Crossbones

13

AHL SITS UP FRONT. WARSAME IS DRIVING, AND FIDNO IS IN THE back. Warsame speeds across an intersection and swerves to avoid a goat crossing the road, but catches her with the edge of the fender regardless. The goat sways this side and that, as if deciding whether to remain on her feet, her hips and ribs exposed, her breathing labored. Then she regains her balance and straightens up, takes a step, and halts again. Warsame has pulled over, and Ahl suggests they wait a minute or so. Even so, Warsame puts the car in gear, ready to move if the crowd milling on either side of the road looks likely to form into a mob. Ahl has his door ajar, preparing to get out and check on how the beast is faring, but at that very moment Warsame puts the vehicle in motion, and Ahl pulls the car door shut.

“I wish we had stopped,” Ahl says.

“Hereabouts,” Fidno says, “we’re all fearful of making fatal mistakes. More than ever, one must be wary of the unruliness of crowds, living in a place where there is a total breakdown of law and order. You can get yourself into sticky situations if you aren’t careful. I am speaking of crowds waiting at the behest of their unreasonable greed, a crowd turning into a mob.”

Warsame, seemingly bemused, stays out of it.

Ahl challenges, “Crowd, what crowd? There was no crowd to speak of. There were people milling about, minding their own business, from what I could tell. Men and women selling or buying, young men standing in groups and bantering. I saw no crowd that was likely to turn into a mob.”

“Do you know what would have happened if the car had run over the goat and killed it?” Fidno asks.

“We would pay what is due to the owner of the dead goat,” Ahl says. “I see no problem there. Recompense the owner. What else is there to do?”

“How do you determine who to pay if as many as a dozen claimants present themselves, each saying he is the rightful owner of the goat, and several others, challenging these claimants, inform you that the goat’s owner is a clansman and you should pay them?”

Ahl says, “That’s altogether another matter.”

“A goat is other than itself,” Fidno says.

“I hadn’t realized,” Ahl agrees.

They come to a busy junction with throngs swarming around stalls, and Warsame stops. This moves Ahl to ask, “Where are we, and why are we here, stopping?”

Ahl is clearly wary of crowds.

“Warsame is getting his daily fix,” Fidno says.

They have pulled up next to Warsame’s favorite qaat stall, run by a woman from whom Warsame buys his ration of leaves of the mild stimulant he and millions of other Somalis chew daily. Ahl can perceive the craving in Warsame’s eyes, the anticipation working its way into his body at the sight of the green leaves spread out within reach of his open window. The woman wears a guntiino robe, a bit of her breast exposed as she raises her arm to adjust the sacking around the bundles, which are wrapped in banana leaves and sprinkled with water periodically, to keep them fresh.

Ahl has read somewhere that Somalia boasts one of the highest populations addicted to qaat, a commodity imported from Ethiopia and Kenya at great cost to the national economy. Qaat is comparable in strength to cocaine, stronger if consumed in greater quantities for longer periods. The woman lifts a bundle to show Warsame how fresh her qaat is. The water sprays as she shakes the bundle, the leaves dancing, and Warsame’s eyes brighten and his mouth moves as the hand holding the money trembles. He pays the woman without getting out of the vehicle, its engine running.

Just as they are ready to drive off, there is a sudden congestion of traffic, caused, one of the qaat sellers tells them, by a head-on collision between two cars up the road. A crowd pours into the street to watch. Patiently, they sit and wait for the blockage to ease, Warsame taking the opportunity to telephone Xalan to tell her what is causing the delay.

Meanwhile, an SUV comes into view. The woman in the front passenger seat smiles in their direction and then discreetly waves. Ahl smiles back, despite feeling that he is not the intended recipient of the woman’s sweet grin and, bashful, looks about him to discover whether either Warsame or Fidno has chanced on the exchange. His wandering gaze encounters Fidno’s, whose hand is raised in greeting.

Ahl adds, “I know the face, but can’t put a name to it. Unless the two of you are acquainted and she is greeting you.”

