North of Dawn

by Nuruddin Farah

  “How old are the children?” she asks.

  “The girl is fourteen, the boy twelve.”

  “Will they stay with you?” she asks.

  “We’ve found them a flat in Groenland.”

  The airport public address system advises the passengers flying to Colombo via Dubai to go to the gate, with departure expected on time. The nun looks at her brother, who is enjoying his sleep. She prepares to wheel him away, but not before she places his carry-on bag at his feet, checks that she has the tickets and passports, and then wakes him up with a loving whisper. Then she bids Mugdi farewell, saying, “All the best to you and your son’s widow and her children.”

  Shortly after the nun’s departure, Mugdi observes a teenager who bears a likeness to the photo he has of Naciim, pushing a trolley loaded sky-high with unruly suitcases. A young girl and an older woman, both in body tents, walk behind him, keeping their distance, though it is clear they and the boy are together. Mugdi lets them walk past him, as he makes a quick phone call to Gacalo saying, “They are here,” and hangs up just as fast. Then he calls out a greeting in Somali. “Nabad, Naciim!”

  Naciim turns at hearing his name, sees and wraps himself around Mugdi in an emotional embrace. Waliya and Saafi, meanwhile, retrace their steps with deliberate slowness, pausing, then exchanging hesitant looks and words that Mugdi can’t make out, their hands making sure that their face veils are in place.

  Mugdi advances toward them slowly, his hands behind his back—he does not expect either woman to greet him physically, as Naciim has. He says now to Waliya, now to Saafi, “Welcome to Norway.”

  Naciim says, “Are we taking the train?”

  “We have a rental car, waiting.”

  Mugdi leads the way, with the boy following and the women trailing behind. Mugdi and Naciim wait as two lifts come and depart.

  Mugdi knows that for a boy who has spent much of his life in a refugee camp in a dusty border town, far from cities with great amenities, being driven in a car is a big deal. Growing up in Somalia, those of Mugdi’s friends with cars were the ones who attracted all the girls.

  “Where are they?” says the boy, miffed.

  They watch the women walking slowly toward them.

  Naciim says, “Look at them. Stepdad Dhaqaneh used to say that in Europe time is money. They must learn to move fast.”

  When Waliya and Saafi arrive, the four of them step into the lift. Mugdi observes fear in the women’s eyes when three huge, loud Norwegian men step into the lift as well, one of them pushing his way farther in as he speaks to his companions, his gesticulating hands nearly coming into contact with Waliya. The widow withdraws in panic and says out loud in Somali, “Will someone talk to him please?”

  Mugdi, behaving with paramount propriety, does not address his words to Waliya but says in a whisper to the boy to tell his mother that the men that have come into the elevator are just sharing a good-natured banter among themselves and that there is nothing to give them worry.

  In the parking garage, Mugdi offers to help Naciim with the trolley. But the boy says that he can do it all on his own. When they reach the car, Waliya and Saafi get in the back and the boy takes his seat in the front.

  Naciim says, “A beautiful car.”

  The boy passes his hand admiringly over the dashboard and touches the inside of the vehicle. He says, “When I am grown, I will buy a car just like this.”

  “You’ll have to earn a lot to own a car.”

  “I have five dollars I’ve saved from my share of the travel allowance Grandma Gacalo has sent us and I’ll buy a lottery coupon and will win the lottery jackpot.”

  Waliya speaks for the first time since the lift, saying, “Gaming is a crime in Islam and I won’t allow it.”

  Naciim twists his mouth into a sneer. Mugdi is tempted not only to tell the boy off about his unacceptable behavior, but also that no one in Oslo will sell a lottery ticket to him until he attains the age of eighteen. He thinks better of it. and decides to wait for the right opportunity.

  Then Mugdi’s mobile phone rings and he converses briefly with Gacalo in Italian, a language Mugdi assumes Waliya and her children will not understand, letting her know that they are on their way.

