Free Knots by Nuruddin Farah Page A

line.” He throws the words at her like darts on a dartboard.
    â€œBorn a coward, you’ll remain one,” she says.
    She tries to recall a single instance in all the time the two of them lived together—as children raised in the same household or as a couple pretending to be man and wife—when she behaved as uncivilly toward him as he is doing right now. It doesn’t surprise her that she cannot find any.
    No doubt, she kept him at bay, refusing to share “intimacies” with him. Blame it on Arda for setting the terms. She believes she herself was impeccable in her dealings with him, albeit within the parameters of the contract with Arda and then eventually with him. As for the time spent together in their younger years, there is the matter of her excessive naughtiness. Her mother tried and failed to moderate her wildness or to make her behave as one might expect of a girl of her background. Zaak was such a dunce, only good enough to receive the school’s booby prizes; she knew he would not amount to much.
    â€œI want to move out,” she shouts. “Right now.”
    â€œGo right ahead,” he says. “Who is stopping you?”
    Silent but not rueful, she stares at him in fury.
    â€œWhere will you go to if you leave?”
    â€œA hotel.”
    â€œDo you know of one?”
    â€œI do.”
    Kiin’s Hotel Maanta, run by Raxma’s friend.
    â€œDo you know how to get there?”
    This is a taunt to his tone of triumph, and both know it. She does not respond to it, not only because she has no idea where Hotel Maanta is in relation to where she is but also because she is peering into the ugly face of defeat. Her eyes bore deep into his: how she hates him. When she finally hits the concrete reality of so much unyielding contempt in his come-on leering, she says, her voice sounding like that of an exhausted boxer not returning the licks raining on him, “I still don’t want to be here.”
    â€œWise up, woman,” he says.
    â€œDon’t talk to me in that uppity tone.”
    â€œI’ll talk as I please when I please,” he retorts.
    She repeats “I should’ve known” several times. Then she lapses into the dejected silence of the routed, her tiredness suddenly evident all over her body, the look in her eyes dimming, her features twisted into a grimace. She consoles herself, all the same, that come tomorrow she will fight back once she has studied the lay of the land, and will have fallen back on her resolve to recover her dignity.
    â€œYou won’t want to be anywhere but here and with me, if you know what’s good for you.”
    â€œI thought I lived in a world of my manufacture?”
    â€œYou do.”
    â€œOne in which I lie to myself?”
    â€œYou do.”
    â€œIn which case I know what is good for me.”
    â€œSo, what or who is good for you?”
    â€œNeither you nor your place is good for me.”
    â€œHere’s what I will not do,” he says, bossing her.
    â€œWhat?
    â€œI will not allow you to compromise your safety.”
    â€œWhy should my safety matter to you?”
    â€œIt matters to your mother,” he says.
    â€œAnd why does my mother matter to you?”
    â€œYour mother thinks of me as your host.”
    â€œAnd so?”
    â€œI don’t want her to be disappointed in me.”
    â€œMy safety, my foot!”
    He disregards her fury with a shrug and says, “If you wise up, you will not embark on a foolish adventure into the dark unknown of Mogadiscio’s dangers. You will not want to risk your life just to prove a silly point. Be under my roof; be my guest; be as comfortable as you can, despite the adverse circumstances. Consider your safety. If I were you, I would put up with the discomforts that are one with your safety. Tomorrow, I will be more than willing to drive you anywhere you like until you find a good and clean enough hotel, which will