Knots

by Nuruddin Farah

  Her back to Cambara, the woman says, “They are worse than animals.”

  Cambara does not bother to ask the woman to elaborate. She thinks she knows whom the woman means. The upshot of it is that the woman’s statement helps to break the ice.

  Besides, exhaustion is ultimately having its toll on the woman, as evidenced by the many unfinished tasks still waiting for her: adult clothes soaking and in need of washing; children’s school uniforms that have been washed, which need to be neatly folded, the creases ironed out; lunch to be cooked; the floor to be swept. How can a woman in her advanced pregnancy hope to finish these all on her own? Cambara thinks how, since her arrival, her own life has been taking a basic design in which she steps in to put other people’s lives in some order. If there is anything positive about this, it is that she has less time to brood on her loss, to mourn, or to grieve and eat her heart out.

  Cambara considers completely removing her face veil. After some hesitation, she takes off the body tent altogether, and with the exposure to the air, she feels lighter in her blood and bones. As she methodically folds the body tent into some shape easy to get into later, she gives the clothes she is now standing in a moment’s scrutiny, no doubt wondering if it is wise to do away with her disguise, her guile. She shrugs her shoulders, what the hell, rolls up the sleeves of her caftan—only then becoming conscious of the weight of the knife in her pocket—and offers the woman a break. The woman is so worn out she is in no position to refuse. Scarcely has Cambara done a stroke of domestic work than she takes the measure of the woman’s exhaustion.

  She says, giving herself a false name, “My name is Xulbo. What’s yours?”

  The woman is silent for quite a while. She struggles to sit, now rubbing her back, now her hips, staring ahead of herself, her eyes rolling in amazement at what is happening here: a help at hand, what kindness! The woman is rigid in her appearance, preoccupied, busy worrying a blackhead, picking at it. Maybe she is deciding whether to accept Cambara’s offer to help with the house chores; maybe the idea of telling her name to a total stranger does not sit easily with her or with the men sleeping off a night’s qaat-chewing.

  Finally she says, “My name is Jiijo.”

  Cambara knows that this is the short form of Khadija, a name common among the woman’s Xamari community, the cosmopolitan residents of Mogadiscio, believed to have descended from Persians, Arabs, and Somali.

  Cambara, the adored daughter of her parents, who never lifted a finger in this house in all the years that the family had owned it, now gets down to the serious business of washing the dishes and the clothes, and mopping the floor. It surprises her how much pleasure she is deriving from performing manual labor and how a few minutes’ work has so far opened doors that might otherwise have remained closed to her. When she thinks she has done enough, she asks, “How many months?”

  “Eight and a half.”

  “Your first baby?”

  The woman nods feebly.

  Cambara works her fingers to the bone, intent on completing as much of the job as possible before the return of the young children. She has seen evidence of clothes, boys’ broken plastic toys, girls’ dolls—when she surreptitiously entered the room with mattresses on the floor.

  Cambara does the best she can under the rushed circumstances. She does not take leave of the woman or of the house before she gets a couch for Jiijo to lie on. In fact, she tiptoes out only after Jiijo has started to embark on an exhausted woman’s snore.

  NINE

  Cambara makes a detour. She decides that instead of returning to Zaak’s place directly she will walk to the shopping complex in the neighborhood in order to buy a few necessary items. This way she may gain some insight into the area, discover more of its features.

  She sees the grocery shopping as part of her attempt at easing her way into the lives of those she has met so far: Jiijo, the armed youths, and Zaak’s driver too, a hungry, needy lot worth cultivating for their loyalty. If they do terrible things to one another and to victims whom they do not know, it is because they are malcontents born into tragic times taking out their despair on other quarries who are just as unfortunate as they are.

