Nuruddin Farah - Knots

“What makes you say that?”

“He meant us to come for four days during a long weekend,” Gacal said. “I kept pestering him, asking him what this place from which the two of them came and where they grew up and married was like, having never known it. I kept saying I wished I could come and see it and maybe live here. One day, we upped and, without booking a flight in advance, went to some out-of-the-way airport and flew in a small plane carrying qaat . The plan was for us to spend the long weekend; that is all. He was that kind of man, my dad.”

Hard to imagine…the tragedy of it. One day, Gacal is a middle-class boy, connected to a world that treats him with protective care; the following day, the only world he knows has vanished, and he is adrift in a man-eat-dog city. Unmoored.

“What’s your father’s full name?”

Gacal gives it; she does not know it.

“Your mother’s?”

Gacal tells it; she does not know it either.

The next logical step in traditional Somali society is to ask for other pointers, like his father’s and mother’s respective clans, to help her identify them. She is sure that someone or other either here in Mogadiscio or somewhere in North America would know. If only she can bring herself to ask him for their clan identities. Somalis with so-called progressive thinking do not instill the clan ethos in their children’s frame of mind; some do not even allow the names of these clans to pass their lips. Maybe she will assign the job of delving into this aspect of the problem to someone like the old man at the gate; he won’t mind helping her. By now, it is possible that he and everyone else knows Gacal’s clan identity. In her own case, she made sure she didn’t encourage Dalmar to bother about his own or hers. Many city-or foreign-born Somalis do not necessarily know theirs.

There are many questions to which she would like answers, but she is finding it difficult to put them to him. How did he cope alone the first few days, months, or years after his father’s death? How did he mourn the loss? How did he spend the first few days between coming here and learning his altered circumstances?

“Do you remember the name of the company your dad worked for in Duluth?” she asks.

“He was self-employed.”

“What about the name of the firm in Nairobi or any of the people with whom your father worked? Do you remember the names of any of them, because then we could call information?” she asks.

“It is so long ago I cannot remember anything.”

“Do you remember your mother’s friends’ names?”

“Only by their first names.”

“To what school did you go, in Duluth?”

Gacal gives her a name, which she writes down. Once Gacal is gone and she is alone, she will ring up Raxma and ask her to look into it. Most probably Raxma will make direct inquiries right away, if only to ascertain the truth or otherwise. Raxma will come back with suggestions about what is and what is not possible, after seeking Maimouna’s legal advice. But when Cambara calls her mother, she won’t make any mention of Gacal, her latest infatuation.

Cambara rises to her feet and, opening the door, smiles sweetly at Gacal, who stands to his full height and joins her, ready to exit. He grins, bows, and then says, “See you.”

Scarcely has she closed the door when she remembers seeing Deliverance, a 1970s film of a harrowing account of a disastrous canoe trip of four men down a river in Georgia, not that the film’s and Gacal’s story lines are identical or even similar. Maybe the traumatic nature of such sudden changes in Gacal’s life has put her in mind of the distress the men go through, lives as horror-ridden as they are impossible to imagine.

Heavyhearted, she consults her watch and, deciding that it is a decent hour to telephone America, rings the reception and requests that she be given an outside line. She dials Raxma’s number from memory. Raxma answers it on the third ring and says, “Cambo dearest, Kiin has been in touch and has been sharing with me the good news.”

Cambara cannot decide how to respond, and she remains silent. A couple of seconds later, when Raxma asks her if she is still there, she asks, “What good news has she been sharing with you?”

“That they are in the process of negotiating with you about your staging a play, which the Women’s Network will fund and you will mount, the first of its kind in Mogadiscio. For peace. That, to this end, they are providing you with free accommodation and lodging for as long as you want and hiring an Irishman living in Mogadiscio to carve wood masks based on your own designs and, per your instructions, some carpenters to build the stage, and, if I’m right, electricians and other technicians, all of whom are to be paid by the Women’s Network. I am so pleased for you, my sweet. I also hear that Kiin and her coterie of friends are helping you recover the property. If that is not good news, I don’t know what is, Cambo dearest.”

This is the first Cambara has heard of any of this in such clear terms. This is also the first time that someone, most importantly a community of women, has gloried in her artistic output. Pinch, pinch. Am I dreaming? She thinks.

“What other news? Good, I hope. Tell it quick.”

Cambara draws a deep breath, hesitant to talk. It’s only at Raxma’s insistence—“I am off to work, my sweet, so get on with it”—that she fills Raxma in on her other doings so far without leaving out anything of importance. How ironic; what could be more pivotal than Raxma’s confirmation of what has been afoot? Anyhow, she speaks of Kiin’s invitation to lunch at her place and of meeting her two lovely daughters; Jiijo and where she is; SilkHair, what he is like and her involvement in his life; Seamus and his willingness to design the masks; and finally the Women’s Network, whose numbers she will soon meet at a party. Then she provides Raxma with the basic details of Gacal’s story.

Raxma asks, “You want me to inquire into this boy’s story and to come back to you with my findings? Leave it to me. I’ll ring you up in a day or two. Okay? I must get off if I am to beat the rush hour.”

“You are a darling.”

Then she telephones Arda, and they talk shop for a few minutes before Cambara gives the old woman a watered-down version of her activities, no mention of Kiin’s commissioning of her play and none of Gacal’s and SilkHair’s stories. She staves off all possible contentious issues that might produce a heated debate between the two of them.

Her telephone call to Raxma makes her restless, her adrenaline pumping faster. Although she is itching to move, at first she doesn’t know how best to utilize the energy that her enthrallment is producing until she gives it a focus. She tells herself then that it is time for her to collect the remainder of her stuff from Zaak’s, time to think seriously of relegating him to the position of a pariah, no barge poles please! Or maybe she will keep the line of communication open, but without ever activating it. You never know with civil wars; she might need him to give her a hand, so why cut him off totally.

All the same, she can’t help thinking of him as a despicable character, a host who takes pleasure in spreading malicious gossip about his guest. It means he has no self-respect. She might attribute the measure of his small-mindedness to his being a hick from the sticks and a born loser. Never mind that Arda has always taken great pains to make him into someone other than the person he is. Having put up with him without ever speaking out, there is no knowing now with whom she should be short: her mother, herself, or the foolish man. His behavior is as unwarranted as it is undeserving of a response.

Rather than let Zaak spurn her, she is happy that she has moved out and that without any help from him, has managed to tap her available talents in a resourceful manner. Before long, she will have drawn profitably on the benevolence of the friends she has made and benefited from this creative exercise and to hell with Zaak. Now she sits at the desk to write down the names of those she expects will offer help or she will recruit in one capacity or another for her efforts: Kiin, the jewel of her finds; Farxia, the medical doctor who spirited Jiijo away; Seamus, the anonymous, the genius; Dajaal, a tactful man who will be useful in providing the overall security; Bile, man behind the scenes, prompting Dajaal and Seamus to assist; the shopkeeper Odeywaa, and his wife, not yet the head of security at Hotel Maanta; and of course Raxma. Where would she be without Raxma? Under a separate column, she jots down the names Gacal, SilkHair, and Jiijo, underlining each of them and putting a question mark against the last.