Nata had meant to spend only one night in Farato.
One night became two, and then, when she realised how few days remained before Matou had to return to Bakau, she decided there was little sense in hurrying back to Jeshwang. Bakau and Jeshwang were close enough that she could accompany her younger sister on the return journey and continue home afterwards.
When she announced this, Matou tried not to show how relieved she was.
“You are really coming with me?”
“Yes. Unless you don’t want me.”
“I want you!”
“Then stop asking.”
The knowledge that Nata would travel with her softened the dread, but it did not remove it. As the last days slipped away, Matou became increasingly aware of everything she was about to lose again. The ordinary things suddenly became precious because they were numbered.
The last time she might feed the sheep. The last afternoon she might follow Borogie to the market. The last evening she might sit near Yerro while he talked. The last night Bubel might crawl beside her and fall asleep with one foot thrown across her legs. Even Nenneh Dado’s endless commentary about the village became something Matou wanted to preserve.
She began storing Farato inside herself. The smell of smoke. The sandy compound beneath her bare feet. The bleating animals at daybreak. The roughness of the mud walls. The taste of food eaten from a shared bowl. Her mother’s voice calling from somewhere she could not see. Her father’s cough. Bubel’s laughter. The kerosene smell inside the sleeping hut. She wanted all of it.
Perhaps that was why, on her final night, Matou did not sleep at all. She lay beneath the mosquito net listening to everyone else breathe. Bubel was beside her, asleep without difficulty, unaware that when he woke his sister would be leaving. Nenneh Dado was at the other end of the room. Borogie lay nearby. Matou turned towards the wall. The tears came quietly at first. She wiped them away. More came.
She buried her face in the cloth beneath her head because she did not want anybody to hear.
She had been telling herself for days that she would not cry. She was twelve now.
She had lived with the Owens family for years. This was not the first time she had left her parents. She knew Bakau. She knew the house. She knew the road. She knew school was waiting. She knew she was going there for a reason. None of that mattered. Her body did not care about reasons. Her heart did not understand opportunity. It understood only that she had found her mother again and was being separated from her. Matou remembered the first days of the holiday, when two months had seemed enormous. She had thought there would be enough time to become tired of Farato. Instead, the months had vanished. How could time be so dishonest?
Bad days lasted forever. A lonely afternoon at the Owens’ house could stretch until evening seemed unwilling to arrive. A punishment from Aunty Bae could occupy an entire day in Matou’s mind. But happiness? Happiness ran. She thought of the Owens’ house. Her stomach tightened. She imagined entering the compound again. She imagined putting away her belongings. She imagined learning once more how to occupy as little emotional space as possible. Perhaps Aunty Bae would start again. Perhaps Mrs Owens would be pleased to see her. Perhaps nobody would care very much. Matou cried harder. At some point Borogie whispered from the darkness. “Matou.”
She froze.
“Are you awake?”
Matou did not answer. Borogie knew. She had known for some time. But she did not expose her daughter by saying, I hear you crying. Instead she whispered, “Come.”
That one word destroyed Matou’s remaining resistance. She crawled towards her mother.
Borogie lifted her wrapper and Matou folded herself against her, suddenly much younger than twelve. Neither spoke for a while. Borogie rubbed her back.
“I don’t want to go, Nenneh.”
“I know.”
“Can I stay?”
There it was. The question Borogie had feared. She closed her eyes. If motherhood consisted only of doing what stopped a child from crying, the answer would have been easy. Stay. Stay here. Feed the sheep. Follow me to the market. Play with Bubel. Grow beside me where I can see you. But Borogie knew what she and Yerro had hoped for when they allowed Matou to live with the Owens family. Education. English. Opportunity. Access to a world they themselves could barely enter.
“I wish you could,” she said. “Then let me.” Borogie swallowed.
“You have school.”
“There are schools here.”
“Not the same.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will care one day.”
Matou pulled away. “How do you know?”
Borogie had no answer that would satisfy a twelve-year-old.
“I don’t.”
“Then let me stay.”
