Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree

by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

  Feet in Cold Water

  WHAT IF ALL THE legends surrounding Boko Haram are true? What happens to all the girls and women they cause to disappear? Do they end up in another world strange and new, or do they simply become nothing?

  My mind abandons the textbook pages in my lap and travels to a different book.

  The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

  After the man in the strange long coat, half yellow and half red, lured all the rats into the river with his musical pipe, the leaders of the town refused to pay him his fees.

  The Pied Piper became upset.

  With the same pipe he used to entice the rats, he played another tune. And out poured all the children of Hamelin town.

  Unable to move a step or cry, the parents and government officials watched as the Piper led their children to the mountainside. Suddenly, a wondrous portal opened and they disappeared inside.

  When each was in to the very last, the mountainside shut fast.

  And the children of Hamelin were never, ever seen again.

  Islam

  MALAM ISA AND HIS friends are gathered around Aisha’s goat-meat pepper soup. But none of them dip their spoon into the bowl. They are too busy talking.

  “Islam has always been a religion of peace,” Malam Isa says, poking his finger at the air. “All Muslims are to love all and be just to all regardless of religion. The Quran makes that very clear. Prophet Muhammad himself lived peacefully with his Christian and Jewish neighbors.”

  “Exactly,” Malam Shettima adds, swatting a fly from his face. “The Quran says, ‘Let there be no compulsion in religion.’” He recites it in Arabic.

  “Good evening,” Sarah and I say on our way inside.

  None of the men responds.

  “Muslims are permitted to attack others only when we have been attacked. Only as a means of protecting ourselves. Otherwise, killing innocent souls is a great sin against Allah,” Malam Isa adds. “A great sin.”

  “But why are these Boko Haram people claiming that they are representing Islam?” Malam Emmanuel asks. “If your Quran teaches all these things, why are they acting differently?”

  “They are just ruffians!” Malam Isa replies, his voice raised so loudly that I can hear him from inside the house. “Hooligans, that’s what they are, criminals with nothing better to do! They are not reading from the same Quran that I read every day. A true Muslim is one from whose tongue and hands his community is safe. That’s what my Quran teaches me.”

  Somehow, Aisha’s goat pepper soup does not taste the same today.

  I munch a few pieces of intestine and liver before insisting that I am too full to eat any more.

  On our way home, I notice that the bowl in the midst of Malam Isa and his friends has barely been touched.

  “Their hostility toward education is because they feel it corrupts,” Malam Shettima says. “But that strongly contravenes the teachings of Islam. The very first revelation from Allah to the Prophet Muhammad was the word Read. That’s what I teach the children in my Islamiya class every Sunday. They must all pursue knowledge.”

  They are still talking about Boko Haram.

  Urgent Prayer

  “GOD IS LEADING ME to call a month of urgent prayer and fasting for the entire church,” Pastor Moses says. “We must rise up together and wage spiritual warfare against the forces of darkness behind Boko Haram.”

  The last time Christ the King Church embarked on an urgent prayer and fasting session was when the rains were late last year.

  Going without food and drink from midnight until six p.m. every day for one month was torture, but everyone agreed that it was a necessary spiritual measure for a drastic situation.

  Each day of fasting culminated in a five p.m. gathering in the church hall, during which we prayed for an hour. Three days before the fast ended, the rains fell.

  I hope that Boko Haram will be annihilated with our prayers.

  “We’ll begin the week after we return from Prosper’s wedding,” Pastor Moses adds. “Emmanuel will communicate the date.”

  Will Success come home with Pastor Moses after the wedding? Will he remember my storybooks? Which of my dresses would I wear when he visited next?

  If only I could travel with Mama to attend the wedding. But our church cannot afford to pay the fares of mothers and their children.

  Boko Haram Men

  DO THEY HAVE HORNS and hooves?

  Are their teeth sharp and pointed?

  Do their nails grow long and curl around their fingers?

  Are their eyes slit and red?

  Do they cook their food or chew it raw?

  Are their voices huffish and gruffish?

  Do they eat human flesh?

  Are their ears long and sharp?

  Waiting for Mama

  ONCE AGAIN, I STEP out onto the veranda and peer into the horizon. No sign of Mama.

  Why is she late returning home from the market?

  Again and again, I stretch my neck and peek.

  And then her vast raffia basket comes into view!

  I sprint forward, not stopping until my head is against her chest and I wrap my arms around her waist.

  A Knock at the Door

  THE FILM IS ONLY halfway through and we are keen to know what happens after the man slaps his wife for going out with her friends without his permission.

  Aisha tears herself away from the screen and goes to answer, while Sarah presses the pause button.

  From behind the wooden frame, I hear Malam Isa’s voice. It is soft and tender and authoritative. But there is something else in it that I have not heard before.

  “Ask your friends to start leaving,” he says. “I don’t want them to stay too late, so they can reach home before it gets dark.”

  The something else in his voice is fear.

