Chapter 17
Time passed in abject monotony until an apparition came before him. Xemi did not believe his eyes. He looked up and saw his father in the doorway. What does this mean? Just as he was thinking of ways out and coming up with nothing but doom....
His heart lifted.
'Does this boy have his number?' the man asked, staring at Xemi lying on his bed.
Instantly Xemi was crushed by disappointment.
Whoever Xemi had been looking at looked like his father's perfect replica except with wilder eyes; eccentric like a charlatan or a stylite.
Safia from the corridor replied to him in the negative and the man stared at Xemi for a little while longer. He then came into the room, sat next to Xemi and said:
'Hey, uncle,' (it is customary that when spoken to by relatives of preceding generations, that they refer to you by their relation to you, uncles call their nephews uncle, mothers call their children mother) 'how are you? I'm your uncle. You don't have your father's number by any chance? I need to talk to him about business. I have just come from a place and some news met me. They're coming to look for oil ! Fortunes could be made. You don't have his number do you?'
He spoke in a high pitched voice, strained from an adulthood full of raised voices in the desert struggling with camel herding. His face up close had the waves of a lifetime in the sun, leather skinned and loose. Xemi had the unnerving sensation that he was speaking to a lunatic. He told him that he didn't have it and his uncle promptly left.
'Why don't I have my brother's number?' he asked loudly. 'There should be some law that makes brothers reachable to one another.'
He wore a scarf and wrapped it around him as he made his exit. Safia called him back and Xemi could see her handing some money to him. Xemi hadn't slept well the night before. There had been a racket in front of the house that he attributed to a donkey's bray. Why anyone would leave a donkey to roam about at night was beyond him.
The lack of sleep and the acquaintance with his uncle left his mind in a surreal state. His resemblance to his father, the disappointment that it wasn't him, the nervous, almost frantic energy which flowed out of his uncle jolted him out of his disappointment like a shock restores consciousness.
He was glad his uncle didn't stick around because he had an air of unpredictability and Xemi didn't like that. 'He must look like me too,' Xemi thought, since he looked like his father.
It was good to be on the same wavelength. Xemi hated a family talk based on the trivial making of 'acquaintances' because one is related through some bloodline. His uncle wanted something, Xemi didn't have it, and he made his way out.
'Good. We are strangers, who have never seen each other before and don't know one another. Why engage and prolong a meeting with no substance because of a shared gene pool? We are similar in that way,' Xemi mused, notwithstanding the blood that tied them.
Safia came back in with more energy than usual and exclaimed that that person was her brother, Xemi's uncle. Xemi could sense the pleasure she had in seeing her brother again.
He gathered that they didn't see each other much.
'Do you have the same father and mother?' he asked, not knowing the word for parent.
'No, only your father and me have the same mother and father,' she said proudly. 'Your father, I used to beat him,' she said laughing a little as she sat down.
Xemi smiled at that.
She started listing the names of her brothers and sisters. Then she listed a more curious thing. She listed the names of her paternal ancestors. Starting with her father, then grandfather and so on until she reached the head of the tribe, the subsequent name of the tribe, which began hundreds of years in the past. She listed them as if it was her duty to remember them and recite them at a moment's notice.
'Can you read and write?' Xemi asked her after his amazement at her history lesson had worn off. 'How do you write your name?'
'My name? It goes uhhmm..'
She spelled her name but searched for each letter like it was a childhood detail, using her fingers to strike each letter off.
'She can't read or write,' Xemi realised. 'No wonder she knows the names of her ancestors. It's not written down. To her, all history is oral history.'
'What were those names again?' he asked her. She listed the names once again.
'So Mohamed, then Ahmed, then Mohamed again?'
'No. Ahmed, Mohamed and then Ahmed.'
'Oh okay. Ahmed, Mohamed and...Ali you said?'
'No, it's Ahmed,' and then stopped noting Xemi on the verge of laughter. 'What would you be without these names,' Safia added enigmatically, and waved her hands in a dismissive gesture like he would be nothing without them.
Xemi burst out in laughter.
