Hiding in Plain Sight

by Nuruddin Farah

  Which turns out to be a good thing because the security measures at the gate are draconian. It’s as if she were waiting to board an El Al flight to Tel Aviv, she thinks. The blue-clad Kenyan guards manning the gates are rude beyond belief, barking instructions. One of them, waving what looks like a wand as if it were a scepter, directs her to turn off her engine, leave the key in the ignition, get out of the vehicle, and take all of her personal effects with her. She approaches the gate on foot, joining one of the two queues. When she gets up to the gate, a man sitting in a cubicle extends his hand through a small window to take her passport; in return, he passes her a long form to fill in.

  As she does what she is told, she wonders whether similar measures were in force at the UN office in Mogadiscio where Aar was killed; if they had been, perhaps he would still be alive. The report was that the bomber simply walked into the compound and detonated his device, but this has not been confirmed. She used to hear from Aar how corrupt the Ugandans were. They provided the largest contingent of soldiers for the African Union, otherwise known as AMISOM, a mainly U.S.- and EU-funded force numbering close to twenty thousand. The Ugandans, being the first to arrive in the country and the strongest, were assigned to guard the international airport and several major government buildings, including the presidential villa and the National Parliament. Rumors circulating among the Somalis that were picked up and published in the foreign press say that some of the Ugandan top brass serving under AMISOM were making lucrative deals selling weapons to the Shabaab terrorists. On Aar’s penultimate trip out of Mogadiscio, he told Bella, he had gotten through all the checkpoints and into the VIP lounge without anyone so much as opening his suitcase or even putting it through a scanning machine because he was in the company of a young man whose family owned one of the biggest and most expensive hotels near the airport. All the guards knew him and greeted him by name; the young fellow was so brazen that he mentioned the name of the bar in the city where he would meet them later that evening.

  Bella finishes filling out the form then watches while a couple of men place some sort of device in the shape of a huge shovel—a metal detector, she presumes—under the belly of Aar’s car and another one gets into the car with a gadget that looks like a small vacuum cleaner to check the interior for explosive devices.

  Then she loses sight of the car as she passes to yet another cubicle, where yet another blue-clad officer asks for her name and then slides her document out of a pile. He checks that her passport photograph matches her face. Bella is aware that she seldom looks like her official photograph, which tends, like everyone else’s, to look like a mug shot. But she seems to pass muster, and he gestures for the form. Now a young woman asks her to look into a lens, and then she is fingerprinted.

  “There is one more hurdle,” the blue-clad man standing outside the second gate tells her. He directs her to walk through a body scanner after putting her shoes, her belt, jewelry, and mobile phone in a bin, just like at an airport. And just like at an airport, she is admonished to take out any laptops and liquids and put them on the conveyor belt as well.

  Bella is relieved to see that Aar’s car has made it through as well. “Triumph!” she says to herself. After the scanner, a woman administers a thorough body frisk, pointing out to Bella that she must open her fists. “You are an adult,” she chides Bella, “not a baby. What are you holding?”

  Bella is about to say, “Nothing,” when to her great surprise, she discovers that she is, in fact, holding something—the card given to her by the stranger with the exquisite shoes. “Kenneth Kiplagat,” she makes out, the card still in the tight grasp of her hand, as if she is loath to let go of it. Then she relinquishes the card and the female guard, who puts it through the scanner, says, “Just in case,” before she completes her pat down.

  Bella retrieves the card and puts it in her wallet. Then she gets back in her car and drives the hundred and fifty meters or so to the visitors’ lot. She waits there until it is time for her appointment, preparing herself mentally as best she can. Then she steps out of the car, pulls herself together the same way she has seen gymnasts and other Olympic athletes do just before they compete—puffing out their chests, pumping the air, and mouthing silent encouragement to themselves. “Coraggio,” she says to herself. Then she walks into the building.

