North of Dawn Read online

  Two days later, a taxi driven by a Somali whom Waliya suspected of belonging to the smuggler’s ring fetched them from their hotel and drove them to the Stazione Termini. The driver provided them with sleeping car tickets, and they traveled by train from Rome to Brussels, where they would finally board their flight to Oslo.

  Waliya and her children had no idea about the cantankerous communications between Gacalo and her immediate family members or that Timiro spoke her mind about the extravagant expenses incurred. “Close to nine thousand dollars! Are they worth this costly excursion?”

  There was no guarantee, of course, that the three would not end up shortchanged by a wily trafficker, or even in a detention cell. And even if they do arrive safely, Gacalo believes they will likely be detained, as most asylum seekers are. In that case, access to them may not be granted until after they have endured a harrowing interview with the Norwegian Police’s Refugee Department, with a Somali-speaking translator in attendance.

  Mugdi would not be the right person to answer the questions the Norwegian authorities would be interested in, should they decide to interview him, as he was not party to the minutiae of the travel arrangements. He is convinced he has done the right thing by refusing to know the details of their progress. Both by nature and because of his diplomatic training, Mugdi is loath to take shortcuts. It is against his principles to go against the laws of Norway, the country that kindly hosted him when he couldn’t return home. It won’t surprise him if the family’s standing suffers yet more devastation if something goes terribly wrong and Waliya and her children are deported back to Nairobi or, in the worst case, sent back to Mogadiscio.

  Mugdi thinks that the apartment Waliya and her children will move into is perhaps the largest they have ever occupied, and surely much nicer than any place they previously called home. There will be plenty of food for them too, prepared with Gacalo’s generous hand. Mugdi will feel that he has done his part and will leave them as soon as they are safely ensconced.

  He now sits on a bench facing the exit the passengers are due to come through. He takes out a printout of the scene he is currently translating from Giants in the Earth, in which the Norwegian Per Hansa encounters a group of Indians camping a mile away from the Norwegians’ recently established homestead. The presence of the Indians stirs fear in his wife, Beret’s, heart. As with many of the impoverished, hardworking Norwegian fisherfolk who ended up as migrants in the Dakota Territory, fleeing not only poverty but also the terror associated with the midnight sun in summer and the debilitating winters, there is much to admire about Per Hansa’s steadfast spirit, the spirit of a man born to lead and to endure, and while enduring, make something of his life.

  Mugdi rereads his translation out loud and decides that the opening sentences lack the natural rhythm of the original. Furthermore, they do not enjoy the pathos of the scene, in which there is mutual suspicion and fear—nearly all the Norwegian homesteaders ascribe terrible thoughts to the “band” of Indians, fearing that they will scalp them, rob them of their handful of cattle, and deprive them of the swaths of land for which they paid only half a dollar an acre. Per Hansa is a singularly sensitive man, yet at no point does he seem concerned that they, the Norwegian homesteaders, are the ones who have dispossessed the Indians and pushed them off their land.

  Mugdi remembers telling Gacalo that he started with this scene because of his interest in the initial encounter between the Norwegians and the North American Indians. Per Hansa and his fellow Norwegians represent a mightier and stronger Western way of thinking. When he thinks of what passes for mutual exchange—Per Hansa provides a sick Indian with ointments and bandages, and receives tobacco for a pipe—Mugdi can’t help questioning whether there is fairness to their trade.

  Presently, Mugdi hears the scuffle of a number of persons with signs bearing the names of arriving passengers. And suddenly, for reasons he cannot explain, he feels his brain fogged up, his mind leaden, weighed down with more questions than answers. He asks himself what he will do if Waliya and her charges were not allowed to board their flight to Oslo. He knows that the woman at the desk won’t know, and even if she does, she won’t share with him the names on the flight manifesto.

  Then a fresh uncertainty imposes itself on Mugdi’s mind, and his eyes darken as he concentrates on it fretfully. He tells himself that there is no way of knowing if Waliya is or is not an imposter, a mole assigned to perform a job on behalf of the jihadi group to which Dhaqaneh belonged. There is the possibility too that things may not work out to Gacalo’s satisfaction or that, even assuming she is not a “sleeper,” the family members may not find her and her brood to their liking. It worries him that the woman, a sympathizer, clearly, of the radical movement of which Dhaqaneh was a loyal member, is coming into their lives without being vetted. Forever an optimist, Gacalo trusted that everything would work out in the end. And whenever she couldn’t give adequate answers to his questions, she merely advised him not to worry. She said, “Waliya and her children won’t lose sight of the fact that this is their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enjoy peace. We’ll provide them with all the assistance they need to find their feet and place the children in school.”

  “What about the widow?”

  “She’ll learn the language and work.”

  Mugdi does not have as much faith in Waliya as Gacalo does. Even so, he promised Gacalo that he would keep his runaway hatred of the Somalis, who, in his experience, seldom work when they can receive handouts from the state, in check. But he couldn’t help speaking his mind. “I bet she won’t want to work.”

  “Not if she wants to be on my good side.”

