Broken Memories

she will never tell Faruk because they do not matter anymore.

Faruk looks up and their eyes meet. She is no longer shedding tears but there are tear stains on her cheeks. They look at each other for a moment before she reluctantly lowers her gaze.

“So tell me, how is the food here?”

“Nothing special, but I am grateful. I would have been somewhere else, maybe dead by now. We are living. It is just that we wake up every day to hear that this or that person has contributed hundred bags of rice, clothes and other things. But what we eat here is Garri and sometimes tuwon dawa. It is only when we are lucky or when some important people come that we eat rice here.”

Again, Falmata does not tell Faruk that some camp officials sell food stuffs or drugs meant for IDPs. She does not tell him how they take advantage of female IDP’s vulnerability to demand for sex before they give them food stuff or sign their exit cards. She doesn’t tell him how Musa, a NEMA official, once carried her on his motorcycle to a motel in the city and had sex with her. He was the person that gave her the three set of clothes she has, and occasionally gives her extra meals when she can’t endure the queue or the fights.

“The bombings are becoming less frequent now. The new President is serious about fighting insurgency.”

“I know,” she says, quickly. “But it is not only about the bombing. It is more than what we see and hear. People are yearning for revenge from an unknown devil. Boko Haram will end but something deadly will take its place, because enough youths have been brainwashed. There are now guns and bullets and bombs everywhere. People are becoming daring.”

Faruk says nothing. He will not send her opinion on arms proliferation. He knows it is true, but his editors in Abuja will not publish it. They will waste his time by asking for details. Maybe when a columnist writes, they may accept it as a personal opinion. Faruk promises himself that he must write a whole chapter about Falmata when he finally sets to write down his experiences on the insurgency.

When the silence drags on, Falmata takes the black nylon from the ground and stands slowly. She looks at Faruk, who now standing, looking back at her. “Thank you for everything, most especially this…” she holds up the nylon. “When you call your wife, please, greet her for me. And your daughter, may she never see what I have seen.” “It will be okay, Falmata.” Faruk’s phone rings. The screen shows Tahir, his colleague and guide in Maiduguri. He looks up at Falmata, who is looking at him. He lets it ring for some moments