Crossbones

15

IT IS WITH TREMENDOUS WORRY, INEXPLICABLE THOUGH IT MAY seem, that Jeebleh stirs in his sleep, dreaming, and registers horses neighing, donkeys braying, cows mooing, the night darkening just before dawn breaks, the muezzin calling. In the dream, Malik and he are, surprisingly, among the worshippers. Malik sticks close to Jeebleh, looking anxious, as if he is suddenly unsure what to do, whether to place the right hand upon the left below or above the navel when standing; whether, with head and body inclined and hands placed upon the knees, he should separate the fingers a little or not at all. He is aware there are differences among the sects as to what to do when. But having not set foot in a mosque or prayed for almost twenty years, he is uncertain, and watches Jeebleh with intent so as not to embarrass his father-in-law.

A man standing nearby speaks of “morning madness reigning.” Jeebleh doesn’t understand what he is talking about. Nor is he bothered by the fact that he doesn’t know who the man is until he discovers that Malik, with notebook in hand and pen ready to scribble away, is interviewing the man. Billows of dust stir in the distance, beckoning, and Jeebleh wanders away in the general direction of the vortex of sand, over the hills, farther east.

Then Jeebleh finds himself in a neighborhood with which he is unfamiliar, where virtually all the houses are leveled, the roads gutted, the pavements reduced to rotted ravines, with unexploded mines scattered in the rubble. In a gouged spot past a massive ruin that must have been caused by a bomb with the force of a meteor, there is a Technical, its mounted gun smeared with the blood of its victims; the Technical is still emitting smoke. When he touches it, it is as warm as a living body. Somewhere nearby are corpses left where they have fallen, some of them Ethiopians, from the look of their uniforms, others of them young Somalis. Then several of the dead Somali youths come to life and go into a huddle, as sports teams do. The huddle breaks and they take what appear to be prearranged positions, speaking in the manner of actors rehearsing a badly scripted play. Dressed in immaculate white and donning colorful keffiyehs, they sport long beards. Several women come out of nowhere, uniformly pretty, gazelle eyed, the very image of the houris of Paradise, to tend to the youths.

Now the youths separate themselves into units. One unit digs up an arms cache from the rubble: rocket-propelled grenades, light and heavy machine guns, semiautomatic weapons, an array of homemade explosives. A second unit waits by the roadside, bantering. But they go quiet when several armor-plated pickup trucks mounted with antiaircraft guns approach, and the youths get in an orderly fashion. A third unit, composed of the youngest, receives training in explosives from a short man with thick glasses, who consults a manual every time one of the pupils asks him a question.

Jeebleh has the feeling that he is not in a city but in a village somewhere in the hinterland. But he is not sure; Mogadiscio has lost whatever shape it used to have and is now as featureless as a ground-down cog in a broken machine. He is deeply disturbed that it is no longer the metropolis with which he is familiar, its current residents imported to raise a fighting force. Everywhere he looks, destitute men, women, and children in near rags wearily trudge by, many of them emaciated, their bellies swollen with undiagnosed illnesses, their eyes hosts to swarms of roaming flies. They seem exhausted, inarticulate with fear and vigilance, which imposes a further formlessness.

A mine detonates in the vicinity. Many people die and many more are injured. Jeebleh checks to see if any of his limbs are gone. Luck spares him this time. But he looks about in horror. Most of the dead and injured are young. There is little he can do to help. He meets a man as old as he is. When Jeebleh wonders aloud why the elderly have been spared, the old man says, “We are alive for a reason.”

“Why have you been spared?” Jeebleh asks.

“Because I recruit the martyrs,” the man says.

“You recruit them, they die, and you live on?”

“I blood the young brood of martyrs, suicides.”

“The young die as martyrs and the old live on?”

The old man replies, “That’s right.”

“But that is absurd,” Jeebleh says.

“On the contrary,” the man says, “it is exemplary to die for one’s country. There is nothing as honorable as martyring oneself, when young, for one’s nation.”

“Ultimately, it depends on the martyr, doesn’t it?” Jeebleh challenges. “Has it ever occurred to you to give the young the choice whether to live on or to die for a religious cause in which they may not believe?”

The old man quips, “It is the martyrs’ blood that helps keep the nation alive. Without that, there will be no country.”

The old man walks away and sits nearby, pretending to pray. Jeebleh assists the wounded and then buries the dead in a mass grave, with no help from the recruiter of the martyrs. Then he leaves, and walks past a house caving in. He can spot human figures hanging from the rafters. He wonders if anyone will be charged with this mindless mass murder, if anyone will be made to answer for these crimes.

