Don't Tell Me You're Afraid Read Free Page B

almost always shared the thing I love most in the world, my sweet sesame, with him—there’s nothing I love more than sweet sesame paste. But first I’d make him promise not to call me
wiilo
anymore. If he agreed, I gave him half.
    On those summer evenings, when the air finally cooled down a little, after the races Hodan and I would play
shentral
. Those were beautiful, relaxing days, when we all forgot about the war.
Shentral
was played by drawing a bell on the ground and then writing the numbers one to nine in it. You tossed a pebble and it had to land on the bell. Our brothers were playing
griir
instead, sitting on the ground and making stones fly between their hands.
    Every now and then on those drawn-out, breezy evenings, Ahmed, a friend of Alì’s big brother Nassir, would join us. Ahmed was seventeen, like Nassir and Said. To me and Alì he seemed very grown up, and to me and Hodan he looked handsome and unattainable. Ahmed had an olive complexion and light eyes, uncommon in Somalia; those green eyes gleamed in the moonlight and made his gaze seem all the more bold.
    Once we asked him why his eyes were different from everyone else’s; he made the gesture of having sex—one hand forming a circle while his index finger moved in and out—and told us that his grandfather must be one of the Italians who had fooled around with the black girls. Nassir and Alì burst out laughing. Not my brother Said; he gave him his usual stern look and shook his head.
    Said didn’t get along well with Ahmed, unlike Nassir, who idolized him. Maybe he saw him as a rival because of his friendship with Nassir, or maybe he just didn’t like him; he always had misgivings about him, saying that there was something in those light eyes that he didn’t trust. Alì never got too close to Ahmedeither. He often stared at him, studying him, but he kept away from him. Usually, when Hodan and I played
shentral,
Alì stayed near his father and Aabe, who argued every night at cards, staring at Ahmed cautiously from a distance.
    Some nights, after
griir
or playing ball, Ahmed and Said ended up scuffling, sometimes joking around and other times for real, and Aabe and Yassin would have to pull them apart. Once Said punched Ahmed so hard that blood spurted from his nose and stained his white T-shirt. He looked like he’d been hurt badly.
    After a while Aabe made them shake hands, and the next night, as if nothing had happened, they were friends again.
    One of the nicest things about those summer nights, however, was Hodan singing.
    Often, after Hooyo and we girls had finished washing the pots, we would all sit in a circle for hours, listening to her velvety voice transform familiar tunes.
    Aabe and Yassin sat smoking, their languid eyes turned to the sky, and I wondered what a big, handsome man like Aabe could be asking the stars. Every now and then my sisters and I and Hooyo, moved by Hodan’s words, would wipe our eyes and noses with our handkerchiefs; the older brothers and Ahmed sat in the dust, arms hugging their legs, staring at the ground.
    Once in a while Ahmed looked up, and those icy green eyes flashed in the moonlight; he seemed to want to defy the moon. When he did that I turned my head away and brought my focus back to the face of Hodan, who, seated in the center, her eyes half closed, went on singing songs about peace and freedom.

CHAPTER 3

    T HE NIGHT BEFORE the annual race, before our fathers came home from work, Alì and I did a forbidden thing: We ventured out to run.
    It was six o’clock in the afternoon, the sun was low on the horizon, and the smell of the sea drifted right into the courtyard. Driven by a fresh breeze that was redolent with aromas beginning to rise from the braziers of the neighboring houses, the sea’s scent had seeped in and drawn us to it. There were only a few hours left before the race and we wanted to stretch our muscles and lengthen our strides. We