{"id":15336,"date":"2019-04-01T08:55:58","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T13:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/?p=15336"},"modified":"2019-04-01T09:51:24","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T14:51:24","slug":"between-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/15336","title":{"rendered":"Between Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

An excerpt from Ubah Cristina Ali Farah\u2019s novel <\/em>Il comandante del fiume (The Commander of the River), translated from the Italian by Hope Campbell Gustafson.<\/em><\/p>\n

More than a month has passed since the day of the concert. That night, after the bouncer told me to leave, I\u2019d started smoking like crazy, one cigarette after another. But even that wasn\u2019t enough to calm me down, and since I didn\u2019t know who to take it out on, I started kicking the wall. It was dark and people didn\u2019t seem to notice me and my outburst. Until a guy separated from his group and came towards me. I immediately stopped\u2014a bit out of embarrassment, a bit out of curiosity\u2014and nodded hello. He had his hair divided into thick braids\u2014in the semi-darkness, his head looked like a sea urchin\u2014and oblique eyes circled in black.<\/p>\n

\u201cGot a light?\u201d he asked, then introduced himself. His name was Ghiorghis. He must\u2019ve been about ten years older than me.<\/p>\n

Hearing his name, I was reminded of a painting Zia Rosa was very proud of. One of her Ethiopian friends had given it to her and it depicted San Giorgio\u2014Ghiorghis in their language\u2014killing the dragon. The saint was very important for the Ethiopians and, as the legend goes, he\u2019d killed the dragon because it was tormenting the inhabitants of a city called Selem, thus restoring peace among the people.<\/p>\n

Ghiorghis\u2019s face, upon closer look, was the spitting image of the saint\u2019s\u2014in the painting his eyes are so big and bright they shine in the dark.<\/p>\n

After lighting his cigarette, he looked at me with a worried expression, and placing his hand on my shoulder, asked: \u201cAll good, brother?\u201d<\/p>\n

I was still angry about being left outside the centro sociale, so\u2014partly to surprise him, partly to provoke him\u2014I responded: \u201cWhy are you calling me brother when you don\u2019t even know me?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ghiorghis first stared at me, incredulous, then burst out laughing, and waved his friends over. Some had dreadlocks, others shaved heads, still others were wearing hats with green, red, yellow, and black stripes\u2014the colors of Rastas.<\/p>\n

\u201cLittle brother, what happened to you?\u201d another one asked me while everyone gathered around. They all had black hands and they seemed to have one voice that came out of their eyes.<\/em> I repeated: \u201cWhy are you calling me brother when you don\u2019t even know me?\u201d and they, like Ghiorghis, also burst out laughing as if I\u2019d said the strangest thing ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean why? Where are you from little dude? Who do you think you are?\u201d said one with a certain defiance, after which Ghiorghis signaled for everyone to go away.<\/p>\n

He was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt, rather tight, and an African necklace with colored beads. He was shorter than me, but being older, intimidated me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d I told him, \u201cmy friends just ditched me. And, by the way, I can\u2019t stand it when people ask me where I\u2019m from.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hearing these words, Ghiorghis smiled at me and sat down on a parked moped.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it can be annoying but between us it\u2019s completely different.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t very clear to me what he meant by \u201cbetween us\u201d and, without my even asking, Ghiorghis explained that for him \u201cbetween us\u201d means that \u201cyou don\u2019t have to play any part, you can be yourself, while everyone else always has certain expectations. If you go to a centro sociale, for example, they expect you to be someone who does more drugs than other people; if you go to a church you must need something. All fabrications that missionaries, colonizers, and anthropologists came up with.\u201d<\/p>\n

I really liked the word \u201cfabrications,\u201d but still didn\u2019t understand\u2014in fact, for me \u201cbetween us\u201d meant between Sissi, the Sybarite, and our families. Nothing could divide us, even though in that moment they were performing in the centro sociale and I was outside.<\/p>\n

