At the sight of General Haaruun, Kawsar’s heart pounds in her chest. He is like a hyena – sparse, menacing, his very presence seeming to herald death. She blames him not just for Hodan’s passing but for her arrest, her disappearance and her decline into a huddled, diminished figure. Despite the crowd, Kawsar feels a wall of black grief descending on her, leaving her blind and deaf and voiceless as if she is at the bottom of a well, only ever able to climb halfway up before losing her grip yet again.
‘Stay with us.’ Dahabo pats Kawsar’s hand and through her numb skin she feels her warmth.
‘When is this accursed thing going to start?’ Kawsar pretends to return to events around her but her mind is still in that well.
‘Now! Look!’
Three MIG aircraft in arrow formation buzz overhead, as grey and long-necked as vultures, swooping over as if racing to a corpse somewhere, the six streaks of smoke behind them fattening out and then tearing apart. The dignitaries stand to attention; they are vultures of a different level, more like marabous in their finery, roosting with full stomachs for the moment, the eyes behind the dark glasses are always alert and watchful.
It is only Dahabo who touches Kawsar now. Every month or so they meet in Kawsar’s house for tea and lamentation, and Dahabo makes a point of resting a hand on Kawsar’s thigh as she speaks, as if she knows how chilling it is to live alone without any human sound or touch. Dahabo squeezes, kneads, pats according to the topic of conversation, but her hand is never far away; it is a hard, calloused hand with nails bitten down low, but it comforts, transfuses more than just heat. That is another thing about getting old, the constant need for heat. Kawsar’s bones ache for sunlight, and she has taken to sitting out for an hour most days just after the worst of the midday sun and basking in her orchard like a lizard. But her sense of distance and loneliness is not shifting today, despite the warmth of the sun scaling up the sky and the proximity of so many bodies all around her.
The large speakers garble announcements, but it’s not necessary because the sequence of the parade is well established already. Soldiers come first, their legs snicking like scissors, then the heavy, older policemen and women in their blue uniforms, then civilians in their work clothes – teachers, civil servants, students. The only enjoyable thing for Kawsar is sporting her neighbours and their children amongst the marchers, their blind eyes and lunatic grins as they strain to search out family members from the identical figures in the stands. The Guddi come last, waving branches and carrying images of Lenin, Kim Il Jung and Mao, the communists who once provided inspiration to the dictatorship but whose pictures have faded, carted out just once a year like church relics. The regime now seeks out friends of any description, be they Arab, American or Albanian.
On the way into the stadium Deqo has seen tatty-looking girls her own age gathered in the market, sweeping with short brooms made from dried grasses. Even as poor as they are, each has a pair of plastic jelly sandals on her feet.
Now she watches from behind Milgo’s legs as the soldiers begin their parade. They march as one, a tribe of insects with green shells on their heads, their thousand feet scuttling across the dirt, their thousand eyes pointing in the same direction. She has never seen so many men in one place; the camp is mostly women and children, all squabbling and fighting with each other. The soldiers are young, powerful and unified. They seem to belong to each other while she belongs to no one. Milgo ululates as the men pass beside them and Deqo tries to emulate her, swinging her tongue in her mouth and yodelling. She decides, as she looks at the soldiers, at the crowd, at the aeroplanes above, that this is the best day of her life, the day when everything in the world is laid out for her to see and enjoy. No more of the camp and its dust and flies. She feels her stomach fluttering with excitement; soon she will be out there to take her place at the centre of the earth.
In the stand opposite Kawsar there is a sudden shifting, an exhalation from thousands of lungs as the spectators bend down and arise with placards in their hands. At the instruction of Guddi activists in traditional dress these placards are turned over and held up. Within a few seconds the stand has disappeared and a shimmering portrait of Oodweyne faces Kawsar. A few rebels refuse to hold up their placards, making tiny little holes in his face, but the message is clear: the President is a giant, a god who watches over them, who can dissolve into pieces and hear and see all that they do. The young nomadic boy who knew how to hobble a camel and ease a tick out of a sheep’s flesh has become a deity. A blasphemer, thinks Kawsar as his face floats up at her, both he and his servant Haaruun. Before she remembers where she is, she spits violently at the sight, drawing a gasp from the spectators around her.
