by Igiaba Scego
Later, you will have only the happiness of being pure, finally closed as God commands. Your sex won’t dangle anymore, Adua. It’s beautiful to be pure. A good thing. The best. Think what a nice life you’ll have without that nasty knocker hanging obscenely between your legs, as if you were a man. I’ve seen women with it, and I’ll tell you, it’s not a pretty sight. They’re repulsive, they’re hungry for flesh, violent. Noisy. You’ve been spared, Adua, from this shame. Now you’re closed, clean, beautiful. You’re like my mother, like my mother’s mother, and like all the women worthy of esteem in this big family of ours. Your mother, Asha the Rash, that fool, was against the practice, imagine. She said, “No one will touch my daughter, no one will infibulate her.” Luckily she’s dead. And now you’re saved, closed, without that filthy clitoris reminding you you’re a woman. Now nothing will distract you. You’ll get a good degree and then I’ll give you away to the best of men. When you’re older you’ll thank me.
18
ZOPPE
Addis Ababa was a puzzle of worlds in a yard of cloth.
Addis was a carnation in bloom, a happy girl, a proud Oromo standing tall. A whore like few others, Addis Ababa.
On the one hand, it kneeled before its emperor; on the other it conspired his ruin.
The city was teeming with spies like never before. Mercenaries, thugs and suspicious faces were everywhere.
Everywhere, signs of war and imminent catastrophe.
“You took your time getting here,” said a European who Zoppe gathered was the French owner of the hotel where the count was to take up residence.
The man had a long black mustache and very thick eyebrows. His hooked nose towered over a pink face bloated with wine. He had very long arms and they made Zoppe think of the little octopuses he used to find half-dead on the seashore back in Magalo.
“Pardon my lateness. Africa is so slow,” Count Anselmi replied in French, breaking out in boisterous laughter.
The man appreciated the quip and laughed too. “I brought two calashes,” he said, interrupting himself. “We’ll put your baggage in the first and you in the second. My donkeys and Arabs will take you all to your destination, à La Douce France.”
And with that he whistled at two olive-skinned men with long beards and pristine white jelabiyad. “Faruk, Karim, load the gentlemen’s luggage.”
And then turning to his guests: “Arabs are cheap and they’re very efficient, not like those lazy Abyssinians.”
Zoppe was not allowed to ride in the carriage. He had to follow on foot, with his own two bundles on his shoulders.
He felt his feet sink with every step. It had just rained and the city was an endless expanse of mud. Zoppe noticed movement in the streets. A strange tumult mixed with the acrid stench of fear. Everywhere were makeshift trenches and military boots riddled with holes.
“There’ll be war just like the papers say, you know?” the Frenchman said with a certain enthusiasm. “But the Italians can relax. France won’t get in the way of Benito Mussolini’s imperial plans. We have Tunisia and they’ll get Ethiopia. Seems like a fair deal, wouldn’t you say?”
Count Anselmi didn’t reply.
He didn’t want to reveal himself. He just said, “Oh, Addis Ababa is so cold in the morning, I wasn’t expecting that,” and shifted the conversation to meteorological matters.
Zoppe looked at the city. Addis Ababa had changed so much since the last time he’d seen it. More modern, angrier in parts.
Addis was so different from Magalo. It was different from Mogadishu too. There was no sea to soothe you and the sky seemed like it was about to squash the residents with its destructive fury. Nature was not kind in Addis Ababa and even the air was hostile. Zoppe felt the cold breath of the highlands hit him square in the face. He shivered. And his eyes teared up. Addis Ababa always put you to the test. But as his father, Haji Safar, always said, that city too, so seemingly detached, had a heart that cradled the dreams of babes on stormy nights. When he was little, his father often dragged him to Addis Ababa. Haji Safar was almost as respected there as in Magalo. People smiled at him on the street and women slipped coffee beans in the wide pockets of his tunic. Haji Safar took those beans and chewed on them with gusto. It was wonderful to see his father’s face in those moments. It was a round, full face, so different from his own. Zoppe was thin, long, almost skeletal. And he didn’t have his father’s proud gait; he limped awkwardly beside him, dragging one foot behind the other through that disgusting swamp.
