Chapter 13
The prison has a multitude of torture tactics designed to break the human mind. One of these tactics almost caused insanity in hapless Xemi, who had never lived in such conditions before, with small mice all around him.
The rodents, with free reign in a world with no mouse traps; their noises, and the fear of where they could end up placing their sharp, little teeth, tormented him to unbearable degrees.
He saw them daily, amazed he hadn't seen them for the first months he had been there. At night their pitter and patter kept him awake. During the day they ran in and out of their holes mocking him.
Xemi took to obtaining batteries to throw at them whenever he saw them. Every time they were walking slowly along the edges of the wall scoping out the territory, he would launch a battery at them. They always missed.
He tried to fool them by fake throwing. The motion at first would make them scatter, then they caught on that the false throw would yield nothing and didn't move. At that point he would launch it again but they always managed to evade it.
This little play amused him when he was alone. That and the catching of flies in order to tear their limbs and wings off. They tortured him, he tortured them. He had nothing better to do when the sun was directly over the well, taking away his ledge to watch the people.
He still was dumbfounded at the number of flies this country could produce. He started to think that there was a nest of fly eggs somewhere in his room but looked around and could find nothing. The legs of the insects on his skin would still make him jump but the sensation was losing its power. He was starting to get used to them.
Once, two boys came into his room - cousins who wanted to have a look. One was a neighbour with an exceptionally large forehead whose father owned the house behind his aunt's. The front of their house was a shop. The other boy he had seen before.
The first time he saw him he thought it was a pretty girl and stared at him as he was standing in the doorway. Only at this second visit did he realise he had been transfixed by someone of his own sex. The first time he had a wrap over his head but he recognised the face.
'Why did I think it was a girl?' Xemi asked himself. 'Was it just because of the wrap?'
This boy had a cockroach crawling on his naked skin. It crawled all over his ashy exposed leg and he felt nothing. Xemi watched it making forays from the ankle to the knees and marvelled at the boy's insensitivity. This boy with the makings of a woman could not feel the cockroach roaming all over him! He smiled thinking of the moment he would realise and freak out.
His friend next to him with the unusually large, square forehead was the first to notice and exclaim his revulsion. The pretty young boy just flicked the bug off in nonchalance with the words 'look how big you are and you're afraid of something so small?' Xemi dreaded the day he would be the same, when his skin would be nothing more than his skeleton's insensate wrappings.
At that point another boy came in, who had half a cigarette squeezed between his left ear and his skull. This place was an open house when the old folks weren't around. Anyone could just drop in. His name was Yasser and the mood changed a little when he entered.
They greeted him respectfully. He greeted them with the smile of a bully who recalls what he did to his victims as he sees them again. He tapped the pretty boy on the shoulder who flinched. The square foreheaded kid chuckled a little and looked down. His chuckle was more like a witch's cackle than a boyish chuckle, a cackle like Medea's on her dragons flying, laughing and crying at the same time. He then approached Xemi who took a closer look at him.
His white smile was the only thing clean about him. He had curly hair and was dark skinned. He had dust in his hair as well.
'Do these kids roll around in the dirt somewhere?' he thought to himself.
His hands were mangled and callused. Xemi feared no one but he could see this kid who was no older than fifteen was a problem child. His voice had the gravel of a heavy smoker. Maybe he would have bullied him too in that situation but Xemi was bigger than him so he saw him as possible entertainment.
After the first introduction he came around often. He explained that he was away to another village and that was the reason he hadn't come before. He was the son of Ali whéné, which meant big Ali. This was meant to be tongue in cheek because he was in actual fact close to being a midget.
In Somali culture, he gathered that names like this were common. Some defining attribute was chosen and that was tagged to the person's name. Mohamed san dèrè, big nose Mohamed.
Sharmarke èlké dèrè, Sharmarke big teeth. Mayloun inda yéré, Mayloun small eyes.
Xemi was familiar with Yasser's family because he used to live with people belonging to his immediate family in America so he gravitated to Yasser. He knew what tone to take with adults too.
Xemi's second expedition was with Yasser. This time they went to houses to visit people. Xemi took his coat with him as usual. It turned into a trip where he would enter the house, say hello and they would give him money for the grace of a visit. House after house it was the same.
'I brought the boy to say hello. This is so and so and she's your aunt.'