‘What are you doing?’ Dahabo exclaims, squeezing Kawsar’s upper arm tightly.
Kawsar doesn’t know, she isn’t really there; she just saw a face that disgusted her and reacted. The expressions in the aisle below reflect shock and fear that she has drawn attention to them, but Kawsar cannot comprehend that fear anymore, it seems so paltry and pointless in comparison to what she has lived through. What more can they hold to ransom when they have taken away her only child? It is fear that makes the soldiers brave, that emboldens the policemen to loot, that gives life to that old man in Mogadishu. She does not care enough about her life or possessions to keep abasing herself.
‘Now! Let’s go, let’s go!’ shouts Milgo.
The children stream out onto the ground, Deqo third in line. Sound explodes from every corner: drums, shouts, roars. Deqo can’t hear her own voice as she sings. Already, the whole routine has left her mind. She follows Safiya’s movements but her limbs are heavy, her mind swimming. She knew these dances, was better at them than Safiya, but now she is lost. Crushed by the expectation to not make a mistake, she now longs for the invisibility she had in the camp but cannot avoid the eyes watching and judging her. She is suffocated by the dust beaten up by the shield-and-spear dancers which still hangs in the air, and the discordant band music unsettles her even further. This wasn’t how it was meant to be.
Milgo comes running towards her, her hand held up ready to smack.
Deqo continues to dance, but her eyes are fixed on Milgo’s enraged face. Other women come behind her, just as angry. A thin, dark stream of urine trickles onto her feet.
Grabbing Deqo’s arm, Milgo drags her away so fast that when she opens her eyes she is in the dark recess between two stands.
The blows come as soon as she is out of sight of the crowd, hands and feet attacking from all sides and words stinging her ears. Milgo shouts one insult after the other, the music still blaring loudly behind them.
At the heart of the swirling mass of dancers Kawsar notices a still point, an emptiness that seems to reflect how she feels. Within the circle is a forlorn girl in red staring at her feet, unconscious of where she is. The sight touches Kawsar, a moment of truth within this fiction. The serene moment lasts a second before the Guddi descend on her and Kawsar watches as the little girl is pulled away by the arm, four or five women crowding around her; she can tell by their expressions what they are going to do and rises before they take her away. Kawsar feels something has broken loose inside her, something that has been dammed up – love, rage, a sense of justice even; she doesn’t know what, but it heats her blood.
‘Where are you going?’ demands Dahabo.
‘I’ll be back, stay here.’
‘Kawsar, wait!’
But she is gone, pushing past the women in the aisle, stepping on their toes and clambering over them when they don’t move quickly enough. A couple of steps down and she is free of the crush.
‘Whore . . . imbecile . . . bitch,’ shout the Guddi beside the stand, and there she is – an anguished face pleading for mercy.
‘Give her to me,’ Kawsar says with more calm than she feels.
‘Go back to your own business,’ replies a young turbaned woman dismissively.
‘This is my business. I said give her to me.’ Kawsar charges forward and reach
es for the girl.
The young woman holds Kawsar back. ‘You want us to call security, you old fool? You want to be thrown in jail?’ she shouts.
‘Do what you like, you can’t hurt me. I am from this town, I was born here, I won’t be told what to do by you.’ Her voice is shrill as she lunges yet again for the girl.
The Guddi block her and form a semi-circle around the child. ‘Milgo, go and call security, this mad woman wants trouble,’ the young woman says, and a gaunt older woman runs back to the entrance.
The little girl breaks free from her captors and runs away at full pelt.
‘Naayaa! Naayaa! Don’t worry, I will catch her.’ The youngest girl in the group follows in pursuit.
