Season of Crimson Blossoms (24 page)

‘Buy some baby soap.
Allah ya raya
.' Binta raised the curtain and walked out into the sun. The walk home, though not long, seemed interminable. Her eyes were blurred with tears and the task of putting one foot in front of the other proved daunting. The only thing she was certain about was her earnest desire not
to run into anyone she knew, so she kept her head down, dabbing her tears with her rose-coloured veil.

Binta had little time to contemplate what had happened for she returned home to major upheaval. Fa'iza's state of mind, calm now, had been overshadowed in the interval by Hureira's hysterics.

The fact that her husband had decided, in her prolonged absence, to take a second wife had set off a tempest within her. At first, she had only sat down and shaken her legs, but the more she thought about it, the more enraged she became. Eventually, the gale drove her to smash her phone against the wall and watch it splinter to the floor, after her husband, yet again, refused to take her call.

‘
Kutuman buran ubannan
!' She cursed as she took a pair of scissors to a wax print fabric he had bought for her for the previous Eid. She felt triumphant after she had shredded it and the jagged pieces lay around her, like the aftermath of a confetti shower.

Binta returned home to find Hureira throwing her things into a suitcase, determined to stomp back to Jos and knock some sense into her husband in her own peculiar fashion.

‘
Hajiya, sai na ci ubanshi, wallahi
!' Hureira promised as she threw clothes into the suitcase and hurled her toothbrush against the wall, somewhat disappointed that it was not breakable, and that the sound of something being destroyed had not eased her rage.

Binta leaned on the doorjamb. She had been unable to lock eyes with anyone since her return and there was nothing she wanted more than to bury herself in a cave and die. But there was a greater chaos in her home than her state of shame.

‘Your quarrel is with your husband, Hureira. Not his dead father. And I won't permit the use of such language in my house, in front of the children.'

Much as she wanted Hureira gone, Binta knew that in that state of mind, fuelled by the fury which drives women and men to crimes of passion, no good would come out of Hureira's departure. And it was late in the day already to be travelling to Jos. So she prevailed on her daughter to put off her return until the next
morning, by which time she hoped her abominable temper would have simmered to a tolerable degree, and the roads would be safer.

Binta had heard only in passing what had transpired in her absence with regards to Fa'iza. But then Hureira's antics had not allowed her time to process the information and act on it. And for the half hour Fa'iza had been sitting in the living room, curled up on the seat by the corner watching TV, it did not seem to Binta like the right time to discuss the circumstances of the girl's mind.

So Binta retreated to her room wondering what she would do with herself, how she could bear to be seen in public. And when Ummi announced that Mallam Haruna was waiting to see her, outside, Binta said she was not available.

Ummi returned minutes later. ‘He said he would not leave until you see him.'

Outside, in the tangy breeze of the mild harmattan, Mallam Haruna sat on the veranda. He lifted his gleaming cap, scratched his head and replaced it. He stood up and paced for a short while before deciding instead to occupy his period of waiting by listening to his transistor radio. The BBC Hausa Service was talking about yet another attack by ‘unknown gunmen' who had shot several men at a drinking place in Maiduguri.

When Binta, smelling of lavender and wearing a lavish hijab, came out finally, the speech he had memorised dissipated into the night, leaving him grasping for words. He was oblivious to Binta's distracted air and assumed, from her hunched shoulders and occasional grunts, that she was as unimpressed by his small talk as he himself was. He fell silent, restraining his hand from reaching for his radio's power button.

In the intervening silence, the cat with the white-tipped tail emerged from the night. It walked regally through the loops of the razor wires and paused only briefly to cast a somewhat bemused look at the elderly couple, as if gauging Mallam Haruna's unease and Binta's preoccupation with her thoughts. It arched its back and sauntered off, leaving the couple to their affairs.

Mallam Haruna cleared his throat. ‘You see these people are growing bolder by the day.'

Binta mumbled. Could he not see that she was covered in shame, or was his nose impervious to her smell of sin?

‘These Boko Haram people. Now they are hurling grenades and gunning down people out relaxing. It is in the news. They just killed six people. Just like that.'

