Knots by Nuruddin Farah Page A

which someone has inadvertently trampled. Nor does he dare show his ugly, puffed-up face to anyone, nursing his ego and his physical wounds with a huge sulk, silent, whereas she drives herself to the emergency ward in a hospital in the neighborhood, with her lips as thick as Dunlop tires. The nurse attending to her suggests that she press charges against the wife-beater, but Cambara lies, describing herself as the victim of a mugging. She receives half a dozen stitches, and the doctors discharge her with a warning that, given the viciousness of the cuts, she will do well to look after herself and to call the police if the dangerous man poses any further threat to her.
    In the event, Wardi does not go away for the weekend with his paramour as planned, scared she might ask how he came by those ugly bruises. Wardi and Cambara share the same space for a few days, hardly communicating; they eat and cook separately for much of this interim period, but avoid each other. For her, the modus vivendi put her in mind of the arrangement she had worked out with Zaak, each keeping to his or her part of the apartment. They would come together for the sake of decorum whenever one of their relations or friends visited or when they had to honor a friend getting married. Nor did Cambara speak of the fistfight; who started it, who bled more, who won, and who lost what. Privately, she felt she was the one hard-done by what happened, especially after the death of her son.
    Then, one morning, Cambara wakes up looking like a cat in distress, and, with her gut troubled, her mind unsettled, and smarting because of her heart, which hurts terribly, she resolves to put the greatest of distances between herself and Wardi. Long discussions ensue to which Arda and Raxma are parties, now with one alone, now with the other, and later with both. Security tops the agenda. Arda is of the view that no property in present-day Mogadiscio is worth the risk involved in its recovery. Raxma is inclined to hold the opinion that a visit now will be all to the good, may even have therapeutic value. But where will she stay? They agree to look deeper into every aspect, think of where she might put up and with whom, and then meet again.
    Cambara buys a one-way ticket to Mogadiscio after she hears back from both Arda and Raxma. While Arda insists that she will okay the trip on condition that she stay with Zaak and vow to return immediately in the event of the slightest danger, Raxma promises to contact Kiin, who owns a hotel and who, she is certain, can provide her with backup security and accommodation.

    Her eyes half open, clouded from exhaustion, Cambara stirs at the sound of the kettle singing downstairs and calling to her host, saying to him in kettle-speech, “Come and make your early tea, Zaak.” She lies motionless in the bed, revisiting her first days with Wardi in Geneva, when love was good, and the two of them made it with the leisure of a man and a woman who could not have enough of it or of each other.
    Wardi and Cambara met by chance, in a café. Both had been stood up by the person each was waiting to meet: She had an appointment with a screenwriter working on a script about a Somali refugee being deported from Switzerland, and Wardi was to meet with an immigration lawyer to help him present his case to the refugee authority at the canton of Geneva. Drawn to each other as two lost souls, each sought salvation of some sort in and from the other. For Cambara, it was holiday time; she had just completed a two-week film shoot funded by a Swiss-Canadian outfit. Wardi, for his part, was a penniless Somali, eager to receive the papers on which his refugee status in Switzerland depended. She was charmed with immediate effect, and she felt there was no way to undo that; they were bound to each other.
    They left the café feeling each other, touching, holding hands. She was giggly, because she found him funny and lighthearted, and being with him excited her in