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“No,” he said. “The Refuge is close by, a few minutes' walk from here. It has its own compound and permanent staff. The displaced who live here are an extension of The Refuge, in the sense that we provide them with food, run a school for them, and see to their health needs whenever we have to. But we refer to them as ‘the tourists,' because their visits are often brief. When the conflict subsides, most of them return to where they came from, to their homes and properties.”

As they sat down, Jeebleh wondered to himself whether he could get used to the schizoid life that had become Bile's: living in relative physical comfort, but dealing constantly with abject poverty, disheartening sorrow. He wouldn't be at peace with his own conscience if he lived comfortably, yet so close to such miseries on a daily basis.

Jeebleh's restless gaze landed on a bit of scriptural wisdom framed and hung on the wall, a runic inscription that read: “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood!”

“Whose apartment is this, then?”

“Everything here is Seamus's handiwork,” Bile replied. “It was Seamus who hammered in every nail, and who copied the inscription over the entrance, and the verse on the wall too.”

“I had no idea that he was here,” Jeebleh cried happily. “Where is he?”

“He's away, but he'll be back in a few days.”

“So I'll get to see him?”

“I hope so.”

“That's wonderful!” Jeebleh now looked around the apartment with a more critical eye. “Seamus built all this? I didn't know he was such an accomplished artist.”

“We decided, Seamus and I, to create an oasis of comfort here. Technically, the apartment is his, but I share it on and off, and Raasta and Makka have a room where they play, and stay in when they sleep over.”

At the mention of the girls' names, Jeebleh saw a cloud of sorrow covering Bile's features. And he spoke of them in the present tense too.

“Is he with an Irish NGO or something?”

“He's here to help me.”

“That's very dedicated of him.”

“Running The Refuge and the clinic is my principal occupation,” Bile said, “and Seamus sees to the smooth functioning of both. He is very punctilious, able to tell us how much we've spent on this, how much on that, how much money we have in the kitty, and how much more we need to raise. He goes back and forth a great deal between Mogadiscio and Dublin, where his mother is ailing and bedridden. But when he's here, which is a lot of the time, he handles the daily chores and The Refuge's demanding correspondence. I'm in charge of the core ideas, but he's the nuts-and-bolts man, who makes them work. He's our carpenter, when we need one, our interior decorator, our masseur, our male nurse, and our general advisor on matters mysterious. He's his helpful self, you'll remember that from our days in Padua. When something mechanical breaks down, he fixes it. I am not technical at all, in fact can't change a fuse. He's the man we call on when a door hinge falls off, or the roof of the clinic springs a leak. He is there at all hours, never complaining. In short, he's a godsend! On his way back here this time, he'll buy spare parts for the clinic generator, which has broken down. The young man on night duty switched it on without checking if there was sufficient oil in it.”

As Bile was talking, Jeebleh noticed how awful his teeth were. Since his arrival, Jeebleh had become obsessed with teeth. He caught himself thinking about them quite often, and about what bad teeth the youths he had met had. The sight of Bile's teeth broke his heart, especially because the man seemed fit and healthy otherwise.

When Jeebleh realized that Bile had fallen silent, he felt embarrassed and guilty. But then he spoke: “I hope Seamus will be back before I leave.”

“You've only just got here,” Bile said. “Don't tell me you're already thinking of leaving?” Teasing, he added: “What's the matter with people from Europe and North America? Always on the go, and on speeded-up time too!”

“I may have to depart in a hurry,” Jeebleh said.

“And why would you do that?”

Jeebleh didn't mean to be secretive, but he didn't want to talk about what he wanted to do. He needed time to find out more about Raasta and consider what help he might offer to recover her, and what to do about Caloosha and whom to recruit to do him in, if that was what he and Bile agreed to. He could understand Bile's looking offended, shut out, or puzzled. He explained, “We'll have the opportunity talk about things at length.”

Bile stole a glance at his watch. Jeebleh felt so uneasy that he swallowed some dry air, almost choking on it.

