Hiding in Plain Sight

12

Bella is exhausted when she returns home. She has an atrocious pain in the lower reaches of her pelvis, which, for want of a better explanation, she ascribes to her terrible posture as she drove back to Aar’s house from Gigiri, pitched forward as if that would somehow make her go faster. She parks the car and, stepping out, places one hand on her back, pressing it hard, and the other on her midriff, squeezing it. It doesn’t help. This, she guesses, is the price she pays for not taking good care of herself and not adequately resting for the past few days. She also ascribes some of it to the overwhelming grief over her loss, and the worry, and the exhaustion from all this travel, and the dislocation, and the determination not to display any signs of the stress to Valerie and Padmini. Finally, she blames all the driving around she has had to do looking for a camera store and then negotiating the price down, which in the end was not worth all the bother.

There is no denying too that her unceasing thoughts about the children and their continued presence in her mind and life have contributed to her general anxiety. Good as they have been with her, she senses a chasm in her knowledge about them. They have not yet truly tried her patience, but in time, she knows, they will. The gap between what she knows about them and the things she has yet to know reminds her of something Aar said to her about Somalis and their relationship to their language. Somali remained an oral language for a long time, acquiring a written form using Roman script only toward the end of 1972. Aar argued that those who had known the language only in its spoken form felt a great disconnect between the tongue they spoke and the one they were beginning to learn to write. Bella perceives such a lack in what she knows about the children, but she can’t quite identify what she is missing. She also has few close friends here to provide her and the children with additional support and someone to fall back on. It would be a different story in Rome, where she has a host of old friends. Still, meeting Gunilla, whom she not only likes but also finds impressively competent, has cheered her. The woman knows her way around Nairobi, knows how things work here. She is sure to cultivate Gunilla’s friendship, in whom she sees a link with Aar, someone both of them loved.

Bella brings in the bags of groceries she has bought but leaves the carryall containing Aar’s personal effects in the trunk of the car when she parks. Before bringing them in, she wants to know what the state of affairs is here.

She remembers she has no key and rings the bell at the same time as she knocks hard with her knuckles on the solid wooden door. But there is no answer. A worried second later, she thinks she should have called from the shopping mall to alert them when to expect her. Then her instinct leads her to lean heavily on the door and turn the handle in an instant of optimism. And the door opens. Now all sorts of worries invade her mind: Have they forgotten to lock it in the first place? Have burglars broken the door or somehow found their way in? And given that there is no one downstairs, she allows other fears to prey on her thinking until she hears the soft whirring of the fan of a computer coming from upstairs and then an instant later a faint human humming, most likely Dahaba singing along with one of her favorite tunes.

Laden with the shopping, she closes the door gently, not wanting to frighten Dahaba. In the kitchen, her gaze falls on a heap of dishes, saucepans, and utensils piled up in the sink, still waiting to be washed. Evidently neither Valerie nor Padmini helped clean up the breakfast mess before leaving — unless they are still upstairs with Dahaba or Salif. Bella’s mind now retrieves a memory pertinent to the occasion: Aar saying he had three children to look after.

She opens the fridge, in which there are half-eaten packets of sweets and a couple of cans of half-drunk soft drinks. Another empty can is abandoned on the windowsill. She puts away the groceries, pours herself a glass of water, and sits at the kitchen table, which is equally messy. After a couple of sips, she gets up and empties the fridge of the abandoned items, wipes the surface of the kitchen table, and discards the empty can. Then she sits back down, feeling instantly less exhausted. She calls out to Salif and Dahaba, and when they welcome her back, she suggests they come down and help her prepare a light midday meal.

As Bella seasons the chicken she has brought, Dahaba is the first to speak as she shows off a silver bracelet her mum bought for her. “Isn’t this the most gorgeous thing you’ve ever seen, made, of all places, in Mogadiscio?”

“Made in Mogadiscio?” questions Bella.

Dahaba assures her that the Indian jeweler who sold it to them swore it was handmade in Tangaani, an arts-and-crafts place in Mogadiscio. Excited, Dahaba jumps around in joy.

Bella corrects the place name. “Shangaani in Mogadiscio.”

Because Salif remains silent, Bella asks, “And you?”

He sounds dismissive of the whole exercise, and then, when least expected, he says, “Same boring stuff, as always. You are unhappy, you are bored, Mum buys you a present. You see, I didn’t want to ask her, or either of them for that matter, questions about their life, but I hoped they would bring me into their life, what it is like to be where they are, what makes the two of them tick. What do you get? Presents. A new iPhone, if you want.”

Bella can’t think of what to say so she doesn’t even try to reason with him, maybe because he has a point, his point, the point of a teenager who meets his mum and who wants to be no longer thought of as a child.

“And he was rude to Mum,” Dahaba says.

