Hiding in Plain Sight

by Nuruddin Farah

  Bella doesn’t like either option.

  “What if I transfer it electronically?”

  “We don’t have that facility at our legal firm, I am embarrassed to say,” Helene says.

  Uganda has never figured in Bella’s imagination in any shape or form beyond the revulsion she felt for Idi Amin when he was in power, in addition to being disgusted by the bloodthirsty Lord’s Resistance Army sect led by Joseph Kony. “Let me come back to you shortly,” she says to Helene. Then she requests that Helene supply her with all of the bank details and the address of her chambers just in case.

  But she won’t ring off until she understands how it is that a lawyer with her own chambers is in no financial position to have funds transferred electronically from a neighboring country. Maybe there is something not kosher about the deal. She asks Helene to explain.

  “Recently, we’ve been victims of hackers,” she says. “We suspect a former client of mine, a Nigerian, now in jail for drug-related crimes, has had a hand in this. Since then, all our accounts are frozen because of the ongoing criminal investigation. But trust me. We are legit.” Helene goes on and then breaks into laughter, adding, “Listen to me trying to convince you to trust me! This is hilarious.”

  Whereupon Bella says, “I do trust you.”

  Helene says, “You do? How noble of you!”

  And then Bella does ring off, promising to get back to her in an hour at most.

  Next Bella rings Gunilla on a mission for more information. While she waits, she Googles Ms. Johansson, who is described as heading the forensic department for the UN office in Nairobi and who is charged with determining the disposition of the UN victims’ assets as well as dispersing any additional support for their dependents.

  “Gunilla,” she answers, sounding clipped and purposeful.

  This time, Bella, who has her wits about her, remembers to ask Gunilla for further details, not about Valerie’s situation but about where Aar’s body was discovered.

  Gunilla confirms what the news reports said, that his body was blown apart by the blast of the bomb, unrecognizably mutilated, and that his head was recovered several yards away.

  “Where is he buried?” Bella asks.

  “At least he has his own grave.”

  “Not a mass grave, like the others share?”

  “That’s right.”

  In the pause that follows this, Bella joins Gunilla in crying herself sore. Then she remembers her first order of business, as well as the promise she made to Helene. “Where are you now?” she asks Gunilla.

  “I am currently in Kampala.”

  “The children, where are they?”

  “The children know you are expected.”

  “But no one is answering their phones.”

  Gunilla explains that people in Nairobi do not answer their phones if they do not know the identity of their caller, too many wrong numbers. “Have you sent text messages?” she asks.

  “Why didn’t I think of that?” Bella says.

  Gunilla says, “I’ll call them.”

  Then Bella says, “Speaking of Kampala, Gunilla . . .”

  Assuming that Gunilla is in the know about Valerie and Padmini’s situation, Bella fills her in on what has transpired with Helene. Gunilla then says, “Will you please allow me to act on your instructions and settle the attorney’s fees and all other expenses, and you and I will go over it when we meet in a couple of days?”

  The phone line carries Bella’s hesitation all the way from Nairobi to Kampala—and Gunilla can sense it. Bella, in turn, can feel it, even though the two women have never met. But Bella says, “You’ve been of immense help.”

  Then Gunilla says, “Tell you what. I’ll call on Valerie and her partner in the police holding cell in person and see if there is anything else we can do for them, including lending them money or taking them a change of clothes.”

  “I wouldn’t ask that of you.”

  They ring off, agreeing to speak again.

  —

  When Gunilla rings back in a couple of hours, neither of them is as emotional as before. She updates Bella on what she has achieved since they last spoke, which is to say a great deal: She has settled the attorney’s fee and oiled enough corrupt police palms that Valerie and Padmini are in the process of gaining their freedom.

  “What’s their plan?” Bella asks.

  “Helene tells me they are Nairobi-bound.”

  “Did you tell them I’m here?”

  “Of course not.”

  Bella asks whether Gunilla has spoken with the principal of the children’s school or his wife, as she has been unable to reach them or the children.

