“Tell me a little about Bosaaso,” he said.
“We’re thinking of getting married.”
“Is anything in the way?” Abshir asked, as if he wished to get it removed, whatever it was. They both thought about Shiriye, although neither invoked his accursed name.
“He proposed; I asked for time to think it over.”
“Are you still thinking? Or have you decided?”
“I’ve been turning it over and over in my mind, now the answer is yes, now no, although mostly it has been yes. I am very fond of him, love him actually in my own way,” she qualified. “He deserves better than I can offer to him. He is too trusting, he has no energy for fighting; I realise I am a bit of a handful.”
“I hope he is aware of what he is in for,” said Abshir with a smile.
“I’m sure he is.”
“He has been rather deferential to me, as in-laws are towards one another. And when we were in his car, taking him home, he suggested I drive. Bosaaso might have been a young man appearing in front of his prospective father-in-law.” Abshir stubbed out a cigarette, only to light another, and continued, “Love has a certain odour which is seldom smelt, only seen. I scented it on arrival and saw it again when I shook hands with him early this afternoon.”
“The reason I didn’t say yes when I could have was that I don’t want to give satanic tongues the opportunity to wag like a dog’s tail and say that I am marrying him for his money and American Green Card,” Duniya said.
“That’s why I spoke to Mataan in his presence, in a sense to assure Bosaaso that your children won’t be a financial burden on him. I will make that absolutely clear at the earliest opportunity Their education, here or abroad, preferably university studies abroad, all these are my responsibility The poor man has spent a quarter of his life raising other people’s offspring.”
Duniya uttered a chuckle, something between a whimper and a worried laugh, and then said, “Thank you.”
“Let it be understood this in no way should put pressure on you to decide either way You do what gives you pleasure. You marry if you want to, you don’t if you don’t wish to. Your destiny is in your hands. But the children’s school fees are my responsibility, and mine alone,” he said.
She choked on tears of her rejoicing and couldn’t speak for a long time. Finally, she said, “I’ve always wondered why it is that I’ve accepted all the gifts you’ve given me, when I fret if others come towards me intending to give me something. Can you tell me why?”
“Because when you were less than an hour old,” he answered, “and you refused to breast-feed and our mother was too unwell to take care of you, it was I who fed you the first drop of milk, a gift you wouldn’t take from anyone else, including our father, the midwife or other women of the neighbourhood.” He paused, placing a wedge of a cigarette between his lips, maybe so as not to smile.
“My first conscious moment when I received the first drop of life into my mouth is thirty-five years away,” she said, “I’ve been a mother three times, married twice, fallen in love once, or I believe I have. What is it that you have that others don’t? There must be something.”
“What about Qaasim: haven’t you been accepting to stay in his flat more or less rent free?” asked Abshir.
“Our deal had been based on an understanding, which got pulled down the instant a misunderstanding between me and his wife Muraayo occurred. That’s now over and I am moving out of his house and life too.”
“What about your relationship with Bosaaso?”
“He’s often been more of a recipient than a giver,” she said.
In the city centre, Abshir was reorienting himself, remembering sights he hadn’t seen for a quarter of a century; Duniya was staring at some of these because they had assumed a certain relevance, in that they reminded her of Bosaaso. Abshir was saying that little had changed since he last walked these streets, a taller building here, a semi-developed plot there, but the grid, pattern and mapping of Mogadiscio had stayed unaltered, especially in the centre. It still had its charm and attraction.
“The sea,” he said, “my love.”
She thought of Bosaaso, but didn’t say anything.
“I can smell it,” Abshir said.
Then his face was marked with gridded lines forming a smile. Did love reside in the odour of one? as Abshir had put it. Remembering the Italian film Profumo di Donna, Duniya was able to review her life between the blinking of an eye. Then she asked herself whether we wear perfumes to supplement or suppress natural body odours that betray our emotions.
Abshir parked opposite what had once been a fish market. The old post office was somewhere in the vicinity, he remembered. They walked up some steps, and turned left, and then down cobblestones eighty-odd years old, towards the ocean. They touched, they held hands as they strode together, silent.
They stood by the railing, which careless drivers had collided with a great many times, but which had never given way. She reminded herself to be carefuclass="underline" life was a driving-seat and accidents were blind curves, ambushing one. She cheered up, telling herself that dinner-time wasn’t that far off and they would all be there, Bosaaso included.
Abshir said, “But you haven’t told me how you’ve been?” And he lit a cigarette.
“It has been a long journey up and up and up, here,” Duniya said, “here, here I am, that is,” a pause as if to emphasize a point, “and there, down below, feels like way, way down, and the two stations are separated by a wide gulf, and I am senseless with giddiness whenever I examine how far up I have come, thanks to you, Abshir.”
“Come, come,” he said embarrassed, and wiped his face with a handkerchief. Silent, he waited. She went on, encouraged by his silence. “To know how I am and how I have fared, you must understand why I resist all kinds of domination, including that of being given something. As my epitaph I would like to have the following written: ‘Here lies Duniya who distrusted givers’.”
“I’ll say something, if I may,” said Abshir.
Duniya nodded.
“You are a woman and younger than me,” said Abshir, “I suppose these facts are central to our gift relationship, yours and mine.”
“And you give because you’re guilty?”
He answered in a round-about way, “If you were a boy, you wouldn’t have been married off to a man as old as your grandfather in the first place, and in the second, you might have got a scholarship to a university of your choice, because you were brilliant and ambitious. An injustice had been done. It has been my intention to right the wrong as best I could. I am sorry.”
He indicated that he was ready to go back. It took them a very short time to agree that they should first go to her place and drop her off. He would return to the flat in the city, shower and change, and then come to fetch them himself in Bosaaso’s car to go together to Croce del Sud for dinner.
Then they had time to talk about Gisela, Abshir’s wife, and the two daughters, Madalena and Annalisa. It was no secret that both girls hated Somalis, to whom they were rude on the phone. On occasion, they would even close the door in a caller’s face. But they had welcomed Duniya, when she had visited them, and they got on well. All the same Abshir couldn’t help mentioning his family’s growing suspicion that he was planning to buy property; and when they learnt that he had taken a few thousand dollars out of his bank account “as though he would acquire the whole country in one single stroke,” his daughters wept for hours on end and peace was made between them only when he promised he was returning to Rome after he had paid a visit to Duniya and their cousins.