by J. L. Powers
‘Keinan! Hush, man! What are you trying to do? Get us killed?’ Roble looked nervously this way and that.
‘What are you talking about?You know I’m immortal.’ He grinned then leaned over, his hands on his knees, head down, panting a little.
‘We don’t have time for your jokes,’ Roble said. ‘We’re on the way to our uncle’s house.’
‘I’ve been on the watch all morning, waiting until you came out. I was afraid I might miss you.’ He glanced up and gave Amina a quick smile.
Pleasure ploughed through her chest, as sharp and sudden as the noise of the pebbles that had, a few seconds before, riddled her heart with fear.
‘We can’t stop,’ Roble said.
‘I’ll go with you,’ Keinan said.
‘No, you should go home,’ Roble said. ‘It’s too dangerous to be seen with us.’
Amina wondered why Roble wasn’t being forthright with his best friend. ‘Some men came and dragged Aabbe away from the house last night,’ she blurted.
Keinan’s face fell. ‘I know. I heard,’ he said.
Roble grabbed his friend’s arm. ‘Are people talking about it? What have you heard?’ he asked.
Keinan’s self-assurance dissipated like water sinking into the sand. ‘My father,’ he stuttered. ‘He came home yesterday talking about it. I came by your house and rattled the gate but nobody answered.’
The look on Roble’s face was anything but friendly and his voice was fierce as he asked, ‘Did your father have something to do with Aabbe’s arrest?’
‘Why are you accusing my father?’ Keinan’s face flushed in anger. ‘He’s a good man,’ he said.
‘Would a good man betray his neighbour and friend?’ Roble’s voice was very, very quiet.
‘Don’t talk about betrayal to me,’ Keinan said. ‘He’s helped your whole family for years! Your father would be nothing without him.’
Amina drew in a sharp breath. Had Keinan really said that?
‘Oh, you think your family is so special, so wonderful, and mine is nothing?’ Roble spat on the ground.
A man appeared on a rickety balcony nearby and stared down at them. ‘What are you boys doing?’ he called. ‘You should go home before you get in trouble.’
‘Stop arguing,’ Amina shrieked, shaking her hands.
They ignored her. She felt her chest sink as they continued to shout at each other.
‘I didn’t say your family is nothing,’ Keinan yelled. ‘I said you have nothing unless we give it to you.’
‘Nothing? We have nothing unless you give it to us?’ Roble hopped up and down. His hands balled into hard fists at his sides.
‘Why do you think Samatar Khalids are so popular? Why do you think they sell so well? My father is his best salesman. His only salesman.’
‘You say we would have nothing without your father,’ Amina said. ‘But your father would have nothing if he didn’t have Aabbe’s paintings to sell.’
‘Oh, please. Your father’s artwork is a small drop in the ocean of business dealings my father is involved in. So don’t accuse him of selling your father out just because your father got into trouble—’ Roble jabbed Keinan quickly. In the mouth. Like a snake striking.
Keinan jerked away. His mouth dripped blood.
Amina blinked, startled. She focused on the drops of bright red blood puddling on the dirt. Suddenly the two boys were rolling on the ground, grappling. Their arms were hooked in vice grips around each other’s torsos. Keinan gained the upper hand. He ground Roble’s face into the asphalt. Then Roble flipped Keinan over. He had Keinan in a headlock. He used a closed fist to pound him. Keinan yelped, short, high yips, like a dog.
Amina bounced around them, shrieking, ‘Stop it, stop it, stop it!’
They heaved apart, gazing at each other for a moment. Then Keinan lunged and the boys tumbled back to the ground.
Amina reached into the fray and slapped Keinan’s cheek as hard as she could.
Keinan glanced up and dropped his hands, pulling away from Roble. He was breathing hard, in short gasps. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘I’m sorry. I—I don’t know what I’m doing.’
Roble lay still for a few seconds as though he were exhausted. Then he rolled over, crouched on his knees, sprang up, and started running away. He dripped blood all the way down the street.
Amina shot a terrified look at Keinan and started to follow her brother.
‘Hey!’ Keinan shouted. ‘Roble, I’m sorry. Come back!’
