Let's Go Swimming on Doomsday, page 9
“Alice isn’t that bad, really.”
I pull the yo-yo out of my pocket and start wrapping the string around my finger. “She’s terrifying.”
Muna laughs. It’s a big, throaty laugh, and even she seems surprised to hear it. “She’s got a point, though. What are you doing at a girls’ center?” Muna’s tone is nicer than Alice’s, but still mildly accusing.
I open my mouth, but find I don’t have an answer. I haven’t stopped to think about it, I realize. Not really. For the first time, it truly hits me that I shouldn’t be here. That I’m an interloper. That probably some of these girls are here precisely because of what boys like me did to them.
Without warning, the image of a girl, broken and bloody, fills my head. I fumble and drop the yo-yo.
“What is it?” Muna asks, seeing my face.
“Nothing.” I grab it back up and wind the string, trying to close my mind before more images rush in. But it’s too late to stop the familiar feeling of shame from rolling over me like an oily black wave. I let my toes drag in the dirt. Maybe I should leave. It’s not like I couldn’t walk out the front gate. I doubt anyone would try too hard to stop me. But where would I go? My guilt fights with a familiar feeling of numbness. It all seems too hard to figure out. I put the yo-yo in my pocket. The only thing I can think to tell Muna is what I told Alice: “It wasn’t my idea. Sam brought me here.”
You sound like a five-year-old, Abdi. Like I have no choice in the matter. Like lately it hasn’t even occurred to me to weigh in on my own life. Because it hasn’t. Because just thinking about trying to decide what happens to me is starting to give me a headache.
“You don’t have anywhere else to go?” she asks.
That question’s easy to answer. I shake my head no.
She purses her lips, rocks back and forth in the swing. Finally she nods at my hand. “Did Al Shabaab do that?”
I twitch.
“What did you do? Steal something?”
For a second the question’s almost funny. Almost. “Something like that.”
Back and forth. The swing’s chains creak. “Were you one of them?”
It shouldn’t surprise me; somehow I knew the question was coming, but it still catches me off guard. “N-no,” I say. “No, I hate Al Shabaab. They’re murderers.”
The lies still come so easily. I can’t tell if she believes me or not. She doesn’t say anything like, Oh, no, of course not, sorry I even asked. Yeah, you don’t seem like that kind of person. She knows better, I guess. Maybe she knows all too well that all sorts of people get caught up in all sorts of things. For a while we’re quiet, but then she makes a noise that I almost don’t catch, like a grunt.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Yeah, just . . .” She puts her hand on her middle. “She’s stretching out.”
“It’s a girl?”
“A big girl. Heavy.” Muna shifts restlessly on the swing, like she can’t find a comfortable position. “I was watching a program on TV the other day about astronauts,” she says. “They just float around in space. Weightless. I’d pay a million shillings to feel like that right now.”
“Weightless,” I repeat. It does sound nice. “Like swimming.”
“Hmm. Like swimming? Is it?”
I look at her. “Sure. You said you’re from Mogadishu, right? You never swam in the ocean?”
She tilts her head, suggesting the tiniest hint of a smile. “You ever see any girls swimming at Lido Beach?”
I frown. Now that I think about it, no. Sometimes girls would come to the famous beach in giggling packs and wade up to their knees, or mothers would walk their toddlers into the small waves, but I can’t remember seeing any of them really go for it, out past the breakers.
She sees the answer on my face and shakes her head. “Men and women swimming together? Al Shabaab would shit themselves.”
My knees lock for a split second, and then I hurry to keep swinging, forcing a laugh. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Actually, we’re supposed to go to Paradise Island in December on a field trip. It’s a mall with a water park called Splash Land. There’s a pool there; some of the other girls were talking about it.” Her forehead wrinkles. “But I can’t go in.”
“Why?”
“Splash Land rules. You have to pass a swim test. I don’t know how to swim.”
“You don’t?”
