Free Crossbones by Nuruddin Farah Page B

the presence of a synagogue in a country with a Muslim majority is a healthy thing: cities, to qualify as cosmopolitan, must show tolerance toward communities different from their own. Intolerance has killed Mogadiscio. Djibouti is a living city, of which its residents can be proud.
    At the hotel, he learns that the building served as a synagogue during the colonial era, but lately it has not been active as a place of worship. The man at the reception adds, “But do you know, there are Somalis claiming to be the true lost tribe of Israel.”
    “What’s their evidence?” says Ahl.
    “Their professional clan name—professional, because they work with metal and leather, and act as seers to other clans—sounds almost like a bastardization of ‘Hebrew.’”
    The pin drops. Ahl knows the name of the clan.
    He watches some more TV news, and when the airline office has reopened, he buys the ticket to Bosaso, paying in U.S. dollars. Then he goes for a long walk, luxuriating in a day in Djibouti before flying out to Somalia.

    To savor the city at night, he goes for a stroll without worrying about his safety. A clutch of men and half a dozen ladies of the night are at the entrance of a nightclub. He pays for a ticket and goes in. The music is terrible. There are four couples on the floor, only two dancing, the others talking and smoking. Despite this, he finds a corner table and sits. What has he to lose? He doubts there are nightclubs in Bosaso or that alcohol will be openly available for fear of what the religionists might do.
    A woman with a cigarette between her lips, her dress tight across her chest, her cleavage showily pushing through, wants a light. Instinctively, Ahl feels his pockets, as if he might find a lighter there, or a box of matches. He shakes his head, and with the white of his palms facing her, shouts over the music, “I’m sorry, I don’t smoke.”
    “No need to be sorry. But are you alone?”
    He pretends he hasn’t heard her question. Even so, she sits down, and as she bends down to do so, he gets a whiff of her perfume. Whatever else he may do, he mustn’t lead her on. But how can he tell her that he is in the nightclub just for the experience of it? Granted, he hasn’t had sex with his wife since Taxliil went missing.
    “If you have no objection to sitting with me for a chat and no more,” Ahl says, “then I can offer you a drink of your choice.”
    “I’ll sit with you until I find a client.”
    He agrees to the deal. She orders hard liquor, a packet of cigarettes, and a lighter. The waiter insists on advance payment for the liquor. Then she asks, “Where are you from?”
    “I am on my way to Somalia.”
    “Why would you go to a place everyone is leaving?”
    “Maybe there is a purpose to my visit,” he says, and falls silent.
    The waiter arrives with the order.
    “Why come into a nightclub when you are not drinking, dancing, or picking up a woman for the night?” she asks.
    “As I’ve said, I am on my way to Somalia,” he says.
    “But I know many women like me from your country.”
    “But they aren’t open about it, are they?” he asks.
    “Like Arab women, they whore secretly.”
    He asks, “How do you mean?”
    “Veiled in public,” the woman says, “Arab women strip naked and are game faster than you think. Maybe that is what they do in Somalia these days. They whore secretly, covered from head to toe. You can’t believe the stories we hear.”
    Ahl leaves when she spots a white client, and he suggests that the man come and take his place. He says, “All the best. Maybe we’ll meet again.”
    “Take care,” she says.

BIGBEARD, FOOTSOLDIER, AND TRUTHTELLER APPROACH THE HOUSE from different vantage points at the same time.
    BigBeard wraps his purple keffiyeh around his waist, tucks in a revolver, just in case, and scales the back wall. FootSoldier, a black keffiyeh around his neck, accesses the compound from a neighboring garden. At the wheel of a pickup truck