The Marriage Ban

It was evening. Falmata stood by the entrance of the mud-walled kitchen in her husband’s courtyard, pounding some boiled yams with a pestle and mortar. She was a dark, slender Kanuri woman in her early twenties. She wore a blue blouse and an orange wrapper with a floral design printed in black. Her braids were tiny, and her nose bore a prominent, circular ring. The steam from the yams rose and played over her face. The bangles on her right hand clinked as she raised the pestle and landed it with a thud against the yams.
Tied to her back was her little baby. He was crying. She would pause her pounding intermittently to rock him to silence, but he wouldn’t stop crying for long.
She could hear the bleating of goats and sheep from afar. Those bleats announced the homecoming of the shepherds, who had spent the day on the grasslands with their flocks. They always heralded the arrival of her husband. She pounded faster.
An old woman threw open the courtyard door and ran in like a young man. Falmata looked sharply toward her. It was Ramatu, one of her neighbours. Ramatu’s eyes exuded fear. Her old looks were overshadowed by an uncanny excitement. Her trembling hands grabbed Falmata’s shoulders.
“Tell me, Falmata,” Ramatu cried, “is your husband home?”
“He’s not home yet. I hope there is no—”
“Everything is wrong, woman! Run from this place now! They are after your life. Do you hear me? Run from here, and come back no more, till it is”
An explosion of gunshots sounded nearby. Falmata shrieked and threw away her pestle. The shouting of women and children began to rise in the distance. Three more gunshots sounded.
“Do you hear that?” Ramatu barked at her. “Don’t stand there like an idiot. Flee from this house at once!” The old woman bolted out of the compound.
Falmata darted out too. In her confusion, she ran in a different direction, along a deserted path. All she could hear were gunshots from several directions. No sound came from the road ahead of her, which gave her hope that she was heading towards safety. She grew even more hopeful when she saw no corpses or wounded people in her path.
She ran hard, her baby crying helplessly on her back. Could he be hurt? When she reached the bush on the town’s outskirts, she bent over and panted. She took her baby in her arms and examined his body. He wasn’t hurt. She tied him again to her back.
A man came sprinting along the path ahead of her, his shirt bloody. He was one of her husband’s friends.
“Tasi’ou! What is going on in the town?” she demanded. He dodged her and ran on. He disappeared around a turn.
A policeman appeared from the same direction from which Tasi’ou had come. He was armed with a rifle and a bloodstained dagger. The dagger was carelessly tucked into his belt and the blood on it stained his brown trousers. He trotted up, eyes darting around.
“Did a man with a wound cross this path just now?” he asked Falmata.
She couldn’t utter a word. Her eyes moved from the mouth of the gun to the ruthless looks of the policeman.
“Constable!” a harsh voice cried out. “Get hold of her. She is Chief Ousmane’s wife! Quick!” It was another policeman. He approached, pointing at her.
Falmata dashed into the bush. Her legs ran faster than they ever had before.
***
The sergeant looked on as the constable raised his rifle and aimed in the direction Falmata had gone. The constable’s finger trembled at the trigger.
“Fire!” the sergeant barked at him.
The constable remained as still as a statue.
“Fire, idiot! Don’t let her go. Fire!” The sergeant would have fired his own gun, but he had run out of bullets.
The constable lowered his rifle and returned the sergeant’s gaze. “No, sir,” he said. “Let this one go, please. She has a baby.”
The sergeant’s frown eased. He looked thoughtfully at his colleague. The constable was right, but what would their boss say? They had been given strict orders to arrest her. “Okay,” he said at last. “But we have to think of how to explain what we’ve done if our boss asks us questions. Let’s go.”
They returned to the shaded spot under the tree where they had parked the van they had come in. Their van was one of about fifty that were packed full of policemen and soldiers who had come to attack the town. The van that had brought the sergeant and constable was now packed with bloodstained corpses.
The sergeant and constable jumped into the van, the sergeant slammed the door and they sped off. At the police station, their boss was waiting for them at the entrance, looking like a fierce and bloodthirsty warlord.
The boss marched to the back of their van to look at the corpses. “Good,” he said. “I guess that is Chief Ousmane’s wife?” he asked, pointing at a woman’s corpse.
The sergeant and the constable moved closer.
“Which woman, sir?” the sergeant asked nervously.
“That one with a bullet to her head.”
“Um, no, sir, but—”
“No, no! I don’t want to hear any stupid stories. Where is Chief Ousmane’s wife? She was one of the people I told you to arrest.”
“She is not here, sir,” the sergeant confessed.
The boss’s eyes flashed. His breaths became loud and fast. He looked ready to grab a gun and shoot everyone around him. He threw a slap but the sergeant dodged it. He threw another and it caught the constable on his mouth and nose.
“Are you stupid?” the boss barked. “Are you sure you are policemen? How can you come back without her? I am going to put you both in the guard room. How can you”
“We are sorry, sir! We couldn’t get her because she ran into the bush,” the constable explained, rubbing his nose and mouth.
“Idiots! She ran into the bush? Why didn’t you chase her?” their boss spat. They were silent.
“Now go to the bush and get her!” the boss ordered. “And don’t come back till you have her—dead or alive!”
***
Falmata was deep into the bush. She was sure the policemen had stopped chasing her, yet she kept running. Her baby kept crying. If only she could get to safety to comfort him! As she weaved between the lofty trees, protruding roots, and fallen logs, her pace slowed to a jog and then to a walk.
Why were they after her? What had happened to her husband? Why had Ramatu asked about him? Could he have been killed for spearheading the burning of the town’s brewery the day before? Tears streamed down her cheeks at these thoughts.
Nightfall caught up with her in the depths of the bush. Birds ceased to sing, and crickets began to chirp. The darkness became so heavy that she could hardly see what was in front of her. Her heart palpitated against her chest out of fear of evil spirits, bandits and the unknown.
She suddenly recognised the path she was treading. It led to a hut where a woman called Kande sold firewood. Falmata had been her customer for some years now. She trotted to reach Kande’s hut but then stopped abruptly and listened. She looked all about her. Could the sounds she was hearing be illusions?
A gunshot rang out in the distance, clearing her doubts. She carried her baby in her arms and moved speedily, like an antelope being chased by a predator. The gun sounded again, and she ran even faster into mud and over huge logs. She tripped on a protruding tree root and landed in a pool of murky water.