Chapter 43
Afrah's grandmother had undergone a change since her granddaughter had died. She became less concerned with her appearance, she stopped putting whitening cream on herself and started becoming concerned with certain questions. At times she started plaguing whoever was around her with these questions. Now, not for the first time, it was Abdullah's turn.
'How natural is it for two succeeding generations to die before you die?'
'Again?' Abdullah asked, staring at his grandmother almost maliciously. 'Why do you keep asking that?'
'Why can't I ask a question until someone answers?'
'The question has no answer and it is blasphemous. God alone decides what is natural and not natural.'
Startled and shamed she recovered to continue her thought process. It wasn't that she wanted an answer, which she didn't; she wanted to lament and self-aggrandise which irritated Abdullah.
'It can't be natural if there is only one. It has only happened to one person. What makes this one person so different, so special. Do I have some purpose on this earth, more so than my daughter and granddaughter? An old sick woman like me?' she exclaimed in awe. 'What is this purpose?'
'Grandmother. It's been one month since their deaths.'
'Their? Ah yes. The great grandchild too,' she said, her awe deepening. 'Three succeeding generations.'
'And you still ask the same question every day. They died because God decided to take them, not because your worth is greater.'
'Then why am I here?'
'Because you were not the one giving birth.'
'But I have given birth. Multiple times. And the ones I gave birth to gave birth themselves. Yet I am here still, and they are not.'
'Grandmother. Take your Koran and read it. You ask too many questions for a muslim,' he said while getting up.
They had been sitting in their living room, watched by young Mohamed.
'Questions of life and death are for the one who controls it not for the ones who are subject to it. Likewise are appraisals of worth.'
He left and she turned to Mohamed and asked:
'What do you think, boy? Is it misfortune or favour?'
Mohamed thought for a little while. He had been playing a game unbeknownst to his grandmother. Since she kept asking this question over and over again he decided to alternate the answer each time. He tried to remember the last answer he gave and said:
'Misfortune.'
Whichever answer Mohamed gave, the response would always be the same.
'Either way, there is no one like me. Not even in the religious texts.'
'Grandmother, will I die before you too?'
'No. It seems that fate only befalls the girls of my lineage. But you never know. The trend might change. It seems I'm important to this world and it might be that boys will follow the girls in dying before me.'
'What makes someone important enough to live longer than others? I want to be important too!'
'We don't decide nor do we know. Only God knows and decides. Only God knows why he chose me.'
Mohamed stared at the useless, sick, deranged and fixated woman and couldn't figure out what made her so important to this earth. If he could choose himself, you would have her dead instead of Afrah. He wanted to find out why one was chosen over the other, so that he could become important to outlive others too or at the very least outlive his grandmother. As for his deathless grandmother, she simply liked asking what it was that made her so important but didn't care about the answer. Mania is a wonderful form of escapism.
Abdullah left his house resolved and resolute in his own form of escapism, a physical form rather than his grandmother's mania.
'I must leave this village, whatever it costs,' he said to himself.
This was the afternoon and he originally was on his way to Blaad's house to escort Zhao to Nimco's house for a going away party. Yasser was to go the next day. But instead of going to Blaad's he made a detour towards the shops and the unnatural river. There was a debt that hung between two people and he felt that this was the time to collect. He found who he was looking for relatively quickly. Bari was in the usual tea shop chewing khat as any married man would be in the village. When you got married, one of the wedding presents bestowed upon married men was the opportunity to chew khat in public among your social peers. This wasn't Abdullah's circle though he and Bari were of a similar age - generational peers rather than social peers. He took a deep breath and stuck his head in after he separated the curtain that served as the front door. Exhaling, he surveyed the dimmed room, the humid little nucleus of the social animal, to find who he was looking for. The room of straw mats and metal walls had an assortment of men of the married class; from old with grey beards to young, like Bari, wearing his habitual checkered scarf. They looked up, surprised, because the usual suspects were all there already, and they didn't expect anyone else to enter. When Abdullah inhaled with his head in the shop, the intense scent struck the unmarried man hard, as he was unused to the tea shop, the suffocating smell of so much khat. His head made a jerky backwards movement. Bari interpreted that movement as a signal to come outside and obeyed it as such. Things worked out well for the inexperienced Abdullah. Soon they were by themselves sitting on a big white rock and Abdullah began, speaking fervently:
'Brother, I've decided to leave, election or not. I can't stand this place anymore. Let me borrow fifty dollars to get out of here and I'll give it back.'
When Bari and his deceased wife had been exposed as having relations, and subsequently married, he knew that one day he would have some reckoning with Abdullah, with whom he had a good relationship before, and whose sister he had effectively violated the chastity of. They hadn't spoken of this as of yet but even after he had married her there was a guilt that wouldn't expunge itself. Now that she was dead, the guilt increased to greater proportions. He had been preparing for this moment of expiation but was startled at the amount and the reasons for it.
