by Igiaba Scego
Mar watched the world in ruins. Her world in ruins. Zuhra’s hands were energetic. They shook her hair as if it were laundry consumed by unconquerable filth. Zuhra Laamane didn’t want her to be overcome by that filth. So she shook and shook Mar’s hair, she shook and revived it. She massaged and practically created it. The drying was similarly energetic. And to say that Zuhra didn’t seem strong! Mar remembered the Serb’s party, how Zuhra had resisted all the women trying to help her. Her body was powerful, and so was her will. Mar realized that for Zuhra to coexist with her trepidation, with her ghost, she had to be strong, energetic, powerful.
Mar prayed to a God, her own, that she might be touched by her new friend. Then came the hot, roaring wind of the hair dryer. She felt a cyclone of ringed hair on her head, Zuhra’s hands making whirligigs. She liked the girl’s touch. Her fingertips ran across her head like olive oil on a summer salad. It was thick and delicate. Strong, extra virgin. Heaven knew what Miranda would make of her hair when she saw her. And heaven knew what JK… no, he’d love it, definitely. Mar looked steadily ahead. She saw white. Pati was there. She was wearing the dress she had on the day she killed herself. Mar didn’t recognize it. Evidently she’d acquired it after her, after their story. It was a white dress with a red rose in the middle.
Pati never wore feminine clothes. She was a pants and jackets kind of gal. She braved winters wearing turtlenecks, often devoid of color, and in the summer she lost her imagination and wore black T-shirts or, at most, gray. This dress was stunning. It was a wedding dress, Death perhaps the bridegroom. Mar didn’t think about marriage. White was the color of funerals in the East. It was the only proper attire for death. Now Pati was in Mahdia, watching her from the terrace, Mar Ribero Martino, who was happy among her friends. Mar realized that the white no longer blinded her. The dress’s red rose radiated outward, covering her stomach. Was it perhaps her blood that she wasn’t able to see?
Pati didn’t speak.
Mar saw that she had a baby boy in her arms. He was very small. Almost invisible.
Mar touched his head. She thought about how his hair was more tallowy than Miranda’s and how the smell of burned skin annoyed her. She closed her eyes and saw the blended colors of his skin. A mélange of white and black, red and yellow. Mar smiled. Her child had the same hair as her, the same forest. She thought he was beautiful. Soon he would come back to her. She had to get ready.
THE NEGROPOLITAN
Fin. Kaput. The end. Roll credits. Drop the curtain. Eighteen months. Eighteen months until the end of the world. At least, that’s what this paunchy woman is saying.
She says the world will end in eighteen months. That means I don’t have much time to get myself back on track, fuck a man, buy a house, and eat a Sicilian cassata. My days are numbered. I don’t want to die without an orgasm. I deserve it. I’ve earned it. Eighteen isn’t a great number. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not a month, it’s not the hours in a day, it’s not the seconds in a minute. It’s meaningless. But the fat woman said exactly that, eighteen months till the game is up, Control-Alt-Delete and see ya later. Khayama, end of the world, Apocalypse Now. In newscasts they say that between tsunamis, the greenhouse effect, and global warming, we’re fucked. The Arctic Sea won’t be around anymore in 2050. Humanity might disappear soon after. We’re all desaparecidos in eighteen months, then. There’s not much time. I need an orgasm, ASAP.
She didn’t say eighteen in Italian, the woman, she said dix-huit, in French. The bottom line is the same. She says she’s the kind of person who makes predictions, and she heard the news directly from her kind-souled husband Karim. He never lied to her. “He was a saint,” she reiterated. Or a great actor, I say. Men pride themselves on knowing the truth. I sort of pity Karim. This poor Muslim Christ, not even his body has been found. Burned to death at his workplace, over there in France. He came back during the summers loaded with knick-knacks. He always brought her a beautiful imitation leather handbag, she told me. He worked in an awful place in Mistress France. A place where two out of every three died. Poor Karim became human meat confetti, shipped by general delivery to Tunisia. The woman wrapped her husband’s confetti in a shroud and buried him beside the sea, here in Mahdia.
