Chapter 20
Howa came back from school breathless, humming a ditty, youth coursing through her young, chubby body. Xemi wondered if she had become more popular now that a foreigner was living in her house. Her conceited way of walking made him think that she was. Abdullah and Mahmoud arrived too.
'You're a real pussy you know that?'
Abdullah was sitting on Xemi's bed eating, inverting the laws of family by chastising his own uncle.
'What happened?' Xemi asked him.
Abdullah ignored him and continued:
'Why didn't you defend yourself? Coward.'
Mahmoud had a grinning look on his face, his irregular teeth made him look goofy.
'Wasn't that boy on top of you, mushing your face ? What a coward. Why couldn't you push him off? He was smaller and looked like he was about to fuck you!'
Mahmoud was rattled and snapped:
'He was on top of me so quickly. What could I do ?'
Xemi laughingly added:
'Howa is always violating him. So he gets beat up outside too?'
Abdullah choked on his rice. He had seen Howa beating up her older brother. He called him a coward one more time.
Xemi didn't know if it was his own skewed perception and the bubble that he lived in but he felt there were a lot of young people around his own age there. The songstress, Yasmine, was in the house too, once again arriving with a face veil. Xemi had not seen her outside without one and when she came in the house she took it off for all and sundry. So this was for reasons of fashion or concealment, Xemi determined, nothing else.
She and Abdullah went into the girls bedroom after some whooping encouragement from the gallery. Xemi didn't realise they had a little thing. Or rather Yasmine liked him and he was victim to peer pressure upon his masculinity. Not too long after entering, Abdullah came out disconcerted. She came out in perfect calmness.
'Haha, he was scared,' Xemi taunted.
Mahmoud asked if they did anything. All three were in Xemi's bedroom.
'Never!' Xemi continued his taunt.
'Of course not. Men would know if something had happened,' Abdullah replied in condescension to his young uncle Mahmoud. 'Wallahi she has strong breasts.'
Abdullah had a tiara, pearls of sweat, just below his hairline. The songstress must have done a number on him and he backed away from temptation. Xemi knew what he was thinking and the same nightmare haunted him.
What if they got one of these girls pregnant? You would be done for. Abdullah's pride couldn't handle the shame of being the father of this girl's child. The thought of getting a girl pregnant was the only thing stopping Xemi from playing lothario.
Abdullah used to eat often at his grandfather's house. Thinking deeper, Xemi came to realise that pride and shame were not the only checks on his amorous ambitions. Abdullah looked like he stared down a different type of hole than expected.
The means of his family were dwindling, pushing him to eat more frequently the bread of others. The thought of means made Xemi think of his mother. He wondered if she was actually going to send money. But if she were to send money how could he get his hands on it? He was accustomed to a system where if money belongs to a particular person, only that person could access it. He was convinced that the same would hold true here. At least he hoped it was.
Everyone left and Xemi was alone again until the son of Harragodhe came. Xemi and him spent a lot of time together. In Xemi's room they both were, when Mayloun came in and sat on a chair in the room. Xemi was on one bed and his friend was on another.
'Allah, Mayloun let me play just for a little while.'
Son of Harragodhe was laying face down on the bed imitating a common sexual position bouncing on the bed with his eyes closed. Mayloun closed her legs and looked at him with narrowing eyes, disgust spreading like a thickening storm cloud across her face. Her head and her knees inched closer together.
'You think I'm your mother?' Mayloun spat acidly. 'Will you let him speak to me like this, brother?' she said, turning to Xemi and then turning back sharply to see son of Harragodhe continue to abuse the bed like it intrigued her.
Xemi marvelled at the boldness of his lecherous friend and response was to laugh a little and mutter 'my god' in a low voice. Son of Harragodhe had his eyes closed, oblivious to his love signals being warded off, emitting uncouth, savage noises. His eyes opened at the same time as the lights turned on.
'Let's go. Stop doing dumb things.' He then turned to Mayloun.
'You want to come with us, Mayloun? We're going to - what's this guy's name? The house up the hill. We're going to watch television there. Have you ever watched that? Come with me.'
Mayloun opened her mouth a little, closed it, and then said that she wanted to go. He could tell that she did.
'I don't know if I can. I'll have to wait and see.'
Mayloun then turned her face away with dilating eyes surveying the Fates before her. Xemi shrugged his shoulders. The two boys left.
They went out the backdoor this time. Some girl was outside throwing dirty water out on the footpath. She waved and called out to Xemi. He hadn't gone out this way before. This backstreet was frothing with rocks.
'Who is that?' Xemi asked.
The answer was predictable. Another relative. They went to what would be the front of that house and entered a shop. A pretty enough woman was at the counter. This shop looked more like a mini supermarket than a convenience store. Prominent there were things of electronic nature like batteries and radios.
The woman had a younger version of herself next to her. The girl that waved entered a little after he did. She didn't look anything like the others who were light of colour and plump. She herself was wraith-like and dark skinned. They were family on his maternal side and the older woman was his mother's sister. Xemi was surprised that this was the first time he had met her, being there for close to a year now.
Peering intently at him, his aunt gave him the impression that she was trying to see her sister in him. He tried to see his mother in her. They both failed. His paternal genes were stronger, and overpowered hers. He told her that he had met her brother before. The acquaintance was memorable because it was the only time a relative stayed with them as opposed to them staying with a relative. He couldn't remember his face. He hadn't met another maternal relative up to this point, but so many on his father's side.
'You should come visit us more often,' one of them said. He said he didn't even know they existed. After a couple banalities they left with cash in hand. All these women giving him money just to see him made him smile. There must be a problem between the two families, Xemi determined, for them not to have come to the house. He made a point in memory to mention this to Safia. He personally didn't care if he ever saw these people again but he wanted to see Safia slither in discomfort as he delved into family politics.
