Crossbones

10

JEEBLEH STIRS AND, A LITTLE DAZED, PROPS HIMSELF UP ON HIS elbows, eyes still shut; he is wearing an airline eye-mask against the intense brightness of the hour. His head is aflutter with memories calling, the past revisiting in the shape of a monster, Bile’s older brother Caloosha, a bully unlike any other; and the present raising its war-filled head, in the likeness of BigBeard, hirsute and ugly to the core, messaging vicious viruses, deleting files and baby photographs. Malik is in the other room, which once belonged to Makka and Raasta. As a rank rememberer, Jeebleh recalls his confrontation with Caloosha, which he compares with his vile encounter with BigBeard. This has left him traumatized, like an amputee suffering anew the agony of dismemberment.

Startled by a sudden clamor, source undetermined — the harshness of the noise suggests metal coming into unexpected collision with glass, breaking it — Jeebleh sits up, waits, and listens to the discordant sounds now banking up behind identifiable activities. He picks out what sounds like the wings of a bird flapping. All the same, the disjointed noises raise his sense of worry, almost to the point of fear, and he prepares himself for the worst. What can he do if an intruder tries to enter the apartment from the balcony?

He gets out of bed, ready to confront the trespasser and try to protect himself and Malik from harm. But he is unclear how he is going to achieve this. As he steps out of the room, wielding a broom — how ridiculous he must look, he tells himself — he is of two minds whether to activate the emergency procedure Dajaal instructed him in. But no sooner has he gained the inner security door leading to the balcony than he isolates the sound. It is the agitated squeak of a young bird in a flutter, flapping its wings — a medium-sized black-shouldered kite in mounting distress, caught in a small enclosure, struggling, now lifting its tail, now lowering it with animated vigor. Maybe the bird has erroneously flown in under the eaves, or through a chink in the window frame above the alcove to the left of the balcony.

Aware that his footsteps are heightening the bird’s anxiety, Jeebleh approaches. Little by little, with consummate care, his tread soft and his forward motion purposeful, hands behind his back. He stops and sighs at length when he reaches the limits of the enclosure and then releases the catch, allowing the bird to fly free. Then he returns to the living room.

One reminiscence brings forth another, now replacing it, now supplementing it. He relives a confrontation in a hotel room in Mogadiscio, prostrate and in an eyeball-to-eyeball face-off with a chameleon, the reptile fearlessly making its way from the balcony into the room. The memory leaves him jittery, with anger welling up inside him. He paces back and forth, determined to shake off his rage. Again an ominous memory linked to Caloosha invades. Jeebleh thinks that there is undeniable similarity between Caloosha and BigBeard’s methods, which both claim are in service to higher causes; the late Caloosha asserted his socialist ideals in the same way that BigBeard takes the sanctity of Islam as his mantra, asserts it is the beacon lighting his way to divine authority. Caloosha, in the end, got what he deserved, dying a miserable death. Jeebleh wonders when BigBeard will get his comeuppance, his just desserts.

Time to make tea. Slow in movement, Jeebleh picks up the metal kettle; not bothering to remove the lid, he fills it through its spout. Then he falls under the spell of a pleasant memory, the weekend he took his granddaughter’s photograph, the one that served as Malik’s screen saver until BigBeard deemed it pornographic. Jeebleh regrets that innocence provides no protection against a BigBeard with sex on his mind. Anyhow, it was the weekend before his departure. The whole family drove out to Port Jefferson on Long Island in a rental car. On their way back to the city, they detoured, stopping on the North Shore for lunch. He recalls his granddaughter’s fascination with the beach sand, of which she took mouthfuls, in preference to the food her mother offered her.

He thinks that he should call home, and the thought brings forth another memory: of his first phone conversation with his wife, the last time he was here. A man with a portable machine bigger than a laptop came up to his room. Jeebleh could not figure out how the device worked, what the appliance was called or even how best to describe it. But it allowed him to speak to his wife, and that was what mattered then. He and Malik have so far only briefly texted their respective wives to let them know they have arrived safely, but have avoided speaking to them. Malik is worried that Amran might urge him to leave, if he tells her everything. Moreover, neither has found adequate words with which to describe BigBeard’s depraved logic. No doubt, their guardedness has been intruding on their minds, disturbing their thinking. On the positive side, however, the two have remained at their most harmonious, and that is a great relief.

A quarter of an hour later, Malik emerges from his room, scratching with fury and cursing. The blood vessels around his eyelids have darkened; his eyes are smarting and bloodshot; his skin is torn and oozing in places.

“I itch all over,” he says.

Jeebleh humors him. “It is human to itch.”

“I dreamed I was itching and I woke up itching.”

“Let’s see.” Jeebleh sees no bites or scratches.

Malik says, “I had a rash of dreams, a nightmare of allergies. In my dream, I broke out in eruptions, felt violated, intruded upon, invaded; the more the dreams infringed on my mind, the fiercer I scratched.”

