As she was about to reach, she nearly fell... she managed to grab the office door handle and hurriedly forced herself out. She did not stop until she reached Taufeeq’s car. He was all over her—she was certain it was Turaki; no one else looked like him. At that moment all she hoped for was to catch sight of Taufeeq so they would both leave the hospital together, but ten minutes passed and there was no sign of Taufeeq or anyone like him.
Then she saw the two of them coming together — him and Turaki — moving side by side. Not knowing where to hide her head, she simply darted off and ran to hide behind some shrubs. From where she crouched she could see them even as they peered into Taufeeq’s car; later Turaki turned and, with his royal children in tow, returned to the hospital, while Taufeeq took his car and drove slowly along the roadside, his eyes betraying the panic etched across his face.
When she saw him leave the hospital gates, she emerged from behind the bushes and came to the gate to catch a taxi to Victoria Island — to Sakeenah’s house. As she approached, the guards at the gate moved up, locked it, stepped aside and started making phone calls.
Kulsum was filled with dreadful despair; wealth meant nothing to her then — they had closed the gate and prevented her from leaving. Before long she saw an Acura emerge from the hospital heading toward them. From a distance she recognized the driver’s calm, as if he did not want to stamp his foot down hard. It was TURAKI.
At that moment he was not wearing sunglasses, which allowed her to see him clearly and notice how much he had changed. She turned and went to the guards, begging them to open the gate. They did not even glance at her. Turaki’s car arrived and parked as if it were going to step on her toes.
He sat inside, looking back at her, a faint, magnetic smile at the corner of his mouth. He opened the car door and stepped out immediately, his black suit’s lapels neat on his shoulders. He stood before her and they faced one another. His eyes looked at her the same way they did in her dreams — directly into her. As her face contorted in fright, you could swear she had never before in her life known the expression standing before her.
“Sir, are you okay?” Kulsum asked, her voice trembling, peering into the hollow of his calm eyes.
“I came out because I was blocked in; did I owe you a debt that I have not paid?” he replied.
Before she could measure the words, his hand was on hers. She nearly gasped out of instinct, and then realized what was happening: he pulled her toward him, opened his car, put her inside and locked the door with his key. He walked around and took his seat, started the engine. The guards opened the gate for him and saluted, raising their hands in respect.
He drove along the smooth streets of Lagos without Kulsum knowing where he was taking her.
“Sir, are you kidnapping me? What do you want with me? How do you know me? Sir, I am a married woman — didn’t you see me with my husband?” Kulsum asked Turaki, her voice shaking on the verge of breaking into sobs.
The car’s stereo gave her no answer; the driver didn’t respond either — he just drove on, but the faint smile on his dark lips would not disappear.
Kulsum started pounding the car windows with both hands, hoping they might shatter and free her, crying out so that people would hear and come to her rescue. But she noticed the windows neither gave nor made a sound — no matter how long she struck them, they would not break.
She broke into sobs, calling for her grandmother and father. This made Turaki laugh. He looked at her with that gentle smile at the corner of his eyes and said lightly, “Just wait for Batulu and Umma!”
Her eyes filled with tears, but his gaze remained fixed on her. Just then they passed a police checkpoint. Her voice rose even more into a desperate shout though she didn’t realize the sound could not escape the window. She raised her hand to signal the police; one of the officers came to the car and tapped the glass. Turaki slowly lowered the window and showed his official identification card. Immediately the policeman stepped back, raised the shutters of his own car and quickly drove through and entered the Ikoyi district.
Kulsum didn’t stop crying; she realized that even if it were a kidnapping, Turaki had, in effect, already taken her. They passed several beautiful houses — maybe five — before pulling into a nice one-storey lodge. The guard came and opened the gate; Turaki drove his car inside.
He parked in a parking bay where two other cars were kept, turned off the engine and exhaled deeply. He looked at Kulsum, who would not lift her head from her knees and still did not know where he had brought her. Only the sound of her sobbing filled the car, like the news of a dead relative had been announced.
Only his chest rose and fell rapidly. Sometimes excitement can cause the heart to race; one can suddenly fall and die. That was how Turaki felt — everything happening today seemed like a dream… that he was now facing Kulsum!
