“I can’t make sense of what you are telling me.”
There is no look sadder than the look of innocence in ruins, Bella thinks, as Dahaba sits apart, sadly remembering the scene involving her mother last night.
Then Salif says to Bella, “Then she came to wake me.”
Abandoning the making of the dressing, he joins Dahaba where she is because he can’t bear the thought of his sister being so sad; in this moment, he is in a protective mood, and he caresses Dahaba’s hand reassuringly, as if saying to her that all will be well. They are in a world of their own, a world to which Bella has no access. This is the chasm in her knowledge about them, the gap in her understanding of them—the cause of her anxiety, her exhaustion.
“Did you go down to see for yourself?” asks Bella.
“Of course not,” Salif says.
“He didn’t have to,” says Dahaba.
“I know what is what,” he says.
“You do, eh?” says Bella.
“And have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge too.”
“I needed to speak of what I saw,” Dahaba says.
“I can see that,” Bella tells her.
“I felt lost.”
“I understand.”
A sudden wildness enters the look in Dahaba’s eyes. And she bursts out, “How dare they do it here, in my father’s house? How dare they, so soon after his passing?”
“What did Salif say when you told him?” asks Bella.
“He didn’t want me to disturb his sleep.”
“I bet that upset you too,” comments Bella. She catches a ghost of a smile around Salif’s mouth. “Up in Lapland, little Laps do it”—the line comes to her, unbidden, and she finds herself grinning too.
Bella dishes out the food and they all sit to eat.
Years ago, she remembers, Salif used to delight in hiding Dahaba’s favorite toys and then telling her that burglars had taken them away. After she had cried her heart out, Salif would give them back, claiming to have saved them from the thieves. One April Fool’s Day when Valerie was out for the afternoon, Salif gave Dahaba a fright. Pretending to be weeping, he told her that he had just received the sad news that their mother had died in a car accident. When Valerie returned to a hysterical Dahaba, Salif laughed it all off, saying, “Don’t you know it was just a prank?” Nowadays, whenever he tells her a fib, Dahaba retorts, “You can’t fool me; it’s not the first of April.”
Bella says, “But what is it that happened today?”
Dahaba says, “Because he knew about it.”
“Darling, you are not making sense,” Bella says. “What did Salif know? Tell me from the beginning and do it slowly so I can follow you.”
Bella reasons that Dahaba is a tabula rasa girl. Assuming that what she knows is known to others, she always begins stories somewhere in the middle.
Salif steps in. “Dahaba came to my room, upset at what she had seen. She woke me up. I told her to let me sleep. She wept. Unable to go back to sleep, I told her about a YouTube video our cousin Dhimbil had come upon and forwarded to me. It shows Mum and Padmini in some compromising positions. So there we were: Dahaba upset with Mum and Padmini; and Dahaba furious with me because not only wouldn’t I wake up and hear her out but I also hadn’t shared what I knew about Mum and Padmini. That is the long and short of it.”
“Yes, I was angry that he hadn’t shown me the YouTube,” says Dahaba.
“I meant to spare her the agony of knowing,” says Salif.
“I’m not a baby,” Dahaba protests.
Salif says, “With some folks, you can never win.”
“Listen to him gloating,” says Dahaba, getting angrier.
For a while, they eat their meal in silence, even though Bella fancies she can hear the thoughts turning in their heads. It doesn’t rain in this household, she thinks, it pours.
Bella says to Salif, “You still haven’t told me how you got into a row with your mum? What was that about?”
“Mum came into the row later,” Salif says.
“How do you mean, later?”
He replies, “Dahaba told Mum how upset she was over seeing them doing it. Mum tried to explain things to her calmly. Everything was cool until Padmini had the gall to refer to Dahaba as an evil little ghoul roaming the house in the night in hopes of finding fault with how the world works.”
“Then what?”
“Then I lost my cool.”
“Did Padmini use those words?” Bella asks.
“No,” Dahaba says.
“Be a good boy and tell it in her words.”
