Nuruddin Farah - Crossbones

Dajaal telephones Jeebleh to inform him that they have picked up the computer, no problem, and they are on their way back. Jeebleh inquires whether BigBeard or one of his minions has bothered to explain what they have done to the computer, and if by any chance they deleted files or found material of a pornographic nature and removed it. Dajaal says, “He has deleted several files that were not complimentary about the Courts and the photo of a nude girl serving as a screen saver.”

It rankles Jeebleh that BigBeard has deemed the photograph of his one-year-old granddaughter, soaped and naked as she stands in a bathtub, “pornographic.” It goes to show how much energy religionists of the parochial variety squander on matters of little or no significance.

Malik joins him in the kitchen, refreshed and ready to take on the world, Jeebleh thinks. He informs Malik that Dajaal has retrieved the computer and is on his way back. When Malik asks for details, Jeebleh tells him that some of the files have been deleted, because they have been found to be uncomplimentary to the Courts.

“Is anything else deleted?” Malik wants to know.

Jeebleh tells him about the photo.

Malik says nothing. Jeebleh feels the sense of stress spreading, with Malik biting his lower lip, too angry to speak. Jeebleh thinks how stresses produce inexplicable results and he wonders how the stresses they are all under, the strain that is bound to invade them — Malik, Ahl, and himself — will affect them. What will they be like when they crack up? What will Malik be like when the nervous tension makes him go to pieces? He watches with worry as Malik steps away and stands before the mirror on the wall in the living room and takes a good look at his reflection. Jeebleh senses that even to himself Malik must look older in a matter of moments, rugged and more wrinkled, his face careworn.

Dajaal returns alone and gives the computer without further explanation to Malik. Malik handles it with care the way a mother handles a sick child who is asleep. He takes it to the table in his future workroom off the kitchen, without bothering to open it.

Jeebleh asks, “Where is Gumaad?”

“He took public transport,” Dajaal replies.

Jeebleh’s mobile phone rings. It is Cambara, saying, “Where are you all? Bile and I are waiting, and the lunch is getting cold.”

“We’re coming,” Jeebleh assures her.

AHLULKHAIR, KNOWN TO FAMILY AND CLOSE FRIENDS AS AHL, OLDERbrother to Malik and the director of a Minneapolis-based center tasked with researching matters Somali, calls in sick, the first time he has done so in his long career as an educator. The truth is, the growing trend among Somali youths to join the self-declared religionist radical fringe, Shabaab, has thrown him off balance. Taxliil, his stepson, has now been gone more than six months, and is suspected to be somewhere in Somalia. In an earlier rumor, the runaway youth was seen in Kismayo, a coastal city that is in the hands of Shabaab and deemed too dangerous to visit. He was said to be training as a suicide bomber. But more recently they have heard, relayed to Ahl’s wife, Yusur, via her close friend Xalan, whose husband, Warsame, received it from a man in the Puntland Intelligence Service, that Taxliil, along with a couple of Shabaab-trained diehards, is headed for Bosaso. Warsame and Xalan live in Bosaso and have offered to host Ahl when he arrives in the region in a few days, in search of Taxliil. Nobody is sure of the whereabouts of the other twenty or so Somali-American youths who have vanished from their homes (in various parts of the United States, but principally from Minnesota), but the rumor that Taxliil has been dispatched to Puntland, hurriedly promoted to the assignment of liaising with the pirates in a bid to build a bridge between them and Shabaab, is gaining plausibility. Taxliil is said to have served twice as an interpreter to a delegation from the Courts, to help them to communicate with hostages, some of them Muslim, held by Somali pirates.

Ahl’s whole body has lately been out of kilter, so unbalanced that on occasion he has been incapable of coordinating the simplest physical demands. A month ago, he woke up just before dawn from a deep sleep, and, needing very badly to pee, sat up, ready to do just that. Only he never got to the bathroom; he wet himself, like a baby.

Malik and Jeebleh vowed to ask around about Taxliil when they reached Somalia, attempting to trace his movements in the country, but Ahl knew he must go to Puntland himself. Of course, there is no guarantee that Taxliil is in Puntland, or that any of them — Ahl, Malik, or Jeebleh — will locate him. Or that even if they do so, the young fellow will be willing to return with them to Minneapolis.

It is no easy matter preparing for a trip to Somalia these days. The country has been in the throes of unending violence for the past two decades. Moreover, Ahl and Malik, born and raised in Aden, were brought up to think of Somalia as their father’s land — and even the old man himself never knew or visited the place. Even so, he made sure his sons spoke the language from childhood. Although the country is unfamiliar, Somalia’s troubles haven’t been very far from their minds.

In preparation for his visit, Ahl has taken the required vaccinations and has begun ingesting his weekly malaria tablets. He has also been collecting as much information as he can on Puntland, poring over maps and consulting others on what to do, where to go, and whom to contact. He has been in touch with Xalan, whom his wife, Yusur has known since childhood. Ahl knows from her that Xalan’s nephew Ahmed-Rashid, her older sister Zaituun’s son, has been missing for more than a year from Columbus, Ohio, vanished during his first year at a community college there. But because Zaituun, the boy’s mother, doesn’t seem bothered about his disappearance, Xalan and Warsame and the rest of the family act as if they are not worried, either. Perhaps this has something to do with the bad blood that exists between the two sisters, Xalan and Zaituun, although they both live in Bosaso. At any rate, Yusur has assured him, it won’t affect his rapport with Xalan.

Ahl has trusted this and given the dates of his visit to Xalan in the hope that, with her husband’s help, she will set in motion security arrangements for him. He prefers putting up in a hotel to staying with her and her husband for the first couple of days, if only to get an initial take on the place and a grip on his own priorities. He has his round-trip ticket to Bosaso via Paris and Djibouti. Xalan has offered to have Warsame pick him up from the airport and has confirmed that she has booked a room for him in a hotel.

Sitting with a book about Puntland open before him, Ahl has his cell phone by his side, willing it to ring; the landline is also within his reach. He is anxious to hear from Malik, who will have just landed in Mogadiscio. He wants to know if everything has gone according to plan. The night before, with Yusur on night shift, he stayed up late watching Al Jazeera, the BBC World Service, and CNN; and supplementing the information gleaned from these sources by reading American and European newspapers online. He wants to know the latest about the impending Ethiopian invasion of Somalia.

The phone rings: Yusur asks if he has heard from Malik. When he replies that Malik hasn’t called, she lets out a whimper. Ahl reminds himself that he must remain strong for everyone’s sake. His wife has a way of pulling him down with her to a point so low that there is nothing but despair. Since her son left, she has been prone to long bouts of depression; at times, she has found it difficult to hold down her nursing job at a hospital. Of late she has been working night shifts at an old people’s home, and she seldom comes home even during the day. There is always something to do at an old people’s home, especially for a mother desperately mourning her missing son.