Nuruddin Farah - Crossbones

“Besides, from the look of you, you seem to be running a mild fever,” Cambara says. And to prove it, her cold hand touches his warm head.

Bile sits in the only easy chair in the room, Cambara on the edge of the bed, in which Malik is now lying prone. They ask him questions about the explosion. He gives the details he has already worked on in his head and which he intends to write down, just as is.

Done with his retelling, Malik points Cambara to the bag in which he has kept his soiled things. Then he goes into the bathroom to wash his face and take a look in the mirror at the bump on his forehead. Bile plies him with pills, and when Malik tells him that he is set on working on the short piece he promised his editor, Cambara prepares a couch on which to sleep and a desk on which to write.

Alone at last, Malik writes several versions of the day’s events and then e-mails the short piece — a pity he has no pictures to accompany it. He postpones starting on the longer piece till the next day, but before turning in, exhausted and still in pain, he rings Ahl to let him know what has happened and to ask after Taxliil.

Ahl is eager to talk. Worn out and still in considerable pain, Malik offers to say hello to Taxliil, “just to hear my nephew’s voice after such a long time.”

“Taxliil is in no mood to talk to anyone.”

“Says who?” Malik asks, galled.

“I say it, he says it, does it matter who says it?”

Malik tells himself that, like a contagion affecting them all, there is a lot of nervous tension going around. He is under a great deal of stress, because of the threats Hilowleh has alluded to and, more to the point, the fact that he won’t speak about it to anyone — which in and of itself carries its built-in anxiety; Ahl, because of the uncertainties surrounding Taxliil; Taxliil, because of what he has just been through and the unpredictability of his future safety. Maybe it is best that they do not lose their cool at what has proved to be an ordeal for all of them. He decides that it is time to compromise.

“What will make you happy?”

“Talk to Fidno and his friend,” Ahl says.

Malik asks, “Is No-Name coming along, too?”

“No-Name is not coming,” Ahl says. “Instead, Fidno’s associate, Il-Qayaxan, known among his friends as Isha, is joining you.”

“And where does Isha fit in?” Malik says.

Ahl says, “Just talk to them, please.”

“Where is Fidno now?”

“Both Fidno and Isha are in Mogadiscio waiting for your call,” Ahl says. “Let me give you their respective phone numbers. Please make sure to arrange to see them tomorrow at a place and time of your choosing.”

Malik takes down their phone numbers and hangs up. With the words of Hilowleh echoing in his mind, he calls up Qasiir and requests that he claim to be Malik’s assistant and set up a meeting for him with Fidno and Il-Qayaxan for one in the afternoon tomorrow. “Please call me back after you’ve spoken to them, and I’ll give you the name of the hotel and the room number, too.”

Then Malik does his duty by Amran and calls her, offering her a doctored version of what he’s been through, reducing the number of deaths by a third and distancing himself from their proximity.

He then speaks to Jeebleh, to whom he offers an unedited version of the day’s events.

AHL HITS HURDLES AT EVERY BEND, THE MORE HE THINKS ABOUTthe safest and least cumbersome way to get Taxliil out of Somalia. It is difficult enough for him to step over the threshold and doubly difficult to deal with Taxliil, who is a misguided youth because of his involvement with Shabaab. Taxliil has a way of throwing another wrench into the works every time Ahl manages to wrest one free. He finds all this exhausting, and he feels himself in danger of cracking up, never mind his stepson.

His plan was to get Taxliil to Djibouti, where they would present themselves at the U.S. embassy and explain the loss of Taxliil’s passport. But the plan is so far proving to be unworkable, because they need to find a travel document of some description to leave Bosaso and enter Djibouti. No airline will accept him as passenger unless he has a valid passport. Ahl thinks that as more twists in Taxliil’s tale come to light, the more numerous are the drawbacks that are bound to crop up.

Meanwhile, Ahl has been in touch with a tearful Yusur in Minneapolis, has held long brainstorming sessions with Jeebleh in Nairobi, and continues to communicate with Malik by phone and by text message. Xalan and Warsame are doing their best to help as well, but things don’t look good.

When he is not thinking like a runaway, Taxliil has on several occasions apologized to his parents, admitting to his foolhardy trust in the imam back in the Twin Cities, at whose prompting he volunteered to join up with Shabaab. Now he knows better; now he knows what is what, and has learned his lesson the hard way. He wants to forgive and forget — or to be forgiven, and for the entire episode to be forgotten.

But does he realize things are not simple for him and the twenty-odd runaways? Taxliil claims he does, yet he does nothing to show this is the case. Ahl is reminded of a proverb, probably French, about the unfortunate man who falls on his back and as a result breaks his nose. Taxliil keeps doing the opposite of what he says he will do, making an already difficult situation more complicated. He falls asleep in the middle of one of Ahl’s debriefing sessions. When Ahl tries to iron out the major inconsistencies in his story, Taxliil loses his cool and casts uncalled-for aspersions on his stepfather.

All the members of the household help as best they can, but keep their distance, too. Faai plies Ahl with black coffee and Taxliil with sugary drinks. Xalan gets busy organizing a Somali passport with help from a friend with access to someone working in the passports division in Bosaso. Taxliil will travel with Ahl to Djibouti, away from the ubiquitous Shabaab assassins, who if they hear about his presence in Bosaso and in this house may harm him and others as well; one never knows with them. Once Ahl has taken him to Djibouti, Ahl, Malik, and Jeebleh will work in tandem to facilitate his safe return to the United States. Of course, they can’t count on criminals like Fidno and No-Name, who appear to have had a hand in his escape, to keep quiet for long; hence Ahl’s proposal that Malik “buy their silence” by granting them an interview.

Xalan telephones Ahl to confirm that she has reserved seats for him and Taxliil on tomorrow’s flight to Djibouti, and that she is close to organizing the passport for Taxliil. The news has a galvanizing effect, and Taxliil knuckles down to clarifying his account to Ahl. Ahl’s aim is twofold: one, to understand what happened for his own peace of mind; and to help Taxliil prepare for the grilling by the U.S. authorities that he will go through when he reenters the States.

First, though, Taxliil wants to hear, not for the first time, how they discovered he was gone from Minneapolis. It is as if he takes pleasure in having kept his parents, his friends, and the school authorities in the dark while he arranged his departure, and got away without anyone figuring it out. Ahl pampers him with answers: he and Yusur thought Taxliil was at school or at the mosque, and didn’t wonder until late in the evening where he might be. Since Yusur was working the night shift, it fell to him to search Taxliil’s room for evidence of his whereabouts, which is when he discovered that both his passport and his shoulder bag were missing.

“Then what did you do?”

“When we were despairing of ever finding you, because no one had seen you, we went around to the police stations and the hospitals,” Ahl replies. “Petrified as we were, we were also somewhat relieved when you called two days later to say you were in Somalia.”