Only two days were left before her daughter’s arrival and Mulki could still hardly believe it. She’d reread the latest email the girl had sent her from Nairobi over and over again: “I’m arriving on Tuesday, January 15th at 8 o’clock, at Leonardo da Vinci airport, Rome, on a Qatar Airways flight from Dubai.” She smiled as she read those words: she’d bought the ticket and sent it, after dispatching all the documents, which were finally in order. A thousand times she’d checked the departure time from Nairobi and the time of the flight that would carry her daughter from Dubai to Rome.
The enterprise had cost her a great deal of time and money: long hours of waiting in front of the central police station, official stamps, copies and photocopies of every page, both ‘front and back’ of every document. And then the thousands of times she’d been forced to ask for help from Ahmed, the representative of the Somali community, so that her umpteenth attempt would not fail like all the previous ones had done: One time a document was lacking, another time a signature, one time her income was not adequate, still another time some declarations had gone missing in who knows what office. In the end, Mulki had more than once given up all hope of meeting her daughter again. In her first attempts she had often made a mistake because of her lack of experience, or else she found herself up against laws that had changed, and not for the better. And other times, just at the moment when everything was in order, she’d lost her job and had to spend time looking for another one, and also a place to live, because the relatives of the woman she’d been looking after for months, night and day, taking only the fewest possible hours off, let her know that as soon as possible she’d have to leave the room in their house, where she’d been staying. “We have to sell the flat, Mulki, we’re sorry!”
But now everything was different. The house where she’d been living for over a year was her own: a bright one-roomed flat with two windows where the sun streamed in and the blue sky seemed close enough to touch. The whole city seemed to stretch out at her feet. And by building a simple wooden protection she’d managed to put two small plants on the sill, which she cared for dotingly. Behind a sliding door there was the kitchen and opposite it the bathroom, small but lacking nothing essential: new fixtures, new stall shower with sliding door, a gleaming mirror reflecting light from the faucets, which were always clean and polished. And finally, a transom window that let in light and fresh air. Mulki was extremely proud of her tiny flat. She’s bought it with the savings of twenty years of hard work. But that hadn’t been enough, so she’d had to take out a mortgage, guaranteed by her latest employer. No doubt, Mr Antonio and Mrs Francesca had been kind, but she’d earned their affection and respect with years of devotion to their family. She’d raised their children, Eleonora and Alessandro, and had seen their parents buried, Giovanni and Giulia, Antonio’s father and mother, and Carlo and Maria, Francesca’s parents. When Mulki had first come into that house Eleonora and Alessandro were four and five years old. Now they were teenagers who attended secondary school, but when they came home from school (now she only worked for them six hours a day) they still greeted her as warmly as when they were small, calling her "Mukki..." and planting on her cheeks two kisses that stopped her where she was, standing by the stove.
Her heart filled with joy when she thought of them. How many walks they’d taken together along the river; how many winter evenings they’d watched cartoons on the t.v. in the living room; how many nights she’d spent watching over their restless sleep when they had a fever; and how many stories she’d had to invent to coax them to eat. Then the grandparents got sick, almost at the same time, and in the large house the work had doubled. Mulki didn’t complain, she’d accepted the raise in her salary in the hope of being able to shorten the time when she could buy a flat where finally she would have Fartum come to live. But the requests for money from her relations in Mogadishu were more and more pressing. There was always a brother who needed medical care, a cousin who had to get married, an aunt who was alone and had to be provided for. The war was still on, people were dying; whoever could do so left the country; it was harder and harder for her to ignore all the requests for help coming from back home.
