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by Nuruddin Farah

  There were also marksmen in the dream, who took delight in demonstrating the skill of their shooting; they hit their targets lethally without breaking a bead of sweat. One of them had a mouth with baby lips that blew bubbles. At the center of the tableau was a small girl having her hair braided by her companion.

  Despite his misgivings, the dream left Jeebleh with a sense of optimism, and he rose from his bed convinced that Caloosha held the key to the girls’ disappearance, and that he or one of his associates, namely Af-Laawe, knew where Raasta and Makka were being held. Quite possibly, Caloosha had helped the captors in a big way. In a moment of elation, Jeebleh believed that he would succeed in recovering the two girls from the clutches of their captors. But first he had to seek an audience with Caloosha. He would show humility, he would openly acknowledge Caloosha’s power over them all. To steel himself, Jeebleh recited two lines from a poem in Somali in which a weak man, plotting to kill a much stronger man, humbles himself before his intended victim, pretending he is a friend and no threat at all. But when the opportunity to hit presents itself, he strikes! Jeebleh would do as the poet suggested, and wait in ambush until after the girls’ release.

  Shaved and showered, he took the piece of ruled paper on which Dajaal had drawn a map with directions to Caloosha’s villa. Smoothing the crumpled sheet, he followed the route with his forefinger, memorizing the sequence of turns in the road. He was sure he would find it easily, no trouble at all. He went downstairs and past the reception desk, which was unusually quiet today, to have his coffee. He moved as slowly as a chameleon going uphill.

  WHILE JEEBLEH WAITED FOR HIS COFFEE, THE DAY SEEMED AS DULL-EYED AS a young elephant mourning the death of its family. The sun shone competently, its rays trudging through a thick film of dust. He sat facing the open area where, only the day before, the vultures had gathered. Today there wasn’t a single one. There was an Alsatian, though, pregnant by the look of it, and close to her, a crow, lonely-looking, brooding and quiet for much of the time.

  Seeking out his tormentor was the last thing Jeebleh wanted to do. The decision to call on Caloosha was not an act of courage—it went against everything Jeebleh stood for and believed in. But the dream had strengthened his trust in the correctness of the decision. He would do all he could to help gain freedom for Raasta and Makka, even at the cost of feeling humiliated by a fool. Then he would figure out how to take vengeance on Caloosha, perhaps with help from Dajaal, to whom he intended to speak.

  An only son, Jeebleh had been raised by a strong woman with iron determination. His father was a lowlife; he had sold the house the family lived in and the plot of land he had inherited from his own family to pay off gambling debts. After the divorce, Jeebleh’s mother made it her mission in life to ensure that Jeebleh grew up to be very different from his father. She impressed into his memory his uniqueness, repeatedly telling him that he could do anything he put his mind to.

  She possessed no more than a brick-and-mud single-room hut, a barn with two cows and a calf tied to poles buried in the earth, an outdoor latrine, and an undying hope in her son’s future success. And even though she loved him to excess, she was firm with him. Within half a year of being divorced, she borrowed a few hundred shillings from a woman friend and started a neighborhood stall, selling tomatoes, onions, and matches spread on a cardboard box. Day in and day out, she sat on the very mat where she and her son slept at night.

  One morning, two years after she had set up her warato stall, she became acquainted with a midwife living in the same neighborhood. The two women got talking, and they entered into a contract from which both would benefit. The midwife kept the oddest of hours, because of her vocation, and was away from home several days and nights at a stretch. Then she would be off work for a few days at a time. Jeebleh’s mother agreed to look after the midwife’s two sons, Caloosha and Bile, for a monthly fee. The elder of these sons was away at school until early afternoon, while the younger one, more or less Jeebleh’s age, had not started school yet.

