Gifts

1

In which Duniya sees the outlines of a story emerging from the mist surrounding her, as the outside world impinges on her space and thoughts.

Duniya had been awake for a while, conscious of the approaching dawn. She had dreamt of a restless butterfly; of a cat waiting attentively for the fretful insect’s shadow to stay still for an instant so as to pounce on it. Then the dark room lit up with the brightness of fireflies, agitated breaths of light, soft, quiet as foam. Faint from heat, Duniya watched the goings-on, supine. The butterfly flew here and there, movements mesmeric in its circling rainbow of colours. As if hypnotized, the cat’s eyes closed slowly, dramatically, and it fell asleep.

Fully awake, Duniya got out of bed.

Knowing she had to walk to work, she left home long before her children were up. She had timed herself on previous occasions: it would take forty-five minutes at a luxurious pace, allowing time for exchanging elaborate morning greetings and yesterday’s gossip with any neighbours or colleagues she might meet.

In the event she only nodded a few times, acknowledging salutations without pause as if she did not know those who spoke them. She averted her eyes from several men in the side street, men in sarongs, towels draped round naked chests, men gargling gregariously, chewing on rumay sticks to clean their teeth. Duniya needed no reminder that the half-mud, half-brick houses in front of which these men stood had no running water, no wash-basins, no proper toilet facilities. She lived in one of the few houses in this district of Mogadiscio that boasted such amenities.

Wherever one looked, people were pouring out of opened doors. The streets were alive with activity: women chatting volubly with neighbours; groups of uniformed children on their way to school; infants, too small to carry their satchels, being led to kindergarten, Here and there someone was busy siphoning petrol from one vehicle into another. Most cars had an abandoned look, their bonnets up, engines cold. Occasionally one was driven past and everyone would stare, first at the vehicle as if seeing a miracle, then at the person at the wheel, perhaps hoping for a lift. The one time a taxi stopped, crowds converged on it and there was a scuffle, whereupon the driver sped off, safe in his securely locked car.

Contrary to expectation, there was a touch of gaiety in the air, with total strangers willing to engage in conversation on any topic, though uppermost in everyone’s mind were the scarcity of fuel and the increasingly frequent power cuts. Some people spoke knowledgeably about the politics of commodity shortages, guessing how long this would last. A man claiming to be in the know spoke of a government delegation going on a mission to the oil-producing Arab countries in the hope of returning with tankerfuls of petrol.

Duniya crossed an asphalt road which, though not sign-posted as such, was the boundary between two districts, one poor, in which she herself lived, the other middle-class if not well-to-do. From the nature of the conversation and the accents, she knew she was in Hodan. She entered a dirt road linking two tarred streets, a broad road that was quiet as a cul-de-sac. Suddenly, she felt violently upset; the surrounding silence disturbed her, making her breathing erratic. Seized with inexplicable fear, she sensed a chill in her bones, as if she had ventured into dangerous territory. She halted, not wanting to go further.

It was then that she spotted a cat resembling the one in her dream, crouched fearlessly before her, waiting to be picked up and cuddled. But Duniya did neither. She and the cat stared at each other and this increased her awareness of inner stress.

A few seconds later she saw in the hazy distance what at first seemed to be a butterfly with colourful wings revolving like spinning-tops. To her delighted surprise, it turned out to be a red-and-yellow-striped taxi, empty.

She got in, speaking not a word, and made herself comfortable in the back seat. Something told her not to interrogate her luck lest it should flee, but she did wonder if hiring the cab on her own might prove an exorbitant affair on a day like this. A discreet look in her wallet reassured her. But why wasn’t the man moving? Had he spotted other potential passengers wanting to share? Then she realized she had not closed the taxi door. She clicked it shut and the car moved.

The driver touched the peak of the golf cap he wore, asking, “Where would you like me to take you, Madam?”

“Maternity Benaadir Hospital, please.”

“At your service, Madam.”

Duniya tried to dismiss a lurking suspicion: the man didn’t talk, act or look like a taxi-driver. Phrases like “At your service, Madam” pinched his tongue in the way that new shoes press tightly on one’s toes. He drove hesitantly, cautious with the controls, as if more accustomed to automatic transmission than manual gears. He reminded her of an inexperienced rider in the saddle of an unbroken horse. Several times the car stalled and he got out, apologizing, opened the bonnet, pulled at its wiry intestines, then got back in, only to repeat the process. He did not appear anxious, nor behave like a professional driver whose livelihood depended on the vehicle functioning. Rather, he was like a man condescending to cook for you while his maid and wife were both away: not wanting to be remembered for the ill-prepared result but for the humility with which he served you, the effort put into the task.

Moving at cruising speed, he said, “As you may have gathered, I’m not familiar with the idiosyncrasies of this taxi.”

Then Duniya saw her face and his framed in the mirror, as if they had both waited all their lives for this one instant when their visages shared the space, sealed in a common fate. He was grinning, his jaw strong, his face shaven smooth as oilcloth, shining a friendly smile. It gave her an eerie sinking feeling, as if the earth were falling from under her. All of a sudden she did not want to be alone with him. Concurrently a realization came to her that she knew this man, knew his name.

“Why pretend to be someone you’re not, Bosaaso?” she asked him.

“I’m afraid I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” he replied.

“Disguise comes in handy to you men as soon as you run out of your natural masks. Men,” she trailed off, as if the word described a species for which she had nothing but disdain.

She looked up at the sky. The sun seemed held in place by thin stilt-like strands of cloud, white as the branch of a deciduous tree without bark. Below the sun were two tiny dark clouds resembling foot-rests.

She and Bosaaso knew each other all right. She had been on night shift when his late wife spent a few laborious days in intensive care at the maternity hospital where Duniya was a senior nurse. Besides, they had a mutual friend in Dr Mire, principal obstetrician at the hospital and a boyhood friend of Bosaaso’s.

“If I had known this was not a taxi I wouldn’t have flagged it down, I promise you,” she said.

“But it isn’t a taxi when I’m driving it,” Bosaaso said.

“Why are you driving it anyway?”

“Because my own car is being serviced, that’s why.”

“None of this makes sense to me.”

Bosaaso tried to explain: “I bought this taxi for a poor cousin of mine, who drives it so he can raise money. All income from taxiing is his, though the car remains mine and in my name.” He sighed, sensing that he had been long-winded.

“In that case, I’d like to pay.”

“Pay?” He sounded offended.

“You may choose to give the money to your cousin.” She paused. “Would a hundred and fifty shillings be enough for a town trip, given today’s fuel shortage?”

“Sure,” Bosaaso said.

But she sensed that he did not take her offer seriously. To counteract her hurt feelings, she gave a theatrical chuckle, pretending to be amused.

“What’s so funny?” he said.

“The thought that one defers to money,” she replied.

He hung on her words like an angler to a rich catch. But he couldn’t frame her face in his mirror, however much he adjusted it. She had gone very quiet in the back. He looked over his left shoulder and then his right, but saw no Duniya. Impervious to what he was doing or that he might meet other vehicles, he impulsively turned his head right around. Still he could see only a small part of her; her body was bent over — maybe she was picking up something from the floor. Then he lost control of the steering-wheel. The car swung, its tyres bumping against one kerb and then another, nearly colliding with the bumper of a vehicle that was parked off the road. Finally he came to a safe halt.

Suddenly the two of them were exaggeratedly conscious of each other’s presence, aware of their physical proximity for the first time. Disregarding a small crowd that out of curiosity had gathered around the car, Duniya and Bosaaso touched, marvelling at having shared a life-and-death experience, at having stopped in good time before crossing a threshold.

Without him suggesting it, Duniya got out of the back of the taxi and went to sit with him in the front. He removed his golf cap and threw it out of the window. They started to move.

Duniya noticed how his smile emphasized the handsomeness of his features. And he had a habit of tilting his head to one side as though leaning against something; and he wrinkled his forehead, like someone in private trouble.

Duniya remembered the night she and Bosaaso had been together longest. While his wife, then in labour, was asleep in the private ward, they tiptoed outside for some fresh air. He didn’t say much; and his head, she recalled, had inclined like the tower of Pisa.

He was now saying, “About your paying for this journey, if I may…,” and he fell quiet.

“Yes?” she said, and waited.

“Do you ever go to the cinema with your daughters and son?” he asked tentatively.

“Now and then,” she lied.

“What kind of films do you see?”

Wondering where it was all leading, she said, “The odd spaghetti western, or an Indian or kung fu film; there isn’t much choice. Why do you ask?”

He didn’t say anything immediately. Entering a difficult lane he concentrated on his driving. His indicator was not working, so he stuck his arm out of the window to show that he was turning right. However, first he braked in order to let a pedestrian cross the road. Duniya noted he was a careful man, considerate too.

Changing gear smoothly, he said, “I suggest you take me to a film with you and your children, instead of paying anything today.”

“But I don’t know when I’ll next be seeing a film,” she said.

“There’s no hurry,” he replied.

Was this some sort of male trap that would be impossible to undo at a later date, like links of an invisible chain?

“Perhaps you don’t have time,” he said, “what with grown-up twins and a young daughter to look after.” He added as an afterthought, “And your work at the hospital. It must all be extremely demanding. Plus other engagements, I’m sure.”

Surprising them both, she said, “I have plenty of time.”

He didn’t speak for a while. Then: “Perhaps I’m too slow. Or is there a catch? Is there something you haven’t told me yet?”

“To be frank, I’m not sure I want to take anyone to a film.”

“Fair enough,” he said, as he turned a corner.

She hoped she hadn’t been unnecessarily off-putting. From the comer of her eye, she watched him switch on the car’s hazard light which blinked red, in time with her heartbeart. He was looking at her intently, wondering if he dared interrupt her thoughts.

In fact she spoke first. “I hope I haven’t been rude.”

“You’ll be forgiven the instant you invite me,” he said.

“I’ve no way of reaching you anyway.”

“On the contrary,” he said. “You’re a very resourceful woman; you’ll know how to get in touch if you want to.”

Too tense to think clearly, she remained silent.

“One way of reaching me,” he went on, “is through Dr Mire at your hospital I see him a great deal, almost daily.”

“Wouldn’t he be put out by being asked to carry messages?”

“He’ll be only too delighted, I assure you.” He grinned, dividing his attention equally between Duniya’s face and the road, which was full of pot-holes and pedestrians.

He brought the vehicle to an abrupt stop. “I am afraid I can’t go beyond this point. There’s a sign that says ‘No taxis.’ I forgot I’m not driving my private car. I’m sorry.”

Sitting up, she prepared for the difficult task of saying something wise or neutral, managing, “You’ve been very kind.”

“My pleasure,” was all he said.

Murmuring something that was a cross between a “thank-you” and a “see-you,” she stepped out of the car, confident they would meet again. She closed the taxi door without looking at him.

Having arrived early, Duniya conversed affably and at length with the three cleaning women, even offering to help them tidy the Outpatients’ Clinic where she was to work that day. But they wouldn’t hear of it. She did all she could to keep her mind busy.

But when the cleaners left and she was alone in the echoing hall, her mind kept replaying scenes from the chance encounter with Bosaaso. To while away time, she unearthed an old newspaper in which she discovered an item of interest:

MOGADISCIO (SONNA, TUESDAY)

The Secretary of Agriculture and Livestock today warned of impending disaster and famine in Somalia unless immediate action is taken to terminate the breeding cycle of the desert locust. Mogadiscio residents recently witnessed huge swarms, 25 km wide and 70 km long. He said the government is launching a campaign to eradicate the pests but this can only be achieved with the help of insecticide and light aircraft for spraying, which are not available. A grant towards the campaign has been promised by the governments of the USA and the Netherlands. However, this was not enough.

The Head of State, Major-General Mohammed Siyad Barre, has invited the ambassadors of the Federal Republic of Germany, Britain, France and Italy to consider what assistance their governments can offer Somalia to cope with the disaster. Last night five light aircraft belonging to the East African Locust Organization were grounded in Addis Ababa through lack of spare parts and fuel.

Quoting a senior official of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the Secretary of Agriculture and Livestock said efforts to fight the plague throughout Africa had cost at least $100 million and that additional funds of over $145 million will be needed in the coming year.

2

At work Duniya meets her colleagues, including Hibo, a senior nurse, and Dr Mire. The morning brings troubles and joys. Duniya meets Bosaaso on her way home.

An hour and a half later Duniya came out of the courtyard clutching a crumpled sheet of paper from which she intended to call the roll of the women out-patients who had registered for the clinic and been issued numbers scribbled on paper tokens. She stood in the porch, half in the shade, half in the sun, more impressed than ever with the resilience of these women who had risen maybe as early as four in the morning in order to be here. She couldn’t dismiss Bosaaso from her thoughts and she felt put out by that.

