Knots (29 page)

Gacal's hands flail blindly but very cautiously above his head, not daring to touch the mask lest he upset its balance or upend it. It is then that she leads him by the hand to the full-length mirror in the bathroom. To afford both of them the possibility of concentration, she stands apart from him and out of the mirror's frame. She describes the scene before her as an instant of breathtaking beauty. “No doubt about it, no doubt about it,” she repeats several times.

When he makes as if to ask what it is for, she reclaims the mask, holds it at the range of a trombone, and says, “The clothes I've given you may not be a perfect fit and I may not have got you a pair of shoes, but this suits you wonderfully.”

A masterpiece of unequalled handsomeness; she feels almost content with the world and fills her eyes with Dalmar's look-alike.

Her mobile rings. She answers it, her eyes brightening as the voice of the woman at the other end gives her very good news. Then she listens some more and asks, “Are you sure, Kiin dear, that you do not mind if I bring my young guest to lunch? Also to bring along
Pinocchio,
so that he and your two daughters, whom I am so looking forward to meeting, can watch it while we chat in uninterrupted peace?”

“But of course.” Cambara picks up a trace of annoyance in Kiin's voice, suspecting that there is something bothering her, even if she is not telling her what it is. This gets Cambara's back up, but she lets it be in the hope that she will eventually hear of what is bugging Kiin. Understandably, Kiin may not be very keen on having a boy unknown to her play with her daughters alone, well aware that he is a different make from them. You never know what mischief an urchin with no known beginnings might conjure up if such an opportunity were to present itself. It is just as well that she will be close by, keeping her eyes and ears alert for any possible misadventure. Will Gacal, who may have a troubled history, interrupt the placidity that Kiin has created for herself and her daughters?

“Let's go,” she says. “It's lunchtime.”

Gacal looks ecstatic. Cambara imagines him to be comfortable in who he is becoming: a clean, well-fed lad who has on clothes as good as new, plus a pair of leather sandals—never mind that it is no easy matter to scuttle speedily in them—his hand in the grip of a woman fostering him to high ambitions. What more can he want?

To get to Kiin's place on foot, Cambara, leading Gacal by the hand, walks through a door set clandestinely into the wall separating the hotel grounds from Kiin's residence. Paned green and wrapped in vines grown purposely to disguise it, the door is visible only to those who know of its existence. It is to the rear of a spot where the sentries have provisionally mounted a guard to the right of the main entrance. Cambara uses the door that is Kiin's family preserve, relieved to be spared a little of the bother of leaving the hotel and stepping into the main dirt road, walking a hundred or so meters and then turning left into Kiin's gate.

Serenity steals over all her taut nerves, helping her to relax the moment she and Gacal enter the grounds of Kiin's residence. Her heart leaps with joy at the sight of such an idyllic scene: a sunlit place of peace and harmony in the midst of so much darkness. Cambara lets go of Gacal's hand, in part because his are sweaty, hers dry, and because she wants him to carry
Pinocchio
. She guesses that his ear-to-ear grin can only point to the attainment of a dream: a parent figure to entrust him with an important assignment. There is confidence in his stride, his forward-leaning pose suggesting an eagerness to prove his worth.

They light upon a man who is supine on a straw mat in the shade of a large, fruiting mango tree. She assumes he is the gardener, taking a lunch break close to the shed. Scattered all around him, as if by design, are his tools: a wheelbarrow, rakes, a hoe, and other implements. Farther on, beyond the blooming orchids, two beautiful girls run after each other and around a tree, excited, their voices full of life and their chases alive with the equanimity of the fearless giggles. There are the swings and the seesaw that form the center of the playground; close to these, Cambara spots a tree house having a ladder with a missing rung up near the top end. Along the way, Cambara is tempted to pick up a couple of dolls and a few toys that look as if a child has flung them, a leg up, the head twisted, toys abandoned in the middle of play.

