By Maryam Altine Baba
Chapter Twelve
Zainab treaded with care in to the vast expanse of Ali’s family house courtyard. The house was big and sheltered many of Ali’s extended family members. Four generations to be precise. His grandfather had spent most of his life in the house.
It was said that he was from Kano, from a place called Albasu. He built the house himself and had brought two of his younger brothers to stay with him. There were lots of marshy lands to encourage them to take up farming as their occupation, especially the dry-seasoned one. They had stayed there all their lives.
Then there were the second generation; Ali’s father and his three brothers as well. Then the third generation being Ali’s brothers and cousins. And then the fourth generation, his nieces and nephews.
His grandmother Ummaa still lived in the house, his grandfather had died years ago. She was an adorable petit old woman with a hearing defect. One needed to shout so she could hear, but then always ended up getting a good smack of her walking stick for daring to accuse her of being deaf! There was Ummaa, the sweet old granny. She had given Zainab a warm welcome when she visited her room the first time.
“Open up your palms so I can pray for you.” The old woman had offered.
The rest of the grandchildren giggled as they all gathered around to tease her. “Ummaa mai buhun addu’a.” They teased in Hausa.
The old woman mumbled some incoherent words that Zainab hoped it was Arabic and spat saliva that formed a pool in to her opened palms enough to drown an insect.
“Now, rub it throughout your face and body. May Allah protect you from evil.” Ummaa had urged lovingly.
The children giggled while she mumbled “Amin.”
It was irritatingly funny as it took half her will power to prevent her from laughing. Although she did not rub anything on her face or even body, she’d liked it. It was something new to her, since her grandmother was infamously dragoness of the den.
She could not however, say the same thing about the other family members, especially her father in law. For the ten days since she had been Ali’s bride, the man had never shown any compassion or concern towards her. He was stoic. The only times she saw him was when he came in to or when he went out of the house.
She continued to walk in as the children shrills and laughter filled the house. They were sprawled everywhere. Some of them were half naked and looked like they’d had a serious encounter with the local grinding miller.
But they were happy, truly happy. It was contagious. Zainab managed a smile, which she needed in her chaotic life.
There were bunches of the year’s harvest strewn about and the women of the house each tended to one product or the other. There were millet, beans, corn and rice. The guinea corn and some beans would be picked much later, after the leng festival. For the time being, they stacked up the harvests until it was time to use it.
Iyami looked up from the pounding activity she was engaged in and smiled at her warmly. She was exhausted from the way she looked and posed, yet she wasn’t half way in to her pounding.
As she walked past towards her mother in law, there was a momentary stillness as all the others eyed her keenly. She’d heard them whisper amongst themselves.
“I really don’t know why she clung to Ali. Maybe she is pregnant with his child.” Sodangi, one of Ali’s sisters’ in-law had asserted.
“That’s right.” Furera, another sister in law concurred. “No wonder, Biri yayi kama da mutum. I have suspected as much.” She concluded as she shook her head pitifully.
“Poor girl.” Sahura, an uncle’s amarya or younger wife had lamented.
“Nothing poor about her.” Another daughter in-law called Tayyiba interjected. “She is a renegade and has had a soft spot for the bad boys.”
“That’s right.” Sahura had offered.
That was when Zee thought she’d had enough. She swirled and approached the gossip women, “Yes, I am a renegade. But thankfully, I am not a coward like all of you.” She spat acidly.
They were completely taken aback by her abrupt outburst and accusations. None of them thought she would respond and in such brazen manner.
“Tooo?! La’ilaha illallah!” Sahura clasped her hands shockingly in response. “See what the younger generations have become.”
“I am not surprised.” Sodangi chirped. “She is known for her insolence and manner less approach to people. She’s not even spared her parents, let alone us.”
“You should have taken that in to consideration before opening up your big foul mouths. I haven’t gone about asking all of you how or why you got married to your husbands, have I?”
“You don’t need to.” Sodangi defended, “your husband is not half the man our husbands are.”