The instant they saw Duniya, the patients stirred, sighing like a theatre audience reacting to the curtain rising. Anxious for the list to be called, they stared up at Duniya as though examining her thoughts. She wondered how many of them noticed a slight tremor in her face, like the twitching flesh of a horse anticipating the sting of a fly. “Number Fifteen, please!” she called.

A woman got up from her crouched posture, lifting from the ground the weight of an advanced pregnancy. Other women opened a door for her to pass through, looking on with envy as she presented her numbered token to Duniya, who checked it against the list. Telling the woman to go into the waiting-hall, Duniya turned to the crowd of women and shouted, “Number Sixteen, please!”

Some of the women urged Number Sixteen to kindly hurry, because they had been up very early, had walked all the way here on exhausted feet and hadn’t a chance in a million of finding transport home. Number Sixteen shaded her eyes from the dazzle of the morning sun, took her time getting up, then walked in a leisurely way towards Duniya. When the other patients suggested she hurry, the woman mumbled something to the effect that since the doctor hadn’t arrived, there was no point in rushing. Did they want her to lose her baby? Many displayed irritation by shaking their heads and saying unkind things about the region of the country the woman came from, whose people they described as slumberous. Duniya, for her part, stared sunnily squinting as she explained to Number Sixteen where to go, and then called: “Number Seventeen.”

Silence. Then snatches of disturbed whispering broke out. Some of the women stared myopically at the tokens they had been given. Unable to read, they sought help from those who could.

Duniya called the number a second and a third time, whereupon a woman squatting at her feet said, “Why not call another if Seventeen is either deaf or no longer here?”

“We must give her a chance,” Duniya insisted. She called the number as if everything depended on it, her eyes moving from one lethargic face to another. She might have been the teacher of a huge class, half of whose students had raised hands to answer an easy question.

Duniya was staring intently at a spot, now vacant, where earlier had been a young woman to whose face she could put no name but whom she was sure she knew. Or was she hallucinating?

The women had become impatient and there was a stirring in their midst. A very large woman got up to push her way to the front and said to Duniya, “Number Seventeen has gone; I saw her leave in a taxi. Why don’t you call the next number?”

“Eighteen must be her number,” another woman said sarcastically.

Duniya’s eyes scoured the area in front of her, now left, now right, now centre, until her gaze ended where the young woman with the elusive name had been. Even before speaking, Duniya knew she was being stupid; nevertheless she asked, “But why did she go?”

And there was a riot. The women out-patients raised their voices in complaint, some getting to their feet and others trying to calm things, making them sit down again. During an instant of respite, one of them asked someone else to come and help speed up the number-calling exercise, since this woman (meaning Duniya) had her head in the clouds.

Hibo, a senior nurse, together with a junior nurse, came out to the porch and quickly consulted with Duniya, who at first looked at them with incomprehension, perplexed about what had made her behave that way. All she managed to say was, “Yes, please.”

Questions throbbed in her forehead where her veins were fast swelling. Before long she regained her calm, watching the patients shove and kick one another while trying to get closer to Hibo and the junior nurse. The large woman was indeed Number Eighteen; Duniya kept her curiosity in check, resisted asking her to describe the young woman with Number Seventeen. By the time the big woman was told where to wait, the two nurses who had replaced Duniya had conjured the riotous women into peaceable entities.

After finishing this part of the formalities, the nurses asked one another, “What’s the matter with Duniya today?” Lost in noontime reveries, Duniya sat by herself, uncommunicative.

In all there were eight female nurses in the hall adjoining the principal obstetrician’s cubicle: six junior nurses and two senior ones, namely Duniya and Hibo. Two junior nurses shared a small table and the senior nurses had one each. They talked while copying details given to them by the patients, who withdrew once they had provided the required information. The card thus filled out would be taken to either Duniya or Hibo for initialling.

Duniya sat by herself, sucking in her cheeks; her body seemed to have undergone changes since morning, like a newly pregnant woman’s physique adjusting to the condition. Her mind drifted as she half-listened to the other nurses’ voices. Every so often she caught words that were as distinctly familiar as her own name, but most went past her, unheard. The nurses conducted their conversation in low voices, their movements sharp and weirdly frenzied, yet they went about their respective businesses with the participatory routine of ten people undertaking a job intended for fifteen.

Of Duniya the nurses made kindly, inquisitive overtures as to what might be bothering her, and asked if they could be any help. She assured them nothing was amiss; she was all right, really When some insisted she confide in them because as colleagues they had the right to know, Duniya hinted that it was a matter of a slight indisposition, nothing to worry about. Honest. They said no more, for fear of upsetting her. After all they were fond of her.

Out of reach of her ears, the nurses agreed among themselves that Duniya’s troubles must be bound up with one of her children or with personal frustrations arising from the fact that, although pushing thirty-five and already married twice, she had no prospect of finding another man, but had to raise her three children alone. The nurses concurred that Duniya gave the impression that secret-keeping was a luxury for which she was willing to pay handsomely Except for Hibo, the others kept their respectable distance.

Approaching, Hibo said something Duniya couldn’t catch. Hibo had the habit of talking conspiratorially, as if plotting the overthrow of an African dictator. Now her lips trembled, first the upper one, then the lower one, after which she scratched them one at a time as if an insect had stung them.

After a pause Duniya asked her to repeat what she had said. Duniya knew very well that Hibo’s mercurial brain was capable of inventing something new altogether instead of repeating what she had said; she might even refuse to speak, full stop.

Hibo held on to every syllable, as if letting them go meant allowing a part of her privacy to leave her as well; hesitantly she said, “Is it Nasiiba who’s causing you so much worry?”

“Why should she?” asked Duniya, thinking it absurd that her daughter would cause her any concern.

“I only asked,” Hibo said rather sheepishly.

“No,” said Duniya firmly.

Hibo’s eyes became a darker shade of brown as she considered what to say next. Then: “I meant to ask if Nasiiba is well?”

Worried but also displeased, Duniya half-sighed. “As far as I know, yes.” But she was not satisfied with her own answer.

“When did you last see or speak with Nasiiba?” Hibo asked, her tone imbued with the importance of a secret only she knew.

Duniya was annoyed by the question. She was alarmed to think that Hibo could know something about Nasiiba that she, the girl’s mother, didn’t. She said, “Tell me what you know that I don’t.”

Hibo’s lips twitched again, disturbance dancing at the fringes of her mouth. Gaining confidence, she said, “Nasiiba called at our place yesterday afternoon, looking pale, quite sickly. I asked what was ailing her. She wouldn’t say, but later she told my daughter she’d been to the blood bank in our district to donate blood.”

“Why?” was all Duniya could think of saying.

Hibo shook her head.

Duniya’s expression became stiff. Her mouth opened without emitting a single sound. Then she remembered being disturbed by Nasiiba’s coming home late last night, visibly tired, yawning and telling her brother Mataan to leave her in peace.

Duniya was on the verge of saying something when a deferential silence fell on the hall. From Hibo’s movements, she deduced that Dr Mire had arrived at last.

Dr Mire M. Mire, principal obstetrician of Benaadir Maternity Hospital, had barely come into the hall when he noticed Duniya’s expression. He stood still, confirming to himself at a second glance that his favourite senior nurse wasn’t her usual ebullient self. He remained where he was, tall, thin and shy in his white coat with the missing button. Silently, he observed changes in her, abrupt as nightfall in the tropics.

Duniya rose to her feet, conscious of everyone staring. She struggled with a custom-made smile; she finally managed to produce one which in its genuine freshness she offered to Dr Mire. He seemed pleased as if he had collaborated in manufacturing it. Instinct told him not to ask what was the matter with her today.

He greeted the other nurses in turn by name and indicated that he was ready to get to work immediately He moved in the direction of his consulting cubicle, with Hibo and Duniya on either side of him and a junior nurse in tow.

Dr Mire was a man of strictly observed habits; he was fond of developing a more intimate relationship with rituals than with people. He was easily upset if small things went wrong, which in a place like Somalia occurred with annoying frequency. If irritated in a big way, he was depressed. To ensure the world didn’t fall to pieces about him, Dr Mire depended on Duniya, who was never clumsy in her faithful observance of the details of these rites. He couldn’t imagine working in Mogadiscio without her by his side, she who helped him understand his personal short-comings, who taught him to be tolerant, forgiving and forgivable.

“What have we here?” he asked, receiving the patient’s card from the junior nurse.

There were five of them in his small cubicle, seemingly occupying every single inch of it. Duniya stood away from everyone else, her back to his desk, and Hibo and the junior nurses crowded in on him, catching every word he uttered. After studying the history of the woman’s pregnancy, he turned to put a number of questions to the patient, who sat up to answer them, maybe as a sign of respect.

And then it happened.

Duniya’s clumsiness ran amok. Her hand hit a bottle in which were kept pens, pencils and spare thermometers, knocking it over. Very noisily Hibo and the junior nurses bent down together with Duniya to retrieve the scatter of objects. But having done so Duniya stood apart, idle in an indulgent manner. And silent.

I’ll at ease, Dr Mire resumed his routine questions and was the more irritated to discover that the woman’s responses contradicted what the card had told him. He looked to see who had initialled the card. Duniya. Dr Mire chose to examine the patient. As he bent to do this he appeared to relax, his body inclined like a worshipper at a shrine. Pregnant women had that effect on him.

In an instant his head shot up, his back straightened. His stethoscope hung down, knocking against the buckle of his trouser belt. He took his reading-glasses out of his breast pocket and with his outstretched hand received a biro from the junior nurse. Then he looked from Duniya to the patient, and from the patient back to Duniya, as if deciding whom to address first.

The woman said, “I am to blame, Doctor, not the nurse. I lied.”

“And this is not your card either?”

“That’s right.”

Dr Mire waited for the woman to explain.

“I know I’m infected with gonorrhoea, Doctor,” said the woman, her voice tearful although her eyes were dry “I lied because I couldn’t say the truth in the presence of the other women outside.”

Dr Mire remained silent.

“It is because of my baby that I’ve come, Doctor,” she said.

Dr Mire had recovered his calm; it seemed that no consuming temper was likely to impose its will on him, although flames of rage had earlier appeared in his eyes, flames which the other nurses imagined would set his whole body ablaze.

“What about your baby?” he asked the patient.

The woman’s voice cracked as she said, “It is my lawful husband who gave the gonorrhoea to me, Doctor. I’ve known no other man, Doctor, I swear. I was shocked to the marrow of my bones when I spotted the unhealthy stains on his underwear.”

Embarrassed, Hibo appeared too perturbed to look at the woman. Duniya’s features assumed an amused indifference, as if to say she had her own worries. The junior nurse’s eyes grew misty. Dr Mire was angry with himself for not having seen the woman a while back.

“You see, Doctor,” she said, “it’s my husband who brings things into our house, good and bad things. Please help me and my baby.”

Dr Mire nodded.

“Will my baby go blind, Doctor?” She was in tears.

Dr Mire hushed her. He let his half-moon spectacles rest on the bridge of his nose and after a moment’s thought wrote on a pad that had the hospital’s logo and name printed on it in Somali, Chinese, Arabic and English, in that order. He scribbled something short and essential as a postscript, initialling his remarks with a large M whose middle leg was shorter than the two on either side of it.

And then it happened a second time.

This time there was a mind-boggling noise, like something heavy falling to the floor and breaking instantly. Everyone turned, all eyes were focused on Duniya, whose innocent grin pointed her up as the culprit. A thick glass paper-weight had dropped, along with a full cup of water, water running in every direction like fleeing ants in a scatter of panic. Hibo and the junior nurse removed Dr Mire’s papers as fast as they could, and Duniya helped, but not as though she had done anything wrong. There was no hostility in Dr Mire’s eyes. He treated her as though she were a member of the family who had behaved in an unsteady manner; there was only enough anger in his look to fill a thimble.

After helping the pregnant woman to her feet and giving her Dr Mire’s prescription, the junior nurse and Hibo considerately left the room, confident that the principal obstetrician would want to have a word with Duniya.

When they were alone Dr Mire said, “Would you prefer to take the day off, Duniya?”

Her lips trembled as she said, “Why?”

Mire raised his eyes, then pushed his spectacles towards where his hairline had begun to thin. He seemed older than his forty-five years, emptied of all energy. He had returned to Somalia after twenty years’ sojourn abroad, mainly in West Germany, where he had trained, and the USA, where he did his post-doctoral qualifications and then ran his own pharmacy and practice. He came home to donate his services to the government and people of his country, accepting no payment, only an apartment, conveniently located and modestly furnished. He was a childhood friend of Bosaaso’s and it was rumoured that the two men had offered the same conditions of service to the respective ministries to which they were attached, Health and Economic Planning.

Duniya said, “Why is everybody asking me if I’m all right?”

