“What about when you are with Raasta and Makka?”
Jeebleh felt uncomfortable, because Faahiye’s expression didn’t change at all, as if he didn’t even recognize the names of the girls. To interpret his interlocutor’s shiftiness, Jeebleh willed himself into becoming as humble and calm as the metallic silver of a mirror. This way he might make sense of the shadowy apparition moving at the deeper end of what was reflected in Faahiye’s features.
“You know it and so do I,” Faahiye said. “You become someone other than yourself when you spend many years in isolation, or live separated from those who mean a lot to you. You become someone other than yourself when you live together with your jailers, whom heaven wouldn’t admit into its courtyard, and whom hell wouldn’t deign to receive.”
“Why did you opt out?”
“I am sure you’ve heard the proverb that says that even a coward, alone and untested, thinks of himself as a brave man?”
“I know the proverb, all right,” Jeebleh said.
“I left because I thought I’d do better if I struck out on my own, away from the constraints of in-laws and so on. And because I didn’t like the false lives we lived.”
“False lives? What false lives, whose?”
“It would be unbecoming of me to name names.”
Faahiye beckoned to a waiter, who came and recited the menu of meats and pasta dishes. When he had taken Faahiye’s order, and it became obvious that Jeebleh didn’t want anything, the waiter relayed it at the top of his voice to the kitchen, about ten meters away, through an open hatch. Jeebleh drew comfort from the fact that he was meeting Faahiye in a restaurant filled with absolute strangers. Because no one there was carrying a gun — at least not openly — and no one appeared worried or frightened, Jeebleh remembered Mogadiscio as it used to be, peaceful. Not far from where they sat, several men were busy counting piles of Somali shillings, then handing them over to other men in exchange for U.S. dollars. Jeebleh guessed they were close to the Bakhaaraha market.
Faahiye continued talking. “Memory runs in awe of all that’s false, mean, and wicked. Myself, I’d ascribe my failure to adapt to life with Bile to the fact that before his arrival on the scene, Shanta and I had all the time we needed to construct a world out of dreams. I was, I must say, unprepared to live in an intimate way with Bile at the same time as having Raasta. It was all too much, too soon — I found it unhealthy, and contrived. Before his arrival, Shanta and I had dreamt dreams the size of a huge home with all its comforts, dreamt that we would enjoy our child’s love and companionship to the fullest extent. I had dreamt that I would relish being a father to Raasta, whom I hoped to rear on a diet of affection.
“We began our lives, Shanta and I, as a twosome, a loving couple, rarely raising our voices in anger at each other. We spent much of our time together, loving, bonded, tied to each other by the mutuality of our needs, the need to survive the war, which was then between the Dictator and the clan-based militias. Neither of us imagined life without the other. There was joy in our sharing of pure love, and we melted into each other. She was my barber, and devoted loving time to giving a smoother shape to my straggly toenails. I paid attention to all of her needs in every detail. We would shower together, soap each other’s bodies, and then make love.”
The waiter brought Faahiye his order, but wouldn’t go until he was paid in cash. Faahiye touched his pockets, then showed his palms, indicating that he had no money. Jeebleh offered to pay, but he had only dollars. “No problem,” the waiter assured him, and took the bill to the money changers nearby, who gave him Somali shillings.
Between mouthfuls, Faahiye continued to speak, saying that when Shanta became pregnant, both he and she felt that if she carried the pregnancy to term and gave birth to a healthy baby, then such an issue, given Shanta’s age, would be a miraculous one. “If only I could bid yesterday to return, and make it explain why Bile’s arrival changed everything, why I didn’t take to him, couldn’t stand him, and why he didn’t take to me and couldn’t stand me either. Perhaps it was because we lived on top of one another. Moreover, the civil war was entering a very tense new phase. Or maybe it was because he took over the running of our lives, ruining what prospects there were for Shanta and me to enjoy being parents to Raasta together — I don’t know!”
The noise of the teahouse ascended in cigarette smoke toward the low ceiling and then descended as an indecipherable din. The ceiling fans turned and turned, but didn’t produce cool air. Straining his neck, his eyes focused on the window farthest from him, Jeebleh saw a jalopy resembling Af-Laawe’s.
“Before Bile came, Shanta and I had lived in mutual dependence, to the exclusion of everyone else,” Faahiye said. “We both held the view that hell is a blood relation. Myself, I can take my blood relations only in small doses, never in concentrated form. We got together a year after her mother’s death, some time before yours passed away. She was a wonderful woman, your mother, God bless her soul, and I was very fond of her.”
Jeebleh was more moved to hear this than he might have expected.
“Your mother was the first to hear of our wish to marry, because Shanta treated her like a second mother. Sadly, we had very little time for anyone else, and we seldom visited her. But whenever we did, she was warm and caring. Her housekeeper was a brave woman, able to tell Caloosha off when he got out of line. She loved you, your mother, and had nothing but praise for what you stood for.”
Tears coming to his eyes, Jeebleh asked whether Faahiye had any idea how he could reach the housekeeper.
“I know where she is,” Faahiye said.
“Where?”
“She and I lived in adjacent rooms in the refugee camp in Mombasa. She was penniless, depressed, and lacking in energy. She came to life only when she was angry and cursed Caloosha, or was full of joy and praised your mother’s generosity of spirit — or yours!”
“When did you get back from Mombasa?”
“This morning.”
“Tell me more. Please.”
“I am not at liberty to do so,” Faahiye said.
“And why not?”
“This is too complicated to get into now.”
There was a long silence.
“Anyhow,” Faahiye said finally, “Bile came when Shanta had lain on her back for almost two days, in labor. We were cursing our misfortunes, to be bringing a baby into a world falling around our ears. The Dictator had fled, and many members of my own clan family had been rounded up and killed en masse. So bad was the rabble-rousing rhetoric that Shanta, between groans, kept suggesting that I leave, that maybe it wasn’t safe for me.
“Bile came. I’ve got to hand it to him, he knew what to do. He turned the baby to a position that would make for a healthy delivery. He delivered Shanta of a baby in a shorter time than it took him to decide whether to put aside the moral and psychological constraints of his medical ethics. Then he touched Raasta.”
“Touched Raasta?”
“He appropriated her soon after delivering her. I understand now that he touched her out of human tenderness, which he must have missed, given that he had spent many years in solitary confinement. Later, I noticed that she quieted down whenever he picked her up, whereas she was in great distress when I held her. Raasta was jinxed, I thought. Why, she’d make as if suckling at his breast. I went ballistic, and on the attack. I spoke of murder, and of robbery. I had the proof. Bile had arrived with a duffel bag full of money. Where had he gotten it? No one leaves prison with a duffel bag full of money. He gave me some incredible spiel about stumbing on the funds, but I wasn’t satisfied, and demanded proof of his innocence, which he couldn’t provide.”