Don't Tell Me You're Afraid (11 page)

I begged her; I tried in every way I could to remind her of what we had promised each other years ago, a promise that still meant something to me: that we would never leave our country, that we would stay and change it. I tried telling her that maybe Aabe had sacrificed himself for us, to allow us to realize our dreams more freely. Which were also his dreams for the liberation of our country.

“Don't you remember what we told each other in bed, almost every night?” I said, tears streaming down my face.

“Of course I remember my songs.” Her voice was hard, turned to stone.

“So how can you want to leave now?”

“Everything has changed, Samia.”

“What's changed? There's war now and there was war before.” I was angry, my hands twitching.

“Now there's Al-Shabaab.” Hodan, unlike me, was composed. “Before, there was respect; now there's only violence.”

“We have to make a greater effort,” I insisted, pounding a fist on the mattress.

“No, our efforts will only lead to more violence. Don't you see, Samia?”

No, not only didn't I understand, but I didn't believe it. “I have to stay here and continue running; this is my destiny. I have to win the Olympics, Hodan. I have to show the whole world that we can change. I have to keep the promise I made to Aabe. . . . This is what I must do.”

“You have a talent, Samia,” Hodan said quietly, putting a hand on my shoulder, “and it's right that you continue to follow your path.” She dried her tears and blew her nose. She looked like Hooyo when she pretended she wasn't moved. In that position, in that light, Hodan had our mother's face. She had become a woman, and I hadn't realized it. “What
I
dream of today, though, is to be free. Right now, unconditionally. I dream of having a family, as I could not do with Hussein. I dream that my children may grow up in peace. The war took away my husband, and I don't even know for sure where he is.” She paused. “At this point I just need a new life, Samia.”

“I dream of being a free woman too, but I'm going to realize that dream here,” I said, shrugging her hand off my shoulder.

“Not me, Samia.” She was silent for perhaps a minute, but to me it seemed like a year or a millennium. “I'm leaving for Europe. Maybe I'll get to England, like Mo Farah.” She tilted her chin up
toward the photo, which still hung where I'd stuck it that long-ago night, next to the two medals from Hargeysa. “Or maybe Sweden or Finland.”

There was nothing more to say.

Hodan had made up her mind.

All I could do was use the time remaining before she left to resign myself to it, so I wouldn't be unprepared and distraught when the time came and we had to separate.

I was beginning to think that the more I achieved in running, the more I lost in life.

A
FTER
THE
RACE
IN
D
J
IBOUTI
, the Olympic Committee gave me a pair of running shoes. The kind with cleats in the soles. But the thing that most changed my life was that I could go running at the stadium during the day, in sunlight.

Each moon that passed, however, was for me one less moon before Hodan's departure. In the months that remained before our separation, I continued training as much as before, if not more. The tunnel I had entered with Aabe's death had become even more endless. All I could do was lower my head and try to run my way out of it. I had just one goal: to keep from thinking and in that way qualify for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. As I had promised Aabe. I knew it all depended on me, on the times I'd be able to achieve on the track.

I dropped out of school because we couldn't afford it anymore. The longer the war went on, the less money people had. The little money that Hooyo managed to bring home was needed for food.

Truthfully, I wasn't too sorry, because that way I could run both in the morning and in the afternoon. By the time I got home in the evening, I was wiped out, but I didn't care; I collapsed on the mattress before the others went to bed and woke up the next morning after a deep, restful sleep, full of energy.

I also tried, in my heart, to get used to the loss of Hodan's singing, her caresses, the hand that squeezed mine before going to sleep. And she did the same.

For the second time we prepared to say good-bye. But this time we wouldn't be seeing each other during the day at school.

We spent that period before the separation in a state of pathological attachment and, at the same time, of morbid rejection. If one of us came home and the other wasn't there, we would search for hours and then, once found, not talk to each other. Or we fought as we had never done before, and when Hooyo or Said stepped in to have us make up, we'd burst into tears and hug each other tightly.

It was our tormented way of putting distance between us.

Two months later, in October 2007, Hodan left one night to set out on the Journey. She'd filled a small backpack with a few things; she had with her the shillings needed for the bus to Hargeysa, the requisite first stop for leaving the country, and not much more.

Without saying a word to anyone, she turned up that night ready to leave. She preferred to say good-bye without much fuss, especially for Hooyo's sake. I wasn't surprised; it was just like Hodan.

That way there was no time for lengthy good-byes and weeping. We held each other tight, and we all kissed her, Hooyo last
of all. Before letting her go, Hooyo gave her a folded white handkerchief that held one of the small shells from the jar that Aabe had given her when they became engaged. Our portable sea, the one we would listen to when we were little. Hooyo tied the handkerchief to Hodan's wrist.

