by J. L. Powers
Amina ducked into an abandoned building and waited, breathing hard, until the caravan passed. Then she stepped outside again, only to discover another convoy of trucks headed her way.
She escaped into her hiding place again and sat with her back against the wall, listening to the clamour of trucks and soldiers shouting and the occasional loud pffft-pfft-pffffffft as they shot guns into the air. One of them shot the building she was in and she heard the loud ping echo throughout the four walls as the bullet ricocheted and shattered the last remaining glass window.
She crouched down and quickly drew a picture of her father, scribbling a message beneath: Samatar Khalid, taken from his home in Mogadishu.
She had decided she would draw his picture everywhere, whenever she got a chance. She felt compelled to make sure nobody forgot who he was. Thousands of other men and women in Mogadishu had disappeared – people who had never come home to their families because they had been abducted or killed. She couldn’t draw all of them – there were too many, and she didn’t know most of them – but she could pay tribute by allowing her father’s picture to stand in for all of them.
Quickly, she added the phrase ‘one of many’ to her message.
She wondered if she should eliminate her usual signature A and the Somali star. Recognition was dangerous. But in the end, she signed her work anyway.
The gunfire sounded further away, so she risked emerging from the building and peeking around the corner of the wall to the street. She could just see the last of the trucks in the convoy disappearing in the distance.
Amina dashed one block to the left and another to the right, glancing both ways as she reached the neighbourhood market. It was empty. The men and women normally selling everything she needed were gone. They had escaped indoors or had joined the convoy headed out of the city.
Amina hesitated. Should she continue looking for food, even begging Keinan’s mother to help them? Or should she go home?
Shots rang in the street behind her and suddenly the decision was made. Her breath came in short, jagged gasps as she hurtled down the street and through the gate, slamming it shut behind her.
Amina closed the front door and undid her scarf with trembling fingers. She was glad she had made the decision to come home, even though her stomach was already growling.
She wondered what she could tell Hooyo and Ayeeyo that would make them feel better about going hungry tonight. Especially Hooyo. She must be ravenous because of the baby.
Ayeeyo grasped Amina tight. ‘Alhamdulillah, thank God.’
‘I’m safe, Ayeeyo,’ Amina said against her chest.
Ayeeyo released her from the embrace.
‘What’s going on out there?’ Hooyo asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Amina said. ‘Seven or eight trucks drove past, full of soldiers. Al-Shabaab. They were shooting guns into the street. I couldn’t tell if they were happy or angry.’
‘We heard the trucks rumbling past. I even told Ayeeyo to go upstairs and look.’
‘Can you imagine me, your old grandmother, walking up those crumbling stairs?’ Ayeeyo shook her head. ‘No! We went outside instead and peeked through a crack in the wall.’
‘We could hardly see anything,’ Hooyo admitted.
‘Do you think another army has taken over our neighbourhood?’ Amina asked.
Hooyo shivered. ‘We must just pray for good news.’
Amina went and stood beside her mother. ‘You should rest,’ she said to Hooyo. ‘Ayeeyo and I will look again to see if we can find something, anything, to eat.’
Hooyo shook her head. ‘It’s no use,’ she said. ‘The kitchen is empty. There is nothing.’
‘Let us determine that,’ Amina said.
Amina looked at her grandmother expectantly, as though Ayeeyo might have some answers. But her grandmother simply had tears in her eyes.
‘We have nothing to eat?’
Ayeeyo shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
Amina walked outside. She searched Aabbe’s studio. Was there any chance he had kept food in there? Even if Amina and Ayeeyo went hungry, Hooyo – and the baby – needed food. She crept inside and began a long search through canvases, tubes of paint, charcoal, paintbrushes and sheets of paper. No food anywhere.
She looked at the house and noticed that her bedroom window had shattered. A stray bullet must have hit it this afternoon, while she was gone.
