Muraayo gave Duniya a light kiss on the cheeks and a cursory embrace. She was a huge woman, standing five foot nine and nearly twice as wide as Nasiiba. Her bare arms were of the enormous size that filled the sex-starved fantasies of some Somali men. She had very shiny, dark skin, and frequently went to her favourite coiffeuse to have her hair done in different styles, wearing it uncovered. She called at the tailor’s just as often, never failing to bring him fashion magazines from which to copy, in the belief that her dresses resembled no one else’s in Mogadiscio. With equal enthusiasm and panache, Muraayo visited silversmiths and goldsmiths with whom she haggled relentlessly so she would receive favourable trade-ins for her wares. Muraayo’s build was such that people stepped aside, willing to surrender to her as much space as she wished to take. What was more, people simply couldn’t help obeying her commands.
The twins did not like it that she treated them as though they were infants. Mataan, with unusual frankness, had once said, “Aunt Muraayo pampers her huge body with an overdose of self-adulation.” In Nasiiba’s opinion “to think of Muraayo is to recall fiery moods and self-indulgence.” Duniya concurred with both her children, adding that Muraayo was a woman to have as a friend, not an enemy.
Duniya and the twins had known her in the days when she had been slim, just married to Qaasim, Taariq’s elder brother. A life-force, that was how Duniya described her then. Muraayo had emanated womanhood. When a number of years went by without her being blessed with a pregnancy, this did not bother or sadden the couple. She was supposed to have said that her husband Qaasim had as many children as he was likely to want. “What I give him is what his former wives never offered him: life and love.” No one doubted her word. It was also a known fact that the walls of their house cracked with the primeval screams of their love-making, thereby giving birth to the gossip that one of her neighbours described the whole thing as a fake show, meaning that Muraayo wasn’t enjoying love-making but acting. Some of these women wondered if she was not infibulated.
Some of the men thought of Qaasim as a cuckold; for it was said that Muraayo had the habit of entertaining male visitors in the wing of the house furthest from the main entrance and in which their bedrooms were, when her husband was not at home.
Muraayo now pinched Duniya’s cheeks in the Italian style, using the middle joints of the index and middle fingers. And as she effected this with elegance she said, “And what have we here, Duniya dear? A small foundling, retrieved from a rubbish-bin, already famous enough to be a news item on the radio’s morning bulletin. Imagine? And what else have we here?” Words emerged from Muraayo’s mouth with the speed of a newscaster running short of time and so cutting and improvising all at once. “A new dress, Duniya, all peacock feathers, figure excellent, every hair in place, plus flowers in the hair. Quite a finished job! A union sealed? Have you already taken the vows till death pull you assunder and all that?”
Duniya racked her mind to work out the meaning of all that Muraayo was saying. She was obviously talking about Bosaaso and the baby But what about the flower in the hair? Where was such a flower? In whose hair?
Muraayo then said, “How are you anyway? Happy?”
“We are well, thank you.”
“But there is a man after all these years, Duniya, a man — my God, what is happening to you?” Annoyingly, Muraayo wouldn’t let her say anything, speaking as fast as she did, and non-stop. “I mean: are you happening, Duniya dear, in the sense of burgeoning into a late blossom of a woman-flower — love and love, imagine — is that what we are witnessing the beginnings of, my dear?”
Bracing herself, Duniya said, “Would you like to sit down and make your statements from the comfort of an armchair?” And she was pleased she could talk just as fast as Muraayo and still make sense. Would she be able to keep pace with Muraayo’s accelerated jabber?
“I’ve been here quite a while,” said Muraayo.
Now what did that mean? Trouble? Did Muraayo feel offended, being made to wait for Duniya to join her, while the younger ones were busy with one another and the foundling?
“Come and have some tea,” suggested Duniya. “It will calm our nerves.” She knew she would have to take hold of the reins of the conversation lest it get out of hand. She never liked the drift of Muraayo’s chatter but somehow was able to control its ebb and flow, and if need be turn its tide anywhere she pleased.
“No tea,” Muraayo said, her tone that of an annoyed child.
Yarey readied to go to the general store, a few hundred metres away, to get Aunt Muraayo a soft drink of her choice. It was not lost on anyone that at Muraayo’s place no one went out to get an ice-cold soda or something from a retail shop, but to one of three fridges, whereas at Duniya’s there was no fridge. For such services as keeping drinks chilled the owner of the general store charged a little extra.
“Don’t go anywhere, Yarey,” commanded Muraayo. “I haven’t seen you for almost twenty-four hours and don’t want you out of my eyes. Let someone else get a Coke for me or whatever they have chilled.”
Nasiiba told Mataan to go and get it; Nasiiba who felt that a lot was at stake that might affect the foundling’s future. Duniya noted in her mind that Nasiiba hadn’t spoken a single word since their encounter in Mataan’s room, when the young woman had been incapable of responding to the question about whether she had seen Fariida, Fariida whom Duniya imagined to be the abandoned baby’s mother.
Something was happening. Was the baby happening? The atmosphere was getting heavier and heavier. Not since the morning Shiriye called had Nasiiba known a half-hour so tense. Marilyn and her companion, another girl, both felt redundant and left; their hostess, Nasiiba, did not even see them to the door. Duniya sensed that her house was emptying like a town fearing to be sacked.
No one said anything until Mataan returned with Muraayo’s cold drink. Delivering it as though he were ducking a bullet meant for someone else, he too left for the securer shelter of his room, whose door he pushed half-shut. Yarey stayed because Muraayo wouldn’t let go of her hand, whereas Nasiiba remained not only because she felt that the foundling’s destiny was at stake, but also because (she would say later) she adored family quarrels of this kind. Nasiiba switched off the radio at some point and the baby did not stir.
After taking a sip of her Coke, Muraayo said, “Fancy finding a foundling near a rubbish-bin. Other people find treasures or other forms of pot luck. Not you, Duniya. You find a baby, a live one, healthy, unclaimed, in a basket, already waiting to be brought home, pampered with love and put on display. The story has a Moses-touch to it, almost myth-like, don’t you think?”
Duniya didn’t say anything.
Muraayo went on, sounding triumphant, showing off, reminding everyone that she was educated. “When a nation is going through a crisis similar to ours, God produces a trump-card of a miracle and he plays it into the hands of someone whom He chooses for that purpose. Is this foundling a baby born to save the Somali nation from imminent disaster? Fancy, in addition to finding a baby, fancy unearthing a man, at your age, Duniya, an Idris come down in his chariot, one of the best of his kind, an American-educated Bosaaso, prosperous as the green currency of which he is rumoured to have plenty. Fancy that, Duniya dear — wealth, education and a foundling, all at a single stroke. What a sweep of fortune; the tarot cards will carry a bust of you from now on, I assure you.”
Muraayo held her audience captive, confident that she could get away with anything. Duniya was the nervous one, because she was thinking to herself that maybe Muraayo knew the father of the foundling, a hand she would play when and only when pressed. Who might the father be?