Chapter 2
This village, somewhere in Somalia, does not have the privilege of full seasons. It has no autumn, winter or spring in the months of October, December or April. What it has are the freshness of dawn, the heat of the day, the warmth of dusk, and the chill of night, mini seasons that occur every single day.
Safia walked in the freshness of dawn and was on her way to the market. She walked slowly, lumbering even, as she made her way past the houses where only the women were awake; and just like early spring it was, when the first flowers bloom like irises and jasmine whose dominion is short but absolute.
Safia responded to several of them with a lifting of a hand in acknowledgment. The girls with their batiste house dresses which exposed the whole of their arms, were throwing away dirty water on the rocks in the backstreet and received drops of water on their lithe arms in recompense. It looked like spring flowers watering themselves.
In slow strides Safia passed them as the back road proceeded to narrow, the rocks became bigger, the animal smells began to intensify and the chattering was heard. She arrived at the market.
The market consisted of several women who sold items at the back of their houses. They were women of enterprise but out of need rather than entrepreneurial spirit, because some misfortune, or rather, several misfortunes in tandem, as they do not come singly, led to them taking up the mantle of market women, and main breadwinners of their respective households.
Safia went up to one, who was holding a goat by a rope that hung around the animal's neck, bucking every few minutes. In a large open metal container were remnants of a slaughtered animal, in strands and cubes on top of each other, the colours of red and white abounded to give proof of a new killing. The scent unnerved the animal but attracted Safia as she stood right by it and greeted the market woman. Her name was Salome, a woman who looked more middle age than she actually was.
There was one distinctive aspect that all the market women had at their 'stalls', and that was space for someone else to sit next to them.
Safia sat next to her.
'You're getting slower and slower, sister, and jiggling more and more,' Salome said to Safia, smiling as the two heavy set women rubbed against each other. In truth, this 'rubbing against each other' was one of the main reasons why the matrons of various households came to this market and the market women knew this, and provided the service in addition to whatever else they sold.
'I'll sort that out, don't you worry,' said Safia, after a short and sharp laugh, that had no low notes, and were as high as the boy voices that sing Mozart's Kyrie.
'At our point in life, there's no return,' Salome said almost sadly. 'When am I going to see Mayloun here?'
Knowing her daughter had passed the age where she should have been betrothed, these comments and questions were common to her. She always had the same answer ready and this time was no different, though the discerning ear could sense an alacrity that was new.
'When God wills it.'
They watched the goat buck.
'Aaden came to visit me yesterday,' Salome began. Safia shifted and when she did so, Salome shifted too, involuntarily. The fat rolls of one had collapsed into the fat rolls of the other and so when one moved, the other did too. Salome, almost shyly, continued:
'That boy is so -'
The goat bucked again violently this time.
'Look ! ' Safia exclaimed, letting out her Kyrie laugh, with no low notes. 'What's he after?' pointing towards the goat who had his red sword exposed. His penis was erect.
At that moment a woman walked up and the single most distinguishing feature that one noticed was her jawline, and what a jawline it was too! Long and protruding; prominent and captivating. One wondered what kind of bones it was made of when facing this uncommon woman.
'Allah, Hiba, look at this. What is he after,' Safia exclaimed again, and slapped the goat on the backside. She was in a playful mood.
Hiba, the matron of the jawline family, approached, smiling, asking what Safia was talking about. She then noticed the red sword and her smile dimmed slightly. Offense could be seen but it was contained and only manifested into a polite chuckle.
'Surely not me? Not by choice anyway.' They watched the goat buck.
Salome asked Hiba about the newlyweds.
'Are they moving into your house, while a new house is built for them?'
'Sister, that was my suggestion but the girl refused. She said she would wait until she was too heavy to move and then come. For now, her household only has her as the matron, since her grandmother has her rheumatism. The boy is still young so they need her there. We're looking for some kind of maid for that house which separates man and wife. He goes there daily and says the grandmother -'
'The rheumatism has spread to her brain,' Salome slid in with disgust. 'Have you seen how she looks? Disgraceful!'
'Right! How that boy got caught by that girl, I'll never know. And never forgive! She's a wily one, that vixen, but all we can deal with are the repercussions not the reasons. How fortunate your boy left, Safia, before he got himself snared.'