The exterior of the house was a wreck. And yet tiny details had survived the mayhem and destruction of the last decade. An intricate design wrapped around the entire house in layered strips of concrete. The curved pane of blue glass was still intact and reflected blue light inside the alcove where they prayed. Bits of beauty remained, despite the chaos.
Amina gathered up the clear glass quickly, placing it in a bucket, which she put in Aabbe’s studio. She could use it later for a project.
She went to the house, closing the door carefully behind her. Ayeeyo was watching.
Amina shook her head in response to the unasked question. ‘Aabbe didn’t have food in his studio.’
Ayeeyo nodded. ‘Your mother is especially tired,’ she said. ‘I sent her to bed. We will find food tomorrow.’
Amina went to her parents’ room and sat down beside their joodari. Hooyo was pale and tired. She lay in a foetal position on the mat, hugging her belly, and looked at Amina with large, fearful eyes.
An unnamed fear slammed against Amina and left her breathless. ‘What’s wrong, Hooyo?’
Hooyo was quiet for a time.
‘What’s wrong?’ Amina asked again, prodding her mother.
‘I’m bleeding,’ Hooyo admitted.
‘No!’ Aabbe. Roble. Not Hooyo. She couldn’t lose Hooyo, too. Or the baby … The baby couldn’t come yet. Would Hooyo want to have the baby here, at home? And how were Amina and Ayeeyo supposed to deliver a baby? Even if they knew what to do, it was too early. The baby would not survive, not unless they were in the best hospital in the world.
‘Hooyo,’ she said. Her hand hovered over Hooyo’s belly but she dared not touch her. She had no idea what her mother needed or wanted.
They looked at each other and Hooyo sighed. She grabbed Amina’s hand and held it to her chest. Amina felt the soft thump-thump-thumping of her mother’s heart.
Hooyo’s eyes drooped shut and Amina’s hand drifted lower, towards her belly. She waited, hoping with all her heart that she would feel the tiny butterfly flutter that said the baby was moving, dancing, laughing inside the womb. A girl. Amina hoped it was a little girl, a little sister. She needed another ally.
But like the food she had searched for earlier, there was nothing. Absolute stillness, as if the baby were hiding in a dark corner of Hooyo’s womb.
Amina sat there as the afternoon sun filtered in the window, her hand on her mother’s belly. In the front room, Ayeeyo shuffled around, readying herself for Maghrib prayers, offered after sunset.
Amina did not move. Dusk turned to darkness and she sat there in silence, listening to the sound of her mother breathing.
She stayed there until she heard Ayeeyo hobbling around again in the front room, now for Isha prayers, offered just before bed. She stood and joined her grandmother in the alcove. Ablutions first, then kneeling on the sijaayad, facing towards Mecca. Her heart was full and her prayers reflected it – for Aabbe, for Hooyo, for Roble. For Ayeeyo and for herself, as well.
Neither Amina nor Ayeeyo went to bed when they were done. Gunshots intermittently shattered the night’s stillness. Amina sat beside her mother in her parents’ bedroom, a prayer on her lips, feeling the desperation, hoping that in the morning, Hooyo would tell her that everything was well. Every once in a while, she climbed the stairs that led to the second floor, where she could look out and watch orange flares lighting the night all around her. Gun battles, everywhere she could see.
Where were Aabbe and Roble? Were they in the middle of all of this?
She breathed until the sadness had dissipated. She longed
for the morning.
Chapter 7
Amina woke – huddled beside Hooyo’s joodari, cramped and cold. The sounds of gun battles that had raged throughout the night were replaced by people’s startled shouts as they ran past the house.
Hooyo’s eyes were open. She stared at the wall and didn’t move until Amina placed a gentle hand on her arm. Then she roused herself, bedclothes rustling, shaking Amina’s hand off.
‘How are you?’ Amina wanted to be more direct – to ask if her mother was still bleeding. She didn’t dare. She hoped Hooyo would get the hint.
Hooyo ignored her and Amina decided that her mother’s silence meant yes to her unasked question.
‘Let me help you,’ she said, holding out an arm so that Hooyo could lean on her and walk to the toilet.