Jeebleh wakes up as exhausted as a wayfarer who has covered an immense distance to get here. His whole body aches, and his mind is weighed down with unidentified worries. He listens for sounds emanating from Malik’s side of the apartment but hears none.

He is enjoying a leisurely breakfast of toast and coffee when Malik emerges from his workroom, saying, “Coffee. That is what I need.”

Jeebleh says, “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Malik says.

“Sleep well?”

“I’ve slept little, but I’ve worked well.”

Malik — indicating that he wants Jeebleh to wait for a moment — walks away in haste and enters the bathroom, maybe to clean his teeth before coffee. Jeebleh says to his back, “You can always catch up on sleep.”

Malik is back before long. “Can I have some, please?” he asks, indicating the coffee.

Jeebleh replies, “With pleasure. And what else can I offer you?”

Malik says, “I agree that one can always catch up on sleep faster than one can catch up on writing when one has neglected it for some time.” He takes a sip of his coffee and, as if defining the extent of his haste and underscoring that he is in no mood to engage in a lengthy conversation, says, “You won’t mind if I leave you? I am itching to get on.”

Jeebleh says, “Brilliant.”

“It’s time I met a journalist or two, time I set up interviews with people in the piracy business,” Malik says. “But I plan to rely less on Gumaad and more on either Qasiir or Dajaal. They are plenty well connected.”

“Good idea,” Jeebleh says.

And Malik is off.

Jeebleh packs his suitcase and puts half the cash he has left in an envelope, to do with it what he will before he takes his flight early tomorrow — most likely share it out between Dajaal and Qasiir, giving the larger portion to the older man. Then he sits in the living room and catches up on his reading. He has brought along half a dozen books from New York, and he hasn’t had the time to so much as look at them, much less read them. He will probably leave them behind; they could be useful to Malik for his research into the piracy question and the Somali civil war, viewed from the perspective of how the continued strife and the resultant impoverishment and desertification of the country may herald future conflicts in Africa and the Middle East.

But Jeebleh is restive and can’t concentrate. It is unlike him to make hasty conclusions about what he has discovered so far about the men from the Courts, but from his brief encounter with BigBeard and the little he has gotten to know about Gumaad, he can’t help concluding that they are an unhealthy procession of hardened, self-obsessed men who have been waiting in the wings for the opportunity to run the country their way. He worries whether Malik will fall victim to the particular cruelty Shabaab metes out to secular-leaning journalists.

He hangs up and dials Bile and Cambara’s number. She picks up the phone on the first ring. Listening to her, Jeebleh realizes that he has taken to her more than he has been aware. He finds her voice not only pleasant but reassuring, and he is delighted that his friend is receiving the attention and affection he needs.

He says to her, “I wonder if it is convenient for me to visit? Malik is working, and I don’t feel like reading.”

“Yes, please,” she says. “Do come. Anytime.”

“How is Bile doing?”

“In bed, reading and occasionally napping.”

“I’ll see you shortly, then.”

After he hangs up, Jeebleh telephones Dajaal to come fetch him.

After a light lunch with Cambara and Bile, Jeebleh is at the sink, washing up. Cambara is upstairs with Bile, who has packed it in, exhausted. Cambara has assured him she will come down once she has attended to Bile’s needs.

He reads the Arabic writing on the bottle of dishwashing liquid: Imported from Australia, via the United Arab Emirates. Jeebleh thinks that the term globalization is misleading, a word that hardly describes all that is happening in businesses, big and small, the world over. His forehead is crisscrossed with furrows as he revisits his dream. He recalls that when he awoke, his hair stood out like the roots of a baobab tree battered by a tempest. He didn’t tell his dream to Malik.

But his thoughts return to happiness for his friend. Granted, their current circumstances, within the prison of civil war that curtails freedom of movement, expression, and association, may not make for picture-book intimacy all the time. But they seem comfortable in each other’s company. That they could live in these circumstances without giving in to acrimony indicates the depth of their commitment to each other. He couldn’t care less if they occupy separate bedrooms, although he hopes that his friend, who spent so many years locked away and denied the opportunity to love, has had some opportunity to make up for lost time before the prison of sickness and old age closed in.

Just as he finishes putting the dishes back in the cupboards, Jeebleh hears Cambara coming down. He looks up and observes how the dust motes disperse in the sunlight at her approach, opening a way for her.

She asks him to make them espresso, and to retrieve a bottle of mineral water from the fridge. Jeebleh is pleased that she takes this sort of liberty with him; it makes him feel at home.

