He had been driven straight from the airport to prison. He was brought before a kangaroo court and sentenced to death. Several years later, he was mysteriously taken from the prison in a National Security vehicle and driven to the VIP lounge of the same airport, where he changed from his prison rags into a suit. He was handed a passport with a one-year Kenyan visa and put on a plane to Nairobi, all expenses paid. Someone whose name he could no longer remember suggested that he present himself at the U.S. embassy. There he was issued a multiple-entry visa for the United States. He still wondered who had done all this for him, and why.
Now, as he waited for Af-Laawe to return, he held the two contradictory images in his mind. In one, he was dressed in a suit, being roughly handcuffed and taken in a security vehicle, sirens blaring, straight to prison; in the other, he was in rags, being driven back to the airport, to be flown to Nairobi. In one, the officers escorting him to prison were crass; in the other, the officers were the epitome of courtesy. That’s dictatorship for you. This is civil war for you!
With every cell in his body responding to his restless caution, he wished he knew where danger lurked, who was a friend and who a foe. He had once been used to the arbitrariness of a dictatorial regime, where one might be thrown into detention on the basis of a rumor. That had been exchanged here for a cruder arbitrariness — a civil anarchy in which one might die at the hands of an armed youth because one belonged to a different clan family from his, if there was even that much reason.
Af-Laawe was back, telling him that his passport would be returned shortly, duly stamped. There was much charm to his lisp, as he commended Jeebleh for having surrendered the Somali document rather than the American one. Jeebleh couldn’t decide whether his self-appointed guide was a godsend or not. Nor could he decide whether the man had hidden motives.
“Any chance of a lift or a taxi?” Jeebleh asked.
“I’ve arranged that already.”
“I see no taxis anywhere.”
“Not to worry, you’ll get a lift,” Af-Laawe assured him.
“Tell me something about yourself in the meantime.”
“There’s very little to tell.”
“Then tell me what little there is.”
“I’m a friend of Bile’s,” Af-Laawe said.
“So it was he who sent you to meet my flight?”
“The pleasure of coming was entirely mine.”
Impressed with the man’s smooth talk, yet frightened by it too, Jeebleh wanted to know how Af-Laawe had managed to survive in this violated city, with his wit and his dignity — or at least his composure — intact. For all that, however, something didn’t add up. Af-Laawe reminded Jeebleh of an actor in a hand-me-down role for which he was ill suited.
“If you won’t tell me anything about yourself,” Jeebleh said, “maybe you can tell me more about Bile, whom I haven’t set eyes on for more than two decades.”
“Everything in due course, please,” the man responded.
Jeebleh wondered whether he should put Af-Laawe’s evasiveness down to discretion, or to the fact that he knew of the bad blood between Bile and Jeebleh, both personal and political, from long before. The bad blood had to do in large part with Bile’s being kept in prison, while Jeebleh had been released and mysteriously put on that plane. It was no surprise people believed that Jeebleh had betrayed the love and trust of his friend.
“Where does Bile live?” Jeebleh asked.
“In the south of the city.”
That Bile chose to base himself in the south of the divided metropolis did not surprise Jeebleh at all. His friend was of the same bloodline as StrongmanSouth, the warlord who ran the territory, supported by clan-based militiamen. Jeebleh was of StrongmanNorth’s clan, but he felt no clan-based loyalty himself — in fact, the whole idea revolted and angered him.
Jeebleh returned to the basics: “Will you help me find a hotel?”
Af-Laawe appeared discomfited. He looked around nervously, seemingly out of his depth, as put-upon as a babysitter asked to take on the responsibility of an absentee parent. Guessing that Af-Laawe knew more than he was prepared to let on, Jeebleh had the bizarre feeling that whoever had sent him had asked that he arrange a lift, but not book him into a hotel. Had Af-Laawe come under someone’s instructions, and if so, whose?
Now Af-Laawe was again conveniently wearing the confident look of a veteran guide, able to steer his charge through to safety. “We will have you taken to a hotel in the north, where we think you will feel safer! You see, in these troubled times, many people stay in the territories to which their clan families have ancestral claims, where they feel comfortable and can move about unhindered, unafraid. However, if you wish, we’ll have you moved eventually to the south, closer to Bile. Possibly Bile himself will invite you to share his apartment, who knows.”
Jeebleh took note of Af-Laawe’s use of “we,” but was unable to determine whether it was a gesture of amicability or whether someone else was involved in the arrangements being made for him. Was this “we” inclusive, in the sense that Af-Laawe was hinting that the two of them belonged to the same clan? Or did Af-Laawe’s “we” take other people into account, others known to be from the same blood community as Jeebleh? “What about Calooshii-Cune?” he asked.
Although Calooshii-Cune — Caloosha for short — was Bile’s elder half brother, he and Jeebleh were of the same clan. Curious how the clan system worked: that two half brothers sharing a mother, like Caloosha and Bile, were considered not to be of the same clan family, because they had different fathers, and that Jeebleh, Bile’s closest friend, was deemed to be related, in blood terms, more to Caloosha, because the two were descended from the same mythic ancestor. For much of the former Dictator’s reign, Caloosha had served as deputy director of the National Security Service. Many people believed that he had been responsible for Bile’s and Jeebleh’s imprisonment, for the death sentence passed on Jeebleh, and also for his eventual, mysterious release. Bile had remained in prison until the state collapsed, when the prison gates were finally flung open.
“Caloosha lives in the northern part of the city,” Af-Laawe said, “near the hotel you’ll be staying in. Say the word, and we’ll be only too pleased to take you to him, any day, anytime.”
Jeebleh was disturbed to learn about Af-Laawe’s intimacy with Caloosha, but wanted to wait until he knew more. “He is all right, Caloosha, is he?”
“He’s a stalwart politician in the north,” Af-Laawe answered, “and on the side acts as a security consultant to StrongmanNorth.”
Rumor mills are busiest, Jeebleh thought, when it comes to politicians with shady pasts. He had gathered, from talking to people and interesting himself in the affairs of the country, that many politicians with dubious connections to the Dictator had found safe havens in the territories where their clansmen formed the majority. The way things stood, Jeebleh should’ve expected that Caloosha would be chummy with StrongmanNorth, who would guarantee him immunity from prosecution for his political crimes. Of course, Jeebleh had no intention of looking Caloosha up, and he did mind staying in a hotel in the north of the city, close to this awful man’s residence. Yet who was he to raise objections about these things now?
“But staying in a hotel in the northern section of the city won’t prevent me from moving about freely, will it?” he asked.
“Crossing the green lines poses no danger to ordinary folks,” Af-Laawe replied. “Unarmed civilians and noncombatants seldom come to harm when crossing the green line. However, the warlords and their associates do not cross the line unless they are escorted by their armed guards.”