Port Manteau, The Bait

Port Manteau, The Bait

With

Abubakar Sulaiman Muhd

17/10/2013

The phone rang while she was eating dinner with her family and relatives who came to commiserate with her over the mysterious disappearance of her new baby. She had been making phone calls the whole morning to contact labs to conduct DNA test for her. The family and herself particular were in grief and anxiety over the mysterious death of her baby.

If there was anything she would have loved   to see in her life would be the little face of the baby close to her, to press her cheeks against hers out of sheer love. And this was the time but turned out to be painful and tearful. When she became six-month pregnant she retired from doing any gut job. She took her maternity leave from work three months back. She had been attending her ante-natal clinic test when she was eight-week conceived. By that time her bony ankles were no longer visible as before. The last scan showed that the baby in her womb was of female sex and the Expected Day of Delivery (EDD) would be 15/07/2013. With her knowing this, she became full of cheers.  

Ummi had a train of provisions for her unborn baby. She went to the nearby shop to buy her babygros. The white ones and pink, she said, were good to the little ones. She bought perfume, necklace, earring, bangle, ring and exclusive Holland wax for her own appearance on the naming ceremony. She named her unborn baby ‘ little Amira’ and the name went down the list of a close lady school’s register to reserve her admission since the last twenty-four-week scan showed that she was having a baby girl. Nevertheless, she had not given much hoot to anything than the need to deliver her baby safely into the world for as soon as the baby came, it would be shown the love and care that would be promising and special Heaven and Earth put together.

She had been a member of a gymnastic club at Zoo Road where she went for exercise to make her body go along with her new condition. The first time she went, she was taken a tour of the facilities. First she was taken to a large gym hall with polished wooden floor that contained all sort of machine for exercise. Patrons in different spandex sportswear were walking, circling or running. Second she was taken to a twenty-three meter swimming pool. Her attention went to the architectural dynamite grandeur of the place that bore the features of modern decorum. The water was bright blue from the underwater lightening, sparkling turquoise like a huge aquamarine gemstone moving in a beautiful stream throwing and catching light as it reflects the glow from the shiny sun. The pool had stone surround on its either edge and at the both ends marbled Romanesque steps with a silver banister for easy in and out. Children who gave company to their parents were put to a sweet William corner romping on carousel, others with toys. 

A day after she came back from the hospital where she delivered, her husband came to tell her that the baby was born dead, miscarriage and was immediately interred as the religion says. She was sitting in a chair knees pulled up to the chest, arms wrapped around her legs, snuggling up to keep off the pain of her caesarian wound. She had expected that the baby was taken to the home of her relatives or somewhere else nearby, but he came to tell her this sad story.  

“Impossible”, she shouted, “just tell me where my little Amira is.” She protested, she could not believe what he was telling her for how a baby just born yesterday would die and buried without her relatives knowing about it. Although she was anaesthetized but at least her relatives and the doctors should have the wind about the death. She stayed still in a moment’s shock delving in her fond memories. She remembered when she looked into the pram where the baby was at hospital after been recovered, “Ummi don’t wake up the baby”, the nurse warned her. “I’ll just have a little look.” She replied. Though her own health condition was not stable but she managed to look into the cradle and snapped few shots of the baby’s face with her digital camera. She peered through the cot and saw a little flabby thing sleeping in it with soft clothes sewn on it ‘beautiful face’ in a pale maroon writing.  She bought the pram and the clothes when she was six-month pregnant where she spotted them on a shop window at baby plaza mart. Whatever she saw and fancied her, she bought them for the baby even though by that point she had already filled the nursery wardrobe with enough clothes and babygros from the exclusive boutiques she favoured to keep her Amira going for the first three years. She envisioned the situation in her mind’s eyes when she would be pushing her baby in a cot for shopping, cuddling her for warmth and protection, and kissing her for love and affection. Though modern, but she remained objective to the modern idea of bottle-feeding her baby. She read somewhere that one of the advantages of breath-feeding is that it gives opportunity for the mum to get close bond with her baby. And for that reason she was determined to take care of her baby in person. Wiping her vomit, washing her shit, washing the spoiled clothes, changing her diapers, daily bathings, vigil at midnight, all this, she said, were her motherly responsibilities. She was determined to make everything perfect.

