Chapter 11
'This is the best I can do,' Moussa said to himself as he popped a painkiller, swallowing it down with white water whose salt content made him smack his mouth after drinking it. He waited a few minutes before it kicked in, got his dick out and peed in the hole. The burn appeared as was habitual now, but it wasn't as searing as it would have been for the pill had numbed his sense perception. Then came the religious obligation. He took the purple and plastic watering can in this roofless public toilet and poured water on his penis while he was still secreting the last of the urine. Moussa flinched at the initial contact with the coldish liquid. 'Can I, with this putrid discharge perpetually coming out of me ever be clean?' he mused to himself, watching the discharge now blending with the urine until it became almost completely cream coloured. 'I am like a woman with continuous blood flow that will not stop no matter what I try.' He smirked spitefully. 'Just like a woman... with blood flowing out of her. I am here now with the same flow, a different colour.' He now laughed almost crazily, like he was having a manic episode and continued until the watering can was near empty while his peculiar mixture flowed along with the white water. The ochre sides of the manhole were darkened and soggy by excess water and urine, as his body had been shaking from laughter.
As is known among those who have suffered from sexual disease, how you finish peeing is critical to the experience of pain. Moussa, being unknowingly infected, but modulating bodily secretion regardless as he naturally wanted to minimise sharp pains, never contracted his penis muscles when he finished peeing. He simply relaxed his penis muscles and let the urine mix with the water used for religious obligation until it stopped of its own accord; whereas before, he would force stop the urine when he felt that enough had been secreted in order for him to feel comfortable, and confident that his bladder was empty enough. This time however his maniacal laughter had made him forget his new peeing method and it led to the old abrupt cessation. He had clenched his penis muscles, and not even the painkiller had enough power to snuff out the most ghastly of pains. He let out a hiss and then a curse which disrupted the first signs of madness he was experiencing in favour of the sex organ pain that had become common with him. He quickly rubbed the tip of his cock with the last of the white water in the watering can, set it down, and waved his hand to sprinkle the water away. Tying his sarong tightly, wincing still, he made to leave the public toilet but stopped himself. He turned around, fished in his shirt pocket and took out another tablet and popped it. He then bent down to grab the watering can again, cupped his hand, filled it and drank the mouthful to wash the pill down. He then left the public toilet into the port city of Las Qhoray, fishing hub of Sanaag, a city whose coastal heat was mind-blowing.
This was early morning, and like many a port, a fishing hub, a faint almost imagined smell of fish lingered in the air, that would catch fire if it could, for it was already in the mid forty degrees centigrade before nine am. A combination of heat and fish greeted Moussa and his workers in this city who were there for business reasons.
A quirk in international aid meant that aid was usually deposited and shared out in the bigger cities instead of the smaller villages and hard to reach places, far from sea, where people needed it the most. This was a city on the coast where many families fished for various small fish to eat, along the longest coastline on the planet, meaning aid wasn't as pressing or needed there as other places, for coast dwellers always have something to eat. On this day, they had seen a huge sea vessel with shipping containers carrying something which Moussa came looking for. He was looking for the rice they were carrying.
Stepping out of the public toilet, he walked up to two trucks in front of a store front, where his manager, the old man with the white moustache, was waiting with five other men. He looked curiously at Moussa as he usually did as of late. He had heard Moussa's laugh even from a distance and a warm natural feeling of an elderly relative came over him even as a constructed feeling of subordination checked it. This also was usual as of late.
'Are we ready? Let's rally the troops!' Moussa said. The second painkiller almost made him feel normal though knowledge of his ailment remained. Activity and purpose pushed him even further to oblivion. This would be the first time that he 'rallied the troops' and only because he wanted to keep busy and forget about his misfortune.
The group split up into several parts, with Moussa going with his elderly relative, Yaqoob, as a duo, to ring the bells of various houses to 'rally the troops.' Moussa hadn't done this before and thought pleasantly of a straightforward 'straightening' of affairs, relating to his competition, and became giddy and enraptured by the novelty.
They travelled through the city away from main roads by car to make a splash through this vehicle as just like in the village; for not many owned a car here, and would take be taken as homage if a car pulled up in front of their house, like they were important figures who knew people who owned cars. This was especially useful in that they were trying to recruit mostly poorer people for their venture and exaltation is only second to reward in the poor man's mind. If you give a beggar alms, they will thank you for it. If you make a beggar feel equal to you, they will love you for it.
The travel went on amongst the same architecture as the village: low buildings for the most part, although interspersed with multi story buildings -a village that had pretensions of being a city. The buildings were all the colour of old parchment and those with the door open, looked like a dead leper's face with his black mouth open inviting you in for the business you have with a cursed creature.