'Where indeed. I have another question for you,' Xemi said suddenly. He had recalled something his father had told him once. 'How old are you?'
She shrugged her shoulders and said she didn't know. He had been astonished when his father told him years ago that he didn't know his own age. Now asking his sister and her nonchalance in answering the question made him feel a cultural split.
'What about Howa and the others?'
'Oh! She was born on..'
He figured as much. Their generation and the ones before had no use to record dates of birth and the new generation was the first. He supposed this was because of the new globalism and Western culture leaning on Somali culture. He bet his cousins still didn't celebrate their birthdays however. That will be a pleasure destined for the next one.
The thought of why birthdays were celebrated flitted through his head. It's a joyous celebration for one culture and for the next it wasn't even important or special enough to record. He wondered if Safia recorded the day that her mother died. Or if and when a memory entered her mind a period of mourning began.
His aunt was looking at him strangely now. He was lying down on the bed and she was sitting on the other bed. Xemi wondered what was going through her head. Looking at her, he still couldn't believe he was related to her. Dark, massive, ugly, what resemblance did they have to one another. She didn't even look like her brother. The one sister he had who lived in Kenya bore a more striking resemblance. The uncle he had seen today, and the other two, in bone structure, looked like triplets, but only shared a father. He had never seen his grandparents and now was curious as to what they looked like. There was no doubt that Safia resembled her mother and his father resembled her father.
'We need to find someone to get those things out of your mouth,' Safia told Xemi.
'Kill me first,' was his reply.
She left after that.
He was staring at the wall when the lights came on, signalling five pm. He had no clue what day it was or what year. The only reason he had an impression of the passing of time was the sunrise, sunset, and the electricity coming on every day at five pm and turning off at eleven pm. One day blended with the other.
Horror created tingles in his body at the thought of years having passed and he wasn't even the wiser. He conjectured that it must have been around eight months since he had been here. But that was guess work as it could have been one year or six months for all he knew. He had to have a marker to gauge his ongoing time in exile.
Eight months he chose and he felt despair that almost a year had passed and no change was apparent. Only comments about his braces which indicated a permanent stay here.
'Maybe I should reconcile myself to staying because there was no way out.' As thoughts like these anguished him, son of Harragodhe entered.
'Wassup,' he greeted, his mouth forming into the extravagant O.
Xemi smiled because something about son of Harragodhe was always comical. He had the appearance of acting in some comedy play, where the audience was in on it.
'You wanna go out and walk around?'
'Why not?'
Chapter 18
'Come, let's go into this shop. I think this family has some relation to you,' Xemi was told.
The basic architecture of this shop resembled every other building next to it as usual in this communist type village. The inside however displayed the wares of capitalism. From coca cola to twinkies, the American dream was on display.
To those inside, Xemi's smile was that of greetings, but he smiled at the realisation of why he was brought there by the chubby faced son of Harragodhe. He wanted a free snack. He had trouble maintaining his smile of civility when he saw the patron because he almost reeled in stupefaction.
The man was a skinny guy, erect, sitting behind his desk, for there was no counter or anything resembling a modern shop in this place. The products were exhibited on three shelves behind a desk and then on the floor but the desk was only in front of a small part of the products. The rest were lined up on the left hand side of the back wall openly accessible but the air of the shop gave the impression self service was off limits.
The shopkeeper himself was the most extraordinary looking person Xemi had ever laid eyes on. He had growths all over his body of sizes that varied from marbles to baseballs.
The growths ran from the top of his forehead with some on his ears and on every exposed part of his body. His hands also had growths on them. These growths were not even inflamed. They were the color of his skin, dark greyish, with the biggest growth hanging like a pendant from his chin.
This elephant Man figure was the stuff of nightmares but Xemi hoped he had shown no outward sign of any shock or disgust. He wanted to scream in amazement but some angel kept his excitement down to a raised heartbeat.
He shook his hand as he was introduced as an uncle to him. He and Xemi's father were first cousins. The man's palm had no growths and Xemi thanked God for that. Xemi felt like he was sitting in front of a fantastic alien. His giddiness was expressed in his smile which would not let up.