As they walked back up to the house a voice called out to him, so formally, using his father's name. He turned around and saw Mayloun running towards them, her form betraying limbs which were close to removing running from muscle memory, jumping over multiple rocks, the soft flesh shot in the air, suspended and then returned as the bones cracked the earth.
There was joy on every part of her face that even the loud make-up couldn't besmirch with its vandalism. It made her look more child than woman. She was wearing a denim skirt with a brown blouse. Xemi smiled his metallic smile. He didn't expect her to come and felt like he busted someone out of prison.
'For who did you dress up like this for? Ahmed?' son of Harragodhe asked Mayloun.
That wiped the smile off Mayloun's face.
'Who are you to speak to me like that? Don't say another word to me, dog! Before I take a rock to kill you.'
He then turned to Xemi.
'Is this a date?'
'What did he say, brother?' Mayloun asked Xemi.
'A date between who? There's three of us.'
'Yes, between all three. What are we doing after?'
'What did he say?' Xemi smiled.
'He's a dog, don't mind him.'
They entered the house together. Xemi had been here now more than a handful of times and was familiar with things. The woman of the house greeted him with a lecture about being careful what he watches with the children. They were picking up bad habits.
Xemi promised he would but would do nothing of the kind. She looked at Mayloun curiously and said 'you here too?' Mayloun just grinned at her, a grin someone will have when they are caught doing something they shouldn't be doing but know they will not be stopped.
They went inside and watched music videos as usual. The kids were there. The little girl with her hair always styled in pigtails was humming along and Xemi was surprised at how quick she picked that up.
She couldn't have heard the song more than twice. Xemi liked the song too and smiled at his kindred spirit. She let out a delightful giggle when she saw him looking at her. That reminded him of these kids dancing the other day; amusingly but provocatively. Maybe that's what their mother was talking about.
Another music video came up with a handsome guy looking directly at the camera with a smirk on his face. Mayloun made a startled noise and turned away, a blush forming through her makeup, while exclaiming: 'I dare you to watch, son of Harragodhe,' who shrugged in response.
Xemi was out of the loop. Was this because the rapper was looking at the camera? He asked what was wrong. No one answered him. He was more entertained by her reactions than whatever was on the screen itself. Every so often she let out some invocation to God because of things of a mild sexual nature.
'You never watched TV before?' he asked her at one point. She replied that she had but didn't know what it was that she had watched. He almost felt a pang of jealousy to see her squirm when the singers were looking directly at the camera. But he brushed that off quickly as ridiculous. Him and a blood relative would never happen.
They left after a couple hours. They dropped Mayloun off but the son of Harragodhe wanted to show him something else. There was still a couple hours left of this darkening evening before the electricity was turned off.
The two boys went into a side street where a strong light illuminated the pathway. Little moths danced around in the false light. They had entered a place with a roof but no walls. There was a TV in this room and a couple of people were watching a football match. One boy with a long jawline came up to him. He held a remote control in his hand indicating that this was his business.
'Hey Xemi. You okay? Sit and relax. We're watching this game now.'
Xemi thanked him. He flinched at his braces but said nothing. He turned to the son of Harragodhe.
'You, where is the money?'
Son of Harragodhe puffed his cheeks out and in a voice of authority said that he was with Xemi.
'You ask me for money, you ask him.'
The patron laughed at him and told him to relax. They both sat down on a dark bench. There were four long benches for the audience. The TV was a regular house TV not one designed for public use.
'This boy took it straight from his living room to here and he is charging people to watch,' Xemi observed.
Usually, back home, when strangers approached him based solely on the fact they were fellow Somalis that annoyed him more than anything in the world. All of them were pains and hassles, being familiar to someone all because of shared nationality. How hateful that was to him! In train stations, in the street, in shops, on buses people shouting waraya! And then wanted small talk when Xemi wanted no talk.
Sometimes he would pretend to be Eritrean just to get rid of them. In the village, strangers also spoke like they knew him. Not one person had ever asked what his name was. This boy with the jawline knew his name but Xemi had no idea who he was. Maybe they thought he knew them too. But why should he? He wasn't surprised anymore that strangers called him by his name. However in this village it had some tangible benefits. And it seemed those with him got it too.
They stayed there until the lights cut off. To his surprise they had a generator and it was revved up like an old lawnmower. The TV was back on in no time.
'This boy is an entrepreneur,' Xemi said to himself.
This evening passed while they watched a variety of things. Mainly sports and films. They left not too long after the generator was turned on. Son of Harragodhe left to go to his house. Xemi mounted the rocks on the side of his aunt's house and surmounted the crenellations. He found it surprisingly easy to navigate the green shards of glass on top of the wall.
There were empty spaces in between them to rest one's fingers and he used them to jump over it. He made a little thud as he landed on the well. He had heard the same noise when his cousin Mahmoud did the same thing, from whom he got the idea from. He himself was sleeping in his bed. They had swapped roles.
Not long after he had taken it easy in his bed, Safia and Howa came in together. Xemi was surprised as it was a late hour and they never usually came in together. Xemi quickly got up to look and he saw Howa trying to make a break for it. But Safia could be quick when she wants to be. She grabbed her and Howa fell to the ground. Safia was on top smothering her daughter to restrict her defensive movements.
'What are you looking for in the street? Say! Is this what you're looking for?' gasping as she lost her breath from rage and exertion brandishing a metal rod in her hand that she pressed against her daughter's vagina. Howa let out a hissing cry as metal touched flesh.
Xemi winced and watched no more.
Chapter 21
Xemi was sitting in the dining room of his uncle, the elephant Man shopkeeper, and the worst thing happened. This was predictable but he for some reason didn't think of it beforehand. Why didn't he think of it beforehand ? Of course this would happen ! Sitting in the dining room he realised that he simply had nothing to say. Disaster entombed him in the most pitiful of graves.