I try consoling her. I place a hand on her shoulder in sisterly fashion, whispering a couple of Allahu Akbar and even a fatiha, seeing as I’m here. I don’t know all the suras by heart, but everyone knows the fatiha, even me, and I’m not very good! It’s the first sura, the most intense. All the beauty of Islam is in the fatiha. I try to be more comforting, I put my soul into it. I act like my teacher Morabito when she explained times tables to us. Morabito was the only good person in my childhood. She was patient and it didn’t matter to her that I was black. She didn’t call me Kunta Kinte like the bitchy custodians. I was just the dirty nigger to them. They didn’t see anything else about me. “Not even bleach can make her clean,” they said. They were hicks—dumpy and jealous of my beautiful mom. I act like Morabito, my voice becomes a veil. It enshrouds and protects. I look at the big woman and deliver my pearl of zen wisdom: “Well, this is a great place to live in eternity.” I try saying it in French. I don’t know French at all, but I try, I improvise, I emphasize the accent. They say eternity, éternité, almost the same way as the Italian, eternità. So I hope the message got through to the woman. I analyze her face. She seems to understand. She smiles.
Then she goes silent. Is she thinking about Karim? How long has it been since you’ve had a good fuck, sister? Was Karim good in bed? If you’re mourning his loss, we can at least hope that he was good, sweet, and gentle. Otherwise what are you doing coming to his tomb? What are you doing putting pebbles on top of the tomb if he was a bastard? Did he hit you? A handbag every summer won’t do it, sister. Courteousness is key. Remember that. And in bed, is Karim…am I hounding you again? You’re blushing, you’re not responding. Here it’s like in Somalia. People don’t say anything and then leave pebbles when they visit tombs. The Jews do it, too. I saw it in Schindler’s List. Christians, however, leave flowers. Chrysanthemums. People always leave something. Sometimes themselves. A trace.
I want to leave some thoughts. I’ve placed myself right here. When I saw the cemetery I said to Mar and Miranda, “Go ahead, I’ll catch up.” They’ll be soaking up the sun on the beach now, the two brazen women and their off-white friend who follows them everywhere. I certainly don’t have to tan. I’m already dark enough, and anyway it’s too nice here. When they proposed this trip to me, I didn’t want to accept. I wasn’t studying a lick of Arabic anymore. They’ll surely shoot me down. I might get rejected, but the idea of giving up doesn’t sit well with me. I wouldn’t want to be worse than Benjamin, the Aryan German. His enunciation is shit. At least I know how to say the ‘ayn divinely. That’s why I wanted to lock myself in the hostel, alone with the Veccia Vaglieri grammar book. But Mar insisted. A stubborn half-black girl. And here I am, towed along by the might of a mother and her daughter to Mahdia, this oasis of silence.
It’s awesome here, I must admit. I like Mahdia. I’m glad I was dragged along. The driveling vendors are the only downside. They eat you up if you ask them anything. The fat woman tells me the guys are from Tunis, they aren’t from around here. But everyone is from around here, I say, even those guys. If you live here somewhere, you’re ultimately a part of it.
Mahdia is entirely pastel. Dainty. Nu baba. Open-air cafes, provisional markets, the blended smells of jasmine and fish. The sea salt permeates you, and for a moment you have the luxury of thinking about nothing, simply feeling your body. You feel your whole body in Mahdia. You like it, too. I like myself here. I have time for myself in Mahdia. I’m not like those vendors. I don’t run around in Mahdia. I don’t get stressed. I don’t get angry. I don’t take the Lord’s name in vain. In Mahdia, people sit down and wait. When I saw this cemetery I said to myself, “Now I’m going to settle down here, I’m going to wait too.” For what? I don’t know. An epiphany. My own self. It’s beau
tiful here, a cemetery on the sea, tombs which look out at the water. They’re facing Mecca. The sea is inside them. Leaving the most beautiful spot to the dead is a treat.