She rose and made towards a table where tellphone was lying. She picked the mouthpiece and began dialing a number before he came and yanked wrench the gadget off her grip.

“This is bad,” he roared, “do you think I would kill my own child?” he challenged. “Whom are you calling?” he asked.

“The police and the doctor. I have got to do something quickly over the death of my daughter.” She replied.

“I will call them myself.” He spurted out curtly.

 “Bashir give me the phone right now or else I will get the kitchen knife and stab you.” She threatened in sobs and heaves of agony and tears.

“What got into your head? Are you mad?”  He roared again. This time around he slapped her on both cheeks, first with the palm and second with the back of his hand. Over a year before today, they had never exchanged foul language, never quibbled, never sulked or even rowed. She thought of the pleasantries he had been telling her when he called at her home for the night talks during their courtship. The placatory words, soothing phrases, the mouthwatering ‘my better half’ rabin raina, ‘apple of my eyes’, ‘if not you then sink in the well’, idan ba ke be sai rijiya, ‘the only one in my heart’, all these endearments. It was just then she realized that the modern world is so romantic, full of fleeting  love phrases and ceremonial infatuations that does not go beyond words of mouth which the suitors use to deceive each other while in courtship. She used to think that they lived along because they were in love, but in retrospect, their feeling seemed entirely unnatural.

“You are speaking with the police Division II Kano metropolis. How can I help you?” The police followed the number they recently received a call from and got disconnected in a moment when he fetched the phone off her.

“Yeah….officer it is alright”, he stammered tingling with guilt. “It’s mistaken call…it is a private matter. My wife is having post-natal depressing, she runs out of her Prozac drugs and mistakenly called you as her doctor.” He lied fretting with guilt.

As she fell down she felt the pain of her caesarian wound come afresh as her weight fell on her belly. Her brain flared back into her memory to remember how come she got into marriage with her wicked husband. It was disgusting and wretched. Ummi had been in love with her true lover. Umar, the man she kept in her heart and promised to marry and live in the Promised Land. She came out one day to visit her aunt at the next houses of the same quarter. As she was passing by, Umar and his friends were sitting at a place. One of the guys saw her and appreciated her. She was stately as she walked gracefully. Her fingers, toes, eyelashes were all stunningly tall as she herself was beautifully tall with her big round eyes. She was sought-after by all. San kowa ƙin wanda ya rasa.  She took few steps then stopped few feet away out of earshot. Umar understood the gesture and moved to her place. They held a brief discussion and told him that he could see her tonight in her aunt’s home. Alas! one of the guys eavesdropped the scrap of her last words. Came the night and he raced up against Umar in arriving at the place. He disguised under Umar’s name and called her out. When she came out and found that it was not Umar, she returned inside. Bashir had been a cult group member that slaughtered babies for worldly materials. He hid his real persons, and from then on he flexed his muscle and began fighting to subvert Umar. He zipped off his “Ghana must go” bag and began disbursing handouts to her close and influential relatives. He gave them money lavishly and within short while bought the majority of them. They inclined to accept him without thorough investigation of his affairs. As for the betrothal, he gave two dozens of port manteau each filled with ostentatious materials. The first one, for wrapper only, second for lace materials, third for bedding wears…..the twelfth carried headgears, the fourteenth cosmetics…..the twenty-third Italian shoes and the twenty-fourth was for leather bags. Each one of the box carried one thing or another. You know the game: money is welcomed, as they say, even from the dirty bag. As for the marriage, the highest bidders among the suitors would win it all. Period. Though Umar had been known throughout her family as her fiancé, de jure and de factor, but this did not stand a taboo to them or an object of shame in the society to backpedal and changed the whole arrangement. Despite him being the ideal suitor, the betrothal he gave was returned to him and the engagement thwarted off in favour of Bashir. Umar was opted out from the contest as he could not match his financial strength with his rival’s. Her matchmaking mother and her close associates in the family worked so assiduously from underground to the surface till they saw her separation with Umar. They had been spearkings behind the moves till they orchestrated his sabotage.

