Crossbones

20

THE SKY IS DARK; THE NIGHT IS STARLESS. IN A DREAM, A TOTAL eclipse has just ended, and Malik ventures out of the apartment for the first time in twenty-four hours. He is on his way to a hospital, walking; Dajaal is indisposed. Roadside mines, tanks, and four days of fighting between the insurgents and the Ethiopian army of occupation have made the city roads impassable, turned them unsafe.

When he finally reaches the hospital, he encounters more ruin; the main building has been hit and reduced to rubble. Radio reports place the number of dead at five hundred, and those critically wounded at over a thousand. A large number of the hospital staff figure among the dead and the missing, perhaps buried in the debris. To the left of the main entrance, a huge crowd is raising an unearthly ruckus. It takes Malik a few minutes to work out the nature of the conflict. The remaining Somali medical staff and several Europeans, no doubt flown in at huge expense by the World Health Organization to help save lives, are engaged in a heated back-and-forth debate with some bearded Shabaab types. The debate centers on whether dogs may be used to save human lives from the wreckage of the hospital. A Gumaad look-alike describes the use of dogs to rescue people from the ruins as an affront to Muslim sensibilities. He is saying to the Europeans, as if from a pulpit, “Dogs are unclean, and we as Muslims are forbidden to come into contact with them.”

But someone is calling from below, deep down in the ruins. It is a man pleading for someone to help rescue his daughter, who is buried in the rubble. The man wants the medical team to use their trained dogs to bring his daughter out, alive.

The WHO team is led by a large woman with a red face, red hair, and skin the color of beetroot from a combination of anger and the tropical sun. She shouts at the Gumaad look-alike, “I’ll beat you up if you don’t get out of the way of the job I’ve come to perform.” Frightened by her outburst, he backs down sheepishly and quietly leaves the scene.

Meanwhile, another member of the hospital medical staff is engaged in his own shouting match with one of the other bearded men. The doctor is saying, “Do you think that Islam condones the desecration of cemeteries, even if the dead were once Christian? I view the desecration of Mogadiscio’s Christian cemetery as heinous and a more serious crime than permitting the use of dogs to pull a living girl out of the rubble. I feel certain that you will have to answer to the Almighty on Judgment Day for dishonoring and debasing the dead bodies of Christians, whereas I am convinced that as long as we mean well and save lives, all will be forgiven by the Divine. Not that I agree with you that Islam forbids the use of dogs to save human lives.”

The row continues, and Malik moves toward the cottages sprawled over an acre and a half in every direction. With the main building destroyed, the cottages now serve as the hospital. The sickening sights are reminiscent of the carnage from World War I, with the wounded lying everywhere on the floor, writhing in pain for lack of morphine or enough doctors and nurses to attend to them. The uniforms of the nurses are dyed in blood.

A nurse, her hands dripping with blood, asks Malik to undo her bra; she explains that it is the only one she owns. Clumsily self-conscious, he suggests she turn so that he can unclasp the catch from the back. But, no, the hooks are in the front. He doesn’t recall ever taking so long to undo a woman’s bra. He sweats so liberally that a drop of perspiration from his forehead almost blinds him.

He remembers that he has an appointment with a doctor, but not why. He asks himself if he is ailing or if he is seeking help for someone else — and if so, for whom? Then he remembers that it is Dajaal who has been hurt in the blast from a roadside bomb, driving. And that when he failed to arrange an appointment with a doctor for Dajaal, he used his press card, describing himself as a journalist interviewing the victims of this ruthless bombing of civilians. To get what he wanted, he remarked that Ethiopia had atrocities to answer for, and that someone was bound to submit a case to the International Court of Justice for this reckless bombing of the city’s residential area.

A phone rings somewhere. At first it sounds as if it is ringing in his head, the way telephones ring inside the head of a dreamer — distant and yet so near, persistent, doggedly insistent, almost otherworldly. Malik listens to the ringing, but can’t be bothered, as if imagining that it is ringing for someone else.

Then he isolates the tone, which is coming from the kitchen counter, where he left his phone to recharge when he fell asleep in the small hours. He infers, eventually, that it must be his. Cursing, he gets out of bed to answer it, his head aching.

Cambara has very bad news. Dajaal is dead.

Malik asks, “Dead? How?”

