When the goings-on jar on her nerves some more, she resolves to bring it all to a head — and suddenly. She alights from the taxi, laboring as she does so. Now that she is out of the car, her veiled persona imposing, she stretches her arms, straightens her back, massaging it, and repeatedly stamps her booted feet on the ground in the manner of an elephant frightening away its attackers. Besides getting the dust off her footwear, she hopes she will be able to cast a spell on the armed guards. If only she could forge bewitchments that will make them do her bidding. She looks stately; they seem enchanted, fascinated, their undivided attention fully focused on the enigmatic figure of a woman, veiled, standing a little over six feet, her hands ensconced among the wrappings of her tent, doing with them what only the Lord knows. Maybe because they are not used to women performing, Cambara’s imperious presence unsettles them.
On the outside, she appears to know what she is doing; not so inside. She is terribly worried that she may not pull it off; her viscera keep churning overwhelming quantities of barf. But the actor in her takes absolute command of the situation.
“Since you won’t let my taxi in,” she says, “please let the driver bring out of the trunk of his taxi my oddment of purchases. You may inspect them. In fact, I would be grateful if one of you will give him a hand to bring them in, given that there are no page boys about.”
She turns her back on them and walks away in an ungainly manner, every short shuffle a huge undertaking, conscious that no one can touch her for this out-and-out act. She has no way of knowing if they will shoot her in the back, but she doubts it. When she has taken a few paces, and they do not order her to stop unless she submits herself to being bodily searched, she looks back and sees them whispering to one another, nodding their heads; their acquiescent glances end in TinyFeet affecting a retreat and SnubNose following suit.
At TinyFeet’s behest, the driver parks on the shoulder of the dusty road, then retrieves Cambara’s shopping bags and follows her, grinning from cheek to cheek, his wandering eyes meeting the armed sentries’ scowls. Neither offers to help carry the bags. In fact, SnubNose wags his finger menacingly at the driver. When he joins her at the reception, the driver, eager to return to his vehicle, puts the bags down and asks, “Do you want me to wait for you?”
“That won’t be necessary,” she says.
She removes her face veil and notices several men looking at her from different angles, not one of them making a move toward her. Curiously and rather irreverently, it strikes her as if, in the view of some of them, she is behaving like a stripper doing it on the cheap.
Self-conscious, she pulls out of her bag a handful of bills bundled into thousands with a rubber band. At a guess, she hands over to the driver several wads of the devalued currency. “Will this suffice?” she asks.
He weighs the wads, as if he can tell their value by weight alone, and then shakes them before his face, as if they’re only good for use as fans. He seems pleased, though. “This will do,” he says. “Thanks.”
She gets closer to the reception desk, no longer enwrapped in the mystery that is of a piece with her veil, impressively tall, her head high. She takes her short steps with catwalk elegance difficult to reproduce, disregarding the half-dozen eyes that are trained on her every move. Wearing a triumphant expression, she struts with confidence.
One of the men behind the desk summons some of the page boys and asks them to stand by. They do so, with their hands behind their backs, waiting for instructions. Cambara feels certain they will handle their assignment with finesse; she imagines what it will be like to take a room in this four-star hotel, a world that is familiar to her from having stayed in many others of similar billing. Only this one in civil war Mogadiscio is visibly a bit run-down. All the same, it feels unreal to her after Zaak’s place. She recovers her sangfroid the closer she is to the sign “Reception.” She enjoys the feel of the place, the cleanness of it. She wonders if the management is aware of what is happening outside the gates. She can’t tell if she will mention this to anyone.
From the near distance, she reads the sign “Deputy Manager,” only the D in “Deputy” and the e in “Manager” are missing. For his part, he studies her with the knowing eyes of a familiar. Then he asks, “Can I help you?”
“I am sure you can,” she says.
He looks away from her and at the computer screen, pressing buttons and taking sufficient time to consult before reporting the meaning of the entry he has just read. He clears his throat before begging her pardon. He surprises her by quizzing if, by any chance, her name is Cambara.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because we’ve received repeated phone calls and other inquiries from the manager of Maanta Hotel, who wants to know if we have a lady by that name as our guest. She has rung our hotel several times. Actually, she rang off less than five minutes ago.”
Cambara’s throat makes enough of a sound for the deputy manager to hear it. She is so pleased to receive this intelligence that she is at a loss for words; the thought and joy of knowing that she is about to talk to Kiin rasps her nerves.
The deputy manager senses her discomfort. He says, “Please forgive my forwardness. You see, Kiin’s description of you fits you to a tee.”
Her partisan belief that she has done the right thing coming here today hardens into an uncanny conviction, not only because of this extraordinary coincidence — that she has met someone who knows how to reach Kiin — but also because of the way the movement of the deputy manager’s head reminds her of a marionette coming to life. The silence is broken now and again, whenever one of the page boys or the driver, who hangs about as if his services will be needed, makes unanticipated shifts.
“You are most welcome, then,” he says effusively.
Her face tight with tension, she asks, “How might I contact Kiin?”
“I’ll ring her right away.”
“You are very kind,” she says.
The deputy manager consults the computer screen a second time and jots a number down on hotel letterhead. Cambara has a comforting sensation in her solar plexus in anticipation of his next move and her response. He asks, “How else can I be of help in the meantime?”
“Do you have a restaurant?”
“One of the best in the city.”
“May I leave these purchases in your care until I’ve had lunch?” she says, bending down to lift up one or two of the bags. This creates an immediate flutter of movement, with the page boys swarming around her, preparing to assist. When the page boys have stood back, affording her more space, she says, “I’ll pick them up after lunch, if I may.”
“By all means.”
At the deputy manager’s bidding, two of the page boys put her purchases in the luggage room, off to the right of the reception area. A third offers to escort her to the restaurant, on the fourth floor. As she follows the young page boy up the carpeted staircase, she can’t help looking forward to the moment when she will take off the body tent, easing herself out of what has become hot, unmanageable, and more of a burden. She thinks she can afford to relax, because she feels as if she is among friends, and there is no need to continue pretending.
Soon she is in an air-conditioned room, and a waiter shows her to a table by the window farthest from the generator, which is on. Another waiter arrives, in white shirt and dark trousers, writing pad open, pen raised in midair, and informs her that the kitchen is closing. She tells him what she wants to eat: a tuna steak, well done, and rice, with a green salad on the side. Then she asks the waiter to point her to the washroom, which he does.