North of Dawn

by Nuruddin Farah

  “How did you hurt yourself?” Gacalo asks.

  When Waliya speaks, Gacalo has difficulty comprehending her and the widow has to repeat herself two, three times.

  “I tripped.”

  Saliva runs down over her swollen lip and she sucks it back in, enunciating carefully, like a novice practicing a foreign tongue. It takes what seems like three minutes for her to say, “I slipped on a wet cake of soap and hit my head against the shower door.”

  “And then?”

  Naciim, dressed, rejoins them and listens to the conversation in silence.

  “As I tried to gain my footing,” says Waliya, “I slipped again, hit my head against the shower wall, then felt woozy.”

  “It was my fault,” Naciim says.

  “How is this your fault?” Gacalo asks.

  “I left the soap on the shower floor, intending to pick it up, but forgot to do so. She wouldn’t have fallen if it weren’t for my carelessness.”

  “Those bruises are bad,” says Gacalo, not quite believing Waliya’s story. She thinks that perhaps the widow hasn’t shared what truly happened with Naciim. “Would you like me to take you to hospital?”

  “I’ll be all right,” Waliya insists.

  Saafi appears in the doorway, kitted out in the clothes Gacalo bought for her on their shopping excursion a few months ago. The young girl offers a smile to her guest and seems about to pirouette in the way models do, but stops just short of doing so. Naciim, forever incorrigible, says, “You look as if you’re going out somewhere. Maybe next time you should come out with me in this beautiful dress and everybody will go, wow!”

  Waliya says, “I won’t allow it.”

  Ignoring his mother, Naciim says to Gacalo, “Saafi alternately puts on one of the four dresses you bought for her and spends several hours each day in front of the standing mirror in Mum’s room, admiring herself. Can you imagine?”

  Then they hear a knock on the door and within seconds, both Waliya and Saafi, nervous about who it might be, prepare to flee, in the way of criminals escaping a crime scene. Naciim turns to Gacalo and says, “Please give me a minute and I will find out who is at the door. It is either the man from the restaurant delivering our meal or Zubair, whom my mother invited to join us.” The boy moves toward the door as though the entire world is at his command and asks in Norwegian, “Who is it?”

  “I have a delivery to make,” a man says.

  Naciim gives his mother and sister enough time to go to their rooms before opening the door to the man, who advances into the room with nonchalance until his eyes clap on Gacalo. Then he stops short, shocked at coming face-to-face with a woman not dressed in the “Saudi” way that has lately become fashionable among Somalis. Naciim relieves the man of the food he is carrying, signs the receipt, and gives him a tip. The man takes one more look in Gacalo’s direction to make sure that he is seeing a “naked” woman, not a ghost. Then he departs.

  Just as Naciim lets the man out, Zubair arrives at the door. Naciim then leads the way back into the living room and presents Gacalo to a man in his early thirties, with a beard that has known no razor, a white conical hat, a baggy shalwar, and a long seamless khameez. He boasts a massive prayer mark on his forehead, evidence that he prays more frequently than most. Gacalo remembers Himmo talking about him at length, that this young man knew Dhaqaneh first in Norway and then in the battlefields of Mogadiscio—obviously a fellow jihadi. But she has no interest in speaking about her son this evening. She is here to celebrate Naciim’s achievement: that he can now start regular school, having done exceptionally well at the language school in the shortest time possible.

  Gacalo rises to greet Zubair. He keeps a respectable distance, nodding his head in acknowledgment. In the absence of the women of the household—she assumes that Waliya and Saafi are putting on the hijab before rejoining them—Gacalo takes the food to the kitchen and empties it into serving bowls, leaving Naciim to play host to Zubair.

  Finally Waliya and Saafi rejoin them, clad in rather fashionable chadors. By then, the food is on the table, alongside colorful orange drinks and other varieties of soda. When Zubair and Waliya lock eyes, Gacalo wonders if there’s more to the relationship than anyone has said. She also gathers from the way Saafi looks upon the scene that the young woman is more familiar with the man than she lets on.

