Three months separated their pregnancies, a thin strand of time that tied two women together in a compound that breathed both pity and judgment.
Zainabou, the landlord’s daughter, was known across the neighbourhood as the mad child.
Nata was not her kin. She was merely a tenant in the same compound, living with her husband Bukari in one of the small rooms lined against the far wall. But their lives intersected like two threads tangled by fate. For while Zainabou’s madness thundered loudly, Nata’s quiet despair seeped like water into the ground.
Nata lived in silence. It was not the peaceful silence of choice, but the heavy, suffocating kind that pressed against her ribs and choked her voice. She carried the memory of her first stillbirth like a wound that refused to heal, raw and festering no matter how much time passed.
Every evening when she fetched water at the communal tap, the voices of children mocked her without knowing it. Their shrill laughter as they chased each other, their playful shrieks echoing through the sandy courtyards, struck her heart like barbs. Each cry was a reminder of the child she could not keep. Each giggle reminded her that her womb, instead of blessing her, had betrayed her. She feared it still. She feared that another child might either die in her arms, leaving her broken again, or live only to drag her deeper into a life she had never chosen, a life pressed upon her like a tight cloth she could not remove.
Her silence grew into distance. She withdrew from the girls she had known growing up — companions with whom she once shared secrets, laughter, and silly games. They had become strangers, though they lived only a few compounds away. They still played with beads and toys, still gathered to braid each other’s hair and giggle at the glances of boys. But Nata could not join them. She had aged beyond her years. She had evolved from dolls and giggles to swollen bellies and household duties, from daydreams to the blunt reality of cooking fires, fetching water, and lying beside a man whose touch felt more like a duty than a delight. Her childhood had ended the day her father arranged her marriage.
Meanwhile, Zainabou’s pregnancy was both spectacle and scandal. Neighbours shook their heads openly. Some whispered, “How can a madwoman be allowed to carry life?” Others, more fatalistic, muttered, “It is not man’s doing — it is God’s will. If He has put life in her, then life must be.”
At night, Zainabou paced the courtyard, her swollen belly visible even in the moonlight, her headscarf often sliding loose, her hair a wild halo. She laughed suddenly, cradling her stomach as though it already spoke to her, murmuring lullabies to a child no one else could hear. Other times, her laughter curdled into rage. She jabbed her fingers at the shadows, shouting that invisible enemies were conspiring to steal her child, that the stars themselves wanted to snatch him away.
Nata watched her often from the shadows of her own doorway, torn between pity and fear. There was something both tragic and terrifying in Zainabou’s madness — a madness that made her tender one moment and violent the next.
And slowly, Nata began to understand something unspoken. Madness, she realised, was not only an illness of the mind. It was a curse. A shame. A stigma heavy enough to crush whole families. Madness was spoken about in hushed tones, as though naming it aloud could infect others. Families who carried it bore its weight not only in the afflicted but in the way neighbors looked at them — with suspicion, with pity, with mockery.
The landlord’s compound itself became a whispered story in the markets. Women selling vegetables would lower their voices and say, “That is where the mad daughter lives. That is where her husband ran away.” The tale passed from mouth to mouth like smoke, its edges growing with every retelling.
And in the middle of it all stood Nata — no relative of Zainabou, only a tenant in her father’s compound. Yet she, too, felt the sting of that stigma, felt it cling to her like dust after a long walk. Living so close, her own silence became entangled with the echoes of Zainabou’s laughter, her own fears deepened by the spectacle of madness playing out just beyond her door.
The day of Zainabou’s labour came with the same unpredictability that defined her life. She screamed of spirits dragging her down, then collapsed into the old midwife’s hands. Hours of struggle followed, punctuated by curses, bursts of laughter, and shrieks that chilled even the hardened women who attended her.
But in the end, the cries of a newborn split the air — piercing, insistent, alive.
A boy.
The courtyard erupted with ululations. Women clapped their hands, praising God for sparing both mother and child. The midwife, her face carved in wrinkles of exhaustion, held him up for all to see: red, wailing, limbs flailing with the vigor of life.
The landlord, anxious to preserve dignity in a compound that had become the stage of gossip, ordered the slaughter of not one but two rams. Tradition demanded it. For male children, two rams must fall to mark the blessing of new life, to seal his place in lineage, and to return thanks to God. The blood ran dark into the earth, mingling with chants of Allahu Akbar.
The neighbours gathered, some out of duty, others out of curiosity. Everyone knew what was missing: the father. Mama Jang, with his dowry of kasanbarr lorry, had vanished into the horizon weeks before. His absence was a wound no ceremony could fully conceal. Yet on that day, the cries of the boy seemed to push back the shadow of abandonment.
