Knots

by Nuruddin Farah

  She raises her hand, silencing him. After a pause, she says to him, “Go after the waiter, and he will give you something to eat, a clean towel, and will show you where you can have a bucket shower.” But she does not tell him that, meanwhile, she will look for a pair of trousers and a T-shirt for him, since his are as soiled as the hind legs of a hyena or as torn as the gouged eye of a matador.

  Gacal does as she tells him, turning away as petulant as a cat whose advances have not gotten her a place on her mistress’s lap. As for Cambara, she goes forthwith to her rooms, not sure if she has the right to be pleased with the way she has handled him and wondering if Gacal will have learned where the boundaries of her tolerance will end and what the framework of their relationship is. Of course, she looks forward to having a long chat with him later.

  For now, she rummages in the suitcase for clothes that once belonged to her son, Dalmar, trying to find a pair of cotton trousers and a T-shirt for Gacal. Finally, she lays her nervous hands on clothes that she hopes will be a perfect fit for him. Then she rings the reception, asking that one of the youths please collect the items she’s chosen and give them to Gacal. She explains that the waiter will know where to find him.

  It dawns belatedly that she is behaving like a fawner: a childless woman doing her utmost to pamper a parentless boy with affection to make him take a liking to her. By the time the waiter assigned to do her bidding turns up to fetch the clothes and hand them over to the boy after a shower, Cambara knows that she wants to bring Pinocchio, the videocassette, and Gacal along to Kiin’s place for lunch.

  Three-quarters of an hour later, Cambara is at her desk in the workroom. She has got down to serious work, studying the notes on her scratch pad and admiring the easy-to-carry miniature wooden masks that she hopes the boy playing the role of the eagle in the fable on which she has based her play will be wearing on his head. The one she is holding in her hand is a replica of the original sculptured for her on commission by an Igbo living in Toronto.

  The mask in her clutch is beige, of soft wood, inspired by a nineteenth-century piece in ivory that can be traced to the Kingdom of Benin in Nigeria, a cola-nut vessel in the shape of an antelope’s head, the horns scored with designs in darker hues and engraved with motifs, used for ceremonial purposes. Around the ears, to be precise, just below the right side of the head of the antelope, there is a fish bone, the fish eye bold in its prominence. She returns to her notes and thumbs though the photocopies she has made of the original sculpture. The beauty of the piece is so staggering that it astounds Cambara for a moment.

  She runs her eyes over several other copies of some of the other masks that she intends Seamus to sculpt for her play. Among these, one piece stands out: a twentieth-century Senufo headdress carved out of a rectangular board and worn as a mask. This arrests her attention, for on it there are very abstract figures of animals that stand in two-dimensional profiles in four wide openings. In addition to the animal figures, several other difficult-to-identify forms are organized according to a systemic concept, with round contours of figures in the front and back of the board foregrounding the mask. There is a female figure in front of the head of the antelope, dominating it, and in the back or, rather, above the antelope head, there is a bird in the likeness of an eaglet, more abstract than the other figures in the front.

  She consults her file further and comes across yet another piece of breathtaking artistry said to have been found among Leo Frobenius’s collection, bought in 1904 in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is either a nineteenth-or an early-twentieth-century comb carved out of wood in the abstract shape of a human. Dominating the design are a protruding nose and a crested headdress, shapes that are worked with impressive artistry into the comb, its projection forming part of the small head. High-ranking men and young men participating in the festivities at the end of their initiation ceremony wore these combs as hair ornaments. Cambara hopes that Seamus will be able to sculpt pieces in the likeness of rods that the actors playing the characters and speaking their roles can easily manipulate.