'Oh hi, hello, Xemi. Wait here,' and then they would come out with a wad of cash and give it to him. All were invariably women, with a twitch at the corners of their mouths when they saw Yasser, which Xemi noted in curiosity. He knew how to talk and did most of the talking with commonplaces and he knew what to say to make a quick exit. He seemed to know who to go to and Xemi asked him if he knew they were going to give him money. Yasser flashed a glittering smile and said anything could have happened.
'We're just going there to say hello. Everyone here wants to see you but not everyone can come to your house.'
'Why do they want to see me?'
'Because you're a blood relation.'
He had a feeling of deja vu as these visits reminded him of the visits he took with his father to relatives. Both involved him just being there like an ornament to display. At least this time he received something for it.
A tender feeling for Yasser was developing in Xemi as his cousin never asked him for anything. So what was he doing this for, Xemi wondered, but the thought left almost as quickly as it entered his mind.
He used the money to buy food. He didn't like all the food that was cooked at the house which tended to be flavourless for the most part. The food at the restaurants was better.
He sent his cousin Mahmoud to get it for him who first made the suggestion to him when he asked what he could do with money here.
It was usually a light turquoise coloured sauce with meat, potato and other things in it and sourdough bread. He adored this particular dish and dined on that for weeks with the money he got from these housewives.
Safia came to him one day and sat on his bed which was unusual.
'Can you stop going places with Yasser? Him and his friends go to places where no one is there and fuck each other. You want to do that too,' she said, rubbing her two index fingers together to signify anal intercourse. Funny, because she had used the same finger motions to signify kinship.
'I take no orders from you, you know that,' Xemi snapped at her.
Xemi was pleased he found an occasion to tell her to kick rocks. Safia never told him what to do because she knew he would never do what she told him to do. Now finally came the moment of superiority and he relished it.
He was slightly surprised because he thought Yasser had a good relationship with all the adults. Still of all the things to make someone repellent to another this is what she chose to tag him with. He was sure that she was lying and that she said that to make him stay in the house. Xemi laughed at the wild nature of the accusation.
Later that night he went again with Yasser to another house. This one was the pretty young girl's house from the first night. Her name turned out to be Deca. She wasn't pretty anymore with a major outbreak on her face. She was so excited to see them and ushered them in rapturously.
In this village everyone knew everyone and Xemi suspected these women told Yasser to bring him over. He wasn't bothered though and they went into a little back area, not the living room as usual.
They were sitting on little stools, Deca and Xemi, and were met by another girl, Deca's sister. She was young and prettier than her sister with a more voluptuous form and the kind of lips girls pay to replicate.
'Your mother must be beautiful,' Xemi told them.
Yasser sat on his haunches as there was no other stool. He did so like he was used to it.
'My gosh, you're getting bigger,' Xemi said while poking at her belly.
'Bad,' Yasser said, in admonishment.
He had become a guardian or chaperone to Xemi though Xemi was older, reprimanding him even at times.
'That's bad. You're not supposed to mention that in any way.'
Since she had degraded into someone unattractive Xemi felt the surge of confidence which led to liberties being taken.
'I'm married, what do you expect?' she said laughing, flushing a little at Xemi touching her belly. 'You want to meet my husband?' she added, her eyes sparkling. Her whole face shone with the pregnant glow. 'Come.' She grabbed his arm and they went into the living room.
A big dark skinned brolic guy was sitting with beads, mumbling prayers. He was the most muscular and good looking man he had seen there. 'So this is why she was so eager for me to see her husband,' he said to himself, grinning at the sight. He shook his hand in greeting.
Not much was spoken; his Somali was still so limited he needed someone to fill in the gaps and almost to speak for him. Usually Yasser did it but now Deca fulfilled that role. Xemi could sense her pride at this beautiful husband. He was a fisherman home for the season. His physique spoke of grisly manual labour.
After banalities like 'nice house', and 'wonderful choice of curtains,' Xemi made his exit.
They ran out of new houses and so returned to one they had been to before, the very first one. She was a young mother in her mid twenties. They entered and Xemi didn't remember what the relation was between them. They were seated in close proximity on tiny wooden benches in a corridor that was wider than his aunt's but smaller in length. It was cool and pleasant to be there.
'What is that fragrance you got on?' Yasser asked, looking directly in her eyes.
The woman was abashed slightly, her lashes fluttering more than before.
