Chapter 2
'I must have shown some sign of it,' Xemi mused to himself, as he glanced at his aunt sitting next to him in the moving car, rigid, forever staring out the window.
'Why can't I ever control myself?'
The first time he had seen his aunt, a fifth cousin to his father, a feeling of distaste had risen within him, the reason of which he couldn't really pin down; and he felt that she had sensed it and closed herself off to him because of it.
'And now she doesn't want to talk to me. Because of this distaste. But why distaste?'
He thought about it for a minute and then remembered that his parents were fifth cousins too and that he had an instinctive aversion for couples who were related.
'It must be that,' he said to himself. 'I have an issue with fifth cousins because my parents are fifth cousins and when I meet someone five times removed this bile comes out and I cannot stop its expression. All because it reminds me of the fact that my parents are fifth cousins and I'm born out of incest.'
He glanced at his aunt again and smiled a little.
'I'll never get over it. What a strange fixation for someone who had sex with his first cousin just a few days ago.'
They were on the way to the airport with Xemi's personal minder driving them but the closer they got, the more worried Xemi became. For some reason Xemi had the belief that his departure might be some kind of hoax; that he was being played with, that he wasn't leaving at all; that he was being tricked again.
He looked at the planes in the distance, the solitary line of tarmac surrounded by desert, the scramble of people clearly preoccupied by the whims of the travelling man and realised that his feeling was senseless. Still, he didn't have peace and the feeling would not exit his soul. They had tricked him into coming here, why wouldn't they trick him into thinking that he was leaving?
He was tense and when he got out of the car, the strangling humidity immediately grabbed him by the throat and made it hard to breathe, increasing his feeling of panic.
His aunt and him separated for the time being, and Xemi was exceedingly grateful for that, thinking that he should never have been told the exact relation of her being a fifth cousin to his father.
'What is that for, really? Isn't 'aunt' good enough?'
He followed his minder into a cream coloured single story building that had various black SUV's in front, thanking the universe for his minder because for some reason he couldn't understand all that was being said. He wondered if it was linguistic expanse or a dialect that he was unfamiliar with, as they were in a different part of the country, towards the centre of Somalia, whereas his ancestral village was in the north. Or it could have been the voices themselves. He had learned that sometimes it was the voices that led you into a false sense of linguistic acquisition rather than actual knowledge of the language itself. In those cases you learn the voices, not the tongue that they speak.
There was a man sitting behind a white plastic desk. On the other side of the room, a loud fellow passenger was talking, laughing, making jokes, laughing at his own jokes, and trying to elicit jokes, to ingratiate himself with the administrators. Xemi and his minder walked up to a bespectacled man with a receding hairline and a sharp nose behind the desk. His minder handed the administrator Xemi's passport and other paperwork. He looked at the passport and studied Xemi.
'You're not a Somali citizen, but you sure do look Somali,' he remarked, musingly, to Xemi. 'Are you Somali ?' he asked outright.
Another burst of loud social manoeuvrings came from the other side of the room. Xemi thought that this was not a good time to be smart. 'Yes…obviously…but I wasn't born here,' he told him in a friendly way, smiling, hoping that this would be the end of their conversation.
The administrator looked down and seemed in conflict but finally stamped the papers. 'He disapproves of me leaving' passed through Xemi's mind. 'But he can't stop me.'
'Will your people see you again?' he asked mockingly. Xemi resisted a snort.
He wondered where this attachment and fascination with one's motherland came from which, seemingly, everyone had except for him.
'You never know,' Xemi answered ambiguously, clearly uninterested in continuing the conversation. Would this man take a hint? He did and handed various papers to the minder.
They walked over to the plane which was close to departure and approached a steward at the bottom of a moveable staircase where papers were handed to him. The steward frowned and said something was not in order, and glanced from one to the other like a trick was being pulled. Xemi suppressed the panic that made him want to burst past this sentry and onto the plane, refusing to get off without violence.
'Uh oh !' his minder exclaimed in English, laughing at his own multilingualism, and then continued in Somali: 'Let's go back. Lucky he spotted that or there would've been trouble. Quick or the plane will leave without you,' his minder finished in a jocular manner, supremely unconcerned with the fate of others though concern for others was his bread and butter.
With quick steps, they were back in the building and the man with glasses had an expectant manner; a glint of bemusement showed in his eyes.
'Back so soon?' the man said, smiling and handed his minder a sheet.
Xemi felt a helpless and murderous rage at their incompetence. 'Why is this funny?' he raged to himself.
They went back to the plane and Xemi thought again that they would deny him entry but he soon found himself on the plane, nodding at his aunt who said:
'I was just about to come and look for you,' as he took his seat next to her.
‘Yeah, right,’ he said to himself, and snorted.