  He tells Naciim to put on the seat belt and asks that he tell his mother and sister to do the same. He finds it tedious that the new social convention prevailing among Islamists in Somalia nowadays discourages men from speaking directly to women except via a Mahram.

  As Mugdi drives, he observes in the rearview mirror that the women’s lips are astir, seemingly reciting verses from the Koran. He directs his eyes back to the road. He has scarcely gone half a kilometer when Naciim asks if he was talking in Italian before.

  “Do you understand Italian?” he asks.

  “Not yet. But I want to learn many languages,” the boy says. “Norwegian, French, Italian, and I will improve my English.”

  Now Saafi pipes up for the first time, asking in a small voice, “What about Arabic?”

  Naciim asks, “What about it?”

  “It’s the Prophet’s tongue, may Allah’s blessing be on him. And it’s the language every Muslim must learn.”

  Naciim makes a face and his sister’s expression darkens.

  Mugdi, in the meantime, has observed that Saafi and Waliya do not have their seat belts on. He pulls over, but does not turn off the engine. He tells Naciim to tell his mother and sister to please put their safety belts on, as it is obligatory in Norway.

  Waliya retorts, “We’ll die on the day that Allah has ordained for us to die, whether we wear this thing or not.”

  “I’ll be made to pay a heavy fine if you don’t have it on,” Mugdi shoots back. “Would you like me to pay a heavy fine?”

  Grudgingly they comply, and the rest of the car ride is silent. When they reach their apartment building, Mugdi rings Gacalo once more. She confirms that she is inside and ready to let them in.

  When they enter, Gacalo, not veiled, but dressed in the Somali way, in a flower-patterned frock, a shawl, and her head covered welcomes Mugdi with a hug and she says, “Thanks, darling.” Then Waliya and Saafi greet Gacalo cursorily and then take off at the first opportunity. Naciim, however, stands close to Mugdi, behaving as if he belongs to the old man’s world rather than the one into which the women have taken refuge.

  The boy moves about, peering out the windows, touching the walls, and admiring the airy cleanliness of the place. He paces back and forth, as if taking measure of how spacious the apartment is in comparison to the shacks in the refugee camp. Then he says to Mugdi, “Please come with me and let us go round and see the rooms, because I want to choose mine.”

  Naciim leads Mugdi by the hand and they go first into a room that is sparingly furnished, Naciim looking around and saying, “Maybe this will be Saafi’s.”

  Leaving the room, he turns left, Mugdi following, and they come to a door that is locked from inside. Naciim gently taps on it and with no one answering walks on, saying, “Maybe that is the room where Mum and Saafi are now.”

  Eventually, they come to an en suite room overlooking a garden. Naciim sits down on the double bed in the farthest corner. Excited, he speaks with the brazen tone of someone determined to have his way. He says, “This will be my room.”

  “Why not consult your mum first?”

  “But it is the room with the best view.”

  Mugdi understands the boy’s meaning: that the best of everything goes to the man of the household and, since he is male, the largest room with the best view is his by right. Mugdi is upset, not so much with the boy as with the tradition that pampers the male species.

  Mugdi says, “Where have you learned this machismo? You make me unhappy when you badmouth your mother and sister, who treat you as though you were their Mahram, their male guardian. In our family, we don’t approve of this sort of be
havior.”

  Naciim frowns in mock anger and says nothing.

  “How would your stepdad have reacted if he were here and you talked this way? Would he call you out, or would it not bother him at all?”

  “He would find nothing wrong with it. In fact, Stepdad Dhaqaneh would encourage me to think of myself as the man of the house, the boss of the womenfolk, the Mahram.”

  Mugdi has heard men described as the protectors of the womenfolk and that the man’s first job is to preserve the honor of the family in every possible way. Mugdi can’t help thinking that he and Gacalo have their work cut out for them.

  Naciim continues, “Stepdad Dhaqaneh would want me to be his stand-in.”

  “What does that entail?”

  “It means that my mother and sister can’t do anything without my express permission and I can punish them if they are out of line,” says Naciim.

  “Do you think that’s the right way to behave for a boy your age?”