Entry from the Police Book

The police had arrested him after they had found some air of suspicion in his statement and went ahead to conduct investigation after they came to the house and found his wife in a delirious state. They later arraigned him at court No. 17 Nomansland Kano. The entry of the case filed against him is as follows and it is the statement made by Ummi herself to the detective in charge of the case who submitted it to the court as hard evidence during the trial.      

      

My name is Ummi Mahmud the mother of a newly born baby called Amira who disappeared immediately after her birth. I love my daughter more than life, more than everything in the world put together. She has a perfect long face, long hair, white eyes with dark retina and perfect tiny mouth like a little pink flower. Her fingers, toys and eyelashes are all breathtakingly tall like mine.  She smells clean and new and fresh and powdery. She has the way of tucking her hands and feet neatly together like a ballet dancer. She does not cry in the random like other babies do, her cry is like song sung by busy bees.

On Monday 15/07/2013 she was delivered at emergency caesarian section of Murtal General Hospital. It was not post-natal depressing as my husband said, but the happiest day of my life. As the doctors and nurses were wheeling me from the delivery room I heard one of them shout to my husband to bring the clothes for the baby. That was the time it dawned on me true that I delivered my baby. Despite my health condition I managed to crane my head out of the pillow and had a look of my little Amira (tears). I even took her pictures in her first white clothes with my digital camera. A day after I was discharged from the hospital my husband came to tell me that my little Amira is dead (heaving in tears), a statement witch I did not agree with. I held my husband as the prime suspect because when I tried to call the police at the first instant to report the case he denied me the phone. When I asked him whether one of my relatives or neighbours had the news of her burial, as he said she was buried, he failed to convince me. When I checked my camera to look for the pics, I found the images deleted and the memory found broken under the chair. When I contacted the hospital to give me the placenta and umbilical cord for comparison with the baby in the grave he claimed to be my Amira’s, for the DNA analysis, the hospital told me that my husband had collected them on the very day of the birth.

On the 16/07/2013 Mrs. Mahmud called police Division II   of the metropolis to report the information pertaining to the matter of her allegation that her daughter was abducted and killed,(see index). Immediately, under the instruction of the Police Area Commander, a file was opened with case no. N31017-745-Q for further investigation and the case later got transferred to the CID unit at the police HQ in Bompai, Kano.

Further sleuth probed that Bashir and five others were found members of the mafia organization where they slaughtered babies for worldly materials. Bashir in particular is charged of five serious crimes of which each carries grave penalty according to section 14, paragraph 6 (c) of the state constitution.  First, he is charge of belonging to an illegal criminal organization and the penalty is 20 yrs in prison. Second, he is charged of abduction which is another crime that attracts minimum of 15 yrs prison term for it’s equivalent to human trafficking and child abuse. Third, he is charged of murder attempt for beating his wife without regard to her health condition which in itself carries life imprisonment. Fourth, he lied to the authority that his wife was suffering from post-natal depressing which can attracts 5-yr prison term with hard labour, but according to the judge discretion. And the gravest one is the murder of his own child which carries death penalty by hanging.

With this, Mrs. Mahmud felt that Bashir had just got his deserts but not as compensation of her beloved baby, ‘the little Amira’. Whenever she remembered the disheartening situation her family put her in, she developed a bitter feeling towards them for they paved her way to her razing agony. They capitalized on her beauty to satisfy their material demands. They deprived her of happiness in life and replaced it with sorrows that remained protuberant forever in her mind. The missing of her little Amira was so painful beyond measure.        

Bilkisu

  

I could not believe what was happening was happening in real happening. Everything seemed to me Alice in Wonderland. I knew the road very well, but thought it was another world. A signboard nearby read Murtala Muhammad Way, Kano. 

After long separation, parting way despite our feelings, I spotted her face in Adai-daita Sahu while I was crossing the road.

  

I always played Babban Yaro when I would visit her. Showered a nice sugar bath, shampooed my hair and combed it neatly until it was shining. Seeing Bilkisu was like seeing a king.

I liked wearing transparent outfits that showed my white underwear, put on white cap stripped-black and wore expensive wristwatch to sleep comfortably on my hand. Then, I would shower myself an ocean of beautiful perfume. Wherever I moved, sea of eyes followed me as the scent caught people’ attention. My siblings too marked me with this appearance. They  could tell  where I was headed to when they saw me sporting good.

