Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb Page B

you come for bercha? Lilly, is qutti qahwah ready?”
    “Thank you, Aunties,” said Sadia, bowing politely, “but today I’m taking Lilly for bercha.”
    “Lilly?” Nouria asked curiously.
    I stood stunned in the doorway of the grim kitchen holding a wooden spoon.
    “Every girl needs girlfriends, no?” Sadia said brightly to the women. “Lilly and I were chatting at the market and I told her this: why do you have no girlfriends? Even a farenji must have girlfriends. So I made a promise and here I am!”
    “Yes, yes, of course,” they all agreed. “Go!” they shouted at me. Murmurs of approval all round. Such a good girl. And from such a good family. They were clearly surprised I was able to make such respectable friends.
    Nouria nodded. “Go!”
    I smiled at Nouria. She was wearing my shoes.
    Sadia and I slipped out the gate at the bottom of the hill and walked in silence, traveling left for a quarter of a mile along the dusty road that runs adjacent to the city wall. Only Oromo and Somalis travel this road: men leading animals by thick rope, women bent double under the weight of firewood, children carrying water from the river—people, in other words, for whom there is no day of rest.
    We slipped back into the city through the next of the five gates in the city wall. This was the route Aziz had scratched into the dirt. The key, apparently, to moving around the city undetected. Aziz’s uncle’s house was right there, immediately to the left of the gate.
    We entered the compound and Sadia waved at an old man sitting cross-legged inside the main room with the Qur’an in his hands. “Good afternoon, Uncle.”
    “And good afternoon to you,” he mumbled toothlessly. There followed a series of inquiries about his health, each of which he answered, “Thanks to God.”
    I nodded politely and followed Sadia up a wooden staircase to a narrow balcony. It was a very old Harari house, one with an upper floor traditionally used for storing firewood and tobacco leaves. From the balcony there was a stunning view of the farmlands in one direction, the dense matrix of the city in the other.
    We took off our shoes and entered the last room, a place of discretion, dark and small, without windows. I felt burlap beneath my feet and could barely make out faces, but I could see the forms of several people, both young men and women, reclining against pillows lining the walls. In the middle of the room was an enormous pile of qat amassed on a scarf, and beside it, a tray with two thermoses of tea, a jug of cold water, plastic cups with daisies printed on them and the ubiquitous clay pot for burning incense.
    Dr. Aziz greeted me from the floor, patting the pillow beside him, but he did not introduce me. I sat beside him as he recited a du’a, distributing the qat as he did this, passing a bundle of fresh twigs to each of us in the room and keeping a tenth aside—the Prophet’s share, it was called.
    “These are the best leaves, the sweetest,” he said, passing me a few pale stalks.
    Once the qat had been passed round, he threw incense onto the coals in the clay burner and we said our thanks to God. Now chewing could officially begin.
    The men were all wearing sarongs, leisure wear, and sat with their left arms balanced on their left knees while they stripped the twigs quickly from top to bottom between their thumbs and forefingers. Their cheeks grew as they stuffed more and more leaves into the sides of their mouths. They chatted away in a mixture of Harari and English. I thought this must be for my benefit, even though nobody but Dr. Aziz addressed me directly. I didn’t want to change the language of this or any other room. It’s okay, I wanted to tell them, I even dream in Harari now. And Harari dreams are not like Arabic or English dreams: there are always a great many more people involved.
    I listened to the men talk about waterborne diseases and some recent decision made by the council of elders concerning alcohol.