The Orchard of Lost Souls (24 page)

Her report on the events in Salahley is at the top of a pile of documents, covered in a garland of signatures and stamps from different offices.

Captain Yasin enters the office. ‘I hear you’re a real soldier now.’ He makes a pistol of his fingers and pretends to pull the trigger at her.

Filsan hides her face in a file and murmurs nonsense words in reply.

‘You’ll get promoted now they’ve seen what you’re capable of.’

She lifts her head. ‘Really?’

Captain Yasin smiles. ‘Of course, they can parade you around like a prize camel, show you off to the foreign journalists who are always criticising the government.’

‘They want me to go on the radio.’

‘There you go.’ Yasin lights his first cigarette of the day. ‘Next you will be receiving a summons to Brigadier-General Haaruun’s office to get a star on your
epaulette.’

Haaruun’s name chills her. She will never receive anything good from him. It is better to stay here, underneath the radar, than risk more humiliation at his hands.

‘You owe me in a big way. I can imagine you as the President’s number three wife, reciting his own sayings back to him!’ He guffaws at his own joke.

‘Why are you not on television, Captain? Your talents are wasted here,’ she says, finally rising to the bait.

Filsan skips lunch and arrives at Radio Hargeisa half an hour early. The studio stretches along the whole top floor of the building. The British had built it just as they were
preparing to leave and it’s now an institution within Hargeisa, the broadcasters as familiar as relatives to the city’s population. Filsan waits behind the microphone as Ali Dheere
reads the news: thousands reported dead after a massacre in a Kurdish village in Iraq, Soviets report a build-up of arms by Afghan rebels, Archbishop Tutu has been released after marching on the
Cape Town parliament with two dozen church leaders. As she listens to the news Filsan feels a brief moment of solace. The whole world is aflame with conflict; what she has done in Salahley pales
into insignificance compared to what is commonplace in Iraq and South Africa. Saddam Hussein is rumoured to be poisoning his dissidents, while the Afrikaners take their opponents to quarries and
kill them on makeshift electric chairs.

‘We have joining us this afternoon a very special guest,’ Ali Dheere begins. A Mogadishu girl who is serving her country in the armed forces, a remarkable young lady, in fact, who
has put aside the usual desire to settle down with a family of her own . . .’

Filsan takes a sip of water from the glass beside her.

‘. . . and has taken up arms to defend the country. Her name is Corporal Filsan Adan Ali and she is the first woman to engage the enemy in battle since the Ogaden War. Corporal Adan Ali,
welcome.’

‘Thank you,’ Filsan says softly into the circular microphone.

Ali Dheere gestures for her to speak up. ‘So, Corporal, what made you want to become a soldier? It is an extraordinary occupation for a woman, isn’t it?’

‘Uh . . . I . . . my . . . father is in the military and I always wanted to follow in his footsteps, that is the main reason, I think.’

‘
Haa
. . . so it is a family tradition passed on from your father. What do you think are the particular challenges of being female in the army?’

Filsan takes a minute to think, to censor opinions that are better left unsaid.

Ali Dheere winds his hand in the air as if to speed her up.

‘It is really no different. We experience the same training, are given the same responsibilities, face the same dangers as our male comrades. There is no special treatment.’

‘I see, but there are still very few of you, aren’t there? Why is that?’

Filsan is now on autopilot, reciting the lessons she has been taught from junior school onward. ‘The revolution is still in its early days, slowly combating and defeating reactionary
traditions and superstitions. The Comrade has shown us that men and women are equal and we can both play a part in improving our country.’ These are the words of her year-six textbook.

‘This isn’t the first time you have made the news, Corporal. We have a copy of the
October Star
from March nineteen seventy-five, and here is a picture of you receiving a
medal from the President. How did you manage to obtain a medal at such a young age?’ He laughs.

‘I taught rural workers in Dhusamareb during the literacy campaign and my students passed the state literacy test at a higher rate than any others in the district.’

‘And how did that feel . . . meeting the President?’

