Desert Flower (15 page)

Uncle Mohammed announced that in a few weeks the family would be returning to Somalia. His four-year term as Somalian ambassador was

up, and we were going home. Four years had sounded like a lifetime to me when I’d first arrived, but now I couldn’t believe the time was over. Unfortunately, I wasn’t excited about going back to Somalia. I wanted to go home wealthy and successful, as every African dreams of returning home from a rich nation like England. In a poor country like my homeland, people are constantly searching for a way out, clawing to make it to Saudi or Europe or the States, so they can make some money to help their destitute families.

Now here I was about to return home after four years abroad with nothing. What could I say I’d accomplished when I went back? Would I tell my mother I’d learned how to cook pasta? Back traveling with my camels, I’d probably never see pasta again. Would I tell my father I’d learned how to scrub toilets? “Huh? What’s a toilet?” he’d say. Ah, but money, cash, there was something he could understand the universal language. There was something my family had never had much of.

By the time my aunt and uncle were ready to return to Somalia, I had saved a pittance from my maid’s wages, which was difficult enough considering my pathetic salary. My dream, however, was to make enough money to buy my mother a house a place where Mama could live without

having to travel constantly and work so hard to survive. This isn’t as far-fetched as it might sound, since with the exchange rate, I could buy a house in Somalia for a couple of thousand dollars. To accomplish this goal, I felt since I was already in England, I wanted to stay and make some money, because once I left, I certainly couldn’t come back. How I would manage this, I didn’t know. But I had faith that somehow things would work out, once I was free from working like a slave for my aunt and uncle. However, they didn’t agree. “What on earth are you going to do here?” my aunt exclaimed. “An eighteen-year-old girl, with no place to stay, no money, no job, no work permit, and no English? It’s ridiculous! You’re coming home with us.”

Long before the scheduled departure, Uncle Mohammed advised us all of two things: the date we were leaving, and the need to make sure our passports were in order. I did. I promptly took mine into the kitchen, sealed it in a plastic bag, then buried it in the garden.

Waiting till the day before our flight to Mogadishu, I announced that I couldn’t find my passport. My plan was simple enough: if I didn’t have a passport, they couldn’t take me back. Uncle smelled something rotten

and kept asking, “Well, Waris, where could your passport be? Where have you been that you could possibly have left it?” Obviously he knew the answer to that question, since in four years I had barely been out of the house.

“I don’t know maybe I accidentally threw it away while I was cleaning,” I answered with a straight face. He was still the ambassador and he could help me if he wanted. I kept hoping that if my uncle realized how desperately I wanted to stay, he wouldn’t make me go home, but instead would help me get a visa.

“Well, now what are we going to do, Waris? We can’t just leave you here!” He was livid that I’d put him in this position. For the next twenty-four hours we played a game of nerves, to see who would give in. I kept insisting my passport was lost; Uncle Mohammed kept insisting there was nothing he could do to help me.

Aunt Maruim had her own ideas. “We’ll just tie you up, put you in a bag, and smuggle you on board the plane! People do it all the time.”

This threat got my attention. “If you do that,” I said slowly, I’ll never, ever, forgive you. Look, Auntie, just leave me here. I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’ll be fine,” she answered sarcastically. “NO, you are NOT going to be fine.” I

could see in her face that she was very worried, but was she worried enough to help me? She had plenty of friends in London; my uncle had all his contacts at the embassy. A simple phone call was all it would take to provide me with a link to survival, but I knew if they believed for an instant they could bluff me into coming back to Somalia, they wouldn’t make that call.

The next morning the entire four-storey mansion was in complete chaos with everyone packing, the phone ringing, and swarms of people running in and out of the house. Upstairs, I prepared to leave my little room under the eaves, packing my cheap bag with what few belongings I’d accumulated during my stay in England. In the end, I threw most of the hand-me-down clothes in the trash, deciding they were too ugly and old-womanish for me. Why haul around a bunch of garbage? Still a nomad, I’d travel light.

