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He took his time showering, then tried to make the mobile phone work. Being inexperienced, he pressed buttons at random and inaccurately, and got cut off or reached busy signals or wrong numbers. Just when he thought he had succeeded, Bile's number was off his screen.

He felt it was time for his Yemeni coffee. Downstairs, he asked a runner to get him a pot of coffee and to prepare several pots of tea, milk, lots and lots of biscuits, and half a kilo of sugar, and to bring these to his table. When the runner returned, he told a bellboy to show the clan elders in.

 

 

THE MEN FORMED A LINE AND GREETED JEEBLEH ONE AT A TIME, EACH OF them respectfully taking his hand in both of theirs. Then they sat down at a table, three to the right of him, six to his left, he at the head. Before anyone uttered a word beyond the greetings, Jeebleh pointed to the nine teapots, one for each of them, the biscuits still wrapped, and the bowls filled to the brim with sugar. He suggested they help themselves.

They got down to the business of pouring out their tea with the clumsiness of four-year-olds. And even though their cups were full, they poured milk, then added several spoonfuls of sugar, so that the tea spilled over the sides. They did this with such devotion you might have thought they would depart as soon as each had attended to his sweet tooth. The table was soon as messy as a toddler's birthday party would have made it. The crackling of biscuit wrappings mixed with the loud chorus of tea slurping. A host of flies arrived to feast on the sugary surfaces of cups and saucers.

The first elder to speak had biscuit crumbs on his chin and a bit of sugar on his cheek. He was of small build and looked healthy for his age. He explained that he and several other elders had come previously to greet and welcome Jeebleh, but they were informed that he had gone out. “Now we're very pleased to return with a different lot of elders who've shown interest in meeting our son, and to welcome him back into the bosom of his immediate clan.” The old man requested that each of the other elders speak, but confine their remarks to a few words, because, he said, “your son is a very busy man and doesn't have a lot of time to waste.” After they had done so, he invited each of them to recite from the Koran, in praise of Allah, who had brought their son back from “his worldly wanderings.” Their lips astir and their voices low, each man mouthed a few verses.

Jeebleh bowed to each of them in turn, greeting them with a ritual nod, but said nothing. Then he poured himself more coffee and sipped at it leisurely. One of the men passed him the sugar bowl. He nodded his thanks as he took the proffered bowl, and watched the consternation on the men's faces as he put it aside without helping himself. Why was he drinking his coffee bitter, with so much sweetness available?

The spokesman of the elders now discussed Jeebleh's importance and the positive, commendable role he could play in the politics of the clan. Jeebleh lapsed into a private mood, a man in his own space. He did his utmost not to display unease at the thought of privileging blood over ideology. The idea of nine self-appointed clansmen making a claim on him was anathema. Of course, he meant not to anger them unnecessarily. But he changed his mind when the spokesman alluded to his mother without mentioning his father. “As it happens, we're from your mother's side of the
bah
!”

By invoking his mother's name, not his father's, the men from his mother's subclan were explicitly distancing themselves from his father, the gambler. The elders failed to mention that they had blamed his mother for her husband's wild ways, accusing her of driving him first to gambling and then to the bottle, when this wasn't the case, according to his mother's version. Some of these very men may have been present when family members had resolved to deny her a hearing—one of them was for sure, the especially ancien-looking sort with the thick glasses, whom Jeebleh thought of as FourEyes. So where was the clan when Jeebleh's mother sang her sorrow, a single mother raising him, and later a widow isolated from the subclan? Where were these men then? The first time a member of his subclan ever visited him was when he returned from Italy, with a university degree. When he incurred the Dictator's wrath and for his pains was thrown into prison and sentenced to death, they had all deserted him, hadn't they? He knew that clan elders were self-serving men, high on selective memory and devoid of dignity.

“I am insulted by the way you've formulated my identity,” Jeebleh said. “Why do I feel I am being insulted? Why do you continue referring to me as the son of my mother without ever bothering to mention my father by name? Don't I have a father? Am I illegitimate? We know what he was like and what kind of man he was, but still, he was my father and I bear his name, not my mother's! How dare you address me in a way that questions my being the legitimate son of my own father?”

