North of Dawn

by Nuruddin Farah

They arrive at the new apartment with their mother in a pliant mood, ready to help by making the beds, cleaning and cooking. The tape is blessedly running and Saafi keeps quiet, as per Naciim’s suggestion.

  When they are settled, Naciim heads out to see Mugdi.

  Naciim senses that Grandpa seems eager to revisit the position he took last night about whom he wants to host and whom not. Maybe Nadia has talked him out of accommodating Arla after he briefed her about the kind of person she is, from what Naciim has told him.

  “What’s your stand on Arla? Would you host her along with the three of you, if you were in my position? I have to make a decision on this one way or another if there is need before we have the result of the investigation into what caused the fire.”

  “Mum, Saafi, and I are well sorted for at least two months. Saafi has paid two months’ rent of the apartment we are now in. I’ve paid two nights at the hotel on behalf of Arla, after which she is on her own, and where she stays is her business and is not of our concern. In short, I would rather Arla did not set foot in your house,” says Naciim.

  Mugdi’s eyes meet Naciim’s, and each waits for the other to say what is on his mind. Mugdi, the first to speak, says, “I can feel there is another problem that is bothering you and of which you haven’t spoken. So out with it.”

  Naciim says, “Saafi has been fired.”

  “What a great pity!”

  “But we haven’t told Mum.”

  “How do you explain your action?”

  “Ladders are climbed step by step,” says Naciim. “We’ll tackle one problem at a time. But we won’t rush into doing anything foolish.”

  Naciim and Mugdi are in their separate rooms, the young man studying for an exam, and the old man working in his study, when someone from the city calls Naciim’s mobile to inform him that they have found an apartment the same size as the previous one and that it will be available in a few days.

  Naciim surprises Mugdi with his quick thinking. He says, “I am thinking of not letting anyone else apart from you know about the availability of the city apartment.”

  “And why would you do that?”

  “I want Arla to sort out her problems before she hears that the city has provided us with another apartment,” says Naciim.

  Mugdi, after Naciim’s departure, returns upstairs and, restless, decides to do a bit of vacuuming, something he hasn’t done in a long while.

  He sneezes a few times, the vacuum having stirred up quite a cloud of dust, and goes to the bathroom to wash his hands and face.

  As he looks in the mirror, he seems shaken, remembering the superstitious belief among Somalis that one is on the verge of death every time one sneezes. In Islam, one thanks Allah after sneezing. Among Russians, one is told to avoid sneezing a third time, a sign perhaps that one’s death is gaining on one. Mugdi is disinclined to take superstitions seriously, yet the sight of a black cat crossing his path from his right to his left would make him think about bad omens. Doubtless he is ready for his death, having lived a fruitful life, and he is now prepared to clear up the mess he has caused, given the chance. Maybe it is time he has made it clear to Waliya how her wrongheadedness has created mayhem. And because of this he will be glad to show her the door. There is no other way around it.

  As afternoon turns to evening, someone knocks on the back entrance. When he goes to answer the door, Mugdi finds himself face-to-face with a woman he does not like the look of. The woman is in an all-enclosing veil and she takes a long time to gather the courage to make as if to speak. He waits, focusing on her eyes through the slits in the veil covering her face.

  “I’m looking for Naciim,” she says in Somali.

  “He’s not in,” says Mugdi.

  “Did he tell you when he’ll be back?”

  “And who are you and what do you want with him?”

  She says, “Isn’t it inhospitable of you to keep Naciim’s visitor waiting outside, rather than letting her in, giving her a glass of water, offering her a seat, and then asking whatever other questions you would like answered?”

  “Please forgive my manners. Come in,” he says.

  Mugdi gives her a glass of water, which she holds in her gloved hands. She lifts the piece of cloth covering her mouth to take a sip and gulps the water heartily.

  “Tell me who you are. I’m sure Naciim will want to know that you’ve called round when he isn’t here.”

