No Escape
AL-BAKURA IS IN OUR sleeping area. I am confused. The Leader arrived yesterday.
And it is not yet pitch-dark. Al-Bakura is not tiptoeing. He is striding from one end of our sleeping area to the other, accompanied by Amira, pointing from one girl to another.
“You!”
God does not answer my prayers. He points at me.
“You!”
I must flee.
But everywhere I look, trees, shrubs, and armed guards, many of whom cannot be more than a few years older than Jacob.
God help me.
A Gift from Allah
“THESE ARE YOUR HUSBANDS,” the Leader says. “Rijale, great fighters, commanders of this great army of Allah.”
At first, his words do not make sense.
He points to the battalion of men sitting cross-legged at his right-hand side. None of them look familiar.
Maybe they arrived with him. Maybe this is all a dream, a new type of nightmare.
It is not.
Amira vanishes behind us. Malam Adamu steps forward to do the introductions.
“Husseina, this is your husband.”
He points at a man with skin as light as condensed milk.
“Rabiyu, this is your husband.”
He points at a man who is as bald-headed as an egg, with a beard as dense as the Sambisa.
“Maimuna, this is your husband.”
He is short, the smallest of the entire battalion, like a full stop in the middle of a sentence.
On and on Malam Adamu goes until we have all met the men we are to marry on Friday. Zainab’s groom has a thin, fresh scar running all the way from his right eye to the corner of his lip. Mine is wearing a cloth mask.
“These are the virgins that Allah has prepared for you,” the Leader says.
I now know why the Boko Haram men have been tiptoeing and taking only the women. The rest of us have been preserved for the rijale. We are their reward for being brave murderers.
Right there and then, I decide that the land mines are a risk worth taking. Flee.
That is what I must do next.
Run
WITHOUT MY CALENDAR TO assist me, I have lost count of the number of evenings and mornings that I have spent in this place, but one thing I know for sure is that Friday cannot be more than six days away. The sooner we make a break for it, the better.
“We must set off as soon as possible,” I say.
“The land mines will blow us up,” Zainab says.
“I’d rather get blown up than marry that man,” I reply.
How can I get married to a man I do not know? Why does he keep his face covered? What does he have to hide?
In any case, whether he chooses to bury his face in a mask because it looks like a hippopotamus bottom or whether he is wary of dazzling damsels with his divine beauty, I do not want to marry him.
“Please, don’t leave me here,” Aisha says. “Please.”
The size of her belly would make running impossible. But she isn’t the one being forced to marry a Boko Haram fighter.
“I can’t stay here. I can’t get married. I would rather die,” I say.
“But what if they catch us?” Zainab says.
“Whatever punishment they will inflict on us can’t possibly be worse than forcing us to marry those men,” I reply.
“Marriage may not be as bad as you think,” Aisha says. “I didn’t know my husband before my parents decided that I should marry him. They chose him for me. But he turned out to be a good man.”
“Your husband was not a member of Boko Haram,” I reply, my tone harsher than I intended it to be.
Aisha is not deterred.
“At least you will get better food to eat,” she says. “And your husbands will not let anyone whip you with a koboko. Also, they will allow you to sleep in their tents rather than out in the open.”
Aisha’s opinion is selfish, inspired by worry about being left behind rather than by our wishes and welfare. Nevertheless, she has a point. Marriage to Boko Haram has its advantages.
But, to a man who kills and maims for a living? Who does not believe in reading books? Whose home is inside the forest?
The thought is too lumpy for me to swallow. I shake my head from side to side.
Never.
“But where can someone have a wedding inside the forest?” Zainab asks.
I continue shaking my head.
“I don’t know and I don’t care.”
“If you run away,” Aisha says, “what will happen to Jacob? They may decide to get him from wherever he is and kill him as your punishment.”
I stop shaking my head.
New Life
SUCCESS IS OFFICIATING AT my wedding to the man in a mask. I am about to say “I do.”
“Argh!”
Aisha’s scream jolts me awake from my nightmare. Zainab and everyone else are also awake. The moon is making its way back into its home in the sky.
Almost time for prayer.
“Ahhhh!”
We pull on our hijabs and hurry toward Aisha.
She clutches at twigs like a drowning man. She scratches the air like a woman possessed by demons. She is writhing her torso like a snake that has lost its head.
I kneel beside her. She grabs my arm and digs her nails into my skin.
“Ow!”
“Argh!” she replies.
“Aisha, what is the matter?” Zainab asks.
“Isa, look what you did to me!” she replies. “Isa, where are you? Look what you have done!”
My mind flashes back to the day Mama had Jacob.
“Her baby is coming!” I shriek.
One of the older girls pushes past us and raises Aisha’s skirt.
“Jesus!”
“Argh!” Aisha screams.
“Push!” the woman says. “Push!”
Aisha takes a deep breath and contorts her face.
I hear the shrill cry of a newborn at the same time that Aisha heaves a deep sigh and closes her eyes.
