Chapter 16
'What can a girl be doing touching walls like that?' the old man asked significantly to his towering grandson. 'Only two types of people that do that. Thieves looking for loot, or girls looking for cock.'
They were in front of the back door, watching a girl in a black niqab in the distance that provoked the old man's philosophising. The old man returned to fixing his cufflinks with his thick brown cane hanging off his wrist. His huge nose was obscuring his view slightly so it took him longer to arrange matters.
'Yes,' Abdullah answered, in a tone of slow realisation, a tone which he thought old folks liked to hear in young folks. His thick eyebrows contracted in seriousness.
Whatever expression Abdullah had on his face, it belied the fact that he was feeling the most intense discomfort known to a young person. An image had come into existence. He had his grandfather's cock on his mind. The whole of his body itched and he wanted to scratch everywhere but tried, as his power allowed, to ignore the awful discomfort that this itch was causing him. What can one do? Once you are acknowledged as grown, the eldery subject you to sexual references. It's even worse when you are a virgin, as Abdullah was: a virgin with disdain for womankind begging him to express it.
They started towards the meeting which was held in the house of Blaad. This was altogether a new experience for Abdullah. He wasn't used to his grandfather speaking to him so freely and to be walking with him like this in public. On the way, his grandfather was hailed and stopped to speak with people Abdullah might have ignored, and they bypassed people Abdullah might have stopped for and spoken to. An unusual and curious situation that Abdullah tried to mollify by using a stern expression, one that said he had some place to be, and if it was up to him, he would go directly to it, stopping for no man. This expression worked for him as those around him thought he was a young man who was serious with a mission, while the person next to him was simply a chaperone.
Since his parents had died the closest thing to a father figure Abdullah had was this chaperone whose idea of parenting was instruction followed by a period of waiting to see if his instruction bore fruit, a period called childhood. Once they had reached early adolescence he would treat the person who benefitted from his instruction as he would any other person who had reached adulthood, judging them on their actions and treating them accordingly. Abdullah had reached the stage of adolescence and as such the days of instruction were over, the days of advice stopped. Now came the time of judgment. It didn't occur to him that his grandson might need some guidance on how to approach the situation, this meeting, a monumental occasion.
'Advice for the orphan? Why just five years ago I told him…'
Abdullah didn't expect anything. All he did was try to manoeuvre through this period of judgement as lightly as he could by childhood rules: speak when you're spoken to, at all other times be quiet. In other words he had no clue how to truly behave around older generations. This was why he dreaded this meeting as it encompassed the entirety of his social ignorance, for this meeting was created for the younger people to talk to the older people; and by talk, it is meant in its purest social term, which was entertainment. The young people were invited to entertain and whoever was the most adept in social discourse would find himself, most likely, the most successful in this election campaign.
If the success of his meeting could be gauged by his interactions with his grandfather, it would be, as he felt it, a colossal failure. They walked to the meeting in near silence and truthfully Abdullah was glad of it, as his grandfather's cock was still on his mind and the needles were still under his skin, the rocks were glass under his soles. But this was his grandfather after all, his vote was assured, the others however…
For weeks he had only this thought in mind, of how to engage and please the older folks in conversation, how to start and carry a conversation, initiate a topic, and how to entertain a grown man. He had been observing and concluded that to say the wrong thing at the wrong time would be the most errant thing to do and decided to stick to those childhood rules, hoping for a miracle. He hoped that at this meeting the elderly, heads of their families, would value the serious over the entertaining, thoughtfulness over good humour, consideration over wit...
The house of Blaad was a mayor's residence, on the hill towards where Xemi used to watch television. It was the house which looked like a vase and whose flowers was a water tank.
Chapter 17
Blaad's door was closed but unlocked as usual when Sharif pushed it open.
'Warayahe!' the old man shouted, his voice cannoning off the dark walls. Every house in this village had the same interior as the particular dark stone produced a coolness that was immediately felt as soon as one entered.
Both guests took their sandals off and placed it next to a half a dozen pairs of other sandals.
'Yah!' a voice responded.
'Is that where you are ?'
The old man sniffed out the source of the sound and ushered his grandson to a room on the left.
This room was a relatively large room with an Iranian bleeding carpet greeting you upon entry. The wall facing you as well as the two adjacent had dark blue curtains whereas the remaining wall, shivering in its nudity, only had a little arras to warm it, depicting the rape of Lucrece. This tapestry had fascinated Blaad once, on his world travels, and he attained it to take back home. 'Why,' he wondered, 'would someone weave the act of rape, and why are we mesmerised by it?'
