The compound in Bakau had returned to its stillness, the type that only visited on late afternoons when the sun cast long shadows and the scent of salt from the sea drifted in the breeze. But in Mr Owens’ heart, a storm brewed.
Earlier that day, Yerro had come. Not as a man seeking favour, not as one reduced by circumstance, but as a father — present, upright, proud and broken all at once. He had spoken few words, but they had fallen like stones in Mr. Owens’ conscience. Words about silence, about pain seen not with the eyes, but the heart. About a child who did not lie. And about faith — not just the kind practiced in mosque or church, but the kind that holds firm through the heartbreak of separation and sacrifice.
“And one more thing,” Yerro had said, pausing, eyes steady. “I know you are Christians. That is your belief. But as a Muslim man, I beg you — I implore you — please never convert my daughter. Let her grow with her religion. Please… do not take her from her faith.”
A stillness spread through the compound then. Even the avocado leaves above them seemed to still in respect.
Mr Owens had nodded. “I understand, Yerro,” he said quietly. “Matou is not a burden. She’s a good girl. Very helpful. Very smart. You have raised her well. We will never force her to change her religion. That is not our way.”
But it was what came next that stuck to Mr Owens like burr to cloth. “No one told me anything,” Yerro had said. “But I saw with my eyes. And I heard… not with ears, but with heart. Her silence spoke. Her face spoke. My wife… her mother… saw it. And when a mother sees pain in her child’s eyes, it is not small. It is not a mistake.”
Mr Owens, once proud and confident in his duty, felt his chest tighten. Not with guilt alone, but with shame. He had indeed neglected to see Matou. He had allowed the women of the household to run things as they always had, distancing himself in the manner of men raised to believe their responsibility ended with provision.
But watching Yerro leave, pride hiding the cracks in his voice, had stirred something deep in him.
That evening, Mr Owens watched his household more closely than he had in months. He watched as his wife returned with their children and nieces, animated and laughing, dropping their sandals with careless ease. Matou followed silently, picking up after them. When the youngest spilled a cup of water, it was Matou who knelt with a rag, wiping up the puddle without a word. When supper was served, she ate last, seated on the floor, near the kitchen door, away from the laughter.
His chest ached. Was this how the little girl had been treated all along? Hadn’t her parents been promised a better life for her — a life of love, dignity, and care? He watched as Aunty Beatrice, his mother-in-law, fixed the child with a glare so sharp it could cut through bone. The girl had been trying to walk up to the other children — perhaps to play, perhaps to say something — but he would never know what. Because that cold, piercing stare stopped her in her tracks, mid-step. She hesitated, then quietly turned back, her small shoulders sinking.
Later, long after the house had gone quiet, Mr Owens tiptoed through the corridor toward the room where Matou slept. The door creaked open to reveal the dim glow of a single bulb lamp. There, on the tiled floor, Matou lay curled up on a thin mat, her back against the hard floor, breathing uneven. His mother-in-law and the other girls lay comfortably on the large bed, unaware or uninterested.
He stood in the doorway for a long moment, then spoke — quiet, but firm. “Let Matou sleep on the bed. If not, I will go and buy her one. She must never sleep on the floor again.”
The old woman stirred, startled, then murmured to the girls, “Shift for her.”
Matou didn’t move.
Mr Owens stepped forward, gentler now. “Go on, Matou. You belong there too.”
Hesitantly, as if unsure of her worth, Matou rose. Her small feet padded softly across the tiles. She climbed into the bed beside the girls who barely looked at her.
He watched her face. A flicker of light passed through her eyes. Not quite a smile, but something close.
He turned and walked back, wiping a tear he hadn’t realised had escaped.
Childhood was such a brief season, he thought. And yet its sorrows were heavy.
In their modest home in Jeshwang, Borogie sat quietly weaving a mat from slender palm fronds, her calloused fingers moving in practiced rhythm. Each pull and tuck of the strands was mechanical, automatic — the work of a body that knew its task by memory, while the mind wandered far and wide. The late afternoon sun slanted through the open window, painting dappled golden patterns on the bare floor. Children’s laughter from a neighbour’s compound floated in the air, mingling with the scent of groundnut smoke and boiling fish stew carried by the breeze. But Borogie was elsewhere.
It had been three days since Yerro had gone to see Matou. He had returned home that evening just before Maghrib prayers, his face drawn, his steps slow like a man returning from a burial. He had said little, only muttering his salaams before sitting quietly beside her on the raffia mat. No greeting, no comment about the state of the compound, no sigh of relief from the journey. Just silence. Heavy, unsettled silence. The kind that settled into the room like dust, refusing to be swept away.