He tried to compensate for his lack of wit and social skills by eating a lot. This was the first time he had paid a call to someone's house without a chaperone. Since he would always have a chaperone whether it would be his father or someone else, he had never really engaged with the host when they paid these calls. The chaperone always did this for him, and it deformed him.
After the pleasantries, mundane formalities of complimenting the house, the table setting, the children, he was lost for words. Xemi at this point didn't know why he came. The youngest member of the family had come to him and told Xemi that he was expected at the shopkeeper's house for dinner that evening. Suddenly, from out of nowhere.
He didn't want to go but because the invitation was so direct, so pressing, as in: this minute, they cooked for you, and because the first meeting had been enjoyable he decided to assent and he found himself in a diabolical mess.
Xemi could tell they were looking for wit but it wasn't forthcoming. As soon as the realisation hit that he was meant to talk for hours his tongue shrivelled. So all he did was eat. Answering some basic questions, he dragged the answers out as best he could.
'Who is the eldest?' he asked the children of the elephant man, in an attempt to find something to say. Immediately after he asked the question he realised how ridiculous it was.
'Me,' the elder raised his fork in the air and then with narrowing eyes said: 'I'm older than you.'
Xemi flushed from embarrassment.
He was introduced to the rest of the family. It was an all boys club, three of them, and they all looked uncannily alike. With the same forehead, same wide mouth, and with the same spaced out teeth and the same lisp when they spoke. They were the same person in different stages of life.
'Is this what their father looked like under his species altering misfortune?' Xemi asked himself, and glanced at him as much as propriety and slyness would allow.
This man was narrow with elegance in his table manners. His sons were more of a stocky build. One thing he could tell the father passed to his children was nervous energy. But these kids seemed to have been trained to contain their energy as much as they could, even if outbursts would fly out from time to time.
Xemi was reminded of Tourette syndrome when he was around them. Funny noises or songs at inappropriate times would issue forth from all three of them, cut down by their father immediately with comments like 'can we eat in peace?' rattling his cutlery on his plate.
They ate with forks, knives, spoons, which he thanked God for. He forgot until he was in the house that custom was to eat from one big plate in social gatherings with one's hands. He had never eaten things like rice with his hands before and was pleased he was spared the experiment.
The food amazed him. He didn't know what it was exactly but liked it. It was succulent tender meat in a mild, minty sauce with rice and sides composed of fresh, diverse salads for the main course and a mocha cake with coffee flavors for the desert. It was the best meal he had in the country and thanked them for the effort. He in fact through combinations of not knowing what to say and enjoying the meal, had never eaten so much in his life.
The lady of the house served but didn't eat with them. Xemi never saw her face as she had a full burkha on, even in the house. He wondered why an old lady would hide herself from him.
She had a penetrating voice which almost discomfited him. The penetration the voice held was similar to a penetrating stare and he felt like she spoke to unnerve you. The lassos it wove round you was nature giving balance, as she needed it to control her three kids all with excess energy. He was curious as to what she looked like.
What type of woman would marry an elephant Man? Arranged or not, there must be some element of choice surely. Maybe it's the personality. The fact she had a face veil in her own house bemused him.
Xemi hadn't come across many women who wore the face veil in his life. In fact, this might be the third or fourth time he had ever seen someone wear it in person. He heard more about these things than seen them.
Towards the end of the meal he was feeling good until he moved his body. Then he felt billowing nausea which he had trouble to suppress. He was happy to say goodbye and go back home, chaperoned again by the youngest boy.
There was a crowd of people in his room. He was sweating and walked in circles. He knew what was coming. He couldn't hold it in and vomited big chunks in the center of the room. Vomit came out twice with the pressure of a waterfall leaving a big pool of orange sludge in the middle of the room.
Howa was laughing all the while he was throwing up. Mahmoud was grinning his goofy grin. The young shopkeeper's boy said 'eww.' Xemi felt instantly better. He begged the boy not to tell his father. The boy swore he would. Xemi had no way to control him. All he could do was say the food was too good and that's why he ate too much.
Howa ended up cleaning it, cursing and giggling, womanhood and childhood. He felt it smelled like the coffee cake he had just ate and drank a sprite to soften the putrid smell of vomit in his mouth. If he was her he would have thrown up while cleaning vomit with one's head so close to it. She retched but Xemi was sure it was theatre.
While that was being cleaned, he was in the living room. He was enjoying the coolness, and the after feeling of emesis when a woman entered. A tall woman with a mischievous smile.
'Xemi, Hi ! I am Hoden. Wow you're beautiful.'
The woman had dark fleshy lips and the height of a model without the attractiveness. She looked to be in her thirties with at least one child. What did she want from Xemi?
'How old are you?'
'Fourteen.'
'What appeal is that supposed to have?'
'I don't know, what do you like?'
'You look twenty five at least,' Xemi said, being kind.
'Is that what you like? You met my mother. Do I look like her? We're cousins. No. Hmmm, wait for me. I am your aunt.'
'You're my aunt? So what do you want to do?'
'Haha, I don't know, what do you want to do?'
She was sitting close to him now. He sat up straighter. She wasn't cute but she tried to be. She spoke with a hush coyness, softening the endings of her words by sometimes not even pronouncing the last syllable, unbecoming to someone with such wide shoulders. He knew she was playing games but Xemi still was caught up, looking away. He was susceptible to forwardness.
'Why did you say you were fourteen?'
Her smile fluttered a little like she wanted to laugh and shrugged her shoulders. She moved closer.
'Get away from me,' Xemi said, laughing awkwardly, as he himself moved away. 'Who is your mother?'
