Nadifa Mohamed - The Orchard of Lost Souls

‘Take your hat off.’ The General’s voice is more sober now.

Filsan unpins the hat from her head. Her hair is bundled up on top.

‘Let it out. Let me see it down.’

Filsan responds quickly to orders, she always has done, her father made sure of that. ‘Do it quickly and do it well,’ he instilled in her.

It takes a while to find and remove all of the metal pins; she gathers them in her lap and teases her hair down to her shoulders. It feels good to release the tension in her skull; her scalp tingles now, her fingertips making circles over it.

General Haaruun moves closer to her, the back seat squeaking beneath his weight. Filsan stares out of the windscreen, sees stray dogs and civilians diving into the headlights.

His hand is on her cheek, stroking it, his skin softer than she had expected, the smell of lotion faint on his fingers.

He moves closer again.

The driver’s eyes are framed in the rear-view mirror, looking back at her.

‘Ina Irroleh, daughter of Irroleh, look at me.’

The mention of her father is like a thunderbolt striking her ears. He is watching her now, she knows it; he can see her sitting in the back of this car and the veins in his temple are rising and tightening.

General Haaruun holds her chin and turns her face to him. ‘I can make your life so easy, whatever you want is yours.’

‘My father wouldn’t like this.’

He moves his hand down, brushing her thighs and then squeezing her knee. ‘You think your father doesn’t do this to girls he meets?’ He pushes his hand up her thigh and against her crotch. ‘You’re a virgin, aren’t you? A clean girl,’ he whispers in her ear.

Filsan is deep underwater now, unable to breathe or even swallow; she will never make it to dry land.

‘Please stop, my father. .’ she hears herself mutter.

‘Who cares about him? He is an old drunk. Think about what is good for you.’ Both his arms wrap around her, one hand padding around for her belt and zip.

The driver’s eyes are still on them.

Filsan grabs General Haaruun’s hand and throws it away. ‘No! No! No!’ She hits his chest with both palms at each word. ‘Don’t touch me.’

‘Stop the car!’ he shouts.

They screech to a stop and the jeeps behind fan out around the car.

Reaching around to the door handle, he opens the passenger door and pushes Filsan out of the car. ‘Abu kintiro, you cunt, make your own way home.’

Filsan lands on her knees in plain view of maybe twenty soldiers, the jeep headlights making the scene as bright as day.

The door thuds behind her and the Mercedes skids and then drives off. Darkness huddles around her as the convoy pulls away. She rises to her feet, her head whirring, and walks to the nearest light source.

The jail is where people’s stories end, thinks Kawsar. Whoever you are, whatever ambitions you nurse, however many twists and turns it has taken to arrive there, it is like the heart of a spider’s web that you eventually wind your way to. More women and girls have entered the cell and there are about fifty prisoners now. No one has used the bucket but the prostitute’s son has made a mess that still stinks an hour later. The lack of space means the youngest inmates are forced to stand; some of them are street-looking girls who seem unruffled by the whole experience, while others tremble in school uniforms. They crowd around her for comfort and she wishes she could extend her arms around all of them, Hodan must have wept through the night in this dank hole.

‘Kawsar? Where is Kawsar?’ The policewoman raps on the bars.

‘Here!’ It takes three attempts to rise to her feet, her knees making a loud crack as she finally succeeds.

‘This has been delivered for you.’ She holds up a bundle wrapped in a towel.

‘Is she still here?’ Kawsar asks plaintively.

‘No, I sent them home.’ She unlocks the door and hands it over. ‘Be careful, it’s hot.’

It smells good even through the cotton: coriander, pepper, cloves, garlic.

She is the first to be given food, but she can’t eat while the others go hungry. She approaches the young girls and gestures that they should eat with her.

She unwraps the towel and inside is a lidded saucepan with a stack of round roodhis folded to the side of it. Steam escapes as she lifts the lid. A lamb and potato stew fills the pot, more than she would ever be able to eat alone. Gingerly, like cats, the girls gather around the food.

Kawsar passes the bread around and there are still four or five in her hand; she turns to China, ‘Come and eat, you need milk for your son.’

China scrunches up her nose and shakes her head. ‘I have my own asho to wait for.’

Kawsar dips a piece of bread into the stew, twisting it around a cube of potato. The bread is Maryam English’s and the stew Dahabo’s — she knows their cooking well enough. They must have paid laluush to ensure that it didn’t become the guards’ dinner; she makes a mental note to repay them.

The girls have overcome their shyness, reaching deep into the stew. Their fingers are dirty, so are her own, there is no way of cleaning them, but it still makes Kawsar queasy to look at the thick line of dirt under one girl’s fingernails. Her stomach is tiny these days, one small meal a day is sufficient; she finishes one roodhi then leaves the remainder to them.

‘Kawsar! Come out, you’re wanted,’ the policewoman bellows through the bars.

‘What is this? The Kawsar hotel? What about us? I have been sat here all day with my infant,’ China shouts.

‘Hush, dhilloyeh ! Whore! Keep your mouth closed if you don’t want us to shut it for you.’

Kawsar is embarrassed. She wonders if Dahabo has told them that her husband had once been chief of police in Hargeisa.

‘This way.’ Amber light fills the corridor; they turn the opposite way to the exit, even deeper into the building, and then down narrow concrete steps into the basement.

‘Are my neighbours back? Have they paid?’ she asks the policewoman.

‘You’re not free that easily.’ She knocks on a yellow door and then pushes the handle and looks inside the room. ‘Here she is.’

‘Let her in,’ a voice says.

‘Watch what you say,’ the policewoman whispers and then opens the door wide.

It is the female officer who brought her to the police station. She is less polished now, with her hair stuffed clumsily under her beret and her make-up smudged under the eyes. A bare light bulb of low wattage illuminates just the table and her pale face and hands. The windowless room still smells of the prisoners who have passed through — their exhaled breath, their sweat and the tang of their blood.

The officer points to a metal chair opposite her. It screeches as Kawsar pulls it along the concrete floor. The chair is tall and her toes can just about reach the floor when she sits down; a small murmur of pleasure comes from her as she relaxes into the padded plastic seat.

‘I am Officer Adan Ali.’ The woman clears her throat before continuing. ‘I am investigating the disturbance today at the October Twenty-first parade in Hargeisa stadium. What is your name?’ She produces a notebook and pen from her lap and jots down Kawsar’s name, neighbourhood, age, marital status, clan details. She has the same concentrated intensity to her face as Hodan once had.

There is a pause before either of them speak again. Kawsar takes in the solitary decoration in the room — a poster taped askew to the back wall showing Ogadeen refugees huddled under an acacia tree in one half and the same refugees smiling broadly in a fishing boat after they have been resettled by the government in the other segment; her eyes keep meeting those of a teenage boy in the picture instead of her interrogator’s.