Don't Tell Me You're Afraid

by Giuseppe Catozzella

  Ahmed. Him again; fate was playing nasty tricks on me. Just as on that night so many years ago when he had caught me and Alì by surprise, he’d reappeared out of nowhere, threatening to cut my leg.

  The shadow that for all those years had lain between me and Alì, dimming my best friend’s smile, was now in front of me, transformed into flesh and blood.

  Then he lowered the blade and pressed it against my leg again. I felt a sharp pain, and I was scared.

  I tried as hard as I could to stop myself, but I burst into tears. Abruptly, like a fountain.

  I didn’t want to lose my leg; with all my heart I didn’t want to. I would never in my life run again. It would be the end of my dreams, the end of my liberation, the end of everything.

  “All you have to do is tell me where Alì is. . . .”

  “Ahmed . . .” I faltered.

  “Come on, Samia, tell me. . . .” He went on holding the blade pressed against my leg, keeping my neck clenched with his other hand, making it hard to breathe. I started coughing, but my throat was squeezed shut. Mucus started running from my nose. I was choking, and my leg felt like it was on fire.

  “Go on, you can tell me . . . unless you want to say good-bye to your knee.” He thrust very hard and the blade sank a couple of millimeters into the flesh. I felt faint from the pain; it was as if someone had shoved a burning ember into the pit of my stomach. I just wanted it all to end. “Come on, Samia. . . .”

  He was an inch away from my face; I stared at him, eyes wide open, not breathing.

  “You’ve turned into a really pretty girl, Samia, you know that?” he whispered in a hateful voice as he drove a knee between my legs.

  I immediately pictured what was going through his head.

  I gave in.

  “At the market . . .” It slipped out almost against my will.

  Ahmed bared his teeth in a nasty leer. “At the market where? Which market? Bakara?”

  “At the market with Yassin . . . his father . . . at Xamar Weyne . . .”

  “Good girl, Samia. Good girl. I remembered that you were a smart girl. Smart and beautiful.”

  Then, suddenly, he let go of me, and I collapsed on the ground like a sack of beans.

  Just like that, Ahmed took off in a jiffy without saying another word.

  I got up, still dazed, and ran straight home.

  Without saying anything to anyone, I rinsed the scratch and sat on the ground against the wall of Alì’s room, waiting, praying that he would appear in the courtyard as soon as possible with his father, Yassin. That everything was normal, that what had happened to me was just a figment of my imagination.

  But it wasn’t; it was all real.

  I was crushed by what I had done.

  If Hooyo tried to say something to me, I didn’t even hear her. I was terrified at the thought of having betrayed my best friend. I felt like a bad person, someone I didn’t know. I felt like I was capable of betraying my own mother, or even Hodan or Aabe. Like I was capable of betraying anyone. Including myself.

  Finally, around six, Alì and his father showed up. The weight that was overwhelming me evaporated. Right away I searched for some sign in Alì’s eyes. But there was nothing except the usual veil of sadness and detachment.

  As soon as he arrived, he went straight to his room, head bowed. He passed me with barely a hello.

  I followed him and explained what had happened: I told him he was in danger, I warned him about Ahmed, I showed him the cut on my thigh.

  He wasn’t surprised.

  Instead he replied with something that I hadn’t expected: “Nassir has left our house. My brother has moved away.”

  I was dumbfounded. “What do you mean, he left your house? What does that mean?”

  “Last night, after supper, he admitted to Aabe that he has joined Al-Shabaab. He’s been spending time with them for years. That much we knew. But yesterday he said that he wants to go to the Koranic school, to be an active member of the organization. He’s decided to follow Ahmed.”

  I remained silent while Alì sobbed. When he stopped crying, he told me not to worry, that Ahmed wouldn’t do anything to him, that Nassir would protect him.

  There was a strange light in Alì’s eyes as he spoke, however. As if he were elated, inspired. A light that I had never seen before, that scared me.