The room was illuminated by four gas lamps hanging from the ceiling. The ticking lamps, ticking in regular intervals, gave this room a light which altered moods. Blaad simply hung them up because he enjoyed the smell of gasoline, which was thick in the air, amidst the cigarette smoke and the scent of the high quality khat. The combination of the lamps, the curtains and the rape made this room very warm.
'Ah, Sharif, you came at just the right time to advise. There is a dispute. Sit down and tell us what a young man does when his young wife doesn't know how to cook?' Blaad asked him with a pleasant and welcoming smile. The two guests greeted everyone else and once they sat down, Sharif asked him to repeat the question.
'A young woman that can't cook? That's a matter of instruction.'
'Ah yes, so it is. What if she hasn't been instructed properly, that is, correctly on this matter?'
'Yah? How can that be?'
'Let's say for example that a husband has been married to a wife for two years and still there is no baby.'
It was clear that the khat had already led Blaad to a rarified state of concentration and this was akin to jumping on a moving speedboat for the interlocutor. Sharif had to get used to the movement, which can be sharp and unexpected. Several moments passed before he answered.
'There are laws for that.'
'But what if the second wife has this same issue. And then the third one. It seems that the issue is with the man and not the woman.'
'And then what?' Sharif asked, mildly surprised.
'And then the man takes a fourth wife.'
As he was speaking he was pouring out tea for the two new guests.
'Why would the family allow it?'
'It may be that there are incentives. But the women, all four of them, will have nothing to show for their marriages. All because of one man.'
'Disgraceful!' one of the other guests muttered. He was a handsome man with a white mass of curly hair in the front of his dark mini afro. He was sitting next to a smiling teenager next to him. This was Aaden and his father. 'This man is simply a pleasure seeker,' Moussa, Aaden's father, added. 'He should know by the second one that he is the problem. Why take a third one?'
'Yes, it's a pity for the women,' Blaad sighed. 'No children and an ex husband. Few will marry someone in such a position. I know of only one -'
'True. Ali Whené.'
'Why does a man marry?' Blaad asked suddenly, his eyes darting to the painting. 'Why does a woman marry ?'
'For a family,' Adaan interposed, attempting to keep his voice as low as possible, not wanting its melody to break. His father glanced at him. Aaden had been told to speak little and let his beauty talk for him. The glance was a reminder and a rebuke.
'Because she has been told to,' Sharif said with a raised voice and a chuckle. 'Why else?' 'Yes, that is the reason she will get married, but why does she want to do so herself?'
'Because she wants pleasure herself,' Abdullah burst out, following childhood rules; he had been asked to speak and so he did.
At this point Yasser appeared at the threshold with traces of dust in his hair and on his shoulders. It was evident he had tried to get most of it out. He came in apologizing calmly and firmly for his lateness. There was little contrition in his voice, only the purest of politeness and decorum. One has to pay our apologies from time to time.
Blaad was pleased to see him as he had a soft spot for the boy. This was mainly because Yasser was an expert at holding a conversation and Blaad's whole existence revolved around pleasant conversation: the more interesting they were the more delightful life was. Yasser sat down directly beneath the painting of the rape of Lucrece.
'Yasser. Why does a woman marry?'
Unlike the old man Sharif, he never needed to adjust himself, like he was water itself, and immediately answered:
'Because she is bored.'
Chapter 18
Now all three election front runners were there amidst the first circle of the extended family. At the head was Blaad, by virtue of blood and wealth. There were others there, solely by virtue of blood, like the old man Sharif; and others solely by virtue of wealth, like Mr keyring himself, Hassan. However, everyone present was valuable in that they would sway others to vote for their particular favourite.
'Yes. Things happen because one is bored with nothing to do,' Blaad said, elated because someone shared his opinion. 'What about something to do, some entertainment, something like...music. There are no musicians here, no performances, only cassettes and vocal abilities of varying degrees. What we need is -'
'Original music,' Yasser said, caressing the conversation, making sure his voice would be the most memorable.
'Creative compositions. Something like,' here it is seen that Blaad's musings had been planned and that something was to happen. '...Halima! Call the instrumentalist!' Blaad called out, finishing with an air of mystery.
Halima was his daughter who was stationed in a nearby room so that she could hear her name being called. Luckily she didn't have to go far to call the 'instrumentalist' as he was in the same room as her, as her father knew too. He could have called him directly but was fond of indirectness, as he thought it gave a sophistication to everything. And so the instrumentalist entered the room holding his instrument.