But now the most important step had been taken: the flat had been hers for a year, she’d been able to furnish it quite nicely, and Fartum was coming. Finally they would live together. She had spent the afternoon tidying up the flat. The floor gleamed, the windows shone behind the light-coloured gauzy curtains; a screen with a branch and leaf pattern separated the two beds from the rest of the room. The table was polished and the six chairs had their colourful cushions; on the wall opposite the door a large wardrobe of the same colour as the other furniture would hold their clothes. Mulki looked around and once again tried to imagine what their lives would be like in that flat, finally together. She would enrol Fartum in school to learn Italian right away. Learning to drive her little "Panda" wouldn’t be hard, and it would surely make a young woman of twenty-four feel proud. In one corner of the room was her desk. She dusted it one last time, tidied her books on the shelf and checked to make sure there was some room for the books her daughter would add. And once again, as so often in all those years, she found herself thinking of the little girl she’d left behind in Somalia almost twenty years before. Mulki knew that if her memories took hold of her she would be pulled back by time and the hours would slip away in one continual, sad pursuit of faces, sounds, smells and words. Inside simple frames there were two photos of Fartum on the wall. In the first one a child of about three waved her little hand at someone in the distance; in the other the same child, perhaps a bit older, was sitting up straight and immobile in a chair near a window. She especially liked the one in which Fartum was waving at someone in the distance, and whenever she looked at it she was overcome with nostalgia and hope. She had taken that photo herself and as soon as she arrived in Italy she’d had it enlarged, but she always kept the original postcard-format one in an envelope in her handbag. It was to that child she spoke in moments of loneliness and in moments of hope.
The woman Fartum had grown into was unknown to her. Her messages were made up of kind words and blessings; her phone calls were full of affection. But the little girl looking into the distance with big, enchanted eyes took her back in time and summed up her entire life in that one look: the years in secondary school, Abdulcadir’s love, university, engineering for him and for her, though not by choice, chemistry. Actually Mulki watned to study languages, but her father had insisted so hard, gently and tactfully as was his wont, he’d insisted that she enrol in the chemistry department. “You’ll be sure to find work, Mulki, I promise you; our President is very concerned about education: you are our pillars! You young men and women of the future!” Her stomach turned over when she thought back to those words. Poor daddy! How he’d believed in ‘his President’! He’d raised his children to respect the law, tradition, to love family and culture, and then... His President had made him end his life in jail: arrested one rainy night, never to return. Her mother and two older brothers, Mohamed and Siad, had searched for him, they’d even asked for a meeting with the President, but it was to no avail, no one would tell them anything. In the end they resigned themselves, but from that moment everything changed for the family. Their financial situation was worse and even her mother lost her job in the ministry. Mohamed and Siad left right after they graduated from university, promising to send money to the family as soon as they found a good job in the United States. They had done that for a little while, but then they got married and sent home less and less. Thinking back to those years, Mulki felt a lump in her throat. Those were the years when she fell in love with Abdulcadir and together with him had built hopes and plans for the future. Abdulcadir had helped her so much when her family fell into disgrace. They got married soon after graduation. “We’ll help each other, - Abdulcadir had said- it’s better for us to get married right away, Mulki, you know your father thought so, too.” Abdulcadir had found a good job, so when she realized she was pregnant they had celebrated, even though things had begun to look unpromising. And when the baby was born they called her Fartum, as a sign that she would be happy and lucky. With her own family in rapid decline, Mulki trusted and referred to her husband more and more. So when he told her that the minister he worked under was gong to send him to Rumania for two years of specialization, she was a bit upset. But he had to go; it was the government that sent him abroad and on his return their finances would certainly improve greatly.
He never did leave: they arrested him two hours before his flight took off and nothing more was heard of him. But now she mustn’t think about him or about the past. “The past keeps you from living, Mulki!” That was what Silvia, a woman she worked for one afternoon a week, said. Silvia was a retired teacher, she loaned her many book and gave her others. She always asked for news about Somalia, the economic situation, the politics. She listened with interest, but she encouraged Mulki to ‘look forward’. “You are still young, Mulki, you’re beautiful...you have a degree! And if our government really keeps its promise, soon you’ll be an Italian citizen, and maybe other possibilities will present themselves!” But the government fell, and what came after that didn’t leave much room for hope.