Bella asks, “Rude? Why rude? How rude?”

“She gave him cash,” Dahaba says, “since Salif wouldn’t accept a present from her. And he threw the money back at her, in full view of everyone.”

“Then what happened?”

“We left and took a taxi home.”

Bella feels powerless to do anything about what happened and she is at a loss for words. And of course, she understands that Salif was hurt and had the right to feel that way. She senses the best thing to do is to leave things the way they are and revisit them another time. And with no one speaking, Bella deliberately lets the subdued manner dominate, convinced that something of monumental significance has occurred during her absence.

Dahaba says, “It was just terrible.”

Salif, surprising Bella, comes to the rescue. He goes over to where Dahaba is standing and he hugs her to him and he says, “Nothing to worry about. I told her she is welcome to visit whenever she pleases, didn’t I?”

“That was sweet of you,” says Dahaba.

“See. Nothing to worry about.”

A phrase from Samuel Beckett, “a stain on silence,” springs to Bella’s mind as she thinks how best to move on.

Salif again comes to the rescue. He is adept at changing the thrust of a conversation, helping to veer it away from controversy. He says, “Let’s help put the groceries in the fridge and then let’s prepare a light lunch.”

While he puts the shopping in the fridge, Bella, happy to do so, chops onions and puts them to brown in a frying pan then begins slicing mushrooms. Something tells her that there is something else brewing — and that Salif is not the culprit, the author of whatever devilry they’re not telling her about. He is staring at his fingernails, grinning in triumphant mischief, and Dahaba, nervous and dying to say something or revisit a scene, bites hers to the quick. Salif and Dahaba are looking away from each other in a bid to avoid eye contact. Bella will give them a few minutes, and if neither tells her something, only then will she ask. She pretends that everything is okay and stirs the mushrooms and onions, then adds spinach to the pan. She turns the chicken over, poking it with a fork. She washes the salad thoroughly, making sure there is no sand in it.

To keep Salif busy, Bella asks him to please make the dressing and, to this end, hands him half a lemon, some mustard, balsamic vinegar, and oil. He gets down to business, enlisting Dahaba to crush some garlic and find the pepper grinder. They all fall silent, but Dahaba can’t seem to relax; she seems to need to say more about last night. “How dare they do it here, in our house?” she bursts out.

Bella says to Dahaba, “What is it? Tell me.”

But Dahaba won’t speak, it seems, until she receives the go-ahead from Salif. Bella plays the waiting game. Finally Salif gives his sister the signal, subtly indicating that she can go for it.

“I came upon them doing it,” Dahaba says.

Bella acts as if she doesn’t follow.

Unbidden, Dahaba continues, “The door ajar, their noise breathy, you know, and their bodies shapeless. Does that make sense to you?”

“Why did you come downstairs last night?” asks Bella.

“I was hungry,” Dahaba says.

“Did you find something you could eat?”

“I couldn’t bear the thought of eating anything after seeing them.”

“You are not making sense.”

“I was no longer hungry; I was angry and returned to my room.”

“I can’t make sense of what you are telling me.”

There is no look sadder than the look of innocence in ruins, Bella thinks, as Dahaba sits apart, sadly remembering the scene involving her mother last night.

Then Salif says to Bella, “Then she came to wake me.”

Abandoning the making of the dressing, he joins Dahaba where she is because he can’t bear the thought of his sister being so sad; in this moment, he is in a protective mood, and he caresses Dahaba’s hand reassuringly, as if saying to her that all will be well. They are in a world of their own, a world to which Bella has no access. This is the chasm in her knowledge about them, the gap in her understanding of them — the cause of her anxiety, her exhaustion.

“Did you go down to see for yourself?” asks Bella.

“Of course not,” Salif says.

“He didn’t have to,” says Dahaba.

“I know what is what,” he says.

“You do, eh?” says Bella.

“And have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge too.”

“I needed to speak of what I saw,” Dahaba says.

“I can see that,” Bella tells her.

“I felt lost.”

“I understand.”

A sudden wildness enters the look in Dahaba’s eyes. And she bursts out, “How dare they do it here, in my father’s house? How dare they, so soon after his passing?”

“What did Salif say when you told him?” asks Bella.

“He didn’t want me to disturb his sleep.”

“I bet that upset you too,” comments Bella. She catches a ghost of a smile around Salif’s mouth. “Up in Lapland, little Laps do it”—the line comes to her, unbidden, and she finds herself grinning too.

Bella dishes out the food and they all sit to eat.

