There are some faces that fade into oblivion. You forget them; their structures, their voices, the memories they hold. Until someday, out of the blue, in the middle of a totally regular day, you cross paths with them, and suddenly, you are confronted with a rush of fervid emotions.
For me, all I had to see was his name.
Carefully inputted in black ink on a glossy white card and tucked away in my mother’s dresser, buried among a jumble of books and papers and bottles of creams was Farouq Muhammad, and a woman’s name, beautifully keyed beside his. Suddenly, the large envelope I was searching for in my parents’ room to put her CV in was forgotten. All that rang in my head was… Farouq is getting married tomorrow.
A lump so tight, so heavy formed in my throat, I dropped from my squat and sat on the floor, my legs stretching forward. I remained in the same position for several seconds, unmoving, the card still in hand. There was a certain kind of down-ness I felt that was hard to explain. It was the kind that snatched away every other emotion. It was also the kind of down-ness I felt I did not hold the right to have.
I had prepared for this final seal to our story, the moment where all things are certain, where maybes and probablys no longer existed, where all hopes would finally be put to rest. I had even allowed myself to imagine it: How although there would be tinges of secret longings for one another, we would still be content with what life had decided.
I had imagined that on our different wedding days to different people, I would be smiling that simple smile of his, and around the corners of his eyes, there would be creases. The kind I had always found oddly endearing. There would be no hard feelings, because we were friends long before we knew what friendship meant. He would still help with designing my website and renewing the domain registration every year, and I would still help with drafting his reports and official letters. Not once in those rich, fertile imaginations, did I think he would marry first, and I would be left feeling something so intense, so mind-ripping it would be like grieving the actual death of a loved one.
Lateefa entered the room just then.
“You’re bleeding”, She said. “Your lips”.
I ran my tongue around the corner of my lips, feeling the hard bites and marks, and tasting something tangy I knew to be my blood. Biting my lips during pensive moods had become almost a reflex for me. But I had never bitten so hard that it bled.
Lateefa tilted her head, bringing it closer to my face, trying to catch a glimpse, to gauge my mood. When you happen to be the clown of the family, the one with the humour and quick wits, every silence is treated with suspicion.
“Is everything okay?” She asked
“Yes”.
The suspicion stayed. She didn’t trust my yes. But she looked past it and focused on what was most important: my interview.
“I think you should be on your way. Otherwise, you’ll be late. As for the envelope, I’m sure you’ll find where to get one on your way there”.
***
Before exchanging our first words, I already had a sense that Farouq and I were going to like each other. This was because my elder sister, Lateefa, and his elder brother Mansur, also liked each other. Mansur came over to the house a lot. We knew him before knowing any other member of his family, even though they lived on the street next to ours. It was through him that our mothers became good friends.
Mansur would come over to the house, asking to see our mother, saying he came to greet her. And mother, who was already impressed by the boy’s well-mannered conducts, would come out of her room, flattered by his consistency, hug him and call him her shy-shy son. She would fetch him food with chunky meats, oblivious to the glances he and Lateefa were sneaking at each other.
He made Lateefa extremely bashful which I had always found amusing to watch. Our housemaid, too, liked their gateman. He wrote letters where he called her endearing names like “My queen”. I knew this because it was I who read those letters to her. It was also I who helped in writing her in English, while she dictated the words to me in her Cotonou-coated Yoruba, ending it, too, with “My king”.
And so, the first time I met Mansur’s brother – watched him walk into our house, greet my mother in the same manner Mansur would usually do, hear my mother call him her second shy-shy son, I just knew that we would share something together, something similar to what my elder sister and his elder brother had.
It did not matter that we were still small. Me, thirteen. Him, fourteen. He must have thought the same thing. That would have been the only reason he tagged along with his brother, the reason he stayed back even after eating the rice and beans my mother gave him, lingered around until my mother went into the room to perform her Asr salah.
“What is your name?” He asked, but not in the playfully bashful way his brother would always speak to my sister. He did not smile either, did not stand leaning or fiddling with anything. He simply asked, standing with his hands clung to his sides.
“Fisayo”.
“How old are you?” It felt like an interrogation, to test, to see, if I could be the one.
“Thirteen. I will be Fourteen by December.”
“I’m older than you”. He smiled now, as though delighted by this realisation. It was a half-smile. But he smiled. That was all that mattered.
And I smiled too.
***
Living in places around Central Area made one forget how traffics like these were the norm on a Gwarimpa weekend. With its spiralling shops and plazas, its hospitals and labs, overwhelming restaurants and cafes, and its confusing numbers of avenues, the Gwarimpa Federal Housing Estate was a world of its own. The chaotic traffic that afternoon made me want to abandon my car in the middle of the road and just trot for SunTrust Group office. I was late. And it wasn’t just that I was late for my interview, it was that my CV and other credentials were lying on my passenger’s seat, naked and unstapled.
