by Igiaba Scego
You don’t believe me, do you? Do you dare doubt me?
9
ZOPPE
That night Zoppe dreamed about Benito Mussolini’s war.
In that muggy dream the war began in a place like so many in the Horn of Africa, where animals were taken out to pasture. A border zone where it was easy to lose your head and fight with the nearby Ethiopians.
The casus belli that Benito Mussolini was yearning for to officially wage war against Ethiopia.
Was it a dream or a vision of the future?
Zoppe had never known how to distinguish between reality and fantasy. He had never learned to manage what he saw very well. Haji Safar had taught him, but he lacked the soul. The second soul that Haji Safar had, the one that allows you to enter into empathy with time.
The second soul.
He was sick of hearing his father say that he didn’t have that damned second soul. “I’ll make do without! Plus, if you’ve got money, what do you need an extra soul for?”
Zoppe remembered the smell of sulfur in the dream. Nothing else. He woke up with fright. With the feeling that he’d dreamed something terrible that would perhaps take over his little life too. Something that could be sensed even without a second soul.
“What’s all that racket?” the fat guard asked his colleague.
“It’s black face going crazy.” And then in a strange show of mercy, he said, “Maybe we should give the guy a bath. Otherwise the fleas’ll eat him alive.”
“Let’s take care of it tomorrow,” the big one said.
Zoppe scratched his head. What time was it? How long had he slept? Was it daytime or the middle of the night?
He suspected that making him lose his sense of orientation was part of a plan. They wanted him to drive him crazy.
Zoppe curled back up in the cot. He closed his eyes and began to summon a vision. The first image that came to him was his sister, Ayan, looking for red peppers in the Warta Nabbada souk in Magalo. “That means someone at home is making stew today and the good fragrant injera with the holes that the Ethiopians showed us how to make.” Zoppe preferred Ethiopian to Somali injera. Yes, he really disliked the Somali kind. It was small, meager, dry. The Ethiopian kind was sour and soft. With the Ethiopian kind, sauce, any sauce, absorbed deep down. Whereas with the Somali kind, sauce slid off without the least resistance. It was hard for him to admit that Ethiopians were better at making injera, but it was the truth.
But with rice and meat, Zoppe consoled himself, there’s no contest. The bariis iskukaris we make is the best on earth. Bariis iskukaris, where the meat, rice, and cardamom blend together to satisfy palates ready to drown in a sea of perdition. Ah, bariis iskukaris ... Zoppe wondered if he would ever eat it again.
Nothing but slop, worms, in that cell.
Meanwhile his sister, Ayan, was looking for potatoes at the market stalls.
The cell filled with different aromas and concentric visions. Zoppe didn’t dare reopen his eyes for fear that they would leave him too soon. He had to keep them there with him in that dark cell as long as possible. He needed their company, their comfort.
And then the cadar which Somali women use to perfume themselves began to mix in with the myrrh that Asha the Rash used to make their environment more pleasant. And then the cinnamon, incense, sandalwood, golden amber, passionflower, ripe mango, healthy papaya, sensuous pineapple.
Somalia was a step away.
He just had to grab it. He just had to dream it.
And from Somalia he was catapulted to a back street in the Prati quarter of Rome.
.
All it took was a glance at her face to see how much she was suffering. Poor, sweet little Rebecca.
She was a vision too. A stronger, more incarnate vision. Almost real.
“Why have you come to see me, woman? Why here in this cell?” Zoppe wanted to ask the vision, but ultimately he said nothing, because he already knew the answer.
“You’re a wizard, right?” Rebecca’s shadow asked. Zoppe never liked to answer questions with a yes or no.
Certainties were the devil’s daughters. He was well aware. Salvation lay only in doubt. In that middle ground where the gears rebelled against the master clockmaker. But she needed him. She was so desperate.
“I’m a seer, or rather, my father is, and my dear aunt too. I see things, but I don’t have the gift. I see but I don’t know what to do with my visions. I feel the vibrations of the universe. I read the world, but I don’t know how to decipher it.”
Suddenly, Rebecca’s eyes lit up with interest. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said,” replied Zoppe.
“And what am I now? Why am I here?”
“I don’t know,” Zoppe replied slowly. “That depends on you.”
“I’m in bed and I’m dreaming. And in the dream I find myself in this foul cell. And in the left corner there are five dead rats. I’m afraid of rats, even dead ones. But now I have no urge to scream. I don’t feel afraid here.”
Zoppe couldn’t say anything to that shadow. Say that he was the one who wanted to see her. That maybe it was only his dream, a projection. He couldn’t say that he found her beautiful, fascinating, enchanting, that he desired her as much as, sometimes more than, Asha the Rash. That he’d dreamed of her naked, white, pure, almost every night since first seeing her at her little house in Prati. And that he envied her husband, the giant Davide, for all the orgasms given and received, for all the sighs, for the intimate conversations whispered at dawn.
There was also another reason he couldn’t tell her anything. The woman was in danger, Zoppe could feel it. Aside from desire, he felt a boundless sorrow for her.
But things were changing, everything was changing. Zoppe could feel it in the air.
