Beyond the hotel grounds, a heavy-set woman minded a fruit stall at a small market. Wealthy, given the quality of her head scarf and bracelets. She scowled at the girl but allowed her to come nearer. The girl pleaded softly, speaking Hausa, her voice dry with dust, palms held outward in supplication. "Faranta zuciya," she whispered. "Faranta zuciya..."
"Don' me?" the woman demanded. Why?
"Don' me?" said the girl. "Don' me?" In answer, she cupped her belly, looked back at the woman, eye to eye.
The market woman snorted at this, but then, with the slightest of movements, she gestured with her chin toward an overripe mango on the ground beside her stall. The fallen fruit, bloated with sweetness, was shrouded in a hover of tiny flies, and the market woman looked the other way as the girl retrieved its pulpy weight, water can balanced precariously as she knelt.
She crouched in a doorway, ate greedily, right down to the rind.
The sweetness would get her through a few more steps, and as long as she always took that next step, she would never fall.
The day was seeping away. The clay and concrete of Zaria glowed rust-red in the light of a dying sun. People were flocking home, trying to beat the darkness, and she followed them over the rail tracks and across a girder bridge above the milk-tea waters of the Kubani River.
She had entered Tudun Wada, the colonial section of the city, built by the British, its regal facades now faded. As businesses emptied for the day, chophouse light bulbs flickered on. It's not safe here. She could feel this in her belly, and she began to look for a place to hide. She found it along the water's edge, by the marshy shoreline of the river: undeveloped and littered with rubbish and small plots of planted maize. She threaded her way along squelchy grass, avoided voices and well-trodden paths, sought refuge in the burned shell of a Peugeot taxi where she curled herself in, to once again wait out the night.
All through the evening she heard laughing male voices passing by and then—the laughter was upon her. Voices outside the taxi frame. A pause, followed by the sudden sound of piss hitting the side of the car. She cupped her belly to calm it, as though the flutter inside might somehow give her away, and she waited for the moment to pass. The voices grew fewer and farther away until all she heard were whispered winds and the sound of a nearby goat ripping up grass.
She fell into sleep, like a body down a well.
CHAPTER 36
She woke to beauty: the wailing cry of the muezzin calling out to the faithful from minaret heights.
She walked down to the water's edge and bathed in a hidden bend of river. Sifted through cobs of fallen maize along the shore.
No way to cook them, and no time to let them soak in water to soften, but she tucked several into the folded pockets of her robe anyway, would chew on the kernels later if she had to; it might fool her body into believing it had been fed.
A soft light had settled on the musky riverside, and she followed a path back to the bridge. The sleepy streets were filling with worshippers, men in white robes and embroidered prayer caps.
The dusty rasp of a rooster could be heard across rooftops. She entered the Old City, its walls catching the morning light, the sun bringing a texture and warmth to its surfaces. These city walls had stood for a thousand years. Crumbling, true, but formidable still.
Patched over and propped up, with goats now grazing atop and squatters perched in ragged tents along their mud-brown heights, the Zaria walls were more mounds than bastions. But they stood in testament to a past rich in war and trade. Amina, Queen of Zaria, whose walls these had been, had once controlled an empire that stretched as far as the Niger River. And wherever Queen Amina's armies moved, she had built walled cities, ribat fortresses, birni defenceworks.
"We were the reason they built these walls."
The voice of one of her aunts floated to the surface. The girl in indigo had been here before, at these walls, in this town. It would have been the farthest south her family had ever come, back when they were still trading and she was still a child. It must have been on caravan. From the flamingos of Bula Tura in the north to these crumbling clay walls encircling Zaria's Old City, the range of her clan's travels had been shrinking ever since.
She looked up at the walls, reached out, laid her hand against them. It surprised her, how cool they were to the touch. Powdery on the surface, but with a solid mass behind them. She remembered entering the Old City on the sway of camels, but it must have been horseback. The first daughter of a junior wife, she had been spoiled by the older wives, treated as a communal granddaughter.
She remembered metal wares and cooking pots clanking against animal flanks, the bundled rolls of cloth and the singsong laughter of her aunts calling out. Laughing as they entered the gates. "They built these walls to keep us out. But we are here. We are here."
There was a time when her people had wrested control of the salt trade from the Hausa and the Fulani, from the Kingdom of Sokoto itself, had controlled the Sahel trade as far as Timbuktu.
"The Sultans of Sokoto kept watch for the dust of our hooves."
Horse riders in a land of plodding camels. Lions of the Sahel.
We were raiders. Traders, unfettered and free. Walls cannot stop those who are free. The words echoed in her as she walked through the Old City. But she knew as well as anyone that the lions of the northern savannah were long gone, lingering now only in folk songs and protected game reserves far distant. Her kinsmen had moved farther and farther away from the past, until the past itself was only a story, a distant murmur, like voices on the other side of a wall.