The Toyota Corolla in front of me moved. I moved, too, slowly, passing an array of cars and bikes and keke napeps. Just ahead, a man selling balloons of different shapes, some of them blown, others not, began sounding whistles. Raw emotions swelled in my chest, making it hard to breathe. I did not notice the beggar who walked up to my car, holding out a steel plate. Or the man knocking on my window and pointing to the windscreen wipers he had for sale. I did not notice him move to raise my crooked wiper, showing me the streaks and smudges the blades had left behind my screen. But the inflated balloons several rows ahead of me, I saw.
On my thirteenth birthday, Farouq brought balloons. He had struggled walking in through the door, holding those beautiful blown balloons of many colours and many designs. They must have been about eight. It was my first gift from somebody who was not my mother or father. I held the balloons around the conjoined tied tips, then around the inflated sides, not sure how to play with it or what to do with it.
“Let me help you”, He said, taking it from my hands.
He threw the balloons up in the air, and caught it. Then, he tossed it to me. Awkward at first, I held onto it with both hands. He gave a nod, urging me to toss it back. I did. The balloons sailed through the air, passing from my hand to his and back again. By the time the balloon bounced and floated away, we were already giggling.
“Do you like it?” He asked, a hint of laughter on his face.
“Yes”.
When he left, Lateefa came forward, clapping her hands in astonishment and laughing, “Wonders shall never end. So, you too have started collecting birthday gift from a boy, your boy-boy”.
“He is not my… boy-boy?” I said. But he was. Whatever boy-boy meant. I just was not about to admit that to my elder sister.
Because the minds of young teenagers can be very fleeting, very transitory, because a teenager typically had school to go to, lessons to attend, homework to do, and exams to prepare for, I forgot about Farouq most of the time. He stopped coming over, too, as frequently. It would often take something as subtle as catching a glimpse of him when my mother sends me to their house to give something or collect something, or hearing the mention of his name – with his mother telling mine about how Farouq now cooks very well, how he had cooked a very delicious fish stew and rice for dinner – for me to remember that I had a boy-boy, and it was Farouq.
2go was what brought us back together, fully and wholly.
He had sent me a friend request one night. Familiar name, I checked his profile picture, and my heart leaped. I once read somewhere that love was about feeling butterflies in one’s tummy. I felt nothing in mine, not even the standard rumbling induced by hunger. What I felt was a leap, and it was in my chest. The leap was something close to an ache, a throbbing tingle. And it took only his profile picture to make that happen.
My heart yearned for him, for the memories of balloons, of laughter, of bashful smiles. Now a clever and confident eighteen year-old, I hesitated giving him my phone number when he asked for it.
“I don’t like being disturbed”, I had told him on the chat box. It wasn’t a lie, but it also wasn’t the truth. I hated the noise that came from ringtones, hence dreaded having calls come in. But also, I did not mind Farouq being the source of the noise.
“Not even from your childhood bestie?” He typed back.
I sniggered, kicked my bed sheet away from my legs, and swung it up in the air. I sank my head into my pillow and grinned hard.
“Do you remember when I used to pull your cheeks?” He asked.
I did not remember, I told him. But what he did not know were the many other things I remembered. The deflated balloons I had in my school bag until my SS3 when I lost it, the days I would follow a longer route to Mama Sule’s shop, passing the uncompleted building with sprawling shrubberies, because it meant I would get to see the front of his house, the rapid beating of my heart when I passed by, hoping that he would come out of his gate and I would see his face, and on days that coincidence worked in my favour and I did see him, the way we would both look at each other smile, blush, and walked past without exchanging words.
***
Once, he told me, “I’ve been praying a lot lately… you know, about us”. His eyes held a kind of longing that was wistful, melancholic. It was beautiful. It made me nostalgic for things I hadn’t quite experienced before. Like the magic and awe of experiencing a kiss for the first time. I wanted to hold that gaze in mine and carry it along with me everywhere I went.
“What exactly about?” I asked. He had come to visit me that day, and we were sitting outside the girls’ hostel of University of Abuja. He was done with his NYSC, now working in a private law firm in Garki.
“I can’t tell you”.
“Why?”
“I just…” There was the look again, then his lips curved into a slow smile. “I don’t want to risk it not coming to pass”.
“Okay, just a clue?”
“Let’s just say it has something to do with me and my childhood bestie”. Something about the way he said it, made me know what it was. I suppose long before then, I had always known that someday, Farouq and I would marry. But that day confirmed it. And I welcomed this knowledge like a warm hug.
“You didn’t even bring anything for me”, I teased in an attempt to deviate the attention from my tingling fingers and nervous excitement.
