Maps (6 page)

That I burst into tears immediately when he walked into the room I had been in— this entered the lore of the traditions told in my uncle's compound. Obviously, it made him very uneasy. But there was little he could do to me, or about me. His position as a respected member of the community dictated that he treat me with apparent kindness, and that he provide for me, someone else to take my mother's place. Misra, until then, was not a
bona fide 
member of the compound. It appears she became one, especially, when I chose her — chose her in preference to all the other women who had been tried on me, one after the other, a dozen or so women into whose open arms I was dropped. I cried with vigour whenever Misra wasn't there. In the end, the community of relations approved of my choice. But not my uncle. Not until a year later.

To reduce the tension, my uncle decided to earmark a fenced mud hut with its separate entrance for our own use. That way, he wouldn't encounter us when going into or out of his compound, of which he was the unchallenged master. One could tell if he was or wasn't there—when he was there, we wouldn't hear anything except his terrible voice, giving instructions to or shouting at somebody. Often, we would also hear the help-help cry of a wife or a child being beaten. When he wasn't there, the compound and its residents wore an air of festivity and women and children exchanged gossip and wicked jokes about him, or men like him, and neighbours visited and were entertained. But we were excluded from the joys and sadnesses of the compound. We had our life to lead and a compound which was all our own, Misra and I. We lived the way we saw fit. At least, until nightfall And then Uncle came.

He came after nightfall and made his claims on Misra. It was one thing to make a political (that is public) statement by being kind to her and myself, it was another to give something for nothing. He didn't confound issues—he would hire another woman in her place and dispense with her services unless she offered herself to him. I learnt later that she did. She said it was so she would be allowed to be with me. Misra suffered the humiliation of sleeping with him so she could be with me. I don't know what I might have said if I had known. Things do look different from this height (now I am a grown-up and a man myself!), from this distance; besides, one tends to indulge oneself until the end of one's days, talking until daylight, about the possible alternatives and compromises of a complicated situation such as this. But were there other avenues, other alternatives, other possible compromises that she could've struck with Uncle Qorrax?

She thought Aw-Adan might have become one healthy alternative—if I had liked him. But I didn't. Looking back on it now, I think the reasons why I disliked Aw-Adan were different—different in that Misra and he had a world of their own, a language of their own, and so when they lapsed into it or chose to dwell in the secretive universe of its nuances and expressions and gestures, I felt totally excluded. I was afraid they would either take me away from the Somali-speaking world or deny me my Misra, who had been for me the end-all and the cosmos of my affections.

It is hard to admit it, but I suppose I was a vulnerable child, much more vulnerable than anyone suspected. Aw-Adan nicknamed me “Misra's nightingale”. I didn't understand his meaning until years later. For a long time, I took him to mean that I sang Misra's love-names. He didn't mean that at all. He meant that only Misra was allowed to enter my freehold space, the freehold territory which I had acquired for myself.

It is true that only Misra had access to the freehold kingdom of which I was the undisputed lord. And since I held Uncle Qorrax, his wives and his children in total awe and at bay, it appeared there were only Misra and Karin whose civilized company I kept. Nor did I like playing with the children of the neighbourhood when I grew up a little bigger, because they remained infantile, fighting over the ownership of toys, dolls and balls. I took pride in my being self-sufficient and came to no grief so long as I knew either Misra or Karin was in my view or earshot. At night, dreams kept me busy; during the day, if Misra was otherwise occupied with one of life's many chores that needed attending to, I sought the companionship of my imagination. It was only when Misra was short-tempered (this happened when she was in season), or when she beat me because she was short-tempered (because she was in season)—it was only then that I knew I was an only child and an orphan. And Misra couldn't bear the stare-of-the-orphan. And she would dispatch me off for the day to Karin's compound — Karin who was, to me, like a grandmother: gentle as one, generous as one.

III

I am sure it is appropriate that I address myself to the question: was there ever any time that I remember liking Uncle Qorrax? Was there a period I remember having a soft spot for the man who paid all my expenses, the man who was my father's brother?

I was fond of adults” shoes, as many children are, when I was an infant, and I recall the pleasant thought of owning such good and colourfully patterned shoes as Uncle Qorrax crossing my mind. It used to give me immense happiness to touch them whenever I crawled near them. It used to make me sad when I was not allowed to put them in my mouth or lick them. But when the phase of loving adults' shoes was passed, I ceased going to him or being friendly with him.

I think that the patterns of his shoes appealed to my sense of the aesthetic, since their designs reminded me of some of the calligraphic images I had seen painted on doors to the palaces my dreams had taken me to but which I had never entered. After all,
The Arabian Nights
were full of such gates with such motifs and such colourful designs. The truth was that I admired them even when I was a little older and loved their bright colours. Although, when he asked me once what my favourite colour was, I surprised him by saying that I preferred earthen to neon — knowing full well what that meant. This decided for him—as a present for the Ciid festivities, he didn't buy for me a pair of shoes with bright colours and patterns as he had intended—instead, he got me maps. And he called to deliver them in broad daylight. He came dressed as though in mourning. Misra inquired if somebody had died. He was in a foul mood. He said, “Someone will die, somebody will.”