Today’s visit was quite extraordinary. Seeing I was in a hurry, I refused to take bath. I wanted to share in the world of those who did not bathe each day. Fools who were yet to realize the advantage that came with lack of daily bathing, in the form of skin protection against cut by accumulated dirt, went ahead to bathe every day. Besides, bathing wasn’t anything better than what we did in the river when we were young.

  

Because I was always clean, Bilkisu wouldn’t be able to detect any sign of unbathing in me. The smart appearance and exotic perfume would take care of that. Like defense attorney in the court of law, the way I appeared she could volunteer to defend me if someone raised doubt about my claim of bath. How many times girls came out to their boyfriends without taking bath? It wasn’t bad idea if I was scoring out.

I used to put starch on my clothes to make them hard and crusted. It saved me the hassle of regular washing and increased the life expectancy of the clothes which were folded neatly at appropriate angles and used only on special socialities.

  

The clothes I wore to visit Bilkisu were at the bottom of my cupboard. I used them only yesterday to attend a wedding in our area. I didn’t want them to get squeezed, so when I came back I hung them to the rack just above my mattress. I was too lazy to go through meticulous process of folding them and taking them back to their place. All the same, when I pulled them out to go, they were in good shapes and retained their perfect lines. Except minor twists that formed at the back of the shirt from hanging, which took only the simple act of spraying water from my mouth to disappear them. Though a minor detail as it was, it was the kind of thing people always wanted to find in others.

To prevent my legs from spoiling the creases, I stretched my feet  stiffly forward and pulled the trousers cleanly up to my waist and raised my hands up towards heaven and thrust my body head-first into the shirt. A few bounces of my shoulders enhanced the clothes to self-adjust and lie on my body like wet grass slept on the ground.

  

Our meeting with Bilkisu was always a gorgeous business. Bilkisu got overwhelmed with my presence. We would spend hours conversing, and when it was time to go, as I rose we would feel as if it was that time we started. Only Heaven knew how she felt as her eyes would get filled with swathes of pleas and begging, petitioning me to add a few more minutes before leaving.

“But Bilkisu...” I would always say; begging her passionately and explaining before I could make her understand. If I were to follow her, each attempt of leaving would translate into staying and more staying until the only thing left was staying. Trouble was the meaning of my sleeping in her room as nobody would see our heart and intention. But Bilkisu had never seemed to be aware of this. Even bigger trouble was, of course, how to face her parents in the morning demanding explanation.

Inside her room, while waiting for her coming, I sat myself on one of the cushion chairs that formed a semicircle in front of her television set. It took her longer than I expected before she could appear; meanwhile I was getting tired. But I just had to bear it. What of her when me that did not even bathe spent an hour preparing? So, I simply shrugged knowing she was still in front of the mirror.

Suddenly, an assortment of perfume cut through the air into the room. My eyes quickly shifted to the door where she would appear. Seconds later, she emerged resplendent in a mauve print walking like she was not walking, with a pack of a drink in her right hand, a cup in her left. Her earrings danced beautifully in accordance with her slow motions.

As she stooped to pour the drink, her breasts danced loosely in her chest. I wanted to speak, but a restraining hand clamped down my mouth. She cupped the tumbler protectively in her hands and offered it to me like a bird’s net with eggs in it. In the process, the glitzy bangles in her wrists caught my attention, clinking over sensational Hindu flower winding around her arms.

Her necklace was swallowed in partings between her chests. From mere looking, her breasts were plump and juicy. Extreme desire to fumble at her breast instantly possessed me. The notion that they were not too soft and not too hard formed in my head. The sort I liked when we got married. In such circumstance, a thing would stand up in my trousers. I found myself floating in another world, breathless with excitement. I kept shifting my body to hide my erection. Shifting proved too awkward, so I slipped my hand into my pocket and silently held the thing down.

I jolted back to the scene, looking refreshed and satisfied, with remains of unspoken thing in my eyes. “Kai Bilkisu,” the wants and desire were visible in my eyes. I was not sure if she heard me but even if she did, she did not make attempt to cover her breasts. Being together for long made Bilkisu no longer bothered with parts of her body revealed in my presence.

We could smell each other when she dragged a chair and sat opposite me, knees brushing each other’s through the slim gap between us. She was about to speak when a small thud rose as I put the cup to the table.

