Nuruddin Farah - Crossbones

“Why not show him the door?” Jeebleh says.

“It’s Cambara’s call, not mine,” says Bile. “There’s only one way of doing things. Her way.”

The shopping in, Robleh says good-bye from a distance, but Cambara joins them.

“Why all this food?” Bile asks.

Cambara says, “In the event of an invasion.”

Bile is exhausted. His eyes close, despite his valiant attempts to keep them open. When Dajaal telephones, Jeebleh tells him to come and get him in five minutes. Waiting, they discuss the inevitability of the war and agree on how the Courts have mismanaged the Khartoum talks.

“I hope to leave before the war starts,” Jeebleh says.

“Will Malik stay on?” Cambara asks.

“He’ll remain, whatever happens.”

The bell rings, the dogs bark. The bells’ ringing and the dogs’ barking startle Bile from his napping. “Talk to you later,” Jeebleh says, as he takes his leave.

AS SOON AS DAJAAL AND JEEBLEH LEAVE, MALIK AND QASIIR SETto work on the computer. And they talk at first about matters of no great concern to either. Malik asks Qasiir about what occupies his mind lately; how much time he spends with his family, his baby, and whether he goes to the movies, if in fact there are cinemas any longer.

“The men from the Courts have shut down all the movie houses,” Qasiir replies. “Movies are xaraam —forbidden. Nothing, not even Bollywood; no music at teahouses. It is all serious religious stuff. This is resulting in young people becoming bored and in seeing life as very tough, tedious.”

“What was it like in the days of the warlords?”

“Those were brutes, the warlords. And they perpetrated indescribable cruelties against the unarmed civilians.”

“I meant, what was life like for the young? You were young in those days and a member of a clan-based militia, weren’t you?”

“Despite the terribleness of the times,” Qasiir says, “we had some fun, in our own way. We watched films, some of them Italian or American classics, played the music of our choice, we threw parties, we danced, we did everything the young everywhere enjoy doing. We even watched blue movies. There were a couple of places run by Zanzibari refugees where you could rent those. Of course, the warlords were terrible to most people, especially anyone who belonged to one of the weaker clan families or who wasn’t armed.”

When they hear the muezzin announcing the prayer time, Malik tells Qasiir that he doesn’t mind if Qasiir stops working to pray and then gets back to work on the computer. But Qasiir doesn’t pay him any mind, and with his head inclined, his whole body still, he focuses his attention wholly on typing computer commands, intently reading the results coming up on the screen. Malik leaves the workroom, goes to the fridge, and returns with a can of Coke, which he offers to Qasiir. Qasiir pops it open, takes a sip, and says, “Thanks.”

Malik sees an opening and he takes it. “What is your rapport with your former mates, who served in the same clan-based militias as you?”

“Some currently occupy positions of power in the Courts, a few have joined Shabaab and are training their cadre,” Qasiir says.

“Are you in touch with them?”

“I am in touch with a couple on a daily basis.”

“Tell me, how are they able to distinguish the lies they told then, when they were supposedly killing in service to the supremacy and economic advancement of their clans, from the religious spin they propagate now as divine truth?”

Qasiir is comfortable holding his ground. In his early youth, from what Jeebleh told Malik, he was an aficionado of everything American, with a special fascination for eyewear of the Ray-Ban variety and Clint Eastwood westerns, which he watched so many times with his friends that he knows the dialogue from some of the movies by heart. He now gives thought to Malik’s question, taking his time, and pauses in his typing.

“Are you asking if the militiamen formerly serving the warlords, who are now members of Shabaab, are true to their characters only when they are pulling the triggers of their guns, when they are roughing up innocent folks and killing, rather than when they are in the mosque praying? Do you doubt their sincerity?”

Malik remembers an audacious remark one of his journalist colleagues made when he was in Afghanistan, that honesty is not necessarily synonymous with truth. It stands to reason that not only is it convenient to do as your fellow fighters do but also, as a militiaman, you feel more secure in a crowd, less isolated. From the distant look in his eyes, Malik thinks that Qasiir may be reliving his younger days, when he considered it fun to hang around with other vigilantes and beat up any boy on the slightest provocation.

Qasiir says, “People change unrecognizably when the country in which they live changes. The civil war opens their eyes to areas of their lives to which they have been blind — the same way going to university and receiving a good education help you see things anew. People’s attitudes toward life change with a change in their circumstances, more so in war than in peace. Nobody wants to feel left behind when others move on and do well, or to feel excluded.”

Malik, emboldened by what he has just heard, asks, “What benefits, apart from being a member of a group of idealists, do the youths who join Shabaab receive?”

“Shabaab has plenty of money,” Qasiir says.

“Where do they get it?”

“I can only repeat what I’ve heard others say.” Qasiir resumes his typing. “That they receive large sums from religious charities set up by wealthy Arabs. I’m sure you know more than I do about this.”

“Have you been tempted to join them?”

Qasiir’s voice breaks for the first time, with fear insinuating itself into the crack that has opened. He says, “No.”

“Why not?”

“I am not their sort of material,” Qasiir says.

“What do you mean?”

Qasiir says, “Shabaab prefer their recruits to be much younger than I, greenhorns who know no better, who haven’t developed their own way of looking at the world. They concentrate their efforts on recruiting teenagers from broken homes or young boys and girls to whom they can provide a safety net, a guaranteed livelihood after training. They brainwash them, then attach every new recruit to a trustworthy insider.” He breathes hard, as though it hurts to get these things off his chest. He goes on, “I would be a risk to them, and those among them who know me are aware of this.”

“Do you know anyone they’ve killed?” Malik asks.

“I do,” says Qasiir.

“Who?”

“Let me correct myself,” Qasiir says. “I knew someone who was assigned to bump off Grandpa Dajaal. He came and told me so himself, and as a result he ended his association with the organization and became a victim of targeted assassination.”

“Why didn’t he carry out the assignment?”

“He thought it unconscionable to kill a man who has done him no harm, and whom he has known for much of his life,” Qasiir says.

“Why did he come to you?”

“He owed me a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“We were mates, and one day when he was in a shoot-out, in which he could’ve been killed, I saved him. He and I were on different sides, fighting for control of lucrative turf. He was badly injured and I took him to Grandpa Dajaal’s house and Uncle Bile treated him. Not one of his or my friends knew about this, but he remembered.”

“Does Dajaal know about the contract out on him?”

“I chose not to tell him.”

“Why not?”