Roble had reached the end of the alley. He glanced over his shoulder, then jerked his head forwards again as a jeep screeched to a stop just in front of him. He veered to avoid it but a soldier with a red-and-white chequered keffiyeh wrapped around his hair and face jumped off. Only his eyes were visible. Al-Shabaab. He grabbed Roble around the neck, dragging him back towards the jeep and hustling him inside. Another soldier held the butt of an AK-47 against Roble’s neck, shoving him down to the floor of the jeep with his foot.
Amina’s chest felt like it was caving in as Roble disappeared from view. She started moving towards the jeep, but Keinan pulled her into a crouching position behind a large chunk of asphalt that stuck straight up from the ground.
‘Keep your head down,’ he hissed.
‘But Roble—’ she whispered.
‘Right now, we have to save ourselves,’ he whispered back.
She tried to stand. She wanted to see what was going on.
‘Amina!’ he cried. ‘Al-Shabaab can’t see us together – a boy and a girl? We aren’t related. We aren’t even cousins!’ Drops of sweat glistened on his upper lip. He was still breathing heavily from the fight. The anger had died in his eyes and now he just looked scared and worried, slightly soiled from the fist fight. ‘They’ll kill us.’
Slowly, she sank down beside him. He was right. ‘What will they do to Roble?’ she asked.
‘If he’s smart, he’ll keep his mouth shut and they’ll make him into a soldier,’ Keinan said. ‘If he’s not …’
Amina watched the jeep through a crack in the slab of asphalt, ignoring the boy beside her. The soldiers inside the jeep craned their necks, looking for any movement nearby. She stayed perfectly still.
Their guns were as long as the men were tall and each wore strands of bullets wrapped around their waists, draped over their necks and dangling down their chest. Why did one soldier need so many bullets? Amina wondered.
Roble had managed to raise himself from the floor of the jeep. His eyes scanned the alleyway as though he were looking for Amina and Keinan.
A soldier hit his already bruised face with the butt of the gun and Roble keeled backwards, disappearing from sight.
The jeep jolted as it started then shuddered away, taking Roble with it.
Chapter 6
Amina did not set foot outside of the house or the yard for several seemingly endless days.
Nobody came to visit, except for a woman down the street who had heard something of their troubles and brought them a box of ripe bananas.
In between prayer times, Amina wrote poetry in her head, reciting it constantly. It kept her sane, and prevented her from screaming at her mother and grandmother. Her agitated fingers tapped a restless rhythm across her thighs, in beat with the words scrolling through her head.
I remember when battles raged in my neighbourhood
and we couldn’t leave the house for days.
We crouched on the floor as bullets flew overhead.
I must have been hungry but I don’t remember wanting food.
I only wanted the war to end.
I still want the war to end.
The war is not the story I want to tell. No.
I want to tell another story, one without the bullets and hand grenades.
I want to tell the story of my mother’s pregnancy
and the birth of a healthy, happy baby girl,
innocent,
fresh and new
like the beginning of the world.
She memorised the words so that when she found the right wall, she would be able to paint them quickly, before anybody came.
And then she started another poem.
By Saturday morning, Hooyo had cooked every last morsel of food in the house. They had eaten the last cup of rice and the last bruised banana and they had only a little oil left. As they sat in the front room, she said, ‘One of us must go and buy food. We have nothing left to eat.’
‘I’ll go,’ Amina had replied automatically. She didn’t want to go but it had to be her. Ayeeyo and Hooyo didn’t leave the house. Besides, Ayeeyo suffered from arthritis and Hooyo was almost seven months pregnant. How could either of them run if they needed to escape danger?
But even though she was the only logical choice, Amina also wanted to go. She needed to escape the four walls and see what was happening on the outside. There was nothing they could do for Aabbe or Roble as long as they stayed inside. The last few days, she had felt her father and her brother slipping from her grasp as no new information came their way.
And the itch was becoming unbearable. With Aabbe gone, she could raid his supplies with impunity and not even feel guilty. Of course, she would leave all his best supplies untouched – but she could use his glue, charcoal, chalk and some water-based paints.