They sit at an angle, facing each other. Demurely dropping his gaze from her face, he notices that the front of his trousers is wet from standing against the sink. Cambara notices, too, and looks away, smiling, then bows her head slightly. She has had a shower and changed into a more casual caftan, and she seems revived; with her earrings in the clutch of her thumb and forefinger, she pauses and inserts them in her earlobes. Barefoot, she gives him the impression of a woman who intends to tiptoe through the remainder of the day, without a care in the world. He remembers how relaxed his wife used to seem after the children fell asleep. She takes a sip of her coffee and then unclasps her earring, after a bit of struggle, and removes it. She places the stud on her palm and takes a long look at it, then tosses it up, catches it, studies it again, and pockets it. She shifts in her seat, as if considering whether to unfasten the earring in her left ear, but seems to think better of it.

They talk at length about the early days of her return to Mogadiscio, when she had to get accustomed to the discomfort of a body tent, something she had never worn when she first lived there.

Jeebleh asks, “How does it feel, to be all covered up?”

“It makes me miss Toronto,” she says.

Jeebleh senses she is comfortable with the figure she cuts, sitting confidently as she does now, her heels tucked under her. His gaze journeys from her heels to the firmness of the rest of her body. He doesn’t want to know what Bile and she do for love, with Bile sick and she his junior by twenty-something years. Maybe the two of them take a long view of the matter, as life partners do, secure in the knowledge that there will be tomorrow and the day after, the way he and his wife have been doing since her menopause. It is the luxury of old age to have both a long- and a short-term perspective on sex. Jeebleh has known couples of disparate ages who seem to struggle to find topics that interest both partners. Bile and Cambara never seem to have a shortage of things to say to each other. But will Cambara continue to stay by Bile’s side as his body weakens, as his health deteriorates? Himself, he has made a long investment in his rapport with his wife. They have a strong affinity, which will hold them together until their dying days.

“Are you still teaching?” Cambara asks.

He nods his head yes.

“Retirement not in sight?”

“Not yet,” he replies.

“And your wife?”

“My wife thinks we’ll be in each other’s way if I retire and stay at home, as she does — she took early retirement. This is also because we’ve recently moved. We bought a smaller apartment for just the two of us when our younger girl left home.”

“Retire and tour the world,” she says. “Why not?”

Jeebleh bites down hard on his lips to keep mum, as he considers the difficulties Cambara and Bile would confront if they were to attempt a world tour. Cambara, younger and healthy and carrying a Canadian passport, wouldn’t have a problem, but Bile wouldn’t get far.

He says, spacing his words, “Ours is a problem of a different nature from yours. Judith was born in Manhattan to Jewish parents from Lithuania. She thinks that New York is the center of the world; she can’t imagine why anyone wants to bother with the peripheries.”

“Isn’t it interesting that all the time I lived in Toronto,” Cambara says, “I never fancied myself as residing in one of the world’s centers? However, when I was younger and lived in Mogadiscio and knew no better, I thought of myself as residing in the center of the universe. How the world changes, and with it our perceptions of centers and peripheries!”

Jeebleh asks, “And what shape have your current perceptions taken now that you are back in Mogadiscio?”

“Every thought is centered here, on Bile.”

“Are you saying that nothing else matters?”

“I am saying that my world is here, where Bile and I are, a world on the periphery that has become a center for me,” she says.

“It’s amazing — how we accommodate the changes.”

She says, “I have been out of Mogadiscio only once since coming here, when I flew to Nairobi with Bile for his prostate operation. We had immense difficulties arranging for his visa into Kenya. I have no idea when or if I will return to Toronto. I can’t see myself living there alone.”

“You can’t imagine my joy at meeting you.”

“And I you.”

He can’t begin to imagine how she will respond to the thought that has just intruded upon his mind. He wonders if, in the midst of this easygoing conversation, this sudden question will encumber their rapport.

He asks, “What of your marriage prospects?”

He feels easy in his mind only after she laughs, his heart gladdening when she sighs and smiles. He is pleased to hear the jauntiness in her tone when she says, “You’re bull’s-eye direct for someone who is otherwise very refined in his manners.”

“I am worried about Bile.”

“How will marriage allay this?”

“It’ll get the religionists off both your backs.”

She says, “I doubt if marrying would achieve that goal. They lack goodwill. Why not think of me as a nurse caring for a convalescing man? They have outlawed contact between the sexes; soon they will forbid women driving. Where will all this end? Only male nurses for male patients? Female patients able to consult only female doctors? And this in a country short of female nurses to begin with, let alone female doctors?”

