‘Uncover your face; here is the money,’ said Tiffo.
Ebla forgot that Asha had instructed her just to uncover a little of her face so that she could see if there was money. She uncovered her face completely and Tiffo seized a piece of her cloth and dragged it towards himself. Strangely enough, he laughed and laughed and laughed, pulling Ebla’s dress. Ebla stood aghast, her mouth open.
‘You are beautiful,’ he said, after laughing for a long time. ‘Where do you come from?’
His language was a mixture of many dialects spoken in what is now known as the Somali Republic. Ebla could not follow what he said.
‘Yes, what did you say?’ she asked.
‘You are not familiar with these Southern dialects?’ he said in the common Somali.
‘I don’t know what you are talking about. What do you say?’
‘Where do you come from?’
‘Ogadenia.’
‘Which part?’
‘I don’t know. Not far from Kallafo: do you know where it is?’
‘Now it is in Ethiopia,’ he said.
‘Where is that?’ she asked.
‘Somewhere near your place,’ he dismissed the subject.
He unlaced his shoes, and began undressing. He then stretched himself on the bed. His belly pounded up and down as he breathed; he loosened his belt.
‘How long have you been in Mogadiscio?’ he said.
‘Over a month,’ Ebla replied.
Ebla thought maybe this kind of going from one hand to another would come to an end one day. She never regretted doing anything. The suggestion to marry Tiffo was Asha’s, the one to marry Awill was the widow’s, the one to get engaged to an old man in the country (she had even forgotten his name now) was her grandfather’s. It was always someone else’s suggestions that she either accepted or rejected. One is fed with suggestions all through one’s life, starting from the time one comes into this world and ending when one dies. ‘Do this; do that; don’t do this; don’t do that,’—that is life. But it is a life that has been poisoned, the potion has been fed to us, like medicine. This is the medicine we live on, the medicine we eat and drink, but do we realize it?
She looked at Tiffo. He had fallen asleep and was snoring. ‘He must have been tired,’ she thought. From his features, she could see that he was a fool, although she could not explain what she saw. ‘It must be money which he got illegally that fills his belly. Otherwise, why is it so big?’ She wished she could see what was inside; mashed potatoes and roots? People talked about machines in the stomach, which grind the food after we have eaten. They said that one had stomach-ache when something went wrong with the machine or it got tired or rotten. Constipation was the result of the bluntness of the grinding machine which usually had teeth like pliers.
She noticed that Tiffo was opening his eyes little by little. He smiled sheepishly.
‘How long have I been asleep?’ he asked.
‘Not for long,’ she replied.
‘Our marriage is secret.’
‘I know.’
‘Good. I pay you some money whenever I come. I don’t know when I will. It all depends upon when I am in town. Sometimes I will come late in the night. Sometimes I won’t be able to sleep with you.’
‘Why should it be a secret?’
‘Do you dislike it?’
‘It’s not that I dislike it, but why must it be like this?’
‘You see, I have a wife and two daughters of marriageable age. The daughters are in Mogadiscio: they study here. My small kids are with my wife in Baidoa, where she is the manager of my business. We are at odds and I want to divorce her, but not now.’
‘I understand now.’
‘Good. How old are you?’
‘Nineteen.’
‘My daughters are eighteen and sixteen.’
‘Are they in Mogadiscio?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where do they stay? And who with?’
‘With their aunt—maternal aunt. It is only trouble for me if anybody gets to know about my marriage to you.’
‘But I am not too low for your dignity, am I?’
‘No. You are a princess. Don’t misunderstand what I say. I mean no harm.’
Tiffo stood up and said he would put off the light; he asked if there was anything she wanted before he put it off.
‘No,’ said Ebla.
On his way back to the bed, Ebla could hear the shuffling of his feet. She had no time to think any further: Tiffo was just like any other man, an animal, a beast, an untamed beast, but he could certainly talk a woman to bed.
Tiffo and Ebla lay side by side. His uncontrolled hands explored the valleys and prairies of Ebla’s body on their own.
After the first go, he said,
‘But you are not a virgin.’
‘I am divorced,’ explained Ebla.
‘Asha did not tell me.’
‘She did. It must have escaped you.’
‘Well, it is better, much better. Who would ever want a virgin? Especially when he is my age!’
They jabbered away until late in the night. Early in the morning, he woke up and said he would go to Baidoa and might be back the following day.
23
Ebla woke up the next morning and started worrying at once about the enigmatic situation that had developed because of her acceptance of other people’s advice. Never for one single instant did she believe that she was responsible for what she was doing. Others were responsible—God was. ‘It is according to His will, and the fate that He has ascribed to me that things should go this way.’
For breakfast, she went to Asha’s room. Asha, who had just woken up, looked fatter than ever.
‘How was he?’ was the question Asha put to her.
‘I don’t know much about men. I have met only two men, but Awill is better.’
‘How?’
‘I cannot explain.’
‘What about the Waji Fur?’
‘He played a trick on me.’
‘But I told you that he would.’
‘Anyway, he did, and that is what counts: no fee.’