Then Hodan was gone.

She left on foot, alone, to walk to the bus station.

Without even knowing what she would do once she got to Hargeysa. But that too was just like Hodan.

The Journey is something we've all had in our heads from the time we were born. Everyone has friends and relatives who did it, or who in turn know someone who did it. It's like a mythological creature that can just as easily lead to salvation or death. No one knows how long it might take. If you're lucky, two months. If you're unlucky, as long as a year, or even two.

Ever since we were children, the Journey has been a favorite topic of conversation. Everyone has told stories about relatives who reached their destinations in Italy, Germany, Sweden or England. Scores of trailer trucks with men who perished, scorched by the sun, in the oven of the Sahara. Human traffickers and appalling Libyan prisons. Not to mention the numbers of travelers who die during the most difficult leg: crossing the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy. Some say tens of thousands, others say hundreds of thousands. We've been hearing these stories, these unsubstantiated numbers, since the time we were born. Because those who make it there always say the same thing when they call home:
I can't tell you what the Journey was like. It was horrific, that's for sure, but words can't describe it.
That's why it's always shrouded in absolute mystery. A mystery that for some is necessary in order to reach safety.

Hodan, like all those who leave, knew only that she would get to northern Europe. That somehow she would cross those ten thousand kilometers. She would find a good man, she would get married again, have children and live a happy life. Every month she would send money home, a little for Mama and a little for me, to allow me to run, and she would wait until she was settled enough to be able to pay for the Journey for us too. That was what everyone did, and that much she knew, that much she had been told. Everything in between wasn't worth thinking about.

And so, with a certain foolhardy unawareness, she left.

We, of course, were greatly concerned. We knew we could not expect any news, except occasionally, and this, rather than leaving us in the hands of blind hope, made us even more anxious.

Every so often, when she managed to find a phone somewhere, she would call us. Said had bought a cell phone, and we passed it around so Hodan could exchange a few words with each of us. At times, if there was an Internet connection available, like when she was in Sudan and then in Libya, we set a time an hour later when we would write to each other for hours. I went to Taageere's, the only place close to home with a computer. We did this a few days in a row sometimes, when she was forced to stop someplace to wait until Said, Abdi, Shafici, or Hooyo managed to scrape together enough money to send her to pay the traffickers for another leg of the Journey. Hodan awaited the day when she would go and withdraw the money at the money-transfer booth the way one awaits death.

Though she did all she could to hide the fact, I knew that the Journey terrified her. How could it not? She was alone, she had
no money, and she was prey to human traffickers called
hawaian,
beasts, who beat their victims like animals if they didn't pay.

Sometimes she wrote that she was afraid, so afraid. Sometimes she couldn't help telling me. And even though I was more afraid than she was, I would write: “Never say you're afraid,
abaayo,
because if you do, the things you dream of won't come true.”

It was what Aabe had taught me when I was little. You must never say you're afraid, because if you do, fear—that vile, evil monster—will never go away.

“Never say you're afraid, little Samia,” Aabe used to tell me, and I repeated the words now to Hodan. “Don't say it.”

Because if you do, you won't get to Europe.

But, as Allah willed, Hodan was among the lucky ones.

In early December of 2007, after traveling for only two months, she was able to board an old vessel that took her from the port of Tripoli to the coast of Malta.

She had arrived.

She had managed to defeat the monster.

She was in Europe.

T
HREE
WEEKS
AFTER
H
ODAN
'
S
A
RRIVAL
, when everything seemed sad and gloomy without her, I received the news that changed my life forever and that I'd been waiting for since the day I was born: I would compete in the Beijing Olympics the following year.

When Xassan called me into his office to tell me, I couldn't believe my ears. As soon as he uttered the word “Olympics,” my mind went blank. He kept talking, but I couldn't hear a word anymore.

“Samia, we think you can contribute a lot to our Olympic team and to our nation,” he began.

“Thank you, Xassan,” I replied.

“We value your efforts, your determination, and the will to win that you've been displaying.”

“Thank you again, Xassan.” It was the first time he'd summoned me to his office and said such things; I was trying to figure out where this was going.

“You won't place very high, Samia . . . but we thought you should use it as a trial run for the next Olympic Games, the ones in London in 2012 . . . to gain confidence. . . . So I'm asking if you feel up to going to China and running in those Olympics.”

At that point the world was suspended. All my thoughts converged on a single image, a snapshot of calm and serenity: a wicker chair, the slanting light of the sun filtering through a window, only partly illuminating the dusty, earthen floor, a room, Aabe and Hooyo's, with me standing in front of Aabe promising him that, at seventeen, I would go to the Olympics.

And here came the tears. Two of them. The usual two.