  She intends to buy locally bottled potable water to drink, a chopping board, a kitchen knife, and a couple of other items for Zaak’s place. She also wants to get what there is in the way of vegetables, eggs, and sesame oil from the fresh-produce stalls nearby for the armed youths. While at it, she may purchase an item or two for Jiijo, as a token of appreciation. Even though she has no desire to raise her hopes only to dash them, Cambara will work on the assumption that she will get a taxi that will take her first to Hotel Shamac, from where she will go to Hotel Maanta, to link up with her friend’s friend, Kiin.

  It is getting into early afternoon. The sun is luxuriating in pursuit of its tropical routine, coming closer and closer by the second, its heat assuming a more vicious harshness as if taking vengeance on anyone who is not indoors to enjoy the cozy coolness of the siesta hour. Cambara’s eyes secrete a clear liquid and are itchy; she scratches them. She is all the more uncomfortable because of the body tent, which she has redonned. She considered just carrying it back but thought better of it, for the sake of consistency.

  The sharp wind raises a sudden storm. The dust—clear, very fine, and powdery—whirls upward with such ferocity that a dervish of memories descends on Cambara. In one of these recollections, she is strong of heart and of mind, a beautiful young athlete, the most coveted, the most adored, the one who gets the highest grades in her class; in another, she is the darling of her fellow students, male and female, the one everyone pampers with affection. In her memories of recent times, she is not a mistress of her own fate; rather she is a woman in bondage. If her marriage to Zaak is written off as an aberration and that to Wardi as an anomaly, then how is one to describe her decision to come to Mogadiscio on impulse and then take on a warlord to recover the family property?

  In the long time it takes to get to her destination, Cambara does not meet a soul or a vehicle on the road, not until she is within a hundred meters of the row of buildings facing the unpaved half-circle that the shopping complex comprises. She avoids looking into the staring eyes of a couple of chador-wearing women. Averting her face, she tells herself that she must do something about her elsewhere look, which is setting her apart from the other women, labeling her, in their eyes, as an alien in their midst. It is not the women who worry her so much as the men, who will zero in on her foreignness, which will produce, in and of itself, hostility. God knows, she can do without enmity, especially given the formidable hurdles that she must clear.

  Just as she turns into the dusty road leading to the trading tenement, walking with the caution and care of a woman carrying the cosmos balanced on her head, an abrupt sorrow disheartens her. She thinks about the weather in this part of the world, which has been hostile for decades now: the drought without end, the soil and the environment degraded, the sea emptied of its fish. These conditions have been tough on humans and animals, driving the pastoralists, poor and needing food aid, to the urban areas. With no government to put these people’s lives into some order. And no international help to come to their aid.

  Then she notices several lean-to stalls covered with rush matting; these are set apart from the complex. Farther to the left, down in the direction where she is headed, there are low grotty tiny boxes that may have been put there erroneously in the first place, and then, as an afterthought, assembled by a one-eyed builder, because the geometry, the shapes, and the distance between them is so lopsided. As another whirlwind, bearing more dust and other debris, wafts at her boots with some fury, Cambara concludes that the nature of her circumstances have undergone some remarkable changes since she decided to make friendly gestures to the armed youths by catering to their stomachs and to Jiijo by, making a woman-to-woman contact. She is confident that both deeds will pay valuable dividends.

  Unable to push her thoughts any further in any direction, she
turns her face away from the shanty complex and stares into the glaring brightness of the afternoon sun, as if the solar omnipresence will provide her with an idea to pursue. Just then, as she is preparing to move again, the sudden noise made by a lizard crawling out of a clump of cacti gives her a startle. Then, fascinated, she watches the lizard doing push-ups, which reminds her of the fact that she has not been doing her routine exercises with regularity for quite some time now. Even so, she believes that she will have lost weight before long here, because of the unavailability of so many items.

  Finally she goes forth, conscious of the reptiles and other small, unseen denizens of the low shrubs, their sudden, noisy appearances on the scene or at her feet bringing to the fore her nervy state, rattling her. At one point, she stops to focus on the movement she hears, and her eyes light on a pair of human feet, very dry and cracking at the heels. It takes her a long time to work out that the feet, clumsily wearing a pair of Chinese-made platform sandals as ugly as any footwear she has ever seen, belong to a man, most likely homeless, fully stretched out and asleep among the cluster of bushes. For all she knows, the man may be dead. Disturbed, she walks away faster and with more purpose.

