‘And they’re still hidden here in the rest of the city, too,’ agrees Rahama. ‘Just biding their time, like a snake waiting for a rat to cross its path. But where are they hiding … and when will they strike? That’s what we don’t know. That’s why we’re still not safe. That’s the story.’
You know this street – your whole neighbourhood – so well that you think you could walk it blindfolded and not step into any of the holes in the broken pavement. But today, something is missing.
‘Hang on,’ you say to Rahama. You stop in your tracks. ‘The lime-seller’s not there.’
Close to the end of the street, a little old lady always sells limes spread out on flattened cardboard boxes. She is blind in one eye and wrinkled like a walnut. She sells the limes there because it’s not far from where the fishers bring their boats in, and everyone knows limes go well with fish. She’s so old that if you stopped to talk to her she could probably tell you the history of the whole of Somalia, since the British and Italians were here. But today, she’s gone. Why?
‘Does it matter that the lime lady’s not here?’ Rahama shrugs.
‘I think it does,’ you say. ‘It feels weird. She was even selling limes the morning after that mortar strike blew apart half the road, remember? So why isn’t she here today?’
‘Is this a hunch?’ Rahama teases you. ‘Are you such a professional journalist that you get hunches now?’
You ignore her teasing. ‘I think we should try to find her,’ you say. ‘If we’re supposed to be doing a story on how Mogadishu is changing and whether it’s safe, she’d be the perfect person to ask – she’s seen everything on these streets.’
Rahama agrees to your plan. You ask some of the other street vendors where the lime lady has gone, but they seem reluctant to say anything.
‘Don’t go looking for trouble,’ warns a woman selling matches and soap from a cardboard box strung around her neck. ‘Allah knows, that poor old woman has enough to deal with.’
The baby tied to the woman’s back starts to cry, and the woman looks nervously up and down the street before hurrying away.
You offer a little boy a biscuit if he’ll show you the way to the lime-seller’s house, and he eagerly leads you and Rahama down streets, through dirt paths lined with weeds, and into the bombed-out ruin of what used to be a theatre overlooking the sea.
The building looks like a long-ago giant bit the top off it, crunched it up, then spat it back out. The walls are grey and crumbling concrete, laced with bullet marks. Weeds and twisted metal guard the entranceway, but you can see a little foot track leading inside, and someone has dragged a large sheet of corrugated metal over the top of one section of the ruin for a roof.
Your little guide points inside the ruin. You hand him his biscuit and he scampers away, crumbs around his mouth.
‘Hello?’ you call tentatively. ‘Anyone there?’
Behind you, you hear a slight click as Rahama switches on her microphone.
Suddenly, a thin, weathered hand shoots out from the shadows, and pulls you and Rahama through the entranceway and into the ruin.
‘I know you!’ hisses a voice. Your eyes take a moment to adjust to the dim light. It’s the lime lady, her one blind eye wandering and milky, her good eye beadily sizing you up. ‘You’re the boy who lives out the back of the grocery shop, and his journalist aunty. I’m not selling limes today. Get lost.’
You hear a groan behind her and squint into the gloom. In the corner of the ruin, lying on a bed made of the same cardboard boxes the lady uses to sell her fruit on, is a man – and the sight of him makes you want to scream and run.
Rahama gasps – she’s seen him too. The man’s eyes are puffed and purple as plums, and half his mouth is a bloody mess, with teeth cracked like splintered wood. He’s been really badly beaten up.
He tries to sit up, and his body shakes with the effort. You see that one of his legs has been bandaged with scraps of cloth and newspaper. The lime lady moves to stand protectively in front of him.
‘Who are you?’ Rahama asks the man. ‘Who did this to you?’
‘Get lost,’ repeats the lime lady. ‘Forget you ever saw us.’
‘Please,’ insists Rahama, ‘he needs proper medical help!’ She fishes a crumpled note from her pocket and gives it to you. ‘Run to the market,’ she commands, ‘and get bandages, antiseptic and painkillers. Quick.’ You sprint through the streets and buy the items.
By the time you return, your calf muscles are burning. You duck under the tin roof, and the lime lady rises from her small cooking fire in the corner. Rahama is leaning towards the beaten-up man, her face gripped with concentration as he begins his story.
You hand the medical supplies to the lime lady, surprised to see tears of gratitude in her eyes. ‘Zayd is my only son,’ she whispers. ‘But he’s in grave danger.’
You can see that it hurts Zayd to talk – his voice hisses around his broken teeth – but he struggles on.
‘I was a unit commander with al-Shabaab,’ he is saying. ‘I was very high up in the ranks. I thought they could bring law and order to Somalia. I believed that what they did was justified. But then …’ He heaves a rattling breath and puts a hand to his broken ribs. ‘Then they brought me a new group of trainees, about six weeks ago. They were so young. How old are you, boy?’ he asks, turning to you for the first time.
‘I’m thirteen.’
‘They looked much the same age as you. Scared, skinny. Some of them were trying