His passport had finally been restored to him and he held it now like Cupid held Psyche the whole time they were in the air. Though his ears were in constant pain, he felt happier because of it. Pain makes things real and he laughed when he remembered his idea of a hoax.
They landed in Djibouti. The airport was of modern architecture with a departure lounge and a bar to the side. The bar was common enough but to Xemi it looked like a work of art and he let out a little invocation while a joyous flutter ran through him. The metals, the glass, the colours and lights dazzled and relaxed Xemi. He touched the counter and the dark stone was so liquid smooth that he was almost surprised that his finger didn't make circles in this stillest of black water.
Xemi and his aunt found seats, stylish grey wingback chairs, and his aunt soon made the acquaintance of another woman sitting beside her. The two women decided to have cake and ordered two pieces for themselves. Worldly people, two overweight women eating strawberry cake showing everyone that they had experienced the flavour before, nothing new, just a regular every day thing. Look how we don't flinch or lose our heads? Xemi looked at them and the way they guzzled; two chickens with loose wattles gaping out of their hijabs. He felt that they should have worn the hermetic Somali ones instead of the scarf type which opened up but one has to show we are fashionable people after all especially to our own people.
Xemi had his ticket in hand and as he glanced at it he heard an announcement which he believed pertained to him. His aunt had a different flight as she was travelling to Wisconsin and he was going to London and didn't hear anything related to her. For a minute he looked closely at the ticket, nervous and unsure, until he turned to his aunt, interrupting her conversation with her new friend, and said:
'I think they want me to do something at gate H…aunt,' he began carefully, clearly, and added in a slightly imploring voice: 'Should I go?'
His aunt listened for announcements which were made in English, heard nothing, and decided to dismiss it.
'No, I don't think it's you. You must still have hours left before you have to check in. Best wait a while and we will soon see,' she added and returned to her conversation with her friend.
Xemi looked at his ticket again wondering what he should do. Normally he would sit there until he was given an order. But this time he felt such a strong impulse to take matters into his own hands, to check for himself, that he began to shake when deference told him to stay. Five minutes later he broke free, got up and told his aunt he would check anyway. Fifteen minutes later he returned vindicated.
'Why did I even ask this fool,' he said to himself, feeling relief and vexation in equal measure. 'I would have been screwed if I had listened to my so-called chaperone. What is the point of me going with her if she is only concerned with herself?'
He wished he could scream at this fifth cousin aunt like he used to scream at his father's sister, but his privileges and freedoms had been exchanged for the pleasures of watching women eat strawberry cake and the touch of smooth, refined surfaces, delightful though these two things were in themselves. Xemi was determined to ask less and ignore more.
Boarding announcements were made for his flight and his heart was thumping with excitement. He took leave of his aunt and went on the plane. The denouement was rapidly approaching and he was happy. The air pressure killed his ears but couldn't kill his joy. He became even happier when the stewardess came to him with a form to fill and he saw that his reading ability hadn't diminished and that he could dismiss all boxes relating to visas. Once completed his attention was taken by something to his right.
'You didn't fill this form, madam,' a plain looking stewardess asked an old Somali woman in English as she collected the forms she had distributed earlier. The old Somali woman looked around like the stewardess must have been mistaken to speak to her. The stewardess however kept her eyes levelled upon the Somali woman and even approached closer and repeated the charge.
'What did you say?' the old lady feebly replied back in Somali, twisting her thin hand in the air to illustrate her bewilderment. Her weak voice betrayed her age more than her face which was surprisingly clear of lines. Xemi wondered what this woman would do in London. Was she going there to die?
The stewardess gave up the lost cause so quickly it was admirable but then as she walked away, she glanced back to notice a Somali man, who was sitting next to the old lady, a stranger, was helping fill out the questionnaire for the lady. The grateful stewardess collected it five minutes later.
Xemi, increasingly curious about the woman and her plans, stared at her and the man next to her. She was as helpless as a child and having realised it, seemingly found someone to take care of her for the next part of her voyage at least. Xemi's interest in her story must have induced the universe to make her speak and Xemi listened while the plane was preparing to land.
'My grandson is on trial, and is nearing the end of it. Apparently he committed some crime and it's likely he will be condemned for it. They say it's a minimum of fifteen years. That's longer than I have to live, if I have to judge myself, God forgive me. I've never seen this grandson, beyond his very early childhood - you know how they are.' Her interlocutor smiled at her. 'They have children elsewhere and never bring them to see their families in Somalia. My only chance to see how he grew up is this one, before he is condemned, so I have decided to come myself if they won't come to me. Maybe a grandmother's prayers in their courtroom can help the boy on earth or in heaven.' The woman's tone became more scathing. 'This is why I'm against having children outside of Somalia. See how they end up? This is no place for children.' She tapped the man on his shoulder and whispered, 'They say he killed another Somali…'
The sharp descent drowned out her voice and they soon landed. It was early morning in London and walking through the corridor of customs Xemi was stopped by an agent, a muscular woman with short black hair.