  Just then, she hears a tap at the door and gets to her feet with the speed of someone expecting a visitor. As she does so, she collides with the desk, knocking her thigh against its edge, the pain instant and atrocious, and her veins smarting. She limps to the door, wincing, and because she pulls the door open without asking who is there, wonders if she is being injudicious. After all, the knocker could be anyone: Gudcur or one of his militiamen come with the premeditation and motive to harm her; Zaak, arriving to vent his spleen, as malodorous as it is ill humored; or any other gun-toting youth, deranged enough to shoot without a care in the world.

  “There you are,” she says to Gacal, who is standing there. She sounds genuinely happy, chuffed that he looks more elegant than she has imagined possible in the outfit she has sent down to him.

  “I am here,” he says, his tone of voice that of a wooer manqué, come without a hat to tip to the woman he is courting. His thumb and index are poised, as if to raise a hat.

  Cambara takes his measure, training her eyes on him, feeling more confident than ever in her choice and judging him right for the role she wants him to play. Pleased that he will serve her purposes, and content too that he is meeting her quick appraisal with a chutzpah in the form of a twinkle of a smile, she watches with amusement as he rubs his flat open palm over the creases in the trousers, smoothing them. She gives him an A-plus mark; he nods his head, maybe confirming her thoughts. She is debating whether to invite him into her room when she realizes that he is barefoot and remembers why even after she donated shoes to the Salvation Army in Toronto she felt the need to apologize to the officer receiving them. Dalmar would describe his feet as “funny,” because of the differences in their size, his left foot being the larger by nearly three sizes, a deformity that Wardi blamed her for, at one point ascribing it to what he called Cambara’s degeneracy. She would order her son’s footwear from a U.K.-based outfit, Sole Mates, which specializes in supplying people like Dalmar with shoes matching the varying sizes of their feet. She broods over the matter of shoes a little more and then invites Gacal into the room. She takes him by the hand before giving his feet a cursory assessment and deciding that for the time being he can use her open leather sandals, which she reckons are merely one size too big.

  When she returns her gaze to concentrate on Gacal, she finds that he is focusing his full attention on the replica of a wooden mask that has been cut out of cardboard and painted a dark color. She is equally enthralled, watching him, spellbound. She is moved, her transport of joy knowing no limits. Elated, she walks back into the room, picking up the object of his fascination, and says, “Try it on.”

  Gacal steps forward to receive the mask in the respectful self-possession of someone collecting a prize from royalty—reverentially and with both his hands. He behaves self-consciously, turning it this way and that admiringly. One might think that he has always known its great import, even though, from the awestruck way he is now holding it, Cambara is not sure if he has any idea what it is for.

  To spare him blushes, she decides to help him out. She says, “See if it will fit your head.” When he stares back at her hesitantly, obviously confused and not knowing what to do, she says, “Here,” and she snatches it back from him, her manner gentle, her grin gushy. Then she places it on his head in much the same rigorous ritualism as a commoner chosen to put a crown on the head of a noble person, honoring him or her. That done, she moves back to confirm her decision to cast Gacal in the role of the eagle in the play as soon as she laid her eyes on him. She says, “There.”

  Gacal’s hands flail blindly but very cautiously above his head, not daring to touch the mask lest he upset its balance or upend it. It is then that she leads him by the hand to the full-length mirror in the bathroom. To afford both of them the possibility of concentration, she stands apart from him and out of the mirror’s frame. She describes the scene before her as an instant of breathtaking
beauty. “No doubt about it, no doubt about it,” she repeats several times.

  When he makes as if to ask what it is for, she reclaims the mask, holds it at the range of a trombone, and says, “The clothes I’ve given you may not be a perfect fit and I may not have got you a pair of shoes, but this suits you wonderfully.”

  A masterpiece of unequalled handsomeness; she feels almost content with the world and fills her eyes with Dalmar’s look-alike.

  Her mobile rings. She answers it, her eyes brightening as the voice of the woman at the other end gives her very good news. Then she listens some more and asks, “Are you sure, Kiin dear, that you do not mind if I bring my young guest to lunch? Also to bring along Pinocchio, so that he and your two daughters, whom I am so looking forward to meeting, can watch it while we chat in uninterrupted peace?”

