From a Crooked Rib

by Nuruddin Farah

  ‘I heard,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That your cousin gave your hand to the broker this morning.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘You know who. My aunt.’

  Ebla pulled the new dress from beneath her arm and came forward.

  ‘Is that a new dress?’

  ‘Yes. I wanted to show it to her.’ She thought, ‘A dress for an excuse!’

  ‘She is not far. She will be back.’

  ‘Will she come back soon?’

  He nodded.

  He placed the novel beside him and sat on the edge of the bed. He then stood up. In the meantime, she took the seat.

  ‘I am going back to Mogadiscio.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘How long will it be before you come back?’ she asked, just to feel around.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe a year. Do you want to come to Mogadiscio?’

  ‘This is a bait. I must be cautious,’ she thought.

  ‘Yes. I would love to. They say it is a nice place, but full of wicked people. And everything is bad. And people smoke and do other evil things.’ She thought, ‘Are you like them, wicked?’

  ‘There are some good people also.’

  ‘Are there?’ The question she wished to ask was ‘Are you one?’

  ‘Yes. As many as there are bad ones.’

  ‘I have told you before that I don’t know anybody there.’

  ‘I have also told you that you know me.’

  She kept silent, but betrayed her emotions by moving restlessly.

  ‘Ebla.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I want to know . . .’ and he left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I have been trying to talk to you. Even before I heard about it. I wanted to marry a woman like you, but it was not possible. Something came up and we had to break off.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Your aunt told me.’

  ‘You know everything about me, do you?’

  ‘Yes.’ She thought, ‘What a lie!’

  ‘Can I say something?’

  ‘Say it.’ If he asked her, she would marry him.

  ‘I want to marry you.’

  Ebla hid her face in her hands. Her lips made some movements as though to speak, but she did not make any sound. She turned her back on him. She then lowered her eyes—pretending that the idea to marry him was something new to her. She wanted to say ‘no’. To refuse as women do, even if they want it. She simply murmured.

  Awill wanted to explain himself more fully, but she interrupted him. What she said was not only incomprehensible, but inaudible.

  ‘Just say yes or no.’

  ‘It is too much for me.’ She thought, ‘If only he would insist.’

  ‘Say yes or no.’

  ‘I cannot say,’ she said, unable to face him. ‘Go on insisting,’ she thought.

  ‘You cannot say either?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What yes?’

  ‘Yes.’ She wished he wouldn’t push her too hard, after all she could still say no.

  ‘I request you. Just say yes or no.’

  She nodded. If she actually said yes perhaps it would cheapen her in his eyes.

  Awill was very glad that she had decided to marry him. He found a new soul within himself. He looked himself up and down. He looked at his surroundings. Then he looked her in the eyes. She lowered her head.

  He asked her to come nearer.

  She did so but covered her face with the cloth she had. He told her to uncover her face. She did. He told her to sit on the edge of the bed, and she did this too. But when he came nearer to kiss her she resisted, for this was a completely new experience for her. She said in a shrill voice, ‘Don’t. Don’t. I don’t want you to touch me. Let us talk and talk till morning, but I don’t want your body to come nearer to mine. We ought to be separate and not stay in this room. After we reach Mogadiscio and have the Sheikh pass our engagement I am willing to do . . .’

  ‘All right. Let us reach Mogadiscio.’

  The widow came in. She was surprised to find Ebla there. Awill quite happily (and proudly) told the widow that he and Ebla had agreed to elope together the next morning.

  ‘I am very happy,’ said the widow. ‘Come Ebla. Come with me. Let us women do a little bit of talking,’ she said, extending her finger to Ebla, who caught it gently and followed her into the room.

  That night, they did a little bit of talking. The widow told her many things about life and men. From experience.

  PART THREE

  Why do I ever think

  of things falling apart?

  Were they ever whole?

  Arthur Miller: After the Fall

  16

  In Mogadiscio, Awill took Ebla to his single rented room somewhere in Bondere, the biggest zone in the city. Ebla felt more tired than she ever had. Never in her life had she ever felt so broken and exhausted. Her legs were asleep when she alighted from the bus. She had rubbed them hard on the warm bus-seat and life returned to them. The bus was very uncomfortable, for the journey took over eight hours, with only one break at Bula Burte. The heat was unbearable—the seat where she was became quite wet under her. Several times, she moved a little bit towards Awill when her underneath became extremely warm.

  In the bus Ebla and Awill hardly spoke. Awill tried to make her talk, but he failed. She seemed to enjoy silence.

  Seeing that she was in a state of dizziness, Awill asked her if she would like to stretch herself on the only bed in the room. Apart from the bed, there were only books and a wooden box underneath the bed, and dirty trousers and shirts scattered all over the place.

  ‘I will sleep for a while. But what will you do?’ said Ebla, putting the luggage on one of the chairs.

  ‘I will take a bath and read for a while.’

  ‘I cannot sleep like that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘With you inside, how can I sleep?’

