“And where does Isha fit in?” Malik says.
Ahl says, “Just talk to them, please.”
“Where is Fidno now?”
“Both Fidno and Isha are in Mogadiscio waiting for your call,” Ahl says. “Let me give you their respective phone numbers. Please make sure to arrange to see them tomorrow at a place and time of your choosing.”
Malik takes down their phone numbers and hangs up. With the words of Hilowleh echoing in his mind, he calls up Qasiir and requests that he claim to be Malik’s assistant and set up a meeting for him with Fidno and Il-Qayaxan for one in the afternoon tomorrow. “Please call me back after you’ve spoken to them, and I’ll give you the name of the hotel and the room number, too.”
Then Malik does his duty by Amran and calls her, offering her a doctored version of what he’s been through, reducing the number of deaths by a third and distancing himself from their proximity.
He then speaks to Jeebleh, to whom he offers an unedited version of the day’s events.
26
AHL HITS HURDLES AT EVERY BEND, THE MORE HE THINKS ABOUT the safest and least cumbersome way to get Taxliil out of Somalia. It is difficult enough for him to step over the threshold and doubly difficult to deal with Taxliil, who is a misguided youth because of his involvement with Shabaab. Taxliil has a way of throwing another wrench into the works every time Ahl manages to wrest one free. He finds all this exhausting, and he feels himself in danger of cracking up, never mind his stepson.
His plan was to get Taxliil to Djibouti, where they would present themselves at the U.S. embassy and explain the loss of Taxliil’s passport. But the plan is so far proving to be unworkable, because they need to find a travel document of some description to leave Bosaso and enter Djibouti. No airline will accept him as passenger unless he has a valid passport. Ahl thinks that as more twists in Taxliil’s tale come to light, the more numerous are the drawbacks that are bound to crop up.
Meanwhile, Ahl has been in touch with a tearful Yusur in Minneapolis, has held long brainstorming sessions with Jeebleh in Nairobi, and continues to communicate with Malik by phone and by text message. Xalan and Warsame are doing their best to help as well, but things don’t look good.
When he is not thinking like a runaway, Taxliil has on several occasions apologized to his parents, admitting to his foolhardy trust in the imam back in the Twin Cities, at whose prompting he volunteered to join up with Shabaab. Now he knows better; now he knows what is what, and has learned his lesson the hard way. He wants to forgive and forget — or to be forgiven, and for the entire episode to be forgotten.
But does he realize things are not simple for him and the twenty-odd runaways? Taxliil claims he does, yet he does nothing to show this is the case. Ahl is reminded of a proverb, probably French, about the unfortunate man who falls on his back and as a result breaks his nose. Taxliil keeps doing the opposite of what he says he will do, making an already difficult situation more complicated. He falls asleep in the middle of one of Ahl’s debriefing sessions. When Ahl tries to iron out the major inconsistencies in his story, Taxliil loses his cool and casts uncalled-for aspersions on his stepfather.
All the members of the household help as best they can, but keep their distance, too. Faai plies Ahl with black coffee and Taxliil with sugary drinks. Xalan gets busy organizing a Somali passport with help from a friend with access to someone working in the passports division in Bosaso. Taxliil will travel with Ahl to Djibouti, away from the ubiquitous Shabaab assassins, who if they hear about his presence in Bosaso and in this house may harm him and others as well; one never knows with them. Once Ahl has taken him to Djibouti, Ahl, Malik, and Jeebleh will work in tandem to facilitate his safe return to the United States. Of course, they can’t count on criminals like Fidno and No-Name, who appear to have had a hand in his escape, to keep quiet for long; hence Ahl’s proposal that Malik “buy their silence” by granting them an interview.
Xalan telephones Ahl to confirm that she has reserved seats for him and Taxliil on tomorrow’s flight to Djibouti, and that she is close to organizing the passport for Taxliil. The news has a galvanizing effect, and Taxliil knuckles down to clarifying his account to Ahl. Ahl’s aim is twofold: one, to understand what happened for his own peace of mind; and to help Taxliil prepare for the grilling by the U.S. authorities that he will go through when he reenters the States.
First, though, Taxliil wants to hear, not for the first time, how they discovered he was gone from Minneapolis. It is as if he takes pleasure in having kept his parents, his friends, and the school authorities in the dark while he arranged his departure, and got away without anyone figuring it out. Ahl pampers him with answers: he and Yusur thought Taxliil was at school or at the mosque, and didn’t wonder until late in the evening where he might be. Since Yusur was working the night shift, it fell to him to search Taxliil’s room for evidence of his whereabouts, which is when he discovered that both his passport and his shoulder bag were missing.
“Then what did you do?”
“When we were despairing of ever finding you, because no one had seen you, we went around to the police stations and the hospitals,” Ahl replies. “Petrified as we were, we were also somewhat relieved when you called two days later to say you were in Somalia.”
Taxliil gloats, “But I wasn’t in Somalia then.”
This is the first time he has said this, and Ahl can’t decide if he is lying. That’s the problem with lying: one lie can make one have doubts about the truth of what has gone before or what is to come later.
“Where did you ring from, then?”
“I was in Lamu, about to travel by boat to Kismayo.”
“Let’s start from the beginning, before you got to Kenya. What route did you take to get to Nairobi?”
“To Abu Dhabi, with a stopover in Amsterdam. From there we flew direct to Nairobi,” Taxliil says. “For company, I had another student from Jefferson High, although I hadn’t known him previously.”
“Did he worship at the mosque as well?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know him well enough to trust him?”
“We just never connected before,” Taxliil says, adding, “You know how it is. Sometimes you connect fast with some people, sometimes you don’t. But during the long trip, we connected, became best buddies. And that felt good.”
Ahl has a natural sympathy for this kind of attitude. He likes it when someone gets on well with others, when someone makes the effort to make others feel good. Taxliil used to have a quality that gave comfort to those in his company. He used to be easy to get along with; he was a sweet child. Spending time with Shabaab has turned him into someone else, a plaintive, fearful youth, full of misgivings about the world and its inhabitants.
“Now, tell me how you got from Nairobi to Lamu.”
“Several of us flew separately to Malindi, where we eventually met up after taking different routes to Nairobi,” Taxliil says, proud that he is remembering the version he has given before.
“And from Malindi?”
“From Malindi, we took a boat to Lamu.”
“And from Lamu to Kismayo?”
“That’s right.”
Ahl is deliberately stretching their conversation a little, to give himself more time to study Taxliil’s expressions. “And after arriving in Kismayo?”
“We spent a night in Kismayo before separating into small units. We gave our American passports over to the minders assigned to take us to the forest, where we would receive our training and instructions. I took ill on the second day.”
“What was the nature of this sickness?”
“Malaria is endemic in the Juba Valley.”