Qasiir’s mother interrupted her son. “None of this mattered to the helicopter pilots or the soldiers in their funny-looking vests! It was siesta time in Mogadiscio, when we all sought shelter from the scorching sun. But on that day it felt like the entire earth was caught up in waves of tremors, each tremor speeding up the pulse of every person or animal in the neighborhood.”
Qasiir rose to his feet, acting out more of that day, and Jeebleh was able to imagine the accelerated heartbeats of the ailing, the panting lungs of the infirm, the thrashing of the alarmed, the sand funneling in a mighty whirlwind, people cowering in their shacks, curses spoken, spells cast, homes destroyed, businesses disrupted, lives suddenly ended.
Qasiir’s mother described the horrific terror of her baby — then barely a year old — who, torn from her breast, had been caught up in the avalanche of courtyard sand stirred up by the rotors of the helicopters. And when the mother went on her knees, keening in supplication, praying, cursing, cursing and praying, Jeebleh stared, dumbfounded, now unable to imagine the terror.
“I became hysterical,” she continued, “and tore at my bare breast, where my daughter had been nursing. I wailed, I wept, I cursed, I prayed, but to no avail. I tore at my clothes, until I disrobed, convinced that my child had been swallowed up in the sand raised by the helicopter’s sudden arrival. Then I saw the shape of evil. Rangers pointing at my nakedness and laughing. I stopped wailing, and covered my indecency, and then cursed the mothers who bore these Rangers. I’ve never glimpsed worse evil than those men cupping their hands at me, their tongues out, pointing at my nakedness.”
Qasiir and his team heard her wailing. He shouted to his posse, instructing them not to shoot at the helicopters, fearing that his baby sister might be hurt in the crossfire. Looking back, both Qasiir and his mother speculated that one of the pilots might have become aware of what was going on and, in an effort to help, might have steered away from where the mother knelt, naked, weeping, praying, cursing, wallowing in the sand. “Then”—Qasiir acted it out in a wild charade—“two men appeared from nowhere with RPGs, and they gunned for the chopper. There was a mighty crash: the helicopter was down!”
“And I wouldn’t stop wailing,” his mother broke in, “until I saw my baby fall to the ground, close to where I was. I crawled on all fours to where my daughter lay, praying that I would find her alive, and unhurt. All the while, my hard, evil stare was focused on the Rangers in the downed chopper. I lifted my baby into my embrace, and half ran, half walked away, aware of the Rangers’ eyes trained on my back.”
THE STORY WAS OVER, THE MOTHER CLEARLY EXHAUSTED, AND JEEBLEH, NOW prepared to leave, got to his feet. Without thinking, he reached into his shirt pocket and handed over a large sum of money in the local currency — his change from the restaurant — to the mother of the child. The woman looked at her father-in-law, as if to ask, “What am I to do with this?”
“Please let her buy something for the child.” Jeebleh’s words failed him. He was embarrassed by what he had done so thoughtlessly. He walked out of the compound and, with feelings of guilt weighing him down, waited for Dajaal to join him.
27
ON THEIR WAY TO THE BARBERSHOP, JEEBLEH, HIS EXPRESSION FORLORN, relied on the strength of his own spirit to overcome the obstacles in his way.
He decided to approach Dajaal right away with specific demands, even at the risk of being turned down. He did not have all the time in the world: soon he would be returning home, back to his family and his teaching: from that distance, a Parthian shot at his present pursuers and his lifetime foe would be impossible. He wanted the job done, and done well — in and then out.
And there was another matter he needed to consult Dajaal about. Jeebleh wanted to hire a mason to build a miniature mausoleum in noble memory of his mother. Nothing extravagant, just a bit of stone neatly put together, in tribute to the woman who had built him into what he had become. His skin bristled as he thought ahead to the moment when, standing before the structure, he could say a prayer or two, in an effort to apologize for his failures. It would take a great deal of love, and more, to help her spirit lie in undisturbed peace.
He looked in Dajaal’s direction. The man seemed uncomfortable. “There are two jobs I would like to hire someone to do,” Jeebleh said. “Two jobs that are related, to my mind. Would you help me?”
“What are these jobs?”
Worry spread over Jeebleh’s face; he looked as wretched as a rusted drainpipe. “How would you go about it if you wished to commission a risky job?”
Dajaal’s cagey answer made it obvious to Jeebleh that the man knew where he was headed with his questions. “I wouldn’t, for instance, commission my grandson Qasiir to perform a risky job. It would have to be performed on a no-name, no-packdrill basis, with payment on execution.”
Jeebleh emerged after a while from his unclear thinking, and sighed with the confidence of a young colt. “Would you have someone in mind for such a job?”
“I would.”
Kaahin’s name came to Jeebleh’s mind. “Like who?”
Dajaal wouldn’t commit himself. “I can think of out-of-work former colleagues of mine who’ll do the job quietly, efficiently, and cheaply, and who’ll spare one all the gory details having to do with the disposal of bodies and evidence linking one to the deed.” So Dajaal not only knew what Jeebleh wanted him to do, but had given thought to the details like a professional assassin.
“How much?” Jeebleh maintained his confidence.
“I’ll come back to you on that,” Dajaal said.
The sun slanted at Jeebleh from the west, and the sand stirred by his feet rose up and caught on his hairy shins: the scratchy edge of his sarong felt drier. He fiddled with the hat, his fingers upsetting its comfortable fit. “Are you carrying a firearm?” he asked.
“I never go anywhere without one nowadays. Without it I feel naked, unsafe. As it happens, I’m carrying two. Now, may I ask, what do you care about firearms?”
“Could you lend me one?”
Dajaal stopped walking and bent down. He pulled out a revolver he had been wearing strapped to his shin, and offered it simply: “Here!”
Jeebleh took it without hesitation. The revolver felt heavier to him than the machine gun he had held on the way to the cemetery. Fear gathered in his throat, choking him. Before walking on, he admired the weapon, then hid it under his sweat-drenched shirt.
It froze his commoner blood to bear the blood-royal elegance of a machine built to kill at the touch of a trigger. The changes wrought in his behavior from the moment Af-Laawe’s muscleman had prodded him with that needle were enormous. Even though he had contemplated vengeance on Caloosha, he never thought the day would come when he, a peace-loving man, would resort to using a deadly weapon to settle scores.
“The second job you want done?” Dajaal asked.
“This is a lot more pedestrian.” Jeebleh explained the job he had in mind for the mason.
Dajaal asked, “When do you need him to start?”
“I’d say let him start right away.”
“Leave both jobs with me, then.”
Suddenly they heard a stir nearby. A mob shouting, “Thief, catch him!” was chasing a scraggly youth. Blind with fear, the boy ran smack into Jeebleh and almost knocked him over. The mob stopped a short distance away. The ringleader — a very well fed merchant from the market, sprinkled all over with his wares of flour, rice, and sugar — approached with his arms extended, saying, “Hand over the thief, then.”
The thin youth had his mouth full of the food he had apparently stolen, which he was now busy chewing. In his right hand was half of a roll, out of which a piece of meat protruded, like a dead tongue. Eyes as large as his fright, the youth begged in a low voice, “I am hungry, please!”