Let's Go Swimming on Doomsday, page 13
Some of the guys saw people they loved die and now they want to kill. Some of them saw people they loved die and now they want to die. Those ones seem relieved when none of the commanders try to talk them out of it, when they get pats on the back, assurances of heaven. We have a couple of guys like that in our unit, and you have to treat them carefully. They’re as unpredictable as the white powder Bashir puts in his bombs. One second they’re hugging your neck and calling you “dear brother.” The next they’ve got a knife at your throat, spittle flying, eyes rolling, wanting to know why you’re looking at them like that. It’s like whatever horrible shit they saw has turned into a virus inside them. It makes their heads fuzzy, and it’s just itching to jump from the point of that knife into the next warm body.
The Doctor comes and goes. When he’s around, we gather together after dinner and build a fire, and it almost feels festive. He talks to us. Not like we’re children, like most adults do, but like we actually have brains between our ears.
“When I was a teenager,” he says, the fire crackling and dancing, “the fighting was all along clan lines. That was after the government was toppled in the early nineties. Majority clans kept their own militias and they’d fight back and forth for territory, killing anyone who got in their way. They were the warlords. They ruled by the gun and the fist, and cared only for making themselves rich. There was no government to speak of.
“It was into this chaos that the Islamic Courts Union was born. Good, brave men who were fed up with bloodshed banded together and began fighting back against the gangs.” His eyes sparkle in the light. “Fighting and winning, Alhamdulillah. Ten years after the chaos began, they put an end to the age of the warlords. They brought peace to the streets. They punished the wicked and upheld the righteous in the name of God.”
He stops. His forehead creases.
“But this, an Islamic State, made the Western powers nervous. The Americans couldn’t abide an Islamic government. Even if the Courts were bringing peace and justice, protecting widows and orphans. They could not stand the idea. So what did they do?”
We wait. I know what happened; my father told me all this history, but still I find myself leaning in, hanging on every word.
“The Americans joined up with the Somali government in exile, the same men who were too afraid to even set foot in their country, and instead ‘ruled’ it while living out of luxury hotels in Kenya. Then they all joined up with the Ethiopians, our Christian neighbors who have hated Somalia for centuries. And the Ethiopians came in on their tanks with their guns, destroying the peace the Courts had worked so carefully to build. They raped, murdered, looted. I saw it with my own eyes. I was a doctor then, and I tell you we did not have enough beds in the hospitals for the wounded. The patients lay dying side by side on the floor, and their blood ran down the hallways in rivers.” His eyes shine with pain and rage. “That was when I knew I could not stand by. That was when I left to fight the invaders with my Shabaab brothers on the streets of Mogadishu. We were the army of the Islamic Courts.”
Sparks from the fire shoot out and up, lost in the stars. “We took the city back from the Ethiopians, and there was peace again. But . . .” He sighs. “It was short lived. The same thing has happened again. The Western powers found another foreign army, AMISOM this time, and they hit us when we were still recovering. The Courts were destroyed and we few Shabaab are all that is left.
“The Westerners propped up new politicians—the same tribal warlords we fought so hard to depose! And now those Westerners turn a blind eye when these politicians rob from the mouths of children just to buy villas and Land Cruisers and take shopping trips to Dubai.
“That is who is running our country, brothers.” He looks around the silent circle. “And their mentality is spreading. Now I ask you, when a plant is diseased, do you go through and try to cut off all the small leaves that are infected?” He surveys the rapt faces staring up at him. “No, you have to pull it out by the roots. You have to burn it so the disease cannot spread and kill the whole crop. That is what we are doing, my brothers. We must fight differently. We must fight smarter to rid our country of all that is twisted and corrupt. But we will win, brothers. We will destroy all that threatens the good of our nation, and use the ashes to fertilize new shoots.”
The fire reflecting in his eyes tingles to my bones.