Their attention returns to Kawsar. ‘You want a night in jail to show you how things are? Old women have hard heads and learn too late sometimes.’ The group’s leader presses her finger into Kawsar’s forehead for emphasis.
Kawsar brushes her hand away. They stand inches apart as if in a duel.
A petite female soldier wearing a beret approaches with two male soldiers on her heels. She looks disgusted by the whole scene and gestures impatiently for Kawsar to follow her. The Guddi make space and Kawsar departs with her head held high.
‘Kawsar! Where are they taking you?’ Dahabo asks, leaning over the edge of the stand, Maryam beside her.
‘Jail,’ replies the soldier, ‘and we’ll take you too if you don’t return to your seat.’
‘Go back, I will see you later.’ Kawsar is strangely jubilant; she is the one making things happen now.
Deqo carries on blindly into the strange city. Looking behind, she sees her pursuer still running clumsily after her. She accelerates, taking wide, elegant strides. In Saba’ad she had never been able to run freely between the crowded buuls, the women’s legs outstretched in the small spaces between them; it was an environment that enforced slowness, wariness rather than childish abandon. She imagines now that there had been hands grabbing at her skirt and pulling her back, down into the earth that sucked people in every day. Here there is space, endless space, wide roads and boundless buildings.
She pumps her legs and arms, her lungs heaving, her heart pounding, testing her body to the edge of its capacity. She feels faster than the cars on the road, the crows in the sky, the bullets in the soldier’s rifles. She races against herself until the stadium is far behind her; the thud of her feet hitting the dust matches the beating of her heart. She is a slick machine in complete possession of itself. She reaches a bridge and crosses the vibrating concrete. Past the two-storeyed Oriental Hotel with Land Rovers pulled up near its entrance and the glass-fronted pharmacy, the mechanic’s shop with black tyres piled up outside, the scrap metal merchant’s corrugated tin shack. The streets are empty of people, little piles of dust and leaves gathered in corners every few metres as if sweepers have just been there; a single bus passes her as she speeds towards the market.
The old woman is quiet in the back of the van, her nose in the air as if she’s in a taxi; haughtiness is all she has to hide behind now but it won’t work. She will have to spend a night on the floor like all the other miscreants, use a bucket to relieve herself and wait until she is told she can leave. This isn’t the oldest troublemaker Filsan has had to deal with – the market woman who pelted General Haaruun’s motorcade had to have been over eighty – but this one looks wealthier, well-bred.
They pull up beside the central police station. Filsan hasn’t bothered to handcuff her – what’s the point? She can hardly outrun anyone. The old woman pulls her headscarf around her cheeks but Filsan yanks it back to reveal her face. It is only then that their eyes meet, the old woman’s full of reproach and contempt. Filsan grabs her arm and leads her into the police station; she will report her behaviour in the stadium to police officers and then leave them to take care of her.
‘The cells are full,’ the policewoman at the desk barks, not even looking up from the paper in her hand.
‘She has caused a public nuisance during the celebration.’
The policewoman raises her head and looks at the suspect. ‘What did she do?’
‘Harassed and threatened women from the Guddi.’
The policewoman laughs and bends over the tiny public nuisance. ‘Are you not too old for this? Are you not ashamed of yourself?’ She is maybe twenty years old with streaks of bleached blonde hair peeking out from under her cap. ‘Where do you live?’
‘Guryo Samo.’
‘Name?’
‘Kawsar Ilmi Bootaan.’
She jots her details into a form and then shoves the pen behind her ear. ‘She won’t take up too much space, I guess.’ The policewoman sighs. ‘Hand her over.’
Filsan watches as Kawsar is escorted to a group cell. She walks slowly but shows no emotion; she moves like a tourist on a tour of the place, looking left and right as if to say, ‘Yes, yes, everything is as it should be.’ The barred doors click behind her and then she is gone, swallowed up in the guts of the police station to be digested and excreted out another day.
