For Josiah...

“Enough for three?”

Droplets of rain make a pitter-patter sound on the rusted aluminium roof over my head. My focus is solely on the rain. It sounds like a funny thing to be doing at this time, but I’ve worked out the rhythm - just like Josiah taught me. It seems to fall fast for a few seconds, then it slows, before it picks up again. I close my eyes, angle my ear towards the roof and try to predict when the pace will pick up again.

Voices start to disrupt my concentration. I shut my eyes tighter. If I focus hard enough, I’ll escape the sounds in my shabby hut, but it only gets louder. I sigh and abandon the activity, opening my eyes. The room is barely lit by a small candle in the corner. A few women are sitting in groups, filling the room, and whispering to themselves. Between their whispers, they throw me pitying glances, and I can almost tell what they are saying.

“Such a young girl.”

“How can such a fate befall her?”

“They were just married.”

“Imagine seeing your husband in that state.”

I close my eyes again to shut them out. I knew I was a pitiable sight. Sitting on the floor with my back resting against the worn-out mattress. My hair is a mess and my body has been unwashed for a week. I can feel the cold floor biting into my legs, but I am too fatigued to move. I notice the rain has slowed again, making the voices in the room louder.

“Wafa, please eat something”

I open my eyes. It’s my best friend, Kuku. Only I call her Kuku. When we were younger, I couldn’t pronounce her name, Kulifa, so I ended up calling her Kuku. She smiles at me, the smile is hard. The type of smile that feels like a burden, almost like her face has not consented to the smile, but she forces it anyway.

I couldn’t tell if the hard smile was because of my situation or because of the disfigured right side of her face. When Kuku and I were 8, I remember not seeing her for a year. I heard Mama whisper to her friends that Kuku had a demon living inside her, so she had to be shipped from native doctor to native doctor. I heard in whispers that Kuku was cursed. They had to whisper because Kuku’s father was known to unleash hell on anyone who spoke ill of his ailing daughter. We all knew the rumours, but no one dared to speak them out loud.

When Kuku came back, she looked nothing like I knew. The right side of her face was slurred and stiff. This only added to the rumour that the devil took over her body, but to me, she was Kuku. My kuku. Her laugh was still the same, her soft eyes, Kuku would do anything for me, and I, her. She was always by my side, just like today.

Kuku pointed at the floor with her eyes. There was a bowl of porridge in front of me, between my outstretched legs. I had to eat. But why?

I looked up at Kuku without saying the words.

“For the baby”, Kuku whispered, answering my unspoken question.

She pointed to my stomach with her eyes. It had started to protrude, but not enough to be visible. I could easily pass for a well-fed woman. Kuku was the only person who knew about the baby. Well… and Josiah.

I had to eat to raise a baby? A baby, whose father…

Kuku stepped into my thoughts again.

“Wafa, please don’t do this to yourself. The baby needs you”, she said quietly, making sure the women all sitting in my little living room could not hear us.

I looked up at my friend. I knew her heart was breaking for me. But I also knew this visit was routine. We all did it in the village. She had to leave at some point. There were others to visit.

Others whose family members had suffered the same fate at the hands of the herdsmen.

---

Three months ago, when the herdsmen came to the village, we ran into the bush like we always did, but Kuku’s father was caught. He screamed at us to keep going. He was shot dead that night along with many others. I lay on the bed with Kuku for 5 days. I was the one begging her to eat. Josiah came to see us, but knew not to ask me to come back home. We lay like that until Kuku got up one day, and sent me back to my husband.

But now, that husband…

---

Eight nights ago, the herdsmen struck the village. We knew the procedure. We were to run into the bush when the ruckus started. I wrapped myself up in my clothes, Josiah took my hand, and we started running for the bush. We didn’t look back. We had nearly made it when Josiah and I bumped into a figure with a gun.

He smiled in our faces- a rotten smile. A scar ran from his left ear to his mouth, and his brown teeth, sharpened at the edges, were the star of a sinister smile. His eyes were red and soulless.

We both fell to our knees, begging him to spare us. I knew he was high on something, and our pleas were most likely going to fall on deaf ears. He was going to drag us back to the village, and Josiah would be shot first. I’d be raped and then shot. But I begged anyway. I lay on the ground, still pleading, when I heard a blow. I looked up to find that Josiah had punched the man in the face. It was a death wish.

“WAFA RUN!”

