Nuruddin Farah - Knots

Angry, Bile rises to his full height with such abruptness that he kicks over the bowl of grapes and spills its entire contents. He is enraged; he is trembling, at a loss for words. He stares furiously, in silence, at the figure that is no longer a Dajaal look-alike but a man resembling Zaak, even if he seems younger and a great deal healthier. Bile wants an explanation from Zaak’s look-alike, but it becomes evident soon enough that the figure that bears a likeness, insofar as Cambara is concerned, to Dajaal and, insofar as Bile is concerned, to Zaak has none to offer. Whereupon, Cambara picks up a club to strike the figure, who takes off. She runs after him, pleased to be chasing him from the scene.

It is in the midst of this dream that the phone rings, startling her awake. She answers it, perspiring heavily, her heart racing like a hound in pursuit of a fox. She hears that Raxma on the line. “Just a moment…”

Now, Cambara doesn’t know what to make of the dream, but she is delighted that, compared to an earlier one, in which there was also a foursome — Arda, Wardi, Dalmar, and herself at a dinner table having a dinner — no one dies in this one. She is also positive about her connection to Bile, whom she saw the first time early this morning in the dream and to whom she has now talked in real life

Out of bed, she changes into her work clothes — a denim shirt with snaps, a pair of jeans, and sneakers — and goes out of her room and down the stairway, feeling energized by the thought that from now on she will concentrate in equal measures, if that is possible, on getting to know Bile in as intimate a way as possible, on producing the play at whatever cost, and on helping trace Qaali, under whatever alias she might be using.

It crosses her mind, going down, past reception, to have the hotel send an e-mail to the BBC Somali Service five-days-a-week “Missing Persons” program, which benefits from the local support of the International Red Cross, asking that Qaali get in touch with Raaxo Abduraxman, a name made up on the spot, care of Hotel Maanta, for information about her son, Gacal. Then she leaves word with Irrid, the deputy manager of the hotel, that she is expecting a reply from one Raaxo Abduraxman about Gacal. One way or the other, she is sure she will get Qaali’s message if it ever comes.

A moment later, roaming aimlessly, she finds herself at the café end of the restaurant, her notepad open, and she starts to draw up a list of her immediate needs. She has not gone far in composing it when the waiter arrives. Having served her in the room earlier, he brings her the usual — a bottled mineral water and a couple of slices of lemon on a saucer — and asks if she would like some more? She places her elevenses order: tea and biscuits. No sooner has he taken it down and turned to go than her memory of the dream of the night before, combined with her conversation with Raxma, above all Raxma’s mentioning that she and Kiin are in frequent telephonic communication, wrings her withers for the second time. She sits, mulling over what to do. Faint with worry, she thinks that the only way out of this sad frame of mind is to act. She replays the talk with Raxma, then the dream, and scours the scenes for the second and third time in hope of appraising whatever possible interpretations there can be. Another thorough go-through — she also remembers Bile offering to visit — she affords herself the luxury of studying it from all possible angles, ultimately deciding that she had better move out of the hotel and into the family property.

This realization comes as a shock to her, so startles her out of her sense of calm that she is no longer able to go over the steps of the logic that have led her to this conclusion: Quit the hotel and take residence in the family house. Her stomach gurgles, babbling in the confines of her viscera, like a flushed toilet. Her agitated mood is tempered with a momentary self-control when she sees the waiter arriving.

He puts her elevenses before her: a pot of tea, biscuits, along with canjeera -pancake smothered in honey, and two slices of mango so sweet her mouth waters the instant she picks up the fragrance; the latter two she has not asked for, but she won’t send them back, in case her charges come, as they often do. Cambara is of the untested view that even the waiter has figured out that she has the countenance of a troubled person and wonders if there is any point in looking away. No amount of gauging the intrinsic madness of moving out of the hotel — in which she has felt very comfortable and safe — and into the family property — in which she has never spent a single night, since her parents never thought of it as anything but an investment — can help her get a good barometer reading of her folly.

Nor can she bear the thought of the food: the tea looks undrinkable; the biscuits stale; the honey-smothered pancake too sweet; the mangoes hosts to their kindred flies and insects. She pushes them all away. A moment later, she pours herself a cup of tea, then unthinkingly puts condensed milk in it and some sugar, and stirs it. Now her demeanor is decidedly downbeat, and she is wondering why she has spooned condensed milk and sugar into her tea when she does not drink her tea that way and never has. She reasons that maybe these are part of the changes taking place in her, her deep sense of alienation taking root; presently a stranger to her everyday self. What will her life be like in her altered circumstances?

Can it be that she wants to prove several points to herself? That she is moving out of the temporariness of a hotel into a house that is hers to demonstrate that she is just as committed to this country as the gun-toting youths, in whose direction she is throwing a come-and-get-me-if-you-have-the-guts gauntlet; that she knows that it will be a lot easier for her to work ceaselessly on the play and to provide the semblance of a home to the two boys if she moves out of the hotel into the property. Privacy is equally important here, for she will be in a position to host Bile, in the sense of looking after him, and get to know him more intimately without the prying eyes of waiters, bellhops, charwomen, the armed security at the gate, the in-house security, the deputy manager, other hotel guests — and Kiin. Not that she can ever hope to meet Bile without many others getting to hear of it. Maintaining one’s privacy is a civil war casualty; people live on top of one another in ways they do not in peace times. No doubt, if she moves to the family house, she will have bodyguards, perhaps an outer ring of heavily armed security and inner in-house lightly armed day and night watchmen. She is far from sure that she will be safer or happier at her new home, but establishing a foot in the family property is as good a starting point as any campaign in which she has been involved, and she will launch it with a workable battle plan and a reliable safety net, never mind the deadly opponents that she may have to confront.

No sign of the boys today. What’s bizarre is she doesn’t ask about them, and the waiter, who has returned to collect the untouched tea, biscuits, pancake, and mangoes doesn’t mention them either. He clears her plates of food without a spoken word, even if the disturbed expression on his face speaks volumes to Cambara, who is conscious of her irritability.

Then Kiin arrives with the gushiness of someone bearing a surfeit of tenderness; she is all questions. Effusive, she says, “It’s all happening, isn’t it?”

“I am moving out of the hotel into our house.”

The idea is so unsettling to Kiin that she is not composed enough to ask her questions about Cambara’s visit to ailing Bile; about the phone call from Raxma, who may have spoken to Kiin earlier before ringing her; or about Bile’s purported suggestion that they invite a select audience to view the play, it being too controversial to be given a public viewing.