As it happens, fortune has favored her yet again, she tells herself. As they near the house she informs him that they have come to her journey’s end, thank you.
“My uncle…” he says.
“I know…” she interjects and falls silent.
“What will I tell him if I leave you here?”
“That you’ve seen me to my gate.”
He hangs back, hesitating whether or not to obey her command and remains where he is as though waiting to hear a confirmation. He looks anxious, the way people with impaired hearing do when they are not sure if they have read someone’s lips correctly. She hopes he won’t continue hesitating to go. His body language indicates that he does not wish to leave her before she has gained a safe purchase on her point of call, possibly because the shopkeeper will expect him to report back. “Please be on your way,” she says to him, her hands making shooing-away gestures. Unburdened of the load, the teenager stands awkwardly, looking a bit unbalanced, his eyes crossed with anxiety.
The teenager gives in to the curiosity of knowing what her next step might be, and he walks backward, pausing only after tripping awkwardly. He recovers his equilibrium quickly, and, turning around, grins from ear to ear. Then he takes his time and looks amusedly at the mound of earth that has halted his progress, showering curses on it. She waves good-bye to him the instant she senses a surge of excitement rising within her. Even if the source of her exhilaration is a mystery to her, she cannot help appreciating how fortunate she has been so far to get to where she has and achieve what little she has carried out without anyone taking hostile exception to her actions. It is to her good that she continues dealing amicably with the shopkeeper and his nephew if for no other reason than the expediency of seeking their assistance when she has settled on the means and the time to launch her plan and make her move to dislodge the minor warlord and his minions from the family house.
After a minute or so, when she is sure that she has got rid of her escort, she looks about herself with caution. Seeing nothing worth her worries, she lugs the shopping bags across to where she wants them, close to the gate of the family property, needing to return two, three times. She puts the bags down, breathing heavily, and plucks the courage to knock on the gate, first gently, repeatedly, then firmly. She waits, her heart pounding in her ears.
As she hangs fire, she feels out of sorts and asks herself if someone might accuse her quite rightly of being duplicitous, in that she has either misinformed people or withheld adequate intelligence from Zaak and everyone else she has so far met. She exculpates herself by reasoning that her objective is not so much to deceive anyone as it is to make it possible for her to get her way. Her ultimate aim, in the end, is to reacquire the family property in the least dangerous manner. She reckons that the less other people know of what she is doing, at least in the early block-building stages, the better her prospects of success. Above all, she wants Jiijo to relax into trusting her and eventually into looking upon her with approval.
Cambara senses that she is a different person from the self who, a little more than an hour earlier, karate-kicked the youths, forcing them to submit to the dictates of her physical as well as her mental willpower. Her current mind-set is at variance with her sundry way of thinking and is also at odds with that of the self who was in the same area on a reconnoitering mission only a couple of days ago. She has no doubt that she has achieved a great deal of good since then, thanks to her cool, commendable conviction in her amicable approaches to Jiijo. She has become more positive about her own ability to cope with the civil war conditions than she believed maintainable.
Her purchases strewn around the entrance, she stands to the side. Her anxiety is now much less prone to apprehension, even if she is overwhelmed with a sense of déjà vu, bizarrely because she is sure that she has known an instant similar to this in her past life when, denied access to what has belonged to her by right, she picked up the gauntlet, fought, and won the battle. It is as if she were a mere witness and not the main actor; it is as though whatever is to unfold is none of her concern. Then her heart starts to beat hurriedly against her now aching ribs, her lungs run short of breath, and she wonders if she has lost herself in a plot that someone else has authored. The light in her eyes turns to darkness.
She closes her eyes and stops short of celebrating her triumph when she hears someone’s light footsteps coming and, without her tapping on it, the door opens with the slow cautiousness of a guest yawning in the presence of a hospitable host. Based on the half of the face that she can see, Cambara moves slightly to the right to place herself in Jiijo’s eyeshot.
She says, “It is me, Jiijo. Please let me in.”