‘
Allah ya kyauta
.'

‘Ameen,' he smiled broadly. ‘You see, that's why I like you. When you hear such disturbing news, you always say a good prayer. It is a great thing.'

She looked at him, and perhaps for the first time that night, noticed that he was indeed uncomfortable. The fact that he had tucked his hands between his thighs, which were pressed together, had seemed inconsequential to her. ‘Thank you.'

‘Hahaha! Oh, no need to thank me, it is the truth
ai
.' But then, he seemed to have run out of things to say. In his head, he struggled to piece together that speech he had prepared for her. ‘Prayer is important, yes.'

Binta grunted.

‘Oh, it is, you must agree. When you have some mystery men running around and shooting down people or throwing grenades at them, sometimes you want them to just focus on the politicians and leave the masses to their poverty, but no. They kill the politicians and kill the poor folks. Anyway, when you have a situation like this, you just pray to God.
Shikenan
.'

Binta chuckled. ‘So you expect them to kill the politicians—'

‘The corrupt ones, the bad ones.'

‘You want them to kill the bad politicians and spare the others?'

‘
Kwarai kuwa
.' He emphasised his assent with vigorous nodding.

‘Have you forgotten that when trouble comes, it affects all, not just the bad ones?'

‘How can I forget when Allah himself said so?' When he said that, it occurred to him that the conversation was heading in a totally different direction from that which he had intended. This talk of God and His pronouncements would not help his cause in the least. He took some time pondering over what to say next.

Binta shifted and cleared her throat. ‘Well, I should be going in now. It is getting late.'

‘Well, I wouldn't object to that, if I were not so enamoured with your company. You know, I was thinking, why shouldn't we go out for a proper date someday.'

‘How?'

‘Well, you know, just go out, me and you, to somewhere romantic, just the two of us.'

She only grunted.

‘
Haba
! Binta, why not give me a chance? I am a match for any young man,
wallahi
, more than a match even. I am virile and I have experience.'

Binta gaped at him.

He was stunned by her reaction, by her glaring eyes. But he was on a roll; he might as well say what was on his mind. ‘Hajiya Binta, by the God who made me, I am desperate to … well, to taste of your sweetness.'

She contemplated his words and wondered exactly what he meant by
this tasting of her sweetness.
Was it possible he knew, or was he just being his usual thoughtless self? But who could prove anything? Who had seen her actually sleeping with Reza? Or was it not said that the mat of shame is rolled up with belligerence. ‘Mallam Haruna, are you high on drugs?'

‘Binta—' He placed a hand on her thigh and squeezed. He savoured the tenderness of her flesh before she slapped his hand away and jumped to her feet.

‘Mallam Haruna! My God! What impropriety is this?'

He stood up and looked down at his sandalled feet with the innocence of a child being scolded, a child who knew with certainty that the reprimand was a great injustice being done to him.

‘Leave my house, and never set foot here again. I am a widow; it doesn't make me a loose woman.
Dan iska kawai
.' She stormed up to her door.

He felt guilty, at first, and then insulted that she had called him depraved, to his face, this woman he loved, this woman he wanted to marry, this woman whose sweetness he was desperate to taste of, this
depraved
woman garbed in the paraphernalia of virtue.

‘How dare you?'

‘Mallam Haruna—'

‘How dare you? When my two eyes are witnesses to your depravity, when I have seen you leaving the hotel with that insufferable bastard Reza?'

The night weighed down on her shoulders, shrouded her
faculties in folds of darkness and pressed down her tongue, for some time. ‘Thank you for spying on me.' She turned and shuffled away. She did not look back, even when he called her name with a voice laden with regrets, and a hint of unfulfilled desires.

It was interesting, Reza thought, watching the daybreak in Leila's prison. There was no sunlight streaking through the window. There was merely a sensation of lightness that could only come with the dissipation of darkness. He watched the outline of Leila's body stretched out on the mat, shades of contours standing out against the shadows, her breathing even, almost soothing.

