Desert Flower (12 page)

This was the first time I ever saw a white person. A white man sitting next to me said, “This is not your seat.” At least I assume that’s what he said, since I spoke not one word of English. Staring at him in panic, I thought, Oh, Lord. What is this man saying to me? And why does he look like that? He repeated his statement, and I repeated my panic. But then, thank God, the flight attendant came and took the ticket from my hand. Obviously, this woman knew that I was completely clueless. She took my arm and led me down the aisle to my seat which was certainly not in first class, where I’d originally deposited myself. As I passed, each face turned to stare at me. The attendant smiled and pointed to my seat. I flopped down, grateful to be out of view; with a goofy grin, I jerked my head at her by way of saying thanks.

Shortly after takeoff, the same flight attendant returned with a basket of sweets, which she held out to me with a smile. I took one hand and picked up the fold of my dress to make a pouch, as if I were gathering fruit, and with the other, grabbed a huge handful of candy. I was famished, so I planned to load up. Who knew when I’d see any more food? As my hand came back for a second swipe, the attendant tried to move the candy out of my reach. I stretched, grabbing at the basket as she moved it farther and farther away. Her face said, “Oh, my. What am I going to do with this one?”

While I unwrapped and devoured my candy, I examined the white people around me. They looked cold and sickly to me. “You need sun,” I would have said to them if I had known English; I assumed this problem was a temporary condition. They couldn’t always look like that, could they? These people must have turned white because they’d been out of the sun too long. Then I decided I wanted to touch one of them the first chance I got, because maybe the white would rub off. Perhaps underneath they were really black.

After about nine or ten hours on the plane, I was desperate to pee. I was absolutely bursting, but I had no idea where to go. I thought, come

on, Waris, you can figure this out. So I watched closely how all the people sitting around me got up and went to this one door. This must be it, I reasoned. I got up, and went to the door just as someone else was coming out. Once inside, I closed the door, and looked around. This has to be the right place, but where’s the right spot? I looked at the sink, but disregarded it. I examined the seat, sniffed, and decided this was the right spot for my business. Happily, I sat down and phew! I was greatly relieved until I stood up and realized that my pee-pee was just sitting there. Now what do I do? I didn’t want to leave it there for the next person to come in and see it. But how do I get it out of there? I couldn’t speak English or read so the word Flush printed over the button meant nothing to me. And even if I’d understood the word, I’d never seen a flush toilet in my life. Studying every lever, knob, and screw in the room, I wondered if this one was the right one to make my urine disappear. Time after time, I returned to the flush button, as it seemed the obvious choice. But I was afraid if I pushed it, the plane would blow up. In Mogadishu, I’d heard of such things happening. With the constant political fighting there, people talked of bombs and

explosions, blowing up this and blowing up that. Maybe if I pressed this button, the whole plane would explode and we’d all die. Maybe that’s what this button said; it warned: DO NOT PRESS! WILL BLOW UP PLANE. Best not to chance it over a little pee-pee, I decided. Still, I didn’t want to leave the traces of my business for others to find. And I knew they’d know exactly who left it, because by now, they were all outside pounding on the door.

In a flash of inspiration I grabbed up a used paper cup and filled it from the drizzling faucet. I poured this into the toilet, reasoning if I diluted the urine enough, the next person in would think this bowl was simply full of water. Steadily I set to work, filling the cup and pouring, filling the cup and pouring. By now, people were not only pounding on the door, they were shouting, too. And I couldn’t even answer them with “Just a minute…” So, in silence, I kept working at my plan, filling up the soggy cup from the dripping faucet, and pouring it into the toilet bowl. I stopped when the water level was right under the rim of the seat; I knew if I added another drop, it was going to pour out onto the floor. But at least the contents looked like ordinary water, so I stood up, smoothed down my dress, and opened the

door. Looking down, I pushed past the throng gathered outside, grateful that at least I hadn’t poopooed.

