“I’d like to do the interview face-to-face.”
“As matters stand, he wants a phone interview.”
Dajaal says, “If I were you, I wouldn’t do it face-to-face, as there is always the risk of him being blown up. The drones are more active than before. They might pick up his movement and go for him.”
There is a spell of jumpiness, Gumaad shifting in his seat. Then he cries, “Malik has no reason to fear being blown up. What nonsense!”
“They blew a former colleague of mine sky high with remote-controlled roadside bombs,” Dajaal says. “They have perfected their art of killing. If I were you, Malik, I wouldn’t do a phone interview, either; a drone might mistake your number for his, and strike you dead.”
Gumaad has gone nervy and sweaty again, and a new layer of scurf coats the back of his neck and shoulders.
“Please, Grandpa,” Qasiir begs. “Stop this.”
“Why? His men have killed my colleagues.”
“Someone may hear you.”
“It isn’t long before they kill me, I know.”
Gumaad mumbles something inaudible, his words colliding discordantly. He mixes his tenses, trips on his adverbs, stops making sense. Malik’s stomach goes through the complete life cycle of the butterfly. He is remembering a fragment from a dream he had a few nights ago, in which Gumaad betrayed him, handing him over to a group of freelance militiamen, who took him hostage. In the dream, Malik pleaded with Gumaad not to break faith with him. But all he says is, “Enough now, Dajaal.”
For the first time, Malik thinks that maybe Dajaal’s days are indeed numbered. He also wonders if an interview with TheSheikh would be a scoop worth the risk. Then he picks up a foul scent. It is Gumaad’s breath — not so much ordinary bad breath as the scent of his fear, which Malik thinks he can smell in the same way that he believes he can smell Dajaal’s rage.
“Please, all of you,” he says abruptly.
Everyone looks at him, mildly shocked.
“I want to be alone.”
After they have gone, Malik telephones Jeebleh and asks his opinion about whether the interview with TheSheikh is worth the risk. In truth, what he really wants is for Jeebleh to be aware of what he is up to, in the event that something happens. In his head, Malik can hear Amran harping on about his taking needless risks.
Jeebleh acknowledges the professional benefits of doing the interview, but believes that it is not worth it, given the imminent Ethiopian occupation. “You may become an easy target for both the Transitional Government and the occupying force.”
“What if I use a pseudonym?”
“Don’t do it,” Jeebleh says. “Please.”
Next, Malik calls Ahl. Ahl, too, advises against it. He says, “TheSheikh is a man on the run, for crying out loud. Think of this: The FBI will be on your tail once it becomes known that you’ve talked to a wanted man.”
“But it would be a big scoop for me,” Malik argues. “And earlier you were all for my interviewing a funder of piracy who is by all accounts a crook. How is that?”
“That was different,” Ahl says.
“Different? What do you mean ‘different’?”
“We all want to get Taxliil to come home safe,” Ahl says. “What you are proposing poses danger to us all. Look at it from that angle. Please think again and do not do anything that might jeopardize our chance of recovering Taxliil.”
Malik is not convinced that he agrees with Ahl’s reasoning. But he opts not to speak, apprehensive that his brother might think that he places his professional advancement far above family loyalty.
“It’s been a long, eventful day,” Ahl says.
“You’re right. It’s been long and eventful.”
Ahl says, “Sleep on it, and let’s talk tomorrow.”
“Good night.”
“Good night to you, too.”
20
THE SKY IS DARK; THE NIGHT IS STARLESS. IN A DREAM, A TOTAL eclipse has just ended, and Malik ventures out of the apartment for the first time in twenty-four hours. He is on his way to a hospital, walking; Dajaal is indisposed. Roadside mines, tanks, and four days of fighting between the insurgents and the Ethiopian army of occupation have made the city roads impassable, turned them unsafe.
When he finally reaches the hospital, he encounters more ruin; the main building has been hit and reduced to rubble. Radio reports place the number of dead at five hundred, and those critically wounded at over a thousand. A large number of the hospital staff figure among the dead and the missing, perhaps buried in the debris. To the left of the main entrance, a huge crowd is raising an unearthly ruckus. It takes Malik a few minutes to work out the nature of the conflict. The remaining Somali medical staff and several Europeans, no doubt flown in at huge expense by the World Health Organization to help save lives, are engaged in a heated back-and-forth debate with some bearded Shabaab types. The debate centers on whether dogs may be used to save human lives from the wreckage of the hospital. A Gumaad look-alike describes the use of dogs to rescue people from the ruins as an affront to Muslim sensibilities. He is saying to the Europeans, as if from a pulpit, “Dogs are unclean, and we as Muslims are forbidden to come into contact with them.”
But someone is calling from below, deep down in the ruins. It is a man pleading for someone to help rescue his daughter, who is buried in the rubble. The man wants the medical team to use their trained dogs to bring his daughter out, alive.
The WHO team is led by a large woman with a red face, red hair, and skin the color of beetroot from a combination of anger and the tropical sun. She shouts at the Gumaad look-alike, “I’ll beat you up if you don’t get out of the way of the job I’ve come to perform.” Frightened by her outburst, he backs down sheepishly and quietly leaves the scene.
Meanwhile, another member of the hospital medical staff is engaged in his own shouting match with one of the other bearded men. The doctor is saying, “Do you think that Islam condones the desecration of cemeteries, even if the dead were once Christian? I view the desecration of Mogadiscio’s Christian cemetery as heinous and a more serious crime than permitting the use of dogs to pull a living girl out of the rubble. I feel certain that you will have to answer to the Almighty on Judgment Day for dishonoring and debasing the dead bodies of Christians, whereas I am convinced that as long as we mean well and save lives, all will be forgiven by the Divine. Not that I agree with you that Islam forbids the use of dogs to save human lives.”
The row continues, and Malik moves toward the cottages sprawled over an acre and a half in every direction. With the main building destroyed, the cottages now serve as the hospital. The sickening sights are reminiscent of the carnage from World War I, with the wounded lying everywhere on the floor, writhing in pain for lack of morphine or enough doctors and nurses to attend to them. The uniforms of the nurses are dyed in blood.
A nurse, her hands dripping with blood, asks Malik to undo her bra; she explains that it is the only one she owns. Clumsily self-conscious, he suggests she turn so that he can unclasp the catch from the back. But, no, the hooks are in the front. He doesn’t recall ever taking so long to undo a woman’s bra. He sweats so liberally that a drop of perspiration from his forehead almost blinds him.
He remembers that he has an appointment with a doctor, but not why. He asks himself if he is ailing or if he is seeking help for someone else — and if so, for whom? Then he remembers that it is Dajaal who has been hurt in the blast from a roadside bomb, driving. And that when he failed to arrange an appointment with a doctor for Dajaal, he used his press card, describing himself as a journalist interviewing the victims of this ruthless bombing of civilians. To get what he wanted, he remarked that Ethiopia had atrocities to answer for, and that someone was bound to submit a case to the International Court of Justice for this reckless bombing of the city’s residential area.