Dead Centre

the compounds. Some were crumbling, but so far everything here seemed in much better nick than in Mogadishu. The sand tracks between the houses were compacted by years of foot and vehicle traffic. There wasn’t a scrap of litter in sight.

Sunrises in this part of Africa are brilliant and come on fast. The eastern sky had turned tangerine above low grey night clouds. The sun burnt the left side of my face. We walked down into an area of dead ground and up the other side. Ahead, a short, open stretch led to the edge of the town. I lay down in the cover of the last of the thorny scrub.

I kept my eyes screwed up and shaded with my left hand as Awaale collapsed beside me. ‘Over there …’ I indicated our half-right. ‘Third house down, about forty metres. See the clothes-line?’

He nodded.

‘We need the burqas. The blue ones.’

Awaale’s head jerked round. He squinted in the sun. ‘Steal them?’

‘What else? Go into town and buy a couple?’

‘It’s not that.’

‘It’s no drama, mate. Just put the fucking thing on and walk like an old woman.’

‘Do you know what happens to people who steal, under Sharia law?’

I managed not to laugh. ‘Mate, if we get caught, having your hand chopped off is the last thing you’ll need to worry about. Go and get them, there’s a good lad. We need to get ourselves to that jail.’

He didn’t budge.

‘We must pay for them.’

‘You can’t start talking to anyone. It’ll compromise us. Just go and get them.’

‘No, Mr Nick. Women who do not wear hijab in al-Shabab areas are not allowed to leave their homes. No part of their body can be seen in public. Jalaabiibs and burqas cost at least fifteen dollars. If these women don’t wear them, they’ll be punished. They stoned a thirteen-year-old girl for this, even though she was not right.’ He tapped his temple with a finger. ‘She was walking in the main square. They stoned her to death. If these women don’t cover up, they can look for their head in the sand. We cannot just steal them, Mr Nick. We have to pay for them. These people cannot afford to buy these things.’

I rolled over onto my side and dug in my American tourist pouch for the fold of goodwill cash. ‘Here’s fifty. I don’t care how you give it to them, but be quick. Shove it under the door or some shit. I don’t care. Let’s just get these fucking things on and get moving.’

In the mid-distance, heading away from us down one of the wider streets, I could see three men patrolling, with black and white shemaghs and wild beards.

I grabbed Awaale’s ankle. ‘Make sure they’re big ones.’

20

I watched him set off across the open ground. As he approached the building, chickens bomb-burst out from behind a wall. He walked past a big cone of dried ox-dung cakes. It kept their ovens burning. I wasn’t sure what it did for the food. He knocked on the door.

For a long time nothing happened. A woman would never appear at the threshold. Maybe the men and children were out. He knocked again. An old guy in a grey dish-dash finally appeared. His grey hair was as long as his beard. Awaale gestured at the clothesline. The old man stared at him for a long time before answering. There was more chat and the old guy kept stroking his beard. Awaale kept nodding away, reached into his jeans pocket and handed him the cash. The old man took it, turned back into the house and closed the door behind him. He reappeared in the back yard seconds later and took two burqas off the line.

The sky was now dazzlingly blue, with not even a hint of cloud. The sand around me was already almost too hot to touch. The sun burnt through my long-sleeved sweatshirt and onto the back of my neck. I felt like I was stuck in a toaster.

Awaale came back with the two blue burqas. Hijabs wouldn’t have worked for us. They’d have left our faces uncovered. I waited for him to get to within a couple of metres of where I was lying. ‘Pass me, keep walking. Don’t look down. Just carry on down into the dip where we can’t be seen.’

He did as he was told. My sweat-soaked clothes were soon caked in sand as I slithered back and followed him. Even the AK was covered with the stuff, from the perspiration on my hands.

Awaale had our purchases over his shoulder. I took off my day sack and boots. My socks would have to stay on. ‘Get your rings and watch off. Have nothing on your hands or your wrist. Old women don’t wear that shit.’

He started licking his rings and pulling them off. Women’s hands in this neck of the woods are every bit as work-worn as men’s, sometimes even more so, but round here they wouldn’t wear decadent jewellery. I thought about how they must feel under their burqas in this heat. Hard-line Islam was alien to most Somali women, especially those in rural areas who worked the land or herded goats, sheep and cattle under the scorching sun. Wearing this shit must make their already difficult lives almost unbearable. And they had to slave away for longer to pay for the fucking things.

My Timberlands went into the day sack. ‘What did you say to the old guy?’

He tucked the bling into his pockets. ‘I said I needed them because my wife and her mother were waiting in my boat, and we had to visit my wife’s sister in town. I told him she is ill and we needed to go to her immediately. I had no time to run around the town.’

I hung the day sack over my chest like a city tourist and we pulled the burqas over our heads.

‘Shoes as well, mate. Shove them in your belt. Get your feet covered in sand and shit.’

He wasn’t convinced, but did as he was told.

‘Just think of the cash, and the war stories you’ll be able to tell next time you’re round the fire.’

I looked through the triangle of blue mesh as I waited for him to sort himself out. I felt my breath against the material, making me hotter and more claustrophobic by the minute. The previous owners deserved a whole lot more than fifty dollars for having to wear this shit.

I knelt and rolled up my jeans so just my socks would be visible if the hem of the burqa rode up.

‘Do the same, mate. Roll them right up so they don’t fall down when we start moving.’

Stooping burqas don’t get a second glance. They meant age, infirmity or illness. No one would want anything to do with a couple of old birds like us.

I slid the AK under my right arm, the butt nice and tight in the pit, the barrel down my side, the magazine cupped in my hand. The metal was so hot it seared my skin.

I turned and started towards the sea. ‘Remember, mate, we’re old women. We walk slow — bend over a little. Never put your head up.’

He looked like a blue pepper-pot. The top of it nodded away at me.

‘Is your mobile off?’

His hand fiddled around beneath the material. ‘Yes, it is, Mr Nick.’

‘Right. If anything goes wrong, do exactly what I say, when I say it. You sure you know the way to the jail?’

The top of the pepper-pot nodded again.

‘OK. We’ll go back and walk along the beach. It’s less exposed. And it’ll get the bottom of these things nice and dusty. Then we’ll move into the town. If anything happens and we get split up, we meet back at the skiff.’

Even under the burqa I could tell he still wasn’t too impressed. And a lot less gung-ho now he didn’t have a weapon.

‘Awaale, I’m not going to do anything to put us in danger. I’m here to rescue them, not get into a fight. I’ll just be looking to see how I can get them out. You take me there, and maybe I won’t need you until we leave.