Nuruddin Farah - Hiding in Plain Sight

“Do I smell what I think I smell?” says Dahaba.

“What’s your beef, Dahaba?” says Salif.

She furrows her forehead and holds her nose in disapproval. “You promised!” she says.

“Promised what?” challenges Salif.

“You promised our father.”

“Were you with us when I promised?”

“No, I wasn’t, but you told me.”

“Anyway, what is your point?”

“You swore you’d quit smoking.”

A sudden unease dominates the room. Salif gets out of bed and stares at Dahaba, annoyed; Qamar looks sheepishly away.

Dahaba says, “I’ll tell on both of you.”

But just as Dahaba prepares to leave the room, looking as if she might indeed report them to one of Qamar’s parents or make a phone call to Auntie Bella, Salif says, “Listen, Dahaba.” He has a look of mischief on his face. “You may tell on us to anyone you choose as long as you don’t tell Qamar what happened last night, since you’ve already shared it with Zubair.”

“How do you know I told him?”

“Something tells me that you have.”

Salif has Dahaba’s total attention and Qamar’s too.

“What happened last night?” Qamar asks. She looks from Dahaba to Salif and back.

Salif is trying to rattle Dahaba’s cage, but he hopes she realizes that telling on him won’t help anyone.

Qamar says, “Will someone tell me what happened last night?” She turns on Dahaba. “I thought we shared everything, you and I?”

Dahaba tenses. “You tell her,” she says to Salif.

“No, you tell her. You saw what happened with your own eyes. I didn’t.”

Qamar says to Dahaba, “Let us trade secrets.”

Dahaba says, “It all started with a YouTube video that Dhimbil, a distant cousin on our father’s side who lives in Kampala, forwarded to Salif. Salif, being mean, wouldn’t share it with me.”

“Cool. And then?”

Dahaba tells what she saw at their house, her mother and Padmini “doing it.” And then her phone rings. It’s Bella, who says, “My darling, I am waiting in the car outside the door. Since I do not want to disturb Fatima or Mahdi because they may be napping, would you give them my best and thank them and come to where I am parked?”

And before Qamar can say anything, Dahaba and Salif run off to join Bella in the car.

Driving away from Fatima and Mahdi’s house, Bella is in a good mood and so are the children. She is getting the hang of how Nairobi works, and she is also getting the hang of how these children work. She prods them less about what has been said by whom because she is beginning to realize that the young are like sieves when it comes to secrets, which they share as readily as they would share a sandwich.

Salif has forfeited his turn in the front seat to Dahaba, who jumped at it and thanked him. Nevertheless, Bella smelled cigarette smoke on Salif’s clothing when they hugged, and she plans to have a word with him on the subject when the time is right. It’s a waste to speak to the young when they are not ready to hear you, she is learning; you need to speak to them at a time and in such a way that they think they are the ones who made the choice.

Back at home, they assemble in the kitchen and Bella first shows them the big album she made out of the photos she brought from Rome. And then she shares with them the album that Gunilla presented to her. She must call Marcella, she reminds herself, but right now she is enjoying what the children are doing, sitting side by side, delighted with what they see: photographs of Bella; of Hurdo, their Somali grandmother in Canada; their father back when he was writing his dissertation. A photo of baby Salif and one of baby Dahaba, Bella with Salif in a kindergarten in Geneva, learning his alphabet in French. Padmini with Rajiv, whom neither child remembers.

Salif says, “How long did it take you to collect these photographs, and where did they come from? They are quite something, very much worth the effort.”

Bella asks them both if they remember Gunilla.

“But of course we remember her,” Dahaba says.

“She was our father’s lover for a time,” Salif says.

Bella pretends not to have heard his assertion.

“Gunilla brought many of them last night in an album of photographs that she gave to me, and the other album I brought with me to give to you.”

Salif says, “That is brilliant.”

Dahaba says, “I’d love to see Gunilla again.”

“What about you, Salif?”

“We both liked her. Gunilla was fun.”

“I’ll ask her to come to dinner,” Bella says.

“That will be great.”

Then the children retreat to their rooms, text messaging or consulting websites of one sort or another or listening to music of their choice until dinner is ready and Bella shouts to them to come down and eat.

—

Valerie’s mobile phone squeals, breaking into the late-afternoon silence in the hotel room. It rings on and on, and Padmini does not pick it up. Valerie has been in the bathroom forever, doing who knows what. Eventually, the phone stops ringing, and Padmini thinks, what a relief.

Today, Padmini has been finding Valerie more difficult to deal with by the hour. The time has come, she thinks, for them to question whether there is any point in staying on in Nairobi. Padmini hasn’t yet shared her worries about their mounting expenses with Valerie because her partner has the pie-eyed look of someone who has been in her cups for days. Padmini is coming around to thinking that it is time they cut their losses, just as they did in Kampala, and return to Pondicherry, where, according to the sign they put on the door, they are due to reopen their hotel and restaurant in less than a week.

Valerie’s phone rings again, and again Padmini lets it ring until it stops. But when the ringing begins again, with still no sign of Valerie, Padmini picks it up and answers.

“Is that Val?” The woman on the other end of the line has a heavy Teutonic accent, and she sounds supremely self-assured. “This is Ulrika Peters. Remember?”

Padmini explains that she is answering Val’s phone. A short pause follows as Ulrika absorbs this information.

Ulrika says, “You met us, you and your English rose, Val, last night, remember? She said to call and maybe we could meet up and have a little more fun.”

“Where would you like to meet?” says Padmini. She is playing for time as she tries to figure out if this is the beer-guzzling Oktoberfest-type giant with the iron handshake who so impressed her and Valerie last night with her heroic drinking abilities and her carrying on with the women on either side of her. Nipple pinching and toe sucking in public! The things some people go for, thinks Padmini. But maybe Valerie would like that sort of thing.

“At Bar in Heaven again,” says Ulrika, “the friendliest bar in all of Nairobi. The best bar on the entire continent, except perhaps for a couple of bars in De Waterkant in Cape Town.”

Do not mention Cape Town again, please, prays Padmini to herself. But to Ulrika she says, “And when?”

“Tonight, why not?”

“Just a second, please,” says Padmini. “I need to consult with Valerie.” She knocks on the bathroom door.

“Go ahead,” says Ulrika. “I will wait.”

“What’s happening?” says Valerie, heavy-tongued, emerging from the bathroom with toothpaste on her chin and her hair carelessly brushed.

“An invite is happening,” says Padmini.

Valerie says, “Tell me more!”

Padmini tells her. “What say you?”

“I say let’s go! Let’s drink and be merry.”

Padmini hesitates, her hand over the phone, taking in Valerie’s condition. Then she tells Valerie that she will accept, on condition that Valerie rests up and refrains from drinking until they get to the bar. Into the phone, she says, “What time do we meet there?”