Ummi stood beside Hadiza with a cardboard box of nails in her hand and a hopeful look in her eyes. ‘Aunty Hadiza, will you bring back our decoder?’
Hadiza, biting down her lower lip, continued to hammer in the nail. Ummi repeated her question and, when nobody said anything, she shook the box of nails. ‘It’s Saturday. I want to watch Cartoon Network.’
Binta stood by the door and observed the transformation of her living room. She thought of it as a minor calamity of sorts. Chairs had been rearranged, the TV stand had been snuggled into a corner and the cornflower-blue vase that had been by its side was now atop the TV. The sewing machine had been moved up against the wall in the dining alcove.
Her greeting, when it eventually came, was mumbled. ‘Sannun ku da aiki.’
They turned to her.
Hadiza contemplated her mother with a scrutiny that bothered the older woman. ‘Hajiya, lafiya ko?’
‘Yes, I’m fine. Why?’
‘You just look … strange, that’s all. Anyway, I didn’t want to wake you. But now that you are awake, I’m going to rearrange your bedroom as soon as I’m through here.’
‘No!’ Binta had not meant to snap. What on earth was wrong with her? She took a deep breath and added in a much softer tone, ‘No rearrangements, please. Just cleaning will do, thank you.’
Realising she was being grouchy, Binta sighed. The images she had woken up with had excited and vexed her more than she would admit. And to think that this moistening of her long-abandoned womanhood had apparently been provoked by someone who reminded her of Yaro was an added irritation.
Hadiza stood, hammer in hand. Ummi picked up a crooked nail from the box and stuck it in her mouth.
Binta made an impatient gesture with her hand. ‘Fa’iza, get me some water. I need to bathe.’
‘Me? Hot water?’
‘Yes, you, God damn it!’
The nail in Ummi’s mouth fell on the tiles and clicked-clicked several times, rattling the sudden silence. Binta turned and went back to her bedroom.
Before Hadiza and the girls could recover from the eruption of Binta’s temper, there was a sound at the gate, succeeded by urgent footsteps crossing the yard. A woman salaamed at the front door and admitted herself.
Fa’iza beamed. ‘Good morning, Kandiya.’
‘Where’s Hajiya?’ The woman’s puffy cheeks quivered. The edge of the khaki green hijab encircling her face was damp with perspiration. It formed a jagged-edged halo around her pudgy face.
Hadiza considered her with interest. ‘Is there a problem?’
Kandiya ranted about how Hajiya had promised to have her dress ready four days before and how nothing had been done about it. She breezed across the room and picked up the dress on the sewing machine. She held up an unattached sleeve between the thumb and forefinger of her other hand.
‘My dress has remained in this state for four days and I’ve paid her in full. I’m supposed to be at a wedding right now wearing it. And because she couldn’t fulfil her promise, she has been avoiding me.’ She observed the dress with considerable disdain and hissed. ‘Iskanci.’ She let the dress, and the unattached sleeve, fall to the ground. Then she stomped out, brushing Fa’iza aside as she went.
When Hadiza went to ask her mother about Kandiya’s dress, she met her huddled on the edge of the bed, her hijab gathered around her, her eyes, before she turned them away to the wall, dark and unfocused.
By the time her son Munkaila arrived, Binta’s mood had improved. She sat in the alcove oiling the Butterfly sewing machine and asked why he had not brought her grandchildren with him.
‘I left them playing with their mother.’ Munkaila, sitting on the couch, hunched forward and jangled his car keys around his finger.
Hadiza, sitting next to him, looked at the keys, at his chubby finger, and saw how it almost filled the key ring. The folds of flesh around his neck and his pot belly, which he patted intermittently, baffled her – things she could not explain as she could his dark skin. That had come from his father’s genes. She could also explain his shortness but not the receding hairline that made him look older than his thirty-four years.
‘I don’t understand how these rascals can break into people’s houses and make off with things.’ Munkaila jangled his keys again.
