WATER: True Story/Not.

I

There’s running water where our girl lives. In the sink in the bathroom, she sometimes leaves the tap on, allowing water through her pores, between her fingers, and down the sink, away from her grasp. She has also tried to catch water, on many occasions. To trap it in her palms and keep it there. But it is easier to hold things that matter with open palms than closed fists.

There’s a woman that cleans her apartment. Or used to clean her apartment. Shy woman, strong woman, mother to eight kids. She comes from a settlement, some long kilometers away from where our girl lives. On good days, she arrives at her job after an hour of putting one foot before the other. On bad days, well on bad days, she doesn’t make it to work. Our girl loves her either ways. Yet our girl let her go. Tough decision it was, necessary it really was.

II

The rain became a regular thing for Saratu since the start of August. This was supposed to be the time of the year she enjoyed the most, with her head on Abdul’s chest. Now, the rain reminded her of what she couldn’t have. There was only blurred memories, and the growing need to scream at someone.

She got out of bed, late again for her morning prayers. A consequence of her growing belly, of sleepless nights and sleep full mornings, of the baby that should bring her so much joy. Her back ached, her heart even worse. Her head, throbbing a little, she made for her bathroom.

First, she turned on the tap at the sink. It was her little ritual. The sound of it, hitting the sink, sinking in, it brought her calm. She peed, intentionally left the toilet seat up, so that the next time she would walk into the bathroom, she would remember Abdul and his little annoying habits. Next, she performed ablution, then, brushed her teeth. Afterwards, she allowed the water from the tap run over her right palm. A memory played itself inside her head. She, playing with water from the sink. Abdul, hugging her from behind, nibbling at her ears. She pushed the memory back, shut the tap and left to say her prayers.

By the time she was done praying, the rain had settled into a drizzle. The cold still lingered, and with it, a sense of loneliness was creeping in.

In hindsight, she really shouldn’t have married Abdul. For the kind of life she craved, the attention she wanted and felt she so rightly deserved, she shouldn’t have married a married man. Especially one so clearly in love with his first wife, one who married her for her womb and what it promised to bear. But she loved him.

He had done business with her father. She had loved him from the first time she saw him on the one day she took lunch to her father at his office. She had made it very clear to her father, through her mother, that she would love to be his wife. When the proposal got to him, he declined politely, said he was happily married. She was not a bad person, but she was hurt by his rejection, she wished for the obstacle between them to vanish. She wished, just this once, one evil. She wished for his wife to die. His son died instead. The boy had been an only child. The wife, she later learnt, had underwent a hysterectomy shortly after having her only child, now lost.

Two years later, Abdul came himself to ask for her hand. He asked for an audience with her first. Told her he wanted her hand in marriage, to give him children. He would provide for her, he said, and be fair and kind and treat her with respect. But, he said, sternly too, she was not a replacement for his wife. She was to never disrespect his wife.

Her mother opposed the marriage, said it was not a good idea for Saratu, 24, with a promising life and many years more to find someone to marry her for the sole purpose of loving her, to marry someone who had made it so clear he was marrying her for a reason that had nothing to do with who she was. A man who had made it clear his first wife was whom he held in highest regard. Saratu was undeterred in her pursuit of Abdul. So that in a matter of weeks, she was his second wife, brought into this two bedroom apartment, with beautiful sinks where water was her best companion.

The marriage happened in July. Abdul, true to his words, was kind and gentle with her and she didn’t lack anything. He split his time between his wives. One week for her, one week for the other woman. On the weeks when he was hers, she felt like a sex worker. She wanted to talk, to get to know him, to connect with him in ways that she needed to be connected to her partner. She wanted to know what he felt, what he wanted, his dreams, his desires (other than wanting children)

He wanted to eat, sleep and fuck. As though his aim was to fuck a baby into her, which in truth, was the purpose of their marriage. She could count on one hand, the few times they had truly enjoyed sex, and it had been purely for their pleasure. Yet she didn’t mind this if she could lay in his arms while he slept, if he would nibble on her ears every now and then, if he would keep reaching for her body in the middle of the nights and in the cold of the rain.

