They arrived at the broken signboard that marked the entrance to the General Cemetery, and drove around in search of the landmarks Shanta had told Jeebleh about. He was sweating with worry when they passed the section where Af-Laawe had taken him; he remembered what had been done to him, and how rude Af-Laawe had been. But he chose not to speak of any of this to Dajaal. He was relieved as the uncut wild shrubs impeded their progress, and they had to take a long, roundabout way toward a large mango tree.
Jeebleh apologized for making Dajaal go through all this. “If my mother had not departed the way she did,” he said, “with her soul bothered and her peace troubled, I should not have insisted on your bringing me here now.”
As soon as he discovered a straight path to the mango tree, Dajaal revved the engine. He parked the car under an acacia, and stayed there, covering Jeebleh with the machine gun — they could not be sure, Af-Laawe or his cronies might be lying in wait. Jeebleh got out of the car without fear and, no longer tired, strode forward with a fresh spring. Now that he had found the spot marked with four medium-to-large stones bearing his mother’s name, Waliya, he looked around and saw how close he had been to it on his previous visit. He doubted that the purported housekeeper knew where the grave was; Af-Laawe, however, did. From where he stood, Jeebleh could see that here too the earth had shifted, and several mounds had collapsed on themselves.
He sank to his knees, humbling himself in prayerful memory of a mother whom he felt he had failed. In this crouched posture, he resembled a haunted creature from prehistory deferring to a sky god. His eyes opened wide onto an endless day of prayer, and an eternal night of commiseration.
He was now more at peace with himself than at any time since his arrival in the city of ruin. And when Dajaal came to him, suggesting that it was time to leave, Jeebleh requested that they call at Bile’s mother’s grave. Again, he crouched in supplication, the boundary marked with a fruitless lemon tree which offered hardly any shadow, and four medium-to-large stones bearing the name: Hagarr.
AT THE APARTMENT, HE TOLD BILE AND SEAMUS MORE THAN HE HAD BEEN prepared to share with Dajaal, about what had been done to him and how he had suffered at Af-Laawe’s hand. Then he explained what he had done, and how, soon after calling at the graves of his mother and that of Auntie Hagarr, peace had returned to him.
When Shanta, who was in a party mood, joined them, Jeebleh purged his story of the mention of the jab he had been given by Af-Laawe’s muscleman. Nor did he bother to inform her of his thought that the muscleman was a doctor on retainer to the cartel. Yet Jeebleh harbored his own worries. His hand kept returning to the spot where he’d been jabbed, and he wondered whether it would grow larger than a boil before the night was out. Earlier, he had shown it to Bile, who promised that they would go for tests at the city’s only lab with a pathology facility, rudimentary as it was. Jeebleh’s mind kept returning to the many occasions in their youth when Caloosha had subjected him and Bile to torture; he knew that he had come to a point in his life when he should face his demons, and in some way deal with them. To take his mind off his worries, he emphasized Dajaal’s opinion that Faahiye was a victim of blackmail. When she heard that Jeebleh had called at their mothers’ graves, Shanta became more boisterous, kissing, ululating, a woman in celebration.
The four stayed up most of the night, talking, engaging in conjecture. No one wanted to break up the improvised gathering, and of course, Shanta had no wish to go back to an empty, desolate home; she preferred instead to sleep on the living room floor. Whereas Shanta, in her nervous optimism, felt that Raasta and Makka’s return was imminent, the others were not of that view, especially Bile. All the same, the apartment was charged with Shanta’s renewed energy. They tried to imagine their way into Faahiye’s mind, speculating over the same ground: Why did he keep telling Jeebleh that he wasn’t at liberty to disclose this or that bit of information? How was Raasta bearing up, and what was her mental state? Was Faahiye telling the truth when he said that he had been at the refugee camp in Mombasa? With Shanta’s spirits so high, the three men were careful not to say or do anything that might spoil her flowering enthusiasm.
For fear of being thought a party-pooper, Bile acquiesced to Shanta’s demand that the generator run for much longer than was customary. All sorts of drinks came out of the cabinet, soft, hard, and in between. Seamus helped himself to several bottles of beer and as many generous tots of whiskey as his tumbler could contain. A wine bottle of excellent Italian vintage, bought in Rome, was uncorked. Coffee was made, and tea brewed. Glasses that hadn’t been dusted for years, since no one could think of a good enough reason to celebrate, were passed around. Shanta insisted on a very sweet orange drink.
Bile, though not unnecessarily mistrustful of Faahiye or his motives, was by nature ill disposed toward hatching his eggs before he had a hen to lay them. He couldn’t help returning to the same questions: How was Raasta doing in captivity? How was Makka coping? How much help, if any, had the abductors received from Caloosha or Af-Laawe? What purpose was the abduction meant to serve?
The posse of security personnel — discreetly recruited from within the displaced community nearby — was on the alert, busy watching over the entire neighborhood. And because there was electricity for them from the generator for much of the night, there was gaiety among the security detail too, a modest calm informed by self-restraint.
The three men did not abandon their instinct of caution; while one moment Seamus and Jeebleh agreed that there were positive signs pointing to an early reunion with the missing girls, the next moment Bile wondered whether they would be able to meet Faahiye’s conditions, whatever these were.
It wasn’t so with Shanta, who was overwhelmed with joy, her tongue where her heart should have been. She kept jabbering away, at times making it difficult for the others to get a word in edgewise. Not once did she say anything terrible about Faahiye. What’s more, she asked for Jeebleh’s forgiveness, because of the results obtained. “I wouldn’t have accused you unfairly of talking to Faahiye behind our backs, if I imagined for a moment that you were capable of achieving miracles.” Embarrassed, he looked away, remembering being told that she was given to speaking of herself as a mother “damned to tears and sorrow.” With an expression of pained wonder, she went over and for the second time kissed him on the brow, almost tumbling on top of him. She regained her balance and caught her breath, and kept saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you in the name of our mothers!”
Now the past, which Shanta had smuggled in by alluding to their mothers, became the fifth person in the room, assuming a larger presence than anyone had been prepared for. Bile admonished them to desist from introducing the past, as a contraband idea, as this would exclude Seamus. Nor could the three friends and coevals speak of their more recent past, as this would exclude Shanta. Seamus stepped in to steer the conversation away from the present to a past not close to anyone’s heart: the role the United States had played in Somalia!
“I’ve my misgivings about saints and angels,” he said, “especially as I fear that people describe the Yankees as ‘good angels’ come on a humanitarian mission, to perform God’s work here. Do you think Yankees ceased being angels, because of the conditions they met here, conditions that wouldn’t permit them to perform any work but Satan’s? When do angels cease to be angels and resort to being who they are, Yankees? That’s a topic worth pursuing, wouldn’t you agree with me, my American friend?” And Seamus looked at Jeebleh, teasing.