  We fell silent; then he asked me if I could leave him alone for a while.

  I left the room and went to Hooyo, who was in the courtyard starting to set up the burgico for supper. I tried to act like nothing was wrong, asking my mother if I could help her, but my motions were as clumsy as an elephant’s.

  After a while Alì came out and climbed the eucalyptus with those precise, soundless, velvety movements that made him look like a cat or a monkey. He knew that tree by heart; he knew exactly where to place his bare toes without even looking.

  In no time he was at the top.

  The place where no one could reach him. His place. Maybe the only one. He would come down when he got over it.

  Even though Alì told me not to worry, I was miserable. I had betrayed my best friend, and that feeling stung more than the blade. That night, watching Alì swiftly scale the tree with those fluid, perfect movements of his, I felt even more alone than I had when confronted by Ahmed, who had wanted to cut my leg.

  I stayed down there, leaning against the wall of his room for a while, waiting for him. Then I went to bed, my head under a very dark cloud.

  CHAPTER 11

  AFTER A FEW DAYS everything was back to normal, and as usual Alì and I avoided talking about what had happened. Things fell into place in a silence that suited us both.

  That period marked the time when I started winning for real. I participated in all the races that were held in and around the city—those that could be entered for free—and I almost always came in first.

  I soon felt the need to look for additional challenges and signed up for competitions open to athletes of southern Somalia. I won there too.

  Everyone wondered how a skinny little girl, thin as a newly planted acacia, with legs that looked like olive branches, could possibly win. The fact is that I won, and that’s that. I was faster than the others. At least the ones I happened to come across.

  As the months passed, I realized that my specialty was the two hundred meters.

  It was there that I was able to give my best. Though even in the four hundred meters I felt pretty confident. I didn’t have muscles suitable for burning it all up in a hundred meters; I needed a little more distance to work off the fury and let Aabe’s words take shape in my head. I couldn’t do it right away, as soon as I took off. At the start, there was only drive.

  After three or four seconds, however, the promise I’d made to Aabe emerged, and I would win.

  Every time.

  I wanted to become the strongest sprinter in all of Somalia, which meant going to run in the north, in Hargeysa, Somaliland. But it wasn’t easy, because I needed someone to accompany me; then too I didn’t have any money, and neither did Alì. Besides that, the north had declared itself independent, its people saying they hated the war; so anyone who wanted to go north, even just for a race, wasn’t well regarded by the armed groups.

  Moreover, just at the time when Nassir decided to follow Ahmed, everything changed in Mogadishu.

  Al-Shabaab had gained a lot of power, and there was talk of opening the Islamic Courts. The alleged intent was to put an end to the war, but in reality it was merely a victory for the fundamentalists.

  Within a few weeks, life in the city became impossible. Especially for women, though not only for them.

  Then, in a single day, what should never happen anywhere happened.

  In one day, a day like any other, with nothing on the horizon, no cataclysms or revolutions.

  From one day to the next e
verything changed.

  Overnight, listening to music was forbidden. You couldn’t listen anymore, either in the street or at home. The few who owned a radio had to keep the volume very low, because if a few notes were to drift outside they would risk a public lynching.

  Overnight, all the movie theaters were shut down. Not that I’d ever had the money to go, but there had always been the hope that someday it would happen, and that alone was worth waiting for. Besides, there had always been some well-off classmate who would go there on Fridays with her family and come back with those wonderful, magical stories. Films created and fed people’s dreams; that’s why the theaters were shut down.

  Overnight, men were obliged to wear long pants and could no longer be seen on the street in shorts. They also had to shave their heads completely or wear their hair long, Afro style, with long, full beards. Half measures were no longer acceptable.

  Then there were the women. Women were no longer allowed to do anything; even walking down the street was risky. Trying it without a burka was a gamble that could cost you your life.

