Nuruddin Farah - Hiding in Plain Sight

“They are my children,” Valerie said.

“And I am their aunt.”

They faced off, on the brink, and then Bella decided to let things be. She decided not to speak of it to Aar. What would be the point? She wouldn’t want to be accused of creating a rift between man and wife. A few days later, she took Salif for a movie and a treat — Dahaba had gone with Valerie for a swim — and the two of them had a talk, Bella impressing on her nephew the importance of respecting others in the way you would like them to respect you.

She approached the topic in subsequent conversations, coming at it from different angles, until Salif promised never to do such a thing again. “Touch my heart, Auntie,” he said, “you can trust me.” And he seemed to mean it.

—

Bella makes no comment when Valerie and Padmini arrive forty-five minutes late and don’t apologize. She is used to Valerie’s ways and is certain that it won’t help matters if she fusses about them. There are many other gauntlets to run in the coming days, after all. She’ll save her ammunition for the battles worth fighting.

“Hello,” Valerie says, towering over Bella in her chair.

“Hi,” Bella says, the Camus dropping to the floor as she gets up to give Valerie a hug. “A bonus to see you for the second time in a single day.”

Padmini keeps her physical distance and greets her from the other end of the table, but Bella, out of exaggerated politeness, almost tips over the entire table reaching to shake her hand.

“I am glad you could join us,” Bella says.

“Delighted to be here.”

Even with Bella standing, Padmini towers over her. She is wearing a headscarf in the elegant way Somali women wear theirs, with the knot in the back.

Bella and Padmini have held each other in mistrust ever since they first met years ago on some simultaneous visit to Aar and Valerie’s in Geneva.

“What book are you reading?” Padmini asks now, as Bella bends down to retrieve it, nearly knocking her head against the table in the process. Bella shows her the cover.

“Camus.” Padmini pronounces the s . “I used to love him as a student.”

Bella pushes a bottle of sparkling water toward them. Valerie fills her own glass and then Padmini’s. Then the waiter comes and Valerie orders a gin and tonic, and Padmini orders a bottle of South African red, even though Bella insists she is happy with the fizzy water.

“Please accept my condolences,” says Padmini.

Bella nods and mumbles her thanks.

Padmini looks around, her eyes following the waiters. “I bet there aren’t many Indian restaurants in Italy,” she says.

Valerie asks, “What makes you say that?”

“Indian, Chinese, and even Ethiopian restaurants do well in countries where the cuisines are by their nature less sophisticated,” Padmini says. “In Italy or France, there are sufficient excellent regional varieties of cuisine, and the locals have no time for foreign cuisine.”

“In England, we have regional varieties and we also have plenty of Indian and Chinese restaurants,” Valerie says.

Padmini continues, “It is no wonder too that in Holland, where the cuisine is as awful as it is in England, there are many Indonesian and Malay restaurants.”

Bella contributes to the debate. “It is for the same reason that I doubt there are many Italian or French restaurants in India.”

Valerie is visibly annoyed. “Remember how you used to love fish and chips, Padmini?”

“Because I was young and I had more than I could take of Indian food, cooked by my sister every single day of the week,” Padmini says.

“That’s not how I recall it,” Valerie says.

Bella thinks that Padmini and Valerie are behaving like long-term partners edgily exchanging put-downs, and she stays out of it. She changes the subject. She asks, “Are South African wines readily available for your restaurant?”

Padmini says, “I loved what we sampled in Cape Town when we went there for the Gay Pride parade last March. Loved Cape Town too, for that matter. Everyone who is anyone goes to Cape Town for that event! It is like Sydney’s or San Francisco’s.”

“What do you know?” Bella says neutrally.

The waiter brings Valerie’s drink and the wine bottle. He has difficulty uncorking it, and Padmini takes it from him and uncorks it with professional ease. She pours out glasses for the three of them, and they raise a glass together without uttering a toast. When the waiter returns, they let Padmini do the ordering. When the food arrives, they tuck into it.

“You haven’t aged at all,” Padmini says to Bella.

“Nor have you,” Bella says.

Valerie says that she is not sure she could pick Bella out from a lineup with absolute certainty. She adds, “I am good with voices, not with people’s faces.”

Bella knows that not all women age alike. African women make less of an effort as the years go by. Women elsewhere spend more time and money consciously grooming their bodies, taking pills and applying antiaging creams.

“What was Kampala like?” Bella asks Padmini. It is time to get a little more serious.

“Not likely to return there ever.”

“Why?” Bella asks.

“Obviously, we made a mistake.”

“In what way did you make a mistake?”

“We thought that with Amin dead and gone the new guy would be different. You see, I went to repossess our family property. But once they discovered that we were gay in a country where it is a criminal offense to be gay, the man we were in litigation with hired goons and spies to amass sufficient forensic evidence to have us put behind bars. At first we did not even have the possibility of bail. Fools that we were, we hired a lawyer, who unbeknownst to us was also on a retainer from the very man I was in dispute with.”

Bella pretends she is hearing all this for the first time and asks, “Then what?”

“We spent two nights in a lockup smelling of years-old urine and a rotten history of sodomy and rape.” Valerie steps in to explain. “On the next day, our photographs were in some yellow rag and our story made it onto YouTube. Then our lawyer, without consulting us, came with papers she drew up not as our advocate but as though she were a mediator, playing one side against the other, all the while she was taking our money.”

“How humiliating!” Bella exclaims.

Padmini says, “The deal on the table was that we should sign the legal documents she prepared, giving him all the rights to the property, in exchange for our freedom.”

“Was that what you did?”

Padmini says, “Wouldn’t you?”

The dark rings around Padmini’s eyes have become more prominent, and Valerie holds her head between her hands. Bella decides to withhold judgment until she has the whole story from Gunilla.

They eat in silence. A waiter inquires how they are doing. They nod their heads and, still not speaking, they eat some more.

“And you, Bella, how have you been?”

“I am well, considering. If it wasn’t for what happened to Aar, I would say I am happy in my job, on the road a lot, excellent friends everywhere I go. What else can one ask for?”

Padmini says, “Sex, good sex.”

She says this so loudly they can feel the shock waves hitting the next table, and the waiter, who has moved on, turns and stares.

Bella says, “Who says I don’t have good sex!”

“Do you?” Valerie asks.

Padmini says, “Who gives it to you?”

“What do you mean, who gives it to me?”

“A man or a woman?”

Bella remembers the last time she made love, that day with Humboldt, the day Aar died. She can’t believe she is being asked about this twice in one day. But she only says, “I view sex as a private matter.”