“Killed at close range by an unknown assassin,” she finally manages to say. “I am told the murderer used the most powerful handgun available on the market — I can’t remember the name, but Bile has described using such a weapon as literally overkill.”

Malik wants to know the time, as if this has something to do with Dajaal’s death. As he searches for his watch, instant guilt preys on his mind. He wishes he knew if Dajaal was killed at the very time he, Malik, was dreaming of visiting him at the hospital, as if this might lessen or intensify his own sense of self-reproach. Cambara tells him that Dajaal’s passing occurred at dawn, as he was on his way to the mosque to pray. Tearful and choking, she adds, “Nobody remembers Dajaal ever going to the mosque for the dawn prayer.”

Malik’s watch reads almost eleven.

He says, “When is the burial?”

“He’s already been buried,” says Cambara.

Malik can’t believe it. When he finds his tongue, his words run in pursuit of one another; there are gaps in his thinking, which doesn’t keep up with the speed of his speech. He says, “Dajaal died at dawn. So why the hurry?”

“Because the gun that the assassin used hacks into its victims, tearing them apart with formidable force. Given the state of his body, it was deemed best to bury him right away.”

“A death meant as a lesson to us all, perhaps?”

She says, “One hated or loved Dajaal.”

“His friends and family loved him.”

“We’ll miss him, Bile and me.”

An alien disorder seizes Malik by the throat and renders him speechless. Plenty of words come to him, but somehow his tongue won’t let go of them.

“Are you still there?” Cambara asks.

He is barely audible when he says, “Yes.”

“Qasiir made the arrangements,” she explains. “He sent the diggers out early, called the sheikh to lead the Janaaza-prayer and community to prepare the body for interment, rented the bier, and organized the other burial rituals.”

“I wonder why he didn’t call me,” Malik says.

“He said he called,” she says. “No answer.”

Malik says, “Where will all this end?”

Cambara says, “I doubt it will ever end.”

“Do we have any idea who killed him?”

“Bile — he answered the phone — asked Qasiir to come over, and the two of them were locked in the upstairs bedroom for a long time. I am not privy to their conversation. Frankly, I doubt if anyone other than Shabaab was behind it. And you can be sure Dajaal’s murder will lead to more bloodletting.”

“I’d talk to Qasiir if he were still there,” says Malik.

“He left earlier, and Bile took to bed,” she says.

Malik senses sickness spreading through his entire body. He is remembering the last altercation between Dajaal and Gumaad, and the sensation he’d had at the time — that Dajaal would pay with his life for what he said about TheSheikh.

“How is Qasiir handling it?”

“He’s devastated,” Cambara says.

“Any idea what he is planning?”

“Qasiir won’t do anything in a mad rush,” she says. “Bile says that he is very much like his grandfather in this way.”

They talk for a few more minutes. Cambara tells Malik that, in between attempts to reach him, she spoke to Jeebleh and Seamus to let them know of Dajaal’s passing. She goes on to say, “Seamus thinks that you should base yourself in Nairobi, where you can get all the news about Somalia by the minute. Things will get much worse here before they get better.”

“What did Jeebleh say?”

“That he expects you to know what to do.”

“Jeebleh hasn’t suggested that I relocate to Kenya to cover Somalia from there, like all those European journalists do?”

“He says he will trust you to know what to do.”

Before hanging up, Cambara presses him to at least think more seriously about moving in with them, and she reminds him that if he needs transportation anywhere, both Qasiir and the car are at his disposal.

He thanks her and they hang up.

Depression sends Malik back to bed. From there he makes several attempts to reach Qasiir, but each time the line is either busy or disconnected. Despondency overwhelms him.

Later, when he rises, a strain of unfamiliar sorrow stirs him out of his depressive lethargy. But he doesn’t know what to do with himself. The day stretches ahead of him. He goes to the bathroom to clean his teeth, but he cannot bear the thought of looking in the mirror, worried at what he might see.

In the kitchen, he makes breakfast for two. Then he rings Dajaal’s number, just as he used to, aware that Somalis are unsentimental about death and certain that someone will have taken over Dajaal’s mobile phone and will use it until it runs out of airtime, and then decide whether to top it up or not.

A woman answers.

“This is Malik,” he says. “To whom am I speaking?”

She replies, “I am Qasiir’s mother,” and weeps.

