Links
Page 35
A billboard welcomed everyone to The Refuge—“a home to Raasta and Makka, and therefore a place of peace and communal harmony!” Another placard bragged that on entering the grounds of The Refuge, one would “spend a tranquil day among people living in harmonious coexistence with many others with whom they don’t share the same clan.” Yet another invited the visitor to a place where “even though the residents may not see things eye to eye, they stay together without pulling guns or rank on one another.” Tears welled up in Jeebleh’s eyes, and his cheeks became wet. How it would have pleased his mother, or Bile and Shanta’s, to be here. This, yes, was worth living for!
As he walked farther in, he chatted with the women who worked at The Refuge. They praised Seamus for the signs and for providing the children with their colorful balloons, and commended Bile for being there at all. One woman alluded to his half brother, and said that she hadn’t expected Bile to attend a party honoring the mother of a friend right after his own brother had been buried. Others spoke of Faahiye, of seeing him and Shanta holding hands and, trailing them, arms linked, Raasta and Makka. A woman Jeebleh didn’t know whispered to him that Caloosha’s widow was somewhere on the grounds, and not veiled. Apparently, she was chatting amicably to Raasta or entertaining Makka. Jeebleh was in no hurry to present himself to Caloosha’s widow. He made the acquaintance of a few other people, who said how pleased they were that Raasta was back, or how good Faahiye looked, or how nice it was to see a joyful Shanta.
Jeebleh was delighted to see the doors of the dormitories festooned with colorful flags. Where the children were playing in the courtyard, the sky rained a confetti of colors, which clung to his skin. Jeebleh allowed himself to frolic noisily with the children. He helped a young girl blow bubbles, and welcomed a hungry-looking a boy to eat his fill of meat to his heart’s content, probably for the first time ever. People mixing, chatting, and looking happy: Jeebleh was pleased to have contributed his small share as the host, and content that his mother had permitted him to use her death as the excuse.
But then, as though darkness had suddenly descended, his progress was impeded. Jeebleh had intended to go to where Bile, Seamus, Shanta, and Raasta were standing. He was prepared to talk to Caloosha’s widow. Yet he felt lost, unable or unwilling to decide which road to follow. Until a way was offered to him.
Dajaal was there. And he held Jeebleh by the elbow, as though propping him up. He was entreating Jeebleh to accompany him, he didn’t say where. Jeebleh remembered hearing that Dajaal had guided Bile to where Shanta was giving birth. How he wished he had the strength to ask Dajaal whether he had helped Bile do the bloody deed! Instead, Jeebleh took refuge in the variegated meanings of their silence, and silently followed Dajaal. He realized he was being led away from the others. As Jeebleh walked alongside Dajaal and Kaahin, with Qasiir and his posse bringing up the rear, he listened to their conspiratorial voices. One or the other of them spoke of how Af-Laawe had felt the heat and fled the city, how he had been seen in Nairobi buying a plane ticket to France.
Jeebleh knew then that he would leave soon, without his friends’ knowing. He would fly to Nairobi to relax for a couple of days, and from there call Bile and Seamus to inform them of the decision to depart—but not why. Then he would book himself on a home-bound flight and, not wanting to tempt fate, get to New York before impulse propelled him in another direction.
Some people hate saying good-bye, some cannot bear to say arrivederci. Jeebleh assured himself that he loved his friends enough and that they loved him. He knew that they would visit one another, welcome one another into their homes, and into their stories. He and his friends were forever linked through the chains of the stories they shared.
LATE THAT NIGHT, TUCKED IN BED AND FLANKED BY THE TWO GIRLS, JEEBLEH listened to Raasta tell a folktale.
An ape, finding the throne empty, takes the crown, puts on the robes of the king, and begins to reign. A wildcat convokes the other beasts. These come and heap praises on the new king. Not so the fox, who plots to unseat the impostor. To this end, he gathers luscious fruits, the kind that apes kill or die for, and gives them all to the king. Excited, the ape leaps from his throne, jumping up and down, and to satisfy his insatiable gluttony, surrenders his weighty crown.
Amused, the fox addresses the gathering. He tells the other animals that donning the robes of a king has never made a monarch of a flunky.
And the ape is unseated!
Jeebleh quit Mogadiscio the following morning, without changing his clothes, though he did introduce yet a further modification: he put on clean underpants and clean undershirt.
