Crossbones

by Nuruddin Farah

  He has on his forehead a bump as round and big as a golf ball. His chest aches; there is someone else’s blood on his clothes. Somewhere just above his groin, there are more traces of blood. He feels around and finds a fragment of glass through the rent in his trousers.

  He hears Qasiir asking, “Can you hear me, Malik?” Then he feels someone hauling him out of the van the way one would heft a sleeping child out of a car.

  “I am all right,” he says.

  “Here, take my hand,” Qasiir says.

  Malik does so and asks, “How about the others?”

  Only when they are outside the vehicle does he see why it had taken so long for Qasiir to get to him: the dead and wounded were in Malik’s way. Qasiir offers to take the wounded to hospital, and with a mosque being close by, a number of bystanders improvise coffins out of sheets and place the corpses in them to carry. Malik knows there is no point telephoning for ambulances, because they are seldom available in a city in which there are more devices blowing up than there are ambulances. No point either in taking the dead to the hospitals or bothering about postmortems; they will be buried before nightfall.

  By the time Qasiir has wedged him into the back of the sedan car with two of his wounded colleagues on either side of him and the head of a third on his lap, Malik realizes that he has his responsibility cut out for him. It has fallen to him to tell the world what has occurred, how these journalists died serving the cause of their profession. Is he capable of meeting the challenge? Does he have the mettle to mourn them openly, mention names, point fingers at the culprits? In his head he drafts an obituary of “the unappreciated journalist” on the move; no time to find a desk, but he begins to debrief one of the wounded journalists who is in a fit state to answer his questions.

  A twinge of regret scratches inside Malik’s head, squeakily reminding him that he hasn’t yet published his piece about Dajaal’s murder. Then a portal of sorrow opens in the active side of his brain, and he worries that he, too, may die before he is able to write about the mobs of youth abandoning themselves to madness—and society looking on and doing nothing to stop them.

  Malik and the wounded journalists are in luck. Qasiir has had the presence of mind to telephone Cambara and Bile, and Cambara has provided Qasiir with the names of doctors she knows at Medina Hospital, and mobile numbers for four medics in two of the private clinics, adding that she will try and reach them herself. Now Cambara and Bile ring Qasiir back with the message that they have reached one of the medics. He has reserved rooms in the intensive-care unit, and he and the nursing staff will be waiting for them.

  And indeed they are. As the wounded are wheeled straight into surgery, Malik fills out the paperwork. He looks for the spot to provide his credit card information but learns that the clinic does not have the facility to process one. Still, he vows that he will pay if no one else does, and the administrator takes his word for it.

  Now the invasive odor of chloroform sticks to his nostrils, reminding him of how close he has been to death. When the sweet smell almost knocks him out, he forces himself to sit up. He wishes he could move around, go outside for some fresh air. But he stays where he is, on a smelly, improvised camp bed with bloodstains on it. He feels a little squeamish and claustrophobic and goes out for a bit of fresh air and finds a bench in a small, untended garden. He sits down, sighing with relief.

  A man approaches and asks if he may share the bench with him to rest his tired body. Malik indicates that he may. His phone rings and his editor at the daily paper is on the line, suggesting that he write a short piece about the events in Mogadiscio to go into the paper today. Malik feels his pockets, which are empty of pens and pencils. He asks the stranger if he has something with which to write. The man lends him a pencil. Malik moves a step away from the man, who seems to be eavesdropping on his conversation, to take notes on what the editor is looking for. After agreeing that he will file a story within several hours, he hangs up and returns the pencil to its owner, with thanks.

  The stranger then introduces himself as Hilowleh, speaking his name in a way that makes Malik wonder if he ought to know it. His face stirs the vaguest of memories. Still, Malik can’t decide if they have met before, or when or where, maybe because his brain is in too much disarray and incapable of connecting the available dots and dashes. The man’s long eyelashes, his two-day-old stubble, and his ragged appearance are of no help. There is misapprehension in the man’s demeanor, suggesting that talking to him is wrong. Is he embarrassed, and if so, why? Is there something weighing on the man’s mind that he wishes to unload?