Malik pays his respects and tells her how much he will miss Dajaal. “He’s been very dear to me,” he says. “I wish I had been there for his burial. But you know!”

“It’s God’s will that he is gone,” she says. “I loved him more than I loved my own father, because he raised me, supported and stood by me when the attacking Americans hurt my daughter. Allah will bless him.”

“Please tell Qasiir that I called.”

“I will, I will,” she assures him.

“I hope to come around and see you before I leave.”

“May Allah be praised,” she says.

Speaking to Qasiir’s mother does him good, helping him remember his responsibility as a journalist and as a friend to Dajaal and men like him, who are often murdered for the views they hold, risking their lives for their stands against tyranny. Dajaal loved the country, and has been killed by men who cannot love Somalia until they turn it into a different country, in which they prosper and their opponents perish. He will pen a piece about the tragic eradication of a generation of Somali professionals, of whom Dajaal was a prime example.

He gets down to just doing that.

Ahl calls. Malik tells him about Dajaal’s death. Ahl, however, is consumed by the thought of the newly appointed Ethiopian ambassador to Somalia lodging in Somalia’s presidential villa as though it were an upmarket hotel, not only as a guest of Somalia’s traitorous interim government, but on the false pretext of safeguarding the state and its interim president, who was escorted to the villa with a heavily armed detachment of Ethiopian and a hundred or so Somali soldiers.

Malik is conscious of his gauche failure — giving importance to the death of an individual when he should be concerned with the current state of the nation, in apparent contrast to Ahl, who, being physically distant from the scene of the bombings and having not known Dajaal in person, can afford a wider perspective in his assessment of these events. Maybe when one lives in a city riven by civil war, one is obsessed with the immediate situation almost to the exclusion of all else, whereas when one is operating outside these stressful conditions, one has the luxury, as Ahl does, to take a broader view and to study the matter from an entirely different perspective. At the moment, Malik is so preoccupied with Dajaal’s death — with thinking and writing about it — that he needs reminding that the Ethiopians are spreading their tentacles into strategic locations in Mogadiscio.

Malik ends the call and returns to his writing. Barely has he completed an initial draft and saved it when Qasiir calls.

After offering his heartfelt condolences, Malik says, “I suggest you take it easy for a couple of days. You need the time to grieve, to mourn your grandfather. He was a wonderful, wonderful man in my view, too.”

Qasiir says, “I would be failing Grandpa and dishonoring his memory if I did not get on with my life in the same way I had always done before his death — and perform my responsibility toward the jobs at hand.”

Malik is shocked and impressed: shocked, because he can’t imagine being able to function so soon after the untimely death of a beloved grandfather; impressed, because only pragmatists, who value life for what it is — a loan that is borrowed and, as with all loans, must be returned — appreciate every moment of it, conscious of the need to put food on the table, draw water from the well, graze the beasts, tend the sick — so that other people may go on living. He feels humbled, as he doesn’t think he would have done for anyone what Qasiir is doing.

“Then why don’t you come,” he says.

Qasiir arrives: hugs, condolences, and regrets.

He tells Malik about Dajaal’s death in a more succinct way than Cambara had done. Apparently a man stalked him as he walked to the mosque. Fifty meters before Dajaal reached the house of worship, the gunman pulled out his Magnum 55 and hit him in the back of the head; a professional killing, no room for error, and death was instantaneous. Malik is relieved that Qasiir spares him the gory details. He says purposefully, “Grandpa is dead. I know who will pay for it: a life for a life. We’ll have to do what we must do today, and then sometime in the future, the assassin will pay for what he has done. Meanwhile, I’ll bide my time and live my life in the way I see fit, and as Grandpa would have been happy with if he had been alive, relying on the guidance of a Somali wisdom — that the shoes of a dead man are more useful than he is.”

Malik isn’t familiar with Somali poetry or proverbs. But he is conversant with the Arabic tradition, having been brought up on a rich diet of Arabic poetry, especially of the pre-Islamic period, otherwise known as the Jaahiliya — the time of ignorance. So he recites in his head a couple of verses from Imrul Qays, indubitably the best Arab poet of any era, the son of a sultan, who uttered his most famous riposte on the assassination of his father, giving air to words of cynicism that have since entered Arab folklore. Asked when he might avenge his father, Qays replied, “Tomorrow is for drinking, tomorrow for vengeance.” Malik wonders if Qasiir will do the killing quietly, in his own time, since, according to Cambara, he is not the type to rush matters.

