“It confirms beyond any doubt that I am with child,” said Caaliya.
Duniya made as if to walk away, but didn’t.
“You don’t believe me?”
Duniya’s face seemed to prepare for the onset of a sneeze, though it was not a sneeze that made her twinge, it was the discovery of a fellow-feeling, a sudden closeness to Caaliya, at the thought that this woman might be truly pregnant. “Have you seen any other doctor?” she asked.
Again Caaliya delved into her bag searching for the Chinese evidence of her incredible story: the story of a woman who had the persistent charm of collecting any piece of paper a doctor had scribbled on, who carried them as evidence of her motherhood, in much the way a mad person might show a document proving his sanity; Caaliya who had insisted for years that she was pregnant — now at last she was!
During the break, Duniya met one of the Chinese doctors in the corridor. It amused her to think what beastly appellation the Chinese might give to a year in which Caaliya did become pregnant, a year in which Duniya fell in love, a year in which Abshir confirmed he was coming to visit. On her way back to the clinic she ran into Dr Mire. Since neither seemed to be in great haste, they spoke for a while and she gave him news of Abshir’s impending arrival. She invited him to dinner with them the following night. Then she asked if it was true that Caaliya was indeed pregnant.
“She is,” he answered.
Duniya said nothing for fear of sounding foolish.
“The human body has its inherent mysteries and one cannot always account for its behaviour, neither are all its self-expressions and manifestations an open book to medical practitioners. Maybe she wants to be a mother so much she will become one.”
“But why is it necessary to give her a To-whom-it-may-concem testimonial?”
“Well, she asked me to give her a document stating that she was pregnant. Something to show to her co-wife, I suspect.”
Duniya let a soft smile descend on her face, like a bird alighting on a leafless tree. Then without so much as a “Good day,” Mire nodded in her direction and walked away at the very instant she had prepared to allude to what was happening between her and Bosaaso. It was just as well, she thought, and returned to the clinic.
Soon it was noon and two hours later she was at home preparing lunch. Bosaaso came to take her and Nasiiba to the Centro Sportivo for her first swimming lesson.
Duniya had difficulty getting her feet off the bottom of the swimming-pool and was incapable of controlling her balance. She remembered her dream from the previous night in which she was a sparrow. She had stood guard at the entrance to a cave. Afterwards, a large bird arrived. This giant new arrival had an illuminated disc in its beak and this he gave to Duniya. She was squinting when she awoke and her tongue had been taken hostage by her own teeth, which bit into it until blood was drawn; and she was pale with fright.
When she jumped into the pool at the Centro Sportivo, it was late afternoon. Marilyn was her swimming-instructor, and Nasiiba was rather irritable, like a parent who had brought a child to an adults’ party. Duniya attributed this tension to the peculiar situation in which they found themselves: she was the only woman her age, all the others being Nasiiba’s peers. Some were training for an All-Africa swimming event scheduled to take place in West Africa, so Duniya was asked to keep to one end of the pool, to stay as far as possible out of the trainees’ way.
Marilyn showed immense tact. She told Duniya for the nth time, “It’s really very simple, if you follow my instructions. Please concentrate and do as I say.” But Duniya soon lost concentration, and her eyes followed Marilyn’s wandering gaze which unfailingly took in the breadth and width of the entrance to the pool. Marilyn and Nasiiba seemed to be watching out for a visitor. Who? “Let’s try again,” Marilyn suggested patiently.
Duniya couldn’t trust her ability to stay afloat. Her feet would drop into a deeper hole in the water, and the water swallowed, as if gulping several mouthfuls of Duniya, whose eyes were of no use, whose ears of no help, whose splashing noises were scandalously loud and clumsy, like a child’s.
Panic justifies flight, and one flees, thought Duniya. But her fear of drowning was heavier on the heart than anything she could imagine. And when least expected, her feet would fail to reach the ground. Whenever anyone laughed, she thought it was at her. She believed she was making a spectacle of herself, but began to relax only when they were at the shallower end of the pool, where she could support herself on her feet. “Please give me a moment to catch my breath,” she pleaded to Marilyn.
“Take your time,” said Marilyn.
Duniya blamed herself for not having talked everything through before hurling herself into the pool Before her first driving lesson she had gone over the basics with Bosaaso, unrushed, so she understood the theory before she started the engine. Here, it was different. She felt humiliated by the despicable remarks some of the young boys and girls were making; felt unprotected from the onslaught of unabashed youth, uncared for by Nasiiba, who had vanished God knows where. Marilyn was a friendly and sweet girl, but Duniya couldn’t depend on her totally; Marilyn was pretty, but with little depth and, in a certain sense, inarticulate when it came to explaining the theory of swimming, taking someone else through the first steps. Teaching Duniya was a secondary activity to both Marilyn and Nasiiba, it seemed to Duniya. For whom were they waiting, she wanted to know, why were their eyes focused on the entrance to the pool?
“I am not waiting for anybody,” Marilyn replied.
“Then why are you and Nasiiba looking up anxiously at the entrance all the time?” asked Duniya, curious.
Marilyn’s shoulders shrugged as though of their own accord, “Ask Nasiiba.”
She was that kind of girl, Marilyn. For her, Nasiiba was the leader, there was nothing else to it. She did what Nasiiba bid her do. Duniya was sure Marilyn knew whom they were expecting. Some secrets are more important than those in whom they are confided. In the ears of her imagination, the older woman imagined her daughter telling Marilyn a secret and then instructing her not to divulge it, adding, “Just teach her to swim and be sweet to her.”
Earlier, in the changing-rooms, Nasiiba’s adept hands had helped Duniya squeeze into a swimming suit borrowed from Fariida. Duniya had felt like a bride being given the ritual bath and scented massage. Nasiiba had said, “You’ll lose weight. You’ll leave behind in the swimming-pool a minimum of two kilos today, I promise you.” Nasiiba and Marilyn had escorted her into the water, like bridemaids attending her at a wedding ceremony. As Duniya’s feet had touched the water, she had been frightened. Nasiiba had said, “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Mummy, nothing to worry about. Close your eyes and jump in, and by the time you open your eyes, you’ll be at the other end of the pool.”
Duniya watched young girls entering the pool with the ease with which she had walked into her marriages. Hadn’t she done just that: closed her eyes, and found herself married to Zubair, to Taariq?
And then her eyes fell on Fariida coming through the entrance. Fariida was walking with a waddle, her feet shuffling, like a senile person with a bad back All activity seemed to cease and a moment of silence fell on the whole place. Some of the girls congregated round Fariida, noisy like summer flies at a halva party. Fariida’s answer to the question “Where have you been lately?” was that she had gone mountain-climbing in the north and had fallen off a cliff, ending up with a slipped disc, forced to lie on her back since. Fariida’s friends left a pathway open for her, commiserating with her as she walked past them on her heavy feet. They had known her as an able athlete who twice had stripped the title-holder of the swimmer’s crown. (Duniya would learn later from Nasiiba that when Fariida went to East Africa with Qaasim, the story was that she had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.)