“How do they view it when Dajaal drives and you’re in the car, sitting beside him in the front, lightly veiled and talking with him?”

She replies, “I lied once when a young nitwit stopped us and asked if he was my husband. I said he was. You see, these religionists are happier being lied to than hearing the truth. They are a hopeless lot, the sods, and I suppose they find me provocative, against the grain. After all, I am not one of the hordes of ill-clad women they recruit to sweep the roads. I’ll say this about them: they know the type of women they prefer — the unlettered kind, who can’t stand up to them. That’s why they look to orphans and kids from broken homes to draft into Shabaab. They rely on the ill-informed and ill-supported to do their bidding.”

“I wonder, are the women volunteering to clear the roads exempt from putting on veils?” Jeebleh asks.

She replies, “It is a class thing. A woman at the wheel of her own car, who lives with a man not married to her and speaks her mind — that they find provocative.”

She falls silent now, and for the first time looks sad.

Jeebleh asks gently, “Where do you stand with Bile?” He waits until she is ready to answer.

“I love him.”

“Let’s call some people in,” he says.

“Who and what for?”

Jeebleh abandons himself to a flush of shyness. Then he says, “So that you and Bile are declared man and wife, in the presence of witnesses.”

He looks around, then at her, sighs heavily, sits back, closes his eyes, and rubs the bridge of his nose. Then he gazes at her, smiling. “God. I feel I am the one proposing.”

“You’re doing just that. Very adequately, I might add.”

“As if I were his parent,” Jeebleh says.

“Is that not how marriages are arranged?”

Jeebleh says, “If you wish, you may choose not to be present when the sheikh pronounces you and Bile man and wife.”

“How very apt!”

“You know what I am doing, why and for whom.”

“The trouble is I do.”

“Then we’ll say no more about it until the day?”

As if on cue, a bell rings, and a minute later, Dajaal comes in to fetch Jeebleh, as arranged. Jeebleh gets out of the chair, undecided what he will do. Dajaal senses that the atmosphere into which he has walked is heavy with others’ concerns; he strides back out to wait in the car.

Cambara stands close to him, their bodies almost touching. Then she takes him in an embrace and kisses him, one cheek at a time. He feels a slight tremor in her body, as she withdraws from a full-fledged embrace. It becomes obvious to Jeebleh that she wishes to get one thing off her chest. She says, “There is no cause for worry on your part or anyone else’s. Bile is in good, loving hands, and he won’t be wanting for anything as long as I live. So don’t worry about him.”

They hug again.

“Go well.”

“Be well.”

Dinner is a hurried affair, because Malik hasn’t got the time to talk; he is on a high, writing. Jeebleh retreats into his room. He is at a loss as to what to do, since he still cannot seem to hold the ideas of a single paragraph in his head long enough to make sense of it. It is his third attempt to read “Plundered Waters: Somalia’s Maritime Resource Insecurity,” a thirteen-page chapter by a political geographer named Clive Schofield in a book called Crucible for Survival. After several more failed attempts, he puts the book aside and, in his head, thanks the author for bringing the plundering of the Somali seas to the world’s attention.

Jeebleh puts on a sweater, fearing he may find the breezy balcony cold. He gains the balcony without disturbing Malik, who is still at it, and he sits as fretful as a debtor worried about settling a bill. He wishes he could help Malik more; he wishes he had thought about how much closer to danger a journalist would be here.

The night is pitch black, the drone more fitful in its nocturnal reconnoitring. He tells himself that this will be the third time foreign forces have aided Ethiopia in invading Somalia. In the sixteenth century, Portuguese mercenaries fought on the side of Ethiopia — then known as Abyssinia — to defeat the Somali warrior Ahmed Gurey, Ahmed the Left-handed. In the late 1970s, the Soviets changed sides and the Cubans intervened, chasing the Somalis out of the Somali-speaking Ogaden region in Ethiopia. Will the third time mark the entry of the United States into this dark history?

Jeebleh sets himself the task of identifying the Mother Camels constellation, otherwise known as Draco the Dragon. He finds it, and the moment fills him with joy. He sits out there all night.

Perhaps he dozes, because at the first call of the muezzin, Malik makes a well-timed appearance on the balcony, with the quietness of a fellow conspirator. He brings a fresh pot of tea and cups on a tray.

“Two down, one more to go,” says Malik.