Years ago, she remembers, Salif used to delight in hiding Dahaba’s favorite toys and then telling her that burglars had taken them away. After she had cried her heart out, Salif would give them back, claiming to have saved them from the thieves. One April Fool’s Day when Valerie was out for the afternoon, Salif gave Dahaba a fright. Pretending to be weeping, he told her that he had just received the sad news that their mother had died in a car accident. When Valerie returned to a hysterical Dahaba, Salif laughed it all off, saying, “Don’t you know it was just a prank?” Nowadays, whenever he tells her a fib, Dahaba retorts, “You can’t fool me; it’s not the first of April.”

Bella says, “But what is it that happened today?”

Dahaba says, “Because he knew about it.”

“Darling, you are not making sense,” Bella says. “What did Salif know? Tell me from the beginning and do it slowly so I can follow you.”

Bella reasons that Dahaba is a tabula rasa girl. Assuming that what she knows is known to others, she always begins stories somewhere in the middle.

Salif steps in. “Dahaba came to my room, upset at what she had seen. She woke me up. I told her to let me sleep. She wept. Unable to go back to sleep, I told her about a YouTube video our cousin Dhimbil had come upon and forwarded to me. It shows Mum and Padmini in some compromising positions. So there we were: Dahaba upset with Mum and Padmini; and Dahaba furious with me because not only wouldn’t I wake up and hear her out but I also hadn’t shared what I knew about Mum and Padmini. That is the long and short of it.”

“Yes, I was angry that he hadn’t shown me the YouTube,” says Dahaba.

“I meant to spare her the agony of knowing,” says Salif.

“I’m not a baby,” Dahaba protests.

Salif says, “With some folks, you can never win.”

“Listen to him gloating,” says Dahaba, getting angrier.

For a while, they eat their meal in silence, even though Bella fancies she can hear the thoughts turning in their heads. It doesn’t rain in this household, she thinks, it pours.

Bella says to Salif, “You still haven’t told me how you got into a row with your mum? What was that about?”

“Mum came into the row later,” Salif says.

“How do you mean, later?”

He replies, “Dahaba told Mum how upset she was over seeing them doing it. Mum tried to explain things to her calmly. Everything was cool until Padmini had the gall to refer to Dahaba as an evil little ghoul roaming the house in the night in hopes of finding fault with how the world works.”

“Then what?”

“Then I lost my cool.”

“Did Padmini use those words?” Bella asks.

“No,” Dahaba says.

“Be a good boy and tell it in her words.”

Salif speaks with care and precision. “She described Dahaba as an evil owl wandering in the darkness on the pretext of locating what evil there is in the world we inhabit.” He seems pleased with himself, his attitude that of someone who has passed an endurance test. Dahaba nods her head in support of him.

“Imagine thinking I am evil,” she says.

“You’re not evil and you know it,” Bella says.

“An evil owl,” Dahaba says.

Bella assures Dahaba, “You are a wonderful girl, and you do not possess even an iota of wickedness.”

Dahaba shrugs. “Why did they blame me?”

“Maybe they were shocked themselves,” Bella says. “You mustn’t take any of this to heart. These sorts of misunderstandings happen in families, but you have to let them go.”

“It’s all Mum’s fault,” Salif says.

“How so?” asks Bella.

“She didn’t have to stay with Dad,” he says. “And it would even have been okay if she left him for a woman. But couldn’t she have partnered with a woman good enough for us to accept into our family? She chose a basement bargain! And you know what they say, you get what you pay for.”

Bella knows she can’t afford to comment.

Dahaba says, “Padmini should’ve stayed on the couch where we left her. You took the trouble to make it up for her.”

“Or the two of them should’ve shown patience until they were in their own private hotel room,” Salif says. “Even cigarette packets carry warning signs.”

Is he trying to be hilarious? Bella thinks, taking a mouthful. But she keeps mum. She must let them speak their minds.

Dahaba now says, “After they went to jail for it, you would think that they would be more careful the next time.”

“I’ve nothing against Mum going gay,” Salif says.

Dahaba says, “It just gave me a shock, seeing them and all.”

Bella looks at one and then the other, and speaks with extra caution. “In much of Africa, being gay is considered an abomination. I hope you are more advanced in your own views and are more tolerant of other people’s choices. What people do and who they do it with is their own private affair.”

“I agree with you on that score,” Salif says. “But there is a but.”

“Let’s hear it,” says Bella.

“You must tell the truth, no matter the fallout,” he says. “Why lie and say that Padmini is like a sister to her when it is clear there is something else going on. You see what I am saying?”

Bella does. Indeed, she is astonished to find that he is thinking just as she thought.

“What about you, Dahaba, darling?” says Bella.

“I am not against her being gay,” says Dahaba slowly.

“But you were shocked,” Salif reminds her.

“Because I didn’t expect to come upon them,” she says. “And because Padmini called me evil.”

“And what do you think now that a little time has passed?” Bella asks.

But Dahaba is unwilling to say.

“What’s your position, Auntie?” says Salif.