Bile, Seamus, Raasta, and Shanta learned of his departure only later in the day. He left before the mist in his mind cleared, afraid that he might alienate his friends, to whom he owed his life. He left as soon as he sensed the sun intruding on the horizon of his mind.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction, set against the background of actual events that took place in Mogadiscio. The characters and the incidents they are involved in, however, stem from my imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
To write Links, I benefited from speaking to a great many Mogadiscians, and from reading hundreds of documents, and numerous periodicals and books. I am grateful to all of those I spoke to, and to the authors whose writings I read. Needless to say, I covered all borrowings with skin of my own manufacture.
The epigraphs at the beginning of the book are from Michel Tournier’s The Ogre (translated by Barbara Bray; Pantheon, 1984); The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (translated by James Strachey, 1940–1968); and William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence. The part-title epigraphs are from Allen Mandelbaum’s translation of Dante’s Inferno (Bantam, 1982): for Part 1, from canto III, lines 1–18; canto X, lines 25–42; and canto XXIII, line 144; for Part 2, with slight modification, from canto XIV, lines 16–26, and canto XXIV, lines 88–93; for Part 3, from canto XI, lines 37–54, and canto XXVIII, lines 1–6; for Part 4, from canto XVII, line 31; and for the epilogue, from canto XX, lines 124–130.
The play alluded to in chapter 1 is Carl Zuckmayer’s Der Hauptmann von Köpenick. The biblical quotations “Deliver me from blood-guiltiness . . .” and “The sun shall be turned . . .” in chapter 8 are from Psalms 51:14 and Joel 2:31, respectively. The remark “We fed them, they got strong . . .” in chapter 25 is attributed to Major David Stockwell, U.S. Army, UN military spokesman, and is quoted in Keith B. Richburg’s Out of America (Basic Books, 1997, page 60). The comment attributed to Osip Mandelstam in chapter 26 is from The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Quotations, edited by Peter Kemp (Oxford University Press, 1999). The two quotations from Thomas Jefferson in the epilogue are from letters to, respectively, James Madison (January 30, 1787) and W. S. Smith (November 13, 1787).
I found the following invaluable: Sheekoxariirooyin Somaaliyeed, a bilingual Somali–English edition of Somali folktales by Axmad Cartan Xaange (Somali Academy of Sciences & Arts / Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1988); The Somali Challenge, edited by Ahmed I. Samatar (Lynne Rienner, 1994); Blood Money by Trisha Stratford (Penguin, New Zealand, 1996); Dante’s Inferno by Mark Musa (Indiana University Press, 1995); and Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1999).
A number of good friends have been of enormous help, in particular Maxamad Aden Gulaid a.k.a. Caana-geel, Ahmed “Washington” Mohamoud, Lidwien Kapteijns, Tom Keenan, Miki Goral, and David Knowles of Ledig House, where I stayed for three weeks while working on an earlier draft of the novel.
AN INTRODUCTION TO Links
Links is set in a city that is at once shockingly foreign and hauntingly familiar: Mogadiscio, the capital of Somalia, just weeks after the U.S. troops have pulled out, leaving a decimated, starving city ruled by thuggish clan warlords and patrolled by qaat-chewing gangs who shoot civilians simply to relieve their adolescent boredom. This is the city so disturbingly captured by CN
N cameras and in Black Hawk Down, but from a startlingly different—and surprising—point-of-view.
Jeebleh is returning to Mogadiscio from New York for the first time in twenty years. Equipped with a clear-minded Americanized perspective and ready to attend to business, this journey is not a nostalgia trip for him—Jeebleh’s last residence here was a jail cell. And who could feel nostalgic for a city like this?
Jeebleh is returning to visit his mother’s grave and to settle her outstanding accounts—but more urgently, the youngest member of his oldest friend’s family has been abducted. Though they have not seen each other in two decades, Jeebleh knows from their childhood that his friend—a virtual brother who remained in Somalia when Jeebleh left—will need Jeebleh to step in. Jeebleh is determined to cut through the swirling, clan-based violence and corruption to rescue the little girl—and, perhaps, a piece of his own identity. Jeebleh’s adventure pulls him (and us) into a whirlwind tour of a city where nothing—family or friendship, loyalty or gratitude, betrayal or resentment, tradition or modernity—is simple.
Gripping, provocative, and revelatory, Links is the finest work yet from Farah, a novel that will both secure his place in the international literary firmament and stand as a classic of modern world literature.
About Nuruddin Farah
Widely recognized as not just “one of the finest contemporary African writers” (Salman Rushdie) but as “one of the most sophisticated voices in modern fiction” (The New York Review of Books), Nuruddin Farah is the author of eight novels. His fiction has been translated into more than a dozen languages and won numerous awards, including the 1998 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, “widely regarded as the most prestigious international literary award after the Nobel” (The New York Times).
