Then a part of her tingles with renewed excitement. She shifts in her seat, precipitously itching to discover if he might read and enjoy the text of her play. She will do so at the appropriate time, alone, in her room, without SilkHair’s presence. SilkHair strikes her as competitive, capable of the fury with which he tops his unjustified jealousy. Is she premature in thinking that her gamble to get to know Gacal and see if he has what it takes to be in her play has paid off?
She thinks it best to act very cautiously from now on, considering the traces of tension between the two boys, traceable most definitely to the fact that they are aware of their contemporariness in her interest. That neither is of her own flesh and blood complicates matters, each being of the view, perhaps, that he can outdo the other in earning her trust, her affection. Moreover, she has to keep this fact in mind, knowing that it is one thing when dealing with one’s own offspring, to whom one might speak any way one pleases, confident that there is a fund of forgiveness there for the parent and offspring to share between them, and altogether something else when one is confronted by youngsters not one’s own, youths who have come with their own baggage and attendant history. She remembers umpteen occasions when she and Dalmar had fierce quarrels; still, they stayed together. It won’t be so with these two. Of this, she is certain.
Just before the waiter returns to retrieve the breakfast cutlery, Cambara calls up Kiin to ask for yet another favor, this time for someone to escort “one of my boys” who has no shoes and to help him buy a pair of flip-flops. A minute of so later, as it happens, the waiter arrives to inform her that Kiin has instructed him to take along the money and “one of her boys” to the main market for a pair of slip-ons.
“How much does a pair cost?”
The waiter mentions a sum in the thousands. Cambara does not bother to know how much this is in greenbacks, assuming that it can’t be more than two or three dollars. She borrows a pen from the waiter, and she addresses a note to the deputy manager of the hotel authorizing him to hand over the said amount plus a couple more thousands, just to be on the safe side, to the bearer.
The waiter tells SilkHair to wait for him near the exit; excited, SilkHair does so most willingly. Alone with Gacal, she is nervous. Why this is so, she can’t decide. Is it because she is holding out on him, not telling him that she is showing her sweet side while, behind his back, she is having Raxma delve into how he is where he is, what his story is, who his parents might be—questions that may take a while to resolve?
To make up with him, she takes him to her room.
Then she provides him with a soft drink from her small fridge, a variant of Coca-Cola bottled in Arabia and imported into Mogadiscio at some cost. This variety is apparently much sweeter and said to give the drinker more of a kick than its American prototype. She is sure that when he gets back from shopping for a pair of flip-flops, SilkHair will want one too, if he hears about it.
Not sweet-toothed, she sips at her mineral-water bottle, making it last longer. She sits on the floor on a rug, and seeing him look at her as a young man might eye a woman he is fancying, she keeps her physical remove, remembering his talk earlier about enjoying watching a blue film. There is no telling what he might do; she has to be careful, that’s all. To put distance between them, she points him to the settee. Neither speaks until both are seemingly cozy.
She asks, “Incidentally, did you read the thin book that you had beside you when you fell asleep? You know the one I mean?”
“It was called Fly, Eagle, Fly, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“I did,” he says. “I read it.”
“What did you make of it?”
He says, “Liked it. Read it twice and was reading it for the third time, in fact was halfway through it when I must have fallen asleep.”
The temptation to give Gacal her entire text based on her reading of Fly, Eagle, Fly, and let him get on with it, read it by himself, and then come back to her with his comments is appealing; yet Cambara feels a little uncomfortable, if equally doubtful that it would be wise to do so. She is not certain whether the boy has the gumption to make as gainful a reading alone and without help as he might with her there, beside him, offering guidance. Of course, even though she knows that he can’t have seen a play since coming to Mogadiscio, where the gun is glorified and culture enjoys no kudos at all, she assumes that he may have watched or acted in a play in Duluth. It is safe to assume that he is familiar with the basics, from having presumably seen films of one kind or another—American before getting here; Indian, Korean, or Egyptian since arriving in Mogadiscio—films in which some dialog occurs. She should simply give him the damn text and study his reaction. Be done with this dillydallying, woman!
“Here,” she says, giving him the parallel text, in English and Somali, printed in double space and elegantly bound.
“What’s this?” he asks, weighing it, as if to determine its value that way.
“Open and see.”
He does so and reads the title in Somali, first to himself with the vigilance of someone being examined who does not want to make a hasty error. He reads the title for the second time, enunciating each word separately and with formidable panache, maybe because he has realized the nature of the text with which he is dealing: Gallayrro iyo Dooro (Eagles Among the Chickens). Once he turns the page, he appears charmed, as if meeting a person whom he likes; she assumes that he is encountering the text on its own terms, he is so engaged. An instant later, he is so taken with the reading of it that he absentmindedly kicks the Coca-Cola bottle, spilling its contents. Apologizing, he gets up to help mop up the mess, but she says she will wipe it with an ancient rag she finds among her castaways. When she hunkers down on the rug on the floor, she watches as his concentration becomes him: seemingly older than his years, his focus centered wholly on what he is reading, and not a muscle of his moving, despite his strained breathing.
