Nuruddin Farah - Maps

She was beautiful. And she dressed well. She was tall and slim and wore no make-up. In you, she raised whirlwinds of a different kind — different from the one Misra used to draw out of you. Salaado made you work harder at being yourself. She would give you a map so you could identify where you were born and would insist that you saw yourself in that context — a young boy from the Ogaden, one whose world was in turmoil. And so, nailed next to the map which indicated where you were born, there was a calendar. There, if you wished, you could follow the progress of the war in the Ogaden. Nailed next to the calendar, there was a mirror. Here, you could register your bodily changes, see how much taller you were or fatter or whether you were losing weight by the day. Salaado was indubitably the most beautiful woman you had ever seen and you wished she were your mother, or that you could think of her or address her as one. In preference to calling her “Aunt”, you chose to refer to her as “Teacher”. Which she was professionally. For she would leave home at about seven in the morning, she would drive herself in the car, parked at night in the car-shelter, and wouldn’t return on most days until after four p.m. While she was away, you were supposed to study what she had assigned so you would not waste an academic year’s worth doing nothing. If you had queries, you would knock at Uncle Hilaal's study, and he would grudgingly give you time and answer your questions. Otherwise, you could go and play with the children next door — although you didn’t like their ideas about games that might entertain one. In the end, it was decided, since you preferred your solitary existence to their “infantile” company, Uncle Hilaal would buy you a bicycle all your own. Again, it was Salaado who taught you how to keep balance while learning to ride it. Wonderful Salaado!

Uncle Hilaal was equally kind, when with you. His was a voice with a long reach — like a hand. You were always amazed at how comforting it was to listen to it; and, like a hand, it patted you on the head or the shoulders; it lifted you out of your dormant spirit when you were that way inclined. At its command, you would get up, eat the food you were about to push away; in short, you would do anything it ordered you to. As a result, his voice was always there, present in the back of your thoughts, a voice reassuring when your spirits were down, a censuring voice when they were wild and out of control; it was a voice from whose depth, as though it were a well, you could draw bucketfuls of sustenance. And you went to bed with its resonance echoing in your ears; you awoke, listening to the rise and fall of its music. When he was not there, the walls of your memory re-echoed its hypnotic quality, so much so that it assumed a life of its own, a life inseparable from your uncle’s.

One day, when she was busy with marking examination papers, you asked Salaado to explain something to you. She was gentle, as usual, but said she was otherwise occupied and suggested you ask Uncle to teach you for that and the following two days.

“It is his voice,” you said.

She didn’t quite understand. “How do you mean? What is it about his voice that you don’t like? Or does he frighten you? Tell me.”

You noted one thing in your brain — the fact that she didn’t address you as Misra used to, didn’t clothe her speeches with endearments, and yet you did not feel distanced from her, ever. Also, for whatever it was worth, you noted something else in your mind — the fact that you took a back seat, allowing others to take life’s seats of prominence. You were not, in other words, the only one who existed, you were not the one around whom the sun, the moon, the stars, in short, the world, revolved.

“Answer me, Askar. What’s it about Hilaal’s voice that bothers you?” she said, holding your hands gently in hers.

You said, “It does not allow me to concentrate on what he is say-ing.”

“I still do not understand,” she said.

You tried to express yourself better, but realized that you hadn’t the courage to speak the thoughts which crossed your mind. It was years later that you told Salaado that, “Just as the beauty of the world fades when compared with yours, all other voices and life’s preoccupations are rendered inexistent when he speaks. His bodied voice appears before me as though it were another person. Looking at him, I find I cannot also concentrate what the other , i.e. the voice, is saying. Are you with me?”

“Yes,” she nodded, her voice almost failing her.

IV

Nowadays, you can afford to laugh at the thought of yourself resisting the temptation to pull at Uncle Hilaal’s nose — pull at it and squeeze it teasingly, as one might a cute baby’s cheeks — since you always believed he had a nose small as an infant’s fist with his fat face, very much like a child’s. You suspected it was his voice which held you at bay, his voice which held you at arm’s distance, his voice which was strong, almost baritone, varying in levels as it did in registers and which you stored away in the depository of your memory so you could make use of it in old age and remember what he said to you, as much as to anyone else — a voice which you could replay as often as you pleased.

Of course, you cannot put dates to events, nor can you recall precisely when Uncle Hilaal said it and to whom. Possibly, it was when the Somalis were still victorious and the “Ethiopians” were in total disarray, fleeing “homewards” and leaving behind them cities which were intact; when her infantry escaped, leaving behind unused cartridges of ammunition. And you think it was then that he said, “The point is, who’s an Ethiopian?”

Now what made you repeat to yourself the rhetorical question, “The point is, who’s an Ethiopian?” Weren’t you repeating it to yourself because in those days it gave you immense pleasure to mimic Uncle Hilaal’s voice? Salaado happened to be standing near by. You know how adults like answering children’s questions? For although your question wasn’t addressed to anybody in particular, Salaado answered it. You weren’t displeased, but you were startled. Politely, you listened to her talk as she pointed out the difference between the country which Menelik named Ethiopia — meaning in Greek “a person with a black face” (Salaado suspected it was a foreigner who named it Ethiopia) — and that which had been his power base until his army’s occupation of the southern territories at the turn of the century. You were attentive and learning a great deal from Salaado when Uncle Hilaal joined you. He listened for a while before making his contribution.

Hilaal said, “Ethiopia is the generic name of an unclassified mass of different peoples, professing different religions, claiming to have descended from different ancestors. Therefore, ‘Ethiopia’ becomes that generic notion, expansive, inclusive. Somali, if we come to it, is specific. That is, you are either a Somali or you aren’t. Not so with ‘Ethiopian’, or for that matter not so with ‘Nigerian’, ‘Kenyan’, ‘Sudanese’ or ‘Zaïroise’. The name ‘Ethiopia’ means the land of the dark race.”

“And Abyssinia?” asked (you think) Salaado.

Uncle Hilaal, disregarding the question, continued, “Did you know that Zaïre is the Portuguese word for river — which was perhaps how a Portuguese traveller named the country he happened to have been in — although there’s nothing ‘authentically national’ about it, as Sesse Seko would have us believe. ‘Nigeria’, did you know, was named such by Lugard’s mistress, again after the river Niger, and Sudan after the Blacks whose country it is. Somalia is unique. It is named after Somalis, who share a common ancestor and who speak the same language — Somali.”