Chapter 26
Yasser could withstand the birds for a longer period of time than the day before. He could enjoy the noise, the erratic individual movements, the flight of a hundred birds flying up for a second only to descend down again in their ritual which looked so much like a black waterfall, and not feel a swoon coming up, pushing him downwards like their flight was a form of hypnotic suggestion. He sat on the same rock as before watching bird after bird hop from branch to branch, jerkily picking off purple berries, letting out sharp high pitched cries. His attention went again to the rock with the markings. He got up, watched a hundred birds fly up, snatched a handful of berries, and then approached the rock. The birds swooped back down as soon as he became static. He turned around and leaned his back on the rock with the curious engravings. Having the berries in his left hand, he picked them one by one with his right and threw them at the birds, watching some scatter because of his hand motion, some because of the projectile coming their way.
'I'm sure this is a grave,' he said to himself. 'Someone must have been buried here a thousand years ago, before the new Somalis came here.' He turned around to look down at the white rock with the black engravings and surveyed the surroundings. There was a conspicuous amount of small rocks around this big rock. 'Who was it,' he wondered, again throwing berries at the birds, 'how can I find out? Those same people planted this tree, a bird trap.'
A thought suddenly came to him. He threw the last berries he had and watched all the birds fly up, disorientating him as their ascent rushed through him, and he grabbed the tombstone to steady himself. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, hearing the sharp flapping of wings returning to the branches and walked away. When he came home he found a pen and a piece of paper and went back to return to the tree. On the way back someone came up to him holding a tattered looking ball. When he came closer, Yasser recognised him as the slim and dark Mahmoud.
'Yasser. What are you doing? Let's go and play,' Mahmoud said, with his goofy grin, bouncing the ball in front of him.
Yasser stared at the ball and the boy Mahmoud, a little older than him.
'Play?' Yasser repeated. 'Who is there? The same...'
Mahmoud replied in the affirmative.
He was tempted and he really wanted to play, with Mahmoud and the other boys, the usual suspects, but he told himself no. He had promised himself that he was done with the playing, the pranks, and the shenanigans of the past years. That's what made him lose his respectability.
Turning from the ball to Mahmoud's soon to be dusty hair, he declined, refusing his raging blood what it was clamouring for.
Mahmoud shrugged his shoulders.
'You can't beat Aaden in the election anyway. I don't know what you're bothering for.'
He walked away, running so he could play all the more quicker.
Yasser continued towards the tree, pleased at his increasingly powerful will power. When he got there, the swoosh of the birds made him stumble, and again he had to close his eyes and catch his breath for the exhilaration was incredible and difficult to stem. He walked slower more carefully once he heard the flutter of feathers in their descent.
He got to the stone and tried to copy the markings on the piece of paper. The first couple tries he did on one side. Then he turned the paper around, leaving the ugly scribblings on one side, and tried again on the other side. He succeeded in making a respectable imitation. Respectable. For the meeting tonight, he would present this, and then, he said to himself, 'we will see if I can beat Aaden in this election or not.' He smiled. This piece of paper would get them talking like nothing else! Nothing better than something new and unusual to stimulate conversation. And he had the perfect tool. 'Maybe in the process I can find out if anyone knows what this means, or who this is.'
He started to make his way back to the village but made a sudden movement just to make the birds fly. When they swooshed up, his heart left with them, and the choking sound his breath made, even though he knew it was going to happen, still surprised and delighted him in equal measure. As his head spun, he had to close his eyes again.
Chapter 27
Nimco had bought a ruler and was taking measurements. First she took an arm, measured it, and wrote down twenty centimetres. She eyed the other arm and determined that it was of equal length. Then she took a leg and measured it. She wrote down twenty three centimetres. She compared the figures with the week before and saw an increase in length. How happy she was ! She kissed and hugged the child so hard that it let out a squeal of discomfort. Hearing it, she let out a squeal herself, a squeal of joy. Nimco had taken to measuring the limbs of her baby every week, to see if the baby would grow like her mother or like her father. According to the figures the baby was growing like her mother and not like the father, for the growth was irrepressible, not a stunt in sight. In her opinion she could not love a child that looked like its father, since he was so hateful to her. But there would be no mother who would love their child more than her if only the child looked like her instead. Not one ! And God granted her the opportunity of being able to do so, to share the purest, deepest of a mother's love. She was almost crushing the baby when she noticed someone had come in. She loosened her grip, the baby breathed out strangely, Yasser appeared on the threshold.
