North of Dawn

by Nuruddin Farah

  They pause a third of the way up the stairs, Johan huffing and puffing from his exertions. He needs to exercise more, thinks Mugdi. After a moment’s respite, they enter the bedroom and find Gacalo sitting up, her head propped against two large pillows. Birgitta and Johan take turns to kiss her on the cheeks.

  “How are you?” Birgitta asks.

  “There’s no need for any of you to get into such a sweat over my health. I’ll be up before long and will be coming to work,” Gacalo says.

  Mugdi looks from Gacalo to Birgitta and back. He frets, wondering how much of his thoughts he should share. In the end, he does not speak, but points Birgitta to the chair at Gacalo’s bedside. He makes as though to bring in a chair from his study, but Johan discourages him from doing so with a wave of his hand.

  Birgitta asks, “What would you say is ailing you?”

  “What if I told you I feel as if an adult female, the size of Waliya, is sitting in a fetal posture inside my stomach?” Gacalo replies.

  Mugdi takes her reply as evidence of what he has believed all along: that Gacalo’s problems are mental and not physical, though he will not say this to her face or share it with their friends, who seem stunned by his wife’s response.

  Not wishing to offend, Johan speaks with great care. “I am wondering if Gacalo’s statement can be understood only by someone familiar with the Somali culture. Birgitta and I feel we lack the background to comprehend.”

  Mugdi considers. Should he answer Johan’s question with the sincerity it deserves? One interpretation of Gacalo’s words—a more “Somali” interpretation—could be that demons, representing the spirit cult commonly known as “Zar” in the Horn of Africa—have taken full possession of his wife and are “residing in her” in the form of Waliya.

  Gacalo stares at Mugdi, as if she is daring him to speak what is on his mind. If Mugdi hesitates to bring this into the conversation now, it is because he knows that without elaborate explanations, neither of their Norwegian friends will understand the place of the spirit in the lives of women, who are often its principal hosts. Moreover, if she is truly possessed, ousting the spirit demands the attendance of a shaman-like priestess who can exorcise the demon through ecstatic dancing rituals.

  Birgitta pulls Mugdi aside. “Is this the first time she has said this?”

  “Yes,” he says.

  “Is she talking in tongues?” asks Birgitta.

  Plodding on gamely, Johan says, “Maybe Gacalo means that she is suffering from a discomfiting disease to be known from now on as ‘Waliyatitis.’ But the question is, does this new form of sickness have a cure?”

  “What answer would you give to that?” Birgitta asks Gacalo.

  “I’m neither a doctor nor a shaman,” says Gacalo.

  Johan repeats the term “Waliyatitis” a couple of times, looking both pleased with himself for coining it and slightly disturbed. Then he turns to Gacalo, as if to ask her another question, before thinking better of it, and asking Mugdi instead, “Does the host, namely Gacalo, have to cooperate for the cure to be effective? As you well know, you need a fair dose of faith in the cure to drive out an evil spirit.”

  “If the subject doesn’t cooperate with the shaman attempting to exorcise the spirit, then it is likely that the bouts of Waliyatitis will continue to discomfort the subject,” says Mugdi.

  “So finding a cure may not be easy?”

  “I’m a bit tired and would very much like to take a nap,” says Gacalo loudly, repositioning her pillows and closing her eyes.

  “But of course,” says Birgitta.

  Birgitta, Johan, and Mugdi retreat to the kitchen, where Mugdi boils water to make coffee for everyone. Birgitta, the first to speak, says, “Your thoughts?”

  Mugdi says, “My patience is at an end and I am finding it hard to believe her when she gives me assurances that she will be back at work in a day or two. She has been saying this for days now. And her ailments keep changing—one day it is a terrible headache, the next it is indigestion, the third day something altogether different.”

  “Like Waliyatitis,” says Birgitta.

  “Yes, indeed. Like Waliyatitis.”

  Johan says, “Surely a modern, educated, secular Norwegian, which is what Gacalo is, will find it hard to believe in spirit cults and the like. Surely she cannot think herself truly possessed.”

