North of Dawn

by Nuruddin Farah

  “We’re here to serve as your safety net.”

  “Be that as it may, it stirs my ire to realize that someone has taken decisions that will forever impact my life in irreversible ways, without seeking my input. Which proves my point that the ailing, the very young, and the very old have no right to privacy.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I know that everything is being done for my own good,” he says. “Himmo organizes a funeral service at a mosque and I go along. Another invites half a dozen sheikhs to the cemetery. Johan removes the drinks from the cabinet, which now stands bereft of its usual contents. All for my own good; everything.”

  “We’ve meant well,” says Kaluun.

  “Whenever I’ve thought of complaining about any of this, I hear Gacalo’s ghost of a voice advising me not to return people’s kindness with ingratitude.”

  The two are silent for a few moments, then Kaluun asks, “Coming down to greet the visitors?”

  “Give me a few minutes and I will,” says Mugdi.

  Timiro is happy that Riyo has fallen asleep, giving her time to change her dress, which is wet in the back with sweat, and to welcome more guests arriving together from the cemetery. Himmo guides a group of men from the mosque, including the imam who led the funeral service. It touches her to see Naciim and Edvart walk in together and then to watch as Saafi rushes toward them to say hello. Edvart described Gacalo and Mugdi as “cool” to Timiro, and they exchanged a few kind words at the cemetery, as clods of earth were being thrown onto the grave.

  Timiro, circulating—her back now wet from having carried Riyo in the backpack—introduces herself to those whom she does not know and thanks them for coming. At one point she finds herself face-to-face with Kaluun, who takes her by the arm and tells her about his conversation with Mugdi. She says, “Give him time and space and he will start to heal.”

  Just then Himmo joins them and Kaluun repeats his dialogue with Mugdi.

  Himmo says, “He feels hard done by at having to go along with our advice. Maybe he thinks we’ve continued from where Gacalo left off.”

  Timiro says, “What would Mum have done if she were alive? She would have told him to behave.” She then strides up the stairs to talk to Mugdi. Entering the room, she cannot tell if he is asleep. But when she sits down on the edge of the bed, he turns and says, “What’s up?”

  “People are wondering why you aren’t coming down.”

  He says, his voice tight, “I’m much too emotional to talk to people, especially when I’m unsure what to say.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t be alone,” says Timiro.

  He disregards her comment and goes on, “She slept on this side of the bed, closer to the door and the telephone, which she always answered. I slept on the side nearer the clock and the bathroom. We knew our roles. With her gone forever, I wonder how I’ll cope.”

  Timiro’s eyes well and, as she dabs them with a napkin, she realizes she has been wrongheaded in her assumptions and needs to rethink.

  “I need a measure of something strong,” he says.

  “How would you like it served? In a mug or a glass?”

  “In a mug, please.”

  As they go downstairs hand in hand, Mugdi says, “To die does not mean one has ended one’s relationship with those whom one has loved. You see, your mother will always love us back, even if she is dead; and I’ll love her as I’ve always loved her, even if I am alone.”

  Mugdi’s sudden appearance stirs the mourners into silence. He moves about, shaking hands, nodding in acknowledgment, and thanking them for their kind words. The imam, who is sitting close to Himmo, rises to his feet and recites a few verses of the Koran. Then he says, “Order, Order,” and when everyone grows quiet once more, he says, “Please, a Faatixa prayer,” and reads the first chapter of the Koran. Mugdi thanks them all and soon the mourners begin trickling out.

  When Edvart and Naciim announce to Timiro that they are ready to leave, she asks if they have eaten enough or would like a doggy bag. Edvart shakes his head, but Naciim, who says they have an exam in a couple of days for which they must cram, agrees to take some leftover chicken. And Saafi offers to look after Riyo, now that the little one has woken up.

  By eight o’clock, all the Somalis with the exception of Suudi have gone and Kaluun assigns himself the job of walking the stragglers out to the gate and chatting with them until they depart.