They continued onwards, windows down yet the speed of the car, which travelled rather fast and reckless, across the uneven roads, jerking once in a while as it went over a stray rock, never large enough to tilt or capize, couldn't cool the passengers much, for the sun was strong even at nine am, and stepping out of the car in a residential area they stepped into a place that seemed to have a film of heat surrounding it. A heat that clung onto Moussa and Yaqoob as they approached a house only one of them was familiar with, and the door opened to the greeting of the long acquainted.
'Salaam sister,' Yaqoob said to a large woman. 'How are you?'
'Suffering, brother,' the woman said airily. 'Like a woman...salaam.'
'You are sick?' Yaqoob politely asked, but being familiar with the theme, he knew what the trouble was.
'I'm sorry to hear that, sister,' Mousa added, but the energy that the novelty gave him was evident in his loud voice which made his commiserations seem false.
Moussa had been standing behind Yaqoob and though he was taller she hadn't seen him. Now that he had spoken too she looked up at him, and then the car behind them, and a flutter of delight ran through her. She laughed and waved her own complaint away.
'It's just this execrable heat, brother,' she answered. 'No big deal.' Yaqoob quickly introduced them. 'All my life I wanted to be a man only because of the heat, since they bear it so well. The same happens to me when it's cold. If it's not mild, I suffer.'
'What does that have to do with being female?' Moussa asked, mystified.
'Sister, you saw the ship…' Yaqoob attempted to say but was prevented by someone and their hobbyhorse.
'Women are softer and more sensitive. We feel things more acutely,' she continued airily at the threshold to her house. 'God knows you don't feel the same as me when I feel the heat of day, or the cold of night. I have to modulate my pills according to the atmosphere,' she said as she whisked her dark red hijab over shoulder.
The reference to pills made Moussa stiffen. The pills he had taken seemed to him to lose their potency, and the drip pumped through his penis, horrifying him once more.
'What would she say if she felt my chafe, the sting of contraction, this constant pain,' he said to himself and looked at her with a twisted smile which she misinterpreted as amiability.
'Yes, pills are the answer,' Moussa agreed.
'My pharmacist knows me like my mother.'
'Sister. You know when you see me it's about -'
'And we seem to gain weight more easily as men too. Changes in atmosphere are a cruel cherry. If it wasn't for the pills I don't know how I could bear things.'
'I've heard that in the West pills are everywhere and used by everyone.'
'My pharmacist is offering me new pills every day, each one more numbing than the last.'
'Is that right?' Moussa asked, genuinely intrigued.
'Sister!' Yaqoob shouted, looking at Moussa askance. 'The ship is here. We're here for your help.'
'Help for what? The rice?'
'Yes. We need you to collect a bag or two for us again.'
'Oh. Someone else came to me earlier asking me to do the same.'
The woman looked carefully at Moussa and thought she recognised something in his eyes…
'She was one of the ones who collected for the competition,' Yaqoob said, as they were looking at the men, the suffering woman's sons and other relatives, loading the trucks with multiple bags of rice. 'Seems she was persuaded by you today, Moussa.'
'All of us need understanding,' Moussa said enigmatically. 'Only suffering can understand suffering.'
Once again the paternal instinct came over Yaqoob, as he looked at Moussa who to him seemed young still, despite his stylishly greying beard, but the master servant bond chained him to a place that had to be remembered and kept, so he kept it business, and disregarded the severed, writhing head of familial tie and continued where he had left off.
'But the rest...we have less per head than last week, mitigated by the woman's extra support.'
Moussa snapped out of wallow and self pity.
'Who is this business man?' he asked, levelling his eyes downwards at Yaqoob, a thin man with barely any flesh on him. An ascetic man Moussa thought with approval.
'It's someone in the Sharkmarke family. One of the younger ones.'
'A young Sharkmarke?' Moussa repeated, energised by mystery. 'Stay here until I come back. I want to know who the devil is trying to sell rice from under me,' he added, with a glance at the white sacks with the label 'UN AID. NOT TO BE SOLD,' written in black and all caps, and walked towards the centre of this fishing city to find what he was looking for.
Chapter 12
The humidity of this part of the country did not subside as the day went on, nor would rain come and the inhabitants had learned to bear it, this unnatural situation, for there was perpetual humidity without imminent rainfall. Their clothes clung to their bodies; women walked the earth with thick layers of various hues, expressing their beauty through dress, choosing sartorial expression over comfort, like in colder climates women in lesser attire expressed their beauty, and they too chose expression over comfort. In both climates, the chatter was heavy because each woman knew that she was attractive and it made them expressive in voice as in attire. Some women chose to wear burkas carrying with them designer bags of different styles and colours distinguishing one from the other, each expressing their beauty this time through their accessories. The need to express oneself will show itself one way or another despite attempts to suppress it.
