Crossbones (15 page)

“And coffee, if possible,” Fidno says.

“Make it two coffees. Mine espresso,” says Ahl.

Fidno says, “Make mine
lungo
, with lots of sugar.”

The waiter gone, Ahl asks again, “In what capacity?”

Fidno responds, “I’ve had the photographs taken in my capacity as a mediator, a negotiator, an interpreter, and, most important, a go-between, when matters get too sticky between the pirates and the negotiators on behalf of the shipowners.”

Ahl asks, “With whom do the negotiators deal?”

“They use intermediaries,” Fidno replies, “often through middlemen based in Mombasa or Abu Dhabi.”

“So they don’t come to Puntland, and prefer assigning intermediaries to negotiate on their behalf?”

Fidno says, “They remain at their desks in London, Tokyo, or Moscow, wherever they are normally based. One of my jobs is to iron out unexpected difficulties when things get sticky, which they do a lot of the time. Each of these men—insurers, middlemen, facilitators—gets his cut, depending on his rank and his importance in the company hierarchy, without any direct contact with us.”

“Too many people, too much money, and no direct communication—isn’t that a recipe for possible disaster?” Ahl ventures.

Fidno says, “It is a recipe for deceit, double-dealing, and counterfeiting. And we are the marquee pawns of the greatest dupe. We’re
cheated, and yet there is no way we can prove any of this to the world, because they have the backing of the international media and we do not.”

“Wait, wait. What are you saying?”

“Let’s imagine you reading in your newspaper, wherever you are, that the owners of a ship hijacked by Somali pirates have paid five million dollars as ransom,” Fidno proposes.

“Let’s imagine I do.”

Fidno says, “What if I told you that, to begin with, the largest bulk of the five million does not leave London, where the insurers are based, because no bank in Britain will countenance approving of so much money going out of its vaults to pay off a ransom?”

“That makes sense,” Ahl concurs.

“What if I told you that in the end, after months of negotiations, proposals and counterproposals, broken agreements and delays, only half a million of the five million dollars will reach the pirates. First the negotiators of the insurers based in London, the middleman based in Abu Dhabi, and the intermediaries in Mombasa have each taken their huge cuts, so that the final payment is reduced to a pittance from which the funder financing the hijacking still has to pay the pirates holding the ship. You know the Somali proverb
‘Mana wasni, warna iraac,’
said to have been spoken by a woman suspected of having enjoyed lovemaking, when the man never even touched her. We’re buggered, however you want to put it, and needless to say, we don’t enjoy it at all.”

“That’s hairy,” Ahl says.

“This utter disrespect makes us indignant.”

Ahl says, “That
is
criminal.”

Now Fidno is nervous, like a Mafioso not used to explaining the reason for his actions. In a telltale sign of confession, he leans forward, as though sharing a secret, and then changes his mind after policing
the surroundings and seeing the waiter returning with the bill and the two coffees. Ahl settles the bill in U.S. dollars. Then they resume their conversation.

“What’s your precise role in this business?”

Fidno replies, “Among the pirates, I am all things to almost every one of them. I am a link, a connector, an in-between man, an extinguisher of fires when fires need extinguishing. I am all things to the shipowners, the London men at their desks, bowler hats or not. I deal with insurance and safety matters with the captain, the crew, the ship, and the cargo, when held. I am all things to the men at the Suez Canal and many other men stationed at different ports in different countries, men privy to the secret details involved in the movements of the ships, the nature of cargo, whether legal or illegal, whether the cargo is chemical waste and who is carrying it and where it is to be dumped. I log in the departure details and the ships’ destinations, too.”

Ahl says, “You are something, aren’t you?”

Fidno continues, “Sea banditry is a very risky business. It can get you killed easily in these lanes. You can make pots of wealth, depending on how you play the game. Questions to do with who gets to collect the ransom when the young Somalis hold a ship; who gets to receive the funds; who gets his due cut; who gets paid and who gets swindled. These pirates are not like the pirates of old, who got to keep a portion of their booty and share the loot among themselves—democratically! I am not in fact sure you can call the Somalis pirates.”

Ahl wants to ask why not, but before he can say anything, Warsame is at their table, greeting Ahl and looking from him to Fidno. Fidno scrambles to his feet, almost knocking over his chair and coffee cup. Ahl introduces them.

Then Ahl asks, “Why don’t you come with us?”

“Depends on where you are going.”

Ahl turns to Warsame, “Can he?”

“Of course.”

Fidno asks, “But where are we going?”

“To my home,” Warsame says.

“Come along,” Ahl urges Fidno.

They follow Warsame to the car. When Ahl tries to put the photographs in the pocket of his computer bag, Fidno extends his hand and, grinning, reclaims them from him. Then he walks over to his jalopy, parked across from Warsame’s vehicle, to put them in his glove compartment.

Ahl thinks it will be easier to find out more about Fidno in the company of others. He tells himself that a liar seldom knows how to repeat his lies.

JEEBLEH STIRS AND, A LITTLE DAZED, PROPS HIMSELF UP ON HIS
elbows, eyes still shut; he is wearing an airline eye-mask against the intense brightness of the hour. His head is aflutter with memories calling, the past revisiting in the shape of a monster, Bile’s older brother Caloosha, a bully unlike any other; and the present raising its war-filled head, in the likeness of BigBeard, hirsute and ugly to the core, messaging vicious viruses, deleting files and baby photographs. Malik is in the other room, which once belonged to Makka and Raasta. As a rank rememberer, Jeebleh recalls his confrontation with Caloosha, which he compares with his vile encounter with BigBeard. This has left him traumatized, like an amputee suffering anew the agony of dismemberment.

