Hiding in Plain Sight

by Nuruddin Farah

  And all Valerie can manage is “One day.” Then she resumes weeping, her head in her hands, as though she has just this minute received the news of Aar’s death.

  Still Dahaba persists. “There must have been a reason, Mum.” She keeps insisting, and Valerie keeps weeping, neither of them able to move on.

  Salif reflects on how much more he knows than his sister. One thing he knows is that his father was not the person making his mother miserable, even though Salif suspected that Aar felt she was a lost cause. Whenever Salif relives those terrible final days together, he remembers his father going about his business as if Valerie’s problems were not his concern. He recalls waking up in the wee hours of the night, his mother by herself in the kitchen, the lights off, the cap of the whiskey bottle on the table and the bottle three-quarters empty, the ashtray full of cigarette butts, the smell of the liquor heavy on her breath. And then there were those other bottles, the bottles that once contained the tablets she took morning, afternoon, and evening.

  Salif doubted his father was unaware of the demons preying upon his wife. Maybe he couldn’t do anything to placate them.

  “Did your father tell you why I left?” Valerie says at last.

  “He always said to ask you,” Dahaba says.

  “I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” Valerie says, “and I am not asking you to forget what I did, which was foolish and selfish. But I love you, I truly love you.”

  Meanwhile, Bella and Padmini converse in low voices, their faces turned away from each other. They fall silent when Salif approaches. Padmini suggests they pack the uneaten meal, get into the car, and leave.

  Bella asks, “What is the rush?”

  “We must return to the hotel,” Padmini explains. “We have to start packing up.”

  Salif is unhappy about departing this instant, but he is a well-brought-up young man and he restrains himself. Bella acquiesces too and whispers to him, “An hour this way or three hours the other way won’t matter because we can come back to this very spot whenever we please, darling.”

  He shrugs his shoulders and starts to pack up. When the car is loaded, Bella bangs the trunk closed and takes her seat. Padmini gets in front, seething visibly but not saying anything. They drive back to Nairobi, the mood darkened by the silence no one dares to break.

  17.

  Padmini is anxious to get back to the hotel, but Bella insists they all stop at the house for something to drink. She promises to drive them back later so they won’t have to call a taxi.

  Valerie wants a sundowner, and she makes herself comfortable on the couch, cutting the figure of a memsahib accustomed to being waited on hand and foot. Padmini offers to help make tea, though she remains tense and fidgety. Bella assigns Salif and Dahaba the task of bringing in the mats and picnic supplies and uneaten food from the car. Salif avails himself of the opportunity to suggest that Dahaba apologize to their mother.

  “I can’t think of a reason to apologize. Why must I?”

  “Because there is nothing to be gained from cornering Mum with questions she can’t answer. And in any case, what is there to say? She was in the grip of a ‘love supreme,’ as the John Coltrane lyric goes.”

  “What if I don’t want to?”

  “Think about it. What do you gain?”

  She thinks about it, then says, “I agree with you. There is no gain.”

  His hand, by its own volition, touches the small of Dahaba’s back. At first the girl tenses, and then she starts to relax. She says, “I felt a need to have a showdown, to get it all off my chest.”

  “Now that you’ve done it, what then?”

  “I’ll do as you say, apologize.”

  She goes into the house and Salif stays behind to finish clearing out the trunk. He throws the rubbish in the bin and brings in the rest. He stores the unused paper cups and paper plates in the pantry and stands the mats against the wall. When he goes into the living room, he finds Dahaba nestling up to Valerie on the couch and the two of them whispering amicably in each other’s ears. He heads up the stairs toward his bedroom to commune with his iPhone and his computer.

  The tea made, Bella serves it to Padmini and is surprised and relieved to see mother and daughter getting on so well. She sneaks upstairs and Salif fills her in on what has transpired. “We had a word, she and I, that is all.”

  “Well done,” says Bella.

