“It is naive of me to trust another man who has let me down,” Cambara says. “When will I learn? More to the point, will I ever learn?”
From what she says, it is clear that Kiin has already moved on and is ready to change the topic in order to give her counsel about the crisis. “In life,” Kiin says, “you gain some, you lose some.”
Rankled, with a raw rage crawling insectlike all over the invisible parts of her body, Cambara breaks out in spots of outrage. “I cannot think of any gains I’ve made, only losses.”
When Kiin’s dogged attempt at lightening Cambara’s mood and tempering it with a sense of moderate expectation doesn’t work, she decides to change her approach.
Kiin says, “Here is some other news.”
“How I could do with good tidings.”
“News about Jiijo, from Farxia, her doctor.”
“Tell me.”
“Jiijo has given birth to a baby boy.”
Cambara knows that Kiin has rendered much assistance without expecting any returns and that helping her has not been free of risks. Moreover, moving Jiijo from the family property in an ambulance and transporting her to a private clinic does not come cheap. She is indebted to Kiin, owes whatever successes she has made in this regard to Kiin’s ingenuity. Even though she will ask for it, Cambara doubts if the gynecologist will bother to submit Jiijo’s hospital bill to settle, which she is willing to pay. At worst, Kiin or her network of women friends will foot it. She must insist on meeting the expenses, because she is the one who stands to gain from the charitable intervention.
“How are they, mother and baby?”
“They’re doing super. Both are.”
“How long does Farxia plan to keep her at the clinic?” asks Cambara.
Kiin replies, “There are not a lot of options to consider. Jiijo will have to go hush-hush, preferably before the evening. The problem is where we must take her to, once discharged. We do not want her to go back to your house, having emptied her of it. Neither does Farxia want her to spend an hour longer at her clinic. Remember, Farxia removed her from your property without a paper trail. Now how can she explain it away? And how or from whom did she, Farxia, learn of Jiijo’s condition before deciding to send an ambulance to fetch her to the clinic? Dicey questions with no easy answers.”
“Does anyone know where Gudcur is?”
“We do not.”
“What does it mean that no one mentions having seen or talked to him and that no radio station refers to the fighting anymore?” Cambara asks, her expression worried.
“It can mean both nothing and everything.”
“A daunting prospect,” says Cambara.
“Some of the members of the network have been through situations a lot worse than this,” Kiin assures her. “Don’t worry. In the end, the network always wins.”
“What a lot of trouble I’ve been to you and to the other women in your network, to whom I am grateful, every one of them,” says Cambara. “I cannot help wishing I had consulted you before embarking on this.”
“We’re pleased to be of help, as fellow women.”
Cambara resumes eating. She sits awkwardly forward, her plate almost falling over. Kiin watches over her friend’s food, and although she is not saying anything, you can see that she is ready to step in and take charge. Cambara, meanwhile, is floundering about in the sudden impulse of finding the right words with which to express her worried delight, worried, because she thinks Jiijo is laden with the inconvenience and the tragic responsibility of rearing the son of a man she hates. Perhaps this is the lot of many a woman: raising the offspring of men whom they cannot stand and at times without whom they can barely exist. How can she help? How can anyone be of assistance to women like Jiijo, who are in such a terrible bind? Treated worse than chattels, beaten daily, and tortured too, yet as the mothers to the offspring of these monsters, their consanguinity is in no doubt; it is all there for everyone to see. Ideally, one must make sure that Jiijo and her baby are in a safe home, out of harm’s way and beyond Gudcur’s reach.
Cambara wonders aloud, her face blank. “Suppose we fly her out of the country, once she is discharged?” And no sooner has Cambara formulated the question in her mind and then spoken it than she realizes that she is being a twit.
Kiin has the kindness of heart and the indulgence to make as if the freshness of Cambara’s proposition is worth giving serious thought to before nipping off its new shoots.
“Put her on a plane, straight to Nairobi?”
“Maybe that won’t work,” Cambara submits.
Kiin does not give up the chase so easily. She says, “It would work if Jiijo were in a condition that warranted her being taken there—to save her life or her baby’s—but as it is, they are both well and thriving. And at the risk of being found out, we can shelve the idea, use it if the other plans that we’ve set into motion fail.”
“What are these plans?”
“We are discussing plans that rely wholly on the members of the network for success,” Kiin explains. “No one else will get to know or hear about the plans until executed. We’ve done similar jobs before for women in trouble. We’ve perfected our methods.”
“Tell me more about the plan.”
“We spirit away women from the men posing the gravest danger to them or their children. In the interim, we deal with the men concerned. On one occasion, we have had to poison his food—end of the nuisance.”
For an instant, Cambara tries to come up with an alternative, one that is more practicable and likelier to work. Alas, her mind is blank, with not a thought presenting itself. Turning the pressing worries over in her brain, she concludes that she has perhaps now become home to a proverbial despair, the angst resulting from the problems running riot inside her head.
“Your house is at your disposal, you know that? We’ve had the locks changed, and have serviced the back entrance, away from the prying eyes of the neighbors and the curious, to make it operational,” Kiin says.