Bile wondered whether the years separating them and the bad blood that could make each distance himself from the other had given them an alternative memory, so that they might have difficulty remaining as good friends as they once were. Maybe it was wise not to talk about the past, or about what they had each been up to since then. They did not have time for this, and especially not today, for Bile had the clinic to attend to.

“How has your visit been so far?” he asked now.

Jeebleh became as restless as a colt. He turned away from the window, and his hand came casually into contact with his shirt pocket, where he carried his passport and cash. He appeared eager to get off his chest something that had been bothering him for decades, ever since he had left the country. Instead of answering Bile's question, he sprang a surprise on his friend: “How have you dealt with Caloosha? Do you meet him often? Tell me about your relationship with him.”

Bile said nothing. Maybe, in his own way, he was making a point: that they viewed Caloosha differently, which explained why, up to now, he had not done anything about him.

Jeebleh insisted, “Do you see him at all?”

“This is a divided city, and you'll discover when you've been here for a few days that you seldom run into people,” Bile replied. “We remain confined within the part of the city where we live, and try as much as we can to avoid contact with others.”

“What's his occupation?”

“He is a consultant to StrongmanNorth on security matters.”

“Does he have his own detail of bodyguards?”

“He does.”

Bile saw that Jeebleh was apparently intent on dealing with Caloosha, whatever this was supposed to mean. But Bile was not prepared to jump into uncharted waters. Now he understood why Jeebleh had spoken earlier of possibly having to leave in a hurry—maybe after accomplishing his mission?

“We'll have to talk more about all this,” Bile said, and again looked at his watch, ostensibly to let Jeebleh know that they didn't have the time to do so now. And then he repeated his own question. “How has your visit been so far? I'm curious.”

“No one has a kind word to say about anyone else.”

“Civil wars bring out the worst in us,” Bile said. “There's terrible bitterness that comes at you from every direction, everyone busy badmouthing everyone else, everyone reciting a litany of grievances. You'll hear this one is a robber, that one is a murderer, that one a plunderer. Sadly, no one bothers to provide you with even flimsy circumstantial evidence to support the charges.”

The talk of robbery and plunder reminded Jeebleh of his passport and all the cash he was carrying. “Do you have a safe?” he asked.

“We do, somewhere here. Why?”

“I need to deposit my valuables.”

Bile pointed vaguely to a rug on the floor and explained that underneath was the safe—custom-built by Seamus of reinforced steel, with a digital lock.

Jeebleh brought out the wallet with the passport and money. Bile was immediately up on his feet, and the two of them shifted chairs, rolled up the rug, and lifted a section of the pine flooring. “Our Seamus at his most genial,” Jeebleh said excitedly.

When he had stored his things, he said, “Much of my life, when I look back at it, strikes me as a half-remembered dream. But I remember certain episodes with clarity. I remember our mothers, Caloosha and what he did to us, and of course I remember Seamus and the three of us in Italy.” Jeebleh's grin was as gentle as the water's surface in the wake of a duckling. “How much of your Plotinus do you still remember?” He recited quietly: “Never did eye see the sun unless it had first become sunlike.”

“In other words,” Bile interpreted the philsopher's wisdom aloud, as though for his own edification, “an artist representing an image cannot presume to be an artist unless he is able to be the very figure being represented. Likewise, a man with a radical image who's spent years in detention for political reasons must act forthrightly and without fear of the consequences.”

Jeebleh's gaze launched itself into the shadowed darkness of an owl, bearing in its hoot a message of doom. Was it because Bile had quietly spun Jeebleh's Italian nostalgia back to Mogadiscio? “What's the latest about Raasta?” he asked.

Bile sat up so fast that he knocked his cup over, spilling some of the coffee sediments. Now both were on their feet, clumsily cleaning, Jeebleh dabbing at the low table and then the floor with a cloth.

“Not much more than what's been in the papers,” Bile said, and paused judiciously. “We're following a few leads.”

“So far no harm has been done to either girl?”

“We have no way of knowing.”

“How's Shanta taking it?”

“It's always hardest on a mother,” Bile said. “Shanta is in the habit of going off on excursions into the land of the insane.” He paused again. “It's been very hard on her.”