“When a number of people ask you if you’re all right, perhaps it’s a roundabout way of telling you you’re not all right.”

“But I am all right,” she said.

In the eighteen months he had known Duniya, Dr Mire could not remember a single occasion when he was dissatisfied with her performance of her duties or her general behaviour. He preferred her to any other nurse, believing that she had the strength of mind to do what her conscience told her. She handled emergencies well, and like Hibo, didn’t panic; he could rely on her to remain calm and professional. Whether he admitted it to himself or not, the fact that he was a friend of Duniya’s elder brother, currently living in Rome, had a positive bearing on their working relationship.

“Be my mirror for a change,” she said, “and tell me what I can’t have seen.”

He said, “You hurt easily today.”

“How do you see that?”

“I sense you are open sores all over,” he said.

“On the contrary,” she smiled, “today I don’t hurt at all.”

“I’ll be specific,” he said.

Her eyes wouldn’t focus. “Are you psychoanalysing me?”

“Why haven’t you changed into your uniform, for instance?” No longer defiant, Duniya was angry with her colleagues. “But why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“Do you usually need someone to tell you?”

Duniya fell silent. She didn’t want to talk about her dream; or about her chance encounter with Bosaaso who had driven her to work.

Dr Mire went on, obviously misunderstanding the vacant look in her eyes. He lapsed into jargon, “About uniforms — I don’t want you to misunderstand me. I am quite aware of the class nature as well as the gender politics of hospitals in which uniforms assume a hierarchical significance, in particular, hospitals where all the doctors are male and all the nurses female. You weren’t making a point out of this, were you?”

She thought for a second and her eyes brightened with mischief as she remembered her meeting with Bosaaso. “Maybe.”

“Shall we talk about it now or some other time?”

“Some other time,” she said. “There’s all the time in the world, isn’t there?” She grinned to herself.

“In that case, shall we resume work? And will you please steady your hand, prevent it from knocking the universe over?”

She went out without being instructed to do so and informed Hibo and the junior nurse that Dr Mire was ready to continue consultations. But she didn’t change into her uniform.

She vowed to herself that her hand would knock nothing over from then on, and it didn’t. Having assured Dr Mire that all was well with her, she had to do whatever it took to prove it.

It was such an arduous responsibility not to think about Bosaaso, given that Dr Mire reminded her of him. She also found it almost impossible whenever she came into contact with Hibo not to ask herself self-reproaching questions about Nasiiba. Since one thing led to another, Duniya recalled to mind the out-patient who spoke of her husband giving her gonorrhoea, a husband who brought into the house both good and bad things, the woman had said.

Stubbornly, Bosaaso came to her, assuming different shapes, mysteriously clad in all sorts of disguises. All the same her hand remained steady and she worked beside Dr Mire and her colleagues without knocking anything else over. Nevertheless, she still stood out because she wasn’t wearing uniform. Agile and moving fast, she was compared by one of the junior nurses to an agitated butterfly, hopping from one pollinated flower to another. Also, Bosaaso’s name was on the tip of her tongue when one of her friends asked her how she was getting home later that day since there was no public transport. No sooner had the first syllable of his name teased her lips than she closed her mouth, silencing it.

The rest of the day was taken up with routine work, pregnant women inquiring after the health of their foetuses, this one complaining of sleeplessness, that one about loss of appetite. Dr Mire would glance at the card, then at the woman in question, and with reading-glasses decorating his forehead like a devout Muslim’s prayer-scar, he would now and again ask what the bed situation was in the event of an emergency. Glasses and gloves now off, now on, his hands now rubbery and now dry from constant contact with soap and alkaline-treated tap water, Dr Mire was ever prepared to undertake another examination. Duniya behaved like a truant pupil with whom the headmaster had had a wise word.

Only once was she near to knocking something over, feeling the hot wind of her rage cross her face like the shadow of a travelling cloud. This was because in her opinion Dr Mire humiliated a patient by insisting she come back next week accompanied by her husband, mother or mother-in-law, “someone responsible,” as he put it. Why? The woman had been re-infibulated each time she gave birth. Now what might he achieve by talking to a husband? The poor woman had come on her own to consult Dr Mire about a complication arising from the physical outrage meted out to her. Barely in her mid-twenties, she had been married three times, twice to the same man, who loved his women re-infibulated. This barbarous activity had turned the woman’s private parts into an overmined quarry. After Duniya spoke her mind, Dr Mire revised his instructions to the woman. “Come back next week, alone,” he said.

Soon it was closing time and the nurses were alone in the hall, after Dr Mire and all the out-patients had gone. Conversation reverted to how bad things were, and the immediate question that was the day’s refrain: “How do we get home if there’s no transport?”

One of the nurses said, “As I see it Mogadiscio is like a city preparing for an early evening curfew, with the odd car on the streets, and rivers of pedestrians breaking at the banks, at times flooding the main roads.”

Another, “No electricity, no water, no bread baked, no papers.”

A third said, “Does anyone remember the time Mogadiscio had a power shortage that lasted several days? I happened to have graduated just that week and had been assigned here. You know what? The lights went out when we were in the middle of a delivery. We were just two nurses both recently graduated, and no doctor on call. A miracle that the mother and baby survived because my colleague and I pulled at the wrong limb.”

In the silence that followed, Duniya suddenly felt an empathy with the Chinese, remembering it was the People’s Republic of China that built and donated the Benaadir Maternity Hospital to the people of Somalia. The modesty of the Chinese as a donor government was truly exemplary. No pomp, no garlands of see-how-great-we-are. Somewhere in the hospital grounds was a discreet plaque announcing the day, month and year in which it had been commissioned and by whom. And you would meet the Chinese doctors, who came as part of the gift, as they did their rounds, soft of voice, short of breath when they spoke Somali, humble of gesture. Unlike the Italian and Dutch doctors on secondment from their governments as an overpriced aid package from the European Community, the Chinese did not own cars. They arrived at work in a van, in which they returned to their commune in the evening. And unlike other doctors (including Dr Mire) who ran their own vehicles, the Chinese gave lifts to nurses working the same shifts as themselves. So Duniya suggested that the other nurses try their luck with the Chinese.

A fourth nurse said, “Petrol shortages, power failures or the unavailability of public transport can only be defined as a double curse for women.”

The nurse who had spoken first said, “How do you mean?”

“On the one hand these give unheard-of advantages to men harbouring wicked intentions towards us; on the other, by refusing to be seduced with lifts, a woman exposes herself to the perils of being raped in a dark alley.”

Duniya’s left eyebrow lifted slightly and her head leaned towards Hibo who wanted to whisper something in her friend’s ear. “Would you like my husband to give you a lift home?” she asked. Whenever Mogadiscio’s city electricity failed, Hibo and her husband turned on their portable generator, a handy light-providing gadget and a status symbol nowadays, helping to keep muggers and burglars at bay.

“Are you offering just me a lift?” Duniya asked.

Hibo nodded.

“In that case, thank you no,” said Duniya.

The other junior and student nurses had overheard Duniya and Hibo’s exchange. One of the nurses who lived near the hospital said, first to no one in particular and then singly to every nurse save Hibo, whom she deliberately excluded, that her grandmother would be more than delighted to have them come and camp with them. “I offer our hospitality to those of you who live far and prefer not to walk.”

Three of the junior nurses and one of the students gratefully accepted her offer. “What about you, Duniya?” asked the happy hostess of the community of nurses.

“No thank you, I’ll walk,” said Duniya, running her words together, maybe because part of her thoughts were engaged with memories of meeting Bosaaso.

Two of the nurses said that they would try their fortune with the Chinese doctors. Would Duniya join them?

“Very kind of you, but I will walk,” she insisted.

When they had all gone, Duniya changed into her uniform. Even to her it was a mystery why she did something as odd as that.

It was almost five o’clock when she walked out of the hospital gates. She had been the first to arrive at the clinic today, it was proper that she was the last to leave, she told herself. But now there was a question nearly as obstinate as thoughts of Bosaaso: Why had she decided to change into her uniform when she was leaving work? Duniya needed no one to remind her that African men often viewed nurses as easygoing flirts, who were considered fun and were invited to orgiastic parties. Or did she think naively that men would be uninterested in pestering a woman in her working-clothes?

She had hardly walked three hundred metres beyond the hospital wall when a man driving a sports car said to her, “I reckon you and I are going in the same direction.”

Luckily there were a number of other people around and she was in no danger of being pestered. None the less she was livid. She wanted to say, “And where would that be?” but in the end chose not to lower herself to his level of thinking.

He said, “Why don’t you come with me?”

“Why?” she asked, curious to know what his answer would be.

“Because I wish to do you a favour.”

“Why?”

“I’ll give a lift, then reward you with further gifts.”

“But I haven’t asked you to do me a favour, or give me a lift or reward me with presents, have I?”

“You are a fool if you don’t,” he said.

“Let me be,” she said in such a hostile voice that he drove off.

She was one of a crowd of pedestrians, crossing roads, avoiding roundabouts where motorists were inclined to park, waiting to ambush and rape women.

Then Duniya found herself staring at a relief of circles and dots, like small coloured light-bulbs shining full beam. Was she having visions? Before she could answer, Bosaaso was there, calling her name and opening the taxi door for her. At first she took no notice. Part of her was convinced that she was imagining it all, conjuring it out of her feverish desire to be with Bosaaso. Then the man came out of the car and bowed. Before getting in, Duniya felt the solidity of the vehicle with her open palms, preparing her mind for a future instant when she might have to ask herself if Bosaaso had come for her and she had gone with him. How strangely the human brain functioned. She got in.

“I just happened to be driving past when I saw you,” he said.

She wished she could shoo away her angry thoughts as one drives away early evening insects. “Why lie to me, Bosaaso?” she asked.

He drove with silent punctiliousness, like a driving-instructor setting an example for a pupil. And she intercepted a smile perhaps intended for her but which faded before maturing, maybe as a result of her unexpected question. “Why do you say I lie to you?” he replied.

Duniya disappeared into a deep silence that contained her for a long time. When she surfaced again she said, “Why do you give me these lifts, Bosaaso? Please tell the truth.”

“Why do you accept lifts from me?” he asked.

“That’s a foolish question, since your giving precedes my acceptance or rejection. My accepting your gift of a lift is itself a reciprocal gift. So may I now ask why you accept my gift?”

“Why are you hesitant about receiving things from others?”

“Because unasked-for generosity has a way of making one feel obliged, trapped in a labyrinth of dependence. You’re more knowledgeable about these matters, but haven’t we in the Third World lost our self-reliance and pride because of the so-called aid we unquestion-ingly receive from the so-called First World?”

A fluid smile finally broke on his face with the speed of an egg-white in motion. All he said was, “I am drawn to you.”

Only after he parked did she realize they were in front of her place. How did he know where she lived? She did not invite him in, nor suggest meeting again. Stories pursue audiences to their hiding-places, she told herself. Bosaaso had become her narrative.

“Thank you,” she said.

He switched the headlights on full-beam, drawing early evening moths to dance frenziedly before them, tossing in mad agitation against the head-lamps.

“Goodnight, then,” he said, reversed his car and left.

She didn’t wave goodbye.

MOGADISCIO (SONNA, THURSDAY)

Over a dozen Third World countries have refused to accept dairy products from the European Community as part of a development donation. These products, which include butter and milk, have been sent back to the donor nation because they are suspected of being contaminated by radio-activity from the nuclear plant accident at Chernobyl. The Somali Democratic Republic joins the list of countries returning these products. EC ministers, however, reiterate that the radioactivity level in these dairy products is so low as to cause no worry or danger to lives.

3

Duniya eats a meal prepared by her daughter Nasiiba and they reminisce. The young girl remembers when she was small, before Duniya married Taariq, her ex-husband; and Duniya tells of her marriage to the father of her younger daughter.

A faint echo of Bosaaso’s voice lingering in her ears, Duniya pushed open the front door. At that moment electricity returned and she felt a ripple of joy. But she stood at the threshold, cautious as a pedestrian about to cross a hazardous thoroughfare. Then she heard the music pick up speed and volume after a hesitant start. Nasiiba must be home; the smell of garlic emanating from the kitchen confirmed to her that her daughter was indeed there, busy cooking.

In her excited rush, Duniya shuffled one foot out of a shoe. This made her move unevenly like a hyena with hind legs shorter than front ones. She switched off the turntable, certain that silence would bring Nasiiba instantly to the room. She sat, waiting, unapologetic.

Slim and, Duniya thought, anaemic-looking, Nasiiba rushed in, ready to pick a quarrel with her twin brother whom she suspected had switched off her turntable. The look in her eyes softened and she grinned when she saw it was her mother. Nasiiba wore an over-sized garment, kimono-style. Duniya could see the curves of her breasts and her belly.

“So it’s you!” said the young woman.