'Yasser! It's growing ! My baby's growing !'
'What did you expect, it's a baby. I never heard of a baby which doesn't grow.'
'Not at this rate. She will grow big and strong. Taller than me! Mashallah. Let's go to the living room.'
Respectfully, he waited for her to get up and pass through the curtains on her right which separated the two rooms before he followed her. The living room was a room with a single red curtain covering every wall; its two ends coming together in the gap that led to the bedroom. It had brown carpet and two dark grey divans and matching cushions which completed the living room set.
'If this baby stopped growing and started to look like its father I swear one of us would die,' Nimco announced, as she sat down on one of the divans.
'Uss naya,' Yasser said, the proper admonition in this context, though she was a matron and older than him, the spirit of propriety supersedes the boundaries of age. He sat on the same divan as her.
The acquaintance between these had been long, as is the acquaintance between any two people who live in the same village, but it deepened in earnest when he started making house calls due to this election. Ever since then they had become good friends.
'Where did you come from now? The birds?'
'Yes. They stripped the tree of a quarter of its berries in one day. You still have two days before they go, if you want to see them.'
'I don't give a fuck about birds,' she said, playing with her baby's hand. 'All I care about is my baby.'
'That it grows big and tall.'
'Yes.'
'Like its mother.'
'Ohh!'
She tried to interlock her fingers with her child's fingers, but failed as they weren't on the same wavelength. It didn't want to open its fist.
'You want some food? I know you're entertaining later, aren't you? Here, take your future wife.'
She hoisted his betrothed in Yasser's hands, who was deft and firm with his new responsibility, and left to get him food.
Yasser bounced the child up down, smiling his stupendously white smile and tickled her. The baby babbled something in delight. 'You better not stop growing,' he whispered while tickling her neck. 'Not for a while at least.'
He fished in his pockets and got out a couple berries. He threw them in his hand to entertain the child. As soon as she saw the distinctive purple of the berries, she wanted it and tried grabbing it.
'What's that?' Nimco asked as she came in with two bowls, one bowl in each hand, while also carrying a bottle of fizzy drink in between her ring and pinky finger.
'It's from the tree. The birds eat these berries. Try it.'
She put the bowls and bottle down and took the baby first and then the berries second.
She examined them while the baby was reaching for it.
'Can you eat them ?'
Yasser said yes and she put it in her mouth, chewed it, enjoyed a little of the bitter taste and unrolled her tongue so that she could take some of it in her fingers. Nimco pinched some of the chewed up food in her mouth and put it in the baby's mouth. Its face distorted as the bitterness of the berries made itself felt; but Yasser didn't see any of this. He looked at the bowl. It was fancy rice, meat, and a piece of chocolate cake on the side. This seemed expensive to him, particularly the cake which he only had twice in his life. That was the first thing he ate after he washed his fingers with the white water that was in the other bowl.
'Did your pension come ?'
'Yes,' she replied as she sat down. 'Will you add to that when you win this election and go abroad, and send the mother of your wife another pension?'
She let his future wife go so she could crawl around on the floor.
'Maybe. There is this Chinese guy at Blaad's.'
'What's Chinese ?'
'Them people with small eyes.'
She slammed her hand on the divan.
'He plays an instrument too. Some strange thing that sounds like it's crying; a mournful sound but pleasant.'
'Allah, Yasser. Bring him to me please. How much is Blaad charging? I'll pay if I have to,' she said frantically, 'and rent him. It's not fair that you guys get all this and we get nothing.'
'Blaad thinks the girls in this village should get lessons from him in this instrument, to give them occupation. He wants them occupied with this...violin,' he added, remembering the name of the instrument.
'Violin? Yes, I want lessons! I have nothing to do,' she moaned. 'And I can teach my baby when she's big and strong enough.'
'I'll ask Blaad.'
'Yes,' Nimco agreed enthusiastically. 'Blaad loves you. He will give the Chinese man to me if you ask him.'
