At the reception, two young men are playing cards intently. One of them has a gap in his upper teeth, and the other is sporting a Mohawk. Even though neither is in uniform, Ahl speculates that Gap-in-the-Teeth is the one temporarily in charge. He is odds-on the son or other blood relative of the hotel owner. Back from school for the day, he mans the reception, while his friend is on an afternoon break.
Gap-in-the-Teeth asks Ahl, “What do you want?”
Ahl is not sure what answer to give, because he has discovered, now that he has searched for it, that Gap-in-the-Teeth and his stepson, Taxliil, share some remote resemblance: the manner in which they hold themselves apart, as if the world is synonymous with the dirt that prevails everywhere, and they wish to stay clean; and in their sweet smiles, as masterly as they are mistimed, smiles that often lead to misunderstandings.
“Has a room been reserved for Ahl?”
Gap-in-the-Teeth tells him he will be in room 15.
Ahl, unaided and unescorted, goes to his room, up the winding staircase with its uneven risers, pleased with the lightness of his bags, content that his needs are modest. He comes to a stop in front of room 15. The door is open, no need to make use of the key. He looks in and finds a vast room, the wall at the back of the bed tiled high and neatly in brown against a white background. A man is in the room, fiddling with the knobs and wires of the TV set, which is on, belting out a concatenation of what at first sounds like an alien language because the volume is so unbearably loud that the words are almost impossible to decipher.
“Please,” Ahl pleads. “Turn the TV off.”
“I am fixing your satellite TV,” the man shouts loudly, in competition with the racket. He is chewing qaat, and his tongue, emerging from his mouth as he speaks, resembles a chameleon’s — narrow, repellent.
Ahl repeats his plea, slowly this time, the better to be understood. The TV man stays on his haunches. He stares at a knob he is holding in his right hand, as if he might admonish it for its obstinate behavior — presumably this is the piece of hardware that is causing the set to malfunction. He shrieks, “I must fix the problem.”
Ahl says, “Please do it later.”
But the technician does no such thing. He has been instructed to see to it that all the rooms have functioning TV sets. Ahl feels that the din is making him lose touch with his senses or, worse, with his reason. But he has been warned that one must be circumspect in one’s dealings with young Somalis. People out here are a nervy lot, quick to anger and to reach for their guns.
His voice calm, he says, “Please, please.”
He ascribes the first please to the Somali part of his upbringing, which emphasizes considerateness to the point of formality, and the second please to fear of provoking that notorious Somali crankiness. He says, “I want to use the bathroom. Urgently.”
At last the technician turns off the TV, disconsolate, clearly offended, and, as if to show his annoyance, masticates his qaat furiously. Just before he walks off in a huff, Ahl says, “Will you do me a favor, please?”
Rudely the man asks, “What do you want?”
“I’d like to eat if the kitchen is still open.”
“What do you want to eat?”
“A fish dish and rice, if these are available.”
“Of course they are available.”
“I’d appreciate it if you could place an order.”
And as a token of his appreciation, Ahl brings out a couple of U.S. dollars to give as a tip. But no, the man won’t take the baksheesh, either because it is too small or because he doesn’t wish to be appeased. He leaves in a fit of pique. Bemused, Ahl closes the door behind the man and goes into the bathroom.
Then, bizarrely, the TV comes on again, noisier than before. Ahl is incensed, assuming that the technician has returned and turned it back on. Ahl decides to finish peeing, and then deal with it. He is of several minds as to how he will achieve his aim. Kick the man in the butt and face the consequences, or kick the set to smithereens and pay for it? Or should he accept defeat? But when he comes out, there is no one in the room and Ahl is looking at an Arab in a suit and tie interviewing a Somali on Al Jazeera, with the ruins of the twelfth-century Arbaca Rukun mosque, destroyed in the 1991 fighting in Mogadiscio, serving as background.
The Somali interviewee is saying, “We, as mujahideen, martyrs of Islam, are ready to lay down our lives in the name of Allah. We’ll help defeat Ethiopia and America, the enemies of Islam.” Then, just as mysteriously as it came on, the TV goes off again.
The shower is very cold, despite the tropical heat. Ahl decides a birdbath will do. He washes his face and armpits, changes his shirt, and rings Warsame and Xalan to find out when they are coming for him. No answer. Before going downstairs to eat the fish dish he ordered by telephone after calling the reception, he packs his computer in its bag, puts all his cash in its pockets, and descends the stairs with caution. When he walks past the reception desk, Gap-in-the-Teeth tells him he has a guest waiting for him. Assuming his visitor to be Warsame or Xalan, he asks where, and Gap-in-the-Teeth points to a small gazebo where a man is sitting alone at a table meant for four, with two of the untaken chairs tipped forward.
The man does not bother to introduce himself or even to greet Ahl. He has a down-turned mouth, very fine teeth, and bulging eyes, and he is dressed in a pleated shirt from another era. Even though he is the ugliest man Ahl has ever set eyes on, he is nonetheless a charmer, reminding Ahl of a midget from Agrigento whose daughter Ahl once dated for almost a year, secretly, when he was at university in England. The woman was studying English, a pretty slow learner. She made up for it elsewhere: she was excellent in bed and a superb cook.
When the man in the gazebo asks Ahl how his room is, Ahl wonders if he is the hotel manager. But the man says, “As for things not working? We have no plumbers to install hot water systems for hotels. Even though Puntland is in relative peace, we suffer from a shortage of trained personnel in all fields. Here we go about things with a trial-and-error and try-and-see attitude. Now things work, now they don’t. Uncertainty reigns supreme.”
Ahl decides there is nothing to lose by engaging in such banter in the middle of the day, with the security everywhere close, his mobile phone boasting airtime, Warsame or Xalan a touch of two buttons away. “What’s become of the trained personnel in these fields?” he asks.
“Those with good education have joined the exodus, and, fleeing the country, have ended up in refugee camps in Kenya or Ethiopia, and then eventually some have made it to the Arabian Gulf as low-paid workers, or gone to Europe or North America as refugees. Imagine — one and a half million of them, many of them destitute.”
The arrival of food interrupts their conversation. “What will you have?” Ahl asks his guest, whom he does not want to leave. Who knows, this mysterious man may lead him to Taxliil.
The waiter says, “The kitchen is closed.”
“This is enough for two. Please bring another plate and some more cutlery,” Ahl says. “We can share this.”
The waiter makes resentful noises but does as Ahl has requested, bringing a plate and more cutlery. The man tucks into the food with evident enjoyment.