Hooyo disregarded her arm, hobbling slowly from the bed to the toilet by herself.
Amina waited while her mother performed her morning rituals and then followed her back to bed.
Hooyo was too ill to join them for prayers so Amina and Ayeeyo prayed alone. Amina went through the motions but she knew she was only reciting, just repeating the words after her grandmother. She felt listless and dull. She was hungry but knew there would be no food after prayers – not because it was Ramadan and they were late to prayer this morning but because she had failed to find food the day before.
The day was long. Amina stood at the open gate and watched men and women scurrying about, blinking in the bright sun like rats who have come to the surface after a long time in the dark. Something big had happened and it would be easy to find out what it was – all she had to do was ask somebody who was walking past – but she didn’t feel like asking.
She closed the gate and went back to the house.
There was no change in Hooyo’s condition, though she did sit up in the afternoon, tired and pale, eyes huge in her face. Ayeeyo brought her tea, breaking the Ramadan fast. ‘You must have something to eat or drink, daughter,’ she said. ‘For the baby. You’re a good Muslim but you need to break the fast. You must agree.’
Amina sat on the edge of Hooyo and Aabbe’s joodari while Hooyo sipped the tea. She wanted to reach out and hold her mother’s hand but they’d never had that kind of easy relationship. She wished Roble were here.
Everything in her life was slipping away – first Aabbe, then Roble, then Keinan and now Hooyo and the baby. What could she do to save her mother and her unborn brother or sister? A sister. It was going to be a sister. It had to be – she was sure of it. Amina sent a prayer heavenward for her unborn sister.
Tea was all they had for the evening meal when Amina and Ayeeyo went to break the Ramadan fast. They each drank four cups to hold back the hunger pains for a few hours. Though they had no milk, at least it was sweet with a touch of cinnamon.
In bed, Amina’s belly hurt so badly she had to grip her sides to try to stop the pain.
By Monday, the streets seemed quieter.
Amina took some money, covered her head and arms, and went outside. At the market, the stalls were mostly empty. Instead, people stood in small groups, sharing rumours, spreading the news, explaining what they knew or had heard or had seen. That was the way of Mogadishu. Everybody knew everybody else’s business. If something happened in one hour, you could be sure the news would have reached the other end of the city by the next.
Amina stood beside one group of women that she recognised, though not by name. She had seen them around the neighbourhood occasionally when she went to and from school or joined Roble on an errand.
‘What’s happening, eeddo?’ she politely asked the woman who stood next to her.
‘You haven’t heard?’ she replied. She was an older woman, dressed conservatively in a dark blue jalbaab with a khimar pulled low over her forehead and high over her mouth. Soft wrinkles lined the skin around her eyes.
Amina’s mouth was dry and there was a bitter taste on the tip of the tongue. No, she hadn’t heard. She said nothing and waited for the woman to tell her.
‘Al-Shabaab fled Mogadishu on Saturday,’ the woman said. She looked at Amina as if judging what her reaction would be.
‘Isn’t that good news?’ Amina said. At the same time, her heart sank. Roble was with al-Shabaab. Aabbe might be too. What had happened to them? She didn’t want to think about it too much.
‘What does it matter?’ the woman said. ‘There is not enough food.’
‘There will be,’ Amina said, but she felt no conviction in the words. She had to say it, it had to be true … but what if it wasn’t?
She left the group of gossiping women and walked four blocks north and three blocks south, staying within the boundaries of her neighbourhood, unsure what she might find if she stepped outside. With al-Shabaab gone, who knew what might have changed?
As she walked, she grew hot and damp underneath all the layers of clothes, from the combination of sun, the temperature, the lack of wind. She saw the streets filled with people and boys playing soccer in their bare feet.
Life had already changed – but the old woman was right, food was scarce. She found a woman selling vegetables, but she was aghast at the price. Still, she paid it. They needed to eat something.
On her own street, she joined another group of neighbours when she overheard a woman ask, ‘Do you think al-Shabaab is gone for good?’