  Now that she has reached the edge of the shopping complex, she stops not so much to study the scene as to work out what to do next and where to go. In the event, she walks past the fresh-produce stall, giving it a cursory look and deciding that she will come back to it if there is need, and makes a straight move toward the general store, which promises, according to a board written in hand, that you can get “everything here.” This being the second time she has been to a civil war Mogadiscio market, she finds it curious that the money changers, the armed youths, the women running the vegetable stalls, and those selling bundles of qaat all mix freely, as if amicably. One may be lulled into believing that everything is normal. Some people put forth the idea that economics is the spark plug that ignites the fuel that makes the civil war engine run. You buy, you sell, and everyone and everything is okay. Looking around, she thinks that everyone here is hard-core local, their accent rough on the edges and jarring on her ears and senses. In addition, Cambara observes that there are fewer veil-wearing women here. Maybe because everybody knows everyone, women feel safe among their own menfolk.

  She pauses twenty meters or so before the general store. She is looking for telltale intimations of trouble in the shape of a gang of armed youths loitering at its entrance or in its vicinity. Finding none, she feels safe within her to go in.

  The man running the general store stands tall and bearded on the other, the owner’s, side of the counter. He smiles at her when she enters. The two youths who stand on either side of him help him run the business; they do not share a family resemblance with him. In fact, they strike Cambara as the kind that make an honest living during much of the time but may resort to illicit activities in their spare hours. When she looks back at the man, who has now instructed them to attend to other customers, the man turns to her; very businesslike he asks what he can do for her. Heartened, she removes her face veil to make it easier for her to engage his attention.

  Then she notices his active eyes, taking the measure of every customer who walks in. For those he deems dangerous, perhaps he prepares to put his guns to use; for moneyed clients, he must display his charm. She suspects she belongs to the latter order. He has another classification for the mendicants touching him for alms, the good people who’ve fallen on hard times, and the bad people, with their bad smell and their bad habits.

  Her shoulders slacken into a sense of relief as she concludes, with little evidence, that he has assigned her a category of her own; a woman apart. She stands motionless, hunched in the manner of someone turning serious thoughts over in her head. She beckons to him to come closer and, when he does, tells him that she has no local currency, only U.S. dollars in large denominations, and that she needs change before buying anything. He smiles, nods, and says, “No problem, no problem. Now, what would you like?”

  A bad shopper, she is in the habit of going into supermarkets, even when in Toronto, to buy a couple of items only to end up forgetting the list, putting in her shopping basket or taking to the cash register a number of articles that do not match her original tally. With no transport at her disposal and not knowing when she may next find herself in a supermarket as well stocked as this, Cambara assembles the list in her head and allows herself time to improvise as she looks at what is available and on the shelves before speaking it aloud. The shopkeeper has a piece of paper and a pen handy, ready to write everything down. He says, “Take your time. I am here all day.”

  She relegates a couple of thoughts about general stores similar to this to a back burner. Only she can’t help wondering who the wholesalers are that run the risks of importing these articles into the country and who their business partners overseas are. It is common knowledge that the civil war has been responsible for the destruction of Somalia’s meager industrial base, the warlords profiting from the dismantling of its infrastructure, which they sold as scrap metal, Somali rumor mills in Toronto have it, to Abu Dhabi and China.

  Now his tone urges her on; he says, “Waiting.”

  She understands this to mean that she has waited long enough, and straight away the provisional list that she will add to runs easily off her tongue: a kilo each of sugar, of flour, and of rice; a chopping board; a kitchen knife; two, three dishcloths; a packet of soap powder; some tea, preferably in bags; instant coffee; dried herbs, curry powder, and spices; tomato concentrate in tins; spaghetti; bottled water; several bottles of soda; paper plates and paper cups; plastic knives and forks; and napkins. A few packet of sweets, bars of chocolate, shampoo, soaps.

