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―Yes, with your gracious
permission.‖
―You have my permission,‖ Mallam
Bazza said, suddenly getting excited and
putting on his glasses. He excused
himself and cursed at the boy washing
the car, a child of about twelve, for
having missed a spot. ―Maybe he
thought because I was talking to you I
wasn‘t paying attention? The young lazy
thing! I hear you will be leaving us
soon?‖
―Yes, Mallam, I have to return to Jos
where my home is and where my future
awaits me.‖
―I have been told. But we are happy
that you have come at all. And I know
you will not forget your first home, where
your father and your mother were born.‖
―I cannot forget Bolewa; its pulse is
in my veins. I will surely return
someday,‖ Faruk replied.
Silence fell on their conversation.
Abdulkadir Bazza looked Faruk over
in his mind, putting all that had
happened between them in perspective.
The boy was wearing a crème coloured
kaftan with a red keffiyeh blanket across
his shoulders but he wasn‘t wearing a
cap. Abdulkadir Bazza knew all about his
daughter‘s love for Faruk, in fact, Maryam
had confessed it to him and told him that
Faruk did not want to love her. He had
admired Faruk then for not taking
advantage of his daughter‘s infatuation. It
was not in the place of a man to speak
with the male friend of his favourite child,
an only daughter whose heart was
breaking already from such a friend‘s
imminent departure, but Abdulkadir
Bazza hoped Faruk would take leave of
his daughter in a kind, proper way.
―Allah rene,‖ Mallam Bazza said, in
Fulfulde this time, before continuing in
English, ―Maryam is inside, you may go
into the zaure and wait for her. I will be
here.‖
But by the time Faruk and Maryam
came out of the house ten minutes later,
there was just the boy waxing the car.
Maryam was dressed in a crème gown
and had a black veil over her head; her
hands had just been done with new
henna designs, the black dye standing
out against her light skin. Faruk had
always been fascinated by her hands and
wrists—by the subtle grace about them,
slim and nimble. He always teased her
about the first time he had seen her
drawing water from the well—her ploy to
come to see him. Now, three months
later, she looked like a girl who should be
happy—yet a benign bitterness was
eating at her heart.
―What‘s wrong with you?‖ he
asked, ―Are you unwell?‖
―Nothing. There‘s nothing wrong
with me,‖ she said, hiding her eyes away,
willing herself to not ruin their last
moments together with tears. Faruk‘s
crème dashiki matched her outfit and she
fiddled around absentmindedly with the
three-cornered cap he had stuffed into
the Toyota‘s cubby hole. She looked
outside the window as they left the
houses of Wuza behind and passed the
stretches of untenanted land between the
quarters of Bolewa on their way to the
GRA where the durbar was to be held.
They drove past children and young
people dressed in finery, mostly caftans
of various colours and fez caps—all on
their way to the GRA Polo Ground.
Maryam was caught between conflicting
moods—on the one hand trying to
contain her sadness that Faruk would be
leaving for his woman in Jos, that though
they had shared so much he still
belonged to another, and on the other
her desire to savour her last moments
with him. He had passed up the
opportunity to ride in a procession in
order to see the pageant from the public
stands with her. Yet, while she was
dressing up for him, when she heard his
Saraba | Issue 13 | Africa 103