Thinking about my two friends I got choked up again and, in an almost angry voice, said to the guy: \u201cAlright, but what does this have to do with the inevitable question? Why do people always have to ask you where you\u2019re from? Why don\u2019t they mind their own business?\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of losing patience, Ghiorghis began telling me a story from when he was a boy.<\/p>\n

He was thirteen and was going to school in the Citt\u00e0 dei Ragazzi, where he had an Italian-American gym teacher. All the kids admired him and hung around him. One day the teacher asked Ghiorghis: \u201cWhere are you from?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEthiopia,\u201d he simply said.<\/p>\n

Not happy with the answer, the Italian-American pressed him again: \u201cWhere were you born?\u201d and when he heard that Ghiorghis was born in Rome he flipped out. He inundated Ghiorghis with a river of words, a mix of American English and Campania dialect, telling him that he was Italian, not Ethiopian, because Italy was where he was born, received his first maternal caresses, made his first friends, attended school. Ghiorghis emphasized this word, \u201ccaresses,\u201d because his teacher had kept repeating it, but he pronounced it in a strange way, rolling his r<\/em> for twice as long.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen and there it didn\u2019t seem like anything important, but over the years,\u201d Ghiorghis went on, \u201cI\u2019ve really reflected on that story\u2014I might even say it\u2019s become my favorite parable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ghiorghis hadn\u2019t yet finished with his reasoning, he still wanted to tell me that recently he\u2019d happened to accompany a friend to look for a summer job at Caritas, where he\u2019d met the priest on duty. The man had looked at him sympathetically and\u2014can you guess? \u2014asked him: \u201cWhere are you from?\u201d \u201cFrom Rome,\u201d Ghiorghis responded but the priest had persisted: \u201cEthiopian, Eritrean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents are both Ethiopian.\u201d<\/p>\n

To this the guy had commented disapprovingly: \u201cI don\u2019t care for your denial.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you believe it?\u201d Ghiorghis repeated, shaking his curly head\u2014how dare he say he was rejecting his own origins? That he was denying being Ethiopian? The Italian-American gym teacher had properly explained that your place is where you have ties, friends, it\u2019s where you know the streets and the smells.<\/p>\n

I agreed with him completely about this, but there was still something that didn\u2019t make sense to me so I asked him: \u201cIf that\u2019s what you think, why did you choose friends who all look like you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ghiorghis seemed to be enjoying himself again: \u201cYou\u2019re a tough nut to crack, you know?\u201d and he gave me a slap on the back.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was your age more or less, I\u2019d already been hanging out at the legendary Big Burger in Piazzale Flaminio for a few years. That\u2019s where my crew gathered, well actually, that\u2019s where almost all the black kids of Rome gathered. That piazza was the only place we felt was ours\u2014we were free to say whatever we wanted, we weren\u2019t forced to play any part. We stopped being what other people saw us as and we were no longer \u2018the beggar,\u2019 \u2018the junkie,\u2019 \u2018the loser,\u2019 \u2018the well-endowed guy,\u2019 \u2018the athlete,\u2019 \u2018the dancer\u2019\u2014we were no longer black, we were simply ourselves. The kids in the crew could\u2019ve been the children of immigrants or ambassadors, Italians or foreigners, living in the periphery or the residential neighborhoods, and the thing that bonded us was a love of hip hop, which is our universal language.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ghiorghis got excited while speaking about Piazzale Flaminio, his eyes seemed to light up even more, and from a distance all his friends watched him making large gestures with his hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a beautiful experience, but not even the piazza was enough to make us feel at home. Rome felt constricting and many of us wanted to leave for one of those places where the people are more mixed. Some left for England, to London, others chose spots even further away and, in the end, the time to leave came for me too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hearing him mention London, I remembered that my departure was nearing so I asked him how long he had lived there and how it\u2019d been.<\/p>\n