Asha was no longer interested. Her main interest lay in money; it circulated in her blood. And in no time, she had become more furious than Ebla had ever seen her. She shouted at some of the tenants of her house.
‘Don’t break that door. The hinges are broken. Why did you do that?’ she rebuked an old woman, who occupied one of the rooms.
To a kid, who was playing with water, she said, ‘Don’t splash water around. We cannot afford to waste water. Where is your mother?’
‘There,’ he replied. She called to his mother and told her to stop the kid playing around like that.
Ebla was uncertain what was the cause of all this upheaval. She thought that it was money that controlled the nerves of Asha, made her pleased with the world, or infuriated her. She postponed her idea of going to her room to get her some money from what Tiffo had given her the previous night. This was not as Waji Fur, but to buy some clothes and food.
‘Shall I make us some tea?’ she suggested to Asha, as the latter took the stool near her, finishing her scolding.
‘Yes. That will do you good.’
‘And shall I buy some bread from the woman next door?’
‘Do you have money?’
‘Yes, some.’
‘Do then,’ Asha said, cutting the conversation short.
When they had had their breakfast, Jama came. Ebla and Asha were sitting together, not speaking to each other. The empty glasses from which they had drunk their tea were near Ebla. When she saw Jama, she tried to adjust herself: she had not washed her face. She had thought that she did not care what anybody thought of her, but now she realized that she cared what she thought of herself with regard to others.
‘I wish I had my photo taken with Tiffo last night to prove something to Jama. But he is only a friend, a poor friend. He is not responsible for someone’s else’s actions. Nobody is,’ Ebla thought when she sa
w Jama.
‘Nabad,’ he greeted them.
‘Nabad,’ they both said.
‘I thought I might see you before I went to work. I got something from Awill,’ said Jama.
‘Another photo?’ said Asha sarcastically.
‘No.’
‘What then?’ asked Ebla.
‘Money,’ he said.
‘How much?’ Asha wanted to know.
‘Three hundred Somali shillings.’
Asha stood up and put her hand on his shoulder, but, in doing so, accidentally touched his breast pocket, so that it seemed as though she were trying to put her hand into his pocket and take the money out.
‘You are another Khadar, an agent of the Prophet Khadar, you are. Take it from me,’ said Asha.
‘Shall I give you the money?’ Jama enquired of them.
‘Yes,’ said Asha. ‘Give it to me. Give it to me.’ Jama looked in the direction of Ebla. Ebla nodded her approval, and smiled. Asha had her hand stretched out to receive the money. She was all smiles.
Jama told them that Awill would be returning a little earlier than had been planned before. And he departed saying that he would try to call upon them any time he heard from Awill.
Ebla’s attempt to brush aside anything which might remind her of Awill, made her think about her grandfather and young brother. For certain, she did not regret walking out on Awill: he had done the same to her, she reasoned with herself. He started it: ‘A nose for a nose, an ear for an ear, that is what the Koran says,’ she reminded herself.
‘What could have happened to Grandfather the day I left?’ She could not guess what could have happened to him.
She looked around her and discovered that Asha had gone away.
She was too dog-tired to stand, too thoughtless to think, too tired to move, too disgusted to do anything.
She thought she had heard a stampede. She wanted to raise her head and see what was happening, but she closed her eyes in weariness. For one second, she thought the whole world—beasts, human animals and oceans, buildings—was stampeding and would crush her into pieces. For one second a psychiatrist would have considered her case a dangerous one. She hung somewhere between the seven seas and the seven hills and the eight heavens.
Her head whirled, but she shook it. All she had experienced was an imaginative fear, a day-dream in which she was still awake, seated somewhere in Mogadiscio. The camels walked all over her, herself and her brother. Grandfather did not count, because he could die at any moment.
She was sitting in the dwelling, just like any other day. They had just had their milk for breakfast. The little children had begun jumping around happily. The camel-herds had called to the camels one by one by their names. The camels had not answered until after one of the camel-herds had gone inside the camel-camp and hit them with his stick. He was a young boy, just as thin as her brother. The camels had come out. Early in the morning, her grandfather had told her to rise up and clean the milk vessels. It was the day that her grandfather had given her hand to the old man. Ebla had refused to go. She said that she was sick and suffering from stomach-ache.
‘But go. Go and you will be all right,’ said her grandfather.
‘I cannot. I am sick.’
She felt disgusted. How could she get married to that man of all people. For once she hated her existence. Her grandfather had appealed to her, but Ebla would not hear of it.
‘Then may you die,’ he said.
The camel-herd had poked a camel in the ribs. The camel rushed out, jumping and kicking his legs in the air. The other camels followed suit. The camel-herds tried to stop them, but in vain. The camels went round and round at first and then ran towards the huts. Ebla was still lying on the floor, where her grandfather had left her when she refused to go and clean the milk-vessels. One of the camels ran into the hut, and walked all over her.
‘Help me. Help me,’ she shouted.
Nobody heard her.
She was on the brink of death, when two of the camel-herds came into the hut. Her grandfather was called in to give a final blessing, since everybody thought she would die, but he refused to.
Thank the Lord, all this was only a dream.