Mulki wasn’t unhappy with her life. The first ten years had been hard, that was true, but even in those moments there had been people who had helped her, respected her. She had Italian friends and friends from other countries as well, she even had some Somali girlfriends who were very close, but in the community she wasn’t appreciated. "She’s obsessed with culture and studying" some said, "...she goes to the cinema, she likes music, she’s different." She didn’t mind that judgment very much, but on many occasions she’d had to bite her tongue so as not to answer back and gather her strength to go ahead. And now she had arrived where she wanted; her daughter would come, they would start their life, and finally she would dedicate all her time to her, covering her with the affection and tenderness she knew she’d deprived her of by leaving her in Somalia. “I’ll welcome you like a queen, - was her last thought before falling asleep - I’ll buy you flowers and sweets, I’ll take care of you when you are weak and tired. I’ll let you meet all my friends, I’ll help you to study, I’ll introduce you to this city... I’ll love you so!”
The young woman coming towards her in the airport stirred up a thousand contrasting emotions all at once. She was tall and thin, wrapped in a black Jalbab that covered almost her whole body. Not only was her body carefully covered, but also part of her face – you could only see the eyes, and nothing else. Mulki could hardly recognize her. In the photos that Fartum had sent her recently at least her face was uncovered, but now... It seemed impossible to her that the girl hadn’t had any problems passing through border controls dressed like that. And then, the clothes made her look like a shapeless mass... Why did she cover herself like that? She put a brake on the tumult of thoughts that, despite herself, hadn’t left room for her first impulse to run up to her daughter and embrace her. She didn’t want to care about how she was dressed or about the eyes that, she understood immediately, were looking at her with severity. She took a few steps towards her and held out her arms: “I’m here, Fartum! I’m here, child! Finally! Finally!” And tears ran into her words. Fartum hugged her back, thanked her and said she was really happy to have come and that she would certainly stay with her from now on. Mulki handed her a heavy jacket and a pair of woolen gloves. “It’s cold here, -she said- put on this jacket and the gloves!” Fartum looked at her, annoyed; “I’m just fine, thanks, I’m not cold.” Mulki wanted to insist but she wasn’t used to dealing with such determination, so she left off. Fartum followed her towards the car, walking a bit clumsily and uncertain in the confusion of the airport. “Give me your suitcase, -Mulki said- you carry your handbag and follow me, we have to get to the car park.” Fartum handed her the suitcase and walked on without speaking.
Once she was seated in the car next to her, Mulki asked: “did everything go well? Was the journey comfortable?” “Yes, - Fartum replied -, but there were so many controls... They took me into a room where a woman had to search me and identify me! It’s incredible!” “That’s the law, dear ” Mulki answered briefly, and switched on the engine. She was aware that Fartum was looking at her with a mixture of curiosity and irritation, she was looking at her hands on the wheel, her hair covered by a blue scarf that matched her jacket and at the traffic of a Roman morning, perhaps a bit frightened and very disorientated. Mulki told her the names of the most important streets and pointed out historical buildings and churches. “You’re tired now - she said- you’ll have time to rest up. When you’re feeling up to it, I’ll show you around the city. We’ll take lovely walks in the hills, and I’ll show you how to use the underground.” Fartum listened wordlessly.
When they got home Mulki showed her the bed and the part of the wardrobe where she could put her clothes. She showed her the bathroom, the kitchen area and the desk with its bookcase. And she also let her see the corner reserved for prayer: “Here, in this position, we are turned towards the south-east; there are two rugs, so we can pray together, especially in the morning and evening. During the day I’m never here, I’m at work.” “So you don’t pray.” Fartum wasn’t asking a question, it was a statement that sounded like a reproach to her mother’s ears. “During the day I almost never can - she said, almost excusing herself -; I work for the Fasoli family until almost two o’clock and at three I have to be at another house three time a week. Then the other two I have to go to two retired teachers, Mrs. Giardini and Silvia Rinaldi. Silvia has become a friend by now, I can pray at her house in the afternoon, but the others...” “So what do you do?” asked Fartum, starting to get undressed before going into the bathroom. “I make up for it in the evening,” replied Mulki. Then she looked down and went silently towards the kitchen corner. While she made the tea she thought unhappily about how at times in the evening she was so tired that she fell into bed almost without getting undressed, and she certainly wasn’t able to pray. Her daughter was right, she should be more careful, but now her life would be different, more regular, and there would be time for everything. “I’ll still have to work hard,’ she thought, pouring the tea into cups...’the mortgage to pay...the utilities... and the money to send home...” The smell of spices filled the room. Mulki took the sweet she’d made out of the fridge. “When you’re ready, come and have a cup of tea, Fartum! I’ve made some halva, too...!” From the bathroom her daughter made no reply. Mulki thought that she hadn’t heard because of the noise of the water “Is everything all right?” she asked, and the girl only answered “yes.” When she came out she turned to her mother with a stern expression on her face: “Mamma, - she said – you can’t talk when you’re in the bathroom! It’s a bad habit.” Mulki looked down and only said: “you’re right Fartum... you’re right,” as she sat down next to her and invited her to drink the tea.