She answered by saying she was the daughter of his father's aunt who he had met at her shop with her husband, the cackling witch. Xemi was astounded because daughter and mother were nothing alike. Her mother seemed strict and religious, but her daughter was playful. That woman and her demented cackle was lodged firmly in his memory.
So many people change when the spectre of mortality edges closer. His own father was the same. Xemi remembered his father relaxed, unbothered about religious things but as time went by he started to pester Xemi about religious precepts, checking his hair if he did woodoo and prayed.
He just wetted his hair, ready for inspection and lounged on his bed for five minutes. His father's religious journey culminated in this kidnap of his son to force him to be religious. He asked himself what his crutch would be when confronted with passing. He was sure it wouldn't involve someone else.
The sound of a cane tapping on the floor ricocheted off the walls. Hoden's ears flared, and her smile flew away. His uncle had arrived home. She put her hijab on tighter. It had been hanging slightly off her shoulders when she came in and got up to listen to the direction of steps. He went into the bedroom which was adjacent to the living room where they were.
She sneaked out of the living room, eyed the master bedroom to see where he was and walked head down and with soft steps towards the kitchen. Xemi also left the living room towards his own. Abdullah was there eating something. Lately the food was more luxurious and Xemi found it curious but dismissed it as other people's concerns.
There was someone in the courtyard by the well and the man of the house was sent for. Xemi recognised the distinctive voice of his father's brother, whose son had taken Xemi on his first excursion into town. He must have been pressed for time or he would have come in.
Safia scrambled into Xemi's room which was the closest to the courtyard. They had closed the door to the courtyard. The men were apparently discussing serious things; serious for surreptitious Safia had a desire to eavesdrop. Xemi made as much noise as possible. Shouting 'whoop whoop!' and stomping his feet.
Safia cursed Xemi and Abdullah choked on his food. Xemi raised decibels for a good minute until Safia left seething, letting fly various epithets. Abdullah had a wonderful, brilliant smile bewitching those who saw it as he was dying of laughter.
It was the silent, deep kind of laughter that is born and dies inside the body, never issuing forth abroad in sound, the most delicious kind of laughter. Xemi was chuckling a little too.
Although Xemi didn't know the gist, he heard his father's brother raging saying 'he won't be released!' Mahmoud came in and Xemi asked him what was going on.
Their cousin, the one who had taken Xemi on the excursion, had been imprisoned by his father for disobedience. He was told not to leave the village by his father and he had left anyway. When he came back his father had instructed the Askari to lock him up. Xemi was puzzled.
'How old is he?' Xemi asked Mahmoud. 'He must be at least thirty.
'Yes.'
'At the age of thirty he can't do what he wants ?'
'Why should he be able to?'
'What do you mean?' asked an incredulous Xemi.
'At what point does someone become his own master?'
'When his father dies.'
Xemi stared at his sickly looking cousin and then shook his head to recline on his bed.
'You guys are crazy. I heard about Yasser. I can't believe that I walked next to a rapist, almost hand in hand. A child rapist at that,' Xemi thought for a moment and added, 'raped by one no less, another child. I didn't think such a thing was possible.' Mahmoud grinned.
'It's funny to you, even Aaden was laughing, this is a sickness, this sense of humour.' Xemi stifled a laugh himself as he recalled the way Aaden told the story, horrifying himself and quickly continued: 'Is it true his father was the one who locked him up?'
'Yes and it was like war, the noises at that prison,' he said excitedly.
'When was that, recently?'
Mahmoud considered and said a year before.
'So he must have been let out not long after I arrived,' he said aloud, but more to himself than anyone else.
'Is that a crime what he had done ? Yasser I mean.'
'Of course,' Mahmoud said laughingly. 'What else could it be?'
'What about Abdi, was that a crime he committed?'
'Maybe,' he said hesitantly. 'Yes, yes it is. His father said it was.'
'So a father decides what a crime is and how his son gets punished!' Xemi roared furiously.
'But who else is supposed to, if not the father?' Mahmoud said resolutely.
'You have it all figured out. What if you have a madman as a father?' Xemi asked his cousin spitefully.
'Then,' Mahmoud searched his thoughts, grinned and said, 'I guess you're fucked.'
Chapter 22
A familiar sound reached Xemi's ears. A rhythmic hiss it was and it made him sweat. Someone was attempting to make as little noise as possible by suppressing sibilant sounds with their tongue. Hiss, hiss, hiss. It rose in pace, every hiss coming in quicker succession. Xemi was under hypnosis; his blood, time, everything froze, until it was broken by the bark of his uncle, as he rasped:
'Mayloun, what are you doing?'
Xemi could see him opening his eyes in the darkness of his room as he awaited an answer. The seriousness of any situation could be gauged by how far his uncle opened his eyes. If he kept his eyes closed he wasn't interested. If you could see his entire pupil he was dangerous.
'What do you think I'm doing? I'm working on your house,' Mayloun barked back.
Xemi was on tenterhooks awaiting to see if his uncle would fly out his room with a cane. A few seconds passed in calmness until one heard the splash of a rag on the floor. Her father had accepted her answer. Xemi breathed again.
'That was exciting,' he said to himself.
Mayloun was making his life a perfect torment. She was playing with herself often now especially when they were alone together but in separate rooms.
The first time he heard the hiss he wasn't sure what it was, thinking that she was attempting some challenging endeavour. But the hiss was rhythmic until a longer hiss was heard at the end. He knew then what was happening.
Two things entered his mind. The first was how it was possible for someone who had their clit cut off to masturbate? He always thought the point of the excision was to prevent masturbations.
'Maybe it was a hoax,' he said to himself. 'Maybe only some actually had their clitoris sawed off while the rest only pretended they had it done for propriety.'
The second thing that entered this mind was that she was trying to entice him. It was unmistakable what she was doing even if her uncle deluded himself otherwise. It was a siren call and Xemi found himself struggling to resist.