I know there’s more to the fighting than what he’s saying. I remember how it was when Al Shabaab controlled the city. I remember how they stoned a man who was drunk, killed him right there on the street where he lay. I remember how they took Dahir and all those other kids, forced them to fight. But still, when I listen to the Doctor, all of that starts to blur, and the future he paints begins to take shape and become the more real-seeming thing. I mean, he’s right about the politicians. It’s true that they’re rich and the rest of us are poor. The government doesn’t seem interested in fixing things. Dads have to leave to work in Saudi Arabia because they can’t be history professors or even fishermen. The Doctor says we can change things, make them better. That once we’ve taken back Mogadishu, we’ll share the wealth and all the mothers and fathers who left will come home.
Is this how it happened to Dahir? Maybe it was impossible to listen to the Doctor for three years without either going crazy or letting himself start to believe that maybe things could be better if Al Shabaab was given a chance again. It’s not like anyone around here is dumb enough to question what the Doctor says. No one’s going to raise their hand and ask him how, back when Al Shabaab actually was in charge, shooting people in the street for playing soccer or wearing lipstick was any way to show God’s mercy.
I try to remember all the stuff I learned in duqsi, like God loves not the aggressor, and how jihad isn’t supposed to be about killing. That it’s about becoming a better person first, and then fighting oppression and injustice peacefully. But all we hear is how great things are going to be when we drive the invaders and the warlords back out. We’re told again and again that what we’re doing is noble, that we’re fighting just like Mohammed and his men did, and we’re only trying to take back our country from the oppressors who took it first. And doesn’t that make it a righteous war?
I tell myself I won’t end up brainwashed. Of course I won’t.
But what if Dahir told himself the exact same thing?
The only time I don’t feel totally confused, anxious, or exhausted is when we swim. In the water, for a little while, nothing bad can touch me, and sometimes it feels like maybe I really could just float away. Even if it’s one of the days when the General comes down to observe, his psycho I-might-kill-you-I-might-not stare doesn’t bother me so much. It’s like being in the ocean is a shield. Could be it’s because I know he actually can’t reach me once I’m in the water. The General watches us, but he never gets in.
“He doesn’t know how to swim,” Bashir told me one day while we were treading water. He kept his voice low. “I overheard him telling Yusuf. Yusuf offered to teach him, but the General said no. I think he was embarrassed.”
“That’s dumb. Everyone who knows how to swim had to learn at some point.”
Bashir shrugged. “How would that look, though? You’re the Butcher and your men see you flailing around all helpless and shit in the water?” He shook his head. “Can’t show any weakness if you’re the General.”
I watched General Idris, the Butcher, from the corner of my eye. I watched him watching us.
We finished swimming, went back for prayers.
One day turns into another, all so similar that it hardly seems possible to keep track of how many have passed.
I get no closer to figuring out how to rescue my family.
We drill. Shoot the figures painted on the walls.
We eat.
Sleep.
Pray.
Repeat.
Repeat, repeat, repeat.
TWENTY-FIVE
THEN: SEPTEMBER 26
10K SOUTH OF MOGADISHU, SOMALIA
We’re headed into the rising sun, toward Mogadishu.
Only the best and brightest of the 106s for this, our first mission: fat Ahmed, scrawny Gari, one-eyed Bashir, snaggly Toothless, half-brained Weli of the short pants, and me.
Gari won’t stop picking his nose—it’s some sort of disgusting nervous twitch. Weli keeps exclaiming, “God is wonderful!” with every tree, rock, or hole in the ground we pass on our drive. I’m not sure why. Ahmed is carsick. Hell, we’re not even dressed in our military khameez. We’ve been given a mismatched assortment of clothes and flip-flops. We look like remedial students on holiday, not battle-hard militia.
All of our weaponry has been taken away, which is probably a good thing. While we were still on guard riding through the bush, Toothless kept dropping his gun on the truck bed, making us all scream and swat at him while he lisped, “Thorry, thorry!”