  The receptionist says immediately, “Our commiserations, Bella. We all loved your brother, and we will be missing him. He was a gentle soul, genuinely friendly and good at heart.”

  Bella feels the tears beginning again; it is only natural, she thinks. But she is grateful when a second woman says to her in a businesslike way, “Gunilla is waiting. Immaculata will come down to escort you to her office shortly. Please take a seat and wait for her here.”

  Bella does as she is told, wondering whether the receptionists have been rehearsing these speeches the entire time she has been standing in the queue. Immaculata, she muses, what a name.

  —

  Bella follows Immaculata, high heels clicking, tight miniskirt hugging her knees and high bum, into the elevator and down the hall. She remembers wearing and loving miniskirts as a long-legged young girl in the Somalia of her day, but alas no longer. Not only because a woman her age isn’t expected to show off her wares, but also because Somalia has fallen victim to the terrorizing dictates of religionist renegades, and her beloved Mogadiscio is no longer a cosmopolitan city. Lately, “secularist,” once a term of approbation, has become a dirty word. Somali society has taken a giant step backward, not only as a consequence of the long-running civil war but also because it lags far behind most other countries in education and the other parameters that measure social progress.

  “Are you a good Catholic girl?” Bella asks Immaculata.

  “I never miss Sunday mass,” the younger woman answers, but something about her expression encourages Bella to say, “I suppose you are regular about your weekly confessions as well?”

  “Are you Catholic?” Immaculata asks. Now that they are walking side by side, Bella can see that Immaculata is heavier than she thought and that her skin is not very good. Her hair has been lengthened with extensions, which don’t seem to agree with the dryness of the air-conditioning.

  “I was brought up a Muslim,” Bella says.

  “I wouldn’t have thought so, looking at you. You’re not wearing body armor.”

  Bella thinks that such exchanges are getting boring, and she is tired of explaining. But Immaculata persists.

  “Where were you born and brought up, really?” she asks.

  “Mogadiscio, Somalia,” Bella says.

  “You are teasing me.”

  “I am not.”

  Immaculata says, “We have Somalis everywhere in our country, millions of them in refugee camps, and they’ve also taken over parts of our country. Have you been to Eastleigh? You don’t look like them—you have beautiful skin, too light for a Somali. Nor do you carry yourself like them, walk like them, or behave like them.”

  “How do they behave?” Bella says.

  “They are full of themselves, madam,” says Immaculata.

  Bella does not wish to get into an argument with anyone, here above all, but it disturbs her to let a half-truth go uncorrected. Kenyan Somalis, who account for nearly six percent of this country’s population, have remained third-class citizens here, disenfranchised and marginalized. If they behave badly, that is undoubtedly in part a result of their poor treatment by other Kenyans. But the refugees in the camps are recent arrivals from Somalia, driven out by the collapse of their government. But what is the point of trying to correct this woman?

  “Guns, lawlessness, and daily murders of their kith and kin, you name it,” Immaculata says. “They’ve brought guns into our country across the border. They bomb our churches and they bomb their mosques. But of course, you are not like them. And I’m told that Aar, your brother, was such a gentle soul.”

 
“He was,” says Bella.

  “Thankfully, there are several battalions of the Kenyan Defense Force currently stationed in Somalia to bring order to your country,” Immaculata says.

  At this, Bella has to respond. “Have you ever had occasion to meet or speak to a Somali other than me?” she asks.

  “Never,” Immaculata says.

  “Why not?”

  “They’re too arrogant to talk to the likes of me, a tea girl,” Immaculata says.

  She stops before a closed door, on which she taps. They wait, and then a woman’s voice says, “Come in.” Immaculata steps aside deferentially and Bella hesitates, then goes in.

  A well-built woman of Viking stock, big boned and blue-eyed, gets to her feet, smiling. She waits with her hand extended while Bella makes her way around a huge escritoire. Gunilla Johansson’s grip is firm, her self-confidence immense. There are elements of generosity and joy on her face as she and Bella shake hands, then hug and let go. “Welcome,” she says.