The goat bucked one last time and became restful. The women watched his sword go back into its sheath.
Chapter 3
'Let me die beautiful,' Nayima said to her fifteen year old granddaughter, who was holding a small shard of glass for her grandmother. 'Ravishing, ravishing, let me ravish !' She was rubbing the skin whitening cream on her face as the increasingly pregnant and newly wedded Afrah looked on at the old woman's attempt at dying a white corpse. She was succeeding to an extent and the only thing black on her now were her lips. 'Hold that thing steady, naya!' She put some cream on her eyelids, careful not to touch her naked eye, wondering why this cream wouldn't work on her lips. She flicked her eyes open.
'Illuminating,' Afrah said, peering at her absurd looking grandmother. Can there be anyone on this earth who looks like her? she wondered to herself.
'What did you say, naya,' she asked with a softer voice, visibly pleased because whatever her granddaughter had said was doubtless a compliment.
'You illuminate and shine with brightness, grandmother.'
'Illuminate?' she echoed. 'Maybe so.'
She cackled in delight.
They were sitting in front of their house going through their regular morning routine. Their house was a small two bedroom house, with four long stakes surrounding it; and in between the four stakes were planks half their size.
Their morning routine was as such: the grandmother would look in the mirror that Afrah was holding, look for any discoloration, and rub Indian cream on any natural colour she saw. This would continue until the grandmother was satisfied with her reflection, until she was placated by the depth and ingenuity of compliments Afrah could come up with.
Afrah had come to a stage where she would play with words all day just so she could use them for the next morning and attempt to make the routine shorter than the last.
Afrah got up, heaving her heavy, pregnant body, pushing with increasingly more force so that she could stand on two feet, when a naked boy appeared at the threshold. Beyond the threshold one could see a bed with someone else, Abdullah, asleep.
'Look at this boy!' the grandmother rasped, her black lips and orange headwrap making her look not beautiful, but intriguing, mesmerising almost. Though she despised her black colour she still had her African facial features, which she could do nothing about, as with the lines and wrinkles. She looked like cracked ice in truth.
'How can he go to bed with clothes on, but wake up naked ?'
The boy giggled. A chubby, sharp tongued five year old boy who liked to expose himself but was frightened easily of strangers. An unusual little exhibitionist.
'Put your clothes on.'
'Why ? Am I going somewhere ? Why do I need clothes if I stay here?'
'Uss! Waraya! I told you not to challenge me.'
Afrah added:
'You're taller than our walls, the planks I mean. People can see you even now and you're too old to be constantly naked.'
'Xisho! If I didn't have this rheumatism - Afrah, bring him to me.'
She grinned and grabbed him before he could run, pushing him towards their grandmother. Squirming in her arms, hitting her, he tried to escape.
'Good girl - bring him.'
'Allah, Afrah! Let go.'
He was trembling with the type of fear that was comical and even the grandmother wanted to laugh. Afrah let him go and he spun away letting out a noise of deliverance, his voice vibrating to the beat of his running feet.
Looking back he could see the mood had changed and that he was made a fool of. He shouted:
'Next time you do that, I swear I'll kill that bastard baby!'
Children always repeat the threats and insults they hear adults say, and this was no different. He had heard this and said this himself more than once. Afrah pushed her lips out to show what she thought of that redundant insult. She was married now, so how could her baby be a bastard?
'Abdullah! Wake up! Devil take your laziness; what will become of this family,' the grandmother shouted. 'Wake up and campaign, waraya. It's election season !'
Chapter 4
Safia returned home muttering to herself and disjointed phrases could be heard from time to time. Phrases like 'I told them not to' and 'my conscience is clear' were some of the things that could be heard if you were listening closely, but from a distance it would seem that she was humming, pleased with something. But no one was listening, close or from a distance, as when she entered she found the house asleep.
Mayloun had returned to bed and Howa had never woken up. Mahmoud hadn't slept there to begin with. She had brought with her some goat meat which she carried naked in her hand, and a metal container with some goat milk. The smooth and soft texture of the strands of meat felt good in the palm of her hands, flesh on flesh.
'What are you doing ? Wake up, both of you. Wake up! This house needs work,' Safia yelled as she went into the kitchen. In the corner was a bag of charcoal. She took a few out and put them on top of the white ash of the mostly disintegrated charcoal already in the stone pot. She lit it, bellowed once again for them to wake, but knowing her screams were futile she went to the girls bedroom.