  From the little Gacalo had told him about Saafi, the girl’s situation was more complex: she had no basic education and little English. Her best option was to attend the compulsory language classes to improve her chances of getting a job.

  And when Gacalo felt truly backed into a corner, she attacked, saying, “Do you think that this is the kind of conversation to have a mere fortnight before their arrival? You’re all making it sound as if I am the only one who has to find solutions to the myriad problems their presence will impose on us.”

  Timiro, as if speaking for all the others, would say, “Because, Mum, you’re facilitating their coming.”

  Mugdi feels Gacalo is wrong, but he will not challenge her, lest she accuse him of elitism, of lacking empathy or being a moaner. Birgitta even once labeled him as perhaps the closest she had known to a self-hating Somali.

  Johan, witness to one of these frequent arguments, said in defense of Mugdi, “He wants the Somalis to do well and to grab every opportunity with both hands, and there is nothing wrong with that. While today it takes only several hours’ flight from any corner of the earth to the farthest corner of the planet, true integration requires several years.”

  The vibrating phone in the pocket of his jacket pulls him out of his thoughts. He checks the time on the phone and is surprised at how late it is. But there is still no sign of the widow and her children.

  “News about their whereabouts?” he asks.

  “The Immigration Police at the airport have been in touch with me and they’ve detained all three of them,” she responds.

  “That can’t be a good thing. But go on.”

  “The officer instructed me that we must present ourselves in two days at their office at the airport for an in-depth interview.”

  Mugdi senses that her voice is imbued with a sense of triumph, as if she has succeeded in getting them over the first and most difficult line.

  “Does that mean they won’t deport them?”

  “Not right away.”

  “So can I head home now?”

  “Of course, darling.”

  As Mugdi drives home in the stop-and-go rush-hour traffic, he switches the radio on. There are riots in the US, right-wing vigilantes in cahoots with the KKK on a rampage in Virginia, and
three hundred Africans and Middle Easterners have drowned as they attempted to cross the Mediterranean. In Myanmar, Buddhist monks massacre Rohingya Muslims; a bus full of schoolchildren veers off a high mountain in Serbia; and a high-rise in Cairo has collapsed because of structural flaws. Mugdi turns off the radio, convinced that the world is headed the wrong way and that perhaps the best news of the day is that the widow and her children have at least been allowed to enter the country and await a decision on whether they qualify as refugees. He hopes that they will.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mugdi is in his upstairs study, intent on rendering a handful of select scenes from Giants into Somali. Gacalo had assured him before she left for work that she had not received any further news from the Federal Police Post inside the international airport, whose officers had promised to provide them with an interview date, on which they’d be required to speak about their relationship with the new arrivals, their own income, and their willingness to help. He has now been at his desk for at least three hours, the text of the Norwegian original open side by side with the English translation, now reading the Norwegian, now the English, and now the Somali.

  Now he rereads a portion of the scene he has just translated into Somali. In it, a group of native “Injuns” arrive and camp nearby. But when they depart and the half dozen cows on which the Norwegian settlers rely for their milk mysteriously disappear, some of the Norwegians suspect the “Injuns” of cattle rustling. A deep despondency reigns in the settlement when the cows do not return, with Beret, Per Hansa’s wife, beset with fear that the untamed land, the prairies that stretch endlessly in every direction, is not meant for human existence. No wonder she nearly goes mad. Mugdi scribbles a note in the margin that, like the Norwegians in the Dakotas, Somalis too felt sundered from their previous lives when they first arrived in Norway, with its snowy landscape, half a year of sunless darkness, and the old truism about Norwegians’ openheartedness being difficult for foreigners to gauge, especially those who do not drink with them or know their tongue.

  He decides that it is impossible to predict how Waliya and her children will fare, though surely Naciim will have it easier than his sister, Saafi. Gacalo has told him something of the gang rape the girl suffered at the refugee camp in Kenya and the subsequent trauma to her psyche. She will require tender, loving care of the specialized sort. As for Waliya, his sense, based on what he knows of other Somali women of Waliya’s age and background, is that she will behave tortoise-like, withdrawing into an unreachable domain, seldom sharing her thoughts with him. He’ll keep a respectable distance and leave all the important decisions to Gacalo, as Waliya and Saafi will surely be more comfortable in her company. From what Gacalo has told him, Naciim is intelligent, hardworking, outgoing, and ambitious. On top of this, his stepfather Dhaqaneh accorded him a greater preference, inducting him into the position of a Mahram, the male head of the household, from an early age.

  Now restless, Mugdi goes down to make coffee, only to discover there is no milk. He decides to go out, but first he remembers that Timiro is still here after deciding to extend her stay in Oslo. He knocks on the door to her room. Her voice weak and barely audible, she asks, “Who is it?” He tells her that he is stepping out to get some milk and wonders if she would like to go with him and get a bit of fresh air.

  “I don’t feel like leaving this room, Dad.”

  “Anything I can get for you?”

  “No. Thanks.”