  “Is that all?” he asks.

  The shopkeeper’s voice is of a comforting quality; it reminds her of many a friend of her parents whom as a young girl she unfailingly addressed as “Uncle.” She finds his voice so soothing that she becomes wary of trusting him fully. Yet she contemplates easing the head-covering segment of the body tent a little when another woman wearing a veil and under it a curve-hugging frock comes into the shop to buy a bottle of soda. Cambara follows the woman with her eyes, remarking to herself that the woman is wearing the veil for the sake of form and feels at ease in who she is. Tomorrow, Cambara promises herself, she will wear a less heavy-duty veil of Yemeni origin, the fabric cotton, to let her skin breathe normally. Next time.

  “Anything else?” the shopkeeper is asking her.

  “You don’t have vegetables, do you?” She is aware that he doesn’t carry them, but she also knows that she can take advantage of the situation, place her order, and he will deal with it somehow. She bases her assumption that she will get her way and have his assistants fetch her all she needs on the fact that the man takes her for a respectable and well-to-do woman, just come from the Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia, where women of high standing seldom mix with the rabble. No doubt, he will charge extra for the service.

  “We can get you some, if you like,” he offers.

  She reels off the list. “In that case, a kilo of okra, one each of potatoes, carrots, half a kilo of onion, half of fresh tomato, three or four cloves of garlic, and some lemon or lime.”

  He sends out one of his boys to “bring nothing but the best of the best” and to “come back quick, quick,” and asks the other to give “the lady” a chair. This done, every other shopper takes notice of her, and more than a dozen envious eyes turn on her. Cambara doesn’t look bothered, reminding herself how often she has gloried in her role on the stage as an actor.

  When the shopkeeper and his assistants have gathered everything, packed them professionally in shopping bags, and put them on the counter, some piled on top of each other, as if waiting for her to bag them in her own way, the man informs her that he has done his sums. Cambara makes yet another request that she assumes will exalt her in his esteem, marking her as belonging to a class apart.

  “A taxi, please. Can you get me one?”

&nb
sp; She sits back, her posture that of a woman accustomed to giving orders and used to them being obeyed.

  The man nods ponderously, then whispers in the ears of one of the youths whom he sent out earlier to get the vegetables. Demurring to the shopkeeper, the youth goes through a back door so fast that Cambara feels that he will be back with a taxi in tow in less than a minute.

  Cambara then produces a fifty-dollar bill folded over until it is as small as a postage stamp, unfolds it and lays it on her spread lap, then smooths it with her open palm before handing it to the youth, who in turn passes it to the shopkeeper.

  The shopkeeper holds it discreetly to the light as he speaks, most likely studying the genuineness of its watermark and deciding whether it is counterfeit. He nods as if to himself, opens a drawer, lifts a tray within it, and then places the fifty-dollar note in a false bottom.

  He turns to say to her, with every word dripping with the deference of the most irritating sort, “Our hearts sweeten when we see the likes of you visiting our city again.” Her skin crawls with millipedes of hair, hearing the man’s ill-expressed feeling. “This is proof, if anyone wants one, that our city is no longer as dangerous as before.”

  All of a sudden, Cambara wishes her mother were here to hear the shopkeeper say that. Now she remembers her last encounter with Arda and replays their conversation. Her mother, on the day, had a guest—a former Canadian diplomat thanks to whose facilitations and kind interventions her parents, Zaak, and Wardi were all able to go to Canada as landed immigrants. Arda, given to the habit of speaking about Cambara blamably and always in the third person, even when she is present, explains to Mr. Winthrop that her daughter’s lack of humility, her inability to appreciate the simple aspects of living, worries her more than anything else. Arda adds, “Just imagine this. She is getting over the loss of her one and only son, my one and only grandchild, and before she is done with mourning, complicates things more. There is calm in acting humbly, in being simple. Not my daughter.”