She had used a couple of the blank canvases stacked on the floor to create some drawings but that wasn’t really what she wanted to do. To tell the truth, she had come to love the adrenalin of creating art out in the open, where it was dangerous and even haram, at least in the eyes of some Muslims.
Hooyo sighed. ‘Perhaps if you go only as far as Keinan’s house, his mother will sell you some food. She has both a husband and a son who can shop for her whenever she needs.’
‘Yes,’ Ayeeyo said. ‘That way you don’t have to travel so far.’
‘Perhaps,’ Amina mumbled, knowing she would never go to Keinan’s house for help.
Although she wasn’t sure why, she hadn’t told her mother about how Keinan and Roble had fought in the street just before Roble was taken or of Roble’s suspicions that the family was somehow connected to al-Shabaab and was behind Aabbe’s abduction, suspicions which she now knew were true: Keinan had practically admitted his family’s guilt. The walk home had been virtually silent, punctured by occasional defensive outbursts from Keinan that sounded only vaguely apologetic. ‘It’s just that my father is good at business,’ he said. ‘He makes money, that’s what he does. He sells things … he knows everybody … he … ’ His voice drifted off.
He sells things, Amina thought. And people? Does he sell people too? Did he sell my father?
‘I’m not my father,’ Keinan said, too, in a burst of anger.
It was absurd for him to say that, Amina thought. Of course he wasn’t his father. And yet he was. How could she separate Keinan from his father or his father’s guilt? It was impossible.
‘I’m sorry,’ he added.
Sorry for what? Amina had wondered. Sorry for your father’s actions? Sorry that because of you, Roble has been taken by al-Shabaab?
She could barely look at him, she was so angry. So she had ignored him until they reached her gate, when she looked him in the eye and said, ‘Goodbye, Keinan.’
Her dismissal had angered him. She had listened to the furious sound of his feet as he stomped off in the direction of his house.
So why hadn’t she told Hooyo the story while she was still angry? Even though she was angry, she must have been protecting Keinan …She liked him that much, she realised.
Now the anger was gone and she wished that she had met him halfway. She could have said, I know you didn’t mean to hurt Roble and I know you had nothing to do with Aabbe’s disappearance, no matter what your father did. She missed Keinan and his boasting. She still liked him, despite everything.
Hooyo continued, with a knowing look, ‘And besides, that family has plenty of money. They have robbed us blind, with what they charge for Samatar’s paintings at the market and what they turn around and pay us. Somalis in America have lots of money and they are the ones buying Samatar’s work.’
Amina felt a stab of renewed anger at Keinan’s family, for growing rich on Aabbe’s paintings and then handing him over to the people who wanted to kill him, all because it meant more money in their pockets.
‘I always told Roble not to hang around that boy,’ Hooyo said.
Why was Hooyo acting like things had been different? She used to sit in the front room and laugh at the boys’ antics. She would listen to Keinan’s boasting and say, ‘You are too much, son.’ Son. She had always called him son.
Amina’s anger was a missile seeking heat and Hooyo was the hottest thing around. ‘Hooyo,’ she said. ‘You always liked Keinan. Don’t pretend.’
Hooyo raised her eyebrows. Her voice crackled with laughter. ‘Is this my own daughter, contradicting me?’
‘Yes,’ Amina said, rage in her voice.
‘Oh! You are right,’ she said, and she sounded weary. ‘I had a weakness for that boy. But now I see I was wrong. I should have warned Roble to stay away from the family. I should have told Aabbe we could find somebody else to sell his paintings.’
‘Abdullahi Hassan is playing a dangerous game,’ Amina said. ‘I’m sure Aabbe’s paintings aren’t the only thing he sells that al-Shabaab considers haram, and yet he is aligning himself with al-Shabaab.’
‘It is dangerous,’ Ayeeyo agreed. ‘And he will pay for it some day, perhaps with his life. You’ll see.’
‘Why does Aabbe sell his paintings at Bakaara Market?’ Amina asked, suddenly curious. ‘Why doesn’t he sell them in a gallery, like Ibrahim?’
