The Lion's Binding Oath and Other Stories by Ahmed Ismail Yusuf

Author:Ahmed Ismail Yusuf
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781946395085
Publisher: Catalyst Press
Published: 2018-05-06T16:00:00+00:00

The Vulture has Landed

Ayaan made a hiding place for her 9-year-old sister in the attic of their house. She filled up most of the space with rusty bicycles, old tires, and worn out clothes, leaving barely enough room to open and close the door itself. In the back of that mess, she left a small space for a mattress with two blankets and a pillow. At the entrance, finally, she hung a bloodstained women’s cloth to conceal the door.

When she finished, she called her sister from the living room where Caataye, her husband of two months, had been tutoring the little girl. Ayaan held her sister’s hands apart and pulled her into an embrace. “My precious sister,” she said to the young girl leaning against her chest, “listen very carefully to what I am telling you and promise to do what I tell you to do. You do know a promise must be kept, don’t you?”

“Yes, my sister,” said Amran, arms around her sister’s waist. “I know that if you promise something you should live up to it, and I promise to do what you ask me to do.”

“Then listen, dear girl. I have finished fixing up the place for you. From now on, you are going to sleep there every night. I have already shown you how to go in and out of it. If there’s anything else you need, let me know and if we can afford it, I will bring it to you. Are you listening to me, my dear?”

“Yes, sister.” Amran lifted her head from her sister’s chest and stared at the floor.

Ayaan looked away for a second, then peered back at her sister, trying to lift the child’s gaze to hers. She knew that Amran was smarter and more mature than most children of her age; but she had to make sure that Amran understood and remembered exactly what she had to say.

“Now, sweetie,” she said, “I am going to teach you some code words that only you, Caataye, and I will know. Any time I say, ‘The vulture has landed,’ it means it’s time for you to hide. So if you are not already in your hiding place, you must run as fast as you can to get there. And you must not come out until you hear Caataye or me saying, ‘It is a bright morning.’”

Ayaan noted that she had scared her sister when Amran asked, “Ayaan, what is going on? Is the militia looking for us?”

Ayaan tried to speak calmly, pushing away her fear that the three of them might be attacked in the middle of the night. “You see, last week, the rebel movement cost the dictator Barre’s army some casualties. They broke into a Somali National Security prison and freed three high-ranking officers, all from the north, who had been sentenced to death by hanging. One of them was Cilmi, Caataye’s best friend.”

Ayaan did not want to explain the situation in detail or show her distress. But she had to let her sister know the danger they were in.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.