Echoes of Fulladu 2: The quiet departure

The world seemed to stop.
Mama Jang blinked, his throat suddenly dry.
He wasn’t sure he had heard correctly.
“Who?” he asked, his voice barely audible.
“Yes,” Nata confirmed, her voice gentle yet steady. “You heard me right. You two are going to have a baby.”
The words struck him like a hammer blow. His body sagged against the lorry’s warm bonnet, as though even its solid frame couldn’t carry the weight now pressing down on his chest.
“A baby?” he repeated in disbelief.
Nata nodded. “I’ve watched her. The changes, the nausea, the sudden cravings. Even her outbursts — they feel different now, sharper. It’s as if her body is speaking louder than she can.”
He shook his head slowly, trying to chase away the impossible thought.
“No… no, that can’t be true. She’s mad, Nata. She’s — ”
“She’s also a woman,” Nata interrupted firmly. “A woman with a womb. A woman who has carried pain, yes, but who now carries life. Whether she knows it or not.”
The courtyard seemed to shrink around him. His ears rang with echoes of Zainabou’s late-night screams, her accusations, her strange laughter. The smell of engine oil clung to his hands, reminding him of the lorry — his only anchor in this chaotic life.
He sat down slowly on the low stool, the jug of water he’d been holding slipping to the ground unnoticed.
“A baby…” His lips barely moved. “I don’t know how to be a father in this madness.”
Nata crouched beside him. Her voice was calm, almost motherly. “Then don’t try to be perfect. Just try to be present.”
He swallowed hard, shaking his head.
“I thought the fights would kill us both. The shouting, the way she looks at me as if I am a demon. I thought I was going to lose my own mind.”
“I know,” Nata said softly. “We all hear it. But sometimes, people break louder than others. It doesn’t mean they’re not worth loving.”
His eyes stung. He rubbed them quickly, unwilling to be seen with tears.
“I had stopped praying for peace. I just prayed for silence. Any silence.”
Nata placed a hand on his knee. “And now you have a future — uncertain, yes, but a future all the same.”
He stared at his trembling, oil-blackened hands. “I don’t know how to hold something so fragile.”
“Start,” Nata said, “by holding her — even when she pushes you away.”
…
That evening, Mama Jang returned to their room earlier than usual. The compound had gone quiet. The children were already indoors, their mothers whispering by the firesides, careful not to rouse Zainabou’s fury.
Inside, she was sprawled on the mat, her eyes darting restlessly across the ceiling. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her body, as if shielding herself from unseen blows.
He stood at the doorway, unsure of how to begin. Finally, he crossed the room and knelt beside her.
“Do you feel sick lately?” he asked gently.
She turned, startled by his tone. “Why?”
“Because maybe… maybe it’s not the spirits talking.”
Her brow furrowed. “What are you saying?”
“I think you’re pregnant,” he said softly.
The words hung heavy in the air.
Zainabou sat up abruptly, eyes wide with suspicion. “Me? Pregnant? No! Who told you that? Who planted that idea?”
“No one planted it,” he replied calmly. “We planted it. Together. Before the fights. Before the shouting.”
She shook her head violently. “Lies! You only want me to be quiet. You want to distract me.”
But as she spoke, her hand drifted unconsciously to her belly.
He noticed.
“It’s not a punishment,” he whispered. “It’s a gift. And I’m afraid too, Zainabou. But I want to try.”
For the first time in months, her wildness seemed to soften. Behind her eyes, something flickered — recognition, perhaps even hope.
…
The days that followed were a pendulum. Some mornings she was almost tender, asking him if he would like tea, humming while she swept the room. Other days, she hurled insults at him, accusing him of poisoning her food, of plotting with the lorry spirits to steal her unborn child.
Mama Jang tried to steady himself against her storms. He coaxed her to eat millet porridge, reminded her gently to rest. He whispered to the baby she might or might not believe existed.
But the emotional toll was relentless.