  “Once in his absence,” says Naciim, “my mother and Saafi attended a wedding without letting me know beforehand, and when he returned and I reported what they did, he told them off. He said that in his absence they should take orders from me.”

  “Did he ever hit or maltreat your mother?”

  “He disciplined her often,” says Naciim.

  “Did the disciplining include smacking?”

  “Yes, but not as often as he smacked me.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Because he saw me as his ‘selectman.’”

  “What did he mean by that?”

  “That I was worth more than the women.”

  From the hallway, they hear Gacalo wondering, “Where are the men?”

  Mugdi calls, “We are here, darling.”

  She asks, “What are you up to?”

  “The young man and I are getting to know each other. I can’t help thinking that this fellow has a lot to unlearn.”

  After a few minutes of small talk, Gacalo walks off in the direction of the kitchen and Mugdi and Naciim follow her. In the kitchen, Gacalo turns her gentle gaze on Mugdi and she says to him in Italian that he may go home now, thanks.

  Naciim works out that Mugdi is preparing to depart and asks if he can go with him today. Mugdi says, “Not today.”

  “Do you have TV at your home?”

  “We do,” replies Mugdi.

  “Can I come and watch it sometime?”

  “You’ll watch it when you visit us.”

  “I hear you own lots of books.”

  Gacalo says, “We have plenty of books.”

  “What kind of books?”

  “Books of all sizes in every genre, in Italian, English, Russian, Somali, Arabic, and Norwegian.”

  “Stepdad Dhaqaneh had more books than anyone else I knew,” Naciim says, “and he read a lot. He taught me to read and write. But I had difficulties reading and was never good at it until he started to help me. Reading used to bore me, but not anymore.”

  “What do you like doing, when not reading?”

  “I love watching soccer on TV.”

  “Do you play soccer?”

  “I love playing it too.”

  Mugdi says to Gacalo, “See you at home.”

  “Thanks for picking them up and bringing them home,” she says.

  And he is out of the door before Naciim has a chance to ask him when he will see Mugdi again.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  For the third evening in a row, Gacalo arrives home later than usual, pleading exhaustion and explaining that after work she has gone to visit the widow and her charges in her effort to help them find their feet. It is unlike her to be away from her home and husband this often, but she feels she is justified in devoting time to the three new arrivals, each with a different set of demands and interests. Nor, as Mugdi might have expected, has she been sharing the details of her exchanges with them, only that there have been problems.

  Mugdi is in the upstairs bathroom, the door open and the lights off. He cleans his teeth, using the over-spilling brightness from the bedroom. He likes to walk about in scarcely lit spaces. When the lights are on downstairs, he may not turn the upstairs ones on. He argues that he feels rested that way and that he sees better. Timiro teases him by comparing him to a cat moving with stealth: for he is on top on you, she says, before you know it.

  Of late, Gacalo and Mugdi have met in near silence, their heads crowded with thoughts that neither wishes to put into words. Last night, Gacalo accused Mugdi of envying Waliya and her children the care she has given them; of being so bitter that he couldn’t even refer to the widow by name. Gacalo wished there was a way for him to allow his good-natured side to come out on top, as it used to.

  They meet on the landing, just as Gacalo gains the topmost stair and Mugdi is about to enter the bedroom. Gacalo steps out of his way and then follows him into the room.

  He gives her enough time to put her handbag on the windowsill and to change out of her outdoor clothes and into pajamas. He stays silent until she has cleaned her teeth, washed her face, and taken her place under the covers on the left side of the bed.

  “How have things been?”

  “Timiro is going through a bad patch.”

  Gacalo furrows her brows in the dim light and gathers the top sheet around her. Married for five years, Timiro remained loyal despite Xirsi’s constant lies and straying from the conjugal bed for months at a time. Mugdi and Gacalo never could abide the fellow, and even Kaluun, who introduced the two and appreciates Xirsi’s charm, acknowledges that he has credibility issues. Kaluun insists that Timiro knew what the man was like before getting involved with him, but that she saw no reason not to forge ahead. “There is no womanizer who can’t be cured of his profligacy,” she’d say.

