Chapter 20
'Get me one that I can beat. I have noone to beat anymore,' she lamented. 'Give me someone to beat,' she repeated while looking at little Mohamed, a faint hint of a smile on her thin and black and dried up lips and then sharply turned back to Afrah. 'Hold that glass up tight, naya! Better bleed before you move, fragment of the devil.'
Afrah merely stared at her with her usual blank expression.
This was morning. Afrah, Mohamed and their grandmother were waiting for the maid to be brought by Hiba in their little courtyard that made for a living room. This would be one of the last days Afrah would hold up the shard of glass for her grandmother to search for natural discoloration and she was experiencing a mixture of emotions. Sadness at leaving a house she had lived in since her parents died, a house that contained for her the last of her immediate family. Excitement at her new path, on the verge of becoming a full matron with different circumstances, a girl's dream once household labours had begun. Anxiety that she would have to live with a family she was still unfamiliar with, a few of them complete mysteries, until the house the newly married couple were waiting for was completed. Whatever else that house sees, she would be the first matron, and this feeling overrode all else. The feeling of a pioneer's pride.
'Naya!'
She had moved again just when her grandmother had spotted something of interest. Furious that she would have to investigate matters again, she flew off the handle. Didn't she know how hard it was to keep up with the constant movement of this discoloration? With disinterest of this kind things would get out of hand in no time. The easiest way to resolve this was to smear the whitening cream all over her face and be done with it. But the fact was that this was her routine, and habit is the hardest to get out of; but more importantly, she liked this time she spent with her granddaughter. There even was a certain pleasure at the fact her granddaughter had moved because now she had an excuse to address her with emotion.
The reason Afrah had moved was because Mohamed was in a trance, softly hitting his head on his sister's shoulders, moaning all the time. He had been gloomy ever since he had been informed that Afrah was to leave the house and now was repeatedly asking for her to stay or at least to take him with her. Both were out of the question.
Amidst this scene of a yelling old lady, a pregnant girl holding a shard of mirror and a naked boy hitting his head against the shoulder of the pregnant girl, Hiba, a slender young girl and Bari, Afrah's husband, approached the house.
'Yah! Naked again. Is this boy crazy?' Hiba laughed in greeting as she entered the living room, three quarters bathing in the sun. The other quarter was where the residents were and all immediately stopped and turned to look at the guests they were expecting, but not so soon.
'Ah, Hiba. You're here,' the grandmother exclaimed, while putting the lid on the whitening cream.
Those who knew each other greeted one another. Bari, with his strong jawline, short curly hair, and deceptively muscular frame had ever since his marriage been wearing only sarongs, to signal his assent into manhood. He greeted his wife with 'sister.' His wife greeted her husband with 'brother.' But they had used the same word. As soon as she noticed him, Afrah only had eyes for him, wondering why he came. Then she turned her eyes to the slim girl that Hiba was introducing.
This was a young girl around the age of twelve, wearing the hermetic Somali hijab of the colour brown, the same colour as her dress. She had a submissive air, looking down and only stealing glances at the residents when she had to speak and looked down again.
'This is Sadia,' Hiba said.
'Whose daughter?' the grandmother asked sharply.
'Son of Ahmed,' Hiba replied back with a chuckle.
'Which one ?'
'Grandson of Mohamed.'
'That is?'
'Tribe of Sharmarke.'
After musing for a microsecond she replied:
'I can't make it out. Must be that I know him though.'
'Yes, you know him. Bari, take the girl,' meaning his wife, 'and let them get to know each other. I'll go to the market and we'll all be back in a couple hours.'
'Yes, mother.'
Afrah got up awkwardly and Bari helped her steady. As soon as she was standing Mohamed wrapped his arm around her leg.
'Go pull some clothes on,' she told her little brother.
The boy thought that he would be going with them. Pleased, he ran inside, dressed as quickly as he could and went back to the living room that had the sun as illumination. He came back out flushed, looked around, and by degrees, excitement turned to despair. He let out a little scream. They had gone without him.
Chapter 21
'Quiet, boy,' his grandmother rasped.
The crying boy had sunk to his knees and was sweeping with his right hand whatever dust and sand he could collect just to have something to throw around, letting out angry cries here and there.
