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Jeebleh just tasted his tea, didn't drink it; not only was it too hot, but it was also sugary. He mused that the youth had brought the tray of tea, and the barber had paid for it; the boy trusted he would get paid, and that he would find the cups when he returned later. These small things represented society's gradual recovery from the terrible trauma of war. Was the worst now over?

“How would you like yours done?” the barber had meanwhile asked.

“I'd like it cut very short.” Jeebleh placed the conical hat in front of him where he could see it, so he wouldn't forget.

The barber brought out an electric clipper from under a table, where it had hung on a hook. He adjusted the blade and switched it on, then tested it against his open palm.

“I'd prefer that you use scissors and a comb, please,” Jeebleh told him.

The barber started cutting with avuncular charm, and the two of them talked in the soft tones of men confiding in each other. They spoke in general terms, eventually touching on the changes in the clientele of the shop, which, the barber explained, had been the rendezvous for the city's cosmopolitans in the days before the civil war.

Then, out of the blue, the barber asked, “Are you a friend of Bile's?”

“Do you know him?” Jeebleh asked.

“He's one of my customers.”

“What about Raasta and Makka?”

“I remember them coming here with him. Have you met them yourself?”

“I've seen photographs of them at Bile's.”

“They are so gorgeous, Raasta's dreadlocks,” said the barber. “No one other than her mother is allowed to touch them, or tend to them.”

“I suppose you'd know Faahiye too?”

The barber went absolutely quiet and shifted uneasily. He took a sip from the teacup closest to him, and stared at the cup in front of Jeebleh, as though suggesting that he should take a sip of his. “Do
you
know Faahiye?” he finally asked.

“I've known his wife for a much longer time.”

“I've never met her myself,” the barber offered.

“Is it true that Faahiye lives around here?”

“I have no idea.”

Nervous, the barber clipped Jeebleh's right ear, and instantly apologized. It was just a small snip, but there was blood. And that worried Jeebleh. An incision with a pair of scissors at a barber's might not be dangerous in many situations, but here, given the AIDS epidemic, you couldn't be sure. Jeebleh's countenance was flustered. He felt the cut with his fingers, to determine how serious it was, how deep. The towel still wrapped around his throat, he half rose and daubed his ear with a bit of cotton dipped in alcohol. Then he leaned forward, staring into the mirror, preoccupied.

He had seen a girl resembling Makka in the deepest recesses of the mirror before him, and was following her movements: then snip! How did he know the girl was Makka, when he had never met her before? Because he had seen her photograph, and felt sure that there couldn't be a facsimile of Makka. Also, the girl's lower lip was drawn down and slightly out, and there was the ubiquitous sliver of saliva, as transparent as the fine knots in a spider's net, lucid and purposeful.

While the barber fussed over the cut, daubing it with more alcohol, Jeebleh looked for Makka's reflection, hoping that she might still be there. The barber held him down, telling him not to move, fearful that he might cut him again. Yes, Makka was there in the mirror, all right; and she was grinning with self-recognition. He watched her watching herself with fascination.

He studied her face. Maybe she was playing a child's game modeled on one that his daughters were fond of playing. One child is blindfolded, and the fun lies in her looking for her playmates, and finding them. If Makka was at play here, could Raasta be far? The thought filled him with excitement. He pushed the barber's hand away and got to his feet, his whole demeanor disorderly. One idea led to another. He decided to go after Makka. He was convinced that she either had a message for him or would take him to Raasta and Faahiye.

He paid the barber as much cash as he could bring out of his wallet, even though the job had been only half done, and badly at that. He dashed out in pursuit of Makka, half his head unevenly trimmed, the other boasting its shock of hair as yet untouched. Someone might have assumed that he was pioneering a new style.

He stood at a crossroads, looking this way and that, and making sure he was prepared in the event of a sudden attack, placed his hand close to the firearm. But he could not decide which way Makka had gone. He continued his search, then he saw her walking ahead of him, into a dusty alleyway. He followed her, aware of his own vulnerability in the city of the gullible.