Kiin may be living in a city that has not known peace for ten years and more, which is all the more reason why the legion of comforts that she has created are remarkable in themselves, amenities that are on the one hand pure pleasure and on the other startling when you come upon them. Cambara cannot help drawing a conclusion: that only someone blessed with abundant self-confidence and the joys of living in the coziness of a snug life, fitting in the protected nature of its refuge, can be as giving and magnanimous as Kiin has been to her and, presumably, to many others.

No matter what she thinks of it, Cambara again is sad that she is pinning all her hopes of success on Kiin, whom she hardly knows. What will she do, on whom will she depend, whose assistance will she seek if something terrible happens to the one basket into which she has put all her eggs? It is a pity, she thinks, that Zaak, on whom her mother had hoped she should rely, has proven to be slothful and unworthy of her respect. You can see the differences between Kiin's and Zaak's characters in the homes they have created and the lives they lead. Kiin's life is orderly, an oasis with a spring of plenitude in which countless edibles, flowers, and shady trees flourish and blossom into a Shangri-La of incomparable potential.

At Cambara and Gacal's approach, the girls fall silent, the younger one running away after a pause and the older one waiting bashfully and smiling. She has a fetching way of carrying herself, her entire spare frame, tall for her age, Cambara presumes, supporting itself on the tiptoe of her right foot in the style of a ballet dancer: kittenish, teasingly coquettish, eyes rolling, her messages mixed. Gacal raises his gaze at Cambara, as if seeking her counsel.

The girl, sounding tuckered out, says to Cambara, “My mum says that she will be late but that you and your guest are to go ahead and our housekeeper will serve you drinks until she joins you.”

Cambara introduces herself as her mother's friend and then changes her mind just in time before presenting Gacal, not certain how this will play out. She goes closer to the girl, asking, “Tell me, sweet, what's yours?”

“My name is Sumaya, my sister's name is Nuura,” the girl replies, indicating to Cambara, from the way she carries herself, that she is older than her chronological age. Her eyes say, “I know a lot more than you think I do.”

Because of this “eye-speak,” Cambara locates Kiin's worry, assuming that as a mother to a knockout girl brought up in such a protective environment, you will not want to bring along a Gacal who might take advantage of her. Since there is no going back, she decides to play it as safe as possible.

“Why don't you show us the way?” Cambara suggests.

Sumaya leads them to the veranda, where she shows them to the seats facing the garden. Then, before vanishing into a wing of the house to Cambara's back, she calls to the housekeeper to let her know that the guests have arrived.

Gacal says, “Nice.”

Cambara is not sure what Gacal intends to say, and hopes that he wants simply to point out that Sumaya is nice in the sense that she is pleasant on the eye and that the whole setup, of which she is a significant part, perhaps the center, is delightful. She prays he will leave it at that and not lust after her nor permit his sexual urges—not that there is any evidence of such so far—to exercise total control over his rapport with Sumaya or her younger sister, because that may upset the mother in Kiin and by extension will disturb the friend in her.

She wishes she had had enough time to get to know what Gacal is made of. What manner of boy is he in the presence of “nice” girls with “nice” little tits who grow up in “nice” homes, girls who come at him showily, as if courting someone who is different from them turns them on? She is aware that it is too late to undo what she has done or to wish that she had not rushed in her desire to spend several hours with him by inviting him to Kiin's lunch for her. It is typical of her to complicate matters unnecessarily. Why must she always take a not-thought-through plunge, abandoning herself to the dictates of her emotions and committing herself in haste to positions or to persons when what she needs is to take stock of her alternatives, reflect on what is possible and wise and what is foolish and needing revision? Yet she hates to backtrack and is highly reluctant to admit a sense of remorse, insisting that the notion of regret is alien to her. It distresses her too that she has imposed on Kiin, forcing her to agree to Gacal's presence when it has been obvious that she does not want Gacal to watch
Pinocchio
with the girls. Maybe Kiin prefers making other arrangements; alas, Kiin hasn't had much of a chance to propose another option to Cambara's suggestion.