  The desk is cleared of everything but a couple of files. Bella wonders if it is always this way or if Gunilla has prepared it so for this encounter. Were the circumstances different, she would describe the encounter as a joy, she senses—but tragedy has removed such a word from her current vocabulary. And it would be in her character to be a lot warmer to Gunilla as her potential in-law, which, sadly, did not come to be.

  “Thanks for making the time to see me,” Bella says. “And before I forget it, I must thank you for the help you’ve provided in having Valerie and Padmini released from their lockup in Uganda. I very much appreciate your sense of discretion in such a delicate matter. Thanks to you, Valerie and Padmini are now in Nairobi, but they are none the wiser about your invaluable contribution. All because of your friendship with Aar, who was most dear to us all.”

  At that, Gunilla’s eyes well with emotion. She takes half a step back, saying, “Sorry,” then reaches for the box of tissues. She pulls out a couple and then touches them gently to just below her eyes, blotting carefully so that her makeup remains unaffected. Bella can’t help thinking that Gunilla has practiced this move countless times—maybe with Aar nearby, watching, overseeing.

  Gunilla says, “We’ll miss him. I loved him.”

  What Bella suspected has become obvious. She remembers back to that last time in Istanbul with Aar—his aura of happiness, the two necklaces he purchased—one for her and the identical one, she thought then, for Dahaba, but now she knows for sure. He behaved like a teenager with a secret to treasure, and now she knows what it was.

  Immaculata is still standing in the half-open doorway. She wants to know if either of them would like tea, coffee, or water.

  “Coffee, Immaculata, and thanks,” Bella says.

  Gunilla says, “Same for me and some water too.”

  Gunilla closes the door behind the tea girl for privacy. An instant of indecision wrinkles her brow, and then her features relax.

  Bella knows that as one of the most senior of the UN staff here Gunilla would be privy to a great deal of what goes on in the upper-level bureaucracy. But it is of private matters that Gunilla now speaks. “I believe I was the last person he spoke to,” she says. “He rang me from his apartment complex to confirm that he would be on the UN OCHA flight, and we agreed that I would pick him up and that he would spend the night at my place. This was not always the case. Often his driver would fetch him and then he would come straight to the office or go home and report for duty the following day.”

  “What did he sound like when he called?” Bella asks.

  “On edge.”

  “What was the reason?”

  Gunilla tells her about the death threat and the visit from the security team, and Aar’s suspicions and subsequent change of plans.

  “Why did he make that detour to his office?” asks Bella.

  “I don’t know,” Gunilla says. “Maybe he felt he was a marked man. He knew he would be asking for a transfer to Nairobi immediately after he flew back. Knowing he wouldn’t be back, maybe he wanted to get his things.”

  While Gunilla rummages through a filing cabinet, Bella hears some humming in her ears. The humming goes on long enough to worry her. And then she has a momentary headache, her vision blurs. When the humming clears and she can see better, she starts to pay attention to what Gunilla is saying to her.

  Gunilla apologizes. “I’m sorry,” she says, “but I need to have you fill in some forms. Are you up to it? I can help you, if you like. That way it will be quicker.”

  Bella hesitates.

  “Why don’t we start with you?” Gunilla says.

  “How do you mean, start with me?”

  “For starters, did you bring along all the forms of identification you need to fill in the insurance forms and collect his personal effects?”

  Bella provides these. Gunilla scrutinizes the documents, and when their eyes meet, she smiles a little. Then she inspects the notarized copy of Aar’s will. Gunilla opens it page by page to study it, checking it closely with her eyes and then feeling the stamped bottom corner, as if examining for its authenticity. When Bella asks her if the version of Aar’s will that she has now submitted and that nominates her as his executor is the most recent and therefore the valid one, the Swede checks it against the copies of the documents that are on file.

