It is freezing cold in Oslo and snow has been falling heavily for hours, clogging the roads and closing schools for the day. Naciim is delighted by the snowfall, his first, and is thrilled that he’ll finally have use for his winter jacket, boots, and scarf, which he has looked forward to wearing from the day Gacalo took him to purchase them. He is as happy with winter’s arrival as his mother and sister are desolate, neither willing to step out of the house.
Now six months to the week since his arrival in Norway, Naciim has lately experienced a kaleidoscope of mixed fortunes, mostly of the positive variety. His greatest achievement is that two of his teachers at the language school have recommended that he is now proficient enough in Norwegian to attend regular school and so he has been accepted into Vahl Skole, one of the best multicultural schools in Oslo. His teachers told him that it is rare for a beginner to do so well. Everyone is thrilled for Naciim, especially Mugdi, who asks what kind of school satchel Naciim would like as a gift.
“I don’t need a new one,” says Naciim.
“Are you sure?” Mugdi asks. “In one of the shops we frequent, there’s a vintage school satchel on display. It’s made of leather, with plenty of space for books and a laptop. We can get you one, as a gift.”
“I’ll never say no to a gift from you.”
“Would your mother join the rest of the family here for a meal to celebrate your rare achievement?” asks Mugdi.
“I’ve no idea, but I can ask.”
Waliya has always found one excuse or another to avoid setting foot in Gacalo and Mugdi’s house. Naciim has previously hinted that his mother and sister are averse to “eating foods cooked in non-halal kitchens.”
Mugdi is curious whether the widow included their kitchen among these. Naciim confirms that is the case.
“Would she come if we offered to take everyone to a restaurant that is decidedly Muslim?” asks Gacalo.
“I’ll find out,” says Naciim.
“What do you think will make her happiest?”
“She would be happiest if you invite Imam Fanax and Zubair to join us, whether we eat at a restaurant or have a catered meal here at your home. I don’t like Fanax. He knows it, and Mum knows it too. But I’ll be grown up about it, if you invite him and he comes, as this will probably make Mum happy.”
Gacalo pauses, considering the options. Mugdi, however, has nothing good to say about the imam or Zubair after the information Himmo has given them. Now he speaks with a voice so firm it is obvious the decision is final. “No way will I allow the imam or Zubair to darken our door. And if you go to a restaurant, I will not join you. I refuse to liaise with terror suspects, especially ones so closely aligned with our terrorist son.”
After a moment, Gacalo says to Naciim, “Here is what I’ll do. I’ll order a lavish meal from the most prominent Somali restaurant in the city and have it delivered to your apartment. Run along home and tell your mother to invite a few guests of her choice, people she is fond of or with whom she wants to curry favor. I’ll have the food delivered after the evening prayer.”
A few hours later, Gacalo receives a brief text message from Naciim. The message simply reads, “Mum has hurt herself.” But the boy does not explain how, or how badly. When she shares the message with Mugdi, he looks confused and a little aggrieved, as if he has no idea what Gacalo expects him to do about it.
To his surprise, Gacalo remains silent, just when he assumes she’s about to remind him that as Waliya is their son’s widow, they are forever linked. The answer Mugdi has always given to such statements is this: that he did not mourn his son’s death when he chose to blow himself up and that he cannot think of Waliya as his son’s widow. Gacalo, for her part, views Dhaqaneh only from the perspective of a mother. She cannot and will never forget Mugdi’s strident condemnation of the boy, a memory that shocks her to the core even now. Sometimes Mugdi thinks that the distance between them on this matter is irrecoverable.
When Gacalo arrives at the widow’s apartment, alone, a sign on the door reads, in Somali, “It is open and so please come in.”
She bets that Naciim has not told his mother or sister what he promised he would when Gacalo phoned him on her way here. He said he would leave a note on the door so she should just walk in. Still, she knocks out of politeness and waits for a moment before entering.
Naciim is on his way to his room when he and Gacalo meet. He says, “Welcome,” and instantly apologizes for being in his bathrobe, his hair wet and dripping, as if he has just come out of the shower. As he retreats in embarrassment, Waliya, having heard a woman’s voice, appears, looking the worse for wear. Gacalo observes black-and-blue discolorations on the widow’s face, prominent contusions and ruptured skin. Her lower lip is swollen, as though repeatedly stung by a bee and then scratched. Now her tongue, red and sore-looking, emerges from her mouth to wet her lips, maybe to comfort them.
“How did you hurt yourself?” Gacalo asks.
When Waliya speaks, Gacalo has difficulty comprehending her and the widow has to repeat herself two, three times.
“I tripped.”
Saliva runs down over her swollen lip and she sucks it back in, enunciating carefully, like a novice practicing a foreign tongue. It takes what seems like three minutes for her to say, “I slipped on a wet cake of soap and hit my head against the shower door.”
“And then?”
Naciim, dressed, rejoins them and listens to the conversation in silence.
“As I tried to gain my footing,” says Waliya, “I slipped again, hit my head against the shower wall, then felt woozy.”
“It was my fault,” Naciim says.
“How is this your fault?” Gacalo asks.
“I left the soap on the shower floor, intending to pick it up, but forgot to do so. She wouldn’t have fallen if it weren’t for my carelessness.”
“Those bruises are bad,” says Gacalo, not quite believing Waliya’s story. She thinks that perhaps the widow hasn’t shared what truly happened with Naciim. “Would you like me to take you to hospital?”
“I’ll be all right,” Waliya insists.
Saafi appears in the doorway, kitted out in the clothes Gacalo bought for her on their shopping excursion a few months ago. The young girl offers a smile to her guest and seems about to pirouette in the way models do, but stops just short of doing so. Naciim, forever incorrigible, says, “You look as if you’re going out somewhere. Maybe next time you should come out with me in this beautiful dress and everybody will go, wow!”