  Gacalo says, “Bismillah,” to encourage everyone to serve themselves. Zubair rubs his palms together, his face showing his eagerness to eat. Then he says, “Just a moment,” and off he goes to wash his hands. Because he does not ask where the washroom is, Gacalo notes that he clearly knows his way about the apartment. It crosses her mind that the truth is that the bruises are the consequence of a beating Waliya has received from Zubair, because it is a well-known fact that jihadis are often violent toward their women for the slightest religious infraction.

  On his return, he and Naciim pile their plates high with food while Waliya and Saafi take tiny portions. Gacalo takes a single drumstick and a bit of salad. Zubair says “Bismillah,” and everybody else’s lips, except Gacalo’s, are astir with devotions, after which they start eating.

  Gacalo is happy to be here for the boy’s sake, but relieved Mugdi is not around to be discomfited by Zubair’s presence.

  Naciim is the first to speak. He says, “Sheikh Zubair has been involved in helping Mum start a nursery. And did you know,” he says to Gacalo, “he and my mother knew each other back home.”

  Gacalo suddenly feels an intense sickness at the troubling thought that this fellow jihadi is alive while her son is not. She cannot bear the thought of engaging him in small talk, let alone asking him what Dhaqaneh was like just before his self-murder in the service of his faith. Her expression queasy, she fights back a wave of nausea. In an attempt to distract herself, she raises her glass in which there is water and makes a toast. She says to Naciim, “We are here to celebrate your admission into regular school in a much shorter time than expected and we pray that you’ll do well.”

  Zubair trains his shifty eyes on Gacalo in a manner that makes her uneasy. As he watches her intensely, she thinks that perhaps she is misreading things and that he is anxious in the way of someone wanting to get something off his chest. When he speaks, his non sequitur doesn’t surprise her, because he says, “I know Waliya from way back, when she and Dhaqaneh first met. And I was there when they married. So it is a great thing that she and her two children are here, thanks to Allah, the Merciful and the Beneficent. She is now among her people. Imam Fanax and I have always supported her refusal to accept social welfare benefits from a non-Muslim entity such as the Norwegian state. So we have decided to give her a hand in setting up her nursery for Somali and Muslim children, to teach them reading and writing in Arabic.”

  Zubair goes on, “So far a dozen children, some as young as two and others as old as five, have registered with us at the mosque. The children have working mothers and they need help.” Then he turns to Saafi and adds, “Saafi will be hired as her mother’s assistant.”

  “I love looking after babies,” says Saafi.

  “As far as Saafi and Naciim are concerned, the state will support them from the moment their asylum papers are issued. Saafi, like her mother, does not wish to receive a cent from the state. Needless to say, we’re content with Naciim’s progress, even if we are disappointed that he is not receiving the education a Muslim boy of his age requires.”

  Waliya agrees with Zubair and, speaking with difficulty, she says, “You know I said so when we first arrived. Nothing would give me more pleasure than giving my children a good Islamic education.”

  Then Gacalo’s mobile phone rings. From the phone ID, she can tell it is Mugdi. Grateful for an interruption, she listens to him for a couple of minutes and then says, “I’ll come home as soon as I can.”

  The plates have barely been cleared when she hastens to depart.

  CHAPTER
TWELVE

  Gacalo arrives home in a taxi half an hour later and shakily alights and wobbles past Mugdi through the gate. Seeing how unsteady his wife is, Mugdi offers Gacalo a hand, but she waves him away, asking him to please pay for the taxi. As she teeters forward, he hears her voice a lament that he fears will ring in his ears for a long time to come: “Everything is in ruins.” As he waits for a receipt from the taxi driver, he recalls his own sense of doom upon first setting eyes on Waliya.

  After collecting the receipt, he gathers Gacalo’s hand in his and asks, “What’s ailing you, darling?”

  “I’ve no idea,” she responds, her voice deep and pained.

  Then Mugdi notices an overpoweringly musty odor whose source he cannot determine though it seems to be emanating from close to his wife. It is not the sort of smell he associates with Gacalo, who is always unfailingly clean. The pervasive odor that is interfering with his thoughts is worryingly suggestive of rottenness; there are intimations of death about it.

