the streets around us thick with Somalis, we see a short, squat woman sitting on a low stool stirring a pot of stew. Her clothes are dirty and threadbare, her skin an unhealthy gray. When she looks up, her eyes are vacant, as if she has removed her spirit from the world.
“She is in trouble,” Asad says quietly. “You can see. She must have no family. We should give something. We should eat her stew.”
“When you feel pity for her,” I ask, “are you thinking of Yindy?”
He turns from me, looks straight ahead, and smiles without pleasure.
“I hate Yindy,” he says softly. “I do not have a place in my heart for her.”
We sit there in silence, watching the street life about us. A man comes to buy stew from the woman on the stool. She dishes his portion into a polystyrene bowl. It is no secret that memory is not very reliable. But here is a special case. For more than two years, Yindy and Asad relied upon each other in body and spirit. He must surely have loved her. And yet what happened subsequently has turned her to poison.
“One night,” Asad says quietly, apropos of nothing, “people broke into our place. They stood over us discussing whether to rape Yindy. Some said she was too crippled to rape. Others said, no, she was still rapeable. In the end, they left with the raw food the NGOs had brought us and then went to our neighbor’s place and raped her instead.”
He begins talking of other things, and it seems from his rapid and rehearsed diction that the memory of that night is gone, that what he really keeps of that moment are the words with which he tells the tale.
—
At some time in 1993, Yindy told Asad that she had qualified for resettlement to America. It had happened, in some way or other, through an uncle who lived there. She had to report immediately to a temporary waiting center called Lang’ata. It was near Nairobi.
Asad remembers the conversation vividly. They were sitting under the shelter of the
balbalo,
each in a plastic chair provided by the kind
gaal.
Yindy said that she would have to go to America without Asad at first but that he would not have to wait long before he could come, too. Once she had settled there, she said, she could
responsa
him and he could join her.
Neither of them knew what this new word
responsa
might mean, only that it was drawn from the great stock of legal and other concepts that lubricated the world of the UNHCR and America. Yindy also told Asad that America had the finest schools in the world, and colleges, where people studied to become doctors and lawyers and engineers. She told him that he was her son, that he was very clever, and that in America he would have the opportunity to become someone great.
Yindy left him in the care of the neighbor who had been raped in her stead. She instructed him to stop attending school, to stop playing with other children, to leave the house only when accompanied by the neighbor. She said that she would find him a home in Nairobi, where he would live while he waited to leave for America. There were many AliYusuf in Nairobi, she said. She would find him somewhere safe.
When I ask Asad to recall his time in Liboi after Yindy’s departure, he shrugs. He speaks instead of the end of this period. Yindy had called for him to come. She had sent him a ticket for the Ziafania Express, the intercity bus service. He bid Liboi farewell and boarded the bus. Although he was to travel alone, the conductor, who had been given instructions and money to care for him, bought him food whenever the bus stopped.
It was a very long journey, about twenty-four hours. He wondered what would happen if Yindy had the time of the bus’s arrival wrong and nobody was waiting on the other side. “Nairobi” was a name to which he could not pin an image. As much as he tried, he could not fathom what he might find.
In the end, the first person he saw when he stepped off the bus was Yindy. She was standing in a circle with several other ladies
“She is in trouble,” Asad says quietly. “You can see. She must have no family. We should give something. We should eat her stew.”
“When you feel pity for her,” I ask, “are you thinking of Yindy?”
He turns from me, looks straight ahead, and smiles without pleasure.
“I hate Yindy,” he says softly. “I do not have a place in my heart for her.”
We sit there in silence, watching the street life about us. A man comes to buy stew from the woman on the stool. She dishes his portion into a polystyrene bowl. It is no secret that memory is not very reliable. But here is a special case. For more than two years, Yindy and Asad relied upon each other in body and spirit. He must surely have loved her. And yet what happened subsequently has turned her to poison.
“One night,” Asad says quietly, apropos of nothing, “people broke into our place. They stood over us discussing whether to rape Yindy. Some said she was too crippled to rape. Others said, no, she was still rapeable. In the end, they left with the raw food the NGOs had brought us and then went to our neighbor’s place and raped her instead.”
He begins talking of other things, and it seems from his rapid and rehearsed diction that the memory of that night is gone, that what he really keeps of that moment are the words with which he tells the tale.
—
At some time in 1993, Yindy told Asad that she had qualified for resettlement to America. It had happened, in some way or other, through an uncle who lived there. She had to report immediately to a temporary waiting center called Lang’ata. It was near Nairobi.
Asad remembers the conversation vividly. They were sitting under the shelter of the
balbalo,
each in a plastic chair provided by the kind
gaal.
Yindy said that she would have to go to America without Asad at first but that he would not have to wait long before he could come, too. Once she had settled there, she said, she could
responsa
him and he could join her.
Neither of them knew what this new word
responsa
might mean, only that it was drawn from the great stock of legal and other concepts that lubricated the world of the UNHCR and America. Yindy also told Asad that America had the finest schools in the world, and colleges, where people studied to become doctors and lawyers and engineers. She told him that he was her son, that he was very clever, and that in America he would have the opportunity to become someone great.
Yindy left him in the care of the neighbor who had been raped in her stead. She instructed him to stop attending school, to stop playing with other children, to leave the house only when accompanied by the neighbor. She said that she would find him a home in Nairobi, where he would live while he waited to leave for America. There were many AliYusuf in Nairobi, she said. She would find him somewhere safe.
When I ask Asad to recall his time in Liboi after Yindy’s departure, he shrugs. He speaks instead of the end of this period. Yindy had called for him to come. She had sent him a ticket for the Ziafania Express, the intercity bus service. He bid Liboi farewell and boarded the bus. Although he was to travel alone, the conductor, who had been given instructions and money to care for him, bought him food whenever the bus stopped.
It was a very long journey, about twenty-four hours. He wondered what would happen if Yindy had the time of the bus’s arrival wrong and nobody was waiting on the other side. “Nairobi” was a name to which he could not pin an image. As much as he tried, he could not fathom what he might find.
In the end, the first person he saw when he stepped off the bus was Yindy. She was standing in a circle with several other ladies
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