Hiding in Plain Sight

11

Within a few minutes, Bella finds herself in heavy morning traffic, the GPS notwithstanding. Above all, she does not know the shortcuts to avoid getting rush-hour madness, as local taxis might; nor does she know how to predict Nairobi traffic, where five minutes this way might make a great difference if you know the mood of the place. The traffic is utterly unpredictable though and very untidy, and this would tax anyone’s nerves, but it is also, she knows from Aar, a drag on the local economy in both obvious and hidden ways. She remembers that he told her that the city authorities were at long last waking up to the challenge, and a couple of Chinese and Japanese firms have been enlisted to find a solution to the problem, but their efforts plainly have yet to bear fruit. The problem, Aar liked to say, wasn’t only the large number of vehicles plying too few roads. It was the obstreperous drivers, each of them thinking themselves smarter than the others and behaving in the most undisciplined way with no fear of penalty. And Nairobi traffic is such a chronic condition that people have grown accustomed to it and in a sense rely on it. You can blame it for your lateness; you can catch up on your phone calls and texts; you can do your shopping from the peddlers making their way between the slow-moving cars. Incidents of road rage are rare because, while everyone is impatient, the opposite is equally true: Everyone is at the same time tolerant of everyone else’s wayward ways.

Bella is annoyed but not anxious. She has left ample time to get to her appointment, and if by some miracle she is early, she has brought along the Kerr novel to read, which she is certain to prefer to the journals or glossy magazines that likely await her.

She dashes into an opening in the traffic, making a quarter of a kilometer gain before she has to brake suddenly behind a truck emitting black smoke that has created another jam. As she inches forward, she thinks about the evening and the morning, and how encouraged she feels by Salif, who has been so steadfast with her. Even Dahaba did not abandon her, divided as her feelings obviously are.

The down side of it is that they seem to have it in for their mother now, to the point of being cruel. Yes, Valerie is irresponsible and insensitive, but the world was not as kind to her in her own tender years as it was to Bella. She knows that Valerie’s father, an actor, was often out of work, and the family mostly survived on Wendy’s paycheck. Worse, Valerie’s father was a drunk who sexually abused his daughter from the age of sixteen. When at long last he began to find steady work in Hollywood, he would often fly Valerie over to join him. That came to an end when a paparazzo took a picture of the two of them in a compromising position and this made it into one of the tabloids. Wendy brought all her wrath down upon his head, demanding an end to the matter on strict terms: Valerie must go to boarding school, and he must pay all the fees. Even that wasn’t the end of the liaison, which continued in secret until Valerie met Padmini at school.

Aar knew none of this until Valerie was pregnant with Salif, and he revealed none of it to Bella until Valerie left for India with Padmini. Perhaps, Bella thinks, this is why nothing Valerie does ever shocks her and why in some sense she cannot forsake her, much as she dislikes her. It is something she learned from Aar: Only those to whom the world is kind are truly able to be kind to the world. This history is not something she can explain to Salif and Dahaba, not yet, at any rate. But she resolves to teach Salif to be fair in his judgments and to encourage Dahaba to be moderate in her efforts to assert herself. And she resolves to make every effort to amicably work out the legal matters that await them without bringing in a scavenging herd of lawyers alien to the cause, whose primary aim will be lining their own pockets.

The traffic is once again at a complete standstill, and the driver of the vehicle in front of her gets out of his car and comes to her window, apparently wanting to speak to her. Visitors to Nairobi are often advised to beware of potential violence, which can strike at any hour of the day or night. Bella looks in her rear mirror to be sure that others are watching and checks that her door is locked before she lowers her window a few inches.

“Eh?” she says.

“I’ve run out of fuel,” he says.

She shrugs her shoulders, acting the part of the Italian, making exaggerated gestures with her hands like a terrible actor in a B movie. “Ma non capisco!” she says.

But the man does not move, and Bella, taking pity on him, lowers her window a little farther so she can lean out far enough to see what sort of shoes he is wearing. Bella is certainly enough of an Italian to be superstitious about footwear. If you are good at heart, she thinks, you tend to have shoes of good quality, or at least ones that are polished and looked after. This man has on an excellent pair of shoes. In fact, they look unquestionably Italian.