In the days that followed, Mulki, who had taken a week off from work, devoted herself entirely to her daughter. She took her to a female physician, Dr. Marini, to have her examine the girl to see if there were any health problems that needed to be dealt with right away. Fartum was healthy but Mulki insisted that she take some tonics to strengthen her resistance. She took her to her dentist, doctor Carlo Cardelli, whose family she had worked for some years ago, so he could check her teeth and do any work that was needed. “Dr. Carlo doesn’t charge me much, - she told her while she was driving in the six o’clock traffic,- he’s very nice, and I can pay in as many instalments as I need. I’ve never had any problems with him.” Fartum sighed, pulling her jalbab around her. “Mamma, you’re obsessed with these things! And why a male dentist? I’d prefer a woman!” “I’m very sorry,” Mulki replied, “I don’t know any. I’ve been careful, too; my family doctor is a woman, you’ve met her, and I’ve chosen a woman gynaecologist. If you want I can get you a check-up with her. Letizia is a good gynaecologist and a dear friend. But I don’t know any woman dentist!” Fartum made no reply, but for the whole time Dr.Cardelli was examining her she was tense, irritated, and couldn’t relax. “Am I hurting you much?” the doctor enquired. Mulki translated and Fartum said no. They agreed on the work to be done. “It’s not much,” said the dentist, “we can finish in two months. And the young lady will have a new mouth!” He held out his hand, which Fartum did not take. Mulki pretended not to see, saying: “what agreement can we make for payment, Dr. Carlo?” “No, no!” he said, looking down a bit awkwardly, “she’s your daughter, Mulki, we’ve waited so long for her... let me at least offer you my work... Let’s not talk about money.” Mulki thanked him and told Fartum that the doctor was offering her this opportunity and the girl smiled weakly.
That evening during supper Mulki suggested to her daughter that the next day they could go and buy a coat. “The windbreaker I bought you before you came is fine for rain, but I’d like to buy you a long coat, too, that will cover you when it gets really cold. I’d like to buy you a pair of shoes that can protect your feet from the cold and the rain.” “But where would I have to go, mamma? I’m not used to going around all day long. A girl isn’t allowed to, you know!” Mulki tried to control the confusion she felt each time her daughter talked like that. She told her she would have to go to Silvia’s for Italian lessons and she’d have to go to the dentist’s, because she, Mulki, wouldn’t be able to go with her all the time. “Silvia has offered to help you with the language, - she said – so we’ll save the money for a course. She’s helped many foreign students, she’s very good, you can trust her.” “And can’t I go there when you go? That way we can go in the car!” Mulki tried not to be annoyed by those strange protests. Fartum was still disoriented, she’d have to learn a little at a time how to behave in this big city, in this world so different from her own. “Silvia wants you to go three times a week, - she said - I can take you on the afternoon when I work there, the other times you’ll have to go on your own. I’ll teach you the way, we’ll go two or three times on the underground and not by car, so you’ll learn.
