AW NUUR JAAMAC's PAIR OF SHOES (Story)

[Abtigiis]

AW NUUR JAAMAC’S PAIR OF SHOES

 

His grin broadened. In the drowsiness of the noon, Aw Nuur Jaamac’s heart pounded in thrill as the messenger handed him the gift. From the checkered lines of the sole of the shoes, he saw the ups and downs of his long life. And his son came to mind. The tall, Ahmed-Saafi. He was so tender and sweet in his childhood.

‘Aabo, milk.’ He would say. And the father never disappointed. Thanks to Gabbad- his lone she-camel. ‘I wouldn’t have exchanged Gabbad for ten others’, Aw Nuur once told Qabille, his cousin. ‘So much milk.’

 

Looking again at the bottom of the shoe, the tartan-like patterns interwoven as a tassel, like a broken mirror of memory, flashed back the scene he still dreads. He saw the flocks of crows circling the sky in the horizon. And imagined the red in the talons of those cruel birds as it sailed over his flesh. His camel. They had just eaten the last pieces of meat off the bones of Gabbad. And Aw Nuur fainted. Twenty years ago. Gabbad succumbed to that ghastly jilaal. So inconsiderate! The jilaal or the she-camel? He was not sure, which one is to blame.

‘May Allah bless him with plenty of boys and milk! He made me happy. Gone are the days when I have to pick prickles out of my toes,’ Aw Nuur couldn’t thank enough.

 

The pair of shoes his son sent from ‘outside’ was the first of its kind for his feet. For the village, as well. He wore, in his entire life, a pair of sandals locally made from cattle hide; simple soled with supporting straps at the back end. He is, nowadays, the only wearer of the shoe with the distinctive footprints in the whole village.

 

Sensing envy in the eyes of the village elders, something jingled in his mind. Before Ahmed-saafi ‘finished the twelve rooms’- as Aw Nuur sold one sheep after another to keep him in school; what were they saying? Was it not ‘the dung beetle’ that they used to call him?

He wanted to scream loud like the ant that bemoaned with glee the cricket’s indiscretion in the La fontaine tale of the French. When the fearful autumn set in (and the hedonistic cricket found itself without food and home), the ant asked, ‘what have you been doing in the summer?’ The cricket replied ‘I was singing’. The ant, then, said ‘you have sung the summer away? Well, go and dance now! Dance!’ and left it in the cold, without lending it what it sought. Aw Nuur almost heard his scream: ‘what were you doing, villagers?’ insulting me? Cry now! Cry!’

 

He knows he bequeathed the good art of valour and prudence to his son. Prudence that made the young boy relentlessly pursue education, in the face of enormous difficulties. Yet, he would be selfish to attribute all to himself. Ahmed-saafi was also made by the iron fist of his mother- the late Cibaado.

 

But, it didn’t take him more than two weeks to realize that the shoes were proving to be more of a curse than a blessing. His life and privacy was messed up.

‘Aw Nuur, you were with Cali-dhuux last night. I saw your footprints next to his house.’

‘Why didn’t you come in? For the ducco. We know you went back from the door. Anyway, we sent some meat and rice to your wife’.

 

The talk of villagers who spotted his footprints here and there was getting to his nerves. His wife, Dahabo, rebuked him for not coming direct from the mosque to his home. She told him that the ‘marks’ of his shoes are everywhere that some impish neighbors started to tease her. ‘Is the old man a policeman in a nights shift? He treks around too much.’

 

It was getting nasty. The shoes must disappear. Disappear totally. He threw them into a not-so-far swamp. It was the rainy month of the year. He could hear the crocking of the frogs in the mud that evening. What were they so happy about? The new company -his shoes? Or was it that routine delight rain brings to this land. If only the frogs knew how fleeting it is! And after all, who cares about it anymore? Not Aw Nuur. He lost the reason to wait for the gritty dusts that swirl from the distance heralding the arrival of new life- the rain; when Gabbad perished.

The next absurd Monday, a young girl who went down to the river to wash clothes found it. She gave it back to his wife. Aw Nuur came out of the house five minutes later, half-awake. ‘Thank you, young lady. It is good of you’. On any other day, he would have taught ‘this girl is the perfect match for my son. She wears all the emblems of the good breeding of olden days.’ Aw Nuur was not happy, though. That is why after three days, he threw it on the grass and soil roof of one of the mud houses in the village.

The same afternoon, the twin brothers -Ilmo Dhegacadde- were playing with a ball made of old socks. One of them hit the ball high and it went to the top of the house nearby. The boys knew they couldn’t climb up the roof. So, they waited until their friends arrive. The friends arrived and quickly threw down the ball to the ground. One of them gasped, ‘Haaah! Aw Nuur’s shoes!’

‘Adeero, we got your shoes. Bless us.’ They said cheerfully.

‘I bless you’ Aw Nuur felt despair inside. ‘Why can’t I lose this damn shoes’.

 

Only last night, in his dream, he was murdered. His killer lurked on a corner of one of the narrow alleys Aw Nuur used for the first time. He was coming back from the house of his friend who was sick. At the funeral -in the absurdity of death in dreams- he could hear what the grave-diggers were saying.

‘The killer confessed that he knew the whereabouts of Aw Nuur by following his footsteps from the village market.’ Sacaba-weyne said. He also understood that apart from Xaashi, No one vowed to avenge his death. So much for tolnimo.

‘It is good to know who is a friend and who isn’t’, he said in the morning, ‘in your dreams’. He also refused to tell the dream to anybody. ‘Bad dreams are not talked about’ he knows.

 

,,,,the final part coming shortly.