On the seventh day, the compound filled again. Naming ceremonies were elaborate affairs, filled with ritual, prayer, and performance. A father should have cradled the infant, whispered the chosen name into his ear, and blessed him with a future. Instead, the silence of absence lingered, heavy as the midday heat.
Zainabou bent over her son, her lips brushing his tiny ear as she whispered, “Muhammad. The Praised.”
The women echoed the name in approval. “Muhammad! May he be praised! May he be strong!”
And Zainabou — oh, Zainabou — her joy was implacable. She cradled the boy against her chest, her laughter ringing through the compound. For once, her madness seemed subdued, replaced by a mother’s pride. She rivaled in joy, rocking him, pressing kisses to his forehead, humming songs that stumbled between sense and nonsense.
The whispers around her did not cease. Neighbors muttered, “How will she raise him? Where is his father? What future can he have in the hands of a madwoman?”
But Zainabou paid them no mind. In her eyes, the boy was no curse, no scandal. He was a blessing, a gift, a miracle that belonged to her alone. For once, she stood taller than the shame others draped upon her.
Muhammad, The Praised, was here.
And in that moment, even with the lorry gone, even with Mama Jang’s shadow lingering at the edge of their story, joy wrapped itself around Zainabou like a second skin.
The compound buzzed for weeks after the naming ceremony. The aroma of ram meat still lingered in the air, seeping into the clay walls, reminding everyone of the two sacrifices offered for the boy. For neighbours, the talk was not so much about the food but the strangeness of it all: a child born into madness, named without a father, and yet celebrated as though nothing was missing.
But within the compound, life shifted in subtle ways.
Zainabou’s joy, though fierce, was inconsistent. One day she would rock Muhammad with tender pride, singing lullabies that made no sense to anyone but her. Another day, she would leave him crying on the mat, convinced the child was a spirit mocking her. Sometimes she swore he belonged to the stars, not her arms.
And each time, it was Nata — the quiet renter at the far end of the yard — who picked him up.
Nata’s own belly had grown heavy by then, her second pregnancy now undeniable. The memory of her stillborn child haunted every kick she felt inside her. Fear had made her cautious, quiet, always guarding her emotions against disappointment.
But when she held Muhammad, her defenses crumbled. His cries pierced through the silence of her evenings with Bukari. His tiny fists clutching her wrapper filled her with a strange tenderness, a reminder that life could cling, could survive.
At times, she would sit beneath the neem tree, Muhammad nestled against her shoulder, her own unborn child stirring within. The weight of both lives — one in her arms, one in her womb—made her feel suspended between terror and hope.
“Shhh, my son,” she would whisper to Muhammad, though he was not hers. “Don’t cry. The world already talks too much about you. Rest, at least, in my arms.”
Women in the compound did not fail to notice.
“Look at the tenant’s wife,” they muttered. “She holds the landlord’s grandson as if he were her own.”
Another added, “Perhaps she finds in him what her husband will not give her.”
But they were not cruel. Their whispers carried curiosity more than malice. In truth, many admired her for stepping in where madness faltered. They saw her strength in silence, her courage in rocking the child even when Zainabou’s laughter turned to threats.
Still, the talk stung. Nata feared her kindness would be twisted into scandal. Yet she could not pull away. Every time Muhammad reached for her, every time he pressed his tiny face into her breast, she felt the ache of her stillborn soften.
Bukari said little of it. He was a man who measured his words carefully, preferring authority to affection. He watched his wife hold the landlord’s grandchild, but he did not interfere. Perhaps he thought it was harmless, perhaps he thought it was none of his concern.
One evening, as they ate rice from the same bowl, he spoke at last.
“You spend too much time with the madwoman’s child.”
Nata’s hand froze mid-air. “He is only a baby,” she said softly.
“A baby that is not yours,” Bukari replied. “Remember that.”
His tone was not harsh, but final. He had said his piece. Yet even then, Nata did not stop. She could not. Something stronger than duty compelled her.
It was through Muhammad that Nata began to understand her neighbour’s madness more intimately.
She saw how Zainabou’s love came in bursts — fierce, protective, but fleeting. One moment she would guard the boy with her life, another she would thrust him into Nata’s arms, muttering, “Take him, before the spirits swallow him.”
Nata realised madness was not only chaos. It was a shifting tide, one that carried both danger and truth. When Zainabou laughed at shadows, she was masking despair. When she accused neighbors of witchcraft, she was naming her own fear of abandonment.
And in that madness, Muhammad became both anchor and storm. He was her pride and her curse, her joy and her burden.
To be continued…