Yasser was under the influence of memory.
'That instrument made the strangest sounds. It felt like he was putting spells on us.'
'I must hear it,' she yelled. 'I want to have spells cast on me !'
The naked baby was paying no attention to any of this shouting as she was busy. Soon the smell alerted them to what she was busy doing. Both looked at the baby.
'Allah!'
Nimco jumped up and snatched the girl who was defecating on the carpet. She had left a dark watery stool on the carpet, thankfully, of a similar colour. Yasser felt a pinch of guilt. Those berries had run through the poor baby's stomach.
Chapter 28
The strings of violin and melody of Indian raga greeted the guests as they entered the house of Blaad. Blaad wanted a different type of ambiance for this soirée. He felt that it would be more elegant to have this particular music on arrival rather than a performance at the snap of the fingers as it would give an unexpected welcome and he liked to surprise with unusual and foreign things. He said to himself that though they had heard the sounds before they did not expect it on arrival and so it had some quality of freshness which makes the hairs rise. The music came from a different room than where the guests had convened so that the music could serve as background music and not disturb conversation. Another unexpected feature. What completed the unexpectedness was the song itself. It was a different raga this time, raga jog; less mournful than raga kafi but more stirring, and equally as sonorous. When a person heard it, particularly as one entered having had no forewarning, one felt submerged by it like a light rain in the pressing and thick air of a swamp; and even if it didn't disturb the conversations it disturbed the senses, which Blaad noted with satisfaction. The same people were there as usual, the three frontrunners, and other important figures. Sharif, after shifting a little, asked:
'Blaad. Does this man only know sad songs ?'
Blaad, twisting a khat stem, considered it for a moment and then suddenly shouted in English:
'Friend! Make me happy!'
Sharif and a few others were startled by the sudden outburst. Hassan thought Blaad had some kind of seizure or meltdown and tried using his keys to bring him back to his senses. Blaad held up his hand, and the strings of Indian violin sang again. This time a different sound was first heard, like the slow and steady buzzing of an insect, grazing one's ears. Then a succession of quick strokes replaced the low buzz until its pitch soared higher and higher, transforming into a music reminiscent of nymphs and idylls, spring and blooms, frolic and play; a music that was more than happiness. It was an expression of joy.
'I like this more,' Aaden exclaimed on the threshold of rapture.
'An instrument that can express a multitude of emotions, rather than simply evoke them,' Abdullah said, rather academically. 'Splendid.'
'It needs a Somali touch,' Yasser remarked carefully.
'Yes,' Blaad agreed. 'As all things do. A touch of the Somali people.'
'You know what this suits? It suits a wedding,' Sharif said, in a state where everything reminded him of what he had in mind. 'I will marry my daughter Mayloun in the coming months. Moussa, what say you? Will you marry my daughter?'
Sharif's knees made a butterfly as he separated the stems so that he could find the right leaf and then put it in his mouth. He was nerveless, cool as ice, having never been rejected. He had been through this before on several occasions with other children of his.
Moussa also was unperturbed. A man like him with teenage children must be ready for marriage proposals at any time.
'How old is she?' Moussa asked.
'Eighteen.'
This was below the minimum age he had established on principle but then recalled the girl herself, a remarkable beauty, compared her with his current wife, and said:
'Very well. I accept the marriage proposal.'
As soon as he accepted it, everyone, as if synchronized by time, raised their glasses for a moment, several exclaimed mashallah, and then put the glasses back down.
'Good,' Sharif said. 'Hopefully, the wedding will be soon.'
'Inshaallah,' several voices now said in response.
The strains of raga behag became even more joyful, as if it recognised and crowned the occasion.
Refreshed from his habitual shower, Blaad walked back to the meeting but before he did, he stopped by the room where the violinist was and told him to come. The Chinese man followed him. Blaad wished to finalise the impressions of the day by having the violinist join them not to play, which the group would expect, but to socialise, which they would not. 'Above all, the unexpected!' Blaad said to himself, and to the guests, when they entered the room he said:
'He will join us for the rest of the meeting. A man like the rest of us, why should he be apart?'
Though they had all seen him before, everyone stared at the violinist as he sat down in between Blaad and Sharif.