“I like your servant,” the Frenchman said. “First time I’ve seen a Negro, one of these Somalis, with a blue turban.”
“Negros are outlandish, didn’t you know?” Count Anselmi replied, giving the Frenchman a knowing wink.
The two Europeans laughed. Zoppe was humiliated.
.
And La Douce France wasn’t all that sweet.
It was on a busy street where the nauseating odor of the hides and meats at the nearby market forced the guests to stay in their rooms with the windows closed for most of the morning. Count Anselmi was lucky. His room overlooked a side street where the only smell that came through was the coffee prepared by the neighborhood women. The true loser in the matter was Civa. Nothing but squawks and stink in his room.
Zoppe was arranging, for the umpteenth time in recent days, the young man’s belongings in a red trunk when Civa called him with a rather excited “Hey, hey!”
“Sir,” Zoppe replied. It bothered him to call him that, but it had been a strict order from Count Anselmi.
“You see that window down there? They say there’s one of those ladies down there. You know, those pretty ladies of the night ... the ones ... you know, on the postcards.”
“Whores, yes, I know, master.”
“Clearly, Zoppe. Don’t be so vulgar.”
“But sir, that’s what they are. I didn’t make them take up that trade.”
“You’re a puritan, Zoppe. A puritan Negro, can you believe the oddities I keep seeing.”
Zoppe didn’t reply.
Who knows what Haji Safar would have said. His father hadn’t appeared in his visions for a while now.
Not even the Limentanis appeared in his dreams anymore. It was as if Addis Ababa and its hectic life had stripped him of all his affections.
Zoppe found himself surrounded by strangers. With no one to confide in.
And since he’d arrived in Addis Ababa his tongue had been infected. It was swollen, sore, and had strange yellow spots on the tip. He’d even spit blood that morning.
He had tried to heal it by chewing the gingerroot he always carried in his pocket. But the infection didn’t cease to torment him.
His head hurt too. He couldn’t stand the claustrophobic feeling of those overstuffed rooms. That art deco ostentation didn’t go well with the armies of termites that attacked European-style furnishings.
Everything was nibbled away. Everything in that strange hotel was half off.
Even the guests.
They were almost all journalists looking for a scoop in that land that would soon be swept up by a colonial war. Mussolini—and it wasn’t a secret to anyone—had ordered that the conflict was to begin before German rearmament was completed. If he wanted to attack Ethiopia, the Duce had to do it sometime that year.
Only the journalists had never covered an actual war.
Count Anselmi called them “the circus,” and Zoppe couldn’t help but agree with his ambiguous master’s definition.
Armed with telescopes, first aid kits, tan safari jackets, and gas masks, the circus tried desperately not to appear too ridiculous before the eyes of their own consciences.
They ranged from Communist fans of the Negus to ridiculous Americans in shorts and suspenders. In the morning they met for breakfast with bags under their eyes from bad digestion and cheap alcohol, asking one another: “So what shall we tell our readers today?” They scratched their heads, sipping bitter Ethiopian coffee and looking hopeless. “I can’t des
cribe the usual parade of the Ras’s warriors, I put that out last week.” Someone else in the back of the room: “Luckily in Germany they still go wild over primitive scenes.”
“Hey,” chimed in one of the rare women in that caravan. “Has anyone ever tried to describe these people’s food? They’re so caveman-like, they still eat with their hands.”
Zoppe, the few times he’d been granted access to the breakfast room, had wondered why those journalists didn’t simply tell their readers about the preparations for war.
Addis Ababa was in ferment. The city was fatefully preparing for defense, and every spot, even the holy Cathedral of St. George, had become a trench. In order to keep his people’s spirits high, Haile Selassie organized parade after parade. And to show how industrious Ethiopia was, he had foreigners taken around to its hospitals, its prisons, its schools.
“Hey, Zoppe, look.” It was Civa calling him back to the present, pointing out the prostitute’s window all happy. “She pulled up the curtain, maybe she’s free.”
“I wouldn’t if I were you.”
“But ... I’m dying to lie with a beautiful Abyssinian. In Rome I saw certain little photos that got me tempted. They say their cunts are huge and you get lost inside them. Ah, it must be a wonderful sensation,” and he began to whistle.