Born in Somalia, Farah was persona non grata in his native country for over twenty years, able to visit Mogadiscio for the first time in the late 1990s. He currently lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. After nearly being run over by a cab in New York City, Jeebleh travels to Mogadiscio to “disorient death” (p. 5). What does he mean by this?
2. Though Jeebleh was born and raised in Mogadiscio, much has changed in the twenty years since he moved to America. Do others view Jeebleh as a Somalian or as an American? How does Jeebleh view himself? What sort of conflicts does Jeebleh’s twenty year absence present?
3. Discuss Jeebleh’s refusal to give his clan family money for a new battlewagon and his intervention when he sees the child beating the dog. Do you expect this from Jeebleh given his personality and actions up to this point? What do you think causes him to do this?
4. Discuss Jeebleh’s relationship with his mother. Specifically, why do you think she never moved to America? How are Jeebleh’s actions toward her after her death different from the way he treated her while she was still alive? How are views on the family different between Somalians and Americans?
5. The description given of Hagarr, Bile and Caloosha’s mother, on pages 172 and 173 paints the picture of a strong, educated, independent woman. How are other women in the novel depicted? How are their relationships with men depicted?
6. After being injected by the bodyguard in the cemetery, Jeebleh undergoes personal changes. Discuss the nature of his transformation. Would you describe him as more courageous? How does this transformation help him?
7. Dreams and superstitions have a significant impact on the actions taken by Jeebleh and his friends. In particular, there are many superstitious views about Raasta who is viewed as an extraordinary child. What does Raasta offer her family and the people of Mogadiscio that warrants the admiration that she receives?
8. What do you think of Jeebleh’s ultimate decision concerning Caloosha? What gives him the strength to make this decision? What do you think the long-term impact will be for the people surrounding Caloosha?
9. Why do you think Jeebleh leaves Mogadiscio without saying good-bye to his friends?
10. What other direction could Jeebleh take at the end of the novel when he decides to book himself “on a homebound flight and, not wanting to tempt fate, get to New York before impulse propelled him in another direction”?
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“Nuruddin Farah, the most important African novelist to emerge in the last twenty-five years, is also one of the most sophisticated voices in modern fiction.”
—The New York Review of Books
Links
Before he left for a twenty-year exile in America, Jeebleh’s last residence in Mogadiscio had been a jail cell. When he finally returns, it is to a decimated city that U.S. troops have recently abandoned, ruled by clan warlords and patrolled by gangs who shoot civilians to relieve their adolescent boredom. Once back home, Jeebleh finds himself in the midst of swirling violence and corruption as he attempts to rescue a little girl and reunite the family of his oldest friend. Gripping, provocative, and revelatory, Links is the finest work yet from Farah, a novel that stands as a classic of modern world literature.
ISBN 0-14-303484-7
Secrets
“Hypnotic . . . Secrets is a shape shifter—murder mystery, family saga, magical realist thriller.”—Newsday
Set against the backdrop of Somalia’s devastating civil war, Secrets is a stunning revelatory novel. The city of Mogadiscio is in crisis when the protagonist, Kalaman, receives an unexpected houseguest, his childhood crush returned from America. Sensual and demanding, Sholoongo announces her intention to have his child, pulling Kalaman back into a past full of doubts and secrets to uncover the startling truth of his own conception.
ISBN 0-14-028045-6
Gifts
“Farah weaves together myth, dream, and realism to create literature that is truly world-class.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review The second in Farah’s trilogy, Gifts tells the story of Duniya, a single mother working at the troubled hospital in Mogadiscio. In luxuriant prose, Farah weaves events into a tapestry of dreams, memories, family lore, folktales, and journalistic accounts. Both personal and political, Gifts explores the values, challenges, and sufferings of one family—and an entire people.
ISBN 0-14-029642-5
Maps
“Startling . . . passionate. Farah’s masterpiece.”—Suzanne Ruta, The New York Times Book Review
A strikingly lyrical novel, Maps is the story of Askar, an orphan whose mother died in childbirth and whose father was killed in the bloody war dividing Somalia and Ethiopia before he was born. As a precocious adolescent, he leaves for Mogadiscio in search of a perspective on both his country and himself, and at the hub of violence, Askar throws himself into radical political activity that continually challenges the murky boundaries of his own being, just as “revolution” redefines Somalia’s own borders.
ISBN 0-14-029643-3