When she began to stir, he reached out and turned on the LED lamp and flooded the room with white light. Leila scrambled up and retreated against the wall. She gathered her clothes about her and, certain there had not been any noticeable attempt to violate her, looked relieved. But her frightened eyes searched the chamber, her breathing rapid.

‘I'm not going to touch you,
kin gane ko
?' His husky voice filled the room.

She mumbled. ‘What are you doing here? What do you want?'

‘Heard you were sick yesterday.'

She drew herself together, trying to moderate her breath with her hands placed over her heart.

‘Is it some kind of disease you have or something?'

‘Please, let me go. Just let me go.'

‘Leila. You know I can't do that.'

‘I am ill; I need to see the doctor.
I'm going to die here
.'

‘Could it be menstrual cramps? I mean, I hear women have such … issues. Not that I know much about it, you understand?'

She peered through the darkness at his masked face and started gnawing at the cuff of her kaftan. Then she startled the awakening day with the sounds of her crying. He stood up, dusted the seat of his trousers and unlocked the door.

He came back an hour later with her breakfast and some pills in a blister pack, which he placed gingerly at the edge of the mat. The sun was fully up now and the room was brighter but the lamp was still on. He removed a book from under his arm and put it beside the food.

‘I found this on my way back yesterday at a second-hand bookseller's. I thought you could do with something to read. Keep you company, you understand?'

She leaned forward and looked at the book cover, then leaned back again.

‘What? You've read this before?'

‘Everyone has read
Life of Pi
.'

He chuckled. ‘Not me. I have little patience for reading novels.'

‘
That's obvious, isn't it?
' She spoke in English.

‘Is he famous, this writer? Never heard of him.'

‘
I don't expect you would have
.'

His eyebrows arched when he noted the curtness in her tone. Disregarding her attitude, which he concluded was not without cause since women in the red zone were given to such eccentricities, he smiled and shook his head. ‘So, is it an interesting story? What is it about?'

She took time arranging herself into a dignified pose, shaking her head to flick her hair away from her face.

‘Can you tell me about the ransom negotiations,
please
?'

Reza cleared his throat. ‘The negotiations, yes. Still … ongoing, you understand?'

‘What did my uncle say? Is he paying?'

Reza turned and headed to the door. When he unlocked it, he paused, ‘The drugs are for your cramps. I got them from a pharmacy.'

He turned and left, locking the door behind him.

He sat down with Gattuso and Joe on the balcony, smoking pot and looking at their feet dangling off the balustrade. Dogo was sleeping on the floor of the living room, having quenched the fire of his lust for a hawking girl – who had caught his fancy at Jabi Park when he had gone for lunch – with the heady fumes of ganja.

They smoked the first rolls in silence, revelling in the miasma, in the tenuous peace it bred in them, in the journeys on which the wavering smoke took their tormented minds. By the time they were into their second rolls, Joe waved his hand before his face, as if suddenly irritated by the languid bands of smoke that lingered before him. ‘Reza, what exactly is happening to payday?'

Reza looked away.

‘Look, man, I want to know what's happening. I thought her father agreed to pay.'

‘Her uncle, not her father,' Gattuso corrected.

‘Yeah, whatever. Ten mills, man. That was three days ago.'

‘Four.' Gattuso cracked his knuckles. ‘Four days.'

‘Whatever, man. That's like forever ago, you know.'

‘What's going on, Reza?'

‘We get paid, when the time is right, you understand?'

Joe pulled out a bottle of gin from his pocket, took a swig and wiped his mouth with his arm. ‘You know, man, let's arrange the drop. Ten mills, man. Ten mills!'

‘Joe, we get paid when the time is right.'

Joe jumped off the balustrade. He puffed on his joint and blew the smoke out with an impatient gesture. ‘This girl is going to die on us, man.' He looked Reza in the face. ‘And then we get nothing. Nothing!'

He stormed away, leaving a vague, foreboding cloud in his wake.

They smoked in silence, the two men left. But from the way Gattuso smoked, pausing every now and then to torment any bone in his body that would make a cracking sound with unusual
brusqueness, Reza knew that he, too, was suppressing some concerns itching to be voiced.

