Duniyata Part 1 Complete Hausa Novel

He opened his eyes, now narrowed and sunken deep because of intense crying, distress, and shock. He cast his gaze to his left side, then fixed it on the neatly spread soft mat. The mat whose owner had died three days ago. The mat that, just three days earlier, had still held its owner. Their grandmother, and also a mother to their father, who had become their wall, their pillar, and their support after the death of their father.

Even till now, he had not been able to gather up the mat with his own hands, and no one else had bothered to remove it either. But then, who had even cared about them, let alone the things in the house? They were nobodies. They had nothing to offer the people who came for condolence visits. They had no privilege, no influential person who would stand with them in sharing the grief of losing their grandmother, the woman they had lived with for three years through severe hardship and a fierce struggle that had felt like a race between suffering and relief, all within hardship itself.

The tears that had refused to stop flowing from his eyes welled up again. Even now, it still felt unreal to him. Even now, he kept feeling that Jadda would return. Her death had reopened in him the wound of his father’s death, and it felt to him as though his father had died only today, as though it was today he had bade the world farewell, as though it was today Maama had walked away and left them. That departure had become one of the things that worsened Abbee’s illness... a departure that had seemed to carry away his spirit and his life along with it.

He lifted one hand and gripped his neck tightly, as though he was about to strangle himself. Some tense veins rose across his head and forehead in sharp lines. The redness in his eyes deepened even more, and a painful wave of crying and tears overtook him again. An overwhelming hatred for his mother’s bloodline surged through every part and corner of his body and heart.

“Hamma... ham...”

The little boy who had entered the room stopped the repeated call he had been making to him. In that condition, he turned and looked at him, and the boy instinctively stepped back a little, truly frightened by how much his face had changed. It was the kind of state that made him terribly afraid of his elder brother. Whenever he saw him like that, he felt as though this was no longer his brother.

He noticed that too, and that made him take his hand away from his neck. He gathered up some thick, sticky saliva and swallowed it with difficulty, as though he were swallowing stones. He pushed his feelings far down inside, steadied his tongue, and then asked him,

“What is it?”

With both his voice and body trembling, the boy began to say,

“It’s Abba... Farouq’s father said you should come. He wants you.”

He lowered his eyes, feeling a measure of mercy and gentleness descend into his heart. There was only one person in the whole world whose sight or whose summons always signaled to him the coming of goodness, ease, relief, or leniency from whatever situation they found themselves in.

He was walking, but it felt to him as though he was not walking on his own feet. He was moving as though suspended between the sky and the earth, because of distress, hunger, and even thirst. Since the death, he had not been able to put even a morsel of food into his mouth, not even from the little bits of food that neighbors occasionally tossed their way. He held himself against the wall for support and cast his eyes over the open courtyard of their house, which now looked like an abandoned marketplace... it had become empty and desolate, another sign to him that they had truly lost yet another wall and source of protection.

He was an elderly man of complete dignity, though in truth his years in this world could not have exceeded forty-five. Yet all signs clearly showed that he was well-built and healthy, a man capable of carrying his years strongly.

He was dressed in a finely embroidered kaftan, which only added to his noble bearing. He had pushed his cap slightly backward, and on his feet were Madinah slippers, one of his usual habits whenever he went only as far as the neighborhood mosque, or to a nearby area, whether by vehicle or on foot.

The two of them looked at each other in silence, both with heavy hearts. Seeing him only made the ache in his own heart deepen. He was about to kneel and greet him when the man quickly supported him and said,

“Get up, get up... well done for your endurance, and may Allah reward your patience. Is there anything you need to take from inside the house?”

He asked this while looking at him. He did not understand at all what Abba meant, so he looked at him more carefully.

“I am taking you with me to my house. You cannot be left here alone in a house with no one in it except the two of you.”

He finally opened his voice, which had grown rough and weak from hardship, and said,

“Only our clothes.”

“Take whatever is easy to carry and lock the house,” he said, while taking the hand of his younger brother who was standing close beside him.

As he gathered their things, the whole of his heart, east, west, north, and south, was tangled in thought. They were going to Abba’s house? Farouq’s house? Truly, Farouq and his family were privileged in every way. But it was a kind of privilege with a huge gap and a serious defect in it. A privilege that lacked an important pillar and protector. A privilege that sometimes turned into something joyless for them. A privilege that often failed to live up to its name. They had grown used to obtaining at least one thing from it, despite the many shortcomings of lack and the absence of peace in their lives. They had grown used to finding freedom, openness, and comfort there.

So that meant they would live with Momy? They would now be under her shadow and authority like the other children?