“You will behave, won't you?” she says to Gacal.

“I will,” he says, with a glint in his eye and grinning knowingly.

Cambara stops in her tracks, as if considering her course of action. Wising to what is happening, Gacal reaches for her hand, and he takes it in his. He says, “See you later.”

Cambara is deeply worried, searching for the right words, when Sumaya impatiently grabs at the videocassette, taking it from her, and then tells Nuura and Gacal to follow her to the video room. The two girls and Gacal dash off eagerly, with Sumaya promising Gacal that she will show him their rooms, the toys they have there, and the reception room where they will watch
Pinocchio
. Kiin's older daughter says, “You can't imagine how we've always wanted to see this film, Nuura and me.”

There is impishness lighting Gacal's eyes. Full of mischief, he turns to Cambara and for effect elongates his vowels. “See you laaaater, Aligaaator,” he says.

She is about to tell him off, at least remind him to behave, when Nuura drags him away, pulling him by the hand. Just before they disappear around a wall and then into the corridor, she follows them for a bit, then watches them, in silence, unable to decide whether to go after them and call him back or to let him be and wait for another opportunity. She settles on pleading with them and says, “Wait, wait, let me tell you what I think,” but they slink off speedily, and one of the girls closes the door from inside.

Turning, alone in the corridor, the two girls gone with Gacal in tow, Cambara finds herself overwhelmed by a sense of desperation, whereon she replays her first and so far only potential contretemps with Kiin, who was hesitant to allow Gacal to join them for lunch at her house and then watch
Pinocchio
with her daughters. It was in connection with this that Cambara had a judicious rethink, almost calling off her original idea that Gacal come with her or that he watch the film with her daughters. Now she attributes her earlier disquiet to the fact that she didn't follow through with the suggestion that she take him back to the hotel for his lunch, not necessarily at the restaurant but maybe at the kitchen, like the other employees. After all, Sumaya, too eager and too quick, made a grab for the videocassette, snatching it away from him, and ran off with it, the others pursuing her as excited children often do. Maybe she was too slow in finding the appropriate words in which to divulge her revised agenda, which apparently presented itself as a new trajectory, by far wiser and less harmful to all concerned. Meanwhile, Sumaya, fast moving in her eagerness to watch the film, is off, half running, the others chasing and paying no heed to Cambara's repeated appeals to wait and listen, as her only chance to present her new plan slips away.

She wonders if Gacal is a Lucignolo, similar in outlook and behavior to the character in
Pinocchio
—Lucignolo in the original Italian, Lampwick in the English translation—who is a Bad Bad Boy. She reminds herself that the book is about the misadventures of a handful of boys, some of whom are Good Bad Boys and some just too bad to be put back on the straight and narrow. Lucignolo is such a boy—bad, very bad. By her reckoning, Pinocchio, even though he is gullible, is at heart a Good Bad Boy. A pity she had not heard Gacal's story or anything much about his beginnings, who his parents were and why he is where he is at present. If one is to assume that Gacal resembles Pinocchio in terms of personality and makeup more than SilkHair does, primarily because he strikes her as having had a middle-class background, then perhaps SilkHair, also unknown to her, is more like Lucignolo, given his current situation. It would be fun not only to get to know them better but also eventually to get them together. Of the two boys, which of them will be Lucifer, for that is presumably from where the name Lucignolo is derived, and which the star pupil, no longer a puppet whose strings are in the hands of someone who controls their actions.

Cambara's immediate worry is of a different nature, though. It is about whether, left alone with the girls, Gacal may become a possible source of misbegotten schemes and likely to lead Sumaya and Nuura, who, insofar as it is conceivable to imagine, have up to now led highly protected lives, down a garden path. It is about whether she has compromised her prospective friendship with Kiin in such a way as to put it at some risk, endangering its potential growth to great heights. Maybe Kiin is more conscious of what is involved. This is understandable, given the circumstances.