A group of men passed by Moussa, walking confidently towards the coast with their sarongs tied up higher, above the knees, to free their brisk walks. They were heading towards toil and labour, and the money it promised. These men too wore sarongs of various hues, but they expressed a different aspect of human nature, that of comfort and disrepair, and Moussa threw a critiquing glance at them. All the sarongs had strands of cloth dangling around their dusty knees. Moussa stopped dead where he stood. He changed direction. He didn't come to this city very often, but he was familiar with it and knew what he was after. Moussa stopped again in front of a shop window, a glass window, the only glass window amidst buildings of near complete concrete. The shop had an open door in between the two glass windows where various sarongs could be seen. He walked in to see an interior so modern that it was breathtaking even to a worldly man who had seen things.
This was a minimalist decor with the most resplendent white, hard edges and discomfort exuding from its sparse interior. A mannequin was close by the entrance. Moussa could not resist touching the white mannequin on its torso, its naked torso, for all it had on was a sarong. Moussa looked down and was immediately arrested by the sarong's colour spectrum. It had tubular lines of turquoise with a dirty white filling. The background was crimson.
'A man of culture, sophistication, judgement,' ricocheted off the walls. A nondescript but stylish man wearing a checkered tweed jacket with a matching checkered sarong appeared, swaying, almost, around the white and narrow rectangles, knee height, which served as seats but was primarily there because it 'fit the mood.'
'Ah, but it's you, Moussa. I didn't recognize you.' His high voice was that of an irredeemable sycophant, the most perfect of salesmen. 'Not immediately.'
'Moustafa,' Moussa said to him coolly. 'How long has this been here?'
'A total of four hours,' Moustafa answered nearly instantly. 'Catching dust.'
'Lies.'
'It was not there four hours and one minute before,' Moustafa protested. 'God take me now if I lie!'
'How long have you been open today?'
Moustafa relaxed and laughed. This was a charade and both knew it.
'All I want to know is if anyone else has this.'
'No one, brother.'
'I want it,' Moussa said, not believing him, but caring less for he knew the price would limit the people who had it. He then noticed a glass box. He approached it tentatively but greedily like one approaches a shining jewel. Moussa's eyes widened.
'Yes,' he mumbled. 'This will solve the immediate problem.'
He tapped the glass box.
'Ahh. You've noticed it, and are attracted by it. A man of culture, sophistication, ambitious…'
'Maybe it's not the right size,' Moussa mused to himself as he walked for the first time in his life with underwear, Calvin Klein briefs to be precise, under his new and striking sarong. 'No matter. I have to be strapped up in any case. But they are tight nonetheless, like a muzzle. Is that how it was supposed to be?' He walked like his two ankles were chained together, awkwardly, unnaturally. The briefs clung to his buttocks, colouring his face with embarrassment. It felt like someone's hands were on him. 'No one knows, so why does it matter…'
This fishing city was a quaint mixture of modernity and tradition. Just as it had a fashionable store replete with glass and expensive interior designs, it had little metal shacks, like those of Moussa's village, that served as tea shops or rather, the gentleman's clubs of Somalia.
There were several of these Somali gentleman's clubs in close proximity and all were of a similar structure. Metal sheds with a curtain for a door. What distinguished them were the curtains that each of the clubs had. Moussa strode towards the silver curtain and entered.
Inside of the metal shack were three people chewing khat, sitting on dark mats with a thermos in the middle. All three looked up surprised at the unfamiliar figure looking down on them whom no one expected. One of them scooted over unnecessarily, when there was plenty of space around, to indicate to Moussa that he was welcome. Moussa accepted the invitation. Moussa knew that this would happen for several reasons.
One was through appearance. He looked like he was a superior man, a man of culture as Moustafa referred to him, and men of culture are allowed anywhere, invited everywhere.
Two was through figure. His was an imposing one that screamed status and wealth, a regal bearing. These people are also allowed anywhere, invited everywhere, no matter the setting or occasion.
Thirdly, he had used something that never failed, something like the casting of a spell. He had used religious greeting, a foolproof way to ingratiate oneself somewhere uninvited and attain the status of a guest even if you were not known personally or not wanted socially. This was the key to any social circle or gentleman's club for a man like Moussa, and he took full advantage of the rules of hospitality.