'Get them a drink. What would you like, a sprite? Two sprites,' he told a boy that was sitting there next to the shopkeeper.
'I want a coke,' son of Harragodhe piped up within a fraction of a second after the elephant man had spoken.
The shopkeeper looked at him sharply, his largest boil dangling from his chin and another one from his eyelid coming to life as well, preventing him from fully opening his left eye.
'Look how quick he is ! One coke for the son of Harragodhe. Do you know Xemi, I was there the night you came. I had to leave early and had no chance to see you. I saw your dad afterwards however. Yes, we grew up together,' he said wistful in reminiscence, ruffling through his thin but long beard, which he had grown for embellishment. When he stroked his beard he ended up stroking the boil hanging off his chin instead. Shudders ran through Xemi.
He spoke in a jerky, shrill voice; fast but broken up in several places which made Xemi believe this man had a huge reserve of nervous energy. This excess created a tic that made some words stick in his throat and he would force it out in a screech. Xemi marvelled at this man. The queerness of the shopkeeper made Xemi talk more than usual under these circumstances.
'Is that right? I remember that night. I could not forget it if I wanted to.'
The shopkeeping uncle let out a little laugh.
'Yes. We take some tiiime getting used to.'
He had let out a screech in the middle of 'time'. Xemi hadn't maintained a smile for this long since he was high off cannabis when he couldn't control his face. He laughed a little but suppressed it because he didn't want to offend anyone with his laughter and make them think he was laughing at anyone in particular. He was laughing at the shopkeeper's use of the word 'we'. We? No kidding ! That sly humour delighted him.
'Who is this boy? Is this your son?' Xemi asked him. He was told it was his son.
'Who on earth would give him a son?' His smile widened to improbable proportions. The braces were fully exposed now.
'What is that in your mouth? Something to make them more straight?'
'Yes, how did you know?'
The shopkeeper smiled and looked ridiculous when he did.
'My God. Mankind, look what I found!'
Son of Harragodhe said something about being awaited somewhere else. The shopkeeper invited Xemi to a meal some time in the future at his house and he accepted with a readiness that was foreign to him. When they were outside, son of Harragodhe said:
'Xemi, did you see his face? Wow huh.'
Xemi looked at his mischievous friend and let out all the mirth he had suppressed earlier.
'I have never seen something like that before.
Only on television. That was crazy.'
'Yeah. Crazy.'
'What does his wife look like ? Ugly too?'
'Yes.'
Both of them were laughing now. Son of Harragodhe suggested a cafe to drink tea in. Xemi assented. They sat down on a bench at a wooden table in front of a tea shop. Xemi knew he looked stupid with his big black coat and hoodie up in thirty degree weather with no breeze.
The table had another occupant. He was a big muscular guy. This was an special day for Xemi. He now had seen two unusual things. An elephant Man and a muscular Somali. He was being arrayed with the most extraordinary visual treats.
They sat down and tea was brought in what was meant to be clear glasses. They in fact had stains on them like someone else had just finished drinking from the glass. Xemi didn't notice that until he was half way through the glass.
The tea itself had a strong flavour and Xemi suspected it was ginger tea mixed with the residues of reuse. He was still giddy from his acquaintance with the elephant Man and so enjoyed the tea and even let the dirty glass pass. The other guy at the table was making noises and hand gestures like he was deaf.
'You see that, Xemi? He's deaf.'
'Oh yeah? He looks strong. I used to go to the gym myself. How did he get like that here?'
Son of Harragodhe looked back at the deaf man and made hand gestures that were easy to understand. He told him that Xemi was strong, stronger than him and wanted to fight him, swinging his arms around like a boxer. Xemi smiled in surprise at his bold friend.
He then turned to the big guy who snorted. Son of Harragodhe taunted the big guy to do something. He spoke and made universal gestures at the same time to put his point across. The deaf guy grabbed his own nose and made a repeated noise which sounded like 'lie, lie'. His hand gestures were of dismissal, his eyes reflected derision.