Malik finds himself discomfited to be alone with Qasiir, now that he has learned the shape of Qasiir’s thinking. Malik’s eyes wander away; he cannot bear to focus on Qasiir’s palsied features, his evasiveness a testament to his own desire not to bear witness to a mourner’s pain. In the long silence that follows, he fidgets, then makes tea and, to keep busy, offers to prepare a meal. When Qasiir tells him he has no wish to eat anything, he suggests they go for a drive. He finds the apartment too small to contain the two of them.

Qasiir asks, “Where?”

Malik has been wondering what changes the carousel of politics, with the Courts now departed and the Ethiopians and the Transitional Federal Government replacing them, has brought about. He thinks that there is no place better than the Bakhaaraha to study them.

“Let’s go to the Bakhaaraha,” Malik suggests.

“What do you have in mind?” Qasiir asks.

Malik says, “We may run into people we know.”

“And of what benefit is that to either of us?”

The thought of running into BigBeard so soon after the Courts’ authority has been dismantled perversely excites Malik. But he chooses not to speak of this wrongheadedness to Qasiir now, lest Qasiir think him deranged. He simply locks up, making sure that all the security contraptions are in good working order. Then he follows Qasiir, who leads the way, down the staircase, through the passageways, and finally to the parking lot.

In the car, Malik says, “Maybe we’ll run into Gumaad.”

“Gumaad is on his way to Eritrea,” Qasiir says, “appointed as the spokesman of the exiled Somali community in Asmara. The group includes the Courts and several other Somali associations opposing the Transitional Federal Government and Ethiopia. He was on the radio, giving an interview at the top of the hour.”

“How did he get there so quickly?” Malik asks. “I wonder if he is lying again, claiming to be speaking from Asmara when he is right here in the city.” It feels like a long time ago when Gumaad suggested that he interview TheSheikh. A lot can happen in a day in a civil war. Dajaal is dead and buried; Gumaad is in Asmara. What else has he missed? “And where is TheSheikh?”

“Gumaad escorted TheSheikh on a special flight that took him straight to Eritrea,” Qasiir says. “Presumably, they were flown out of an airstrip still believed to be in the hands of the Courts. The mystery now surrounds TheOtherSheikh. One rumor places him in a village near the Somali-Kenya border, another speaks of the possibility of him going to the Sudan or Libya, where he was schooled.”

“What’s become of the other Courts members?”

“Some are headed for Iran, some to the Gulf.”

“Is it fair to assume that every single Somali politician has a different paymaster outside this country from whom he receives instructions, and whose interests he serves?” Malik is remembering that a UN annual situation report on Somalia, published the previous year, claimed that there were twelve countries involved in the Somali conflict — Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Libya, Egypt, Kenya, Iraq, China, Italy, the United States, France, and Britain.

“That’s right.”

Outside, pedestrians are crossing the busy street in no hurry at all, as if daring the drivers to run them over. Some of them stop in the center, as though saying, “Hit me. See if I care.” Malik observes that already more women are walking around unveiled than when the Courts ran the city.

Qasiir says, “Please tell me where we’re going.”

“Maybe we’ll visit BigBeard’s shop,” Malik says.

“What’s the purpose of our visit?”

“Must there be a purpose?” Malik says.

“In an ideal world, we do things for a reason.”

Malik says, “Well, then, I can pretend to be looking for an iPod or, better still, we can say we are there to price a BlackBerry. We can say anything that will allow us to take a good look at him, unobserved.”

Qasiir doesn’t seem convinced it is a good idea. But he doesn’t say anything.

“Are you opposed to us paying him a visit?”

Qasiir brakes for a pedestrian walking backward, but still the pedestrian collides with his front bumper. The pedestrian, unhurt, signals his apology and backs away into oncoming traffic. There is a ruckus, with drivers stopping all of a sudden, and one of the cars smashes into the one ahead of it. Instantly, crowds gather on either side of the street. Then a man breaks away and Malik observes the surfeit of interest in the eyes of many in the crowd. It is as if everyone is watching and waiting for the opportune moment to go for broke. In his travels, Malik has known of mobs on a Nairobi main street beating a man nearly to death as he was running after a minibus, mistaking him for a thief. A man nearby, just then realizing that he had been dispossessed of his wallet, shouted, “Thief running, catch the thief.” Another man echoed the phrase—“Thief running”—and then another and another joined the chorus. Before the runner had reached his bus, a fourth tripped him. Turning into a mob, the bystanders fell on the man, raining deadly blows on him. By the time the police arrived, the man had also lost his front teeth to a kick, and his own wallet and documents were gone.