  “May I use one of your bathrooms?” she asks.

  His wariness again raises its head.

  “How do you know I have more than one bathroom?”

  “A big house like this usually does.”

  “Tell me who you are first and what you want with Naciim,” he says. “For all I know, you could be a woman with evil intentions toward the boy.”

  “My name is Arla,” she says.

  Mugdi does not bother to ask how she discovered where he lives. There is no doubt in his mind that she has cased the joint in the same way as Naciim tailed her and her man to their apartment.

  “Let me use the upstairs bathroom and I’ll leave.”

  “There is one downstairs,” he says.

  “I’d prefer the one upstairs, if you don’t mind.”

  “Please explain why.”

  “It’s more private than the one down here.”

  “The one down here is cleaner, as no one has used it for a good two days.”

  “Upstairs is more intimate,” the woman says, “and I like it.”

  The woman comes down, thanks him, and then departs without bothering to explain the real purport of her visit. When he is alone, he goes upstairs in his effort to work out why she called on him. He discovers nothing missing and no trace of any item or items that she might have left behind.

  His wariness of any hidden dangers that might result from the woman’s visit prompts him to talk about the woman’s visit to Timiro and Nadia, believing that it is wiser to be preemptively cautious than to wait until it is too late.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  In all respects except for her voice, the woman at his door is unfamiliar to him. It is close to midnight and Nadia has been with him from before six in the evening. The voice reminds him of Arla, but this woman seems to have had some sort of an encounter with a pugilist: her face bleeding, eyes swollen shut, the blood around her nostrils congealing, and her cheeks puffing up by the second like a balloon. The front of her low-cut dress is torn haphazardly, and her right breast seems to be spilling out of her bra. Mugdi has no idea what to do. When she was here earlier, she asked for a glass of water. Now she needs to get herself to an emergency unit for those injuries to be attended to.

  She also seems to have had too much to drink, her gesticulations those of someone who is propped up in a bar. He wonders how she got here, then remembers hearing a car arriving, a door opening then closing, then the engine revving up and driving off. But who was in the car and why did this person or persons drop her here?

  “You can’t be looking for Naciim,” he says.

  “How clever of you. Is he here?”

  “He is at his mum’s and, I presume, in bed.”

  “Did you tell him about my visit?”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t.”

  “Why didn’t you? You naughty old man.”

  “I feared what his mum might think.”

  “His mum knows he is infatuated with me. Won’t you allow me to come in?”

  “I’d rather not,” he says.

  “What could happen if you invited me in?”

  “Please leave. I have a guest.”

  “Shouldn’t you be asking what happened to me?”

  He keeps her at the doorsill, ready to pull the door shut. She begs him in the name of Islam, in the name of the Somaliness that they share, to let her in. When none of her pleas move him, she threatens to scream so
loud the neighbors will turn their house lights on inside and watch from behind their windows.

  She says, “You’ll see what happens to you.”

  He hears footsteps behind him, but he doesn’t need to look, because he knows they are Nadia’s. But Arla takes an interest in the person behind him. “Is the white woman your lover?”

  “I don’t know you well enough to talk about my private life,” he says.

  Again he hears Nadia’s footsteps as she goes back up the stairs, the door still open, Arla presently sprawled in an ungainly way on the steps. The scene before her reminds Nadia of Tanzania, whose bars crawled with drunk men and women. She senses that Mugdi is currently in total control of the situation and, in any event, he will tell her all about it when he comes back upstairs.

  Arla says, “Give me a hand, so I can get up.”

  Mugdi does as instructed.

  She says, swaying this way and that, getting so close he can see the color of her corneas, “I bet I can give a better fuck than your white woman. And I can show you, if you’ll allow it.”

  When he relaxes himself into believing that she is all talk and wind, Arla hurls herself at him with shocking suddenness and gets a good grip on his pajama top and pulls him toward her. They lose their balance, and in the process she yanks his shirt open and he falls on top of her. He scrambles to his feet before she does and Arla says before she leaves, “Remember what I said earlier. You’ll regret you haven’t let me in.”

