Impossible Odds

each time.
    “Well, Abdi, there are four directions: north, south, east, and west.”
    He would then nod in approval, his worldview validated once more, and perhaps yank another leaf or two from a leftover stem. It’s amusing now, but wasn’t then, that Abdi wanted nothing to do with the concept of secondary directions: southeast, northwest, and so forth. And the finer distinctions such as north-northeast, south-southwest? Forget about it. He seemed to find the very notions tiresome and nonsensical. In his world, there were four directions. Abdi didn’t need any foreigners coming around to muck up his sense of cosmic order.
    Early one morning, he offered up his most noteworthy moral precept, one I would often hear him repeat. “Jesses and Poul?” he began. For some reason he insisted on pronouncing myname “Jesses.” Since he was the one who spoke English, the other men copied it.
    “Yes, Abdi?” we responded with the exaggerated politeness that worked best in speaking to these men.
    Abdi gave a smile of triumph and flashed his mossy greens. He pronounced the words with a knowing nod. “Every dog has its day.”
    Sometimes Poul felt the need to counter with a question of his own, but I was happy to agree. “Yes, Abdi, you’re right. Every dog has its day,” to which I silently added, And we can only hope yours is coming soon.
    Abdi, it seemed, considered us his long-overdue payoff after his years of poverty. Even though my compassion for his people had brought me to this country, I had to differ with his rationale. In my eyes, when it came to matters of karma, Abdi was stacking up a mountain of consequences. I would have gladly handed him the bill. No matter how hard his life was, regardless of what he’d endured, he crossed the line when he made his rage the problem of people who were only available for capture because they were there to help ease his people’s misery.
    By the end of the third day, I began to menstruate, so that was that. My reaction came in waves of disappointment and relief. As much as Erik and I wanted a child, under these explosive conditions I was in no position to be ushering in a new life. I was relieved to have packed tampons in my small bag, just in case.
    But I opened the bag to find that the guards had gone through everything and taken my jewelry. They also took my tampons, for reasons I couldn’t fathom. So I had to be inventive and tore my tank top into strips to use as sanitary pads. When I ran out of the strips, I then tore strips from the scarf they gave me. The combination of using dirty pieces of cloth and being prevented from washing regularly only heightened my anxiety over the unsanitary condition they were keeping us in and our fear of what it was doing to our bodies.
    Still, now that events had caught up with the story, it was a bit less painful to think of having already told Erik I wasn’t pregnant. It left me in the slightly better position of only going hungry for one instead of two. My task remained that of surviving through any combination of ways that might get me back to Erik, back to the joyful experience of starting our family.
    So I prayed for protection and for strength. Beyond those silent requests, I could only hope Abdi was right in ways he couldn’t begin to imagine: that every dog would indeed have its day.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    From the time Erik first got back to the their house in Hargeisa after Jessica’s abduction, their dog, Smulan, seemed to realize Jessica was in jeopardy. The dog had a special bond with both of them, instinctively grateful after being rescued from the streets, matted and starved—Smulan means “crumble” in Swedish, in reference to the dog’s initial appearance. Now upon Erik’s return, Smulan’s usual independent behavior changed to that of a worried dog, scurrying around close at his side.
    Or maybe it was just his reaction to Erik’s condition. One of the security guards kept at the house by the NGO had been a fan of Jessica’s ever since her arrival there. He took one look at Erik and hugged him, angry tears in his eyes, and repeated over and over, “Sister Jess! F***ing Hawiye!” He spat out the name of the main clan ruling the area where Jess was said to be held.
    His distress appeared genuine to Erik, but here again was a third party who knew details that were supposed to be kept quiet. The man was informing Erik of the name of the principal clan with members suspected to be behind the crime, something