“What would you like me to do about it?” Bella says.

“Do you have an empty jerry can in your trunk?” he asks.

Bella says, “I doubt it,” but she pushes the button to open it so he can make sure. They all wait while he pushes his car off the road, then he pockets the keys and sets off, presumably in search of a petrol station.

She calls after him. “Come. Get in.”

He tells her there is a gas station less than a mile away, and he knows how to get there. He tells her his name and offers her his card.

“What about you?” he says. “Where are you from?”

“I have no card to give you,” she tells him.

“But you do have a name?” he teases.

She gives him the absolute minimum, her first name.

“How did you come by an Italian name?” he asks, and despite herself, she volunteers a little more.

“My father is Italian, my mother Somali,” she tells him.

At the gas station, she waits while he borrows a jerry can and pays for fuel to fill it. She brings him back to where his car is parked and waits until he has it running. Once again, he comes to her window. He thanks her and says, “You realize you haven’t given me your number.”

She says, “Maybe I’ve none to give.”

“Or an e-mail address to write to?” he says.

“Maybe I don’t wish to.”

“As you like,” he says. “You have already done so much for me.”

“Maybe you can do me a good turn,” she says.

“Anything,” he says, enthralled.

She gives him the address of the UN offices in Gigiri. Does he know a shorter way to get there? she asks. She explains that she has an important appointment for which she cannot afford to be late.

The Kenyan gentleman with the shoes to die for tells her she has been needlessly sitting in traffic — Cawrala, the GPS woman, has sent her on a most indirect route. He gives her a quicker way, carefully writing out the directions on a pad she gives him while he talks her through it. As a result, she arrives at the UN offices with half an hour to spare.

Which turns out to be a good thing because the security measures at the gate are draconian. It’s as if she were waiting to board an El Al flight to Tel Aviv, she thinks. The blue-clad Kenyan guards manning the gates are rude beyond belief, barking instructions. One of them, waving what looks like a wand as if it were a scepter, directs her to turn off her engine, leave the key in the ignition, get out of the vehicle, and take all of her personal effects with her. She approaches the gate on foot, joining one of the two queues. When she gets up to the gate, a man sitting in a cubicle extends his hand through a small window to take her passport; in return, he passes her a long form to fill in.

As she does what she is told, she wonders whether similar measures were in force at the UN office in Mogadiscio where Aar was killed; if they had been, perhaps he would still be alive. The report was that the bomber simply walked into the compound and detonated his device, but this has not been confirmed. She used to hear from Aar how corrupt the Ugandans were. They provided the largest contingent of soldiers for the African Union, otherwise known as AMISOM, a mainly U.S.- and EU-funded force numbering close to twenty thousand. The Ugandans, being the first to arrive in the country and the strongest, were assigned to guard the international airport and several major government buildings, including the presidential villa and the National Parliament. Rumors circulating among the Somalis that were picked up and published in the foreign press say that some of the Ugandan top brass serving under AMISOM were making lucrative deals selling weapons to the Shabaab terrorists. On Aar’s penultimate trip out of Mogadiscio, he told Bella, he had gotten through all the checkpoints and into the VIP lounge without anyone so much as opening his suitcase or even putting it through a scanning machine because he was in the company of a young man whose family owned one of the biggest and most expensive hotels near the airport. All the guards knew him and greeted him by name; the young fellow was so brazen that he mentioned the name of the bar in the city where he would meet them later that evening.

Bella finishes filling out the form then watches while a couple of men place some sort of device in the shape of a huge shovel — a metal detector, she presumes — under the belly of Aar’s car and another one gets into the car with a gadget that looks like a small vacuum cleaner to check the interior for explosive devices.

Then she loses sight of the car as she passes to yet another cubicle, where yet another blue-clad officer asks for her name and then slides her document out of a pile. He checks that her passport photograph matches her face. Bella is aware that she seldom looks like her official photograph, which tends, like everyone else’s, to look like a mug shot. But she seems to pass muster, and he gestures for the form. Now a young woman asks her to look into a lens, and then she is fingerprinted.