'What's his name?' Yasser asked.
'Zhao,' Blaad answered carefully, particularly the first syllable. A stumble in pronunciation was impermissible.
'Salaam, Zhao,' Yasser said, with equanimity and confidence.
Zhao had nodded his head to the whole company, and then nodded to Yasser again, in response to his greeting. He continued to look at the young man with curiosity. His confidence was striking.
'Will he not play?' Aaden asked, his rising voice reaching the borders of musicality.
'No. He will chew,' Blaad answered, handing Zhao some stems.
Zhao nodded and proceeded to handle the stems deftly, clearly having got used to it already. He was being watched with bemusement.
'Did you have this in China, friend ?' Abdullah asked him in English, feeling a thrill at his first chance to speak to a foreigner. This was the last throw of the dice for Abdullah. He would show that he would be at ease in foreign countries with foreign people since he spoke the international tongue. 'If this doesn't show them…'
Zhao turned towards Abdullah and smiled, breaking a leaf off the stem.
'I think this is the only place where you can find this, isn't it?'
'I don't know,' Abdullah answered, contracting his eyebrows but relaxing his spirit. He spoke more inwardly than outwardly and this made him more at ease. 'Does Somalia have something that only we have?'
'Foolish boy,' Blaad reprimanded in English, and continued in Somali. 'Can you see, in your imagination, people like this anywhere else? That alone gives us something that 'only we have.''
Abdullah flushed as much as dark skin allowed him to, turning away towards the rape of Lucrece. In a little corner there was an inscription in Somali, derived from the Shakespeare play. It said:
'What win I, if I gain the thing I seek.
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.'
The rebuke was instantly washed away.
'What is so remarkable about a people who had to use someone else's script to write their language in?'
'What import how we write, or what we use, when the language itself is our creation.'
'Half of it is Arabic.'
'Are you so sure that half of Arabic might not be Somali?'
Abdullah shrugged his shoulders.
'How can that be when they have their script? I don't care either way. But it is somehow shameful to see the UN textbooks with the written language, of our language, that they had to make for us.'
'One thing we do have is our own script,' Yasser said quietly, delighted at the perfect opportunity for his item's introduction. 'Or at least we used to.'
Everyone turned to him.
'How do you know that?' Abdullah demanded to know.
'I saw an inscription in a stone on the outskirts of the village. I don't recognize the language and I think it's some kind of grave.' Yasser pulled out the piece of paper. 'This is what it says. Maybe you can recognise it?'
He had handed it to Abdullah who examined its strange markings. Frowning, he turned it around, saw the attempts, smiled, and turned it around again.
'I don't know what this is, but it looks old,' he said in Somali, and added in English: 'What do you think, Zhao?'
He passed the paper to Zhao who looked at it and said the same thing in English, that it looked old. Everyone got a look at the writing while Blaad perused it seemingly nonchalantly.
'There are markings, writings written by Somalis all over. This is nothing new,' he remarked, though a little thrill went through him regardless. He had never seen or heard of ancient Somali script before but pretended he knew all along. 'Ingenuous. Where is this rock, Yasser,' he asked him affectionately.
'Not long from here. I'm sure this is some engraving on a tombstone,' Yasser answered.
'Could very well be,' Blaad mused.
'The heathens that lived here did all sorts before Islam,' Sharif said. 'It may even be some invocation to their God, unrelated to death, but some kind of altar.'
'Yes, a lot of culture existed before Islam,' Blaad sighed sadly. 'Who knows what was lost.'
'And thank God it was lost,' Sharif nearly shouted. 'That isn't culture that's heathenism.'
'True,' Moussa agreed.
Blaad sighed again. It was hard to talk about these kinds of things.
'At least they had their own writing script,' Abdullah muttered. 'And not just a quaint little 'x'.'
Abdullah had broken one of his childhood rules and spoke without being spoken to and said what was on his mind without being exhorted to speak. Furthermore, he had spoken a thought that was on the edge of blasphemy. It seemed that he was praising the prior civilization over Islam. Blaad sympathised with him but every other elder looked at him and considered that he would be the first to turn his back on his deen. Sharif decided to vote for Aaden.