She shrugs. “When would I have learned?”
“You have to know how to swim. It could save your life.”
The corner of her mouth tugs up again. I’m not really sure why, but I persist. “The beach is close, right?” I know it is; I could just barely see the water from our algebra classroom on the second floor. “Do you ever go?”
“Some of the girls go with a teacher in the afternoons,” she says cautiously. “If it’s nice.”
“I’ll teach you!” I blurt, unable to help myself. I suddenly feel buoyant, almost giddy. “I’ll go with you! I’ll show you how to swim.”
She presses her lips together in a frown. Just as quickly as the good feeling comes, it disappears. I’ve pushed too hard. She’s going to say no. It’s not appropriate. I’ll make her uncomfortable.
I start to tell her never mind, it’s okay, but before I can, she looks up and asks, “Can Alice come too? She doesn’t know how to swim either.”
I open and close my mouth. “S-sure. Of course. Absolutely.”
“Okay,” Muna says, after a pause. She leans forward and puts her hands on her belly. The little smile comes back. Then she whispers, “Hear that? We’re going to learn to swim.”
SEVENTEEN
THEN: AUGUST 20
THE FORT, SOMALIA
Dahir is dispatched to take me to my new unit, the 106s. There are five units: 101, 102, 104, 105 and 106. Dahir is in charge of the 102s. I’m not sure what happened to 103, but I have other, more important things to figure out right now.
The General’s let me go without a blindfold, and I hurry down the stairs after my brother, who’s moving like his pants are on fire. I hold my ribs, wincing. I wait until we’re outside, away from the guys guarding the front door of the building, and then snatch his elbow. “Dahir! We have to talk.”
He shakes me off. “Don’t call me that. My name is Khalid.”
He leads me through a part of the Fort that’s straight out of The Mummy. Or Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. The new buildings, mud brick and topped with tin roofs, look flimsy and poor next to the old walls made of massive coral block. We pass a tiny mosque painted green. A kitchen block where the same girl with the gloves who served us earlier is bent over a charcoal stove. She doesn’t look at us as we pass. Another girl pulls sun-stiffened uniforms off a laundry line nearby.
Once we’re past them, I try grabbing my brother’s arm again. “Look, I get that you probably hate me. I would hate me too. But can you please just listen for one second? This is important!”
Dahir/Khalid’s feet slow slightly. “I have orders to take you straight to your unit.”
“Unit? I’m not going to a unit!” I look around to make sure no one is watching us. “Da— Khalid, listen, I came here to find you, not join these nut-jobs!”
“Hey!” Khalid says, stopping abruptly and whirling on me so fast I almost run into him. He holds a finger up at my nose. “That’s blasphemy! Watch out or God will cut out your tongue! I knew you were bullshitting back there about wanting to fight for our country.”
My mouth opens and closes like a fish. I grab his finger and try to keep from shouting. “Of course I was! Don’t you hear yourself? Are you brainwashed or something?”
He grunts, like the question is too stupid to deserve an answer.
“What are you even still doing here?” I ask. “Why haven’t you run away?”
Dahir/Khalid’s face twitches. He glances up at the building we’ve left, and then grabs me by the collar and drags me around the side of a crumbling shed, out of view. Among an assortment of rusty machine parts that have been brought back here to die, he finally looks at me. “Listen,” he says, “it may sound crazy to you, but being recruited was the best thing that ever happened to me!”
For a second I can’t even respond. Then I splutter, “You didn’t get recruited, you got taken at gunpoint!”
He shakes his head, frustrated. “It was God intervening, bringing me here. Didn’t you hear the Doctor? Don’t you know what the government is doing to our people? The politicians say they’re Muslim, but they work with the Americans and Europeans. Those nations are always meddling like they know what’s best for us, like we’re too stupid and backward to decide on our own! But look what they did to Iraq and Afghanistan!”
