Nuruddin Farah - Knots

“I want to move out,” she shouts. “Right now.”

“Go right ahead,” he says. “Who is stopping you?”

Silent but not rueful, she stares at him in fury.

“Where will you go to if you leave?”

“A hotel.”

“Do you know of one?”

“I do.”

Kiin’s Hotel Maanta, run by Raxma’s friend.

“Do you know how to get there?”

This is a taunt to his tone of triumph, and both know it. She does not respond to it, not only because she has no idea where Hotel Maanta is in relation to where she is but also because she is peering into the ugly face of defeat. Her eyes bore deep into his: how she hates him. When she finally hits the concrete reality of so much unyielding contempt in his come-on leering, she says, her voice sounding like that of an exhausted boxer not returning the licks raining on him, “I still don’t want to be here.”

“Wise up, woman,” he says.

“Don’t talk to me in that uppity tone.”

“I’ll talk as I please when I please,” he retorts.

She repeats “I should’ve known” several times. Then she lapses into the dejected silence of the routed, her tiredness suddenly evident all over her body, the look in her eyes dimming, her features twisted into a grimace. She consoles herself, all the same, that come tomorrow she will fight back once she has studied the lay of the land, and will have fallen back on her resolve to recover her dignity.

“You won’t want to be anywhere but here and with me, if you know what’s good for you.”

“I thought I lived in a world of my manufacture?”

“You do.”

“One in which I lie to myself?”

“You do.”

“In which case I know what is good for me.”

“So, what or who is good for you?”

“Neither you nor your place is good for me.”

“Here’s what I will not do,” he says, bossing her.

“What?

“I will not allow you to compromise your safety.”

“Why should my safety matter to you?”

“It matters to your mother,” he says.

“And why does my mother matter to you?”

“Your mother thinks of me as your host.”

“And so?”

“I don’t want her to be disappointed in me.”

“My safety, my foot!”

He disregards her fury with a shrug and says, “If you wise up, you will not embark on a foolish adventure into the dark unknown of Mogadiscio’s dangers. You will not want to risk your life just to prove a silly point. Be under my roof; be my guest; be as comfortable as you can, despite the adverse circumstances. Consider your safety. If I were you, I would put up with the discomforts that are one with your safety. Tomorrow, I will be more than willing to drive you anywhere you like until you find a good and clean enough hotel, which will serve you quality food and which will meet your approval. And the Lord knows there is no such place in this whole city.”

She is not certain if he intends to redeem himself when he advises her not to do anything rash, or if what he wants is to heap further humiliation on her head. Who would have thought that Zaak had it in him to harbor so much resentment, keep so much venom bottled up inside him for so many years? Who would have imagined that he would spring it all on her at the least expected moment? Maybe it was naive to assume that Zaak would remain forever beholden to every member of her family. She is confident that if push comes to shove, she will be able, eventually, to square up to Zaak’s comeuppance and will relish the prospect of proving herself worthy of her calling as a woman of high resolve, an actor of tremendous potential. What she can’t decide is how much bearing all this will have on her. She says, “Promise to tell me why you are doing this one day. For my own edification.”

“Wardi has been in touch,” he says.

She says, “That is of no concern to me.”

“I think it is,” Zaak assures her.

“What is the relevance?”

“I’ve heard his side of the story.”

“So what?”

“What’s yours?”

He moves as though he is preparing to launch into another of his skirmishes, but she raises her right arm in time calmly to stop him from saying anything. When she thinks she has imposed her way on him, she touches her fingers to her lips, as if to seal the contract with the silence that is about to become her destiny. She stands stock still, wincing, her arms akimbo, in the likeness of a bird readying to take off. She makes as if to depart.

Then she says, “Good day to you.”

“Wait, don’t go yet,” he says.

Cambara goes to her upstairs room to think things over.

How can she cure her grief in the briny condiments of her tears when her secondary fury — directed at Zaak, and consequent upon his churlishness — is so overwhelming that her primary anger at Wardi for what he has done pales in comparison? Truth is, she will at no point question the wisdom of coming to Mogadiscio, nor will she regret it. However, what course of action must she take to undo Zaak’s misdeed?

She believes that whatever else she does, she will not want to allow her rage to go on a rampage and thereby ruin her chances of success, compelling her to give in to the allure of remorse. There is no sense in admitting defeat hastily either, especially to losers like Zaak and Wardi, or in throwing her hands up in the air in despair. She is determined not to permit Zaak’s declared animosity to dampen her newfound bravado, which is the result partly of her having beaten Wardi in his dastardly game and partly of her deciding to come home, so that among other things she can reclaim her family property.

She wishes she had Raxma close by or had the opportunity to ring her up right away so she could bring her up to speed about Zaak’s inappropriate comportment. Of all the people she knows and with whom she might discuss such a sensitive topic, Raxma is the one whom she trusts fully and whom she thinks might advise her on the best approach to extricating herself from the complex tangle of relational webs — as intricate as they are destructive — into which Zaak has led her unawares. Cambara replays in her mind Raxma’s emotional valediction, spoken as they hugged each other good-bye at the Toronto airport, to which Raxma had given her a lift. Raxma had promised that she would not give up her attempt to locate someone who might have functioning phone numbers for Hotel Maanta, owned and run by Kiin, a very close friend of hers. However, when Cambara called her from Nairobi, Raxma had been sorry to report that the two numbers she had often used to reach Kiin might have become faulty, because they had been permanently busy. She urged Cambara to set her mind at rest, though. She was very optimistic that in a couple of days she would call her with Kiin’s coordinates because she was continually ringing the number she had for Kiin as well as trying to contact some of her business associates in Abu Dhabi who might help. If, in the meantime, Cambara obtained a local SIM card, then it would be worth her while to try the numbers herself. Raxma, who was more familiar with matters Somali, in that she had kept abreast of political events in the country from which she had been away a mere decade, as compared to Cambara, who had been away for almost two decades, explained that there were some telephone network providers based in Mogadiscio with no international connectivity. Alternately, Cambara could call her once she was connected and had her own number and, if there was need for her to make a reverse charge, then Raxma would place the return call immediately.

Now she remembers, with charged emotion, Raxma’s words of farewell. “We are here for you, our darling, you can rely on us,” Raxma assured her. “You want to be flown out at half a day’s notice to Nairobi or anywhere else, let me know. Keep in touch — that is very important.”