  Gacalo mutters maledictions as he supports her—Zubair’s name occurs several times in her curses. He assists her entering the house ahead of him and then together the two of them totter up the stairs, one unsteady step at as a time, until they gain the bedroom. Gacalo lies down on her back and he pulls the sheet over her, tucking her in as if she were a baby. When her breathing is no longer as erratic as before, he sits on the edge of the bed and asks, “Can I get you anything?”

  Gacalo does not respond.

  He waits for a minute or so, gets to his feet, dims the bedroom lights, and walks softly out of the room, leaving the door slightly ajar to admit a fraction of light from the hallway so that Gacalo will know where she is should she wake up alone.

  Once downstairs in the kitchen, Mugdi is so perturbed he cannot remember what has led him there in the first place. Does he want to eat something? He wonders if someone at Waliya’s has said something to fog her mind, darken her mood, and make her sick. Distractedly, Mugdi reaches for a large lemon and a chopping board. He cuts the lemon in half and squeezes the juice into a large mug, into which he pours some water. He takes the mug up to the bedroom, thinking Gacalo will be thirsty when she wakes. He’ll leave the water on the nightstand next to her.

  As he enters the bedroom, Gacalo says, “You’re back?”

  “With a glass of lemony water,” he says. “I hoped you’d still be asleep.”

  It hurts him to watch her struggle to do something as simple as turn to face him. He holds her head with his firm hands and helps her shift and sit up so she can have a sip of the water. It is impossible for him to ignore how much she is trembling.

  Her voice low, she says, “Enough. Thanks,” and pushes the water away.

  He helps ease Gacalo into a comfortable position. Then, as he’s about to head downstairs, he hears her say, “Please.”

  He turns and watches as her arms flail like someone desperately trying to dispel cobwebs in front of her face.

  “What is it, darling?”

  “Help me to the bathroom, please.”

  “Are you sure I don’t need to take you to hospital?”

  “No need. I’ll be absolutely fine.”

  He does as she asks. Even so, doubts enter his mind as he escorts her to the toilet and, having helped her sit, pulls the door shut and waits outside. He wonders if he is doing the right thing in agreeing with a sick woman’s insistence that she has no need of an ambulance or a doctor.

  She calls to him again. Mugdi supplies Gacalo with toilet paper and again steps out to give her privacy, then shepherds her back to the bedroom. Her voice is so weak he can barely catch her words without moving closer. She says, “I want to drink more water, lots of it.”

  He stays up for much of the night, sitting by the bed and ministering to her. She falls asleep, finally, at three in the morning. But Mugdi cannot bring himself to sleep and so he engages in what he does best when he is unhappy: revise translation texts or write something new. Eventually, he too falls asleep in a chair at her bedside.

  In the morning, Gacalo wakes before Mugdi does. Her memory of the night before is fractured, and she has trouble distinguishing what happened at Waliya’s and then later at home from the nightmares in her head. For the first time in a long while, she calls in sick to work.

  When Mugdi comes downstairs to the kitchen and finds Gacalo sitting at the table drinking tea, he hugs her tightly, as if, in his mind, he is welcoming her back from a trip to the uncharted territory to which she traveled alone. Gacalo tugs at his sleeves, happy to be back with him.

  Several hours later, there is a knock on the door. Answering it, Mugdi is pleasantly surprised to find Naciim standing on their doorstep with a carrier bag containing what looks like a football and a large envelope. The boy is grinning in a way that suggests he has a secret he wishes to share with him. As Mugdi lets the boy in, he asks, “Is everything okay?”

  Gacalo and Mugdi were delighted the first time Naciim turned up unannounced, praising him for identifying the right tram and underground line to take, then negotiating the labyrinthine streets near Vigeland Park, where their house is. Completely unaided, he avoided the cul-de-sac and followed the alleys leading to their home. At the time they asked how the boy, who had been in Oslo for less than two months, had accomplished such a task. His reply was as indicative of their expectations of him as it was of his ability to surprise everyone in a positive way. He said that the few times he visited them in the rental car, he had focused on the features of the area he needed to remember and that memorizing these had helped him map the way in his head. He admitted he had been unsure of the street to take once he left the train but asked a friendly-looking woman for help, who pointed him in the right direction.