Salif speaks with care and precision. “She described Dahaba as an evil owl wandering in the darkness on the pretext of locating what evil there is in the world we inhabit.” He seems pleased with himself, his attitude that of someone who has passed an endurance test. Dahaba nods her head in support of him.
“Imagine thinking I am evil,” she says.
“You’re not evil and you know it,” Bella says.
“An evil owl,” Dahaba says.
Bella assures Dahaba, “You are a wonderful girl, and you do not possess even an iota of wickedness.”
Dahaba shrugs. “Why did they blame me?”
“Maybe they were shocked themselves,” Bella says. “You mustn’t take any of this to heart. These sorts of misunderstandings happen in families, but you have to let them go.”
“It’s all Mum’s fault,” Salif says.
“How so?” asks Bella.
“She didn’t have to stay with Dad,” he says. “And it would even have been okay if she left him for a woman. But couldn’t she have partnered with a woman good enough for us to accept into our family? She chose a basement bargain! And you know what they say, you get what you pay for.”
Bella knows she can’t afford to comment.
Dahaba says, “Padmini should’ve stayed on the couch where we left her. You took the trouble to make it up for her.”
“Or the two of them should’ve shown patience until they were in their own private hotel room,” Salif says. “Even cigarette packets carry warning signs.”
Is he trying to be hilarious? Bella thinks, taking a mouthful. But she keeps mum. She must let them speak their minds.
Dahaba now says, “After they went to jail for it, you would think that they would be more careful the next time.”
“I’ve nothing against Mum going gay,” Salif says.
Dahaba says, “It just gave me a shock, seeing them and all.”
Bella looks at one and then the other, and speaks with extra caution. “In much of Africa, being gay is considered an abomination. I hope you are more advanced in your own views and are more tolerant of other people’s choices. What people do and who they do it with is their own private affair.”
“I agree with you on that score,” Salif says. “But there is a but.”
“Let’s hear it,” says Bella.
“You must tell the truth, no matter the fallout,” he says. “Why lie and say that Padmini is like a sister to her when it is clear there is something else going on. You see what I am saying?”
Bella does. Indeed, she is astonished to find that he is thinking just as she thought.
“What about you, Dahaba, darling?” says Bella.
“I am not against her being gay,” says Dahaba slowly.
“But you were shocked,” Salif reminds her.
“Because I didn’t expect to come upon them,” she says. “And because Padmini called me evil.”
“And what do you think now that a little time has passed?” Bella asks.
But Dahaba is unwilling to say.
“What’s your position, Auntie?” says Salif.
Dahaba says, “Auntie lives in Europe, where they accept such behavior, where they tolerate it.”
“What are you saying?”
Salif challenges Dahaba.
“In Europe, being gay is no big deal.”
“Why don’t you let Auntie answer?” he says.
Bella says, “People everywhere should be in a position to make their God-given choice and to be with those they choose to be with. We Africans lag behind the rest of the world, and we waste valuable energy putting our noses in people’s private lives. We have no business there.”
“Did living in Europe change your views,” Salif asks, “or are those the views you held before you left Africa?”
“I’ve always appreciated differences,” Bella says. “My mother had a lot to do with that. She appreciated the things that set people apart. She was never one for monotony.”
“Why are most of us so wrong about this?” Dahaba asks.
“We are ill informed about the world, ill educated, intolerant of the views of others when they do not agree with ours,” Bella says. “We are undemocratic, just like our governments. But sex is a personal matter that our societies and governments have no business with.”
The children are proud of her strong statement, she can tell. Especially Dahaba, who makes as though she might applaud.
Salif says, “Have you ever fancied women?”
“Never,” Bella replies.
“Not even tempted?” Dahaba asks.
“Never.”
Salif asks, “Did it ever cross your mind that our mother was inclined that way before you discovered it to be the case?”
“You never know what you know until you come to know that you know it,” Bella says. And then she gets to her feet and starts gathering the plates.
“Auntie is smart, isn’t she?” Dahaba remarks.
“Smart in her evasiveness,” Salif says.
