Nuruddin Farah - Crossbones

Gumaad says, “He is the rising star among those who have been inducted into the intelligence division of the military wing of the Courts.”

“I’ll be damned!” says Dajaal.

Malik overhears the conversation and thinks that, for all his size, the bearded man looks like a body builder, not an inch of flab on him.

Jeebleh is thinking about the change in the city’s attire over the past decade. In the mid-nineties, for want of trained tailors, three-quarters of the men wore sarongs. Now Mogadiscio is awash in styles imported from as far away as Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. He is amazed at the variety of dress, both male and female, that he has seen in just the short time he has been here.

BigBeard makes a beeline for Malik’s computer.

“Is that your computer?” the man asks Malik.

Malik stands firm, with his legs splayed and his body leaning back, as though preparing to shoulder in a resistant door.

He says to BigBeard, “I am a Somali journalist living in America and have come on a visit, inspired by the exemplary events here.”

“For whom do you write?”

“I am a freelance journalist.”

Malik recalls reading about journalists and writers visiting the Soviet Union in its day of communist glory. Those who gave cagey answers met with official reprimand and would not be issued permits. He takes the plunge. “I hope to write about the peace that has dawned in the land, thanks to the Union of Islamic Courts, which has wrested it out of the hands of the warlords and their associates.”

BigBeard speaks as though desert sand he swallowed a lifetime ago is interfering with his speech pattern, altering its rhythm, impeding its natural flow, like a drain blocked with an avalanche of sludge. He says, “Give the computer here.”

Malik’s eyes cloud with doubt as he realizes that the door he has meant to charge will not budge. But he remains silent, his expression stiffening. He furrows his forehead, more in confusion than anger, wondering why none of the others intervenes on his behalf.

“Why?” Malik asks, choking on his anger.

BigBeard has the astute look of a man who makes up his own rules as he goes along. Malik sees that there is no way he can force him to reverse the decision to dispossess him of his computer. He has met men like BigBeard before — brutes bullying journalists.

“Because I say so,” BigBeard replies. His hands are busy in his beard, twining it; his tongue is plucking at his mustache. How Malik wishes he could strike the smirk off that face. Silence reigns. What can anyone do to forestall a crisis?

Then Gumaad asks, “What if we refuse?”

BigBeard almost achieves the impossible task of working his grin into a grimace. To Gumaad he says, “We — who is we ? You and who else?”

Nervous, they fidget. A subtle nod from Gumaad encourages Dajaal to say, “I’ve always believed that the difference between your lot and the warlords from whom you took control was your sense of respect. Don’t you think that our guests deserve respect?”

BigBeard is a master at taking his time. Up close, Jeebleh sees the whiskers on his cheeks twitching like those of an angry cat. He says to BigBeard, “Can we see some identification, please? That is what the young people are saying.” He speaks with the politeness of someone needing not to lose both the battle to keep the computer and the war to recover it, if it is confiscated. There is no defeat in his eyes, only mild defiance.

With the desert sand no longer audible in his voice, BigBeard says to Jeebleh, “I represent the authority of the Courts. To date, the Courts have not supplied us with identity cards. We work as volunteers. Therefore, you have to trust me on this. I advise you to cooperate for the good of all.”

Jeebleh says, “What if he refuses?”

BigBeard puts his hands in his pockets and knits his eyebrows together in the gesture of someone entertaining an unpleasant memory. At BigBeard’s command, four armed youths emerge out of a cubicle to the right of where the group is standing. The youths fan out, each in a dramatic way, as if they are mimicking a movie they have seen or some jihadi documentary they have been shown. They raise their gas-operated AK-47s and, standing with their feet apart, push the selector switches to automatic: they are ready to shoot, if provoked or ordered by BigBeard to do so. But just at this least likely moment, BigBeard volunteers his name. “I am Abu Cumar bin Cafaan,” he says, and he repeats that he is charged with ensuring that no objectionable computer software or pornographic material is imported into the country, in breach of the Islamic code of conduct.

Malik grudgingly hands over his computer.

Gumaad says to Malik, “Go in with him and type in your passwords so he can have access.”

“There is no need,” BigBeard says.

“No need?”

BigBeard says, “I should disabuse you of the view that just because we bear Muslim names from the days of the Prophet, may Allah bless him, and do not answer to Johnny, Billy, or Teddy, we’ll have difficulty accessing a computer without a password. We are not as backward as you may think.”

Dajaal says to Malik, “Give it to him and fear not what he might or might not do. We know how to deal with his kind.”

Malik sits racked with despair.

BigBeard says, “Dajaal and I — fancy bearing a satanic name and being proud of it! — have known each other for a very long time. He knows what I am capable of, this ally of the devil.”

As BigBeard walks away with the computer, leaving the four of them to exchange looks, none of them knowing what to say or do, Jeebleh remembers that, in Islamic mythology, Dajaal is the name for the Antichrist. Anyhow, he hopes that, as matters stand, the four of them will not blame one another for what has taken place. What BigBeard is doing seems to have less to do with protecting against breaches in the Islamic code of conduct than with the settling of old scores with Dajaal. Malik is already comparing this latest experience with a long chain of previous encounters with the abuse of authority, from his detention by an Afghan warlord keen on Malik’s companion, a female journalist, to the Congolese strongman who confiscated his car, cash, and an assortment of valuables.

Jeebleh calls, “Shall we wait?”

“I don’t know how long it’ll take,” replies BigBeard. “I suggest you go and take a look around the city, enjoy your lunch, have a shower.” Then, indicating Dajaal with his smug smile, he says to Jeebleh, “Send your driver and his sidekick to fetch your computer later.”

Again, no one can think of anything to say.

AS HE DRIVES AWAY, DAJAAL REMEMBERS BIGBEARD’S CHILDHOODepithet, “the father of all lies, an uncle to deceit.” He drives fast, as though closing in on an elusive past in order to show the others what he has always seen. All he says, however, is this: “BigBeard is a man with more pseudonyms than anyone else I’ve ever known.”

Dajaal is a military man; he speaks sparingly and is not given to emotional outbursts. He is cautious, concerned that his actions do not harm either Malik or Jeebleh. He and BigBeard go back a long way. He knows BigBeard and his family members for what they are: a self-destructive lot, the less said about them, the better for all. He is relieved that Malik and Jeebleh do not press him to speak.

Jeebleh sits in back with Malik now, but Malik won’t respond to his solicitude. Jeebleh thinks how different people behave when their pride is hurt. Some sulk and withdraw into themselves, while others become jumpy, lose their cool. Where small sorrows make one incautious, Jeebleh reckons, big sorrows may render one tongue-tied. Malik is now entertaining a thoroughbred sullenness, neither looking in Jeebleh’s direction nor talking. He doesn’t even seem to be listening to Gumaad, who, emboldened by the others’ silence, blabbers away so excitedly no one can follow what he is saying. Mercifully, Malik hasn’t said anything that he may later regret.