  Their phones must be off, Gunilla thinks, or perhaps they are somewhere where there is no mobile coverage.

  Bella hesitates before asking the other question that is on her mind, but she reminds herself of what Somalis say, being a hardy people with a great sense of pragmatism: The shoes of a dead person are more useful to the living than the corpse itself. “And can I get access to Aar’s house and car keys?” she asks.

  The children have their own keys to the house, and Gunilla tells Bella where a spare set of car keys is located in Aar’s study. She invites Bella to stay at her house when she returns to Nairobi; she has a spare room with its own bath.

  Out of politeness, Bella takes her time in answering, as if she were giving the offer serious thought, even though she knows that she won’t accept it. Finally, she says, “I am okay where I am until I meet up with the children. And then, I think, we will go to Aar’s house. But thanks all the same.”

  They say their good-byes, agreeing to talk before the end of the day and keep each other abreast of developments.

  Bella telephones Mahdi and Fatima. As with Gunilla, Bella loses hold of her emotions as soon as Fatima lets loose with a bellow of grief. At last she hears Mahdi, the epitome of self-restraint, say to his wife, “Come, come!” From this, Bella gathers the strength to shut off the flow of her tears. And then Mahdi is on the line, saying, “Where are you now?”

  She names her hotel.

  He says, “Can we fetch you home? We would very much like to see you, hug you, hold you, be with you.”

  “Too exhausted,” she says.

  “Say the word and we’ll fetch you home.”

  But she excuses herself and hangs up, more knackered than before.

  —

  Bella can’t sleep. She changes into a pair of pajamas, draws the curtains, turns out the lights, and gets under the covers. But sleep won’t come.

  Her phone rings, but when she answers it, no one is there. When this happens several times, she clicks on the log of recent calls and, finding the number to be local, copies it out on the pad by the landline and then dials the same number. Bizarrely, there is a recording, both in English and Swahili, telling her that this number cannot be reached.

  She decides to go out for a walk, convincing herself that the fresh air will do her good and that there is no point in staying cooped up, fretting and moping, in her curtained room in the hotel. She dresses again, this time in stylish jeans, as if intending to set herself apart from the large number of Somali women here who wear body tents. She has heard that lately, following terrorist threats linked to Shabaab, the Kenyan authorities have been harassing anyone who looks Somali, especially in Eastleigh, the district with the heaviest concentration of Somalis. She selects one of her favorite DSLR compact cameras to take along, with the intention of capturing Nairobi by daylight.

  Going out of her room, she puts the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door. At the reception desk, she purchases Kenyan shillings with euros in case she needs to pay for coffee or something to eat in a café or for a taxi on the way back. As she prepares to step out of the hotel, she hesitates for a moment, uncertain if it is wise to leave her expensive cameras and other equipmen
t in her room. But what the hell! she thinks. Hasn’t she already lost her most precious Aar. Even though the cameras are expensive, they can be replaced. Not so her one and only brother. What a pity she hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell to avenge him, sending every one of his murderers to the lowest place in Gehenna!

  Having stayed at this hotel on multiple occasions, Bella is rather familiar with the neighborhood. The city center, she remembers, is at most twenty minutes’ walk, a compact neighborhood not much bigger than the layout imposed on it in the late 1890s when a railway depot was built on Masai-owned land. Photographs from that period show tents pitched and shacks hurriedly erected for the railway workers. And from what she has read, confirmed by what Aar and others who know the city well have told her, Nairobi has never enjoyed much stability; right from the get-go, a concentration of British colonists occupied the best land and the Africans were pushed into the slums to live in shanties knocked together out of sheets of zinc, earning no standing in the colonial scheme as the city became a hub for business and, eventually, international organizations. The instabilities, which are of a piece with an African neocolonial city, have continued till this day, making Nairobi one of the most violent cities in the continent.

