Then she loses sight of the car as she passes to yet another cubicle, where yet another blue-clad officer asks for her name and then slides her document out of a pile. He checks that her passport photograph matches her face. Bella is aware that she seldom looks like her official photograph, which tends, like everyone else’s, to look like a mug shot. But she seems to pass muster, and he gestures for the form. Now a young woman asks her to look into a lens, and then she is fingerprinted.
“There is one more hurdle,” the blue-clad man standing outside the second gate tells her. He directs her to walk through a body scanner after putting her shoes, her belt, jewelry, and mobile phone in a bin, just like at an airport. And just like at an airport, she is admonished to take out any laptops and liquids and put them on the conveyor belt as well.
Bella is relieved to see that Aar’s car has made it through as well. “Triumph!” she says to herself. After the scanner, a woman administers a thorough body frisk, pointing out to Bella that she must open her fists. “You are an adult,” she chides Bella, “not a baby. What are you holding?”
Bella is about to say, “Nothing,” when to her great surprise, she discovers that she is, in fact, holding something — the card given to her by the stranger with the exquisite shoes. “Kenneth Kiplagat,” she makes out, the card still in the tight grasp of her hand, as if she is loath to let go of it. Then she relinquishes the card and the female guard, who puts it through the scanner, says, “Just in case,” before she completes her pat down.
Bella retrieves the card and puts it in her wallet. Then she gets back in her car and drives the hundred and fifty meters or so to the visitors’ lot. She waits there until it is time for her appointment, preparing herself mentally as best she can. Then she steps out of the car, pulls herself together the same way she has seen gymnasts and other Olympic athletes do just before they compete — puffing out their chests, pumping the air, and mouthing silent encouragement to themselves. “Coraggio,” she says to herself. Then she walks into the building.
The receptionist says immediately, “Our commiserations, Bella. We all loved your brother, and we will be missing him. He was a gentle soul, genuinely friendly and good at heart.”
Bella feels the tears beginning again; it is only natural, she thinks. But she is grateful when a second woman says to her in a businesslike way, “Gunilla is waiting. Immaculata will come down to escort you to her office shortly. Please take a seat and wait for her here.”
Bella does as she is told, wondering whether the receptionists have been rehearsing these speeches the entire time she has been standing in the queue. Immaculata, she muses, what a name.
—
Bella follows Immaculata, high heels clicking, tight miniskirt hugging her knees and high bum, into the elevator and down the hall. She remembers wearing and loving miniskirts as a long-legged young girl in the Somalia of her day, but alas no longer. Not only because a woman her age isn’t expected to show off her wares, but also because Somalia has fallen victim to the terrorizing dictates of religionist renegades, and her beloved Mogadiscio is no longer a cosmopolitan city. Lately, “secularist,” once a term of approbation, has become a dirty word. Somali society has taken a giant step backward, not only as a consequence of the long-running civil war but also because it lags far behind most other countries in education and the other parameters that measure social progress.
“Are you a good Catholic girl?” Bella asks Immaculata.
“I never miss Sunday mass,” the younger woman answers, but something about her expression encourages Bella to say, “I suppose you are regular about your weekly confessions as well?”
“Are you Catholic?” Immaculata asks. Now that they are walking side by side, Bella can see that Immaculata is heavier than she thought and that her skin is not very good. Her hair has been lengthened with extensions, which don’t seem to agree with the dryness of the air-conditioning.
“I was brought up a Muslim,” Bella says.
“I wouldn’t have thought so, looking at you. You’re not wearing body armor.”
Bella thinks that such exchanges are getting boring, and she is tired of explaining. But Immaculata persists.
“Where were you born and brought up, really?” she asks.
“Mogadiscio, Somalia,” Bella says.
“You are teasing me.”
“I am not.”
Immaculata says, “We have Somalis everywhere in our country, millions of them in refugee camps, and they’ve also taken over parts of our country. Have you been to Eastleigh? You don’t look like them — you have beautiful skin, too light for a Somali. Nor do you carry yourself like them, walk like them, or behave like them.”
“How do they behave?” Bella says.
“They are full of themselves, madam,” says Immaculata.
Bella does not wish to get into an argument with anyone, here above all, but it disturbs her to let a half-truth go uncorrected. Kenyan Somalis, who account for nearly six percent of this country’s population, have remained third-class citizens here, disenfranchised and marginalized. If they behave badly, that is undoubtedly in part a result of their poor treatment by other Kenyans. But the refugees in the camps are recent arrivals from Somalia, driven out by the collapse of their government. But what is the point of trying to correct this woman?
“Guns, lawlessness, and daily murders of their kith and kin, you name it,” Immaculata says. “They’ve brought guns into our country across the border. They bomb our churches and they bomb their mosques. But of course, you are not like them. And I’m told that Aar, your brother, was such a gentle soul.”
“He was,” says Bella.
“Thankfully, there are several battalions of the Kenyan Defense Force currently stationed in Somalia to bring order to your country,” Immaculata says.
At this, Bella has to respond. “Have you ever had occasion to meet or speak to a Somali other than me?” she asks.
“Never,” Immaculata says.
“Why not?”
“They’re too arrogant to talk to the likes of me, a tea girl,” Immaculata says.
She stops before a closed door, on which she taps. They wait, and then a woman’s voice says, “Come in.” Immaculata steps aside deferentially and Bella hesitates, then goes in.
A well-built woman of Viking stock, big boned and blue-eyed, gets to her feet, smiling. She waits with her hand extended while Bella makes her way around a huge escritoire. Gunilla Johansson’s grip is firm, her self-confidence immense. There are elements of generosity and joy on her face as she and Bella shake hands, then hug and let go. “Welcome,” she says.
The desk is cleared of everything but a couple of files. Bella wonders if it is always this way or if Gunilla has prepared it so for this encounter. Were the circumstances different, she would describe the encounter as a joy, she senses — but tragedy has removed such a word from her current vocabulary. And it would be in her character to be a lot warmer to Gunilla as her potential in-law, which, sadly, did not come to be.
“Thanks for making the time to see me,” Bella says. “And before I forget it, I must thank you for the help you’ve provided in having Valerie and Padmini released from their lockup in Uganda. I very much appreciate your sense of discretion in such a delicate matter. Thanks to you, Valerie and Padmini are now in Nairobi, but they are none the wiser about your invaluable contribution. All because of your friendship with Aar, who was most dear to us all.”
At that, Gunilla’s eyes well with emotion. She takes half a step back, saying, “Sorry,” then reaches for the box of tissues. She pulls out a couple and then touches them gently to just below her eyes, blotting carefully so that her makeup remains unaffected. Bella can’t help thinking that Gunilla has practiced this move countless times — maybe with Aar nearby, watching, overseeing.