Nuruddin Farah - Knots

She thinks that whatever else she doesn’t know about Dajaal, she imagines that his character has benefited from his associations with Bile and Seamus, an alliance that has kept a potentially disheveled state of being in constant check. Anyone in their company would rein in their impulsiveness. A side glance at Dajaal strengthens her faith, vicariously, in the burgeoning closeness that she imagines is taking shape between herself and Bile through her relationships with Dajaal and Seamus.

In the darkroom of her imagining, she develops the picture of a woman who bears a visage similar to hers and who shares with her several significant particulars. As it happens, this woman is sitting in the passenger seat, next to a man who answers to the name of Dajaal; she has a hangdog expression and is trying to work out how fast she can wipe it off and replace it with a seemingly agreeable grin. Is she up to the challenge though, not only of erasing the shamefacedness of her features but also of engaging in small talk? After all, Dajaal has been very accommodating of her, and has taken one of the most daring challenges in that he has secured her family property, to which he is now driving her.

She asks him, “Has Bile had a hand in the recovery of the property? How much have you involved him?”

His voice inscrutable, he says, “In what way?”

She goes on, the timbre of her voice low, almost a whisper, “Has he talked you into stepping in or did the idea to do so originate with you? Likewise, have you coerced your grandson to help organize the mounting of roadblocks and the setting up of security?”

Answering neither of her questions, Dajaal changes gears, preparatory to coming to a halt, hand brake up, hazard lights on. He sits very still after stopping, his ears erect, listening for alien sounds that might require his attention or that of the man sitting in the back, weapon poised. Gacal and SilkHair fall silent, the former turning around, curious; the latter about to duck, flattening himself on the floor of the vehicle the instant there is an exchange of fire.

When she looks at him, wanting an explanation, he says, “We are here, madam, at one of the access points to your family property, the first of three checkpoints mounted to control the movements into and out of the streets leading there. We are barely two minutes’ drive from it. Listen.”

She notices a formidable change in the air that makes her insides tense, and the silence more haunting. Now she hears the distant hum of a medium-sized generator, something unusual in this part of the city at this time of day. Then her eyes fall, as if accidentally, on an unmanned boom fifty meters or so farther down the dirt road and just before it a sign that says “JoOgSo,” scribbled most likely in the hand of a dyslexic, and under it the word “sToP.”

She looks around and realizes where they are. Down one city block, then right, and you will be facing the gate. Will it make sense to move her main base to the property? No doubt, it will be less costly than running up hotel bills, but will the place be sufficiently safe for her to pursue her theater work? Moreover, if it is the sound of a generator she has just heard and if it is coming from the house, then whose is it? Then she becomes aware, gradually, of purposeful movements both inside the vehicle and outside of it. The man in the back of the car she is in steps out with the gentleness of a grandmother quitting the room in which her daughter who has just delivered a baby has fallen asleep and closes the door firmly and speedily. Gacal and SilkHair, for their part, show signs of fear, and they both fret, not knowing what to do. Cambara tells them to sit tight, and they do.

Meanwhile, Dajaal puts his hand into the glove compartment and brings out a firearm, which he keeps hidden from view. He watches with studied caution as three young men crawl out of a camouflage of leafage, at first wary, then very friendly and enthusiastically waving. No older than Gacal or SilkHair, some of them are affecting the air of taking part in a skirmish between two armed militia groups, their tread measured, eyes darting in this or that direction, their weapons pointed, and their fingers restless. To her, it is all part of a theater of some absurd war, whose militiamen will fight without knowing when it will stop once it has started.

As the young boy who is clad in a baggy pair of trousers, which he hitches up every now and then, and carrying a compact machine gun whose weight jars with that of his own long-legged, skinny body approaches, he lowers his weapon out of deference to Dajaal, whom he salutes in imitation of the U.S. Marines he has probably seen in movies.

“Where is my nephew?” Dajaal asks the boy.

As if on cue, Cambara claps her eyes on him, a short youth with a god-awful stride, swaggering as if preparing for the second take in a rehearsal on a set for a movie in which he is playing opposite Clint Eastwood. He says, his accent as seasoned as it is put on to impress her, “Here I am. We are okay on all fronts, Uncle. How about you, are you okay?”

“This is Qasiir, my nephew,” Dajaal says.

Qasiir performs his stand-up routine with a New York Yankees cap and a white T-shirt with the words “Iraq Hawks Down” stenciled in black. Under the writing is an eagle with no wings and empty sockets for eyes, scarily unsightly. Qasiir is self-consciously posing, and when he realizes he is not making any impression on Cambara, he puts on a mortified expression and chews nervously on the end of the matchstick sticking out of the left side of his mouth à la Jean-Paul Belmondo.

“Any more questions?” he says, clearly hurt.

Dajaal asks, “All is well on all fronts?”

“As far as I know, all is well on all fronts.”

“That’s good,” Dajaal says.

“Hasta la vista,” Qasiir says, and off he trots, almost colliding with one of his mates, as he scuttles on his platform shoes, in the direction of a tree under which there is a canvas chair, resembling that of a movie director, only this one has an arm missing.

When they finally get to her family’s gate, she notices the remarkable transformation under way. She senses the variety of activities going on inside and tries her best to sort them out in her mind, in the hope of identifying them. She succeeds in doing so, notwithstanding the hubbub that is one with a house in the process of renovation and which is being gutted. She strains to hear through the loud noise of a working heavy-duty generator. Dajaal toots the horn, in code, and before she is able to say “sesame,” the gate — the rust on it that took years to form removed, its hinges repaired, and a first lick of paint applied — opens.

Two youths come into view, both bowing theatrically and curtsying as clowns might. They urge Dajaal to drive in, and, as he does so, they wave to her in delightful consciousness, grinning. She can see a man, maybe an electrician, going up the rungs of a ladder placed against the wall with the slowness of a cripple coming out of a deep well. Lying in the courtyard that is open to the sky, there are a couple of cisterns, both new, if a little dusty, and other bathroom and toilet wares waiting to be installed. In short, a world, to the construction of which she has contributed little, is now being reinvented, thanks to these charitable souls. But as she looks farther to the right of the house and spots Seamus emerging from a truck parked there, she starts to wonder if she has the right to see herself as a catalyst for such remarkable revamping. She alights from the car, waiting beside it, as he moves, smiling, toward her. She believes that Seamus, Kiin, and Dajaal have the license to be pleased with the ways things are going. All the same, she wonders if she has the wherewithal to maintain the property and keep it in this style, taking into account how much it has cost to put the process of repossessing it into motion.