His mouth had a clump of khat sequestered in his right cheek. Before he began to speak, he grinded his teeth to squeeze the juice out and get a jolt from the narcotic.
'I don't know if I can get that money, quickly anyway.'
'How long will it take?' Abdullah said almost breathlessly.
'Maybe, a month.'
'The quicker you can get it the better. I'd leave tomorrow if I could.'
'But where are you going?' Bari asked, as if only now realising what they were talking about. 'With fifty dollars even. And why?'
Abdullah got up.
'There's nothing here for me, and there never will be. I'm getting angrier by the day. This hateful village with its lunatic frivolous people is nothing more than an open sore of justice. The longer I stay here, the more I think of killing myself.'
Bari stared at him in amazement.
'Now, you know where I'm going now? I have to go to another soirée, not because I like being there, but because of other, shameful and unjust reasons. And I think it is because this village is cursed for me. I can't think of a single good thing that happened to me and my family here so that means I'm not meant to be here. Very well, then. I will leave.'
With that he left with Bari's stunned expression following him. Abdullah's force of spirit translates itself to Bari and along with his desire of expiation, was a chain around his neck, exhorting him to realise Abdullah's request before all else.
Abdullah himself made his way to Blaad's house, agitation and anger making him blind to everything around him. It wasn't until Zhao was right in front of him that he noticed the smiling Chinese man.
'Zhao! What are you doing here? I was just coming to you.'
'I was out for a walk and thought I might buy a cigarette,' Zhao answered casually but immediately regretted what he had said. The boy might infer things. However Abdullah was not able to infer anything beyond surface level at that moment and simply said:
'Whatever. There's sure to be cigarettes at Nimco's house.'
'At Nimco's? I didn't realise we had a date planned,' he said with a frown. 'But what's got you agitated?' Zhao asked as they turned around to go back to the house of Blaad to pick up his instrument.
'I've taken the first step, Zhao. Remember what we talked about?'
'You've decided to leave?' Zhao exclaimed in surprise.
'Yes. I'm going to Mogadishu.'
'A man must show ambition at some point in his life and I love seeing it. I'm telling you, there are international organizations that are always looking for multilinguists. What did your grandmother say?'
'I haven't told her. It doesn't matter anyway. I'm not a breadwinner but a bread taker. It doesn't matter if I'm here or not. In fact, it's better if I leave.'
Zhao looked at Abdullah with pity, and then turned towards the nacreous house of Blaad which they were rapidly approaching.
'Sometimes the place of birth might not be the place of belonging,' Zhao said sadly. 'But then we have to create that place we belong to somewhere else. It's our lot as living beings to be condemned until we find peace and our destiny to eventually realise it.'
Chapter 44
When Aaden normally took a cane with him, one of his father's canes, he swung it around, playing with it and showing off, and a dashing swashbuckler he looked when he did so. But lately he cut a different figure. He was subdued, confused and even ashamed when he walked, using the same cane to its purpose now leaning heavily on it. Something was wrong with him and he didn't know why or what it was. He had noticed that his father was starting to have the same gait as him which made it seem like it was an inheritance, and Aaden wanted to ask but the nature of the disease made it tricky. So he surmised, accepted, willing to die with what he had before he told anyone about a family disease such as this. He tended to stay at home as much as he could, but the drip continued even if the chafe and discomfort was circumvented by sitting down. This was a boy of average intelligence and it was hard for him to put two and two together, even when two parts of the equation were side by side.
Aaden and Mayloun were walking towards Nimco's house. Wincing with every step, putting half his weight on the cane as he tried to keep up, Aaden figured that this trip was a bad idea. With every step he felt the viscous fluid escape and fall to the ground through the open end of his sarong and once or twice he stopped and looked behind to make sure that there was no trail left by his ailment, the virus that was nameless to him, but was christened gonorrhoea in places further away.
At times Mayloun barely noticed him not next to him and only when Aaden barked at her to wait did she realise where she was. She had been in her own little world for the whole day. It was confirmed that day that she was pregnant beyond all doubts, having missed her period and finding herself sick in the morning was the confirmation. Mayloun was extremely happy that it was her turn to roll the dice of childbirth. Come what may.
He called her, she stopped and turned back, watching her son in law trying to reach her with a pained expression.
'I swear you have the same thing your father has,' she said airily. 'He can't walk properly anymore either, nor does he want to touch me anymore at night. What is this that both of you have ? Like father, like son.'
Mayloun walked on as soon as she stopped speaking. Aaden struggled on for a couple seconds until he froze completely.