Dahaba says, “Auntie lives in Europe, where they accept such behavior, where they tolerate it.”

“What are you saying?” Salif challenges Dahaba.

“In Europe, being gay is no big deal.”

“Why don’t you let Auntie answer?” he says.

Bella says, “People everywhere should be in a position to make their God-given choice and to be with those they choose to be with. We Africans lag behind the rest of the world, and we waste valuable energy putting our noses in people’s private lives. We have no business there.”

“Did living in Europe change your views,” Salif asks, “or are those the views you held before you left Africa?”

“I’ve always appreciated differences,” Bella says. “My mother had a lot to do with that. She appreciated the things that set people apart. She was never one for monotony.”

“Why are most of us so wrong about this?” Dahaba asks.

“We are ill informed about the world, ill educated, intolerant of the views of others when they do not agree with ours,” Bella says. “We are undemocratic, just like our governments. But sex is a personal matter that our societies and governments have no business with.”

The children are proud of her strong statement, she can tell. Especially Dahaba, who makes as though she might applaud.

Salif says, “Have you ever fancied women?”

“Never,” Bella replies.

“Not even tempted?” Dahaba asks.

“Never.”

Salif asks, “Did it ever cross your mind that our mother was inclined that way before you discovered it to be the case?”

“You never know what you know until you come to know that you know it,” Bella says. And then she gets to her feet and starts gathering the plates.

“Auntie is smart, isn’t she?” Dahaba remarks.

“Smart in her evasiveness,” Salif says.

Bella adds the plates to the mess in the sink. But she doesn’t speak of the tedious business of dishwashing. Instead, she says, “Any plans for today?”

“We’d like to visit Auntie Fatima and Uncle Mahdi and their children,” Dahaba says.

“I can you take there.”

“Can we sleep over?” asks Dahaba.

Bella thinks that Aar would not object. And she would love to see his dear friends again too.

“I’ll ring them,” Dahaba says. “And then we’ll do the dishes.”

Salif says, “We’ll make our beds.”

Bella goes up to her room to collect the presents she has brought for them. She has always wanted to share her knowledge of photography with them and regrets that she never found the time until now. She brings down two identical digital cameras, each with a manual. But Bella shows them the basics herself, along with a few shortcuts she knows.

“Can we show them to Zubair and Qamar?” says Salif.

“Of course you may.”

Dahaba takes a selfie and says, “How exciting!”

Everything is quiet, save for the clicking sound of Dahaba taking photos, now of Bella or Salif, now a selfie, and now of objects around the room. She is getting more excited by the second. But Bella’s mind has gone in a very different direction. She is imagining Death entering the scene again, depriving her and others of those they love. She remembers reading Roland Barthes’s prophetic answer to an interviewer: “If photography is to be discussed on a serious level, it must be described in relation to death.” She remembers vaguely that Fatima was having a medical procedure. What kind of procedure? she asks herself now. It is not the type of question to put to Dahaba at this very moment when she is enthralled with capturing life. She will ask Salif when the two of them are alone; maybe he will know. She says to Dahaba, after she has taken yet another photograph of her, “Now what did Auntie Fatima and Uncle Mahdi say when you rang the house?”

“They said we are most welcome,” says Dahaba.

“Only for an afternoon visit or for a sleepover?”

“Sleepover,” Dahaba insists.

“I want to hear one of them confirm it,” says Bella.

“Would you like to ring them now?”

“There is plenty of time before we go.”

Dahaba practices with the cameras a bit more, taking photos of Bella, then of Salif. They pose in ones and twos, and then take a selfie of all three of them.

Bella starts on the dishes. Salif, unasked, puts away his camera and begins to dry the plates. Bella remembers wanting earlier to tell him about not leaving the door open the way she found it when she came in with the shopping. But she is content to talk about this on another occasion. And, with him helping, they are soon done.

Bella leads the children upstairs and they help each other to make the beds, to turn off their computers, to draw the curtains, to put the wet towels on racks, and to flush the toilets. Then Dahaba and Salif pack their shoulder bags with a change of clothes and their toothpaste and toothbrushes. Dahaba gets Uncle Mahdi on the phone to confirm that she and her brother are welcome to stay the night.

Bella makes a call of her own in the privacy of her room: She telephones HandsomeBoy Ngulu, the lover who lives in Nairobi. They chat briefly, the first time they have spoken since her arrival. Of course, he has heard the tragic news, and he offers his condolences.

“If you are free this evening, maybe we can meet,” she says.

As soon as the words leave her mouth, alarm bells of worry ring in her head. She wonders if she is ready to meet a lover so soon after her brother’s death. But her heart’s quickened pace at the thought of it is pleasurable too. They agree to meet in the café of the Nairobi Serena, a five-star hotel.