They came upon crows partaking of a spread of carrion. Three or four of these grotesque birds separated themselves from their colleagues and caught up with Shanta and Jeebleh in their leisurely walk. Bolder than he remembered them, the crows scoured the road ahead, hopping forward, then slowing down, like dogs on an afternoon stroll with their masters. The crows could equally have been bodyguards, assigned to escort dignitaries across a dangerous terrain. Shanta strode ahead as if unaware of the birds’ presence, even when they flew into the air, in an attempt to keep pace, and croaked reproachfully overhead. They might have been hungry children urging their parents to take them home and feed them.
Jeebleh and Shanta came to a locked gate. Shanta bent down and worried a stone out of its position in a nearby wall. Her hand came away, palm up, maybe to show she had no key in it. The gate opened. Jeebleh recalled how often the city’s residents had to fall back on their own ingenuity. How on earth do you open an automatic gate when electricity is intermittent? People had to find inventive ways of activating electric gates manually, and find them they did. On closer scrutiny, he saw that Shanta had pulled at a string hidden in the wall, to release the gate. There!
She let him go past and pushed the gate shut, then slid the bolt up into the metal frame. As they went on, past what had been the front garden of a two-story house, his sixth sense told him that someone was pointing a gun from the upper floor. He was beginning to feel unsteady in the knees, when he saw a small boy training a toy gun on him. Did the boy belong in the house, and if so, who was he? Was he a squatter, a dangerous species camping in a redoubt? He followed Shanta into the living room, and remained standing and looking around.
“Tea?” she asked.
“Without sugar, please.”
She suggested that he sit in the chair she indicated, and went to prepare tea. He made himself comfortable and took in the contents of the living room. He guessed that a child had occupied the center stage of life in the house, a child whose presence determined the shape of things in it. But the toys were all pushed out of the way into a corner, treated without much regard, abandoned. They made Jeebleh think of the provisional nature of a child’s play left unfinished, after the flagrant defilement of peace.
He couldn’t tell from the contents of the house whether its original occupants had fled before their lives were cut short. From all indications, though, the place had been home to people of different ages, backgrounds, and professional interests, at different times. He deduced this from the titles of the books on the shelves, books now in disorder. One of the former occupants might have been an architect, another a nurse. Several others, younger in age, must have been high school students, some at the Egyptian secondary school, some at the Italian liceo classico, others at Benaadir, where the medium of instruction was English — in short, a house of polyglots.
“Here we are,” Shanta said, “tea and nibbles!”
20
“LITTLE RAASTA FELT SHE FIGURED OUT FOR HERSELF WHAT MARRIAGE IS like, when she was only four,” said Shanta — given name Shan-Karoon, meaning “better than any five girls anywhere”—her voice drenched with emotion.
She faced him with the demure posture of a woman entertaining a potential in-law. Why was she ill at ease? Her clothes weren’t a mess. In fact, she was smartly dressed. All the same, there was something about her that disturbed him. But he couldn’t say what.
She would have been much younger when he was bundled out of the country. For all he knew, a lot of terrible things about which she spoke to no one, not even Bile, might have happened to her. He was on edge, like a man daring to stand on wet soap. He asked, “How did Raasta manage that?”
“You would know if you’d met her,” she said.
“But I haven’t!” He gave her a sharp glance, and the wells of her eyes filled with tears. He couldn’t tell how she managed to contain them precisely where she liked them, brimming on her lashes. He insisted: “In what way did Raasta work out what marriage is like, at the age of four?”
Like a bird feeding, Shanta moved her lips soundlessly. He sensed then that talking to her would to be an undertaking that needed special skills. She was likely to be evasive when it came to Faahiye, and might be given to improvising or making up stories too. He wouldn’t put it past her to make unsubstantiated innuendos, as many spouses might, when, in self-justification, they talked about their partners. She had trained as a lawyer, and joined the law firm set up together with several colleagues, including Faahiye. She had practiced her profession until the country collapsed into total lawlessness.
Now she spoke when he least expected her to, and, instead of answering his question, changed the subject: “Bless the house that our mothers built. Please accept my condolences over the death of our mothers.”
“Would you know how to locate Mother’s grave?”
“I’m sure I would,” she said.
But he was not one hundred percent certain she had understood that he was referring to his mother, not hers, and was sorry that he had not been clearer. He waited for her to speak; he didn’t wish to be the one to draw attention to this lapse.
Obliging, she indicated that she had gotten his meaning. “I planted two trees at our mothers’ graves,” she said. “For the unparalleled sweetness of its fruit, I planted a mango tree of the Hinducini variety, imported from India, at your mother’s grave, and a lemon tree at my mother’s. I also placed four medium-to-large stones with your mother’s name written on them. I haven’t been to her grave — or my mother’s — for quite some time, but if I put my mind to it, I am quite sure I’ll find it, no problem at all. We can ask Dajaal to take us there, if you want me to come. He’s useful in that department, and can find anything.”
“You wouldn’t know how to find her housekeeper?”
“Why do you want to find her?”
“Because I would like to know all I can about the old woman’s last days,” he said. “It is important that I talk to her. I have a number of questions that only she might be in a position to answer.”
“I’m afraid I’ve no idea where she might be.”
It was his turn to commiserate with her over the disappearance of Raasta and her companion. And because she snuffled, he felt shut out by the new circle that she now drew around herself. He was relieved that she knew how to locate his mother’s grave if all else failed, and sorry he couldn’t share all he had been told about Raasta’s possible abductors. He intended to talk to her about his plans for his mother: to construct a noble memory for her in some way, gather a few sheikhs to speak words of blessing in remembrance of her — and of Shanta’s mother too. He knew he had to wait until it was appropriate to bring up these matters, trifles in comparison to what Shanta was going through. He hoped there was time yet for his priorities.
She spoke fast, as though she had a dog at her heels, chasing her. “One way of putting it is that I’ve lived in a dark house, with the blinds drawn, and where the air is sour, and where I am alone, even though I haven’t chosen to live by myself. I live in hope, though. I say to myself every hour that one day my daughter will be back, she who worked out for herself what marriage is like, at the age of four, and said so to me.”