Nuruddin Farah - Knots

“Let’s go,” she says. “It’s lunchtime.”

Gacal looks ecstatic. Cambara imagines him to be comfortable in who he is becoming: a clean, well-fed lad who has on clothes as good as new, plus a pair of leather sandals — never mind that it is no easy matter to scuttle speedily in them — his hand in the grip of a woman fostering him to high ambitions. What more can he want?

To get to Kiin’s place on foot, Cambara, leading Gacal by the hand, walks through a door set clandestinely into the wall separating the hotel grounds from Kiin’s residence. Paned green and wrapped in vines grown purposely to disguise it, the door is visible only to those who know of its existence. It is to the rear of a spot where the sentries have provisionally mounted a guard to the right of the main entrance. Cambara uses the door that is Kiin’s family preserve, relieved to be spared a little of the bother of leaving the hotel and stepping into the main dirt road, walking a hundred or so meters and then turning left into Kiin’s gate.

Serenity steals over all her taut nerves, helping her to relax the moment she and Gacal enter the grounds of Kiin’s residence. Her heart leaps with joy at the sight of such an idyllic scene: a sunlit place of peace and harmony in the midst of so much darkness. Cambara lets go of Gacal’s hand, in part because his are sweaty, hers dry, and because she wants him to carry Pinocchio . She guesses that his ear-to-ear grin can only point to the attainment of a dream: a parent figure to entrust him with an important assignment. There is confidence in his stride, his forward-leaning pose suggesting an eagerness to prove his worth.

They light upon a man who is supine on a straw mat in the shade of a large, fruiting mango tree. She assumes he is the gardener, taking a lunch break close to the shed. Scattered all around him, as if by design, are his tools: a wheelbarrow, rakes, a hoe, and other implements. Farther on, beyond the blooming orchids, two beautiful girls run after each other and around a tree, excited, their voices full of life and their chases alive with the equanimity of the fearless giggles. There are the swings and the seesaw that form the center of the playground; close to these, Cambara spots a tree house having a ladder with a missing rung up near the top end. Along the way, Cambara is tempted to pick up a couple of dolls and a few toys that look as if a child has flung them, a leg up, the head twisted, toys abandoned in the middle of play.

Kiin may be living in a city that has not known peace for ten years and more, which is all the more reason why the legion of comforts that she has created are remarkable in themselves, amenities that are on the one hand pure pleasure and on the other startling when you come upon them. Cambara cannot help drawing a conclusion: that only someone blessed with abundant self-confidence and the joys of living in the coziness of a snug life, fitting in the protected nature of its refuge, can be as giving and magnanimous as Kiin has been to her and, presumably, to many others.

No matter what she thinks of it, Cambara again is sad that she is pinning all her hopes of success on Kiin, whom she hardly knows. What will she do, on whom will she depend, whose assistance will she seek if something terrible happens to the one basket into which she has put all her eggs? It is a pity, she thinks, that Zaak, on whom her mother had hoped she should rely, has proven to be slothful and unworthy of her respect. You can see the differences between Kiin’s and Zaak’s characters in the homes they have created and the lives they lead. Kiin’s life is orderly, an oasis with a spring of plenitude in which countless edibles, flowers, and shady trees flourish and blossom into a Shangri-La of incomparable potential.

At Cambara and Gacal’s approach, the girls fall silent, the younger one running away after a pause and the older one waiting bashfully and smiling. She has a fetching way of carrying herself, her entire spare frame, tall for her age, Cambara presumes, supporting itself on the tiptoe of her right foot in the style of a ballet dancer: kittenish, teasingly coquettish, eyes rolling, her messages mixed. Gacal raises his gaze at Cambara, as if seeking her counsel.

The girl, sounding tuckered out, says to Cambara, “My mum says that she will be late but that you and your guest are to go ahead and our housekeeper will serve you drinks until she joins you.”

Cambara introduces herself as her mother’s friend and then changes her mind just in time before presenting Gacal, not certain how this will play out. She goes closer to the girl, asking, “Tell me, sweet, what’s yours?”

“My name is Sumaya, my sister’s name is Nuura,” the girl replies, indicating to Cambara, from the way she carries herself, that she is older than her chronological age. Her eyes say, “I know a lot more than you think I do.”

Because of this “eye-speak,” Cambara locates Kiin’s worry, assuming that as a mother to a knockout girl brought up in such a protective environment, you will not want to bring along a Gacal who might take advantage of her. Since there is no going back, she decides to play it as safe as possible.

“Why don’t you show us the way?” Cambara suggests.

Sumaya leads them to the veranda, where she shows them to the seats facing the garden. Then, before vanishing into a wing of the house to Cambara’s back, she calls to the housekeeper to let her know that the guests have arrived.

Gacal says, “Nice.”

Cambara is not sure what Gacal intends to say, and hopes that he wants simply to point out that Sumaya is nice in the sense that she is pleasant on the eye and that the whole setup, of which she is a significant part, perhaps the center, is delightful. She prays he will leave it at that and not lust after her nor permit his sexual urges — not that there is any evidence of such so far — to exercise total control over his rapport with Sumaya or her younger sister, because that may upset the mother in Kiin and by extension will disturb the friend in her.

She wishes she had had enough time to get to know what Gacal is made of. What manner of boy is he in the presence of “nice” girls with “nice” little tits who grow up in “nice” homes, girls who come at him showily, as if courting someone who is different from them turns them on? She is aware that it is too late to undo what she has done or to wish that she had not rushed in her desire to spend several hours with him by inviting him to Kiin’s lunch for her. It is typical of her to complicate matters unnecessarily. Why must she always take a not-thought-through plunge, abandoning herself to the dictates of her emotions and committing herself in haste to positions or to persons when what she needs is to take stock of her alternatives, reflect on what is possible and wise and what is foolish and needing revision? Yet she hates to backtrack and is highly reluctant to admit a sense of remorse, insisting that the notion of regret is alien to her. It distresses her too that she has imposed on Kiin, forcing her to agree to Gacal’s presence when it has been obvious that she does not want Gacal to watch Pinocchio with the girls. Maybe Kiin prefers making other arrangements; alas, Kiin hasn’t had much of a chance to propose another option to Cambara’s suggestion.

“You will behave, won’t you?” she says to Gacal.

“I will,” he says, with a glint in his eye and grinning knowingly.

Cambara stops in her tracks, as if considering her course of action. Wising to what is happening, Gacal reaches for her hand, and he takes it in his. He says, “See you later.”

Cambara is deeply worried, searching for the right words, when Sumaya impatiently grabs at the videocassette, taking it from her, and then tells Nuura and Gacal to follow her to the video room. The two girls and Gacal dash off eagerly, with Sumaya promising Gacal that she will show him their rooms, the toys they have there, and the reception room where they will watch Pinocchio . Kiin’s older daughter says, “You can’t imagine how we’ve always wanted to see this film, Nuura and me.”