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in her heart of hearts, she wouldn’t want him to take a risky moral stand. His elder daughter, a senior at NYU, would tell him that it would be unbecoming of him—a man of such a venerable past, whose life was full of countless instances of moral courage—to die in vain. His younger daughter had speculated that if he was killed, it was unlikely he would be sent back to New York at all. “You’ll just be buried within five minutes of dying. We would never even get to see your corpse. One of us would have to fly to that god-awful country to bring your body back so we could give you a decent burial.” They had opposed his visiting Mogadiscio.
    He had heard it all before, the arguments for and against getting involved in any political or moral activity that might lead to death. He remembered his mother fondly, especially because even though he was her only son, she had never once suggested that he shouldn’t risk his life by engaging in dangerous political work, when many parents in the days of the dictatorship discouraged their children from taking a stand. His mother was an exception. “You live only once, and I’d like you to live your life with integrity,” she would say. But he doubted that even she would have wanted him to risk his life unnecessarily in this instance—if, as Af-Laawe said, there wasn’t much he could do.
    The arrival of more crows, marabous, and other carrion birds set him loose from his memories. Had these birds learned to show up as soon as they heard shots, knowing that there would be corpses? They perched restlessly on the telegraph wires, waiting. People stood by, looking helpless. Af-Laawe led several men, who carried the dead boy’s corpse to a vehicle with the words “Noolaadaa dhinta!” on the side, and below that the English translation: “Who lives, dies!” When at last Af-Laawe joined him, Jeebleh asked if the van in which the corpse now lay was his.
    â€œIt belongs to a charitable organization that gives decent Islamic burials to the unclaimed corpses littering the streets of the city whenever there is fighting,” he said. “I set it up in the early stages of the civil war, when there were bodies everywhere, at roundabouts, by the side of the road, in buildings. A large percentage of the dead had no relatives to bury them. They had belonged to clan families who had been chased out of the city.”
    He fell silent, and looked in the direction of a four-wheel-drive vehicle that was arriving, bearing a VIP, perhaps a clan leader or a warlord on his way to Nairobi. Several youths with guns alighted from the roof of the vehicle and others stepped out of it, before an elderly man, whom Jeebleh recognized, emerged limping. A hush descended; even the bereaved woman, now in Af-Laawe’s van, stopped her wailing. Jeebleh, a changed man, was far more frightened than when he had landed. He wished he could pluck up the courage to speak to the venerable politician as he walked toward the plane.
    â€œNow here’s how things are,” Af-Laawe was saying. “I had intended to take you in my van. You can still come with me, only I must warn you that I now have other passengers, including a corpse, a bereaved mother, constantly wailing, and several gravediggers. I am driving straight to the cemetery. Or I can organize a lift for you in that fancy car.”
    â€œWhat are the chances of that?”
    â€œI’ll talk to the driver. I know him well.”
    â€œAnd he’ll know where to take me?”
    â€œI’ll tell him.”
    Everything was done in haste, because Af-Laawe wanted to get the boy’s body buried before night fell. Before leaving, he gave Jeebleh his business card, which on one side had the words “Funeral with a difference!” and on the other “Noolaadaa dhinta!” Jeebleh found himself thinking that maybe someone with a dark sense of humor was having a bit of fun by sending