Cambara stands stock still, recalling belatedly that in her attempt to privilege secretiveness and taciturnity, she had given Jiijo a false name, which, sadly, she cannot recollect now. She hopes that this mistake will not haunt her later or leave a serious blemish on the nature and character of their relationship.
Jiijo opens the gate. There is exhaustion in her eyes, the bags of which have distended toward her upper cheeks, to which there is hardly a shine now. Jiijo’s bodily gestures reveal an overwhelming tiredness. As Jiijo straightens up, her features contorted into discomfiture, the two women stare at each other stupidly, neither moving or saying anything for a brief while.
“Go on in and take the weight off your feet,” Cambara says to her gently. “I will bring in the stuff. Leave everything to me.”
Jiijo lets go of the gate, wincing because of fresh thrusts of localized pain, and grabs her right flank, massaging it as she toddles forward into the courtyard, which is open to the sky. Cambara does not follow her immediately. She peers in, scanning the space before her, and waits to appraise the present situation, in cautious assessment of whether it is safe for her to go in. After all, it will not do to make the heady assumption that the minor warlord and his minions are sleeping it off after a night of chewing. When she is convinced that no one else is up and about and that the doors facing the courtyard are all closed, she goes in, helps Jiijo, who is still holding on to her side, rubbing it, into the very couch she led her before, then moves about to bring her purchases in and put them away.
“Can I get you something?” Cambara asks.
Even though unequivocal, Jiijo expresses her sense of relief inadequately, her demeanor giving countenance to her disregard. Then all of a sudden, the pained expression on her face prompts Jiijo to surrender herself totally to the reality as well as the memory of other pains, some of recent vintage.
As Cambara takes a good hold of herself, she debates whether to ease Jiijo’s apparent physical unease by giving her a partial massage, a kind enough gesture to make in humble surrender to her own memory of being pregnant with Dalmar. She senses she is right in assuming that, like Wardi, Gudcur does not help Jiijo in her current state.
Cambara is distracted, however, the moment she feels the weight of the papers she salvaged from the youths. Briefly, her recall of her unpleasant encounter with them now preys on her mind, and she takes nervous account of the paper slipping downward, lodging inconveniently close to her belly button, irritably rendering Cambara’s forepart itchy. But there is nothing she can do about it, and she wishes she were in a room all on her own where she might disrobe and then remove the papers before having a good scratch.
Disturbed that she cannot remember her alias, she now reminds herself that whereas she told nothing but distorted facts that are part of her disguise to Jiijo, she gave the truth to Dajaal and Bile. No doubt, she is understandably mistrustful of Jiijo; she cannot, however, articulate why she elected to be trusting of Dajaal and Bile, despite the fact that she knows neither of them. Whatever else happens, she must avoid letting her mind go walkabout, because that is where the pitfalls are.
Jiijo’s labored breathing worries Cambara in that she is hopelessly unprepared for any eventuality that may compel her to look for outside help, someone to tell her where to get an ambulance or a doctor; sh
e doesn’t know what to do or who to turn to. She won’t want to rely on Zaak and has no choice but to depend on strangers with whom she has made acquaintance only recently, namely Kiin, Dajaal, and Bile, or the shopkeeper, to give a hand. Now Cambara hears Jiijo saying something meekly and sounding uncertain, the words unnecessarily spaced, like computer-generated speech. After putting a lot of effort into deciphering Jiijo’s statement, she decides that Jiijo is blaming herself for not remembering her name.
“Never mind what my name is,” says Cambara, her voice firm, determinedly brave, despite the circumstances. For all she can tell, Jiijo may not be letting on that she has found out the truth about Cambara, whom she will eventually challenge. Careful not to stir into counterproductive action based on unproven suspicion, she says to Jiijo, “Tell me what is ailing you, where you hurt. I can fetch a taxi and then rush you to a hospital, if there is need.”
Cambara’s lump of worry, which has lodged itself for a short while in her throat, blocking it, melts. In its place, a sense of relief eases itself into her body, and she relaxes into the lengthening silence punctuated by Jiijo’s strained breathing.