There was a hostility toward the Jews that with every day became more overt, more bold-faced, more hateful.
.
It was Aunt Bibi who, years before, had taught him to read animal entrails.
He never called her “aunt,” just Bibi. In Swahili, “bibi” means Mrs., lady. She was the lady of the house, of hearts and of reclamation. It was Bibi who presided, giving orders at the xus for our ancestors and hosting the commemorative zab. She was the one who decided which goats to buy, in what order to butcher them.
Zoppe saw himself as a little boy again in Bibi’s yard. He was maybe four or five, playing with a baby goat full with milk. The kid had suckled hungrily from the maternal teat only a moment before, and now, like any other little one, she just wanted to enjoy the company of the butterflies fluttering lazily around her tail. She was pretty, the little goat, sweet. Little Zoppe wanted to cover her with kisses. Pet her soft coat. And learn her uncertain language made of high and low baaaas. What he would have given to understand her, to talk to her. She would have been so charming. She had a lively face, all round and soft.
But without warning, Bibi broke through that explosion of affection. His aunt, with her great stature and necessary cruelty put an end to the idyll between the little boy and the baby goat.
“Get out of the way, you little balaayo,” and with a push, she shoved him away. “But we were playing ...” stammered Zoppe.
“She’s done playing,” and she grabbed her by the neck with her plump, capable hands.
Zoppe remembered her stunned eyes, her confusion, her increasingly tortured bleats. “Where is this big woman taking me?” those sweet eyes asked. And Zoppe didn’t have the heart to answer that sweet little goat. How could he admit to her that beyond that yard there was nothing but death awaiting her?
He suddenly felt cold. And he started convulsively rubbing his body.
“Help her, Lord, when the blade enters her.” He sat down and curled up, in wait. And he waited to hear the last cry of his dear friend.
The cry of death did not take long to arrive.
Hours later, the goat’s insides were presented at lunch. Zoppe was surrounded by ravenous mouths waiting to feast.
Zoppe was a good boy. And tears fat as bushels of hay ran down his smooth, oval face.
“What is it, sweet boy?” Bibi said.
“It’s ...” and he couldn’t manage to finish the sentence.
“You don’t like it? This is a special dish, you know. The goat is nourished on its mother’s milk until the very end. Then, once the animal is butchered, the intestine is removed while it’s still full of milk and mother’s love. The intestine has to be removed very carefully, otherwise it will break. Then you cook it and make baug, which is like the cheese gaal make. Infidel’s cheese. A stringy paste that melts in your mouth.”
Little Zoppe hesitated before the steaming tray. Could he really eat a friend?
Then his aunt stuck a piece in his mouth. And he melted at the taste of those succulent entrails.
He felt like a murderer.
“She died for a good cause, don’t be sad for her. Everyone dies sooner or later.”
Sooner or later ...
And that was when Bibi told him: “Look at the folds on the insides. From them, you can read the world.”
A deep scar lined those soft mounds.
“I don’t see anything. It’s all mixed up.”
“Look, son, look harder. Don’t you see that stretch of the road to Galkayo? Don’t you see a man carrying a bundle? And don’t you see the horrible vulture lurking overhead? Don’t you see the sky laden with promise? Don’t you see the hyena giving birth in pain? Don’t you see the children on the pasture? Don’t you see the sweet bulbul bird that cheers the heavens? Observe that scar, smell the fresh baug. Get nice and close. Let yourself go. There is the aliif and the taa. The miim and the ra. The saad and the daad, the shiin and the siin.” Bibi enumerated the letters of the alphabet, showed them to me in the entrails. “Here you’ll find the writing of the world and little by little you too will learn to decipher it.”
Zoppe moved his nose close to the plate. And he smelled a strange odor of aged cheese.
He looked at the scar again. And he saw her, the little goat. She was skipping around happily and the butterflies gaily joined in.
“You’re grown up now, my boy. We are the descendants of tribes that have been lost in the night of time. And the history that runs through us has brought more knowledge to our already full treasury. And today, you have become a faaliyaha, a soothsayer. Sweet boy, none of us can escape his destiny. Now eat your baug, otherwise it’ll get cold.”
“What a fine destiny,” thought little Zoppe, and he dug in.
10
ADUA
“Tell the stories you have, as best you can.”
That’s not my quote, it’s from a famous writer. I didn’t know who he was. But yesterday I flipped through one of his books at the grocery store. I opened it randomly and that line popped out. I read it a few times. At first I didn’t even understand it much. But then something in my gut told me that maybe that random sentence had more to do with me than I could imagine. I frantically dug through my purse for money. In hard times one has to do things a certain way. Every cent has its weight. The fact is, I wanted that book so badly. I really, really wanted it. I grabbed the story collection with both hands. To give me some motivation, infuse my tired veins with a little courage. I was trembling. In the end the book cost me nineteen euros. That meant giving up my wheat semolina, chunks of squash, citron soda, and new potatoes.
I didn’t buy anything I needed to buy. No liquids, no solids. I bought pages.
The shelves filled with delights looked out at me disconsolately, a little shocked. I was abandoning them. The pistachios were dejected, the spreads sad, the mustard prey to an entirely new panic. Was I really abandoning them?