We count our wealth in cattle. But there was a time we counted it in gold.
Children chased a soccer ball across a vacant lot, robes flying, as grandmothers beat the night's dust from caked rugs. Mothers and daughters were hand-wringing washing in backyards as the
muezzin call to prayer continued.
She followed the flow of white-clad men into a vast courtyard. These were the grounds of the Emir's Palace. A grand slab of prestige, the surface of the Emir's Gate was embedded with ceramic tiles—she remembered that, too, the intricate interwoven patterns as familiar to her as a dream. The lower courtyard was still in shade, but the slant of the sun had caught the upper mosaic, making the ceramics glow like illuminated embroidery. Like jewels embedded in a scabbard.
"Forward! Move forward!"
The emir's guards, leathery men in scarlet robes and turbans, stood at the gate keeping watch on the crowds. She was jostled from behind by young men hurrying past, and she steadied her jerry can, forced herself to become calm, took comfort in her own lack of significance. Swallows darted through as the crowds pushed toward the mosque. The mosque was directly across from the palace, and the minarets and dome were catching the light now as well.
She hadn't chosen this site by chance; she had followed the worshippers with intent. Keeping back from the main entrance, not wanting to overstep her bounds, she stopped at an alleyway instead, where footsteps and bodies were forced to slow down. She put her jerry can on the ground and stood, hands together, palms out, whispering a reminder to those who passed that almsgiving was as much a pillar of faith as prayer.
"Zakat," she whispered. "Faranta zuciya. Zakat. "
The men who streamed by in billowing pants and flowing vests, the cloth pristine and white, were wearing their finest caps, snug on head. Most ignored her pleas or pretended not to hear. Some were annoyed, others irritated. But a few good souls dug into pouchlike pockets to hand her a few kobo or crumpled naira as they passed, careful not to touch her hand.
The sound of trumpets. A stir in the far court. The emir himself was making his way across from the palace to the mosque, a weekly walk through the crowded courtyard, his black turban seeming to float above the crowds. A cannon was fired to herald his appearance, a single reverberating boom. As a retinue of scarlet-turbaned guards forced a path in front of him, the emir clasped hands, accepted wishes of good health and longevity, nodded patiently at hurried
accounts of matters personal and pressing, smiled in benevolence.
For one mad moment she considered pushing through the throng of bodies and throwing herself on the emir's mercy—but the crowds were too thick and her body too weak. The courtyard of worshippers now emptied into the mosque, and she hoisted her half-empty jerry can back onto her head and moved on.
With Friday prayers came Friday classes. At a schoolyard in the Old City, boys in short sleeves and short pants and girls in long dresses, impeccably clean, gathered under a nearby tree, tablets in hand, laughing and pushing while their teacher peered at them over half-lens reading glasses, frowning them into silence. "Ina kwana," he said.
"Ina kwana!" they chimed back.
Fulani girls, wrapped in head scarves as all girls were once they reached the walking age, hung back, shyer than the others, but the Hausa boys were boisterous and full of boasts. One of their classmates was struggling at the front, writing out a passage of scripture with grave determination. The others laughed at his efforts, and he grinned sheepishly until the teacher finally rose and waved the student away amid more laughter. As the girl in indigo passed, she heard the furious scratch of chalk on board, and the teacher saying
S"ee? As such." This was followed by the sound of recitation, the children chanting out the words, the lessons growing fainter with every step.
Memories of her own tablet school instructions. Of wooden boards and Arabic scripture in outdoor schools. The various malams who had led the lessons, some gentle, some stern, all now fading as well. Geometry class and the laws of intersecting lines. The malam using a wooden compass, drawing a perfect circle on the chalkboard, and then using a measuring stick to slice across it, as clean as a razor.
God's hand at work. She remembered the beauty of it, the clarity.
She belonged in a market; she was born of trade. Perhaps she might find an arthritic market lady who needed a sweeper, a stacker? Perhaps she might work her way up, minding stalls for the wealthier market ladies while they went about their errands. It was a wisp of a dream, like trying to catch wind in your hand, and she knew it. With no money to purchase a spot, no kinship ties or connections with the guilds that ran the markets, all she had was desperation and sincerity. And that would never be enough.
CHAPTER 37
"Can you feel?"
She could.
"Embossed. First rate."
Laura ran her fingertips lightly across the letterhead.
She was in Meeting Room 2B at the Economic Crime Unit offices in the city's northeast.
Officer Brisebois was there, as was Laura's brother, her mother, and a pair of detectives: an older man, who introduced himself as Detective David Saul, and a younger woman named Detective Rhodes. Just Rhodes. No first name, apparently. The detectives didn't wear uniforms, but they might as well have: both were dressed in dark jackets and white shirts with starched collars.