  A bright-eyed, active child, Bile was as adorable as Caloosha, his elder brother, was detestable—Caloosha, who had been born in breech position, almost killing his mother in the process. The two younger boys got along extremely well, and the midwife was pleased that her son had an ally in Jeebleh, who helped deter Caloosha from bullying his younger brother. Jeebleh trained so he could defend himself, and he tried to teach Bile, but with little success.

  The midwife paid for the food and the household expenses, and Jeebleh’s mother kept Caloosha out of mischief as well as she could, at the same time protecting her son and Bile from his bullying. Raised as brothers in the household efficiently run by Jeebleh’s mother, and paid for by Bile’s, the two boys became very close.

  The world in which Jeebleh and Caloosha would be meeting today, if they met at all, differed greatly from the one in which they had met as children, and from the one in which Jeebleh had been a political prisoner and Caloosha his jailer.

  The youth who came with the pot of coffee Jeebleh had ordered also delivered a message: Apparently a few clansmen of Jeebleh’s were at the front gate of the hotel, waiting to be let in. The men on sentry duty, the youth explained, wanted to know whether or not Jeebleh was prepared to receive them. When Jeebleh inquired how many there were, he learned that there were half a dozen, eager to speak to him about “family matters.”

  Jeebleh told the youth that he wanted to drink his coffee in peace. He had other things on his mind, actually, and was in no mood to entertain a group of elder men who were likely only to bring further clan-related complications into his life. He finished his coffee and left by the back gate.

  THE ROUGHLY DRAWN MAP TO CALOOSHA’S PLACE IN HIS HAND, JEEBLEH walked fast, with the light-footed gait of someone who knew where he was headed. He might have been a thief avoiding an angry mob sent to apprehend him. He wanted to get away from his clansmen, that was all.

  He recalled how his mother had done everything possible to make sure that she and her only son would have nothing to do with this clan business. As a young woman, she had been given in marriage to a gambler with no self-honor, because he paid a dozen cows and a donkey as a dowry to her family. She hoped to raise her son in an enlightened way, educate him and make him believe in his own worth as a man. Soon after entering into her contract with the midwife, she bought herself a Singer sewing machine and, for starters, tailored the family’s clothes: her own and her son’s, and the two other boys’ and their mother’s as well. Her son was given the nickname “Jeebleh”—“the one with the pockets”—because his shirts, shorts, and trousers had huge pockets.

  It was on a day such as this, when his so-called clansmen came around to be received as his blood, that he appreciated what the two inveterate loners had created.

  No doubt the clansmen were there to remind him of his responsibility toward his blood community. He remembered how often his mother had warned him against such opportunists, who would turn up at his door with their begging bowls when he was doing well—the very same men and women who would disappear when he was the one in need. She had also warned him against Caloosha, whose cruel behavior was a threat to the continued existence of the family she and the midwife had so carefully held together. “Be your own man,” she would say, “not anyone else’s. And beware of your clansmen. They’ll prove to be your worst enemies, and they are more likely than not to stab you in broad daylight if you choose to have nothing to do with them.”

  He walked purposefully, his heartbeat quickening with each step. There was no authority to dreams if the happenings during one’s waking hours did not tally with their thrust, he decided. He prayed himself sick, wishing for success in whatever he was trying to achieve.

  A moment’s distraction helped him notice a richly woven spiderweb hanging down between the open-ended spaciousness of the morning sun and a mango tree, laden with its seasonal yield. While admiring the bewitching spectacle, he saw an old man in colorful rags hungrily demolishing a mango wit
h the self-abandon of a child. The old man’s fingers must have been as sweet as a beehive, and a swarm of eager wasps descended on them, taking off and landing again, following every movement of his hands. A closer look at the man revealed a more disturbing sight: his highly unfocused gaze. The man washed his hands with water from a pitcher, then dried them, and started to speak as the mad do, wisely.

