But that didn't stop them from glaring at Adem, whispering when he was near. Half a day of this as he tried to find a place to escape the baking sun, the sand, the smell of goat over the fire for lunch. It usually made him hungry, but today his stomach lurched. Mainly, he wanted to be alone. That was the hardest thing to find here-solitude. There was always someone… judging him all the time. Making sure he played by the rules. An entire army built on that. He'd heard that in the American military, despite the cause or the goal of whatever combat they engaged in, the soldiers fought on for each other. Bringing their brothers in arms back home alive was what drove them. Here, among these soldiers for God, the cause outweighed the individual. There was always someone to take the place of the fallen, who had gone on to whatever afterlife they deserved.
He found a scant patch of shade under a Qudhac tree not far from the mess tents. He had to huddle tight beneath the low branches, nearly made him invisible. He watched the women preparing lunch, tried to pick out the one with the brave eyes who had poured his camel's milk. But the flurry of colorful dresses made it impossible to tell who was who. After a while, as soldiers passed by without a glance, Adem began to think he was perfectly camouflaged. He wouldn't mind sitting out the rest of his stay like this. There's a question he hadn't bothered to ask Jibriil lately. Before they left the States, he'd told Adem that it would probably be a month or two. That people were coming and going all the time. But since then he'd heard stories of deserters being flogged, beheaded, and dragged through the streets. No one got out early unless God willed it to be so-by death.
"Adem?"
He looked up. Jibriil stood above him, face obscured by the limbs. He turned his head back towards the mess tents. "It's nice under here."
"Mind if I join you?"
Adem shrugged. No camouflage. He was unimportant, until it came time to pin the blame on their mysterious rat.
Jibriil put his rifle down, crawled under the branches and sat beside Adem against the trunk. Quiet for a few moments, listening to the calamity in the tents, clanging and arguing, sizzling and shouting.
"You okay?"
Sigh. "You know I'm not a rat."
"Don't worry about that. Not a problem."
"This isn't working out for me. I shouldn't have come."
Jibriil rocked into his friend's shoulder. "Man, come on. You're doing great, I'm telling you. The fear will fade. Would you ever have been in a firefight like last night back home?"
Adem looked down at his filthy shirt, still reeking of donkey dung. All he remembered about the night before was darkness, the corpse of Abdi Erasto, and a tent full of frightened but defiant women and children.
"Hey, you were under some serious fire last night and held it together. That's good soldiering. I need men like you who can keep their shit. Not like Garaad over there. Him coming back? I'll bet he was more worried about his head than about us."
Despite the heat, Adem shivered. "So close. Those grenades."
Jibriil eased up on his cheer. Hummed part of an old riff from a song Adem didn't recognize. "I promise, it's only going to get better. Today, they promote me. I'm in charge now. All you have to do is keep proving yourself worthy and I can help you climb out of this. Imagine, you and me commanding thousands of soldiers."
"I can't imagine that." Adem picked at the cuticle of his thumb. It started bleeding. "That's your dream. I wanted, I don't know, to understand what it's all about. Being Somali, right? Instead of just feeling Minnesotan. But I don't think this is the same thing."
"It's not. It's Islam. It's the Truth. That's more important."
"Than what?"
Shrug. "Than anything." Jibriil rose onto one knee, pushed himself against the tree trunk. "Come on, let's eat. We can talk about a plan for you."
"I'm not hungry. I like it here."
"Seriously." He reached down for Adem's arm, lifted. Adem kept it stiff. Jibriil was really trying, too. It started to hurt.
Adem said, "Please, leave me alone. For a little while. Please, man."
Jibriil let go, but he looked worried, glanced around. He said, "Okay, but not too long. I'll save you some."
He climbed out from under the branches, picked up his rifle. Shuffled, turning his head left and right. Twitchy. Then, without looking at Adem, said, "Stay where I can see you, though. Can you do me that favor? Don't go wandering off. I mean it."
Adem wished he was part of the tree. He'd seen a movie last year about a cursed pirate who became a part of the ship as he grew older, eventually unable to act on his own. A living slab of wood, watching but silent. That would be perfect. Because Jibriil had told him without telling him that the others were after him. Garaad must've been working overtime to convince the soldiers that Adem was the spy. And spies lost more than a hand or foot.
*
He found another shirt-dark green fatigues, not his, a bit big-and wrapped his head in a red and white-striped scarf to blend in with the many other soldiers whose faces he had never seen, names he had never known. Didn't matter how hot it was. He had to brave through it and start walking. Move and not look back. Hold his rifle like he'd shoot anyone he pleased until he found someone who could help.
He passed loitering groups of boys standing around, laughing, hanging off the sides of trucks, caressing their rifles the way Americans might their IPhones or exotic bottles of spring water. No one paid him any mind.
The scarf cut off some of his peripheral vision, and it made him feel like he was breathing in a steam room-heavy, humid air. It stank of him, the dung, the dead. He turned down another street, found three poles shoved into the ground, a bloated, picked-apart man's head on each one. He winced. These were not traitors. He'd heard about what happened from Abdi Erasto-a father and his two sons helped their young sisters, ages eleven and thirteen, escape because several soldiers demanded that the father hand over the girls for marriage.
The girls made it out, so he'd heard. Adem wished he could ask those men how they did it so he could, too.
He kept on. Abandoned streets. Occasional trios or quartets of soldiers. Occasional businessmen standing outside their shops, looking numb. Stunned to still be in business, maybe. A cell phone rang and he watched a businessman pull it from his pocket. Lots of phones in the city, Adem saw. Flew thousands of miles, and still people needed their cell phones. Except him. His had been taken as soon as he got to camp. He imagined the bill waiting for him back home.
More businesses, more people in the streets pretending to live normal lives amidst the end of their world. They had been doing it for years, skirting the harsh brand of Sharia law pushed by this crazy bunch of boys trying to run the country.
Adem was fine to leave them to it. Whatever was left of Somali culture sure as hell wasn't here. He looked back at the man on the phone, who was staring at Adem as he talked. They had a reason to be afraid. Didn't even matter if you were a strict Muslim who prayed five times a day and followed the diet and dress code. If the boys wanted you dead, you were going to die.
Adem turned back to the road ahead, kept on. He didn't have that much time. Jibriil would notice he was gone. Better him than one of the others. But even then, it wasn't good. Jibriil would never let him out of his sight again. The longer he walked, the more likely this wasn't going to work.
Where were the aid trucks? The only people stupid enough to keep driving in, getting hijacked almost every time unless the UN blue hats felt like fighting, which they didn't most of the time. He'd been told that some trucks carrying water had been jacked only a few days before he had arrived, and that it was time to send it back, empty, along with a couple of the aid workers. They'd been beaten, robbed, and threatened, of course. Sport for the soldiers. But now they had to go.