Season of Crimson Blossoms (2 page)

Binta scowled at the girls. ‘Is that any way to welcome a traveller, you? These girls!'

And so with measured excitement and subtle evasion, Hadiza had been received into her mother's house.

But later that day Hadiza sat on the edge of Binta's bed flipping through Az Zahabi's
The Major Sins
, astounded by the chance discovery of a well of knowledge in the Sahara. She nodded every now and then and made clucking noises at the back of her throat.

‘I had no idea there were so many mortal sins, Mother.'

When she got no response, she looked up from the book.

Hajiya Binta was still seated on her prayer rug beside the bed, where she had said her Maghrib prayers minutes before. Her lemon-yellow hijab covered her entire body, its hem gathered away from the Qur'an lying next to her foot. She had fetched it earlier to recite after the prayers but Hadiza had invited herself in for a chat. And because her head was turned to the flaxen wall, her daughter could not see her face.

Hadiza turned back to the book and continued browsing through, plucking nuggets planted by the long dead sheikh in a field of papyrus. When she satisfied herself with the limitations of her ignorance, which was far greater than she had assumed, she closed the book and sighed. The intricate oriental design on the spine appealed to her and she ran her fingers over it. She shook her head and wondered what it would feel like to write a book someone would read and marvel at centuries later. Carefully, she put it down on the nightstand. In the process she knocked off her mother's reading glasses, but caught them as they fell.

‘Mother, how come your glasses are broken?'

Binta shifted beneath the cover of her hijab but said nothing.

‘Hajiya!'

‘Mhm.'

‘I've been talking since I came in and you haven't said a thing.'

‘Don't mind me. My thoughts were elsewhere. What were you saying?'

‘Your glasses, what happened to them?'

‘They broke.'

‘Yeah? How come?'

‘I ran into a wall.'

Hadiza gaped. ‘How could you run into a wall, Hajiya?'

‘It was dark.'

‘Oh.' Since she arrived with her little suitcase in tow, greeted more warmly by the mid-morning sun than her mother's distracted smiles, Hadiza had been dismayed by Binta's inattentiveness. She felt guilty for not having seen Hajiya Binta for seven months. Since her mother relocated to the fringes of Abuja. Now she wondered if her trip was going to end in disappointment.

At twenty-seven, Hadiza, Binta's youngest child, was already taking care of a husband and three children; boys who would not stop trashing the living room and shredding their exercise books. For her, any disorder was an excuse to rearrange the interior. So she was always moving the furniture around and planting and uprooting hedges and flowers in every available space in her courtyard. Often, her husband, Salisu, who wore spectacles and spoke with effeminate gestures, would return home to discover that the settee or table had been moved. He had tired of complaining and would simply sit down wherever was convenient.

The last time Binta had seen her, Hadiza, having been seriously vexed by the ban on the wearing of face veils in France, news of which she had ardently monitored, had just acquired the habit of wearing a niqab. Her hands and feet had been tucked away in black gloves and socks. This time though, she came with several jilbabs with sequins down the front and short hijabs that had intricate lace fringes and which stopped at her bosom.

Binta sighed. And Hadiza sighed too. She put down the glasses and turned again to look at her mother, whose face was still turned away. ‘Hajiya, this has nothing to do with the break-in, does it?'

When Binta smiled, the smile disturbed Hadiza more than it reassured her.

‘Of course not.'

‘What happened exactly?'

‘I ran into a wall.'

‘No, I meant with the break-in?'

‘Oh, nothing. Just the small
'yan iska
who break in to get something for dope.'

‘I see. So what exactly did they take?'

But Binta was looking at the wall again.

Hadiza leaned forward and observed the lost look in her mother's eyes, how she seemed to be looking through the walls at some mystery in the nascent night.

When Binta sensed Hadiza prying into her face, she turned her back to her. ‘Do you think of him sometimes?'

‘Who? Father?'

‘Your brother.'

‘Munkaila?'

Binta was silent awhile. ‘The other one.'

Hadiza's eyes widened. ‘Yaro?'

‘Sometimes I wonder what he would have become had he lived.' And then Binta allowed silence to swallow her thoughts.

In the silence, Hadiza's bafflement increased. Were they actually talking about Yaro? It was the first time since his death, fifteen years ago, that she had heard her mother make any reference to him. It had seemed to her, when she thought about him, that they had buried not only his corpse but also his name that was not a name. And memories of him as well. She shifted closer to her mother. ‘Are you all right, Hajiya?'

But then Fa'iza breezed in. ‘Aunty Hadiza—'

‘Don't call me that. How many times will I tell you to call me Khadija? That is the proper name. Say Aunty Kha-di-ja.'

‘Aunty Khadija? But everyone else calls you Hadiza, and you know, you are not really my aunt, technically.'

‘
Lallai,
this girl, you have no respect. Is Hadiza not a corrupt version of Khadija? And don't forget, I'm not your mate, whether I'm your aunt or not. Technically.'

‘Ok, Aunty Khadija.' Fa'iza sat down on the bed, sweeping
her dress under her and posing proficiently with her hands on her lap like a queen holding court, a pose she had adopted from Kannywood home videos, which, along with
soyayya
novellas, occupied the bulk of her leisure time. She would not admit, not to Hajiya Binta especially, that they had become an obsession. A refuge from the shadows in her head.

Fa'iza had been living with her aunt since her mother, Asabe – Binta's younger sister – had returned to the village, having lost her husband and only son in the incessant turbulence in Jos. She had been embarrassed, when her mother decided to remarry, by the choice of a stepfather. This sentiment was inspired by her loyalty to her late father's memory, by the fact that he was gone forever and would have no further need of his wife.