  He closes the door right away, and when he is up in the bedroom with Nadia, Mugdi tells her everything the best he can.

  Four days after his embarrassing late-night encounter with Arla, Mugdi telephones Naciim just as the young fellow and his mother are discussing a topic close to Waliya’s heart: praying. Waliya, her lips astir with the susurrations of a surah she has just recited, is telling Naciim off for not praying with her and Saafi.

  “It’s a lot easier to follow one’s sinful thoughts here in Europe in ways you couldn’t if we were still in Somalia. But I am wondering why, since you must sin, you can’t even the score by also praying, or fasting Ramadan. Why can’t you be a good Muslim? Families praying together are blessed.”

  “We were all good once, Mum, every one of us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We were good before our country collapsed,” he says. “When you were young, our people were good people, friendly toward one another, kind to one another, and tolerant of one another’s failures. No more. Somalis are no longer as good as the Somalis of those long-gone days. How can you expect me to be good when a great number of our people kill, when the weak are massacred with impunity? We Somalis pay lip service to the faith while we live a life of lies. This is why the dissonance in our hearts continues to flourish, why there is no letup in the usual struggles within our minds, why the strife in our land rages on unabated.”

  Waliya prepares to retort to her son when his phone rings. The caller ID tells him it is Mugdi. He says, “Mum, I must take this. It’s important.”

  “More important than our discussion about prayer?”

  “Don’t let us push it, Mum. Please.”

  “I can tell it is Mugdi,” she says. “To you, he’s more important than any discussions we may have about anything.”

  He says in Norwegian, to Mugdi, “Yes please?”

  Saafi stands, folds up her prayer mat, putting it in its usual corner, and watches as her brother takes a few steps away to talk on the phone. Her mother switches on the Koranic tape and turns up the volume so she cannot hear Naciim’s conversation.

  Mugdi is saying, “Something urgent has come up. If it is not an imposition, I wonder if you have the time to help me out today?”

  Naciim senses that Mugdi’s voice is weak, as if suffering from an early onset of laryngitis. Anyhow, he says, “Grandpa, I have all the time in the world for you. Please tell me what do you want done, when and where.”

  “Could you meet Timiro and Riyo’s flight?”

  Naciim says, “I had no idea they were coming.”

  “Nor had I,” says Mugdi. “But they are.”

  “Is everything okay with them?”

  “I’ve just received a call from Timiro telling me they’re coming and nothing else. She may need assistance with Riyo and it would be good if you were with her when she takes a taxi home.”

  “I’ll be glad to meet their flight,” says Naciim.

  Mugdi gives Naciim the flight details, then asks Naciim to repeat everything.

  Mugdi says, “Do you have the debit card I gave you a week ago? I suggest you go to an ATM first and collect sufficient cash to pay for your express train and other expenses.”

  “Consider it done, Grandpa,” says Naciim.

  “Send me a text message if there is a problem.”

  “I understand, Grandpa.”

  “Off you go then,” says Mugdi.

  Naciim, who is supposed to be meeting Janine, tells her of the change of plans. Naciim asks Janine either to postpone their meeting until another day or go with him to the airport.

  Janine says, “Nothing would give me more joy than to come with you and to make their acquaintance.”

  “Central Station in half an hour?”

  “Done,” says Janine.

  As he changes into his favorite clothes, Naciim wonders what might be stopping the old man from meeting Timiro and Riyo’s flight. When Gacalo was alive, the couple would rent a car in which to drive Timiro and Riyo around. Then he remembers seeing an envelope with the Oslo Police insignia on Mugdi’s kitchen table. Naciim is innocent of the contents of the envelope, but is it at all possible that Mugdi is answering a summons from the police?