Cambara recalls reading
Pinocchio
in the original as a child and enjoying it, even then getting a great deal out of it. More recently, she has had the opportunity to reacquaint herself with it, this time reading it in English to and/or with Dalmar. The book struck her then as a precursor of much of the literature about a hick from the sticks coming to the city and being duped by a slick con man. In her recent rereading and viewing of the Disney video, the thought occurred to her that
Pinocchio
is perhaps about small boys—the majority of them parentless and innocent—hoodwinked into joining armed militias as fighters and made to commit crimes in the name of ideals they do not fully comprehend or support. Boys having fun, even when killing.

As she walks back into the living room, rueful that she has not gone with her first instinct and dreading to think what Sumaya and Nuura, seeing the video in the company of Gacal, will make of it, she is of two minds whether to join them, if only to mediate a more enlightened interpretation to help them understand the story from her own perspective. In the end, however, she decides to wait for Kiin and see what her friend says.

Kiin breezes in, as fast as a whirlwind that has just sprung up and is rising. Cambara observes Kiin pausing, her right foot ahead of her left, her body tense and bent at the knees; she has the elegant poise of an athlete on her marks, a runner listening for “Ready,” then “Steady,” “Go,” and then finally the shot before sprinting off. Maybe she is going to take off her shoes first and then her various layers of clothing? For Kiin is wearing a
khimaar
, which covers her face, head, and hair, and a
shukka
, a button-down overcoat, neither of which Cambara remembers seeing her wearing on the previous occasions when the two of them have met. Cambara thinks that neither the face veil nor the
shukka
reflects Kiin's character or her own idea of an athlete poised to take part in an athletic meet. What reason could there be for Kiin wearing these?

It is then that Kiin removes her
khimaar
and her
shukka
in a flash, as if on impulse, peeling off one, then the other, consciously ridding herself of an encumberance keeping her from accessing a more intimate aspect of her self. Maybe Kiin wants to believe that she is returning to the person she has been for much of her life: a Muslim woman and a Somali one at that. After all, her own kind have not been given, until recently, to the habit of putting on
khimaar
and
shukka
. Perhaps Kiin needs to deliver up the mode of dressing just to be comfortable outside; that's all. Meanwhile, Cambara cannot help staring, following Kiin with her eyes, silently gawking, as if provoked into doing so. She ogles, enraptured. And Kiin, as if to make a point, is all there, standing tall and imposing in a see-through dress, no bra, her underclothing visible in all its bright patterns, the expanding girth of her abundance in a display of sorts, challenging Cambara to check her out. A simpler explanation is worth considering: that Kiin has come home after a hard day at work and is chilling out at home in a light skirt with a designer bodice. Nothing is wrong with that. Now she turns to Kiin, who is asking her a question.

“How have things been?”

“You have a beautiful home here,” Cambara says.

“The accursed veils,” Kiin mumbles in fury, as she gathers them from the couch, where she threw them earlier, and then folding them neatly and putting them out of her way as she decides whether to sit or remain standing. Cambara can hear Kiin uttering obscenities, concluding, “How annoying,” and she looks at the pile as if for the last time. “How cumbersome these veils are!”

Cambara empathizes with her friend's sentiment, remembering how she has resorted to putting on the veil not only because it would draw away the unwanted attention of the armed youths but also because the idea of camouflaging oneself has its built-in attraction. She can't remember where she has read or heard that Islam makes sex so exciting: all the veiling, all the hiding, all the seeking and searching for a momentary peek of that which is concealed; the gaze of the covered woman coy; her behavior come-hither coquettish. That you are discouraged from meeting a woman alone in a room unless she is your spouse or your sister—these things, while some people may think of them as impediments, reify the idea of sex, turning it into something hard to get and therefore worth pursuing. Cambara is about to put a question to Kiin when her friend speaks.

“You've met my daughters, haven't you?” Kiin asks. She holds her body upright, her hand busy removing the fluffs and then smoothing the front of her overcoat with fastidious care. She adds after a very thoughtful pause. “Tell me, what are your first impressions?”