Then suddenly the young woman looked out the window and upon seeing Civa started waving her hands in greeting. She was dressed in white and had an unusual dark veil around her head.
“But ... but ...” Civa stammered.
“That’s what I wanted to warn you about. Not what you expected, is it?” “But ... her face ...” the young Italian said, dismayed.
“She’s had smallpox. It happens. Accept it. Now get away from there. I think that’s been enough of a lesson for today.”
Zoppe brusquely lowered the shutters.
19
ADUA
During our history lesson I was called into the headmaster’s office.
That had never happened before.
I hadn’t done anything wrong, at least not that I could recall.
It was a hot day in 1976. I think it was November. In Magalo, the sun blazed. Rain, a distant memory. “There will be terrible shortages,” the elders said. My legs trembled.
Drops of sweat beaded on my oval face. I looked right at the headmaster. A plea in my eyes: “Be quick.” But the headmaster didn’t speak, he just looked at me and shook his head. Then he began fiddling with a pen and paper. He made a few doodles. I didn’t look away, it was as if I was frozen. I was supposed to look at the floor, show more humility. But my eyes locked with his. He had strange green eyes. I held my breath.
“Your father has been arrested,” he said solemnly. I looked down. Now there was really no sense in staring at the headmaster. I didn’t want to see the expression of triumph on his face. The headmaster hated my father. All the men in Siad Barre’s new regime did.
My father didn’t hide his aversion to the dictator or to the new direction Somali politics had taken. “These Communists will lead us to ruin,” he kept saying. Hajiedda Fardosa begged him to keep quiet. But he continued to speak out. “Trash,” he’d say, and let out a big wad of spit in demonstration of all his contempt.
“Don’t you think of your daughters?” Hajiedda Fardosa asked him. “Don’t you think about their future? They’ll be the ones to pay if you keep acting this way.”
“They can handle it. They’re big now. I can’t think about them. It’s my conscience.”
I’d been expecting the arrest. We all had. I stood there, silent, waiting to be dismissed. But the headmaster didn’t let me go. He kept playing with his pen, with his doodles.
“Your father,” he said, again breaking the bitter silence, “has been accused of insubordination. It’s a very serious charge.” I nodded, tired of the bad comedy. “Nothing to say?”
I was berated, and I quickly mustered: “Yes, Headmaster, it’s a very serious charge.” What was I supposed to do? Apologize? Kneel at his feet? Did he expect me to tear my hair out? What did he want? Then he looked at me with his unmoving eyes, black and empty.
“I’ll be keeping an eye on you. You know what they say, like father, like daughter.” I was dismissed and I returned to class. No one asked me why the headmaster had called me in. No one talked to me after class, not even Muna Kinky-Hair, my dearest friend at the time. Not even you, Muna, will talk to me anymore? You, who have been outcast by everybody because you’re a nappy-headed jeerer? You, who are considered to be from a lower caste, a Bantu Somali with a big nose and wide backside? Even you, Muna, would betray me like that? I had suddenly become a pariah. Someone to avoid.
When I got back home, there was Hajiedda Fardosa with a face more glum than usual and yellow cheeks that clearly attested to the failing state of her liver. “We can see him this afternoon,” she told me. Malika didn’t come along. She wasn’t well. She had thrown up, unable to take the news. I didn’t feel sorry for her. You could never count on Malika, not even in a time of need.
The temporary detention center was in the Affissione Est district. Far from home. Hajiedda Fardosa and I walked for kilometers between twigs and hot sand. There was no sea there. The landscape was dominated by the lunar solitude of the African periphery. It went through your eyes and affronted your heart. Once we arrived we waited at a green gate for an hour. Hajiedda Fardosa had sandy feet and dirty nails. I stood off to the side with my legs crossed. I looked at my hands. I was harboring the biggest of secrets. The week before, thanks to Omar Genale, I had met some Italians. Omar Genale. What a character! He was fat when no one else in Somalia was. Now everyone is fat, especially those of us in the diaspora like me. They drown their homesickness in heaps of mustard and fried meat. But during my teenage years, Omar was the only fat one in the city. He had a pointy mustache, a flat chin, piggish eyes and sweet little dimples like a baby Jesus. He always had a bunch of smiles handy, especially “for big beauties like you, Adua.” The prematurely aged child really made me laugh. His walk, I remember, was especially funny. He scampered on his toes like a rabbit. But his was a hop full of fat, a tired hop from the notable bulk of flab that he was carrying.