Cambara compares what she imagines to be the earthiness of Gacal’s strength of character to clay: compact when wet and yet malleable; soft and yet susceptible to becoming hard, if left to itself. There is of course the question of what he will make of the text when he has read it. If he likes it, what does he like about it? She has reason to feel optimistic about Gacal, who, since his father’s murder, has lived the life of a mouse in a cage. And what a life it has been, one in which violence has figured frequently and in which he has had to do with the meanness of other people, many of them unknown and unrelated to him. Has he the willpower to set himself free, with a lot of help from her, of course? She can only be impressed, suspecting what he is capable of and seeing him act grown, mature…and responsible.
Does she know what kind of relationship she envisages for the two of them? She must not rush in and must not take on more than she can cope with. She reasons that Arda, her mother, will accuse her of engaging in a “trade-off,” her mother’s provocative statement that her daughter “bought” the unsuitable Wardi: bartered his affections for Canadian papers as well as paid college retraining fees so that he could obtain employment in exchange for his love. Her past follies, these—she need try to be more cautious this time around.
Turning, she watches Gacal reading and turning the pages with rapt attentiveness. He reminds her of Dalmar, whom she hoped to raise to become a keen reader, to learn many languages and life’s skills, a child diametrically opposite Wardi, who often boasted that he had not opened another book since taking his re-sit to graduate from a community college. The idiot described reading a four-page brief for a case as tiresome, when he was incapable of changing a bulb, hammering in a nail, or fixing the flushing mechanism of a toilet—Wardi the nincompoop. Gacal is doing fine, she decides, for a child hamstrung by the unfortunate situation in which she has found himself.
“Done,” he says.
“Have you enjoyed it as much as you enjoyed the film you saw last night?” Cambara asks.
“I enjoyed this much more.”
“Tell me mo
re.”
He asks, “What is it for, anyway?”
“What do you think it is for?”
“Would you like me to act in it? I would like you to be one of the eagles,” he says.
“Which one?”
“The younger one,” he says. “It will be great fun, like making a film. I would love to be in the play, as an actor. I can do it. Easy.”
Before she reacts to Gacal’s outpouring of emotions, the phone rings, and the deputy manager of the hotel informs her that a man would like to speak to her.
“The man’s name?”
“Dajaal.”
“Please put him on.”
“This is Dajaal,” the deep voice of a man comes on the line. “I am at the reception, and if you have a moment, I would like you to come down.”
She waits for him to explain why or to inform her that he has brought along Seamus or Bile, but he does nothing of the sort; he just hangs up.
For some reason, Cambara takes Dajaal’s behavior in a surprisingly positive light. She thinks that a man who is as economical with his words as Dajaal deserves nothing short of her respect. She gets to her feet in haste, ready to go down and meet with him. She tells Gacal to hurry up too, and they are at reception in a moment.
“Let’s go,” Dajaal says.
“Where?”
He doesn’t answer immediately.
“Where Dajaal?”
“We go first to your family property,” he says.
“Why go there?”
“There has been a change of plan.”
“What do you mean change of plan?”
“Seamus is at your family property, with a couple of carpenters, an electrician, and several others. He’s asked me to bring you to him. I am just the messenger, doing what he has asked me to.”
She remembers agreeing to meet up with Seamus so that the two might spend time together and talk over the carving of the masks that she has designed. Now he has turned his attention to her family property, helping fix it, make it habitable. Cambara refrains from asking Dajaal any of the questions that come to mind, including one about paying for his service and that of the others and one about determining how safe the place is. It’s not the time.
Instead, she says, “Can I bring along somebody?”
“Do you mean this young fellow?” Dajaal points his fingers teasingly at Gacal.
“What about me?”
Turning, she is surprised to see SilkHair, come back from shopping and wearing a pair of bright pink flip-flops, interpose himself between Dajaal and Cambara, invidiously pushing Gacal out of the way.
“So you’re back,” she says, sounding pleased.
“See,” he points at his pink flip-flops. “Don’t you like them?”
Gacal says, “How can you bear to wear these?”
“Can he come too?” she asks Dajaal.
“Who am I to say no if you say yes?” he says.
There is something lighthearted about Dajaal, who delights in joining the raillery all around, an avuncular man playing the role of a peacemaker between Gacal and SilkHair. He goes ahead of them toward the vehicle, Cambara following closely. She wonders if things are shaping up better than she has ever imagined they would: two boys, an avuncular Dajaal, and at last the family property back in her hands. Maybe calling on Bile will be the bonus of the day.
“How is Bile?” she asks him.
“Would you like to see him?”
“Is he out of his dark mood?”
Not speaking, Dajaal stares into the distance. Maybe he just does not want to commit himself either way. Meanwhile, he opens the front passenger door and tells the man sitting there to go into the back with the boys. Dajaal does not bother to introduce Cambara. That the man is brandishing a revolver and that he will be sharing the backseat with Gacal and SilkHair does not agree with the plans she has in mind for them—a life in which they are not made vulnerable to gun appeal—but then who is she to quibble over the matter of a small handgun when SilkHair has handled AK-47s and machine guns?