“Her name is Wiila,” Fidno says.

“She is a flight attendant, isn’t she?”

“What a small world. Maybe you flew with her!”

“Now that you’ve said the name,” Ahl says, “I remember her. She seemed miserable, weepy for much of the flight from Djibouti.”

Fidno explains, “She is mourning the death of her youngest brother, killed in Mogadiscio while on a special Shabaab mission.”

“How come you know that?” Ahl asks.

“I know Marduuf, another of her brothers. We are close.”

“Youngest brother dead and you know the other?”

“The one I know is in the pirate business.”

“An associate of yours?”

Fidno says, “He is, as a matter of fact.”

In the silence that follows, Ahl reflects that it is a pity he and Fidno cannot continue talking later. He could use a siesta. He didn’t sleep well the night before, and he could do with a good rest.

Warsame throws a sheaf of qaat into the back of the vehicle, where Fidno is sitting. Fidno catches the bundle and selects a tender shoot to chew.

The roads are dusty and there is constant movement along them. Goats cross from one side to another, and humans carelessly walk across, impervious to danger, almost suicidal. Warsame drives with his foot an inch away from the brake pedal. He keeps the windows shut against the dust, and the air conditioner on. Even so, they can hear the music belting and recitations of the Koran blaring wherever they go. The buildings they pass, like those they saw on their way from the airport, have an improvised look, some whose walls consist only of zinc sheeting, others of corrugated aluminum, many unpainted. The sky is at times barely visible through the spaghetti of electrical wiring strewn between the structures.

“Do you want to chew some?” Warsame asks.

Ahl shakes his head no.

“I am impressed you never picked up the habit of chewing qaat, given that it is in Yemen. Especially as it’s one of their main export crops,” Fidno says.

Midly shocked that Fidno is so well informed about him, Ahl decides to be patient; he will find out at a later point how this is so. He says, “I don’t chew qaat, never have.”

Fidno asks, “Maybe your parents, as expatriates wanting their children to do well, discouraged it?”

“Chewing was not one of our pastimes as a family,” Ahl replies. “We did a lot of sports as we grew up, we read a great deal, we played chess, we were never left wanting for things with which to occupy ourselves.”

Out of deference to Warsame, his host, Ahl does not add that he finds the idea of wasting away the best part of a day masticating some green leaf and sitting doing nothing highly objectionable.

Warsame says, “Just like my wife.”

“What about your wife?”

“She hasn’t the patience to sit and chew.”

Just as well, Ahl thinks, because he looks forward to getting to know Xalan, Yusur’s best friend and almost sister. Yusur has described Xalan as a formidable woman, actively intelligent, with her heart in the right place, loyal. He will talk to her while the men enjoy their chewing.

Warsame says to Ahl, “I didn’t know you had a friend here. What is his full name, and how long have the two of you known each other?”

Ahl says, “His name is Ali Ahmed Fidno.”

Warsame says he doesn’t recall ever seeing him in town. “He must be new to the city.” Ahl finds it amusing that Warsame keeps talking about Fidno in the third person.

“Well, here he is, anyhow,” Ahl says. “He is alive and well and sitting in your car, as your guest. He is coming with us to your home.”

“I am pleased,” Warsame says unconvincingly.

Ahl is uncertain what Xalan will make of him. Will she fall for him — a mysterious figure emerging out of the unknown and entering her life?

“Tell me more about your friend,” Warsame says.

Ahl has a big problem. How does one introduce a man he hardly knows to the husband of one’s wife’s best friend, whom one has yet to meet? Like it or not, he finds Warsame down to earth, whereas, much as he likes Fidno, he hasn’t met many men who are as shifty and hard to pin down. He says, “Fidno can tell you about himself better than I ever can.”

“I come from Garowe,” Fidno says. “Originally.”

“But you didn’t grow up in Garowe, did you?”

“I was sent to a boarding school in Qardho.”

“Then where?”

“Then I went to university in Europe.”