The muezzins calling the faithful to prayers keep different times in their different voices. Some are sweet; some subtle, almost chummy; some throaty; others clumsy and heavy, like lumpy syrup; some strong, like the boughs of a baobab tree. Jeebleh’s mother was partial to an Egyptian chanter of the Koran; she delighted in listening to his tapes again and again. Jeebleh wonders to himself when or if he will ever resume saying his prayers. But the susurrations of the breeze, which bring the morning’s blessings from the mosques nearby, toughen his resolve that all will be well with Malik. And as the calls die down, the noise of the drone disappears from the skies.

Malik asks, “Would you like to read the articles?”

“I would be pleased to read them,” says Jeebleh.

Malik offers the printout of the drafts to Jeebleh, in the manner that one gives a precious gift to a respected elder, with both hands and head slightly inclined. He says, “Here, please.”

“Is it okay if I read them on the plane?”

“Of course it is. You may read them whenever.”

That this is the first time Malik has volunteered to show him a piece before publication is not lost on Jeebleh. Maybe Malik is missing the camaraderie of being among fellow journalists, a situation he hasn’t experienced with anyone in Mogadiscio so far. Or maybe he is making his peace with his coming isolation and the strain of their inability to discuss the possibility of his coming to harm is lifting.

The sun, rising, hits the balcony at an angle.

Finally Jeebleh says, “Time to shower.”

Malik starts to put together some breakfast.

At breakfast, Jeebleh says, “Let’s talk money.”

“What’s on your mind?” asks Malik.

“Dajaal and Qasiir are on my mind.”

They eat in silence, both of them determined to push away every worrying thought from the forefront of their minds. Jeebleh’s departure for Nairobi in a couple of hours will doubtless open up other avenues for Malik, even as it will expose him to unsettling unknowns.

Finally Jeebleh says, “Qasiir has in a very short time demonstrated how quick and useful he can be. I think it is worthwhile having him on board for all the time you are here. He is adept at fixing computers, well informed about the market trends, has contacts among his former fellow militiamen, some of them Shabaab operatives. He attends the prayers at the right mosques, and, unlike Gumaad, he is trustworthy.” He pauses and then asks, “By the way, when were you last in a mosque?”

“I can’t remember when I last prayed. Why?”

“Maybe it’s time you went.”

“Maybe I will.”

Jeebleh says, “The mosque will remain the hub of opposition activities after the invasion, and those coalescing into the insurgency will meet there. Qasiir has the right credentials, as he is an active member of the mosques that are the nerve center of everything social, everything political.”

“I’ll attend prayers at mosques — discreetly.”

“It’ll be worth your while,” Jeebleh predicts.

Malik says, “So what about money?”

“I meant to tell you that I will be arranging to send a hundred dollars monthly to Dajaal,” says Jeebleh. “He’s been loyal, bless his soul; he has no pension, no family to support him in his old age, and no guarantee that Bile will have the wherewithal to provide him with a monthly stipend, or if Cambara will want him if something happens to Bile and she returns to Toronto. A hundred dollars a month from me, and a similar sum from Seamus, will see him through these terrible economic times. But I want you to confide less in Gumaad, more in Qasiir. I am aware that Gumaad has set up an appointment for you with Ma-Gabadeh, a funder of the Xarardheere pirates. I suggest caution when you deal with him; be on your guard.”

“I’ll be vigilant.”

Jeebleh says, “In addition, you must have either Dajaal or Qasiir with you, preferably Dajaal.”

“I’ll do as you advise,” Malik says. “And I would like to contribute toward Dajaal’s retirement, too.”

Jeebleh’s mobile vibrates. He reads the text. “They are here.” Rushed, he says to Malik, “No need to come to the airport,” in a way that allows no room for argument. “Stay behind and work. I’ll call you from the plane when we are boarded and ready to take off, and from Nairobi as soon as we land.”

Malik is up on his feet. He opens his arms to give a good-bye hug to Jeebleh, who’s been waiting to receive it with a smile. He says, “I realize you may not want me to say it, but I will say it, nonetheless. I will miss you and I appreciate your coming with me and sharing a little of your life with which neither Judith nor your daughters are familiar.”

Touched, Jeebleh says, “It’s been my pleasure.”

“Never have I had an introduction such as this.”

They realize they could continue exchanging words in a similar vein all day, so they stop and hug and wrap their arms around each other, whispering endearments.

“Come, come,” Jeebleh says. “I have to go.”

“I know that you must.”

But the way Malik tightens his embrace reminds Jeebleh of a child on his first day at nursery school, reluctant to let his parent go. Then suddenly Malik releases him, and breaks into a brilliant smile.

“Be good. Fear not, worry not,” Jeebleh says.

Malik says, “We’ll talk.”

“Take good care of yourself.”