He saw her beautiful soft caramel body contorting as she reached orgasm and he wanted to career into her room and share the orgasm with her. Eventually he couldn't stand the agony and had to release himself.
Some nights were touch and go and he had to break out of a dream which was threatening to become wet. He didn't want to explain himself to Howa or Safia when they came to change the sheets, what the stains and smell was about. There were situations where they would come into close contact.
After her father left he found himself in her room with Abdullah and Mayloun. Xemi was playing games. He took Mayloun's head in his hands and said he wanted to kiss her. Abdullah said he wanted to see what it looked like. Mayloun just looked Xemi in the eyes ready for anything.
He looked at Mayloun's lips. They were enticing but there was some dark discoloration on the inside. He wondered what that meant and decided against pressing his lips against hers but continued his play:
'Look at how beautiful she is, I'm in love.'
'That's not beauty, it's all fake, with the cream they use..'
'What cream?'
'The cream that makes them lighter skinned.
Every girl uses it.'
'What ! You're lying. But who said anything about her skin colour making her beautiful?' he added, catching himself.
'Look at her arms, they are darker than her face.'
Xemi looked at her arms. They were indeed darker than her face.
'Ah this - I heard of this. They do this in Somalia too?'
He thought it funny and sad at the same time, but wished that he hadn't known. Now he couldn't look at her the same. He never actually looked closely at people's arms here. Mayloun still did not have dark arms like her mother but they were a damning shade darker than her face. Her feet were dark like her arms too. This unwelcome information that made her anti black soiled matters but the image of her soft body pressing against his still played like a fantasy number when he looked at her.
Abdullah was disappointed that Xemi didn't kiss his cousin.
'He wants to see me commit incest,' Xemi said to himself.
These people were not helping in his fight to stay true to his morals.
Xemi asked him what was going on with the imprisonment of Abdi. He was told that everything was the same. The man would stay in prison until he swore to obey his father. He had been in prison for days now and must be close to breaking.
Xemi begged the universe to send his mother's money transfer soon as the furies hovering over him in this village would take him to a place he did not ever see himself being.
From incest to blood fueds he sought his escape from these crimes in her motherhood. But still after weeks or months he knew not, nothing was forthcoming. He didn't know the mechanics of money transfers and hoped that the system there was just, that the money would be turned over to him and only him.
But this country run by megalomaniacs wouldn't let people in their thirties live their own lives and even if he had the money what would he do? And how much money would it be? He saw no other option than to strive to reach an embassy via an escort. It all would depend on the amount of money he would receive.
'Even in this idle, near communist society, money is godlike,' he said to himself.
He was forced to pay the next time he went to the TV place by some effeminate boy with an afro trying to ingratiate himself with the owner. He had sensed increasing disapproval of his tastes at the house on the hill and so he stopped going there. He liked the TV place more anyway. They had more channels even if he was not in control.
He started going there often even by himself at times as the village was too small to get lost in. The only issue was when it was dark. His eyes were unused to such darkness and he would bring a flashlight from time to time. This flashlight was a new discovery and he didn't realise there was one in the house. Once he found out about it he claimed it as his own. Sometimes he didn't even need it.
The first time he noticed it his heart stopped. Though it was night, everything was exposed by a dark light, omnipresent and absolute. This illumination was so unusual that Xemi doubted if it was light at all, or rather colour itself.
'But what colour is this, that makes up this dark light? Silver, blue, purple?'
He turned the flashlight off as he felt ridiculous and looked up. Someone had sliced open the black universe and the blood of first creation spilled out. The moon was gigantic, a complete moon, so huge it appeared in motion, about to crash on earth.
'So this is what a sky with no pollution looks like,' he noted to himself.
The celestial bodies seemed close enough to touch and he had to suppress a dumb urge to stretch his arms out to see if he could, like one has an urge to press upon a wound that was open and gushing.
He was in a state of mild delirium as he walked to the house in this strange heavenly glow that the other side of the sun casted. Leaving this new fantastic planet, he jumped over the crenellations of his uncle's house and went inside.
After a few minutes he heard a thud and thought it was Mahmoud, but it was Abdullah, with a look of preoccupation.
'You're staying here tonight?'
'Yeah. Did you hear about Ali Jakaf?'
'No, what happened?'
'He got killed.'
'No ! How?'
'Some argument in a different place. He got into a fight, won but that person came back and shot him in the chest.'
Xemi remembered the time in the cafe on his first excursion, how Ali jumped up to confront someone. A coldness spread within him. He didn't know Ali that well but he was still the first person he had met that died while Xemi lived. Morbidly, he was more enthralled by this thought than mourning a man who had lost his life.
'I never experienced death before among those I know,' he told Abdullah, almost excitedly.
'I lost my mother, so I have been here before.'
Xemi folded magnanimously. He didn't like surenchère, especially when he would lose, so he said no more.
It was Ramadan, and he was on the phone to Abdullah's velvety voiced little sister.
'Are you fasting,' she asked Xemi demurely.
'Me ? For what ? This month of July, November, April maybe, whatever the month is, there are no seasons here, how the devil can anyone know the month - is the same as any other except I have to go to the kitchen and snatch things during the day. The tyranny of my aunt ! Today she was making something for iftar and I wanted it then and there. I reached for it. She had a ladle in her hand, hot with oil. 'Thief,' she rasped, grabbing my arm with both of her hands to prevent me from taking it. The ladle in her hand put a layer of oil on my arm, simmered and then seared through my skin. The pain was phenomenal, I tell you. I ran to a barrel of water, sinking my arm in it. Such soothing, heavenly coolness came over me. I was standing there with my arm in the barrel for at least an hour, not daring to take my arm out; for as soon as I took it out the burn gnawed at me until I could take it no more. I went back and forth to that barrel all day, thinking about you.'