In the beginning it was great and exciting, but with time he realized that, outside Italy, it was even harder to respond to the inevitable question, he didn\u2019t have the right words to tell his story, and so even abroad he ended up meeting up with the people who\u2019d been his friends in Piazzale Flaminio. When they were together they spoke of the past with nostalgia.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter seven years,\u201d he said to me, \u201cI swung by Rome\u2014I had to deal with some things. Because I\u2019d gotten Italian citizenship, I can\u2019t tell you all the trouble I went through\u2014I\u2019d gotten the draft card and, apparently, since I hadn\u2019t shown up, was committing a crime. So many headaches, but when I walked out of the airport it only took me a second to realize that I had come home, bathed in the light of the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the difference between swinging by and returning?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ghiorghis responded without hesitation: \u201cFor seven years I hadn\u2019t seen Rome\u2014seven years is an eternity but a cappuccino was all it took to find love again, stronger than ever, not because Rome is how it is, but because with the first cappuccino at the bar I found myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

While saying these things Ghiorghis got almost emotional, meanwhile I wondered what it really meant to be nostalgic.<\/p>\n

Nostalgia is when you miss something, but if you\u2019ve never actually had it, can you still feel nostalgic? Perhaps nostalgia comes when that thing is something others have and you don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Ghiorghis came back to Italy and his crew is still the same\u2014though before they\u2019d hang out in Piazzale Flaminio, now they no longer have a set meeting place but they\u2019re always together, and they all have hands that are black like mine.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

While Ghiorghis spoke, raising and lowering his hands, one of his friends came up to us. He was very black, his body long and skinny, his face narrow, and a little triangular beard sprouted from his chin.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, little brother, all good?\u201d he asked and, winking at his comrade, stuck out his hand to introduce himself: \u201cnice to meet you, I\u2019m Libbaan.\u201d<\/p>\n

The whole \u201clittle brother\u201d thing was turning into the catchword of the night and it irritated me that they were all laughing about it behind my back, so to get even I told him: \u201cDo you even know how to say your own name? It\u2019s pronounced Libaan, with only one b<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The guy suddenly grew serious and asked: \u201cHow do you know that?\u201d Meanwhile Ghiorghis watched me very closely, because I still hadn\u2019t revealed where I was from, but now the language had spoken for me.<\/p>\n

The boy who doubled the b<\/em> in his name told me I was very lucky, because he didn\u2019t speak Somali, not even a word. \u201cNo one has ever told me how to pronounce my name, or if they have, I\u2019ve forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother speaks and sings in Somali all the time,\u201d I replied, \u201cbut I have problems with it too\u2014I think I understand everything, but I can\u2019t speak it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019d warmed up a bit and then, I don\u2019t know how, between one thing and the next, I began telling them about the time some Somali women came to see us, many years ago, when I was in first grade. Mama had them sit in the living room. She came back with a thermos of cardamom tea and a blue tin of Danish cookies. They spoke seated on the couch while I played silently nearby, because at the time I was still a calm child and didn\u2019t seek out adult attention. I even remember that there was some music on in the background. Many weeks had passed since we\u2019d heard from my father, he\u2019d spent long periods away before but had always kept in touch with us. Mama had dark circles under her eyes and was trying to hide her worries from me.<\/p>\n

She abruptly stood up and went to the stereo to turn up the volume. The women asked: \u201cWhy are you turning up the music if your son doesn\u2019t understand Somali?\u201d and she replied: \u201cHe understands, he understands everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

They began speaking intensely and part of me could barely follow along, part of me didn\u2019t find what they were saying very interesting. Until one of them raised her voice at my mother: \u201cWe told you not to trust your husband\u2014those wild dogs raided our homes, killed our men, and they still haven\u2019t had enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hearing these words, my mother yelled at the women to leave and to never speak like that in front of me again. She repeatedly told them that my father would never kill anyone. The women looked at her, taken aback, and told her to calm down. But my mother couldn\u2019t calm herself and, after showing them out, she shut herself in the bathroom. I pulled on the door handle so she\u2019d open the door and asked her over and over: \u201cWho are the wild dogs? Who killed? Where\u2019s papa, aabbe?\u201d<\/p>\n

