Chapter 34
'Mother, where is Xemi now?' Howa asked sweetly. 'Can I get his number?'
'Why do you want to speak to him?' Safia responded sharply.
She was sitting on her bed with her prayer beads while Howa was leaning against the door.
'Because...I want to ask him something.'
'What ?'
'I, I,' she began in a childish, breathless voice. 'I want to ask him for a pension.'
'Yah?' exclaimed Safia, surprised despite herself. She then let out her kyrie laugh, high and rising, lifting her red hijab from her shoulders to cover her head.
Howa grinned.
'Not a permanent one. I just need enough to set up a store, a business,' she added in English. 'Everyone has a store here, why can't I have one? I'd be perfect for a shopkeeper.'
'You?'
'Yeah, me. Why ?'
The smile had disappeared from her face, affront had taken over.
'What are you going to sell?'
'Same thing as everyone else, of course!' Howa answered, exasperated, raising her voice. 'Anyway, I don't need to explain myself. Just give me his number and I'll ask him myself.'
'How much does a bag of rice cost?'
'Why should I know how much a bag of rice costs? I know other things which sell more…'
'And why do you know that?'
'Hello!'
A voice resounded in the corridor as both Howa and Safia turned towards the sound and ended up looking at the wall. Aaden was standing in the corridor, smiling.
'Salaam, sister,' Aaden said to Howa. 'I'm looking for...ah.'
Mayloun had come out wearing a traditional honey coloured Somali dress, with a matching hijab. She had dark brown henna on her hands. In this attire, which went well with her skin complexion, her beauty was imposing.
Howa looked from one to the other and then turned back to see Safia getting up from her bed.
'Is it you, Aaden?' she asked, as she walked into the corridor.
'Yes, auntie. I'm here to pick up the lovely bride.'
'Bride?' Howa repeated. Confusion, childish curiosity and a slight panic made her voice shake. 'Who is marrying?'
'Don't worry about that, child,' Mayloun answered.
'She's marrying my father,' Aaden said casually.
'No! You're lying. Hoyo, it can't be!'
Mayloun started laughing.
'Let's go, brother,' she told Aaden.
'Goodbye, auntie.'
Both of them walked out as Howa watched, stunned out of her senses. Her lip started to quiver and she started to wail.
'What is the matter with you? Uss naya!' Safia shouted as she took a seat in the corridor.
'But why is she getting married? Why?' she wailed despairingly.
'Why shouldn't she get married? She's old enough now; besides what is it to you?'
'I swear I knew something was going on. My life is over.'
'God forbid. Hold your tongue.'
Her tear stained face turned from maudlin to accusatory.
'Why wasn't I told? Speak!' she added, adopting her mother's tone and a word she liked to use on Howa. 'How long has it been? If I had known...I haven't prepared! I needed time to prepare…why now ? At least give me one more year,' Howa begged, as she went back to distress and supplication.
'One year for what?'
'To...to...don't I go to school?'
'That's finished. All you do is play there.'
'But,' her voice went back to aggressiveness, 'don't I know A + B = 7? What more do you want? That's proof.'
'Allah, Howa, I swear to God if you don't be quiet, you hear me! I swear to God!' Safia screamed, with her right hand holding prayer beads and her forefinger close to her lips. 'Allah, why is this girl tormenting me? Why didn't you or me die in childbirth?'
'So I'm not going to school anymore?'
'One of us shouldn't have been here.'
'Fine. Then I want to get married too. Now!'
Chapter 35
Mayloun and Moussa's marriage was finalised as soon as Moussa agreed to the marriage, at Blaad's house, in front of witnesses, particularly Blaad, the clan elder; and since both Sharif and Moussa were two elders too, Sharif more so than Moussa, the matters were settled as soon as it was proposed. But the couple and everyone else spoke and behaved as if this was a betrothal rather than the actual marriage for lack of wedding ceremony which would be held in the following weeks. Sharif said he would send his daughter to him the next day for the couple to talk a little and the next day, when he was ready to receive, Moussa had sent his son to tell Mayloun he was ready. Was there ever a son so pleased to do his father's bidding? Not since Federico...
'Are these the last of your days in Somalia, brother? You've won that election but will you be at my wedding?'
'You'll be married before I leave, if I leave, that is.'
'Why wouldn't you leave?'
'I might have something better here.'
She stared at him.
'That house will be too crowded if you stay.'
