As she rises, she thinks, with a smile, that so far luck has favored her and wonders if it makes sense to take a dayroom in which to relax after a long and demanding day. Even before she reaches the door of the washroom, she knows that this is no option, for it will, in a big way, sabotage, complicate, or delay her eventual move to Kiin’s Maanta Hotel.
She removes the constraint as soon as she is in the washroom, first taking off the veil and the colorful scarf with theatrical showmanship and then running her splayed fingers through her long hair as though recasting her features into new form. The mirror reflects an old self with which she is happy to get reacquainted. Energized, she hums one of her favorite tunes as she washes her face.
She tells herself that she has brought off something of a triumph, accomplished in half a day, fortunately without exposing herself to any danger and without receiving the slightest assistance from Zaak. She revels in the fact that she has visited her family property; gotten acquainted with Jiijo; found her way to the shopping complex in the neighborhood, where she has made all the necessary purchases; exchanged her dollars for Somali shillings; and then negotiated a taxi ride to Hotel Shamac. She will no doubt concede that she owes her linking up with Kiin to a coup of luck and good timing and less to cunning on her part. She counts it as a revelation that not all her worries or her mother’s safety concerns are justified; that, in low-intensity civil wars, you might not come to harm if you take the required precautions and prepare yourself for the worst but that you might just as easily be spurring disaster, prompting and courting it through no fault of your own.
Up where she is, in the bathroom on the fourth floor, the sea breeze blows gently into her face and reactivates her memory, stimulating pleasant past associations in which she pays a return visit to her young days in Mogadiscio, when Somalis were at peace with their identities, happy with the shape of their world as it was then. The problem now is how to navigate the perilous paths, with mindless militiamen making everywhere unsafe; occupying other people’s homes; vandalizing or removing and reusing the doors, garage gates, the motors and roofs of most of these properties.
She has never imagined she will see the day when she will appreciate the very thing she has always taken for granted — a clean washroom, the toilet system functioning, the bathroom floor immaculate, towels on the rails. She is comforted at the thought of being in an impeccable one for the first time since her arrival, and she is flushed with joy. It goes to show that only a corrupt society tolerates living in such filth, especially the men who put up with the muck they have made, as if dirt makes itself, reproduces itself. No woman with the means to do something about it will endure so much grunge. Her mother has always said that you are as clean as you make yourself.
In the restaurant, Cambara sits at her table with an exaggerated élan, eagerly waiting for her meal and a word from or about Kiin. A different waiter from the one who earlier showed her to the table helps take her body tent from her and places it on a clothes hanger. He introduces himself as the headwaiter and is in a white long-sleeved shirt, freshly ironed; well-tailored khaki trousers; and black lace-up shoes, recently polished to perfection. He brings her news from the deputy manager: Kiin is on her way and should get here shortly.
“Oh, but that’s wonderful,” she says, beaming.
“And the meal is on the house.”
“Thank you.”
She smiles with the effortless serenity of a woman who has just won the lottery. As he walks away, maybe to bring the starter, she remembers the awfulness of cooking in Zaak’s kitchen, using what came to hand. She believes that she will never forget beheading their chickens with the dullest knife she has ever seen, tugging at the insides, gutting them, wiping off the blood of the birds she slaughtered for the armed youths, and cooking the chickens for their lunch.
The waiter returns bearing ice water, then a few seconds later a starter — a salad of tomato and mozzarella — and before leaving to get her second course, brings the olive oil bottle, the salt, and pepper closer to her. He is back soon enough, this time with her fish dish, browned to perfection and garnished with parsley and a slice of lemon.
Cambara tucks into her meal with an uncharacteristic joyous abandon, relishing every morsel. Just as she is debating whether to consider taking a room in the hotel for the sake of its kitchen and cleanness, her wandering gaze fastens upon a woman approaching with some urgency, her stride graceful. Cambara’s heartbeat quickens, beating in anticipation of making Kiin’s acquaintance, which she hopes will open many a door closed to her until now. To Cambara, the well-turned-out woman is walking with the dignity of one accustomed to carrying the world on her head and proud of doing so too. Eager as a preteen girl, Cambara prays that she and Kiin will share the sort of friendship only women are capable of forging. The Lord knows how badly a woman needs the friendship of other women in a civil war city repugnant with the trigger-happy degeneracy of its militiamen.
“I am Kiin,” the woman in all-black chador and white bandanna says, “come to welcome you to Mogadiscio.” Silence, then an exquisite smile attends Kiin’s face, her eyes becoming wider with the brilliance of a gorgeous grin.
Wishing she were bold enough to hug Kiin in advance recognition of their becoming soul mates, Cambara pushes her chair back and has just about contented herself with the mere shaking of her hands, when Kiin looks into her eyes, then embraces her chest to chest. Then Kiin plants a peck of a kiss on one cheek, then the other. An unbidden thought — that Kiin is a woman with formidable initiative, of strong character and profound conviction — coincides with a discordant idea as an eerie otherworldly feeling descends upon Cambara, in which she imagines herself as a discarded rag doll saved from the fire just in time and given a bit of dusting. Why have these colliding ideas — the one about a forsaken doll that has been abandoned by the child who has loved it and expects nothing short of continuous affection, the other about the redoubtable Kiin — come to her at the same time? Kiin’s Emirate type of veil is of flimsy material, comforting to touch, with her breasts bulging downward in flattened acknowledgment of an early motherhood.
“Welcome,” Kiin is saying. “Sit and eat.”
Cambara’s instant adoration of Kiin has the quality of an intense infatuation, the conditions for which are propitiously ripe. Prone to making sudden decisions, she decides to take a room in Kiin’s hotel, certain that it will be to her liking and that using it as her local base and living in it will help their closeness, which will gain more strength with the passage of time. A relationship with like-minded people whose community of jinn, as Somalis say, are often in agreement with one another, can only achieve a great deal.
Kiin asks, “When did you come into the city? Why didn’t you come to the hotel, to look for me? Raxma, my friend and cousin, has been ringing from Toronto twice a day, admonishing me for not having located you and given you a room in the hotel. She asks every time she phones if I’ve rung all the hotels, inquiring if you are putting up with them. I am glad that all our efforts have borne fruit and that I’ve found you safe and in good shape. I don’t want to be indiscreet, and please no misunderstanding. Are you comfortable wherever you are? Most important, do you feel safe to go about your business, whatever it is? What sort of amenities does your place have? Does it have running water? Does it have electricity for much of the day, especially in the middle of the day when you need air-conditioning during siesta and at night for your safety and security?”
Cambara looks anew at Kiin, whom she finds to be very pleasant on the eye, a gorgeous woman imbued with practical understanding. In one instant, she is dizzy with delight, a child living in a world of light who has a command view of a much larger space than she has ever imagined possible. In the next instant, she is an adult with the memory of a child who has dwelled in a well-lit territory out of which a rogue of a man has expelled her. Her heart beating faster and faster, her anxiety rising in a déjà vu way, Cambara says, “I’ve been living in very primitive conditions, I’ll be honest with you.”