He then made some gestures that Xemi didn't understand. Son of Harragodhe told him the deaf guy had seen him before making the gesture again which Xemi understood now to mean his hood. He was saying that he was walking with his hood up trying to stay low-key and not wanting people to see his face, like he was scared.
'I'm ready for whatever, I think I can take him,' Xemi told the son of Harragodhe, playing his role, sipping his tea, glancing at the deaf muscle man. His friend laughed a little, and his sinful face was reddening while he looked at the big guy who just snorted again.
'What would he do if this escalated into a real brawl?' But he didn't have to worry about that, as Xemi was not the violent type and would avoid conflict at any price especially at this moment. He had mystery and it would erode in any circumstance that had finality and judgement.
They soon left taking leave of the muscular invalid and went towards another shop. The sun was almost set now and the way was getting harder to see. A film of dust had risen from the dead ground to obstruct the sight of the living even more.
The door to this store was open and someone was sitting inside. The first thought he had when he saw her was that she looked like Safia. Some of the features were the same except this woman had only two teeth in her whole mouth whereas Safia had seven.
She was mushing dates with her gums when they entered. Son of Harragodhe approached her to greet her and mumbled something to her that Xemi didn't hear. She became animated.
'Come here boy, come. Ha! Look what God brought me ! You look like your father. Do you know who I am? I'm your grandmother. My sister gave birth to your father!'
She cackled in delight, rubbing the hand he extended in greeting like she was trying to warm it. Xemi thought she looked repugnant.
'She's trying to chill my blood, with hands colder than mine.'
She was one of the most obese people he had ever seen.
'Lord, you look nothing like me, so dark, but that will soon change.'
She let out another cackle. Xemi kissed his teeth to express what he thought of her fortune telling.
'No, it will happen. We'll fix you up, get you married and you'll settle here, god willing, and He will will it!'
Her tone had become more serious and no cackle was let out this time.
'Which God is that, you vile obscenity? You will put your criminal voice in amongst the chorus condemning me to this place, will you? This second mother to Safia must have deep reach and thinks it's funny to ruin me with her contemptible cackle,' Xemi raged in his head. If he knew what devil was hoarded in this store he wouldn't have stepped foot in there.
Now entered a man with a beard and hair both coloured orange.
'Husband, look who it is. The son of Awad is here.'
His slit eyes flickered open for a microsecond and then closed again. 'Is that right?' was all he said in a low voice barely distinguishable from exhalation.
He was a short man. His wife was double his size in every way and he wondered what fights between them were like. This man had a menacing air, sharpened by a sense of wanton insolence that he felt was forever encircling him, and Xemi rejoiced at the idea, the certainty, that this man had beaten his wife many times during their marriage over the merest of trifles.
His grandmother was peeling, deftly cutting potatoes with a silver knife, while babbling things about submission to religion. Her husband made signs of approval throughout with head nods and religious common places. That was the cue for the two boys to go as Xemi would throw up if he stayed any longer.
His grandmother told him to return as she would introduce her daughter to him. Of course he said he would but he determined that was the last time he would ever cross that threshold again.
They went up a hill overtaking some guys who looked like shadows of each other. One of the shadows whispered as Xemi walked on. He knew they were talking about him. The trepidation in the men's voices thrilled him. They used to shout at him back home; here he was a man to lower your voice around.
As they walked on, the density of buildings grew thinner until there was one house per fifty feet. Rocks were still scattered around but the actual property was cleared of any rocks in its immediate area.
One of the houses they passed looked like a watercolor painting. He had seen something like this in the city he sojourned in before but this was more impressive as, with no other houses in close proximity, it made the house look like the dwelling of a mayor.
Someone evidently was feeling expressive and wanted the brightest colours and cared very little about the attractiveness of the piece when finished.
A wave of red, then a wave of blue, then a wave of yellow wrapped across the upper parts of the walls of the dwelling, with the bottom being ochre. It looked like a vase but the display was not flowers. A water tank hovered above this house.
'That means they can take showers there,' he mused. 'These must be the richest people here.'
In fact, he had the impression as they walked on that this was a wealthy area.
