Nuruddin Farah - Gifts

“You took no precautions?”

“He did.”

“And so how did it happen?”

“I am to blame.”

“How?”

“Let’s not go into that now.”

“Did you ever tell him you were having his child?”

“Nasiiba did.”

“And what did he say?”

“He would pay for my abortion if I wanted to get rid of it, that he made clear. What was more, if I were willing he’d take me as his wife. I sent him word through Nasiiba that it was no business of his what I did with myself or the foetus. I had made a mistake, I said, and would pay for it.”

“But why?”

“Maybe because I’d begun atoning for the pain I’d caused Miski.”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“Little in life makes sense,” said Fariida. “Doesn’t it say in a few Koranic verses that one’s fate is one’s shepherd and one goes where one’s destiny is determined to take one? In other words, I decided I am a given. My destiny has its sequences and logic.” She paused to suppress tears welling in her eyes.

“Come, come,” Duniya said, giving Fariida’s head a pat, “the baby was no inconvenience to us — a pleasure in fact.” She stopped herself just in time from telling her what various people had said about the foundling: how Mire had thought of him as a catalyst; how she and Bosaaso had thought of him as a metaphor. “How did Miski learn of it all?” Duniya asked.

“It was Qaasim who approached her, proposing that he and I marry. That was the first she knew of my pregnancy. And that caused a bit of a stir. There was total panic, and Nasiiba felt compelled to bring Miski to my hiding-place. You wouldn’t believe it, but this occurred a week before you saw me at the clinic. I still have the Number Seventeen token, which I’ll keep as a souvenir, to remember all we’ve gone through.”

“But why didn’t you just come and tell me everything?” “One is never sure what you might do, Duniya,” Fariida said frankly “It was too late for you to do anything, anyway, and since we hadn’t informed you from the start I thought it best to keep you out of it.”

“What do you think I might have done if you had told me?”

Fariida dimmed her bright eyes. “We wouldn’t be sitting here, talking the way we are, if I had.”

They were silent for a few minutes. Then Nasiiba joined them.

The two girls gossiped for a while about some of their friends. It was when Duniya was ready to leave with Bosaaso that Fariida remembered Miski had given her the keys to the city centre flat, which was Duniya’s to move into whenever she pleased.

Bosaaso and Duniya left Nasiiba and Fariida lying beside the pool, in the gathering dusk, talking and smoking together. Duniya was very tired. Swimming had taken a lot of her energy, and listening to Fariida’s story had been demanding, too.

When they were moving and on a stretch of good road without traffic or pot-holes, Bosaaso gave Duniya a newspaper neatly folded, a newspaper which felt unread. “The newspaper you’re holding has a long article by Taariq,” he said. “I thought you might like to see it.”

Duniya gave a start, for the image of the dead foundling came floating up in her memory at the mention of Taariq’s name. Why was she was beginning to associate Taariq with the dead foundling?

“Is the article any good?” she asked Bosaaso.

He drove cautiously because some children were playing football in the middle of the street. He did not speak until they were in front of Duniya’s place, “Yes, I found it rather good,” he replied.

Getting out of the car, she said, “I’m too exhausted to entertain anyone, so do you mind if we meet tomorrow? At noon?”

“Of course not.”

His excessive politeness was getting on her taut nerves, but she was too tired to remark on it. “I hope by then well have found two or three cleaning women to mop, dust and prepare the city flat, whose key I have now, for Abshir to use when he arrives.”

“That’s a superb idea,” Bosaaso said.

She thought better of a rude remark which called at her mind that very instant. She gave him a kiss, saying, “Tomorrow then, noon.”

And for the moment was only too glad to be rid of him.

“Sweet dreams,” he said, driving away.

Mataan and Yarey did not come home until a little after midnight. And Duniya was content to lie in bed, propped up with a number of pillows, reading Taariq’s article. She had energy only for that.

GIVING AND RECEIVING: THE NOTION OF DONATIONS

BY TAARIQ

Giving is a human instinct, perhaps the oldest, if we are to believe the Adam and Eve story of the paradisiacal apple the serpent offers to the woman who in turn shares it with the man. We give hoping to receive something corresponding to what we’ve offered. We give in the hope that our gift will express our affection and compassion towards the recipients. We give, as members of a group, to confirm our loyalty to it. We give to meet the demands of a contract, or the obligations and rights others have on our property. We give and may consider this act as part of our penance. We give in order to feel superior to those whose receiving hands are placed below ours. We give to corrupt. We give to dominate. There are a million reasons why we give, but here I am concerned with only one: European and North American and Japanese governments’ donations of food aid to the starving in Africa, and why these are received.

Last week, the world ran and Africa starved. Last week, millions of people broke Olympic records. A Sudanese runner flew across the globe to light a torch in New York. Last week, millions of cameras clicked, capturing scenes of rejoicing men and women who breasted the finish ribbon — scenes that were the culmination of media events. The sports activities organized to commemorate the day were a round-the-clock affair, keeping busy radio commentators and TV crews in Western Europe, North America, Japan, South-East Asia and India. In the end, the events were reduced to a compilation of statistics; how many people participated, how much money was collected to aid the starving in Africa? Last week, while the non-starving peoples of the world ran, taking part in the self-perpetuating media exercises of TV performances, Africa waited in the wings, out of the camera’s reach, with an empty bowl in hand, seeking alms, hoping that generous donations would come from the governments and peoples of the runners. Empty brass bowls make excellent photographs. Video cameras take shots of them, from every imaginable angle. To starve is to be of media interest these days. Forgive my cynicism, but I believe this to be the truth.

Africa’s famine became a story worthy of newspaper headlines when you could sell pictures of faces empty of everything, save the pains of starvation. Jonathan Dimbleby of BBC TV was the first to use the power of the televised message spelling clearly, in letters huge as the politics of drought, the one and only underlying sub-theme of hunger on a massive scale: powerlessness. Dimbleby produced a sensitive programme on the Ethiopian famine in the early 1970s. In this half-hour documentary, he used alternative shots of starving masses and pictures of the world’s powerful politicians attending the Emperor’s lavish feast at which delicacies like caviar had been served. A few months later, the Emperor was overthrown.

The question is, how come the same story in 1985 and 1986 is used by governments all over the continent in their favour and no heads roll, no despot’s regime is overthrown? Unhelped, with no food aid reaching the country, the Emperor was toppled. Can we conclude that if foreign governments stop aiding the African dictators with food hand-outs, then their people will rise against them?

Famine is a phenomenon the African is familiar with. In Somalia, there are people who bear the names of the years of drought. People adjusted the holes in their belts, but they did not beg. They held their heads high, allowing no one to humiliate them, letting no one know that their hearths had remained unlit the previous night. Those who had the people’s mandate to rule were united in the belief that he begs who has no self-pride, and he works responsibly who intends to be respected. But we know that a great many of the men at the helm of the continent’s power do not have the people’s mandate to be there in the first place, and have no self-pride or foresight. We also know that their incompetent five-year plans cannot be executed without the budget being supplemented from foreign sources. Are we therefore up against the proverbial wisdom that people get the government they deserve, and we deserve beggars to be our leaders?