Meanwhile, the book did a polka in my green bag. Happy to have a new owner, a new house, a new reader.
Meanwhile, I thought of my little husband all full of spunk. The young man “Made in Lampedusa” who I got on sale anyway.
What would I make for him that night? “I’ll give him yesterday’s leek soup.”
My boy has a healthy appetite. He likes everything I make him.
It’s hunger, the hunger he suffered crossing the Sahara desert, that makes him as docile as a little lamb.
He’s not one of those brutes who expect steak every day. He’s just as happy with the stew of leftover vegetables I make in lean times. By the end of the month meat is too much of a luxury for us. But no one will take our roasted half-goat with potatoes at the beginning of the month away from us. Then he sucks every bone dry like a teat full of milk.
The only thing my little one can’t give up is shaah, our cardamom, cinnamon and clove tea. When he drinks it he sweats like a pig, but then I see him shine with an entirely different light inside. When he’s in a good mood he even pours in a little milk and makes a shaah cadees that takes him back to childhood.
I don’t drink cadees anymore. It ruins your figure. Gives you cellulite.
Gets you with water retention.
But when my little husband, my sweet little Titanic, sips a brimming cup of it sprawled out in front of the TV, I confess, I feel jealous.
So much nostalgia for old times.
My father, Mohamed Ali Zoppe, liked cadees too. I’m sure it was the excessive amounts of sugar he put in it that led him to death. Diabetes had turned him into a swollen, noxious blob. So I was told—I wasn’t there when he passed, between flatulence and regret. But my father always added a dash of ginger to his cadees. He said that sanjibiil “reinvigorates the manhood and warms the muscles.” I don’t know if ginger works like Viagra. But as far as warming goes, it works. On cold winter nights it’s a lifesaver. I recommend it, my little elephant. Yes, a real lifesaver.
The first time I saw my father, or Zoppe as I called him at the time, adding ginger was at the house of Hajiedda Fardosa, one of his wives. My mother, Asha the Rash, as I found out later, was the first. But when she died bringing me into the world she was immediately replaced by a girl with braids and her first period. So I was told. That night, that first night when I saw him add ginger, I’ll never forget.
He had dragged us from the bush to the city by the sea, tearing us away from what I thought of as my family, my mama.
I’m speaking for myself, because of course Malika, my sellout of a sister, had followed along meekly.
That night, that cursed night, was the first of my new life. Hajiedda Fardosa lived in the city by the sea.
Magalo was a port city, one of the many on the south-eastern coast of Somalia. “Here are your roots,” he told us. “It is here that you will bring your glory.” Magalo wasn’t as big as Mogadishu, but it wasn’t a two-bit town either. Magalo had schools, offices, a nice big city hall, several mosques, a Catholic church, a library, a branch of the central university, a bookstore, a pasta factory, two markets, a stationery store, four cafes, three restaurants, a hardware store, two boutiques, three tailors, a dry cleaner, and lots of other things. It was in Magalo that real life happened. In order to be somebody you had to be a part of that cursed homeland. And Magalo had a sea that took your breath away.
Only there did the Indian Ocean roar with pleasure. Only there did the whales come to make love at sunset.
At first I didn’t like Magalo. For me, it was a usurper. One who wanted to take the place of my adored little goats. One who had torn me away from my parents, the people I loved most in the world.
It was hate at first sight between me and Magalo.
Magalo was the end of a life, an ominous change of destiny.
And Magalo was also home to Hajiedda Fardosa. I don’t remember much about that fateful first night. Except one detail. On the ground I saw a female lion skin. It seemed alive and so proud of being the most beautiful. The coat was intact. A perfect shade of gold. I felt sorry for her. I had seen many in the bush. They were vicious and bloodthirsty. But there was something magical in their wandering. Nothing like the dirty, vulgar hyenas we always had to deal with. The lionesses’ stride was that of precarious nobility fig
hting against scarcity and bullets. The stride of a queen whose crown had been stolen by a male.
I looked like that skinned lioness. I too was proud and trapped. Proud and confined in the baroque house of the revered fat wife.
I remember that night, that unforgettable night; the pungent odor of burned myrrh pervaded the air. It made me sneeze and I felt the strange specter of fear hover like a vulture over my live carcass.
“You’ll have to civilize them,” my father told Hajiedda Fardosa. “They’re savages. Especially the taller one.”
And that was when, after those cutting words, I saw him add a pinch of ginger to his shaah cadees.
11
TALKING-TO
Adua, go apologize to your sister right now. Who taught you to be so wild? Is it your desk mate teaching you these things? Starting tomorrow you won’t speak another word to her. Who knows what she put in your head. You’re like your mother, Asha, you trust everyone around you. The world is cruel, Adua, you shouldn’t trust anyone. Now be off. I believe I’ve made myself clear.
12
ZOPPE
Everyone was waiting for Maria Uva.
Eyes glued to the cliff. Spirits in nervous anticipation. “Will she be wearing our tricolor?” Orazio Civa asked Zoppe.
“Maybe,” the Somali said with little enthusiasm.
“Ah, Maria Uva, they say you’re as beautiful as a siren.”