At eleven o’clock, everyone gathered in the living room as the chauffeur loaded the bags into the car. I paused for a second to remember this was the way I had come so many years ago the chauffeur, the car, walking into this room, seeing the white sofa, the fireplace, meeting my aunt for

the first time. That gray morning was also the first time I’d seen snow. Everything about this country had seemed so bizarre to me then. I walked outside to the car with my distressed Aunt Maruim, who said, “What am I going to tell your mother?”

“Tell her I’m fine, and she’ll hear from me soon.” She shook her head and got into the car. I stood on the sidewalk and waved goodbye to everyone, then walked into the street, watching the car until it was out of sight.

I’m not going to lie I was scared. Up until that moment I hadn’t really believed that they would leave me there all alone. But as I stood in the middle of Harley Street, I was exactly that all alone. I have no hard feelings toward my aunt and uncle, though; they’re still my family. They gave me an opportunity by bringing me to London, and for that I will forever be grateful. When they left, I guess they thought, “Well you wanted to stay here’s your chance. Go ahead then do what you want. But we’re not going to make it easy for you, because we think you should come home with us.” I’m sure they felt it was a disgrace for a young woman to remain in England alone, unchaperoned. However, in the end the decision had been mine, and since I had chosen

to remain, I would have to take charge of my own destiny now.

Fighting an overwhelming feeling of panic, I went back inside the house. I closed the front door and walked into the kitchen to talk to the only other person left my old friend the chef. He greeted me with “Well, you know, you’ve got to go today. I’m the only one who’s staying on not you. You’ve got to leave.” He pointed toward the front door. Oh, yes, the minute my uncle was gone, he just couldn’t wait to give it to me. The smug look on his unfriendly face showed that ordering me around gave him great pleasure. I stood there leaning against the door frame, thinking how quiet the house seemed now that everybody was gone. “Waris, you’ve got to go now. I want you to get out…”

“Oh, shut up.” The man was like an obnoxious barking dog. “I’m going, okay? I just came in to get my bag.”

“Grab it now quickly. Quickly. Hurry up, because I have to By this time I was climbing the stairs, paying no attention to his noise. The master was gone, and in the brief interim before the new ambassador arrived, Chef would be master. I walked through the empty rooms, thinking of all the good and bad times here, wondering where my next home would be.

I picked up my little duffel from the bed, slung it over my shoulder, walked down the four flights of stairs, and out the front door. Unlike the day I had arrived, today was a gorgeous, sunny day with a blue sky and fresh air like springtime. In the tiny garden, I used a stone to unearth my passport, slipping it out of its plastic bag and stowing it in my duffel. I brushed the soil from my hands and headed down the street. I couldn’t help smiling as I walked along the sidewalk free at last. My whole life stretched before me with nowhere to go, and no one to answer to. And somehow I knew things would work out.

Close to my uncle’s house was my first stop: the Somalian embassy. I knocked on the door. The doorman who answered knew my family well, since sometimes he also drove for my uncle. “Hello, miss. What are you doing here? Is Mr. Farah still in town?”

“No, he’s gone. I wanted to see Anna, to find out if I can get a job at the embassy.” He laughed, returned to his chair, and sat down. He put his hands behind his head and leaned back against the wall. As I stood there in the middle of the lobby, he made no attempt to move. His

attitude puzzled me, as this man had always been polite to me. Then I realized that like Chef’s his attitude had changed with the departures that occurred that morning. My uncle was gone, and without my uncle, I was nobody. I was less than nobody, and these oafs were thrilled to have the upper hand.

“Oh! Anna’s far too busy to see you.” The doorman grinned. “Look,” I said firmly, “I need to see her.” Anna had been my uncle’s secretary, and she’d always been kind to me. Luckily, she heard my voice in the lobby and walked out of her office to see what was happening.

“Waris! What are you doing here?”

“You know, I really didn’t want to go back to Somalia with my uncle,” I explained. “I just didn’t want to go back. So I - I’m not staying at the house anymore, you know. And I was wondering if you know anybody who maybe anybody I can work for anything I don’t care what it is. I’ll do anything.”

“Well, my darling’ she raised her eyebrows ‘it’s a bit too short notice. Where are you staying?” “Oh, I don’t know. Don’t worry about that.”

