Bile now asked Jeebleh, “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, I did. I dreamt too.”
“Do you feel like sharing your dream?”
“I saw a one-eyed, five-headed, seven-armed figure,” Jeebleh told him. “Maybe you’ll help me interpret it, the way you used to.”
“Was the one-eyed figure with multiple heads dancing?”
“Yes.”
“Were there voices in the background chanting narrative sequences to the tale being mimed?”
“How have you worked out all this?”
“Just answer my question.”
“Yes.”
“And was the movement of the figure with the multiple heads extravagant, the gestures now rapid, now deliberately slow, and were the index finger and the thumb held away from the rest of the body, and the arms of the dancer shaped into a wide circle?”
“Yes again.”
Silence settled on Jeebleh, as if permanently. He remembered the calmness as he watched the figure dancing, and saw several faces known to him. He was sorry he couldn’t put any names to the faces — maybe they were from an earlier life, now forgotten.
“Was the figure garlanded and in costume?”
“Y-e-s!”
“Hindu deities have a way of presenting themselves in movement,” Bile said, “some boasting an enormous headgear and the costume to go with it, others arriving while riding a rat. I’m thinking of Ganesh, whose intercession is sought whenever a Hindu embarks on a journey or an enterprise, whose potbellied image, with an elephant trunk and tusks and shiny countenance, is paramount at the entrance to a great number of temples.” Bile rubbed his palms together excitedly and asked with a grin, “Was there a peacock?”
“There was a peahen!”
“Not a peacock?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because you saw Mira in your dream — a peahen!”
“Mira?”
“Miss Mira Meerut,” Bile said. “Our — that’s to say, Seamus’s — Mira from the city of Meerut, India, possibly the most beautiful woman to join our tables in Padua. She was in love with Seamus.”
Jeebleh’s ears throbbed, the skin tightening, the rhythm unnerving, his heart beating faster and faster. “Mira wasn’t from India,” he corrected. “She was of Indian origin, all right, but she was from Burma.”
Bile agreed that she may have been traveling on a Burmese passport when they met her, but she was from southern India, culturally speaking. Her parents had migrated from Gujarat, in western India.
“She was the one who brought along a couple of exquisite woodcarvings,” Jeebleh said. “I remember those.”
“That’s right,” Bile confirmed. “She was besotted with Seamus, who, in turn, was besotted with the carvings. The figure he fell for was caught in the process of movement. Such a vivid rhythm, I recall. We had it on our mantelpiece in the apartment in Padua.”
“I remember that there were carvings,” Jeebleh said, “but my memory of that particular carving is vague.”
“She was a beauty,” Bile said. “She wore peacock feathers and what a train of sari colors, of a silk I’ve never seen anywhere else. I was smitten with her too, but I dared not speak of it. She was breathtakingly beautiful, irresistibly charming, her almond eyes exceptionally large and in constant motion. I can’t believe you don’t remember her. Miss Mira Meerut moved about with a large following of admirers. She was like a peacock with a harem of peahens. Until she met Seamus.”
Mira’s father, Bile related, was a diplomat based in Rome — or was he with a UN agency? In addition to her striking beauty, she was also a first-class brain. She was ready for her finals, when her parents made her withdraw from the university because she was pregnant. Bile took this personally, because he was the only person in whom Seamus had confided that he was the baby’s father. To intercede on her behalf, and ask that she be allowed at least to take her finals, Bile presented himself at Mira’s parents’ apartment. An Italian woman opened the door when he rang the bell, and told him she was the new tenant. Bile learned that Mira and her parents had left the country, precise date unknown. He found this difficult to believe, and he walked from room to room in the apartment, hoping that somehow he would find Mira or her parents. The only trace of her he discovered was a drawing of a peacock in green-and-blue blossom, with a cropped tail. Bile took ill, and barely passed his exams that year. “And guess what?” Bile asked.
“What?”
Bile faltered as he spoke. “Mira Meerut was here in Mogadiscio less than two years ago, as a UNICEF consultant. She was the mother of two children, and the happy wife of a man several years her junior, an American. She was stunningly pretty, but not as free-spirited and wide-eyed with wonder as when we met her. She had resigned herself to being the ordinary wife of an ordinary American financier, on whom she doted. And when she and Seamus met, they had a ball remembering the good times, and even enjoyed recalling the bad times, the very depressing moments. But she wasn’t at all pleased to learn from Seamus that he had left the woodcarving in storage in New York, and didn’t take it along everywhere he went.”
“How fortunate that her tour of duty here coincided with Seamus’s presence,” Jeebleh said. “I bet it was wonderful for you to see a train of saris and to relive the past.”
“She was deeply hurt, though.”
“And she didn’t hide it?”
Bile shook his head no.
“How did you figure out my dream?”
Bile said, “You may not have remembered it for what it was, because there’s a photograph of Mira, taken by Seamus, on the wall in Raasta’s room. You probably saw it before you fell asleep, and the image of this stunning woman in motion insinuated itself into your dream. She still loves Seamus!”
“It is possible that my deep unconscious also became aware of Seamus’s presence in the apartment. Maybe the dream is in part a recognition of his arrival, a welcome event.”
And suddenly Seamus was there: in full flesh, grinning.
18
JEEBLEH’S EYES WERE TOUCHED WITH A SMILE THAT SPREAD SIDEWAYS to his cheeks and down to his chin. Seamus’s eyes, like a falcon’s, were a dark brown, the pupils hardly visible.
Jeebleh held his breath in suspense, waiting to hear which language Seamus would speak. When they met last, in Padua, they used Italian. Would Seamus, knowing that Jeebleh had now lived in the United States for close to twenty years, choose English? In those long-gone days in Italy, the world had been in flux, but now things were very different, and they were meeting in Mogadiscio; both were keenly aware of this.
“We’re all jumpy, aren’t we?” Seamus had chosen English.
Jeebleh guessed from his tone of voice that Seamus would not lapse into some piss-elegant Irish English as he used to. He had lived in England during his teens, then had gone on to Cambridge, where he had taken his first degree. And he had spent time in Italy, France, and Egypt.
“Understandably jumpy,” Jeebleh agreed.
Seamus came closer and said, “Never you mind, we’ll sort it out.” He opened his arms wide. “But let me give you a good, warm welcome hug to comfort you!”