  Gacalo thinks that Dhaqaneh’s dying before giving them a grandchild has been an irksome thing. Now she says to Mugdi, “And what a grand delight it will be for us to welcome Timiro’s baby into our lives, a grandchild to love and pamper in our old age. I can’t wait.”

  Mugdi, suppressing a yawn, says, “Like you, I look very much forward to the baby, which will be both a blessing and a joy in our hearts.”

  Then she turns her back on him and fluffs the pillows, and placing some distance between them, she says, “Night, honey.” But she is unsure if he heard her.

  When Mugdi finally falls asleep, he dreams of visiting Kaluun and Eugenia, and walking through Abney Park Cemetery. He calls at several graves of abolitionist men and women buried there. At some point, a sudden downpour erupts and he seeks shelter in a cave as large and dark as a basement apartment.

  Soon he is joined by a group of men, women, and children dressed in white, the men heavily bearded and with skullcaps, the women veiled and barefoot, and the children carrying books with the titles of sacred texts on their spines. Mugdi leaves the cave only after it has stopped raining and returns to Kaluun and Eugenia’s home.

  The following morning, Mugdi and Gacalo are up early. Timiro joins them and asks, “When can I visit Waliya and her children? What is she like? Do you reckon she’ll do well here and integrate?”

  “I think it’ll take her a long time to adjust,” says Gacalo. “Not many unlettered women of her age do well, if they put into their heads that they won’t do well. And Waliya strikes me as someone who has already decided that.”

  “How old is she?”

  “She is twenty-nine, thirty.”

  “For all she’s gone through, I assumed she was older. And where was she raised?”

  “According to her personal details in the forged Tanzanian passport, she was born in Mogadiscio,” replies Gacalo. “But then can you trust the biodata in a false passport?”

  “And what of the children, Saafi and Naciim? What are they like?”

  Mugdi says, “He is something, the boy.”<
br />
  “I think the boy has as much to learn as he has to unlearn,” says Gacalo, “if he is to navigate his way around this new environment.” “Saafi is a peaceable sort, mild-mannered, too easily intimidated, but petite and pretty.”

  “Do they fight, Saafi and Naciim, the way Dhaqaneh and I used to fight, like rats in a sack, no holds barred?” Timiro asks.

  Gacalo says, “You fought with the ferocity of a cat marking its territory, if Dhaqaneh preyed on your insecurities, like when you got your first period.”

  Timiro says, “Dad always protected me—even when I was at fault. All I had to say was, ‘Dad, Dhaqaneh is mean to me,’ safe in the knowledge that Dad would punish him.”

  Mugdi says to Timiro, “You knew no better.”

  Gacalo says, “But you were a soft touch.”

  Mugdi trains his full stare on Gacalo and then goes up to his study without another word.

  He and Gacalo often disagreed about how best to solve the mystery that was Dhaqaneh, and now that their son is dead, each assigns a portion of the blame to the other. Neither wants their closeness to suffer irreparably. Yet Gacalo hectors him about how he favored and cherished Timiro more. In a particularly heated moment, he once said in defense, “Because she was a pleasanter person, let us face it.”

  “How could you say that?” she demanded.

  Before he could stop himself, he fired back with “Where is he now and where is Timiro, as we speak? One of them is here and alive, the other is dead after causing so much death to other communities.”

  Even though Mugdi’s forthrightness unnerves Gacalo, she failed to come up with an immediate riposte to his remarks. As a result, she averted her eyes, and avoiding meeting his gaze, she stared into space, her senses benumbed by what Mugdi had said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Two days later, the mood is good and light. Gacalo is pleased that Timiro is well enough to make a courtesy call on the widow and her children. Timiro says, “It’s high time I met her. And it’ll be a welcome distraction.” Timiro has just gotten off the phone with Eugenia, who is setting up an appointment with a lawyer so Timiro might start filing for divorce from Xirsi.