“Sadiq I know what I am going to do. I will just write a book to tell you my feelings. Words of mouth won’t be enough to say them out.”

We kept quiet for long, staring each other in the face, making meaning out of silence.

“I share your heart, Mai Gadan Zinare.” I said honorifically in Hausa. She deserved the name, because, she was always pristine. Her room always tidy. And clean all day.

A set of LCD screen hung at the far end of the room, air conditioning system, cushion chairs, a fridge and a center table with tea paraphernalia on top. Tissue paper, toothpick and cotton bud also adorned the table top. The room’s atmosphere was relaxed and wafted in various floras. The ceiling had a flowery decoration with tiny beautiful bulbs illuminating dimly from the ceiling. The fluorescent lightening felt cool on my skin.  Soft Persian carpet grassed the entire floor. It was so soft like cotton; you would think it’s there people called aljannar duniya.

With peace of mind came development, with it natural beauty. The great insight she did not lack. Bilkisu acquainted herself with books. Her face so smooth like an apple, her creamy skin shone in the lightning. Adding to her gracefulness her optical glasses sat stylistically on the bridge of her nose. She was ɗaya tamkar da dubu.

Bilkisu wasn’t the sort of girl who needed toshi before she loved me. Whenever I visited her, she treated me with the hospitality of a girl properly raised by parents of Katsina descent; food with vegetable soup of which the moisture of cooking oil and the chicken meat floated over the surface. She never ran out of delicious eatables and palatable drinkables, Kayan Ƙwalam da maƙulashe.  She also kept soft drinks and sweets for her visitors.

The curtain flattered as I held it for exit when she said, “I have big news for you.”

I turned swiftly. “Bilkisu, you always say this and refuse to tell me nothing.”

  

“I have got a nice dream,” she said, batting her eyelashes attractively behind her rimmed glasses.

“Tell me now.” I demanded instantly, eager to disentangle myself from the web of suspense she put me in.

  

“I will tell you later.”

“No, my Bilkisu.” I protested. “I am going to sleep here until you tell me.”

“Sadiq, I will tell you when next you come. Before then, I can fulfill my promise.”

  

The day I left Bilkisu’s father came and announced his decision to marry her to the son of his friend. He once stopped me and addressed me, with a tone of disapproval in his tone. His pursed lips pointed dismissively at my head. Bilkisu said I should have my hair shaved to get a good rating of her family. On that day, I proceeded to the barbershop and shaved, something I refused to do despite the relentless pressure from my mother.

**

I followed behind Adai-daita Sahu she was riding and caught up with her at a red light. Tears flooded our cheeks. We were touched by our sudden reunion.

“Bilkisu, are you still alive?” I said.

“I have been expecting you, Sadiq. You cut off all contact and suddenly forgot me.”

“Forgive me Bilkisu. I could not continue coming with the belief that you were going to marry another person.”

I wouldn’t pretend there weren’t remains of feelings in my heart. All this while, it was the body not the mind and always felt like developing wings to fly to her place. One soul in two bodies.

In only three visits, the guy realized he could not win her heart. Bilkisu didn’t speak and only answered him with yes or no. It was like carrying Dala without a pad. Soon, he ran back to his father and thanked him and his friend and said he could not get into a relationship he was not loved.

  

Since the time of her father’s decision, I tried to forget her. If she called me, I did not pick up. If she emailed me, I didn’t reply. If she chatted me up on Facebook, I ignored the conversation. Her number 070657…07 showed up in my screen to tell me that the guy had backed down but I would not pick up. In a hindsight, I realized I should have answered. Since then, I had been regretting my act.

She rummaged into her bag and produced the book she wrote. “Please keep it close to your heart. It is the treasure of our love.”

We met by stroke of luck. Bilkisu was flying to Kuala Lumpur tonight.

I accompanied her nearly to her home. When we reached a corner, I stopped and asked the tricycle man to take me back to my place. I was flung into vacuum and emptiness, she left without telling me the date she’d return. I didn’t ask her either for no apparent reason at all. But I thought I was too excited or too worried.

I held the book to my chest throughout the drive home, feeling its warmth seep into my body. I was deeply touched, and the contact made me realize the inability of words to communicate her feelings. The warmth oozing from the book through my body stirred a renewed passion in me.