Duniya’s face broadened with a smile.

Nasiiba walked over to adjust the turntable’s dials now that power was back. That done, she replaced the record in its sleeve. Duniya knew well how protective her daughter was of her treasured gadget, bought from her savings at about the same time her twin acquired his bicycle, of which he was equally protective and proud.

The room where they were and which they shared was referred to as “The Women’s Room.” It had two big metal-framed beds with springs, Nasiiba’s being the one by the larger of the windows; lying on it now was a greasy-toothed comb, and underneath it a shoulder-bag bearing the Somali Airlines legend. Duniya’s bed, nearer the door, was neatly made and covered by a white bedspread; stored below it was a collapsible bed on which Yarey, her younger daughter, slept when she came to stay for weekends.

Only Mataan had the key to the other room, which he had fitted with a Yale lock. The Women’s Room had one of those cheap locks a burglar could pick with a hairpin; Nasiiba had an unpardonable habit of losing keys and Duniya had tired of replacing Yales. As a result, all the family’s valuables — documents, cash and jewels — were kept in the boy’s room, which had a safe with a combination lock But Nasiiba would not let her turntable out of her sight, wouldn’t allow it to spend a night in her brother’s room.

Now Duniya and Nasiiba stared at each other like children in a duel of will. Duniya felt her daughter had the eyes of a hypnotist, able to induce nervousness. She wondered if Nasiiba’s burchi-power was the stronger, burchi being a mystical term for the overwhelming hold one individual has over another, regardless of their respective status — child over adult, offspring over parent, wife over husband. In this contest of stares Nasiiba’s burchi-power was stronger.

Nasiiba shook her shock of tresses like a horse’s mane, and the coloured beads plaited into her hair knocked against one another, producing a theatrical sound.

“Have you eaten, Mummy?” Nasiiba asked.

“No, I haven’t.”

“I bet you haven’t eaten all day,” Nasiiba guessed.

Duniya could remember only that she had met Bosaaso. This absent-mindedness was unhealthy “What’s cooking?” she asked.

“Liver in garlic sauce, roast potatoes, rice and salad. And I’m preparing boiled milk with a dash of cinnamon and ginger to wash it down,” said Nasiiba.

Where did she get all this food? None of these items were available on the open market anywhere in the country. Deciding to pursue the question later, Duniya said, “I’d love to eat with you, darling.”

Saying, “I hope I haven’t burnt the rice,” Nasiiba ran out.

In a few minutes she returned with a medium-sized tray on which were plates with the rice, liver and roast potatoes together with two mugs of heavily sugared warm milk Duniya placed a mat on the floor, over the boundary dividing the living space from the sleeping space. (Years ago, Taariq, the then occupant of the room, had built a small kerb-high barrier of bricks to mark a frontier between the area with the bed and the area with the armchairs, low glass-topped table and his writing-desk.) Nasiiba noticed that her mother had changed into a dress, and her uniform lay strewn across the bed.

They ate in silence for a while, Duniya using her fingers and Nasiiba a knife and fork. Then Duniya asked, “Where did you get all this food?”

Provocatively, Nasiiba said, “Someone gave it to me.”

“Who?”

Daughter and mother were accustomed to each other’s ways and intolerances. If there was one thing Duniya couldn’t stand, it was her children bringing home unauthorized gifts of food, or money, given to them by Uncle So-and-so or Aunt So-and-so. She would half-cry, “Are you trying to embarrass me? Don’t I give you everything you need? Don’t I give you enough? If you need more, why not ask me?” When the twins were smaller, it was the boy, not Nasiiba, who returned laden with what Duniya suspected were ill-gained presents and cash. He would retort, “But he stuffed it into my pocket; I didn’t ask for it, he gave it to me, folded, off his sweaty palm — Uncle So-and-so. What could I do?”

Duniya felt uncomfortable eating what was known in their household as “corpse food,” a term coined as a result of her saying to her twins that they could consume food gifts only if she, their mother, was dead, not before. But where did Nasiiba get this food?

Trust Nasiiba to change the subject to avoid answering a question. Trust her also to get away with it. She said, “I’ve been thinking, Mummy, that we must get you some new dresses.”

And trust Duniya to fall for her daughter’s trap. “What’s wrong with the ones I have?” But she was a step ahead of Nasiiba, thinking about a future day when she would need a new dress to go out in, if she were invited by Bosaaso.

“Not good enough.” As evidence, Nasiiba pointed out a brown stain on Duniya’s dress, a smudge similar to the one you might spy on a breast-feeding mother’s frock.

Duniya was in a defiant mood. “Who cares?” she asked.

They resumed eating, Nasiiba said, “Next time you wear outdoor dresses, I suggest you take a sane look at yourself. We don’t want potential in-laws to avoid looking you in the eyes.”

“What do you mean ‘potential in-laws’? Who?”

“You mean you don’t know?”

Perplexed, Duniya said she didn’t.

“I can’t believe it. You mean you have no idea what your son might be up to?”

“What is he up to?”

Nasiiba was enjoying herself, prolonging the dramatic telling of her story to avoid getting back to the topic of food. “Mataan has a woman-friend, a maths teacher, who’s three years your junior, Mummy, and has never married. People say she’s kept by a wealthy businessman, who pays the rent of her well-furnished flat and has given her a small can You mean you didn’t know?”

“How come you know?”

“You’d be surprised how many things I know but haven’t told a living soul,” Nasiiba said matter-of-factly.

“For instance, that my son has a woman-friend?”

“Ask him when he returns tonight, if you don’t believe me.”

Duniya didn’t press the matter; Nasiiba derived a thrill from turning half-truths into embellished fictions, making each tale into exactly the story you needed to hear. “Why did you donate blood you can ill-afford?” Duniya asked.

Unprepared for the question, Nasiiba was at a loss for words. She sighed, then replied, “I felt like giving blood.”

“No other reason?”

“The blood bank was short of it and, being in a generous mood, I felt like donating some of mine.” She paused. “Is there any law in this household forbidding its members to donate good, healthy blood when it’s needed?”

Duniya was becoming impatient. Turning her head slowly towards Nasiiba, she said, “I’m going to ask you two questions and I insist on straight answers. I mean it. Don’t change the subject and, please, no long-winded explanations. Where did you get this food?”

“Uncle Taariq gave it to me.”

“Why did he give it to you?”

“He had to use up a lot of food from his freezer; he had half a ton of food to get rid of because of all the recent power cuts.”

“Why did you donate blood that you can ill-afford?”

“I can only repeat the reply I’ve already given.”

Duniya shifted in discomfort. Neither of them now had any appetite. Nasiiba gathered the plates into a pile, leaving Duniya the task of picking up rice grains from the mat. Nasiiba left the room, taking with her some of the tension that had been generated.

A dragon-fly flew into the room, slender of body, elegant of movement. Mesmerized, Duniya watched it. The dragon-fly flew out of the window just before the young woman returned.

Nasiiba changed the subject again. She had a way of springing surprises on her mother, over whom she undoubtedly had a certain burchi-hold. Obligingly, Duniya seemed happy to lose command, in her maternal element.

“You see, Mummy, we your children know precious little about your past and you know next to nothing about our present. Don’t you think it’s time we got to know each other better? Come with me for a swim at the sports club one day and meet my friends; and you could go for a ride on Mataan’s bicycle, let him teach you. I’ll teach you to swim. And get Mataan to tell you about his woman-friend, whatever her name is.”

Duniya smiled faintly, a commotion inside her head, noises pressing on her brain. She tried to remember the nebulous name of the young face she had seen at the clinic; but she couldn’t.

Nasiiba was saying, “I met Taariq today, for instance. I had a long chat with him. Yet there was a time when I hated the notion of him as my step-father. But what do I know about him when the two of you were married, or even before that when you were his tenant? Nothing. I want us to talk about these things — what I was like with him, what Mataan was like. Just to get things into perspective, if you see what I mean.”

“How was Taariq?”

“He’s in top form, looking a decade younger,” Nasiiba said.

“That’s good,” said in an amiable sort of way.

“He’s getting his journalism published. Have you seen his article in today’s daily?”

Duniya hadn’t.

“And he’s seeing a woman he’s serious about,” added Nasiiba.

Mataan is seeing an older woman; Taariq, my former husband, is serious about a woman he’s seeing. What about me? Who am I seeing? Duniya reminded herself to avoid Nasiiba’s traps.

“What was Taariq like, Mummy?”

Duniya didn’t like what she remembered. Drunken bouts. Depressive days. She remembered the decisive night when she had walked in on him pouring out tots of whisky for himself and little Mataan, then eight years old. Mataan had barely taken a sip of his when Duniya entered. God, she was mad, so furious she threw Taariq out of his own house.

“Tell me, Mummy. Tell me about Taariq.”

It seemed strange to Duniya now that she had never talked to her children about the father of their half-sister. It was in this spirit that she consented to tell Nasiiba a little. She spoke slowly at first, undoing the knots of inhibition entwined round the telling. “Taariq was wonderful with your twin-brother, not with you. He and you didn’t get on well at all. He found you very demanding, a self-centred child. Being a newspaper columnist he worked at home, in his room all day at times, writing and rewriting. A perfectionist, he would submit his pieces at the last minute. When writing he drank a lot and ate little or nothing. Drinking gave him energy, a reason for exerting himself, some kind of self-coercion. There was pain on his face when he wrote, every word leaving its mark somewhere on his body.”

“Why does he bother then?” Nasiiba asked.

“I took a keen interest in Taariq’s welfare,” Duniya continued, “because he was marvellous with Mataan, like a father to him. I would cook larger portions and invite him over to our side of the house. He would accept the food but made it clear he preferred eating alone, like a dog with its bone’ as he put it. He had a sense of humour, and the uncanny ability to laugh at himself, which many Somalis are unwilling to do.”

“I don’t recall any of that,” said Nasiiba regretfully.

Duniya returned to her theme. “I was on night duty once, and, because I had asked him, Taariq tried to put you to bed. In your rage at the thought of him even touching you, you called him all sorts of wicked names, including one he didn’t like: alcoholic. It was obvious you hated him, hated him so much that you woke up if he entered the room you were sleeping in, as though you had smelt him. Your contempt for him was pathological.”

Nasiiba said, “I must apologize to him one of these days.”

“To please you, Taariq drank less,” said Duniya. “Also he fetched two girls your age, his nieces, to be your playmates. He did all this with fatherly patience, and because he was fond of you. I was pleased that you got on fine with his nieces.”

“And Mataan?”

“I never saw my son happier than when in Taariq’s company, running errands for him, delivering his idol’s late copy to the editor in person. Taariq became so dependent on Mataan that he even trusted him with personal messages.”

“What do you mean?”

“Taariq had a woman-friend whom he’d known for years and to whom he was very close. Mataan, maybe because he didn’t like the woman, decided to give her the wrong meeting-places and times whenever Taariq asked him to deliver messages to her. This happened several times, with neither suspecting Mataan of sabotage. When they wised up to his tricks, it was too late to mend matters.”

“How very wicked of my brother to do that!”

“Anyway —” Duniya paused. “During this period I returned home unexpectedly one evening, having swapped shifts with another nurse, I don’t recall why. You were in bed asleep, cheeks tattooed with dried tear-stains, alone in the bed the three of us shared. And where was Mataan? The light in Taariq’s room (the very one we are in now) was on and his door half open. I shouted a greeting from the courtyard and apologized for disturbing him, but had he seen my son? ‘He’s sleeping here, on my bed,’ he said. We chatted briefly when I went to fetch Mataan. Well, things aren’t that easy when, as Somalis say, donkeys are giving birth to calves.”

“I know,” Nasiiba said wisely.

With a strained look, Duniya asked, “Do you see this barrier of bricks? I tripped on it and fell forward, nearly hurting my teeth when I hit my head against the bedpost. All because I hadn’t minded the bricks. I was in excruciating pain.”

“What did you do then?”

Duniya chuckled. “I got up to take Mataan away when the dizziness no longer impaired my vision. Then guess what? As I bent to lift him off the bed, the smell of Mataan’s urine made my head turn in whirls of shame, call it guilt, or whatever.”

A smile touched Nasiiba’s lips. “And since Mataan had wet his bed, you decided that you and Taariq would share the one I hadn’t peed on. Result, this corpse of a heavy sleeper, that is me, was transferred to the bed on which her brother had emptied his day’s intake of liquid.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I remember waking up in the bed of the man I hated,” said Nasiiba.

“You remember that?”

“Oh, yes.”

“But you’ve never mentioned it.”

“There are a million things I’ve never told a soul.”

Duniya said, “How could you still remember that?”

“For one thing, I hated Taariq so. For another, it was my brother who wet the bed, not me. Someone else’s urine always smells different from one’s own, but that’s beside the point. I woke up. I’m not sure you want to hear this.”