One night, when she clawed at the door screaming that hyenas were circling, he held her trembling body and whispered, “It’s only the dogs barking, my wife. There are no hyenas.” His voice cracked, betraying his exhaustion.
Another evening, she sat cross-legged in the yard, pointing at stars. “That one is mine,” she said fiercely. “If you try to touch it, I will cut your tongue.”
He could only nod, lowering his eyes, shrinking further into himself.
The neighbours whispered more openly now. At the mosque, men avoided sitting beside him. Women fetching water muttered, “Poor man, he will not last.” He had once been respected, the reliable driver of a great man. Now he was “the husband of madness.”
Even the lorry, his pride and only inheritance, became a symbol of shame. Men joked behind his back:
“He drives strong on the road but cannot drive peace in his own house.”
The laughter sliced deeper than any knife.
…
One evening, Nata found him again by the lorry, staring blankly at the sky. His shoulders slumped, his face worn.
“She frightens me,” he admitted. “Not because she will hurt me, but because she pulls me into her world. I feel myself unraveling. I am afraid that one day, I will join her in the shadows.”
“You are stronger than that,” Nata said firmly.
But he shook his head.
“I am not. Every day I grow smaller. I am not the man I was.”
He fell silent, then added in a whisper:
“And yet… I would have loved to see the baby. To know if it is a boy or girl. To hold him — or her. I would love both. But how do I raise a child in this chaos? How do I survive her pregnancy when I can barely survive her nights?”
Nata had no answer.
…
The breaking point came quietly.
One dawn, as the first call to prayer echoed through the still air, Mama Jang sat awake, watching Zainabou’s restless sleep. She muttered in her dreams, her hands twitching.
He looked at her belly — slightly rounded now, undeniable. A child was indeed forming there. A child who deserved peace, not the endless madness that filled their compound.
His chest tightened. He imagined holding the child — tiny fingers clutching his thumb, soft breath against his neck. He knew he would have loved that, whether boy or girl. But he also saw the nights of chaos, the screams, the distrust, the danger. He could not survive it.
And he knew then: neither could the child.
Silently, he rose. He gathered the small bundle of clothes he had kept hidden, his tools, and the keys to the kasanbarr. He paused at the doorway, his eyes fixed on Zainabou one last time. Her face, even in troubled sleep, still held traces of beauty.
“I tried,” he whispered into the room. His voice cracked. “But I cannot break with you. And I cannot break this child before it begins.”
His feet were heavy as he stepped out into the cold dawn. The lorry loomed in the yard, its frame glistening with dew. He climbed into the driver’s seat, fingers trembling as he turned the ignition.
The engine roared to life, startling a few early risers. Windows opened, neighbors peered out. They watched silently as the man they had pitied drove away, leaving behind the compound, the wife, the unborn child, and the madness.
…
When the dust settled, Zainabou woke to find him gone. She searched the room, then the yard, calling his name in rising panic. But the lorry was gone too — the kasanbarr her father had given as dowry.
Neighbours whispered again, some with pity, others with disdain.
“He has run away.”
“Who can blame him?”
“But what of the baby?”
Zainabou herself seemed not to grasp the full weight of his departure. Some days she laughed, telling people her husband had gone to trade kola nuts and would return with gold. Other days she cursed the air, swearing he had betrayed her with spirits.
Her mother wept quietly in the kitchen, knowing the truth that Zainabou could not hold onto.
And Nata, standing at the edge of the compound, whispered to no one in particular:
“He loved her. He tried. But sometimes love alone is not enough to survive madness.”
…
Mama Jang drove into the horizon with the kasanbarr, the lorry that had sealed his fate as Zainabou’s husband. He carried with him the ache of unfinished love, the grief of a child he would never know, and the shame of a man too small to bear the weight of madness.
Yet in his quiet flight was also a fragile hope — that somewhere beyond the reach of whispers and shadows, he might find silence again.
And behind him, in that troubled compound, Zainabou carried both madness and new life, her story bound forever to the man who could not stay.
To be continued…