Bella adds the plates to the mess in the sink. But she doesn’t speak of the tedious business of dishwashing. Instead, she says, “Any plans for today?”
“We’d like to visit Auntie Fatima and Uncle Mahdi and their children,” Dahaba says.
“I can you take there.”
“Can we sleep over?” asks Dahaba.
Bella thinks that Aar would not object. And she would love to see his dear friends again too.
“I’ll ring them,” Dahaba says. “And then we’ll do the dishes.”
Salif says, “We’ll make our beds.”
Bella goes up to her room to collect the presents she has brought for them. She has always wanted to share her knowledge of photography with them and regrets that she never found the time until now. She brings down two identical digital cameras, each with a manual. But Bella shows them the basics herself, along with a few shortcuts she knows.
“Can we show them to Zubair and Qamar?” says Salif.
“Of course you may.”
Dahaba takes a selfie and says, “How exciting!”
Everything is quiet, save for the clicking sound of Dahaba taking photos, now of Bella or Salif, now a selfie, and now of objects around the room. She is getting more excited by the second. But Bella’s mind has gone in a very different direction. She is imagining Death entering the scene again, depriving her and others of those they love. She remembers reading Roland Barthes’s prophetic answer to an interviewer: “If photography is to be discussed on a serious level, it must be described in relation to death.” She remembers vaguely that Fatima was having a medical procedure. What kind of procedure? she asks herself now. It is not the type of question to put to Dahaba at this very moment when she is enthralled with capturing life. She will ask Salif when the two of them are alone; maybe he will know. She says to Dahaba, after she has taken yet another photograph of her, “Now what did Auntie Fatima and Uncle Mahdi say when you rang the house?”
“They said we are most welcome,” says Dahaba.
“Only for an afternoon visit or for a sleepover?”
“Sleepover,” Dahaba insists.
“I want to hear one of them confirm it,” says Bella.
“Would you like to ring them now?”
“There is plenty of time before we go.”
Dahaba practices with the cameras a bit more, taking photos of Bella, then of Salif. They pose in ones and twos, and then take a selfie of all three of them.
Bella starts on the dishes. Salif, unasked, puts away his camera and begins to dry the plates. Bella remembers wanting earlier to tell him about not leaving the door open the way she found it when she came in with the shopping. But she is content to talk about this on another occasion. And, with him helping, they are soon done.
Bella leads the children upstairs and they help each other to make the beds, to turn off their computers, to draw the curtains, to put the wet towels on racks, and to flush the toilets. Then Dahaba and Salif pack their shoulder bags with a change of clothes and their toothpaste and toothbrushes. Dahaba gets Uncle Mahdi on the phone to confirm that she and her brother are welcome to stay the night.
Bella makes a call of her own in the privacy of her room: She telephones HandsomeBoy Ngulu, the lover who lives in Nairobi. They chat briefly, the first time they have spoken since her arrival. Of course, he has heard the tragic news, and he offers his condolences.
“If you are free this evening, maybe we can meet,” she says.
As soon as the words leave her mouth, alarm bells of worry ring in her head. She wonders if she is ready to meet a lover so soon after her brother’s death. But her heart’s quickened pace at the thought of it is pleasurable too. They agree to meet in the café of the Nairobi Serena, a five-star hotel.
13.
Bella hides the papers she has brought home under the mattress in the master bedroom, just as her mother used to do, but she doesn’t yet dare bring in the carryall with Aar’s personal effects among which she found a set of house keys, which she will keep. She is glad the children are going to see their friends. It will be good for them not to be obligated to defer to an adult the entire time; she imagines this must be exhausting, like speaking a foreign tongue in which one is hardly proficient. It can’t have been easy to live in the house of your school principal and his wife, she thinks, no matter how kind they are. With their peers, they can be uninhibited and speak frankly, with everything up for open analysis and hearty discussion.