“There is one more hurdle,” the blue-clad man standing outside the second gate tells her. He directs her to walk through a body scanner after putting her shoes, her belt, jewelry, and mobile phone in a bin, just like at an airport. And just like at an airport, she is admonished to take out any laptops and liquids and put them on the conveyor belt as well.

Bella is relieved to see that Aar’s car has made it through as well. “Triumph!” she says to herself. After the scanner, a woman administers a thorough body frisk, pointing out to Bella that she must open her fists. “You are an adult,” she chides Bella, “not a baby. What are you holding?”

Bella is about to say, “Nothing,” when to her great surprise, she discovers that she is, in fact, holding something — the card given to her by the stranger with the exquisite shoes. “Kenneth Kiplagat,” she makes out, the card still in the tight grasp of her hand, as if she is loath to let go of it. Then she relinquishes the card and the female guard, who puts it through the scanner, says, “Just in case,” before she completes her pat down.

Bella retrieves the card and puts it in her wallet. Then she gets back in her car and drives the hundred and fifty meters or so to the visitors’ lot. She waits there until it is time for her appointment, preparing herself mentally as best she can. Then she steps out of the car, pulls herself together the same way she has seen gymnasts and other Olympic athletes do just before they compete — puffing out their chests, pumping the air, and mouthing silent encouragement to themselves. “Coraggio,” she says to herself. Then she walks into the building.

The receptionist says immediately, “Our commiserations, Bella. We all loved your brother, and we will be missing him. He was a gentle soul, genuinely friendly and good at heart.”

Bella feels the tears beginning again; it is only natural, she thinks. But she is grateful when a second woman says to her in a businesslike way, “Gunilla is waiting. Immaculata will come down to escort you to her office shortly. Please take a seat and wait for her here.”

Bella does as she is told, wondering whether the receptionists have been rehearsing these speeches the entire time she has been standing in the queue. Immaculata, she muses, what a name.

—

Bella follows Immaculata, high heels clicking, tight miniskirt hugging her knees and high bum, into the elevator and down the hall. She remembers wearing and loving miniskirts as a long-legged young girl in the Somalia of her day, but alas no longer. Not only because a woman her age isn’t expected to show off her wares, but also because Somalia has fallen victim to the terrorizing dictates of religionist renegades, and her beloved Mogadiscio is no longer a cosmopolitan city. Lately, “secularist,” once a term of approbation, has become a dirty word. Somali society has taken a giant step backward, not only as a consequence of the long-running civil war but also because it lags far behind most other countries in education and the other parameters that measure social progress.

“Are you a good Catholic girl?” Bella asks Immaculata.

“I never miss Sunday mass,” the younger woman answers, but something about her expression encourages Bella to say, “I suppose you are regular about your weekly confessions as well?”

“Are you Catholic?” Immaculata asks. Now that they are walking side by side, Bella can see that Immaculata is heavier than she thought and that her skin is not very good. Her hair has been lengthened with extensions, which don’t seem to agree with the dryness of the air-conditioning.

“I was brought up a Muslim,” Bella says.

“I wouldn’t have thought so, looking at you. You’re not wearing body armor.”

Bella thinks that such exchanges are getting boring, and she is tired of explaining. But Immaculata persists.

“Where were you born and brought up, really?” she asks.

“Mogadiscio, Somalia,” Bella says.

“You are teasing me.”

“I am not.”

Immaculata says, “We have Somalis everywhere in our country, millions of them in refugee camps, and they’ve also taken over parts of our country. Have you been to Eastleigh? You don’t look like them — you have beautiful skin, too light for a Somali. Nor do you carry yourself like them, walk like them, or behave like them.”

“How do they behave?” Bella says.

“They are full of themselves, madam,” says Immaculata.

Bella does not wish to get into an argument with anyone, here above all, but it disturbs her to let a half-truth go uncorrected. Kenyan Somalis, who account for nearly six percent of this country’s population, have remained third-class citizens here, disenfranchised and marginalized. If they behave badly, that is undoubtedly in part a result of their poor treatment by other Kenyans. But the refugees in the camps are recent arrivals from Somalia, driven out by the collapse of their government. But what is the point of trying to correct this woman?