The older woman sat up, alert. “What?”

“Well, I heard your voices, yours and Taariq’s in lusty whispers. I came closer to eaves-drop, then watched. I saw everything through the keyhole and heard everything, every single groan, every no and every yes.”

“Everything?”

Nasiiba nodded.

There was amusement in Duniya’s voice. “If you saw and heard everything, then what’s the point of my telling you anything? You probably remember things better and know more than I.”

Nasiiba shook her head. She leaned forward. “How did you come to be Taariq’s tenant in the first place?”

Duniya’s heart wasn’t in the story-telling any more but she knew Nasiiba wouldn’t leave her in peace. So she said, “Someone in the neighbourhood, an elderly woman, misdirected me.” She sounded bored and tired.

“I don’t follow you.” Nasiiba was plagued by a desire to be told more.

“Until Taariq saw me and I asked if he had a room to let, the thought of renting it hadn’t crossed his mind. But when I insisted that a neighbour had mentioned he had a place going, he looked puzzled at first, and to a certain extent offended. The misunderstanding was cleared up soon enough, however, and I turned to leave. Then he changed his mind.”

“Why?”

“I’ve never inquired.”

“Maybe you were destined to become husband and wife.”

Duniya let her thoughts wander a little..

“Go on,” Nasiiba said.

“It seemed to me that he reasoned that he and I were kindred spirits; I could see it, and he could too. Anyway. After his instant decision to rent the room, he asked when I could move in? I mentioned the existence of children, just in case, I had seen lots of landlords who didn’t want a single woman with children. He asked the sex and ages of my children and I told him. Twins were a blessing, his voice beamed with rejoicing: ‘Bring them.’ ”

“You moved in the same day?”

“We did. We brought everything we owned, a mattress, a few burnt pots I’d been given second-hand and all our clothes in a single tea-chest. He lent us a bed, then introduced me to the owner and keeper of the local general store, who consented to open a credit account, bills to be settled at the end of the month. And I never looked back from then on.”

“You got on well, Taariq and you, didn’t you?”

“Except for the one huge fight, the one before the final splitting up, we seldom quarreled in the years we lived first as tenant and landlord, then as husband and wife,” said Duniya.

“It’s good that you’ve remained friends,” said Nasiiba, “because such friendships are rare after a divorce, especially when children are involved.”

“That’s right,” Duniya agreed.

“He still loves you; he told me that today,” Nasiiba said.

Duniya had barely time to react when she noticed that Nasiiba had got up to put on jeans and a T-shirt with the Band Aid logo printed across its front. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“I won’t be long,” said Nasiiba, consulting her watch.

“It’s after nine o’clock,” said Duniya, as though mentioning the time might deter her daughter.

“ I won’t be long.”

“It’s late,” Duniya said, helplessly.

“I said, I won’t be long.”

Duniya had the power to stop her, but what was the point? Traditionalists would describe Duniya’s offspring as hooyo-koris, children growing up in a household with a woman as head.

Going out Nasiiba shouted, “I love you, Mummy,” clearly emulating American girls whom she had seen in films. There was no doubt in Duniya’s mind that her children loved her.

NEW YORK (REUTER)

Millions of people in the developing world have starved to death as a result of the policies of Western creditor nations, a United Nations Development Programme spokesman said. In a gloomy annual assessment, the spokesman argued that the finely woven eco nomic tapestry could be unravelled at any time, causing calamitous suffering in the Third World. It was unfair, he added, that poor countries have been made to depend totally on what happens not in their own economies but in those of richer, more economically developed countries, whose debts they are unable to service, let alone repay.

4

In which Duniya remembers how her dying father promised her hand in marriage to his friend and peer.

A high-pitched whistle was what Duniya heard. She looked around. Beds. Window-ledges. Door-sills. Sure enough, she spotted it: a frightened half-collared kingfisher with cinnamon breast, dark blue patch on either side of its neck, bill shining black in the electric brightness. The bird perched on an arm of the ceiling-fan. Another shrill whistle, then out through the window by which it had entered.

Power was abruptly off and Duniya was in the dark.

Her memory of her first husband Zubair, father of her twins Nasiiba and Mataan, dated back to a day when she was four years old. Abshir, her full-brother, had recently won a place in the country’s most prestigious secondary school in Mogadiscio and to celebrate took his beloved younger sister to Galkacyo shopping-centre to buy her a present by which to remember the occasion. Unable to find anything she fancied, he promised to send something special from Mogadiscio. But he bought her an ice-cream, a newly introduced luxury.

While passing the house of Zubair, a friend and neighbour of their father for many years, she and Abshir noticed a handsome horse in the old man’s barn. An in-law of Zubair’s had presented the Arab stallion as part of the bride-wealth for the young woman he wed. Zubair overheard Abshir’s remark to Duniya that he’d do anything to be allowed to ride this most beautiful horse he had ever set eyes on.

Abshir, a timid eighteen-year-old, was embarrassed, stammering, “It’s Dunya who wanted to ride the horse, not me,” pronouncing his sister’s name gently as he often did, without an i after the n. “I wanted to look, that’s all. I knew you wouldn’t mind.” Then Abshir held his only sister’s hand encouragingly “Take a look at the horse, this is probably the only time you’ll see him,” he said.

“Can I touch him?” she asked. For a moment Abshir wasn’t sure whether she meant Zubair or the horse. She repeated her request: “Please let me touch him.”

Zubair turned his unsighted head with the slowness of a lighthouse beam. “Would you like to ride this beautiful horse, Duniya?” he asked.

“If I say yes, will you give him to me for keeps, Uncle Zubair?”

“Sure. Just ask your brother to receive the horse on your behalf.”

“He’s teasing you,” Abshir said. “No one would give away such a handsome horse to a baby girl your age.” His tone was decidedly envious. “But you may touch him.”

Speechless with excitement, Duniya nodded vigorously.

“Come and touch him,” encouraged Abshir. “Don’t be afraid.” And he lifted her off the ground, something which she resisted at first because she was now frightened.

Touching him, Duniya said, “Uncle Zubair gave him to me. Tell Abshir the horse is mine, Uncle.”

“He is yours,” confirmed the blind old man, who had been lavishing unrequited love on the good-looking beast.

“He’s teasing you,” Abshir insisted.

With childish insistence she said, “The horse is mine.”

“Mind the ice,” Abshir admonished, “and behave yourself.”

Upset, she let the ice-cream drop to the ground in a moment of uncontrollable rage. “Never mind,” Abshir said placatingly, “I’ll get you another, but be careful, don’t dirty your dress.”

“I don’t want an ice,” she said angrily. “I want my horse.”

Zubair pointed with his walking-stick in the direction of where the horse’s tackle was kept. “Take him for a ride, Abshir, will you?” And as Abshir bent down to pick up the saddle and bridle, to bring them over, he asked, “Have you ever ridden a horse, Abshir?”

“Never a horse like this king here,” said Abshir.

“I am sure you will be all right,” Zubair reassured him.

“I want to ride him too,” pleaded Duniya.

“Only if you behave yourself,” her brother said.

“But this is my horse and I behave how I please,” she said.

Zubair gave a guffaw. Then he said, “I offered you this handsome horse, Duniya, and it seems you’ve accepted him. But what have you given me in return, my little one?”

“I will marry you,” she said.

When she was a little bigger Duniya heard the story of how Zubair’s former wife fell in love with a jinn, whom she bore several children. Zubair had been married to her for almost twenty years, with grown-up sons and daughters who had by then given them grandchildren; and he was busy courting the affections of a much younger woman. When his wife was gone for a few days, everyone assumed she was visiting her children and grandchildren — no one at first had any idea of her affair with the jinn. But as Zubair’s sumptuous wedding to the young woman approached, people began to show interest in his first wife’s reactions to the goings-on, only to discover she wasn’t there to answer their queries. When the story of her jinn-lover was told, the townspeople’s initial attitude was more or less dismissive, rationalizing that such tales were bound up with the understandable sentiments of a jealous, hurt woman.

So Zubair’s first wife lived her life undisturbed, vanishing when she pleased, reappearing without explanation. One day, two young men, one of them her cousin, the other Zubair’s, decided to get to the bottom of it and followed her right into the bushes. Later they reported that they had never known anyone, male or female, who walked as fast as her. Reaching her destination, she built a fire and began to prepare a meal. While doing so she held a conversation presumably with jinns, whom the young men couldn’t see and whose language they couldn’t comprehend. Inferring that the woman and her jinn-lover were preparing to make love, the young men withdrew discreetly.

Zubair married the younger woman, his dream, his virgin. He was a wealthy man, reputed to own ten thousand camels divided into various herds, in the care of distant cousins and hired hands. As many as twenty head of cattle were slaughtered to feast the invited and uninvited wedding-guests.

But on the first night with his young virgin, Zubair felt unmanly. Also he kept hearing voices, as if a drone of jinns were speaking to one another, inside his head, in an alien language. Just before dawn, his young bride died, untouched, a virgin.

When his wife reappeared after a few days, Zubair had a serious talk with her, alone. In their frank confrontation he told her everything that had taken place.

“I’ve given you five sons and two daughters, what more do you want from me?” she said. “I had never known nor desired any other man until I saw that your lusty eyes had fallen on a younger woman, with firm breasts, healthy skin and a handsome body. Imagine then,” she went on, “when less than a week later I met a man as good-looking as an angel, who declared his love to me. It was only afterwards that he revealed his identity to me, that he was a jinn, not human. But this didn’t bother me, in fact it made my affair more romantic, requiring more courage. I bore him children, half-jinn, half-human, and we are happy together.”

“Did your jinn-lover kill my bride on our wedding night?”

“Are you mad?”

“Was it he who interfered with my erections?” he asked, desperately humiliated.

Her lips began to move. She seemed to be whispering to someone in the room whom Zubair couldn’t see, only sense. She turned to him after her low-voiced consultation. “Could it be that you killed your virgin bride to hide your shame?”

“This is preposterous,” Zubair said.

Again his wife entered into a whispered debate with invisible parties. She chuckled, then said, “Perhaps next time something disastrous occurs to you, you’ll blame my jinn-lover for it too.”

Not long after this conversation with his estranged wife, Zubair was in the midst of dawn prayers when a curtain of darkness suddenly lowered upon his sight, rendering him totally blind. It wouldn’t lift, no matter what he did; nothing would restore his vision.

Asked how he felt, he would respond, “It is as if two wicked, playful little jinns are mounted on the unlit rays of my pupils, depriving me of my vision. Maybe they’ll tire of playing their vengeful games one day and dismount.”

But they did not alight. Instead, his wife was taken ill. Meanwhile, Zubair stopped saying his prayers altogether. Finally Zubair’s wife died a quarter of an hour before Duniya was born.

Nearly seventeen years later: a gesture of kind violence!

Duniya’s father was on his bed, awaiting death. Zubair was his constant visitor, coming and going, Zubair whose stick kept tapping the unseen wall separating their houses, a sadly omened sound. When together, the two friends talked of death, agreeing that only Allah knew who would join Him first.

An intimation of his imminent death that day made Duniya’s father speak his last feverish words. He decided to offer, as he put it, “a gesture of kind violence” to his friend and peer Zubair. Would Duniya please take him as her lawful husband?

The curse of it was that no one else was there, only Duniya’s mother. And Duniya accepted to do her mother’s bidding, for one cannot argue with the wishes of the dead and the elderly, people said. Either one does as the dead say, or one doesn’t, but one has to face the consequences of one’s actions. Duniya didn’t wish to look over her shoulders in anticipation of the moment when she might spot the evil of her parents’ malediction lurking in every depression, every valley or shadow “Let’s get on with it,” Duniya said courageously And to Zubair who had never seen her with his own eyes but who had known her all her life, Duniya, his new bride and virgin, said, “Go and prepare for my coming.”

Family friends and relations tried to convince Duniya not to grant her father’s dying wishes. Zubair, for his part, lest he be accused of offending her pride, pretended to have grown a numb set of toes. But Duniya’s mother, speaking loudly as people with hearing difficulties do, reiterated that her late husband had suggested their daughter marry Zubair, there was no question about it, she had heard it; the young woman might as well comply.

Then Duniya’s half-brother Shiriye, a lieutenant in the army, arrived unannounced. When told what was afoot, he vowed to put a stop to this nonsense, arguing that Duniya’s mother was virtually deaf. But by late evening Shiriye had changed his mind. And Zubair would not confirm or deny the rumour that he had made the customary overtures a bridegroom makes towards the bride’s blood brother. And Shiriye left in haste the following morning.

Years later Duniya would write to her full-brother Abshir that their half-brother had departed from Galkacyo like a man with something to hide. The truth was that Shiriye had secretly accepted a gift from Zubair.