  ‘Do you want me to remove myself?’ he asked. Ebla nodded.

  ‘Well, I won’t come in. But I guess I should be allowed to take a nice bath.’ It was about five in the afternoon.

  Ebla opened her eyes and found Awill sitting on the chair reading a book.

  ‘Did you have a good sleep?’ he asked her.

  ‘Remarkable,’ she replied.

  She had not seen him smoke until this time and it never occurred to her that he might. So when she saw smoke climbing into the air, she thought that something was burning.

  ‘Is something burning?’

  ‘Why?’ he asked innocently.

  ‘I see smoke coming from below.’

  ‘Oh. This,’ he said showing his cigarette. He pulled at it and puffed a heavy ring of smoke into the air. Ebla closed her eyes. She was quite upset about it.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you smoked?’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I would never have accepted to marry you.’

  ‘But I smoke.’

  ‘I see that only now.’

  ‘I don’t smoke heavily.’

  ‘What will I say to my people.’

  ‘About my smoking?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, it is nobody’s concern. I smoke because I like to smoke. What has that got to do with it?’

  Ebla always heard that many men in the towns smoke, but women rarely smoke, unless they are harlots—and they did it to attract the attention of their would-be clients.

  Funnily enough, it reminded Ebla of a story she had heard several times. It is said that a man from the country went to Hargeisa to sell some cows. After he had sold them, he decided to go to the mosque and say his prayers. On the way he saw a man sitting smoking somewhere on the pavement. He approached the man and asked him if he would be willing to keep his money for him until he came back from the mosque. When the smoker agreed, he handed over his money.
The man from the country went off to the mosque, said his prayers and came back to collect his money from the man with the fire in his mouth. Somewhere in the area, he met a man smoking.

  ‘Give me my money,’ he said to this man.

  ‘What money?’ They started to fight and the police eventually intervened.

  ‘How do you know that it was him that you gave your money to?’ the police asked the countryman.

  ‘Because he had a fire in his mouth.’

  Ebla thought that the man from the country was not a good example, and she dismissed the story from her mind. But only God knows if this is a true story.

  Ebla looked in the direction of Awill. He was engrossed with his reading. The silence was intense and all she could hear was his breathing.

  Ebla then caught sight of an unwashed glass and the tea-leaves in it attracted her attention. ‘He must have drunk tea from the glass the last time he was here,’ she thought. Again this reminded her of an incident she called the sugar-incident. The story goes that a certain tribe had a sackful of sugar: it was the first time they had ever got the chance to own so much of this sweet thing. One by one they came and tasted it; they found it quite sweet. The time of distribution came, but everyone wanted to have more of it. There was not enough and a riot began somewhere in the dwelling. Two men had such a big squabble that the old men of the dwelling had to come in to put an end to the fight. The suggestions of the old men were listened to one after the other. They could not solve anything. After a long time, an old man put forward a suggestion that the sugar should be poured into the common river, which would then become sweet. The idea was acceptable to everyone, and so they dumped the sugar into the river.

  Ebla heard that the townspeople thought that the country-people had done an unwise thing. ‘But,’ she thought to herself, ‘the old man only wanted to bring the squabble to an end: he was wise. But they are only townspeople and they don’t understand. And even if they do they ignore it.’

  Ebla lisped through her teeth.

  Awill had stood up.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked him.

  ‘Not very far. I want to ask my landlady to prepare dinner for us tonight.’

  ‘Yes. But I want to cook. I can cook.’

  ‘I don’t have the cooking utensils. I don’t eat here. Only occasionally I make tea.’

  He left her and came back after a while. She was still lying on the bed. He stood near the bed and said, ‘Yes. She said that some guests of hers have cancelled their dinner. We can have it. Her maid will bring us something to eat.’ At about seven in the evening, dinner was served.

  17

  When they had had their dinner, Ebla wanted to know where she was to sleep for the night.

  ‘Here,’ said Awill.

  ‘Where?’ asked Ebla.

  ‘Of course here. Where else?’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘What about beds?’

  ‘On the same bed.’

  ‘But I can’t.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I can’t.’

  ‘Why?’

  Ebla sat up in bed. She never expected such a trick to take place. She saw that the door had been bolted on the inside. Awill had already stood up. Ebla became frightened.

  ‘But we are not married,’ she protested.

  ‘Yes we are.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Why did you come with me from Belet Wene?’

  ‘Of course to marry you.’

  ‘Then we are married.’

  Awill went towards the door to check if he had bolted it properly. Ebla lay terrified on the bed, her elbows underneath her belly, raising her head a little bit to have a better view of what Awill was doing.

  Awill came back and sat on the edge of the bed. With his back turned to her, he unknotted his shoe-laces, then pulled off his socks, which, Ebla noticed, now stank badly.

  ‘You are my wife,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t come near me,’ she retorted.

  ‘I said you are my wife.’