Misra looked unhappy that day and the following. If only she paid attention to my comments that someone always dies, that someone is born when another dies and that we are affected by death or birth if we know, are close to, or love the persons concerned.

“What on earth are you talking about?” she said.

I said, “Of death.”

IV

Death-as-topic-for-discussion was taboo in our house and no one was allowed to speak of it or mention the Archangel's name in my presence. It was of life we were to talk, the blood and vitality of life that is the essence of one's being. Even the past, when clothed in garments of death or mourning, was a forbidden subject, for it was feared that this past might eventually lead to the names of my dead parents, to the fact that I knew next to nothing about my mother or my father.

There were epidemics, there was a drought, and the earth lay lifeless, treeless, dead, growing nothing, causing things to decay and metal to rust — and we weren't allowed to talk about death. Whispers. Conspiracies. With the night falling secretly and Uncle Qorrax crawling into bed with us and making love to Misra — the cycle of life and death, the circle ending where it began — the flow of menstruation, of death ascertained — and we weren't to talk of death. Not even when Misra was helped to abort, not even when a calendar was brought into the compound and when circles in green were neatly drawn round the safe days and nights. An ovum lives for less than thirty-six hours, sperm for about twenty-four. Yes, only one, maximum two days in each cycle. And we weren't to talk of death.

Not until I came to Mogadiscio during the 1977 war in the Horn of Africa, not until then was the discretion about death completely disregarded and only then could “death” occur in my vocabulary in the manner it occurs in the thoughts of a spinster who's been robbed by it. I recall saying to Uncle Hilaal, who helped me loosen up and with whom I could comfortably talk easily that “death” was to me simply a metaphor of “absence”; and God was a “presence”. My uncle's stare was long but also difficult to interpret. He was silent for a while, then, sighing, he mumbled something which I took to be the syllables of Misra's name.

Mis-ra!

Then I repeated to my uncle the story of how I asked Misra to explain what it is that happens when death visits its victims.

“The heart stops functioning,' she said.

“Nothing else happens?” I inquired.

“That is death. The heart's stopping,” she explained.

“And the rest of the body?”

“It rigidifies as a result.”

“Like … like Aw-Adan's leg? Wooden like Aw-Adan's leg, is that what happens? Lifeless and unbending… like Aw-Adan's leg?”

I had never seen Misra as angry as she was on that day. She wouldn't speak for hours. And in the body of my fantasies there took place something interesting: I remembered how fast the third leg (the wooden leg, that is) was dropped and how fast another between his legs came to raise its head, jerkily, slowly and nervously; and how the whole place drowned in the sighing endearments of Misra who called him… yes him of all people … “my man, my man, my man”!

Then suddenly I remembered something—a question I had meant to put to somebody, any adult, I didn't care to whom. Misra happened to be angry, yes, but I felt she would answer it if I asked. So I did just that. “And the soul?” I said.

Most definitely, she had forgotten what we were talking about before she fell silent and into a dudgeon dark with rage. “What about the soul?” she said, lost in the zigzaggy mazes of bewilderment. “What about it?”

“What happens to the soul when somebody dies?” I said.

She was silent for a while—silent in a naked way, if I may put it thus, and she took her time gathering her ideas like an elegant robe around her, her hands busy touching and caressing her face, levelling and smoothing the bumps and the roughness her anger with me had brought about, and a thought crossed my mind (my thoughts as usual began to outrun me): what do monkeys pick when they pick at each others head? Lice? Or something else? Or nothing at all? I thought I would wait for the right moment to question her on this.

She cleared her throat. I knew she was ready to speak I sat up, waiting. In the meanwhile, I could see her repeating to herself something in mumbles. 1 was sure she was quoting either the Koran or Aw-Adan. She said, “The soul is the stir in one, for one stirs not when dead,”

I was disappointed. She wondered why. I told her.

“And what do you want me to tell you?” she said, unhappy

I was disappointed her answer was brief and had ended, in a sentence, long before I was aware she had begun. What I wanted her to do was to talk about death in as much detail as was possible for a seven-year-old like myself to understand. I needn't have reminded her that I had encountered death before, in the look of my mother, in the rigidity of her body. I needn't have reminded her that, in so far as she was concerned, I had made myself, that 1 was my own creation and that upon me was bestowed, by myself of course, everything other mortals wished for in their dreams.

“So?” I challenged.

She appeared dazed. Could it be because she could not recall telling me herself that when she first encountered my undiluted stare she thought that “I had made myself and had been my own creation!'”? There may have been other reasons. But she stared at me as though the world had shrunk to the ground beneath her weighty body and as though any memory of her would disappear with it too and she would die. Anyway, she was silent for a long, long, time. However, this silence was different from the previous silences in that she appeared frightened, afraid of my stare. And so she pulled at her dress, nervous.

I said, “Death takes many forms in my head. Generally, it is donned all in white, robed in an Archangel's garment into whose many-pocketed garment is dropped the day's harvest of souls. I wonder if my mother and father's souls ended up in the same pocket, just like a beloved wife is buried in the same tomb as her husband or a child its mother if they all die together. I wonder if I would have a soul to speak of had I died at birth—I instead of my mother.”