ENSHROUDED

36

He was the one that guided Khalid's relatives to the house when they arrived in Bauchi. It wasn't an easy task driving in Bauchi with no precise location and he had been on phone with them until he was fortunate enough to get the right location they were in. Something was surely bothering him, he didn't know the kind of life Aisha had been living in that house. She had no phone with her, and whenever he pestered Nana to call her, they would have to wait until Abba got back home and he would give her the phone to chat briskly with him. And from the way he sensed the way her voice trembled whenever Nana called if he was there, he was sure Abba was beside her.

And it had been three months and days, but they couldn't reach Aisha. It was always one excuse or the other. She was always sick as he claimed, but Nasir knew him better to buy that lie. The sickness got intense that Firdausi started expecting she was pregnant, and that night Nasir couldn't sleep. He stopped spending his weekends in Katsina because of that. It took him months before he overcame the heartache and consoled himself. She was Abba's wife, and she was surely bound to be pregnant with him for days. It was hard and painful, but he was able to overcome it.

Mama had him packed with food before he left today, saying that he shouldn't go and eat all those junky foods he loved so much. She had proper food for him and he should also come back home for breakfast. As he drove into the house, he looked around and his fists clenched. This was the house Aisha was brought into as a wife, not his wife but Abba's. He hopped out of his car and moved forward the entrance door. Using the extra key Mama gave him, Nasir unlocked the house and was surprised to see everywhere cleaned. Then he thought, Mama must've had some women came and cleaned the house for him to live conveniently.

He silently walked to the dining table, it was midnight after all. And what Mama didn't know was that he had his junky food already before he came into the house to wish her goodnight. He dropped the food and walked directly to the extra room he knew of. It wasn't clean as he predicted but the dust wasn't so much that he couldn't sleep in the room. He finished his daily routine and laid on the bed, his brain a bunch of Aisha's thoughts. There wasn't a day he didn't think of her, especially when he was going to bed. And it was becoming rather unbearable.

The next morning Nasir woke up and bathed himself, there was no point in staying in the house that had no one in and also a place Aisha had resided as a bride. He walked to the kitchen to get himself a cup of water but what freaked him out was the food he saw boiling on the cooking gas. He looked around in horror and there was no trace of human in the house. What happened? Who could be here?

He walked out of the kitchen and went back to the room he slept, he checked the room but no one was there. He entered the room that looked like Abba's room, but still, there was no trace of humanity. In fact, it was the most uncleaned room in the house, evidence that it wasn't ever since they left Bauchi. And whenever he came home to visit Mama, he stayed at home never coming to this house. He hadn't brought Aisha, not for once. All his excuse was that Aisha said she couldn't pull up for the hour's drive from Taraba to Bauchi.

He took tentative steps to the room he knew belonged to no one but Aisha, as he opened the door; he heard the sound of water gushing down from the bathroom. That freaked him out. Who had been living in this house? He locked the room from outside and rushed to the gateman.

"Malam Musa, have you seen someone living here for a while? Did Abba bring someone here? Maybe a woman?" He asked, and the gateman shook his head with a smile.

"No one has ever stepped his legs into this house ever since Alhaji Abba left, you're the first," Malam Musa answered, looking amused at the frightened expression he saw on Nasir's face.

Nasir pinched the bridge between his eyes and looked at Malam Musa yet again. "Wait, do you mean not even the women that came yesterday and cleaned this house before I arrived?" He dreaded the answer, but it came anyway.