“Dahir,” I say shakily, “you’re talking crazy. That doesn’t have anything to do with—”
“Crazy?” He barks a laugh. “Don’t you remember what happened to Uncle Sharmarke?”
“That’s totally different. He got killed by Ethiopian soldiers.”
“Because he was a soldier with the Islamic Courts Union! Killed by Christian Ethiopians who were funded by who? The Americans! Al Shabaab is what’s left of the Courts, and the Americans haven’t stopped trying to wipe us out!”
I try to speak, but Dahir goes on, talking like he’s onstage and I’m not even here anymore. “They do the same thing to innocent Muslims around the world. They bomb whole villages, whole city blocks, not caring who they kill—old people and children! Aabo was wrong; there’s no such thing as staying away from guns. You can’t be neutral. You have to choose sides, and if you don’t, you’re just letting them win. I’m not going to sit around anymore and let them try to destroy Somalia too. I’m going to—”
“Hooyo is gone!” I blurt out. “I didn’t leave them. Ayeyo, Hafsa, the twins—they’re all gone! That’s why I’m here. You’re right. I’m not here because I want to fight; I’m here because I need your help! You have to come with me. We have to rescue them!”
Dahir’s eyes narrow. “What do you mean, gone?”
I feel sick with everything that I came here to tell him boiling inside of me. But now that I’m in front of my brother, finally able to speak . . . the words won’t come. My voice sticks in my throat. Now, listening to him, there’s also a curdling, babbling fear in my gut. Dahir isn’t thinking straight. He’s talking like one of them. I swallow, my brain churning like wheels through sand. What will he do if I tell him about Jones, one of these murdering Americans he’s talking about? Will he believe me? Will he help me?
Or will he tell the General?
And if he does, then what?
What happens to Hooyo and the others?
“Dahir,” I say, trying to keep calm, choosing my words carefully. “You never should have ended up here in the first place. It’s my fault, I know that. But now you can leave, you can get out of here, and we can go find our family. I know I don’t have the right to ask you to help me, but think of them. Think of Hooyo and Hafsa and the twins. They need you. They’ve been . . . taken. We have to get them back.”
He eyes me. “Taken? What are you talking about? Who took them? A gang? AMISOM?”
“I . . . I don’t know,” I finally say. “Just men. With guns. They came in the middle of the night. I . . . I ran away. I haven’t seen them since then.”
“When?”
“A few days ago.”
He looks past me, his eyes skating over the compound. Hope pulses through me. Is Dahir actually listening now? If I can just get him to come with me, then I’ll tell him the full truth of everything later, when we have time, when we’re far away from this place. “We have to find them,” I say, gripping his arm. “We can figure out how to get in contact with Aabo. He’ll know what to do. We can get them back. Come on, Dahir, please. Let’s get out of here,” I beg.
I can see some sort of struggle going on behind my brother’s eyes. What is he waiting for? Why is he even hesitating? “They took all of them?” he asks. “Even the twins? Hafsa?”
“All of them.” I wait, blood humming in my ears, holding my breath until it’s about to explode in my chest. I’m ready to jump up and go the second I know he’s finally heard what I’m telling him. Long seconds pass.
“They’re trying to get to me,” he finally mutters. “They did the same thing to Rashid. Those AMISOM bastards kidnapped his wife, dangled her in front of him.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about, but it doesn’t matter. “Help me, Dahir,” I beg. “Help me rescue them.”
He digs his knuckles into his eye sockets and stands like that for what seems like forever, minutes ticking by, his lips moving faintly like he’s having some internal conversation. I don’t know if he’s praying or what, and it takes everything in me not to reach out and shake him. But finally his brow smooths. He straightens the keffiyeh around his neck and looks up.
I’m already starting to move. “Let’s get—”
“I can’t go.”
The chill in his voice stops me dead. I reach out, my fingers fluttering at his sleeve. “Dahir—”
“I have to stay here.” With every word, he straightens, pulls away. “I made a vow to fight. If I leave, then they get what they want. They win.”