They stopped in front of a house that looked freshly painted with a coat of white and very slick. The door was open like every other house in this village. As they entered he noticed the floor was completely even and everything was proportioned according to perfect geometry. The house he lived in was an angular mess of mathematics compared to this.
'Ah, look who it is.'
A young man materialised wearing a green sarong and violet shirt, who Xemi didn't recognise. He spoke in English and approached to shake Xemi's hand introducing himself as Ahmed.
'Do you know, we met before. I came to your house one day, but you didn't want to talk to me. Now you're in my house.'
Xemi laughed, a little awkwardly, and said he didn't talk to many other people in the beginning.
'No problem, brother. My house is your house.'
He was a suave looking guy with a trimmed and shaped up beard who spoke with a distinguishable accent.
'Where did you learn English ?'
'I lived in Sweden for five years.'
'Why did you come back here?'
After a short pause, where he was trying to find the right words he said:
'People here when they hate you, at least hate you for a reason.'
He spoke in a gutteral way, like he was trying to mimic someone who spoke like that. Xemi could tell that if he spoke naturally his voice would be pleasant.
'He probably doesn't speak English much here,' Xemi reasoned.
The sounds were coming out harsher because he was trying to be fluent and remember the words at the same time. Son of Harragodhe told Ahmed he wanted to show Xemi something. Xemi was the key to the city for his friend and he knew it, everything would be open to him. Ahmed said of course and pointed to a room.
They took their shoes off and entered a treasure chest. This was the first living room he had been in that had sofas with wooden legs and not floor ones. The furniture was all of similar colour, matching and very western; raw umber, delicate and so soft. The walls were of fire agate with blue topaz curtains in some places but for decoration only. What was this infatuation with curtains behind which is nothing?
The jewel of this room was the TV. Xemi's eyes popped out of their sockets when he saw it. It had been months since he last watched TV to the point he even had forgotten their existence.
They immediately turned the TV on and he was flicking through channels. They had so many that the flicking induced intoxication.
Beautiful, hypnotic technology! Lazily now he went from channel to channel because he liked pressing buttons and disrupting the flow of images of one by clicking to the next one. He settled for some music in the end. Some new songs, some old songs were mixed together. He felt normal, like he was at home. He had to laugh at some advertisement that he had seen a million times and pointed out to his friend the absurdity of eternal ads.
While he was watching some video, two kids burst into the room. One boy and one girl. They were not older than five. The boy looked freakishly strong for some reason, with clear muscle definition. The girl was cute with two front teeth missing and her hair in pigtails with colourful beads holding it all together.
They rushed in giggling and jumped on one of the sofas. Son of Harragodhe told them to quiet down and not make too much noise because 'uncle' was here, pointing to Xemi. He himself snorted.
'You mean a stranger who wishes to be entertained.'
They were well behaved and watched TV like they were possessed. Xemi liked kids like this who did what they were told. 'They must not get to watch too much television if they are so transfixed on the TV as they are.'
Their mother, a tall and attractive woman, made an appearance and sat down next to their kids. When she came in she flicked her long loose hijab over her shoulder like Safia did.
'Why don't they do this before they come in?' Xemi thought. 'They must do it on purpose, for sensual reasons. But it seems only the older women wear this type of hijab...I guess they feel they've earned their right, after marriage and childbirth, to a little piece of sensuality.'
She sat and watched the TV with, at first, an interested expression as she most likely didn't know the music channel existed. Then she frowned in apparent disapproval.
Xemi liked looking at her, her kids and his friend for the impression the videos made. It was more fun than actually watching the videos. At one point she asked Xemi if this was what he liked watching. Xemi said yes.
All were hooked on the unusual things the TV streamed. At times some of these girls on the screen made his friend blush and smile awkwardly. He didn't know if it was the girl or the fact of the family being there to watch something sinful with them that caused his face to redden. Lust, is that you, or is it you, embarrassment?
Xemi made some comment about the girl to deepen the shade of red ochre. Xemi had a good time. He stayed until it was close to blackout and took leave. The family said that he was welcome whenever and he thanked them for their hospitality.