'It's a cream my husband found, brother. I don't know how or where he got it from,' she replied while dreamily caressing her exposed, lubricated skin.
'Yes, it's different.'
He never took his own eyes off hers and pursued without a break in conversational rhythm:
'Things never stay the same. How is the water in the vaults of yours? Mine is like a draught of poison, darkening every time we draw from it. It's starting to taste like the bottom of the river
Baramood, like sucking the dirty rocks slumbering in its bed,' he said, smiling, eyes smouldering still, emitting such intensity from such small eyes.
He looked at grown women, or adults in general with the unflinching, nerveless eyes of a hypnotist. When you can look someone in the eyes while you speak, while they speak, while no-one speaks, without breaking the connection, you become everyone's equal. Yasser learned this rule young.
His host was enraptured to hear a teenager speak like this and it energised her.
'Oh yes! Mine is so... difficult to swallow. The water is getting lower and lower; waiting all this time; it really is unending ! We have to get the water truck to fill it up soon. And I hate dealing with brutes ! They have the nails of animals.'
Yasser gave a polite chuckle of assent.
Xemi was bored of this. He could hardly follow what was being said and simply asked for money so they could be free to go. Yasser turned to him sharply.
'Bad. That is bad, Xemi. Be ashamed. Things are not done that way.'
Nevertheless the woman still gave Xemi some money after marking him with a glance that said 'I better not see your face here again'.
Xemi was cavalier about everything he did since he came to this country but after they left the house, each breath made him hotter, as shame, resonant, stinging, the type that needles you constantly, mortifying you, pressed his organs and then his soul.
Yasser's rebuke left a bad taste in his mouth because it was the type of rebuke one gives to children. Xemi got away with plenty of things in this village simply because people thought he was no different from a child that had to be indulged and reeducated. But he wouldn't be able to look people in the eye, let alone look down on them and their blood relation, if this continued. He liked his feeling of superiority.
Chapter 14
Xemi had noticed his suitcase was being ransacked. He thought he was missing some underwear. Then he thought he was missing some socks. Now he knew for sure that he missed a pair of trousers.
He was enraged and asked his cousin Mahmoud who raided his belongings. He swore ignorance and Xemi had no choice but to take his word for it. The house was an open sewer with the footfall of a low class brothel. The doors were never locked, and even going to the toilet was a risk.
He looked through his suitcase and found in a compartment what he was looking for. It was a drawing of Tamara as her lips were about to meet the Demon's.
So rent was he by the image of desire, joy and future torments that the words aroused, that he drew a picture of the scene in a moment of possession. He thought he was in love with Tamara, but now as he looked at her parted lips, he was unsure if he wanted to kiss her or the Demon.
Shaking off the tremors this drawing always evoked in him; trying to think of ways to prevent a thief from taking it, there was a knock on the back door. And then another one.
Each knock became louder, and then started to be pursued by frenzied little knocks and by the fourth bang someone shouted for Safia. This went on for a while and it was curious no one answered because Xemi knew Safia and Mayloun were both there.
He walked around the house seeing who was hiding where. He went into the master bedroom which was pitch black. The only thing he could see was the red curtain separating the bedroom from the living room. He felt his way around. He was sure his aunt was there hiding, holding her breath, playing a childish little game. He put his hand on the bed and felt something soft. He moved the thing around with his fingers and felt it shake. He continued to feel his way around and was met with a belated yelp. He realised he was fondling his aunt's breast.
'Hey now,' she said laughing. Some spirit must have directed his hand there and he didn't know whether to curse or exalt him. He decided that he was the one who had been molested.
She had really large breasts and Xemi had the distinct impression that she had let him run his fingers over her on purpose because she wanted him to touch her. The light was behind him so she could see him while she was hidden from his sight as his eyes had not adjusted to the darkness.
'Here she is. She's coming out now, one moment,' he loudly announced to whoever was at the door. Mayloun came out of her room cursing him as a demon.
Oh, he was delighted, so delighted. Safia came out of the bedroom now sweeping her hijab around her large body saying 'coming, coming,' in order to make more promises and excuses. The person at the door was an evident debt collector. And she was hiding in her room ! 'The money problems must run deep,' Xemi thought.
It was a merchant dealing in cloth. Safia always had the most colourful and expensive looking fabric on. She was flossing now thinking her brother was going to send more money. But that didn't materialise though her profligacy had continued until recently.