Honestly. My half-blind eighty-year-old ayeyo is more intimidating than this crew.
Which Bashir says is exactly what General Idris wants. Today we need to blend in.
The General is sitting with us in the back of the truck. Commander Yusuf got sick at the last minute, so the General stepped in to lead us, which has pretty much quadrupled everyone’s anxiety. He’s walking us through the plan. As far as secret missions go it seems pretty lame, but since none of us except Bashir have actually been on a mission yet, I get why the General doesn’t trust us with anything harder.
“You, Ahmed, tell me your route,” the General says.
Ahmed, sweating and stammering under the General’s eye, says, “I—I go first to Sheikh Muhumed’s shop.”
“And what’s the code phrase?”
“I ask to buy toothpicks. And, uh, a bus ticket.”
“To?”
Ahmed closes his eyes, thinking hard.
General Idris swears colorfully about the merits of Ahmed ever being brought forth from his mother’s anatomy. “To Liboi, son!”
“Liboi! Yes, sir!” Ahmed shouts.
“And then?”
“He takes me down into the tunnel under his shop and shows me the supplies. And I carry them, sir.”
“Where?” the General demands, squinting.
Bashir mouths the answer to him behind the General’s back.
“To tunnel 50,” Ahmed says, glancing between Bashir and the General. “I follow tunnel 15, go left at tunnel 48, then right into tunnel 50.” He picks at his sweaty shirt, trying to discreetly air his armpits.
“Good,” the General grunts, and Ahmed practically melts with relief onto the truck bed.
“General Idris, sir? What if someone else comes in wanting toothpicks and a bus ticket to Liboi?”
“Idiot,” the General replies to Gari. “Sheikh Muhumed doesn’t sell bus tickets. He’s a grocer. Only a doqon like you would go in there asking for them. Now, tell me your route . . .”
We’ve all got our different pickup locations and delivery points, each somewhere along the intricate web of would-be sewers that Al Shabaab commandeered and added onto. I’d always heard the rumors about Al Shabaab being in the sewers-turned-tunnels (after the government fell in the nineties with them only half built), but I thought it was something parents told kids to keep them from playing down there. Apparently not.
“What are the supplies for?” I ask, trying to sound casual.
The General turns on me, his face a twist of suspicion. “Not your concern.”
“My cousin in Unit 102 said they are for a special event,” Weli says brightly.
“Shut your mouth!” the General snaps, and Weli does, burying his head between his shoulders like a turtle. The General rounds slowly on the rest of us. “No one is to talk about this mission, or any mission, got that?”
“Yes, sir!” We all lower our eyes and cower appropriately, but my brain is ticking. A special event. Is that the “something big” Mr. Jones wanted me to find out about? My stomach does a somersault at the thought. Is one of Mr. Jones’s henchmen going to find me in town and demand to know what I’ve found out? I was supposed to get myself on a mission into Mog when I knew something, but I’ve got nothing. Less than nothing. What will Jones do when I tell him I’ve got no answers? But maybe they don’t know that Al Shabaab is stocking the tunnels. Maybe telling him about this mission will be enough information to free my family.
I run over my own plan for pickup and delivery in my mind—left into 78, right at 61, left at 57, drop off in tunnel 55—until it takes on the feeling and cant of a prayer. Until there’s no room in my head for anything else.
We’re dropped off in pairs, Weli and me on a sleepy street corner about a kilometer from where we need to be. It’s as far into the city as the General will go. Any closer and Bashir says there will be AMISOM checkpoints, and the General’s face is on too many “Wanted” posters. And besides, a bunch of boys in the back of a pickup doesn’t look real great, especially if a soldier gets curious and finds our gun cache behind the driver’s seat.
“Be back here by Asr prayers,” the General warns us. “Don’t make me wait. If you’re late, you’ll be considered a deserter. What happens to deserters and traitors, boys?”
“They die like dogs, sir!” we chorus.