“An allergic reaction to food you’ve eaten?”

“I doubt it.”

“Maybe bedbugs?”

“I turned on the lights and found nothing.”

“Bedbugs strike furtively and hide.”

“I upended the bed,” Malik says. “No bugs.”

Silent, Malik looks away, embarrassed. He touches his arm for bumps, sores, and swellings resulting from bites, but finds little that he can show to Jeebleh as one might show a trophy. He shakes his head in amazement.

“Can it be that Gumaad put it into your head?” Jeebleh asks.

“How is that?”

“Because Gumaad explained the derogatory term Injirray, which Somalis reserve for the Ethiopians. Maybe that is where your obsession with itching springs from.”

Malik asks, “Why do Somalis allude to lice, when it comes to Ethiopia?”

Jeebleh tells him, “You see, the only Ethiopians that Somalis have met in large numbers are the ill-paid, ill-clad barefoot soldiers in the outposts of the Empire, extending down to Somali-speaking Ogaden. Unwashed and wearing the same uniforms for weeks on end, they itched and scratched. Ancient contacts between Somalis and Abyssinians shaped the terms each had for the other. ‘Lice’ defines the Abyssinian/Ethiopian foot soldiers in these outposts, the insect with which Somalis have associated these unwashed, ill-paid soldiers. For their part, the Amhara ethnic group refer to Somalis as ‘ass washers,’ or ‘skirt wearers,’ denigrating descriptors for Muslims who perform ablutions before their prayers, or who, like women, wear skirts. Nothing new in this. After all, the English call the French ‘frogs,’ don’t they? No wonder then that you’ve dreamed of armies of lice invading.”

Jeebleh recalls how, in the 1977 war between Ethiopia and Somalia, they found laughter in the treacherous nature of head lice, and discovered the punning potential in speaking figuratively about matters of political import. As a schoolboy, he came down often enough with fevers brought on by malaria and all sorts of other bites. His mother would use kerosene to rid him of the lice or shave his head.

Malik says, “A flea-bitten nation lying dead by a roadside, spotty, dirty, and armpits itchy, head crawling with lice. Battalions of bedbugs on the move and in fatigues, light green their carapace of choice. In my dream, I saw battalions of lice moving in an eastward motion, coming toward the Somali — Ethiopian border town of Feerfeer.”

Jeebleh says, “The stakes are high and everyone is jittery, with the drums of war and the saber rattling, which are becoming deafening.”

Jeebleh then recalls to himself a brief passage from Günter Grass’s Local Anesthetic, in which the dentist describes tartar as “enemy number one” to the teeth. Imagine — tartar laying traps, ensnaring the tongue; and the tongue, busily searching for crust formations, rough surfaces that nurture tartar, so that it can destroy them. No wonder diseased gums are rich with pockets in which germs find homes; no wonder nations breed all sorts of persons, some of whom will cause the death of their own kind, betrayers, sellouts, subhuman suicides.

“Politics is a living thing, and you can never tell with living things,” Jeebleh says. “Living things kill or are killed; they walk away, they change alliances; they bite, they are crushed underfoot. Lice or not, living things are the darkness upon the face of the deep.”

Malik thinks, Nits, knocks, bites, and bellyaches, frets, furies, and mind-numbing fevers are little local pains. Little local aches caused by a chipped front tooth!

Breakfast is a simple affair: medium-size bowls of natural yogurt, a homemade gift from Cambara, eaten with two spoonfuls of marmalade for Jeebleh, who then makes an omelet with tomato and onion for Malik. Jeebleh has tea before joining Malik in coffee.

Dajaal telephones to say that, as Malik requested the previous night, he is bringing along Qasiir, his grandson, to try to repair Malik’s computer.

“Give us half an hour,” Jeebleh says.

Dajaal asks, “What about you, Jeebleh?”

Jeebleh replies, “I know that Malik wants to stay behind with Qasiir to work on the machine, but I would very much like to visit with Bile. From what she has told me, Cambara will be out shopping, and Bile will be alone, an ideal time to visit. He is expecting me, says he feels a lot better today, thank God.”

“Then I can come and fetch you from Bile’s after the business with Malik’s computer?” Dajaal suggests.

“We’ll arrange that when you come.”

Barely has Jeebleh given a bear hug to Qasiir, whom he remembers fondly from his previous visit as “cool,” using the idiom of the young, and introduced him to Malik, when it occurs to him that he must discuss with Malik the possibility of drafting Qasiir in their attempt to locate Taxliil. Jeebleh feels certain that Qasiir will have contacts among his former fellow militiamen, some of whom must be serving the current Courts dispensation.

By Jeebleh’s recollection, Qasiir was quick, bright, and trustworthy, a levelheaded young man with a reputation for calculating risks before making a move; he was different from many of his peers. Today Qasiir has on a pair of ironed jeans, a shirt a size too small, and sneakers that look overused. His belt has a buckle the size of a fist and on his chin he sports a tuft of hair too sparse to bother with. He wears a shoulder holster, too, with a pistol in it.

