Aabo

When my aabo came to Sweden, he became involved with the drug trade through a trafficker called Ishaaq. Aabo agreed to stack khat in his apartment in exchange for some contraband. I came home from Uni one day and found a dozen plastic bags peeking from under the bed, the sofa, the rocking chair, and the table. The whole apartment was stuffed with green leaves; the bitter scent of khat lay thick in the air.

Aabo sat in the living room with the Quran propped open on his lap. He’d gotten off early and was halfway through a small bag of khat. Green spit coated his uneven front teeth, and his pupils were thick, dilated, and bright as silver coins. He was reading chapter one of the Quran: Al Baqarah, the Cow. His voice was lofty and generous. He extended words like forgiveness and paradise. He choked on punishment and hellfire.

He brooded over the verses and lit a cigarette. White smoke coiled around his head like a turban. BBC Africa rumbled in the background. A dozen people had been stomped to death in Mecca. A witch doctor was cutting up babies in Namibia. A Nigerian teenager was caught in a love scam.

Aabo closed the Quran and shifted to a poetry book. Three Cushitic men with afro hair like the crown of acacia trees were depicted on the front cover. They leaned on machetes. They wore white macawis and their eyes were as bright as silver coins.

The poems spoke of women with jiggly breasts and round hips. They spoke of killing white colonizers. But mostly, they spoke about sowing and harvesting khat. Khat was glorified above Allah and the ancient Somali God, Waaq.

Aabo’s voice was rhythmic but rough when he recited the poetry. It was different from the way he recited the Quran, every stanza a lash. I hesitated to enter the living room. His voice faltered, and he coughed. He spat green phlegm into a bowl.

“Give me chai!” he barked. I rushed to the kitchen and assembled the ingredients in quick succession. The kettle whistled, and I poured the chai into a cup. I returned to the living room.

Aabo swallowed the hot beverage in one gulp. He scratched the round mark on his forehead till the skin turned red.

“Damn cold country!” he barked and fell quiet again. He lit another cigarette and took two drags before he stubbed it out in the ashtray. A coil of white smoke floated to the ceiling.

He stood and returned the poetry book to its shelf. He sat and popped open the Quran. Again, he choked on punishment and hellfire. His eyes turned watery. It was like he was beginning to fade.

“I wish . . .” he said, then fell quiet.

The wind rustled in the birch tree outside our window. The boughs were strong but tired and chafed from the autumn winds. The leaves were red, like red dawn and red fire.

Aabo’s eyes were fearful. “You think what I do is wrong?” He looked at me, standing in the arched doorway, pulling at the hem of my hijab. He shut the Quran and yanked his salt-and-pepper beard. “You think I’m sinning, don’t you?”

I didn’t answer.

“I see it in your eyes. Your mother always had that look.”

I looked away and watched the television screen. The news anchor was Indian. She had long black hair and eyes like Aabo’s, shiny and chestnut brown but without the volatile streak. A thirty-four-year-old South African female had been apprehended at Heathrow Airport, the news anchor reported. According to the airport security personnel, the African’s luggage contained Voodoo dolls, hashish, and a handful of kiddie teeth. She had meant to perform a ritual.

“Here,” Aabo said, rustling through the bag of khat. He offered me a handful of leaves he’d plucked off the stems. “Have some.”

I shook my head. 

***

Ishaaq called Aabo on Friday. He needed to speak with him face-to-face. Aabo wanted me to cook bariis iyo hilib. After offering Friday prayer at the mosque, he bought a kilo of lamb thighs, a bundle of coriander, and a pound of jasmine rice at the ethnic store across the street. He wore his Friday best: a three-piece suit and double monk-strap shoes. He sucked on his miswak; his forehead furrowed so that the circular black mark looked like a stain of soot. The white rosary wrapped around his wrist click-click-clicked.

Ishaaq came after I turned up the heat on a pot of bariis. I chopped garlic and onions and pounded coriander leaves to go with the rice. He slithered to the door. He could’ve stood there for an hour, and I wouldn’t have noticed.

“Hello,” he said, and I jerked.

He was a short man with wisps of frizzy hair sprouting from the center of his crown. His mouth was toothless, and his purple lips drooped. His clothes were gray and black. His rodent eyes flickered left and right. I had the urge to crush him underfoot.

“What a delicious smell,” he said. He sucked on a thumb and fixed his bushy eyebrows. He assessed my body; in one glance, he’d fucked me with his eyes.

“Ishaaq!” Aabo called from the living room, and the visitor slithered away.

Aabo and Ishaaq spoke together in hushed voices. I left the bubbling pot, tiptoed to the arched doorway, and peeked into the living room. Aabo was lighting a cigarette and blowing wisps of smoke. Ishaaq was sitting next to the window, biting into a butter cookie. The sunlight must’ve come through at a different angle than usual because he was enveloped in shadow. A rodent in a corner.

“The prices are going up everywhere,” Ishaaq said. “The police are following up on leads in Amsterdam. My guy is coming through, but we have to keep the stash in your apartment a little longer.”

“You said just a week . . .”

Ishaaq took another bite of his cookie and swallowed it with a sip of chai. “Yes. Yes. I know what I said. But just another two to three months. Until everything cools off.”

I returned to the kitchen and turned down the heat on the pot of rice. My mind stirred.

Ishaaq didn’t stay for dessert. He got a call mid-way through dinner and slunk out. Aabo was quiet. He helped soak the dishes, then withdrew to the living room. He pulled out a plastic bag from under the sofa and asked for a pot of sweet tea. He read the Quran first but got stuck on sin and hellfire. Eventually, he abandoned scripture and watched Rambo: First Blood.