  The man says, “I thought you were Malik.”

  Malik recalls watching Edward Albee’s play The Zoo Story, in which a man sits next to another on a park bench in New York. The two men talk, and their talk leads one of them to murder the other. Anyhow, what does this man want?

  “What if I were Malik?” he asks.

  The stranger takes a small piece of paper out of his pocket, writes down a mobile number, gives it to Malik, and says, “Call me when you have a moment.” Then he departs, without another look or word.

  Malik roots in the repertoire of memories at his disposal for the right kind of reaction, but he cannot come up with a suitable one. He holds the piece of paper as if it were on fire and about to burn his fingers, and scampers after the man. He asks, “Who are you? Where have we met?”

  “I was in the minivan,” Hilowleh says. “My nephew is one of the three wounded journalists for whom you’ve offered to pay. I own a printing press, one of the largest in the city, which is why I know many of the journalists. I want first of all to thank you for your kindness.”

  Malik nods and waits for more.

  “That is going to be a hefty bill and I am offering to share it with you, and so will others, when the clinic gets round to submitting it,” Hilowleh says. “But yours is a generous gesture and it behooves us to acknowledge it, with thanks.”

  “I’m sure you wish to say something else besides thanking me for a bill that hasn’t been submitted and which I haven’t yet settled,” Malik says.

  Hilowleh nods and then says, “I do.”

  Malik thinks that Hilowleh holds his self-doubts in check the way a cardplayer with a winning hand delays revealing it.

  Finally, Hilowleh says, “I happen to be privy to a few facts. I hear a lot, because I am in the printing business and my nephew has been confiding in me.”

  Malik feels unable to set sail in such a fog, so he waits for Hilowleh to state his real business. “What are you telling me?”

  Hilowleh says, “Are you here for long?”

  “I am here until I’ve paid the bill, for sure.”

  “I meant, are you in the country for long?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because I would leave soonest if I were you.”

  With these new deaths, Malik is now of the same mind: he is planning to leave as soon as he has done a few more interviews.

  “From what I hear you’re lucky to be alive,” Hilowleh affirms. “For what it is worth, it is now agreed that Gumaad has all along been the snake trailing the length of his betrayals, enviously causing their deaths, because he couldn’t produce a single line good enough to be published. The advice from me is this: leave quickly, quit this accursed country while you can.”

  Not awaiting his reaction, Hilowleh walks off.

  Qasiir finds Malik brooding. He has the surgeon with him. The surgeon informs Malik that the three injured journalists are now out of danger. They are, however, still under sedation in the intensive-care unit. Then the surgeon gives him a card, which has on it his full name, a home phone number, and a mobile one.

  The surgeon says to Malik, “I mean what I wrote in the message on the back, thinking I might not see you. Please call whenever you want. No hour is late. I am on duty the whole week. Also, don’t worry about paying the bill on a foreign credit card. Hilowleh, an uncle to one of the journalists, has agreed to settle all the charges. S
o if you are feeling okay yourself, be on your way. And thank you.”

  On their way to Cambara and Bile’s, Qasiir informs Malik that on their instructions he has taken Malik’s things to the annex just as he packed them.

  “I wish you would have let me know before doing so.”

  Qasiir shrugs, as if making light of the matter.

  Malik, miffed, says, “As you can see, I’m well enough to decide for myself. Nor am I dead yet. Because when I am dead, it will fall to others, like Cambara and Bile, to do what they please with my personal things.”

  “Just following instructions,” Qasiir says.

  Malik ascribes his irritability, once he has given it thought, to the fact that he doesn’t wish to speak about his encounter or exchange with Hilowleh to anyone. He hates the “I told you so” posture that others would take if something terrible were to happen to him.

  They listen to the news on the car radio: Nine peacekeepers from the Burundi contingent seconded to the African Union AMISOM died when a suicide bomber drove into their compound.