Jiijo sits up on the couch, in evident discomfort, her features pinched, her legs spread awkwardly, her skin showing signs of neglect, as dry as harmattan, flaky. It is possible that Jiijo’s physical distress with her pregnancy began in her mind before it made its presence felt in the rest of her body.
Cambara asks, “Will you tell me what’s ailing you so that I know what I need to do?”
“He beat me last night,” says Jiijo weakly.
Cambara wagers her intuition that she can tell the man who beat her up. She remembers coming in on him lying prone and snoring, surrounded with half a dozen pillows and cushions, a man in a world separate from the others, as they had neither pillows nor cushions. Disgusted, she is tempted to give in to the temptation to walk into the bedroom, where she will find him and his qaat-chewing mates sleeping off an all-night session, and maul him, if for no other reason than to remember how she dealt with Wardi. Cambara hesitates to put to Jiijo the questions that are presenting themselves to her, as a trespass of her privacy. She wants to know what the man is to Jiijo, what the nature of their relationship is before electing her course of action. She has to take care not to add further humiliation to the infringement already meted out to Jiijo, lest she should seize up and refuse to talk altogether. In a moment, however, Cambara is studying Jiijo’s situation from a perspective in which the two of them no longer dwell in distinctly autonomous spheres, marked off by their known differences in terms of class, provenance, and experience or by an invisible boundary of mistrust. She sees in this context that, as women, they share the communality of male violence, both having suffered in their different ways at the hands of their partners.
“Where is he?”
“He isn’t here.”
“What about his men?”
“They’ve all gone.”
“Where?”
“They are all taking part in a skirmish over the control of a bridgehead near the town of Jowhar with access to Mogadiscio,” Jiijo explains, drying her cheeks, now that she is no longer weeping.
“When do you expect them to be back?”
“No idea.”
Cambara’s quick thinking kicks in.
“Tell you what we will do.”
Fear inserts itself into Jiijo’s eyes and her voice too. She asks, “What do you want us to do?”
Cambara finds Jiijo’s use of an inclusive “us” a little unsettling at first, then, after giving it some thought, becomes excited to the extent that she makes a slipshod patter. She says, “We’ll fix you something to eat.”
“I don’t know if I can eat.”
“In the meantime go and have a shower,” Cambara says, convinced that she would persuade her to eat something. “We’ll talk when you’re done.”
Jiijo obliges.
As paean to her attentiveness, Cambara calls on Jiijo every instant she is able to, now holding her hands away from herself, given that she is busy chopping onions or garlic, now washing them and touching the back of her hand to her forehead. On one occasion, the fever in Jiijo’s gaze floats in the delirium of her high temperature, the pupils of her frenziedly restless look filmed with anxiety, her lips hardening as if encrusted with dried mud, her saliva flowing, much of her tongue out and motionless, like an alligator sunning.
Between cooking and attending to Jiijo’s needs, Cambara avails herself of the opportunity to study the lay of the place. She surveys the condition the property is in, this being the first time she has had the run of it, free to go where she pleases. Overall, the house is in terrible disrepair, its shabbiness the consequence not only of the coarse indifference of its occupants, who before moving into it may never have set foot in a house similar to it, but also of having been vandalized, some of the rooms severely so. However, she is delighted with the immaculate state the hall, used for receptions and parties, is in. Otherwise, the house will require very detailed ministration, the kind of purposeful care an artwork in a bad state of repair requires.
The meal ready and her surveying done, Cambara brings two platefuls of food, one for her, the other for Jiijo. “Feed a fever,” she says, encouraging her to eat, “and you will be on your feet in no time.”
Jiijo tucks into her brunch but not before feasting her eyes, delighting in the attention that Cambara has so far lavished on her. When they have eaten and she has cleared the plates, Cambara returns and says to Jiijo, “Let’s hear your story.”
“Where to begin?” Jiijo says.