“Guns, lawlessness, and daily murders of their kith and kin, you name it,” Immaculata says. “They’ve brought guns into our country across the border. They bomb our churches and they bomb their mosques. But of course, you are not like them. And I’m told that Aar, your brother, was such a gentle soul.”

“He was,” says Bella.

“Thankfully, there are several battalions of the Kenyan Defense Force currently stationed in Somalia to bring order to your country,” Immaculata says.

At this, Bella has to respond. “Have you ever had occasion to meet or speak to a Somali other than me?” she asks.

“Never,” Immaculata says.

“Why not?”

“They’re too arrogant to talk to the likes of me, a tea girl,” Immaculata says.

She stops before a closed door, on which she taps. They wait, and then a woman’s voice says, “Come in.” Immaculata steps aside deferentially and Bella hesitates, then goes in.

A well-built woman of Viking stock, big boned and blue-eyed, gets to her feet, smiling. She waits with her hand extended while Bella makes her way around a huge escritoire. Gunilla Johansson’s grip is firm, her self-confidence immense. There are elements of generosity and joy on her face as she and Bella shake hands, then hug and let go. “Welcome,” she says.

The desk is cleared of everything but a couple of files. Bella wonders if it is always this way or if Gunilla has prepared it so for this encounter. Were the circumstances different, she would describe the encounter as a joy, she senses — but tragedy has removed such a word from her current vocabulary. And it would be in her character to be a lot warmer to Gunilla as her potential in-law, which, sadly, did not come to be.

“Thanks for making the time to see me,” Bella says. “And before I forget it, I must thank you for the help you’ve provided in having Valerie and Padmini released from their lockup in Uganda. I very much appreciate your sense of discretion in such a delicate matter. Thanks to you, Valerie and Padmini are now in Nairobi, but they are none the wiser about your invaluable contribution. All because of your friendship with Aar, who was most dear to us all.”

At that, Gunilla’s eyes well with emotion. She takes half a step back, saying, “Sorry,” then reaches for the box of tissues. She pulls out a couple and then touches them gently to just below her eyes, blotting carefully so that her makeup remains unaffected. Bella can’t help thinking that Gunilla has practiced this move countless times — maybe with Aar nearby, watching, overseeing.

Gunilla says, “We’ll miss him. I loved him.”

What Bella suspected has become obvious. She remembers back to that last time in Istanbul with Aar — his aura of happiness, the two necklaces he purchased — one for her and the identical one, she thought then, for Dahaba, but now she knows for sure. He behaved like a teenager with a secret to treasure, and now she knows what it was.

Immaculata is still standing in the half-open doorway. She wants to know if either of them would like tea, coffee, or water.

“Coffee, Immaculata, and thanks,” Bella says.

Gunilla says, “Same for me and some water too.”

Gunilla closes the door behind the tea girl for privacy. An instant of indecision wrinkles her brow, and then her features relax.

Bella knows that as one of the most senior of the UN staff here Gunilla would be privy to a great deal of what goes on in the upper-level bureaucracy. But it is of private matters that Gunilla now speaks. “I believe I was the last person he spoke to,” she says. “He rang me from his apartment complex to confirm that he would be on the UN OCHA flight, and we agreed that I would pick him up and that he would spend the night at my place. This was not always the case. Often his driver would fetch him and then he would come straight to the office or go home and report for duty the following day.”

“What did he sound like when he called?” Bella asks.

“On edge.”

“What was the reason?”

Gunilla tells her about the death threat and the visit from the security team, and Aar’s suspicions and subsequent change of plans.

“Why did he make that detour to his office?” asks Bella.

“I don’t know,” Gunilla says. “Maybe he felt he was a marked man. He knew he would be asking for a transfer to Nairobi immediately after he flew back. Knowing he wouldn’t be back, maybe he wanted to get his things.”