  When Mugdi arrives at the shop, he finds it closed—the note pinned to the door says “a family wedding.” He pauses, crosses the road and heads south to the nearest supermarket that he knows, often walking past it on his way to or from the tram stop.

  As he walks, he thinks of the similarities between Beret’s life in the Dakotas and that of Somali women in Norway. Beret, in her fear of the prairie, covers the windows of her sod house and bars the door at the slightest worry whenever her husband is away. And the Somalis conceal their bodies with all-enveloping tents when they are outside the house, afraid of whom they may run into.

  At the supermarket, having gotten his milk, Mugdi stands in line to pay as the TV replays news of two terror attacks that appear to have just occurred in Britain—one in London, the other in Glasgow. According to the newscast, the attackers, “who may have been radical Muslims,” reportedly tried to detonate bombs in London using cell phones, but did not succeed, whereas in Glasgow, an SUV carrying bombs burst into flames after slamming into one of the entrances to Glasgow Airport. British officials are of the view that the two attacks are connected.

  When the newscast moves on to international sports, the stunned silence is at first quite deafening. Mugdi immediately thinks of his younger brother Kaluun, who, last he recalled, was traveling in Scotland. He can’t remember if he was supposed to be in Edinburgh or Glasgow, training a group of young Africans on some British Council stipend in radio reporting. He thinks that he must telephone him, see if he and his partner Eugenia are safe, when a woman with a pierced tongue, who is at the head of the line, turns round and addresses the other shoppers, her voice filled with rage. She says, “Imagine what will become of our country if Muslims and blacks are the majority, which they will be in another two decades, unless we stop them from coming in. At the high rate they breed, they are already a threat.”

  A young tattooed man says, “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am very serious,” says Pierced-Tongue.

  A debate erupts, with several people talking at the same time and taking sides. The majority of those who speak are opposed to the view held by Pierced-Tongue. A young woman says to her, “You take us for fools when you and your lot say stuff like that. There is no way Muslims and blacks will ever form the majority in Norway. Come on, talk sense.”

  Mugdi wonders what Pierced-Tongue might say or do if she knew that not only was his Norwegian-raised son a terrorist, but now his family has helped his widow and stepchildren to come to Oslo.

  Pierced-Tongue looks from Mugdi to the Pakistani shop manager and says in a voice marked by pique, “We host them, clothe them, provide them with food and do you know what they do? Instead of showing their gratitude, they bomb our subways, attack our buses, and kill thousands when they destroy our buildings. A plague on their faith.”

  Then she stomps off, leaving her purchases behind on the counter, despite the manager’s attempt to call her back.

  Mugdi remembers the frightening effect 9/11 had on nearly every Norwegian he talked to, including Birgitta and Johan. Then just four years later there were the attacks on London’s underground and the bombing of the double-decker bus, in which more than fifty people lost their lives. And even though there have been many more suicide bombings in Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Pakistan, the Norwegians thought little of these. They may have empathized with the victims—just never as much as when the killings took place close to home, and the dead were Europeans.

  When finally it is Mugdi’s turn to pay, he feels a quiverful of hostile arrows directed at his back. He begins to relax only when he leaves the store.

  Mugdi arrives home and finds Timiro making a bowl of miso soup. Her movements are a bit slow and uncoordinated and her complexion is pallid. She is in a bathrobe, her hair wet, straggly, and short at the back. As he moves with speed toward the phone to make the call to Kaluun, Timiro asks, “Why do you look gloomy? What’s happened?” When he tells her about the attacks in Glasgow and London, she says, “Are they okay, Uncle Kaluun and Eugenia?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  As the landline in his brother’s apartment rings and he waits for either his brother or Eugenia to answer, he asks Timiro how she is feeling. “I’m tired, no energy at all.” About to head upstairs, she waits, eager to know that all is well with Kaluun and Eugenia, until she figures out from the conversation between her father and uncle, now that Kaluun has answered the phone, that everything is okay
. She says to her father, “Give them both my love, Dad.” Then, taking the bowl of soup with her, she trundles up the stairs to her bedroom without much ceremony.

  Mugdi, pausing, picks up faint footsteps as his brother explains that he is going out on the balcony overlooking Abney Park cemetery, a woodland memory park in east London where the two brothers often took long enjoyable walks together.

  “Everything is okay with me and Eugenia,” Kaluun says.

  “When did you get back from Scotland?”

  “We took the night train and arrived this morning.”

  “I am glad you are safe and resting.”

  Kaluun says, “My head of division wants me to help out, relieve a colleague who was on the night shift.”

  “The bells of panic are sounding all over Europe. We’ve heard them loud and clear here in Norway,” Mugdi says. “And even though the perpetrators haven’t as yet been apprehended, my feeling is that it will be someone who looks like us, whom we wholeheartedly condemn. But of course all of us will be painted with the same brush. I hope that things settle down soon.”

  “I think it’ll be a long while before it does. But tell me how Timiro is doing. Eugenia and I were glad when she telephoned and gave us the news that she is pregnant.”

  “She is out of sorts and fatigued,” says Mugdi. “But apart from that she is all right. She sends her love.”