'Like father, like son, like…because we, and her…Why do we have the same thing?' The questions came in quick, feverish succession. 'Why now of all times? What's different now? Nothing. We have been father and son for a long time, so that's not different. What's different? The only thing different now from a year ago, ten years ago, is...' Mayloun turned around again and said something which he couldn't hear as she was so far ahead. His mouth opened wider as things began to align. 'She's what's different. But what is it about her that makes things different ? She's just any regular woman...no, she's not any woman. A regular woman can't make two people sick like this. There's something about her that makes people sick. But how did she make us sick? Is she even sick herself? What kind of disease only affects two people and not the carrier? Why is she walking fine and pregnant even? Can it be her if she's not feeling any pain? It's impossible not to feel it. I can't even do a basic piss anymore! But how else? It makes no sense. The only thing that makes sense is; it must be…' Aaden was standing still, leaning heavily on his cane, staring at Mayloun's back, smiling now, feeling a relaxation that comes after unravelling a difficult problem. 'It's a sex disease. She caught it from someone and then gave it to us. And now what?' Panic took hold of him again and he gripped the cane, almost dragging himself after Mayloun like Moses dragged himself with his staff in the desert. 'Now it's even more impossible to speak about it for the truth will come out. Father will kill us both for this. I need to get this fixed quickly before someone finds out. But how? How can I get this fixed before someone finds out? I can't go to the pharmacist because he will ask questions and then I will be exposed. Oh, if only this could kill me! And kill me soon. Or...yes,' he suddenly rejoiced. 'There is another way to save myself. If I don't die tomorrow, the day after I'll go to a major city for a doctor to fix me. A place where no one knows me. But,' having finished thinking about himself, and sparing a thought for others, 'what about them?' he asked as he looked at his mother in law, oblivious, pregnant and diseased. He thought about the baby, and its father, which he hoped to God was his own. What to do about them? First things first he decided. He had to clear himself of the virus which in the immediate term would clear him of guilt. Then, and only then, he would consider anyone else.
Chapter 45
Nimco waited a month to put up another soirée and she did so because she had run through her money. This wait gave her a new idea however. She decided that this would be a monthly engagement, something new and unusual to the village. To put this plan into motion, she set up lines of credit in several places to ensure that whatever expense she had to engage in, the merchants would wait until her money came for her to pay them back, just in case one expense for the monthly soiree was greater than she had expected but that she had to expend upon without obstruction. This particular expense, for this night, was a tabla, a percussion instrument, which she had ordered weeks ago and now recently had arrived. She didn't know if he could play it but that was of little import to her. All that mattered to her was the completion of the picture. If Zhao had played something by Tchaikovsky, she would have tried to find a tuba or some other orchestral piece as it fit the scene, because her interest was authenticity. She stared at the tabla, which comes in two parts, one for each hand, and then picked one of them up. It was extremely light, with marvellously exquisite engravings on the sides. There were beige straps along its horizontal which she tried to flick but it would barely budge.
'Come what may, this would serve as a unique ornamental piece in this room,' she mused to herself.
She set it down and tapped the drum. A sharp sound came from it.
'Maybe it's better if no one touches it just in case it breaks.'
She had spent two thirds of her pension on this instrument and would have to rely on the newly established credit lines for some time to come. This little fact pleased her as it made a true matron out of her, for who has heard of a matron who doesn't exercise a credit line? Apart from the drums, the other arrangements were the same as last time. She ordered the samosas extra rich with more meat and less garnish. The rest were candy bars, cakes and cookies with coke and other fizzy drinks, the sweet to the samosa's savoury. She herself was gaining a little weight but not that much and it suited her to have a chubby face because her lips were so full. She was glowing. One thing that was different was the fact that her daughter would be there. Nimco had given her something sweet to nibble on to keep her quiet. She was curious as to how her daughter would react to the music. For some reason she thought it would be negative and was mildly nervous thinking that she might cry too much. But she had to see how she would react.
The first to arrive this time was Zhao and Abdullah which surprised Nimco. Abdullah had arrived early because he hadn't eaten much that day and was embarrassed to eat so frequently at his grandfather's house, a house that wasn't his. A big tall man like him needed more than what was offered to him. The first thing he did was snatch several samosas and ate them in the most childish manner. The richness of the savoury delicacy barely registered for him, and Nimco would have rebuked him for the manner in which he ate had her attention not been taken by introducing Zhao to her daughter. Babies are sensitive and intelligent and recognise the unusual. Her daughter had stopped sucking on the candy bar and stared at the figure of Zhao. He was approaching her making faces, distorting his already distinctive appearance, and tickling her. But not the tickle nor the sugar in her mouth, could take her attention away from the strangeness of his look.
'I didn't realize I was this handsome,' Zhao laughed, noting the child's intemperate fixation.
Abdullah again translated and did it so well it was as if his reflexes were precisely attuned to the office.