  There is a greater agility to her stride now as she waves away invitations from a couple of the taxi drivers parked inside the hotel grounds and then walks past the uniformed security to the street. Once outside, she discovers that one half of the street has been totally blocked off to vehicular and human traffic. Presently, she observes that this is because the Israeli embassy sits directly opposite the gate of the hotel, a fact she had not remembered. Keeping to the open half of the street, she takes care to avoid twisting her ankle or falling on account of the many potholes. Eventually, the road widens, and it is lined with red-tiled, timber-framed villas on either side, as she remembers. Then there is an incline that makes her huff and puff, exhausted and out of shape as she is. She half regrets that she didn’t take a taxi, but she soldiers on nonetheless, the camera slung over her shoulder knocking against her ribs as if urging her on and on, the way a jockey spurs his horse.

  The road is a lot longer than she remembers, and she hopes she hasn’t made a wrong turn. When it bends to the right, now in a steep incline, she comes upon a mass of unwashed commoners in dirty overalls, men with something scurrilous in their appearance who are gathered in huddles, smoking. They look to her like mechanics on their tea or lunch break, but the low way they speak is worrying. Her heart misses a beat in fright, and she is relieved when the men take no notice of her. Hurrying past without incident, she reminds herself why she is in Nairobi this time and remembers the responsibility awaiting her. When she spots a taxi, she flags it down.

  The driver asks her where she is going. “Kimathi Street,” she says, without a second thought. The price he names is far too much, but under the circumstances, she decides not to fuss about it. She gets in, remembering that Kimathi Street was named for a Kenyan warrior whose statue was unveiled there in 2007, the year she met HandsomeBoy Ngulu. She remembers with nostalgia the bar the two of them used to frequent, close to the Stanley Hotel.

  Near the city center, the streets are too jammed for the taxi to proceed easily and she gets out. The sidewalks here are narrow and busy, and the shops fronting them appear to be Indian run, their customers nearly all African. She knows that a forest of eyes is trained on her, following her every move, taking in her jeans, her T-shirt, her upmarket sunglasses, her foreignness. She is used to Italian streets throwing up troublesome wet blankets in the shape of men wolf whistling at passing women. Here the local yokels ogle, their ceaseless staring bespeaking their desires. No harm in that, she thinks, only she wouldn’t want to be in their company alone in a room or a dark alley. But as it is daytime and the streets are full of people, Bella allows her sense of mischief to get the better of her.

  “May I take a picture of you, please?” she calls to a man undressing her with his eyes.

  “On condition we have a photo together,” the Ogler says.

  And soon enough a crowd gathers as the Ogler poses. Others volunteer to be photographed. As Bella presses the button, now taking a photo of one person, now of a group, she rejoices in the charm of Africa, even as she knows that such a friendly crowd can just as quickly turn violent. Here one must be on one’s guard at all times, she knows.

  When some of the men suggest that she lend them her camera for a minute or so, Bella extricates herself from the engulfing mob. But as she tries to move away, the Ogler insists that she keep her word. She is reluctant to let anyone else handle her camera so as a compromise she suggests that someone else use the Ogler’s iPhone to take a photo of the two of them standing side by side. That way he will have their picture together, she points out to him. And so the Ogler, his right hand mauling her side, poses with her as if he were the happiest man ever.

  Finally, Bella decides enough is enough, as a number of other stragglers have gathered around her and are asking to have their photographs taken with her. Quitting the scene as fast as she is able, she enters a shop to buy a local SIM card and a hundred euros’ worth of airtime for the spare mobile phone she brought along from Rome. Another minute or so later, with a train of lollygaggers still in pursuit of her, she hails another taxi, gets in, and says, in the assured tone of a local, “Take me to Village Market, please.”