'No, we'll be cozy. It'd be perfect,' he said, as he opened the door to the house. 'My mother, my father, his new lover, his children, your children, our children.'
She smothered her laughter.
'Fragment of the devil. Is your mother here?'
'No. It's just you and my father,' he said, speaking lower. 'Yasser said Nimco will hold a soiree at her house tonight. Are you going? Come,' he whispered, and then said loudly, 'Father, I've brought her.'
Moussa was sitting in the living room, wearing a cleanly pressed white and blue checkered shirt and a blue sarong. He had a black cane with a golden head next to him, leaning against the wall. He had made efforts to please with his appearance as Mayloun had. Both had considerable measures of success. As such, Moussa did something he rarely did. He smiled.
'Salaam aleikum, brother,' Mayloun said to Moussa, whom she not long ago referred to as uncle.
'Waleikum salaam, Mayloun. Come and sit,' Moussa said, pleased that she looked as exquisite as she did in memory.
After she had sat down Aaden remained standing at the door admiring the new couple and then said goodbye.
Moussa remembered his first meeting with his first wife. He couldn't help his awkwardness at her unsightliness and tried to avoid eye contact as much as possible. With Mayloun however his regard was close to a leer, and he couldn't stop smiling. The man who had only weeks ago required the appellation of uncle, now found himself with an irrepressible desire to impress a girl who was already his wife. Courtship after marriage. A strange state of affairs.
'How do you like your new house?'
'Is it mine?'
'Yes,' he said rapidly, so rapidly it was embarrassing.
His smile made Mayloun squirm with happiness. She had waited for this moment for so long! She answered in a voice softened to give pleasure, express femininity and offer deference.
'Very well. I accept this gift.'
Moussa barked a laugh.
'It's been some time since our families had a new marriage. The last time it was…' he paused, casting a questioning glance at Mayloun. She was quick on the up-take.
'Son of Ahmed and the daughter of Hassan.'
Her mother had been drilling on family history since she was a child. She knew the tree like she knew the Koran but was more concerned with the extension of the tree than the previous branches.
'Yes. You have a good knowledge of what's important.'
'Speaking of family, where is your wife? Is she here?'
'My wife is right next to me. The one you speak about is my father's wife. He's the one that chose her, not me.'
'Did you choose me?'
'Of course. I've been waiting for you to be ready.'
'What if I told you that I chose you?'
Startled for a moment, Moussa's brain began to work furiously until it found what it sought.
'Ah! Of course! Now it makes sense.'
He was even more delighted than before. Nothing makes an older man happier than a young girl liking him.
'This seemed to come from nowhere, but a man must be prepared at all times for such approaches. In fact, I was wrong about my first wife,' Moussa said as his wife's eyes, the eyes of infatuation, came clearly before him. 'I was chosen twice. My first wife chose me likewise and finessed the marriage. Haha. I suppose that's my lot. I'm not my own man. Tell me, Mayloun,' he said in a changed, more serious tone. 'Why do you want to get married?'
Mayloun mused for a moment. What should she say? All the the things she could say. Love? Family? She decided on a universal answer.
'I want to marry because that's what's expected of me.'
'What if I marry you and then divorce you one year from now?'
A flutter went through Mayloun.
'I submit myself to God's will. If that is what he chooses, then I am prepared.'
'Masha Allah, you're a good girl,' Moussa said tenderly with his eyes shining. 'It seems like Sharif, your father, wants this wedding done quickly. Are you so eager?'
'Yes. I can't stand being given a gift and having to hold myself from unwrapping it. Especially as I haven't received many gifts to make these things ordinary.'
'I will make it ordinary,' Moussa said spellbound. ''Till you'll be sick with it.'
If he only had foresight, he would have said what an unfortunate choice of words that had been, for sickness was the wrong word to use in this particular instance.
Chapter 36
Nimco wanted to waste no time in order to experience this instrument which expresses emotion. All her thoughts this day of the soiree were bent on human emotion and how it manifests. How would an instrument express anger? Through sharp strokes, low and aggressive, she decided. What about sadness? Slow strokes, perhaps, with a mixture of low and high notes? Happiness would be high pitched, fast and erratic. She thought further. What was it that expressed human emotion? Was it the instrument itself or the music? Or was it the emotion of the musician himself that was expressed through the instrument. Was it his sadness, his anger, and his joy? Though she would soon be closer to the answers she felt more agitated as time went by.