Ice water in a pitcher. Cubes clinking on every pour. A wide table. Several thick folders. Flowers in the corner, petals too pink and leaves too green for this room. There was a window directly behind Laura, but the sunlight didn't reach the plants. They must be artificial; that's why they looked so healthy. Laura's dad had often joked that if anyone could kill an artificial plant, she could.
Behind the detectives, on the wall facing Laura, was a framed photograph: a black-and-white image of tree branches against a grey sky. An odd counterpoint to the plastic greenery in the corner.
The female detective was speaking.
"The only defence we really have with these types of fraud,"
Detective Rhodes said, "is education."
The detective was petite, fine featured, confident. She had a no-nonsense wedding band on her heart finger, would have chosen it for its durability, no doubt, thought Laura. The older detective—stone-cut face, close-cropped hair—wore no wedding band.
Instead: a pale line where one used to be. Sergeant Brisebois had the same pale absence. Did they get together, Brisebois and this older version of himself? Compare tan lines, commiserate over beer about the decisions they'd made, the regrets they gathered?
"These are just some of the samples our department has gathered over the years."
Detective Saul passed a stack of pages across to Warren, who studied them as if they were ciphers in a puzzle he might yet solve.
When no key revealed itself, Warren muttered and handed them off to his mother, who barely looked at them.
"Some are quite amateurish," said the younger detective.
"Laughable, even, but a good many are almost, well, works of art."
The documents piled up in front of Laura. The headings on them were at once very specific and oddly vague: a Fund Management Agreement Form issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria; an International Remittance Voucher; invoices for expenses.
"Let's see," said Detective Rhodes as she passed the next batch over. "We've got a Certificate of Registration. Various tax receipts. A Foreign Exchange Application, signed and stamped. A demand for an overdue payment to the Nigerian Economic Recovery Fund."
On it went.
Bank processing invoices. Official contracts from the Niger Delta Development Commission. Various "Letters of Intent," affidavits, court orders, banking forms. All duly signed, duly sealed. There were elaborate Anti-Money Laundering Clearance
Certificates replete with flags and baroque borders, and equally elaborate Anti-Terrorism Certificates ("Under the Terms of the Revised National Security Anti-Terrorism Decree 25, Section B").
Each with a heavy APPROVED stamped across it.
"That last item is purportedly from Interpol," Detective Rhodes explained. "We have several of them, actually. This one here was issued—what does it say—‘with the cooperation of the International Monetary Fund, certifying that the funds in question have no connections to any known terrorist organization.'"
"Interpol?" said Warren. "Tell me you've contacted them."
"We haven't."
"Why not?"
"Because there's no such thing as an Anti-Terrorism Certificate."
Laura's attention drifted back to the black-and-white photograph on the wall behind the detectives. The branches on the tree began to move. Only a faint tremble at first, so soft she almost missed it. Then a sway, a shift, and she turned around, startled, to check the window behind her. She saw the same branches outside.
It wasn't a photograph on the wall opposite her; it was a reflection.
She looked at the branches moving on glass.
"Is that a mirror?" she demanded, her voice sharper than she'd intended. "Who's behind there? Is someone watching?"
This stopped the conversation in mid-syllable. The older detective turned, not sure at first what Laura was referring to. "No, there's no one back there."
But Laura wasn't appeased. "Is this some sort of—secret interrogation? Are we being watched?"
"Ma'am," said Rhodes. "There's no one on the other side.
That's just a window onto a hallway. We don't interrogate, we interview. And that's not what this is. Frankly, we're here today because your brother has been badgering us. Lodging complaints, saying we aren't doing enough to catch the culprits who swindled your father.
He wanted to see ‘the evidence.' Well, here it is."
"Jesus, Laura," Warren whispered. "Relax."
"You're telling me to relax? You? Of all people?"
"Laura, dear." This was their mother. "Let them do their job.
No one's watching. It's just a window."
"It looks like a mirror."
The detectives continued handing documents across the table, but Brisebois kept his eyes on Laura, watched the tension and anxiety draw the edges of her mouth tight—until, quietly, he slipped out of his seat and walked around behind the family to the main window. He closed the blinds. And as he did, the reflection across from Laura disappeared. The glass changed from mirror to window. A hallway emerged on the other side, empty.
They were right; there
was no one watching. There was no one on the other side.
CHAPTER 38
The market in Zaria's Old City had been a terminus of the trans-
Sahara trade route, and even now a few camels loped by with knock knees on tethered strides. Spices and grains in every shade, lumpy roots and medicinal herbs, groundnuts and millet heaped atop woven display trays with umbrellas opened above to protect the wares from the worst of the sun. This was where she belonged.
Women moved through, heads balancing overstuffed baskets of produce, coarse gunny sacks of woven jute—both the women and their cargo bulging with sustenance and commerce. The girl envied the wealth of the market ladies, the confident sway of their hips.