Startled by a sudden clamor, source undetermined—the harshness of the noise suggests metal coming into unexpected collision with glass, breaking it—Jeebleh sits up, waits, and listens to the discordant sounds now banking up behind identifiable activities. He picks out what sounds like the wings of a bird flapping. All the same, the disjointed
noises raise his sense of worry, almost to the point of fear, and he prepares himself for the worst. What can he do if an intruder tries to enter the apartment from the balcony?

He gets out of bed, ready to confront the trespasser and try to protect himself and Malik from harm. But he is unclear how he is going to achieve this. As he steps out of the room, wielding a broom—how ridiculous he must look, he tells himself—he is of two minds whether to activate the emergency procedure Dajaal instructed him in. But no sooner has he gained the inner security door leading to the balcony than he isolates the sound. It is the agitated squeak of a young bird in a flutter, flapping its wings—a medium-sized black-shouldered kite in mounting distress, caught in a small enclosure, struggling, now lifting its tail, now lowering it with animated vigor. Maybe the bird has erroneously flown in under the eaves, or through a chink in the window frame above the alcove to the left of the balcony.

Aware that his footsteps are heightening the bird’s anxiety, Jeebleh approaches. Little by little, with consummate care, his tread soft and his forward motion purposeful, hands behind his back. He stops and sighs at length when he reaches the limits of the enclosure and then releases the catch, allowing the bird to fly free. Then he returns to the living room.

One reminiscence brings forth another, now replacing it, now supplementing it. He relives a confrontation in a hotel room in Mogadiscio, prostrate and in an eyeball-to-eyeball face-off with a chameleon, the reptile fearlessly making its way from the balcony into the room. The memory leaves him jittery, with anger welling up inside him. He paces back and forth, determined to shake off his rage. Again an ominous memory linked to Caloosha invades. Jeebleh thinks that there is undeniable
similarity between Caloosha and BigBeard’s methods, which both claim are in service to higher causes; the late Caloosha asserted his socialist ideals in the same way that BigBeard takes the sanctity of Islam as his mantra, asserts it is the beacon lighting his way to divine authority. Caloosha, in the end, got what he deserved, dying a miserable death. Jeebleh wonders when BigBeard will get his comeuppance, his just desserts.

Time to make tea. Slow in movement, Jeebleh picks up the metal kettle; not bothering to remove the lid, he fills it through its spout. Then he falls under the spell of a pleasant memory, the weekend he took his granddaughter’s photograph, the one that served as Malik’s screen saver until BigBeard deemed it pornographic. Jeebleh regrets that innocence provides no protection against a BigBeard with sex on his mind. Anyhow, it was the weekend before his departure. The whole family drove out to Port Jefferson on Long Island in a rental car. On their way back to the city, they detoured, stopping on the North Shore for lunch. He recalls his granddaughter’s fascination with the beach sand, of which she took mouthfuls, in preference to the food her mother offered her.

He thinks that he should call home, and the thought brings forth another memory: of his first phone conversation with his wife, the last time he was here. A man with a portable machine bigger than a laptop came up to his room. Jeebleh could not figure out how the device worked, what the appliance was called or even how best to describe it. But it allowed him to speak to his wife, and that was what mattered then. He and Malik have so far only briefly texted their respective wives to let them know they have arrived safely, but have avoided speaking to them. Malik is worried that Amran might urge him to leave, if he tells her everything. Moreover, neither has found adequate words with which to describe BigBeard’s depraved logic. No doubt, their
guardedness has been intruding on their minds, disturbing their thinking. On the positive side, however, the two have remained at their most harmonious, and that is a great relief.

A quarter of an hour later, Malik emerges from his room, scratching with fury and cursing. The blood vessels around his eyelids have darkened; his eyes are smarting and bloodshot; his skin is torn and oozing in places.

“I itch all over,” he says.

Jeebleh humors him. “It is human to itch.”

“I dreamed I was itching and I woke up itching.”

“Let’s see.” Jeebleh sees no bites or scratches.

Malik says, “I had a rash of dreams, a nightmare of allergies. In my dream, I broke out in eruptions, felt violated, intruded upon, invaded; the more the dreams infringed on my mind, the fiercer I scratched.”

“An allergic reaction to food you’ve eaten?”

“I doubt it.”

“Maybe bedbugs?”

“I turned on the lights and found nothing.”

“Bedbugs strike furtively and hide.”

“I upended the bed,” Malik says. “No bugs.”

Silent, Malik looks away, embarrassed. He touches his arm for bumps, sores, and swellings resulting from bites, but finds little that he can show to Jeebleh as one might show a trophy. He shakes his head in amazement.

“Can it be that Gumaad put it into your head?” Jeebleh asks.

“How is that?”

“Because Gumaad explained the derogatory term
Injirray
, which Somalis reserve for the Ethiopians. Maybe that is where your obsession with itching springs from.”

Malik asks, “Why do Somalis allude to lice, when it comes to Ethiopia?”

Jeebleh tells him, “You see, the only Ethiopians that Somalis have met in large numbers are the ill-paid, ill-clad barefoot soldiers in the outposts of the Empire, extending down to Somali-speaking Ogaden. Unwashed and wearing the same uniforms for weeks on end, they itched and scratched. Ancient contacts between Somalis and Abyssinians shaped the terms each had for the other. ‘Lice’ defines the Abyssinian/Ethiopian foot soldiers in these outposts, the insect with which Somalis have associated these unwashed, ill-paid soldiers. For their part, the Amhara ethnic group refer to Somalis as ‘ass washers,’ or ‘skirt wearers,’ denigrating descriptors for Muslims who perform ablutions before their prayers, or who, like women, wear skirts. Nothing new in this. After all, the English call the French ‘frogs,’ don’t they? No wonder then that you’ve dreamed of armies of lice invading.”