It was only an hour before the first guests would arrive and her mother had just been over to pick up her granddaughter. She surveyed the living room. There were more cushions than at any time before and a big red cushion in the centre. There were various trinkets that she had collected spread out for the guests to take pleasure in. There were to be half a dozen guests but she had prepared enough for double that. She had bought fifty luxury samosas - that is, samosas with meat inside; various cakes, and sweet things; fifty bottles of coca cola; and then there was the centrepiece... She picked it up and shivered with delight. In her mind she could already picture the moment. After finishing a song, perhaps tired or suffering from some brain fog, she could offer him a drink, something to eat or this, a cigarette. She was almost beside herself with pleasure at the future moment of social triumph. All the guests would look at her with marvel in each eye as she boldly asked him if he wanted a cigarette. She would do it in English, scraping the barrel of her knowledge of the language to do so, but do so she would, come what may! She had arranged it so that the guests arrived one hour before Zhao, the violinist. She herself was dressed immaculately in a bleeding saffron dress with a red headscarf. It went well with her newly lightened skin which she had latterly taken care of. She wouldn't wear her hijab and wanted to bear her neck to have a more worldly appearance.
The first guests to arrive were Hoden, Howa and Mayloun. Howa was wearing a niqab, in contrast to the others who were wearing traditional attires, with their faces uncovered, and thought that she had missed a trick. She had for the moment gotten over her disappointment at finally having been ensnared by domesticity and was like everyone else enraptured by what was to come this evening. Soon after others came too, and the living room with its masses of cushions had people either sitting on them, or caressing them, for they were soft and pleasant to the touch. Soon half of the trinkets, enough for triple the guest number, had been eaten already and the train was still running. Howa was on her sixth samosa, her attempt at mature moderation giving way to childish exuberance and giddy elation. Then a musical 'hello!' was heard that Howa had recently become more familiar with, which dimmed her happiness. Mayloun likewise, perked up at the voice.
'Aaden!' Nimco exclaimed, as she saw him at the threshold. She hadn't expected him but was quickly convinced of his necessity to the function.
'Excellent. Now all three will be here!' she said happily, and told him to come and sit next to her.
He walked up, tracing a long circle around the tickets, bending down to snatch a candy bar and sat on the far end of the string of females to sit next to Nimco.
'This is going to be a congratulations party for Aaden,' Hoden said, smiling with her big dark lips.
'I'm here to celebrate my father's new marriage,' he said, smiling back.
'Who is he marrying?'
'Mayloun.'
A tremor went through the string of women. Howa kissed her teeth in annoyance, and violently bit off a piece off the samosa she had in her hand. Hoden turned to her niece sitting next to her and asked in a shocked voice:
'You're getting married?'
'Why are you saying all that ?' Mayloun said to Aaden in mock severity, laughing afterwards.
The reason Aaden said it was to ensure everyone knew that his father was to get married with Mayloun so that he would gain certain liberties with his mother in law. Adopting a cowed tone and sorry countenance he said:
'Forgive me, hoyo, I thought everyone already knew.' He then said with renewed energy. 'To the new bride. All tied up and unattainable henceforth!' raising his bottle of coke in a toast.
'Hoyo?' Howa sniggered.
Smiling, Hoden asked:
'What are you going to do when you are abroad?'
'Make money through existence.'
'Sorry?'
'They pay you to be beautiful there. So I'll go there to be beautiful.'
'Allah!' Hoden said, smiling deeper. 'Listen to the devil. You want to be an idol? Where they will take pictures of you?'
'I don't want to be, but the role exists...If they want beauty, I'll let them have it. But I don't know. I might not go even, because I like beauty too,' he replied softly, while staring at Mayloun.
Nimco looked from one to the other with curiosity when footsteps were heard along with mingled men's voices. Nimco rushed to her feet and met Yasser at the threshold of the living room.
'Yes, come in come in,' she said breathlessly, looking beyond Yasser to spot the Chinese man she had been waiting for. Since she was smaller than Yasser she couldn't see clearly beyond him and so she only saw him when Yasser entered the room. She nearly yelped when she saw Zhao, dressed low-key, but no matter what he wore there, he could never be truly low-key. Nimco was dazzled and her heart fluttered, letting out a little invocation before she said, flustered and flushed:
'Welcome, brother.'
She remained standing next to the door as Zhao half bowed to her and the rest of the company who gaped at the Chinese man with the ponytail.
'Salaam aleikum,' Zhao said loudly and firmly, a smile forming as he looked at the room full of young girls.
