Nuruddin Farah - Gifts

Without saying any more, they walked together, hand in hand, towards the french windows.

“You have a beastly temper, you know that?” he said.

“And your politeness is not so much disarming as challenging,” she said, self-censoriously As they walked on, their hip-bones knocked against each other, like a couple dancing the bump.

Finally, they stopped. There was only one armchair. When sitting in it, Duniya’s fingers touched something hard, which she worked out to be a pair of binoculars. Since her sense of direction was excellent, it didn’t take her long to figure out that the chair was facing west. Did this mean that Bosaaso was a bird watcher? She didn’t think he was a voyeur; besides, who was there to pry on?

“I’m a bird watcher,” he volunteered without her asking him.

Then he kissed her. It was so powerful and so sudden that, in an attempt not to lose her balance, Duniya held on to his sleeve.

He said, when he could, before she had the chance to speak, “I love you.”

She took his hand in both hers and kissed it lightly.

Because she did not say anything, they kissed, this time briefly.

“It would upset me if anything I did or said upset you,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

He sat beside her in the armchair, hoping she could say, “I love you,” or something as pleasant.

She said, “Taariq used to say that I’m like most men, in that details bore me. He would argue that it’s the general drift of things that fascinate my wild nature, my temperamental mind.”

She pushed aside the book that had been in the armchair. He became curious, wondering what he had been reading the last time he sat there, probably one sleepless dawn. He knew from the feel of it that it was Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov.

“I’m a details person, all right; I attend to them rigorously,” he said.

“It’s the details of how a person smiles, their nervous tics, how they sleep, where they fall asleep, which side of the bed they prefer: these are the details that interest me,” Duniya replied.

He was restless, like a man on unsafe ground. “It depends what you mean, knowing a person,” he said.

“Where is the easiest bathroom to get to in the dark?” she asked.

“There’s one on the ground floor. Shall I take you there?”

Then he tickled her. She laughed. And laughing, she got to her feet. She thought he was teasing her like a cat that, once hurt by a bigger dog, falls back on its feline alertness, plays with the canine aggressive instinct, holding back a little. His seductive fingers moved up and down her spine, fingers that were ticklishly open like a cat’s playful but harmless claws. Suddenly, two of his fingers closed in on the clip of her brassiere and, before she could remember the Akan word for “breasts,” the support was gone and they were throbbing with the warmth of excitement. They kissed, he breathed heavily, his nostrils whistling, like a tyre losing air. She didn’t say, “Don’t rush me,” but, “Where is the bathroom, the one on the ground floor?”

The moon entered, shining their way, showing them where to go. The top landing was awash with moonlight. There were three rooms on this floor. He took the right turning and she followed him. He opened a window. More brightness.

Then she said, “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

Bosaaso approached Duniya’s body as if it were a door whose combination locks required the performance of a certain number of feats, before being allowed in. He might have been a lowly-bom Arabian Nights prince making good. The stakes were too high for him not to perform well. Only when he proved himself to be a charmer, did she let him in.

And then the doors of her body opened wider, and she lay on top of him, the mistress conducting the speed and flow of the river of their common love. Earlier, he had wanted to know if she had taken the necessary precautions. She had said, “Of course, I have,” making it plain that she wanted no more children, thank you.

He followed the rhythmic dictates of her orchestrated movements, concentrating on the dents on her body, which were like those on stone steps leading to a frequently used door. Her body felt a lot younger than his own, and was undeniably more athletic. For instance, she could sit in a half crouching position for as long as love-making demanded, whereas his back ached.

Loving him was divine. That was clear.

They altered positions. He was on top now, but still thinking, engaging in mental activity because he didn’t want to come until much, much later.

“Where are you?” she teased.

He hesitated, not getting her meaning. They were still in the dark, and they were seeing each other’s body not by feel alone but by the moon shining in as well. He said, “I am in tenth heaven.”

“Where the jinns are?” she asked.

“Eaves-dropping.”

“Then I am the shooting-star. Watch me come, hold me.”

He held on to her as she flew away, by-passing all known and unknown planets of the celestial system of joy, light as that proverbial prophet’s chariot, the prophet whom some call Ilyaas, some Elijah, some Idris, and whom others describe as descending from Haruun, the brother of Moses; this most revered miracle-maker of a prophet, whom Muslims believe to be Khadr.

“Shall we?” she was saying.

And her body opened wider, and there were many more palaces in it, and Bosaaso realized he owned more keys than had been revealed to him. They swapped positions, but without disengaging, locked to each other by the act of their union. He was enjoying himself. That much was obvious to her.

It was her turn to entertain the thoughts visiting her: she thought of bodies, as he took over the responsibility of conducting the orchestra of their love-making. She felt the marks his trouser belt had left round his waist, body marks that were as prominent as a woman’s stretch marks following the delivery of a number of children. He had far too many bums and scars, even for a Somali. Had his mother cauterized every inexplicable complaint, thinking only that curative surgery made any sense?

She went on thinking that the athletics of love is a great sport, if both parties are, keen on prolonging it, and are content to live wholly in the present, in the very moment in which everything is taking place. Then love is divine.

She felt embarrassed, because she had been thinking about sin at the very moment he spoke the words “I love you.” Love is too pedestrian a notion to associate with Allah; he may be merciful, compassionate; human deeds may be worthy of his rage; but he doesn’t love.

“You know what I am going to do after I’ve sold it?”

She grinned. “But why sell it in the first place?”

“Listen to me, please.”

“Can we go to sleep?” she said. “Tomorrow is a long day: Abshir is coming and we have to go to the flat to prepare it for his arrival.”

“I’m too stirred up to fall asleep.”

He looked miserable. It would do no good to tell him to cheer up. He was as highly strung as her, but she had the self-control to contain her tension. She was a woman who knew how to accommodate all life’s contradictions without going insane. “Come,” she said. “Come and lie beside me.”

She stretched out her arm so he could use it as a pillow. She smiled, a smile belt-thin. She listened to him calling her name again and again as though it were the morning’s sacred devotions. “Tell me about Zawadi,” she said.

“What would you like to know?”

“What she’s like.”

“She’s a lovely person.”

“I didn’t think you would have much to do with anyone who wasn’t good at heart,” she said. “Give me a physical description of her.”