Warsame is attempting to locate Fidno’s family tree and then identify the branch and clan trajectory. He asks, “Whose name or nickname is Fidno — yours, your father’s, or your grandfather’s?”

“Mine,” Fidno responds.

Only now does it occur to Ahl that maybe Warsame does not wish to take into his home someone whose identity he can’t vouch for. Xalan is bound to take him aside, accost him in the kitchen, or privately in the bedroom, and say, “Who is this guy you’ve brought into our house, our lives?”

“So where do you live?”

“Lately between Mogadiscio and Nairobi.”

“What’s your line of business?”

“I trained as a medical doctor in Germany.”

“Where do you have your practice?”

“I’ve had some personal problems,” Fidno replies, “and have been compelled to shut down my practice. But that is a complicated story. For another day.”

Warsame repeats the name Ali Ahmed Fidno, as if the combination might fit some purpose, and then changes the order in which Fidno has given them and subjects them to a faster run, his tongue rushing at them, as if they might reveal a hidden secret. When they do not, he has several goes at them from different directions, each time to no avail. He says, “Every family name has its own story, and I doubt I know this story. Maybe Xalan will. She knows everyone’s family and the stories that go with them.”

Warsame stops in front of a gate and presses the horn. A man in military fatigues opens the gate and lets them in. Warsame enters with care. He parks to the side of the door and, getting out, gives a couple of bundles of qaat to the man in the fatigues, after he has locked the gate.

As Ahl gets out, he spots a woman stepping toward him, deliciously gliding, sweetly smiling, and getting ready to embrace him. Ahl is delighted, pleased that she has taken his hand. He mumbles his joy at being here.

Just as she leads him into the house, his hand in hers, however, she spots Fidno emerging from the vehicle. Xalan says to Ahl, “Who is your friend, dear?”

Before Ahl manages to get the words out, Warsame beats him to it, volunteering, “Our friend’s name is Ali Ahmed Fidno.”

But Xalan is uninterested in meeting Fidno, whom she assumes to be no friend of Ahl’s but an acquaintance of her husband’s, come to chew qaat with him. Warsame is in the habit of bringing along all sorts of men to chew with him. He says, “Wait, and let me introduce you to him,” and she exchanges cursory greetings with the man. Then she walks off, dragging Ahl into the house and straight into the dining room, where the table has already been laid for company.

The room is large and pleasant. There are even flowers in a vase — God knows where she got them in Bosaso, of all places, this time of the year. The table is set for three, decked out with family heirlooms. Xalan has been planning this lunch for days — planned that she and Warsame will have Ahl to lunch, as a family. Of course, there is no family to speak of — only the two of them, with the children now grown and gone. The way she remembers it: Warsame at the head of the table, the children on either side of him, sharing their experiences. Like normal times. Peacetime in Mogadiscio. Short, sweet family get-togethers in Toronto, whenever Warsame visited them after she relocated there, to be with the children. But these days, loyal as they are to each other, they no longer form a family unit. Warsame knows how much she hates it when he locks himself away in his room to chew, but he cannot stop. For all these men care, she thinks, the world could be burning, their homes collapsing in on them. They must have their daily fix.

“Sit, dear. Sit.” Xalan shows Ahl to his chair.

Ahl is uncomfortable; she can sense it. She assumes he has lost his way in the standoff between her and Warsame, each heading off in a different direction, she with him, he with Fidno. He blames himself for inviting Fidno and not making it clear to Xalan that he has done so. His fault; he has caused the embarrassment. He is to blame. There is no way around it.

He puts down his computer bag in a corner and says to Xalan’s back, as she goes into the kitchen and opens the oven, where the food has been keeping warm, “Yusur sends her love.”

His wandering gaze seizes upon several inhalers, stashed together in a little handwoven basket on the mantel, and a few others in easy reach of where Xalan is sitting.

She says, “It’s your first visit to Puntland, right?”

“It is,” he replies.

