Abayomi Ogunwale | Klo4

My sister Zaynab was in one of her restless moods. She skipped over to the other side of the road and grabbed Papa’s free swinging hand. My father was in no mood to be disturbed, I guessed, as he wriggled free of her grasp, turned and scolded her.

‘‘Zaynab! You have started again uhn? When it is time for school now, you will start holding your head.’’ He held his head in mockery and began to imitate some of my sister’s best acts.

‘‘Daaadi, please, my head dey pain me.’’ Papa mimed in his best feminine voice.  His hands on a totally bald head and the sight of his knees bent to one side underneath his cream cotton jalamia sent Mama, Aunty Sefina and myself into a prolonged round of laughter.

Zaynab’s pride was hurt. She frowned and crossed over to our side of the street. Papa crossed too, and continued walking ahead as if nothing had happened. He had a lot on his mind: due rent. Grandma’s burial. School fees. All kinds of trouble. Maybe.

Aunty Sefina and Mama soon lowered their voices and resumed their never-ending chatter. Zaynab came to my side and held her arms to her chest. Her face was knotted up in the fiercest of scowls. I understood her message: do not come near me, or you will cry. I reduced my walking pace and allowed the brooding cloud to walk two steps ahead.

As we approached our compound, Zaynab turned from following the others and made in the direction of her best friend, Laraba’s house. Laraba lived just behind our compound.

Papa looked back briefly. His eyes met mine. Then he looked over to Mama, who was looking at Aunty Sefina’s restless mouth, and then back to me. I could feel the irritation oozing out from his skin, as I stood back trying to decide whom to follow. Zaynab promised pain, but she also guaranteed fun. He said nothing as I made to follow my terror of a sister.

Zaynab walked like one who needed to use the pit latrine. I hung back, and talked to my doll, Queen Amina.

‘‘Go back home.’’ Zaynab turned and commanded, with a flare in her eyes.

I stopped walking and looked to my feet for inspiration.

‘‘Plissss, I want to come to Laraba’s house too’’. I pleaded in my boldest voice. Zaynab was not listening, or did not care to listen, as she had continued her march. ‘‘Why doesn’t anybody ever listen to me?’’ I asked Queen Amina.

There used to be a small wooden gate at the extreme end of our compound. To get to Laraba’s house, we often had to go through the gate and walk right across Buraimi’s kiosk and house. I hurried through the gate and walked in on Zaynab and Buraimi talking. From the tone of Buraimi’s voice, I could tell that he had been touched by Zaynab’s poisoned tongue.

‘‘Come and take some sweets’’ Buraimi offered as he rose from the bench beside his kiosk.

As he stood, Zaynab stepped back in fear. I hung back in the shadows too, unsure of what to do.

All the children in Sabo feared Buraimi. We feared the Buraimi we had created. The Buraimi who had used his wife for money rituals, and had pounded her head into a paste; a paste which he had then rubbed on the poles of his kiosk to attract small children like us to buy his wares. We feared the Buraimi who had stopped talking to everybody else since the wife died in the big hospital carrying his ugly baby. I stood back as I watched my sister taking on the most feared man in SabonGari.

‘‘I don’t want your sweets!’’ Zaynab screamed in her characteristic manner. Buraimi stopped walking and looked on her with surprise. He knew we all loved sweets. For a brief moment, he seemed unsure of what to do. Then he smiled and limped back towards his bench.

‘‘So what do you want?’’ He flashed his brown teeth at Zaynab. She had no answer for him. I wondered why she was still standing there, talking with evil Buraimi. ‘‘Go Zaynab, go.’’ I whispered in her direction. She did not acknowledge my presence, but Buraimi did.

‘‘Hey, Fatima, come here, you fine little girl.’’ He suddenly turned and spoke in my direction.

I found myself walking towards his voice. His unexpected friendliness drew my feet to him until Zaynab called the world to a halt with her booming voice.

‘‘Leave my sister alone!’’ She shouted, as I began to wonder if she could say anything without using that shrill tone.

Buraimi was tired of the drama. It seemed he was not expecting such hostility. But Zaynab was not done.

‘‘I will stone you!’’ She announced.

Stone Buraimi? Why would you stone someone as powerful and wicked as Buraimi? I asked with my eyes as I turned to look at my sister.

Buraimi was amused. ‘‘Stone me?’’ He tapped his chest and asked.  ‘‘Why?’’

He didn’t know who he was talking to, but that was not the time to lecture him on what and what Zaynab could do. If Zaynab promises to stone you, you had better go buy yourself the biggest helmet you can afford.

There was no need for clarifications as Zaynab stooped and began to gather as many stones as she could carry.

I think Buraimi realized the futility of his questions too, as his eyes betrayed his fears. With his bad leg, he was an easy target, even for a little girl like Zaynab.

The first stone hit him straight on the forehead. The second missed him, but not the third. The third, a very big, flat stone, hit his chest and sent him sprawling. Zaynab laughed for the first time in days. A high-pitched, unnatural laugh. Then she turned to pick more stones.

Sensing the danger in remaining in front of the kiosk, and the futility of trying to outrun Zaynab with his bad leg, Buraimi began to pick some of the stones Zaynab had thrown. I pitied him as he scrambled on the ground. He didn’t look all that evil again, only miserable, with his walking stick and bad leg. I hoped for his sake that Zaynab tired soon, or that he got a stone big enough to scare her away, or else we were all in for a very long evening.

As Zaynab turned back and prepared to pick a good position to restart her attacks, Buraimi was waiting for her. Before she could swing her arm to release the biggest stone in her collection, I heard a stone whistle through the air, and thud; it hit Zaynab between the eyes, and all the blood in the world began to flow from her head. Then I ran.

Aunty Sefina’s loud voice summoned the whole community. And in the midst of all the noise, the truth stole into the night.

Nobody listened to Buraimi’s account of the events that had transpired. Zaynab’s story seemed more believable. She had the voice, the tears and the blood to back every word that she spoke. Buraimi had…; well, Buraimi had nothing.

And when Zaynab mentioned something about Buraimi asking her to come into his house, Aunty Sefina’s voice became a death knell. There was no going back for Buraimi, no redemption, no possibility of a fair hearing. He was the widower-turned-aspiring-child molester deserving of all the scorn in the world. And watching him as he tried to accomplish the impossible task of out-shouting Aunty Sefina made me sad. I could see the ending: he would lose that match, and worse still, lose every chance to ever state his own case to an unbiased audience.

Papa tried to calm everybody down. He had known Buraimi from childhood, when they were both Almajiri pupils at the Quranic School. But Papa could say very little. Mama’s eyes made sure of that. Aunty Sefina’s voice did the rest.

As the crowd began to ask for Buraimi’s head, Buraimi suddenly began to cry. He knew his fate was sealed. I looked at Papa and for the first time, I saw tears in my own father’s eyes. He looked desperate and his desperation took my affections for Zaynab away, like white flesh from a coconut ball, leaving behind an empty shell -my total indifference towards all that pertained to her from that point onward.

Buraimi did not die that night. He survived with a broken skull and multiple injuries. His kiosk was burnt and he was chased out of the community. Some say he went back to Kano; some say he wanders the earth. Nobody knows for sure what became of him.

But later that night, as I sat in the shadow of the wall, petting Queen Amina and watching Buraimi’s life go up in flames, I rehearsed all the things I would say when I was called to talk.