Nuruddin Farah - Hiding in Plain Sight

But Valerie has her blood up, and she isn’t done. She says, “Ask her about the other thing.”

The waiter is whispering something to one of the other waiters behind the counter, and the two begin to laugh.

Padmini says, “Do you enjoy sex?”

“What a stupid question to ask,” says Bella.

“Haven’t they chopped yours off?”

Valerie adds, “That genital thing, she means.”

“What are you talking about?” Bella says.

“She means genital mutilation.”

“Or female circumcision,” Valerie says, “which has to do with the removal of the entire clitoris, if I understand it correctly. Is that what you meant, Pad?”

Padmini nods her head and falls silent.

“What is your question?” Bella asks.

“Do they feel anything?”

“I can’t speak about what others feel or not.”

“Can I ask you a question?” Padmini asks.

“Go ahead and ask.”

“Were you circumcised?”

Some people are insensitive to the point of being ridiculous, Bella thinks.

“No,” she says.

Valerie says, “I thought you were.”

“Well,” says Bella, “then you are wrong.”

“I imagined every Somali woman underwent infibulation,” Valerie says.

Bella now remembers what Aar said after Valerie’s sudden and unannounced departure. “You never know what you know until you realize that you’ve known it all along. One day the pin drops, and you see you had the knowledge all along!”

“Were you spared because you were special?”

Bella doesn’t bother to answer the question. She should never have invited them to dinner, she thinks. But she keeps her cool, reminding herself there will be many more skirmishes along the way until they fall on their backsides and receive their just deserts. She now says, “Would either of you like another drink, dessert? Shall we ask the waiter to bring the menu again?”

Padmini says, “No, thank you.”

“Shall we share the bill?” Valerie says.

“You are my guests,” Bella says. “I invited you.”

She motions to the waiter to clear the table and prepare the bill, but Valerie stops him. She wants doggy bags.

As she signs the bill, Bella says to the waiter, “Lovely food. My friends here and I have enjoyed the food and the atmosphere.”

“But where are you from?” he says to Bella.

“I am Somali,” she says.

“I wouldn’t have thought so,” he says.

“And why not?”

He says, “Somalis frequent the restaurants near the main mosque in the center of town or the eateries in Eastleigh. Also…”

“Go on. Also…,” she encourages him.

“Somali women don’t go to restaurants.”

She is not at all surprised that this young Kenyan holds nothing but generalizations about Somalis, who form about six percent of Kenya’s population. After all, Valerie, who was married to a Somali man and gave birth to children who are part Somali, has just demonstrated that she knows next to nothing about Somalis. How she wished they had talked about Aar and not about so much other disillusioning nonsense.

“What are you doing now,” Padmini asks. “We would like to sample the nightlife in Nairobi, go to a jazz joint or something, or to a gay bar.”

Bella declines — she wants to get back to the children, but she doesn’t want to go to Aar’s car until they are gone.

Padmini asks, “You wouldn’t know of any gay bars since you know this city well, would you?”

“No,” says Bella.

Outside, Padmini and Valerie engage in some quick brainstorming and decide to ask a taxi driver where they might find some nightlife. A driver in the queue, overhearing them, waves furiously at them. “Ladies, I am your man, here to take you where you want.” He offers to take them to a dance spot he knows, “where there are plenty of men, big and strong, and you ladies can have a good time.”

Padmini says, “We’re not into men, thank you.”

The driver is unfazed. “Nairobi is a big town, especially at night. I know a couple of places you would like.”

“Now you are talking,” Padmini says.

Valerie turns to Padmini. “But before we go.”

“Yes, dear. Any problem?”

The driver takes a renewed interest in the way they are looking at each other and discreetly touching, and a knowing smile crosses his expressive face.

“Let me have a word with Bella,” says Valerie.

“About what?”

“About tomorrow evening’s dinner with the children.”

“I thought that was done and arranged,” says Padmini.

“You see, I am eager to see them, that is why.”

Bella watches all the goings-on with amusement, especially the expression on the taxi driver’s hatchet face, a lit cigarette dangling from his half-pouting lips as he trains his full attention on Valerie and Padmini.

Valerie, meanwhile, is a foot closer to Bella and says in a half whisper, “We’re all set for tomorrow, are we, the children, you and I, for dinner?”

“We are and they are looking forward to seeing you.”

The sound of jollity wafts across from a group of young men and women in a festive mood after several hours’ drinking; their noises are happy and everyone is in character. In fact, one of them, a young man who is too far gone to know what he is doing, opens the taxi Padmini is now sitting in, waiting for Valerie to join her. Padmini shoos away the young man and tells Valerie, “Time to go and party. Come.”

They go, and Bella feels a terrible sense of relief.

—

Bella picks up Aar’s car from the parking lot. However, she is aware of the late hour and drives with unprecedented alertness, keeping a keen lookout for any suspicious vehicle following her home. In addition to being concerned about the valuables in the trunk of the car, Bella is worried about driving at this hour in a city that she associates with terrible violence. But since she won’t allow fear to dominate her life, she will trust her luck in hopes that all will be well.

And in fact, everything turns out to be okay. And when she gets home and lets herself in — Salif had the wisdom not to set the house alarm, for she wouldn’t know how to disarm it — she can sense movement in their rooms. She wishes them good night before turning in herself.

Bella wakes with the sun in her eyes. She revels for a moment in the tropical warmth that she always relishes here, the open-ended feeling of the hour. Then the alarm of her iPhone goes off. At first she thinks it is someone else’s, someone with something urgent to attend to. Here, there is no worry that she might oversleep. So what is the hurry? She tries to go back to sleep.

And then she remembers where she is, and why — in the master bedroom of her dead brother’s house, the children in their respective rooms. A line from a poem by Dylan Thomas comes to her, uncalled: “After the first death, there is no other.” Of course, a great deal has happened since her arrival, some of it heartening to her, especially when it comes to her nephew and niece; some a little harrying, particularly when it comes to Valerie and her intentions. She remembers her evening with Padmini and Valerie, and how, ultimately, it disintegrated. Her throat feels tight as she wonders how much of Valerie and Padmini’s life she should share with the children, to whom it will probably be news that there is more to the two women’s partnership than business. She is sure, because he told her more than once, that Aar simply never bothered about telling the children more than they needed to know, especially because there was no way of knowing how they would react if they knew the truth about their mother’s sexuality. He once explained his difficulty dealing with this dilemma, saying, “At times, a child may direct undeserved hate toward the bearer of a message rather than toward the person the content of the message is about.” And because Valerie never communicated directly with Aar or the children, it was erroneously assumed that worrying about what to tell the children about their mother’s sexuality was unnecessary. Now — now it is up to Valerie to deal with it, Bella decides, as she has other matters of grave consequence to worry about. The children are now grown — and they and their mother can sort things out between themselves as articulate adults. Even so, Bella is aware that indiscretions such as last night’s will in no way bring them closer.