'My God! Is this a woman or a man?' Hoden exclaimed. 'I thought he was a man!'
Yasser introduced him as Zhao.
'Friend! Good to see you again,' Aaden said in broken English.
Zhao nodded to him as one does an acquaintance and sat on the cushion further away from the rest of the female guests. Abdullah brought up the rear and when he saw the goodies on the floor, snatched a couple samosas, a drink, and sat close enough so that he was within reach of every edible thing in the room.
'Allah, Abdullah, ask him if he wants something to eat. Give him a drink,' Nimco begged.
'No, let him play,' Aaden said as he, like everyone else, looked at the mahogany case that Zhao was opening.
'Brother, have a drink,' Abdullah said with a mouth half full.
Zhao declined and said later. He brought with him a cassette player that ran on batteries which he wanted to use to achieve greater musical depth. Once he had set everything up, a strand of hair fell from his forehead. Several people averted their gaze, colouring like they had seen something indecent. Hoden was the most composed and simply smirked saying the instrument looked like an üd. Zhao pressed play on his cassette player and looked up. This was a close, intimate setting and everyone looked at him. A couple girls were sweating and this reminded him of the heat of this room. But then he heard the flute, everyone's breath stopped, transfixed by the sound. Zhao started to play. These were the strains of raga Shivranjani, and like most ragas, began with a wail. Mayloun began to shake when the flute began, a near hypnotic solo once the opening wails had completed. Nimco went through her repertoire of possible emotions to discover which one it was that was being expressed. She searched and searched, thinking of one emotion, then another, and finally thought that it sounded like… adoration. In her mind, her soul, she felt intense desire expressed by the violin for a lover who was in the distance and the cries were a means of impedance and exhortation to pity. She also began to shake. Zhao's hair began to unravel and his whole placid, unmoved face was wholly covered when he finished. Placing his stick on his lap, he brushed his hair back and looked up to address the person directly in front of him, which was Howa.
'More?' he said in Somali: a little showmanship.
Howa was more disturbed by him addressing her than by the music he played.
'Is it up to her?' Hoden asked, smiling.
Howa started giggling shyly, slapping air, attempting to quiet Hoden.
'I didn't know he spoke Somali!' Hoden added, feeling a thrill shared by all present at a person so different from them speaking their native language.
'More!' Aaden shouted, his breaking voice a rival to any instrument.
Zhao was surprised slightly by Aaden's voice but recovered quickly, took the tape out of the cassette player, turned it and played side b. He then turned towards the hostess, smiled and struck the open notes of raga jog. She felt the same stroke of her soul that they had felt at Blaad's function and trembled like in orgasm.
After the opening wails, as is so common with Indian ragas, the notes became sharper and delicate. Nimco thought of scratches when she heard them. And then her daughter came into her mind, when she was striking her mother's hand with her chubby baby fingers. She thought of exploration, a hunger for sensation, a thirst for touch; but this was a calm pursuit, tentative but bold. Tense, her head clouded, she struggled to put a name on the emotion, but she knew the feeling so, so well. The emotion, nameless, began to rise within her and slowly she experienced a ghostly sensation of...she didn't think of her baby's fingers on the bones of her hand as opposed to feeling them. This emotion was interest yet she didn't name it still but saw what caused it and that was good enough. She breathed easier now, relieved and joyful. She was winning at this game, guess the emotion, and she was two for two. Towards the end of this raga there was an expression of joy and, subsequently, elation went through the room at the beautiful strokes of this violinist. But Howa was paying attention to the backing track. The force of this joy was magnified immeasurably by the tabla resounding from the cassette player and her eyes were strictly on the machine rather than the instrumentalist. She hadn't heard a percussion of that nature before.
When Zhao had finished the first person to speak was Howa who asked what that instrument was, but Abdullah was the one who answered.
'He doesn't speak Somali more than a few words. Don't let his earlier stunt fool you.'
He translated what Howa asked. Zhao wiped his hair backwards again and answered while looking at the shyly smiling Howa.
'That is a tabla.'
Zhao did a motion with his hands to signify someone beating the drum.
'But it sounds different,' Howa said musingly.
'That's because it's an Indian drum, you've only seen others.'
All through the conversation Abdullah translated for Zhao and the others.
'Allah, brother. This instrument,' Nimco began, 'Can I touch it?'
For some reason she thought that this instrument which expresses emotion through sound, might express emotion through touch also.
Zhao examined her. 'Nice looking girl,' he said to himself.