She would call the house looking for Mayloun or Howa but ended up speaking to Xemi. Lately, Xemi had a feeling she would call just to speak to him. His Somali had improved dramatically since he had first arrived there.
The first time he saw her he thought she was cute, with small budding breasts which didn't interest him. She didn't use the skin lightening chemicals everyone else seemed to be using. He had noticed it was nearly ubiquitous among the young women, with their dark hands and light faces.
She rarely came to the house to visit as she was at the age when she was expected to keep the house, similar to Mayloun who also rarely left the house.
The house was getting busier. Hoden came around a lot, until it was announced that she would be staying there for the foreseeable future. Her and her infant son. She had been married for some time and lived with her husband in another village. There were preparations for them to move into a new house in her mother's village but construction was late. So while her husband stayed somewhere else she and their child would stay at her cousin's house.
Xemi thought this unusual. She didn't want to stay with her mother, or her husband's mother. Why her cousin, Safia's? They were not even in the same generation, how close could they be. Safia was however close to Hoden's mother. He wondered how Safia's husband was persuaded by this arrangement. Maybe it was to spite Hoden's father. Xemi gathered there was some tension between them stemming from some lack of appreciation.
One night Hoden's mother, when Hoden was young, had stayed out late at Safia's house and Hoden's father hadn't appreciated that. He didn't appreciate having to come to the house looking for his wife like she was his daughter, out past her curfew. He showed his displeasure by banging on the door hard. The master of the house was there too, and he in turn didn't appreciate the banging on the door. Since then Hoden's father resented the family, Safia in particular. Imagine considering the niece, twenty years younger, a bad influence on the aunt, a middle aged woman. That was how he saw matters.
Xemi liked Hoden's energy. She always talked in a fast, enthusiastic way. Her son wasn't older than two. With him there, it was like having a dog in the house. The boy never wore a diaper, curiously only ever wore a tshirt, leaving traces of his presence behind everywhere. They tried to watch him at all times to clean up right after he did his business. Xemi had to watch him for different reasons.
Xemi rarely drank water in this village unless it came straight from a bottle. The water in the well was contaminated in his view. When he had finally looked inside it and saw the sand at the bottom he refused all associations, rejecting all of their reasonings. It had to be boiled for whatever before he touched it. He drank for the most part soda drinks but these drinks made him salivate more.
He didn't like swallowing so much spit; he abhorred the idea and more often than not he used to spit in an empty soda bottle as opposed to going outside to spit on the rocks. When full, he would empty the bottle in the manhole or he would throw it away and use a new one. The bottle would always be next to Xemi's bed ready to receive.
The baby must have had experience of soft drinks. The first time he saw it he made a beeline for it. Before Xemi knew what was going on, the baby poured the contents down his throat. Xemi and Mahmoud, who was there also and knew what that bottle contained, in unison reeled in revulsion but traces of mirth remained on their faces. Smiles come naturally in these circumstances.
The baby angrily started crying a little as the slimy goo that he drank was not what he was expecting. His mother was there at the time and cursed Xemi for playing pranks. Xemi couldn't help laughing while protesting his innocence. This boy was part of a curious scene.
It just so happened that Abdullah's sister came by one day with their little brother, passing by after doing errants. He was a few years older than Hoden's son. Hoden's son was as usual naked from the waist down. All were in Xemi's room except for the two visitors.
Abdullah's chubby little brother then entered, tentatively, grinning, naked from head to toe. The little exhibitionist walked directly towards Xemi's bed where the other kid was, looking at him and then at everyone else, who were on the other side, and then back at him.
Xemi was perplexed, standing next to Mahmoud's bed looking down at the curious scene. Both boys were near each other now, the one stark naked holding the edge of his bed like he was posing and the other oblivious to the newcomer, looking down, kicking a dust ball, his member swinging as he did so.
'Who sent this boy here like this?' Xemi asked himself, helpless, unable to look away.
There was one thing apparent and this was shared by all those present. It didn't take long for someone to mention it.
'Allah, look how big his dick is,' a voice exclaimed of Hoden's son, which was Hoden herself, a proud mother. Her son was indeed extremely well endowed or at least it seemed like he was compared to the other boy.
Abdullah's little brother had a dick that was half the size of his younger competitor who was half his age and half his height. Hoden's son was leaning back a little, looking around, not understanding why everyone smiled as they were looking at him, yet he smiled in return, exposing himself further like he was bathing in glory.
The other boy sensed or comprehended that he was being unfavourably compared to the other boy, fidgeted a little and let out a nervous laugh. Howa was laughing gleefully and kept saying 'Allah, look at how big his dick is,' echoing Hoden's words about her son. Xemi was laughing a little too, shocked to find himself in this situation. He still did not know why Abdullah's brother was naked. His sister came in after him to clothe him, belatedly, after the show.
'Maybe he wetted himself and ran inside this room where everyone was, after being cleaned, to show himself. Some kids do that,' he remembered. The cheeky grin he had on when he first came in confirmed it for Xemi. But my god what a miscalculation!
'He's going to have a major complex if he remembers this curious scene,' Xemi ruminated.
Soon after Abdullah's sister and their little brother left. Xemi felt hungry. There was a container with camel milk and rice, with dates around. He hated camel milk and had eaten dates once in his life before feeling unimpressed. But something pushed him to eat it. And he devoured it. He even ate with his hands for the first time. Some preternatural compulsion drove him on.
Of late, he would sometimes wear a traditional Somali sarong because someone was stealing his underwear. In fact a lot of his things went missing from his suitcase. The sarong allowed him to not worry about one as it wasn't worn with underwear. The sarong itself was a present his mother gave him years before. He didn't know why he brought it as he hadn't worn it once outside Somalia and never had any intention to.