  

It was almost dark when I alighted and headed briskly to the home. I read only few lines while on the ride, but had to close the book as tears started dripping from eyes. When I came to a culvert–jumping over it–­the book slipped off my hand into the gutter beneath.

**

Since her travel, I maintained contact with her online. I inboxed her on Facebook when I wanted to chat her up. Or left a hi if she was offline. Within seconds, her instant reply would beam up. I could go online so early only to find her status reading three minutes ago.

She uploaded pictures of herself she snapped abroad. And that fetched her more people gravitating to her updates. She became a top, big girl than she was before her travel. Because she was abroad, she was too proud to comment on other people’s posts.

I never commented on her pictures. I would wait patiently each day for her to upload. The other day I was worried she didn’t put while I was preparing to leave. I wanted to post a status update about that but nay... I didn’t want her to see the post and realize I still cared. 

First, I went to chat menu to see if she was online.  And. She. Was. I tarried a little until she left; then I posted:

Dear young lady. The beautiful. You do not post your photo yet and I want to retire offline. Please do. I like it only that I can’t bring myself to joining the crowd commenting and liking your picture.

Soon after, I took the post down before she could see.

Each day, I silently scrolled her pictures down to see the praise they generated from her admirers vying for her attention.

“Nice one,” one said.

“Beautiful,” another wrote.

“Kin hadu Babbar Yarinya,” another quipped in.

Even when she returned to the country the droves of fans did not stop. Adding more spice to the great thrill of spying her pictures was the nice words said of her. Such wards always raised her value in my eyes and became a yardstick for me to measure her beauty.  I was convinced I was not going to marry ugly woman.

Except one day.

One guy stood prominent and persistent who at every chance won’t hesitate to call her my wife.

I knew his name, this guy.

I woke up each day from that day with feeling of nervousness and a vague sense of dread. I did not phone her for quite some time now as I got tired of calling her all day since her return to the country. So I went online and inboxed her careful not want her to suspect anything.

 “I can’t recall you.” She fired back angrily to my greeting.

“I hope I am not committing a crime.”

“You are not committing any crime.”

“Thank God I am not going to jail. Do you want me to describe myself?” I wrote back and moved to chat with a friend, assuming a pretentious indifference of some sort.

“I am waiting.” She wrote back impatiently.

Good. And you said you forgot me?

“Alright.” I replied and started telling her my features before I went back to my friend.

As I did not come back yet to reply to her, she grew more impatient. “Go ahead.” Another score. One need know how to handle women.

Instead of telling her who I was, now I described to her her own appearance and taste, and told her residential address.

“I love perfume and wear glasses and live at Tal’udu. Is that okay?” I asked.

“Send me your picture.”

“To do what with my picture?”

“So I can recognize you.”

To recognize me?

“Why can’t you just go to my profile pictures?” I still had to show her even if I had interest in her, it was no longer like before.

“Okay.”

I switched back to my friend. When I returned, I saw that she wrote “Sadiq ke nan.”

“Bilkisu ke nan.”

“Yes.”

“I love you so much.”

“Thanks.”

The heartburn in me increased each day. I badly wanted to find out her relationship with that guy. She wouldn’t suspect anything now since I was calling her frequently. Our discussion on Facebook somehow cleared the air.

“Didn’t you see my call?”  I said when she finally picked up after three calls had gone unanswered. I was already suspecting she won’t pick up thinking it was the effect of that other guy.

Although lying wasn’t her habit, I wanted to test her and asked why she did not pick up. For once she had to lie. To tell me the unvaried, predictable response among ladies.

Bad network.

I wasn’t around.

I did not see any call.

Since she did not normally flash, I expected to receive her return call from the credit I sent her. I wanted to encourage her and make her feel at home. So I sent her a card before I called. But she didn’t. I wouldn’t believe it she would be like other girls who would call another guy with someone else’ money.

The reason she did not answer was that the phone was in silent mode, insider her bag while she was on the way home. When she spoke about the guy, there was no fidgeting in her voice. The description she gave matched my assumption. Immediately, dots began piecing up in my head.