“From what Yusur has told me, I understand this is your first to the Somali-speaking peninsula,” she says.

Ahl thinks that Xalan has just spoken Yusur’s name not with apparent fondness but with a touch of amusement, as if she is holding back some information that she will reveal to him once she gets to know him better.

“Hard to believe, but true,” he says.

She stares straight into his eyes, as if eager to detect the slightest intimation of duplicity. Xalan is the first woman he has met who has known Yusur for much of her life. So what is she telling him?

But Xalan doesn’t talk about Yusur. She says, “Your Somali is excellent. Good for you, you’ve kept it up and used it. I am impressed. Yusur says you taught Taxliil how to speak it well. You have a northern accent.”

“We spoke Somali at home. For Taxliil’s sake.”

“Do you know that ours don’t speak it well?”

“It’s worth the effort to teach them young.”

She says, “Think about it.”

“What?”

“If the hotel service is terrible, the food inedible, the noise unbearable, or if you feel unsafe, because you do not know where to put your cash,” she says, “think about it. This is your home.”

Ahl says, “I’ll think about it. Thanks.”

“The kitchen here runs daily. Come and eat.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

A corner of her mouth turns up in amusement, then Xalan shakes her head, as if she is surprising herself. She says, “Would you like to move here?”

He doesn’t know how to react.

“There’s plenty of room, it is more comfortable than any hotel anywhere. The food we serve here, cooked by the same cook I had when we fled Mogadiscio, is of a higher quality than the rubbery and overcooked stuff that passes for a meal at the restaurant.”

What is there to say? He can say that he will think about it. In the meantime, he will have to get to know the two of them.

He hopes that he will not displease Warsame by staying and eating with her. It is difficult to gauge what someone like Warsame might do, a man married to a woman whose self-confidence seems limitless; a woman truly unafraid, sure of herself, and ready to take on the world. Ahl feels comforted at the thought of knowing her. He hopes that she will prove to be an asset in his search for Taxliil.

She brings the food out of the oven, a feast of it. There is so much of it Ahl wonders if she has meant to feed a battalion. Chicken, lamb dishes, rice done the traditional way, lobster, a variety of vegetables cooked in different styles, fruit juices. Xalan serves him a giant portion; she takes a small serving. “It is not that I am worried about my figure, no. After all, I’ve so far attained my age in good health, thank God,” she teases.

She is long-necked and striking, with big eyes and a beautiful smile, owing to her fine teeth. She is in her early fifties, her every bodily gesture sure of itself and its meaning. He feels she knows well how to cope with all kinds of difficulties: impossible children, an impossible husband. He remembers Yusur telling him that Xalan — the name means “the cleansed one”—is a no-nonsense woman. Dressed in the traditional guntiino robe and a shawl and, as custom demands only of married women, with her hair covered, she does most things regally: the way she walks, eats, and uses her hands, dipping her fingers in the tepid water in the bowl. This is how Yusur described her: “Xalan does not block the sunlight when she comes into a room.”

Xalan is saying, “It’s tragic that our country has changed beyond recognition, because in the old, pre — civil war, pre-qaat days, when you invited a friend home for a meal, the entire family would be there to welcome the visitor. The civil war has put paid to all that, with hundreds of thousands quitting the country. Then, of late, qaat chewing has levied its heavy toll. Qaat: master disrupter of family normalcy, a costly demolisher of the social fabric.”

He knows where she is going with this. He understands the frustrations of a woman who has gone to lengths to put a well-appointed meal on the table, only to find that her husband doesn’t bother to take a mouthful in recognition of her efforts. Bosaso is no Toronto, where a hostess can entertain her guests with purchased foods tasting as though they were homemade. Here, Xalan bought the chicken live and had it slaughtered; spent days to find fresh lobster and fish. He regards her with a mix of wariness and admiration, feeling responsible for Warsame’s absence.

“Welcome to our home, AhlulKhair,” she says.

“Thank you, thank you.”

“Your presence in our home cheers me up.”

“Again, thanks.”