The first days after Fartum’s arrival flashed by, then slowly Mulki’s life reassumed its customary rhythm: work in the Fasoli home until two pm, then the afternoons with the other families. She came back every evening around eight o’clock to find a tidy house, supper on the table, and Fartum waiting for her. The girl tried to do as much as she could around the house. She wasn’t used to all the various detergents or to some electric appliances Mulki had bought, but she quickly learned how to use them and tried to do everything her mother taught her. She was making good progress in Italian, too. Silvia told Mulki that the girl was a quick learner and that next year she’d be able to take evening classes and take the school leaving exam in a fairly short time. Mulki was happy - there was someone waiting for her when she got back home in the evening, someone to talk to. She asked a lot of question about life in Mogadishu in recent years, she asked about their friends and relations. Many were dead, others had left the country. Fartum answered, telling her everything she knew, but her mother sensed something in her words, her attitude, her remarks, that made her feel uneasy and anxious. How strict her daughter was towards everyone! She expressed negative judgments on her mother’s Italian friends and didn’t think highly of her Somali women friends, either. “Your friend Ruqia, - she said one Saturday afternoon while they were tidying the flat together - is not a good Muslim.” “Why do you say that, Fartum?” Mulki asked, very hurt, “why are you judging her?” “She’s married to an Italian; she gave an Italian name to one of her children.” “Her son is named Francesco, like his paternal grandfather, and her daughter is called Aisha like her maternal grandmother. That’s the choice they made, what’s it to us?” Fartum leaned the broom in a corner and took a few steps towards her mother. “It’s important, mamma; Ruqia should not have married that man...A Muslim woman isn’t allowed to, as you well know!” Mulki sighed. She didn’t like hearing her friend talked about like that, and above all she didn’t like hearing her daughter take the liberty to do so. “I understand what you’re saying, Fartum;” she tried to say, “but let’s not make judgments. It’s not up to us to judge; let’s try to live our lives well, following God’s laws and the laws of the country where we find ourselves... And that’s already quite a lot, believe me.” Fartum’s reply took away her strength to continue: “And you’re not a good Muslim, either, mamma! I’m sorry, but Italy has spoiled you, too. You can’t be a Muslim in this country. No, you just can’t.” Mulki went back to polishing the handles of the wardrobe and searched her mind for the right words to answer. She made an effort not to be annoyed but when she spoke her voice was full of indignation: “You can be a good Muslim in any part of the world,” she said, trying against her will to look at her daughter sternly. The girl’s answer left her speechless: “no, that’s not true, mamma. In England you can... but not in Italy.” Mulki thought she hadn’t understood, and asked: “where?” “In England, where there’s a large Somali community; there are lots of opportunities to hear readings from the Koran and you can see t.v. programmes broadcast by religious stations. You can stay at home because the government gives financial help, not like in this city where you have to go back and forth all day long to earn a pittance and where you don’t even have time to pray! Life is different there, mamma.”
Mulki kept on thinking about these words and others like them during her days at work. They repeated themselves in her head when she was driving or cleaning the floors of different houses or walking down the corridors in the supermarket. They merged with the sound of the vacuum cleaner, of running water, of t.v. commercials she heard without listening. She knew very well what had happened in her country. She often thought about it bitterly, but to notice every day the negative, harmful influence that certain religious currents had had on people, especially young people, made her shake with heartfelt indignation and was deeply painful to her. She didn’t want to resign herself to accepting that her own daughter, the young woman for whom she’d imagined a happy future, had fallen into a perverse spiral that kept her from considering the facts of life with an open mind and from having authentic relationships with people. “Maybe it’s my fault,” she thought at times as she went home in the evening, “I should never have left her in Somalia so long; I should have been more determined, less uncertain, I should have brought her here a long time ago... Long ago!” She blamed herself for her inability to judge the situation correctly, she told herself over and over again that she shouldn’t have trusted the relatives who had taken the little girl away from Mogadishu when the war broke out and her mother had died, saying it was too dangerous for her to stay in the city. They’d taken the child girl to the country and from that moment Mulki had no news of her for a long time. “I should have gone to get her myself... I should never have trusted anyone.”
