There was in our house a dog-eared sepia photograph sitting on a piece of furniture in the living room. You could see Mahmoud Harbi with a baby face, although he had already turned thirty, in a suit, with a bow tie. A baby face because it's only after they've reached forty-four that men here are fully entitled to be called an adult, your grandfather would have said in his gentle voice. Whoever entered the living room could not fail to take off his hat before that heroic figure. Could the dead really be the only creatures to inspire respect and dignity in this world here below? Behind the photo, on the wall, a map of Greater Somalia would attract the visitor's attention. A sand-yellow territory on a sky-blue background, and all around it the four colonialists (France, Great Britain, Italy, and Ethiopia) who cut up the land of the sons of Samaale. That very allegorical map was less appreciated than the photo of the great fighter.
1. Afrique Occidentale Française, French West Africa. — Author's note
13. BASHIR BINLADEN
THE OLD-OLD SOLDIERS, ones thirty an over, they loved strong liquor too-too much: gin, vodka, Johnny Walker, White Spirit. It's top chief brings back that stuff. Fat rich Arabs and Hindis, they give all that free for the patriotic effort. No lies that. Label say so. Établissement Fratacci, El Gamil Supermarket, Borreh & Associates, Idriss Driving School, V. D. Singh & K. S. Vijay, Coubèche and Sons, etc., see what I mean? Rebels they love doomo too much (that, Wadag palm wine). Us young draftees, we like liquor not too-too strong. Heineken, Kronenbourg, Tuborg, plus pink pills plus hashish. woww! After that, sleep flee from your eyes. Belly stop fussing, that's all. You can't fish up pity for nobody, not even for a small-small little child. You pick up rebels’ girls to make slave honeys in military camp. All the girls, they're for us, they gotta show their ass, that simple. Some girls they even come on purpose, they leave the mountain, they too-too hungry. They say: I wanna stay with soldiers, there's army food. They love soldiers for that, or else it's hunger too much. Rebels, when they gain ground on us, they catch their sisters. They knock em off quick-quick. Yah, you were with soldiers. You traitors, you cooked for soldiers, you screwed all the time. Bitches, I'm gonna fuck up your life: here, take that in the ass and bang! And you after that, you go crazy. You don't give a shit; you throw the old mamas old uncles and all in holes in the mountain singing Tupac Shakur. You burn camp; you poison water. You spray the animals bang-abangbang. It's funny, camel stuffed with bullets falls, gets up on long-long legs, falls, gets up, falls, up again. You come in bang bang bang salaam-an-bye-bye. Who gives a shit? Cows, they too stupid, they got big white eyes, moo moo moo, they wait for the bullets, they looking for death. Sheep, they run all over. Goats, they run-run fast. I saw soldiers rape donkey going ee…ee…ee. You have a ball.
When work there done, you burn your hash, you breathe in hard-hard till your eyes pop out of your face. After that, you calm, you cool with your Walkman. You can't stand tiny-tiny noise. So you sleep. Not for long. Two hours max; after, it's sentry duty. The others they sleep two hours and then, sentry duty. That way, you get used to it. You just take little nap cept when you smoked too much, grazed too much khat. But OK, that your own business. When chief he ask, Bashir you been smoking again? No Sir Sergeant, I give answer all ready. Always deny that stuff-there. Chief, he can't do nothing, he needs draftees to go on details too much. To get the prisoners together, bury wounded quick, burn rebel corpses covered with white clay (must be their grigri, that), it's the rule here. And soldier, he follow rules an that's that.
The night after, you have nightmare plus nightmare all night. Once, I had mean nightmare. We were trapped in ambush near Kallafi. Aïdid, Ayanleh, Haïssama, they dead. Me, I hid behind acacia. The rebels, they look all over. They don't find me. Then, at the last minute, a smart little rebel he found hiding place. Now four rebels coming in, their finger on trigger. They come up slow-slow like Clint Easthoud in movie (shit, this is serious, man, I can't remember what movie). They keep coming at me. OK I got my Kalash; I keep cool. They come closer. They look lef-right; they come closer. Shit, my Kalash, it stuck, don't wanna work. The four rebels, they see my Kalash it screwed. Me too.
14. ABDO-JULIEN
GRANDFATHER USED TO SAY: the desert you see there, well, it's alive, like you and me. Proof is, the dunes are white in their childhood and grow yellow over the centuries. To see it, all you have to do is put on the right kind of glasses or stand at the right distance. Nothing ever dies, and the desert you see there can regain its former face, the face of the savannah, go back to the sea of water and grass, the way it was a few million years ago. Clock time and hourglass time are nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the age of the globe. In the same way, man's path is not linear like the horizon: it has roots, branches, and sap. It's all renewal, rhizomes, and ramifications. Man is a tree, my boy. I hardly listen to him; he's been talking by himself for hours. A hundred billion neurons, what a capital! But very few people draw generously from this capital Providence has bestowed on us — not to mention the evils of khat, alcohol, tobacco, and the intoxication of arms. Men are brainless hunks of meat; I almost choke when I say that to you. A star falls from my eyes, they're suddenly misty, a tear is putting a pearl on my wrinkled cheek. It is time for me to go away and leave you to your daydreams, my boy. I'll come back tomorrow and we'll pick up the discussion exactly where we left off.
My grandfather used to tell me a story he'd told Papa and the many cousins and grand-nephews. The family and the tribe are all mixed together. With us, the tribe is a compact crowd, a whole people. But before telling his story, all of a sudden he would be off, far away, as if he were on the Balbala bus. Then he would come back to the beginning and tell us his story. We would savor it like fresh milk from the udders of a cow. Grandfather was unpredictable. Grandpa, you're like those women who want to be loved right away, someone would say without raising his hand, like at the Muallim school.1
“Do you know that the crazy planispheres of the fifteenth century put the earthly paradise — a paradise surrounded by flames, of course — on the exact spot where Abyssinia is located, that is, here in our country?”
And he would turn around and tell his story.
“I'm going to tell you the story right away. It's an old Arab tale. Zakaria Tamer of Syria cooked it up like a chef. One day in the Alep bazaar, a man bought two big eggs from a grocer. He was very hungry. He put an egg in each pocket, politely refusing the bag that the grocer held out for him. Once he got home, he ran to the kitchen and took out a plate and a frying pan. He broke the first egg against the second one. Out came a little chick all covered with down. Mad with rage, he was cursing the sly grocer who had deprived him of his omelet when suddenly his heart sank down to his feet, for the chick began to grow and soon took on the shape of a man with two wings, a pleasant face, and loose, white clothing. He took fright, invoked the name of The Unique, and dropped the second egg. Out came a chick all covered with down, who quickly grew and took the shape of a man who looked exactly like the first. What could he do, what could he say? He girded up his loins: