Crossbones

Ahl heads for his room to make sure that his personal effects, including his cash and passports, are safely locked away before going off to Guri-Maroodi, the village where groups of young men congregate – would-be illegal migrants bracing for a sea trip to Yemen and then Europe. He puts the key in the door, but the lock won’t engage. The TV in the room is blaring, but he doesn’t recall turning it on before going down earlier. He pulls the key out and inserts it a second time, and a third. Still, it won’t turn. He is about to go down to the reception desk to ask for help when the door opens a crack. He sees that a young man with a familiar face – the TV programmer – is in the room.

Ahl asks, ‘What are you doing in my room?’

As soon as the words leave his mouth, he asks himself if one can say ‘my room’ when one has only temporary access to it.

‘I am programming the TV. For you.’

‘With the door locked?’

‘Does it matter whether the door is or isn’t locked when I am in the room, programming your TV?’ the young fellow says with incorrigible cheekiness.

Ahl stares in silence at the young man – the door open, the key in the clutch of his hand, his eyes washing over his suitcase and shoulder bag, uncertain if they are where he left them. Do they seem a little disorderly, as if someone has tampered with them? Ahl recalls opening the computer bag before he went down to breakfast. But did he leave the bag unlocked? No point asking the young man anything. People out here are jittery, their tetchiness priming them to jump to the wrong conclusions.