  They are still cuddling and cooing when Bella comes back downstairs, but she notices that Padmini seems more uncomfortable than before. Is it the newfound rapport between Valerie and Dahaba that is causing her current discomposure? Does it make her feel like an outsider?

  Bella mulls over what she can do to help. Should she offer to settle their new heap of debt for the hotel and the lawyers to make sure the two of them make their flight and return home as scheduled? Can she persuade Padmini to allow it?

  Dahaba suddenly says, “I am hungry, Mum.”

  “Oh, my darling, are you really?”

  “Please make something,” pleads the girl.

  “What’s to your liking, my sweet?”

  Just as Valerie rises to her feet, Padmini says, “Honey, I would like to get back rather urgently to the hotel.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “My period has arrived unusually early.”

  Valerie looks helpless and indecisive. “What do you want to do?” she asks.

  Padmini says to Bella, “I really want to go back to the hotel to shower and change my clothes.”

  Bella sees how reluctant Valerie is to leave Dahaba, and she is reluctant to break up their easy rapport. “I would really like you both to stay the night,” she says. “Why don’t I give you a lift to the hotel and back? At this hour there will be little traffic.”

  “Would you mind?” says Padmini. “I would be grateful if you could.”

  “Would you?” says Valerie. “You don’t mind.”

  “Of course not,” says Bella.

  “And I’ll feed my hungry angel here,” says Valerie.

  Bella goes upstairs to tell Salif what she is doing and gets her wallet, grateful that the ride will give her a chance to speak in private with Padmini.

  They get in the car and Bella speeds off as though they were boarding school students in danger of missing curfew.

  Without prompting, Padmini opens up just as Bella had hoped. She tells Bella that her and Valerie’s return tickets to India via Kampala will become void unless they use them as scheduled; they are neither extendable nor refundable. And she says that she would leave, given the choice.

  “And what or who is forbidding you to?”

  “Our hotel bill is enormous and we haven’t the funds to settle it,” Padmini explains. “We receive messages from the management on a daily basis. In short, we are in terrible trouble. But Valerie pays no heed, unconscionably running up the bill and acting as if she were impervious to these difficulties.”

  Bella does not tender an opinion.

  “I don’t know what to do,” says Padmini. “Valerie’s moods keep changing. More and more of the time she is sullen and depressed, and she is drinking heavily. And she can’t seem to give up the hope that she will resume what she imagines to be her role as a mother.”

  “But given the choice, you would go?”

  “Yes, I would,” Padmini says. “Don’t misunderstand me. I still love her, but you know!”

  Bella nods her head and says, “I do. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “I would be embarrassed to ask.”

  “Why?”

  “Valerie won’t countenance the idea. And as it is, you’ve already been generous beyond anyone’s expectations, a wonderful host. But our debt is such that it is too big a favor to burden you with.”

  “Let me see what I can do.”

  “I pray daily that the same benefactor
who spared us the humiliation of the lockup in Kampala will come to our aid. I’ve even been to the Hindu temple once in secret to offer my devotions to that end.”

  With no traffic to speak of, they have reached the hotel. Padmini says to Bella, “Please give me a few minutes,” and she walks away, her stride faltering.

  Bella goes to the reception desk and strikes up a conversation with the clerk, who recognizes her from her own stay. After a few pleasantries have been exchanged, Bella gets to the point. She explains that she wishes to settle Valerie and Padmini’s account on her own credit card.

  “But of course, madam,” says the clerk. Bella pays for two more nights to cover the time until their departure for India, and she demands that the receptionist not divulge the identity of the benefactor, and she gives her a tip to ensure her silence.

  On the drive back, Bella’s conscience weighs on her. Ought she now to open her heart to Padmini and offer her own confidences? But already Padmini seems more relaxed, thanks not only to her shower and fresh change of clothes but also perhaps to the opportunity to confide her woes to a sympathetic ear, and Bella, not wanting to disturb her mood, stays silent.

