Nuruddin Farah - Maps

What mattered, he told himself, was that now he was at last a man, that he was totally detached from his mother-figure Misra, and weaned. In the process of looking for a substitute, he had found another — Somalia, his mother country It was as though something which began with the pain of a rite had ended in the joy of a greater self-discovery, one in which he held on to the milky breast of a common mother that belonged to him as much as anyone else. A generous mother, a many-breasted mother, a many-nippled mother, a mother who gave plenty of herself and demanded loyalty of one, loyalty to an ideal, allegiance to an idea, the notion of a nationhood — no more, and no less. And his tormented spirit was calmed the instant he walked down the same steps as everyone else, to encounter this common mother, to be embraced by her in joyful reunion, to be breast-fed and helped to rediscover in himself the need for a mother of a general kind.

In those days, Misra sat alone, immured and inert, right in the quiet anxiety of one who had just been transferred to a country alien to herself, a territory of whose earth one didn’t eat mouthfuls when one was an infant, when one was but a mouth perpetually open, a mouth famished to the point that it would cry unless it was stuffed with anything — a handful of dirt, a piece of metal one’s groping hand got hold of, anything and everything. Anyway, she sat, waiting (Askar didn’t know for what or whom!); she sat mantled in her mourning garments; she sat friendless, now that Aw-Adan had gone, now that the men who used to lavish their lusty interest on her were away at the war front, fighting the Somali people’s common enemy (she was not herself Somali and Askar by then knew what that meant); men who came home, who touched base every now and then, maybe for a day or two, and who, in haste, contracted matrimonies so they would leave behind themselves widows whose memories they hoped to inhabit, and children onto the end of whose given names theirs would be attached. In such an agitated air, the schools had to be closed and many families changed houses and a great many left for Mogadiscio, the capital of Somalia. And yes, there was much talk about “Somalia”, a country that was referred to as “Mother” in a tone suggesting a getting together of her and the Ogaden/child separated from hen To mark the progress each had made, Askar noted the mother and the child’s efforts on the map Uncle had presented him with, just as he traced, on another mental chart, the uncoverable distance between Misra and himself. She began to lose weight; he, to grow it. She sat in a corner, sulking; he, as prominent as the map he read to the illiterates surrounding him, spoke knowl-edgeably, enthusiastically about the liberation war which his people were waging against Misra’s people.

He was adrift (and so was the Somali nation everywhere) on a tide of total abandon. At least, he kept thinking to himself, staring at the map on the wall, there would be changes in the cartographer’s view of the Horn of Africa. And so, with his felt pen, using his own body, he redrew the map of the Somali-speaking territories, copied it curve by curve, depression by depression. Which reminded him of his father’s nickname: Xamari At last, he would be reunited with the city of Xamar from whence came his father’s nickname.

“Why are some countries referred to as ‘Motherland and others as Fatherland’?” Askar asked Misra one day when both were in a mood to talk “What is the logic behind it?”

She didn’t know, she said.

“I wonder if it indicates a people’s mind, I mean if their choice indicates what kind of people they are. People of the heart, people of the head, if you know what I mean.”

She was silent for a long time.

“You know, of course, that Somalia is seen by her poets as a woman — one who has made it her habit to betray her man, the Somali, don’t you?” she said.

He nodded, “Yes.”

“You know the poem in which the poet sees Somalia as a beautiful woman dressed in silk, perfumed with the most exotic scents, and this woman accepts all the advances made by the other men — to be precise, the five men who propose to her. She goes, sleeps with them, bears each a child named after its progenitor and has a number of miscarriages,” she said, stopped — and wouldn’t look at him, as though she were apologetic.

He asked, “How do Ethiopian poets see the country?”

“I don’t know,” she said and was very sad.

What could he say that would make her interested in the flow of their conversation? First, he pulled a sheet over his bared thighs on which he had redrawn the map of the land so far reconquered by the Somalis, then he gave himself time to study her expressions, her movements — deciding that she was, in all probability, having her period. It was something he envied her: the fact that she had periods whose monthly occurrences, he thought, had cleansing aspects about them. “You get rid of the bad blood,” she told him once, jokingly, “and you do the same a month later and so on and so forth until you reach old age. Men don’t have it,” Karin had explained. “Why not?” he had inquired. He couldn’t now remember for the life of him what explanation Misra had given, but could remember thinking about her periods whenever he stood by the tree in their compound and saw its life flow into waste and he tasted the sap and was coincidentally sick the following day believing that the tree, born the same day as he, although taller and shadier than he, was poisonous. Was life a poisonous potion which, if taken in the right doses, offers sustenance, but if not kills?

She was saying, “Do you know that Somalis are fond of talking about their country, in their poetry at any rate, as though she were a camel — the basis of this being that a camel is, after all, ‘the Mother of Men’, do you?”

“Camel, the Mother of Men?” he repeated.

Silence. Then, suddenly, there was an explosion, and after a small pause, another, then a third and after that a fourth. Had the war come to Kallafo? Almost. For there was an ochlocratic roar every now and again. Curious, Askar came out, wanting to know what might have caused it. Whereupon he saw a group of young boys running in the direction of the “Hill of Government”, and at the head of the group was a boy a year or two older than Askar and this boy was the group’s flag-bearer. The five-starred flag of Somalia fluttered in the vainglory of victory.

And Askar became the child he was — he abandoned thinking philosophically, he gave up the thought whether or no Misra too needed a mother in the same way he did and ran and joined the boys and girls of his age. For them, it was fun to be on the winning side, it was fun to disarm the disheartened, already defeated Ethiopian soldiery — for them, war was fun. It was fun to be strong, fun to be the toughest, fun to lead.

Askar proved to be the toughest when it came to receiving Aw-Adan’s humiliating lashes. He didn’t flinch if caned. He found his first fans among the other pupils. He was also the most brilliant, needing no time at all in order to commit any verse to memory: he heard a verse once and he gave it back in the form he was given it. Aw-Adan nicknamed him “little devil”, his peers “little hero”.

He was naughty, pulling loose the girls’ plaits or skirts, calling them names or challenging older boys to wrestling duels. He was very active, he was a busybody, arranging football matches to happen, organizing running events and other physical challenges to take place. Boys liked to gather round him. Before he was six, Askar became the undisputed leader. Besides, he had one advantage over all the other boys. Misra appeared to be more tolerant than most other parents. She didn’t mind how many of them he brought home with him to share his lunch, didn’t mind his going away as long as he showed up for his meals, didn’t mind if he omitted his siesta in the afternoon. At times, however, he would invite her to go and watch him — she being the only adult member in the audience.