“Look at you,” Jeebleh says, “all grown up and with a family of your own. You have a child, don’t you? Is it a boy or a girl?”

“A boy, such an active one he keeps us awake.”

Jeebleh observes that Qasiir is physically and temperamentally different from the teenager on whom he had last set eyes a decade or so ago. He has put on some weight around the waist, but he carries it with ease.

“I am surprised you’re still wearing jeans,” Jeebleh says. “Don’t your peers who have gone over and made common cause with the robed, bearded lot look upon a jeans-wearer with suspicion?”

“Many do, but those close to me know the score.”

“You don’t go to mosques wearing jeans, do you?”

“As if that matters,” Dajaal says.

Qasiir says, “Not on Fridays, Grandpa.”

Malik is momentarily distracted by the fact that Qasiir addresses Dajaal, his granduncle, as “Grandpa.” Then he remembers that the term granduncle has no equivalent in Somali. He knows from his own experience how taxing it can be to address Jeebleh in any tongue, for he cannot bring himself to address him as “uncle,” as a Somali son-in-law might, but “father-in-law” is too awkward and formal. Maybe the problem of how to address in-laws is a problem nobody has resolved in any language, anywhere.

“You go to mosque only on Friday?” asks Malik.

“I want to be seen, don’t I?”

“It’s all part of the show,” Dajaal says.

Malik asks, “If it’s true that the religionists give women so many lashes if they are seen in the streets unveiled, how do you explain that jeans-wearing men are not penalized? I wouldn’t be surprised if some thought you were sabotaging the Islamic way of life.”

Qasiir is, as Jeebleh expects, quick on the uptake. “It is possible that they let me be because several of my mates are active Shabaab members, with considerable clout. I know these friends better than anyone, know that they exchanged their status as clan-based militiamen for a white robe and a beard because many are too lazy to bother finding razor blades and shaving daily.”

Dajaal says, “Copycats, that’s what they are.”

Jeebleh remembers a French proverb that says that while a man with one watch knows what the time is, a man with two may become uncertain as to the precise time, because of the watches’ disparity. He thinks that because Qasiir’s peers, Janus-faced, look to both the past and the future, they may be likely to help.

“Received wisdom has it that everybody knows everybody’s business in Mogadiscio,” Jeebleh says. “But tell me, Qasiir. Has this wisdom become inoperative under the current conditions?”

“How do you mean?” Qasiir asks.

Jeebleh says, “We hear of unknown assassins roaming around the country, a group known as ‘fifth columnists’ creeping up on their prey and killing former senior army officers, intellectuals, journalists. Who are these assassins who operate by means of stealth and dare murder a man when he is coming out of a mosque?”

“We may think we know who they are, but we can’t say for certain,” Qasiir says.

Dajaal adds, “We suspect we know who is behind the killings, because we know who the victims are — mostly professionals.”

Jeebleh asks, “Is it possible to know where the two dozen young recruits from Minnesota have ended up, or by which route they have come?”

“We base what we say on a kutiri-kuteen, on hearsay, no evidence,” Dajaal replies. “In days of old, the functioning principle was the primacy of the clan. We knew that this was just a cover. Nowadays, the primacy is religion. The killer is described as a mujahid, who, if killed, becomes a martyr.”

Malik says, “How are the victims described?”

“To justify killing them, the victims are defined as apostates,” Qasiir responds. “I suppose there is nothing new in this.”

Then Dajaal speaks knowingly about how the killers move in on their prey like cat burglars. Once they kill, off they go — unseen.

Jeebleh says, “We’ll all have to be cautious.”

“A small indiscretion can lead to death and disaster,” Dajaal warns. “We’ll all have to be aware of where we are at all times, conscious of how we go about our daily business. As a journalist, Malik has to remain alert. Every minute of the day.”

“Caution at all times,” Jeebleh says.

Malik assures them that he is used to all that.

Jeebleh looks at his watch discreetly and says to Dajaal, “Time we went, you and I. For my lunch with Bile.”

“I’ll wait by the car,” Dajaal says, “and Qasiir will start working on the computer, to repair it, if possible, or at least to recover the deleted files.”

Jeebleh is becoming anxious that he will be leaving in a couple of days, and may not bring the tasks he has set for himself to a successful end in such a brief time. Still, he hopes at least to lay a foundation for Malik to have help in searching for Taxliil, without sacrificing his resolution to pursue his writing. He joins his son-in-law in the room facing the sea before going down to join Dajaal. No sooner has Jeebleh embarked hesitantly and longwindedly on laying out the strands of his reasoning than Malik gently cuts him short, informing him that the thought of involving Qasiir has already occurred to him; he will do it at the opportune time.

Malik adds, “I’ll discuss the matter with Qasiir, and then we’ll firm it all up in your and Dajaal’s presence later. I’d like to receive Dajaal’s backing; it’s proper to do so.”

“Good idea,” Jeebleh agrees.