She hadn’t looked up from her weaving then, not right away. But she had felt the shift in the air, the weight pressing down on them both. She had seen that look before — in the eyes of men who had faced their failure, who had walked unknowingly into the consequences of their decisions, and returned changed. Yerro’s shoulders, once broad with youthful pride, now sagged with something invisible but unmistakable.
Finally, he spoke, voice low, brittle.
“You were right,” he said, barely above a whisper. “She is hurting.”
Borogie’s hands had stilled then, mid-weave. She had nodded, but didn’t speak. The words brought no joy, no vindication — just a sad confirmation of what she had feared all along. Her throat tightened, and the sting behind her eyes began to well. That night, long after the call to Isha had echoed through Jeshwang, after Yerro had curled on the mat and drifted into a restless sleep, Borogie had turned to face the mud wall of their bedroom and wept. Not loud, heaving sobs, but quiet ones — the kind that came from deep in the soul. The kind that asked no questions and sought no comfort. The kind that came when the heart had bled itself dry.
She had not cried like that in years. Not since she left Casamance. Not even when she gave up Matou to Mr Owens and his well-meaning wife, trusting — or perhaps hoping blindly — that a better life awaited her daughter in the brick homes and iron gates of the Aku. But the ache now was deeper. It was guilt, sharpened by love.
Her mind wandered to that moment, seven years earlier, when Matou first entered the world.
She remembered the struggle — the long, bone-rattling labour, the sweat that pooled on her skin and soaked her wrapper, the chants of the women urging her to push. And then, the silence. That terrifying stillness after Matou was born. A silence so loud it cracked the air.
The midwife, Kumba Kolda — a towering woman with arms like baobab branches and hips that wobbled like river canoes — had caught the baby, slapped her bottom, shaken her gently, tried again. Nothing. Matou’s skin had been dark and slick, her lips blue-tinged. The room was still, time suspended. Borogie remembered screaming inside, praying in all the languages she knew.
Then suddenly — a cry. A wail so loud and defiant it startled even Kumba herself. The women erupted in ululations, and Kumba had burst into laughter, declaring with pride, “This one is Temeh Temeh! She carries the weight of a name, like me. A big girl with a big destiny.”
That was how Matou got her nickname — Temeh Temeh. The child with a voice strong enough to command life itself.
And she had been full of life. From the moment she could walk, she danced. From the moment she could speak, she sang. Her giggles often rang out louder than the pounding of the pestle in the mortar, louder than the calls of the women selling fish at the roadside, louder than the quarrels of older cousins fighting over meat. Matou lived loudly — and beautifully. Even in poverty.
Borogie smiled faintly at the memory of Matou sneaking into the kitchen when no one was watching, sipping watery domoda soup straight from the pot, smacking her lips in delight.
“I was only testing it, Mama!” she would say, feigning innocence, her chin shiny with oil.
Or the time she begged with mock hunger, rubbing her stomach theatrically and chanting, “Maafeh, maaafeh, please give me maafeh before I die!” all for a spoonful of sauce before the rice finished cooking.
Her appetite, both for food and life, had always been insatiable.
And now? That fire had dimmed. Her laughter silenced.
Yerro had spoken of it only once more. Late that same night, after her tears had dried and they lay side by side under the worn mosquito net. His voice was hoarse, cracked.
“Before I left, I told her we missed her. That we thought of her every day. That she is still our child.”
He paused. “She said nothing. Just stared. And when I tried to hold her, she flinched.”
He broke then — quietly, like a man unused to tears but unable to stop them.
Borogie had reached for his hand, fingers worn and cracked like her own, and squeezed. In that moment, they were no longer man and wife, nor mother and father. They were simply two people mourning the same child, each from their own private battlefield.
She could not blame the Akus — not entirely. They had meant well. And in many ways, Matou’s life under their care had offered her opportunities Borogie could never have imagined: schooling, clothes, the comfort of a structured home. But what good were such things when the soul was starved? What comfort could bricks and books offer to a girl denied the scent of her mother’s skin, the warmth of her siblings’ arms, the rough affection of her village?
Borogie’s mat was nearly finished now. She looked down at it, her fingers slowing. The pattern was slightly crooked. The lines uneven. Like life, she thought bitterly. No matter how well you tried to weave it, some parts would always come out wrong.
She reached for the knife to trim the edges, then stopped. What was the use? She would undo it. Start again.
Just like they would have to do with Matou — unweave the years of absence, and try to braid something whole again.
Somehow.
To be continued…
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