  Then he and Mugdi join the Norwegians. The party—Johan calls it a vaka—lasts until close to midnight, by which time nearly everyone is soused. It is as though they are all determined to drown their sorrows and Mugdi has no regrets either way.

  Eventually when everyone is ready to go home, Johan tells Mugdi to remember to call any time, day or night. “Don’t hesitate, especially after Kaluun, Timiro, and her daughter depart and you are by yourself. Come for meals often, join us when we are going to a show at the museum.”

  Birgitta says, “We’ll make sure a life full of new adventures is waiting for you in the wings and we’ll help you explore it.”

  After hugs and kisses, they leave. Kaluun prepares to do the dishes and Timiro checks on Riyo and Saafi. Mugdi, meanwhile, locks himself in his study, his family unsure whether he intends to resume work on his translations or simply derive comfort from his self-isolation.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Naciim towels himself off after showering and hums Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walking,” his favorite song. He likes the lyrics so much that he has committed them to memory and adapts them to suit various purposes. He imagines singing the song to his mother, who’s been “a’messin’” in his life where she shouldn’t have been, devoting her love and her best to others, and telling lies, since arriving in Oslo, when she “oughta be truthin’.” He prays that someone will tell her “what’s right is right.”

  He stops humming briefly and listens for sounds from his mother’s room, surprised not only that she is not yet moving about the apartment, but also that her Koranic recitation tapes are not playing as they usually are, a persistent background soundtrack. Daily, nightly, for many an hour, his mother plays the tapes of her favorite sheikh reading the Koran. He recalls the tapes weren’t playing last night either, when he returned home from the funeral. Instead, he arrived to find the apartment strangely still, his mother’s door shut, and from it emanating two low female voices. He wondered whom the other woman’s voice belonged to. He waited some hours for them to emerge, before giving up and going to bed.

  Naciim and his mother have seldom met the past few weeks. He leaves for school very early and returns very late, and when he is not at school or with Edvart, he is with Mugdi, whom he and Saafi have spent more time with since Gacalo’s death, switching off visiting him to make sure he is not in want of company. On the rare occasions Naciim is in his room, he moves about with stealth, and at times pretends not to be in when she knocks. Too often when he and his mother would meet in the kitchen or the corridor, she would just harangue him about one alleged wrongdoing or another, though he has tried to be increasingly polite with her, recalling Mugdi’s wise counsel to never abandon yourself to youthful anger, if you wish to survive. Mugdi had said, “Woe to anyone who surrenders to the violence of uncontrollable rage. You must always remember she is your mother even when she is wrong.”

  “But what can I do to fight her off?”

  “You do nothing. And if you are of a mind to say something, be polite. Always.”

  So he has held back, kept his anger in check, and avoided all-out confrontations. And knowing that neither of them relies on the other anymore, mother and son have arrived at a compromise common among married couples, each spouse content with the concession he or she makes to the other for the sake of sustainable peace. Mugdi believes one can trace the problem between mother and son to within a few days of their arrival. The initial mistake was Waliya’s, whe
n she singled Naciim out for his maleness in a household of females and assigned him the role of Mahram, with the authority to protect the honor of the family and determine who may or may not enter the sanctified space. For a while, he behaved the way tin-pot despots behave, believing in his absolute authority over his mother and sister. Mugdi would say, “You were no different from children in plastic helmets who thought of themselves as real soldiers.”

  “But I didn’t ask to be made a Mahram,” he said.

  “You were too young to carry the burden your mother placed on your head,” said Mugdi. “You had no idea what it meant to be a Mahram, nor did you receive the required guidance from anyone.”

  Naciim would agree that he felt caught up in his mother’s web of restrictive rules when he knew little about the nexus between his life and the faith he was expected to adhere to. His mother discouraged him from listening to the Beatles or even Somali music, and her religious cohorts forbade him to watch soccer on TV for fear that he would see half-naked women among the spectators, or ads selling liquor, or infomercials for condoms that openly discussed sex among the young. And so Naciim chose not to share his life’s secrets with his mother.