 

 

JEEBLEH FELT AWKWARD AS HE TRIED TO KEEP PACE WITH MAKKA, LOOKING back every now and then, scouring the alleyway ahead. He drew comfort from the firearm; he wouldn't hesitate to use it.

Feeling awkward, and perhaps looking ridiculous, he touched the cut side of his hair, then the uncut side. He had no idea why, but he was sure that even though he might appear ludicrous to grown-ups, he would look fine to Raasta and Makka, who at worst would find his hair funny and might even giggle. Anything that could bring a smile to those children's lips was worth it. The unfinished haircut pointed to his incomplete sense of self: a man who did not know how to use a firearm, and yet was carrying one! He hoped he wouldn't be caught in a web, a trap, as he kept following Makka farther and farther from the barbershop.

It was too late to abandon his pursuit now, too late to return to the barbershop as though nothing had happened and ask the barber to finish the job. He had lost his bearings a few streets back. He prayed that the little girl knew where she was going.

Now he walked faster, and checked to see if someone was on his tail. He saw Faahiye. The two were staring at each other from a distance, almost ready to acknowledge each other's presence by waving. When Jeebleh looked again, Makka was gone. He might as well wait for Faahiye, he thought, and while waiting he touched his hair again—he had forgotten Bile's conical hat at the barbershop.

“What game are we playing here?” Jeebleh asked Faahiye when he arrived.

“I am at a disadvantage.”

“How's that?”

“I am at a disadvantage in that I've no option but to play a game whose rules were devised by someone else,” Faahiye said. Jeebleh looked at him quizzically, as he went on: “Let's keep talking and stop looking behind us, for we're both being shadowed. One of our tails is at my back, a street away, the other at the corner to the left of the crossroads. Let's not do anything rash.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“To Raasta, of course!”

Could he trust himself? For that matter, could he trust Faahiye? Was it a mere coincidence that he'd had a glimpse of Makka when getting his haircut, or had all this been planned by someone? Amazingly, Jeebleh was now prepared to walk into whatever trap there was, to see the girls. And if Faahiye could be believed, and he was really taking him to Raasta, then all the risks would be worth it.

Faahiye's steely expression softened, as he looked closely at Jeebleh's haircut; suddenly he was in stitches, laughing without restraint. “Why, half your hair is cut and the other half isn't,” he said. “No wonder you have a lackluster look about you!”

Both were relaxed. Jeebleh smiled, and his grinning gaze wandered away to the clouds, which appeared as lighthearted as he felt now. He anchored his mind to the delightful idea he and Faahiye were on the same side.

When they resumed walking, Faahiye said, “What does one blame—love, because it's gone sour, or hate, because it's gone seedy? Do we keep a record of one another's wrongs, do we go at one another's throats, daggers drawn?”

Jeebleh was weaving himself a shroud of wishes, as he touched his upper thigh, where it still hurt, and then the hidden firearm. He looked to his right, and the world was at peace with itself, the cows behaving as hungry cows do, busy pulling up shrubs at the roots, and enjoying them; he looked to his left, and saw a young herdsman chasing a goat. Close by, two cows were chewing their cud, and they raised their heads, lowed, and showing little interest in him, resumed their chewing. He had been told of cows and goats grazing and digging up a grenade or two, and being blown to death. No such thing happened as he went past, and he took this to be a good omen.

Faahiye crossed a road strewn with uncollected garbage. Following him, Jeebleh thought: All alliances are temporary. He had no idea why he thought this. Maybe because he knew there was no going back now—not until his attempts were crowned with success, or his efforts ended in failure or death. But were they allies now, he and Faahiye? He guessed not: his foolhardy persistence, his call on Caloosha, his insistence that Caloosha help him get in touch with Faahiye and the housekeeper, and his continued search for Raasta had ultimately paid off. Why did he have a childlike trust in Faahiye, whom he hardly knew? Did he feel sorry for the fellow, who could've irritated even an angel into fury?

“May I ask how the girls got here?” Jeebleh said.

“From what Raasta's told me,” Faahiye replied, “they were picked up in a fancy car and taken to some house where they were kept in the basement for several weeks.”

