Cuta Ta Dau Cuta Part 1 Complete Hausa Novel

All the bride’s escorts could not stop admiring the house she had been brought to. The house was truly full and beautifully furnished. Indeed, the groom had tried, and everyone could only pray that they would live together in peace.

After the usual traditional coming-and-going and the sharing of the gara gifts were completed, everyone went their separate way, leaving the bride with her friends. They were the ones who rearranged the room for her again, and there was plenty of joking, laughter, and playful teasing until everything was back in order.

The bride, however, did not have much strength in her. Nothing caused it except the little fear that every proper bride is known to have on a day like this. Besides, she was not someone who liked too much noise, and even her companions were not strangers, just relatives and neighbors she had grown up with.

After the Maghrib prayer, each of them touched up her makeup again and sat waiting for the groom’s friends. As for those friends, they did not delay at all. A little after the Isha prayer, they arrived at the house.

The bride remained covered up, while the groom, smelling strongly of perfume, moved close to where she was and sat beside his bride as though he wanted to embrace her. She, on the other hand, kept shrinking herself into one corner, as a new bride and a shy guest would. Meanwhile, the groom’s friends kept teasing him with their eyes, and he answered them with little nudges under his gown and quiet smiles.

So they carried out the usual exchanges between the groom’s people and the bride’s people, and by around nine-thirty, the groom, seeing that they had no intention of giving them privacy, narrowed his eyes and sent them all outside.

They came out laughing, while MB, his closest friend, slipped some pills into his hand and handed him his water bottle, winking at him repeatedly and speaking softly:

“Drive carefully, because this is an Arab-made car. If you are not careful, instead of hearing the horn, you will hear Qur’anic recitation.”

They all burst into laughter together. After swallowing the medicine without even asking what it was, he washed it down with water. Then the groom, JJ, said,

“You rascal, my friend, you people are truly the scholars of the world. Even the great leader of the shining ones is under your teaching and cannot go beyond you.”

They laughed again together. MB then moved ahead, adjusting his big gown and saying,

“If there is any problem, just call me early so I can send you a mechanic, and you will have the chance to go out for some evening fresh air. Goodbye, and remember the neighbors, do not let them hear too much…”

He did not finish the sentence; instead, he winked one eye at him as he left through the gate. As for groom JJ, he closed the gate and continued laughing. Before he turned back into the house, his heart was light and joyful, for today was the grand display day of his life.

Shuuu!!

Something brushed past him just as he was reaching for the door handle. At first, he tried to dismiss it as the cool wind that had begun to blow, but then he felt it pass by him again as he tried to push the door open.

He quickly looked to his right and left, but there was nobody there. Pretending not to care, he shrugged and twisted his mouth, then entered the sitting room.

“My bride, you smell wonderful. A dark bride is not bad at all, even if she kills one of the household boys!”

He lined up those words of praise as if he himself had invented them, the words flowing so smoothly from his mouth as though they were songs from a famous praise singer. He did not mind that nobody answered him. He locked the door, even taking time to adjust the curtains properly.

Then he stopped abruptly.

His chest began to pound violently, like the sound of festival drums in the middle of a celebration ground.

The sitting room was empty.

All the decorations that had been used to beautify the room had vanished as though they had never existed, like a strange illusion, with no sign of them at all.

“This is just imagination, JJ. Pull yourself together,” one part of his mind told him.

He swallowed with difficulty and forced out a smile that looked more like crying, trying hard to calm himself. With trembling lips and a shaking mouth, he whispered,

“L-o-v-e,”

spelling it out while squeezing his eyes shut tightly.

Still, there was no answer.

So he forced himself to open one eye, then quickly opened the other and began looking around, swallowing repeatedly in fear.