“Don’t you know I’m trying to build anticipation”, He joked. “If I keep bringing things for you, how will you be surprised at the ones you will get when we are married?”
“Hmm, smart. What will you get me on our wedding day?
“If I tell you, it won’t be…”
“Just tell me jor”.
“Suya. But we will eat it together ooo”.
Crash!
***
The sound of the crash was distant. The impact, however, was what made me jump, my seat belt digging into my chest. My hands shaking, brazing not only for the inevitable yelling and attack but also scared at the sudden awareness that I had been so taken away from my present mind while behind the wheels.
A Sienna was behind me, honking. 1.2.3. Others joined.
The Sienna swerved to the next lane, reeling until it came to a stop, slightly behind mine.
“See? I told you” A voice came out from the vehicle. “Only a woman would drive like this”.
The first thing that comes to mind in an accident like this is to gauge whose fault it is, which really means who will be paying for damage? That was the first thing I did. There was a Corolla in front of me. The rear bumper and booth were crushed.
The woman behind the Corolla wheels got out, fuming.
Disoriented, I stumbled out, too. “I’m so sorry, ma. I was…”
“Please, this is not about being sorry”, She said. “How are we going to fix it?”
***
The first time I saw my father break down, I was in my second year in the University. Auntie Shukura, my father’s sister – their last born, who had gotten married to a Hausa man from Yobe had just called to say that her husband had professed divorce to her, declaring it three times – an indication that it was now Haram, prohibited, for both couples to marry again.
“I told you!” He yelled on the phone, his eyes bright red, affirming the cautions and pleas they had given her when she tussled with every member of the elders in the family, in order to marry him. This was just two years ago. Now, my father was here, his phone to his ear, shaking with blazing indignation.
He hung up, plopped on the chair, and threw his hands on his face, shielding his tears. It broke me, seeing my father like this; dejected, fragile, broken.
My mother crouched on the floor to meet his lowered face. She opened her mouth to say something, but what could she say?
That week before my December break ended and I went back to school, Auntie Shukura came home with her boxes. My father and mother were the only ones who went to pick her up from the park so what was said in the car, I did not know. But they walked into the house in heavy silence. My father first, his face, hard, his gait, fast and determined. “Leave the boxes in the booth”, He said. “We will pack them when it’s dark”.
Then my mother and Auntie Shukura walked in next. During the days that followed, Auntie Shukura cried, she told stories of things that happened, swearing and calling God’s name to be her witness if she was lying, and I wanted to hug her. I wanted to tell her that she would be fine, but most importantly, I wanted to tell her that she did not have to swear, that I believed her, I believed her version of the story. And it did not matter if her husband had gotten me my first blackberry phone, if he had always been kind to me. My loyalty was to her, this ethereal auntie of mine with her clear skin and warm smile, who now looked wretched–because of a man.
There were several comments from family members regarding Auntie Shukura’s in-laws, which extended ultimately to the people of his tribe.
“None of his family can even call to say anything to us,” My father’s elder brother said. “This is the disrespect we are talking about with these people. Are you trying to tell me that if it was a Hausa girl he divorced like that, his family would not reach out to her family and extend their apologies?”
“This is why I have been telling my kids”, My father said, his voice a slow thaw. “Just because you were born there does not mean you are recognised as being from there”. And by there, he meant Yobe and the rest of the north. I never recalled him mentioning anything of such to us. But something about the way his eyes wandered around the parlour and settled on the kitchen’s door, made me realise he was sending a message to us. Lateefa and I. But I casted it off, very quickly, in the same way a smoker would discard a warning label. My mother and father loved Farouq. They called him a good boy, their shy-shy son.
Surely, our situation would be different.
***
With no money in hand, and with the Corolla woman yelling her voice away, the only person I thought to call was my father.
“I’m coming there now!” was all he said.
“My father is on his way”
She looked at me with a confused frown, as if uncertain as to how that revelation was any of her business. “Is he a mechanic?” She asked.
“No!”
“Then what is he coming to do? Why are we waiting for him?”
Caught unawares, I stumbled with my words. Really, what was he coming to do? He could have easily sent the money. But no, he had to come. He had to be sure his daughter was fine, never giving her a chance to make her own mistakes and learn from them.
“Your daddy will never allow it happen”, My mother had said when I told her that Farouq would like to show his face officially.
“But you can convince him”.
She heaved a deep sigh. “What an elder sees when he is sitting down, even if a child climbs an iroko tree, he can never see it. Have you seen your Auntie Shukura of recent, have you seen how miserable she looks, how thinner she is getting? A bad marriage is all it takes. And it is not that there is no risk in all marriages, it is that the risk is lesser when you marry from a culture you recognise as yours”.
