“You’re too young to hate!” Shanta told her.
“I know from what Uncle Bile has said”—Raasta spoke with unprecedented ease, not because she grew more articulate, but because she was quoting her favorite uncle—“that there are too many people fighting over matters of no great consequence.”
For a few moments, the words she ascribed to her uncle gave her as much joy as a new toy might offer another child. Her face beamed as she spoke in a tongue borrowed from her uncle, of how every time militiamen fight and kill, a new twist is given to the old fighting, which then takes on the shape of a new quarrel. And when there is the possibility of peace, a new fight erupts, based on an old complaint, and which some people call justice and others madness. “And,” she asked Shanta, “do you know what Uncle Bile said about civil war?”
“Tell me.”
“That in a civil war there is continuous fighting, based on grievances that are forever changing.”
31
JEEBLEH’S EYES, WHEN HE SAW THEM IN THE MIRROR WHILE SHAVING THE next day, were proof enough that Caloosha’s death did affect everyone in the close-knit family of choice in major ways, whether they admitted it or not. But how had the death of the monster been achieved? Dajaal? Had Kaahin and his associates, or Qasiir and his boys, lent a hand?
He was surprised to read in a report in one of the Mogadiscio rags, by its correspondent in the north of the city, that Caloosha had died in coitus, croaking on top of his young wife. Other tabloids had a field day too, one topping another in their scoops. A paper based in the south of the city, deemed to be more sober in its analysis and less vitriolic in its assessments, identified the wife as a young woman whom Caloosha had abducted a few years earlier, after killing her entire family. According to this article, he had kept her as his sex slave under lock and key in an upstairs apartment. She belonged to the Xamari community, and was her captor’s junior by at least forty years. Another paper, claiming a valuable inside source, reported that an unidentified woman had summoned Bile to the villa to help resuscitate his brother. He had gone there immediately, together with two other doctors. But their attempt at resuscitation was too late, and he was declared dead at the villa at about five in the morning. Yet another rag emblazoned its front page with the sensational headline “Blame It on Viagra!” Perhaps the editor was simply indulging in some cheap underhand joke at the expense of the dead man.
Jeebleh was surprised that no one expressed the least bit of sorrow at the death of a man whom they knew, and with whom a number of them had had dealings. At worst, he had expected some of those who’d benefited from their association with Caloosha to speak well of him. He wondered whether there would be any mourners at his funeral, or would he be buried alone, no one to attend but the gravediggers?
ON HEARING THAT CALOOSHA HAD DIED, SHANTA REACTED WITH UNBECOMING rage. She described him as a spoilsport.
Cursing, filled with the sappiness of her fury, she let the lava of her anger spill over, but made sure that it didn’t assume the solid form of hard evidence. When she began to cool, she complained: “What peeves me is that he isn’t letting me and Raasta enjoy our reunion in undisturbed peace.”
There was no evidence that Caloosha had committed suicide or that he had willed his own death, as far as Jeebleh could tell.
She raged on regardless. “He won’t grant us the pleasure of enjoying Raasta’s return, nor have we any idea what or who is keeping Faahiye from joining us. It’s Caloosha’s accursed intention to make us all look bad in everybody’s eyes.”
“And how does he do that?”
“I’m saying that even in his death, he is a snob,” she went on. “Look at it this way: The fellow is now spoiling the alla-bari party for your mother tomorrow afternoon. What will people say if we throw a party a day after his internment? And have we decided if we’re going to his burial, as tradition demands?”
“Are you?” asked Jeebleh.
“Are we?”
Silence took both of them by the throat. To complicate matters further, some unasked questions lay between them, on the low table in Bile’s living room: not-yet-composed questions now for Shanta, now for Jeebleh, like flies on the unwashed faces of malnourished children taking breathers after lavish compensatory feedings. One unasked question had to do with what Bile was up to, in the darkened room, with the door closed.
DAJAAL HAD MADE HIMSELF SCARCE AFTER THE VISIT HE HAD ALLEGEDLY PAID to Caloosha in Bile’s company. Jeebleh met him only once before he did his disappearing act. And he asked him pointed questions. Dajaal, in his circumspection, related the exchange between the two half brothers. Apparently, Caloosha had glibly told Bile that he would need more than bullets to kill him, that he wasn’t “of the killable kind.” He boasted that there were very many others like him around and that soon enough another “unkillable” would take his place, and things would remain as they had always been. He ended his declamation by assuring his half brother that the rot in the soul of the nation had set in, and that killing him off would do little to reverse the process.
BILE HAD TAKEN TO BED EARLY, IN THE QUIET WAY IN WHICH A MAN WITH IRON in his soul suddenly lapses into a dark mood. Jeebleh resolved not to disturb him, guessing that he couldn’t stay awake for sorrow. His friend was best left alone in his private world of desperation.
But then Jeebleh wasn’t sure he and Dajaal had understood each other as conspirators do. That Dajaal had not made detailed references to the alleged visit, and had chosen not to divulge much of what he’d witnessed — save the conversation between the brothers — owed much to his military background, his no-name, no-packdrill training. In the end, this served as his sleight of hand, further strengthening the efficacy of the conspiracy.
Bile was decidedly in a sad state. Yet there was comfort in the fact that he wasn’t alone in the darkened room. Raasta, sensing the seriousness of her uncle’s despair, had pitched her play space in a corner of the room, and invited Makka to join her.
AND WHERE WAS SEAMUS? HE WAS AT THE CEMETERY, HELPING THE MASON whom Jeebleh had commissioned to build his mother’s sepulcher, to a height no greater than the span between his thumb and his little finger, as Islamic tradition demanded. Seamus had gone there with Qasiir and his posse of armed youths, in a battlewagon lent through Kaahin’s good offices. Seamus had spent much of the morning in the apartment, drawing his women, every one of these looking as if she could have had a walk-on role in Fellini’s 8½, babies at the women’s singularly abundant breasts, the women’s features like the Madonna’s. He wasn’t due back until after the mason had finished the tomb. Seamus had to be there, offering any help he could, because the illiterate mason could not work from his sketches, which he found most intimidating.
Jeebleh now remembered the cutting remark Seamus had made in reaction to Shanta’s rage over her half brother’s death. Caloosha had owed “heavy debts in blood” to many people, Seamus had said, so it was natural for people to take vengeance on him now that he was dead. What an apt phrase — heavy debts in blood! Jeebleh wondered who might exact the heavy debts, and to what purpose? Would the same person or persons exact repayment of similar debts from Af-Laawe? What might his own contribution to the campaign be, his role in the business of overdue payment in blood? Would he serve as a mere catalyst? Or would he put the collection of debts into motion?