  “Excellent,” says Mugdi.

  Gacalo is equally impressed and compliments Naciim on his self-reliant approach to life in the new land. “What news brings you here?” she asks.

  “You left so suddenly last night, I was worried. I’ve come to see how you are doing,” he says.

  “How sweet of you to visit.”

  Emboldened, Naciim says, “I was unhappy with the indifference Zubair and my mother showed to you. It was obvious you were unwell. And then after you left, Zubair made unkind remarks that I won’t repeat here.”

  Gacalo asks Naciim, “Have you eaten?”

  Mugdi is amused, knowing that his wife tends to think of feeding the young before engaging with their concerns. Timiro used to be irritated by her mother’s questions about food whenever confronted with a serious topic, whereas Dhaqaneh always seemed hungry and had no trouble devouring a large meal regardless of the situation, earning him the family nickname “Hoover.”

  Before Naciim can answer, Gacalo takes off toward the kitchen to warm up the boy’s favorite: chicken and rice.

  Gacalo puts the food before Naciim, then asks if Mugdi would like a cup of coffee. He replies that he would love one.

  Naciim, meanwhile, chews a bite of chicken with slow consideration and then says, “I would like to open a bank account in my name. I need your help.”

  Mugdi asks, “Have you come into money we don’t know about?”

  “I’ve saved some from the monthly allowance you give me and would use every bit of it toward my education or to buy an iPhone, a new computer, or books.”

  “That sounds like a good plan,” says Mugdi.

  “Where is it, the money?” asks Gacalo.

  Naciim rummages in the carrier bag and brings out wads of cash held together by a rubber band. “Here,” he says, and he offers it to whichever of them will accept it.

  Gacalo receives it. She says, “A bank, eh?”

  Mugdi informs the boy that he will not be able to open a bank account in his name until he has been assigned a national security number, which takes a long time to get, and requires more papers than Naciim yet has.

  “No pro
blem,” the boy says. “Keep it for me and I’ll ask you for the amounts I need. You see, if the money is with me, I may be tempted to spend it. I also do not want to keep it at home where anyone might find it.”

  “Fair enough,” says Gacalo.

  The boy’s request makes Mugdi recall similar experiences with Dhaqaneh, who as a child would ask one of them to keep his pocket money for him, to reclaim it as his needs arose. But because he would ask for bits of cash so often, now from his mother and now from his father, it was difficult to know how much of it remained. Gacalo came up with the solution of writing down every sum he withdrew. So now Mugdi decides to give Naciim a notebook in which to jot down his withdrawals and remaining balance. Naciim says, “A good idea,” and they all agree that there’ll be no withdrawal without Mugdi, Gacalo, and Naciim all signing the slip.

  Naciim suppresses a yawn. Then he says, “In our apartment, I wake up soon after four in the morning whether I like it or not, because the wall clock, as well as my mother and Saafi’s phones, relay the message of the muezzin, urging us to rise and say our prayers. And then Mum puts on the Koran tape, recited by her favorite Sheikh Sufi.”

  Gacalo says, “I hope you say your prayers without fuss or fail when your Mum asks you to.”

  “Mum and I have rows,” says Naciim, “especially when she insists that, for a Muslim, saying the five daily prayers must take priority over every other activity. I try hard to please her, knowing she is easily upset when we are discussing religion, and I talk back. I tell her that if I am up until later, reading and rereading my Norwegian textbooks, and revising my math, physics, and chemistry, on top of working on the daily homework my special tutor assigns, then perhaps I can say my prayers later in the day when I have the time. Islam allows that, but my mother doesn’t. I remind her that everyone would sympathize with me. I am only thirteen and I have four more years before I reach the age of majority. Then I will make sure that I pursue my religious responsibilities with more vigor.”