Since that day my mother made a habit of turning up the volume of the music when she spoke on the phone or someone came to see her\u2014she was afraid of what I might hear.<\/p>\n

Naturally this only increased my curiosity, and that\u2019s how I discovered mama was desperately trying to convince my father to come back and that she feared for his life.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately\u2014but I only understood this later\u2014aabbe was too tangled up in the war to come back and live with us.<\/p>\n

While I was saying all these things out loud that sounded strange even to my ears, I realized it was the first time I\u2019d spoken so openly about certain family matters and I\u2019d only just met them. Who knows what had gotten into me.<\/p>\n

Libaan, moved by the story he\u2019d just heard, began telling me his own. He also, at first, lived in Somalia with both his parents. He was ten when the war broke out and his parents decided to seek refuge in Italy. Unfortunately, they were not able to obtain a visa for his mother, so he and his father left without her, in the hope of sending her documents and a ticket at a later date. Months passed, his father was buried in bureaucratic hassles, there was never enough money, and, at a certain point, he decided to put Libaan in boarding school, promising he\u2019d be back for him soon. But things went different than planned. After some time, he forgot about both his wife and his son, who he never went back to find. As he grew up, Libaan, in turn, forgot everything he knew\u2014even how to pronounce his own name\u2014because there was no longer anyone to correct him. He learned Italian and the new words cancelled out the old. His mother\u2019s voice, though, he\u2019d never forgotten. My father, too, for all I knew, had forgotten about me and my mother, but at least the two of us were still together.<\/p>\n

When he was eighteen Libaan had also been part of the Flaminio crew and, having finished high school, he\u2019d left the boarding school and set about searching for his mother. He went to the Somali consulate in search of information, but no one listened to him. Libaan knew the names of his mother and the village where she lived, but they explained to him that the name of the person was not needed, not even that of the place in which they lived\u2014if he wanted to find his mother he had to know the name of the clan she belonged to. Libaan didn\u2019t remember it, or maybe he\u2019d never known it.<\/p>\n

Twenty years had passed since the last time he\u2019d seen his mother when, out of the blue, his father showed up. It couldn\u2019t be a coincidence. Libaan insisted so much that the man finally got him his mother\u2019s number. Libaan was so excited he ran to call her straight away. But his mother didn\u2019t speak his new language and Libaan no longer understood the old. At one point someone tore the phone from her hand\u2014an uncle, a relative\u2014and in the confusion Libaan only recognized one message that they kept repeating to him in Italian: \u201cMoney, money, to you mother send money,\u201d as if after so many years the only thing she wanted from her son was money. But he didn\u2019t even have enough to live on. He hung up, upset, but he still remembered the phone number.<\/p>\n

When the story was over, we were so shaken up no one said anything for a few minutes, until Ghiorghis, jumping up from the moped, had an idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen little brother, I really don\u2019t think we met by chance. I mean, your friends ditched you, you stayed outside, and there just has be a reason that we\u2019re here together tonight, talking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story had moved me so much that I no longer felt like provoking. Then again, I couldn\u2019t repress a vision\u2014Zia Rosa\u2019s face attached to Ghiorghis\u2019s body: How come certain people think that ordinary incidents hold some deeper meaning? His idea was that we could all go together to a nearby call center and ring Libaan\u2019s mother. I tried to explain to him that I\u2019d only pronounced a name correctly and I didn\u2019t feel up to speaking in Somali on the telephone.<\/p>\n

The two of them soon were in league. Ghiorghis was the pushier one: \u201cYou said you have to go to London, no? This way you\u2019ll start practicing\u2014what language do you think you\u2019ll be speaking there? Come on, it doesn\u2019t cost you anything!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s late, at this hour they\u2019ll all be asleep. It\u2019s about two am in Somalia.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEven better, this way we can be sure they\u2019re at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