Binta oiled the shuttle and slipped it into place. She lowered the presser foot and it landed with a thunk. Putting down her feet on the treadle, she felt the machine run. Smoothly. From the huge carton beside her, which had once held a TV set, she picked a piece of cloth, slipped it under the feed dogs, and threaded the needle. She leaned forward to observe the stitches as her foot worked the treadle. But because she wasn’t wearing her glasses, she had to lean further in so that her forehead brushed the machine. She adjusted the tension control and the stitch length and pedalled away until the stitches were no longer oily. She removed the cloth and picked up Kandiya’s unfinished dress.
‘Hajiya, why don’t you use your glasses? Or don’t you like them?’ Munkaila tapped his foot on the floor.
‘Oh, my glasses were broken during … when I ran into a wall.’
‘How come?’
‘It was dark. But I am fine. No need to worry.’
‘I suppose I have to get you another pair then. But you should be more careful, Hajiya, please.’
‘I will be,’ she smiled.
The TV was on but only Ummi seemed mildly interested in it. Soon enough, she drew out a square of bubble wrap, which had been discovered during the rearrangements, and started busting the bubbles.
‘Alhaji, should we go out for a bit?’ Hadiza stood up.
‘Ok.’ Munkaila rose and together they went out into the yard, where he stood observing the house.
It appeared to Hadiza that the smirk on his face had become part of his comportment; he seemed so comfortable wearing it. She adjusted her headscarf. ‘Hajiya is straining her eyes too much, I guess. I was wondering if she could maybe stop this sewing business altogether. I don’t like the way women come here and insult her over unfinished dresses.’
Munkaila sighed. ‘She’s just doing that to keep busy. I take care of her.’ He jingled his keys some more and as if Hadiza did not know the details already, Munkaila recounted how he had rented the house for his mother and relocated her from Jos when he reached the conclusion that the riots and killings would not end; how he had installed satellite TV and paid the monthly subscription so she would be comfortable in old age. ‘What else would she do with her time?’
While he talked, Hadiza wondered if she was the only one who remembered him as the scrawny undergraduate he had once been, with just one pair of jeans and a couple of spandex shirts to last him an entire semester. Those days at Ahmadu Bello University had been tough for him. When Munkaila graduated at twenty-five, with a degree in Economics, and could not find a job, he interned at Harka Bureau de Change. There, he made money buying and selling foreign currencies. He got lucky when he won the trust of some politicians in government who decided to run their foreign currency business through him.
‘Well, she could maybe go back to teaching. There are primary schools around here she could work with. Maybe even part time. She always enjoyed teaching.’
Munkaila’s palm moved up and down his midsection for a while. The image Hadiza’s words conjured in his mind contradicted the one he had of his mother living out her days in contented grace. In the fashion of a queen mother.
‘Look, I don’t want her being subjected to all sorts of … indignities. She should be comfortable now. She shouldn’t suffer all her life.’
‘Hajiya is not that old, you know.’
‘I know, I know. But still—’ He shrugged.
‘I was thinking she could perhaps remarry.’
‘Remarry?! Haba! Hadiza, remarry?’
‘Sure, why not? Her age mates are remarrying all the time.’
Munkaila cocked his head to one side as if to consider the proposition. The prospect had no appeal for him wha
tsoever.
Hadiza read the expression crystallising on his face as that of a man who had by chance tasted bitterleaf. ‘Listen, I am a woman and I know how important it is to have a man around. Hajiya is lonely. She is open to the idea. She had mentioned before that there was a man here trying to court her.’
‘Ah-ah! Here?’ His mouth dropped in horror. The thought of his mother with another man, other than his father, was shocking enough. He had never imagined anything so horrendous.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t be leaving until tomorrow so I will find time to talk to her about it. Whatever she says, I’ll let you know.’
Munkaila sighed and jiggled his keys some more. He looked down at his shoes and stamped his right foot. Then he looked up at her. ‘Your husband is taking good care of you. Who would have thought you are a mother of three already?’
‘Thank you.’ Hadiza bowed with the grace of a practised thespian. And they both laughed. ‘But all this smooth talking won’t stop me from reminding you that you need to sponsor me to hajj.’
‘In time, Hadiza, in time. My plan was for Hajiya to go first and Alhamdulillah, she went only last year. As for you and that crazy sister of yours, I’m afraid you will have to wait because of the house I’m building. It’s taking all my money, wallahi.’ He went on about how he so desperately wanted to live in his own house and stop paying the exorbitant Abuja rent. About how he wanted Hajiya to move into the quarters he was building for her, how Hadiza needed to see the place to appreciate how much he was spending. And then he invited her to spend some time at his house, since his wife and two daughters had been asking after her. He stopped when Hadiza sighed.
‘What is it?’
‘She mentioned Yaro.’
‘She did?’ Munkaila’s face, dark already, darkened further. Unmindful of his sparkling white kaftan, he leaned back against the wall and held his chin in his hand.
In the grave silence that followed, Hadiza looked around and imagined what colours some hedges and flowers would add to the austere yard that stretched before her eyes like a patch of wasteland, like the last decade of her mother’s life.
The next day, Hadiza threw aside the sheets and rose. She looked at the wall clock and saw that it was already a quarter to eight. Because of her two boys, Kabir and Ishaq, who had to be readied for school, and the little one, Zubair, named after her father, who insisted on having breakfast alongside his brothers, she was unaccustomed to sleeping late into the morning.
From across the room, Fa’iza’s mild snores reached her. Hadiza saw that the girl had kicked away her sheet and her legs were thrown carelessly apart, one resting on little Ummi, who was too busy sleeping to notice.
She got up from the mattress and looked at her face in the mirror that had Ali Nuhu’s face stuck at each corner. She observed the oily sheen of sleep on her face so she used her palms to wipe it off and went out to the kitchen. There, she searched the drawers and cabinets and came up with a pack of noodles. Uninterested, she put it back where she found it. She should ask her mother what they could have for breakfast.
In Binta’s room, she found the clothes that her mother had slept in strewn on the bed. Her mother was having her bath, so she sat on the bed and waited.
When Binta emerged, she smiled at Hadiza and enquired how well she had slept. Hadiza assured her that her night had been pleasant enough.
‘Is that an injury on your neck, Hajiya?’
Binta felt the spot where the rogue’s dagger had punctured her skin. It was no more than a scratch that had hardened into a little black scab, which was peeling off of its own accord. ‘Just a scratch. Have you spoken to your sister?’ Binta sat on the stool before the vanity table and looked at the healing wound in the mirror. In one swift movement, she peeled off the scab and examined the fresh skin.
‘No, not since I arrived. Should I call her?’
‘Perhaps not. Hureira is so much trouble, you should just let her be.’ Binta applied lotion to her body. ‘Her husband called me the other day to complain about her tyranny. I promised to talk to her but she wouldn’t take my calls.’
‘Hureira kenan!’ Hadiza chuckled. ‘She should have been a man with that temper and rebelliousness.’
‘Lallai kam! She would have been worse than your father was, may Allah rest his soul.’
‘Kai! Hajiya.’
‘Well, you know it’s true.’
Hadiza said nothing and after a while she stood up. ‘Well, I was wondering what you wanted for breakfast so we could send Fa’iza to the shops.’
‘How about masa?’ Binta smiled as she powdered her face. ‘Tabawa makes the best masa in these parts. Fa’iza knows her place.’
‘Ok. Masa it is.’
When Hadiza got back to Fa’iza’s room, the girl was already up, wiping sleep from her eyes with a cotton ball dipped in facial cleanser. Hadiza gave her instructions and some money from her purse while she went to the kitchen to heat a pot of water.
Fa’iza took time powdering her face and drawing lines around her lips with an eye pencil. When she was done, she pulled a hijab over her head, fetched a food flask from the kitchen and went out.
‘Hajiya! Hajiya! Aunty Hadiza! Come and see.’ There was more elation than fear in Fa’iza’s voice.