He had noticed that the food was getting lower in quality and volume. For breakfast, it came down to four diaphanous pancakes with rings in them made from the ladle used, with sugar on it. But he was used to more, overeating like a mad man just because he wasn't supposed to. In the evening it was deh karris which was a dish, pasta or rice, that was cooked with the sauce inside, rather than separate, to save on the sauce. The pieces of meat and potatoes got more scarce. He enjoyed witnessing the family in difficulty because it might mean that they could not afford to keep him there. The more time he spent there the more he felt his life prospects falling to ruin. He'd be a babbling idiot by the time he got back, afraid to say two words just in case he had developed an accent or a stutter might take the place of the words he could not remember. Common thoughts and inclinations that he was so used to did not see birth.
One day Safia had commented on his hair and he realised that he hadn't looked in a mirror for months, not since he had arrived. There wasn't a single mirror in his aunt's house and he was surprised that he had not noticed their absence, nor the desire to look within one. He was used to looking in the mirror every ten minutes at home. He agreed to this haircut more so because he was sure the barber had a mirror and he wanted to look at himself and spy any changes that had occured.
He was taken there by someone who had started to see him recently. He was a skinny, older guy in his early thirties with the most awful teeth. Not only were they jagged and crooked but they had the most repellent discoloration. Some of them had the black rot of irredeemable decay.
He spoke English, the type of English one learned from a dedicated British instructor as opposed to from television shows or a Somali guy mispronouncing things from an exercise book in English class. He liked to emphasize different parts of the words to make them sound as correct as possible. Sitting always cross legged he liked to present himself as sophisticated and maybe he was.
On the way, the chaperone walked like he was weighing things in his mind, with his mouth twitching in a nervous tic. He had a permanent animality about him because he could not comfortably close his mouth for long. His teeth were always on show.
Xemi felt uneasy.
'Let me hold that money,' he told him. Safia had given him the money for the haircut.
His face became pinched as his emotions wrestled within him and he stopped walking with a cry.
'No! I'll keep it. I'm here to take care of you.'
His eyes became softer to emphasise his feeling of responsibility.
Xemi didn't want to argue so left it at that. What's it to him? Still the feeling of uneasiness remained.
The barbershop was a small little shed, a beach chair and a barber who looked like a tramp. One eye was light and the other dark. His hair was mad scientist like. He knew Xemi's name for some reason. Maybe he was forewarned. Waving his scissors in the air he said:
'Yes, Xemi, sit down. You want a haircut ? Sit down, sit. I'll do it correctly.'
Xemi sat down as he continued his chatter. The mirror was cracked with a long almost perfect diagonal line from the top right to the bottom left. He looked at himself in the broken mirror with exhilaration. Letting his eyes survey his face all over, he couldn't help beam a large metallic smile, his braces glittering in the mirror. The barber thought that his incessant babble gave rise to the smile.
'Yes, yes, Xemi. This haircut will find you a wife.'
He was also beaming at his perceived success exposing a mouth with three teeth left cutting away with a greater flourish and flamboyance now.
Xemi however fell into the same river Narcissus did. He had darkened a little despite his best efforts to block the sun from his skin. His cheekbones weren't as visible as they used to be. The only mark on his beauty was the braces he was forced to wear. In his reverie he placed himself back home. He could get so many girls back home if he looked like this. But instead he's here trying not to get too close just in case control is lost and they end up pregnant. Then what? He's stuck there.
Xemi was broken out of his reverie by his escort saying he would be back.
'You better give that money before you go,' Xemi told him firmly.
'Don't worry I'll be back in a min-it,' he said in English, putting his body in a Micheal Jackson suspension pose as he was trying to get the emphasis on the last syllable. He walked away and as he walked away Xemi told the barber to take his money as he had a suspicion his escort was not coming back. The couple of times Xemi had spoken to him he felt a shadiness surrounding him. He lived with his parents and resented the pressure they put on him to sort his life out. Safia however liked anyone who called her auntie.
'You better take your money before he goes,' Xemi told the barber, bidden by morality and cleared his conscience.
'Huh, no, no, he'll be back, don't worry. By the way what's that in your mouth? Did you bite someone and they put that on you?'
Xemi explained to him what the braces were for and not long after he was done cutting his hair. Xemi looked at himself and hoped that guy would not come back with the money.
