Jeebleh asked, “Compared with Sherifu, who could recite verses as a toddler, what could Raasta do at a similar age?”
“Raasta, at two, could speak of the things she knew about when she was a mere fetus, and how she was in touch with things through her own baby-faint heartbeat. She developed fast in the womb of her mother’s imagining, she would say, and was fully grown by the time she came into the world.”
Jeebleh remembered Bile talking at length about the day Raasta was born, and how his arrival had complicated matters for all concerned. “Would you say Raasta is aware of her own special qualities?” he asked.
“Raasta remembers watching her mother behaving awkwardly, throwing her hands up in despair, remembers hearing her say terrible things about Faahiye, and her parents quarreling fiercely, in private and public. She says that her parents behave as though they have no idea that every birth howls with its own need and is burdened with the histories of its antecedents.”
Jeebleh wished he could’ve seen the young thing, born with a head of raven-black locks. He thought of how full of stir and gorgeous she was, how calming to hold. He imagined her cry like the cawing of an excited crow. “And she asks rhetorical questions, doesn’t she?” he said.
“She wants to know if a tree rotten to the core can bear a healthy fruit worth picking.”
“People have described her as the Protected One. What does that mean?”
“I don’t know whether she herself is protected,” Bile said. “I’ve never actually seen her in imminent danger. But I’ve never seen her harmed either. I know that people believe that anyone in her proximity is safe from the harms of the civil war.”
“Hence a miracle child?”
“She is seen as a symbol of peace, that’s right.”
30
JEEBLEH WOKE AFTER A BRIEF SLEEP TO THE SOFT SOUND OF A CHILD’S FEET pattering back and forth in the room. He was a lot groggier than was good for him, and he fought hard not to make much of his state of exhaustion or confusion. Clumsily rubbing his eyes, and then becoming conscious of the unfinished business of his uncut hair, he willed his expression to change instantly to one of delight at the sight of Raasta standing over him.
He scrambled out of bed, and then apologized. Perhaps he would have preferred it if she had not come upon him sleeping, or tired. Already dressed and ready to face the day, she was elegant in her composure, waiting. There was something noble in how she held herself, as though ready for an event of extraordinary nature.
Here was the rub: For one so young, she had a face as ancient as the roots of a baobab, and yet young-looking, a joy to gaze at and adore. He reckoned she was in her public mood, and it was time he prepared himself for what she had to say. He cleared his throat, took a solid grip of himself in good time, and said, “How are things with the world this morning?”
“Dajaal wants to talk to you,” she said, and seeing that he looked so bedraggled, she smiled to herself.
At the mention of Dajaal’s name, several of the latent worries he had lived with for the last few days came out. Had death, which kept a close watch on his movements, paid a visit to someone, and if so, on whom had death called? “Where is he?” he asked.
Jeebleh caught sight of her as she withdrew into her private world, where she behaved like the child she was. But for these occasional slips, Jeebleh thought Raasta could offer the best tutorials in their art to the most professional of actors. She completely inhabited the role she had been assigned to play. She stood still, like a ballerina awaiting her music. “He said that you should meet him at the clinic,” she replied, “and from there he’ll take you and the builder to the cemetery.”
He could tell from her delivery that there was a second, more serious part of the message, and he waited, relieved that this time she didn’t appear to be lapsing into a kid’s universe. “Anything you haven’t told me yet?”
She turned nimbly away from him. Was she about to explode with the intensity of the part of the message she hadn’t yet delivered? His wandering mind took him back to his childhood, and to an Arabian folktale about a man who is about to be murdered: The victim asks his murderer to promise that after his death, he will visit his village, and recite to his orphaned children half a stanza of a poem he has written. The children understand their father’s coded message, and the murderer is apprehended.
Raasta looked up, his question perhaps resonating in her head, as taunts do. She said, in words carefully and properly enunciated, “Dajaal said to tell you that what needed to be done has been done.”
Even though Jeebleh understood what the words meant, he didn’t know precisely what had been done to whom. He was in no doubt, however, that Dajaal had packed a lot into the briefest of messages, which was why the two of them would have to meet and talk before he knew with any certainty what had happened. He was sure of one thing, though: The news wasn’t the kind you shared with a child so nervous as to unbuckle her sandals and dig the toes of one foot into the heel of the other. Solicitous, he wondered aloud if Raasta was okay. When she nodded, he said, “You’ve delivered a very important message, and I thank you very much,” in a tone that suggested that he wanted to get on with the rest of the day.
“Would you like me to take you to the clinic, where Uncle Bile and Uncle Seamus are, and where you are also to meet Dajaal?” she said.
“I would,” he said, “after a shower. I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”
Good as his word, he was quick about his shower, and he managed to shave, and trim the uncut side of his hair. When he emerged from the bathroom, she looked up at him and smiled, but said nothing. She led him to the clinic, without speaking, using shortcuts, her hand forever in his.
STILL HOLDING HANDS, JEEBLEH AND RAASTA WALKED IN ON BILE IN HIS consultation cubicle. They might have been lovers out on a promenade. And not having bothered to knock on the door, they gave poor Bile a startle when he saw them. Jeebleh wondered why he appeared so disturbed when seen taking pills similar to those he had taken the previous night. What were the tablets for? Were they for his depressions, or other complaints?
Bile stared at Jeebleh, then at Raasta, but didn’t say anything. His hand went to his mouth, covering it, then eventually to his chest, as though checking whether his heart was where he presumed it to be, and functioning. He was clearly at a loss for words. Sighing and still looking dumbfounded, he sat down, his face pallid, his body drained of life.
Raasta looked from Bile to Jeebleh, bewildered. But she too could not express her confusion, again because the words failed her. Her face said that she knew something terrible had happened, but she had no idea what. She seemed to sense too that the disquiet, earlier on Jeebleh’s part and now on Bile’s, differed from the uneasiness her parents were in the habit of driving each other into when they argued. This was a much more serious matter, and she had better not make inappropriate remarks, or ask infantile questions.
Bile beckoned to her to come closer. He held her at arm’s length, as though having a good look at her for the first time in years, then took her into his tight embrace, nearly hurting her. Jeebleh, not one to be left out, joined them in the hug — Raasta weepy, Bile almost ready to speak but still unable, and Jeebleh undecided.
Jeebleh stepped away from them, his thoughts drifting toward culpability, wondering what it was that had upset Bile. He leaned against a wall, listening sadly to Bile’s softly murmured words to Raasta, who was sniffling. Jeebleh became aware of the presence of a fourth person in the cubicle, a young girl. On impulse, he spoke to the sick child, whose chest was bare; her ribs protruded, her jaw was prominent, and her eyes were marked with unwashed sleep. “What’s your name, young lady?” he said.