Hiding in Plain Sight by Nuruddin Farah Page A

what would turn out to be his final holiday. She looks at one of the photographs and remembers that somewhere she read that the French philosopher Roland Barthes thought that an interest in photography points to a preoccupation with death because it attests to the past existence of an object, person, or image in a never-ending present, but not necessarily to its continued existence.
    Now, as Bella holds Aar’s photograph before her, her mind wanders from where she stands to engage with a distant past, where she interrogates the meaning and quality of a life that Aar had been an essential constituent in. In the photograph, Aar stands before the Hagia Sophia Museum, the sun in his eyes, facing Bella as she takes his picture, the thought of death the furthest thing from their minds. But now, looking at the photograph and studying it with death-inspired intensity, Bella senses that the two of them were in a sense preparing for death. Otherwise, why take a photograph in front of a museum representing a distant era that is no longer part of anyone’s present? That is to say, this photo, taken barely a year ago, now serves as a witness. And she listens to herself saying, as though to another, “Here we were, my brother and I, in Istanbul, marking our existence with this photograph, which now attests to his death.” A question: Can one accept the existence of anything unless one can represent it in some form or image?
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    Of the many apocryphal tales about Bella, this is the one Hurdo repeated most often: Unlike other babies, she was not born with the residue of birth smeared all over her. Nor did she announce her arrival with the usual primeval cry. Instead, she emerged from the womb with a shock of long jet-black hair and an even-tempered, almost professionalexpression that put Marcella in mind of a competitive swimmer emerging from a pool after a hard workout.
    Digaaleh suspected from the beginning that he was not the father. Indeed, very quickly the rumors circulating gained so much momentum that he couldn’t ignore them. This did not improve his marriage, but to everyone’s surprise, he continued to put on a good show despite his obvious loss of face. He neither spoke ill of Hurdo in public nor accused her in private. He treated Aar and Bella equally as his offspring, and behaved civilly to Giorgio Fiori. Only Fiori’s wife, who had remained in Bologna with their son, found his fling unpardonable. As if to prove that all cats are not gray in the dark, she filed for divorce within a year of his return to Italy.
    Hurdo, for her part, believing that a child’s happiness is built on a parent’s small gestures, devoted herself to the newborn, and in return, Bella gave her reasons for joy and a hopeful perspective on not only her daughter’s future but also her own. Aar, now twelve, had longed for a sister, and he too reveled in Bella’s presence. He was highly protective of her, even reprimanding his parents if Bella fussed in her crib and neither of them went to comfort her. When she was awake, he could be found sitting beside her, cooing sweet nothings to her. Once, when Bella took ill, Aar refused to go to school and nothing would make him leave her bedside, where he kept feeling her pulse, taking her temperature, or touching her forehead. When asked how his absence should be explained to his headmaster, he said to write that he was too sick to attend school; he couldn’t be well if Bella wasn’t.
    When he had done anything to upset his mother, Aar learned that extra attentiveness to his sister would soften Hurdo toward him. They were a threesome, Hurdo, Aar, and Bella, flourishing together, never allowing anyone to come between them. For the first three years ofBella’s life, they lived just as they pleased, with no boundaries. And Bella appeared to benefit from their unusual closeness. She sat up at five months, had her first teeth at six, crawled at seven, and walked