By Maryam Altine Baba
Chapter three
The three sisters sat in the old room that was scarcely furnished but was enough to serve as their room, with a space for any female guest that visited them. Given Malam’s nature of generosity, they had a lot of them.
Even as guests were honoured in the house, Zainab had maintained a territory with a clear limits-off zone in the room they were forced to share with them. No one touched her things, not so much as sat on her side of the room. She washed her sleeping mat regularly and let no one touched it, even for prayer.
As the eldest daughter, Asma’u had acted as a mother to her siblings, despite the fact that their mother existed. Their mother had given birth to them, cooked the meals they ate, swept the house and did all that was expected of her. Apart from that, she was nothing.
Khadija was everything; a daughter in-law, wife and a sister in-law. But certainly, was not a mother, after all, there was so much to being a mother than giving birth to a child. She maintained a certain distance and had not made any clear impact in the lives of her daughters. She only kept quiet. And when she was forced to take a stance, she would be by her husband’s side. She never stood up for them. Not even once!
From the day she set foot on Malam Tijjani’s house, Khadija had been the perfect obedient wife and daughter in law. She tolerated whatever was thrown her way. As the matriarch, her mother in law Dabbo took reigns of the house affairs and ruled it like a queen, a wicked queen.
The house rules were enacted by her and she dictated every tune. No one dared to eat or cook any meal that was not approved by her. They ate what she liked at a particular time. Asma’u remembered when their mother had given birth to Hauwa, their father had bought red meat for roasting and barbecue, chicken for soup and millet for gruel pap, but their grandmother had ordered that dambun zogale, a concoction made of the moringa leaves and ground corn flour, be prepared for three consecutive days. That, she fed a woman who had given birth!
To her, it was as nutritious as it can be, so she claimed.
Khadija’s parents had given her away to Mallam Tijjani because she had insisted, for they had chosen someone then for her. Like any other young girl at that time, she was vibrant and bubbly. Though she came from the remote village of Gangar she held the world to ransom with her gait and beauty.
All the boys in her village had paid Kwando, the local vocalist to praise her beauty during the harvest festivals known as Leng. Some went far and took food items to their house. There were some that went to her parents’ farm to cultivate it for them. That was how men showed interest in a girl then. The parents would choose from the group of suitors a proper groom for their daughter.
Khadija did not like any of her parents’ choices. She wanted to have a life that was much better than what she was used to and had hoped her marriage to Mallam Tijjani would be colourful and adventurous.
She was mistaken, gravely. Her mother in law hated her with a passion. To her she was a savage and trapped her son in marriage so she would enrich her parents.
Khadija had never complained to her parents. She couldn’t face them with any. So, she did all she could to keep her ‘Happy marriage’ happy.
Except that she was not happy. She pretended everything was okay but it wasn’t. Asma’u had observed that keeping up with an unhappy marriage could rub off on the children. After all, they were the green grasses where the elephants fought.
In Khadija’s pretext, she failed to notice them, had ignored her very own children. It was a sacrifice of some sort and Asma’u hated that particularly. It was simply to appease her never-pleased mother in law.
When she defended her children, she was endearing them, and when she didn’t, her children thought her to be a coward. So, she chose silence. And that hadn’t worked out fine for her either.
It made Asma’u and the rest of her sisters suffer and starved of their mother’s love and care. Their father had somehow tried to make it up for them. But he failed to give them the love they deserved.
When Dabbo was on her sick bed, she didn’t trust Khadija with her care and therefore Maijiddah had come from her matrimonial house and occupied her brother’s. Dabbo had lost her eye sight then, but she made sure her daughter Maijiddah replaced her. She was given money meant for food supplies and had straight access to the house granary.
According to Dabbo, Khadija could not be trusted with the grains lest she used it to enrich herself. Maijidda could however, use the grains as she willed, sometimes she even sold them to her personal benefits. Yet, no one dared raised an eye brow. khadija simply sends the children to Malam Shehu’s house for some grains, while Malam looked on helplessly.
Even after death, Dabbo still haunted them. With Maijiddah as the apprentice turned expert in the hell department, nothing had changed. She left her home permanently to become a second Dabbo and ruled the house. She made her sons like kings and chastised Khadija for giving her brother only girls.
The girls washed and cleaned after them. The kings’ meals were prepared by Khadija separately and specially, worthy of kings. The girls ate scraps, leftovers of what the boys had eaten, if they were lucky.
Maijiddah went a step further by wanting the girls to hawk to enrich her. Her sons wouldn’t look at the platter, let alone engage in any trade. But of course, she claimed girls were liabilities and needed to earn money so their marriage expenses will be taken care of.
