Nuruddin Farah - Maps

You thought that the conversation must have reached an advanced stage, since you couldn’t recall what had gone on before. You listened intently, and somebody put a question to the man sitting next to you. “Could you tell us, in the simplest language possible, why you are crossing a border which exists no more, to a Mogadiscio to which youVe never been?”

The man took his time. Years later, you would remember his posture as one resembling that of a person from other war-torn areas of conflict, a man residing in the spacious pause of a peace truce in Lebanon or a Ugandan enjoying the quiet following army looting. The man responded: “I am journeying away from graves.”

A number of heads nodded approvingly.

The man continued: “I am travelling, leaving behind me unburied corpses. The tombs are, you might say, those of history. That is to say, these are corpses that should be buried in the tomb of history but that are not; corpses that, at any rate, will be undug every century or so. Somalis come, “Ethiopians” go, every twenty, fifty or a hundred years or so. Waves of atmospheric spirits fill the air of any place where the dead are not buried, ghosts, ferocious as hounds, hunt together, in groups, in the dark and they frighten the inhabitants — it ill-behoves a displaced soul to search for a body in which to take residence,’ Somebody commented: “I dare say!”’ Another asked: “Whose are the unburied corpses?” Then the man smiled. He said: “Our memories, our collective or if you like, our individual pasts. We leave our bodies in order that we may travel light — we are hope personified. After all, we are the dream of a nation.”

You wondered if the man had made sense to the others since you didn’t understand him. You were looking at the other faces for clues when Misra’s image came right before you, placing itself between you and the men you were staring at. You would remember the same image when, years later, at school and in Mogadiscio, you were shown the pictures of Egyptian mummies by one of Salaado’s relations, namely Cusmaan. The image which insisted on imposing itself on your brain was that of a Misra, already dead, but preserved; a Misra whose body, when you touched it, was cold as ice, as though it had spent a night or two in a mortuary But there was an incredible calmness about her corpse, as if she herself had abandoned her life much with the same preparedness as Armadio, Karin’s late husband, had surrended his to the Archangel of Death. There was no struggle, no pain, death came as a welcome guest — and stayed, that was all. Somehow you consoled yourself, remembering that she looked like a corpse when asleep, with her hands neatly clasped together across her mountain of a chest and barely a snort or noise issuing from her nostrils. Did she not playfully act as though she were dead a couple of times? You rationalized that your mind conjured up these ugly images because you felt guilty at parting with her, guilty at leaving without her. Then you told the image to vanish — and it did. And you were staring at the men’s faces, in silence, in the kind of thank-you-God hush which comes after a Muslim has sneezed.

Then one of the men burst into a nationalist song, but his voice failed him. Another man, this time the one to whom you had been entrusted, picked it up, lifting it to that undefined zone between the earth and the sky, which is said to be the angels” abode. The man had a wonderful voice and, what is more, he knew it. He sang one of the fifties songs, of the Qershe and Jawaahira-Luul era and fame. This, together with the speed of the lorry, transported your imagination to the high seas and you thought you were floating, one and all, in the pure silver water of total abandon. Nothing mattered any more. You couldVe all died in a single somersault of the vehicle and your bodies would probably not have felt the slightest pain in parting with life. Beautiful voices that sing beautiful, nationalist songs beautifully are seldom found and you appreciated the man’s exquisite voice for another reason: that it made you re-play in your ears Uncle Qorrax’s voice, which was ugly and short of breath, like an angry half-wit only good to give commands. You would later, of course, reconsider your judgement, once you got to Mogadiscio and heard Uncle Hilaal’s. In any case, it seemed you had bodily gained access to the buffer between reality and dream as you listened to the song and thought if you died, you wouldn’t, in all probability, be woken up from the dead and therefore you might not have known you were alive. One song was followed by another. Others contributed or requested which song the man should sing next and when he didn’t know the words, or couldn’t remember how its rhythm went, they helped him out. But you didn’t contribute any songs, nor did you suggest he sing any for you. Because in you, your soul was rising up, climbing higher and higher up your body, the way breathlessness rises in one, only to be replaced by the delirium one feels when going up a very, very high mountain.

Then the lorry slowed down. For you, the speed meant a lot — it had enabled you to leave below you, as though on the earth, the world-liness that had been your past; it had helped you gain an unreachable height, a territory formed only by the most fertile of imaginations. You paid more attention now that you read signs of worry on the other passengers’ faces. “What’s happening? Why are we slowing down?” someone asked.

Only the passengers in the cabin sitting by the driver knew why. And when one man half-climbed over the side of the lorry to ask why, you learnt that you were nearing the town of Feer-Feer, formerly a border town. And someone was asking: “Does anyone know what flag Feer-Feer is flying today?”

In chorus, the men said: “Of course. The Somali flag.”

And the idea produced poetry in another man who said, “The sky is blue and heavenly and so is the Somali flag; a flag whose colour matches that of God’s abode. It has, right in its middle, a five-pointed star and, for each point, a Somali-speaking territory The former British Somaliland and the former Italian Somalia have been recently joined by the Ogaden.”

Heads nodded. Silence. The question how long the victory would last was in everybody’s mind. But because you were being welcomed by the townspeople and Feer-Feer was in such a festive mood, it seemed inappropriate to worry. The lorry came to a halt. Before you could alight, many of the townspeople joined you in the lorry and together you sang nationalist songs which were composed in the 1940s by the founders of the Somali Youth Club. You sang songs until you reached what could be considered the centre of town. You finally alighted. While food was being prepared for you, some of the men prayed and you and a couple of others went to have a look at the Somali flag, flying in the heavens of your nationalist dreams.

A little later, someone set fire to the Ethiopian colours; after him waved flames of joy as he ran in circles in the clearing made for the purpose. In stunned silence, you watched the red, the yellow and the green of the Ethiopian flag being reduced to charcoal.

II

You stood aside. You didn’t take part in the flag-burning exercise. Not because you thought it was the wrong thing to do. You had other thoughts to attend to. You remembered, earlier on, you had taken possession of the thick envelope Uncle Qorrax had entrusted to the escort who was to lead you to Uncle Hilaal’s door. The man was far too excited to stay away from the flag-burning exorcism. He threw himself in headlong, like a mayooka , dancing frenziedly round the flames of the burning colours. He hurled himself, now forwards, now backwards and then to the sides — now he grew wings and flew like a firefly; now he was no longer impeded by legs and could jump as high as a leopard; now he roared with joy, surrounding himself with a myth, like a lion. When the man was too busy to look, you opened the envelope.