“Do you remember that I offered to marry you when I was four, giving you my hand in exchange for a handsome horse?” Duniya asked Zubair when her father’s funeral rites had ended.

“Yes, I do,” he replied.

“Now where is that horse?”

“Times have been hard,” he replied.

“Let’s get on with it then, without pomp and show, without the beating of a single drum, or a trill of ululation.”

“Yes, letus.”

“Go forth and prepare for my coming,” Duniya said.

Several nights later, Zubair admitted her to the room prepared for their honeymoon. On the floor was a large mattress decked with cushions and pillows (on one was Duniya’s name embroidered in green, for luck). The most prominent item was a rocking-chair, a gift from Zubair’s seaman son. It dominated the room from its vantage point. They sat in it together, they made love in it, and now and then they even fell asleep in it, holding each other in a loving embrace.

Given the difference in age and temperament, Zubair and Duniya got on better than either had imagined possible. For the young bride, the responsibility of looking after a blind old man was daunting, a wearying task, like learning a new language one had no real interest in. She had to master a limited vocabulary and a body-language that was efficient and precise. She got used to his being given everything, got accustomed to the fact that she could never ask him to pass her the salt, the sugar or to switch off the light, though he might have coped were it absolutely necessary.

He made several adjustments to accommodate her. And when he resumed praying, Duniya took up a position in such a way that she became his point of reference, and so it was before her that he prostrated himself in his worship of Allah, and to her that he addressed all his devotions.

He was a huge man, physical, loving. He had frequent naps, putting Duniya in mind of an overgrown child who collapsed exhausted in the midst of play There was something child-like about his mouth, with which he seemed forever preoccupied, like a toothless old man who chews his own saliva, biting the inside of his cheeks. But Zubair had all his teeth: and he was healthy, considering his age.

She bore him twins, Mataan (meaning the twin) looking very like him, and Nasiiba the spitting image of Duniya’s brother Abshir. (Once, albeit in a light-hearted manner, Duniya asked Dr Mire if it were possible for a woman to carry in her womb two-egg twins emanating from two different sources, when one of the men had never made love to the woman in question.)

One evening Duniya wanted to know if the jinns in Zubair’s eyes were still on sentry duty guarding the door to his sight. Zubair described them as two immobile beings, supposing his blindness to be bom of his former wife’s vindictiveness. He explained to Duniya that although they still blocked the entrance to his vision, the jinns nevertheless appeared to have tired of their spirited pranks since his marriage to her.

He died in his sleep, aged sixty. At the time Duniya had the twins at her breasts. His voice, thick, mumbled something like, “Do you mind if we switch off the light?” just before he was called away by death. In retrospect she regretted not asking if the jinns had dismounted briefly, letting him see. Otherwise why ask that she turn off the lights? She was in the rocking-chair, breast-feeding her two hungry monstrosities, and anything she said would have sounded awkward. Angry that the dazzling brightness of the electric light had made sleep unthinkable, she turned to say something. But he expired before she managed to speak her piece. A fortnight later she was on a plane to Mogadiscio.

So many years later in Mogadiscio, reminiscing!

Just before she was ready for bed, having showered and brushed her teeth, power returned and so did the half-collared kingfisher. Duniya hadn’t made up her mind if it was the same bird, when it flew away without alighting. Duniya got out of bed to switch off the lights that had come on in the kitchen, the toilet, the courtyard.

No sooner had she done so and returned to the darkened room than she heard a car door open and then close. Half-kneeling behind the partly drawn curtain, she watched as Mataan, her seventeen-year-old son, got out of a car with a woman at the wheel. They were talking in low voices, no doubt arranging future assignations. But where was his bicycle? Had it been stolen? Or had he felt unsafe riding it home because it had no lights?

The woman drove away before Duniya managed a good look at her face. Mataan waved enthusiastically until the car disappeared around the comer. What mattered, Duniya told herself, remembering what Nasiiba had said, what mattered was not whether the woman was older than he but whether they were comfortable with each other.

Mataan moved in the direction of their door, to let himself in. Tall, he walked with his back straight, like a man returning home to a waiting wife, a man who must remove all traces of his other life, in which another woman figures prominently. Mataan wiped his face and gave his hair a soft pat, touching his recently combed hair. As he came closer, his mother could see that he had his bicycle-chain in his left hand and his books in his right. From where she was, his bicycle-chain resembled a hunting-crop.

When the key turned in the outside door, Duniya tiptoed away from Nasiiba’s bed on which she had been kneeling, thinking: Shall I call his name or wait until he has hung his talismanic bicycle-chain on the nail above the entrance to his room?

In the event, she did not call his name. She let him shower, let him wash off the impurity of sex (Islam is very particular about a man’s body coming into contact with a woman’s and both must wash after love-making). But when she heard his steps going past the Women’s Room door, she spoke his name.

“Who is it?” his startled voice asked.

“It is I,” Duniya replied.

He made it clear that he didn’t want to talk.

“Goodnight then,” she said.

“Dream well, Mother,” he called.

Duniya did not wake when Nasiiba sneaked into her own bed. Once she fell asleep, Bosaaso came to her to tell her his story.

MOGADISCIO (AGENCIES)

Plans are under way for a huge relief operation in the war-torn drought-stricken north of the Somali Republic, where the rains have failed for the past four years. The airlift of emergency food aid will begin in about a week, a senior government official said. A regional official confirmed that between 300 and 500 people were dying daily in some of the larger localities and many more would starve to death unless emergency airlifts reached the affected area soon.

5

Bosaaso, at first dreaming then awake, relates aspects of his life history to Duniya, who is asleep and perhaps dreaming him too.

Bosaaso had been up for some time, turning and tossing in his bed, eager for dawn. He had dreamt of a brightly-coloured eagle soaring high, unprepared to alight on any of the tall eucalyptus trees in the vicinity Below, where he waited for the handsome bird to descend on a branch so he could take aim and shoot it, was a long-legged red plover, chattering its customary oaths, repeating its standard vow in the ugliest sequence of notes ever sung by a bird.

In his dream, a small boy carrying a kilo or so of uncooked meat on an uncovered platter walked into view, and the alert eagle came down in a sudden swoop, going not for the blood-dripping raw flesh but for the child’s brain. The boy fell to the ground in fear, dropping the meat. Several women emerged from behind the acacia bushes and formed a mournful circle around the prostrate boy. One woman stood apart, a woman wearing a patchwork of peacock-coloured clothes, with feathers in her hair. The others hushed when she beckoned. She took from the folds of her clothing a talismanic pebble which she placed near the boy’s nostrils. The child jerked with life-returning spasms. Then he rose and, unafraid, walked away, taking with him the platter of meat, now dusty.

Anxiety in Bosaaso’s chest stirred up a dusty cough and, still asleep, he sneezed. He diverted his mind by telling himself (and Duniya in her dream, of which he was part) the story of an only son of an only parent. The boy’s given name was Mohamoud.

He was a most fortunate child. He had a mother who sang well, being endowed with a beautiful voice, who cooked wonderfully and was an excellent seamstress. These three assets made her a frequent and welcome guest at weddings and all manner of events at which her services were in demand. She was Mohamoud’s single parent, his father having stowed away on a ship — everybody thought — never to be heard of again.

The boy and his mother lived in the small coastal town of G., not far from Cape Guardafui, on the east of the Somali peninsula. They were a feature of the locality, always together, colourful as the clothes she stitched herself, like itinerant gypsies, ready at the drop of a hint to entertain an audience. There was something decidedly ambivalent about the boy’s attitude to his mother. He loved her to sing her songs and he loved the food she prepared; on the other hand, he felt it degrading that he should accompany her everywhere, tagging along at the feasts where she performed.

She was paid mostly in kind: mutton, beef or camel meat, a choice portion to cook at home for herself and her son. Mohamoud loathed crossing town with the fly-inviting raw meat wrapped in a sooty cloth. He hated being near the improvised cooking sites, four-stone arrangements on which cauldrons were placed, under which fire was lit. He was equally embarrassed by his mother’s habit of calling him and giving him food in front of all the women, with none of the other boys being asked to join him. He would scamper away somewhere, like a dog seeking a quiet place to chew a bone, unobserved. It embarrassed him to eat when no one else was doing so.

Mohamoud felt more relaxed when his mother wore the singer’s mask and chanted ballads praising the virtues of a bride or groom at an auspicious wedding. His mother would be clothed in her best and would smell of the charming scent of sandal and other cuuds, which he loved. He didn’t have to go with her on such days. She brought back cooked food herself after she performed.

She had an impressive rich voice and a gift for improvisation. She dressed well, far better than any other woman in the town, in fashionable frocks which she designed and sewed. It was agreed that the town’s male tailor was not as skilled as her, so the women brought along dresses he had made for her to reshape. Having no sewing-machine (she couldn’t afford to buy one), she did everything by hand. In matters of taste, the townswomen sought her opinion and when she gave it, they held it in high esteem. She led a very busy life, receiving and entertaining visitors.

The townspeople knew little about the woman’s past. It was her husband, not she, who hailed from G. She had come with him, already pregnant. They arrived in the back of a lorry, brown with dust of mysterious provenance. The lorry deposited them, leaving in its wake questions no one picked up from the dust-laden footpaths of the town. She was the wife of a son of the town, and suffice it to say the man had a disreputable history, as a famed gambler. He was a restless soul, of a breed and temperament that a sleepy town in the backwaters of Somalia could hold little interest for; and no work could be found for him. The tailor, who held a grudge against the woman, was reported to have said that the son of the town had brought a witch there.

The day after she gave birth to a son, the boy’s father left, to stow away on the first ship that called at this abandoned littoral. His parents were kind to the poor woman and the boy, named after his grandfather. Until he was five, Mohamoud shared an alool-bed with his mother, who was an asset to her in-laws, boasting a variety of talents unusual in a town like G. She showed no interest in other men, most of whom were fishermen down on their luck and surviving on remittances from relatives slaving away in petrodollar Arabia.

The town’s womenfolk displayed unlimited affection and trust for her. To show her gratitude, she taught their daughters how to knit, held free reading and writing classes for older women in her in-laws’ compound in the evenings. Her restlessness, which she put to good use, reminded people of the boy’s departed father. It made her in-laws wary, worried that she, too, might pack her meagre belongings and vanish for ever with their grandson. But she offered them no reason to suspect her of that.

His mother’s fame preceded Mohamoud at school, and some of the bigger bullies teased him incessantly A cruel boy named Ali described her as “an itinerant kitchen.” Trading insults with him, Mohamoud mentioned that All’s mother lived on the town’s welfare, virtually a beggar surviving on charity. Now who deserved to be heaped with scorn, a woman who was hard-working or one living on hand-outs? They got into a fight and Mohamoud hit the bully so hard he hurt his hand, but the other boy lost a front tooth. He might have been expelled had it not been for the testimony of a classmate named Mire, whose father was the district judge, a man worthy of the headmaster’s high respect. Mire placed the blame squarely on All, accusing him of provoking Mohamoud in the first place. The headmaster expelled Ali And Mire and Mohamoud became friends.

Mire gave his new friend an assortment of clothes he had outgrown; these the boy’s mother altered or mended, as necessary. As a gesture of appreciation, Mohamoud would bring to school the bursaliid doughnuts his mother prepared for him, sharing them with Mire. The two ate together often, Mire out of a sense of adventure, Mohamoud out of loyalty to their closeness and also because he hated eating alone. The other boys bought inedible cakes, hard as rocks, and bread from a zinc kiosk situated at a comer where the school’s dirt road met the town’s only thoroughfare. Mire’s father’s house, one of three stone houses, was in the government residential area. Mohamoud’s grandparents’ place was the end-house in a cul-de-sac. Because Mire read a lot, he encouraged his friend to borrow books.

A lorry arrived one day and a letter was delivered to Mohamoud’s mother, giving news of her husband, who had apparently been sighted in Mogadiscio having a ball of a time like a sailor on leave. A week later, a telegram arrived bearing his name and a message that she should come to the metropolis, bringing the boy. The first missive enclosed a photograph of a man with a deformed lower lip; no one doubted the authenticity and source, since it contained bits of gossip known exclusively to members of the family. The grandparents grew suspicious, uncertain that they would ever set eyes on their grandson again. It was Mire’s father’s intercession that made them concede that she could take the boy away.

On the eve of their departure, Mire, together with his father, came to wish them a safe journey. Mire’s father had arranged a lift for them in a government Land Rover returning to Mogadiscio. Not knowing how much help she would need on arrival in the capital, Mire’s father gave her letters of introduction to friends of his. The two young friends looked anxiously forward to their reunion, something of which they seemed certain.