Ebla recovered from oblivion when she heard a familiar voice, enquiring if somebody by her name lived in the house. Ebla woke up from the dreadful sleep and day-dream, and jumped up to answer, ‘Yes. I am here.’
It was the widow, and she had brought Ebla’s brother along with her. Ebla felt subdued and betrayed as she met her brother. She did not know how to greet him or what words to say to him. ‘They had just killed me,’ her subconscious said to her. ‘But it was not him. It was grandfather and the camel-herds.’
She and her brother stared at each other, then Ebla exchanged greetings with the widow before leading them to her room.
24
The sudden arrival of her brother and the widow perturbed her. Why had they come? And why together? She had not asked her brother how her grandfather was—or, at least, how he had been when he left him. She hesitated for a while. ‘Maybe I ought to ask him when we are alone,’ she thought. ‘Or he might have spoken to the widow—most probably he had.’
Till now, Awill’s clothes were still with Asha, but the widow, making a remark just for the sake of making one, asked, ‘Awill took every piece of his clothes with him?’ Ebla wondered if she was just trying to find out something.
‘No. No, he did not. I keep them elsewhere,’ explained Ebla, not knowing that she had done wrong.
‘Where?’
‘In the landlady’s room.’
‘Why? There is enough space around. The room is practically empty,’ said the widow.
‘Awill did not have the money to buy me clothes. He was broke when he left,’ said Ebla, changing the subject. Ebla’s brother sat quietly on the bed. All he wanted to do was get back to the country quickly, he later told Ebla.
The widow did not notice the change of subject—one subject followed another. Ebla’s brother remained quiet; he was always silent, as if he had made a resolution when he was in his mother’s womb to speak only when spoken to. Ebla was worried about him.
‘What about Grandfather—or don’t you want to talk about him?’ she asked as soon as the widow had left to take a bath.
‘He is dead.’
‘Grandfather. Dead? When?’ she asked not really caring whether her grandfather lived or died.
‘The day you left.’
‘How?’
‘He died.’
‘Run over by a camel?’
‘No.’
‘Then how?’
‘Of shock.’
‘But why should he? I did not mean all that much to him, otherwise he would not have given my hand to that man.’
‘What was wrong with that man?’
‘With whom?’
‘With the one Grandfather wanted you to marry?’
‘I did not want to marry him.’
‘Then what happened to you when you came to Belet Wene?’
‘Our cousin did the same.’
‘And then?’
Those ‘and thens’ were too much for her. She almost told him that Awill walked out on her, befriended a white girl in the white man’s land and that she had done the same to him. She should not tell him. Or should she? Should she tell him everything, every scrap of it, every bit of it? Should she tell her brother that she had gone to bed with Tiffo, that she had married him last night and that he might come this evening to go to bed with her again—for she was his wife? Should she tell her brother every secret of hers? If she didn’t, who else should she tell? Although he was very much younger, he was a boy, and therefore not as incapacitated as a woman. Although he was younger, he surely had better and more formidable and also more fascinating ideas. ‘If his ideas are not very good ones, at least they are better than those of a woman like myself,’ she thought.
‘And then what happened?’
‘What happened when?’
; ‘After you came to Mogadiscio.’
‘Nothing much,’ Ebla answered.
Oddly enough, she persuaded herself not to be frightened of him any more. Why should she be? She knew that in the country a boy’s word was higher than that of a girl, even if the girl was older. But that was not the case now. They were different. She thought that the situation was exactly the opposite of what it would have been if she had remained in the country.
‘Why did you leave the beasts?’ she asked.
‘You also did, didn’t you?’
‘Because I am a woman.’
‘And I am a man.’
‘You don’t have to remind me of that.’ She thought, ‘Little whipper-snapper!’
‘Neither have you any reason to remind me.’
‘Are you going back now?’ Ebla said to herself, ‘Out with it my boy!’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘As soon as you can send me back.’
‘You don’t fancy this place, is that the case?’ she asked, hoping very much that it was.
‘I loathe it. Half-naked women and crazy men, noisy places, men and women hand in hand, and all crazy people. They ought to be shot—all of them, even you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they don’t have any self-respect in them. You know, this place is full of people like yourself, all the outcasts, all those who could not get on well with their people in the country.’
‘But it is good that they get on well together here.’
‘ “Birds fly with their own type of birds”, the Somalis say. They are all of the same type here: misfits, filthy and mean.’
Ebla kept silent for a while. She thought it over, and she decided to send him back to the country as soon as he was ready to leave.
‘Tomorrow morning,’ he replied.
‘I will send you back tomorrow morning.’
‘Ashantu,’ he said.
The widow came in. She had taken a lovely bath, she said, and asked them what they had decided.
‘He is going back tomorrow,’ said Ebla.
‘Is he? I asked him to stay with you in Mogadiscio and join the schools here.’
‘And they will make me a Gentile, eh?’ he joined in. ‘No! I don’t want to be a black unbeliever.’
‘Keep quiet. When older people talk, younger ones keep their mouths shut. Behave yourself. Be polite,’ Ebla said angrily. She wished he had never come.
From a Crooked Rib Page 11