“I cannot.”
Matou began crying again. Borogie pulled her back. “Neneh doesn’t send you because she doesn’t want you.”
Matou said nothing.
“You know that?”
Still nothing.
Borogie touched her face.
“Look at me.”
Matou reluctantly raised her eyes.
“If I wanted only what made me happy, you would never have left me.”
“Then why did you let me go?”
“Because sometimes a mother has to think beyond today.”
Matou did not like the answer.
Borogie could see that.
“You think it does not pain me?”
Matou’s face crumpled.
“Then why don’t you cry?”
Borogie smiled sadly.
“Who told you I don’t?”
That silenced her.
“You don’t see everything, Matou.”
Her mother wiped the tears from her face.
“Sleep now.”
“I can’t.”
“Close your eyes anyway.”
Matou tried.
Sleep never came.
By morning her face betrayed everything. Her eyelids were swollen and her eyes were red. Nenneh Dado took one look at her and, unusually, made no joke. Even Yerro noticed. He looked at his daughter for a moment longer than usual but did not mention her tears. Instead he asked whether everything had been packed.
“Yes, Papa.”
“Check again.”
“I checked.”
“Then check what you checked.” Normally Matou might have protested. That morning she simply nodded. There was much to pack. Far more than she had brought.
The family had been preparing quietly for days. There were vegetables from Borogie’s garden, ripe produce and crops that could survive the journey, carefully selected so Matou could carry something of the family’s harvest back to Bakau. There were homemade pieces of cloth and small household gifts. Food had been wrapped and secured. And there were hens.
Matou stared at them.
“Mama, how am I supposed to carry hens?”
Nata burst out laughing.
“On your head.”
Matou looked horrified.
“I am not carrying chickens on my head!”
Even Borogie laughed.
The hens were secured for the journey in the practical manner people travelled with poultry, their protests adding noise to an already busy morning. But the gifts from the compound were only the beginning.
Matou wanted to say goodbye to people.
So after breakfast she walked through the community.
At the first compound she announced, “I am going back to Bakau today.”
The woman there looked genuinely offended.
“Today? And you are only telling me now?”
“You knew!”
“I did not know today was today.”
Matou laughed.
The woman disappeared inside and returned with something for her to take.
At another compound, an elderly woman held Matou’s hands and prayed over her.
“Go and learn,” she told her. “Do not forget where you came from.”
“I won’t.”
“Speak the truth. Respect the people you live with. Read your books.”
“Yes.”
“And when you become a big woman, don’t pass us on the road pretending you don’t know us.”
Matou giggled. “I won’t.”
“Hmm. We will see.” She pressed a small gift into Matou’s hand.
At another house came groundnuts. Somewhere else, fruit. Another neighbour brought eggs. One woman gave her a small piece of cloth. Someone else brought produce. The gifts were modest because Farato was not a place of great material abundance.
But giving was not measured only by monetary value.
A handful of groundnuts from a woman who had little to spare could contain more affection than an expensive present.
By the time Matou returned to the compound, she had accumulated so much that Nata put her hands on her hips.
“Are you moving the whole of Farato to Bakau?”
Matou smiled.
“If I could.”
The smile disappeared almost immediately.
Nata saw it.
She came closer and touched her shoulder.
“You will come again.”
“When?”
“When you can.”
“That could be forever.”
“It won’t.”
Bubel had been watching the preparations with increasing suspicion.
At five, he understood enough to know something was wrong but not enough to accept it.
When Matou’s things began being moved towards the place from which they would start their journey, he finally asked, “Where are you going?”
“Bakau.”
“No.”
Everyone paused.
Matou crouched.
“I have to go back to school.”
“No.”
“I’ll come again.”
“No!”
His face crumpled.
Then the crying began.
Not gentle crying.
Bubel wailed.
He wrapped both arms around Matou and refused to release her.
“I’m coming!”
“You can’t.”
“I’m coming with you!”
“Bubel—”
“No!”