The two women rushed to investigate the excitement, Binta’s hijab flapping like the wings of a desperate bird. On the threshold was the missing decoder, sitting on the DVD player. And on top of them all was a transparent plastic bag containing a mobile phone and some jewellery.
‘Our decoder is back!’ Little Ummi, eyes puffy with sleep, had snuck into the space between her grandmother and her aunt.
‘But this is not Hajiya’s handset,’ Fa’iza observed.
3
The egret has always been white, long before the soap-maker’s mother was born
The whir of the electric motor filled the house. The power had just come back on and, knowing very well the vagaries of the power company, Binta sought to make the best of it. She had no more than some minor mending to do – having finally discharged her duty to Kandiya – and this she finished in no time.
She then went about dusting the TV, the DVD player and the decoder that Hadiza had put back on the stand before she had left for Munkaila’s place the day before. While dusting the small pile of books shelved on the little cupboard in the corner, her eyes fell on Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. But Binta picked out a Danielle Steel novel instead and tossed it on the couch. With the little chores completed, and Fa’iza and Ummi at school, she sat down and started reading. The print was large so she could manage without her glasses. Her reading was interrupted by a knock on the door. Had she been so engrossed she did not hear the gate disturbed? She rose and opened the door.
Her assailant from the other day, looking less fierce, was standing at her door. ‘Hajiya, please, I’m not here to hurt you.’ His spiky hair was covered by a black beanie so that only his sleek sideburns showed.
She threw her weight behind the door and was about to shut it when she noticed the way he fidgeted with his hands before him, the rings on his fingers gleaming in the morning sun.
‘I’ll scream.’ But her strained voice was no more than a low growl above the wild rhythm of her heartbeat.
‘Please, don’t.’ He stepped back and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
‘What do you want?’
‘You understand, I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to—’
In the fraction of a second their eyes locked, he reminded her of the countless new students who had stood before her during her teaching years, shifting from one foot to the other, desperate to run to the toilet but not certain how to go about asking permission.
‘I don’t want to rob you, you understand?’ When he saw she was looking into his eyes, he looked away. He took another step backward and was now at the edge of the veranda.
Binta pushed the door a little further.
‘I brought back your things:
the decoder, DVD player, your gold—’
‘What was left of it.’
‘Yes, yes. I had already sold the others … but I’ll get them back, you understand? I’ll get them back. And your phone too.’
When she said nothing, he went on: ‘You understand? The person who bought your phone has travelled. But I will get it back. That’s why I brought another one, in the meantime.’
‘I don’t want it. Just leave me alone.’
She saw him standing awkwardly, not sure what to do with his hands. Her eyes grew soft because he reminded her then, more than ever, of Yaro, who had first tainted her perceptions with the smell of marijuana all those years before.
‘You understand? I want to apologise for what happened.’ He rubbed his hands. ‘I am sorry. I will bring back the phone … and the other jewellery too.’ He turned and left.
When she closed the door, she discosvered that her face was wet with tears – testament to the confusing sentiments that besieged her heart.
The assailant walked past the little police post to the next building, an uncompleted structure whose nondescript entrance was screened with roofing sheets. Someone who had stumbled into some money had thought it wise to build a multi-storey shopping complex. He obtained a piece of land big enough for several shops but had only managed to build the ground floor before the money dried up. The moss-covered bricks had seen many rains.
San Siro, as the place became known, was special. In the feigned ignorance of the neighbouring police post, its fame blossomed. In the evenings, it teemed with young men whose motorcycles would crowd the entrance and take up most of the street. The riders, and many others besides, would be inside enjoying thick joints and lively arguments about life seen through cannabis fumes. They debated football and ganja-inspired philosophies plucked gingerly from the precipice of inebriation. Dealers, too, came for the serrated leaves. At San Siro, the weed was supreme. On the side, some of the boys dealt other things – codeine, solution, tramol and other assorted mixures, but for the rogue with spiky hair, weed was the thing.
Season of Crimson Blossoms Page 3
