“We’ll ask around,” Bile said. “Shanta might.”
“And might she know where her grave is?”
“I doubt it, but we’ll ask,” Bile said. “Shanta has been in no state to think about anyone or anything else since Raasta’s disappearance. But I’m sure that with her help and Dajaal’s, we can locate your mother’s housekeeper, and then her grave.”
“I would appreciate it.”
Jeebleh noticed some potted plants, where a mantis, comfortable in its camouflage, was preparing to ambush another insect — swaying back and forth, head raised, fragile-looking forelegs extended, delicate body elegantly poised. Despite its devout posturing, the mantis was a predator, always on the attack. Jeebleh watched it in silent fascination, remembering the chameleon’s visit to his hotel room. The mantis bided its preying time, as slow as a sadist in its intention to torment its victim. Jeebleh couldn’t help comparing the antics of a mantis lying in wait, readying itself to pounce, to the modus operandi of a man who was a foe in the likeness of a concerned friend. He would act like the mantis and wait, lying low, until he was able to rid this society of vermin like Caloosha, a canker in the soul of his years of imprisonment and exile.
A housefly landed on Bile’s forehead: when chased away, it moved to Jeebleh, hesitating above his eyes and nose for a few seconds before finally and decisively alighting on his cheek. Not liking the housefly’s noise, the mantis slunk away quietly into hiding.
Now three phones rang all at once, and kept ringing. But Bile wasn’t prepared to answer them, not immediately. “I’d like you to move in with us,” he said. “There’s room for you. I’ve already prepared it, Raasta’s room.”
“Raasta’s?”
Bile looked so pale you would think he was hearing heavy treads on his own tomb. His sad expression caught the sun in its sweep, and Jeebleh stared at the specks of dust, recently stirred up by the restless housefly.
Bile went to answer the one phone that had not stopped ringing, and when he returned, he was in some distress. He spoke to Dajaal on his mobile, suggesting that he come to take Jeebleh back to the hotel.
“We have an emergency!” he told Jeebleh.
“Can I be of help?”
“I must be on my way to the clinic. Please arrange with Dajaal when you wish to be picked up,” Bile said. “Either later today, or tomorrow, or at the latest the day after.”
In less than ten minutes, Dajaal was at the door of the apartment, ready to escort Jeebleh to the hotel. Both Jeebleh and Bile knew that they had a lot more to say to each other, and knew too that they had time on their side.
They embraced for a long time before parting.
9
IN A DREAM OF THE NIGHT BEFORE, JEEBLEH KNEW WHERE THE CAPTORS were keeping Raasta and her companion — in a mud hut overlooking the noman’s-land between the two StrongMen. He was at a disadvantage, though, in that he had no transport of his own, and no one to bring him back to where he was staying, a beach cabin by the ocean. Nor did he have bodyguards to protect him in case he was attacked. Moving about was proving very difficult.
He was in an anteroom of the beach cabin, where a woman, name unknown and face unseen, lay on a mat, screaming her head off, occasionally mumbling to herself the name of the man to whom she addressed her pleas. To Jeebleh, the name sounded very much like “Caloosha.” Another woman, in a nurse’s uniform, was restraining the wailing woman and speaking to her in the patronizing tone that medical staff often use when chastising obstreperous patients. It wasn’t clear, in the dream, whether the screaming woman had attempted suicide. When he tried to find out the woman’s story and why her wrists were bandaged, an armed man in rags sealed his mouth with an asphyxiating gag. Later, after ridding himself of the gag, he tried to push his way past a bouncer with enormous sharp teeth. He was kicked in the groin for attempting to escape, and collapsed backward, in a hapless heap, groaning. He was in so much pain that he couldn’t get to his feet, and he wet himself.
AWAKE, JEEBLEH SAW THAT EVEN WITH ITS DISJOINTEDNESS AND LACK OF clarity, the dream had some highly detailed moments. He remembered the woman pleading to “Caloosha,” even though he had seen no sign of the man in the dream. He decided, on the basis of the dream, that he should seek out and solicit Caloosha’s help. Perhaps he would intercede with the hostagetakers.
But a few things in the dream raised warning signs, which worried and frightened him. A man had appeared, assigned to be his guide. He had eyes from which billows of smoke issued, and he held several lit cigarettes between his fingers. The man, a dwarf, needed to work out his daytime contradictions, and was now on stilts. He was a praise singer, and claimed that he had been commissioned to compose a panegyric for the boss of Mogadiscio’s underworld, “the fire of whose genius was unlike any other, and had no equal anywhere.” Sadly, Jeebleh couldn’t remember any of the lines, because the man whose voice reminded him of Af-Laawe had the wrong accent, his syntax was muddled, his diction lacked finesse, and his metaphors were mixed.
There were also marksmen in the dream, who took delight in demonstrating the skill of their shooting; they hit their targets lethally without breaking a bead of sweat. One of them had a mouth with baby lips that blew bubbles. At the center of the tableau was a small girl having her hair braided by her companion.
Despite his misgivings, the dream left Jeebleh with a sense of optimism, and he rose from his bed convinced that Caloosha held the key to the girls’ disappearance, and that he or one of his associates, namely Af-Laawe, knew where Raasta and Makka were being held. Quite possibly, Caloosha had helped the captors in a big way. In a moment of elation, Jeebleh believed that he would succeed in recovering the two girls from the clutches of their captors. But first he had to seek an audience with Caloosha. He would show humility, he would openly acknowledge Caloosha’s power over them all. To steel himself, Jeebleh recited two lines from a poem in Somali in which a weak man, plotting to kill a much stronger man, humbles himself before his intended victim, pretending he is a friend and no threat at all. But when the opportunity to hit presents itself, he strikes! Jeebleh would do as the poet suggested, and wait in ambush until after the girls’ release.
Shaved and showered, he took the piece of ruled paper on which Dajaal had drawn a map with directions to Caloosha’s villa. Smoothing the crumpled sheet, he followed the route with his forefinger, memorizing the sequence of turns in the road. He was sure he would find it easily, no trouble at all. He went downstairs and past the reception desk, which was unusually quiet today, to have his coffee. He moved as slowly as a chameleon going uphill.
WHILE JEEBLEH WAITED FOR HIS COFFEE, THE DAY SEEMED AS DULL-EYED AS a young elephant mourning the death of its family. The sun shone competently, its rays trudging through a thick film of dust. He sat facing the open area where, only the day before, the vultures had gathered. Today there wasn’t a single one. There was an Alsatian, though, pregnant by the look of it, and close to her, a crow, lonely-looking, brooding and quiet for much of the time.
Seeking out his tormentor was the last thing Jeebleh wanted to do. The decision to call on Caloosha was not an act of courage — it went against everything Jeebleh stood for and believed in. But the dream had strengthened his trust in the correctness of the decision. He would do all he could to help gain freedom for Raasta and Makka, even at the cost of feeling humiliated by a fool. Then he would figure out how to take vengeance on Caloosha, perhaps with help from Dajaal, to whom he intended to speak.
An only son, Jeebleh had been raised by a strong woman with iron determination. His father was a lowlife; he had sold the house the family lived in and the plot of land he had inherited from his own family to pay off gambling debts. After the divorce, Jeebleh’s mother made it her mission in life to ensure that Jeebleh grew up to be very different from his father. She impressed into his memory his uniqueness, repeatedly telling him that he could do anything he put his mind to.