While Gunilla rummages through a filing cabinet, Bella hears some humming in her ears. The humming goes on long enough to worry her. And then she has a momentary headache, her vision blurs. When the humming clears and she can see better, she starts to pay attention to what Gunilla is saying to her.

Gunilla apologizes. “I’m sorry,” she says, “but I need to have you fill in some forms. Are you up to it? I can help you, if you like. That way it will be quicker.”

Bella hesitates.

“Why don’t we start with you?” Gunilla says.

“How do you mean, start with me?”

“For starters, did you bring along all the forms of identification you need to fill in the insurance forms and collect his personal effects?”

Bella provides these. Gunilla scrutinizes the documents, and when their eyes meet, she smiles a little. Then she inspects the notarized copy of Aar’s will. Gunilla opens it page by page to study it, checking it closely with her eyes and then feeling the stamped bottom corner, as if examining for its authenticity. When Bella asks her if the version of Aar’s will that she has now submitted and that nominates her as his executor is the most recent and therefore the valid one, the Swede checks it against the copies of the documents that are on file.

Then Gunilla reads part of the will out loud, pointing especially to Aar and Valerie’s “out of community of property marriage in England.” She consults the will on file against the one Bella has brought along: same working, same provisions, same signatures, including Fatima’s and Mahdi’s. “Yes,” she says, “I met them even before I met Salif and Dahaba.”

Gunilla and Bella now hear a gentle knock on the door and Immaculata enters. A tray on which there are glasses of water and coffee precedes the tea girl into the room. When Immaculata has set the tray down on the low table, Gunilla says, “Thank you, that is all for now.”

When the young woman has left, Gunilla pours out two cups and asks if Bella takes milk or sugar. Bella shakes her head no and then, nodding and mouthing the word “Thanks,” receives the cup with both hands. She waits until Gunilla’s cup is poured before she takes a sip.

At last they get to the final form. “This one is difficult,” says Gunilla. “It gives you the right to receive his personal effects.”

Try as she might, Bella can exercise no more self-restraint. And Gunilla joins her in weeping. Eventually, she pulls herself together and says, “How about I put the questions to you and I write down what you say?”

It is easy for Bella to make room in her heart for Gunilla.

The questions are easy to answer: date of birth, place of birth, current nationality, profession, address, marital status, Bella’s relationship with the deceased, date and place of death, date and place of burial.

These last questions give Bella an occasion to ask some of her own, questions she has been dreading and yearning to ask. “What do you know about how he died?” she asks.

“According to one of the survivors brought to a Nairobi hospital for his serious wounds that proved to be fatal,” says Gunilla, “Aar is believed to have died immediately from a bullet that penetrated his heart. He was hit, execution style. And according to unconfirmed reports in the Mogadiscio press, he knew the man who struck him, the Shabaab mole working in the UN office with him who not only knew him but also had threatened him.”

“And his burial,” Bella asks, repeating the version she has read in the papers.

Gunilla replies, “The explosion soon after the Shabaab mole shot him fragmented not only his body but also the bodies of several other victims who could not even be identified.”

“Do we have any idea if the forensics folks know if his body suffered a second, more severe trauma following the latter explosion?” Bella says.

“We’re waiting for the FBI report.”

“How is it that the FBI is involved?”

“Because some Americans were among the dead,” explains Gunilla, “and in any case, there are no Somali forensics teams available — you know how things are in that country better than I do.”

All of a sudden, Gunilla catches Bella’s eyes and this time her burst of emotion becomes uncontainable. Bella is equally in a delicate state, and although she finds it hard to desist from joining Gunilla, she doesn’t, telling herself that she has done enough weeping. Gunilla says, “I miss him terribly.”

“We all do,” Bella says.

“How are Salif and Dahaba faring?” Gunilla asks.

“It’s been difficult, but they are strong and lovely.”

“I met them twice, the first time on a camping trip.”

Bella says, “Their mother has been visiting. We met two nights ago for dinner — she and Padmini, her partner, and I — and she is now with Salif and Dahaba.”