'Sorry, excuse me, do you speak English?' Without waiting for an answer she continued as if it was evident that Xemi could speak English. 'Do you mind translating?'
The agent had been looking through the luggage of a Somali woman who looked young but aged by married life. Her midsection had the appearance of multiple childbirths. She had on a Somali dress in the colour of pink.
Xemi didn't mind the novelty and was asked to enquire if the arrival had any meat in her luggage. The woman said no and then said yes when meat was found. It was clear that she was nervous. Xemi couldn't stifle a laugh when the meat was pulled out. Something that looked like minced meat. It didn't taste like minced meat, Xemi had it before, dressed in a liquid that looked and tasted like candle wax. As Xemi had laughed the agent rebuked:
'This is really not funny. The environmental diseases that would spread, I don't think that's funny. There are laws here -'
'I don't need this lecture.'
Xemi walked away leaving a censorious look on one face and a confused one on another. He entered the arrival lounge to hear a familiar voice calling out his name and waving his hand around. Xemi acknowledged him and walked up to his father. Happiness radiated from him and Xemi couldn't help but smile in response while avoiding eye contact. This man was so happy to see him while Xemi however was plotting a permanent break. Whatever love he had was gone and his father would soon find this out.
Chapter 3
'Salaam Aleikum ! Xemi ! I wouldn't have recognised you without the braces; how long have you had them now? Must be years ! First thing we'll do is take those things out. You got taller and skinnier; and darker, shades darker. A perfect Somali ! Haha! How do I look? I barely slept, waking up every few minutes, afraid I missed the alarm. Even here I had to run to the toilet and run back. Haha! You like to wander, remember? Yah! You remember that time at the bus station ? You remember that... How long were we looking for you! You remember that? Found you sleeping under the stairs. Haha!'
'He's delirious,' Xemi said to himself, looking at his father with slight worry.
His father was dragging him along in a semi embrace, never taking his eyes off Xemi, squeezing him tightly every time he said 'yah', which is a common exclamatory remark among Arabic speakers.
Xemi took several glances at him from time to time but afterwards quickly looked down again. His father's curly hair grew only on the side of his head and he had let it grow. In between the spindly dark reeds was a gaunt skull and bulging red streaked eyes.
'You want a drink? Let's have a drink together there,' his father said, pointing at a fastfood spot near them.
'No, let's get out of here. I want to be as far away as possible from international travel right now.'
They made their way out of the airport. Xemi's father, Awad, picked up his luggage and carried it, expressing his fatherhood by 'taking care of everything' through this physical labour, a labour of love. Xemi noted it and slightly embarrassed turned his attention elsewhere.
A delightful thrill passed through Xemi at being around people who looked so different to himself. A place that had people different to him in looks but the same in ethics was paradise to him, and it was finally restored to him.
They went on the underground but before they did, something had caught his eye. He quickly bent down and collected a free newspaper and jumped on the busy train but remained standing, for there was no space to sit. He glanced at the frontpage, scanned the headline, then carefully read the first couple sentences, only to return back to the frontpage picture and stare at the man in it. In the picture a pudgy bald man was standing on a balcony, shirtless, with his hands raised. Xemi started.
'Hey, isn't this -' Xemi exclaimed with surprise, speaking in English.
'Quiet,' Awad sternly ordered, in Somali.
'But what happened?'
'It's nothing, just some nonsense.'
He looked at his father and then at another man who was standing behind him. The ginger stranger appeared on tenterhooks, his thin lips drained of colour. 'What will this boy say next?' the man no doubt was thinking. Xemi then read the article.
The man in the picture was a Somali man photographed for hoax bombings. Xemi's mind and feelings worked furiously now, examining the implications. He became nervous as the Somali ethnicity was one of the most distinctive in humankind, and no man can hide from his blood. He looked at the first line of the second paragraph. 'Somali born...'
His father's thin figure bore down on him, his red streaked eyes bulging.
'If you're going to speak, do it in Somali. What did you go there for, if not for this reason ?'
Xemi wanted to throw the paper far from him. He instead rolled it up, having nowhere to dispose of it, just so he didn't have to look at the man with the same physiognomy as himself. He let himself be carried by certain sensations that he would have to become familiar with again.
Standing on the moving train he tensed himself to keep his balance. The grey buildings, with trees interspersed in between, went racing before him as he looked out of the window, exhilarated to find his eyes adjusting to the rapidly changing view. There was a draft coming in from an open window, the first winds of autumn, and Xemi pushed his chest out, breathing in heedlessly, praying he would catch a cold. How delightful to feel seasonal change once again ! He unfolded the paper again frantically to find something out. It was the twentieth of August. When was the last time he knew what the date was?