They walked back home and on their way they came across a girl who was doing something outside her home. She was bent over and as they passed, Son of Harragodhe said:
'Look, she wants to fuck.'
Xemi chuckled a little, more from the way he said it than the actual comment. He really had a comical way of talking. He looked at the girl and she was looking at them in that pose with her head almost touching the ground. 'Hmm maybe she does,' Xemi mused.
They arrived home and the son of Harragodhe left. The door was always open. He wanted to go to the toilet. As he walked there, a buzzing sound was coming his way.
'Strange,' Xemi thought. 'These flies should be dead or asleep by now.'
It was pitch black. By the gas light he saw a big cockroach flying around. Dumbstruck, he stood still. He didn't know cockroaches could fly. He cursed that toilet and went back to his room. He pissed in a bottle and went to bed.
Chapter 19
The windows were closed and it was high noon when Mayloun walked around with a cloak of smoke. This dark greyish cloak gave off not fashion's style, nor ceremony's symbolism but a Somali's scent. Xemi now realised why so many Somalis had that smell.
Suddenly, the smoke made it hard for him to breathe, shocking him through its intensity, but not because of its stifling nature but because of the memories it quickened. The smoke reminded him of when his father, a single parent with errands to run, used to leave him with a Somali relative when he was a child, who, every one of those varied relatives, always had this cloak of smoke, the billowing scent of unsi, a censer.
These relatives, helpful though they were to his father, to Xemi nonetheless were strangers, almost monsters, for he felt that he was taken away by them, even though he knew that he was left there by his father only for a few hours. These relatives, strangers rather, fed him the types of food that to him were even stranger, while he wondered how long his father would be, wondered why he had to be left with someone he didn't know, wondered if he would ever leave.
As the scent grew denser, sweet as it was suffocating, he remembered the times more clearly, and the silent tears that he had shed into his meal then, he wanted to shed now. All those little abandonments that he had experienced before, that he had almost forgotten, that he had recently experienced again, went through him like it was blood, and he wanted to slice his skin open to expel the angst, and crack his skull open to excise the memories. He put a blanket over them, one that makes desires sleep and watched Mayloun circle his room with her cloak of smoke.
The instrument looked like a Hindu temple with its centre holding smoking black rocks. In reply to what she did that for, she took a moment to press her lips together weighing whether it was a serious question or not, then answered that she used the censer for the flies.
She wafted this thick cloud of smoke everywhere to kill the flies and it sure did. Xemi always thought that it was a particular perfume traditional in the community. Now he found out what it was.
'It must be that some Somalis integrated this smoke as part of their culture,' he said to himself, 'and took it with them abroad where there were not the kind of flies as in Somalia. Here it still served a purpose.'
When she was finished there was not a single fly alive. In the bliss of an insect free world, two boys entered looking for him. One of the boys was recognised as the son of the shopkeeper with the growths all over him. The other he didn't know but had seen before when he had been sitting on his ledge. The contrast between them was interesting to observe.
The shopkeeper's son looked like a little gremlin with a huge forehead and two centimetres gap between every tooth in his mouth. In other words he was dog ugly. The other boy was one of the most handsome Somalis he had ever seen. Light skinned, delicate framed, with wavy hair and a beautiful smile. He introduced himself as Aaden. He lived on the opposite side of the street.
Aaden sat with his legs crossed as he listened to Mohammed, the other boy's name, inviting him for dinner some time next week. Distinguished guest that he would be, he accepted. Aaden looked at him with his eyes having the attractive light of bemused mischief.
Yasser came in from out of nowhere. Xemi hadn't seen him for a little while. His hair was long and curly; curled up, not down, and just as it was curly and long, it was dirty and begrimed.
Yasser greeted the two boys like he greeted the other boys, with the air of a bully. He tried to run his fingers through Aadens's fine hair. They both laughed and Aaden told him to leave him alone. His eyes sparkled brighter and Xemi recognised the type. He liked to create a situation and then watch it unfold for entertainment.
'What's this guy doing here? Do you know what he gets up to?' Xemi smiled.