Saylada dadka, thinks Kawsar. This is where her journey ends, in the ‘people market’. From here the fortunate ones will be ransomed out while others end up in the hospital morgue or disappear into prisons all over the country This was the place that had broken her child. She looks around, imagining where Hodan might have sat that first night after she was arrested with her classmates. The cell is large with walls that had once been painted white but are now gangrened and blackened with mould. It is little more than a dungeon with around thirty women and girls spread across its concrete floor.
‘Take a seat, eddo,’ an inmate breast-feeding a child calls out.
Kawsar hesitates. It is clear from the woman’s jaundiced eyes and gaudy dress that she is a prostitute. The woman shifts over on her mat and pats the floor.
‘What’s a lady like you doing in a place like this?’
‘I couldn’t take any more of them, I realised.’ Kawsar crouches down slowly onto the woven straw mat.
‘What did you do?’ she prods, teasing her nipple back into the baby’s mouth.
Kawsar shrugs. ‘What can I do? I just told the Guddi to stop beating a child.’
‘Those bastards. You were lucky they didn’t beat you. Look here,’ she points to the infant’s temple, ‘see that dent? It’s where a policeman’s stick caught him during a raid. No apology, no nothing.’
Kawsar strokes the fine, smooth skin of the boy’s forehead. Before he has even reached his first birthday he has been marked by the violent world surrounding him; perhaps he will be unable to see or hear or walk in the future and that won’t matter to anyone but this drunk, sloppy mother feeding him her poison through her milk. ‘He’s beautiful,’ she says.
‘He should be, his father was very handsome, a real Ilmi Boodari.’
Kawsar smiles. ‘You look too young to know anything about Ilmi Boodari.’
‘He died the year I was born.’
‘Of love . . .’
‘Of course, of love! He was the most romantic Somali man to ever live or write poetry, but no one knows his songs better than me. I have each and every one on tape.’
An addict of love as well as drink, thinks Kawsar. That makes sense, from one high to another.
‘What is your name?’
‘People call me China.’
A laugh escapes from Kawsar. ‘Why? Are you a coolie? Do you build roads in your spare time?’
‘No, but I help the men who do.’ China meets her gaze and raises an eyebrow flirtatiously.
Kawsar imagines the baby in a drawer under the bed while coolies with dirty hands climb into bed with his mother.
‘Don’t look so pious. When it’s not the coolies it’s probably your husband or son.’
Kawsar rises from the mat feeling small and vulnerable.
‘Go! Go to hell! It was my mistake to show you any kindness. Go and sit over there on the cold floor,’ China bellows, pushing her away.
‘Please, Dahabo, come quickly, get me out of here,’ she prays. Whatever rush she had got from standing up to the Guddi has now evaporated. She wants nothing more than a cup of strong tea and to be back in her clean, safe home.
Deqo skids to a stop. Ahead of her is the woman who had come to her rescue in the stadium, climbing down from one of the jeeps that had overtaken her. She had looked so tall and brave when she confronted Milgo, but now the soldiers tower over her. She follows behind a female soldier, up the concrete steps, her knees seeming to buckle on the fourth step before she regains her balance and enters the building. Deqo crosses the road and stares up from the bottom of the stairs. The fragrant incense on the woman’s clothes is powerful and sweet and Deqo inhales deeply, imagining the home this smell comes from – it will have pots bubbling on the stove, clothes drying on a line in the sun and a bed piled high with pillows and soft blankets. A full stomach and a good night’s sleep were necessary to make people kind, Milgo said, when she went too far with the hidings.
Deqo decides to wait in the shade across the road until the gentle lady returns to thank her; it had been rude just to run away like that and leave her in trouble. Maybe she hasn’t got children and would let her live with her, she has seen that happen before – women arrived at the hospital, browsed the cots and took a baby home. Deqo could cook, clean, run errands; she was better for an old woman than a whining baby.
The Orchard of Lost Souls Page 2