“Do you know where the door is?” asked Duniya, still calm.
Muraayo was not intimidated; she stared at Muraayo, daring her to take the next step.
“I want you leave this instant, Muraayo, and fast too.”
“You’ll regret this.”
“I’ve heard enough nonsense for one day,” said Duniya, “Leave.”
Muraayo said, “You’re not a good mother to your own daughter.” She pointed to the girl’s chin. “Look at this. It’s eczema. Yarey’s been here only twenty-four hours and her skin-irritation has returned. You call yourself a nurse. Why don’t you apply the medicine the girl brought with her? You have no time for her, only for the new man in your life and the foundling.”
Duniya shouted, “Get out, of here, out of my sight!”
“This is my husband’s house,” Muraayo stood her ground, defiant.
“I’m the tenant and I have the right to throw you out,” Duniya threatened.
“Wait until I tell Qaasim what you’ve done to me.”
To everyone’s surprise, including hers, Duniya said, “Give Qaasim my compliments and tell him to find a new tenant for this place. We’ll be moving out shortly” And suddenly Duniya knew who the foundling’s father was. She didn’t know how she arrived at her conclusion, but she knew it.
Speechless, Muraayo let go of Yarey’s hand and left.
Then Duniya ripped open her dress, as though she were a person who was now sane, breaking the manacles of her insanity. Yarey and the twins sat in silence, sharing one armchair, and holding hands.
The whole place was electric with tension. Everyone stayed out of Duniya’s way The foundling kept quiet, fed well, slept. He didn’t wake or cry even when Nasiiba had switched off the radio.
And Duniya? She had her feet up literally, contemplating her toes. Not alive to the world, not paying it attention, she stayed where she was, silent, thinking. She felt relieved. She knew she would have had to move out of Qaasim’s house sooner or later. The problems confronting her now that she had served the quit order on herself were of a different nature: she must find a place soon enough, to welcome Abshir into.
Somebody prayed, O God, let Bosaaso come! Then they heard panning feet, light as raindrops on zinc-sheeting. Nasiiba said, “Here he is, in plimsolls, jogging,” and they all waited. When he came in, they felt like soldiers who were relieved to learn they were among friends at last. They welcomed Bosaaso and started to tell him in whispers everything that had passed. He looked in Duniya’s direction like someone waylaid by bandits, but he remained with the children. Nasiiba urged Mataan to tell them a Juxaa-story. Both Yarey and Bosaaso encouraged him too, with Nasiiba adding that Duniya would also love to hear one.
A hunter who was an acquaintance of Juxaa’s one day brought him a pheasant as a present, which Juxaa’s wife prepared for the two men. A couple of months later a man unknown either to Juxaa or his wife knocked on their door. “Who are you?” they asked the man.
“I am a friend of your acquaintance, the hunter,” the man introduced himself, “who gave you a pheasant as a present which your wife prepared and on whose meat the three of you feasted.”
Juxaa and his wife welcomed the man in and they fed him generously The visitor left, promising to let the hunter know that a feast had been given him in his honour.
A few weeks went by and another man knocked on Juxaa’s door. To the question “Who are you?” the man responded that he was a neighbour of the friend to Juxaa’s acquaintance, the hunter, who had brought them a pheasant as a gift, upon which they had all feasted.
“Welcome,” said Juxaa to the man, letting him in.
Half an hour later Juxaa placed before the man a very large cauldron, with the lid still on. When the man removed the cover, he discovered to his surprise that there was nothing in the large pot, except water, turning and boiling hot. “What’s the meaning of this?” inquired the caller.
Juxaa said, “The bubbling water before you has been boiled in the very cauldron as the pheasant that my acquaintance, the hunter, has presented us with; what is more the cauldron is the same pot in which your friend’s food has been cooked. Welcome. Eat.”
Saying nothing, the man left Juxaa’s house.
Half an hour later, Duniya sat alone in the armchair where they had left her. A voice was urging her to get up, go to the foundling’s cot and find out why it hadn’t stirred for so long. But another voice, equally convincing, was encouraging her to concentrate on the handsomeness of an eagle flying high in the heavens and refusing to land anywhere. And this second dreamy voice said, “The foundling has done whatever it came into this life to achieve. It arrived unheralded and will probably leave unannounced. A mythical child, if you like,” the voice went on. It did not sound at all like Bosaaso, more like Nasiiba. “A baby whose beginning shared the timelessness of fables, expiring in the inexactness of legends. Think of Moses in a bullrush basket floating down a river, think of miracle babies, think of myths,” the voice concluded.
But I want to get up! Duniya said to herself, although she hadn’t the urge within her to stand up. It was as if a weight heavier than she was holding her down, forbidding her to rise.
Then a dragon-fly alighted on the tip of her nose.
But Duniya was too sleepy to chase the dragon-fly away She thought she heard a knock on the outside door, and maybe someone stumbling in. Or was that the noise of the foundling moving in its cot? Duniya saw an eagle descend, watched it enter the baby’s room, saw it emerge, holding clasped in its beak as it flew out towards the heavens not a baby but a dragon-fly.
Everything was so dreamy and still, Duniya thought she too was not among the living.
11
In which Taariq and Qaasim call on Duniya. Mire comes to call later in the afternoon.
Duniya woke up to a cabalistic quietness in which she was not sure if she imagined Taariq’s voice asking if she would like a cup of tea. But what about the foundling? And where was Taariq? For a sleepy instant, everything was real as a dream being dreamt.
Noises came from the kitchen: a kettle being rinsed, then filled with tap water; matches being struck, gas flames smelling blue and nauseating. Someone was pacing up and down, whistling. These hints strengthened her suspicion that Taariq had come, that it was his voice she had heard. She arched her back, her neck a little stiff. She had fallen asleep in an armchair just outside Mataan’s room, as if guarding his door. She had his bicycle-chain in one hand and the dress Nasiiba had given her in the tight grip of the other. She must have fallen into the shallow well of siesta just as Bosaaso and the others left. Again, the question: what about the baby?
She would ask Taariq to take a look, she thought drowsily.
He had visibly aged since she last set eyes on him, only God knew how long ago. Now he looked like a man at peace with himself. A mutual friend by the name of Cige, himself an excellent journalist, one of Somalia’s best, had once said to Duniya, “No sight is uglier than a journalist not writing any more. All that unemployed energy is so sad. It’s like a river running to sand, wasting itself.” Cige and Taariq and Duniya had been standing in front of the government printing press where the country’s only daily newspaper, Xiddigta Oktooher, was printed. Duniya had gone to seek Taariq’s assurances that Yarey would not be made to undergo the torture of infibulation. Both Qaasim and Muraayo had given their word, but Duniya wanted to be absolutely certain. Only that morning Hibo had brought to the hospital her youngest daughter who had been circumcised without her knowledge by her visiting mother-in-law, Gallayr’s mother. To set Duniya’s mind at rest, Taariq pointed out that Muraayo had not herself suffered such an amputation. Her worries allayed, she accepted that Yarey stay on in Uncle Qaasim’s and Muraayo’s household.