“It’s a boy,” the woman says.
Aisha does not respond.
New Mother
AMIRA TICKLES HIS CHEEKS and kisses his lips and gibbers into his ears.
Zainab grabs Aisha’s two hands while I take hold of her two legs. Her ankles are as bony as a camel’s knees.
“Hurry up!” Al-Bakura says. “Stop wasting my time!”
Two Boko Haram men about Isaac’s age stand waiting by the Hilux van.
We lay Aisha in the back of the vehicle, careful not to slam her body too hard against the white metal. She may be dead but she is still our friend, not a piece of firewood.
As the Boko Haram men drive Aisha’s corpse away, I try to pick up the pieces of my shattered soul.
As Amira takes Malam Isa’s first son away, I try to force my feet after her and grab my friend’s child.
“At least Aisha is happier where she is,” Zainab says, wiping her nose. “She is together with her husband.”
At least the new baby will have better food than watery broth to eat, never mind that its new mother may not have any milk running from her nipples.
Conversation with Aisha
“STOP WORRYING ABOUT YOUR breasts. All you need is to pray for a husband who likes them just the way they are. My husband told me that he doesn’t want mine to grow any bigger. He likes them small so that he can cup them in his hands.”
That was what she once told me, a secret about her and her husband, which I plan to take with me to my grave.
I never got around to asking her what it feels like to touch the hand of a man you love.
And now, I may never know.
Two Days Later
MY EYES HAVE STILL not shed a single tear for my precious friend Aisha.
New Clothes
AMIRA FLINGS THEM AT me.
A blouse and skirt of many colors with which to replace my rags, to change clothes for the first time in . . . how long?
And a black niqab.
Friday
PAPA IS NOT HERE, no uncles are representing him, no extended family has been invited.
Who will accept the groom’s proposal on my behalf?
Who will accept my bride price and gifts from the groom’s family?
Where are the kola nuts, sweets, and bags of salt with which the groom’s family will formally make their intentions known?
Where is his own extended family?
Dismal and silent, like a funeral procession, the new brides are led by Al-Bakura to the back of Hilux vans.
“Why are you not rejoicing for this great thing that Allah has done for you?” he asks. He laughs. “If you don’t know it, you’d better know it now: your husbands are great men.”
Soon, we are off to our new home in the forest, to our husbands’ lairs.
Leaving Aisha’s dead body behind. Leaving Malam Isa’s newborn son behind.
How will Jacob know where to find me?
On this ugliest of days, my heart rejoices at its straw of happy news when Zainab and I are placed inside the same van.
And may I never set eyes on Al-Bakura ever again.
. . . For having left, in the Caliph’s kitchen,
Of a nest of scorpions no survivor,—
With him I proved no bargain-driver,
With you, don’t think I’ll bate a stiver!
And folks who put me in a passion
May find me pipe after another fashion . . .
—Robert Browning, “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”
Fanne
ON HER FINGERS, WRISTS, and ankles, Fanne displays more glittering jewelry than Amira did. She welcomes us with a steaming basin of white rice and tomato stew. I have never been more grateful for a meal. I keep expecting to wake up and discover that it was all a dream, the aroma disappearing into hot air.
With my spirit, soul, and body immersed in the rice and stew, not once do I remember Jacob or Mama or Papa or my brothers. I forget that Zainab is by my side.
My mind is consumed with pushing more and more of the rice down my throat. The one blot on my enjoyment is worry about how long the food will last before the basin is empty.
“You will be happy here,” Fanne says. “Your husbands are brave men. They will take good care of you.”
Two Drops of Water
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THIS new camp and the previous one is the difference between a drop of sewer water and a drop of puddle water.
I am still inside the Sambisa forest, shrubs and trees everywhere. The Boko Haram men are all over the place, like maggots in rotten fruit.
But at night, I do not sleep under a tree.
I do not put up with insects clamping their jaws into my skin.
I do not imagine crustaceans and creepy crawlies beneath my mattress of twigs.
I do not panic each time the sky changes from blue to gray.
I do not shiver while the rain drenches my clothes and seeps into my bones, or while the wind screams and slashes my face.
I do not hear the weak ones among us wheezing and coughing till dawn.
I do not wake to find someone two bodies away from mine frozen in her sleep.
I do not wonder whether I will be among those chosen to ferry the frigid corpse to a Hilux van, so that the Boko Haram men can bury it beneath a baobab tree.
No.
In this new camp, I am free of all that.
I am to sleep inside a tarpaulin tent that has a flat mattress on the floor and a thin flap covering the entrance and a dim electric bulb hanging from the low roof.
And the man in a mask.
The First Time
THROUGH THE WINDOW OF my niqab, I watch him watching me through the two holes in his mask. My heart slams against my chest.
His eyes are sharp, each like a pin. His legs are stretched out in front of him on the mattress. He is long and lean.
His upper half is in a brown singlet. His lower half is in camouflage trousers.