  Mugdi says he will go up to his study and fetch one of the definitive texts about the Zar spirit. He dashes up the stairs and returns shortly after with a large book in his hand.

  “Wombs and Alien Spirits,” Johan reads. “No mention of Waliyatitis here?”

  “You have the book. You find out,” says Mugdi.

  When Birgitta and Johan depart, Mugdi goes to check on Gacalo. “They’ve left,” he says. “Can I bring you anything?”

  “Like what?”

  “Anything that takes your fancy?”

  “No, thank you.” She then proceeds to climb out of bed with some difficulty, ignoring Mugdi’s offer of assistance. Once her feet are on the floor, she stays still for a moment, as if the world turns round in her head and she fears that she will fall flat on her forehead if she moves forward. Then she takes a few shaky steps. Mugdi tries to give her support and she pushes him away gently, a smile forming around her very dry lips. She says, “I am okay. Thanks, darling.”

  She walks down the stairs into the living room.

  “What are you looking for?” asks Mugdi.

  Riffling through their music collection she says, “I’ve found it. Here!”

  “What is it? What have you found?”

  She hands him a CD called Sleepwalking and asks him to play it. Mugdi’s mild surprise—he can’t imagine when they would have acquired music from a heavy metal band—turns to shock when he puts on the CD and she sings along with it. He is of two minds whether to celebrate, as Gacalo sounds happier than he has seen her in days, or to feel sad, as he knew nothing of his wife’s apparent liking of heavy metal music despite being married to her for over forty years. He finds it much harder to admit that there are so many things that he does not know about Gacalo.

  “This is great. Thanks for bringing the song to my attention,” says Mugdi tentatively.

  He’s reminded of when the mother of a childhood neighbor of his developed some sort of sleep disorder which had never before been seen in his village. She would wake in the small hours, at times to go to the latrine or get herself a glass of water, sometimes leaving the village altogether. If she ran into someone, she would hold a lengthy conversation, but when morning came, she remembered nothing. She eventually sleepwalked herself to death, falling into a neighbor’s latrine.

  Gacalo plays the CD again, dancing to it and singing along. Mugdi stares as her entire body sways to the rhythm of the music, not so much moved as astounded.

  Over the coming weeks, other visitors arrive—Himmo with her daughter Isniino; Kaluun and Eugenia; Saafi and Naciim; Timiro quietly carrying Riyo in a sling. Yet rather than the guests soothing Gacalo, they only increase her discomfort, until she goes so far as to accuse Mugdi of conspiring with friends and family to unsettle her.

  Mugdi is disturbed by Gacalo’s attack. When Timiro urges her mother to stop remonstrating with Mugdi, knowing that he is innocent, mother and daughter engage in a feisty set-to, and Gacalo locks herself in the bedroom, refusing to see anyone.

  A debate ensues about what to do next. Timiro suggests that either they break the door down themselves or else call a locksmith, while Kaluun says that they should give her time to come to her senses. Eugenia wonders if they should recruit Saafi to plead with her.

  “Surely you have an opinion on this?” Kaluun says to his brother.

  “Who am I to invent a cure for a new disease called ‘Waliyatitis,’ especially because I may have contracted it myself?” Mugdi says.

  Ill at ease and wi
th no one speaking, Timiro trains her eyes on the stairs, as if hoping against all hope that her mother will appear and come down. Her father, worn to a frazzle, rises to his feet with the suddenness of somebody stung by the urgency of finding a solution to a family crisis. As everyone looks at him with fearful apprehension, they hear a door squeak and then open. A moment laden with the excitement of waiting lapses before they see Gacalo descending and they stay silent and watch her as she walks past the gathering and stops just short of the kitchen door. Timiro, the first to break the silence, says, “How wonderful to welcome you back from wherever you have been, Mum. Truly comforting.”

  Gacalo, paying her daughter no heed, goes into the kitchen and, without bothering to explain herself, puts on her favorite apron, ready to chop onions before emptying the freezer of its frozen contents, defrosting the chicken, the steaks, and fish and then marinating them.

