UNCLE AND MAMA are setting out on a journey. They are dressed in their Sunday clothes. She will not say where.
I have the freedom to walk around and vent my rage. I talk to myself.
‘Baby Jesus has taken Babby. Baby Jesus is cross with me. Mama is cross with me. Uncle is cross with me.’
I decide I will run away. I have no belongings. I know the road that leads to the market and passes the twisting yellowish river. Then, farm on all sides and soon after that, traffic, lots of traffic, the little tuk-tuk taxis, people hanging out of them, bringing chickens and corn and whatever they have to sell. The chickens screeching.
Once in the market I am safe. I can slip in and out between the crowds. I will eat rinds or anything that is thrown down. From there, I will make my way to where Rebeka is. Rebeka is not cross with me, but she has sickness.
I did not leave at once. I had scores to settle, walking around our kitchen, striking things.
There was an old bath out in the yard that was packed with sand. Big ugly weeds feeding on it. The sand was solid, first rain, then dry season, then rain and more dry season, on and on. A soiled brown colour. The weeds sulked at being flung down. I carried water from the well and met people on the way. I thought, when Mama and Uncle come back and miss me, these same people will tell them I hauled buckets of water. They won’t find me.
As soon as the sand had loosened and was a bit flakier, I shovelled it onto the yard to make little dwellings.
Weirdly, words begin to pass through me. A blast of words, prayers and curses – ‘Mother is so sweet, Mother is not so sweet.’ My captors are speaking through me. Words and phrases that I did not know I knew, unless I heard them during lessons.
‘Sabo. Sabo. Sabo.’
Blasphemy. Blasphemy. Blasphemy.
‘Raquki kuturwa. I am a female leper.’
‘My brother is gone to Kano. Ya sam mini goro. He got me a bit of kola nut.’
‘Ya ara min riga. He lent me a sad, grey gown.’
‘Men overcame me in war … they took my money. They each had three wives … it is a sin that leads to death.’
Ba zan koma ba
Ka kama
Ki kama
Ku kama.
Seize. Seize. Seize.
Ku kai
Ki sa rana
I had not heard them, not even seen them, but my mother is frantic, calling, ‘Nathan. Seize her, seize her,’ as I try to run away. She is trembling with fear. She says the Jihadis have come and are going to kill us. I smile and give her a little friendly curtsy. Allah ya rufa mana. May God conceal our secrets.
Uncle has caught me. His hand on the nape of my neck, clutching it. He has also taken my phone, my last link to Pastor Reuben, or Abigail, or anybody.
I am being marched through the kitchen. Mama is petrified. Uncle puts black tarp on the window and she hands him little tacks to hold it down. They press it in at the corners. The room is pitch black. He stands above me, holding a mace. Two or three blows of that mace and my brain is pulp.
I am craven with them. I beg for mercy. I tell them I love them, which is not true, and that I will work on the farm. I will do anything rather than be locked up in this dungeon, because the Jihadis will find me and spirit me away.
*
The window is blocked up. The bars have been there a long time. Not a flicker of light shows through. At first I stood, thinking that someone might see my imprisoned shadow, but nobody does. I stand for hours, until it is so cold that I crawl back to bed and pull the cotton coverlet over my head, to vanish. In the deep silence, a wail was borne in from some dreaded lair.
Mama slept on a chair in the kitchen and at dawn, escorted me to the outside closet. The yard was a glaze of dew that I would have gladly lain on, but she hustled me along, not wanting anyone to see me. Later she left gruel on a plate outside the door. It was as if I was a leper.
So it went on, from dream to waking and back again. I cannot tell the difference, as I am inert. Later, I hear the apprehensions and sounds of night. Sometimes I am in the forest, an unfamiliar forest, emptied of all mankind. The trees are gigantic, their grey trunks gnarled. They are talking gnarled talk.