If it was a dream, he prayed to God not to wake him from it until he saw its end — until he saw them together as husband and wife for a second time.
All that frantic searching he had done for Kulsum had been in Nigeria, in the city where he spent most of his life. God was witness that nothing in the world had troubled him like the search for Kulsum — four whole years. God, the Most Forgiving, had now placed Kulsum before him in his office. What sort of fool would let her slip away again?
“If you are done with the cry, then get in so we can go inside,” he said.
Furious, Kulsum raised her head to look at him; her eyes were half-closed with anger. She said, “On what grounds should I follow you where I don’t know? What business do you have with me? How do you know me? Have I ever looked like the girls picked up off the street in Lagos to be brought to guest houses?”
He pursed his lips and said, “I don’t know what my connection with you is either, and you don’t look like those street girls. This is not a guest house — it is a private home. My reason for asking you to come in and sit quietly with me is simply that you resemble my wife, the one I have not divorced yet, but whom I have been searching for and cannot find.”
He finished with that familiar half-smile on the side of his mouth.
“I want to confirm — I just want to confirm whether this is Kulsum... I just want to confirm if the UmmuKulsum I’m looking for is the one I lost... I just want to confirm whether her reaction to seeing me in an unexpected place means she recognizes me and is pretending... or whether something else frightened her and made her run seeking shelter…”
Before he could finish, Kulsum answered, “I don’t know you. I have no idea who you are. I have never met you. I am a married woman, and you saw me with my husband, but they locked the gate because of indecency, because you stole me and brought me to a guest house. Between you and me there is a million-mile gap.”
Turaki gave a small smile, a tender one mixed with an emotional softness he could hardly remember having. He admired her courage. Today he felt there was no one luckier than him — no one who had fulfilled a desire like this. He would finally see Kulsum after such a long time! Yet perhaps he had come at the wrong time; if what she said was true and she was with her husband, how could he reconcile this? If she truly was married, then even this private moment in his car would be forbidden, yet in his heart he felt that even a forbidden thing could destroy him — he would not let her escape again.
“Look UmmuKulsum, we are both adults here. Keep pretending if you must — I won’t stop you. But if you decide to leave this place, you should know you came in by my invitation and we sat and talked and you understood me and I understood you.”
Kulsum, in bitter tears, said, “How can I trust you to follow you when I have no idea whether you will harm me? How do you expect me to accompany you to a place where there will be no one to protect me, when I am a married woman?”
Turaki closed his eyes for a few seconds without opening them; the word “married” grated his soul, weighing down on him and scorching him, yet he could not accept it. He said, “Rest assured you are in my care, with your marriage intact. If I betray that trust, may God hold me to account. Trust that despite the world’s corruption, there are still those who keep their promises and try to do the right thing.”
Kulsum replied, “I have no interest in your promises. Whatever you want to tell me, tell me now and release me so I can leave. I know I don’t know you; I have never seen you before on the road. But you see someone’s wife and you force her into a car and take her — that is the violation of marital dignity and the breach of human decency.”
Before she could finish, Turaki opened his door, stepped out, and, with fierce strength, pulled her out of the car by both hands, clutching her to himself. “I’m not saying you know me — we’ll make you know me. I don’t know you either, Kulsum, but we must talk.”
They entered the lounge of the house — an elegant English-style parlor. She didn’t notice him lock the door, then slip the key into his trouser pocket.
Kulsum stood and refused to sit. Turaki strode to her and stood before her with his hands in his pockets in his usual way. He tried to look into her eyes and give her a signal. She averted her gaze, her stomach fluttering. He had had this effect on her since her youth: whenever he was near, even the muscles of her stomach would quiver. Today, facing him in a new way she had never expected, her whole body trembled, including the strings of her heart.
“UmmuKulsum, how is life? How are you after the separation? What is special after our parting?”
She didn’t answer him, only bowed her head slightly. The scent of his personal cologne filled her nostrils. Turaki stepped closer until the space between them was no more than two feet. He said,
“They said you left the country? They made me suffer? So you are in this country, Kulsumu? You have made a life as you wished — have you forgotten me? I’m still out here struggling to find you in every corner. Kulsum, tell me about yourself — how are you? I’m extremely intrigued! What brought you to Lagos?”