  Naciim looks at his watch, now that he is fully dressed, and checks that his textbooks and notebooks are all in his satchel. He stands one more time in front of the full-length mirror, and, nodding to his reflection, decides it is time to go and meet Janine, the classmate with whom he first went out a week ago, when they saw a movie together and held hands in the darkened cinema. She is the one who lent him Nancy Sinatra’s song, after he confided in her that he and his mother were not always on the best of terms. He hopes that he will get to know her much better.

  He is about to head out when he hears a knock on his bedroom door. Opening it, he finds himself face-to-face with a woman he hasn’t seen since he was a child.

  “How you’ve grown!” Arla says.

  He holds her gaze, smiling, before allowing his eyes the unfettered freedom to roam. He remembers that he last saw Arla, the woman now in front of him, clad in an almost see-through pair of loose pajamas, nearly a decade ago. She was his mother’s best friend and lived across a dirt road in a zinc shack directly opposite theirs. As a young boy, he was in awe at the way she carried herself, a large woman partial to beautiful dresses, and proud of her assets, which she showed off at every opportunity. Now and then, she would babysit him and his sister when his mother went out after dark. Even though she no longer inspires awe in him, her presence in his mother’s life makes him worry. For all of her kindness, there was always fire to her and he must be wary, lest he be burned.

  “Do you remember me?” she asks.

  “How can I forget you?”

  He looks at his watch again and realizes that he will be late for his appointment with Janine, whom he has arranged to meet at a corner café for a quick breakfast on their way to school.

  He says to Arla, “Just a moment, please.”

  “Late for class?”

  He sends Janine a text message: “I’ll be late.”

  “Who have you texted just now?”

  “Does it matter?”

  She asks, “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  Naciim glares at Arla, who buttons up her pajama top and crosses her arms over her front.

  “You were tiny when I last saw you.”

  “You were slimmer and very fetching.”

  “Age plays havoc on one’s body.”

  “I won’t ask how old you are.”

  “You are a gentleman and I thank you.”

  She’s heavy everywhere now, her girth wide, her breasts larger and no longer shaped like plantains, her thighs huge. “When did you arrive?” Naciim asks.

  “I got here yesterday afternoon.”

  “Married?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What did you tell Mum?” he asks.

  “We haven’t come to that part of the story yet.”

  “How I’d like to be a fly on the wall when you and Mum talk,” he says. “Tell me anyhow. Are you someone’s mistress? Or better still, a common-law wife?”

  “Not too fast, young man.”

  He looks at his watch again.

  “I mustn’t hold you hostage any longer. Though I wish you were coming with us, Saafi and me.”

  “Where are you taking Saafi?”

  “Clothes shopping and then job hunting.”

  “What sort of job?”

  “I know someone who runs a Danish-owned company in Oslo, a friend of the man whom I am sort of married to. He has suggested that I escort her to the interview.”

  “And what has Mum said to that?”

  “We’ll find out, won’t we?”

  “Well, as much as I’d like to see Mum’s reaction to your arrival, I must be off.” As he slips past Arla, he calls Janine and says, “I’m sorry, I’ve been held up at home. I suggest we meet in class.”

  After school, Naciim goes to Mugdi’s. As he enters the house, he calls out, “It’s Naciim, Grandpa. Are you okay, and where are you?”

  Naciim hears Mugdi’s faint reply, “I’m here.”

  “Here where?”

  Mugdi says, “Bedroom.”

  Naciim goes upstairs and turns right into the bedroom, where the door is wide open and the curtains still drawn. Mugdi, who is fully dressed, is lying on his back on a bed that appears unmade since he got out of it this morning.

  “How are you doing, Grandpa?”

  “I’ve just enjoyed a siesta.”

  Mugdi’s eyes follow Naciim’s movements but he remains supine, hardly showing interest in sitting up or changing position. Naciim opens the curtains to let in the late afternoon light.

  “What time is it?” asks Mugdi.

  “Time I made tea for two. Interested?”

  “Thanks, dear. I could do with a cup.”