  In Sarah’s House

  SOMETIMES, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE for my best friend to keep her once-a-month secret.

  On the second or third day, she announces it to the world in screams and yells. She rolls on the floor in her house and wails.

  “My stomach! My stomach! My stomach!”

  I sit beside her and rub her legs, wishing I could take away the pain, divide it in two and take half in my own body so that she does not have to feel the cramps as intensely.

  “Here’s some hot tea,” her mother says.

  “Here are some herbs,” her father says.

  What can I do to help?

  I remember the pink packet hidden deep inside Mama’s bag of clothes. Unlike me, Sarah did not bother to save any of hers. I dash back to my house and return bearing the magic pads in my hands.

  “Here, Sarah,” I say. “You can have these.”

  That way, she won’t have to deal with the pain of the cramps and with the trouble of washing soaked rags at the same time.

  Alone

  NO SINGING OF FAMILIAR tunes or learning new ones. No telling riddles and sharing jokes. No whispering secrets that no other ears will ever hear.

  No hands to hold.

  Me, alone, walking to school. My best friend is on her period.

  There’s a rustling in the trees.

  “Ahhh!” I scream, and flee as fast as my feet will fly.

  But there is no Boko Haram man chasing after me. The raven flaps its wings and takes off.

  Even after I walk through my classroom door and sit at my desk, my heart still hammers inside my chest.

  Surprise

  PRINCIPAL IS STANDING IN front of my house. I nearly drop to the ground and die.

  What could have brought this revered man here?

  After a greeting and a curtsy, I lead him into the living room to see Papa. He insists that I stay with them.

  Papa stands from his mat. His eyebrows are furrowed.

  He silences his radio.

  “You’re welcome,” Papa says once. “You are welcome,” he says twice. “You are welcome,” he says again and again.

  My school fees were late again this term but Pap
a eventually paid, for sure, so Principal is not here to collect a debt.

  But what else?

  “Your daughter has been selected for the Borno State government scholarship program for exceptional children from disadvantaged homes,” Principal says. “Anything—anything—she wishes to study right up to master’s degree level, the government is willing to pay.”

  Fame

  BY MORNING, EVERY BOY and girl in my school knows.

  By afternoon, every father and mother in the village knows.

  “Congratulations!”

  “You’re so lucky!”

  “We’re so proud of you!”

  “I’ll miss you when you go,” Sarah says. “Make sure you don’t forget me.”

  “I’ll never, ever forget you,” I say.

  I reach for her hand.

  Sarah’s scores may not have qualified her to sit for the scholarship exam, but she will still be my best friend.

  Forever.

  I won’t abandon someone with whom I’ve exchanged secrets and clothes and riddles since I was old enough to pronounce words, simply because I am the first child from this village to ever win a government scholarship.

  Heartache

  BY NEXT TERM, I will be in a different world, although on this same planet—in a special boarding school for exceptional girls instead of a village school. One of my sweetest dreams is about to become reality, and yet my heart aches.

  It aches for the life I will leave behind.

  Laughing with Sarah on our walk to school every morning.

  Watching Jacob giggle as he chases lizards around the backyard.

  Munching the handful of Buttermint sweets that Papa brings for me whenever he returns from the market after selling his produce. That’s how Mama knows the time is right to ask for a new wrapper fabric.

  Helping Mama to cook and clean and wash and scrub. How is she going to cope with her Ya Ta gone?

  “Don’t let that worry you,” she says. “Just think how much more help you will be to me when you finish university and get a good job.”

  Mama is right.

  If the vulture satisfies me, then the peacock will pass me by.

  With a University Degree

  I WILL EARN ENOUGH money to ensure that Jacob goes from secondary school to university.

  I will have enough to buy a new mattress for Mama to rest her weary back.

  And then, if there is still money left over from my salary, I will buy a bicycle for Papa, and an endless supply of batteries for his radio.

  I will buy Sarah a new pair of shoes, with heels higher than those of the women in Aisha’s DVDs. And as many pink packets of pads as she needs.

  The Voice on Papa’s Radio

  “NIGERIA’S PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN has announced the sack of his military high command. No reason was given, but the dismissals come amid growing concern about the military’s failure to end the Islamist-led insurgency in northern Nigeria. Mr. Jonathan imposed a state of emergency in three northern Nigerian states in May 2013, giving the military wide-ranging powers to end the insurgency. Several months later, it seems to have had little effect in curbing Boko Haram.”

  “Thank God that we now have a different set of officers in charge of the army,” Papa says. “The other ones must have been doing nothing.”

  Thank God.

  Like Papa, I believe that President Jonathan has chosen new officers who are better prepared and qualified to defeat Boko Haram.

  It should now be only a matter of time before the terrorists disappear.

  Bad News

  PAPA NEVER ALLOWS ANYONE from his family to queue up with the rest of the village when the doctors and nurses from Maiduguri arrive with syringes and stethoscopes in their white van.