Dajaal goes around to where she is standing, and he places his hand discreetly on the shoulder closer to him, as if assuring her that there is nothing to worry about and that everything will be fine; she will see.
“I hope so,” she says. And she gets in beside him.
TWENTY-FOUR
Dajaal drives out of the hotel gates, turns left onto a sandy road, and then takes the bend fast in the petulant attitude of a man to whom someone has shown an undeserved mean-spiritedness. The vehicle veers out of control and comes close to colliding with a boulder on the wrong side of the road. He slows down, however, and holds the steering wheel firm in his hands until the tires get a solid purchase on the ground and the car has regained its balance.
Gacal and SilkHair chat nonstop, though, teasing each other, pulling each other’s leg, each putting riddles to the other to solve. The man in the back, fiercely alert to his surroundings, is unsmiling, unspeaking—poised, gun ready, as if he can discern some danger only he is able to see. In addition, it seems to her as if Dajaal is ill at ease with her; he has a sour face for the first time since they first met. Has she done something to offend him? Or said something that has upset him? Or is she being oversensitive, as usual?
“Is everything okay, Dajaal?” she asks.
He nods without looking at her but says nothing.
Cambara resists asking the man in the back if he is expecting an attack on their vehicle; not only because she is not sure if his mood has something to do with Dajaal’s but also because she remembers how often she has run into Somalis who are in the habit of trespassing on her generous disposition when she inquires how they have fared in the civil war, many of whom have spoken of war-related trauma. Many point out how lucky she has been not to have experienced it firsthand. She has read enough about these men and women and met a sufficient number of these veterans to know that some of them tell the tales of their woes as though they were medals they wear to a gathering of fellow sufferers; they revel in excluding those, like her, who have not endured the physical and mental pain of the strife.
The man’s childish pout and his physical posture, no longer as refined as when he was younger and serving in the army, equal a body language with which she has become familiar since meeting Zaak and Wardi. She has known of other Somalis who have come out of Mogadiscio following the disintegration and whose moods are high one moment, full of jovial talk and amity, and then in the next instant, when you think that all is going well with their world, something goes out of sync, and all of a sudden they behave out of character. Doleful, she has often seen Wardi going down, down, down, drooling, a man devoid of life’s energy. His life, or what there was of it when dejected, would fall apart right before her, literally as she watched him, disintegrating. How tragic! The sad part was that he blamed only her for his muddle, even when she had no hand in it. An individual under so much civil war pressure is bound to succumb to the strain of madness that passes for clan politics, even though most Somalis tell you that what keeps the fire of the strife going is the economic base on which the civil war rests. She has known Wardi to waver between his loyalty to the principles of justice and his allegiance to his immediate blood community. You can bet that anyone who has lived through the worst years of Somalia’s strife will have a god-awful countenance like the man sitting in the back. Wardi has no equal when it comes to his unjustified sense of paranoia. Maybe this man too? Not so Dajaal; she must ask him why.
She thinks that whatever else she doesn’t know about Dajaal, she imagines that his character has benefited from his associations with Bile and Seamus, an alliance that has kept a potentially disheveled state of being in constant check. Anyone in their company would rein in their impulsiveness. A side glance at Dajaal strengthens her faith, vicariously, in the burgeoning closeness that she imagines is taking shape between herself and Bile through her relationships with Dajaal and Seamus.
In the darkroom of her imagining, she develops
the picture of a woman who bears a visage similar to hers and who shares with her several significant particulars. As it happens, this woman is sitting in the passenger seat, next to a man who answers to the name of Dajaal; she has a hangdog expression and is trying to work out how fast she can wipe it off and replace it with a seemingly agreeable grin. Is she up to the challenge though, not only of erasing the shamefacedness of her features but also of engaging in small talk? After all, Dajaal has been very accommodating of her, and has taken one of the most daring challenges in that he has secured her family property, to which he is now driving her.
She asks him, “Has Bile had a hand in the recovery of the property? How much have you involved him?”
His voice inscrutable, he says, “In what way?”
She goes on, the timbre of her voice low, almost a whisper, “Has he talked you into stepping in or did the idea to do so originate with you? Likewise, have you coerced your grandson to help organize the mounting of roadblocks and the setting up of security?”
Answering neither of her questions, Dajaal changes gears, preparatory to coming to a halt, hand brake up, hazard lights on. He sits very still after stopping, his ears erect, listening for alien sounds that might require his attention or that of the man sitting in the back, weapon poised. Gacal and SilkHair fall silent, the former turning around, curious; the latter about to duck, flattening himself on the floor of the vehicle the instant there is an exchange of fire.
When she looks at him, wanting an explanation, he says, “We are here, madam, at one of the access points to your family property, the first of three checkpoints mounted to control the movements into and out of the streets leading there. We are barely two minutes’ drive from it. Listen.”
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