He wanted to go to the toilet. He got up, a sudden rush went to his head, made him lose balance and he flopped back down on the bed. Strange, he said to himself. That was a strange feeling that went through him. He tried again and once again he lost his balance and this time almost fell completely backwards. Mahmoud was laughing at him. He himself thought it a little funny. The feeling was so unlike anything he had experienced before.
He got up again and this time used all his force to stay upright and he managed to walk to the toilet and come back using more concentration than he had ever done before for anything. When he returned, he laid down and mused on what was going on. He started feeling heavy headed. And once again he wanted to go to the toilet. He had to go.
He forced himself up and ambled to the manhole, so desperate did he wish to go there now. He walked as fast as he could, tottering like a newborn lush, passing Hoden sitting in the corridor. When he turned, he lost his balance again, this time feeling like he was losing consciousness.
He gripped his sarong that was threatening to fall down. With the other hand he grabbed a clothes line that ran from one wall to the other side next to the door of the toilet. He pulled himself back up. He let go and tried to take a step forward. Instead of going forward he felt himself going backwards and had to grab the line again.
His entire being was focused on the manhole. It was twilight and the roaches that came out at night was the last thing on his mind now for the first time. He managed to reach it but not before he heard Hoden cry:
'Allah, Safia, he's fainting.'
*
Abdullah's sister was called Afrah. When dawn wakes her, until nightfall, when sleep takes her, she fights the dreadful monster we all fight from birth: eternal ennui.
At thirteen she became the 'lady' of the house when her grandmother's arthritis made it impossible for her to maintain the household. Surprisingly, the flaming joints were not preventive when it was time to administer beatings. Usually it was Afrah who was at the end of this.
'I have the most killing pain and you want to force my end closer, you thief.' was her refrain whenever she chased after Afrah who made her grandmother work for it if she wanted to lay hands on her.
Afrah's little brother whom she paddled after, became more annoying than sweet as soon as she reached puberty. Now what she enjoyed most was the coquetry of womanhood.
She used to call different houses ostensibly to talk to the girls of the households but ended up talking to the boys who she knew would answer. But this was for play since her lot made it difficult to see marriage coming her way anytime soon.
Her family was suffering the poverty that prevents decent marriages and no suitor would come if there was little to no future support from her side. Her house was surrounded by stakes whereas the house Xemi lived in had walls to enclose it.
But she was bored, so bored, and she felt life was impossible if it continued like this. Abdullah came home one day to pick something up. Lately he only came to sleep, never for food, so as to not take away from any of his younger siblings. He brought his friend with him, Mr jawline from the TV place.
As he waited at the entrance, his eyes met Afrah's and a piercing sensuality emitted from them. Afrah found him hideous but admired him for his entrepreneurship. Abdullah never used to go to his friend's venture because he didn't have the fee and he didn't want to make things awkward. A true business man, Mr jawline was, he didn't make exceptions even for friends.
But things changed. All of a sudden Abdullah was invited to come for free. After so long, he wondered as to why that was.
Chapter 23
The next weeks or months, Xemi didn't know how long it was, passed in a blur for him. He was most of the time in bed, ate nothing, drank little, and made sure to keep his eyes closed so no one spoke to him. He wasn't in pain but he had no energy to do anything.
He forced himself to the toilet for the first couple of days as best he could, holding the walls for balance. On one of the first days of his illness when he had to go to the toilet for the tenth time in two hours, he was looking for his tissues and found that they had finished.
He wanted to cry but he didn't have time to consider moral pain. His body told him he had to go right then and there. He got up to go to the toilet, finished his business and looked around for the plastic watering can. It was in the corner of the room, filled and waiting.
Unsteadily he got up, feeling drained, weak and desperate. He lifted the can and went back to the hole to do the unthinkable; trying to keep his balance from tipping left, towards the weakness of the sick or right, towards the clumsiness of the unpractised. He slid his hand through, finding that once he got used to the creamy texture it wasn't so bad really…
Then came the time when he could no longer control his bodily functions long enough to walk to the toilet. He would then defecate on the floor of his own room. Once Safia realised what he was doing she made regular visits to his room to clean it with mutterings of profanity asking why he wouldn't just go to the toilet. He didn't feel shame or any other censorious emotions. He didn't feel any gratitude for the care. What else could she do and wasn't she responsible ? He was sure death would not come for him.
There were no doctors in the village, only a pharmacist. The night when he almost fainted his uncle was sent out to find him but he was away and didn't come back for a number of days later. When he finally came and dropped off some medication, he was surprised that Xemi hadn't taken any so far. But where was he supposed to have gotten them from? In any case, Xemi did not take the ones he dropped off. He wanted to see if his body could heal itself and furthermore he hated taking pills.
Flesh and mass evaporated from his bones rapidly till a walking carcass remained. Howa kept saying how comically big his eyes looked. A female visitor, whose house Xemi visited early on with Yasser, saw him and didn't even say hi, not wishing to talk to the dead. Safia could be seen with her beads more often than usual.
The first night was the only night where he almost fainted and it didn't happen again. The food poisoning had sent an initial shock to his system which subsequently only manifested in complete loss of appetite and pressing urges to defecate which had to be fulfilled within seconds. His odourless, colourless defecation became more solid as time went by.
His sleeping pattern was altered by illness. He would be asleep at midday and be awake at midnight. The noises of night were always the same. You heard either mice scurrying, scrambling your nerves, or a donkey's racket, replacing the trill of birds that he was more familiar with. Xemi wanted to find out what this donkey looked like.
Slowly he got up, walked to the top of the well and looked around. All was still in the semi darkness of a half moon, except this donkey that he could hear approaching. The wicked din became infernal, magnified by the emptiness surrounding him. His hairs flared when he realised that this was not the bray of a donkey. This was something else. What he heard was an effusion that resembled the crazed babble of a mystic, repeating the loud incantations over and over again.