I can feel myself starting to shake again, a howl of frustration building in my throat. “Who cares?” I demand. “It’s our family. What about fighting for them? That’s what you need to do! Not play warlord here with these people!”
“They’re not warlords,” he says. “They’re my brothers.”
“I’m your brother!”
He looks at me with something like pity, and it makes me want to punch him in the face as hard as I can.
His voice infuriatingly calm, Dahir says, “Staying here and fighting is the only way to help Hooyo and the others. Once we defeat AMISOM and the puppet politicians, we’ll set all the prisoners free.”
“But—they need us now! Not in some fairy-tale future when everything is better!”
“I’m sorry,” he says, stepping back. “I can’t. I vowed to fight with the Boys. The Doctor is counting on me to lead my brothers. I’m staying.” He looks away from me, like he’s already back with his unit in his mind.
“I need you,” I say, my voice cracking. I grab his arm. “Our family needs you, Dahir. Please, you’re Dahir, you’re not this Khalid person! You’re—”
I hear the blow before I feel it, right on top of the old ones, ripping the Doctor’s bandage off my cheek. I find myself on my knees, the ground reeling.
For a few moments nothing moves except the bandage, flapping on one piece of tape as I sway.
Then, softly, “Abdi . . .” Dahir slowly crouches down next to me. “Shit. I’m sorry.” He rubs his hands over his face.
I sniff, trembling in fury.
He sighs. “Look, try to understand. I do care about Hooyo and the others, of course I do, but I can’t abandon my brothers now. When they brought me here, I was a child. I was younger than you. I didn’t know anything. I thought they’d kill me, but I was wrong. The Doctor showed me my path. He made me a new person. A better person. I made a promise to him and to God to fight for all of us, all the Ummah, not just our family. God is testing me, and I know what I have to do. Fighting for control of Somalia is the best—the only—way to win freedom. For everyone. This is the path God has laid out for me, and I can’t waver. I know you want to go do something, but what? You don’t even know who took them or where they are.”
I look up, begging him to understand somehow without me speaking. No. He’s wrong. I do know who took them.
Show me my brother. Show me Dahir, the Dahir I remember, the Dahir who gave his life for mine, and I’ll tell him everything.
Show me I can trust him.
But all he says is “I’m not leaving.”
His words are as final as hammering the lid onto a coffin.
My already reeling head starts to spin, faster and faster. I feel myself floating, untethered, a speck on a vast ocean with no land in sight.
I look out at the barren compound. The Boys are milling under the trees, on break from training. Ever since I made this bargain with Jones, all I’ve let myself think about is finding Dahir. I would find him, he’d come back with me and we’d find some way to rescue Hooyo and the others. He’d know what to do. Or he’d tell Jones whatever he needed to know. Because how could he possibly be more loyal to the Boys than to us? He’s talking about the government and politics, all of it vague and far away, when what’s happening to our family is blisteringly real and urgent. Who is this person in front of me who can’t see that? What happened to my brother?
I try to pull myself together, swipe at my running nose. I need time. Time to figure out what to do. Maybe I can keep talking to him, trying to make him see. I can’t just give up, give in to this feeling of total helplessness. I owe that much to Dahir. And what other choice do I have? Without him, how do I even begin to rescue Hooyo and the others? He has to help me.
And if I can’t convince him, then, well, I don’t know.
“Look,” Dahir says, “what if God led you here to be a warrior, like He did me? What if that was what He intended all along? You got here late, but it doesn’t matter. You’re here. Stay. You’re being offered a chance. Let Him work through you.”
My brother pushes himself up off the ground and extends a hand to pull me up. His eyes are bright and focused, their brown depths the exact color of our mother’s.
I stare at his hand.
And then, what else can I do? God help me, I take it.
EIGHTEEN
NOW: NOVEMBER 8
SANGUI CITY, KENYA
