Whom was Bosaaso married to?
Which Duniya?
This or the other?
She wished she knew.
Duniya, the chronicler, is no longer certain how to go on, and nothing short of a much longer pause will enable her to look back on the events as they took place in order for her to describe them accurately.
At one point Nasiiba said to someone, “Don’t all stories end in marriage or the dissolution of such a union?”
Abshir was chain-smoking while speaking; among other things, he was saying that all stories are one story, whose principal theme is love. And if the stories feel different, it is only because the journeys the characters are to undertake take different routes to get to their final destination.
More toasts were drunk, and champagne was offered to those who wanted it.
“All stories,” concluded Abshir, “celebrate, in elegiac terms, the untapped sources of energy, of the humanness of women and men.” Then Duniya smelt Bosaaso’s odour, because he had come round to where she was sitting, and they were kissing while the others toasted them again and again. The world was an audience, ready to be given Duniya’s story from the beginning.