For one, the barber would go to Safia herself and get the money. The more money taken from that family the better. He wished to see them desperate. And two, because the haircut was diabolical.
He had only used the scissors because that was all he had and clearly went into the direction of wherever inspiration led him with no regard to what he was actually doing.
'Of course they had no clippers here,' Xemi lamented to himself. The hair was uneven but not in a stylish way and the hair was still long enough to be curly.
He hated it when his hair was curly.
'You're finished?'
'Yes, yes, beautiful. I'm done. Now where is that lad?'
Xemi wished him good luck and left. He knew the way well enough to go back by himself.
Later that day the barber came and told Safia the chaperone hadn't returned with the money. Her only comment was 'you can't trust anyone these days' and gave the barber some notes. Xemi wasn't surprised the guy took off. He was pleased at his developing ability to read people.
The next day Yasser came by.
'Do you have any blades? Any razors?' Xemi asked him. Yasser replied that he had. 'Ok, go get them and shave my hair off.'
Yasser smiled and minutes later came back with some razors. Yasser didn't ask any questions lest Xemi would be dissuaded. He really wanted to shave Xemi's head, an unusual thing to do in these parts.
They sat outside in the forecourt, in the little garden of stones, while Yasser shaved his head. Whatever hair that would come out would be at least symmetrical Xemi told himself.
'Did you cut my skin?'
Yasser replied in the negative.
'Allah, Yasser, boy what are you doing!'
Howa had appeared at the door threshold. Yasser was laughing and Xemi told her to pipe down and sweep the hair accumulated on the ground. She then sat down on one of the steps of the well to watch. Yasser finished quickly and Xemi said something about wanting a mirror.
'You want one, I have one,' Howa said in a singsong voice, laughing and muttering religious invocations at the way he looked as she walked into the house.
She went into her mess of a bedroom that was so cozy to be in, and brought a shard of glass. Of course she has a mirror, every girl has a mirror. Why didn't he think of looking at himself for so long, he mused. He looked into the shard of glass.
'You did slash me. More than once,' Xemi exclaimed as he ran his fingers over his bald skull, finding split skin with trickles of blood running from them. He liked the overall result. It would have looked weird if his face hadn't become as full as it did but it looked much better than what that barber did.
In the evening, his uncle came in and went into his bedroom, passing Xemi's room.
'Who shaved that boy's head?' he barked in a tone of displeasure to whoever would answer. Xemi laughed himself to sleep that night wondering what would be done to Yasser when his uncle found out who it was. Amusing to think he didn't ask Xemi why he did it but rather who it was that did it. He felt untouchable. He could do what he wanted and there would be no repercussions.
He recalled the drama when he had his hair braided in younger years. His father used to pester him daily calling him queer until he cut it off. What made matters worse was that they slept in the same room at the time so the pressure was incessant. He was dozing off.
'If braided hair signified homosexuality, what does a bald head signify?' he wondered, falling asleep as he thought about the possibilities.
Two days later he was sitting on the ledge and saw a kid who from a distance looked strange to him. As he came closer, what made him different became more apparent. Xemi gaped at him. The boy walking away had shaved his head. A mixture of emotions wrestled within him. Pride, wonder, amazement, conceit. One, however, overrode all others: bewilderment. What made him think, with a forehead like that, he could ever pull that look off?
Chapter 15
'It's a wedding. Time to dance! Go and call big butt!'
Mayloun lifted her light, brown house dress and did a little jig.
'Allah, Mayloun. Did you hear her, mother?' Howa giggled at her older sister's sudden outburst and dance. Mayloun lifted her dress to dance easier and show off her soft looking legs.
Xemi was on the threshold of his bedroom door, looking down the corridor to his left and saw her dance. She swayed her body from left to right, tapping her feet in a rhythm. If she lifted her dress a little bit higher she would have exposed the nether parts of her butt, and he would have been ready to burst. A microsecond later she put her hands on the floor where a dirty dark rag lay and started to wipe the floor with it.
He watched as she mopped the floor using her arms and hands as a mop stick, with her legs straight and unbent, guiding the rag across the stone floor. Every so often she dipped the rag in a bucket, with the filthiest of waters in it, squeezed some water out, and wiped the floor again with the rag.
'Her hands must be like jagged rocks, with her life being majority manual labour,' Xemi said to himself. Thinking of her hands calmed him, as the ghastliness of calloused hands on him was repulsive to think of.
