Jeebleh knew what he meant, knew that in moments of great anxiety, one may mistake the self for the world. But he explicitly checked his precautionary measures, pulling his shoulder bag and carry-on onto his body. He had his few clothes in his shoulder bag. On advice from friends in Kenya, where he had spent a couple of days, he had left a bigger suitcase in Nairobi, depositing it at the left luggage of his hotel. He had brought more books than clothes with him to Mogadiscio, assuming that reading material would be more difficult to come by in a city ruled to ruin by gunrunners.
Now he massaged his right shoulder, which was giving him cause for worry, because one of the bags contained many hardcover books — gifts for Bile, who would appreciate them, he was sure. Jeebleh had stashed away much of his cash, a few thousand U.S. dollars in large denominations, in his wallet. He had to bring his money in cash, as there were no functioning banks here. “Tell me more about Bile’s detractors.”
“He still runs The Refuge.”
“What is to criticize about running a refuge?”
“Our country is full of detractors, out to defame the name of anyone ready to do good things,” Af-Laawe responded. “Bile has his fair share of detractors because he is successful at what he’s doing. As a people, we have the penchant for envying achievers, whom we try to bring down to where we are, at the bottom.”
“But tell me more about Bile. Why so much detraction?”
“People question the source of the money with which he set up The Refuge.”
“How did he get the money?”
“His detractors speak of murder and robbery.”
“Bile murdering and robbing?”
“Civil wars have a way of making people behave contrary to their own nature,” Af-Laawe said. “You’d be surprised to know what goes on, or what people get up to. At times, it’s difficult to tell the good from the bad.”
“Not Bile!”
“You have heard about his niece?” Af-Laawe said. “That she’s been abducted, rumor has it, by men related to the people Bile has allegedly murdered and robbed? Supposedly, the kidnappers have said they won’t set his niece and her companion free until he has given back the money he stole, or confesses to having committed the murders.” Af-Laawe watched silently as Jeebleh stared at him with so much distrust spreading over his features.
“A lot of what you’ve told me is news to me,” Jeebleh said, and after a brief pause added, “From what I know, the abductions have a political motive. In fact, I recall reading somewhere that StrongmanSouth, the warlord, is implicated.”
“Where have you read that?”
“In the American press.”
“What do Americans know about things here?”
The man had a valid point, and Jeebleh chose not to challenge him until he knew more. He was silent for a long while, pondering how to continue this conversation. Finally he asked, “Were Raasta and her companion abducted together or separately?”
“Raasta and her playmate, Makka, who has Down’s syndrome, shared a room,” Af-Laawe replied. “They were inseparable. You saw one, you saw the other, you thought of one, you thought of the other too.”
“How’s Bile taking it?”
“He’s devastated.”
Jeebleh shook his head in sorrow, as he remembered reading an article about the abduction in The New York Times. The article had described Raasta as a symbol of peace in war-torn Somalia, the stuff of myth, seen by the city’s residents as a conduit to a harmonious coexistence. Jeebleh could remember parts of the story word for word: “People believe that they will not come to harm if they are in her vicinity; they feel safe from arbitrary murder, from stray bullets or from the pointless death of a mugging. This is why ordinary people seek shelter at The Refuge, where she resides.”
“If Bile just returns the money, will they be set free?”
“There’s no guarantee,” Af-Laawe said.
“Does anyone know who the abductors are?”
But when Jeebleh turned to hear his response, Af-Laawe was gone, and he was face to face with three armed youths. Terror-stricken, he wondered if he had conjured the man, with a little help from a friendly jinni, out of desperate need for a guide to help him navigate the anarchic city.
WHAT BEASTLY MOTIVE DID THESE ARMED YOUTHS HAVE FOR TAKING UP POSITION so close to where he was standing? Nonplussed by their devil-may-care postures and ragged outfits, Jeebleh supposed they were not acting with the authority of the police, who would have had uniforms and badges. He was certain that even if they had been in uniform, they would hardly have looked the part. And in any case, Somalis would not defer to someone simply because of his uniform: he would still be an armed thug trying to maintain authority.
Jeebleh remembered seeing a German play when he was a student in Italy, a play set in Prussia at the end of World War I, in which an ex-convict, with no papers, dons an officer’s uniform. Saluted and deferred to wherever he goes, his every word deemed to contain the voice of authority, he is welcomed everywhere; unlimited credit facilities are extended to him. Somalis never defer to the authority of a uniform in the way the Germans do, Jeebleh thought. We will defer only to the brute force of guns. Maybe the answer lies in the nation’s history since the days of colonialism, and later in those of the Dictator, and more recently during the presence of U.S. troops: these treacherous times have disabused us of our faith in uniformed authorities — which have proven to be redundant, corrupt, clannish, insensitive, and unjust.
Then he heard the word “Passport,” and turning, found himself before a man, neither in uniform nor bearing a gun, who seemed to arrogate authority to himself. Jeebleh looked him slowly up and down, questioning the wisdom of surrendering his passport on the say-so of a total stranger. Yet he dared not ask that the man show him proof of his authority to make such a request. Suddenly Af-Laawe was back, and no sooner had Jeebleh opened his mouth to speak than Af-Laawe broke in, his voice low and firm, advising: “Do as the man says. Give him your passport and twenty U.S. dollars cash. He’ll stamp the passport and return it to you, together with a receipt.”
Was he being set up? And if so, what should he do? Af-Laawe seemed to wield certain power hereabouts, but could he be trusted? And who were the gunmen? Being from New York, the Metropolis of Mistrust, Jeebleh decided not to part with his American passport. He reached into his shoulder bag and pulled out the Somali document, recently issued by the embassy in Rome, and a crisp twenty-dollar bill. He left his American passport where it was, together with the cash, in his wallet. The man leafed through the pages and demanded, “Why do you give me a Somali passport, not at all used, and with no visas in it?”
Jeebleh turned to Af-Laawe, and with a touch of sarcasm addressed both men: “When has it become necessary for a Somali to require a visa to enter Mogadiscio?”
“Is he taking us for fools?” the man protested.
“Please take the twenty dollars,” Af-Laawe told him, “accept his Somali passport, and return it stamped, with a receipt. Pronto!”
For a moment, the man paused, and it seemed he might not be willing to oblige. Af-Laawe pulled him aside and out of Jeebleh’s earshot.
Jeebleh’s thoughts drifted back more than twenty years, to the last time he had used a Somali passport. It had been at the Mogadiscio international airport, about forty kilometers south of here, and he recalled how a man — not in uniform, and without a gun — had taken his passport and disappeared for an eternity. Jeebleh was on his way to Europe, and he worried that he might be prevented from leaving the country, then under the tyrannical rule of the Dictator. Bile and several others, who had apprenticed themselves to Jeebleh politically, had been picked up by the National Security the night before. There was every possibility that, as their mentor, he too would be arrested. And he was.