Read Online The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout - Free Book Online Page B

would be one of the men who lived nearby, one of those who drank beer in the morning on the front steps, thick arms tattooed, driving loud trucks with bumper stickers reading WHITE IS MIGHT, THE REST GO HOME!) Yes, bad enough that this Zachary Olson had a job, lived in a good house with his mother, who also had a job. But what continued to frighten Abdikarim, what made his stomach sick and his head squeeze with pain, was what he had seen the night it happened: The two policemen, who arrived soon after the imam called, had stood in the mosque in their dark uniforms and belts of guns, had stood, glanced down at the pig’s head, and laughed. Then said, “Okay, folks.” Filled out forms, asked questions. Became serious. Took pictures. Not everyone had seen them laugh. But Abdikarim, standing close to them, moist beneath his prayer robe, had seen this. Tonight the elders asked him to describe for Rabbi Goldman what he had seen, and so he had acted it out: the grins, the talking into the hand radios, the exchange of glances between the two policemen, their quiet laughter. Rabbi Goldman shook his head in sorrow.
    Haweeya was standing in his doorway rubbing her nose. “Are you hungry?” she asked, and Abdikarim said that he had eaten at the home of Ifo Noor. “Is there more trouble?” she asked softly. Her children ran down the hall to her, and she spread her long fingers over her son’s head.
    “No, everything is the same.”
    She nodded, her earrings swinging, and ushered her children back to the living room. Haweeya had kept them inside most of the day, having them memorize again their lineage, their great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, and so on, far, far back; Americans seemed to have little concern for their past family. Somalis could recite back many generations, and Haweeya did not want her children to lose that. Still, keeping them inside all day had been hard. No one liked to go so long without seeing the sky. But when Omad arrived home—he was a translator at the hospital—he said they would go to the park. Omad and Haweeya had been in-country longer than others, they were not so quick to be afraid. They had survived the very bad parts of Atlanta, where people took drugs and robbed others right in their own buildings; Shirley Falls was safe and beautiful compared to that. So this afternoon, tired from the fast, and from the clear fall air that—Haweeya did not understand why—made her nose drip and eyes itch, she’d watched the children run after falling leaves. The sky was almost blue.
    After she cleaned the kitchen and washed the floor, Haweeya returned to Abdikarim. She had great affection for this man, who had come to Shirley Falls a year ago only to find that his wife Asha—sent earlier, with the children—no longer wanted him. She had taken the children and moved to Minneapolis. This was a source of shame. Haweeya understood that; everyone did. It was America that Abdikarim blamed for teaching Asha such foolhardy independence, but Haweeya thought that Asha, years younger than her husband, was born to do what Asha wanted to do; some people were like that. An added sadness: Asha was the mother to Abdikarim’s one living son. Of other children born to other wives, only daughters remained. He had losses, as many people had.
    He was seated on his bed now, his fists pressed into the mattress. Haweeya leaned against the doorjamb. “Margaret Estaver telephoned this evening. She told me not to be worried.”
    “I know, I know.” Abdikarim raised a hand in a gesture of futility. “According to her he’s Wiil Waal: ‘Crazy Boy.’ ”
    “Ayanna says she’s keeping her children home from school on Monday,” Haweeya whispered, and then sneezed. “Omad told her they’re as safe in school as anywhere, and she said, ‘Safe where they’re kicked and punched when the teacher looks away?’ ”
    Abdikarim nodded. At Ifo Noor’s tonight there had been talk of the school and the teachers promising