The gathering was thrown into a state of noisy confusion, as all the elders tried to assure him that they did not mean to insult him, or to offend his parents' memories. He was elated that their cynical ploy had worked to his advantage, remembering how, earlier, he had restrained himself from losing his temper with Caloosha. The elders were now too shocked to speak. He had them where he wanted them.

“Why have you come, then?” he asked the bespectacled man to his right, and not the spokesman, farther to his left, who, rendered speechless, covered his mouth with his hand. The men's evasive looks now converged on the face of the spokesman. He removed his hand from his mouth and shook his head regretfully: he was not going to speak, either on his own behalf or on anyone else's.

There was vigor in his voice when FourEyes now spoke. He came to the point: “Unlike other
bah
s of the clan, ours hasn't been able to raise a strong fighting militia. We do not have sufficient funds to take our rightful place among the subclans equal in number to or even smaller than ours. We've come to appeal to you for money so we may repair our only two battlewagons.”

Jeebleh addressed himself to the gathering: “I'm busy with other concerns, and as you can imagine, I've not brought along with me more cash than I need for my daily expenses. So I suggest you wait until I return home and consult my wife and daughters, and I'll come back to you with my response.”

There was absolute silence as the meaning of Jeebleh's words registered with the elders. Then, as if on cue, the mobile phone on Jeebleh's lap squealed. He answered it and told the gathering, “This is an important call, and I must take it in private. Please forgive me.” And he walked away.

“Are we to wait for you?” FourEyes called after him.

“You needn't,” Jeebleh answered. “I'll be in touch!”

The men argued among themselves, some suggesting that they should wait, others insisting that the earlier command to wait had been addressed to the caller. When he walked farther away, and they heard him ask one of the runners to show them out, they said in a chorus, “This is an insult!”

Jeebleh waved to them from the reception area, and shouted: “Go well!” And before they had a chance to say anything, he himself was gone.

 

 

AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER, JEEBLEH SAT IN THE HOTEL COURTYARD AND took note, with alarm, of three gunmen walking past the sentry at the gate without being stopped. The hotel runners entertained the three with friendly banter. Even so, Jeebleh was very conscious of the mood palpably changing. And when he called to one of the runners, asking what the gunmen were doing on the grounds of the hotel, the youth just made “Search me” gestures. The sun was burning hot, the sand seemed agitated, and the air unhealthy.

Jeebleh's wandering gaze fell on a boy in a fancy cowboy hat and jeans, ruthlessly hitting an Alsatian with a stick. He turned to the young man at the next table and asked why the gun-carrying militiamen had been allowed in, and why no one was stopping the boy from abusing the dog. “Maybe the gunmen are the boy's bodyguards?” the young man mused.

“Who does the Alsatian belong to?”

“I don't know.”

The pregnant dog was writhing in agony, and actively giving birth. There was something odd about the clothes of the boy, and something odder still about a pure-bred Alsatian in today's Mogadiscio. From another table, Jeebleh overheard a likely explanation: that the dog had once belonged to an Englishman, formerly of the BBC African Service, who had been seconded to the city by UNOSOM. But why had he abandoned his pampered pet to fend for herself, knowing she might fall prey to packs of bush dogs more feral than even the fiercest Alsatian? Or be beaten to death by Somalis not given to being friendly when it came to dogs? What madness could have compelled him to leave her behind?

Jeebleh remembered how, when he was small, he had tried to stop Caloosha and his friends from molesting a dog. He had been beaten harshly himself for his impudence. (Many years later, he learned that one of the boys had met the fate he deserved: he died from rabies.)

Jeebleh took courage, and found his tongue. He shouted, warning the boy to stop abusing the dog or he would deal with him. At the sound of the raised voice, the guns of the militiamen were trained on him.