Filsan tries to remember the moment, but it is in a haze, captured fuzzily by her father’s camera. She was on an assembly line, given ten seconds before an official shoved her along, but
she recalls that he had wrapped her hands in his as they greeted, parted her shoulder and held her gaze. He seemed genuinely proud.

‘It was the greatest moment of my life.’ Filsan hesitates in case it sounds an exaggeration. ‘I knew then that I would dedicate my life to the revolution.’

‘Excellent. You are a woman of your word too, because you recently put yourself on the frontline to tackle the insurgency threatening the stability of the nation. Could you tell us more
about that?’

Filsan takes a deep breath; she just has to stick to what they put into the report. ‘We were sent to Salahley to discourage civilians from harbouring terrorists; we had intelligence that a
few naïve individuals had been induced to give material aid and shelter to the agents of Ethiopia, and as the political officer it was my duty to express the government’s
wishes.’

‘There was a confrontation with the rebels, wasn’t there? In which you were caught up?’

‘Ah . . .’ Her fingernails rap on the table as she wonders how much to give away.

Ali Dheere points to the table and wags his finger.

She places her hands in her lap and leans forward. ‘We were ambushed by three rebels who had been sheltering in the village. They were dressed as civilians but armed. I was the first to
engage them but then my comrades provided support and the attack was brought to a positive conclusion.’

‘Never let it be said that a woman is weaker than a man. We have lionesses in Somalia ready to jump to our defence. Corporal Adan Ali, thank you for your sacrifices and we are honoured to
have you within our military. Comrades, let us keep our eyes and ears open so that young patriots such as Corporal Adan Ali are not put in unnecessary danger.’

The first strains of a political anthem and a wave from Ali Dheere let her know that she is free to leave.

Filsan jogs down the stairs of the station, almost tap-dancing with nervous energy. The interview had been a kind of ambush, a flurry of questions that she was too obedient not
to answer, but Filsan likes the image created of her by Ali Dheere: it is heroic and martial and impermeable, a woman apart, giant yet ethereal, a
jinn
with a sword clutched to her breast.
A
jinn
that wouldn’t suddenly remember the sandals of the one she had struck down, the sweat-stained strap under his calloused foot, the loose latticework of leather over his toes.
Filsan has to drag the alternative version of events she had recounted to Ali Dheere into her mind to rub out the real flashes of memory. Lieutenant Afrah had said as he tried to calm her down in
the truck back to Hargeisa that thoughts of the man would eventually sift down and settle beneath other events and concerns. Filsan would wait it out but there seemed to be parts of the jigsaw to
put together first: why couldn’t she remember firing the gun? What happened in those seconds just before and after? What hole had she slipped through?

Captain Yasin makes an aeroplane from a card and throws it towards Filsan’s desk. It glides just short and lands beside her feet; it is her request for leave stamped with
‘APPPROVED’. In just six weeks Filsan will be back in her yellow room with the cherry-print curtains. She craves Intisaar’s cooking, her crispy lamb sambuusi, the grilled fish
served with spiced and sweetened vermicelli, and hot oily bajiye dipped in green chilli sauce. Intisaar the maid, paid a thousand shillings a week, has been everything a mother should be to her;
while Intisaar’s own children were raised by their grandmother, she laboured in the malign atmosphere of their silent house. Filsan writes down a list of things to buy Intisaar from Hargeisa,
things that show she knows her and has been thinking about her – a silver necklace, or even a gold one if she can afford it, imported Taarab records, support bandages for her swollen knee.
The last item might be the most appreciated now that Intisaar has crossed the border from middle age into old age; at fifty-seven the marrow starts to dry up, she had said in her musical Bajuni
accent, and from then on you are just waiting for your bones to turn to dust. She would hold Intisaar’s bones together with splints and tape if she had to rather than lose her. How much
better would her life have been if she had been born to her? Sleeping huddled with her siblings in a mud and stick
cariish,
falling into whichever arms lay nearest, tasting love in her
mother’s milk, when she returned smiling at night.

‘I heard you on the radio. I didn’t know you had met the President,’ Captain Yasin’s voice startles her.

‘It was a long time ago and there is no reason for you to know.’