Whatever she found worthy of scorn in the man who now paraded himself as her mother's husband – his buck teeth and always-dirty feet, and the fact that he was, in the manner of country folks, less refined than her father had been – was born out of these sentiments. Fa'iza would not even visit. How could she possibly live in the village?

But beyond the distraction she craved from the romantic life portrayed in the films and literature of Kano, which was an escape from the haunting memories of Jos, living in the village would make her less appealing to men in the class of Ali Nuhu. Manifestations of her teen infatuation with the film star were evident everywhere in her room in the form of stickers stuck in the corners of her mirror, on her varnished wardrobe, her cream-coloured walls, the door panel and windowpanes and on the covers of her notebooks. Even on the easel she had used for her fine arts practicals, which was now tucked away behind the wardrobe.

Whatever would Ali Nuhu do with a village girl?

Living on the fringes of Abuja, in the sprawling suburb of Mararaba, was not the same as living in the heart of the city. But at least, here, she could nurture her ornate dreams. So she would paint her face, stick up her posters, watch Kannywood films and read
soyayya
novellas in which handsome men in sedans fell in love with beautiful girls with moon-like eyes and aquiline noses. Women not unlike her cousin Hadiza.

‘I like your henna decoration.' Fa'iza held Hadiza's hands and
marvelled at the intricate designs so pronounced on her delicate skin. She looked up and saw Hadiza smiling. ‘When I start writing
soyayya
novels, I'll put your face on the cover.'

Hadiza laughed. ‘Stupid girl, my jealous husband will kill you and burn all your novels. Who reads those things anyway?'

‘That's all she reads, this girl.'

They both turned to look at Binta, who had spoken.

But Binta was looking straight ahead. ‘She reads them from morning till night, if she's not watching films on Africa Magic. I was wondering where she gets them from until I realised the Short Ones supply them.'

‘
Kai
, Hajiya!' Fa'iza protested.

‘What Short Ones?'

‘Some short girls she has made her friends. They live nearby.'

‘Sounds like you don't like them, Hajiya.'

‘Those girls, they are too smart for their own good. I wish Fa'iza would stop associating with them.'

Hadiza frowned. ‘Fa'iza! Behave yourself and keep away from bad friends,
mara kunyar yarinya
.'

Fa'iza puckered her lips and turned her face away.

‘Anyway, now the decoder is gone, she won't get to watch all those useless channels.' Hadiza adjusted her scarf.

‘Useless channels?
Haba
, Aunty Khadija. Anyway, Alhaji Munkaila will replace what was taken,
insha Allah
.'

‘Was that what he told you?' Binta's voice sounded burdened by the weight of unrelated memory.

‘Me? No.' Fa'iza was flippant. ‘Well, he brought these ones.
Insha Allah
, he will replace them.'

Hadiza turned to her mother. ‘Well, has the break-in been reported to the police?'

‘The police?' Binta chuckled. ‘It has been reported to Allah.'

‘Since when has Allah become a policeman, Hajiya?'

‘He will dispense justice in His own fashion. Even on the police who go about shooting innocent people. Allah will judge them.'

Hadiza flinched at the virulence in Binta's voice. It must have something to do with this sudden mention of Yaro, this exhumation of disregarded memories. ‘Well, I still think a formal report should have been made. You never know.'

Binta conveniently observed that the muezzin had called for Isha prayers. ‘Go look for your sister, Fa'iza. I'm sure she's playing next door.'

‘Me?' Fa'iza shot up, without waiting for an answer, as if she had been sitting on a spring. She threw her veil over her shoulders and walked out, leaving a whiff of thick perfume in her wake. Hadiza savoured it for a while and then waved her hand, with a dismissive carelessness, in front of her face as if to dispel the scent. Her eyes wandered around the room and lingered on the mournful curtains, the heap of unwashed clothes in the corner and the litter on the floor.

Hajiya, I think I'll help you move your bed and re-arrange the room.'

Swiftly, Binta picked up the Qur'an before her and handed it to Hadiza. She rose and recited the Iqama for her prayer.

Hadiza sighed, replaced the Qur'an on the nightstand, on top of
The Major Sins
. She gathered her gown about her and left the room.

Hadiza, plagued by pre-slumber agitations, turned over on the mattress. ‘What's wrong with Hajiya?'

For a while only little Ummi's soft snores filled the room. Then Fa'iza, who was lying across the room on the mattress she was sharing with Ummi, looked up from the book she had been reading by the flashlight of her phone and sighed. ‘Hajiya? I don't know.' She buried her face in the pages once more.

Hadiza turned again. ‘How long has she been like this?'

‘How long? I don't know, since yesterday, I guess.'

Hadiza sighed. ‘She seems evasive about this break-in, I don't understand it. And I don't understand why she is talking about Yaro all of a sudden. She has never talked about him before.'

‘Yaro? Your late brother?'

Hadiza nodded, put her fingers on her forehead and scratched. ‘Her explanation about her broken glasses was just implausible. What happened really?'

‘What happened?' Fa'iza sighed and put her book down on the
rug by the mattress. The cover showed the face of a beautiful woman with large eyes, and
Biyayar Aure
written in bold across the top. The flashlight from her phone, which she placed on top of the book, expanded and chased the darkness into the corners. Having turned onto her back, she pulled the sheet over her bosom. ‘What happened was that I just came back home from school and saw the front door open and the decoder and DVD player were gone and Hajiya's glasses were lying on the floor, broken. I took them to her room and met her sitting on the bed like this …' Fa'iza paused and stiffened to demonstrate. ‘I asked her what had happened and she sighed like this … hmmm … and said a thief broke in.'

When Hadiza said nothing for a long time, Fa'iza rolled onto her side and lay quietly. Little Ummi, too far gone in her sleep, made little noises and farted. They both looked at her. Fa'iza made a face.