But no such incident occurs just now. The traffic eases and they move on.

Malik says, “Tell me what you really think of my plan.”

“There is no benefit in provoking BigBeard unnecessarily,” Qasiir says. “Grandpa, who knew him all his life, always advised me to give him a wide berth.”

“He ruined my visit on my first day, and I won’t forgive myself if I do not do a little to disrupt the flow of his life and then write about it,” Malik says.

Malik thinks that if civil wars are an affront to common sense and Qasiir has known nothing but the affrontery resulting from civil wars, then he may not understand why it matters to see BigBeard a day after the Courts have been ousted. No need to reiterate that in the old dispensation, when the Courts were in charge, BigBeard doubled as a customs officer in addition to running a computer shop. He is Malik’s idea of a corrupt Courts bureaucrat, although it occurs to him that, along with those determined to profit themselves, there must also have been a core of well-meaning, hardworking, honest individuals.

“I hope we find him at the shop,” Malik says.

Qasiir says, “I hope we don’t.”

“You think talking to him may put us in danger?”

“Not immediately,” Qasiir says.

“But it might put us in danger eventually?”

“It might,” Qasiir says.

Still, Qasiir’s warning doesn’t deter Malik. Maybe he is making up for missing out on interviewing TheSheikh when he had the chance to do so. Once upon a time, he did what he pleased. How he loved the lure of danger when he was younger, when he had no wife and no child. “We’ve become a father,” he said when his child was born, a smile adorning his lips. In a way, he thinks, war correspondents have no business being family people, since that will deter them from pursuing their vocation without worry or fear. Isn’t that what journalists do when they cover wars — endanger their lives? Malik recalls an Austrian poet and editor who described the breed as “heroes of obtrusiveness.” Is there anywhere on earth where the intrusive, inquisitive, danger-courting journalist is as conspicuous as he is in Somalia? Yes, we’ve become a father.

“We’ll just have to be careful with BigBeard. That’s all,” Qasiir says, and he reverses into a parking spot that has fallen vacant.

It takes them longer than necessary to walk to the computer shop, in part because Qasiir drags it out, clearly opposed to the idea of the encounter. He doesn’t have daring in the marrow of his bones. But neither is he bold enough to challenge Malik outright, reminding himself of his responsibility to Grandpa, who is still warm in his grave and would be upset if Qasiir upset Malik. He remembers, too, that Dajaal was fond of the militaristic motto “Orders from high up are orders from high up, and they must be obeyed.” He stays in close contact with Malik, who is reflecting that life here is built on quicksand. Alive one minute, dead the next, and buried in the blink of an eye, no postmortem, not even an entry in a ledger.

The shop is busy, with lots of customers standing around, ordering items and waiting for them to be delivered from the back. When it is Malik and Qasiir’s turn, Malik says that he wants to see BigBeard. At the mention of the nickname, a hush descends among the staff. A tall, thin man separates himself from the others.

He asks Malik, “Why do you want to see him?”

Malik says, “I bought a computer from this shop a few days back and it is malfunctioning. The manager told me to come and see him personally anytime if there was a problem with the machine.”

“Where is the computer?” the man asks.

But Malik only repeats, “Is BigBeard here?”

The man stands statue still, as if reflecting on Malik’s request, and then he is gone for a long time. Meanwhile, the shop empties, and one of the younger salesmen posts himself at the entrance to tell people wanting to enter the shop that it is no longer open for business that day, and to bid them to come back tomorrow.

A man emerges from the back of the shop. He is identical to Malik’s memory of BigBeard, except that he is wearing a suit and he is beardless. He waits for one of the salesmen to point out the person who has asked for him, even though Malik and Qasiir are now the only customers left.

“What can I do for you?” BigBeard asks, not a trace of recognition in his eyes, no tension in his body, no fear or worry evident anywhere in him.

