Horror stories abounded. Everybody knew somebody who’d had a child taken away. One boy, whose mother had refused him candy, had called Child Welfare to tell them his mother and father beat him. The next day the authorities came and took him into custody, Sara had been told. Families going on holidays to their home country had their daughters taken away from them because they were accused of traveling to have them circumcised. One ten-year-old had contacted the authorities because his parents had refused to buy him a computer game. “Buy him the game!” Child Welfare had ordered them, but the parents could not afford to and then Child Welfare took him into care because children had a right to games. Child Welfare lurked online to make contact with children and ask if they had any problems. If a child, for a joke, replied that he or she was being beaten, Child Welfare and the police moved in. These kinds of stories circulated when Sara and her friends met on long afternoons when the children were in school or at kindergarten and the men were out. They themselves did not go anywhere.
Fear of Jibril and Isaq being next on the list made her feel faint.
When Sara was seven years old, her mother had died suddenly. Her father found a new wife, and the children from his first marriage were farmed out to different relations. She had been placed in the care of an uncle in Hargeisa who had room and needed help around the house. She was the only child in the home and was brought up to strictly observe Somali customs and practice. She was sent to the mosque several hours a week, where she studied Koran quotations by rote and was instilled with reverence for God and the Prophet, but she never learned to read or write.
Even though she had friends in the street and outlined games in the sand, she grew up with a great sense of longing. It was not viewed as natural for an uncle to hug a niece. Grief at the loss of a mother and the yearning for her siblings left a deep cut within.
After a few years she asked her uncle, “Can my little brothers and sisters come and live here too?”
And so it was. One after one they arrived in Hargeisa. This was the first time she gathered her family. Her brothers and sisters were showered with kisses and affection, because if there was one thing Sara had plenty of, it was love.
She was fourteen when Sadiq first set eyes on her.
His marriage to a cousin had already been arranged.
Then he met Sara at a crossroads.
She came walking toward him, tall, thin as a rake, elegant and graceful, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He was fifteen, and he was sold.
The next day he knocked on the door of the girl Sara had been walking with to ask if the unknown beauty was promised to anyone. The girl said she would check. She returned and told him that Sara was free.
Sadiq went to talk to his mother.
“Mom, I like my cousin, but she’s like a sister to me. And I’ve met someone else.”
“Who?”
“Her name’s Sara.”
His mother mulled it over. She made some inquiries and decided to pay Sara’s uncle a visit. She returned to her youngest son.
“Okay, my son, then that’s how it will be.”
Serendipity. The year was 1990.
Then Sadiq enlisted in the war against the dictator. Sara waited.
Two years went by before he returned and they could marry; she was sixteen, and he was seventeen. He had never regretted it. Sara was everything to him.
Now, twenty-five years on, they struggled to pick themselves up, to heal, each in their own way.
* * *
Sara had found a new home for them in Hargeisa. “Them” being sixteen people, and she asked Sadiq to send money for the rent.
The house was constructed so that the wind could blow through, making it airy even when the sun was at its strongest. The terrace, where a soft old armchair took pride of place, was north facing and tiled in a beautiful golden pattern. Flower tendrils wove together up the walls. The portico and fence looking over the yard were painted green. A large water tank stood in the corner.
Sara had gathered two of her sisters and their families, one brother and his wife, and some unmarried nephews and nieces. The nephews lived in a small dwelling in the corner of the yard, adjacent to the outside toilet, while each family had a room. Except for Sara, who had two. The largest bedroom was hers and there was another room for the boys. After all, she was the one paying the rent.
The rooms were large with mosquito nets at the windows and screens in front of the doors. Everything they needed lay open or was stacked in piles on the floor. There were no hooks on the wall to hang anything from, no closets to put anything in. Their suitcases lay on top of one another like a temporary wardrobe.
Both Sadiq and Sara were descended from nomads, their forefathers had had large flocks of animals. With your possessions in a suitcase you could always move on. Putting them away in a wardrobe meant you had decided to stay.
The parents disagreed on what to do when their daughters came home. They would need to go see a psychologist first, in Sadiq’s opinion. Our family is all they need, Sara said. And an imam. Sadiq thought the girls were brainwashed, Sara