  Naciim and Janine meet at the Central Station as arranged and they hop on the first available express train to Gardermoen, happy to sit beside each other and hold hands until they reach their destination.

  Timiro is the last to emerge into the arrivals hall, carrying a heavy backpack, a computer bag slung over her right shoulder, and also pushing a carriage in which Riyo is playing host to a temper tantrum. She stops moving when Naciim comes into view and hugs him. Then she and Janine shake hands clumsily. She bends down and, with Riyo still irascible, she says, “Look who’s here?”

  Naciim adopts a crouching position, his eyes level with Riyo’s, and takes Riyo’s hand, squeezing and kissing it playfully, he says, “Look, I am here.” Riyo falls silent and, recognizing Naciim, smiles.

  Janine, meanwhile, relieves Timiro of the heavy backpack and as they walk through the throng in the direction of the lift, Timiro asks, “What about the tickets for the express?”

  “We have them,” assures Naciim.

  In the train, Riyo falls asleep, her head resting on Naciim’s lap.

  Timiro says to Naciim, “What’s the plan?”

  “The express and then a taxi home.”

  They fall silent and stare at the countryside through the window of the fast-moving train. When the train conductor arrives to stamp their tickets, Naciim cannot find them and becomes frantic, emptying his pockets one after the other.

  Janine then says, “I have the tickets here, dear.”

  Timiro interprets this as a touching moment, as if she and Naciim were an old couple that have been married for a long time. Nor does it take long before she remembers that her father now has a girlfriend a few years his junior. Deep in thought, she is happy to devote more time to her work and to her daughter, now that she is divorced from Xirsi and her father seems to have found a loving, caring partner in Nadia. She looks at Riyo, whose eyes are closed and asleep.

  Then she asks Naciim how Saafi is doing. Naciim updates Timiro on the latest events, including the fire.

  From the Central Station, they take a taxi home.

  Again, Janine and Naciim help with the luggage and Timiro carries Riyo in her arms. N
aciim opens the door with his key, deposits the suitcase in Timiro’s bedroom upstairs, and leaves Timiro to sort her daughter and herself out.

  As they’re heading out, Timiro says, “What a lovely thought, sending you and Janine to the airport, when the old man couldn’t come. A bonus. That’s what I call it.”

  “It’s been a pleasure to meet you,” says Janine.

  “Likewise here,” says Timiro, and the two hug.

  “Wonderful to welcome you home,” Naciim says.

  “Thanks, my love,” says Timiro, and kisses him on the cheeks.

  Naciim’s phone pings with a text message: Mugdi asking how things are at the airport. Naciim lets the old man know that all is well and that Timiro and Riyo are home and happy.

  “Was that my dad?” she asks.

  “He says he’ll be here shortly,” says Naciim.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Mugdi is at sea as he enters the Central Oslo Police Station, confused as to why he could be of interest to the police, who sent him a letter, which he received the previous day, requesting that he present himself at three o’clock this afternoon. Apart from the one time he went to the police station with Naciim, he has never been in a police station to answer questions of any sort, never filed a statement as an accused man or appeared as a witness in a trial. Somalis say, “Do not tell me who you are, tell me who your associates are and I’ll decide if you are virtuous or wicked.” In other words, by associating with Waliya and, by extension, Zubair, Imam Fanax, and Arla, Mugdi has crossed a line that now makes him of interest to the police. That the officer even suggested that he could bring along a lawyer points to the seriousness of why the inspector wishes to interview him. When he consulted Nadia, her feeling was the invitation had less to do with Waliya and more with Arla, whose wiliness sets her apart so far from his former daughter-in-law.

  Entering the station, Mugdi reconnoiters the room for faces known to him and, finding none, takes his number and a seat, his heartbeat drumming in his ears. He waits alongside men with tattoos bearing messages that mean nothing to him and women with cleavage, wearing lipstick so bright he thinks of a semaphore. It irks him that he is sharing a bench with the city’s lowlifes.