July passed. So did August and all its rain and tangling in the sheets. Then September. No baby. Then October. No baby. Then November, nothing. December, he started to sleep and eat, then occasionally fuck. He didn’t have to say he was disappointed. He wore his disappointment on his face. Saratu too was disturbed. Her one cheque to winning Abdul’s heart was refusing to cash. Was this to be the end of her? Would he send her home, sad and heartbroken?

The new year passed in a blur. His time with her grew less and less. Surely, she got her weeks. But the weeks had become long hours of Abdul going out, then returning home exhausted enough to sleep snuggly besides her. Rinse and Repeat. And perhaps, maybe to keep her hope in her life with him blazing still, a quickie to last her the long week when he would be gone.

It hurt, how his face lit up when his week with her was ending. Hurt how eager he seemed to be to leave her. It hurt more acknowledging the truth, the eagerness was not about leaving her, it was about seeing his wife. She felt used. She felt useless. There were no in betweens.

March came, and he told her he would be traveling overseas for a month or two. A business opportunity to own a branch in the UK, he said. He was going to miss her, he managed to say. And hoped she would be a ‘good girl' while he was gone. That night, he made love to her, really made love to her. And she, she surrendered herself to his ministrations, hoping that somehow, he would take this memory with him and cherish it for the months when she wasn’t there. She hoped, really hoped that it meant as much to him, as it did to her.

Meanwhile, the world was beginning in chaos around her. There was a new virus, they said, it was contagious and could cause death, they said. The school where she was studying for her Masters Degree was closed also. Mainly because tertiary schools across the nation were closed on strike ( an occasion that was designed by the academic staff union of universities to make schooling last longer for students) and now, partly because people were being asked to stay indoors.

Everyday, she prayed for Abdul. On the rare occasions she got him on video call, she begged him to abandon the project and come home. He insisted on staying. Eventually, the country he was in closed its borders. They became distant lovers, in all sense if it this time. She was distraught. She was angry. She was lonely. She was very alone. Except for Maman Aisha, the woman who cleaned for her. She was alone, in a house owned by a husband who didn’t love her.

Her days passed in a blur. Nowhere to go, nothing to do and an abundance of time, gave her the time to obsess about Abdul, about her unhappy state and how it made her even sadder. Once, out of sheer curiosity, hoping to catch a glimpse of despair somewhere, she stalked Abdul’s wife on Instagram. There, she saw a picture that made her faint. Somehow, Maman Aisha found her almost lifeless on her bed and raised an alarm. Together with the gatekeeper and the driver, they took her to the hospital.

Connected to an IV fluid, she called Abdul. He appeared alarmed at her current state. Yet she wasn’t interested in his concern, his pity. She had just four words for him, four words that would confirm her suspicion and prove to her, her worthlessness.

‘Is she with you?’

She saw it in his eyes before he answered. It was in his hesitation, the look of guilt that he wore on his sleeves, and the stammer, always the stammer. She ended the call before he had a chance to explain. There was no need to explain, he had always been true to himself. She was the one who was a fool.

At the hospital, she was told she was pregnant. Had been pregnant for a while, even. Didn’t she miss her periods? They asked. Why didn’t she take a home test? She thought about answering them, thought about how to explain to them her ability to love Abdul so insanely that everything else dulled behind him. Everything else, including her life. It was late April. She was nearly four months gone, they said. She looked away.

When she got home, she wanted to be alone. So she let Maman Aisha go. She let the gateman go too and kept the gate closed. She had her water. She had her baby. She had the last laugh. She refused to speak with Abdul. Or her parents. Refused to entertain guests or honor invitations. Her life revolved around the house, then sometimes the hospital for checkups, then sometimes the ATM for some cash. Abdul sent in money every month. Every country had it’s border closed. He wasn’t coming home soon. She wasn’t sure she wanted him home anymore.

