Bakar Inuwa Part 1 Complete Hausa Novel

“May Allah have mercy, Larai. That is exactly what I was going to tell him too, nothing more,” Baba Nafi said again in a subdued tone.

Larai pursed her lips, turned her back, and pushed her scarf forward over her forehead, revealing the back of her neck. Baba Nafi only smiled and shook her head, then looked away from her.

All the while, he stood there, fuming and glaring at the last room in the row of Baba Nafi’s rooms. But he said nothing. After about five minutes, the curtain of the room was lifted and someone came out. It was a very beautiful woman, no less than thirty-five to thirty-seven years old. At first glance, you could tell she was a worldly woman. She stared boldly at him and his wives with disregard, chewing gum as if it was not Ramadan and people had not just broken their fast.

“So what is all this shouting and announcing Maghrib as if we have even tasted water yet? Really, people should know that then and now are different. Back then, when you tossed us around, we endured your arrogance because you had plenty of money tucked at your waist. But now, you don’t spare us, our pregnancies, or the care of our children, and on top of that you burden us with your trade and your pride, you black shadow...”

“Asabe! So now I am the black shadow?”

“You are the very heart of the black forest. In fact, even the sun with a head is better than you.”

Larai burst into wicked laughter, clapping her hands as she looked at Asabe. “You impress me, bride. If they squeeze us, we may not be easy to chew, but you have gone beyond even a younger sister in sharpness.”

Asabe pursed her lips and turned her face away. Another wave of deep sorrow came over Malam Dauda. He let out a long breath like his ox standing in the heat of humiliation, glaring at Asabe fiercely. Truly, his marriage into a troublesome home had never brought him peace. His face tightened even more as he stretched out his hand and shook the ladle hanging on the side of their kitchen bowl.

“This is really a person’s problem. I want to know which useless scoundrel went to Jabiru the shopkeeper and collected bottled soda and the chin-chin his wife makes, and said I sent them?”

Nafi and Larai exchanged glances, but neither of them said anything, because they both knew that he too already knew who was capable of such a thing. And after all, he was the one who had given her that freedom right from when she was a new bride. Now seventeen years had passed, and even her daughters were already roaming freely around the house, four of them, yet nothing had changed.

“Am I not talking? Or do I have to turn this whole house upside down before someone answers me?!”

Malam Dauda shouted harshly, overcome by anger because of the debt that had caught up with him when he did not even have a single kobo. Even then, no one answered him. The only sound was the loud chas-chas of Asabe chewing her gum.

Then a young girl, who could be about sixteen or seventeen years old, came out from the same room Asabe had come out of earlier. She was wearing a long jilbab down to the ground, a sign that she had prayed. She looked so much like Asabe, as if she had been molded directly from her. With politeness and calmness, she bent slightly and said,

“Welcome back, Father. Did you break your fast peacefully?”

“In whose father’s house did I break my fast? And now you too want to annoy me further!”

She lowered her head, tears filling her eyes. She was very soft-hearted, but she tried hard to hold herself together, especially when it came to her two parents, whose behavior showed none of the dignity expected of grown adults.

“Please forgive me, Father. Actually, I was the one who collected the soda from Jabiru.”