  The old man was fascinating to listen to and wonderful to watch, his every gesture theatrical, and his voice a memorable baritone. Soon enough a crowd formed near him, and the space around the tree filled with curious spectators, including Jeebleh. The man spoke on and on, in speech so disjointed that not everything he said made sense to Jeebleh. But he could not tear himself away, and he stood there fascinated. The man behaved as hypnotists do, self-confident, as if aware of where his strengths lay. He seemed to be saying that the trouble with self-isolated communities was that they were “as unhealthy as a child’s toenail growing inward.” The crowd around the mango tree listened attentively. At one point, the man fell silent, then looked steadily at Jeebleh, outstaring him. A woman standing near Jeebleh raised her naked son so he might see what she described as “the spectacle.”

  The old man was now proposing that a beggar given to spurious changes of mood was a dangerous one. “So beware, my brothers and sisters, of such beggars. Beware too of our politicians who think and behave like beggars— one day, they act normally and ask for donations from the international community, and the next day, they kill the foreigners who’ve come to help.”

  He then asked the crowd, “Are you mad?” When no one responded, he asked, “Am I mad, then?” No one spoke. “Are you mad or are you sane? I want you to separate yourselves into two groups, those who are mad, and those who are sane.”

  But nobody moved. The man repeated his instructions, and again nobody moved. People appeared disturbed by his indiscretion, and yet no one was ready to challenge him or oblige. Murmurs of disapproval were heard, the din growing louder as people talked among themselves. Even so, no one stood apart, or walked away, and no one declared himself to be mad or sane; everyone found comfort in staying with the crowd.

  The old man changed his tack: “What if I asked you to separate yourselves into those who’ve murdered and those who haven’t? Will all those who’ve murdered please gather here to my left, and all those who’ve not murdered or harmed anyone, who’ve raped no woman, looted no property, will they please stand here to my right?”

  Nobody obliged, but Jeebleh’s curious gaze fell on a military type, who broke into a heavy sweat. Now the old man danced a jig, and as he did so he had a smirk on his face, and his hands moved as though in imitation of a trained dancer performing the classical Indian dance-drama Kathakali—or so thought Jeebleh. The man cut a most impressive figure, with his stylized gestures now in vigorous motion, now gentle, his whole body moving in obligatory pursuit of a ritual, his index finger close to his nose, his hard stare focused on it, his squint disarming. The crowd grew, as more people came. The last group to arrive included a drummer, who beat in rhythm to the man’s chants.

  Having seen and heard enough, Jeebleh left the area. A man followed him. When Jeebleh slowed, he noted that the man was keeping pace with him. He turned to confront the man shadowing him, looked at him fixedly, and said with a wry smile, “Are you mad or are you sane? Are you a murderer? Are you innocent of all crimes?”

  “Ask me a serious question, and I’ll give an answer,” replied the man, his stare iron-tough.

  “Don’t you think these are serious questions nowadays?”

  There was something fierce about this man with rough edges, the type you see in films. The hard-stare guy introduced himself: “My name is Kaahin.” And he extended his hand to Jeebleh, who remembered his encounter with Af-Laawe at the airport and decided not to shake it.

  “What do you want?” Jeebleh asked.

  “I want to know which group you’d join.”

  “I’ve never killed or harmed anyone,” Jeebleh said.

  “So you say!”

  “What about you? Which would you join?”

  “The murderers, of course,” Kaahin said, and guffawed.

  Jeebleh saw now that the man’s eyes wandered away, toward two men who were standing apart, smoking. Like him, they were military types, but too old to be part of a fighting force. If they were no longer in active service, Jeebleh guessed, they would be acting as consultants to security firms, or as deputies to a warlord, or as well-paid bodyguards to a VIP or to foreign dignitaries visiting the country. To a man, their postures gave them away.

  The man calling himself Kaahin said, “Where are you when it comes to brothers and blood?”

  “Have you ever heard of Hesiod?” Jeebleh replied.

  “Who’s he?”

  “A poet who lived in the eighth century B.C.” Jeebleh didn’t like the amused look on Kaahin’s face, but he continued, trying to appear unbothered: “Hesiod advises that you take along a witness when you’re in a dispute with your brother or one of your intimates over matters of great importance.”