“Well, can you give me a number where I can find you?”

“No, because I don’t know where I’m staying. I’ll find some cheap hotel tonight.” I knew she would invite me to stay at her place if she hadn’t

had a tiny little flat. “But I can come back and give you a number later, so you can let me know if you hear of anything.”

“Okay, Waris. Listen, take care of yourself-are you sure you’re going to be all right?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” From the corner of my eye I saw the doorman constantly grinning like a fool. “Well, thanks look, I’ll see you later.”

With relief I headed out into the sunlight again, and decided to go shopping. All I had to live on until I landed a job was the small sum of money I’d squirreled away from my maid’s wages. But now that I was a woman about town, I needed to buy something decent to wear, a new dress to lift my spirits. I walked from the embassy to the big department stores at Oxford Circus. I’d been there before with my cousin Basma when I’d first come to London. Aunt Maruim had sent us down to buy me a few things, since when I arrived I had no winter clothes. Actually I’d had no clothes at all, except the outfit I’d worn on the plane and one fine leather sandal.

Strolling through the racks at Selfridges, I found the enormous variety of choices mesmerizing. The thought that I could stay here as long as

I wanted and try on all these clothes all these colors, styles, sizes was intoxicating. The thought that for the first time in my history, I was in charge of my own life was intoxicating nobody yelling at me to milk the goats, feed the babies, make the tea, scrub the floors, scour the toilets.

For the next several hours, I set to work trying on outfits in the dressing room with the help of two sales clerks. Using my limited English and sign language, I communicated that I wanted something longer, shorter, tighter, brighter. At the end of my marathon session, when dozens of discarded garments lay in stacks outside my fitting room, one of the clerks smiled at me and said, “Well, love, what did you decide to have?”

The sheer volume of choices overwhelmed me, but by this point I was getting nervous that down the street, in the next store, there might be something even better. Before I parted with any of my precious pounds, I’d better find out. “I’m not having anything today,” I said pleasantly, ‘but thank you.” The poor clerks, standing with their arms full of dresses, looked at me in disbelief, then at each other in disgust. I sailed past them and continued on my mission: to examine every inch of Oxford Street.

After several places, I still hadn’t bought anything; but as always, the true joy for me was simply to try on things. As I left one building and entered another, I realized the spring like day was fading, the winter evening coming on, and I still had no place to spend the night. With this thought in mind, I entered the next store and saw a tall, attractive African woman examining a sale table of sweaters. She looked like a Somalian, and I studied her, trying to decide how to talk to her. Picking up a sweater, I smiled at her and said in Somali, “I’m trying to buy something, but I can’t decide what I want. And believe me, girl, I’ve seen a lot of clothes today.”

We began talking and the woman said her name was Halwu. She was quite friendly and laughed a lot. “Where do you live, Waris? What do you do?”

“Oh, you’re going to laugh. I’m sure you’ll think I’m crazy, but I live nowhere. I don’t have any place to live, because my family left me today. They went back to Somalia.” I saw the look of empathy in her eyes; as I later learned this woman had been through a lot herself.

“You didn’t want to go back to Somalia, huh?” Without saying it, we

both knew: we missed our home and our families, but what opportunities did we have there? Being traded for camels? Becoming some man’s property? Struggling every day just to survive?

“No, but I have nothing here, either,” I said. “My uncle was the ambassador, but now he’s gone and the new man is coming. So this morning they kicked me out, and right this minute, I have no idea where I’m headed.” I laughed.

She waved in the air to silence me, as if the movement of her hand could sweep away all my problems. “Look, I live around the corner at the YMCA. I don’t have a big place, but you can come and stay for the night. I just have a room, so if you want to cook, you’ll have to go to a different floor to make some food.”

“Ooohh, that would be wonderful, but are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I mean, come on. What are you going to do otherwise?”

We walked together to her room at the Y. The YMCA was located in a modern brick high-rise normally occupied by students. Her room was a tiny space with a twin bed, a place for books, and Halwu’s big, beautiful television. “Oh!” I threw up my hands. “Can I watch TV?”