The truck pulls away in a cloud of dust. Rubbing grit from our eyes, we start walking toward the city center. For the first time ever, the traffic and noise and people feel chaotic, hectic. The solitude of the Fort has hardly been relaxing, but you get used to the order and routine.
It’s funny what you notice when you’ve been away from a place for a while. This isn’t my neighborhood, but I know it. Like a lot of town, there are bombed-out buildings everywhere, and lean-to shelters covered in plastic, streets rutted and clogged with old trash. Women sell vegetables in front of their houses. Kids play. Old men in koofis sit on front stoops and yell at the kids. But today what I notice most is all the construction. Wooden scaffolding clings to new buildings, and men cling to the scaffolding. They hammer and hoist and saw and plaster with an urgency that seems impossible in the pounding heat.
Was there this much new stuff going up in my neighborhood? It feels like those times when a drenching rain follows a long drought and the whole desert explodes in fuzzy new growth. People are actually trying to make something of the city, not just huddle inside and survive. Al Shabaab is gone, so there are no gun battles on the street, no rockets whistling through the air, and people are rebuilding with a sort of energy that’s almost frightening.
And then I realize, actually, they are here. I’m Al Shabaab. I’m here. And suddenly, even though I’m dressed in normal clothes, and even though I know I’m not actually one of Al Shabaab’s true soldiers, it doesn’t matter. I feel like I’ve got the word terrorist stamped on my forehead, like everyone we pass surely knows where Weli and I have come from.
We part ways at Sodonka Road. Weli heads for his rendezvous point, and I make my way toward a photographer’s studio on Howlwadag Street, where I’m supposed to ask for washing powder and a Fanta. As I hurry through the side streets, I wonder if maybe Mr. Jones won’t even try to find me today. Do I want him to, or not? On the one hand, thinking about him makes me desperate for news of my family. But I want to see Mr. Jones about as much as I want to stick my hand down a cobra’s hole.
I jump over an algae-green puddle that smells of sewage and make a wrong turn down a dead-end alley. I circle back, deciding to keep closer to the main street I’m following east. I have a couple of hours to accomplish my mission, which should be plenty, but I’d rather not risk being late and dying like a dog.
The closer I get to my destination, the more tingly my neck gets, as if the chip is being activated or something, like in a sci-fi movie. If Mr. Jones doesn’t make contact before I go in, it’ll be too late. Maybe I—
“Hey, boy.”
The voice sends me leaping sideways, nearly getting caught in a sheet hanging on a laundry line.
“Hello!” I shout at the man standing in a doorway, managing to sound both cheerful and terrified.
His posture is relaxed and he’s idly chewing a miswak twig, but his eyes are alert, locked on me. “What’s your name, kid?”
I look around, but the alleyway is empty except for a hobbled white goat nibbling at trash. “Who are you?” I ask.
The man’s mouth lifts into a half grin. “Our friend sent me. He wants to talk to you.”
“Friend?” I ask. It can only be Mr. Jones. But what if this is a trap? What if the General planted this guy here to test me?
“I’m supposed to take you to him.” He pushes himself out of the doorway, and for the first time I notice he’s wearing good shoes, nicer shoes than anyone who lives in this neighborhood should have. Not shoes, actually—boots. He’s dressed casually, but his biceps strain at his sleeves. With a build and boots like that, he’s got to be Somali army. Maybe even secret police. “Let’s go,” he says.
I retreat a pace. “What does he want to talk about?”
The man deftly spits fibers from the stick onto the ground. “Price of lightbulbs.”
* * *
• • •
NICE BOOTS leads me to a door in the alley behind a welding shop. He gives a fancy knock, and a guard with a gun lets us into the compound. There’s little space to maneuver through the jumbles of metal that rise up like skeletons, and we twist our way to a concrete-block outbuilding. When he opens the door, I find Mr. Jones already there, sitting in the only chair in the room. The building has no windows. Only a small LED lantern sheds a dull light.