Still, she thinks, they’ve been lucky to be raised by Aar rather than in a traditional Somali household. And Aar, in turn, was lucky to be raised by Hurdo, who not only tolerated differences between people but also appreciated them. Aar’s playmates would be beaten at home by their parents if they talked back and the children seldom got a kind answer if they questioned an adult. In such a household, a child inevitably resorts to lying, sneaking around, and being evasive. Bella remembers the story of a boy whose father struck him in the face as they passed each other in a hallway of their home even though he had done nothing wrong. When the son asked him why, the father replied that the blow was “for the wrongs you will surely commit in the future.” Aar, she knows, never raised a hand to a child in his life.
Dahaba brings her mobile phone to Bella, indicating that Uncle Mahdi is on the line. Fatima and Qamar are out shopping, he says, but he hastens to add that they will be back by the time Bella and the children can drive there and that they are welcome to sleep over.
And so they set out, the car keys in Bella’s hand, and a set of house keys for her and Salif in the event the children get back when Bella is not in the house. Bella reminds herself to have a set made for Dahaba, who has never been trusted with keys because she has a habit of mislaying them. But Bella intends to make Dahaba more responsible for herself.
But when Bella wonders aloud if they should set the alarm and Salif concurs, Dahaba goes into an inexplicable panic. “Why set the alarm?” she says.
Bella says, “Why not?”
Dahaba says, “What if I come back alone and I can’t remember the code?” Her teeth are clenched, and her features are contorted w
ith anxiety.
Bella reminds herself that there is now a before and an after in these children’s lives and that this new phase requires compassion. There is no sense in upping the ante, especially as Dahaba has a tendency to make a drama out of everything.
As a sibling, Salif is harsher, refusing to fall for what he calls Dahaba’s “exploits,” and it annoys him no end when tears get her what she wants from adults. Aar was well aware of her tactics, but worried that a heavier storm was brewing, he sometimes gave in to her demands. Bella too is familiar with this side of Dahaba, and while she thinks it is too soon to get confrontational, she knows that sooner or later she will have to face the challenge if she doesn’t want matters to get out hand.
“Will someone answer, please?” Dahaba says.
“When have you ever had a problem with the alarm,” says Salif, impatiently. To Bella, he says, “Please let us set the alarm, Auntie.”
Now Dahaba’s voice begins to rise. “If the alarm is set, I panic and have no idea what to do. If the alarm goes off and armed security arrives at the gate and the guard lets them in and they find me alone, imagine what may happen—me alone with four armed men!” Bella senses that Dahaba knows how ridiculous she sounds, which only makes her more shrill and defensive.
Salif says, “Dahaba will be the death of us.”
Dahaba throws her hands in the air. “Do what you want,” she says, “if your conscience doesn’t tell you that you are doing something wrong.”
Bella tells Salif to set the alarm and turns to Dahaba. “As for you,” she says, “you may phone me at any time of day or night and I’ll be here to let you in or drive you back. Let this be the end of it.” She tells herself that all children benefit from a firm, fair hand.
—
It is Dahaba’s turn to sit in the front. Bella leaves Cawrala silent and gives Dahaba the task of guiding her to keep the children from arguing and keep their anxieties of whatever nature at bay. Bella is remembering her last encounter with Fatima, who took her to the airport on her last visit on a day when Aar was too busy to take her himself. Mahdi is five years Fatima’s senior. In the late seventies, he served as the editor of a Somali weekly before incurring the dictator’s wrath. He quit the country before he was detained and, together with a few close friends who had similarly fallen out of favor, set up a trucking business in Zambia. The business, which specialized in transporting everything from grains to vehicles to landlocked Zambia and Zimbabwe, did very well. Along the way, he met Fatima in Lusaka, and they married. Eventually, they relocated to Kenya, where the business did even better and where their children were born. Qamar and Zubair have never really known their parents’ country of birth, but Mahdi still publishes pieces on Somalia in the Kenyan press or for one of the many websites that have lately flourished. Now and then he toys with the idea of returning to Somalia and setting up an independent daily newspaper, but Fatima isn’t keen on throwing their hard-earned income into such a shaky venture. She wants her children to attend one of the best universities in the UK or the U.S. Bella is partial to Fatima, but she respects Mahdi’s sharp mind and generous heart.
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