  Timiro gets up and, with care, gets to her feet and puts down Riyo, who is now falling asleep on the closest couch. Then she joins her mother in the kitchen, to whom she says, “That’s a lot of food, Mum. How many people you expecting?”

  “We have guests to feed,” Gacalo replies.

  Mugdi obliges in providing her with all the help she asks, including going to the supermarket with a long list of items to purchase. He humors her the way you humor people sick in the head. He also advises everyone else to give her a wide berth.

  When Mugdi has returned and she is done with the cooking, she lays the table for as many people as there are plates and other family dishes, after which she washes the floors and vacuums the rooms where there are carpets, paying special attention to the living room and every public space in the house.

  Then she showers, changes into a comfortable outfit, suggests that everybody help himself or herself, and hugs them all, before telling each person how much she loves them and how important they have been in her life. At the day’s end, as Gacalo has not yet retreated to her room, those gathered begin to relax, convinced that the Gacalo they have always known and loved is back in their midst. Still, Saafi asks, “How do you feel now, Grandma?”

  Gacalo replies, “I feel like a purchaser of contraband goods from an illegal outlet bought at bargain prices, with no warranty period to return them, if they turn out to be unsuitable.”

  “I don’t understand you, Grandma.”

  “One day you will. One day everyone will.”

  Then Gacalo goes to her bedroom, draws the curtains and pretends to go to sleep. However, she leaves the door open so she can hear everything everyone in the kitchen is saying about her. An hour later, Saafi, who checks on her several times, says, “Grandma is not answering my questions. Maybe she truly is asleep.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Mugdi struggles to contain his emotions; when going downstairs, he comes upon a scene of startling impact: Gacalo’s glass-framed photo that has crashed to the floor, the glass splintered into shards and the photo out on its own, facedown. He sits morosely on one of the steps, and not knowing what to do, weeps one moment and recovers control of his emotions the next. He then thinks deeply not only about the significance of what has occurred but also about death, Gacalo’s and his. But when he tries to contemplate what shape a future without Gacalo might take, he gets nowhere with his thoughts. He gets up and, with his gait unsteady, looks for and finds a broom and sweeps the glass fragments into a dustpan, which he dumps into the waste bin. But he saves the photo and takes it to his study, and stands it against the wall in full view of where he normally sits when he works or reads, determined not to speak of any of this to anyone.

  He returns to Gacalo’s room to check Gacalo’s pulse, and then his forefinger goes to her throat to detect if her heart is beating, even faintly or irregularly. He is convinced he can feel a pulse one moment, only for it to vanish the next. He cannot seem to follow why, of all the variables possible, this catastrophe had to happen. Eugenia and Kaluun are the first to arrive, followed by a frantic Timiro.

  “Not for a moment did it occur to me that she had a bottle of painkillers with her,” says Mugdi, distraught. “When we awoke in the middle of the night, she said she was going downstairs to get some water. I recall her gone for a long time and then she was back, but we didn’t talk.”

  “Is there anything else of importance that you remember?” asks Eugenia.

  “Even though asleep, I felt her weight beside me a few minutes before I opened my eyes and checked on her.”

  Mugdi hears the drumming of his heart in his ears as Timiro hugs him. He fears it is beating at such a pace that he may collapse. He holds Timiro for support before sliding into the chair by the bedside.

  Timiro’s gaze, meanwhile, is fixed upon nothing, her expression that of someone desperate to release her emotions but unable to do so. “She was alive when you came back to bed then?” she says.

  At his daughter’s question Mugdi breaks down and then motions to everybody to leave him alone with Gacalo’s body, after which he takes hold of Gacalo’s hand in his and imagines what the others will do if he refuses to let go of his dead wife. Would they think he had gone insane and commit him to a madhouse?

  After a couple of hours pass, Timiro and Kaluun reenter the bedroom to find Mugdi weeping the tears of a much older man.