According to her, that was all they were good for. It was their father that had intervened, luckily. He had reproved of his daughters to hawk and made it clearly forbidden. Their mother kept mum and wiped away silent tears at night.
Asma’u didn’t need their mother’s tears; she needed her to care more than she was letting on. Since they got nothing, she stepped up and stood up for them as she did now. Their mother hadn’t defended them today albeit the fact that Zainab was wrong.
“I cannot believe you would go to this extent for Ali.” Asma’u said skeptically, as they sat within the confines of the room. “I know you love him, but….”
“Oh save it sister!” Zainab interrupted rudely. “Just let me be.”
Hauwa gasped, “Haba Abu. Is that the way to talk to Ma’u?”
Zainab eyed her, “When she made her choice during her time did I not support her? And I know one good favour deserves another?”
Asma’u closed her eyes in an effort to shut her mind and control it. She opened them again and looked at her younger sister. She looked like a dragon about to spit balls of fire. She needed to calm her down, to make her see reason.
“Abu, you have no idea of what I am going through right now. If I knew then what I know now, I would have saved myself from such a big mess.”
Asma’u tried harder to blink back the bitter tears that stung her eyes. It was hard, life was hard and unfair. She was a pretty girl with the right looks and shape that every boy and man eyed.
As a young girl; she thought she had everything and was on top of the world. She made her own decisions and stuck with them, whether they went against her father’s or not.
Now that it crossed her mind, she’d made decisions that went against her father’s. She did that to annoy Aunty Maijiddah and Dabbo, because she knew most of his decisions were influenced by them. She didn’t want to give them the satisfaction.
Now she wished she hadn’t made those decisions, for she was stuck with them for the rest of her life. But somehow, she realized she had to stop her sisters from committing her mistakes.
“Whatever it is,” Zainab said, “I know that I want to be with Ali for the rest of my life. I can’t live without him. Even if life got tougher I know with him by my side, I will be able to face it.”
Asma’u sighed heavily. They were not of relief, but of regret. That was her exact thought, her point of argument back then. Armed with that, she fought the world. How wrong she was proven….oh how wrong!
“I completely understand Zee. But Malam had asked Ali to bring the ‘sadaki’ in your regard but he hasn’t done so yet. It’s been more than a year now.”
“I don’t care if it is ten years.” Zainab snapped. “I am willing to wait”.
“Come on Abu. Nobody in that family is willing to let Ali marry you!” There, she’d said it. It was obvious that Ali’s family was against their union. Surely, she had to see that.
“Says who?” Zainab challenged her sister.
“Why else haven’t they come forward with a proposal for you on his behalf?” She was willing to tread on sensitive areas just so her sister would see reason. She wasn’t one that gave up easily.
Zainab wasn’t one to admit faults or defeat either, even if it was obvious she was wrong. She turned her face the other way to show resistance, “Since when do I need their approval to love? Nobody should tell me what to do”.
“Ba ki isa ba, wallahi!” Aunty Maijiddah interjected. “You didn’t give birth to yourself, and you were not carved out of woods. We will tell you what to do and you must obey.”
She walked in to their room unannounced and boldly. Obviously, she was looking for trouble. It was not the first time she had confronted either of the sisters in their rooms.
To her credit, Zainab looked away and completely ignored her. None of the sisters responded. It was very much unlike them, especially Asma’u. Initially a dotard, she was the one that faced their Aunt square in the face as a matter of fact. Now, she’d become weak and exhausted not just emotionally, but physically as well.
Or maybe she still believed down in her heart that Zainab was wrong. She was wrong to fall in love with the wrong man; wrong to insist on marrying him and wrong to take their father to court regarding that. All their father did was tried to get her married to the proper person.
Aunty Maijiddah braced up a step further, “You are a spoilt manner less brat with a lack of proper upbringing. I blame your no-good savage mother who failed to train you. She has ruined my brother’s life completely and now you girls have taken after her while she watched on by the side. What a bloody savage!”
There was a momentary deafening silence as the sound of the slap echoed in the room. A look of horror and shock rented Aunty Maijiddah’s face. Her mouth was agape, but no sounds came out beside the gasp that had escaped earlier.
“You slapped me?” She’d sounded flabbergasted. Her son Habibu and brother Malam Tijjani appeared at the scene as if they were conjured up.
“This imbecile slapped me! She slapped me!” Her voice was now raised to reflect raw anger. She began to scream but Malam Tijjani dragged her out of the room together with some of their neighbours. The house was in commotion for thirty minutes or so. It took lots of neighbours to calm Aunty down, not that she had given up.
