Nuruddin Farah - Maps

There was a silence akin to that which obtains when a radio is switched off suddenly. Hilaal was there, yes; Salaado was there as well; and the large radio in the living room wasn’t on. Well?

A voice (most probably Hilaal’s) telling a story:

A man. A woman. And a dog. The neighbours don’t like the man, who doesn’t like them either. They suspect, but they have no evidence, that he is a jealous husband. The woman is very beautiful, but quiet in an unassuming way, simple in her tastes, and loves her plainness. The dog? The dog is a German shepherd, large, handsome, costing the master a lot of money to feed, although the master doesn’t seem to mind the expense. The dog is given liver for breakfast, meat for lunch and dinner. The gate, however, is locked day and night and is opened when someone is entering or leaving. On most days, it is opened only twice: when the husband is leaving in the morning and when he re-enters in the evening. One day, a stranger arrives. Yes, into these convolutions walks, one noon, a man. The dog barks, bares its teeth, growls, but the man walks past it without so much as hesitating or pausing for a moment. For hands, the man has stumps — his hands, or so people say, having been amputated in Iran, because, again people say (and where they got their news only God knows) he had stolen money from a minor Ayatollah. The man, when he returns in the evening, stays indoors and so does the stranger, so do the wife and the dog. The stranger, the wife and the dog remain inside. The man, as usual, leaves in the morning and, as usual, doesn’t return until evening. Now what does the man do? Nobody knows. Does he work for the government, is he self-employed? Nobody knows. But people don’t say they don’t. They make up their stories when they don’t know what’s what.

Who’s the stranger? He is the younger brother of the man. People say he used to be a wicked man, who broke into houses, robbed banks. People also say that the house in which the man and his wife live is in his name, for he bought it from monies acquired through felonious methods. But nowadays, the stranger is as saintly as a mixraab . You won’t see him without his rosary (he holds one end of the rosary between his toes and the other hangs, like a wrist-watch, on the healed scar of the stump), nor will you catch his lips idle.

For example, Askar. In this story just told, there are truths and half-truths. The husband is a very jealous man — that is true. But the wife is saintly and has never reciprocated the advances made by any man. She loves her lawful husband.

It is also true, for example, that the dog is a German shepherd, large as the largest among the breed and handsome too. But it is not at all fierce. It bares its teeth, all right, and growls, and thus appears aggressive but it is very timid, very shy. Its eyes are gentle, its anger wore out at the edges when the intruder smiled, calling it “Brader”, German, meaning brother. Why was it given such a name? Nobody knows. But people say that her Somali master inherited it from a Polish gendeman who gave her the name. But surely, a Polish UN expert would know enough German to know that brader was brother, and wouldn’t call a female dog that?

The stranger? He is a relation of the man, that is true. In fact, he is the first and only son. Not a younger brother. It would be too much to expect two “brothers” in the same story, wouldn’t it? Two “brothers” who are not brothers themselves but who also are non-brothers. And where did he get his hands amputated? In Iran. That much is true. But not because he stole from a minor Ayatollah, no. He was working in a factory and a moment of carelessness chopped off his hands. Yes, he is the one in whose name the house is. Again, not because he bought it. The man registered the house in his name, that’s all.

No one visits these people. They have a dog who is fierce, a man who is very jealous, a wife who is unfaithful, a stranger whose hands have been amputated in Iran. Would they listen to you if you tried to enlighten them? Would they hear you out if you tried to challenge their prejudices? Of course not. Note, please, that the prejudice of the western press feeds the acquired prejudices of the colonial and neo-colonial peoples, as much as it misinforms the underinformed in Europe or North America. And note also, that because the new Somali master didn’t know the meaning of the German word “Bruder”, the question why such a name was given to a she-German shepherd never crossed his or other people’s minds. Was the Polish gendeman playing a Freudian game with his own or the dog’s unconscious, giving it “Bruder” as a name?

Now, for example. An unremoved bullet might cause a man’s death. But you need more than undealt-with tetanus and the rigidification of the muscles of the jaws for death to happen. Doctors, like the societies to which they belong, diagnose their patients, drawing conclusions based on their (I grant you here “learned”) prejudices. What I am trying to say, inarticulately, all this time, is you need more than scientific evidence for you to disown the woman who, for the first few years of your life, you called “Mother”. Think, Askar.

Now he could hear the voice, now he couldn’t And his breathing was slow and shallow and he lay tucked in bed, thinking and thinking and thinking, remembering, unremembering and remembering. The result of his silent reflections, his quiet meditations, his discursive consultations with Hilaal and Salaado, the result: he decided that Misra’s wraith in Askar had died a spiritual death. What good would it do if he asked her point-blank, did you betray? Are you a traitor? And, pray, what is your true name?

And the voice was in his ears, repeating to him Salaado and Hilaal’s coalition of views. And someone was saying that Misra had been seen in Mogadiscio, that she was already here, looking for him — looking for Askar, “my Askar, my son”.

“What will you do if you meet her?” someone asked.

Askar's answer, “I don’t know.”

The sun’s light in the room was breaking into tiny particles the size of atoms and while he thought of what he would do if he were to meet her again, Askar studied the phenomenon in thoughtful silence. The sun’s rays of atoms, his own shattered, fragmented selves.

“Misra, why did you have to do this to me? Why? Why?”

And he heard the voices of dawn and he felt cold, he felt hot, and curled into a foetal position, seeing himself young again, in Kallafo again. Then, suddenly, all this vanished and he was in Mogadiscio, in bed and Salaado was calling his name.

III

Misra grew smaller as she aged, he realized; he, bigger as he grew up. He told himself that her voice had thinned, the brightness in her eyes had faded a little too. And yet he couldn’t stop wondering if her other half was hiding inside her and would somehow re-emerge and take over eventually, the way voices of one person speak in another’s body, when under the powers of an exorcist. She was an actress without her props; she was a clown without paint. He saw her start — it was sudden as a hiccup, fast. He didn’t know why He moved about, measured of step, economical of gestures — he took his distance from her. It was enough that they had embraced, that was as far as he was willing to go. He had felt something run through his body as they hugged. That Uncle Hilaal and Salaado were there didn’t help matters either. If anything, their presence made things worse for him. He might have been franker with her if they were alone, in a room, in Mogadiscio, after God knows how many years of not meeting or being together; he might have told her openly why their physical contact gave him a sense of repugnance. And once they hugged, did he say anything? Or did she? What did he say? Did he welcome her? He looked from Salaado to Uncle Hilaal and then to Misra, and she was ugly as guilt, small and distant. He decided he would ask Salaado what things were said between them as they touched — maybe there was something he could learn about himself in this manner.