'Allah, look at those teeth! Haha, what's that?'
'Don't worry. What were you saying?'
Xemi recalled his aunt saying something about Yasser. He didn't believe her then but maybe it was true.
Aaden smirked.
'Don't,' Mohammed cut him off. 'Leave that alone,' he warned. 'Leave that alone bro. That's in the past.'
Yasser sat on his haunches watching like a cat.
'Say what you want to say. I permit it.'
Aaden's eyes were luminous orbs of feverish excitement.
'There was a small boy that used to hang around Yasser and his friends. One day, he took the small boy and fucked him. Afterwards this boy was telling everyone 'Yasser fucked me'. Haha. 'Yasser fucked me'! Hahaha. If you ask him now he will still say it the same way, 'Yasser fucked me'. Haha!'
Aaden laughed but his face showed signs of transgression. A reddish flush had crept over his caramel cheeks.
Xemi's own face coloured from shock. He did not expect this revelation and thought it would be something amusing.
'Lies. You did that?'
'No. But if I did, so what ? What's it to you?'
Yasser's calmness and his challenge infuriated Xemi. The fact he had hung out and was seen with him put his mind in a spin.
'So this was why he chaperoned me. To cleanse his public image, to appear more respectable?' he said to himself. Yasser had escorted Xemi and at times admonished him for things, but the fact remained that Xemi was an elder relative to him.
Xemi did not want to submit to the rules of family for that would mean that he accepted them but he was bound within it regardless. A younger relative should not challenge an elder relative, especially around other people.
'What did you say? Get out before I kill you.'
'Relax.'
'I said get out.'
'Why?'
Xemi sprung up and so did Yasser. Xemi was stronger. He frogmarched Yasser out of the room into the white courtyard. Xemi went back inside breathing heavily, thinking that he had made his point. But Yasser didn't think he was serious. He smiled at them through the window. Xemi took a bottlecap and threw it at him. It hit him square on his forehead. Aaden burst out in raucous laughter. Yasser's head disappeared and came back inside.
'You know that hurt?'
They wrestled some more. Xemi was still stronger. Yasser parted after giving Aaden the dirtiest look filled with coming retribution. He himself showed a smile of immediate safety.
Xemi asked Aaden what happened afterwards. He was told, with the discordant timbres of Spring entering Summer in his burgeoning voice, how Yasser was taken and imprisoned by the askari. His dad put him there and beat him with a rod that was like a caveman's club, hours every day, for six months. The prison was created to accost the senses. Day saw the sun sear you, night saw shivers rake you. Xemi was surprised that it was his father who administered justice, like justice was a family affair.
He was unnerved to come across a child rapist, someone part of his coterie. He thought about the times Yasser and himself visited the homes of people and how they all received him. He wasn't an outcast. He was young but spoke to elders maturely, the way they wanted to be spoken to.
Maybe he was reformed. Indeed, now that Xemi thought about it, he recognised his tone to be humbled at times. But Xemi could not overcome the repellent idea of being around that type of criminal. Even a reformed one was like nails on chalkboards.
Yasser's words: 'what is it to you?' wafted through him like the smoke of earlier.
'What was it to me?' Xemi mused. 'What does it have to do with me? Why do I care?'
The young people left and he dwelt on the idea of man violating man and our reactions to it. He did not think that society there judged Yasser as severely as he did. Six months was short for the crime committed.
'They don't create outcasts here so easily,' Xemi thought, thinking of the Elephant man and his status there.
'Small villages impose the bonds of family. What kind of justice system can you have when everyone is family?'
He dismissed these thoughts out of his mind as the problem of others. The heat was getting unbearable. He moved to the living room. It was the coolest place in the house and more comfortable than his own room. When the lord of the manor wasn't there he would stay there sometimes but only if he knew for sure he wouldn't be there as otherwise he would have to talk to him and Xemi despised empty talk, talking for the sake of talking.
Safia had returned and was in the corridor. She had a naked bone in her hand when he passed her. Knocking the bone against the floor to loosen the marrow inside, she sucked it out and ate it. Xemi called her an animal as he went into the living room. He left her in the corridor giggling asking what happened.