He stood up and stormed over to the boy and took him by the scruff of his pampered neck. The boy was so shaken that he choked on his scream, issuing none audibly. “If this spoiled brat disturbs this dog again,” Jeebleh shouted, so everybody could hear, “I'll become violent and punish him.” The dog looked terribly frightened, and Jeebleh, for his part, felt overwhelmed. But when he snatched the stick from the boy, the dog began to relax. Jeebleh said, “When you hurt the dog, I hurt.”

Now the Alsatian came closer to Jeebleh, and finding her tongue, favored his extended hand with a lick. Jeebleh crouched by the dog, touching her coarse coat, stroking her gently. This provoked a ripple of disapproval across the crowd that had now gathered to watch. Whatever they might think, Jeebleh and the dog looked at each other for a long while, and he discovered her intelligence in the steady confidence in her eyes. Then the dog, racked with birth pangs, went even closer to Jeebleh, who encouraged her to keep pushing. Someone in the crowd commented favorably on his kind gesture: showing mercy to a dog in labor. Someone else said that what he had done was un-Islamic; as a Muslim, he was supposed to avoid coming into physical contact with dogs.

When Jeebleh next looked around, the armed youths were no longer aiming their guns at him. As a matter of fact, they weren't even there. Perhaps they had sensed that their threatening posture was not acceptable anymore and had slunk away.

He was now in an upbeat mood, and remained close by until the dog, having given birth, bit off the umbilical cords. He admired the compact beauty of the litter: puppies full of stir, half Alsatian, half bush dog, of exquisite grace. He wished someone with a home thereabouts would keep them and look after them. He found a quiet corner for the family, and took off his jacket and covered the puppies with it.

Walking away, he felt good, proud of what he had done, despite the shock on people's faces. As he moved toward them, a path opened before him, many shunning him because they did not wish to make any physical contact with a man who had touched and been licked by a dog. Customarily, Somalis who came into contact with dogs would cleanse themselves ritually, in obedience to the Islamic code of self-purification. He did not care a sick dog's snuffle if anyone now shunned bodily contact with him.

As he walked past one knot of bystanders, he heard a whisper: “What manner of man chases away the elders of his clan, and in the same afternoon risks his life to save a bitch?”

The fact that many people had missed out on love because of the continued strife, Jeebleh thought, did not mean that one should stand by and do nothing or allow further cruelty to be meted out to animals or humans.

THE SUN SHONE BRIGHTLY, THE NOON HIGH ON ITS DIAL.

His expression sullen, Jeebleh squinted up at Af-Laawe, who towered above him where he sat. Because Af-Laawe was a friend and an associate of Caloosha's, Jeebleh didn't feel he could go to him for help, or share with him his concerns. But now that he was friendless and felt ostracized by the hotel staff—not so much for his kindness to the Alsatian as for his rude sendoff of the clan elders—he was wondering whether to seek out Af-Laawe, obviously a man with a murky history. Maybe things would work out well in the end. As he rose to take Af-Laawe's hand, Jeebleh proposed a walk in the neighborhood.

“A walk and a talk will do you good,” Af-Laawe agreed.

Conscious of the hostility directed at him from all around, Jeebleh noted that even Bucktooth, the friendliest of the sentries, who had welcomed him with enthusiasm earlier, averted his visibly disturbed gaze. To make a point, though, he greeted Af-Laawe by name. There were rough edges to things, and Jeebleh was more aware of them because of the dirty politics of the place, and this was weighing down on his mind.

He who alienates his clan family is dead, he thought, as he followed Af-Laawe out of his hotel grounds into the derelict streets lined with vandalized buildings. Parting with his clansmen, leaving the hotel—these were as easily done as throwing out a rotten banana when you were well fed. Besides, it was just as well that it had happened the way it did. A confrontation between him and the clan elders over his political loyalties was bound to happen sooner or later, and he was relieved that it had occurred when it had—a few days into his visit. He would move out of the hotel at the first opportunity, and take up Bile's offer to share the apartment with him for a few days. He had a lot to do: locate his mother's housekeeper, and make sure that his mother had found peace, that her soul was laid to rest; give a hand in recovering Raasta and her companion from their captors; and recruit Dajaal to exact vengeance on Caloosha.