Like a hound that has tasted blood and is closing in for the kill, he says, “Time you grew up, time you began to live in the real world.”
She feels her larynx seizing up, with her vocal cords failing to produce the slightest sound. However, she is still capable of processing the thoughts that her memory is transmitting. She thinks that when relationships between two persons who once thought they were intimate undergo major changes brought about by the presence or absence of sex that involve one party or both, the aggrieved one attacks the other with uninhibited animosity. She has been a victim of these types of assaults before — Wardi and now Zaak. She is alert to the contradictions and the unfairness of such reactions. Nonetheless, she understands where Zaak’s animosity comes from. Then she imagines herself in the body of an elephant, which puts the animal’s unparalleled strength into the equation; better still, given his physical shape, she likens herself to a sumo wrestler who lifts a challenger and drops him with accomplished flair. (Cambara is indebted to Arda, who is fond of comparing the strength of women to that of an elephant, which seldom makes full use of it, either because it does not know the extent of it and what it can achieve employing it or because its generous heart requires that it give more than it will ever receive in return.)
He resumes, “Time I welcomed you to the real world.”
“As if I live in a world of my own manufacture.”
“You lie to yourself; that’s your problem.”
“How dare you speak to me in that tone of voice?”
His silence serves as salt on her open wound.
“Tell me, why have you never spoken of this?”
“Because I’ve had no opportunity to do so.”
“Why today?”
Zaak does not say anything.
“Why choose the very first day of my arrival in the city? Is it because you are aware that I am wholly reliant on you for guidance and for protection? Is that how to treat a guest?”
“I’ve been a guest all my life,” Zaak says.
“Not in our house, you weren’t.”
“How would you know?”
She hurts deeply, her inside aching. “My mother raised you as if you were of her own flesh and blood.”
“You’re saying it yourself!”
“What? What have I said?”
“As if I were of her own flesh and blood, which I was not. You knew it and exploited it every way you could; she knew it and made a point of reminding me whenever I stepped out of line.” He throws the words at her like darts on a dartboard.
“Born a coward, you’ll remain one,” she says.
She tries to recall a single instance in all the time the two of them lived together — as children raised in the same household or as a couple pretending to be man and wife — when she behaved as uncivilly toward him as he is doing right now. It doesn’t surprise her that she cannot find any.
No doubt, she kept him at bay, refusing to share “intimacies” with him. Blame it on Arda for setting the terms. She believes she herself was impeccable in her dealings with him, albeit within the parameters of the contract with Arda and then eventually with him. As for the time spent together in their younger years, there is the matter of her excessive naughtiness. Her mother tried and failed to moderate her wildness or to make her behave as one might expect of a girl of her background. Zaak was such a dunce, only good enough to receive the school’s booby prizes; she knew he would not amount to much.
“I want to move out,” she shouts. “Right now.”
“Go right ahead,” he says. “Who is stopping you?”
Silent but not rueful, she stares at him in fury.
“Where will you go to if you leave?”
“A hotel.”
“Do you know of one?”
“I do.”
Kiin’s Hotel Maanta, run by Raxma’s friend.
“Do you know how to get there?”
This is a taunt to his tone of triumph, and both know it. She does not respond to it, not only because she has no idea where Hotel Maanta is in relation to where she is but also because she is peering into the ugly face of defeat. Her eyes bore deep into his: how she hates him. When she finally hits the concrete reality of so much unyielding contempt in his come-on leering, she says, her voice sounding like that of an exhausted boxer not returning the licks raining on him, “I still don’t want to be here.”
“Wise up, woman,” he says.
“Don’t talk to me in that uppity tone.”
“I’ll talk as I please when I please,” he retorts.
She repeats “I should’ve known” several times. Then she lapses into the dejected silence of the routed, her tiredness suddenly evident all over her body, the look in her eyes dimming, her features twisted into a grimace. She consoles herself, all the same, that come tomorrow she will fight back once she has studied the lay of the land, and will have fallen back on her resolve to recover her dignity.
“You won’t want to be anywhere but here and with me, if you know what’s good for you.”
“I thought I lived in a world of my manufacture?”
“You do.”
“One in which I lie to myself?”
“You do.”
“In which case I know what is good for me.”
“So, what or who is good for you?”
“Neither you nor your place is good for me.”
“Here’s what I will not do,” he says, bossing her.
“What?
“I will not allow you to compromise your safety.”
“Why should my safety matter to you?”
“It matters to your mother,” he says.
“And why does my mother matter to you?”
“Your mother thinks of me as your host.”
“And so?”
“I don’t want her to be disappointed in me.”
“My safety, my foot!”
He disregards her fury with a shrug and says, “If you wise up, you will not embark on a foolish adventure into the dark unknown of Mogadiscio’s dangers. You will not want to risk your life just to prove a silly point. Be under my roof; be my guest; be as comfortable as you can, despite the adverse circumstances. Consider your safety. If I were you, I would put up with the discomforts that are one with your safety. Tomorrow, I will be more than willing to drive you anywhere you like until you find a good and clean enough hotel, which will serve you quality food and which will meet your approval. And the Lord knows there is no such place in this whole city.”
She is not certain if he intends to redeem himself when he advises her not to do anything rash, or if what he wants is to heap further humiliation on her head. Who would have thought that Zaak had it in him to harbor so much resentment, keep so much venom bottled up inside him for so many years? Who would have imagined that he would spring it all on her at the least expected moment? Maybe it was naive to assume that Zaak would remain forever beholden to every member of her family. She is confident that if push comes to shove, she will be able, eventually, to square up to Zaak’s comeuppance and will relish the prospect of proving herself worthy of her calling as a woman of high resolve, an actor of tremendous potential. What she can’t decide is how much bearing all this will have on her. She says, “Promise to tell me why you are doing this one day. For my own edification.”
“Wardi has been in touch,” he says.
She says, “That is of no concern to me.”