  They arrive back at the house close to eight in the evening and Bella goes upstairs, buoyed by a feeling of optimism, as she replaces her wallet and passport in their secret place. Then she has a quick shower and goes downstairs, ready to eat the food Valerie has cooked. Padmini’s good cheer holds, and Valerie too seems to feel more at home in the house now that she has cooked a meal in the kitchen. Dahaba shouts to Salif to come down and they sit down together.

  At the dinner table, the conversation is free-flowing. Padmini is sitting at the head of the table, serving the food and solicitously asking everyone if they want more of the chicken, the sauce, the salad. Bella sees Padmini with new eyes, as an ally. The woman is no quitter, and her patience and tenderness toward Valerie seem to know no limits, even if Valerie is less constant in her loving. How will they react when they find out that someone has settled their hotel bill? Maybe gratitude is not a notion that Valerie is familiar with. Or maybe she won’t be able to accept the gesture without suspicion.

  Dinner over, Salif volunteers to do the washing up, wearing his headphones so he can listen to music as he does so. Valerie and Dahaba take their leave and go up to the girl’s room, voices low, still engrossed in each other. Bella puts on a CD of Miles Davis playing in India, and Padmini, who is not familiar with it, seems to enjoy it. And when Salif has done the washing up, he observes that their glasses are empty and brings the wine bottle to refill their glasses.

  “Thanks, my darling, for the washing up,” says Bella.

  “I didn’t cook or serve, so I must wash.”

  “He’s a considerate young man,” says Padmini, and Bella agrees.

  He smiles sweetly and says, “I’ve been thinking, Auntie Padmini!”

  “Tell me, what have you been thinking?”

  “Wouldn’t it be a very wonderful idea if Dahaba, Auntie, and I came to visit you and Mum in India and stayed in your hotel in Pondicherry?”

  Padmini, surprising even herself, pulls him over to where she is sitting and she gives him a kiss on the cheek, her warmest and most genuine gesture yet. “But that would be wonderful,” she cries. “And it’ll make your mum full of rejoicing too.”

  “What do you think, Bella?” asks Padmini.

  “I had no idea he was thinking along those lines, but what a brilliant idea,” says Bella. “Of course we would love to visit you in India and stay in the hotel.” Then, the cautious adult in Bella resurfacing, she says, “Such visits benefit from early planning. Yes, that would be stupendous.”

  Salif adds, “We are now old enough and travel savvy enough to come on our own if Auntie Bella is unavailable to come with us.”

  “But we would really love for her to come too,” says Padmini.

  They take a collective breather, as each of them imagines the context in which this scenario might take place. For Padmini, the prospect is particularly sweet, as nearly all of the visitors to their hotel and restaurant are strangers. To have “family” visit them in India for the first time is a very exciting prospect.

  Happy in themselves, Valerie and Dahaba come down and join the rest. They sit next to each other, but not in a way that excludes the others. Salif, attentive as ever, brings a soft drink for Dahaba and the wine bottle, and Bella has the honor of refilling Valerie’s glass.

  Valerie senses that the silence is charged with meaning and so she asks of no one in particular, “Has anything I need to know about taken place since I was last here?”

  “There is news that will delight you,” says Padmini. “Your son here has been speaking of his wish to visit us in Pondicherry and stay with us in our hotel, darling. Isn’t that fabulous news?”

  And before Valerie has had the time to react to the news, Dahaba lets out a squeal of joy, “This is what I’ve been thinking the past hour and a half.”

  “Have you, darling?” says Valerie.

  Dahaba, enthused albeit rueful, now says, “My brother always steals my best ideas and passes them off as his own. What am I to do about that, Mum?”

  Valerie looks as if someone has stolen her thunder and she doesn’t know what reaction to give. But Dahaba is so taken with the idea that she is bouncing on the couch, her feet catching the weight of her body and pushing off again. “When?” she says.

  Salif says, “We need to plan ahead, Mum.”

  “What do you think, Mum?” asks Dahaba.