Matou’s own carefully controlled tears returned. She hugged him. “I’ll come back.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
That was the wrong answer. His cries grew louder. Borogie turned away briefly. She had been considering accompanying them part of the way. Now she changed her mind. If she went, Bubel would insist on going too. If she took him, separating the children farther down the road would simply repeat the same agony.
“No,” she said quietly to Nata. “You take her.”
Nata understood.
“You’re not coming?”
Borogie shook her head.
“Better to end it here.”
She looked at Bubel.
“And keep that one here.”
Yerro eventually intervened.
“Bubel.”
The boy ignored him.
“Bubel.”
Something in his father’s voice penetrated the grief.
He loosened his grip slightly.
Yerro lifted him away from Matou.
The child screamed.
Matou covered her mouth.
Borogie quickly embraced her.
“Go before it becomes harder.”
“Mama—”
“Go.”
Matou clung to her.
For several seconds Borogie abandoned every attempt at composure and simply held her child. “Study,” she whispered. “Do you hear me?”
Matou nodded against her shoulder.
“Be respectful.”
Another nod.
“Don’t fight.”
Matou almost laughed through her tears.
“Take care of yourself.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“And remember us.”
That hurt.
“How can I forget you?”
Borogie pulled away and wiped Matou’s face with the edge of her wrapper.
“Good.”
Yerro’s goodbye was different.
He placed a hand on Matou’s head.
“You know why you are going.”
“Yes, Papa.”
“Then don’t waste the opportunity.”
“I won’t.”
He looked at her swollen eyes.
“And stop crying.”
Matou tried to smile.
Yerro’s expression softened.
“Come.”
He pulled her briefly against his chest.
It was quick.
But Matou held on.
Then she left with Nata.
For some distance, she could still hear Bubel crying.
She turned repeatedly.
“Don’t look back so much,” Nata said gently.
“I can hear him.”
“I know.”
“He thinks I’m leaving him.”
“He will understand.”
Matou looked back once more.
Their home gradually disappeared behind them.
The road opened ahead.
This time the journey felt nothing like the journey home two months earlier. Then, every mile had carried her towards belonging. Now every mile seemed to pull something from her.
She and Nata travelled with their ridiculous collection of belongings — produce, cloth, food, gifts and the complaining hens.
At moments the absurdity of it made them laugh.
“You see?” Nata said when one hen became particularly vocal. “Even the chicken doesn’t want to go to Bakau.”
Matou laughed so hard that tears came again, and soon she was unsure whether she was laughing or crying.
Nata did not ask.
She simply stayed beside her.
As they drew nearer to the coastal settlements, the world became increasingly familiar to Matou in another way. Roads, people, compounds and landmarks began signalling the return to the life she had left temporarily behind.
Eventually Bakau came.
Matou’s heart began beating faster.
The Owens’ house looked almost exactly as she remembered it.
That surprised her.
Some childish part of her had expected two months to alter everything because they had altered her so completely.
But houses did not experience absence as children did.
Nata helped her with the belongings.
Before they had even finished entering, people noticed them.
There were greetings.
Questions.
Exclamations at the amount Matou had brought.
And then Aunty Bae appeared.
Matou stiffened instinctively.
For a second, all the old fear returned.
But Aunty Bae looked at her and smiled.
“You have come back.”
There was something almost like pleasure in her voice.
“Yes.”
“Look at you. You went home and became fat.”
Matou immediately looked down at herself.
Nata laughed.
“She has been eating.”
“I can see that.”
Then Aunty Bae noticed the gifts.
“What is all this?”
“My family sent them.”
“Hens too?”
Matou nodded.
Aunty Bae laughed.
“So you brought the village with you?”
It was almost exactly what Nata had said.
Matou looked at her in surprise.
For those first minutes, Aunty Bae seemed genuinely glad to see her.
Perhaps absence had softened something.
Perhaps even difficult people could miss someone whose presence they had taken for granted.
Perhaps Aunty Bae simply liked the sight of fresh produce and hens.
Matou did not know.
She decided not to question the kindness while it lasted.