Walking up to his ledge, someone called out to him.
'Xemi, are you okay, brother? Where is Mayloun? Can you call her for me, I beg you.'
Xemi looked up in surprise. It was a girl with a burkha and only her eyes were visible. Xemi recognised her voice. It was the one who came into his room with Mayloun when he was still lying in bed in the beginning. He hadn't seen her face the first time and now again he couldn't see her face. The familiarity of her voice induced a warm pleasant sensation into his being so he smiled at her. She let out a yelp.
'What's that on your teeth! My God!' she exclaimed in horror.
'It's nothing. Something to make me more beautiful,' Xemi told her in a playful tone.
'Does everyone where you are from have that?'
'No, just me.'
Xemi chuckled and went inside to get Mayloun. She was now sweeping the back area, where clothes were hung, next to the toilet. She had a bunch of straw strapped together in her hand and was again bending over, straight legged, knees unbent, sweeping the dust with long straws held together by a black band.
'She has a strong body to be able to hold that position for so long, day after day,' Xemi told himself.
'Psst.'
Mayloun looked up, her headwrap wonky, so one could see some of her hair. Xemi had not seen her hair before and left a question in the air as to why that would be. He gestured for her to come.
'You have a friend there,' Xemi told her.
She looked up and gave the impression that she recognised her friend immediately even with that burkha. As she came closer to the door and bypassed him, he saw her closer now than before, the sun illuminating her features.
She squinted her smaller than average Somali eyes in the brightness of the outside, with her lips slightly parted. They were dry but they were full. Everything about her was full. From her lips, to her face to her arms. And such a beautiful colour.
He brushed her bare arm softer than the petals of a rose as she went to the door. She didn't break her stride.
They were whispering something to each other for less than a minute and her friend left, saying bye to Xemi. Watching her walk away his intuition told him that she had large breasts, particularly for her frame.
Mayloun went to the back door and a little later Safia left, telling the girls to 'work on the house'. Xemi went inside as the sun was directly over the house now. He found the girl there with Mayloun and Howa.
She was holding court telling a story with Mayloun leaning against the wall with her arms crossed and Howa sitting on a stool. Both had their attention rapt looking at her. She had her face uncovered, her face veil was over the back of her head.
She was dark skinned, narrow faced with big eyes. She smiled a coy smile when she saw Xemi at the threshold. His hair grew back a little over the past days and in Howa's shard of glass he thought he looked good. Their guest did too, he was sure of it.
He approached them out of curiosity because he wouldn't usually go out of his way to talk to his cousins. They would come to him. She cut off whatever she was saying and approached him to shake his hand.
'I don't touch women unless it's sexually,' he said in English while shaking her hand.
The girl who wished to show off her worldliness by offering her hand looked dumbfounded but collected herself quickly and said:
'Don't mock me, brother, you know I can't understand. My name is Yasmine.'
Howa had a big grin on her face, Mayloun had an unfathomable look on her. From Yasmine, he sensed confidence.
'Show me your breasts,' he ordered.
He had never been that forward with women and wanted to try it out in a situation which would lead to nothing.
'God forbid,' Howa giggled during another invocation. His cousin really had a massive mouth and her smile was extraordinary. 'Yes, take them out,' she added.
'Hush girl why should I do that?' was the reply. She swayed a little squeezing her breasts with her biceps. Xemi thought he had the measure of this girl. She had a grown, independent vibe, who does what she wants even at the expense of stigma and exclusion.
Yasmine suddenly burst into song. His mouth dropped and he gaped at her. Was it the acoustics of the corridor ? He felt like his heart had stopped, and the blood flowed no more in his body.
Her eyes were on him while singing as with every note her being grew until the outside world's absorption and his own bewitchment was absolute, using her voice to play with him, like death plays with the soul in out of body experiences. He had no clue what she was saying but he didn't want to know, lest it spoiled the beauty of her song.
'Did she hit me with this so suddenly to stun me because I did the same earlier by speaking to her in English ? Whatever the motive, she won,' he said to himself, feeling like a cowed animal in the presence of a superior power.
Silence reigned for a second while the audience climbed out of stupefaction.
'Do you like it?' Howa asked still with a big smile, but disturbed a little too because of Yasmine's vocal ability. Perhaps it was the suddenness that amplified its effects.