‘We’ve been through this before, haven’t we?’ replied a woman who lived a few doors down from Amina.
The group murmured its agreement until a third woman said, ‘Yes, but this time, those African Union soldiers are here. They’ve taken back the stadium and they say they’re moving into all the neighbourhoods. That’s why al-Shabaab left. If the government returns to power, maybe it’ll be different this time.’
The African Union soldiers had assisted Somalia’s government before in its attempts to regain control of the city. Amina wondered if it would be different this time. Would Somalis ever succeed in finding peace and a stable government?
From the corner of her eyes, Amina noticed that Keinan’s gate was opening. She shifted so that she could see better and pretended to be absorbed in what the woman was saying.
Keinan walked through the gate and looked at the women standing a few metres away. His presence was a tight squeeze around her heart. It embarrassed and alarmed her, this flood of happiness, all because she saw the boy whose family had betrayed her father. Where was the anger? A trickle of sweat dripped down her neck and dribbled down her back.
‘I hope so,’ the first woman said. ‘I’m tired of war. It’s all we can remember.’ She pointed at Amina. ‘This girl has never known anything but war. Think of that!’
Even as they all stared at her, Amina still felt Keinan’s eyes on her. She ignored him, as she was supposed to do when elders were present. It hurts though. She wanted to let him know she wasn’t angry anymore. She wanted to let him know how she felt and maybe—
Keinan closed the gate and walked away.
Amina’s heart dropped between her toes and suddenly she lost interest in the conversation.
‘But what’s the difference if your neighbourhood is controlled by a war lord or al-Shabaab or the government when you’re hungry?’ one of the women asked. ‘I just want to feed my family.’
‘It’s this stupid drought,’ another woman said. ‘Maybe we will have peace now – but even if the government is back in power, they can’t make it rain.’
Amina went into her yard and sat on the steps leading to the house. She didn’t want to go into the house yet – she wanted to think for a while, and feel unhappy, without Ayeeyo asking her what was wrong. She couldn’t explain about Keinan. It was too complicated. Her family would not want her pining after some boy, especially one whose family might have something to do with Aabbe’s disappearance. She wasn’t engaged to Keinan. She was supposed to pretend he didn’t exist.
The three remaining weeks of Ramadan dragged by. There was food available but, because of the drought, it was so expensive that
they couldn’t afford to buy much. Ayeeyo parcelled out the money carefully, worried about how quickly it was disappearing, and for such small amounts of food. She was simply prolonging the inevitable.
Amina returned to school after the first week of Ramadan. But she found it difficult to concentrate with her growling belly.
Basra noticed that Amina had nothing to eat during the morning break and that she had eyed the mangoes hungrily, wondering aloud when they’d be ripe enough to pick. She sat next to Amina beside the mango tree and offered to share her food.
‘Oh, no, thank you,’ Amina said. Her pride wouldn’t let her accept. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Whatever you say,’ Basra replied. ‘But I have more food than I can eat.’
So Amina accepted a canjeero – a sheet of flat, round bread – and half a mango. She tried to eat casually, daintily, like Basra herself, when really she wanted to rip into the food like a wild animal, juices rolling down her arms and dripping off her elbows.
‘Where’s Roble?’ Basra asked. ‘He hasn’t been waiting for you after school like he used to.’
It was true, these days Amina walked to school alone – just like she went everywhere alone now. Her longed-for freedom tasted bitter in her mouth.
Amina noticed her friend’s pink cheeks and hurried glance away as she asked, as though she didn’t care, and she guessed what Basra’s interest really meant. Still, even though Basra seemed like a kind girl, she couldn’t tell the world the family’s secrets. What if Roble managed to escape and come back? It would be better if nobody knew that he’d been kidnapped by al-Shabaab, that he might even be fighting for them, wherever they had fled. That was assuming, of course, that Keinan was keeping quiet about it as well.
So she mumbled something about her mother needing Roble at home.