  At Cambara and Bile’s, Malik gingerly steps out of the vehicle and stands, with his hand ready to ring the outside bell; but somehow he doesn’t press it. Instead, he sways this way and that, from a combination of pain and exhaustion, his head spinning, the ache in his entire body now returning, his feet feeling as heavy as lead. Qasiir rings the outside bell for him and waits until Cambara joins them. Only then does he go to take Malik’s suitcase and computer to the annex.

  Cambara welcomes Malik in and holds him. They walk side by side to the annex. She is too familiar with the slow pace of the invalid, and supports him well. Bile accompanies them, bringing along a pouch with painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs, aiming to have the chance to inspect Malik thoroughly. They invite him to stay in the main house for the night, but Malik won’t hear of it.

  “I don’t like the look of that bump on your head,” Bile says. “It is pretty nasty and the swelling hasn’t gone down.”

  “Besides, from the look of you, you seem to be running a mild fever,” Cambara says. And to prove it, her cold hand touches his warm head.

  Bile sits in the only easy chair in the room, Cambara on the edge of the bed, in which Malik is now lying prone. They ask him questions about the explosion. He gives the details he has already worked on in his head and which he intends to write down, just as is.

  Done with his retelling, Malik points Cambara to the bag in which he has kept his soiled things. Then he goes into the bathroom to wash his face and take a look in the mirror at the bump on his forehead. Bile plies him with pills, and when Malik tells him that he is set on working on the short piece he promised his editor, Cambara prepares a couch on which to sleep and a desk on which to write.

  Alone at last, Malik writes several versions of the day’s events and then e-mails the short piece—a pity he has no pictures to accompany it. He postpones starting on the longer piece till the next day, but before turning in, exhausted and still in pain, he rings Ahl to let him know what has happened and to ask after Taxliil.

  Ahl is eager to talk. Worn out and still in considerable pain, Malik offers to say hello to Taxliil, “just to hear my nephew’s voice after such a long time.”

  “Taxliil is in no mood to talk to anyone.”

  “Says who?” Malik asks, galled.

  “I say it, he says it, does it matter who says it?”

  Malik tells himself that, like a contagion affecting them all, there is a lot of nervous tension going around. He is under a great deal of stress, because of the threats Hilowleh has alluded to and, more to the point, the fact that he won’t speak about it to anyone—which in and of itself carries its built-in anxiety; Ahl, because of the uncertainties surrounding Taxliil; Taxliil, because of what he has just been through and the unpredictability of his future safety. Maybe it is best that they do not lose their cool at what has proved to be an ordeal for all of them. He decides that it is time to compromise.

  “What will make you happy?”

  “Talk to Fidno and his friend,” Ahl says.

  Malik asks, “Is No-Name coming along, too?”

  “No-Name is not coming,” Ahl says. “Instead, Fidno’s associate, Il-Qayaxan, known among his friends as Isha, is joining you.”

  “And where does Isha fit in?” Malik says.

  Ahl says, “Just talk to them, please.”

  “Where is Fidno now?”

  “Both Fidno and Isha are in Mogadiscio waiting for your call,” Ahl says. “Let me give you their respective phone numbers. Please make sure to arrange to see them tomorrow at a place and time of your choosing.”

  Malik takes down their phone numbers and hangs up. With the words of Hilowleh echoing in his mind, he calls up Qasiir and requests that he claim to be Malik’s assistant and set up a meeting for him with Fidno and Il-Qayaxan for one in the afternoon tomorrow. “Please call me back after you’ve spoken to them, and I’ll give you the name of the hotel and the room number, too.”

  Then Malik does his duty by Amran and calls her, offering her a doctored version of what he’s been through, reducing the number of deaths by a third and distancing himself from their proximity.

  He then speaks to Jeebleh, to whom he offers an unedited version of the day’s events.

  AHL HITS HURDLES AT EVERY BEND, THE MORE HE THINKS ABOUT the safest and least cumbersome way to get Taxliil out of Somalia. It is difficult enough for him to step over the threshold and doubly difficult to deal with Taxliil, who is a misguided youth because of his involvement with Shabaab. Taxliil has a way of throwing another wrench into the works every time Ahl manages to wrest one free. He finds all this exhausting, and he feels himself in danger of cracking up, never mind his stepson.