Xassan thought they were tears of joy, and he made a joke that I only vaguely heard. But he was just half right. They came from deep inside, from my bitterness over the fact that Aabe was not there with me, that my sister wasn't there to share my joy, and that my best friend had fled many years ago along with his entire family.

The Olympic Committee had chosen me and Abdi Said Ibrahim, a boy of eighteen who in recent months had become my new friend and training partner. At first this had aroused a poignant yearning for Alì, but I quickly tempered and dismissed it.

Abdi and I trained every day.

But with Al-Shabaab having become more and more powerful, things had worsened. Sometimes we couldn't make it to the stadium because we were stopped by militants who insulted us or demanded money, accusing us of supporting Western countries. On those days we were forced to run on the street, amid smoking car tires and burning garbage in the squares, hoping not to come across other militiamen.

What's more, even though I was an athlete on the Olympic
team, I had to run covered. What I was doing, or in whose name, didn't matter to anyone. I had to respect the laws of the Koran and cover my head, torso, and limbs.

One morning Abdi was stopped and two Hawiye militiamen stole his shoes. “You'll run better that way,” they told him. “Nigger. This way you'll run barefoot like a real African.”

We always tried to ignore it. We were determined to train with what we had: no coach, no personal trainer, no doctor, not even food. Not the type of nourishing food suitable for an athlete, with the right amounts of calories, protein, vitamins, and minerals. At times just the food required to live.

Hooyo earned less and less, almost nothing by now, and every so often we were forced to eat only
angero,
a kind of crepe, made on the
burgico.

Bread and water.

There was one thing I did have, and it had become one of my most important possessions: the stopwatch. With it I measured my times. Whatever else might happen, I was obsessed with my times. They had to improve. If I didn't see them improve from week to week, or if they worsened, I went into a deep funk that only Abdi could help me climb out of. In the end I started out again with even more energy.

We heard from Hodan frequently. She called us on Said's cell phone, or we texted for hours on the Internet. She had settled in Malta and was engaged to Omar, a Somali boy whom she had met during the Journey. He had helped her a lot, and it was partly thanks to him that she had made it. She had told me about Omar right away; I'd realized that she had fallen in love the first time she spoke his name.

In April we received some wonderful news, which at first seemed impossible to accept but which later filled me with joy.

Our little Hodan—who was my older sister, true, but was still, along with me, the youngest in the family—was pregnant.

She told us one morning, right after she took the test and confirmed it. She was ecstatic. She and Omar had been living together for some time in Malta, in housing provided by the government and humanitarian organizations. They had decided to start a family and move up north, maybe to Sweden, maybe to Finland, where assistance for war refugees was even greater.

Each time we texted, Hodan said she felt that it would be a girl and that she would be like me, with fast legs. She told me that already, at twenty weeks, the baby was kicking like crazy.

That's how I spent the four months before I was to leave for China: training, attending an occasional meeting at the Olympic Committee to learn how to improve Abdi's and my times, and chatting happily with Hodan.

Hooyo, however, was increasingly concerned.

Aabe's death and Hodan's departure had made any separation, even if only temporary, unbearable to her. Whenever one of us brought up the subject of the Olympics, Hooyo's eyes teared up. We told her she should be happy, that what was happening to me was very special, but by now she was able to see only the possible negative consequences of any event.

As might be expected, the news had spread quickly through the mutilated district of Bondere. The closer my departure came, the more people dropped by to see me and wish me well or bring me a small token of good luck. It happened almost every day before supper. These were all people with whom I'd grown up; they were my
people, neighbors who had seen me born and develop into a young woman. People I loved and whose affection was for me a precious treasure.

“Have a safe trip, Samia, and bring honor to our country,” old Asiya said in a trembling voice; the elderly woman had held me in her arms the day I was born. I considered her a kind of grandmother, given that two of my natural grandparents had died and the other two lived far away, in Jazeera. “Take this,” she said as she handed me a cotton T-shirt. “I bought it at the market for your departure, to wish you good luck. I don't know if you'll want to wear it when you run. . . .”

“Of course, Grandma Asiya. Don't worry, I'll do my best. And I'll wear the T-shirt during training sessions,” I told her.

“Samia, say hello to China for us and don't eat any of those strange little fried creatures,” warned Taageere, the lifelong friend of Aabe and Aabe Yassin.

“Okay, Taageere, I'll only eat fresh fruits and rice,” I reassured him.

And so it went.

Every day at least ten people came to give me their blessing.

When they paid me compliments, though, I tried to make light of it, to minimize it, saying that it was only a race, a competition like any other, nothing all that important.

But in my heart I couldn't minimize the importance of what I was doing.

I was little but I was also a warrior.

And the little warrior was ready, once again, to fight.