“Let’s hope so.”
“If I may add, please count on me to help too.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean it.”
“I know,” and she pats him on the hand.
They sit in the shadowy hour of twilight, like two lovers who have found quiet refuge in a corner of the night, away from the madding aficionados. She is tired from working her bones to exhaustion and feels she can do with a hot bath and pleasurable company. He is full of unexpended energy, the adrenaline of his enthusiasm having risen to greater heights.
“So what would you like to do?” Bile asks her.
She cannot find the courage to say what is on her mind, afraid that he might misunderstand her. For she wants to be in his company, never mind where — in his apartment and alone with him, at her hotel and in full view of many others, but she does not want to be sharing his bed. Not tonight.
“What are you thinking?” she asks.
“I’ve asked Dajaal to pick me up just about now and, knowing him, he will be showing up shortly. I can postpone his time of arrival, telling him to come later, or let it stand the way we left it.”
“There is always tomorrow,” she says.
The boys show up, carrying their cleaned-up plates, each willing to wash up his own as well as Cambara’s, Bile’s, and the pots. While they are busy with that task, Dajaal arrives on the dot.
Their parting words are not elaborate. She says, “Till tomorrow,” deciding on when she hopes to meet him again.
He says, “Tomorrow.”
THIRTY-ONE
A party is in progress.
Several of the roisterers are dancing to the latest Afro beat, and those not grooving are at the stand-alone barbecue spot helping with the grilling, in the pool swimming laps competitively, or simply whiling away the time enjoyably in their own way. It is early in the evening, and many of those present delight in being reunited to celebrate an event that means a lot to all of them.
There are about twenty or so revelers, among them Cambara, Bile, Kiin, Farxia, and standing behind the drinks table, wearing an apron, an elderly lady, an Arda lookalike, talking to an Unidentified Woman. Gacal and SilkHair are there, running errands, serving drinks, and performing odd chores, and there are also two girls, whom Bile introduces to the two boys. “Just come from Canada for a brief visit they are paying their uncles, Bile and Seamus. Cute, aren’t they?” When asked the girls’ names, he pauses hesitantly at first, then says, “One of them is called Raasta, the other Makka.” Raasta is not eager to speak to either of the boys, whom she finds uninteresting because they are rowdy and won’t allow her to concentrate on smearing the wooden masks with linseed oil. Makka is simply watching.
Cambara and Bile are at the shallow end of the pool, standing close to each other, talking. There is a platter floating between them, on which somebody has arranged a pattern of orchids, roses — some red, some yellow, and at least two white — and lilies. Kiin, distracted, is half listening to the Unidentified Woman, who is telling her about the tragedy that has befallen her, how her husband met his death at the hands of the militiamen who abducted him from the airport. Gacal arrives to put an intricate question to the Unidentified Woman, who politely declines to answer it, telling him, “Don’t interrupt, darling, when I am speaking to someone else. Haven’t I asked you not to butt in when you must not?” The Unidentified Woman isn’t at all keen to deal with Gacal’s question, on the assumption that it might lead them back somewhere she doesn’t wish to return. At the moment, she is enjoying herself meeting some of the people who have helped to bring about her reunion with her son.
With the Unidentified Woman gone to apologize to Gacal, who seems put out, Kiin returns to being a voyeur watching Cambara and Bile discreetly cuddling; they are in a world of their own, and she follows them with her eyes, in silence at first. A little later, when she thinks they are being bashful, she encourages them to feed each other, now suggesting to Bile that he give an orchid to Cambara to eat, now proposing that Cambara feed Bile the red roses, now insisting that they pose while she takes suggestive photographs of them, the flash of the camera so bright they both close their eyes.
In the dream, there is an abundant fund of fellow feeling and a lot of gladness. There is joy all around. The women from the network come in ones, twos, and threes to pay their tribute to Cambara, to commend her for her efforts to bring genuine smiles into the eyes of many of the members. Everyone at the party — whether dancing, swimming, feeding each other on orchids and red roses, performing menial tasks, giving a hand at the cookout, or waiting to eat — is a willing partner in this hour of rejoicing, striving to contribute to the well-being of the entire community.
Arda looks on from close by, profoundly happy. This is quite evident, despite her self-restraint — her uncontrollable enthusiasm at being home after several years and finding that her daughter has achieved a miracle, through what, if she were a politician, she might call consensus building. She chats amicably with Gacal and SilkHair — the one wearing a white shirt, dark trousers, and a bow tie; the other in a dark shirt, and trousers the color of cream with the feel of linen — whenever they stop to engage her interest in the drinks they are carrying around on a platter, as waiters do.
Arda asks Gacal, “Where is this famous Irishman whom everybody wants me to meet? He is not around here, hiding, because he is too shy to be introduced?”
Gacal replies, “Seamus will be here, for sure, after he’s finished building the stage for Cambara’s play and given it its final touches. Imagine — he’s built the stage and carved the masks all on his own, without any help from anyone.”
“I want to shake his hand,” Arda says.
“I’ll tell him that if I see him,” he says.
“I want to thank him too,” she adds.
“No one deserves our thanks more than he does.”
Then Arda comes adrift from her well-earned feeling of contentment and, becoming restless, moves away. Bored, she sprays passersby with Canadian dollars, according to a Nigerian nouveau-riche tradition in which the relatives or friends of a celebrant — the mother or the sisters, say, of the bride — paste cash on the foreheads of some of the invited guests and encourage them to keep the money, the better for everyone to remember the occasion. Amused, because he is not familiar with the Nigerian way of doing things, Gacal asks why she is sticking Canadian banknotes on the foreheads of the revelers. Arda replies, “My visit to Mogadiscio has coincided with my daughter achieving three unheard-of miracles: one, she has recovered our family property; two, she is producing a play; three, she has at last found a sentiment that has always eluded her — true happiness. I am so very, very delighted.”
Then Arda pauses close to the swimming pool, taking in Cambara and Bile’s doings. She walks toward them, maybe to say something disapproving. When on second thought she changes her mind and turns her back on them, Cambara and Bile interrupt their communing of their own accord, stepping out of the pool in their bathing suits.
It is Cambara’s turn to occupy the limelight, and she does so by calling to Raxma, who has just arrived and whom she embraces most warmly, welcoming her enthusiastically to the city of their birth. Then Cambara presents Bile to the woman she describes “as my closest friend ever.” Tired-looking, Raxma yawns and yawns before explaining that her journey involved a stopover in Nairobi.
“But why, Raaxo dearest?” Cambara asks.
“Cambo dearest, because I wanted to apprise the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi of Gacal’s situation and to inveigle them to issue a replacement for his American passport so he may return to Duluth, if the idea takes his fancy.”