'Wake up, I said.'
She pushed the door wider so she could enter, but then immediately backed away because she felt the heat of the girls's bedroom. This wasn't heat in the truest sense of the word, but rather a warmth, and of such intensity that this room must be the closest thing to a mother's womb on earth. Safia was struck by it, though she had experienced it many times before, less so as the years had gone by, and especially since her mother died. The unnerving heat, its motherly warmth, made her uncomfortable and so she didn't enter, frightened that she would never leave if she did. It's the same feeling as those with vertigo experience, a particular type of fear of heights, not a fear of falling, but a fear that one will jump.
There were movements, Safia deciding that this was enough, went back to the kitchen. She was correct, as it was enough, because ten seconds later Howa walked in, sleep trickling away with every blink she performed.
'Mother, what did you bring?' Howa asked, in a sweet, childish voice.
She saw the metal container, knowing already something tasty would be in there, scooped it up, and took a gulp from the container. She had closed her eyes when she drank and as soon as she swallowed the liquid, she opened her eyes so sharply that one thought the goat milk washed her brain of the remnants of sleep for now she was wide awake and let out a gross noise of satisfaction. Soon after Safia sat in front of the fire, cooking, throwing the goat meat into the metal pot under which the fire was lapping or dancing in a sensuous fashion.
'You better learn something today, or I'll take you out of that school. You hear me, Howa?'
'I learn something every day,' Howa responded, after taking another deep draught of the goat milk. She had already drank half with only two gulps when the container held a liter's liquid. Her mother snatched the container from Howa.
'Go clean the hallway, and stop - look at this, how big is your mouth? Look at this! This was meant for several days, naya. How big is your mouth! Go clean the hallway!' an exasperated and highly dramatic Safia told her daughter. 'Fragment of the devil.'
'Clean? But if I clean I'll be tired and can't go to school. Why am I cleaning ?' She jumped up. 'Mayloun! Stop playing with your pussy -'
'What are you saying, naya!'
'- Come out and work on the house !' she yelled in mock exhortation, mimicking her mother, while her voice trembled from laughter.
At this moment Mayloun walked up and stood at the threshold.
'Why are you yelling? Contemptible child.'
She sashayed by an amused Howa and grabbed the container that was next to Safia.
She made the liquid swish in her hand, twisted the cap off and sipped it. She knew how Howa drank and wanted to distinguish herself from her sister's childish coarseness. Howa knew it and to get even she continued her little mimicry.
'Mayloun, fuck your prophet. What are you standing there for ? Work on the house. Work work work ! Let me go get the water ready for you. As for me,' she finished, getting up, in her most haughty and pressed tone of voice, said: 'I have to go to school.'
She left the kitchen.
'Let's see where that education gets you!' Mayloun shouted after her.
Howa returned, banged on the door of the kitchen, which was never used, and said again 'work, work on this house, naya!' and left the kitchen in a cloud of giggles.
They were having goat liver for breakfast and its pungent smell along with the peppers it was cooked with, suffused the kitchen with its pleasant, sweet aroma. Mayloun sat on the floor, and watched her mother cook.
'We need to get you married in the next couple months,' Safia began, introducing a topic that used to be painful before, but now a burgeoning joy. 'So you better think about who it is. Think sensibly now!'
'I choose the father of my child.'
Safia banged the spoon she used to stir with, against the pot.
'Sensibly, I said. I told you not to do this foolishness.'
'Which you're happy about.'
Mayloun could sense the shift in power, that she had become more important to her mother. As such she took liberties that she might not have taken before.
'Uss! I warned you, how can I be happy about it?'
'Okay, I'll kill it then,' she said suddenly.
'If you're unhappy…'
Safia shifted and glanced at her daughter, who in normal circumstances could have expected the ladle to strike her face, but now all Safia could do was to reconcile herself with the impotence of a prisoner.
'Think about who you want, and we'll arrange it, God willing,' she said softly, returning to stir the liver.
Mayloun suppressed her laughter, delighted at her new circumstances. She was a daughter no longer, nor a child of the house, but a nascent matron, and rejoiced at her mother's waning powers and her dawning ones. She had been waiting for this for so long.
