks, “Have you been drinking? Is that what you’ve been doing when, God bless her, your mother and a small community of the faithful have been reading the Koran and praying?”

  Fanax’s loud questions prompt the appearance of Axado, Waliya’s niqaab-wearing nursery assistant. She stands to the side, listening, with a grimace on her face. She asks, “What have you done, Naciim?”

  Naciim is silent as his mother and Cumar, a tall, bearded man in his mid-forties, who has replaced Zubair as Fanax’s deputy, appear. Fanax then ups the ante, smirking at the boy as he asks, “Do you mind if Axado comes closer to you, smells your shirt and tells us what she discovers?”

  “There’s no need,” says Naciim.

  Fanax closes in for the kill, like a hunter after fresh prey. “Answer yes or no. Is the stain that we all see and the smell we can all pick up on that of liquor? Yes or no.”

  “It is,” says Naciim. “But let me explain.”

  At hearing this, Waliya’s heart strains, her
mind in utter confusion. She leans this way and that before dropping to the floor in a dead faint. Those gathered spread out to make space for Waliya and then congregate around her, their voices dropping into murmurs in the shape of curses as well as invocations of the divine.

  After a few moments, Waliya comes to, and with Axado’s assistance, gradually tries to rise. With everyone’s eyes on her, she finally speaks. “Why have you abandoned the tenets of your noble faith?”

  “The man is a liar,” says Naciim.

  “Who is a liar?” she asks.

  “The imam has had it in for me.”

  Waliya shakes her head in surprise, disturbed at the thought that Naciim is blaming a man she holds in such great esteem.

  “What has the imam to do with your liquor-taking? Has he given it to you on the sly? Or known where you’ve consumed it?”

  “He has driven a wedge between us.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because I won’t allow him to marry Saafi.”

  Waliya stares at her son, speechless, until at last she says, “What must I do with you now?”

  “Mother, I’ve done nothing to deserve your reprimand. You will have to believe me.”

  “Dare you address her as ‘Mother’ after all you’ve done?” says Cumar.

  “I’m not his mother,” Waliya curses.

  “You are my mother and you must listen to me.”

  “How can I listen to you when all you’ve done since coming to this country is to dishonor me and the faith for which you have no respect?”

  Fanax says, “Knowing him, he probably washes his whole body in liquor and then convenes with Satan!”

  “Mother, I’ve done nothing to dishonor you or the faith, nothing. You can ask Mugdi and Gacalo. They will tell you what actually happened,” Naciim replies.

  “How can we, as God-fearing Muslims, rely on the word of those two, knowing they are apostates and proud of it?” Fanax says.