Waliya says, “I won’t allow it.”
Ignoring his mother, Naciim says to Gacalo, “Saafi alternately puts on one of the four dresses you bought for her and spends several hours each day in front of the standing mirror in Mum’s room, admiring herself. Can you imagine?”
Then they hear a knock on the door and within seconds, both Waliya and Saafi, nervous about who it might be, prepare to flee, in the way of criminals escaping a crime scene. Naciim turns to Gacalo and says, “Please give me a minute and I will find out who is at the door. It is either the man from the restaurant delivering our meal or Zubair, whom my mother invited to join us.” The boy moves toward the door as though the entire world is at his command and asks in Norwegian, “Who is it?”
“I have a delivery to make,” a man says.
Naciim gives his mother and sister enough time to go to their rooms before opening the door to the man, who advances into the room with nonchalance until his eyes clap on Gacalo. Then he stops short, shocked at coming face-to-face with a woman not dressed in the “Saudi” way that has lately become fashionable among Somalis. Naciim relieves the man of the food he is carrying, signs the receipt, and gives him a tip. The man takes one more look in Gacalo’s direction to make sure that he is seeing a “naked” woman, not a ghost. Then he departs.
Just as Naciim lets the man out, Zubair arrives at the door. Naciim then leads the way back into the living room and presents Gacalo to a man in his early thirties, with a beard that has known no razor, a white conical hat, a baggy shalwar, and a long seamless khameez. He boasts a massive prayer mark on his forehead, evidence that he prays more frequently than most. Gacalo remembers Himmo talking about him at length, that this young man knew Dhaqaneh first in Norway and then in the battlefields of Mogadiscio—obviously a fellow jihadi. But she has no interest in speaking about her son this evening. She is here to celebrate Naciim’s achievement: that he can now start regular school, having done exceptionally well at the language school in the shortest time possible.
Gacalo rises to greet Zubair. He keeps a respectable distance, nodding his head in acknowledgment. In the absence of the women of the household—she assumes that Waliya and Saafi are putting on the hijab before rejoining them—Gacalo takes the food to the kitchen and empties it into serving bowls, leaving Naciim to play host to Zubair.
Finally Waliya and Saafi rejoin them, clad in rather fashionable chadors. By then, the food is on the table, alongside colorful orange drinks and other varieties of soda. When Zubair and Waliya lock eyes, Gacalo wonders if there’s more to the relationship than anyone has said. She also gathers from the way Saafi looks upon the scene that the young woman is more familiar with the man than she lets on.
Gacalo says, “Bismillah,” to encourage everyone to serve themselves. Zubair rubs his palms together, his face showing his eagerness to eat. Then he says, “Just a moment,” and off he goes to wash his hands. Because he does not ask where the washroom is, Gacalo notes that he clearly knows his way about the apartment. It crosses her mind that the truth is that the bruises are the consequence of a beating Waliya has received from Zubair, because it is a well-known fact that jihadis are often violent toward their women for the slightest religious infraction.
On his return, he and Naciim pile their plates high with food while Waliya and Saafi take tiny portions. Gacalo takes a single drumstick and a bit of salad. Zubair says “Bismillah,” and everybody else’s lips, except Gacalo’s, are astir with devotions, after which they start eating.
Gacalo is happy to be here for the boy’s sake, but relieved Mugdi is not around to be discomfited by Zubair’s presence.
Naciim is the first to speak. He says, “Sheikh Zubair has been involved in helping Mum start a nursery. And did you know,” he says to Gacalo, “he and my mother knew each other back home.”
Gacalo suddenly feels an intense sickness at the troubling thought that this fellow jihadi is alive while her son is not. She cannot bear the thought of engaging him in small talk, let alone asking him what Dhaqaneh was like just before his self-murder in the service of his faith. Her expression queasy, she fights back a wave of nausea. In an attempt to distract herself, she raises her glass in which there is water and makes a toast. She says to Naciim, “We are here to celebrate your admission into regular school in a much shorter time than expected and we pray that you’ll do well.”
Zubair trains his shifty eyes on Gacalo in a manner that makes her uneasy. As he watches her intensely, she thinks that perhaps she is misreading things and that he is anxious in the way of someone wanting to get something off his chest. When he speaks, his non sequitur doesn’t surprise her, because he says, “I know Waliya from way back, when she and Dhaqaneh first met. And I was there when they married. So it is a great thing that she and her two children are here, thanks to Allah, the Merciful and the Beneficent. She is now among her people. Imam Fanax and I have always supported her refusal to accept social welfare benefits from a non-Muslim entity such as the Norwegian state. So we have decided to give her a hand in setting up her nursery for Somali and Muslim children, to teach them reading and writing in Arabic.”
Zubair goes on, “So far a dozen children, some as young as two and others as old as five, have registered with us at the mosque. The children have working mothers and they need help.” Then he turns to Saafi and adds, “Saafi will be hired as her mother’s assistant.”
“I love looking after babies,” says Saafi.
“As far as Saafi and Naciim are concerned, the state will support them from the moment their asylum papers are issued. Saafi, like her mother, does not wish to receive a cent from the state. Needless to say, we’re content with Naciim’s progress, even if we are disappointed that he is not receiving the education a Muslim boy of his age requires.”
Waliya agrees with Zubair and, speaking with difficulty, she says, “You know I said so when we first arrived. Nothing would give me more pleasure than giving my children a good Islamic education.”
Then Gacalo’s mobile phone rings. From the phone ID, she can tell it is Mugdi. Grateful for an interruption, she listens to him for a couple of minutes and then says, “I’ll come home as soon as I can.”
The plates have barely been cleared when she hastens to depart.