  Eugenia soon follows, wrapping her cardigan tighter around herself, as if she has suddenly found the room too cold. Suddenly Timiro begins to wail and Eugenia pats her on the back, commiserating. It is as if Gacalo’s death has just dawned on her, and her wailing grows a notch louder than before.

  Now Saafi walks in, looks around, and makes a feeble whimper conveying a mix of helplessness and fear for her own and Naciim’s future.

  Eventually Saafi’s wailing awakens Riyo, who is on her rocker. The little girl looks this way and that and then, with a worrying suddenness, lets out a screech, as if she is in pain. Then Riyo’s high-pitched weeping results in the adults stopping their wailing. Timiro picks up her daughter and thinks that maybe Riyo has an instinctive understanding that something terrible has happened and she whispers a few comforting words in her daughter’s ear, holds the girl close to her chest, and rocks her back and forth until the little girl falls silent. Saafi brings a glass of orange juice for Riyo to drink and this quiets her down.

  Kaluun says, “What do we do now?”

  “We wait for the ambulance that’s on its way here, with the paramedics,” says Mugdi. “What else is there to do?”

  All of a sudden, a long line of questions forms in Mugdi’s head, questions as to whether to bury Gacalo in loyalty to the Islamic faith or to the secular beliefs prevailing in Norway, with each thought touching on a sensitive aspect of religion or cultural tradition, and each answer bringing further uncertainties as to how to proceed.

  Kaluun asks, “I take it you have no objections to a postmortem.”

  “Of course not,” says Mugdi.

  Kaluun is happy with the clarity of Mugdi’s answer. After all, some Muslims are loath to sanction postmortem examinations of their loved ones, even though there are no express injunctions on the matter either in the Koran or in the Prophet’s traditions. But Mugdi’s consent has a sobering effect on Kaluun.

  Not long after that, a police van and an ambulance arrive almost at the same time. They enter together and the police officers ask the preliminary questions, check Mugdi and Gacalo’s names against the owner-occupant of the property, and take down the names of all the others who are in the house and their relationship to the woman on the bed. One of the police officers says that, following the paramedics’ initial findings, he has called a coroner, whose job it is, essentially, to pronounce whether Gacalo is alive or dead. The officer adds, “You understand, this is the procedure.”

  In his grief, Mugdi does not register what the officer has just said to him, and so the police officer assumes that Mugdi has no Norwegian and has not understood anything. As the off
icer looks for someone to translate, Mugdi feels a great wave of loss crash over him, a gulf opening between what he might say if he were able to speak and what the coroner may declare has taken place. And because he thinks that any explanation he proffers will elicit only raised eyebrows, he decides he will continue to say nothing.

  When the police officers and the paramedics finally depart, Mugdi’s thoughts drift to a novel he read as a child, about a fourteen-year-old boy and his siblings whose mother dies. The children decide to encase their mother’s corpse in cement in a cellar, understandably worried that if the body is discovered, they will be made wards of the Social Welfare Division and farmed out to other families. If no one knows of their mother’s death they can continue living together in the comfort of their own home. If only he could do the same.

  Mugdi decides that his first big task as a widower will be to help set up Saafi’s and Naciim’s future in a way that gets the monkey that is Waliya off everyone’s back. That way, Waliya can decide what to do with her life—to truly make a home for herself in Oslo, wait until Zubair is released from detention, or return to Somalia on an International Office of Migration grant that helps people like her relocate to their homes.

  As they wait for the coroner to arrive, every time Mugdi’s eyes fall on Gacalo, he thinks of the stretch of time when she was in the kitchen. What did she do there? Did she take the fatal overdose of pills with her glass of water and then come up to lie down beside him?

  Kaluun says, “I, for one, thought that if ever there was a stormproof marriage, yours and Gacalo’s was it. And now look! You’d think she knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “That she was on her way out.”

  “What makes you say that?” Mugdi asks.

  “First she prepared large amounts of food. She did a huge amount of laundry, although there was no need for that, and then she spring-cleaned the house as best she could.”

  “Do you, like me, suspect that the pills overdose was intentional?” asks Mugdi.