'You can touch it but be cautious. It is old, and easily breakable,' he told Nimco with an enigmatic smile, and passed the violin to her.
She snatched it with an eagerness that made him make a reflexive movement forward but quickly recovered himself.
'Is it normal for guys to have long hair where you're from?'
'Was that you walking down the road months ago?'
'How do you dance to that music?'
Questions fired at Zhao from all angles while Abdullah, a machine now, translated almost as soon as each spoke, even almost in the same frantic manner.
'Wait !' Nimco shouted. When she had the attention that she wanted, her voice turned shy and tremulous. 'Here. Do you smoke? Here,' she offered, as she held the packet of cigarettes in one hand and the bow in the other. The violin was on her lap. 'Have a smoke.'
For the first time in her life, the flickers of jealousy illuminated in Howa's soul. How happy she was when he declined! Nimco was pleased regardless, the most important thing being the dramatism, the act of offering, and replaced the packet where it was, a future ornament of this room.
'I'll take a drink however, if that's allowed.'
A blushing Nimco handed a coke to him though he could reach for it himself, intensely pleased that he took something from her hands.
'Let me see,' Aaden said, as he carefully took the violin from Nimco's lap. He looked at it carefully and then strummed the strings like a guitar. Zhao flinched.
'Doesn't feel like an üd.'
'That's because it isn't an üd. It shouldn't be handled like one,' Zhao rejoined in a slight reproach.
'Why did you come here?' Mayloun asked. 'Why would anyone want to be here?' She had a strong impulse to touch his hair and put a strand of it in her mouth but he was too far away for her to do so.
Having drained half of the coke bottle he said, with the energy of a boy surrounded by girls:
'China has too much competition and I don't like competition. You know what I mean by competition?'
Mayloun looked at him as Abdullah translated.
'Why wouldn't I know what competition is?' she said drily. 'Like their competition,' pointing at the three boys on Zhao's right.
'Yes, but imagine competing with millions for a desk job. Besides, I like to travel. When I was younger my parents made me study music and I chose the violin. Once I mastered it to the point of mediocrity,' he laughed, 'dabbling with various forms, classical and oriental, I wanted to teach others. By that time I was in my early twenties. Musicians and music teachers earn a pittance there. People want to be taught how to program and make money. I taught how to give people pleasure. There was no future for me there. Once I heard of the government sending out people to different parts of the world to liaise and build relationships, I decided to go for it. I might see something new and experience something important. What better way to connect than through the beauty of song?'
'You mean to tell me,' Aaden said with a rising voice, 'that they don't pay for beauty there ? Impossible. It can't be that music like this, even if it's not considered beautiful, at least is devilish. I'm sure they worship witchcraft in your countries.'
Zhao laughed raucously, while the faces of everyone around him had been serious. When he opened his eyes again he found all the women were suddenly and savagely chewing gum. Startled, he wondered when that had happened because he could have sworn they weren't chewing gum a second ago. He dismissed it as a thing of mystery.
'I guess you're right,' Zhao said mischievously. 'They do pay for beauty and bewitchment.'
'Was that you that was walking through the village a couple months ago?' Howa asked again.
'A couple months ago?' Zhao repeated, wrinkling his brow. 'I suppose that could have been me.'
'Your hair grew out so fast and long,' she exclaimed with a delightful, artless exuberance that made Zhao smile even before he understood what she said, before Abdullah translated.
'Teach my daughter how to play,' Nimco said suddenly. 'I want her to know how to play so she can play for me.'
'She can't even walk yet, and you want her to entertain you?' Yasser said languidly.
'How long will you be here, brother?'
'I don't know. For a while still.'
'If she can't play she can still listen. Will you come back so that she can hear you play? I'm curious as to how a baby will react to music like this.'
'With pleasure.'
Straight after Abdullah translated, he said to Zhao that it was getting late, that he was full, his gaunt face getting puffier by the week, and that they should head back out. The parties broke up at this point. Hoden took Howa and Mayloun back home because she acted as a chaperone. Aaden accompanied them.
A full moon illuminated the earth while Hoden and Howa chattered excitedly, in contrast with the other two with their imploring whispers; but though Howa talked a lot, and talked loudly, one thought was on her mind which she didn't express. A thought that made her giddy and self reproachful. A thought that she had heard expressed before by someone else, but now it was she who wondered it, but not aloud. Really! she said to herself. What would a Somali-Chinese baby look like?
