Ragayar Dutse (Alƙawarin Daren Daɗewa) by Nana Haleema.txt

Description

A woman sits crying in a room while a group of people ask a stranger to take her daughter. They say the mother has agreed, though plainly not by her wish, and that leaving the girl in her care would put the child’s life in danger. They ask the man to give the girl the upbringing he himself has, an education as far as his means allow, and to show the world, whenever someone sneers at her, that she has a father. He turns to leave. Then the mother speaks to him in the Fulani language and says she will come back for her daughter “duk daren daɗewa”, however much time passes. Her eyes close and she collapses on the spot without a breath. This is how Ragayar Dutse by Nana Haleema begins. The pages that follow leave that room behind and move to Yola, in Adamawa State, where two households press hard on the people living inside them.

In Shagari Phase 2, a woman known as Woman leader is talking Maimuna into going to Saudi Arabia for domestic work. She says it pays five hundred thousand naira a month, mocks wives who wait for a husband’s permission, and asks what a divorce would really cost anyone. Maimuna, who still has a daughter named Safeera to marry off, wonders aloud whether the sum is true and ends the talk by saying she will be the one to go. The scene is short, but it introduces an argument that runs through the excerpt: who gets to decide for a woman, and who pays when she decides for herself.

Into that room walks Islaha, greeting in a soft voice. She is a journalist at a television and radio station, no older than twenty five, tall, brown skinned, with large round eyes. The text says audiences have taken to her face, her smile and her ease before the camera. The narration is equally direct about her character. She does not take instruction well, has a ready tongue, fears nothing, decides quickly and sometimes before thinking, and is kind and respectful toward anyone who respects himself. She grew up in a children’s home. At home she greets Umma warmly, is looked over from head to foot by Mama, and is told to go and put the food on. She is tired, and the narration says so, but she would never tell Mama.

Mama is the mother of Saheer, the man Islaha is expected to marry. Saheer himself does not appear in these pages, only in what the women say of him. Mama tells Umma, whom she addresses as Maimuna, that she agreed to the match because Islaha knows her and will sit wherever Mama spreads the mat, and because she will not share control of her son with a wife. Islaha, she says, has no kin on either side, it was Saheer’s stubbornness that brought her into the house, and Mama could cancel the engagement today. Between them the two women trade opinions: that Islaha is bold, that her work keeps her out of the house even overnight, that Saheer loves her so much it unsettles his own mother. One of them wonders aloud about the parents who left her in a children’s home, and the narration offers no answer. Mama closes the conversation with a threat to deal with her.

The evening brings another scene about money. Mama’s daughters Hanan and Labiba come home near maghrib, dressed and perfumed. Hanan hands over three bundles of five hundred naira notes, a hundred and fifty thousand in all, which Mama calls too little for so long a day. Labiba has brought two hundred thousand and says she has paid for a new phone. When Labiba says she is tired, Mama demands to know what her boyfriend did to her. Umma asks, with open scepticism, what the men are paying for if not what Mama has warned the girls against. Mama answers that her daughters earn by a woman’s cleverness, not by giving themselves, and tells Umma to stay out of her house. The narration does not settle which of them is right. Mama then goes to Islaha’s room and says today’s money must be brought as well, reminding herself that the girl is not fed for nothing. Islaha, whose tongue has just been described at length, says “to Mama” and goes to wash and pray. In the hall, Hanan asks whether the girl is on the same footing as them. Mama says she is an adopted child. Labiba asks whether she is not the one their brother will marry, and Mama answers that nobody has seen the wedding yet.

The second half of the excerpt moves to Mafi’s Quarters, the compound of Alhaji AbdulAziz Zubair Yola, a wealthy man whose son is known as a young tycoon across Africa. The narration lays out his four wives with some care. Hajiya Saddiƙa rules the house in his absence and her children lead its affairs. Hajiya Salamatu has one son who is unwell, and the rest of her children are daughters. Hajiya Nadira is Indian born, a gynaecologist, gentle, and kept at the edge of the family because she is not of Fulani blood. Hajiya Amina is the youngest wife. Saddiƙa’s son Sameer arrives with news that his younger brother Rehaan has moved to second place on a list of Africa’s richest young people, close to first. Saddiƙa reads it for herself and the narration names what she feels: bitterness and envy, because money she believes belongs to her children is in Rehaan’s hands. Sameer argues that Rehaan’s life in England is a danger to them and that their father’s wealth may already sit with him. Saddiƙa vows to bring him back to Nigeria for good.

She goes to Daada, the mother of Alhaji, an old woman whose word in the house nobody steps over. Daada has no love for Nadira and says as much. Saddiƙa complains that Rehaan has not been home for a year, that the younger cousins know him only from television, and that he is unmarried and living among Europeans. Daada replies that he will be brought home and given a Fulani bride of her choosing, and that she will accept neither a white nor an Indian wife. When Saddiƙa adds that she has heard he is in love with a white woman, Daada’s anger comes up at once. In another parlour, a woman of Indian appearance who is called Mamy speaks Hindi to her daughter Riyya and takes a video call from Jaafar, who is abroad and about to return. She asks whether Rehaan has a girlfriend, goes to clubs or bars. Jaafar says he has none, that Rehaan does not even touch drink, and that business is all he cares about. Mamy asks Jaafar to persuade Rehaan to cut his long hair because the household resents it, and admits she does not want him home but sees no way around it. When she tells Riyya to come and greet Daada, Riyya refuses, because she cannot bear the open hatred shown toward her mother.

What stands out in the book so far is how two separate households ask the same question. In Mama’s house, Islaha is held to account by people who distrust her origins. In Mafi’s Quarters, a family measures Nadira and her children by whom they did and did not descend from. The text is exact about hierarchy: who counts the money, who speaks for the husband while he is away, whose room belongs to whom. It also hands the reader the prologue’s promise before any character is introduced, though the excerpt does not say whether the girl in that scene is anyone met later. The novel suits readers of Hausa family drama, who enjoy long scenes of talk in sitting rooms and power exercised through what is said and withheld. The author notes that some parts contain a little abusive language.

The excerpt leaves several questions open. Who was the woman who fell silent in the first scene, and whose child did the stranger carry out? What does Mama mean to do when she says she will deal with Islaha? Will Saheer, spoken of but never seen, stand beside her? And what will Daada’s demand cost Rehaan, who has not yet appeared on the page?

In both houses, a person is weighed by where they came from long before anyone asks what they have done.

Ragayar Dutse is ready to read on Wikinovels.com. Who was the woman who promised to come back, and has anyone heard her name since?

[https://wikinovels.com.ng/]