'Yah? What are you crying about?' asked Hiba, approaching the boy to comfort him, and turned on the dramatism to sway a child. She injected her voice with a little awe. 'You want to come with me and see a child like you be born?'
Mohamed turned his crying eyes to Hiba's shining eyes, shining with mirth and kindness. Mohamed got up, throwing away the last of the miniscule dust from the eroded ground. He walked up towards his grandmother and put his forehead on her shoulder.
'Guess not,' she said with a smile and her comical jawline. She took leave of the family.
Ignoring the tenderness with which her grandson had put his forehead on her shoulder but extracting the full emotional pleasure from it, the grandmother turned to the standing Sadia.
'Sit down,' she ordered the girl and then immediately changed her mind. 'Why don't we test her, Mohamed? Shall we test her ? Down there,' she pointed towards the corridor that was in between the two bedrooms leading straight to the outside. 'In the back there is the kitchen. Go make us some tea.'
'Yes, auntie,' Sadia said, her eyes bigger than usual as she had never seen a Somali woman so white before. Her awkward, darting glances could have been seen as shyness or politeness or deference, but this was embarrassment. She was ashamed for the old lady and her vanity. 'I'll do it this instant,' she announced, going towards the kitchen.
The old lady took her demeanour to be deference and this increased her pleasure and approval of the new lodger.
The new lodger found her way around the kitchen quickly as one was Iike another, with its stained stone pot, bag of charcoal and metal utensils and she was back with the cup of tea for the old lady in no time.
'Good girl,' the old lady. 'See that,
Mohamed. Useful already. Ha! We've upgraded.'
The boy had stopped crying and was looking at the new girl with curiosity, because she was smiling a lovely warm smile that even her hermetic hijab couldn't strip of its childish innocence.
'Have you gone to school before ?'
'Yes, auntie.'
'Had a good time there?'
'Yes, auntie.'
'Learned anything?'
'Nothing at all,' she said defensively.
The old lady burst out in shrill laughter.
'I swear I didn't!'
'An upgrade, Mohamed. An improvement!'
Sadia didn't mean it as a joke and said it simply to absolve her parents from the guilt of depriving their child of an education. She had learned quite a few things in school.
'You have sisters?'
'Yes, auntie. Four of them.'
'Around the same age?'
'Yes, auntie.'
'Well I be! We have sensible people who give birth to children here too! An excess of daughters and so they make some go and earn money, learn something useful instead of following the markings the teacher makes on that board of his that no one has any use for! Least of all us women; a guzzler of money, that's what that institution is for us. I took Afrah out of school years ago. I would take Abdullah out of school too if he wasn't so damn good at it.'
'Is Abdullah one of the kids?'
'He's damn near a grown man now and in this election. God knows if he will win it. A miracle if he does.'
'Is that the election for the outside world, auntie?'
'Yes, Sweden or Britain. Some fine country with decent weather; not like what we have here, this dreadful sun all year round with its useless burning heat. Do you know what the most important thing is, Sadia?'
'No, auntie.'
'Usefulness. To be useful. Can we use you, Sadia?'
'Yes, auntie.'
'How can we use you?'
'However you want.'
'We will figure it out. You need the experience after all. Experience of being used, becoming useful.' She sucked her tea loudly, to cool it before it entered her mouth. 'More experience is necessary, and I mean work experience; accumulation of work, execution of work, not that prattle of the teacher in his sinecure. What more do you need than the experience of the essentials? And where do you get that? The house. All else is useless !'
Sadia hadn't been listening. She instead was smiling at Mohamed who had been staring at her like she was a wonder. The constant smile which she had directed at him disconcerted and delighted him to such an extent that he squirmed; suppressed a squeal and put his arms around his grandmother and put his cheek on her cheek.
She gripped the hot cup of tea tighter but the only warmth felt came from elsewhere. The boy surprised her, yet this surprise did not prevent the warmth and elation rising in equal measure. The reason he surprised the old lady was because Mohamed tended to reserve this tenderness, this affection, this pleasure for Afrah. Now that she would leave, it seemed that this exchange of warmth would be bestowed on the old lady. The sadness at seeing her granddaughter leave was replaced by the joy of little cuddles from the boy.
'Yes, you are very useful,' the grandmother said to Sadia, a moment after experiencing the warmth of the child's affection. 'Useful indeed. Now, let's speak about this work…'