Miranda and Mar are about to tan and talk. Mother and daughter. I envy them. I want to be here with my Maryam Laamane. Maryam is a beautiful woman. When I get back I want to tell her. Mom, I want to tell you that you’re gorgeous. You have great boobs, Ma, and a nice ass too. I only got the ass from you. It’s round, compact. I guess my tits could’ve been a little less surreal-looking. Mom has perfect tits, though. I’ll tell her when I get back to Rome. Now I’m thinking about Howa Rosario. I can’t believe she’s dead. She won’t shake that perfumed rosary of hers anymore. They would’ve buried her in Prima Porta. There’s a lot of greenery there. I don’t know if it’s pretty. Howa wanted to be buried at Sheikh Sufi in Mogadishu, where the tombs are blue, but she ended up in Prima Porta. I missed her funeral. Mom says it was “typical,” that Somali funerals are always “typical.” You can never tell if people are actually sad. They never want to be seen crying. They have to come to terms with nature, Mom says, so they lock themselves in the bathroom to cry and act strong in public. To dull the pain, they tell stories, about death, about their tribes, or they mention the tales he or she told when they were alive. Men pig out at funerals. Mufo is never lacking, nor a good hot tea. And of course there are pots of beans and roasted coffee. The men stick everything in their giant mouths without thinking twice. The women, on the other hand, cook. They work so that they won’t linger on tragedy and so their cries stay at a red light. Each one in solitude chooses her response to pain.
I once saw Somalis cry. I saw them cry together. A scene that hit home. I had just left Libla. I’d changed places with another stocker like me, Iris. I ran through the city center. Arriving stunned at Campidoglio, I couldn’t catch my breath. I immediately started crying like everyone else. I had been overwhelmed by irrepressible suffering. It was the tacsi, the funeral. The mayor was officiating. Rome wanted to salute the bodies that didn’t make it over to walk its ancient streets. Thirteen coffins in the middle of the piazza. Thirteen anonymous Somali corpses shut inside. All of them adventurous boys who had tried reaching the dream of a better life in a shabby dinghy. All of them dead without seeing that much yearned-for Lampedusa up close. The coffins were a concession to the West. Tradition entails that we bury them like Jesus Christ, like Karim, in shrouds. We are Christs, not chicken feed. The coffins in the piazza were draped with Somali flags. The flag’s star struck me that day. How much have you suffered, my star? Everyone cried. There was no food. Just coffins and flags, the mayor and speeches, women beating their chests. The urge to vomit momentarily returned, but I didn’t do it. I looked at the star and didn’t do it.
I cried for Howa Rosario. Howa was my friend. Uncompromising on many things, but still my friend. For instance, she didn’t like men, but she knew I liked them and tried showing it to me in her own way. Once, when my mom wasn’t at home and we all lived together, I hung a picture of Tom Cruise from Top Gun in my room. Howa, I remember, looked at him askew and said, “khaniis,” which means “fag.” I whined. Tom wasn’t a fag. He got loads of women and one day soon he would marry me too. We’d take a nice trip to the Maldives and have many little children, at least eight. Howa was unmoving. “Khaniis.” Gay people were okay in her eyes, she just didn’t want me falling in love with one of them. “You have to face the facts, sooner or later. You can’t just fall in love with gays and impotents. Take that poster down.” I took it down for five days before hanging it again. From there, I believe, my love life began swerving dangerously toward chastity. That’s also why I’m among the tombs, to ponder how not to be a virgin anymore. Am I? Technically not. That is, my hymen is broken. But I am a virgin, of course. I never made love to anyone. Something went in my vagina, yes, but I swear I’m a virgin, wallahi. In my mind, the hymen is intact. I’ve never made love. It’s not that I didn’t want to, even after all the unwelcome intrusions. I grew up and began feeling desire. But I’d missed the train. I didn’t know the ABCs of love. What they say about the ABCs is a scam. You have to know them if you want to fall in love and receive it in return. They explain what to say and what not to say, moves to make and not to make, how to move your mouth to say, “I want you,” and how to move it to say, “Back off, you piece of shit.” They also explain how to stand or sit. You’ll notice trash that isn’t trash and advances that aren’t advances. They even explain how to handle telephone calls: him first or her? There’s a heterosexual and homosexual version for every piece of advice. Tips on texts and dates. How to give kisses. How to caress. When to undress. When to say, “I love you,” “I like you,” “You drive me crazy.” Everything on orgasms, on the G, W, X, Y, and Z spots. Everything on pleasure. Mine, yours, and ours. They explain how to feel free, how to believe. I lost my copy of the ABCs. Now, page by page, I’m copying other people’s versions. I copy from glances cast on the street, words whispered in subway cars. I copy the pages and at night commit them to memory.
Howa lost her ABCs, too. She told me one night. She’d suffered the same intrusions, the same violations. “Do all of us Somali women have this bad luck?” I asked her. “It happens to many women,” she said. “All over the world.” Her mouth warped strangely when she said “world.” It was a global misfortune and she thought it unjust.