Two months back, Ishaq, our eldest brother, asked me to accompany him to Kantin Kwari to buy betrothal. Last three weeks, the elderly women in our family took the goods to a certain Bilkisu’s home. To my thinking, it was different girl.

Silent discordance was growing inside the family. The stigma would be enormous to have relatives from the same womb fighting themselves over a girl. And our father intervened in Ishaq’s favor after he reported me to him.

Ishaq was the eldest son. He was brought into the family business when age began to eat up at our father. Alhaji offered him a house at Kofar Kansakali, near Custom Training College, but Ishaq would not accept.

  

Since the house he planned to live in was built away from our home, I was happy with that. It would be easy for me to be meeting Bilkisu privately. The only problem was Hajiya. She insisted Kubrah should go live with them before her SSCE result came out. By which she meant the girl would be a spy.

 

“Who do you know there, eh? You can’t leave her alone in a strange place.”

 

Ishaq did not like the idea. He needed strict privacy and complete happiness. He was such a man who could send his children to live with their grandmother. Hajiya didn’t even know that he rejected Alhaji’s offer in the first place because of a graveyard few blocks from the house. It would spoil his happiness to be passing by a cemetery each day. More so at early stage of his marriage.

                                              

 **

Since I could no longer be in relationship with Bilkisu, I was lucky to have a new girl on Facebook. Her name Beelley and had dove couple on her profile picture.

   

I was chatting her while Ishaq was beside me when he came to bid Hajiya farewell for his travel out of the town. Before I was aware, he invaded my privacy to peer into my screen.

“Who is this girl?” I hated it for him to continue pretending I was a small boy. 

   

I moved the phone frantically sideways and said, “Beelley, she lives at Na’ibawa. We met at Immigration Office the other time I took Hajiya for her lesser hajj.”

“Aunty Bilkisu,” Kubrah shouted. “You have a message.”  The phone was in her hand while Bilkisu was away in the kitchen.

Bilkisu ran to the room frantically shouting, “Who is it?” afraid the girl could have any suspicious feeling.

“Safiya,”said the girl naively. It was my new account. She would not understand anything because the conversation gave the impression of women merely in exchange.

   

“Oh, Safiya,” said Bilkisu.  As she entered, she dried her hands to her wrapper, collected the phone and sat down.

Sitting all day at home bored Kubrah off and made her eager to pick at any opportunity that came her way. She was only allowed to the neighbors when Ishaq was out. Or going to buy things Ishaq forgot to include in his shopping. And so, for that, there was a wedding of her friend’s sister at Gadan Kaya which she would not afford to miss. Golden opportunity!

  

“I am coming this afternoon.” I wrote.  

After Ishaq bade Hajiya farewell and left, I went offline and headed to Bilkisu’s place. I’d not use Hajiya’s car. So, I hired Adai-daita Sahu and alighted somewhere away from the house and trekked the rest walk.

  

A few neighbors were sitting close by when I arrived. Except them, the neighbourhood was quiet and solitary. They looked me suspiciously but quickly turned back to their banter as the polythene bag in my hand spoke to them. “He’s on errand.”

Bilkisu was sitting on a chair inside her parlor. The door was already open when I came. Apparently, she read the message I sent her on my way.

Except Beelley, nobody knew my new line.

I slipped off my shoes and tucked them in a safe corner and proceeded to a table and placed the parcel beside television set.

  

“Sadiq,” that was Hajiya’s voice sending me fretting. Forty days after giving birth, Bilkisu visited us at the end of her hotly traditional bathing. Nine months earlier, her belly was big round pot universe, containing two rambunctious babies. One female, the other male. 

  

Why Hajiya shouting my name?  Who told her? I began struggling on the inside, framing answers to Hajiya’s impending questions.

God forbid, I have never…much less with my sister-in-law. I would fire back when she asked.

  

“Come see your children.”  Huge sense of relief, that was. My chest was taking a slow motion, rising and falling in respite.

A deafening silence cut into the room, I was too struck to act, apparently neither Bilkisu too, so thick was the silence it could be sliced with a knife.

Bilkisu and I looked up at each other. Hajiya couldn’t understand this strange look. Confused, she said, “His brother’s children are also his children.” 

  

“Come here my child.” I said, stretching out my hand towards Bilkisu.

She brought forth the female, taller, with darker creamy skin.