“So much work in such a short time,” says Cambara. She is clearly impressed and is on the verge of getting emotional, the well of her eyes close to filling up with tears of joy.
Kiin continues, “In addition, we’ve engaged an armed security outfit with the aim of closely monitoring the movements in the entire neighborhood and setting up checkpoints manned by a freelance youth-for-peace brigade that is run, no less, by Dajaal’s nephew Qasiir. Before long, we will know what has become of Gudcur and try to find out if there is any chance of him or his men returning. If he survives, then we will factor in the possibility of a fierce confrontation with him. We are preparing for the worst scenario. And we are confident that we will be able to hold on to the property.”
“You won’t want Jiijo to live in it?”
“Why complicate matters?” Kiin says.
“I see what you mean.”
“If I understand correctly, you want to turn the ballroom into your rehearsal space, once you are ready to start working on your play, yes?” Kiin asks, eyes widening, voice rising a little irritably and head shaking. “Isn’t that what you had in mind all along, to repossess it and use it?”
“That’s right.”
“Remember why you are here?”
A scintilla of Cambara’s memory of her anger at Wardi, which spurred her into action, is now stirring in the bottom of her eyes, and prompting her to look away. Her recollection touches off a precipitate return of the many terrible things that men have done to her: Wardi causing Dalmar’s death; Zaak crossing her, and so on.
Sumaya’s soft tread awakens Cambara from her reverie just before startling Kiin from a similar woolgathering. Such is the sweetness of the little one’s contagious smile that both Cambara and Kiin invite her, her mother saying “Come and give me a hug, darling,” and Cambara blowing her a kiss and saying “Come, my cutie.” Sumaya goes to her mother, who wraps her generous body around her.
Kiin’s antennae are alert to an abrupt change in Cambara’s
mood and, attributing this to the fact that she is reliving the sad death of her Dalmar, decides to perk up her spirits.
“Why not?”
Cambara hauls herself up and then focuses her gaze on Kiin and Sumaya. Even so, the thoughts that call on her preclude her gaining solid purchase on a toehold in her scuffle with her demons.
“Please let someone walk Gacal back to the hotel when he is done in the kitchen,” Cambara says, preparing to take leave. “Meanwhile, keep the film for your daughters.”
“Gladly,” Kiin says.
“And if I may impose on you…” Cambara begins and then trails off.
“Yes?”
“It is about Gacal’s accommodation.”
“What about it?”
“Can you organize a place for him to sleep,” Cambara says, “perhaps with the other youths until we find a more agreeable solution for him?”
“No problem.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“See you at the party, if not before.”
“Pleasure.”
TWENTY-ONE
Waiting for Gacal, having already spoken on the phone to the deputy manager, who confirmed that Kiin called him and that he has set in place the arrangements for accommodating and feeding Gacal, Cambara sprawls on her bed, her eyes closed, her thoughts far away in pursuit of some memories that are eluding her. She is relaxed. The air conditioner is on, the noise of the generator a distant hum, even if the voices of some of the daytime sentries sound a little bit too close for comfort.
She is in a loose-fitting outfit into which she changed soon after returning from lunch with Kiin. In place of a pillow, her hands are under her head; she is reviewing the events of the past few days. She sits up after these few intense moments to remind herself that she knows less about Gacal than she needs to if they are to share a rapport solid enough to serve as a workable foundation.
Yet how strange that her expression turns unexpectedly so sour all of a sudden, making her think that it might curdle into milk that has gone bad. She feels bitter that she has rushed into committing herself to Gacal against her current, that is to say, better judgment before finding out much about his background. No wonder Arda has tended to describe Cambara’s discernments as not being of top-drawer quality. “Your gut feeling reigns supreme,” Arda said to her once, “and you pledge your affections fast, not on the basis of what you know but on the strength of your passion at that moment.”
Cambara removes her hands from under her head, and she closes and opens her fist to bring her fingers, which have gone to sleep, back to life. She contemplates the ceiling, convinced that she is set on a course that will bear fruit, thanks to Kiin, who has jump-started her varied plans, some of which have stalled to the point of inaction, others forging forward. She feels justified in safeguarding the gains she has made, yields that may provide her with a rock-steady anchor in the city’s realities. In some measure, she considers herself lucky, in that she has become a key factor in the lives of several people whose paths have crossed hers. It falls to her to take care, wary that a single misstep can give rise to irreversible results.
Now she hears a gentle knocking on the door, assuming it to be no other than Gacal’s. But she waits and listens for a second tapping before she attends to it, for she wants him to identify himself, as if hearing him speak his name might help her form an opinion, assist her in settling on how to proceed, eventually, with their talk. However, when he keeps knocking without confirming his identity, she takes the initiative at the fourth rapping. She asks, “Who is it?”
“You’ve said to come, and I am here,” Gacal says.