But on this day that we began this story on. This rainy day in August, still early in the morning for a visit, someone was banging at the gate. And was refusing to stop.

Saratu was going to return to bed for another dose of sleep but, certain that the person at the gate was determined to continue till she answered, she threw on a hijab, picked an umbrella and went to the gate. Maman Aisha greeted her with a smile. Drenched clothes, bruising knuckles, wrinkling around her eyes but with a warm smile. Saratu did not have the heart to turn her back, she ushered her in.

A change of clothes, a cup of tea and some thirty minutes later, Maman Aisha was no longer shivering. Saratu studied her, she looked to be in deep thought. And then she caught Saratu staring at her and smiled.

Without being asked, she told Saratu that she was pregnant again. She was carrying her ninth child. And so she needed a job to support her family.

Saratu though, wasn’t sure about employing her again. These were dangerous times, she tried to convince herself. Yet she could not deny needing the extra hands and no one knew how to clean her house like Maman Aisha did. Looking for a short escape to think, she excused herself from the tea drinking woman. She stepped out of the house, breathing in the sweet post rain air.

The drizzle was now gone, the ground still wet. The power had also been restored. It occurred to her to put on the pumping machine, as she called it, before the water in the tank ran low. She put on the switch, it refused to come on. She tried again a couple of times, same result. She started to panic. How could it just spoil like that? What was she going to do without water?

III

Everyone called her Maman Aisha now. No one seemed to remember that she was named Asmau. Even she couldn’t remember her life before being a mother, and a grandmother.

Three years ago, her husband had given their daughter’s hand in marriage to a farmer in the neighbouring settlement. Aisha now had two children, a boy of two and a baby girl at her breast. So that at 30, she was now carrying her 9th child and occasionally, babysitting her grand daughter.

She was having a luck filled day, which in her case, was one rare day out of many. She had just returned from where she used to work, before the rich people decided that there was a sickness that could kill people. As if people were not going to die eventually. As if dying was a crime that had to be prevented at all cost. She had also gotten her old job back, and it was not because she did anything particularly outstanding.

Her Hajiya’s water machine spoilt while she went to beg for her job. She knew a plumber who had a shop on the same street. By the end of the day, her Hajiya had running water again. The machine was functioning properly, Hajiya was happy, the plumber was happy, and she was happy she got her job back. There was the thing that Hajiya said about covering her nose while she worked, but all that was secondary. The most important thing was that she would have money to pay for her surgery, and hopefully, she wouldn’t die.

The last time she gave birth, the doctors had wanted to tie her womb. She had begged, and promised to not give birth again. They had given her a bottle of drugs to take so that she wouldn’t get pregnant. She was also told that she could come for a refill at no cost. She agreed, and took her drugs religiously. That was three years ago. She didn’t miss even one drug, until some months back.

Her husband, who offloaded goods from trucks for a living, was home with her, out of jobs. There was no money. Most importantly, there was no water. There was a well they shared with the three other neighboring settlements that was a hustle to draw from. The water trunk pushers had inflated their prices. They had no money, seven children to feed and little to no water or food.

Her job too was eventually taken away from her, and the rains were slow in coming this year. At first, she tried to get disposable pads, that didn’t work. She then washed up some old clothes and made them into reusable pads. That failed too. There was barely any water to make food and drink, she couldn't bear wasting water on washing clothes soaked in no good blood.

It was on one evening that her husband brought her to the decision she arrived at. She had just dried her sanitary clothes on the line when he told her that he would have to marry out their second daughter to a water trunk pusher if she kept ‘wasting’ water. He said he was joking, said he meant nothing by it. She did not believe him.

That night, as she watched over her sleeping children, she decided it was best to not have to waste water. Her second daughter was just eight. She wanted this one to go to school, to live a life where she would not be tied to a man like her husband, to a village like hers, to a fate determined by the availability of water.

It was why she was with child now.