  Overnight, the traditions of our country changed. The land of sunshine and color was transformed into an open-air training camp for extremists. None of our colorful garbasar, jamar, and hijab were permitted anymore. Suitable only for mopping the floor. We were obliged to wear the black burka, the garment that covers everything but your eyes.

  But the worst thing of all, because it seemed like a punishment, was the decision to turn off the few streetlamps that at night lit up some of the city’s squares and side streets.

  In the evening, in fact, many people gathered in the squares under the streetlights to read. Very few had electricity at home. Instead of reading by the dim light of the ferus, many spent their evenings under the stars, reading a novel, an old newspaper, or maybe a letter or a love note.

  Those places were our outdoor library. Now, like the library itself, everything was precluded, revoked, banned.

  Al-Shabaab had managed to demolish the hope of an entire people. Everything that until that day had been difficult to achieve but possible had become impossible. Dreams, hopes, and freedom had all been wiped out in the blink of an eye.

  Overnight.

  One night Aabe could wear his khaki shorts, the kind from colonial days that the Italians had imported and that all men wore, especially on very hot days. The next morning it was forbidden: If he were to run into Al-Shabaab’s watchdogs on the street, he’d risk being beaten in front of everyone.

  It was the same for Hooyo, who had to wear a burka to go to work. She hated it, as we all did: We loved our bright colors, our orange, red, yellow, green, blue, and purple veils and garbasar, which for us had always represented the essence of the land and of femininity.

  Overnight, however, the black burka for everyone.

  For me and Hodan it was difficult.

  For her, no more singing with the group, no more singing at all, not even hymns to freedom and peace.

  And for me, no more running.

  One of those evenings Hodan came by to eat at home with us. After supper Aabe and Hooyo said they wanted to talk to the two of us. Our brothers and sisters stayed outside to wash the bowls and rice pot; in silence we went to our parents’ room.

  Aabe, sitting on the only chair, eyed us nervously and kept fiddling with his cane, shifting it from hand to hand. It was the first time we’d seen him so agitated. For her part, Hooyo—who was covered up to her head with the gauzy white veils that before then she’d never worn in the house—took a seat on the mattress and kept ironing out first her skirt, perfectly smooth over her lap, then the white cloth handkerchief she held.

  Hodan and I gripped each other’s hands tightly.

  Without their even having to tell us, we were both afraid they might forbid us from doing what we loved. That they would tell us that everything had become too dangerous, that no one could afford to do what he wanted anymore. In part because family members would pay for it. Those were the methods Al-Shabaab used: exemplary punishment for siblings or parents to serve as a warning.

  I was shaking and I felt feverish; I was freezing despite the high temperature. If Aabe ordered us to stop, what would we do? We could go cry in Hooyo’s arms, pleading for mercy, as we had when we were little. But this time it would do no good.

  We had only two choices: obey or disobey.

  And disobeying would be like leaving home for good.

  But Aabe was Aabe.

  Without our having to say a word, nervously gripping the cane with those big hands sticking out from the sleeves of his beige cotton shirt, he had read our thoughts as they appeared on our faces.

  He got up from his chair and slowly came over to us.

  He rested a hand first on my forehead, then on Hodan’s.

  “My daughters, everything that up until yesterday was normal today is complicated.”

  His voice was serious. Hodan and I looked at each other. We knew what he would say. It was the end of our dreams. We could stop imagining some kind of future; reality had rained down like a bucket of ice water.

  Together we lowered our eyes and stared at our bare toes, coated with white dust.

  After a pause, Aabe continued. “But your mother and I believe that you should keep doing what you are doing, if what you are doing is your calling and makes you happy.”

  Hot, silent tears fell in unison from my eyes and Hodan’s.

  “Hooyo and I will always support you, Islamic Courts or not. Al-Shabaab or not.”

  Hooyo, on the mattress, was weeping the way she did when she didn’t want anyone to notice. She kept blowing her nose repeatedly, as if she had a cold, but we’d known since we were little that there was nothing wrong with her.