  Naciim heads downstairs to make tea.

  In the kitchen, Naciim tells Mugdi about Arla’s arrival. Mugdi listens, takes a sip of tea, and makes a face as if involuntarily. Then with his cup still in the clutch of his right hand he asks, “Are you saying that we are in uncharted territory?”

  Naciim says, “I believe we are.”

  “You say the Koranic tape has been off since her arrival?”

  “It wasn’t on when I got back last night and wasn’t on when I left for school this morning.”

  “And you didn’t see your mum this morning?”

  “No, we didn’t meet. On the bright side, it is possible that Arla’s presence for a few days will help moderate Mum’s extremist views,” says Naciim. “And that is not a bad thing.”

  “Moderate your Mum’s extremist views—how?”

  “Arla is taking Saafi clothes shopping, and she says she knows someone who may be able to offer her a couple of hours’ worth of a part-time job that would give her pocket money.”

  Mugdi says, “Are you headed home now?”

  “I was going to head out shortly. I thought perhaps as a goodwill gesture, I would make them dinner.”

  “I have a better idea.” Mugdi opens the fridge and brings out a parcel of takeaways, sealed and ready to eat, from his favorite Indian restaurant. He hands them over to Naciim and says, “Here. All you have to do is to put these in the microwave and serve them.”

  “What are they?”

  “Fish rogan josh, spicy lentil, roti and a brinjal curry dish and okra in tomato sauce,” says Mugdi, who puts the parcels on the table and then finds a hefty carrier bag.

  “Thanks, Grandpa. I am sure they will enjoy it.”

  “Unless your mother objects to eating the food, because it doesn’t bear the stamp of halal,” says Mugdi.

  “Is the restaurant Pakistani and Muslim?”

  “It’s Punjabi.”

  “They are not Hindu, ar
e they?”

  “There is a Punjab Province in Pakistan,” says Mugdi, “and there is the State of Punjab, in India. The people who own the restaurant are Indian Punjabi and Sikh, not Muslim. To ease her mind, you can tell her the restaurant owner is a Pakistani.”

  “Fish is always halal, isn’t it?”

  “I understand it is.”

  “Lentil and eggplant are vegetarian and halal.”

  “Yes,” says Mugdi.

  Naciim, relaxed, leaves for home.

  As he walks into the apartment, he feels a greater sense of lightheartedness than ever before. Again, he notices that the Koranic tape is not on. Even though it is eerily quiet, he adjusts to the new normal by the time he goes into his room and puts his school satchel away, reemerging with the food parcels in his hand. He heads for the kitchen, aiming to empty the food into bowls.

  Saafi follows him in and says, “I’ve got a part-time job at a toy shop as a customer service clerk.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s a showroom for Lego, a bus ride away. We’re all women, five of us, and our boss is a woman too,” says Saafi. “She is lovely. I like her a lot. She speaks some Arabic—she has worked in Lebanon and knows how to recite the Faatixa.”

  “Has Mum agreed to this?” he asks.

  “She has.”

  “So what’s the catch?”

  “How do you know there is one?”

  “Mum won’t allow you to work outside the home, among total strangers, unless there is a catch. So what is it?”

  “You have to collect me every evening from work without fail,” she says. “Will you be willing to do that?”

  “When are you supposed to start?”

  “A week from Monday,” she replies.

  “Okay. I’ll be happy to do so,” he promises.

  Saafi goes to tell her mum the good news.

  Naciim hears Arla’s clipped tones, as if she is telling his mother off, when the bedroom door opens and Arla emerges. She stops dead in her tracks and says, “Oh, there you are!”

  She is in a see-through dirac, a dress with a floral pattern fashionable in the Somali Peninsula from the late eighties onward. He notes that both the color of her bra and the shape of her breasts are visible to him. He cannot help thinking that she’s coming on to him. She steps closer, takes his left hand, and looks him in the eyes, as his heart misses a beat. Then she hugs him and says, “Welcome back. It’s good to see you. How was school?”