He went back inside as quickly as his disintegrating limbs could take him before he saw the man, but more importantly, before the man saw him. 'So it's this lunatic who was making all this noise this whole time,' he said to himself, shivering, as he pulled the covers back over himself, listening to the racket. The sound became more terrifying now that he knew it was human. He wished he hadn't looked and couldn't sleep even when the sounds were smothered by distance.
'They tolerate a lot here,' Xemi thought, because there is no way he was the only one to hear this.
The next day Safia was in his room staring at him with her prayer beads in her hand. He was pulling thick blankets over his fleshless body as he was getting cold easily with nothing to insulate him.
He started to have an urge for something. It took him some time to pin down what it was. After the type of scattered reflection the convalescent is familiar with, he decided that he wanted a mandarin. Why he didn't know.
He asked Safia to get him one, explaining that he wanted something like an orange but that wasn't an orange since he didn't know the word for mandarin. She answered that she would try to find some but it might be difficult to find one at this time of the year.
Days passed and he could tell there were subtle changes in his mouth. During the illness he had felt like his mouth was deep in frozen winter. They found the mandarin. It was just one and Safia thought it was sent by God. He ate it gingerly as he hadn't eaten for many a day.
As he ate it, he felt the warmth of spring rustle inside his mouth, and then crack the ice that had covered it. Slowly but surely he started eating again and was able to hold it down.
The first serious illness of his life had no discernible effect on his psychology despite the ravages it left on his body. He only started talking a little softer to Safia now. He recognised that she saved him from some embarrassment by cleaning after him.
Also he started using water now permanently instead of the tissue he was using, despite being able to get them now that he was well again. Finding it more efficient and downright pleasant to use water he decided to forgo his previous custom and use water henceforth. Though the initial feeling of using his hands to wash and the thought of it unnerved him, especially the first touch, he acclimatised quickly. Once you can't see or smell anything on your fingers it doesn't really matter anyway.
There was barely anything separating him from anyone else in this village anymore. His integration was almost complete. He had recovered some weight after a couple of weeks and things returned to normality. He was back to sitting on his ledge watching Hoden drive a car. Several times she almost crashed the car into a house but had a good time breaking social convention. It helped that she looked like a man sometimes, especially her shoulders, which were very wide.
Xemi had a habit of being shirtless in the house and on the well, and only wearing shorts that people thought were underwear. A passerby came up and approached the house. Xemi was with Howa and Mahmoud. The passerby instructed them to open the door so he could speak. Mahmoud opened the door and greeted him in deference calling him teacher. The teacher began his lecture.
'Hello. Let him know that if he comes outside without his shirt we will beat him with canes.'
Xemi raised an eyebrow and smiled at the nerve at this stranger. The man didn't even address him but spoke about him and he was right in front of him, his eyes always wandering to his naked torso.
'I wasn't going to but now maybe I will, to test you,' Xemi said in a low voice in English. Both his cousins laughed as the challenge was unmistakable and looked at the teacher who smiled but didn't hear what Xemi said.
'What did he say ? You should come to my school and do that,' he said and departed. The teacher looked young, in his twenties, with the pudginess of a votary. Xemi asked what he taught and lo and behold was told it was Koran school.
''Come to my school?' Never.'
That's one thing he refused to integrate with: religion. There was no chance he would study it or follow it as he didn't believe in it. And to pretend was out of the question. He went inside and heard a conversation spill into his ears. He could make out enough to know his mother's money had arrived.
He was elated, euphoric! Jumping around in his room he thought his time had come. Once he had the money he could make a plan to get out. He went into the living room and found Safia, her husband and her brother in there. This was the same brother who imprisoned his son out now after being broken and promising to obey his father.
'So, did I just hear my mother sent me some money?' he asked Safia, his adrenaline pumping blood at a rapid rate through him. 'How much and where is it right now?'
'What money ? Calm yourself,' Safia said laughing. Her husband peered one eye at her and then closed it. Her brother was next to speak.
'No, Safia let him know what we decided. Your mother did send money. You'll get some of it and the rest will go to the family.'
'What!!' Xemi exclaimed. 'But that's my money. All of it. And I want the total. I'll put it in a bank of some kind. '
'Hush, quiet boy! Wallahi, I'll beat this boy. This family is taking care of you, that money is theirs before it's yours. Wallahi billahi I'll beat this boy.'
Xemi stood there stupefied, staring at this man and his debonair streak of white in his beard. His aunt's husband piped up with there not being a bank in the village. Xemi walked out the room before he killed someone.
He was pacing his room enraged and then he punched the wall with the image of that man on his mind. His hand bled.
'How dare they ! How is this possible! This place is lawless. It needs to be wiped out. How can they withdraw my own money? What kind of system allows the elderly such power? They control everything here. First the cousin now this too, again.'
He didn't know what the date was but he was sure he was eighteen by now. Even if he wasn't this would still be a scandal. He was being thwarted at every opportunity. If they had power over money transfers they had powers over other things. There is no chance of him leaving this place.
He was brought some money and he instantly calmed. These were several thick stacks of Somali notes, wrapped with rubber bands. The musty smell emanating from them intoxicated him. He asked how much that was and was told it was fifty dollars worth. And the rest? He was told not to worry.
He went through the stacks and thought he could do a lot with this in this village. One bottle of any fizzy drink was less than one percent of this one stack, and he hadn't had one in a while. When it came down to it he was as shallow as they come.
Thinking of the rich people abroad and how they threw their money around he could do the same thing here. He thought it best to spend this money and wait for his mother to call again and try to arrange something else. Perhaps another third party could be a receiver and collect and hold the money transfer for him the next time and he could use that money to facilitate his departure. No matter how much power a family has, money has more power. He was going to buy his way out.