When we landed at Heathrow, my fear at coping with the strange country was outweighed by my relief to get off that plane. At least Auntie would be there to greet me, and I was thankful for that. As the plane descended, the sky outside the window changed from foamy white clouds to a gray blur. When the other passengers stood up, I stood up, and let myself be swept along in the tide of bodies exiting the plane, with no idea of where to go, what to do. The crowd pushed forward until we reached a set of stairs. There was only one problem: the stairs were moving. I stopped cold, watching them. The sea of people parted around me, and I watched them smoothly step on the moving stairs and rise to the top. Mimicking them, I stepped forward too, and boarded the escalator. But one of my new sandals slipped off and stayed on the floor. “My shoe! My shoe!” I cried in Somali and rushed back to retrieve it. But the mob packed on behind me wouldn’t let me pass.

When we got off the escalator, I limped along with the crowd, wearing only one sandal. Next we

reached customs. I looked at the white men in their very proper British uniforms only I had no idea who these people were. A customs official spoke to me in English, and seizing my chance for assistance, I gestured back toward the escalator, shouting in Somali, “My shoe! My shoe!”

He glared at me steadily with a bored, long-suffering expression, and repeated his question. I giggled nervously, temporarily forgetting my shoe. The official pointed at my passport, and I handed it to him. After examining it closely, he stamped it and waved me through.

Outside customs, a man in a chauffeur’s uniform walked up to me and asked .in Somali, “Are you here to work for Mr. Farah?”

I was so relieved to find someone who could speak my language, I cried ecstatically, “Yes! Yes! That’s me, I’m Waris.” The driver started to lead me away, but I stopped him. “My shoe, we have to go downstairs and get my shoe.”

“Your shoe?”

“Yes, yes, it’s back there.”

“Where is it?”

“It’s at the bottom of those moving stairs.” I pointed in the opposite direction. “I lost it when I got on.” He looked down at my one sandaled foot and one bare foot.

Luckily, the driver also spoke English, so he got permission for us to re-enter the gate and fetch my missing sandal. But when we reached the point where I’d left my shoe, there was no sign of it. I couldn’t believe my bad luck. I took off my other sandal and carried it in my hand, scanning the floor as we came back upstairs. But now I had to go through customs all over again. This time the same official got to ask me the questions he’d wanted to ask the first time around, by using the chauffeur to translate.

“How long are you staying?” the customs man asked me. I shrugged. “Where are you going?”

“To live with my uncle, the ambassador,” I said proudly.

“Your passport says you’re eighteen; is that correct ?”

“Huh? I am not eighteen!” I protested to the driver. He translated to the customs man.

“Do you have anything to declare?” This question I didn’t understand.

The driver explained, “What are you bringing with you into the country?” I held up my one sandal. The customs official stared at my shoe for a minute, then shaking his head slightly, returned my passport and flagged us through.

As the driver led me out of the crowded airport,

he explained, “Look, your passport says you’re eighteen, so that’s what I told the man. If anyone asks you, you should say you’re eighteen.”

“I am NOT eighteen,” I said angrily. “That’s old!”

“Well, how old are you?”

“I don’t know maybe fourteen but I’m not that old!”

“Look, that’s what your passport says, so that’s how old you are now.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t care what my passport says why does it say that, when I’m telling you it’s not true?”

“Because that’s what Mr. Farah told them.” “Well, he’s crazy! He doesn’t know anything!” By the time we reached the exit we were shouting and Uncle Mohammed’s chauffeur and I had developed a hearty dislike for each other.

As I walked out to the car barefoot, snow was falling on London. I put my one sandal back on and shivered, pulling my thin cotton robe around me. I had never experienced weather like this before, and had certainly never seen snow. “Oh, my

God it’s so cold here!”

“Get used to it.”

As the driver eased the car out of the airport and into the London morning traffic, I was overcome

by such a sad, lonely feeling, in this completely foreign place, with nothing but white sickly faces around me. Allah! Heaven! Mama! Where am I? At that moment I desperately wanted my mother. Even though he had the only other black face around, Uncle Mohammed’s chauffeur was no comfort to me; obviously he considered me beneath him.

While driving, he filled me in on the household I was joining: I’d be living there with my uncle and aunt, Uncle Mohammed’s mother, another uncle I hadn’t met one of my mother and Aunt Maruim’s brothers and the seven children, my cousins. After he told me who lived in the house, he informed me when I would get up, when I would go to bed, what I would be doing, what I would be cooking, where I would sleep, when I would go to bed, and how I’d fall into that bed exhausted at the end of each day.