He was a Chinese man of indeterminable age with long sleek hair and a slightly unshaven face; slim with protruding cheekbones, and a frame that was close to feminine. He wore a sarong, like everyone in the room with a green checkered pattern and a black shirt that hung loose on him. He was sweating slightly; a handsome man whose instrument was a violin.
'Allah!' Aaden gasped, unable to keep his voice low. The instrumentalist glanced at him in curiosity hearing his melodic voice break.
'From the Chinese government, with love !' Blaad declared, the last two words in English.
This was the signal they had agreed on and sitting not far from Blaad he put his bow to the strings and stroked the strings of the violin violin. The audience's bodies shook like he had strummed their bones. Mournful wails started coming out of the violin in a slow, piercing rhythm, as he played the Indian melody Raga Kafi.
Time and time again it wailed, crying so deeply, that there were shudders, welling tears. Blaad had his head bowed, the old man Sharif uttered out his habitual 'yah!' Hassan was flicking his key ring but this was like a dog barking in a ferocious storm, the thunder dismissing all other noise. Aaden was visibly frightened, his father laying a hand on his leg to quiet him down. At times the flames in the gas lamp flickered seemingly from the long, extended laments.
When the violinist finished, after thirty minutes, he gave a nod and left.
'Allah, he made that thing cry!' Aaden exclaimed excitedly.
'And you yourself are singing now. Why the excitement?' his father said, though he was bewitched himself.
'He always warms things up,' Blaad said with quiet satisfaction.
He suddenly excused himself and got up. Blaad passed the room the instrumentalist was in with his daughter, gave him a fist bump greeting, squeezed his shoulder, called him 'my friend', and went to the back. This was where he had installed his shower in the open air.
This metal luxury was attached to the wall but extended so that it was directly above him, and it had a large flat surface, so that when the water dropped, it dropped all around him to the point where he could extend his arms fully and the water would drop on his fingertips. The floor was sloped so that the liquid would flow towards the outside of the house. Once he had taken his clothes off, turned it on, warm water came out, as the water had been heated by the sun all day. He stayed in his personal shower, no one else was able to use it, for a few minutes letting the water come out like thick rain drops and then came out, dried himself, and returned to the company.
'I had to refresh myself,' he said matter of factly. He did this several times a day, everyone there was used to it, and especially after the violinist had played his instrument. If he wasn't so old, one would have suspected Blaad went somewhere to play with his own instrument.
'He's teaching my daughter how to play so she doesn't become restless. Boredom is our truest enemy, gentleman!'
'There is no boredom. Only ill instruction. How can they be bored if they do as they're supposed to; go to school and when that doesn't apply, take care of the house,' Sharif said gruffly, wiggling his huge nose while putting another leaf into his green tainted mouth. 'What is boredom?'
Abdullah next to him sipped his tea while waiting for someone to pose him a question not considering his uncle's to be directed at himself. The rules of childhood, above all else!
'Yes, instruction is good and immeasurable. At school and at home. But once their amusements at school are finished and housework begins, that's when it becomes dangerous and occupation is necessary. A house only has so many floors to wipe. How clean should it be? As for my daughter, she started music instruction too old and is making little progress. The perfectionist spirit cannot get a hold of her, as the basics befuddle her, and is more captured by the instrumentalist's ways than his instructions. We must start younger!' 'Does the Chinese ambassador speak Somali?' Hassan asked him, flicking his keyring. 'Maybe he wants to go for a ride?'
Blaad looked at the keyring out of politeness and responded to the contrary. A few words of basic make up, but English he knew.
Halima entered, bringing a fresh tea pot and taking away the old one. She was a cute girl, slim and dark skinned, of around fifteen. Abdullah flushed when she brushed him, excusing herself and walked out.
The meeting went along these lines until evening, with interspersions, exhortations for Halima to call the instrumentalist to come and he came again, playing different Ragas. How curious it is for a Chinese man to play the violin and only Indian Ragas at that, in a little Somali village, but he did so beautifully. As soon as he was done, Blaad would excuse himself, and return five minutes later with pardons that he had to 'refresh himself'. Once everyone left, the prevailing sentiment was that Aaden was the most successful. The way he exclaimed 'Allah!' almost rivalled the Indian violin and he was a very pretty boy after all. So interesting! Because it is always pleasant and interesting to have an attractive person around you, no matter their other attributes.