Omar trafficked in all sorts of items. You wanted butter and he had it brought directly from Nairobi. French cigarettes, there they were. Italian magazines, no need to even ask. Housewives relied on him for flour. And big beauties like me asked him for contraband cassette tapes. Gianni Morandi, Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, Omar had everything. He knew how to navigate the intricate network of illegal trade. No one imagined that such a big, heavy man could go as light as a dragonfly between the narrow clefts of a despotic regime. He was good at his job, Omar. It wasn’t particularly commendable, but it was what a depleted city like Magalo needed. “Good job, Omar,” the Italians told him. “You brought us the right girl.” Someone else in the group: “She has nice legs, this Negro girl.” Naturally he was compensated. And he was given the task of taking me to the airport on the agreedupon date. “Bring her to us; the rest, the exit documents, we’ll take care of that.” And so the deal was sealed. More money was promised to Omar Genale. And I literally felt like I was in seventh heaven. They were Italian, they wanted to make movies, they would turn me into a Marilyn and I’d leave that sewer Magalo forever.
But now I was standing at a green gate with my legs crossed waiting to visit my arrested father in jail. Italy was still too far away. A strong wind began to ruffle our clothes. Sand blew into our eyes, Hajiedda Fardosa teared up. I squeezed my eyes shut as hard as I could. Meanwhile, my mind wandered. What would I say to him once we were inside? We never talked. What did he expect me to do? I didn’t know how to love him.
And he didn’t know how to love me. And meanwhile, the wind kept pounding us. It hit hard.
I squeezed my eyes shut again. When they opened the green gate I almost didn’t notice. Hajiedda Fardosa tugged me and I straightened up like a newly bloomed flower. In front of me was a man in uniform but without
a hat. He wore glasses. He said nothing. He motioned for us to follow him. The man was bald. He had a large, pockmarked face. A cruel face I could have gladly done without. He put his hands on my bottom. I looked toward Hajiedda Fardosa for support, but she was looking the other way. Blood shot to my brain. I wrung my hands. Luckily, I thought, I was about to leave all this behind. In three days I’ll be out of here. I already pictured myself in Rome, a city I knew from books. In my head I recited the names of its streets and its squares: Via Sistina, Via Giulia, Piazza di Spagna, Piazza Navona, Via Veneto ... How wonderful! I already saw myself wrapped in a black Givenchy dress like Audrey Hepburn, ready to climb the ladder to success. The Italians liked me. They were going to have me make a movie.
They would make me immortal. No more Magalo, no more troubles, no more headmasters calling me or best friends betraying me.
Hajiedda Fardosa and I were led into a room with turd-colored walls. The police officer escorting us said “Wait here,” and then shot me a nasty, mean look. It didn’t register. My imagination was elsewhere. I was in Rome, on Via Margutta, on Via del Corso. Then a man in a trapezoidal green uniform appeared. He introduced himself as the director of the institution. He was nicer than the policeman, less vulgar. He had a translucent mustache that put anyone around him in a good mood. “He’s a stubborn one, your husband,” the director told Hajiedda Fardosa. “Talk some sense into him and he’ll be out of here soon.”
“I’ll try,” Hajiedda Fardosa said, biting her lip.
Then Papa was brought in.
He was smiling, in contrast to the atmosphere in that turd-colored room. The blue turban he always wore was sloppily wrapped. My father was thinner. His eyes more intense. He seemed happy. Satisfied. I looked at Hajiedda Fardosa. She hadn’t expected that smile either. I wanted to kiss him on the cheek. I’d never done it before. How does one kiss one’s father? No one ever taught me. No one touched at home. Let alone kissed. I took a step toward him. I reached out. I should at least shake his hand. A manly gesture, one that he would understand. I took one step, two, three—then I tripped over a chair I hadn’t noticed. I fell flat on my face. A ridiculous fall. Like in a silent film, something out of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton.