Knots (30 page)

“Because I've seen it endless times,” he says.

“Where?”

“In our house.”

Cambara takes note of this fact, reminding herself that Gacal is piling up mystery upon mystery. Kiin asks, “When?”

“A lifetime ago,” replies Gacal.

Kiin appears troubled and tired-looking, with a prominent “I can't be bothered” expression. It strikes Cambara that she is a woman uncertain of what she wants to see, what she wants to hear, or what subject to discuss. As for Gacal, Cambara interprets his countenance as being crowded with contradictory messages. It puts her in mind of a weed-infested rose bed. Where do you start? Where do you end?

Cambara decides to end the conversation, which is going nowhere, if only to allow Kiin and her enough time to have lunch and talk. She says to Kiin, “Please, can we have him fed? I am sure he won't mind eating in the kitchen.”

Kiin rings a bell, and she and Cambara wait.

Gacal bows a gentle bow, expectantly silent.

A very long silence follows, into which a young woman—maybe house help to judge from the shabbiness of her clothes—appears, and an eerie quiet takes hold. All eyes turn to the new arrival, Kiin and Cambara watching her steady shuffle as she makes slow progress, chameleonlike.

Something about the house help irritates Kiin, who sounds irked. “If you are here about our lunch, then get a move on and hurry. Take away this young fellow and have him fed. In the kitchen. My friend and I will eat in the veranda. Bring everything on trays. Remember to bring us cloth napkins. No paper napkins, please. I do not like paper napkins, and I hate those who serve them to my guests or me. As I've said, get a move on. Hurry. I have a guest to entertain and an evening party to organize too at the restaurant. So get a move on. Be quick.”

The house help coaxes a quickening of pace from the potential that must have always been there, tapping into it. Likewise Gacal, who, enlivened, bestirs himself and stands up with the speed of somebody a black ant has stung on his posterior. He scampers hurriedly after the young girl, presumably to the kitchen.

Kiin leading and Cambara following, they walk down a corridor, past the room where Sumaya and Nuura are watching
Pinocchio.
The loud volume puts her in mind of cheap motels where long-term-residence clients play video all day to kill time. The spacious veranda, which is handsomely prepared in all aspects, opens onto the garden in the back, its walls grown with ivy, the couches in colorful Baidoa material.

The drinks come in less time than it has taken Kiin and Cambara to exchange a glance and a few words. Served by no other than Gacal, who is now wearing an apron, the chilled
lassi
tastes divine to Cambara. A few minutes later, their lunches are on trays, and the cloth napkins folded the way they do at fancy restaurants.

Having a long, drawn-out lunch is of the essence when you want to relax, and since the idea is for them to talk, undisturbed, Kiin speaking and Cambara mostly listening, while Sumaya and Nuura watch
Pinocchio
and Gacal eats in the kitchen, probably all on his own. Cambara and Kiin are perhaps looking forward to having their siesta in their respective rooms later. Kiin is the kind of friend, Cambara thinks, who has more time for others than for her own worries. Until now she has never even alluded to what must be bothering her—the likelihood of losing custody of her two daughters.

At first, what Kiin is saying about who has said what to whom does not make sense, but she perseveres, listening. Cambara knows two of the names that occur in their conversation, and Raxma's figures among them. Apparently, Arda, Cambara's mother, rang Raxma, in some understandable panic, to request that she kindly find out from Kiin what Cambara's story is and please to phone her back with the news as soon as possible. From what Kiin has gleaned, Zaak telephoned Arda to alert her to the fact that he has not set eyes on her, or spoken to anyone who has, or received a note or message from her daughter for a few days now, and that she may have been kidnapped or come to some harm, but he cannot be sure. The upshot of Zaak's rant is this: things being what they are in Mogadiscio—what with people thought to be rich being taken hostage and their families in Europe and America made to pay a huge ransom—he wants no one to blame him if she is hurt.

“What have you told Raxma?” asks Cambara.

Smarting, Cambara is disturbed by Kiin's long silence, which brings out her worst apprehensions, her sorrow obvious, her heart sinking, her anger, not at Zaak but at herself, rising, and her whole body trembling.

Kiin replies, “I haven't told her anything.”

“Why not?” she asks.

Cambara's fingers hold the fork as if menacingly in midair, like a fencer dueling with her internal demons, not with her challenger.

“Because I want you to talk to her yourself.”

Her gaze remote, Cambara looks away at the sky, her eyes settling on the clouds that have blocked the sun. No matter, her biliousness swirls upward and pours into the back of her throat. She tastes the brine of a memory gone sour.

“You can call both Raxma and your mother from here,” Kiin says. “It will be the right time to call when we are done with our lunch.”

The image of her mother pacing back and forth in the living room of her apartment, fulminating against the foolishness of both her charges, her bad leg catching up with her good one, her body wrapped in the Day-Glo of her rage, her eyes as full of stir as fireflies in the darkness of the moment. Revenge resulting from rage is on her mind, not the anodyne desire to make amends and to let peace prevail, and meanwhile for the lunch to continue as if nothing consequential has occurred. The truth is, however, a phone call is in order, but how can she explain everything that has taken place up to now? What aspects of the story so far must she suppress? And emphasize?

“It is naive of me to trust another man who has let me down,” Cambara says. “When will I learn? More to the point, will I ever learn?”

From what she says, it is clear that Kiin has already moved on and is ready to change the topic in order to give her counsel about the crisis. “In life,” Kiin says, “you gain some, you lose some.”

Rankled, with a raw rage crawling insectlike all over the invisible parts of her body, Cambara breaks out in spots of outrage. “I cannot think of any gains I've made, only losses.”

When Kiin's dogged attempt at lightening Cambara's mood and tempering it with a sense of moderate expectation doesn't work, she decides to change her approach.

Kiin says, “Here is some other news.”

“How I could do with good tidings.”

“News about Jiijo, from Farxia, her doctor.”

“Tell me.”

“Jiijo has given birth to a baby boy.”

Cambara knows that Kiin has rendered much assistance without expecting any returns and that helping her has not been free of risks. Moreover, moving Jiijo from the family property in an ambulance and transporting her to a private clinic does not come cheap. She is indebted to Kiin, owes whatever successes she has made in this regard to Kiin's ingenuity. Even though she will ask for it, Cambara doubts if the gynecologist will bother to submit Jiijo's hospital bill to settle, which she is willing to pay. At worst, Kiin or her network of women friends will foot it. She must insist on meeting the expenses, because she is the one who stands to gain from the charitable intervention.

“How are they, mother and baby?”

“They're doing super. Both are.”

“How long does Farxia plan to keep her at the clinic?” asks Cambara.

Kiin replies, “There are not a lot of options to consider. Jiijo will have to go hush-hush, preferably before the evening. The problem is where we must take her to, once discharged. We do not want her to go back to your house, having emptied her of it. Neither does Farxia want her to spend an hour longer at her clinic. Remember, Farxia removed her from your property without a paper trail. Now how can she explain it away? And how or from whom did she, Farxia, learn of Jiijo's condition before deciding to send an ambulance to fetch her to the clinic? Dicey questions with no easy answers.”

“Does anyone know where Gudcur is?”

“We do not.”

“What does it mean that no one mentions having seen or talked to him and that no radio station refers to the fighting anymore?” Cambara asks, her expression worried.

“It can mean both nothing and everything.”

“A daunting prospect,” says Cambara.

“Some of the members of the network have been through situations a lot worse than this,” Kiin assures her. “Don't worry. In the end, the network always wins.”

“What a lot of trouble I've been to you and to the other women in your network, to whom I am grateful, every one of them,” says Cambara. “I cannot help wishing I had consulted you before embarking on this.”

“We're pleased to be of help, as fellow women.”

Cambara resumes eating. She sits awkwardly forward, her plate almost falling over. Kiin watches over her friend's food, and although she is not saying anything, you can see that she is ready to step in and take charge. Cambara, meanwhile, is floundering about in the sudden impulse of finding the right words with which to express her worried delight, worried, because she thinks Jiijo is laden with the inconvenience and the tragic responsibility of rearing the son of a man she hates. Perhaps this is the lot of many a woman: raising the offspring of men whom they cannot stand and at times without whom they can barely exist. How can she help? How can anyone be of assistance to women like Jiijo, who are in such a terrible bind? Treated worse than chattels, beaten daily, and tortured too, yet as the mothers to the offspring of these monsters, their consanguinity is in no doubt; it is all there for everyone to see. Ideally, one must make sure that Jiijo and her baby are in a safe home, out of harm's way and beyond Gudcur's reach.

Cambara wonders aloud, her face blank. “Suppose we fly her out of the country, once she is discharged?” And no sooner has Cambara formulated the question in her mind and then spoken it than she realizes that she is being a twit.

Kiin has the kindness of heart and the indulgence to make as if the freshness of Cambara's proposition is worth giving serious thought to before nipping off its new shoots.

“Put her on a plane, straight to Nairobi?”

“Maybe that won't work,” Cambara submits.

Kiin does not give up the chase so easily. She says, “It would work if Jiijo were in a condition that warranted her being taken there—to save her life or her baby's—but as it is, they are both well and thriving. And at the risk of being found out, we can shelve the idea, use it if the other plans that we've set into motion fail.”

“What are these plans?”

“We are discussing plans that rely wholly on the members of the network for success,” Kiin explains. “No one else will get to know or hear about the plans until executed. We've done similar jobs before for women in trouble. We've perfected our methods.”

“Tell me more about the plan.”

“We spirit away women from the men posing the gravest danger to them or their children. In the interim, we deal with the men concerned. On one occasion, we have had to poison his food—end of the nuisance.”

For an instant, Cambara tries to come up with an alternative, one that is more practicable and likelier to work. Alas, her mind is blank, with not a thought presenting itself. Turning the pressing worries over in her brain, she concludes that she has perhaps now become home to a proverbial despair, the angst resulting from the problems running riot inside her head.

“Your house is at your disposal, you know that? We've had the locks changed, and have serviced the back entrance, away from the prying eyes of the neighbors and the curious, to make it operational,” Kiin says.

“So much work in such a short time,” says Cambara. She is clearly impressed and is on the verge of getting emotional, the well of her eyes close to filling up with tears of joy.

Kiin continues, “In addition, we've engaged an armed security outfit with the aim of closely monitoring the movements in the entire neighborhood and setting up checkpoints manned by a freelance youth-for-peace brigade that is run, no less, by Dajaal's nephew Qasiir. Before long, we will know what has become of Gudcur and try to find out if there is any chance of him or his men returning. If he survives, then we will factor in the possibility of a fierce confrontation with him. We are preparing for the worst scenario. And we are confident that we will be able to hold on to the property.”

“You won't want Jiijo to live in it?”

“Why complicate matters?” Kiin says.

“I see what you mean.”

“If I understand correctly, you want to turn the ballroom into your rehearsal space, once you are ready to start working on your play, yes?” Kiin asks, eyes widening, voice rising a little irritably and head shaking. “Isn't that what you had in mind all along, to repossess it and use it?”

“That's right.”

“Remember why you are here?”