“Since Valerie and Aar married out of community of property, the law is clear, from what I gather,” says Gunilla. “I’ve consulted a UN colleague who is British. Therefore, you have no worries there, legally speaking. But if the children were to declare strong loyalties and if she filed her papers here in Kenya, then you have some untidiness to deal with. Even so, the deciding judge must take her situation — that of being an absent mother for years — into account. Any idea how likely it is for the children to declare loyalty to her?”

“I doubt it, from the little I know since getting here.”

“And then, of course, it depends on what your intentions are.”

“What do you mean, what my intentions are?”

“Are you willing to take on the responsibility of parenting them? You are Aar’s executor of his will, and as long as they are with you, there is nothing to worry about.”

Gunilla turns several pages one at a time and then she talks to herself in a low voice in self-reprimand. Eventually, she says, “Valerie has been in touch with me too.”

“Has she now?”

“Her expectations are unreasonable.”

However much Gunilla pretends to be following the UN rules and acting neutral, Bella is aware that love and the memory of her affection toward Aar will sway her mind. She will exploit the play in the rope. “Valerie rang me at Padmini’s insistence, she assured me, to see Aar’s last will.”

“What was your answer?”

“It is out of the question.”

Bella is determined not to prod.

Gunilla goes through moments of nervy dithering. “Then a man claiming to be her lawyer rang me just before you came, wishing to know if this office had a copy of Aar’s will on file and if his wife and the mother of his children could see it. I replied that I would get back to him about it after I had the chance to look into the matter further. Meanwhile, I consulted a Kenyan who is well informed about who is who in the legal fraternity and who happens to be a good friend of Aar’s. I gave him the name of the lawyer representing Valerie. Apparently, said lawyer is Ugandan, with his chambers in Kampala, not here.”

Bella says, “They are married out of community of property and the two of them have not lived together or shared a conjugal bed for a number of years. Does she have any legal legs to stand on?”

“Chances are she won’t file.”

“Why do you say that?”

Gunilla narrows the blue hardness of her eyes into slits because the sun is in them. “Aar was of the impression that Valerie doesn’t have the patience to pursue any matter, especially a legal matter, to its conclusion. According to him, she would never do anything of the sort.”

“There is always a first time.”

“Aar used to say to me that Valerie would start on a project with great enthusiasm but wouldn’t follow it to its end. Even having the children was such a project, embarked on with passion but abandoned in the end. This has been her downfall: the inability to stay the course; the refusal to pay up when a bill is presented to her unless Padmini steps in to help. Now tell me,” she says, “how have Salif and Dahaba responded to her presence?”

“They are hostile to both Valerie and Padmini.”

“And how does that sit with you?”

“I want no friction if I can have it my way.”

Gunilla again opens one of the files, which she studies for a couple of minutes. She nods in silence in the manner of someone who has finally gained an understanding of a complicated matter. She says, “Please sign these forms using your name as it appears on your birth certificate and your passport.”

Bella signs the forms without reading them. Gunilla has earned her trust.

“As the children’s mother, what are her chances of convincing a judge to grant her custody now that she is back in the same country as they are and since she is the only living biological parent and they are under the age of majority — are there any good legs she can stand on?”

“The law is not favorable to her side.”

“Besides, Valerie has a way of spreading vitriol the same way one spreads butter on one’s toast,” says Bella, and she tells Gunilla about Valerie’s trying to convince Salif that his father had wanted to be cremated.

“But that is absurd. She hasn’t seen the will.”

The telephone on Gunilla’s desk squeals. She picks it up gingerly, as if it might burn her fingers, and holds it away from her ear, speaking rather disinterestedly into the mouthpiece. “Yes, who is it?”

A moment after the speaker on the other end of the line identifies herself, Gunilla indicates to Bella that she wishes to take the call and makes as if she is leaving her office. Bella motions to her, waving, and mouthing the words, “I’ll step out for a moment,” then does so.

She tiptoes out of Gunilla’s office and then takes the opportunity to call Salif and Dahaba, who don’t answer. Then, remembering how the young are more fond of text messages, she sends one to Salif, who responds instantly with three comforting words, “All well here.” Even though she is tempted to ask where “here” is, Bella restrains herself from doing so.