He takes his first mouthful of the excellent lamb dish she has prepared; he can taste the love that has gone into the making of the meal. He talks as he eats, the better not to be self-conscious at how much he is consuming. He tells her everything to do with Taxliil, beginning with when he and his stepson first met, up until the day when he vanished. He also tells her about Malik and Jeebleh and how they, too, are doing all they can to locate the young runaway.

When Ahl has eaten his fill, Xalan offers him dessert, but he says he will give it a miss, and passes on tea or coffee as well. She says, “Go and see what the men are up to at the majlis. I’ll ask the maid to clear the lunch things and will join you there in a couple of minutes.”

At Xalan’s call, the maid arrives: short, stocky, of indiscernible age; she has blue rings around her irises typical of Somalia’s river people. Xalan says to the woman, “After you’ve done the washing, please prepare the guest room for possible occupation, starting tomorrow morning.”

Ahl avoids looking at Xalan, fearing, perhaps, that one of them might say something that will upset the other.

When Ahl joins them in the majlis, Warsame and Fidno appear not to take notice of him. They are apparently wholly occupied catering to what their bodies crave. They slouch on the carpeted floor in sarongs, heavy cushions pushed against the wall, with incense burning at the far end of the room. Fidno is in an undershirt, Warsame in a singlet. They chew without interruption, chatting away about politics, piracy, terrorism, Shabaab, and every other topic that strikes their fancy.

He watches for a while as they stuff their cheeks and slurp water and Coca-Cola and sugared tea to avoid dehydration. After a while Ahl can no longer contain himself, and he yawns exorbitantly, complaining of his exhaustion after so much travel. Warsame calls to Xalan to arrange a lift for their guest. When she offers to drive him herself, he dismisses the suggestion. “There is no need. Ask one of the drivers to drop him off.”

Eager to depart, Ahl reminds himself not to forget his laptop, and makes sure he has it before he hugs Xalan and says, “Thank you, and so long.” The driver helps him into the vehicle, which is very high off the ground. Ahl is so tired that his eyes involuntarily close, and they stay shut for much of the trip. It is pitch dark, maybe because there is no street lighting, or maybe because of a power outage. But when they get to his hotel and through the security gate, the hotel generator is on and so are the lights, and he no longer feels as tired as he did in the car.

Back in his room, Ahl rings Malik. Malik is terribly agitated, his voice shaking and his diction rattled. He makes a jumble of statements, running his words together nonsensically.

“Wait, wait. Go back. Who are we talking about?”

“Dajaal,” Malik says.

Ahl has never met Dajaal, but he knows who he is.

“Now tell me. What’s happened to Dajaal?”

“They’ve made an attempt on his life.”

Ahl knows who “they” refers to.

“When did that happen, and how?”

“He had given me a lift back to the apartment and then drove home, alone,” says Malik. “Half a kilometer from the apartment block where Dajaal lives, a remote-controlled roadside bomb struck the passenger’s side of the car, the side where I normally sit when I am a passenger. Jeebleh and I are not sure if they meant to kill me.”

“How badly is Dajaal hurt?”

“Thank God, he is not hurt.”

“But there is damage to the car?”

“We’re taking it as a warning. To me.”

“You’re not planning to leave, are you?”

“No way.”

“Will you move in with Bile and Cambara?”

Ahl can’t help being cranky, the consequence of civil war crabbiness. He almost gives in to a tetchy thought that enters his mind, but thinks better of it, recalling that when they were younger and they could afford to be nasty to each other as siblings are, Ahl used to describe Malik as self-centered, someone who asked the world to come to him. But of course he won’t say that now.

“And you,” Malik says. “How have you been?”

Ahl tells him about meeting Fidno and his meeting with Xalan. For some reason he tells him about Wiila as well, and her connection to Fidno.

They agree to talk tomorrow. Malik gives him Bile’s phone number, along with Cambara’s and Qasiir’s, just in case, and then adds, as if for good measure, “You never know how things may pan out here.”