  He moved towards her. Her feet were under his arms, and his face near her breasts. He crawled upward, towards her, like a crocodile. He was fully dressed and so was she. He wanted to kiss her, but he checked himself. He knew that it was uncommon in the country, and that she would not be familiar with it. She had never been kissed, he guessed.

  He caught her by the arms, and whispered as if to hypnotize her: ‘You are my wife.’

  Ebla wanted to get out of bed and run away. For a second she forgot that the door was bolted and that it would take her some time before she was able to unbolt it. She also forgot that Awill was in her way. It was not that he was stronger than she, but a woman never fought with a man, she should be submissive and never return his blows. A good woman should not even cry aloud when her husband beat her. ‘But this is not my husband—not yet. Maybe later. Maybe, when I have become his wife, he can do whatever he wants with me and I won’t cry,’ she thought.

  Ebla’s attempt at jumping over him and running away was not successful. And the more she tried to free herself, the better chance she gave him of getting hold of her.

  Awill stood up straight and showered hard blows upon Ebla—in the mouth, at her head, on her belly. He gave her a kick or two on the belly as she tried to bite him. Ebla did not cry, she wanted to, but she knew she should not. Awill grasped her by the plaited hair and pulled her down. Now he jumped over her and sat upon her belly, her body heaving underneath his.

  ‘You are my wife.’

  ‘When I have become your wife, I will accept everything. But this is rape. Do you want to rape me?’ she asked.

  ‘No. You are my wife.’

  They were both calm now. And Awill thought that he had better talk her to bed. He might succeed, he thought.

  ‘Look. It is only a matter of hours.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘When we shall see the Sheikh.’

  ‘But we can’t do anything until our engagement has come through.’

  ‘I know. But we are going to get married, aren’t we? We surely are. So it comes to the same thing.’

  After a while, Awill lay beside her on the bed. He expected her to move, but she did not. He made several passes at her and touched her head. Although unpermitted, Awill went over to blow out the lamp. Then he undressed.

  Now that they were in bed and it was dark, she did not object to his passes. He moved towards her, groaned, and made some whispering sounds, as if he were telling her the secrets of a life he had lived through. He unknotted her dress and she raised no objections: she only moaned. He touched her head again.

  ‘Did I hit you hard?’

  ‘No.’

  Ebla was very frightened, not of Awill, but because she was a virgin. She had heard lots of women talking about the pain one undergoes when one has one’s first sexual intercourse. She had been circumcised when she was eight: the clitoris had been cut and stitched.

  She wished more than anything else that she was not a woman. She remembered Aowralla’s painful child-delivery when she was in Belet Wene. That was a recent occurrence, but she recalled many other incidents, both similar and dissimilar, and all this scared her out of her wits.

  If a woman slept with a man, her relations either shot her or knifed her to death. It had happened quite a number of times in the dwellings where she grew up. The dwellings consisted of a small number of huts where people knew each other and where any woman with a man would be noticed. ‘But this is Mogadiscio, ’ Ebla thought. ‘And who would be able to know where one slept and whether a woman slept with a man? I wonder if anybody cares?’

  Awill’s naked body touched that of Ebla. Awill was hot. Maybe because he had not satisfied his animal desires for days. It was a fortnight or so ago that he went to Shanganni, where the brothels are. He had paid the whore the amount she asked for, but when he was ready, she said she must just go out, but would come back in a minute or so. She went out and n
ever returned. He had gone to sleep. It was about four in the morning that he woke up to find himself in a whore’s house. He hurriedly put on his trousers, fumbled for his shirt in the dark (he found it difficult to find the light switch) and went out. He had not been going to the whores for over a month before this. From that night on, he was determined never to visit a harlot’s den again, no matter how sexually frustrated he might become. That was when he decided to marry.

  He worked in the Ministry of Education as a clerk in the daytime and he taught in an evening school at nights. The evening school was meant for adults, and there he met some old women and some fairly young and gorgeous ones. He had dated one or two of his students, not to go to bed with, but just in order to have a woman around. One woman of about thirty-five with four children became very keen on him. At first he did not realize what the affair might lead to: he even went to her place two or three times and met her husband and her children.

  Now and then he would visit her. Then one day the woman and her husband had a big squabble and she ran away from him. The first night she took refuge in Awill’s room. He had never shared a bed with a woman ten years his senior and now this gave him some sense of achievement.

  ‘When do we call in the Sheikh?’ Ebla was asking him now.

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Swear.’

  ‘Upon the Great Allah.’

  Ebla believed what he’d said; actually she mesmerized herself to believe it. Awill moved towards her slowly, placed his hand on her breasts and touched them. He then started to breathe fast and quick.

  In a couple of hours and after a great deal of sweating he succeeded in breaking the virginity of Ebla. She moaned and groaned and bit the edge of her cloth. She closed her eyes so that the sweat would not go in, and tasted the sour sweat which dripped into her mouth. She bled a great deal.