Amina had accompanied Aabbe to his colleague’s gallery openings. Ibrahim created abstract designs, constructed from the remnants of broken tiles. They were beautifully rendered pieces of art, seemingly haphazard at first glance but actually deliberate and careful on closer inspection. His work had inspired Amina to create her first piece, the mosaic constructed from broken glass and stones, as well as subsequent pieces made from discarded cloth or tiles.
Hooyo’s hands, which had been busy plaiting Amina’s hair, suddenly stilled. ‘We never told you why?’
Amina shook her head. ‘I knew there was a problem but not what the problem was.’
Hooyo didn’t answer immediately. Her hands were rough as she twisted Amina’s hair.
‘His paintings were already banned by the Islamic Courts Union a few years ago when they were in power,’ Ayeeyo said. ‘Too political, they said. And, of course, he always painted people and animals and they said that was un-Islamic. That’s why he quit his job at the university – it made him a target. Al-Shabaab is just carrying on with the judgement of the courts.’
So Aabbe had made himself a target with his work.
‘He always had to criticise everything and everybody.’ An undercurrent of frustration surged in Hooyo’s words.
‘You mean that he was an artist,’ Amina said. ‘He said what he needed to say. He didn’t have a choice.’
‘I mean that he couldn’t just paint a pretty picture to make some money,’ Hooyo snapped. ‘He always had to make a statement, no matter what it cost us.’ She stood abruptly and exited, leaving Amina alone with Ayeeyo.
Amina felt desolate. Even Ibrahim’s works, which might seem like little more than pretty pieces of art, sent a definitive message about what he believed in and hoped for – the idea that in this world order could emerge out of chaos. Wasn’t that also political? Perhaps Aabbe’s work was just more blatantly political.
‘I like Aabbe’s work,’ she said.
Ayeeyo smoothed Amina’s hair, her gnarled hands slow and gentle. ‘So does your mother,’ she said. ‘She’s just hurting. You must be very kind to her now.’
Hearing the reminder made Amina grumpy. ‘I’m always kind to Hooyo,’ she said.
‘Even kinder than usual,’ Ayeeyo amended.
Ayeeyo was asking a lot. Wasn’t Hooyo the mother? Wasn
’t she, Amina, the child? Hooyo had lost a husband and a son, but Amina had lost her father and her brother. She was the one who now had to face the world for the family – and the world was not a safe place. If somebody needed to be kind, why did it have to be Amina? Why shouldn’t it be Hooyo?
‘Ibrahim is no longer exhibiting in galleries,’ Ayeeyo said. ‘It is too dangerous even for him.’
‘I see,’ Amina said. She had known her own work was dangerous but now she truly realised it could bring her death. Would that stop her? She wasn’t sure. That itch was there …she could feel it even now.
‘Go now, my little butterfly, and buy some food for us to cook.’ Ayeeyo prodded Amina.
Shillings in hand, Amina wrapped a bright gold scarf around her head. She slipped out the door, hoping Hooyo would get some rest while she was gone.
She stole into Aabbe’s studio and grabbed a piece of charcoal. Beyond the poem she had been composing, she had been thinking about what she would draw or write next and, though it was still amorphous in her mind, perhaps she could pull a piece together when she was actually facing a blank wall and had a few spare moments to herself.
The streets were surprisingly crowded. Men stood under trees, chewing khat and chatting, spitting globs of green onto the dirt. Women walked down the broken footpaths, dressed in long, colourful jalabeeb, reds and oranges and pinks and purples, only their hands and faces visible. They carried baskets of vegetables and pasta, flashing white teeth as they spoke to each other. Children buzzed about beside them, playing tag, dashing across the street, laughing loudly.
One of the mothers shouted suddenly and the children ran, scattering to either side of the street. They heard the rumbling of trucks coming their way. Younger children clung to their mothers’ hands.
A caravan of trucks tried to drive down the street, but people surrounded it. Street children were swarming over each truck, and men were jostling each other with sticks as the caravan inched its way through the crowd. Each truck had a soldier standing in or hanging off the back end, his finger idle on an AK-47. One of them pointed his gun into the crowd and shot, scattering people so that the convoy could move more swiftly down the street.