Filsan opens a window to clear the room of the Captain’s cigarette smoke and stands idly for a moment watching the wind shake desiccated leaves into the yard.

‘You want to come to Saba’ad with me?’ Captain Yasin asks. ‘I’m going to check on the state of the militia there, see if there are more than five of them this time.
I have to write another report.’

A report
I
will end up writing, thinks Filsan as she sinks into her chair.

‘Come on, it will be good for you to see them.’

‘What about these files?’

‘They’re not going to walk away, are they?’ Yasin pulls her up from her chair. ‘Come on. It’s an order.’

Filsan scribbles a note on her desk with her whereabouts and follows him to the jeep.

Saba’ad is twenty miles north-east of Hargeisa. The largest of five refugee camps in the north-western region, it has grown and established itself as a kind of satellite
town and stretches as far as the eye can see. Twenty thousand Somalis from the Ogaden region of Ethiopia scratch out a living here, having first fled the fighting between seventy-seven and
seventy-eight and then the subsequent famines in Ogaden.

The camp’s residents live in a mish-mash of dwellings scrabbled together from donated tarpaulin, acacia twigs, old cloth and scavenged metal. Dust blows up in large gusts from the eroded,
denuded landscape. Filsan covers her nose and eyes against the sand and keeps close to Captain Yasin. At different points of the camp various charities maintain schools, clinics, community centres;
German, Irish and American aid workers mark out their own fiefdoms with flags and acronym-heavy placards. Looking down on the camp brings home just how great Somalia’s humiliation was in the
war; these people have land, homes and farms just a few miles away, but subsist here on gruel. At one point in September 1977, ninety percent of the Ogaden was in Somali government hands, and the
violence it took to turn them back from their ancestral lands was so great the nation has still not recovered and maybe never will; the war stripped the government of troops, hardware and the
support of the Soviets.

Captain Yasin had told the militia leader to meet him by the burial ground to the west of the camp and the men are waiting, around fifty or so, squatting between the rocks placed to mark graves.
The fighters are ragged teenagers in sarongs and vests; they are armed with long sticks and wear sandals made of tyre rubber. They rise as Captain Yasin and Filsan climb towards them.

‘Is this all of you?’ Captain Yasin asks.

The militia leader is tall and skeletal, a green cap obscuring his eyes. ‘No, we have more but they are tending what animals they still have.’ His voice is grainy, dry.

‘This is Corporal Adan Ali, she will be working with you too.’

They squint in Filsan’s direction.

‘We need to know how many of you there are before we can arrange proper weapons.’

‘When we have our weapons then we will come out into the open. Not before.’ The leader scrapes pictures into the sand as he speaks: straight lines, suns, hills, curved horns.
‘We are waiting for you to tell us what you want from us.’

The teenagers watch Filsan with benign interest, their arms draped over each other’s shoulders; they have the lean limbs of marathon runners but are penned into this prison of sand and
rock.

‘You must gather as many men as possible. Organise them. Discipline them so that you can work alongside us in keeping this country together,’ Captain Yasin replies.

‘It will happen.’ The leader hawks and spits into his drawing. ‘What will you give us for the time being? And when are you going to help us get our own lands back?’

The teenagers lean forward to hear the response.

‘Be patient. We will set aside more rations for you, but there is little we can do until we receive all the hardware we need.’

Filsan looks up quizzically.

The leader nods defeatedly. ‘We will just wait then. The Ogaden is going nowhere.’

‘Within the month you will have rifles, RPGs, transport. This girl will make sure of that,’ he gestures to Filsan.

She doesn’t understand what he is referring to. Why would they give RPGs to these refugees when Somalia already has one of the largest armies in Africa? What is he promising these men, and
why? She wonders if he has drawn her into weapon smuggling or some kind of conspiracy. She imagines what her father would say if she were court-martialled over something so squalid. Turning on her
heels she abandons the gathering and traces the route back to the jeep. Captain Yasin is soon beside her but she speeds on, ignoring him.

‘What’s wrong?’ He pulls her arm back.

‘Let me go!’ She wrenches it free, not caring that he is her superior.

‘Wait, Filsan! What’s the problem?’