I’m sitting among the tombs. It’s peaceful here. Saalam, Shalom. Lovely peace. A slight wind blows from the east and the sea expands my soul. The chubby lady isn’t there anymore. No one speaks to me about Karim’s confetti. I’m sitting beside a tomb covered with pebbles. This person was loved. Everyone who walks by leaves a pebble.
In this country, in this language, you love in one hundred ways. Hubb is the word they use the most, the one they teach to us foreigners. But there are one hundred ways to love, the woman told me before leaving. One hundred ways to suffer. To hope. Wasab, passionate love, hiyam, limitless love, lahf, painful love. Arabic is a methodical language, which is why I like it so much. It is a language that, through wrought-iron grammatical structures, can fully photograph the reality that surrounds us and allow infinite possibilities of crossing gazes. With the alphabet, it photographs the moment of an encounter, the scent of a desire.
I try reading the name of the pebble-covered tomb’s owner. The name is written in rough Arabic characters. A lopsided cursive, not those clear, round shapes in the grammar books. I only recognize the first letter, a meem, which you read like the M in Italian. The meem didn’t solve the tomb’s riddle for me. Man? Woman? Young? Old? Probably a child. I make conjectures, but it remains an anonymous tomb. I’m sitting next to it by chance. That’s always how it is. My attention rests on the pebbles. Some are strangely shaped and maybe that’s why I sat here. Despite the lack of information about the tomb, its owner, and the pebbles, there’s something I know without really knowing it. The tomb belonged to someone who left a mark. There is a halo of encompassing love which it is impossible not to see. I want to leave the same trace here, but not in the distant future. Here, now, right away. The same contrails of love.
I still can’t see inside this contrail. When I think about it, fear consumes me. Fear of being able to see, of not being able to. Of being happy, of not enduring the pain. Fear, fear, fear, and more fear. I exist without living. This is why I don’t taste the flavors of kisses, this is why I don’t feel the beating of my heart, this is why I still have panic attacks. Fear blocks each of my senses before I can activate them. I’m like one of my colleagues I met years ago, as I was plodding from one precarious job to another. He joylessly cheated death with quick flings. He was cruel with the women. He drowned them in poisonous liquids and uneasiness. He amassed one after another, like the colorful marbles that every child loves playing with. He never tasted these women’s flavors. He spoke with me about it, though. I wasn’t his type. He didn’t play seducer with me. He treated me like a man sometimes. Did he understand before I did that we were suff
ering from the same illness?
My colleague had a glut of possessions: a house in the city, one in the countryside that he boasted about quite a bit, a dog he hated, two children he spoiled, a lackluster wife who drove him crazy, and many ideas that people mistook for geniality. On closer inspection, you saw that he didn’t have anything. He had only a horrid life typical of the Muccinian bourgeois. He had big beautiful eyes, though. One thought they could contain the world. But they were a bluff. A cataract of fear blocked his view and maybe his veins as well. The fear made him craven.
The Buddhists say that we have room to contain pain. Every human being has places for the greatest pain, the one that blind-sides us. But no space exists for fear.
I think of my colleague again. I haven’t seen him in years. I wonder if he killed his dog, if he’s still a coward. He told me that sooner or later he’d wring the dog’s neck. “People suffocate me,” he said, “and the dog more than any of them. It’s another thing I have to take care of.” But it was the fear he had to kill. Poor dog…
Perhaps I should also kill my fear. I have to do it with my own two hands. They’ll change things, I feel it, my hands will give and receive, give and receive, constantly moving. Kind of like in that old Ben Harper song, Now I can change the world with my own two hands, make it a better place with my own two hands. Sometimes I forget I have so much strength inside, and hope, and happiness. I forget that man conquers everything with his intellect and with his own will. We conquer with our own two hands. My Somali women can change their own futures with their own two hands. They will do it, I know they will.
By all appearances, they have nothing. They don’t have clitorises. They don’t have Mogadishu. They don’t have peace. They don’t have… Maryam Laamane has me, though. I love her. I love you, you know that, Maryam Laamane? I think of you. Do you think of me? And when the pilgrim arrives, Mom, you’ll tell me whether he’s the one or whether I’ll have to wait for someone better. I don’t want to be afraid anymore.