The days that followed the slap passed like a season without rain,long,heavy,unchanging.
Zainab moved through the house like a shadow,her slippers barely making a sound on the tiled floor.
Each morning began with the same routine:Prayers before dawn,a meal laid out with no mistakes,and a silence wrapped around the table like a second cloth.Alhaji read his newspaper without looking at her,only speaking when he needed something
"Where is my cap?"
"Is the driver ready?"
"Did you call the tailor?"
No greetings,no warmth,only commands
One afternoon,while she swept the hallway,her hand brushed against the small scar on her cheek where his palm had landed. It had faded on the skin,but inside,it pulsed,reminding her that even silence could be punished
That day,the reason for his anger was smaller
She had served his food but forgotten to place the second spoon beside the soup
"Is it so hard to follow simple instructions?"he asked his voice low,his eyes steady
She apologized quickly,placing the spoon before he finished the sentence.But the warning look stayed in his eyes,and that was enough to keep her quiet for the rest of the evening
At night,the diary became her companion.she no longer wrote full sentences;sometimes only fragments,like piece of a broken mirror"
"The spoon.
"The silence.
"The house is too big for my voice.
Weeks turned to months.Her friends stopped coming,some because they were told to,some because they feared Alhaji,her Father rarely visited,only sending short messages through Maryam: "Be patient,Zainabu,a woman must endure".
Her sister wrote her once,a letter
"They say you live in a palace now.Do you smile in it?"
She did not reply.
One evening,as harmattan dust filled the sky,she saw Yusuf.it was in the market place near the rows of tomatoes and dried fish.He was carrying a basket of books,still teaching,still moving with that same quiet determination
Their eyes met for a moment,just a moment.
She looked away first,her scarf hid most of her face,but not the sadness in her eyes.
Yusuf didn't call out,he only bowed his head slightly,as if saying:i still see you
That night,the diary page was wet when she wrote.
"I saw the boy who once called me brave.he carries his books like wings,i carry my silence like chains".
The harmattan deepened,dust lay like a thin film over everything,chairs,windowpanes,even the untouched gifts from her wedding that still sat unopened in the corner of the sitting room.The house felt more like a museum than a home:polished,quiet,cold.
Alhaji Kabiru's temper had found a rhythm of its own.it no longer needed a real reason to rise.A meal too warm,a scarf tied too loosely,a guest she greeted with what he called "too much smile",all were enough.The violence was not always loud,sometimes it was a grip on her arm that left a bruise beneath the fabric.Sometimes a whisper that cut sharper than any slap
"Do you think people envy a woman who cannot even serve tea without spilling?"
"Stop walking like a girl,you are my wife,behave like one"
Zainab learned to breathe quietly,she moved with the dust,unnoticed.
One evening,she prepared his favorite soup,miyan kuka,stirring slowly so it wouldn't lump.The meat was tender,the spices measured with care,still,when he tasted it,his face tightened.
"Too much salt",he said
" I…. Measured it",she whispered
"Then measure again next time"
He pushed the bowl aside,it was a small thing,but her hands shook as she cleared the table.
Later,when the sound of the television filled the living room,she felt the tears come,not loud,just steady,like water finding cracks in stone.
The first miscarriage came in silence
She had not even told anyone she was expecting,just suspicion,a missed cycle,a small fluttering hope that maybe,just maybe,a child would soften the house.But one cold night,after days of washing and cooking while fevered,she felt the pain twist inside her like a fist.
She sat on the bathroom floor,her scarf soaked in sweat,her palm trembling.No one came,the driver saw her the next morning,pale and faint.Alhaji only said
"You should have told me before you over worked yourself,now look".
There was no funeral for that kind of loss,only quiet,and the way the house felt even larger when she walked through it.
Her diary grew thicker,Each page darker than the last.
"It is not the slap that hurts the most, it's the silence that follows."
"I lost something last night,it was small,barely begun,but it felt like hope".
She stopped signing her name at the end of the entries,it felt like the Zainab she was writing about was no longer the one she had been.
The marketplace encounter with Yusuf stayed in her mind.A week later,she passed the same place again,this time with the housemaid,there he was,helping a little boy choose notebooks
Their eyes met again.
This time,Yusuf spoke,just one sentence,low enough for only her to hear as she passed:
"Zainab,your eyes…they are not the same".
She kept walking.
The days grew colder,but the house did not.Alhaji's rules thickened around her like iron bars.The miscarriage became something unspoken,he never mentioned it again,except when he wanted to remind her of her duty.
"You are still young,"he said one night,his voice flat. "Women lose one and give birth to five more.i need an heir.Not tears"
Zainab nodded,because nodding had become safer than speaking.
Her diary became only her voice,she wrote at night,when the house fell into that uneasy quiet.
She hid it behind a loose board under the wardrobe,careful to fold the pages flat,Sometimes she wrote to herself,the version of her that still smiled under a mango tree.
"I wonder if you would have had my eyes".
"I am learning how to vanish without leaving the room".
The fourth slap came because she locked the door.
It was not on purpose,the wind had blown it shut when she stepped out to bring in the laundry.Alhaji returned early,found the door stuck,and when she ran back to open it,his face was already a storm
"What kind of a wife locks her husband out ?"
"It was the wind,Wallahi"
His palm cut her words in half,this time,the pain lasted days.
That evening,Yusuf passed by the compound gate,she saw him from the upstairs window,again,just a glimpse,his bicycle leaning against the dusty wall.He looked up,as though he has been waiting for that window to open.Their eyes met,and something in her chest cracked
"I am starting to believe that Allah keeps placing him where I can see him",she wrote that night,"not to save me,but to remind me that I was once alive.
Alhaji began to speak of taking a second wife,he said it casually,one afternoon,as she served his tea.
"A man of my status should not delay these things,perhaps a younger girl from Kano,someone with strong family roots"
She said nothing,but later,she touched her stomach,empty and still,and wondered if this house would bury her before it remembered her.
The turning point began with a letter
It came through the housemaid,folded into a small piece of brown paper.No name on it,only her handwriting,years ago,it was the letter she had once written to Yusuf before her marriage.
At the bottom was a line,fresh in blue ink
"If you still write,leave your words at old well near the market"
She held the paper for hours,her heart loud against her chest.For the first time in months,she did not feel completely trapped.