Nuruddin Farah - Knots

Cambara and Zaak’s relationship lost its childlike innocence soon after that, and she dared not look at him from then on without remembering these two, in her mind, related incidents. Even though she considered asking that he show himself to her again, she could not bring herself to do so, fearing that he might not. Meanwhile, he became more self-conscious in her presence, often displaying shy evidence that he had discovered his own body. Less voluble than before, he took refuge in sulky silences.

As she washes the dishes in the sink with soap powder intended for clothes, she wonders what his reaction might have been if she had broached the topic. She had never dared to allude to this incident in Toronto. She doubts very much if there is any point in doing so now.

“Tell me,” Zaak says. “How is Wardi?”

Cambara is at a loss for elegant words. This is because she wishes to avoid falling into a foul mood, in which her fury may run ahead of her and lead her astray, into a world of rage, remorse, or regret. She thinks it inappropriate to scamper after one’s rage, convinced that she will never be able to catch up with it. It is a pity, she reasons, that, because of her wish to exercise some self-restraint, she will not allow herself to express the full extent and source of her sentiments either. Her mother is loath to be around her daughter when her rage erupts, a rage she describes as being hotter than and more dangerous than Mount Etna. In addition, of course, Zaak knows that Cambara’s parents raised her in a way that precluded her being straitjacketed into the role of a traditional Somali female. He is doubtful if, having been told of it, he could have located her rage as a recent one, to do with her conjugal relationship. To him, Cambara was fine, until one day you would find her off her noodle, deluded, and highly impractical.

He looks on, expectantly silent, as Cambara speaks cautiously lest her words run into one another, like the felt pen scrawls on a blotting paper. How she wishes she could lean on the very rage that is crippling her; how she wishes she could draw sustenance from it. But her words come out a little too creakily, her voice, even if raised, remaining soft in the peripheries and hard at the center, like calluses rasping on sandpaper. She is aware that she will be talking about a man whom she hates to another whom she equally loathes: two men, both losers, with whom she has had a kind of intimacy, the one foisted on her, the other chosen by her. She has no doubts they are or will be in touch. Let Zaak relay whatever it pleases him to; she does not care.

“It’s daunting to explain what has happened,” she says, and, pausing, she looks him in the eyes until he averts his gaze. “For years, I have lived with an unarticulated rage that has since become part of me and that has taken a more murderous turn after my son, Dalmar’s, drowning. I trace the source of the rage and Dalmar’s unfortunate death to Wardi.”

She has tears in her eyes, but because she will not let go of a drop of it, she trembles. Cambara is a dyed-in-the-wool rejecter of other people’s unearned pity.

Zaak intercepts the course of their conversation, guiding it to terra firma, and asks if she intends to live in the property herself if she manages to wrest it from the hands of the man illegally occupying it. He adds a rider, “As I said before, I doubt very much that the man will go without a fight.”

“I have no idea what I will do with it once the property is in my hands,” she replies. “I feel certain deep within me that I will wrench it from his clutch.”

“You must know something I don’t,” he says.

“I do.”

“Will you share it with me? I’m curious.”

She does not repeat what she said to her mother about the warlords being cowardly et cetera; she chooses not to, because this way he will have a counterargument. She says, “I am a determined woman, and determined women always have their way.”

A snicker. Then, “Will you rent it or sell it?”

“I haven’t figured out what I’ll do,” she says.

Struck by the sorrow spreading on his countenance, he is perhaps mourning like a man watching the passing of an age. He quotes a few lines from an Arab poet, and imagines seeing a dove struck in midflight and shot at the very instant she gazes upon her destroyed nest; the dove dies. The image of Cambara meeting a sorry end makes him shake his head in disapproval. However, he does not speak of the ruin he envisions for anyone who attempts to dislodge a warlord, minor or major, from the house he occupies.

He asks, “Why wrest the property from those living in it if you have no idea what you will do with it?”

“Because it’s mine,” she says.

“And you want it back, no matter the risk?”

“What risks can there be?”

He has heard of a handful of property owners who have been gunned down when they tried to repossess what was legally theirs. Some have reportedly been harassed and run out of town; others have been humiliated and their womenfolk raped to teach them a lesson. No longer sure if there is any point in voicing his admonitions, he wonders if her determination to forge ahead with a plan hatched in Toronto, while she was enraged and with no intimate knowledge of the situation on the ground, is tantamount to a death wish. The more he thinks of it the more surprised he is that Arda made no mention of Cambara’s intentions. Is it possible that she has no idea how mad her daughter is? Wardi had once been the cause of their separation, when daughter and mother wouldn’t exchange a greeting. Could it be that they were barely on talking terms and that Arda had rung him to host Cambara out of concern for her safety, no more?”

“Do you know who the occupant is?” he asks.

“Tell me what you must tell me, anyway.”

“His name is Gudcur,” Zaak says, “and he is the ringleader of a ruthless clan-based militia raised from the ranks of one of Mogadiscio’s brutal warlords.”

“I don’t stand in awe of any of the warlords.”

“Have you worked on the practical side of things?”

“What might these be?”

“How you are going to go there and so on?”

“I was hoping you would point me in the general direction of the place, since I won’t recognize it, because of the state the whole neighborhood is in,” she says, taking a sip of her now cold tea. “I would appreciate it if you took me round and showed me the outlay of the area. You can leave the rest to me.”

“Any contingency plan if you are hurt?”

“I hear what you’re saying,” she says impatiently.

“I want you to know I’ll take no part in it.”

“I am aware of that.”

A sudden harshness comes into his eyes, and she stares back hard at him. Maybe she is hoping to shame him into withdrawing his pledge not to be party to her lunacy. He absorbs her reproving stare with the equanimity of a sponge taking in more water than it can hold, and, having nothing better to do, he starts to sort the rice from the chaff, preparatory to cooking the risotto for their evening meal.

Growing restless in the extreme, Cambara rises to her full height and then, as an afterthought, bends down to gather the tea things. As she does so, Zaak has a good glimpse of her cleavage, and, fretful, he stirs in his chair. Both are conspicuously nervous, and Zaak, the first to move, takes two long strides in the direction of the toilet, entering it, maybe because the door to it happens to be the only one that is near and open or maybe because he needs a place where he can hide his embarrassment. For her part, she draws her lips back into a huge grin as she says to herself, “In addition to being a loser, he is a wanker.”

When, several minutes later, he joins her in the kitchen, she is drying her hands after having washed the pile of dirty dishes. She has her back to him, standing imperiously in front of the sink, her head bent slightly to one side, her body tall as a pole, motionless and in concentration. He cannot work out what is on her mind, in part because of her air of toughness, practiced, and also because of her determination. She will work on regaining the inner calm that she first lost on the day her son died and that she thought she would never ever recover on the morning she beat Wardi up. Then she will prepare for the ultimate battles. She intends to reject death; she means to celebrate life, and she can only do this away from Zaak, not with him. She prays that Kiin will prove a helpful, trustworthy friend on whom she can rely.