As she prepares to listen, Cambara assumes that Jiijo has the baptism blood of sacrifice running in her arteries. She remarks too that there is a big difference in her bearing today; the poor woman appears more broken than before, no longer a capable enough woman. When they first met, Jiijo struck her as a strong and purposefully alive woman, behaving in a manner befitting a woman of noble upbringing.
Her voice grave, she says, “I do not know who you are or why I am pouring out my heart to you. You could say that misfortune is my second name. If I am holding back nothing, it is because I know that nothing can hurt me more than I hurt already.”
Then she pauses for a long while and, waiting for the story to develop in her head before she shares it with Cambara, her calloused right hand taking a good grip of her own thigh, which, like the rest of her body, appears lifelessly dry because of its exposure to the hostile elements. Cambara tells herself to remember to select a moisturizing cream from her own supply, certain that it will bring the shine of life back to Jiijo’s skin. Jiijo massages her thigh up and down to ease the ache in her bones and help relieve her mental anguish at the same time.
“I am the daughter of a tailor,” Jiijo introduces herself. “My father had a small tailoring business together with two of his younger brothers. We were okay, we had enough, there was always food on our tables, and we were happy with our lot. To make more money, my father ran a key-cutting service on the side, one of two such outfits in our part of the city. Because he and I were very close, I spent a lot of time with him in the tailoring business—something my uncles did not approve of—or helped him cut keys. From an early age, I felt wiser than my peers, many of whom I found to be shortsighted or immature. My father did not want to marry me off to one of my cousins, as we Xamaris tend to do, but allowed me to stay on in school. You could say that I am the only one among my cousins who has some kind of education. I was preparing to take my high school finals and then go to university when I became pregnant out of wedlock. There was no alternative but to marry, not the father of my baby but a cousin several times removed, who came from the richer side of my extended family. Then the collapse occurred.”
Then silence, as if resisting the storm of fury in the form of the rage she feels inside of herself. The muscles of her face tighten, as though the mere thought of what happened causes her tremendous pain. Cambara, alert to her surroundings, lights upon the fact that
Jiijo’s plate, almost greedily cleaned up, is on the verge of falling off the table. She catches it in time and places it on the floor close to her feet.
Jiijo continues, “I have known gang rape as much as you can get to know someone on a first-name basis. Since the collapse, I have been a kept woman, living in a small room in a big house for much of the past few years, a small room with the lights off, which made me as frightened as a blind kitten. I suffered the daily humiliation of not knowing which of the many youths would come to the room and take me. It puzzles me that I did not go out of my mind totally or that I held on to the skirt of life the way a scared kitten clutches its mother’s flank. My days of misery lasted until Gudcur came to claim me as his. As much as it is hard to accept it now, I admit to having seen him as my protector arriving on the scene to free me from further fear. Once it became apparent to everyone that I was his woman, I settled on relaxing into my condition, accepting it. My usual good-natured manner emerged when he showed how gentle he could be when he chose to.”
Talking about her miserable past and touching on the terrible things that had befallen her seem to provide Jiijo with a provisional easing of her agonies. She manages to wear the grave aspect of a woman hurt at the same as she displays the strength of her personhood.
Her expression crestfallen, Jiijo goes on, “There are odd moments of satisfaction in my situation when you consider it. Being illiterate, the men come to me to assist them in managing their lives in a way that is strangely gratifying. I also read and write their letters, and cook all the meals. Until a year or two ago, when some of the schools reopened, I used to teach Gudcur’s children.”
Jiijo is something of a raconteur. As she speaks, she attends, bizarrely, to removing hair from her half-plucked armpits. Cambara looks upon Jiijo as another actor, raw, untrained. It is the way Jiijo talks, the way she lets go of her words with a baffling ease, telling as she does a tale, her own and the nation’s. No doubt, the woman’s life has been difficult. However, from the way she narrates her story, it is as though Jiijo is laying herself bare to Cambara, in the expansive attitude of one victim to another. Cambara strains her ears, listening for changes in the tone of her voice, miraculously managing to wish away all intimations of fear in the secure belief that no one will hurt Jiijo more than she has been already.
Knots Page 21
