Nuruddin Farah - Hiding in Plain Sight

Dahaba hangs close to the car; she is hungry. Bella and Padmini spread out picnic mats on the uneven ground. Valerie opens the bottle of red wine she and Padmini have brought and pours a paper cupful for Padmini.

Valerie and Salif find two tree trunks close to each other and take their food and drinks and sit together. Dahaba joins them. She says, “Last time we came here, we were four. And Dad was with us. And we seemed happy. We took delight in one another’s joys and laughed at the same jokes. Then Mum left. And now Dad is murdered.”

Maybe because Valerie is no state of mind to hear any of this, she wants to walk away. But Salif, as if by coincidence, blocks her way and gently lays his hand on his mother’s elbow. After all, knowing Dahaba well, he senses that his sister has something heavy on her mind, a weight that she wishes to rid herself of right this instant. Valerie, having no choice, sits down and listens as though she were cornered.

Dahaba asks, “Why did you leave?”

“I wish I hadn’t,” Valerie says, weepily.

“Was Dad awful to live with, violent?”

“No, he was gentle, too gentle.”

“Was he seeing another woman?”

“No, I was the world to him.”

“Why did you leave then?”

Salif listens, saying nothing.

“One day I would like to know why,” says Dahaba.

And all Valerie can manage is “One day.” Then she resumes weeping, her head in her hands, as though she has just this minute received the news of Aar’s death.

Still Dahaba persists. “There must have been a reason, Mum.” She keeps insisting, and Valerie keeps weeping, neither of them able to move on.

Salif reflects on how much more he knows than his sister. One thing he knows is that his father was not the person making his mother miserable, even though Salif suspected that Aar felt she was a lost cause. Whenever Salif relives those terrible final days together, he remembers his father going about his business as if Valerie’s problems were not his concern. He recalls waking up in the wee hours of the night, his mother by herself in the kitchen, the lights off, the cap of the whiskey bottle on the table and the bottle three-quarters empty, the ashtray full of cigarette butts, the smell of the liquor heavy on her breath. And then there were those other bottles, the bottles that once contained the tablets she took morning, afternoon, and evening.

Salif doubted his father was unaware of the demons preying upon his wife. Maybe he couldn’t do anything to placate them.

“Did your father tell you why I left?” Valerie says at last.

“He always said to ask you,” Dahaba says.

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” Valerie says, “and I am not asking you to forget what I did, which was foolish and selfish. But I love you, I truly love you.”

Meanwhile, Bella and Padmini converse in low voices, their faces turned away from each other. They fall silent when Salif approaches. Padmini suggests they pack the uneaten meal, get into the car, and leave.

Bella asks, “What is the rush?”

“We must return to the hotel,” Padmini explains. “We have to start packing up.”

Salif is unhappy about departing this instant, but he is a well-brought-up young man and he restrains himself. Bella acquiesces too and whispers to him, “An hour this way or three hours the other way won’t matter because we can come back to this very spot whenever we please, darling.”

He shrugs his shoulders and starts to pack up. When the car is loaded, Bella bangs the trunk closed and takes her seat. Padmini gets in front, seething visibly but not saying anything. They drive back to Nairobi, the mood darkened by the silence no one dares to break.

Padmini is anxious to get back to the hotel, but Bella insists they all stop at the house for something to drink. She promises to drive them back later so they won’t have to call a taxi.

Valerie wants a sundowner, and she makes herself comfortable on the couch, cutting the figure of a memsahib accustomed to being waited on hand and foot. Padmini offers to help make tea, though she remains tense and fidgety. Bella assigns Salif and Dahaba the task of bringing in the mats and picnic supplies and uneaten food from the car. Salif avails himself of the opportunity to suggest that Dahaba apologize to their mother.

“I can’t think of a reason to apologize. Why must I?”

“Because there is nothing to be gained from cornering Mum with questions she can’t answer. And in any case, what is there to say? She was in the grip of a ‘love supreme,’ as the John Coltrane lyric goes.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Think about it. What do you gain?”

She thinks about it, then says, “I agree with you. There is no gain.”

His hand, by its own volition, touches the small of Dahaba’s back. At first the girl tenses, and then she starts to relax. She says, “I felt a need to have a showdown, to get it all off my chest.”

“Now that you’ve done it, what then?”

“I’ll do as you say, apologize.”

She goes into the house and Salif stays behind to finish clearing out the trunk. He throws the rubbish in the bin and brings in the rest. He stores the unused paper cups and paper plates in the pantry and stands the mats against the wall. When he goes into the living room, he finds Dahaba nestling up to Valerie on the couch and the two of them whispering amicably in each other’s ears. He heads up the stairs toward his bedroom to commune with his iPhone and his computer.

The tea made, Bella serves it to Padmini and is surprised and relieved to see mother and daughter getting on so well. She sneaks upstairs and Salif fills her in on what has transpired. “We had a word, she and I, that is all.”

“Well done,” says Bella.

They are still cuddling and cooing when Bella comes back downstairs, but she notices that Padmini seems more uncomfortable than before. Is it the newfound rapport between Valerie and Dahaba that is causing her current discomposure? Does it make her feel like an outsider?

Bella mulls over what she can do to help. Should she offer to settle their new heap of debt for the hotel and the lawyers to make sure the two of them make their flight and return home as scheduled? Can she persuade Padmini to allow it?

Dahaba suddenly says, “I am hungry, Mum.”

“Oh, my darling, are you really?”

“Please make something,” pleads the girl.

“What’s to your liking, my sweet?”

Just as Valerie rises to her feet, Padmini says, “Honey, I would like to get back rather urgently to the hotel.”

“What’s the matter?”

“My period has arrived unusually early.”

Valerie looks helpless and indecisive. “What do you want to do?” she asks.

Padmini says to Bella, “I really want to go back to the hotel to shower and change my clothes.”

Bella sees how reluctant Valerie is to leave Dahaba, and she is reluctant to break up their easy rapport. “I would really like you both to stay the night,” she says. “Why don’t I give you a lift to the hotel and back? At this hour there will be little traffic.”

“Would you mind?” says Padmini. “I would be grateful if you could.”

“Would you?” says Valerie. “You don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” says Bella.

“And I’ll feed my hungry angel here,” says Valerie.

Bella goes upstairs to tell Salif what she is doing and gets her wallet, grateful that the ride will give her a chance to speak in private with Padmini.

They get in the car and Bella speeds off as though they were boarding school students in danger of missing curfew.

Without prompting, Padmini opens up just as Bella had hoped. She tells Bella that her and Valerie’s return tickets to India via Kampala will become void unless they use them as scheduled; they are neither extendable nor refundable. And she says that she would leave, given the choice.