She moves toward the door, relatively sanguine about the rightness of her initial visceral reaction to Gacal, now that she is about to meet him. This is because she finds his choice of evasive answer—saying that she said to come and that he is here instead of giving his name, as asked—winsome, circuitous, challenging, original. Whatever else she may think after they have spoken, Cambara is positive that Gacal is brimful with a mix of self-confidence and bravura. She does not remember ever encountering these qualities in any boy his age, except perhaps in Dalmar. Or in SilkHair to a smaller extent.
Finally, the door open, she meets his smug smile, presumably because he too is playing his own game in which he scores high marks. Moreover, he has his hand outstretched. Is he daring Cambara to ignore it or to shake it and then hug him? Looking at Cambara, you might agree that he has won this round.
She doesn’t take his hand, nor does she embrace him. Instead, as if to prove a point to herself, she turns her back on him and says, “Come on in.”
He enters, no longer in smug satisfaction. He closes the door gingerly behind him, his sense of gaminess tapering off a little. He tiptoes farther into the room and waits anxiously, his whole body tense; it is as though he is preparing for her reprimand.
“Tell me,” she says.
Readying to answer her command, he does his best to replace what someone might describe as ragamuffin behavior with a kind of deportment that can win someone like Cambara over. He sits down, unbidden.
“Who are you?” she asks.
“Depends.”
Cambara flinches from the hostile thought that has presented itself to her, a not-so-friendly go-hang-yourself catchphrase, the kind of braggadocio his answer deserves. On second thought, she does nothing of the sort, in part because he reminds her of Dalmar, who kept the motif of dialog in vibrant relief long after the exchange had lost its flair. She relives the fury with which Wardi often greeted Dalmar’s back-talk bravado and how he threatened him with violence if the boy did not stop provoking him. She recalls advising Wardi to desist from browbeating Dalmar into becoming a different child and saying “You might as well instruct a bird not to sing as tell Dalmar not to back talk.”
Another reason why she indulges Gacal’s boldness is related to the fact that he is clearly as capable of resisting adult pressure, especially when someone bludgeons him into toeing the line, as he is of accommodating himself to an acquiescent mood, if he puts his mind to it.
Her smile as thin as a new run in an old pair of stockings, she decides to break his resistance by giving him the bare bones of her own story, with special emphasis on her loss of a son more or less his age, whose death she is now mourning. When she is done with the telling, a very sad memory darkens Gacal’s expression. He is silent for a long time, looking grave. Then he speaks.
Gacal speaks with an elegiac touch to express the unimaginable tragedy that has been his young life. He tells of an equally great loss: the murder of his father, with whom he came to Mogadiscio two years earlier. Killed by the militiamen who had abducted the two of them, kept them apart and incommunicado, his father was shot in the head and robbed of his cash before they let Gacal go. As he talks, Cambara gapes at him in shock, observing how adult he sounds as he pauses occasionally for a phrase that is eluding him or searches for the words with which to describe his grief. She notices too that he has the habit of turning his face away slightly either to the left or right in the manner of somebody striking a pose. He sits, pricking up his ears, as though listening for danger in one menacing form or other to walk in and at one single move end the world that he has known. His story is very difficult to put together, since much of it does not make sense. A man leaves America and brings along his son to expose him to the language and culture of his people on the advice of his wife, the boy’s mother, who wants them away so she can finish some project. Armed militiamen seize the two soon after they have landed at one of the city’s warlord-run airports and entered a vehicle marked “Taxi.” That much is believable. It is when Gacal tells the other part of his story in America that Cambara starts to wonder if this is truth or fiction.
Gacal says, “I was born in Duluth to Somali parents who were granted resettlement rights in the United States after having lived in refugee camps in Kenya for several years. After their first stop in San Diego, they relocated to Minnesota.”
Ca
mbara takes note of his adult register: the tone of voice, choice of words, and body language too. The only part of him that matches his chronological age is his nose, wet like a kitten’s. Because his eyes keep straying impishly, she can’t date them with precision. “I’ve been able to unravel the mess that my life has become only lately,” he continues in an adult voice of a more philosophical register, “almost two years since I got here with my father.”
“Where is your mother?”
“Back in the States.”
“In Duluth?”
“I have no idea.”
“You’ve called her, haven’t you?”
“Our home phone number has been disconnected.”
She can’t bring herself to envisage being in his position, without imagining as though his horror were hers. She senses this is beyond her, because she doesn’t know enough about him. She is aware that civil wars have separated many families from one another, husbands from wives, children from their parents. In the case of Somalia, she knows about the efforts of the International Red Cross to help unite some of the separated families and about the BBC Somali Service’s “Missing Persons” program, broadcast almost daily, with people giving the names of their missing ones, when and where they were last seen, and providing their own whereabouts and telephone numbers in the hope of hearing from them. Maybe she can get him into the program?
“Have you tried your friends at school or relatives, if you can remember their phone numbers?” She feels foolish the moment the words have left her lips. How can he phone if he doesn’t know a soul and doesn’t have the wherewithal to make the call?
“I have.”
A lump in Cambara’s throat prevents her from speaking and asking an indiscreet question, which for a long while lays siege to her tongue too. Despite this, she puts it to him. “How did you get the money to pay for the call?”
Knots Page 30
