My new home was a cubicle-like shanty made of rusted roofing sheet on the exterior and plywood on the interior. It was located along the railway in an area popularly called “Oju irin”. Toileting was at the canal not too far behind the shanties and it was not uncommon to wake up to the unseemly sight of excreta in front of the shanties. The environment was perpetually pervaded with stench. My new home had just enough space for the “student bed” on which I laid, a little space for the cooking utensils, basins and a pot of drinking water. Then a little space wide enough for a praying mat which was where Zulaikha and Umu Zulaikha stood while they hovered over me.
Realizing where I was and how I got there I went on another weeping and screaming spell. Not even the plate of rice placed in front of me deterred me. I kicked the meal away pouring it over the floor in the process and that was a first. I never joke with food.
I kept at it for few hours with the hovering duo trying unsuccessfully to persuade me to eat. I was however beginning to feel weak when I suddenly felt dizzy then tremulous. Then I realized my teeth were moving over one another of their own volition and my hands and legs went into a tonic-clonic pattern of jerky movement. Then I lost consciousness. When I came round I found a cup of some sweet drink being forced down my throat . That was when Mathew came in. His voice had a soothing nature and I easily trusted him. He spoke Yoruba my mother’s tongue and that endeared him to me the more. He told me about the cruelty of the world that took away my mother and brother. He then warned me not to trust anybody because all around me were enemies. I needed to watch my back and he promised to help me in doing that too. Then he bade me good night, leaving as dramatically as he had come. I stopped the drink automatically while I refused to take any other food or drink offered me thereafter. I also kept mute and fought back my cries.
By the next morning I had grown more miserable as were my hosts. I maintained my stance despite their attempts at persuading me. Then a complication set in – little Zulaikha also joined in my abstinence, refusing to eat till I broke my own fast. She had also refused to go to school. But I kept up my resolution even though It became more difficult as night approached. I was becoming weaker and hungrier but still very suspicious. Nightfall came and I still could not bring myself to take anything from my hosts. And then the dizziness came again, the tremors, the jerky movements and again I lost consciousness.
When I woke up this time around It was in a hospital with a drip in my arm. I overheard Umu Zulaikha telling one of her friends who had come to visit her at the hospital that my blood sugar was low. Just about then Mathew visited again. He seemed to have changed his mind about Zulaikha and her mother. He told me the duo was my only true friends and that I could trust only these two. He warned me never to trust others. Then he left us after saying “goodnight”.
From that night, the duo became my only family and the only ones I was not suspicious of. Umu Zulaikha took the place of my mother and more. She was a single mother having lost her husband about 3 years ago while she was pregnant of Zulaikha. Balarabe, her husband had been a cloth merchant who hailed from the same village as herself in Kano state. She had just finished secondary school when they got married. She had joined him in Lagos after their niqqah about a year before his death. He had been caught in a cross-fire between two rival gangs while he was returning from a customer at White Sand, another notorious spot in Ijora. His death had made her miserable but she surprised not a few people when she insisted on staying on in Lagos. She also continued her husband’s clothing business surprising even more people. She blamed her husband’s death on the failure of parents rather than the nature of the society and swore to bring up her son in Ijora to prove this. But fate played a funny one on her and gave her a daughter.
But then fate humored her once more and gave her, me.
I got enrolled in the same school as Zulaikha and we always walked to school together. Just the two of us, I made sure. I trusted nobody, she was my only friend. I also had no friend even in my class and was always buried in my books. That along with the extra tutelage from Umu Zulaikha might have contributed to my academic success. I got double promotions and was always at the top of my class. I also became the favourite student in the Arabic class that myself and Zulaikha attended after school. We assisted “Umu” as we fondly called her in the shop after class.
Time passed so fast and it was time to proceed to secondary school. Umu Zulaikha was a happy woman, her children had made her proud. Both myself and Zulaikha gained admission into Cardosa High school that same year. She was just ten while I was eleven. Umu Zulaikha was proving her critics all wrong. It could be done right here in Ijora and she was doing it. Ours was a happy family.
But it all changed the day Mukthar came in to our lives.
TO BE CONTINUED
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- Hassan Bo