“You know, your aunt, the mistress, runs this household with an iron fist,” he confided matter of-factly. “I warn you, she gives everybody a hard time.”

“Well, she may give you a hard time, but she’s my aunt.” After all, she’s a woman and my mother’s sister, I reasoned. I thought of how much I missed Mama, and how good Auntie Sahru and Fatima

had been to me. Even Aman had meant well, but we just couldn’t get along. The women in the family cared, and looked after each other. I leaned back against the seat, suddenly very tired after my long journey.

I squinted out the car window, trying to see where the white flakes came from. The snow was gradually turning the sidewalks white as we glided through the posh residential section of Harley Street. When we stopped in front of my uncle’s home, I stared at the house in astonishment, realizing that I was going to live in this grand place. In my limited experience in Africa, I’d never seen anything like it. The ambassador’s residence was a four-storey mansion, and it was yellow, my favorite color. We walked to the front door, an impressive entrance with a fanlight above. Inside the door, a large gilt-framed mirror reflected a solid wall of books from the library opposite.

Auntie Maruim walked into the foyer to greet me. “Auntie!” I cried.

A woman slightly younger than my mother, wearing stylish Western clothes, stood in the hall. “Come in,” she said coolly. “Close the door.” I had planned to rush to her and hug her, but something about

the way she stood there with her hands pressed together made me freeze in the doorway. “First I’d like to show you around and explain what your duties are.”

“Oh,” I said quietly, feeling the last spark of energy leave my body. “Auntie, I’m very tired. I just want to lie down. Can I please go to sleep now?”

“Well, yes. Come with me.” She walked into the living room, and as we climbed the stairs, I saw the elegant furnishings: the chandelier, white sofa covered with dozens of pillows, abstract oils hanging over the mantel, the logs crackling in the fireplace. Aunt Maruim took me into her room and told me I could sleep in her bed. The four poster was the size of my family’s entire hut and was covered with a beautiful down comforter. I ran my hand across the silky fabric, enjoying its feel. “When you wake up, I’ll show you the house.” “Are you going to wake me up?”

“No. You wake up when you wake up. Sleep as long as you like.” I climbed under the covers and thought I had never felt anything so soft and heavenly in my life. Auntie closed the door quietly, and I fell asleep as if I were falling down a tunnel - a long black tunnel.

When I opened my eyes, I thought I was still dreaming and it was a beautiful dream. Waking up in the huge bed in the lovely room, at first I couldn’t believe it was real. Aunt Maruim must have slept with one of the children that night, because I lay unconscious in her room until the following morning. But as soon as I got out of bed, my fantasy life crashed back to real life.

I came out of Auntie’s room, and was wandering through the house when she found me. “Good. You’re up. Let’s go to the kitchen and I can show you what you’ll be doing.” In a daze, I followed her into the room she called the kitchen; however, it

did not look like the kitchen in my auntie’s house in Mogadishu. The room was surrounded by creamy-white cabinets, gleamed with blue ceramic tiles, and was dominated in the center by a monstrous six-burner stove. Auntie opened and slammed drawers, calling out, ‘… and here are the utensils, the cutlery, the linens .. I had no idea what this woman was talking about no idea what these things were she was showing me, let alone what I was supposed to do with them. “At six-thirty each morning you’ll serve your uncle’s breakfast, because he goes to the embassy early. He’s a diabetic, so we must watch his diet carefully. He always has the same thing: herbal tea and two poached eggs. I’d like my coffee in my room at seven; then you’ll make pancakes for the children; they eat at eight sharp, because they have to be at school by nine. After breakfast ‘

“Auntie, how am I supposed to know how to do all these things? Who’s going to teach me? I don’t know how to make how you call it pancakes. What’s pancakes?”

Aunt Maruim had just inhaled a big breath before I interrupted her, and she’d extended her arm pointing at a door. She held the breath for a moment with her arm still outstretched, while she stared at me with sort of a panicky look on her