'I love you,' he told Yasmine, all this time never once letting his eyes stray from her. She burst into cackling laughter and said she had to go. Her talking voice was nothing like her singing voice and it helped him to feel his body again. 'Lord, that hit me so deep,' Xemi reflected. He didn't know he was that sensual. He was even trembling.
Music to him had always been just a part of the social web that entangled him. He never liked it to the point of emotional connection, but rather he learned lyrics because everyone at school knew them. He liked it but he could live without it, and wouldn't miss it if lost forever. Somali music thus had no reason to exist for him, because it served no purpose in his social circles.
His father used to play tape after tape of Somali music in the kitchen when he was cooking while Xemi felt nothing but disdain for it. Now music in general held a different aspect to him. Even orgasms never hit him like this.
'Is she a singer?' Xemi asked Howa.
Her laughter became a devilish grin and said 'she is something alright.'
Xemi thought about his earlier judgement of her, which was dispelled by her performance. He understood a little.
'I wonder what she sang about ? Probably about the birds and bees,' he said, smiling to himself. Then he stopped still. 'Birds and bees...birds and bees...birds…' He dashed to the front and looked out. 'Can this be?'
Amazed, he stared at the sky, so amazed was he, that he completely forgot about the sun and he stood there, on the well, drenched in sunlight, searching all around him, trying to find what he could not.
'There are no birds,' he marvelled.
Every day subsequently he looked up, almost holding his breath, laying in wait like a hunter; but then he realised that he would never find one and he understood why: there were no trees.
Of course if you don't have enough trees, you have no birds, and he could recall seeing only one sparse little tree but no birds around it, only people looking for a pitiful piece of shade.
For some reason, though he wasn't fond of birds, and was even annoyed by them, he was disconcerted now, and at times, a shudder ran through him when he thought of their disappearance.
Then one day he found what he was looking for, or least, something similar.
As he walked in his room, just after the sun had covered the well, he heard the sharp flapping of wings and startled, turned around to see a dark bird flying past him, vanishing out of the door. It took him a moment to reconcile himself with the truth.
'Yes, that was a bat,' he admitted to himself. 'A bat!'
Xemi flashed a tremulous smile, shaking, for the thought of bats frightened him, and then his shaking increased when he realised that the bat must have been there at the same time as him, the whole morning, sleeping while he was awake, it could have been there the whole night, watching at the same time as he slept, and in his demented fright, reflexively putting his hand on his neck, shaking like he was about to have a fit, Xemi wished death on all things that fly, and wished never to see one again.
Chapter 16
Early morning and breakfast was being prepared. The same old white pancake with a little sugar and tea. There was no sauce with meat, just the pancake. Only four for Xemi and considering he got the most, the rest were making due with one or two each.
A noisy guest made himself heard at the back and announced himself with wishings of good health to everyone. Safia and Howa were in the kitchen and he was talking to Safia from the corridor, seated on his haunches.
He was going through the motions of small talk with the expertise of someone who manoeuvres through empty social conversation often, until it waned a little and he asked for a little breakfast, his hands covering his face as he wiped his face like there was something there. But nothing was there, only shame.
'Howa, take this to him.'
'But mother, what about us? I haven't eaten yet. There won't be-'
'Hush! Quiet! Girl! Hush! Do it now!' Safia had real menace in her voice, even as she whispered. Howa took a plate of pancakes and tea to him in a strop, banged it in front of him and went back to the kitchen. The visitor thanked the host in solemn tones of gratitude.
Howa came back with water to wash his fingers with. Xemi heard all this from his room, so the guest must have heard Howa resisting hospitality and being forced to obey.
'How embarrassing,' Xemi thought. 'This guy must be low enough to bear it though, as he asked for breakfast without it being offered.'
Xemi smiled a little at Howa's unbridled personality. She basically let this man know he was taking food out of other people's mouths.
He still had some money from the housewives he visited and sent Mahmoud for a little extra - for himself. The skinny lad always did what he was told. Xemi sensed a mingling of fear and admiration from him from the beginning of their acquaintance. He came back soon enough, hair dusty as usual - there was something about his hair that attracted an abnormal amount of dust - flashed a crooked smile and dropped the silver plates made of aluminium type material. He started eating and by the time he finished, Howa and Mahmoud were warring.