‘You have something to say?'

‘Reza, this girl almost died yesterday. She almost fucking died.'

‘Well, we will all die someday.'

‘She was rolling on the ground and we almost took her to the hospital where they would have arrested us promptly. If this deal isn't going to work out, let's cut our losses and get the hell out of here.'

‘Meaning?'

‘Get rid of the girl and go. I am missing San Siro. Sitting here in this shitty place listening to this rich girl screaming like a dying witch is not my kind of thing, you know.'

Reza smoked on in silence, nodding his head.

‘What's stopping this deal from going through? I thought the uncle agreed to pay.'

‘This is not about the money.'

‘What the fuck is it about then?'

Reza looked at him and pondered the question. It occurred to him then that he could not, with certainty, provide an answer.

‘Have you even thought about it, Reza? About what this is all about?'

‘Oh, Gattuso, get the hell out of my face. Don't be asking me stupid questions.'

‘Stupid questions? What is happening to you? You were not like this before. You took care of everything. Now your shit is falling apart and you don't even give a damn.'

‘What is falling apart, Gattuso? What are you trying to say?'

Gattuso, emboldened by the excitement of the moment, drew near and looked Reza in the eyes. ‘Look, man, this shit, this thing going down here, we don't know what it is. We are sitting ducks here. We have an opportunity to make some money and get out but we are holding out. For what?'

‘We were hired to do a job, Gattuso.'

‘And what is that job exactly?'

‘Hold on to the girl. That's what we are being paid to do.'

‘Yeah, hold on to her? For what? We don't know shit about what we are doing and we are the ones holding on to this girl
because you are never here. You are so into that mamarish Hajiya woman, you've got your head so far up her arse, you need to open your eyes—'

Gattuso suddenly found himself on the floor, trying to clear the sparkling little lights blurring his vision and the whistling sound filling his ear. The numbness grew on his jaw and he realised he had been hit.

Reza was standing over him, struggling to contain the rage that had overtaken him. Finally, he walked away.

Gattuso felt his jaw, trying to figure out what damage it had suffered. He worked the bone with his fingers and concluded he would be all right. He looked around and saw the remnant of his joint on the floor. He picked it up and put it to his lips.

‘Yeah?'

‘I need to speak to the senator.'

‘He is in a meeting now. What's going on?'

‘I need to speak to him now.'

‘Reza, is everything ok? You sound agitated. The senator is in a meeting and you know he can't talk to you while this thing is on. What's the problem?'

Reza gripped the phone harder. He could imagine Moses' face on the other end and felt once more an irrepressible urge to smash a fist into that face. ‘What's going on? We are in the dark here.'

‘No, you are not. You have your instructions. Keep to them.'

‘We reached an agreement with her uncle days ago for the ransom—'

‘Hold on to the girl until you are told otherwise, that is your instruction.'

‘What if she dies?'

‘Well, you make sure she doesn't. God! You guys are really amateurs. I wonder why he insisted you should handle this,' And he ended the call with a hiss, a long drawn-out sound that stung Reza's ego like the tail of a horsewhip.

Moses slipped the phone into his pocket and placed the file on the table in front of the senator. The senator, who had been reading a document, looked up at the young assistant over the rim of his glasses.

‘Yes, Moses?'

‘It's those boys, sir. They are getting restless about the job.'

‘Is that so?'

‘Yes, sir. I was wondering myself, sir, why hold on to the girl when there is nothing to be gained from her?'

Senator Maikudi sat back in his chair and removed his glasses. He rubbed his face and smiled. ‘Do you play chess, Moses?'

‘No, sir.'

‘So you won't necessarily understand. Politics is like chess, you see. You move your pieces randomly sometimes. Other times you use your pawns to hold down aspects of play. Sometimes you sacrifice the pawns. But you always keep your eye on the big picture. There is a bigger picture here.'

‘Exactly, sir.'

‘Make sure they remain in position until I instruct otherwise.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Good. Now I need to have some tea.'