REKIYA & Z

Zaynunah Classes were over, and the other girls had gone to their hostels. I should have been headed to the school gates, but I sat alone in my empty classroom. Crying. Over something so inconsequential, I do not remember what it was anymore. All I remember is I was crying my teenage angst out, and Rekiya walked in. I’d seen her before, of course. She was the Hausa girl with the rich, Yoruba father. But our paths had never crossed. She was a commercial student; I was in the sciences. She had a horde of very popular friends; the girls who wore their regulated scarves with as minimal covering but as much fashion statement as they could get away with. Whose conversations revolved around boys, parties and celebrity gossip - they were the self-appointed queens, at the top of the social ladder. I, on the other hand, was the friendless new girl who had not even merited a place on the metaphorical ladder. I had been mortified when she walked in on my pity-party and, after an initial startled glance, I kept my head down; trying to control the sobs, if not the tears streaming down my face. Being found in such an ignominious condition only compounded my humiliation and I wept even harder. Quietly. It was a while later before I realized that Rekiya had not left like I expected her to. She had been standing over me the entire time, silent. She did not ask what the matter was, did not offer any comfort; she just stood there with an eerily blank expression that was unfamiliar to me. In my world, consisting mainly of teenage girls, everyone felt everything and had no reason to hide said feelings from anyone. And growing up in Ibadan, where the average stranger was not shy to tell you exactly how they feel, when they feel it strongly enough, it was an unnerving expression to behold. It was yet another reminder of how different I was from this girl standing before me; all she was, all that I could never hope to be; and I felt myself morphing from self-pity and mortification, to anger and defensiveness. ‘What?! You never just get the urge to cry?’ I eyed her balefully. ‘No.’ The quiet response was so unexpected; I did not know what to say. Majorly because my question had been rhetorical - I had expected returned bravado, mollifying platitudes, evasion or awkward silence, not an answer. But who on earth does not cry? I mean, obviously not in public places where you can make an embarrassing spectacle of yourself but… ‘No.’? And if, by some super-power, that was true, who goes around saying that to the girl that just had a cringe-worthy cryfest witnessed by the much cooler, and-not-a-friend, girl? ‘Crying is a luxury affordable only if you have someone to console you.’ Rekiya had settled into the seat across from me. I eyed her again. There was something vaguely sad about her words, though I couldn’t put my finger on it. She met my eyes briefly, then looked away. ‘My father left when I was eight’ she said, her blank gaze settling somewhere above my head. ‘I haven’t seen him since. A year after he left, my mother sent me here and got married. So, no, I do not cry.’ Rekiya I maneuver the car through the crowded road flanked on both sides by the boisterous Bodija Market and marvel at how little has changed in the years since I was here. The road, still chocked to almost a single lane on either side, was teeming with traders, street peddlers displaying their wares in innovative manners that had no regard for the traffic swirling about them. And their customers, haggling over the smallest bit of a bargain, they all paid no heed to whatever inconvenience they caused. Bargaining is a time-honored tradition in this part of the world. Pedestrians and commuters abound, coming, going, chasing or dropping off from the numerous buses. The danfo buses – and surely, these were the most ragged contraptions to bear that name - idled or drove by at snail speed. Hanging off the space for the usually absent doors, the conductors added their own lyrics to the cacophony of noise. ‘Agbowo. Yuu-ai. Ojooooo!’ The scene held the distinctive bustle of an African city yet was less frenetic than would be expected of one this size. It was a welcome relief from the almost manic pace of Lagos, had a much slower and less desperate air to it. The place boasted a distinct something – a soul, if one was being prosaic – that I never noticed until now, was lacking in Abuja. This is the incongruous, seemingly irreconcilable oddity that is Ibadan, the largest city in West Africa. A feeling of home-coming, as undeniable as it was fleeting, washes over me. I lived in this city for a mere seven years as a girl. Most of it in the controlled environment of Al-Huda; the Girls-only Muslim boarding secondary school I attended. I haven’t been back in ten years. It is disconcerting that I felt – even so briefly - as though this was home. It is something I never felt about any other place in my entire rootless existence – not in the city of my childhood and current residence, and definitely not in my country of birth and citizenship-by-default. A few meters ahead, beyond the chaos of the market, I make a turn. The roads in this largely residential area are older. The tarred surface is always in a perpetual battle with the dirt path that would have – in a country where things like that mattered - been a sidewalk. Erosion from a high annual rainfall, the lack of an effective drainage system, and the endemic absence of a maintenance culture made it a losing fight. This road was nothing but a narrow strip of tar, which was fringed on both sides by large path of dirt, and generously dotted with potholes. I pull into a side street and… stepped back in time. Nothing, at least none that I could see, had changed here. If anyone ever ascribed a ‘sub-urban’ appellation to Ibadan, it would be to this neighborhood. The streets were somewhat planned – a throwback to an era before everyone that could, grabbed a piece of land to put down a structure with no thought to pesky details like drainage or even thorough-fare. The houses are old, bungalows or single storied, with low fences and fenestrated gates. When I stayed here, most had been occupied by the owners – older, mostly retired folks, with long-empty nests who saw no need to hide behind six-foot walls and impenetrable fences. And though they lacked the elaborate ostentation of newly constructed structures, it was a serene environment, so incongruously close to the mayhem of the market. I park on the street in front of a nondescript single-story house and shove down emotions that threaten to overwhelm me. Since the phone call yesterday, I had gone from feeling nothing to feeling… everything. I can’t handle my emotions, or so my former therapist always said. I do what she was forever accusing me of - I push them all away, take a deep breath and exit the car. The gate is not locked, something else that had not changed. If memory serves, finding it locked in daytime meant no one was home. The door swings open inwardly before I get the chance to knock. Though I couldn’t see into the shadowy interior of the house from my position in the blazing sun, I know there’s someone behind the door. That door has been a hijab for the women of this house since long before I knew them. I step into the cool, dark house, and find myself automatically going through the motions borne from a lifetime ago - I move off to the side, toe off my shoes and turn to put them away. The shoe-rack is different, newer, but it occupied the same spot. ‘As-Salaam alayki warahmatullaah wabarakah.’ Zaynunah stood where I had envisioned her, in the space hitherto shielded by the now-closed door. ‘I am so glad you could come.’