The boy and his mother lodged with her people in the capital. There was no sign of the man who had sired him. The first few months were miserable for young Mohamoud, who missed his friend Mire, missed his grandparents, the small-town air and the house in which he had lived. Moreover, now that they were in Mogadiscio there was nothing special about his mother, for there were thousands of women like her. Seldom invited to be the honoured guest or to cook at weddings, she attended college to qualify as a teacher, and later found a job in a school.

Two years later, Mire and Mohamoud were reunited in Mogadiscio, but they lived at either end of the sprawling city and could not visit each other as much as they wished. When term restarted, Mohamoud transferred to Mire’s school, consenting to walk four kilometres there and back every day.

It came to pass that there were three other boys who bore the same first, second and third names as our friend Mohamoud, which proved confusing. One day a teacher who was calling the roll wondered how on earth one was supposed to distinguish them. Being unusually full of mischief that day, Mire gave his friend the nickname “Bosaaso.” And, although Mohamoud insisted he did not come from the town of that name but from G., the nickname stuck.

Certain that Duniya was with him and had enjoyed hearing the story of his childhood, Bosaaso postponed the instant when he opened his eyes. Somewhere in the echoey two-storey house where he lived alone, a door opened and banged shut, a bath-tub was run and a toilet flushed. His face tightened in the sad expectation of finding her gone or that she might not hear him or answer his call. Yet with his eyes still closed, his outstretched hand informed him that in his bed there was a depression to his right, where she had slept; and his cheeks felt stroked, touched by her lips, kissed.

He had the air of a contented man, even when he opened his eyes and didn’t meet her in his house, in any of the rooms he entered. He gave a start when he heard a high-pitched whistle and then saw a half-collared kingfisher in the kitchen, settled in the very chair where Duniya might have been.

The kingfisher, exempt from giving explanations, flew out.

Smile-shy, Bosaaso moved quietly about his kitchen, as if not wishing to disturb a guest still asleep somewhere in the building. He waited for the water in the kettle to boil. He caressed the teapot’s spout, as if fondling a cow’s teats to make it yield more milk, the to-and-fro movements of his hand gentle and elegant. Gradually he indulged the memory of a scene from the past, remembering the world he had shared with his late wife. Current obsessions intruded into his mind only when he noticed he had set the breakfast table for two, placing plates, mats and cutlery in front of the chair where the kingfisher had sat.

Bosaaso had bought the china set from a Danish woman returning to Copenhagen after a three-year stint with a Scandinavian voluntary aid organization. The woman insisted she was selling the set “dirt cheap,” more or less “giving it away.” He paid a token sum, ten US dollars, since Ingrid demanded that he pay something, anything. Being African, he felt uneasy offering a meagre five dollars for a set of china that had survived nine years in Mogadiscio (the woman had herself bought it from an Englishwoman who worked with another voluntary aid outfit, War on Want, and had paid in sterling).

In his memory, as he sat down to breakfast facing “Duniya’s” chair, Ingrid the Danish woman was pale, with lipstick so bright red he couldn’t look at it without squinting. She had a heavy accent and spoke fast, spraying forth missiles of saliva that darted from her mouth with worrying speed. Her front teeth were artificial, the top halves white, the bottom very dark.

Bosaaso and Yussur, his late wife, had gone to Ingrid’s to see what second-hand items they could buy at a discount. The idea of calling on her was Yussur’s and the two women turned the session into a discussion about the philosophical and cultural aspects of giving and receiving gifts. Bosaaso listened, fascinated. They addressed the winning points of the debate to him. Ingrid generalized about the exchange of gifts in Europe, saying among other things, that in her continent one might offer a hand-me-down to a friend or a poor relation who was hard up; but the notion of giving for its own sake was alien, and not as habit-forming as in Somalia. Occasions were important, not the gifts, she said. Christmas was a season in which everyone participated in an orgy of giving and receiving.

Yussur listened, shaking her head, hackles rising, whenever Ingrid made a condescending remark about Africans. Bosaaso found it rewarding to analyse the crop of the Danish woman’s generalizations; it was when she came to specifics that her logic began to crumble.

At one point Ingrid said, “This china, for instance, has survived for almost ten years in the caring hands of Europeans who knew how to appreciate such a treasure.” Then, injecting disappointment into her voice Ingrid added, “It makes me sad to think that you, Yussur, may behave like these Apfricans all over the place who have no idea how to take care of sensitive gadgets with souls, like a car, a computer with software sensibilities or a set of china with as fragile an anima as a bird’s. To my mind Apfricans haven’t got what it takes to appreciate the cultural and technological gifts that are given to them.” And she smiled at Bosaaso, whose left cheek had been the target of a flying ball of saliva.

Yussur’s hand had given a caressing touch to her own pregnancy as if offering an encouraging pat. Turning to Ingrid, apparently not angered by these derisory remarks about Africans, but taking them in her stride, Yussur had asked, “Now is this china that you’ve sold to me and my husband dirt cheap almost a gift?”

“More or less a gift, yes.”

“Tell me, Ingrid,” Yussur went on, “if you sell your gifts for ten US dollars, equivalent in local currency to more than a senior civil servant’s salary, what on earth do you call the donations your government or charitable organizations give to my government and famine-stricken, alms-receiving people?”

“We call it ‘aid.’ It may be in the form of emergency food or technical aid or as grants to be written off later, or soft loans. There are different designations, depending on the specific situation.” Ingrid remained confident.

“We receive,” Yussur said very clearly, “and you give.”

“In a general sort of way, yes. That’s right.”

“Why give, Ingrid?”

Ingrid fell silent, puzzled, and Yussur asked, “What’s in it for your people to give my people things?”

“Because we have certain things that you Apfricans need.”

Yussur said, “But that is ridiculous.”

It was Ingrid’s turn to feel offended. “What’s ridiculous about what I’ve just said?”

“Surely you don’t give something of value to yourself simply because someone else does not have it or is in need of it?”

Silence. Yussur sought Bosaaso’s gaze and was met with an appreciative nod of his head. But Ingrid was of a different mind: “Aid is aid, good or bad, whether there are strings attached and whatever its terms of reference. You say one thing but want another, you Apfricans. I am fed up listening to this nonsense. Why ask for help if you don’t like it? The headlines of your newspapers are full of your government’s appeals for more aid, more loans. Nonsense.”

Yussur’s legs had gone to sleep. To make the blood return to them, she rose to her feet, moving back and forth as she spoke:

“My husband told me only recently that the United States, the world’s richest country, between 1953 and 1971 donated so-called economic assistance worth ninety million dollars to Somalia, one of the world’s poorest. Over sixty million of this so-called aid package was meant to finance development schemes, including teacher-training and a water supply system for the city of Mogadiscio. But do you know that nearly twenty million dollars were accounted for by food grown in the USA by American farmers, given to us in sacks with the words DONATED BY THE USA TO THE REPUBLIC OF SOMALIA written on them? And of course from that we have to deduct the salaries of Americans working here and living like lords in luxury they are not used to at home. Why must we accept this intolerable nonsense?”

“Don’t ask me,” Ingrid retorted and shrugged her shoulders.

“Who do I ask?”

“Ourselves.”

Bosaaso had nodded thoughtfully, saying nothing.

Yussur continued, changing her tone of voice, “The other day I was reminding Bosaaso of a Somali proverb: ‘Qeehiyaa qada.’ Would you render that in English for Ingrid?” And both women looked at him.

He had reflected for a while, then said, “I would tentatively translate it like this: He who distributes the offerings of fortune receives little as his personal share.” Smiling, he told himself that this had been his only contribution to the conversation.

Yussur said, “What I’m trying to say, my dear Ingrid, is that a language is the product of a people’s attitude to the world in which they find themselves. Now can you understand why it irks me to hear you describe the china for which we paid ten US dollars as a gift?”

“You’re entitled to your opinion and I to mine,” Ingrid replied.

At that instant Yussur felt the pangs of labour and her features contorted with pain, her body with groans. As she groped for a chair, her body swung round. The tragic irony of it was that in her dolorous blindness she broke a china cup.

Bosaaso rushed her to hospital. It was an arduous labour, Yussur’s first, lasting several days, and Bosaaso and Duniya made each other’s acquaintance then. Yussur gave birth to a bouncing boy named for Dr Mire, but her milk yield was insufficient and had to be supplemented. Now this might not have bothered her were it not for her traumatic memories of being weaned from her own mother’s breasts. Incidents Yussur had clean forgotten returned to haunt her with frightening clarity, including overhearing her mother confiding in a woman neighbour that she enjoyed her milk-heavy breasts being sucked by Yussur, then four, more than she relished making love to her husband, the child’s father.

Depressed, Yussur did not bear her anxieties well. She exaggerated this small failing, predicting nothing but a gloomy future for the baby whom she adored. Her maternal ego was hurt and she became morose, lacking in will-power.

Because Yussur had a feeble constitution and did not wish to meet anyone, she asked Bosaaso to seek Dr Mire’s advice. Drugs were prescribed and bed-rest advised. Mire brought a psychiatrist who had a long chat with Yussur. All these steps helped. For a while she behaved like anyone with normal needs, happy to be alone with her baby and her husband, and demanding to be discharged from the hospital where she was in the private ward. Since Mire was not in Mogadiscio, other doctors agreed to sign her papers.

No one realized that Yussur was prone to depressive moods deep as death. To overcome the stress, she would lock herself in the master bedroom where she felt safe and also isolated from her mother and her younger sister who dropped by often to visit. Her mother talked, asked questions, suggesting absurd remedies for Yussur’s ills, worrying that the golden-egg producing daughter might die or something might happen to her baby: for in that event Bosaaso would cease providing for the mother and sister. Yussur wanted to see no one except her baby, her Bosaaso and the maid.

In a rare peaceful moment when she was less melancholy, Yussur asked Bosaaso, “You don’t mind being alone with me or the baby in this huge house, shut off from the rest of the world, do you, Bo?”

“Of course not,” he had said.

“And you don’t think I am insane, do you?”

“Of course not.”

Quietly efficient, the maid attended to Yussur and the baby’s needs. Herself a mother of several grown children, the maid gave cautious counsel in a gentle voice, acted sensibly whenever Yussur snapped at her, discourteous as only the young can be.

The doorbell rang day and night, at all hours. Yussur’s mother and younger sister wished to be let in. When no. one answered the bell, the two women took the mechanism to be faulty or the current to be off, so they resorted to banging on the door so hard one might have mistaken them for police officers preparing an assault. Unadmitted, they camped in the fore-yard, under a tree by the gate.

Dr Mire returned a couple of days later; he was let in immediately Bosaaso came out of the house and left in Mire’s vehicle. Three hours later they arrived accompanied by a neurologist and were surprised to find all the doors open and to hear women’s wailing. Three women mourning the death of Yussur and baby Mire.

The versions of what had happened given by the maid and by Yussur’s mother disagreed in essentials as well as substance. Apparently the maid, out of motherly kindness, admitted the old woman and sister directly after the doctor’s car had gone.

In both versions there is a balcony overlooking the garden, with Yussur standing on the balcony. And in both, Yussur held the baby in her tight hug, saying, “Will you be a darling boy and fetch me that lone flower in our garden and then give it to me?”

But from here on the two versions differ. In the mother’s telling, Yussur would walk back, bend to put the baby in its cot, then change her mind and return to her position on the balcony from where she would request her baby to fetch her the flower. Here the mother’s story ends. In that of the maid, no time elapsed between the moment Yussur made this most unusual demand of a baby not a week old and the instant she threw him down to get the lone flower. The maid told of a flash of insanity brightening Yussur’s eyes between her speaking the word “give” and death from the fall. Where was Yussur’s younger sister? Well, she had gone to her sister’s wardrobe to try on a dress because she had been invited to a party — and she missed it all.

All versions agreed in one fact: Yussur and baby Mire died.

MOGADISCIO (SONNA, 1 AUGUST)

Liv Ullmann has been recently appointed a special UNICEF Ambassador and in this new role has been visiting several countries in Africa south of the Sahara.

As part of her commitment, Ms Ullmann will travel rough on aircraft transporting grain, medicines and other emergency aid being airlifted to areas affected by famine and malnutritional ailments. Ms Ullmann has said that she is happy whenever she sees a smile breaking and then spreading on these children’s faces, happy when she notices them regaining hope in their own survival.

On her mission of mercy, Ms Ullmann will visit a select number of feeding centres and refugee-related projects in the continent, which is said to contain the world’s largest war-displaced population.

6

Duniya wakes from a dream in which Bosaaso tells her a story. She has morning conversations with Nasiiba and Mataan. And she is lent an article from yesterday’s national newspaper.

Duniya woke to a door being unbolted loudly An instant later she heard a jaw-breaking yawn, then footsteps approaching and going away Then the window overlooking the road was flung open, and the heat of the morning sun strode into the room. A blast of warmth licked the exposed part of Duniya’s face, scorching it.