She hears her name being called and sees Gunilla waving to her from the doorway of her office. “Please pardon the interruption and let’s resume our conversation where we left off.”

Bella says, “I would rather not know what Valerie said.”

Gunilla agrees. “Fair enough. I won’t tell you.”

They sit opposite each other. Gunilla spreads the relevant papers on a low table and asks Bella to bring out her documents. Gunilla purposefully states what they are as if their conversation were being recorded. Gunilla reads the list aloud: an original copy of the will and statement. She receives the stapled document consisting of three pages and studies it with care, comparing it for the second or third time to the notarized and witnessed copy she has on file.

Gunilla rises to her feet, opens a cupboard, and brings out a folder with the name AAR on its cover. The documents in this folder have been brought from Mogadiscio and they include several personal papers found in his apartment and office.

“And here is Aar’s passport,” says Gunilla.

Bella receives it, her hand shaking.

“Please open it and check,” says Gunilla.

Bella does as told.

Gunilla then rummages in her briefcase and brings out a one-page document — Aar’s death certificate issued by the UN office in Mogadiscio. Again, Bella scrutinizes the document, saying nothing.

“Please come with me,” Gunilla says to Bella.

“Where are we going?”

“To photocopy every single piece of paper, including the notarized and witnessed documents, which, I understand, are also with Aar’s attorneys in England.”

Gunilla leads the way after locking her office.

“Why are you making photocopies?”

“The originals will be stored here as reference.”

When they are back in her office, Gunilla replaces the documents in their correct folders and puts all of these into a drawer, which she locks with a key. Then she returns Bella’s originals, her passport, and the copy of the will she had come with, saying, “Please keep them in a safe place in case somebody wants to see them.”

Gunilla then warns Bella to prepare mentally for a great shock. She says, “I am now going to hand over to you Aar’s personal effects that were found in the taxi, including the shoulder bag he was intending to bring along to Nairobi, as well as his personal computer. You are a strong woman, and you will understand if I don’t preface this ordeal further. I see you have come prepared for it,” she adds, noting Bella’s carryall.

It is Bella’s turn to break down at the sight of Aar’s favorite pair of jeans, his jogging shoes, his sunglasses, his Yankees cap, his T-shirts. Then Gunilla hands over a small plastic-covered shoulder bag, which she says contains Aar’s Mac computer and his two mobile phones, which Bella knows are one for Somalia and one for Nairobi.

Bella says, “Do you know whether anyone has his passwords?”

“Ask Salif. He never gave them to me,” says Gunilla.

But Bella knows there is no need to involve Salif for now. Unless Aar has changed his practices, she believes that, as with his suitcase, he will have come up with a password based on her name or nickname or birth date. She will try these when she is back home.

“And here is something else,” Gunilla says.

Knowing Aar, Bella is not at all surprised that he has entrusted the passwords to his Kenyan bank account to Gunilla. She has all the passwords to his euro accounts. Aar was in the habit of trusting people — and it is not out of character for him to have trusted Gunilla to wire funds to him in Mogadiscio, as credit cards did not work there. He needed an active account in Nairobi, where the children lived. Every now and then, he would telephone to wire transfer large sums from an account he held in Switzerland from the time he worked there or from another account in Vienna. He led a messy life, one that was trusting, loyal, and orderly in its own way. Bella once asked him how he could trust his accounts and all his secrets to others. And he responded, “Because secrets are not everlasting and you can trust most people with your money as they will take it upon themselves to honor the faith you’ve put in them.”

Bella can’t think of what to say. When there is time and the opportunity presents itself, she will ask Salif to tell her what he knows about these things. Salif acts more grown-up than most youths his age; his father trained him that way. He is self-confident, and his self-regard is of a high quality.

Gunilla says, “I would very much love to see Salif and Dahaba. No rush, though. There is all the time in the world.”

“It’d be inappropriate to do so now.”

Gunilla agrees. “We’ll arrange to meet in due time.”

“Once the legal matters have been settled.”

Gunilla says, “Very wise. Just like Aar.”

“Take care. We’ll be in touch,” Bella says.

“We will indeed.”