Mahmoud had come into the room in full flight and tried to hide behind the curtain next to his bed. He hardly ever slept there. Howa followed with a clothes hanger. Xemi pointed to where he was to save her the hassle of searching. She grabbed the curtain. Once he saw her his eyes began to water and he began balling, begging her to leave him alone.
Xemi was wondering why there was a curtain there when there was nothing behind it, while Howa was hitting her older brother like he was her son.
'Why on earth would there be a curtain there? There was no purpose to it. Would they put it there for strictly decorative reasons?' he asked himself, bemusedly.
Howa left her brother in a screaming heap, flung threats at him, daring him to do something again and took the plates Xemi had in front of him away, breathing heavily. Mahmoud mumbled some curse at her. She swung around.
'What? What did you say?' she said, advancing towards him.
'He called you an animal,' Xemi told her. She spit on him.
'Ugh, why here?' Xemi yelled. 'I better not smell anything.'
'Allah, Howa, leave me,' Mahmoud wailed.
'I dare you to keep on rattling your tongue,' she rasped at him and walked out.
'Haha you're such a coward. I can't believe you're older.'
His face turned from supplicant to disgusted while his voice turned from tremulous to scathing, muttering obscenities as he looked at the bubbling spit on his shirt. Xemi surveyed his cousin's mannerisms which were feminine and thought he would turn into a wife beater when married.
'Look at this ! Wallahi, billahi you'll pay !' he yelled like a grandstanding oracle, a prophetic figure, waving his finger at the entrance of the house with the sun at his back, and then stormed out the house. Xemi saw a flash of red as Howa ran to get him but he was out of the house already.
'Demon,' she muttered as she came back in fixing her headwrap, eventually snatching it off to release her long black hair.
'She treats her older brother like she's raising him,' Xemi mused, but with Howa's hair now intruding on his musings. Her hair was much longer and softer than he imagined.
He noticed something in the corner wiggling. It was a mouse on its back, stuck to sticky glue put there by someone. Xemi was spellbound. He had never seen a mouse in close quarters.
The colour of its fur was light brown, its cuteness melted you. Its heart was beating violently, so violently that Xemi thought it would have a heart attack. He moved back and the creature immediately, visibly, breathed easier, slower. He then came closer to see the effect and saw his chest again stretched by riotous heartbeats.
He paused to decide what to do. It couldn't be left there in that state lying on its back, he wasn't going to touch it and he wasn't going to kill it.
Mulling over this dilemma, he walked out the room to see who was there and saw his uncle ready to go with his cane in his hand. He beckoned him over to show him the mouse. He looked at it, went into his pocket, took out a tissue, bent down, grabbed the mouse forcefully, ripping it off the floor, pieces of skin still on the glued ground and tightened his grip ready to dispose of the throbbing, tortured body.
Aghast, Xemi made a motion of protest, but his uncle had no time for that, said it was 'dirty' in English, it was 'no good' and threw it towards the rocks. He barked to his family that this house was filthy and it had to be cleaned properly then walked out of the house.
Xemi stood there stunned out of his senses. Heartless. His uncle had ripped the mouse off the floor with no second thought. Ghastly business.
'That living creature squirming in his hand, he felt it, did he crush it to death in his palm? In his hand ?!'
He came to a point where he hoped the mouse was in fact crushed by his uncle's hand because he would be suffering now if he hadn't been. Everyone must be the same here. How much longer before he became like that too?
'Sooner or later,' Xemi thought.
Why would his father leave him in a place like this? Xemi was adamant that his father would not crush a mouse in his hand so what would be the purpose of his integration here?
'Should I become debased and violent and then I'll win reprieve? No edification could be attained here, only debasement.'
He recalled his father's disdain for this place and concluded that his mother's death must have affected his senses. When dealing with someone not in their right mind what would the approach be? Follow instructions induced by madness or wait until the madness passes?
Xemi had hoped that he would get out of there someday soon but that dwindled to nothing.
'This waiting game will lead to a plot, tombstone and inscription in a local cemetery in this land,' Xemi determined. He had to do something himself. Maybe he could reach some embassy or reach out to someone there for help. Who and where ? He weighed his options, surveyed his surroundings in his mind.
'There is no way out of here,' Xemi concluded. Not through his own forces. There are barriers erected everywhere by this family and he himself knew nothing about this place. His pigeon Somali was ridiculous and he would get nowhere if he ran for it. All he could do was wait and see how long madness lasted for.