“No word about Faahiye's whereabouts?”

“I hear he's left for Mombasa.”

“I'd like to see Shanta.”

His voice very faint, Bile said, “You will.”

It was as though a healing heart had been broken open. Lips closed, Bile ceased his breathing as he smothered his tearful emotions.

A phone rang, and he went to answer it in the study.

 

 

WAITING IN THE APARTMENT FOR BILE TO RETURN, JEEBLEH ENTERTAINED himself with memories dating back to before he and his friend were separated. Bile in those days had thought of himself as a kindred spirit of Plotinus, the ancient philosopher, born in today's Asyut around A.D. 205. A hardworking, principled man, austere in his style of living and in the way he ran his personal affairs. He was said to be always in touch with both his spirituality and the material side of life. A man of peace, he arbitrated in the disputes of communities at war and managed to bring them closer without alienating either side. He also ran a charitable house, one section of it alive with the noise of young orphans, another part filled with destitute widows. Jeebleh recalled that after a book,
The Life of Plotinus
, had been smuggled into Bile's prison cell and he had been caught reading it, he was severely punished. Bile returned from the study. He looked fine after the phone call, but Jeebleh sensed that the world in which they found themselves was ailing.

“How well do you know Af-Laawe?” Jeebleh asked.

“What can I say?”

“What's his story?”

“You know the proverb—‘Tell me the names of your friends, and I'll tell you who you are.' Caloosha is his closest associate.” Bile clenched his hand tensely in a fist, his thumb inserted between forefinger and middle finger, in the vulgar Italian gesture of a fig.

“Is he a fraud?” Jeebleh asked.

“People speak of money missing from the UN coffers.”

“And why his nickname, ‘Marabou'? Just because of his funeral business?”

“You wouldn't think you arrived only yesterday.” Bile smiled like a man who knew no sadness. After a pause, he went on: “He's described by many as a cool customer and a con artist. So watch out, my friend!”

“Any idea what's become of the stolen money?”

“I wouldn't know.”

“And his NGO Funerals with a Difference?”

“He claims to bury the unclaimed corpses gratis, with free prayers for the soul of the dead thrown in for good measure,” Bile said. “But there's a much darker side to his dealings. Shanta can tell you more than I.”

Again the phone rang, but this time Bile chose not to answer it.

 

 

STILL IGNORING THE PHONE—THE PERSON CALLING HADN'T USED THE CODE—Bile poured more coffee. The memory of sorrow flooded his vocal cords as he spoke. “Please accept my belated condolence over your mother's death. She was like a mother to me too, and I miss her!”

“Maybe death was kind to her, coming when it did.”

“Unfortunately she depended entirely on Caloosha and her housekeeper,” Bile said, “and they were awful to her, I've heard. Caloosha had misled her, making her believe his version of events.”

“My letters to her were returned unopened.”

“I wouldn't put anything past Caloosha.”

“Would you know how to reach my mother's housekeeper?”

“We'll ask around,” Bile said. “Shanta might.”

“And might she know where her grave is?”

“I doubt it, but we'll ask,” Bile said. “Shanta has been in no state to think about anyone or anything else since Raasta's disappearance. But I'm sure that with her help and Dajaal's, we can locate your mother's housekeeper, and then her grave.”

“I would appreciate it.”

Jeebleh noticed some potted plants, where a mantis, comfortable in its camouflage, was preparing to ambush another insect—swaying back and forth, head raised, fragile-looking forelegs extended, delicate body elegantly poised. Despite its devout posturing, the mantis was a predator, always on the attack. Jeebleh watched it in silent fascination, remembering the chameleon's visit to his hotel room. The mantis bided its preying time, as slow as a sadist in its intention to torment its victim. Jeebleh couldn't help comparing the antics of a mantis lying in wait, readying itself to pounce, to the modus operandi of a man who was a foe in the likeness of a concerned friend. He would act like the mantis and wait, lying low, until he was able to rid this society of vermin like Caloosha, a canker in the soul of his years of imprisonment and exile.