“Time to get up, Mummy,” Nasiiba said.

Now why was Nasiiba up and about so early earlier than her twin brother who had earned for himself the nickname “house-hold alarm”? And why was she insisting that the rest of the world wake up?

“Shake off the sloth of sleep, Mummy Up,” Nasiiba sang.

Duniya did not stir.

“What’s the matter with everyone today?”

The sun felt hot, no longer in its infancy. Duniya wished she could cling to the comfort of sleep a little longer and resume her interrupted dream. But that wasn’t to be. Nasiiba was making a noisy point of the fact that she had risen before either her mother or brother, though she had been the last to go to bed. Duniya wondered if her daughter had butterflies in her insides about something — was this the reason?

“Mummy?”

“No,” Duniya replied. The word came out of its own accord.

“What are you talking about? No what?” Nasiiba asked.

How inconsiderate of the young to think only of themselves, Duniya thought. She recalled the Somali proverb that says your offspring are not your parents — the children’s thoughtfulness is a shallow well whose bounty runs out fast.

“I want to tell you something,” said Nasiiba, sounding urgent.

Duniya wasn’t interested in being told anything.

“It won’t take long, I promise.”

Duniya wasn’t interested.

“Open your eyes and listen to me.”

“No,” Duniya replied.

“You are in a negative mood today.”

Duniya said nothing.

“It’s very important that I tell you something, Mummy.”

Duniya lay quiet and unmoving. One of her ears was beginning to fill with air, causing a little pain; the other ear failed to hear anything as though suffering a momentary attack of Meniere’s disease. Her body slipped briefly into that ambiguous zone between sloth and sleep as she remembered her dream, in which Bosaaso told her how his late wife was resurrected from the dead, and she saw a baby clutching a lone flower tightly in its long-nailed fingers. The baby had been born without an anus and, there being no experienced surgeon in the city to perforate one for it, it had died, with no one mourning it.

Nasiiba was saying, “Aren’t you going to work today, Mummy?”

Duniya’s decision was sudden. She said, “No.” There was a brief silence. “What about you? Aren’t you going to school?” she asked.

“I am not,” responded Nasiiba.

“Why not?”

“Because I will not,” said Nasiiba, typically.

Duniya uncovered her face and her eyes blinked, hurting for a while, until they were used to the dazzle of the bright sun.

Both women now turned towards their door, which was open to the central courtyard. A rush of wind blew past Duniya’s face and out of the window. Heralded by a clumsy footfall, Mataan spoke a greeting. Nasiiba did not return it. Duniya imagined her son’s open-mouthed expression. She could see him now in her mind’s eye, staring at his sister, nonplussed.

“Good morning, Mother,” Mataan said, raising his voice.

Duniya’s thoughts were busy elsewhere, determining whether she had seen a sparrow fold its wings and drop from the sky towards the earth. Because Duniya didn’t respond to her son’s salutation, Nasiiba took the opportunity to say, “Our mother is behaving strangely this morning, Mataan; she’s acting like a child refusing to take its food and saying no to everything.”

“Have you no respect for your elders, Twin-sister?”

“What do you know about respect, you?” Nasiiba retorted.

“All I’m suggesting is that you respect your mother,” he said.

“All I am saying is that it’s none of your business,” chanted Nasiiba.

“One would think…,” he began, but abandoned the thought in mid-sentence. He walked away making hardly any noise, like a burglar tiptoeing out of a place he has broken into mistakenly.

“Mataan?” Duniya called him back. She remembered that the night before he had come home not on his bicycle but in a woman’s car.

“Yes, Mother?” He was discreetly out of her eyes’ reach. He would never think of entering a room without knocking, even if the door were wide open.

When she didn’t speak, he said, “I meant to tell you when I got in last night, Mother,” and his voice trailed off.

She waited, hoping to hear about the woman he had been with.

“It’s about my bicycle, Mother,” he continued. “I was riding it last night and a man reversed into me and knocked me down. I meant to tell you when I got back.”

She sat up, her voice worried. “Are you hurt?” She wrapped a sheet around herself. “Come closer, let me see you.”

Mataan was tall and very thin. At school his nickname was Lungo, Italian for “long.” He touched his elbows where there were bruises, his knee-caps and a slightly bluish spot on his skin and rib-cage. “I wasn’t hurt much,” he said.

“I wish you wouldn’t ride your bicycle without lights at night.”

“But I had them on, Mother,” he said.

“Then why didn’t he see you?”

“Because he didn’t have his lights on.”

“Did you see the man who bumped into you? Did you take down his insurance details and all that?” Duniya asked.

Mataan nodded.

“Where is the bicycle now?” inquired his mother.

“At a friend’s place,” he said.

Nasiiba, who had held herself in check until now, said, “Ask him to name the friend at whose place he left his bicycle, Mummy.”

Mataan and Duniya both looked at her censoriously.

“Why are you looking at me like that, as if I slaughtered your favourite she-camel? I’m talking to my mother.”

“You’re being ludicrous,” he said, half-choking on the last word.

Duniya appealed to her children, “Please, no fighting.”

Nasiiba was livid. “Mother, could you explain why you won’t talk to me yet you chatter away to Mataan like a gossiping market woman?”

“Because he has been hurt in a bicycle accident.”

“You wouldn’t have taken any notice if I had been.”

“Now why is that?” asked Mataan.

“Because you’re a boy and I’m a girl,” said Nasiiba.

The twins’ exchanges reminded Duniya that for several nights Nasiiba had been grinding her teeth in her sleep, perhaps out of genuine stress over something.

In obvious fury Nasiiba was putting on a pair of jeans.

“Where are you going?” asked Duniya.

“Somewhere someone will talk to me when I speak to them.”

“I’ve made breakfast, aren’t you having any?” Mataan asked.

Nasiiba left the room, as if late for an appointment.

After breakfast Duniya read Taariq’s article in the day before’s paper:

THE STORY OF A COW

This is a true story. It happened in a village in Lower Juba in Somalia and involves two families related by marriage and by blood. I shall be vague about their identities, though precise enough to say that it took place during the middle months of the worst famine in the Horn of Africa this century.

These were difficult months, in particular for anyone vowing not only to survive the famine, but also to outlive it with their integrity untarnished. Many a person yielded to hunger and other forms of pressure, many who thought of themselves as good, honest and incorruptible discovered to their dismay that famines make aspiring to such ideals either foolhardy or at least questionable.

In this village lived two large families whose compounds entrances faced each other, whose children played together, whose young men and women danced with one another and intermarried. Before the famine, no one recalls a quarrel, light-hearted or serious, ever taking place between members of these compounds without it being stopped instantly. Disagreements likely to create friction were ended before anyone had time to comment on them, suspicions were allayed before they sowed seeds of hate in anyone’s mind, child or adult, male or female.

Then came the famine. The first nine months of it decimated the cattle, reducing their number to a handful of skinny beasts. Meanwhile the earth produced but little. One saw skinny cows whose bones stuck out so visibly that crows, mistaking these for dry eucalyptus twigs, alighted on them.

To quicken the pace of the story, let us concentrate on two representative household heads, who in accordance with the ethos of the day we shall assume to be men. Let’s call one Musa and the other Harun. Well skip unnecessary details and pick up the tale when there is only one surviving cow, and after all other families have left the area for foreign-run feeding centres. The remaining cow belonged to Harun.

For several days, the two families shared the small amount of milk produced by the famished cow, supplementing it with desert fruits collected by Musa, which he offered as his contribution. To the suggestion that he and his family trek to the nearest UNICEF-organized feeding place, Musa retorted that they would rather die than accept hand-outs of grain grown elsewhere, given by infidels for whom he had little respect, whose ways of worship and manners he either disagreed with or disapproved of, and whose humanity he doubted.

The land has ways of supporting those who trust in its bounty. It never ceased to surprise Musa how much there was to be had. He would go for a walk and come upon a rabbit crouching in the shade of a dust-laden acacia tree, or find a fat pigeon cuddling in the warmth of a nest of fortune, as if waiting for him; now and again a dik-dik would run after him, making of itself an offer. In exchange for the meats, Harun gave Musa’s baby daughter enough milk to wet her dry throat. Musa, however, divided everything with which nature supplied him in two equal halves, one his, the other Harun’s. One day, nature ran out of gifts with which to surprise Musa. And the cow yielded so little milk that Harun declared he could no longer spare a drop for Musa’s baby. The second day dawned, another night fell; the cow produced even less milk than before, insufficient for Harun’s family’s immediate needs. Musa prayed to God, who is said now and then to take from the rich to give to the poor. He prayed and waited.

On the third day, something unusual happened. The cow walked into Musa’s compound and refused to be driven away. No amount of cajoling or caning would convince it to return to its lawful owner. Being of generous spirit, Musa conceded that the beast be milked where it was, in his compound, though Harun made it clear he would get not even a drop of milk.

All that night Musa listened to his children’s hungry cries and his wife’s curses. But just after midnight, they heard a gentle knock on their door. With a mixture of anxiety and hopeful anticipation, Musa answered. He was most surprised to find the cow wanting to be milked. What was he to do? His wife remarked that fortune favours the weak among men, who know not how to take advantage of it. For his part, Musa had made a vow never to steal. He pushed the door shut, leaving the cow where it stood, unmilked.

The next morning, he explained to Harun what had happened, but Harun accused him of theft and lying. Musa’s wife said, “What did I tell you?” But when Harun tried to milk the cow that day, everyone was in for another surprise. The cow would not submit to being touched by him.

Not knowing what to do, Harun appealed to Musa, who offered to milk the cow for him. But what would be in it for him?

Harun said: “A third of what the cow yields is yours.”

Musa approached the cow with caution. It remained placid, eyes large as onions from a fertile land. And it didn’t kick, but sub-mitted to his elaborate caresses, its udder getting heavier and fuller by the second. Although he couldn’t explain why even to his wife, Musa called the cow by a name: he had designated the cow Marwa! In short, it offered thrice as much as it had done during the pre-famine days. Two-thirds went to Harun, a third, as agreed, to Musa.

But Harun was displeased. He argued: “If Musa is a magician and calls the cow Marwa, to which it responds favourably, so can I.” However, when that evening Harun called the cow Marwa, it kicked him so hard in the shin that he dropped the receptacle, breaking it. Musa again indicated his generous willingness to try his hand. He milked the cow, which gave four times as much milk as before and now he called it Safa. Yet he swore to his wife that on neither occasion had he had the slightest idea what to call the animal until the moment he spoke the correct name.

That evening, a group of travellers paid the two families an unexpected visit. It was the Night of Qadr, believed to be the most blessed night of the year, and the men from the other hamlets commented on the abundance of the cow’s milk. All night Musa remained silent. Not so Harun; he talked a great deal, boasting that the cow was his. One of the men wondered why, if it was his, it was in his neighbour’s compound. Harun responded that it preferred lodging with his friend; “You know how cows are,” Harun said, trying to be humorous, and then laughing uneasily.

The following morning the cow was gone. The travellers testified on oath that they saw coming out of Musa’s compound not a cow but a man, handsome and tall, adorned in the saintly robes of Friday-mosque white.

Then it began to rain in abundance, and for a while there was respite from the famine, although not immediately The other families returned to their homesteads, reduced in number, for some had starved to death on their way to the feeding centres, and some decided to remain in the cities where the famine had driven them.

Harun and Musa listened to their stories. When their turn came, Harun told his version of their story, but Musa would not open his mouth to say anything. Someone asked Musa if it was true that Khadr, the miracle-performing saint, Elijah’s alter-ego, had turned himself into a cow to test them?

Musa wouldn’t comment.

Taariq Axmad

Somehow Duniya became restless directly she finished reading the article, and in an instant she was turning the whole room upside down, emptying cupboards and drawers. Yet she didn’t know why she was doing this, had no idea what had got into her, or what she might be searching for.

She opened her daughter’s drawers, one at a time, meticulously replacing things where she found them. In the second drawer she came across an Iranian magazine for Muslim women, Mahjouba, tucked away and hidden under an unwashed pile of the young girl’s underthings. Duniya suspected the copy of the radical Islamic magazine to be there for unholy purposes, and wasn’t surprised when her search rewarded her with wads of cash, in Somali notes, tied together with a rubber band. For a moment Duniya appeared so disheartened, she did not know what had struck her.

She recovered from her shock only after counting the money and remembering that she had herself given it to Nasiiba, to settle the family’s outstanding monthly bills with the owner of the district’s general store. Did it mean Nasiiba had forgotten to clear last month’s debts?

In a fit of annoyance, Duniya changed into outdoor clothes and walked the few hundred metres to the general store. Speechless, incapable of returning her neighbours’ greetings, her tongue lay inert inside her mouth. But the shop was closed for the day, because its owner was out of town.

Duniya returned home, angrier than before.