When she left Mogadishu in 1986, Fartum was four years old and she was twenty-eight. She felt strong and full of energy. “You take care of Fartum,” she’d said to her mother, “I’ll find work, I’ll send the money and as soon as I can I’ll have both of you join me in Italy.” But the first years had been hard: she lost her job often and there were no laws to protect her, And in Somalia war had broken out. When about ten years later she started working for the Fasoli family and her job was more secure, her one constant thought was for Fartum: to have a home, a place to live in with Fartum. But now the satisfaction she felt every evening when she came back to her flat and found her daughter waiting for her was overshadowed by the girl’s behaviour, which was increasingly at variance with what she’d expected. Fartum complained that the Somali girls living in Italy rarely invited her to their weddings and that when they did her mother generally refused the invitation. “Last month we went to Naples to Shukri’s wedding,” Mulki said one afternoon, “last week Muna got married and we went to Viterbo. You wanted to buy material at Hawa’s shop to make the dress and you saw how much he made us pay. Now Ayan is getting married, and you want to go to Milan for her? No, Fartum, we can’t afford it!” Fartum didn’t protest, she simply said: “if we can’t afford it of course we won’t go, but I have to tell you, mamma, that I don’t like living here.” “You’ve only been here for a few months,” Mulki tried to say, but her daughter didn’t let her finish, “I’m happy to be with you, mamma, I know you’ve sacrificed so much, you’ve worked so hard, but what has all your work led to?” “What has it led to?” Mulki tried to ask, but the girl was hardly listening; “yes, what has it led to? You’ve been here for over twenty years, and you don’t even have Italian citizenship; you’ve worked as a domestic all this time and you’ve never moved away from this city. You could have gone into trade, maybe opened a shop...But no. Face it, you haven’t got on.” Mulki searched for words to answer her; she fought against the tears that came to her eyes; she fought against the shout of despair exploding in her throat. In the end she said only: “I thought I was acting for the best, Fartum, I’m sorry, this is all I’ve been able to do... Soon I’ll have my Italian citizenship, I’ve already had the interview....We must be patient!” Fartum was getting ready to go out. She was wearing a beautiful blue silk dress that showed her bare arms and showers, her hair was braided and she was bathed in an intense perfume. “Don’t take it too hard - she said - but believe me, it would be better for me to go to England.” Mulki staggered for a second but Fartum seemed not to notice and continued: “ my friends are there, and Asha is about to leave. As a matter of fact, we’re having a party for her today. Amina and Faduma left in January...They’re helping me, and soon I’m going to leave, too.” Mulki only had time to hear her own voice saying: “What do you want to do, Fartum?” But the girl quickly put on the jalbab, covered her hair and part of her face with the veil and came towards her: “I’m sorry, mamma, - she said - I’ve been wanting to tell you for some days now, but it’s almost all ready. My friends have helped me and Ahmed put himself out for me, too; he’s a really good fellow, the community representative, he helped a lot.”
Mulki sat down next to the desk; she leaned her hands on the book she’d been reading for the last few weeks and realized that she was bending under the weight of the words falling down on her. She was drowning in the girl’s perfume, she was lost in the sound of her voice and waiting to be swallowed up by the vacuum that would open when the girl went out of the door. “Don’t be sad, mamma! – the girl was saying - soon you’ll come to England, too ... I’ll help you come and you’ll finally quit being a servant to all these gaalo! We’ll be happy. We’ll take care of our souls and at last will be able to live like real Muslim women.” Fartum said good-bye; she added that Asha’s husband was coming for her and then they’d go and pick up Rahma and Saida. “We’re having a big party - she added- you can come too, if you want. If you’re not ready, we can pass by and pick you up later on.” Mulki said nothing. She watched her disappear as the door closed behind her, heard the noise of the lift and then the sound of the car door in the distance. She looked around, bewildered. In the air Fartum’s perfume and voice were still dancing but she knew that the girl that would come in through the front door in a few hours would be for her only a young woman who had chosen her path. She had chosen without her. Mulki looked at the furniture, the curtains on the windows, the family photos on the walls and the photos of her city, so many years ago, still beautiful stretching between the dunes and the sea. “What have they done to you, Fartum?! What have they done to you, my beloved country!” And she felt no rhetoric or conventionality in the words that she realized she was speaking half out loud, but only grief. She looked at the photo with Fartum waving to someone in the distance and she prayed, sitting just where she was, without moving or getting ready. She asked for God’s pardon for her presumption, she asked Fartum’s pardon for not understanding her, and she wept.