The three people inside the club were all slim and evidently related. Two of them were above middle age and had a moustache, trimmed and proper. The other was younger, with his big eyes indicating that he was too young for a beard like his uncles.
'Thank you. I am son of Abdi Karim, from B. Moussa is my name. I was told that the Sharkmarke's club was the most hospitable, and am glad to see it true.'
'Muslims are always welcome among other Muslims,' young Sharkmarke said, his glowing eyes telling Moussa that he was recognised.
The Sharkmarkes introduced themselves. The twins were called Hamza and Mohamed. Young Sharkmarke was called Xaashi.
'Tea?' Xaashi asked, and before Moussa answered poured tea into his own cup and passed it to him.
'Thank you -'
'What did you say? Son of Abdi Karim?' Mohamed asked. His voice was higher pitched than his flat, stout look suggested. 'The business man.'
'Only when I'm in this city,' Moussa answered, flattered that he was known.
'Your father was a businessman too,' the same man responded. 'His business used to be chickens.'
'Oh, yes!' his twin exclaimed. 'The chickens!'
'Chickens? Chickens how?' Moussa asked, perplexed. 'I don't remember any chickens.'
'You don't remember because you weren't born yet. He came here with chickens one day, white and brown ones, and was selling them. Whoever wanted a chicken bought one, and he had plenty. I don't know where he got them from though, and really, missed a trick if you asked me. He put himself out of business as soon as he made it. Now there are others who sell chicken meat and eggs when he could have have been the only one who did that. I can't wrap my head around it.'
'Chickens ?' Moussa said in disbelief. 'I never knew he did...and he let...' He let out his laugh, this time less maniacal than before because he was laughing at others, their situations rather than at his own. It still had the sound of a harsh and savage bark.
'No wonder I never heard of it. He must have been young when he did that. A young fool.'
'Yes, he was,' said Mohamed with a polite smile. 'He was only a little bit older than me at the time but still young. Those brown chickens were the wildest sight I had seen at the time.'
'Nothing was wilder than him selling them rather than monopolising them,' Moussa spat out. 'I didn't know that he was the one who brought chickens here.'
'He had his chickens and his son has his rice,' Xaashi said, staring at Moussa intently. 'Is that what brought you here today, brother?'
Moussa felt the drip coming out of his penis that was folded against the Calvin Klein briefs, and a swish went through him at the sensation of liquid flowing out of his penis. He smiled with delicious glee that the briefs would catch his discharge and that no trace of his ailment would be left for anyone to see. He was strapped up! And strapped up tight!
'A daytrip. I wanted to see what my lads get up to in this fishing city,' Moussa answered and then added directly: 'Are you my new competition?'
'No,' Xaashi said, his voice breaking with emotion. 'I don't compete with Somalis, never.'
Moussa became motionless.
'What did you say?'
'I said that I don't compete with Somalis.'
Moussa realised what made this boy's eyes glow and his voice tremble. These were the manifestations of conviction and Moussa's jaw dropped. He babbled out:
'Then what are you doing, if not competing? You're not looking for money?'
Not only was there a glow in his eyes but a sharpness too, imparted to them by the stimulant the khat.
'Have you had trouble recruiting the same number you usually have?' Xaashi asked with a hint of a smile. 'Those who collect the rice for you?'
'It's been stymied somewhat...people are returning....'
'How ?'
'Through understanding.'
'Understanding ?' Xaashi repeated softly.
'With something that connects us.' Moussa didn't breathe the word suffering because he didn't want them to think he was suffering but pursued the topic. 'Like the connection you have with your family. You're related to the ones who have refused to serve me?'
'We are all family. All Somalis are family.'
Moussa now felt discomfort. 'A zealot,' he thought to himself. 'I am competing with a zealot.'
'True -'
'Why do you want to make your family pay for rice?'
'Make my family…' sputtered Moussa choking on the words.
'Pay for rice,' finished Xaashi.
'I'm not making anyone pay for anything. But I'm definitely paying people for the work they do! What! Would you rather have Somalis be beggars and accept bags of rice for free like we are not decent people?' Moussa said almost maliciously. 'Are we not decent people?'
'Let them use the money for different things. Something that's given to us for free shouldn't be exploited. Please drink your tea, uncle.'
'Thank you,' Moussa muttered, and sipped the tea. The appellation of uncle brought him to his rightful state. He determined that he had no business arguing with someone from a subsequent generation. 'Is this a family enterprise?' he asked Mohamed, pushing his chest out for authority, dismissing the young man whom he was sitting next to.
'All enterprises in Somalia are family enterprises,' Xaashi answered instead, softly. 'We are connected through Somalinimo.'