Malik says, “My computer is malfunctioning.”

Then, as if he recognizes Malik’s face or remembers the sound of his voice, BigBeard’s easy composure wears off. He starts to look hard-pressed. He stares at Malik, as if taking his measure in an effort to determine what course of action is open to him. His eyes prowl the shop, like an eagle on the lookout for prey to pounce on. But when his wandering eyes land on Qasiir, he seems to regain his composure with a forced effort. He says to Qasiir, “I hadn’t realized you were here, in the shop. No one has told me. Please, please accept my condolences. And, please, please greet your mother and tell her how sorry I am to hear of your grandfather’s death.”

A quiet hush descends. He turns to Malik and asks, “Did you bring the machine with you that you say is now malfunctioning?”

Malik shakes his head.

BigBeard says, “Bring it and we’ll fix it.”

He turns to go.

Malik calls him back. “Haven’t we met before?”

BigBeard pauses briefly, then replies, “I am often mistaken for other people with whom I share a family resemblance. Maybe you’ve met one of my cousins. He used to work here.”

Qasiir, meanwhile, has put a bit of distance between himself and Malik, the way teenagers stand to one side and look away in embarrassment when their parents start plying their friends with stories about them.

Malik says to BigBeard, keeping his voice low, “I am not mistaking you for anyone else. I know who you are: you confiscated my computer, deleted the photograph of my daughter, and then poisoned my machine with a venomous virus, which ruined it. Do you remember any of that?”

“You’re mistaking me for someone else.”

They look hard into each other’s eyes, neither blinking. It is as if they are testing each other’s mettle. BigBeard seems almost buoyant, though, as if a victory is nigh; Malik’s confidence is fueled by his rage.

“What exactly do you want?” BigBeard asks at length.

“I would like my machine back.”

In the silence that follows, Qasiir rallies his inner strength and says quietly to Malik, “Please let us go.”

But nothing will move Malik from where he is.

BigBeard says, “You are an impetuous man and a fool and you do not know what is good for you. If you value your life, you will go out of here this instant. If you don’t…!”

“What, if I don’t?”

BigBeard pulls his coat aside to reveal the butt of his Magnum. “You’ll die a painful death. I will make certain of that. And remember, I know where you live. I know everything about you.”

Whatever he expected, Malik did not think their conversation would end in a cul-de-sac of such naked threat. His calm exterior and his steady stare now conceal an inner tremor, and he startles this time when Qasiir touches him and says, “Shall we go, please?”

Malik wonders how much of what was said could be heard by Qasiir, or whether he, too, caught a flash of the Magnum.

Back in the car, Malik is impressed at how Qasiir restrains himself from prying or from reprimanding him. He knows he is given to keeping his foibles under wraps, making a point not to publicize them. He has a bad sense of direction, for example, which makes him doubly grateful for Qasiir. On his own in other locales, he sometimes goes to the venues where he is to meet someone a day ahead, reconnoitering, to avoid making a fool of himself.

Qasiir says, “One of my mates drafted as a Shabaab cadre has informed me of a young thing who died at BigBeard’s instructions a couple of days ago. He is a ruthless man, BigBeard.”

“Can I meet your friend, the Shabaab recruit?”

“I asked him if he would meet you.”

“What was his answer?”

“He prefers that you meet the brother of the young thing.”

Qasiir explains that the dead boy was part of an advance team, sent out to “consecrate” safe houses close to the presidential villa from which they intend to launch their war on both the interim head and the Ethiopian invaders.

“Do you know where to find him?”

“He is a former pirate, now jobless.”

Malik asks, “What’s his name?”

“Marduuf.”

“How bizarre,” Malik says. “Named for a large measure of wrapped qaat.”

“He is partial to qaat, and wasted the money he made from piracy chewing it.”

“Where does he live?”

“He came to Mogadiscio soon after his brother was buried, and has spent a great deal of time gathering as much information as possible about his late sibling,” Qasiir replies. “I hear he has built a case for vengeance.”

“And he is biding his time?”

“He is waiting for a good opportunity to act on his rage,” Qasiir says.

“Is he willing, do you think, to come to where I choose and do the interview?”

“That’s my understanding,” Qasiir says.

“What about a time of my choosing — will he agree to that, too?”

Qasiir says, “I believe he will.”

They part without saying more.