Nuruddin Farah - Crossbones

Fee-Jigan fidgets and, remorseful, narrows his eyes in sorry concentration. He lowers his head and then the rest of his body, as if going on his knees in apology. His voice almost a whisper, he says, “My phone was in my pocket and it must have dialed itself.”

Ma-Gabadeh says, “You are a fool and a liar.”

The tape recorder is on, registering every word.

Ma-Gabadeh then asks Fee-Jigan, “Tell it all on tape, you dishonest, filthy dog, if you do not want me to have my men slit your throat. Confess it on tape. Speak, and speak loud!”

“It’s my fault,” Fee-Jigan says. “Everything.”

“Go on and tell him what I told you before we came here.”

Fee-Jigan says, with abject humility, “You said that if you were displeased with a question the journalist put to you, you would exercise your right to refuse to answer, or might take the option of answering it on condition he rephrase his question.”

Ma-Gabadeh turns to Malik. “You see, Malik, how very difficult it is to stay honest in a world that is becoming more dishonest by the second and in which those whom you trust continue to let you down. What do you suggest we do about the world? You are better educated and wiser than I am. What do you suggest we do about people’s dishonesty?”

Ma-Gabadeh gathers his things, rises to his feet, calls his bodyguards on the phone, and tells them to have the car waiting in the rear of the hotel. Departing, Ma-Gabadeh says, “You’ll hear from me.”

Malik is not certain to whom Ma-Gabadeh’s parting words are addressed, or what to make of them. They could be interpreted, if they are addressed to Malik, as meaning, “I’ll get in touch with you.” Equally, they could be communicating a warning—“I’ll be gunning for you from here on,” if Fee-Jigan is their intended recipient. But what if Ma-Gabadeh is intending to warn Malik off, since he is the one who is asking sensitive questions about funding Shabaab, the very question that precipitated the set-to between Fee-Jigan and Ma-Gabadeh?

When he is gone, Malik sends a brief text to Qasiir: “All well.”

Then Fee-Jigan leans forward, his hand outstretched as if in friendship, almost touching Malik’s wrist. Maybe the man wishes to clear his name, Malik thinks.

Fee-Jigan says, “I am sure that was a piece of theater unlike any you’ve seen in your wanderings as a foreign correspondent. Not too bad, was it?”

“Frankly, I am still confused by it,” Malik says. “Maybe you can enlighten me?”

Fee-Jigan is in no haste to get up. He says, “I deny categorically that the idea of bringing the interview to an end by dialing Ma-Gabadeh’s number was mine. It was he who suggested it. I regret that I agreed.”

If Malik does not counter Fee-Jigan’s claim right away, it is because he remembers an Arabic proverb: that for the strong to impose their will on the weak, they must provoke them until they take an inadvisable course of action that will destroy them. Fee-Jigan, in other words, is in no position to call Ma-Gabadeh a liar.

Fee-Jigan continues, “Now to act as if he was innocent and I was the guilty party, and then to threaten me? I find that hard to take.”

Malik is inclined to believe Fee-Jigan, but he says only, “Let’s go get a cup of something.”

The teahouse they find themselves in is a bit of a letdown after the hotel dining room and the private alcove. The waiters are scruffy, their white shirts stained with food and string holding up their trousers. The clients whom they are serving are no different from the folks one runs into in the street outside. Malik, cynical, thinks that maybe democracy has dawned here at last, after all. The men, pretentiously pious, wear lavish beards. They hush as Fee-Jigan and Malik go past them, looking for a free table. When they resume talking, they speak textbook Arabic, not the dialects native speakers would use. One of them is so pleased with his mastery of the language that he throws tongue-twisting gauntlets at them, like a teenager showing off.

As the waiter departs to get them the tea they have ordered, Malik cuts to the chase. He asks, “Does Ma-Gabadeh fund pirates?”

“In truth, the nexus between the pirates and Shabaab is hard to prove and much more difficult to discount,” Fee-Jigan says. “Even so, I’ve heard it said by an associate of his that if there is a link in an expanding chain connecting the pirates to Shabaab, and Shabaab to the foreign jihadis, then Ma-Gabadeh is that link, because he has had extensive associations with all three groups. Moreover, he has been described as someone who has made deals beneficial to the pirates by lending them seed money, and to Shabaab by paying deposits on the weapons they bought from the Bakhaaraha. I know from one of my sources that he has collected tidy sums from the pirates as his percentage, and has paid protection fees to Shabaab. More significantly, he is related by marriage to TheSheikh.”

“And he is wealthy on account of these links?”

Fee-Jigan says, with evident relish, “Ma-Gabadeh, a man from the shit creeks, is now so stinking rich from these illicit transactions that he can afford to bathe in tubs filled with the most expensive French perfume.”

Malik asks, “What about Gumaad?”

“What about him?”

“What is his game?” Malik says.

“He is no journalist, I can tell you that.”

“Precisely,” Malik says. “So what’s his game?”

“Rumor has it he has been lately recruited into the intelligence services of the Courts,” Fee-Jigan says, “and we journalists do not trust him at all.”

To Malik’s surprise, Gumaad is again in the back of the car when Qasiir picks him up, but Qasiir merely says, “Belts, please,” as usual, as he starts the engine and looks in the rearview mirror. Gumaad inquires how the interview has gone, but Malik is economical with his comments. He says simply that Fee-Jigan is the most interesting journalist he has met since his arrival — a clear putdown of Gumaad.

Clearly galled, Gumaad requests that Qasiir stop the car, then announces he won’t be going with them back to the apartment. “I must help draft a communiqué to be released in the name of TheSheikh, in response to the imminent Ethiopian takeover of two Somali border towns.”

Malik ascribes Gumaad’s statement to similar self-important claims he has heard from him before. He is not sure when he will share with Qasiir, Dajaal, and Jeebleh Fee-Jigan’s contention that Gumaad has been drafted into the Courts’ intelligence services. He says only, “Good-bye and good luck,” and waves Gumaad on.

Qasiir drives on and Malik looks out on the world outside, wondering if everyone on the road is in a greater rush today because they know something the two of them don’t. Of course, he has heard about the Ethiopians invading and occupying Belet-Weyne, and all the news agencies are agreed that before long, the border town will fall. But how imminent is the real, final invasion of the country?

Malik asks, “What’s the latest news?”

“My men on the security detail noted the curious presence of an explosives expert coming in and out of the hotel where you were conducting the interview,” Qasiir says, “and we were rather worried. We wondered what he would be doing in the hotel.”

“So what did you do?” Malik wants to know.

“I rang Grandpa for advice.”

“What did he advise?”

“That we double the number of men on the beat,” Qasiir says, “and that I change my parking position every so often; if need be, drive around and then come back.”