I wanted to argue this. I knew Farouq. Farouq knew me. Farouq was mine. I was his. Farouq who made me feel giddy with pure excitement, Farouq who had bought me balloons, Farouq in whose eyes I could see wistful yearning. That Farouq would not be like Auntie Shukura’s ex-husband.
“Please don’t cry, my baby”, My mother moved to pull me to her chest. I let her. She moved to wipe my tears. I let her. She made tea for me, fed me spoon by spoon. I let her, even though what I truly wanted to do was throw the mug against the wall, crumple on the floor and cry. They were killing my childhood dreams, yet I let them. Easily.
And when Farouq pleaded that we fight for our love. That they would later oblige if we persisted. I scoffed at the idea, with tears brimming down my eyes. This wasn’t Bollywood. I was not going to fight my mother or father, however that would happen. I could never bring myself to do that.
Instead, I listened to them, taking in every word, every reason they gave as to why they were in the best position to know what was good for me. I cried, but not in front of them. I cursed, but while away from home. In a way, this anger I could not feel towards my parents, I directed to every Yoruba man I came in contact with, every Yoruba man that flirted with me. It was a kind of livid envy.
How dare you be what Farouq cannot be? How dare you be Yoruba? And so, I had a firm resolve in my mind; I would not say yes to any man. Then when I get to 30, around the time every parent would naturally be concerned, my mother and father would be the ones to beg.
It was a misplaced rebellion, a rebellion that, really, was dead with the dappled shadows of a fallen tree. Because why couldn’t I rebel in a normal way? Why couldn’t I have persisted more? Why choose a rebellious path that wouldn’t even be recognised as rebellion until all things were gone and forgotten.
“I am calling my own mechanic”, The Corolla woman was saying now.
***
“Na wow o”, Lateefa had said to me when she was told about Farouq. “So, you people still continued this your love thing”.
“How did you even do it? All these years, from JSS to university and you did not get bored of him or even get interested in other men.” She said, her face holding a look of amused interest, as though she could not possibly believe it, as though she genuinely wanted to be made aware of how I did it, how we did it.
I was annoyed by the question, betrayed even, because in many ways that I did not want to admit, she was right. There were other guys besides Farouq.
The same way teenagers in primary and secondary school can be very fleeting and transitory, young adults in university can be just like that. Except that with theirs, it comes not because of the busyness of their growing life, but because of the distractions of it. It was not that Farouq was not enough. It was merely that there were guys in different sprawling faculties I found attractive, guys I was infatuated with, guys who I feverishly pursued because I found them interesting, guys who I might not have liked but whose attention I indulged.
“Aunty, come see. This Absorber don damage, and you see this bumper? We go need to change am”.
“Oga, please wait first,” I said, then directed my attention to the Corolla woman. “Sorry ma, can we give it like five minutes. I really don’t have cash on me”.
The woman burst into a rapid barrage of Nupe. I did not blame her for this anger.
***
I looked miserable. I could see it through my parents’ panicked movements as they raced to where the mechanic was working, where I was seated on a large rock with my palms propping up my jaw. It was too late to discard the glum on my face and put on an active performance of hilarity when greeting them. They had seen me, and now, they are worried.
“What is the matter?”
“Did they harass you?”
I looked at them, this sheltering parents of mine. Tears gathered in my eyes, blurring my vision. And for the first time since seeing that wedding invitation card, I wept. Somewhere from outside myself, I could hear my chest wheeze and splutter. I wanted Farouq to be mine again. I wanted to have him pull my cheeks, have him smile at me in the self-assured but slightly reserved way he usually did.
I wanted Suya, too. I wanted to be the one with whom he would eat Suya, the Suya that was supposed to be our thing. In all this hysteria, I could feel my mother’s hands on my back through my silk blouse, rubbing it, pacifying me, I could see my father’s legs as they paced around me with fidgety worried steps, I could imagine their shared worried glances. And although I was still crying, although I knew that there would be days when the memories would come back, when I would miss what was and what could have been, I knew, quite forlornly, that if the universe constricted and time rolled around to bring back that moment, that moment when I had to choose, I would choose my mother and father. Again!
Maryam Abdulkarim writes like she observes life—with curiosity, awe, and a nostalgia for the unknown. Born and raised in Abuja, Nigeria, she splits her creative energy between writing, public relations, and voice-over work—three ways of saying she just really loves stories. Armed with a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mass Communication, she’s published essays and fiction on National dailies like Daily Trust and This Day. She reckons that when she is not writing or reading, she can be found in a park somewhere in the city, eating ice cream and watching people, observing them and creating lives out of them with her pen. Maryam also runs Abuja’s Storytelling Bookclub, where people come for the books but stay for the conversation. Instagram: @themar_yam, X: @themar_yam
Cover photo credit: afra fadile