They soon arrived at a building where his father lived. It was on the third floor, the dwelling itself somewhere in Hackney.
'Is this your flat?' Xemi asked him, as they entered the complex. His father said that it was. 'About time,' Xemi said to himself, relieved. They went up the dirty and stained stairs because the lift was out of order. The filth made him dread what type of flat he would find. Entering the flat, Xemi almost gasped.
The door opened to the scene of a neat, tidy but puny one bedroom residence. Directly in front of the door was the living room and diagonal was the bedroom and opposite the bedroom was the toilet. There were two single beds in the bedroom, and two hard looking sofas in the living room. The spaciousness of the house he lived in in Somalia was palatial compared to the confines of this flat.
'From an open prison to the walls of a coffin,' Xemi mused to himself.
Politeness wrapped its folds around him, and he said nothing but was sure that his father could sense his apprehension and disappointment. At least it's just them Xemi thought, positively, and not another conjured up mattress or a collapsing sofa bed in someone else's living room.
'Where's Zaina?' Xemi asked his father mechanically, while putting his empty trunk above the closet in the bedroom.
'Your sister doesn't live here,' his father told him coolly. For now his father didn't get into specifics, for negativity was sordid in this awaited homecoming and left his words in Xemi's mind, who caught the meaning nonetheless. He wasn't really interested anyway and asked simply for the sake of propriety.
Chapter 4
'How can I tell which is mine?' asked an old Somali lady, the one whom Xemi had seen on the plane, the one that had the paperwork issue, whose name was Samia. She was standing at one of the luggage carousels at Heathrow and the old Somali lady, Samia, was completely at a loss.
'You will know which one is yours when you see it,' a smiling Somali man said to her. 'It's a feeling.'
He grabbed his luggage and wished her a good day.
Samia continued to look at the winding belt, wondering about this feeling, seeing people take their luggage and others going in and out thinking that the luggage was theirs, finding that it wasn't, and then continuing to wait for it to show. Samia did the same thing, kept moving forwards and backwards, second guessing herself, but in truth didn't do it like the other travelers were doing, who knew what bags were theirs. Samia genuinely could not tell one apart from the other. Then she saw one that could have been hers, moved towards it but suddenly stopped as someone cut in front of her taking the bag that she had thought was hers. She stared at the Somali man for a moment.
'Are you sure that's yours?' she said to the man.
'Yes,' said the man curtly and then picked up another from the belt. His family was around him.
Samia looked at his family and turned back to the belt.
'Of course it's his. A family man wouldn't steal. But how am I to…' she smiled a wry smile and turned to look around at the huge hall at the airport at the restaurants, retailers, information stand, which was as big as a house, and felt one of the biggest types of intimidation one could feel. She was stuck in the middle of the ocean all by herself with nothing in the world that she could recognise and was familiar with. Trembling, she caught her breath and looked back at the conveyor belt. She was now one of the few left who still hadn't grabbed their bags. There were three people around this particular carousel. One was a young Somali man who was wearing a wife beater tank top. The other was another Somali woman around the same age as her wearing a traditional dress, orange colour, the same colour as Samia's. This lady also was wearing glasses, reading glasses, whose purpose Samia was familiar with. For some reason the fact that this old Somali lady read was more intimidating to her than anything else in the airport. Samia, feeling in her chest a gaping hole of alienation, turned and saw a luggage case come up. A dark suitcase with wheels. Her initial impulse was to immediately grab it, for that was her luggage, but she waited a minute to make sure, watching it go out of sight and then return again, noticing that no one made a move for it. She was sure now that it was hers and grabbed it and with considerable effort took it off the belt. She lifted the handle in order to roll away and turned again to the other Somali lady still waiting for her luggage.
She seemed more patient than the Somali kid with the wifebeater tanktop who was starting to get agitated, looking from the belt to some of the agents who worked at the airport. Samia started to walk away, smiling at the Somali lady with the reading glasses, remembering her own scene on the plane.
'What good are those glasses when what you're looking for is not there,' she said to herself exultantly; casting spells on her hoping that she would never find her luggage.
As Samia walked away she came to a path that had two exit points. One was for departures and the other for arrivals but she wasn't any of the wiser as to which was which. She couldn't remember which one she had come from and which way she should go. Sweat made her clothes stick to her now. She decided to go right and walked for a while, saying a couple prayers, hoping that would give her direction. Slowly, unsure, sweating she went through a corridor that was made of some pale cardboard material. She traversed it wondering if she should turn back but decided to see what it would lead to. She reached the end and saw with joy a Somali woman holding a baby with one arm while holding the hand of another child. This was her daughter and her grandchildren.