She was sitting opposite the kitchen a little way removed from the room he was in. He noticed the phone was not within her reach. Usually this phone would be in the living room but someone had taken it out to speak in the corridor.
Of late he had started playing games with his aunt centred around the phone. Every time it rang he moved as if to answer, which he sometimes would, telling whoever it was that no-one was home and hung up. Sometimes he would kick it to knock the receiver off. This sent her into a fury. She would pick it up hoping the person on the other line was still there.
This time the phone rang and he rushed to beat Safia to it. She was so heavy set it took her a good five seconds to lift herself off the floor, screaming obscenities, her gigantic breasts swinging hypnotically. By this time he was already next to the phone. She tried to run a little bit but her velocity never increased so it was more comical than practical to see her moving her arms like she was running, her breasts still swaying. She made him hate larger breasts.
He picked up the phone just as she was close enough to reach it.
'Hello!'
'Boy! Is that you? Boy, what are you doing there?'
He took an awed breath in amazement, glancing at Safia, while the person on the line was jabbering away.
'Mother, how did you find me? I need you to get me out of here. I'm surrounded by -'
'I was just told that you were sent there by your father. Why did he do that?'
'Is that your mother?' Safia asked him in disbelief. Though Safia spoke no English, she knew the word 'mother'.
'Shhh.'
One day his mother came home from work in Kuwait and found in place of her children a note with a Dutch address. Not long before that Xemi's father had told her of his intention to leave Kuwait. Saddam's warplanes were hovering above the city. His mother had thought that it had been a request rather than a decision but then that day came and she flew out on the next available plane for the address in Holland.
Xemi's mother was a forthright and impulsive person. At customs in Schiphol airport this woman with a Somali passport travelling from Saudi Arabia was asked what her purpose was. She spoke English as all foreign nurses do in Kuwait.
'To see my son,' she answered with obscene levels of haughtiness.
For some strange reason that she herself could not fathom, she always forgot that she had a daughter.
'Where is your son?'
'In this country. His father took him from me.' Then she remembered her daughter. 'And my daughter too.'
'So this is abduction?' the female custom's officer asked sharply.
Xemi's mother couldn't understand the word 'abduction'. Vexed, she answered no more questions and tried to burst through customs. She was refused entry and sent back to Saudi Arabia.
This resulted in Xemi and his sister speaking to their mother only over the phone a handful of times over the years as his mother was very sensitive. She could not bear stepping foot in a country which had insulted her and prevented her from seeing her children. She also wanted to minimise speaking to her ex husband who was truly responsible for her arrested motherhood.
Xemi spoke to his mother in English while she spoke to him in Somali. This was something his parents had in common.
'Mother, save me. Send me some money. I have nothing here.'
His mother had a way of jabbering that made him zone out. So he repeated the instruction.
'Don't worry. Put your aunt on the phone.'
'Why do you want to talk to her?'
He looked at Safia who was watching him intently. He had made his point to his mother and she would undoubtedly send him enough to free himself. What else was there to talk about? He passed the phone to his aunt.
It was difficult to make out what they spoke about. He could make out some commonplaces and it was obvious Safia tried to obfuscate the content by the way she answered, but Xemi dismissed her attempt as beneath contempt as what was his would come his way no matter what.
She soon hung up the phone and Xemi burst out laughing.
'She's probably going to send me one thousand and then I'm out of here.'
'One thousand? She doesn't have that money.'
'Yes she does. What do you know? You just keep your hands off what's mine.'
'You're a child. What would you know? Do you know how your father ended up raising you alone?'
'Haha you're trying to turn me against my saviour. I know this story already. All of you on this side are ridiculous, why do you keep bringing this up?'
Another aunt had told him the story of his parents' separation. His father never told him anything except for once when Xemi asked why they had divorced and his father angrily replied that it was his mother who divorced him.
'This is old. My mother divorced my father, end of story.'
'Ha, women can't divorce men. Only men can do that.'
'Shows much you know.'