  “You just have to recognize that what you’re doing is risky and not well regarded. Not only by the fundamentalists but also by many people who will let themselves be influenced and think that you are both crazy. Do you know this?”

  “Yes,” I replied, eyes still bright.

  “Yes, Aabe, we know,” Hodan said.

  “So then you are free to build your future. Your mother and I are aware that each of you has a gift. Go and take what is coming to you, my daughters.”

  By that point we were sobbing. Aabe hugged us tightly and told us to leave them, that he and Hooyo wanted to be alone for a while.

  Before we went out, however, he called Hodan back.

  “Hodan . . .”

  She turned, already at the door.

  “Yes, Aabe?”

  “Make sure that Hussein’s father feels the same.”

  “Thank you, Aabe.”

  We went out to the courtyard, into the air and light, leaving our mother and our father in the darkness of their room, wondering if they had made the right decision.

  CHAPTER 12

  NEVERTHELESS, in those weeks everything was changing no matter what. Our lives as Somalis were destined to be transformed forever.

  One morning, without notice, Alì and his family moved out.

  I got up at dawn along with my brothers and sisters, awakened by noises coming from the courtyard. We all stumbled out in our pajamas, barefoot and drowsy. I was just in time to see them pile into a green pickup truck towing a rusty trailer that Aabe Yassin had borrowed from someone, before they left for good. Gone, without our even knowing where.

  Yassin, Alì, and his brothers had spent the night loading up the decrepit truck with boxes in which they had managed to pack away their entire lives.

  The previous day the Hawiye clan, which we Abgal were part of, had announced that they had formed an alliance of sorts with Al-Shabaab; it seemed they didn’t want to be at war for a change. This, however, meant that the Darod in our area were in danger, since Bondere was an Abgal district; Darod families had continued to live there only because they were protected by their Abgal fri
ends. No one would have dared do any harm to Aabe Yassin; everyone knew that he was our father’s best friend, that they were like brothers.

  But that night, simultaneously, scores of families had made the same decision Alì’s father had. Once again, overnight, Al-Shabaab had changed my life.

  The morning was drenched with a surreal light. At dawn the air, misty with the sea’s moisture, seemed inhabited by myriad swift ghosts. People from my district were moving to places as yet unknown. The important thing was to get away as quickly as possible. Leave their history behind.

  Hooyo, like almost all of our neighbors, had not gone to work. Al-Shabaab’s men might come and make an inspection, house by house. We all had to be present.

  When I ran out to the pickup, Alì was sitting in the back next to the window, eyes downcast. Aabe Yassin was in front, next to the driver, who was a friend of his and Aabe’s. The engine was already running. I rapped on the glass and Alì turned. A pall of despair had settled over his face like wax. He had no eyes anymore. His face was a waxen mask, a mask of absence.

  He looked at me, but he was focused on a point in the sky instead of on me while I, on the other side of the glass, gestured for him to roll down the window. Alì didn’t hear me; he seemed dazed. I turned to look behind me.

  He was staring at the top of the eucalyptus.

  Only when the pickup truck started to move did he look at me. He may have been crying. Finally.

  Alì, his brothers, and Aabe Yassin had been part of my life since I was born and now, like ghosts, in a fraction of a second they were vanishing.

  Hussein’s family had made the same decision. They were also Darod, and there was no tolerance for mixed marriages anymore. Everything that had been gained in decades had gone up in smoke in a single day.

  They had decided to leave, like most of the Darod.

  Hodan, in the course of a few hours, found herself having to make a painful decision.

  Leave or stay.

  After an anguished night she’d decided to stay with us. What would become of her marriage was a question that there’d been no time to consider. Sometimes the weightiest decisions are carried along on the slight drift of a breath of air. And we with them, inadequate, flimsy. At least, that’s what happened to us that morning.