“Do they have any idea who picked them up?”

“You should ask Raasta yourself when you see her.”

“I will.”

He listened to the lowing of a cow calling to one of its young. There were cows everywhere, cows communicating their mourning, grieving, lamenting their endangered state, and making sounds that frightened the daylights out of you. A young moon framed by clouds was up in the sky. A curious unease descended on Jeebleh at the sight of a young calf and an older cow fighting over a plastic bag, their horns colliding, both hurting. The tough, translucent material was torn apart, and the older one took a mouthful of it, while the calf stood apart, forlorn and hungry. Several other bags flew into the air, and were blown away to finish flat against a wire fence.

Jeebleh whispered: “Who owns the place?”

Faahiye answered in a mumble, “I have yet to find out myself. Remember, I just got back here.”

“Who brought you from the airport, then?”

Faahiye didn't respond. They had come to a gate, at which he tapped hard three times, quick and uninterrupted. The voice of a woman from inside the house told them to wait. Then Makka came out to open the gate, saw Jeebleh, and ran off, back into the house, giggling.

HAVING PRECEDED THEM INTO THE HOUSE, MAKKA HID BEHIND THE DOOR playfully, then came out with the joy of a child welcoming a frolicsome parent. Faahiye took part in the fun with self-abandonment, laughing and loving too. Makka adored him, that much was clear. Instead of asking where Raasta was, Jeebleh watched Makka romp about with Faahiye. When she stopped, exhausted, the sun gathered in her eyes, and her tranquil features were even more of a delight.

She mumbled something in the tawdry tongue of a Marlon Brando doing his Sicilian bit, his cheeks heavy with cotton. Faahiye must have understood her question, for he replied, “His name is Uncle Jeebleh!” She watched him with wary eyes and kept her distance, biting her nails. She didn't come rushing to hug him, as he had expected.

She turned to Faahiye instead, and gave him kisses and hugs, pleased to be holding his hand and fiddling with his fingers. There was such warmth there, gentle, tender, and sweet, even without another word exchanged between them. She waited with childish anxiety for him to return her affections, while he was eager to attend to his guest. When he did kiss her fingers and then her cheeks, her face beamed with the glee of the innocent.

Makka stared at Jeebleh, as if deciding whether he belonged inside or outside the circle of persons to whom she gave kisses and hugs. She hesitated, unsure of what to do, until Faahiye encouraged her: “Go on!” She went to Jeebleh, grinning, her hand outstretched. In her way, she was commiserating with him; or was she apologizing for having taken her time? She pulled herself to her full height and, in an instant, was touching and hugging him, kissing him on both cheeks, before letting him go. She might have been expecting to hear Faahiye's approval for what she had done, and looked sad when neither man moved or spoke.

Jeebleh asked, “Why here?”

Surprising both of them, and maybe even herself, Makka answered. You could see how hard she worked at making herself understood, her forehead furrowed in concentration. Before speaking, she made a sucking noise, reclaiming the saliva hanging from her lower lips by drawing it in noisily. “No here, here!” she said.

Jeebleh didn't ask for an explanation, either from her or from Faahiye. But he remembered the Arab wisdom that from the mouths of the simple you may receive something profound.

“No here, here!” she repeated several times. And again she was on her feet, pointing at herself and repeating,
“Aniga anigoo ah,”
many times. Then she went over to Jeebleh, touched his hair, first the cut side, then the uncut, and giggled excitedly. She mumbled something that Faahiye interpreted for him. “She is saying you are fun and she likes you.”

Then the world became a door, and a young girl, age indistinct, walked in. What impression did Raasta make on Jeebleh when he first laid eyes on her? He held two conflicting images in his head at one and the same time. He thought of a potholed feeder road, neglected to the point where it was hardly used, and therefore decidedly quiet and off-peak. Then he thought of a commuter train at rush hour in a big city, packed with workers jostling for standing space in the car into which they had squeezed themselves when the doors opened. It could be that he was already thinking to his return home, now that he had found the girls.