Maryam witnessed the death of her younger sister. Their family stuck it out in the city of Hargeisa through the escalation of police and military presence, curfews, curtailments of freedom, and then random arrests and executions that resulted from the government turning against the north of Somalia.
They stayed in their beloved home to the bitter end. It was partly a stubborn show of support for the people around them who were also hanging on, and partly a sort of vigil for friends and family who had been snatched from their homes and imprisoned and tortured, or simply made to disappear. For years before they left, Maryam’s family members feared for their lives.
The day they gave up was the day that planes darkened the sky above Hargeisa and set about bombing it until it was destroyed. They left the city with the other remaining families that day, lines of them making their way out, using any available route.
From the air, it was easy to spot the columns of people fleeing. The pilots were ordered to hold on to some ammunition after bombarding the city itself and to drop it on those families. They were instructed to return to Hargeisa airport to refuel and rearm their planes after that.
Maryam remembers her mother pulling them into a maize field as the drone of engines filled the air above them. She screamed at them to crouch down and hide as the black dot in the sky above them grew larger and took on the shape of an aircraft. It was chaos. Maryam dove between the plants, and when she caught her breath and looked back, she saw her sister still in the road, alone, turning, confused, looking for them, for anybody.
“Halima!” she called. “Here!”
Halima heard her and began to run toward them, but behind her the plane loomed larger, its shadow only yards away now, its ammunition strafing the road behind it, sending clods of red earth up in a neat, efficient line of destruction that hit other stragglers first, but then caught up with Halima and felled her instantly.
They had to leave her there.
Maryam puts her photographs back in the box and stashes it away carefully. She returns to bed, the memories still making her heart pound, but she’s used to that. Like her husband and daughter, she falls asleep heavily and has dreams that are vivid and nightmarish.
Abdi waits patiently until everything is completely quiet in the flat, and then, for the second time that week, he dresses in the middle of the night and slips out of the house and into the night.
Nur wakes up to use the bathroom at four A.M.
On his way back to bed he looks in on Abdi and discovers that he’s missing.
The family works out that Abdi probably went out in jeans, a T-shirt, a hoodie, and some trainers. They think he probably took his wallet, which usually contains only a library card and at most a small amount of cash, but so far as they can tell he has nothing else with him.
Maryam loses her usual control and becomes hysterical. Nur scoops her into his arms and holds her as tightly as he can without hurting her.
I’m hearing hospital sounds less and less. Somehow I don’t seem to be present in the room as much as I was, and when I am, it’s more difficult to try to work out what’s happening.
I mistake the squeaking of the nurses’ shoes for a mouse in the corner of my room. I know it’s my mind playing tricks on me, but I can see the mouse’s face really clearly: its twitching nose, arching white whiskers, pink pinhead eyes.
My parents’ voices distort around me. I want to feel the pressure of their hands on mine, but there’s no sensation there at all. The heat of the infection burns all over me. I feel thirsty and sick, and I want to tell somebody so they can help me, but I can’t.
I’m desperate to stay in the room with my parents, desperate to keep a grip on reality, but the memories of Monday night play incessantly.
When I got across the bridge, my heart sank, because I could see that there was no way into the yard where the heaps of metal were piled. A tall chain link fence was between me and what I wanted. I felt tears sting my eyes. Everything was so frustrating.
Abdi was on the bridge. “I want to get in there,” I said. “It’s the only thing I want. It’s just that one thing.”
I rattled the fence.
“Stop,” he said. “Please. Stop. Doing. This. I can’t stand it anymore. You’re going to end up getting really sick, and we don’t have a phone to get help. What am I going to do if that happens? Tell me!”
“It’s just one last thing.”
“Do you ever think about anybody else apart from yourself?”
“I help other people,” I said.
“Do you? Have you asked me how I am tonight?”
“You’re with me.”
“So?”
“I’m your friend,” I said. “I help you.”
“How do you help me? Did you ask me if I wanted to end up here in the freezing cold while you do stupid things? Do you ever really ask me if I want to do anything, or do you just emotionally blackmail me?”
“I asked you to the party at the gallery! And this is for you as well as me.”
Or at least I’d thought it was, but now I felt confused. It was too late to give up, though. I’d come too far.
He was beside me now, and mist from our breath mingled as we stood face-to-face. He took my arm.
“Come back with me.”
“No.” I said. “Let go!”
He dropped my arm. I was surprised to see that he was crying.
“I’m dying,” I said. “I’m going to die.”
He stared at me. “How should I believe you?”
“Because it’s true. It’s happening.”
“I’m sick of you using your illness to manipulate me.”
“I’m not, I promise I’m not.”
“Oh, come on. It’s what you do. You’ve done it before so many times. You always need me to help you whenever I’m about to do something with one of the other kids at school. I know you do that on purpose, and I try to be a good friend to you, but think about what it’s like for me when you’re in hospital for ages. I have to be able to make other friends, too. It doesn’t mean I’m not your friend, I’m just not exclusively your friend. The minute I try to spend time with anybody else, you need me to go with you to the nurse’s office, and it’s always me. You don’t need to be so possessive. You can’t own me. I can have more than one friend, and anyway, it’s so pointless because I like you. I would be your friend every day anyway.”
The accusations hurt, and I knew that was because they’re true, but so was what I was telling him.
“I’m not lying.”
“Oh my god, you never stop! Are you even listening to me? Do you know what, I’ll tell you something else: You’re not going to want me now anyway. Everything is different. You just don’t realize it yet because you’re not actually interested in me, just what I can do for you, so let’s go home and then I’ll get out of your life forever.”
“I do want you.” I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“You’re unbelievably selfish.”
“I do want you, Abdi!” I yelled it because I meant it so much, but he turned away.
I grabbed the fence and willed the final bits of strength from my pathetic body. I started to climb, trying to ignore the painful bite of the cold metal on my fingers, willing the muscles in my arms and legs to work. The fence shook loudly as I climbed, metallic clanging reverberating all along it.