Zainab smirked, her lips contorted in to a smile, “I like my half man alright. At least I haven’t had the liberty to abort two pregnancies for him before I got married like an empty vessel!” Zainab spitted.
“Well, for an empty vessel like me, I have a great husband, a decent roof over my head; and guess what? I got married in broad day light with real people that had witnessed our union.” Sodangi was clearly not one to back down from a cat fight.
Soon enough, the atmosphere was charged with pandemonium. There was a lot of racket between the warring parties that called the attention of the elders, whom had intervened. It was a three-against one war Zainab was not willing to back down from. They kept on and on, with utter disregard to those that pleaded with them to be silent.
And then they fell silent, all three of them. Abruptly. Zainab was the only one left to keep up the quarrelling tempo. She suddenly looked to her side, all the reconciliatory parties and the rest of the people stood in dead silence.
The children seemed to have gotten wind of the situation at hand. They all stood quietly too. Too quiet for comfort.
That was when she knew something was wrong.
She looked behind her and there stood her father in-law, all six feet- three inches of commanding patriarchal presence. He stood at an intimidating stance, watching her like a lion about to tear its prey bit by bit without the intention of eating it.
Zainab gulped. She wasn’t sure what, but it was either air or saliva. Never had she felt intimidated all her life. She had seen her cantankerous father in law severally and even met with him up close sometimes but had always felt he had a soft spot within the walls of his chest.
Only now she knew she was wrong. The man was made of stone, pure hard igneous rock with molten magma within him, one she didn’t want to stir up.
It was ridiculous that at that moment, she couldn’t help but notice the only feature he shared with Ali physically – his nose. The nose was cuter on his father’s face, she admitted wanly.
“Go to what you were doing before!”
It was a curt but chilly command. And before the blink of an eye, the household was busy as before. Only this time it was more animated and less noisy. Even the little children were quieter and reserved.
Her father in law walked up to his wife and mumbled something very briefly to her and walked away. She in turn walked up to Zainab and whisked her away to her allotted quarter. Her eyes were sad but she smiled.
“Malam doesn’t like your roaming around the house so much. It will be better if you stayed here. That way, none of the other women will insult you, kin ji ko?”
Zainab was not surprised. Her mother in-law was a very nice woman and Zee liked her. But she was more like her mother, unwitting, not able to stand up for herself or even for her children.
She simply smiled and went quietly in to her room after thanking Iyami. She wanted to cry but knew better than to do that. She held her constricted chest so high up it hurt physically. It was something she had fought for and gotten, she had no right to complain.
So, she’d gotten the idea like Ali, she wasn’t considered a member of the family. So, what? As she wiped a lone traitorous tear down her right chin. She made the decision of raising her own family the way she wanted, the way families should to be. At least, the way she had seen her friends’ families were.
She started by setting up two large stones against the outer wall of her room as a make- shift kitchen. She hasn’t used any of the kitchen utensils her mother had sent to her. After a rain check of everything, the only things she needed were food stuffs.
Without any deeper thought, she’d decided she was going out by herself to buy them from the market. She’d learned that the only way to survive was to depend on no one but herself. She could of course depend on her husband. But only when he was soberer.
While at the thought of that, where was he? It’s been a day and half since she’d last seen him. Of recent, she realized that he’d been conspicuously missing from a greater time of the day from his house. But she wasn’t going to dwell on that for the moment. She would worry about him later, when she found him.
Except, she realized with horror, that she wouldn’t be going anywhere at all. She stood beyond stupefied as the wooden container she had stashed her remaining cash ever so carefully away from possible prying eyes stared her in the face. It was empty!
Zainab was alarmed, a bit frantic at that moment. She wasn’t able to deduce how that had happened. She was sure that the money was there in the morning. She almost turned the room upside down, at least, it wasn’t much of a space, but was a lost cause. The money had vanished.
Zainab fumed like a hurt lioness. All hell will break loose today. So help her Allah if she didn’t murder someone to hell and resurrect him and send him back again. She just needed to find the culprit.
It was her dowry; the same one her father had handed to her. No one takes her things and got away with it. She had been that way right from home.