Moussa's face twitched but didn't turn back to the young man.
'You could say that it is a family business,' Mohamed said benignly, pleasantly. 'A family endeavour. But this was Xaashi's idea,' he finished with a note of regret as the person losing out was his interlocutor. 'He can be persuasive.'
'Why should the Americans profit from this so-called generosity, debasing us with handouts? If anything a Somali like me should profit from it, since this rice dump harms Somali people more than anything, especially the Somali farmers that cultivate rice and other things. They tried to destroy them by giving out free rice. I'm helping them, if anything, by putting a price on it.'
Both elderly relatives glanced at their younger relative who had his eyes fixed on Moussa and then turned away, the conviction in his eyes flickering as if it was on the cusp of extinguishing.
When Moussa was on his way back to the village, elsewhere, Xaashi's eyes expressed a different glow than before, a brighter feverish glow, as he looked at the fire that burned before him. He had lit on fire all of the bags of rice he had collected and his eyes looked like they themselves had sparked it, such was the glow of conviction within them and the fire that emanated from the shining orbs of light.
Chapter 13
Aaden anxiously tried to find the same pain his father was feeling as he made water, but found it painless and bland, liquid and clear, a stream as regular as the system that had made it. He was pissing like normal and it dismayed him and depressed him. 'This is taking forever,' he lamented in a frown, contracting his penis muscles to find a sharp pain that would not come. 'How long has this been now? How many times?' He was standing in front of the manhole at his school wondering if Mayloun had been cured. Furious he pushed his normal dick back into his trousers and walked out of the toilet into the school hallways.
Aaden frequented an elite, all boys school for the wealthiest of families of his village. The fees for this school were three times what they were for the other two schools in the village, with this school specialising in languages. This school had two marks of distinction. One was the uniform, distinguished mainly by the purple blazers the students wore. The second was the fact that in this school entire classes were taught either in English or Arabic, depending on the mood of the teachers.
Aaden was on his way to biology class with a teacher who had a penchant for aristocratic English, and so Aaden knew that the class would likely be taught in a language he hated. He didn't know why it was so hard to learn the language compared to Arabic, which seemed sensible and familiar to him. English was nothing but confusion and nonsense in his mind. He remembered when he had first learned Arabic and figured himself a linguistic genius. And then English came along and his initial confidence was shattered in the first weeks of learning. Now when he was in class and it was taught in English he paid it no attention and thought about other things.
This day he thought of the disease he was pursuing, talking, deliberating with himself as the teacher was talking to the class. His foreign, incomprehensible words washed over him as he thought of the nature of well being. 'Why do you only get sick when you don't want to be, but when you want to be sick disease stays away from you... ' Aaden then turned to the teacher as a thought struck him. The teacher, a man in his thirties with animal teeth in his human mouth, was a biology teacher. In Aaden's mind he must know how the body functions, how one day one catches a disease from one source, and then this person can't seem to catch it again from the same source. He wanted to know how to circumvent it. But before Aaden asked, he stopped himself, knowing the answer would come in English, and he would not be any wiser for it. Vexed, and annoyed at being in a classroom with a teacher he couldn't understand when he had questions to ask he seethed until the end of class; seethed outside as school was dismissed; seethed as someone asked if he wanted a cigarette. Suddenly his heart leapt for joy.
'Sure do!' he said, and then ran in the opposite direction.
'This is a question of sources,' he said to himself. 'If I can't find what I want at one source, I'll look for it at another source. Mayloun wasn't the main source. She was just one of many. And I know where I can find a fount of illness.'
He reached home, dropped his blazer, grabbed some cash that he had for emergencies, and left the house again. Walking along the swelling, unnatural river he slowed his pace and steadied his breath, a smile omnipresent on his face. He had to be calm for this, though this would be the first time he had done it. Aaden couldn't believe he never thought about doing this before. In his mind, he should have done this from the jump. 'There is no better way,' he thought joyfully. He went inside a dark hole that constituted an entrance to a store of wares.
Inside the shop he found a solitary girl sitting on a sack of charcoal behind a desk. Laila fixed her eyes with the clearest of white pools on Aaden. Aaden replied back with a smile.
Later that day he got what he was looking for. He felt the sting of sexual disease in his penis as he pissed and he congratulated himself like he had accomplished a tricky caper, or solved a considerable problem which had flummoxed him for some time. He thought that he gotten it from Laila, whom he considered the fount of illness, but he didn't know about things like incubation periods, making it impossible for Laila to have infected him so soon after they had sex. Maybe if the biology teacher spoke in Somali things might have been different.