What is he hiding behind the mask?
His eyes travel from my head to my heel, making a brief stopover at my chest. His eyes travel back from my heel to my head, making yet another brief stopover at my chest.
And then the voices start playing in my head.
Mama’s voice.
“You are a woman. From now on, you must be very careful of men. You must never allow a man to touch you.”
Principal’s voice.
“To boys, you are just like a trout darting about in the stream. They have their rod and line in hand, waiting to catch any fish that is foolish enough to bite the bait instead of leaping out of the way.”
Pastor Moses’s voice.
“The Bible tells us that the devil goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom to devour. Women, be sober, be vigilant. The devil, the devourer, will often come to you in the form of a man.”
And here I am with a man, an angler, a predator. Alone. Stooped in his tent. At night.
Like a rabbit fleeing a fox, I turn around and take to my heels. I dash through the thin flap of the tent.
Something obstructs my passage. I push. I shove. The something pushes and shoves back.
Fanne.
Legs astride and bottom curved backward, she barricades my exit route.
My blood bubbles with panic. The man in the mask rises and takes a step toward me.
I scream.
I flee in the opposite direction, toward the big, black gun resting on a pair of boots.
He follows. I leap over the mattress. I stumble on a Quran.
He grabs a handful of my niqab and pulls me into his arms.
I scream.
He throws me on the mattress. I pick myself up and scramble away from his feet.
He grabs my shoulder and flips me over.
Last Night
I KEEP SHOVING IT out of my mind.
I keep shutting my eyes to make it disappear.
At last, I force the memory into a cage and bolt it with a metal padlock, then fling the key deep into Lake Chad.
Delicious
I AM STANDING WITH my best friend after our first set of Quranic classes, when her husband, Ali, walks past us with other rijale.
He stops.
For an alarming second, his hand hovers so close to hers that I worry he is about to touch her in public.
He lowers his head and coos like a mother talking to her month-old girl.
“You’re a delicious woman,” he says. “Has anyone ever told you that before? You’re the most delicious woman I have ever known.”
A smile creeps into Zainab’s eyes. It disappears almost immediately.
No.
I must have imagined it.
Advice
MY MISSION IS TO ensure that my husband is always happy and well.
“If he is angry, you also will be angry,” Fanne says. “Your duty is to make sure that he is always happy, so that you also will be happy.”
I do not know if I remember what it feels like to be happy. I do not know if I will ever feel happiness again.
But I do know that bucking will not relieve a donkey of its burden. As long as the animal is tethered to its owner, he will simply place the load back on the donkey again.
Silver
MY HEART SOMERSAULTS WHEN I see it.
From underneath his pile of folded shirts, it peeps.
Should I? Should I not?
The temptation is too hard to resist.
Hands shivering, I reach for the silver metal and run my fingers along the smooth edge.
My new husband owns a laptop.
I wonder if Success is thinking about me right now. I wonder if he misses our little chats. I wonder if he will be devastated to learn that I now belong to another man.
Life of a Wife
FETCH WATER.
Wash clothes.
Wipe boots.
Cook.
Wash dishes.
Tidy tent.
Lie in the dark and wait.
>
I am no longer a slave of Boko Haram. I am the slave of only one man.
Osama
IT IS DIFFERENT FROM the name with which Malam Adamu declared him my husband.
It must be a name he chose for himself.
It is certainly not a Hausa name.
It does not sound like an English name.
What, then, could it be? Or mean?
Maybe this name by which other rijale hail my husband is Arabic.
Maybe it is a Muslim name that I have never heard before.
Maybe it is a name he made up from his favorite vowels and consonants, just because he likes the sound.
Scar
“HE TOLD ME THAT a Nigerian soldier tried to kill him with a sword,” Zainab says. “But he overpowered the soldier with his bare hands and broke his neck.”
Zainab knows how Ali got the thin, fresh scar running all the way from his right eye to the corner of his lip. I still don’t know why Osama wears a mask.
“He said there’s no single soldier in the entire Nigerian army that can fight him and win,” Zainab adds.
Zainab has conversations with Ali, never mind that he seems to do all the talking while she does the listening. Osama has no time for any utterance other than matrimonial commands.
Mesmerized
HE ROLLS OFF ME and flips the silver gadget open on his lap. I lie still.
His fingers fly across the keypad, tapping and clicking. Surely using a laptop cannot be as complicated as I had imagined? If only I had asked Success to teach me how to turn it on.
A picture comes up on the screen. He clicks. It moves.
A crowd of barefoot ragamuffins is gathered in front of a Boko Haram flag, knives and guns hanging from their fingers. The next scene shows the boys scatting and screaming, waving their guns and knives in the air. Another scene shows one of the boys stepping forward to stand beside the Leader, who has his right foot on the head of a man whose hands and feet are bound. At the Leader’s command, the boy applies his knife. Blood gushes from the man’s throat.
Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree Page 9