Nuruddin Farah - Crossbones

“Warsame is getting his daily fix,” Fidno says.

They have pulled up next to Warsame’s favorite qaat stall, run by a woman from whom Warsame buys his ration of leaves of the mild stimulant he and millions of other Somalis chew daily. Ahl can perceive the craving in Warsame’s eyes, the anticipation working its way into his body at the sight of the green leaves spread out within reach of his open window. The woman wears a guntiino robe, a bit of her breast exposed as she raises her arm to adjust the sacking around the bundles, which are wrapped in banana leaves and sprinkled with water periodically, to keep them fresh.

Ahl has read somewhere that Somalia boasts one of the highest populations addicted to qaat , a commodity imported from Ethiopia and Kenya at great cost to the national economy. Qaat is comparable in strength to cocaine, stronger if consumed in greater quantities for longer periods. The woman lifts a bundle to show Warsame how fresh her qaat is. The water sprays as she shakes the bundle, the leaves dancing, and Warsame’s eyes brighten and his mouth moves as the hand holding the money trembles. He pays the woman without getting out of the vehicle, its engine running.

Just as they are ready to drive off, there is a sudden congestion of traffic, caused, one of the qaat sellers tells them, by a head-on collision between two cars up the road. A crowd pours into the street to watch. Patiently, they sit and wait for the blockage to ease, Warsame taking the opportunity to telephone Xalan to tell her what is causing the delay.

Meanwhile, an SUV comes into view. The woman in the front passenger seat smiles in their direction and then discreetly waves. Ahl smiles back, despite feeling that he is not the intended recipient of the woman’s sweet grin and, bashful, looks about him to discover whether either Warsame or Fidno has chanced on the exchange. His wandering gaze encounters Fidno’s, whose hand is raised in greeting.

Ahl adds, “I know the face, but can’t put a name to it. Unless the two of you are acquainted and she is greeting you.”

“Her name is Wiila,” Fidno says.

“She is a flight attendant, isn’t she?”

“What a small world. Maybe you flew with her!”

“Now that you’ve said the name,” Ahl says, “I remember her. She seemed miserable, weepy for much of the flight from Djibouti.”

Fidno explains, “She is mourning the death of her youngest brother, killed in Mogadiscio while on a special Shabaab mission.”

“How come you know that?” Ahl asks.

“I know Marduuf, another of her brothers. We are close.”

“Youngest brother dead and you know the other?”

“The one I know is in the pirate business.”

“An associate of yours?”

Fidno says, “He is, as a matter of fact.”

In the silence that follows, Ahl reflects that it is a pity he and Fidno cannot continue talking later. He could use a siesta. He didn’t sleep well the night before, and he could do with a good rest.

Warsame throws a sheaf of qaat into the back of the vehicle, where Fidno is sitting. Fidno catches the bundle and selects a tender shoot to chew.

The roads are dusty and there is constant movement along them. Goats cross from one side to another, and humans carelessly walk across, impervious to danger, almost suicidal. Warsame drives with his foot an inch away from the brake pedal. He keeps the windows shut against the dust, and the air conditioner on. Even so, they can hear the music belting and recitations of the Koran blaring wherever they go. The buildings they pass, like those they saw on their way from the airport, have an improvised look, some whose walls consist only of zinc sheeting, others of corrugated aluminum, many unpainted. The sky is at times barely visible through the spaghetti of electrical wiring strewn between the structures.

“Do you want to chew some?” Warsame asks.

Ahl shakes his head no.

“I am impressed you never picked up the habit of chewing qaat, given that it is in Yemen. Especially as it’s one of their main export crops,” Fidno says.

Midly shocked that Fidno is so well informed about him, Ahl decides to be patient; he will find out at a later point how this is so. He says, “I don’t chew qaat , never have.”

Fidno asks, “Maybe your parents, as expatriates wanting their children to do well, discouraged it?”

“Chewing was not one of our pastimes as a family,” Ahl replies. “We did a lot of sports as we grew up, we read a great deal, we played chess, we were never left wanting for things with which to occupy ourselves.”

Out of deference to Warsame, his host, Ahl does not add that he finds the idea of wasting away the best part of a day masticating some green leaf and sitting doing nothing highly objectionable.

Warsame says, “Just like my wife.”

“What about your wife?”

“She hasn’t the patience to sit and chew.”

Just as well, Ahl thinks, because he looks forward to getting to know Xalan, Yusur’s best friend and almost sister. Yusur has described Xalan as a formidable woman, actively intelligent, with her heart in the right place, loyal. He will talk to her while the men enjoy their chewing.

Warsame says to Ahl, “I didn’t know you had a friend here. What is his full name, and how long have the two of you known each other?”

Ahl says, “His name is Ali Ahmed Fidno.”

Warsame says he doesn’t recall ever seeing him in town. “He must be new to the city.” Ahl finds it amusing that Warsame keeps talking about Fidno in the third person.

“Well, here he is, anyhow,” Ahl says. “He is alive and well and sitting in your car, as your guest. He is coming with us to your home.”

“I am pleased,” Warsame says unconvincingly.

Ahl is uncertain what Xalan will make of him. Will she fall for him — a mysterious figure emerging out of the unknown and entering her life?

“Tell me more about your friend,” Warsame says.

Ahl has a big problem. How does one introduce a man he hardly knows to the husband of one’s wife’s best friend, whom one has yet to meet? Like it or not, he finds Warsame down to earth, whereas, much as he likes Fidno, he hasn’t met many men who are as shifty and hard to pin down. He says, “Fidno can tell you about himself better than I ever can.”

“I come from Garowe,” Fidno says. “Originally.”

“But you didn’t grow up in Garowe, did you?”

“I was sent to a boarding school in Qardho.”

“Then where?”

“Then I went to university in Europe.”

Warsame is attempting to locate Fidno’s family tree and then identify the branch and clan trajectory. He asks, “Whose name or nickname is Fidno — yours, your father’s, or your grandfather’s?”

“Mine,” Fidno responds.

Only now does it occur to Ahl that maybe Warsame does not wish to take into his home someone whose identity he can’t vouch for. Xalan is bound to take him aside, accost him in the kitchen, or privately in the bedroom, and say, “Who is this guy you’ve brought into our house, our lives?”

“So where do you live?”

“Lately between Mogadiscio and Nairobi.”

“What’s your line of business?”

“I trained as a medical doctor in Germany.”

“Where do you have your practice?”

“I’ve had some personal problems,” Fidno replies, “and have been compelled to shut down my practice. But that is a complicated story. For another day.”

Warsame repeats the name Ali Ahmed Fidno, as if the combination might fit some purpose, and then changes the order in which Fidno has given them and subjects them to a faster run, his tongue rushing at them, as if they might reveal a hidden secret. When they do not, he has several goes at them from different directions, each time to no avail. He says, “Every family name has its own story, and I doubt I know this story. Maybe Xalan will. She knows everyone’s family and the stories that go with them.”