“Nothing will give me more pleasure,” Cambara says, “given the opportunity and provided that we succeed in achieving our aims.”
Kiin does the high five, saying, “That’s great.”
Chuffed, Cambara says breatlessly, “Thanks.” This is her dream project.
In the silence, Cambara puckers her forehead, the wrinkles calling Kiin’s attention to the unwashed sweat resulting from Cambara’s strenuous workout a few minutes earlier.
“So tell me all,” says Kiin in an exhausted afternoon-without-siesta voice. “Where have you been to? And have you achieved your purpose?”
Cambara replies with sangfroid, never letting on that she has rehearsed her responses to the possible questions that Kiin might put to her at the first opportunity. She tells her everything with the judicious shrewdness of a culprit placing herself at a remove from a misdeed without insisting on the primacy of her innocence.
“Who is Jiijo to you?”
Cambara grows restive before asking Kiin, “Do you know Jiijo?”
Kiin’s reply that she does not know her makes Cambara puzzle over her meaning. Neither speaks for a long time.
“Your escorts have chatted to her.”
Not that Cambara is aware that they and Jiijo have exchanged a single word. Perhaps they sneaked in and had a word with her when she was showing the plumber the toilets and the bathrooms upstairs.
“What has she told them?”
With the prospect of receiving an answer to her question coming to nought, Cambara realizes that Kiin is probably showing her that she too can hold back as much valuable information as Cambara has withheld from her. Is this a token of the challenging times, when no one trusts another enough to share a bit of news that is essential to both?
“What about Gudcur?” Kiin asks.
“What about him?”
Kiin says, “Tell me why you are interested in the property that he has occupied for a very long time and that he uses as his ‘family’ home. Apart from the fact that it is yours. That goes without saying.”
Then she trains her inhospitable look on Cambara, into whose eyes she stares, drilling deep into an area no one has ever reached. Kiin’s otherworldly glare puts the fear of the devil into her. This, together with the expectant silence and her restlessness, startles Cambara. When Kiin prods her with more questions, formulating them differently but essentially keeping to the same format, Cambara sits up as if a sharp metal object has pricked her; she wears the pained expression of someone who has no idea what is happening to her.
Then she tells Kiin everything, beginning with her son’s death, the irreconcilable fissure between her and Wardi. Cambara informs how the rift led her to leave and come to Mogadiscio, in the belief that mourning her loss will make a clement sense only if she involves herself at the same time in repairing her relationship with the country, to whose well-being she has never contributed in any direct way.
“How do you intend to go about mending the rapport?” Kiin asks.
Cambara responds that there are two sides to her endeavor, both personal. Even though she hopes that she can achieve the recovery of her family’s property, which she has planned to do all on her own without involving others directly, the truth is she has dragged others into it.
“Remind me something, please do,” Kiin requests, and she hitches up her head scarf, tucking back in a lock of hair that has come undone. “How advanced is Jiijo’s pregnancy?”
“Eight months plus.”
“Let me get this right,” Kiin goes on. “You say that the children have been sent away for their safety and that she, Jiijo, is alone in the house, as we speak, because Gudcur is engaged in the street-by-street battle to recover the territory he has lost?”
“So far as I am aware of the situation, yes.”
She watches, with eagerness, as Kiin turns an idea over in her head, silent. Cambara suspects Kiin of entertaining a daring thought, and wonders if or when her newfound friend might share her conclusions once she has drawn them.
“What’s on your mind?” Cambara asks.
Kiin looks away and up at the ceiling, as if the boards might reveal some secret message to her. Then, nodding in the gesture of someone who has finally unraveled a mystery, she pulls out her mobile, punches in a number, and waits for a long time. When the phone is answered, Kiin asks of the person with the shrill voice, “Where are you, Farxia dear, and how busy are you?”
Kiin has put the phone on a speaker system, allowing Cambara to listen in. She explains, in a whispered aside, that she is talking to Farxia, a medical doctor at a clinic who is closing for the day. Farxia asks Kiin if there is an emergency and if her presence at the hotel is of immediate necessity. In reply, Kiin says that everything is okay with her, with Cambara too. At first, Kiin is hesitant, as if she has changed her mind about sharing whatever it is that has been bothering her and then tries lamely to assure Farxia that “things are all right, actually.”
Farxia, her voice more high-pitched than before, says, “I doubt if whatever has made you call me on the emergency line can wait, even though things are all right, actually.”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow evening,” Kiin says.
“I urge you not to postpone talking to me until tomorrow,” Farxia says. “So talk and talk now.”
At Farxia’s insistence, Kiin, who thinks aloud, most likely for Cambara’s benefit, wonders whether the esteemed doctor will accommodate a daring thought. Kiin takes a long time to discuss what is on her mind, even though Cambara believes that, whatever it is, no one will suspect Kiin of taking leave of her senses.
“Don’t play hard to get, Kiin.”
“I am not.”
“Then come clean, and fast,” commands Farxia.
Kiin obliges, saying, “Do you or one of your junior colleagues at the clinic have time to make a home visit?”
“Right away?”
“Better still,” Kiin says, the tone of her voice suggesting someone thinking on her feet, quick, capable of improving on ideas that are even more daring. “Do you have an ambulance and staff to help fetch a heavily pregnant woman and take her to your clinic?”
“Where is the pregnant woman?”
Kiin then suggests that Farxia wait at the clinic for her driver to come with a note from her, giving the pregnant woman’s name and details. The driver will lead the ambulance to the house where the said woman is.
“Will do,” Farxia says.
Cambara cannot help being impressed with how fast Kiin has sunk the future of her entire life and business by taking the single most daring step: emptying the family house of the only remaining proof of Gudcur’s occupancy. When she thinks how she is beholden to Kiin for doing what she has done, she is at a loss for words. Nor will the damp stains silhouetted against the ceiling and from which Kiin received inspiration earlier give her counsel, telling her what to do.
“One dealt with,” Kiin says, “another to go.”
Something sets Cambara off, and, thinking ahead, she starts to wonder how sad she will be if things go wrong. After all, that means that she has endangered Kiin’s and her daughters’ lives, not to mention her hotel business, the lady doctor, whom she has not met, and her colleagues, staff, and clinic. She shakes, feeling as light as a leaf blowing in the sea breeze, with the tremor that has its beginning in worry.
“My second effort has to do with women, the theater, and an abiding commitment to peace,” Cambara says. “Let me affirm that I feel certain that with your assistance, I will not have any difficulty achieving the things I’ve set my mind to.”