They were so insistent that, in the end, I had to give in: \u201cAlright, I\u2019ll try.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was almost midnight when I went with Libaan to call and even though it was far from hot out, we were both sweating heavily. I was sweating because I felt like I no longer remembered a word of Somali, he because he\u2019d be speaking to his mother for the first time in twenty years.<\/p>\n

The call center was a cramped little store with many glass booths inside. There were signs in various languages and through the transparent walls you could see people talking\u2014each of them moved his mouth in a different way but you couldn\u2019t hear their voices, they were like many fish inside an aquarium.<\/p>\n

As soon as we walked in the manager, a man with a white beard, asked us: \u201cWhere do you want to call?\u201d and we explained the situation to him so that he\u2019d give us a phone with two receivers, since Libaan and I needed to both talk and listen.<\/p>\n

After a few minutes he lets us into a booth with two handsets\u2014the space is very narrow and it\u2019s hot as hell. We\u2019re sweaty, the air is boiling, the phone number endless, the calling code endless, and the time it takes them to pick up endless.\u00a0 I feel like I\u2019m in a damp cave and I picture the telephone at the other end also in a place like this\u2014a boiling hot cavern like ours with Libaan\u2019s mother inside who\u2019s been waiting for twenty years. The phone rings, I wait for a voice, and Libaan stares at me because he\u2019s afraid of my silence. He tells me \u201cyou got this!\u201d and from the other end I hear: \u201cHalow, yaa waaye?\u201d Hello, who is it? They\u2019re speaking in Somali and I understand everything, but until now I\u2019ve only ever transformed Somali into Italian, I don\u2019t know how to transform Italian into Somali.<\/p>\n

From the other end of the line they say \u201chalow,\u201d and Libaan says \u201cyou got this!\u201d again, and I see the words line up in my head, I feel and see all of them, they kick and take shape like whole walnuts, and I push with my forehead and my eyes to get them out. The words are hard, they cut through my head, like when it\u2019s hot out and you drink something icy cold. I feel a stabbing pain between my eyes and catch my breath. But the pain still doesn\u2019t stop, so I start pushing again, pushing hard, and now I feel the words come to my throat and I touch their shape with my tongue. I push air out and the words spill out whole from my mouth.<\/p>\n

I see Libaan smiling at me and saying, \u201cmama, it\u2019s me,\u201d his voice cracking, and I repeat, voice cracking, the same words, \u201chooyo, waa aniga,\u201d and the words \u201cmama\u201d, \u201cit\u2019s\u201d and \u201cme\u201d sound the same in the new language, maybe just a bit drier. Libaan is frantic and he wants to talk about too many things at once: about how much he searched for her, how much he\u2019s missed her, how much he\u2019s thought of her, but he\u2019s only able to say simple words and his mother repeats the same things, and I\u2019m the mother and the son at the same time.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re in the cave and the air is boiling, Libaan and I are both all sweaty and we\u2019re each holding a handset attached to one cord. The voice of his mother reaches both of us and our voices reach her together. I feel the words whole in my mouth, it\u2019d been a long time since I\u2019d felt them, and these words are the words of the son and they\u2019re also mine\u2014Libaan and I together say \u201chooyo,\u201d mama, and \u201cwaa aniga,\u201d it\u2019s me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ubah Cristina Ali Farah & Hope Campbell Gustafson<\/a><\/h6>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An excerpt from Ubah Cristina Ali Farah\u2019s novel Il comandante del fiume (The Commander of the River), translated from the Italian by Hope Campbell Gustafson. More than a month has passed since the day of the concert. That night, after the bouncer told me to leave, I\u2019d started smoking like crazy, one cigarette after another. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1704,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[58],"tags":[36],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-3Zm","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15336"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1704"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15336"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15338,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15336\/revisions\/15338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}