  “Well, perhaps I could be of some use to you, then.”

  “In what way?”

  “In leading you to someone you want to see.”

  “I’m not with you.”

  “I’m offering to be in your service,” Kaahin said.

  “What will you do for me?”

  “I’ll come along as your witness.”

  “Pray, who will I be meeting, and why do I need a witness?” Jeebleh started to walk away, pretending he had no idea what the man was talking about.

  “I’ll take you to Caloosha,” Kaahin said.

  One of the military men led the way, the other walked behind. Jeebleh was sure that several others were shadowing them from a distance, even if they were invisible to him. They moved forward, in the direction of what he hoped was Caloosha’s house.

  10.

  JEEBLEH ENTERED A LIVING ROOM OVERCROWDED WITH FURNITURE AND immediately sensed the dark movements of a few figures, and then heard the sound of curtains being closed or opened. Likewise he could not determine whether the footsteps he heard on the staircase were gingerly going up or coming down.

  In a corner of the room, a cat was trailing a spool wound with thread, which it pushed around so coquettishly that Jeebleh was quite taken with the acrobatic performance. This was when Caloosha made his staged entry. By the time Jeebleh became aware of his presence, Caloosha was already seated in the singularly placed high chair. Reduced to a sideshow, the cat pawed at the spool for a few more seconds, and then lost interest. Eventually, it walked out of the room altogether. Kaahin and his men spread out, one of them approaching Jeebleh where he stood.

  “So here you are at last, my long-lost junior brother!” Caloosha said.

  Jeebleh fought shy of applauding sarcastically, aware that Caloosha had worked very hard on his rehearsed delivery; he enunciated the phrase “long-lost junior brother” to give a sharp, cutting quality. He might as well have said, “Now, what have you got to say for yourself?” That Caloosha was upset was also obvious, but not why.

  Jeebleh took his time, comparing his memory of Caloosha when he had seen him last with the specimen in the high chair. He was looking at a man with a more prominent nose than he remembered, a much fatter man, with so distended a paunch it spilled over his belt and lay flat in his lap. His face was puffy, the hair was thin on his skull, patchy, and peppered with gray at the sides. He could easily have done a send-up of a Buddha, only he had no wisdom to impart. Alas, the years had not humbled the fool in the least.

  “It’s been naughty of you to come to my city and to stay in a hotel,” Caloosha said, his double chin trembling, his breathing uncomfortable. “You could’ve stayed here. I’ll tell it to your face, it’s been very naughty of you, very, very naughty. Yes, that’s how I feel, that’s how I feel, and I’ll speak about it.”

  Ever since childhood they had been at loggerheads, and the memory of how Caloosha had
again and again hurt him returned with a vengeance, causing Jeebleh to display his rage right away, and violently. The question now uppermost in his mind was how to keep from losing his cool.

  “Is this a way to welcome a long-lost junior brother?” he said.

  “Admit it, you’ve been naughty!”

  “Maybe you could be nice to me for a change.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “Humor me, but don’t shout at me.”

  “Cut the crap,” Caloosha said, “and explain how you ask to be taken to a hotel in my part of the city. I have this big villa all to myself.”

  “Af-Laawe suggested that I put up there.”

  “Because you asked him to!”

  “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “I’ve heard all about you and what you’ve been up to since your arrival,” Caloosha said, wagging a finger in mock threat.

  This gave Jeebleh a tremor of unredeemed guilt. Might Caloosha have any idea what murderous thoughts were actually brewing in his mind? “I don’t like it that we’re fighting on our first meeting after so many years,” he said. “Can we allow peace to reign, at least for the time being? You can see that I’ve come to pay my respects to you, I’ve come to make amends, not to quarrel.”

  They stared at each other with the fierceness of unresolved conflict. After a long silence, Jeebleh stammered, “Unfortunately, I had no way of reaching you.”