  Then Gunilla reads part of the will out loud, pointing especially to Aar and Valerie’s “out of community of property marriage in England.” She consults the will on file against the one Bella has brought along: same working, same provisions, same signatures, including Fatima’s and Mahdi’s. “Yes,” she says, “I met them even before I met Salif and Dahaba.”

  Gunilla and Bella now hear a gentle knock on the door and Immaculata enters. A tray on which there are glasses of water and coffee precedes the tea girl into the room. When Immaculata has set the tray down on the low table, Gunilla says, “Thank you, that is all for now.”

  When the young woman has left, Gunilla pours out two cups and asks if Bella takes milk or sugar. Bella shakes her head no and then, nodding and mouthing the word “Thanks,” receives the cup with both hands. She waits until Gunilla’s cup is poured before she takes a sip.

  At last they get to the final form. “This one is difficult,” says Gunilla. “It gives you the right to receive his personal effects.”

  Try as she might, Bella can exercise no more self-restraint. And Gunilla joins her in weeping. Eventually, she pulls herself together and says, “How about I put the questions to you and I write down what you say?”

  It is easy for Bella to make room in her heart for Gunilla.

  The questions are easy to answer: date of birth, place of birth, current nationality, profession, address, marital status, Bella’s relationship with the deceased, date and place of death, date and place of burial.

  These last questions give Bella an occasion to ask some of her own, questions she has been dreading and yearning to ask. “What do you know about how he died?” she asks.

  “According to one of the survivors brought to a Nairobi hospital for his serious wounds that proved to be fatal,” says Gunilla, “Aar is believed to have died immediately from a bullet that penetrated his heart. He was hit, execution style. And according to unconfirmed reports in the Mogadiscio press, he knew the man who struck him, the Shabaab mole working in the UN office with him who not only knew him but also had threatened him.”

  “And his burial,” Bella asks, repeating the version she has read in the papers.

  Gunilla replies, “The explosion soon after the Shabaab mole shot him fragmented not only his body but also the bodies of several other victims who could not even be identified.”

  “Do we have any idea if the forensics folks know if his body suffered a second, more severe trauma following the latter explosion?” Bella says.

  “We’re waiting for the FBI report.�
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  “How is it that the FBI is involved?”

  “Because some Americans were among the dead,” explains Gunilla, “and in any case, there are no Somali forensics teams available—you know how things are in that country better than I do.”

  All of a sudden, Gunilla catches Bella’s eyes and this time her burst of emotion becomes uncontainable. Bella is equally in a delicate state, and although she finds it hard to desist from joining Gunilla, she doesn’t, telling herself that she has done enough weeping. Gunilla says, “I miss him terribly.”

  “We all do,” Bella says.

  “How are Salif and Dahaba faring?” Gunilla asks.

  “It’s been difficult, but they are strong and lovely.”

  “I met them twice, the first time on a camping trip.”

  Bella says, “Their mother has been visiting. We met two nights ago for dinner—she and Padmini, her partner, and I—and she is now with Salif and Dahaba.”

  “Since Valerie and Aar married out of community of property, the law is clear, from what I gather,” says Gunilla. “I’ve consulted a UN colleague who is British. Therefore, you have no worries there, legally speaking. But if the children were to declare strong loyalties and if she filed her papers here in Kenya, then you have some untidiness to deal with. Even so, the deciding judge must take her situation—that of being an absent mother for years—into account. Any idea how likely it is for the children to declare loyalty to her?”

  “I doubt it, from the little I know since getting here.”

  “And then, of course, it depends on what your intentions are.”

  “What do you mean, what my intentions are?”

  “Are you willing to take on the responsibility of parenting them? You are Aar’s executor of his will, and as long as they are with you, there is nothing to worry about.”

  Gunilla turns several pages one at a time and then she talks to herself in a low voice in self-reprimand. Eventually, she says, “Valerie has been in touch with me too.”

  “Has she now?”