'She hasn't seen anything like you before,' Nimco said, herself still under the charms of his exotica. In fact, even beyond his ethnicity he was a good looking man with a feminine beauty. 'I wonder how she will react to your music. I'm desperate to find out.'
'Let's do it,' he said, turning his eyes downwards but lingering on her lips as he did so.
'Oh,' she suddenly exclaimed. 'Look at what I got!'
Zhao stopped what he was doing and looked back. His cushion, or his seat, was not too far from the door. In the corner of the wall behind his cushion were the tablas. He gasped with surprise when he recognised it. Nimco carried one of them to him.
'How? Where did you get this from?'
Nimco beamed a wonderfully sensuous smile.
'Somalis have connections, my friend. And if they don't, they make them,' Nimco said and laughed afterwards. 'Can you play this?'
He took the one she handed to him, sat on his cushion and played a little rhythm, and captured a particularly deep and expressive sound.
'Only a little bit,' he said humbly.
Abdullah by now had a sated expression on his face, and his eyes lowered, but kept eating and translating not missing a beat with either.
'No! I felt that in my heart,' she exclaimed sincerely. 'I swear the sound made it jump. Can you play any instrument?'
'What we need,' he said ignoring the question, 'is someone who can play this while I play the violin.'
'I don't know if anyone here can do it. I don't think Somalis are musical people,' she said sadly. 'But we can be taught. I'm sure of it!'
At this point the other guests arrived, starting with Yasser, whom Nimco referred to as her future son in law. Zhao raised an eyebrow at that, turning to the baby. Howa was the last to arrive, which surprised Hoden. Not thirty minutes before she was at her house and Safia had refused to let Howa go.
'Did she let you out after all?' she asked.
'I don't need permission to go out,' Howa replied back disdainfully.
Mayloun and Hoden laughed at her, saying that without doubt she would be crying later that night. Howa noticed the percussion.
'Are you playing that, brother?' she asked Zhao.
'It depends. What I want most of all is to play the violin while someone else plays the tabla. Can you do it?' he asked Howa playfully.
'Yes,' she replied as fast as she could.
'Careful-' Nimco tried to say, but before she could finish a loud bang was heard.
Howa marvelled at the backwards force she generated, and then played a little rhythm using only her fingers. Zhao told her to use her palms to hit the centre and interchange her palm and fingers with the outer and inner circle of the drum. Howa was fearless and remarkably quick at learning the basics. Zhao was impressed.
'There are some musical Somalis after all,' he said to himself, studying Howa.
Throughout all this and since he had arrived, Aaden looked on sullenly, saying very little. He felt the drip but not the discomfort as he only had that when he walked or pissed. He wondered if his drip would become so bad that it would leave a stain. How could he explain it if that happened? From time to time he glanced at Mayloun, his anger and revulsion towards her increasing every time. He could not believe his father had married a promiscuous woman, and cursed her and her family for their deceit and immorality. Preoccupied and concerned only with his thoughts he didn't notice the death stares Yasser was giving him. Yasser had not forgotten the public humiliation at the election and was after revenge. He was without doubt that Aaden only had pursued the election to humiliate him and was waiting for an opportunity to get his own back. Before he left he would beat blood out his mouth, he promised himself.
'Maybe you can teach her? Set up a musical school here, brother. In this house even !' Nimco said, already possessed by the thought, forgetting the instrument was only to be an ornament an hour ago.
'You want me to teach you some numbers?' Zhao asked her.
Howa could not hold his look and mumbled something to Hoden next to her, while giggling.
'Yes, she would. Yes, I say!' Nimco nearly shouted.
'Let's begin then,' Zhao said, bemused at Howa's shyness. 'But before that I want to ask the election winner something. Where are you going, as the spoils of your victory, Yasser?'
'France,' he answered, wincing at the mention of victory.
'France? Why France ? I thought it would be some English speaking country.'
'No, there's too many Somalis in those countries. I want to go where there aren't that many. The less people that know about me the better.'
Everyone but Zhao knew what he referred to. Mayloun sniggered.
'Ah. So you both have the same idea. Start afresh and build your own ladder,' Zhao said, smiling, while indicating Abdullah with a movement of the head.
Before Abdullah had time to realise what he was saying, he had already translated it, catching himself at the last word. A general commotion erupted, led mainly by his aunts.
'You're leaving too?' Howa asked. 'How? Why?'
Abdullah reluctantly answered that he was, giving no more information after that. Aaden smiled when he realised that all three would be going to places where they would be relatively anonymous, for different reasons.
'Enough!' Nimco yelled. 'I want to see how my baby likes that violin. Play.'
Zhao duly obeyed. Everyone turned towards the baby, wearing a now soiled shirt, and no bottom, and saw her pupils enlarge when Zhao struck the first chord.
