Abdourahman Waberi - Transit

1. United Nations Development Programme. — Author's note

2. World Food Organization. — Author's note

3. United Nations High Commission for Refugees. — Author's note

WE WERE TOGETHER every single minute, Aïdid an me. Us two, we more than partners, we true brothers same ball same goal. Aïdid said he gonna find me a pretty AK-47 for present, day I get married. You bet! there no weapon shortage, he swore like that down on one knee, his eyes shining strong like me when I'm high. By the Good Lord who salted the sea you gotta believe me, Aïdid added. OK, don't go all upset, I believe you, I said. Now, life hard, real shameful even. We out of the game cause we got no more uniform, no more Kalash to panic people on the street, no more food to gobble. Gotta hustle well-well now an later. So we go to Ethiopian girls' bars, where French military they go drink beer an grope ass of nayas.* We say hi to everybody. We go see French soldiers; say something in their ear. After that, we stand attention front of French military cars. When French soldiers leave for bed or go to more bars to drink some more, us, we pick up the change. If they don't pay, watch out, danger of death for their tires, right? Job-there, it specially weekend cause French or German soldiers (those guys, little greenhorns don't really know the rules how you get along), they don't go out every night. No, they too scared cause of Gulf War, Iraq War, Somalia War, an terriblific bomb attacks. Terrorists, they no good for morale an no good for business, Moussa he told me that too.

Moussa he was taxi driver before always making travel. So weekends are good-good for hustle cause goverment got no money. Goverment employees, they been waiting for salary fourteen months. Now, it serious economic crisis, believe me faithfully. When you ask for money, the other guy always answer the same sentence like parrot too-too old: inshallah tomorrow, the Good Lord who salted the sea will not forget us, his children. So now, I get real mad. I do my boss number an I yell: you fat motherfucka, gimme the money right away. An then, Aïdid he come up behind like fast fullback of Real Madrid Roberto Carlos an he bazook the other guy's head. Can't waste bullet cause we got no more khakis an we don't eat army chow no more. Club on the other guy's head, that's enough. After, we go pick up the change an girls not too ugly. We smoke, we drill the girls' asses, we smoke, we drill the girls' asses, like that till the sun rise over Stinksea (that, neighborhood of wild tough-guys like us shiftas* or the kapos, kefkefs , pimps, an the other guys). Every morning the sea carries in corpses fat as Hindi cows (that I know for sure cause of Hindi movies in Al Hilal movie house). OK, none of my business. Those dead guys not always wild hoods, see. They even important genlemen in suit-an-tie: teacher, doctor, union guy an all. Secret police, they suicide a lot-lot, an then they throw corpses into our neighborhood. That way City say yes gotta kill all the hoods or lock em up like the asshole general who screwed up coup. Life like that, one day you pick up money, next day you lose your life. There even babies who scream for two hours an then they quick-quick gone (they called shafeec , in other words they went back inside mama's belly). His mama left behind like bundle of dirty laundry; she cries a lot-lot. Life like that.

Yesterday we pitched our tent on Stinksea beach, true, tent a little dirty, but the not-ugly girls who smoke with Aïdid an me, they love it. An then, the other wild hoods an the shiftas , they know right away we still military without fear an pity like Janaleh, the dry lawman (that his nickname) who comes to drink beer with us. Janaleh he laughing all the time cause in his pocket-there he got a big stock of pink pills (Excedrin, melatonin, Valium, Vicodin…label say that). Janaleh real wild. Everything he don't sell, it for him. Life always like that. Some people laugh; others cry like mamas without babies. Others nervous like a khat-grazer with no khat.

WHEN A WIFE IS CROSS with her husband or neglected by him, she goes back to her father's household and can't come back unless she's accompanied by a delegation that includes the members of his family laden with gifts. Before that, the husband has been summoned, sermonized, and returned to the straight and narrow if need be. A ram is slaughtered and the quarrel drowned in the family celebration. If, for one reason or another, the wife is not brought back at the end of a few days, she is considered divorced from her husband. At least, that's how things went in the time when the importance of a family was calculated more by the number of its neighbors than by the size of its flock. In the same way, one did not marry inside the clan but allied oneself with another clan from the great tribal family. Today, it's all going to the devil, he mumbles.

That just shows that my father-in-law has remained the only member of the family I enjoy seeing again. When he has nothing personal to tell me, he instructs me in the customs of the country; it's his way of breaking the ice and being useful.

“My dear Alice, you can't imagine how clever our Bedouins are, the very ones those travelers or researchers of yours describe as ignorant. Believe it or not, when a baby camel happened to die, it was immediately replaced by a straw dummy so that the mother would continue to give milk. The same technique was used for a cow deprived of her calf. The dummy was made from the hide of the dead baby camel stuffed with straw; it was disposed of after five months, which is how long lactation lasts. Ingenious, isn't it? But — for there is always a but with human activities — the dummy had no effect on the she-goat and the ewe.”

I can sense that he hasn't come just to teach me these inert things marinating in oblivion. He hovers around me; I leave him to his little game, and this man, whose shreds of words are usually so parsimonious at this time of day, turns into my confidant. He knows that words spoken in a confidential tone have more impact than words proclaimed loud and clear. I throw him a line: you've never told me the meaning of your name Awaleh. “Oh, that means ‘the lucky one’ or more precisely ‘He will live’; at times of great pandemics or famines it was given to newborn babies to ward off fate. You know, Alice, your six-month-old son and thus my grandson, by the grace of the Majestic One, you know that he was born on the night of destiny, the night of Miraj, al leyl'al miraj as Muslims say the world over.” And what does that imply — destiny? I stammer, trying to look natural. “Your husband told you nothing about this? That doesn't surprise me at all; that's the way he is — too westernized; I can see how far the son has moved away from his father. Other days, other ways. Luckily I'm here to connect the threads of spiritual and temporal things, the visible and the invisible, my dear Alice. Miraj is the night of the ascent to heaven of our prophet Mohammed, may his name be praised to all eternity! who reached the spiritual world of celestial Jerusalem by riding the winged horse Bouraq, led by the angel Djibril. The steed of the Prophet — may his name be praised by all tiny creatures like us! — was described by the chroniclers as an animal having wings on his thighs pushing his legs forward so hard he could attain the speed of light.”

What is going to happen to my baby? I say, holding back a tear. “Nothing but good; all mothers pray to deliver their children from evil on the night of destiny. Your baby is blessed, blessed three times over. We're lucky, you know? A baby like this one at the first try, bravo, girl!”

I wanted to point out that my baby was also just as old as Independence (independence is above all the power of utopia — it is all the battles dreamt and fought, and their catastrophic future) — but he had already turned away. He left as surreptitiously as he had come.