  “But of course.” Cambara picks up a trace of annoyance in Kiin’s voice, suspecting that there is something bothering her, even if she is not telling her what it is. This gets Cambara’s back up, but she lets it be in the hope that she will eventually hear of what is bugging Kiin. Understandably, Kiin may not be very keen on having a boy unknown to her play with her daughters alone, well aware that he is a different make from them. You never know what mischief an urchin with no known beginnings might conjure up if such an opportunity were to present itself. It is just as well that she will be close by, keeping her eyes and ears alert for any possible misadventure. Will Gacal, who may have a troubled history, interrupt the placidity that Kiin has created for herself and her daughters?

  “Let’s go,” she says. “It’s lunchtime.”

  Gacal looks ecstatic. Cambara imagines him to be comfortable in who he is becoming: a clean, well-fed lad who has on clothes as good as new, plus a pair of leather sandals—never mind that it is no easy matter to scuttle speedily in them—his hand in the grip of a woman fostering him to high ambitions. What more can he want?

  To get to Kiin’s place on foot, Cambara, leading Gacal by the hand, walks through a door set clandestinely into the wall separating the hotel grounds from Kiin’s residence. Paned green and wrapped in vines grown purposely to disguise it, the door is visible only to those who know of its existence. It is to the rear of a spot where the sentries have provisionally mounted a guard to the right of the main entrance. Cambara uses the door that is Kiin’s family preserve, relieved to be spared a little of the bother of leaving the hotel and stepping into the main dirt road, walking a hundred or so meters and then turning left into Kiin’s gate.

  Serenity steals over all her taut nerves, helping her to relax the moment she and Gacal enter the grounds of Kiin’s residence. Her heart leaps with joy at the sight of such an idyllic scene: a sunlit place of peace and harmony in the midst of so much darkness. Cambara lets go of Gacal’s hand, in part because his are sweaty, hers dry, and because she wants him to carry Pinocchio. She guesses that his ear-to-ear grin can only point to the attainment of a dream: a parent figure to entrust him with an important assignment. There is confidence in his stride, his forward-leaning pose suggesting an eagerness to prove his worth.

  They light upon a man who is supine on a straw mat in the shade of a large, fruiting mango tree. She assumes he is the gardener, taking a lunch break close to the shed. Scattered all around him, as if by design, are his tools: a wheelbarrow, rakes, a hoe, and other implements. Farther on, beyond the blooming orchids, two beautiful girls run after each other and around a tree, excited, their voices full of life and their chases alive with the equanimity of the fearless giggles. There are the swings and the seesaw that form the center of the playground; close to these, Cambara spots a tree house having a ladder with a missing rung up near the top end. Along the way, Cambara is tempted to pick up a couple of dolls and a few toys that look as if a child has flung them, a leg up, the head twisted, toys abandoned in the middle of play.

  Kiin may be living in a city that has not known peace for ten years and more, which is all the more reason why the legion of comforts that she has created are remarkable in themselves, amenities that are on the one hand pure pleasure and on the other startling when you come upon them. Cambara cannot help drawing a conclusion: that only someone blessed with abundant self-confidence and the joys of living in the coziness of a snug life, fitting in the protected nature of its refuge, can be as giving and magnanimous as Kiin has been to her and, presumably, to many others.

  No matter what she thinks of it, Cambara again is sad that she is pinning all her hopes of success on Kiin, whom she hardly knows. What will she do, on whom will she depend, whose assistance will she seek if something terrible happens to the one basket into which she has put all her eggs? It is a pity, she thinks, that Zaak, on whom her mother had hoped she should rely, has proven to be slothful and unworthy of her respect. You can see the differences between Kiin’s and Zaak’s characters in the homes they have created and the lives they lead. Kiin’s life is orderly, an oasis with a spring of plenitude in which countless edibles, flowers, and shady trees flourish and blossom into a Shangri-La of incomparable potential.