  “They always bring bad news,” he says.

  He insists that his mother was healthy until the free health check people appeared, perfectly fine until she received her test results.

  Next thing, she was groaning on a mat in the backyard. Then she was traveling to and from the teaching hospital in Maiduguri. Finally, Papa sold our TV set, and still had no money left to pay our fees for an entire year.

  Meanwhile, the free health check doctors and nurses had disappeared with their white van. After delivering their bad news, they did not hang around to watch Papa’s mother shrivel up in the backyard and die.

  “I am not happy about this medical test,” Papa says. “I don’t want my daughter to do it.”

  “It is a requirement for every child who gets the scholarship,” Principal says. “You need to do it quickly if you’re serious about her enrolling at the special school next term. The government needs to see the results of her medical tests before they can issue her admission.”

  Worry

  Measles

  Kwashiorkor

  Meningitis

  Tetanus

  Whooping cough

  Tuberculosis

  Diarrhea

  Polio

  HIV/AIDS

  From dusk to dawn, my mind runs through the list of diseases I have learned about in science class and from the gory posters on the walls of the general hospital in nearby Gwoza.

  Which one of them might keep me from attending the special school?

  What might the doctors and nurses find hiding in my body?

  Dysentery, malaria, chicken pox—the three major sicknesses I have suffered since birth. Polio passed through our village once and left ten families with cripples, but it did not knock on Papa’s door.

  I pray that we are as lucky this time. I hope that Papa is wrong about medical tests.

  For nothing must come between me and my Borno State government scholarship.

  Pregnancy

  THE NURSE AT THE Gwoza General Hospital says that my pregnancy test result will be sent directly to my new school. Thus ends my jittering.

  The scholarship board is on the lookout for hidden embryos, not viruses or microbes. I am one hundred percent certain that everything will come out fine.

  Dangerous Cows

  THE MAN IN THE seat in front of me is nodding off. Papa sits beside me listening to his radio. I stare out the window of the bus, just in case something interesting happens on the journey from Gwoza to Damboa, where we board a smaller vehicle that will take us to our village.

  Eventually, my diligence pays off, and cows surround our vehicle.

  The bus driver weaves the vehicle past the huge horns and robust rumps while the bulky creatures make their way from one side of the road to the other. I marvel at how far Fulani herdsmen are prepared to traverse while grazing their cattle.

  When they’re in search of greener pastures, Papa says they sometimes roam as far as the southeast of Nigeria, where the Igbo people live, and even to the southwest, where the Yoruba people live.

  If only I could sit atop one of the bulls and ride along. What an adventure that would be!

  The man in the seat in front of me raises his head and rubs his eyes. He looks lazily out the window. Suddenly, he screams.

  “Never drive close to the cows! Never drive close to the cows! The spirit of Boko Haram can enter the cows, so you should always wait for the cows to cross the road!”

  Eyes wide with panic, our driver searches around for the best escape route.

  “Quick! Quick! Quick!” we all scream as he fiddles with the gears, stamping his foot on the accelerator and flying the bus forward.

  Soon, we are away from the cows and safe from danger. Still, my teeth chatter.

  “Thank God!” Papa says.

  “Thank God,” I say.

  Sucking Seeds

  SARAH AND I SLAM our baobab fruits hard on the veranda in her house. After a number of attempts, out tumble the numerous white seeds.

  Sitting side by side, we suck each baobab seed clean of its powdery covering, enjoying the sweet and tangy taste in silence. I will miss her when I leave for boarding school.

  At the end, my tongue is numb.

  “Mine, too
,” Sarah says. “Maybe that’s God’s way of warning us that we’ve eaten too much.”

  We laugh.

  It is time to tell her my news.

  “Mama mentioned that Pastor Moses’s entire family will be coming here for a thanksgiving service next Sunday,” I say. “The new couple plus all his other children. The fasting will start the day after the thanksgiving. That’s what Malam Emmanuel told her.”

  Sarah understands immediately. “Wooooooo!” she sings. “Success is coming, Success is coming, Success is coming. . . .”

  “Shhh!” I clap my palm over her mouth.

  Yes, my storybooks and my Success.

  Just over a week of waiting to go, before I can share my good news with him about the Borno government scholarship, before he will realize that I also will be going on to university like him.

  Mama’s Promise

  “YA TA, YOU’LL HAVE to take care of the house on your own,” Mama says.

  A tingle runs down my spine.

  “No need to look so worried,” she says. “I trust you.”

  Handling the home in the two days of Mama’s absence will be easy, requiring as little effort as tearing a piece of bread. Whatever is inside the chicken, the hawk has been familiar with it for a long time.

  I am more worried about Mama and the churchwomen traveling all the way to Jalingo by road. What if their journey is cut short by the appearance of men with bombs and guns in the middle of the highway?

  “That won’t happen,” Mama says. “Jalingo is safe. No Boko Haram in those parts.”

  She draws me closer, holding my head to her chest.