I hesitated a bit, but I heard him again.

“RUN! NOW!”

I took off, not looking back. That’s the last time I saw my husband, at least in his original form.

I heard the scuffling but kept running until I heard the shot. I stopped in my tracks and looked back. I saw nothing. I waited. Maybe Josiah was the one who pulled the trigger. Maybe he was about to tear into the forest and find me. My eyes wide, expectant, searching, waiting, darting in every direction, hoping to see my husband’s dark skin, full head of hair and reassuring smile.

Instead, I heard grunts, leaves trashing and “SWINE, I WILL FIND YOU”

I turned and ran deeper into the forest.

---

I came back into the village when the sun came up. They had left.

In the middle of the square, I saw burnt people. This time, they didn’t leave the bodies for us to bury; they burnt them. I stared, cursing myself for not knowing which of them was my husband. How could I not tell? How could I not tell which one was the body of the man I’ve slept next to for the one year that we had been married? How could I not tell which body belonged to the man I breathed next to every night? The man who taught me how to make little bows from palm fronds? Who brought me nunu every evening when coming back from work? Who sang to the baby in my belly every night? The man who died for me.

None of those things mattered now. I didn’t know who he was. I could not tell who my husband was.

Women, children, and men wailed at the scene while I turned away with dry eyes and walked back to the house I shared with Josiah, now empty. I sat there, on the floor, and stayed there.

---

The women leave; they have to make condolence rounds. I was not the only one who lost someone. Everyone was grieving. But Kuku stayed.

I knew the routine. We dig a hole for all the bodies. We wail. We scream. And then people come in from out of town with their cameras and little phones. They shove it in our faces and ask us to recount the trauma of losing our family members for the viewers. They tell us that it is better to cry so the government can see our pain. And even though our eyes are sunken from crying, we cry. They nod and say that’s good. They say they will be back with help, but we never see them until the next attack, when they come back with their cameras.

They came to my living room, and as usual, they shoved the camera in my face. It’s my turn this time to recount my trauma. The story of a young widow. They stared at me with wide expectant eyes, leaning in and almost drooling, waiting for the story - no, my story - to be trapped in their little device. But instead, I stared at them, silent and unresponsive, refusing to give them any part of Josiah until they got tired of waiting and left.

As they turned away and started to leave my little hut, I had an idea. I instantly got up from the floor and chased after them, but before I spoke, I heard one of them saying;

“This one is not so good, but at least we will get 100k views”

I cleared my throat, and they turned to me.

“Please help me. I don’t have money. But I will cry for you on that thing”, I pointed to the camera.

They seemed to hesitate, so I pulled up my blouse, revealing my protruding stomach.

“I am pregnant. I can cry well well.”

They smiled. A young pregnant widow’s tears after an attack on a village in rural Nigeria were bound to get them all the views they wanted. Even though I didn’t understand what views were, I knew they really liked it.

We struck a deal.

They were going to get me what I wanted if I cried, and I had a lot of tears for Josiah.

---

Josiah,

It has been over a month since you were taken from me, and I knew it was going to happen anytime now. When I started to hear the sounds of people running and gunshots in the air, I knew they were back.

I clean the revolver with a cloth, like I have done every day.

For the past month, I have taken more care of the revolver than I have of myself. Or our baby. I am sorry, I know you’re disappointed, but this is the most important thing now. I need to come back to you, Josiah. You say I am strong, but my strength has always been in you. And yours in me. One does not function without the other.

The gunshots are getting louder, and I know they are nearing our house. I should do it now, but first, I am waiting for that one. The one with the scar that went from his lips to his ear. The one that killed you.

I don’t care what they do to my body when they catch me. Our baby would never know the pain of death because she hasn’t tasted life. And I will make sure she doesn’t taste death at their hands. It will be in my hands. I will carry her gently in death. I will carry her to you.

But right now, I sit in the dark. And I wait.

Our door bursts open. My eyes went hard, but softened immediately when I saw that it was Kuku.

Kuku misses you. She misses me too. She says it’s like I died with you.

“Wafa, let’s go!”

I shake my head. I wasn’t going anywhere.

Kuku stared at me. She knew I wasn’t leaving. She shut the door quietly and came to sit next to me. She was tired of running, too. She looked at the revolver.

“Enough for three?

---

Sorry that this story was bleak. Nigeria is currently bleak. But here is a song to cheer you up?