  At Cambara and Gacal’s approach, the girls fall silent, the younger one running away after a pause and the older one waiting bashfully and smiling. She has a fetching way of carrying herself, her entire spare frame, tall for her age, Cambara presumes, supporting itself on the tiptoe of her right foot in the style of a ballet dancer: kittenish, teasingly coquettish, eyes rolling, her messages mixed. Gacal raises his gaze at Cambara, as if seeking her counsel.

  The girl, sounding tuckered out, says to Cambara, “My mum says that she will be late but that you and your guest are to go ahead and our housekeeper will serve you drinks until she joins you.”

  Cambara introduces herself as her mother’s friend and then changes her mind just in time before presenting Gacal, not certain how this will play out. She goes closer to the girl, asking, “Tell me, sweet, what’s yours?”

  “My name is Sumaya, my sister’s name is Nuura,” the girl replies, indicating to Cambara, from the way she carries herself, that she is older than her chronological age. Her eyes say, “I know a lot more than you think I do.”

  Because of this “eye-speak,” Cambara locates Kiin’s worry, assuming that as a mother to a knockout girl brought up in such a protective environment, you will not want to bring along a Gacal who might take advantage of her. Since there is no going back, she decides to play it as safe as possible.

  “Why don’t you show us the way?” Cambara suggests.

  Sumaya leads them to the veranda, where she shows them to the seats facing the garden. Then, before vanishing into a wing of the house to Cambara’s back, she calls to the housekeeper to let her know that the guests have arrived.

  Gacal says, “Nice.”

  Cambara is not sure what Gacal intends to say, and hopes that he wants simply to point out that Sumaya is nice in the sense that she is pleasant on the eye and that the whole setup, of which she is a significant part, perhaps the center, is delightful. She prays he will leave it at that and not lust after her nor permit his sexual urges—not that there is any evidence of such so far—to exercise total control over his rapport with Sumaya or her younger sister, because that may upset the mother in Kiin and by extension will disturb the friend in her.

  She wishes she had had enough time to get to know what Gacal is made of. What manner of boy is he in the presence of “nice” girls with “nice” little tits who grow up in “nice” homes, girls who come at him showily, as if courting someone who is different from them turns them on? She is aware that it is too late to undo what she has done or to wish that she had not rushed in her desire to spend several hours with him by inviting him to Kiin’s lunch for her. It is typical of her to complicate matters unnecessarily. Why must she always take a not-thought-through plunge, abandoning herself to the dictates of her emotions and committing herself in haste to positions or to persons when what she needs is to take stock of her alternatives, reflect on what is possible and wise and what is foolish and needi
ng revision? Yet she hates to backtrack and is highly reluctant to admit a sense of remorse, insisting that the notion of regret is alien to her. It distresses her too that she has imposed on Kiin, forcing her to agree to Gacal’s presence when it has been obvious that she does not want Gacal to watch Pinocchio with the girls. Maybe Kiin prefers making other arrangements; alas, Kiin hasn’t had much of a chance to propose another option to Cambara’s suggestion.

  “You will behave, won’t you?” she says to Gacal.

  “I will,” he says, with a glint in his eye and grinning knowingly.

  Cambara stops in her tracks, as if considering her course of action. Wising to what is happening, Gacal reaches for her hand, and he takes it in his. He says, “See you later.”

  TWENTY

  Cambara is deeply worried, searching for the right words, when Sumaya impatiently grabs at the videocassette, taking it from her, and then tells Nuura and Gacal to follow her to the video room. The two girls and Gacal dash off eagerly, with Sumaya promising Gacal that she will show him their rooms, the toys they have there, and the reception room where they will watch Pinocchio. Kiin’s older daughter says, “You can’t imagine how we’ve always wanted to see this film, Nuura and me.”