Description
The Moment of Panic and the Hidden Watcher
As she was about to reach, she nearly fell... she managed to grab the office door handle and hurriedly forced herself out. She did not stop until she reached Taufeeq’s car. He was all over her—she was certain it was Turaki; no one else looked like him. At that moment all she hoped for was to catch sight of Taufeeq so they would both leave the hospital together, but ten minutes passed and there was no sign of Taufeeq or anyone like him.
Then she saw the two of them coming together — him and Turaki — moving side by side. Not knowing where to hide her head, she simply darted off and ran to hide behind some shrubs. From where she crouched she could see them even as they peered into Taufeeq’s car; later Turaki turned and, with his royal children in tow, returned to the hospital, while Taufeeq took his car and drove slowly along the roadside, his eyes betraying the panic etched across his face.
When she saw him leave the hospital gates, she emerged from behind the bushes and came to the gate to catch a taxi to Victoria Island — to Sakeenah’s house. As she approached, the guards at the gate moved up, locked it, stepped aside and started making phone calls.
Kulsum was filled with dreadful despair; wealth meant nothing to her then — they had closed the gate and prevented her from leaving. Before long she saw an Acura emerge from the hospital heading toward them. From a distance she recognized the driver’s calm, as if he did not want to stamp his foot down hard. It was TURAKI.
At that moment he was not wearing sunglasses, which allowed her to see him clearly and notice how much he had changed. She turned and went to the guards, begging them to open the gate. They did not even glance at her. Turaki’s car arrived and parked as if it were going to step on her toes.
He sat inside, looking back at her, a faint, magnetic smile at the corner of his mouth. He opened the car door and stepped out immediately, his black suit’s lapels neat on his shoulders. He stood before her and they faced one another. His eyes looked at her the same way they did in her dreams — directly into her. As her face contorted in fright, you could swear she had never before in her life known the expression standing before her.
“Sir, are you okay?” Kulsum asked, her voice trembling, peering into the hollow of his calm eyes.
“I came out because I was blocked in; did I owe you a debt that I have not paid?” he replied.
Before she could measure the words, his hand was on hers. She nearly gasped out of instinct, and then realized what was happening: he pulled her toward him, opened his car, put her inside and locked the door with his key. He walked around and took his seat, started the engine. The guards opened the gate for him and saluted, raising their hands in respect.
He drove along the smooth streets of Lagos without Kulsum knowing where he was taking her.
“Sir, are you kidnapping me? What do you want with me? How do you know me? Sir, I am a married woman — didn’t you see me with my husband?” Kulsum asked Turaki, her voice shaking on the verge of breaking into sobs.
The car’s stereo gave her no answer; the driver didn’t respond either — he just drove on, but the faint smile on his dark lips would not disappear.
Kulsum started pounding the car windows with both hands, hoping they might shatter and free her, crying out so that people would hear and come to her rescue. But she noticed the windows neither gave nor made a sound — no matter how long she struck them, they would not break.
She broke into sobs, calling for her grandmother and father. This made Turaki laugh. He looked at her with that gentle smile at the corner of his eyes and said lightly, “Just wait for Batulu and Umma!”
Her eyes filled with tears, but his gaze remained fixed on her. Just then they passed a police checkpoint. Her voice rose even more into a desperate shout though she didn’t realize the sound could not escape the window. She raised her hand to signal the police; one of the officers came to the car and tapped the glass. Turaki slowly lowered the window and showed his official identification card. Immediately the policeman stepped back, raised the shutters of his own car and quickly drove through and entered the Ikoyi district.
Kulsum didn’t stop crying; she realized that even if it were a kidnapping, Turaki had, in effect, already taken her. They passed several beautiful houses — maybe five — before pulling into a nice one-storey lodge. The guard came and opened the gate; Turaki drove his car inside.
He parked in a parking bay where two other cars were kept, turned off the engine and exhaled deeply. He looked at Kulsum, who would not lift her head from her knees and still did not know where he had brought her. Only the sound of her sobbing filled the car, like the news of a dead relative had been announced.
Only his chest rose and fell rapidly. Sometimes excitement can cause the heart to race; one can suddenly fall and die. That was how Turaki felt — everything happening today seemed like a dream… that he was now facing Kulsum!