Chapter 19
It was past eleven and common to find 'the meed of day's labour', spread among the household, and everyone fast asleep. Safia however was sitting in her bedroom waiting for her husband with a gaslight burning on the floor. She had been watching the mice streak past the light, their darts making the flame quiver but never extinguishing its glow. She liked the sudden startlement she experienced whenever they whizzed by, like they rushed through her when they crossed the floorboard, and then there was the irregular tick...her husband entered the room.
'Yah, Safia. You're not asleep?' Sharif said in a voice a little too loud for that time of night. The khat had ratcheted up his wakefulness. He was pleased to find her awake because it would take some time before he would be able to fall asleep and he felt like he always did when he chewed khat. He felt like talking.
'I think our boy is done for.'
'Is this Abdullah?' the dutiful wife, receptive and anticipating her husband's mood that night, answered. Besides, no point in going to sleep if you'll be woken up as soon as you find it.
'The boy makes no impression. I'm minded, myself, to give my vote to someone else,' said Sharif with a little laugh. His voice was still loud and jarring. 'He didn't entertain me.'
He had taken his sandals off and sat down next to his wife. Both of them watched the flame as they talked.
'Better for him to stay here. A brilliant boy like that if he leaves he won't come back. He could be a doctor here.'
'There's no money to send him to medical school. If he is so brilliant he should know how to act in certain situations. Well,' Sharif sighed, 'there are other things he could do. If only he was more entertaining! There was this Chinese man there. He played some instrument.'
'Is that right? I saw that Chinese man a while back. Is he still here? What's he doing here?'
'I don't know. Blaad said he was a gift from the Chinese government.'
'Ha. What were they given in return ?'
'Something or another.'
After a short silence she asked: 'What is this instrument?'
'Some wooden thing with strings. He made it cry.'
'God save us from this instrument.'
'Right. You know Blaad and his interests. He gets bored easily.'
'Was Moussa, son Abdi Karim there?' Safia asked cautiously.
'Yes, he was there. Of course he would be. His son is in this election. A little songbird he is, singing while he talks.'
'Mayloun wants to marry him.'
Sharif started, turning away from the flame to look at his wife.
'Who? The boy? But he's a child.' Before his wife could respond he asked: 'Are you missing a tooth?'
Safia put her hand to her mouth.
'This one ? Yes, months ago.' She put her hand back under her hijab. 'It's not the boy, but the father.'
'Abdi? Hmm, is it that time now?'
Sharif had been waiting for this. His daughter had passed the age already, and was restless. Her mother had pleaded for more time with her daughter and he acquiesced for the time being. Now she had requested that he arrange a marriage with this man. He could ask her why now but decided it was a matter of reconciliation. She had needed time to reconcile herself with the loss of her eldest daughter and she was finally ready. He had experienced this sentimentalism with an earlier wife.
'Better marry her off if she insists on running away like this,' Safia said, giving reason for her request. 'And do it quickly.'
Sharif was pleased. He had been of the same mind, made the same argument before but his wife had rebuffed him with 'leave her to me', time and again.
'I've said the same thing how many times? I'll speak with him next time I see him. His children are not that old however. Why him?' he added sharply.
'I don't know,' Safia answered innocently. 'She asked for him.'
'Since when does a girl tell her parents who she should marry?'
'It may be a good match. He's not too old and not too young. A reasonable, settled man.'
'Yes, reasonable, that he is. I'll make enquiries. That is, there's another meeting coming up and I'll see about it then.'
'Yes, brother. See about it. We'll take Howa out of school and make her work the house.'
'Why not? I never saw the point of schools for women. What are they going to use it for? It's only because of the foreigners that we pay for a useless education.'
'Is it the UN?' Safia asked, already knowing the answer. She liked to show her knowledge of the world sometimes. How delicious the letters felt on her stimulated tongue! 'The UN.'
'Yes,' Sharif answered. 'These...organisations.'
Soon after they went to sleep. The bed had been shrinking ever since the second child, and even further when Mayloun was old enough to work which meant it was getting harder for the married couple to lie without touching each other. However, they tried as best they could and succeeded for the most part. At this point in their lives what brought them closer was nightmares.
They had been asleep for hours now until a voice weakly cried out:
'What did you say?' No one answered.
'Yah?' the voice asked louder.
Again there was silence.
'What did you say!' he shouted piercingly this time. And then he lashed out. Safia let out a muffled muttering, meaningless in essence. Sharif woke up as soon as he had touched his wife.
'Safia? Are you okay? Did I hit you?'
She said she was fine and they would go to sleep again, in their invisible rectangles, facing away from each other. These would be the only times when they would be likely to touch each other in bed, when the old man struck out at the nemesis of his dreams and Safia felt a brush that would wake her.