  His plan was to get Taxliil to Djibouti, where they would present themselves at the U.S. embassy and explain the loss of Taxliil’s passport. But the plan is so far proving to be unworkable, because they need to find a travel document of some description to leave Bosaso and enter Djibouti. No airline will accept him as passenger unless he has a valid passport. Ahl thinks that as more twists in Taxliil’s tale come to light, the more numerous are the drawbacks that are bound to crop up.

  Meanwhile, Ahl has been in touch with a tearful Yusur in Minneapolis, has held long brainstorming sessions with Jeebleh in Nairobi, and continues to communicate with Malik by phone and by text message. Xalan and Warsame are doing their best to help as well, but things don’t look good.

  When he is not thinking like a runaway, Taxliil has on several occasions apologized to his parents, admitting to his foolhardy trust in the imam back in the Twin Cities, at whose prompting he volunteered to join up with Shabaab. Now he knows better; now he knows what is what, and has learned his lesson the hard way. He wants to forgive and forget—or to be forgiven, and for the entire episode to be forgotten.

  But does he realize things are not simple for him and the twenty-odd runaways? Taxliil claims he does, yet he does nothing to show this is the case. Ahl is reminded of a proverb, probably French, about the unfortunate man who falls on his back and as a result breaks his nose. Taxliil keeps doing the opposite of what he says he will do, making an already difficult situation more complicated. He falls asleep in the middle of one of Ahl’s debriefing sessions. When Ahl tries to iron out the major inconsistencies in his story, Taxliil loses his cool and casts uncalled-for aspersions on his stepfather.

  All the members of the household help as best they can, but keep their distance, too. Faai plies Ahl with black coffee and Taxliil with sugary drinks. Xalan gets busy organizing a Somali passport with help from a friend with access to someone working in the passports division in Bosaso. Taxliil will travel with Ahl to Djibouti, away from the ubiquitous Shabaab assassins, who if they hear about his presence in Bosaso and in this house may harm him and others as well; one never knows with them. Once Ahl has taken him to Djibouti, Ahl, Malik, and Jeebleh will work in tandem to facilitate his safe return to the United States. Of course, they
can’t count on criminals like Fidno and No-Name, who appear to have had a hand in his escape, to keep quiet for long; hence Ahl’s proposal that Malik “buy their silence” by granting them an interview.

  Xalan telephones Ahl to confirm that she has reserved seats for him and Taxliil on tomorrow’s flight to Djibouti, and that she is close to organizing the passport for Taxliil. The news has a galvanizing effect, and Taxliil knuckles down to clarifying his account to Ahl. Ahl’s aim is twofold: one, to understand what happened for his own peace of mind; and to help Taxliil prepare for the grilling by the U.S. authorities that he will go through when he reenters the States.

  First, though, Taxliil wants to hear, not for the first time, how they discovered he was gone from Minneapolis. It is as if he takes pleasure in having kept his parents, his friends, and the school authorities in the dark while he arranged his departure, and got away without anyone figuring it out. Ahl pampers him with answers: he and Yusur thought Taxliil was at school or at the mosque, and didn’t wonder until late in the evening where he might be. Since Yusur was working the night shift, it fell to him to search Taxliil’s room for evidence of his whereabouts, which is when he discovered that both his passport and his shoulder bag were missing.

  “Then what did you do?”

  “When we were despairing of ever finding you, because no one had seen you, we went around to the police stations and the hospitals,” Ahl replies. “Petrified as we were, we were also somewhat relieved when you called two days later to say you were in Somalia.”

  Taxliil gloats, “But I wasn’t in Somalia then.”

  This is the first time he has said this, and Ahl can’t decide if he is lying. That’s the problem with lying: one lie can make one have doubts about the truth of what has gone before or what is to come later.

  “Where did you ring from, then?”