A Long Shadow
Somaliland Independence
Amina Osman knew the casserole was a mistake the moment she pulled it from the oven. Too much cumin, not enough salt, and the pasta had gone soft in a way that would make any self-respecting Somali weep. But Hassan had insisted they bring something, and now here they stood on their new neighbor’s porch, Amina holding the dish like an offering to an unpredictable god.
“You’re overthinking it,” Hassan said. He pressed the doorbell with the easy confidence of a man who had never overthought anything in his life. His accent, that crisp Birmingham cadence he’d never lost despite fifteen years in Minneapolis, made even mundane observations sound authoritative.
“I am not overthinking. I am thinking the appropriate amount.”
The door opened before Hassan could respond. The man who appeared was perhaps sixty, with silver hair and deep-set eyes that crinkled when he smiled. He wore a cardigan over a rumpled shirt, and behind him Amina could see stacks of boxes still waiting to be unpacked.
“You must be the Osmans,” he said. “David Levi. Please, come in.”
The living room was chaos. Moving boxes formed small mountain ranges across the hardwood floors, and a single armchair sat marooned in the center like a life raft. David cleared newspapers from a loveseat and gestured for them to sit.
“Forgive the mess. I’m still finding my way around. Thirty years in St. Paul, and now I’m learning a whole new city at my age.”
“It’s no trouble,” Hassan said. “We brought you something. My wife’s specialty.”
Amina handed over the casserole, watching David’s face for any flicker of judgment. “It’s pasta with lamb and spices. A family recipe.”
“It smells wonderful.” David set it on a box marked KITCHEN and turned back to them. “I have to admit, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this neighborhood. But everyone’s been so welcoming.”
“Where did you move from, before St. Paul?” Amina asked.
“Originally? Roma. A long time ago now.”
The word unlocked something in Amina’s chest. Roma. She could picture it, the ochre buildings and the Tiber winding through the ancient city, though she had never been. But she had grown up hearing Italian in the streets of pre-independence Mogadishu, had learned it before she learned English, had carried it with her across oceans like a secret inheritance.
“Roma,” she repeated, and then, switching languages as easily as changing keys on a piano: “Che bella città. Sono cresciuta parlando italiano, in Somalia. I miei nonni lo parlavano sempre.”
David’s smile became apologetic. “I’m so sorry. I don’t actually speak Italian. My family left when I was very young. We went to London first, then eventually here.”
Amina felt the heat rise to her cheeks. Of course. Of course he didn’t speak it. She had assumed, and assumptions were the luxury of the careless.
“My apologies,” Hassan said smoothly, his hand finding Amina’s knee beneath the coffee table. “My wife sometimes forgets that not everyone had her education. The Italians were very thorough in the south.”
“And the British were very thorough in not being thorough,” Amina added, recovering enough to smile. “My husband speaks three words of Somali and thinks ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ count as two of them.”
David laughed, a warm sound that filled the cluttered room. “My grandmother used to say the same thing about my grandfather’s Yiddish. Some things are universal, I suppose.”
They talked for an hour, about the neighborhood and the weather and the particular challenges of Minnesota winters. As they prepared to leave, Hassan paused at the door.
“We go to church on Sundays, over at Bethel. You’d be welcome to join us sometime.”
“That’s very kind.” David’s expression was gentle. “But I’m Jewish. We have our own services, at the synagogue on Lake Street.”
“Of course,” Hassan said, unperturbed. “I should have asked.”
“But listen.” David leaned against the doorframe. “Do you watch football? Real football, I mean. The Premier League streams early on Sundays. I’ve got no one to watch with anymore, since my wife passed.”
Hassan’s face lit up. “Villa or City?”
“Arsenal, I’m afraid.”
“A tragedy. But I suppose I can overlook it.”
They shook hands, and something settled between them, some understanding that needed no translation.
Walking home, Amina watched her husband’s easy stride and felt a small, cold thing stir beneath her ribs. For twenty years she had been the bridge between Hassan and the world, the one who spoke to doctors and landlords and neighbors, who translated not just languages but cultures, who made the incomprehensible comprehensible. She thought of the maps in her mind, the sharp line that once divided the British North from the Italian South, a line she thought they had erased when they married. And now here was David Levi, who didn’t need translating at all.
Hassan was already talking about next Sunday, about getting up early to watch the match.
She said nothing. She held his hand and smiled and told herself the feeling would pass.
