In the cool disquiet of the hall where she is alone for a moment, Cambara allows her imagination to soar to great heights so as to conquer her umbrage, overpowering it with her creative sanction, the license to do what she pleases in the family house, now that it has become hers. It is then that a couple of images come to her in the shape of a woman who has a lot of fight left in her and of another woman who will not cower at the sight of blood or at the sound of bullets passing close by. She wonders if the network of women will continue its commitment to giving her unconditional support if Kiin interprets her hasty move as unwary, thoughtless to the point of undoing all that they have done to recover the property for her. Will some of the women support her loyally, because of her determination to put up a fight, her fearlessness unequaled? She envisages living in the house — she has no idea for how long — and working in the service of peace and justice as the situation permits. Cambara pictures spending quality time with Bile, who, in her imagining, is enamored not so much of her as he is of the idea of a woman like her.
Then she hears small scuttles, similar to the sounds that rats make when scurrying to safety. She does not know where the noise is coming from, and cannot decide whether to look up at the eaves or toward the window, her pique, mixed with a worrying dose of fear, rising up for the first time since she alighted from the vehicle, from her viscera, as if to choke her.
“We are here,” Gacal says.
She is relieved when she locates SilkHair and Gacal, approaching sheepishly. Why do children hide behind doors or pillars inside houses and delight in frightening adults? Although the two boys seem to be moving toward her, Cambara is of the weird impression that they are not gaining on her, the distance between them remaining unchanged. She urges them to get closer, and when they do and are within a meter of her, she says to them, “Please let’s not startle each other.”
Then she gives them hugs and, as she kisses them on the cheeks, in turn, remembers both the dream and her conversation with Raxma, from the combination of which the urge to move into the property has mysteriously sprung. She senses that even though neither has had a bath, SilkHair’s day-old sweat has the hint of an adult’s BO odor, as compared to Gacal’s, maybe because Gacal’s skin is less oily, and has something of an unchanged diaper smell to it. She deduces from this that SilkHair is probably Gacal’s senior by two, three years.
She looks hesitantly around, the unfinished nature of the battle of the evening before beginning to haunt her. She realizes that her head is empty of original ideas that might help her to confront the situation at hand. Because she does not wish to allude to the attack on the house, she picks a neutral topic. She asks Gacal, “Where were you when I looked for the two of you this morning?”
Gacal is equivocal. “Here and there.”
She asks, “Where is here? Where is there?”
“We went nowhere.”
“He won’t tell you, but I will,” SilkHair says.
At Cambara’s encouragement, it comes out that they went to see movies — SilkHair his favorite kung fu films, Gacal another blue flick. What bothers her is not that Gacal is being equivocal or refusing to answer her but that he is lying. Of course, she is aware that it doesn’t mean that SilkHair’s truth-telling is symptomatic of a more truthful nature; maybe he fancies that he can earn her affections that way, whereas Gacal is in a survivalist mode, behaving like a boy who had everything one day and none the next.
“Why, Gacal?”
Gacal’s face loses its natural color, blanching with discontent. He wants to say something, but he cannot, as though fearing the consequence. She wonders, but does not dare inquire, how Gacal conducted himself in the situation of the night before. He is rattled. How much effect will Cambara’s moving out of the hotel have on the two boys? Will it bring Gacal’s reunion with Qaali, if she is alive, closer? SilkHair has known a tougher existence, doesn’t mind trying his hand at cooking or fending for himself; he is eager to tell the truth, get on her right side. Gacal’s difficulty in operating under this sort of condition is more recent, and he needs to adjust to his situation. On first meeting him, she suspected that the boy had attitude and that she would get used to it, and he to her.
Unprompted, SilkHair asks, “Shall I make a fire and then some tea?”
“Later. But tell me, when there is fighting and all the small and heavy guns are blazing, do you manage to sleep at all after things have quieted down and the attackers have withdrawn?”
“It is difficult to sleep,” he says. “Your ears are full of noise, your heart of fear, and you are excited, and you want to talk, but you can’t, because you do not know when or if the attackers will return. You don’t want them to hear you. Sleep runs away, not daring to return for several nights. Then you stay up and another type of energy floods your body. You think you won’t miss sleep, but when you do, you go crazy from sleeplessness.”
“Where would you go in this house if you had no guns and they attacked?” she says to Gacal.
“I would hide up in the attic,” Gacal says, “close to a water tank if there is one, or in a pantry. Not in the cupboard where clothes are hanging, for that is where they look for anyone hiding. At least, we did when we searched a house. If the fighting was brief, that is where I hid for a whole night, crouched by a water tank when the militiamen came to attack the lodging where my dad and I were staying. When no one was around, I would come down to the pantry. There is dry bread sometimes.”
Cambara does not know what to do. She mouths the words “Oh you poor thing,” but she can’t bring herself to say them.
SilkHair is enjoying himself; that much is clear. He says, “What matters is to be patient and when you get the chance to kick their teeth in. Always good to chase them off. Never take any of them prisoner, you have to feed them.”
“I won’t know what to do,” she admits.
“With the likes of Qasiir and his mates around, fighters known for their fearlessness,” SilkHair, sounding like an old man speaking from experience, says, “you can relax. Just keep your mobile phone charged, and we can call Dajaal. Problem solved.”
Then SilkHair turns to Gacal, his long stare focused on him in a forbiddingly communicative way; it is as if he is daring Gacal to contradict him.
“We are fine,” SilkHair assures her.
She says, “I am not so sure.”
SilkHair puts a physical distance between him and Gacal on the one hand and Cambara on the other. “Have you ever known any fighting?”
“Never.”
SilkHair and Gacal look at each other in bafflement. She relives the commotion that Irrid created: The driver making snide remarks, in which he predicted that Gudcur’s men would come, maybe after nightfall, gunning for her and determined to do their worst. The question is, which is better: to arm oneself or to insist, as she is wont to do, that they do not; and to hire gun hands until the conditions become livable.
SilkHair’s excited voice awakens her from the brief trance as he says, “We know our lines. Shall we start rehearsing?”
“Maybe not now,” she says.
“It’ll pass the time, rehearsing.”
“Yes, let’s,” Gacal says.
To SilkHair, “Where’s the tea you promised?”
Gacal says, “I’ll come and help make the fire.”
SilkHair insists, “After tea, we rehearse.”
“We’ll rehearse after I’ve had tea.”
“Promise?”