  Valerie scrambles for an enthusiastic response, but it doesn’t come easy to her. Bella thinks she knows what Valerie is thinking: Since the idea was not hers, then Bella must be behind it all. “Sweet, very sweet,” she says, but her body language says something else. Still, while she doesn’t appear exactly enraptured with the idea, neither does she throw cold water on it. “We would love them to come, wouldn’t we, darling?” she says to Padmini, feeling everyone’s eyes trained on her. Then she deflects the attention by saying to Salif, “Give us a kiss now, why don’t you, darling.”

  Salif does as he is told. Then more drinks are poured, Valerie switching back to hard liquor—whiskey and water, which Padmini makes for her the way she knows Valerie likes it.

  Valerie says, “As a professional photographer, have you taken pictures here in Kenya?”

  “I did take photos before on commission, photos that were published in magazines in Italy and France—not of animals, but only of people and landscapes. This visit, I have been too busy to take any, but I plan to do so soon,” says Bella.

  “Have you taken pictures of the Somalis here?”

  “I did so on my last visit a couple of years back from the vantage point of an attic two flights above an Italian restaurant on Mama Ngina Street. My subjects—three Somali men, each more handsome than the next—had no idea I was taking their photos. I also took pictures of Somali women in all sorts of outfits, some as striking as they were mysterious on account of their self-exclusion.”

  Bella takes a sip of her water and then waits with the studied patience of an angler for someone to comment on what she has said. When no fish takes the bite, she tells them about the Italian owner of the restaurant, who made a subtle pass at her. “What nerve!” she said.

  Salif seems uncomfortable and changes the subject. “Tell us more about the subjects of your photographs, Auntie Bella.”

  But Valerie interrupts, “It always amazes me how good-looking Africans generally are compared to other peoples. Smooth skins, broad features, gorgeous eyes, statuesque, the palms of their hands as pale as the stones at the bottom of a lake, shiny and clean. They are gorgeous people, the men as well as the women. I would love to see some of your photographs.”

  Padmini says, “I can’t stand the veiled women.”

  “If you want to know the women, you must visit them in their private
spaces,” Bella says. “There is a falsity, a sort of subtle theatricality, to them when you view them in public spaces.”

  Valerie says, “They strike me as pretentious.”

  Padmini says, “How can a country blessed with so many of the world’s most famous models, the world’s most stunning women, deny us the pleasure of feasting our eyes?”

  Dahaba remembers Aar telling her that there was a time when the only veiled women in Somalia were the Arab women, Yemenis. “Covered from head to toe and all in black, as if in mourning.”

  “I recall our Somali neighbors in Uganda,” Padmini says, “and after we relocated to England, we had Somali neighbors in our area of town too. In Uganda, they struck me as the most colorful people, their clothes far more beautiful than any sari. In England, however, where there is a growing population of Somalis, they are unsmiling, their expressions dour, and they dress all in gray.”

  “What do the two lots of Somalis have in common?” asks Salif, “the Somalis of your childhood in Uganda and the Somalis in England?”

  Padmini says, “They are all a noisy lot.”

  “What else?” Salif asks.

  “In Uganda, their daughters are irresistibly fetching, unlike any I have seen. In fact, I can trace my fascination with women’s faces and bodies to this period of my life. I envied them their irresistibility! But they had no time for me. Look at Bella, and look at Dahaba, both of you lookers in your own ways. It would be criminal to deprive us of the pleasure to see either of you.”

  Valerie asks Bella, “Are veiling and infibulation linked in any way?”

  “No link whatsoever.”

  Padmini says, “Is there a difference between infibulation or female circumcision and genital mutilation, which seems to be the term these days?”

  “None,” replies Bella. “Both terms describe the total removal of the clitoris, a most terrible barbarity to which our Somali society subjects women.”

  Valerie makes as if she has to choke, as if she can’t bring herself to ask the question she means to ask. Then she takes a large sip of her drink so as to gain the mad courage to speak, and she says to Bella, “I’ve always meant to ask but haven’t dared to. Did the brutes do it to you too?”