If it was a dream, he prayed to God not to wake him from it until he saw its end — until he saw them together as husband and wife for a second time.
All that frantic searching he had done for Kulsum had been in Nigeria, in the city where he spent most of his life. God was witness that nothing in the world had troubled him like the search for Kulsum — four whole years. God, the Most Forgiving, had now placed Kulsum before him in his office. What sort of fool would let her slip away again?
“If you are done with the cry, then get in so we can go inside,” he said.
Furious, Kulsum raised her head to look at him; her eyes were half-closed with anger. She said, “On what grounds should I follow you where I don’t know? What business do you have with me? How do you know me? Have I ever looked like the girls picked up off the street in Lagos to be brought to guest houses?”
He pursed his lips and said, “I don’t know what my connection with you is either, and you don’t look like those street girls. This is not a guest house — it is a private home. My reason for asking you to come in and sit quietly with me is simply that you resemble my wife, the one I have not divorced yet, but whom I have been searching for and cannot find.”
He finished with that familiar half-smile on the side of his mouth.
“I want to confirm — I just want to confirm whether this is Kulsum... I just want to confirm if the UmmuKulsum I’m looking for is the one I lost... I just want to confirm whether her reaction to seeing me in an unexpected place means she recognizes me and is pretending... or whether something else frightened her and made her run seeking shelter…”
Before he could finish, Kulsum answered, “I don’t know you. I have no idea who you are. I have never met you. I am a married woman, and you saw me with my husband, but they locked the gate because of indecency, because you stole me and brought me to a guest house. Between you and me there is a million-mile gap.”
Turaki gave a small smile, a tender one mixed with an emotional softness he could hardly remember having. He admired her courage. Today he felt there was no one luckier than him — no one who had fulfilled a desire like this. He would finally see Kulsum after such a long time! Yet perhaps he had come at the wrong time; if what she said was true and she was with her husband, how could he reconcile this? If she truly was married, then even this private moment in his car would be forbidden, yet in his heart he felt that even a forbidden thing could destroy him — he would not let her escape again.
“Look UmmuKulsum, we are both adults here. Keep pretending if you must — I won’t stop you. But if you decide to leave this place, you should know you came in by my invitation and we sat and talked and you understood me and I understood you.”
Kulsum, in bitter tears, said, “How can I trust you to follow you when I have no idea whether you will harm me? How do you expect me to accompany you to a place where there will be no one to protect me, when I am a married woman?”
Turaki closed his eyes for a few seconds without opening them; the word “married” grated his soul, weighing down on him and scorching him, yet he could not accept it. He said, “Rest assured you are in my care, with your marriage intact. If I betray that trust, may God hold me to account. Trust that despite the world’s corruption, there are still those who keep their promises and try to do the right thing.”
Kulsum replied, “I have no interest in your promises. Whatever you want to tell me, tell me now and release me so I can leave. I know I don’t know you; I have never seen you before on the road. But you see someone’s wife and you force her into a car and take her — that is the violation of marital dignity and the breach of human decency.”
Before she could finish, Turaki opened his door, stepped out, and, with fierce strength, pulled her out of the car by both hands, clutching her to himself. “I’m not saying you know me — we’ll make you know me. I don’t know you either, Kulsum, but we must talk.”
They entered the lounge of the house — an elegant English-style parlor. She didn’t notice him lock the door, then slip the key into his trouser pocket.
Kulsum stood and refused to sit. Turaki strode to her and stood before her with his hands in his pockets in his usual way. He tried to look into her eyes and give her a signal. She averted her gaze, her stomach fluttering. He had had this effect on her since her youth: whenever he was near, even the muscles of her stomach would quiver. Today, facing him in a new way she had never expected, her whole body trembled, including the strings of her heart.
“UmmuKulsum, how is life? How are you after the separation? What is special after our parting?”
She didn’t answer him, only bowed her head slightly. The scent of his personal cologne filled her nostrils. Turaki stepped closer until the space between them was no more than two feet. He said,
“They said you left the country? They made me suffer? So you are in this country, Kulsumu? You have made a life as you wished — have you forgotten me? I’m still out here struggling to find you in every corner. Kulsum, tell me about yourself — how are you? I’m extremely intrigued! What brought you to Lagos?”