  —

  At the market, she finds a café and sits at a corner table, where she orders a latte and a croissant. While waiting for it, she eavesdrops on a young couple in their early twenties who look to be newly married and Somali—Bella judges this from the woman’s palms, henna decorated the way Somali women do. Debating whether Bella is Somali, Ethiopian, or Eritrean, the man insists that she is Somali and the woman maintains that she isn’t. As if to prove his point, he goes over to Bella’s table and asks in Somali if she would take a photograph of them using his iPhone. Bella obliges and at first takes a series of shots with the iPhone, and then, given their permission—in fact, urged by the woman—takes more with her camera, at one point suggesting that they stand outside with the city’s skyscrapers in the background. When the young woman says “Mahadsanid” in Somali to thank her, Bella answers, “Adaa mudan.”

  As they return to their respective tables, the man says to his bride, “My sweet, I’ve won the bet, haven’t I?”

  The woman introduces herself to Bella as Canab and her husband as Kaamil, and explains that the two bet on whether Bella was Somali or not. And they invite her to join them.

  “But may I continue to take pictures of you?” she asks.

  “Of course,” the woman agrees, delighted.

  The couple is so excited to pose for her that it isn’t until the waiter brings Bella’s latte and croissant that the man asks what her name is and what has brought her to Nairobi.

  She is in no hurry to answer, not yet having decided how much of her story she can bear to tell to total strangers lest she burst into tears in front of them. She takes a sip of her latte and has a bite of her croissant, and just as she is about to speak, a young man comes to their table to offer her a wood carving of no exceptional quality. “Cheap, cheap, cheap,” he says.

  Canab, seeing Bella hesitate, says in Somali, “I know where you can get the best of this kind of wood carving, or better still, the best Zimbabwean stone sculptures.”

  Bella turns to the young seller of the wood carving and, apologizing, says politely that she isn’t interested in buying his wares. The peddler is suddenly and inexplicably furious, and looks from Bella to Canab and back to Bella and asks, “Where are you from and what language are the three of you speaking? Arabic?”

  “We are speaking Somali,” says Bella.

  Whereupon the peddler begins to shout, his rage, insofar as Bella is concerned, coming out of nowhere. He says, “Y’know what? My goods are not from a flea pit, where you come from and where you rightly belong. Terro
rists, the lot of you, who have no right to be here! Blowing up our malls, terrorizing our nation. Go back where you come from!”

  The outburst is so violent that it draws a few uniformed security officers. Meanwhile, Bella and the couple get ready to leave, and gather their things. Canab pays the bill, leaving a generous tip under a saucer for the waiters. Kaamil offers to take Bella to the craft shop, but Bella is too unsettled by the volatile outburst, which makes her uneasy. She says good-bye to the couple, declining to exchange phone numbers and e-mail addresses. She hurries off, catches a taxi at the stand outside the mall, and returns to the hotel.

  —

  Back at the hotel, Bella finds a fax waiting for her at the reception desk. “Valerie,” it says, with a telephone number that has a Uganda exchange. Bella puts it in her pocket without reading the rest and walks up the stairs instead of taking the lift to her room. Inside, she starts to set up her local mobile phone by inserting the Kenyan SIM card. She is eager to reach her niece and nephew.

  When there is no answer, she checks her e-mail messages and finds one from Catherine Kariuki waiting. The message reads, “Please accept our condolences for the tragic loss of Aar. We feel a deep sorrow. You are in our thoughts and our prayers.” The message explains that the Kariukis have taken the children to a nature reserve out of town, intending to return to Nairobi in time to meet her flight. Bella checks the date. Evidently, there has been some confusion over the timing of her arrival. No matter. She is relieved to learn the reason for her inability to reach the Kariukis or the children.

  And now that she can make a call from her newly rejuvenated phone, she dials Salif’s number and then Dahaba’s number. When neither answers, she calls Mrs. Kariuki. Catherine answers on the second ring, and at once the two of them speak of their brutal shock and great loss, for which neither can find adequate words. Then there is a brief pause, when one or the other of them speaks Aar’s name and both are choked up with tears. Then Bella hears a man’s voice—it must be James—offering to pull over and give Salif and Dahaba a chance to speak to their aunt. But Catherine insists on having a word with Bella first.