Knots by Nuruddin Farah Page B

a way she had not thought possible. Hours later, in the same day, she treated him to a gourmet meal at the first upmarket restaurant he had been to since arriving in Switzerland. He walked her to her hotel, where they sat in the lounge and talked until the small hours of the night. Just before dawn, she exchanged her single room for a double so they could chat some more and get to know each other better. He fell asleep with his clothes on. At nine the following morning—she had not slept a wink the entire night—she went out shopping and returned with the clothes she had chosen for him.
    She found him awake, just after a long shower. He stood handsome and desirable in a towel wrapped around his waist. Then she gave him the shaving kit she had bought, plus a pair of trousers and a couple of shirts, which fit him perfectly. He behaved as kept men are wont to do—taking their paramour’s continued loyalty and love for granted without ever reciprocating either. This should have sounded warning bells in Cambara’s appraisal of what to expect, but no. In love for the first time at the age of thirty-five, she was unwilling to hear anything but the sound of her adoring heart beating in rhythm with his.
    When he told her about Raxma and her mother’s phone calls from Ottawa, Cambara wore an amused expression, in the secretive attitude of a younger girl having her first date. She did not show interest in knowing what her mother had made of him. Why? Because she knew Raxma and her mother well, knew they could prove to be difficult and uncompromising when it came to Cambara’s choices of men, especially after what she had been through with Zaak. Arda located flaws in character, clan affiliation, educational background, or some other shortcoming in all the men in whom Cambara had shown interest.
    At some point, Cambara sent him out on the pretext of getting her Le Monde. While he was gone, she returned Arda’s call. Unsurprisingly, Arda segued into a song, in which the word “love” chimed not with stars shining most brightly but with the notion “ruse.” In short, Arda did not like the way Wardi’s voice presented itself well ahead of the rest of him. She had no liking of him, because she felt he was hard at work to make her fall for him. “Crafty bugger” was a phrase she employed more than once. Yet she had not met the man! Arda’s advice was: “Fly back home minus him.”
    For her part, Raxma thought that Cambara was deservedly having a delightful time, and, as such, she would not dare to suggest to her friend, who was swooning in the embrace of her fresh infatuation, to give him a wide berth—not until she met the fellow. Told about Arda’s take and how she had inferred the man’s character from a single, brief telephone conversation, Raxma reiterated that she would reserve her judgment at least until after Cambara had filled her in on the hiatuses in their story. She concluded that, not knowing enough, she would be inclined to a more prudent approach and cautioned against hasty marriage.
    Now, lying in bed in Mogadiscio, Cambara remembers with a good measure of self-recrimination that she did not heed her mother’s advice. Cambara returned to Toronto a few weeks later, minus Wardi, but that was not all. Cambara married Wardi at one of the city’s registries, unbeknownst to Arda, Raxma, and many of those very dear to her, convinced of her true love. It did not seem to matter to her what other people might say, or if they would or would not approve of the union. The hush-hush affair took place in the presence of two of her Canadian colleagues on the film shoot, who served as her witnesses. Before the ink of their signatures on the forms had dried, Wardi was urging her to file copies of their marriage certificate with the Canadian consulate, “for our family reunion,” he explained.
    Even though she found nothing terribly wrong with