“We've had the pleasure of talking only to Sumaya, the younger one having shown no interest in chatting with us at all,” Cambara explains. Then she goes on, “Children, I find, have their own way of relating to adults; there is no running away from that. You ask what my impression is. I would say that Sumaya is very much her own girl.”

“Can you imagine Sumaya in a veil, though?”

She looks from Kiin to the ceiling, and before deciding what to say and whether to react to a query of a rhetorical nature, Cambara wonders how much of Kiin there is in the way Sumaya behaves. Better still, if one takes Kiin's just-ended performance as one's measure, then surely one might ascribe her daughter's earlier deportment to playacting, a preteen girl emulating her mother and having nothing to do with sexual charge. But because there is little for Cambara to go on, she opts to remain silent on the subject, suspecting that she might hurt the feelings of her new friend and host. Cambara finds it difficult to imagine Somali women in veils and has forebodings about it as much as she dreads the idea of a little girl being infibulated.

Then she sees Gacal and so does Kiin.

“Hello, what're you doing here?” Cambara asks.

“I am here,” Gacal says cheekily.

Kiin says, with a touch of surprise in her voice, “Where have you just come from, young fellow?” She is friendly but firm, insisting that he give an immediate response. When he doesn't, she goes on, “I am asking what a charming and happy-looking fellow is doing in the family part of our house? I hope you have an explanation,” she says, her sweeping gaze taking in Cambara, at whom she closes her right eye briefly, as if in a signal.

Neither Cambara nor Gacal knows how to interpret the wink. Is it accidental, or is she doing it in jest? Alternatively, is she communicating something that is eluding both? Moreover, Gacal is discomfited; he fidgets, eyes shifty, mouth opening and closing, like a baby feeding. Not speaking, he allows the smirk to spread, then takes his time before attempting to do something about removing it. Cambara, assuming that Kiin, in all likelihood, has forgotten that she has spoken of the boy whom she will bring to lunch, makes as if she will intervene.

Kiin says, “He can speak for himself. He has a tongue, and a sharp one, I bet.”

Gacal says nothing, does nothing.

“What's your answer?

“What's the question?”

“Where have you been?”

“I've been here and there.”

“Where is here and where is there?” Kiin is crotchety, the surfeit of her ill humor overflowing.

Neither Cambara nor Gacal moves; they listen.

Kiin continues, “Myself, I have had the displeasure to put on a
khimaar
and a
shukka
today to appease a posse of men in saintly robes: my father-in-law and his cronies, who deigned to command me to present myself before them. Do you know the topic of our discussion? The custody of my two daughters. In other words, am I fit enough to mother them in the way tradition demands? I wore the
khimaar
and the
shukka
not because I like doing so but because I hadn't the guts to displease them. Who are they to question my ability to raise my daughters? You might as well ask. And if I am found to be unfit, then they will award the custody of my children to their stepmother, my estranged husband's older sister, a barren woman. Now, why am I telling you this? I am doing so because I want you to get used to doing things from which you may not derive the slightest pleasure but which will help you get some purchase on what you most need: a place you call home, food to eat, a school, clothes, and someone's affections. We are charitable to you now, but to remain in our good graces, you have to work at it, on occasion doing things that bore you, that annoy you.”

Kiin, looking as though drained of energy, speaking; Cambara, a little clouded in the eyes, listening for the silences between the unsaid words. Gacal doesn't appear affected one way or the other. Attentive like a theater enthusiast watching a play, he keeps his eyes focused on Kiin, his ears intently pricked.

Kiin asks him, “How old are you?”

“I am old,” he replies.

“How old is old?”

“I am as old as you want me to be.”

Cambara steps in and explains who Gacal is. “Remember, he is the boy I said I would bring to have lunch and, if possible, watch
Pinocchio
with Sumaya and Nuura,” she says. Then she turns to him, “Why have you come away from watching the movie?”