The Garden

A Story by Sharrumkin

Mike and Linda grow to know each other in Mallam Maduri.

The Garden

Twenty kilometres north of Hadejia was the Women Teachers College of Mallam Madori. Miss Linda’s house stood just inside the gate making it the first residence to come to in the town if you were coming from Hadejia. Mike’s Vespa puttered up the road towards Mallam Madori. Strapped to the back was a blue Air Canada travel Bag. Inside Mike had placed a present for Miss Linda. He pulled off the road and passed through the gate, waving at the one eyed maigaurdi brewing a pot of tea.

The maigaurdi nodded. “Mallam Mike, sannu.” "Sannu Isa, Ya ya aiki? (How is work?) "Aiki yana da kyau, godiya. (Work is good, thanks.) You come see Mallama Linda?"

"Yauwa." Mike nodded.

Chuckling Isa waved him on.

✽✽✽

When Mike first came to Linda's house he was struck by how different it was to any other teacher's residence that he had seen. Most houses stood at the end of school property behind gates and administration buildings. Linda's house stood on the other side of a fence seperating it from the Hadejia road. From the road it seemed like the typical one story bungalow that made up the teacher residences in Kano and in Hadejia. Once through the gate however the true shape of the building appeared. The front door that faced the road was not the true entrance to the house. That was served by a metal door in the galvanized steel wall running from the back of the house, enclosing a rectangle of land. The small door, raised three inches off the ground by the bottom of the wall, was held in place by a steel bolt on the inside.

Opened, the door revealed to the visitor an older, more traditional style of residence that of an inner walled space, at the back of which were, erected in white-walled concrete, a tool shed and living quarters for hired help. Linda having no help, the quarters stood empty. Between the back quarters and the main house a small garden had been planted in the hard, dried earth. On his first visit Linda had pointed it out to him. "For millenia my family has farmed. We grew rice, vegetables, pigs and we fished. We lived in poverty but we lived. Now with education, we are engineers, nurses and teachers but we still hold to the land. So when I saw this space I did what I always do. I made a garden."

"In the backwoods of Africa?"

She shrugged. "Soil is soil. Tomatoes, beans, lettuce, those plants with the big leaves, shakwa, bitter leaf. Good for soup. The maigaurdi, Isa, gave me that." She pointed at a sapling. "Guavas. I have water. The walls keep the goats and cattle away My big problem is the insects. They eat everything, especially the termites. They even try to eat the house. "

"What do you do about them?"

"Spray. Surround the seedlings with water. Even then, I lose so many plants to them."

They worked together hoeing the soil. As they worked they spoke of the different routes they had each taken in coming to Nigeria. Mike's route had been through an agency associated with the Canadian government. The volunteers had been shepherded by representatives of the Federal government all the way to their destinations. Not so the Filipinos. Potential recruits were hired as individuals, employees of the Nigerian States. The Phillipine government had only acted to bring the two together . Once in Nigeria they were on their own.

"They asked me to draw a map of Africa and show where Nigeria was. I did. Then they asked what Nigeria's main export was. So I told them. Pumoil."

"What?"

"A friend who had been to the interview told me to say pumoil."

"What's that?"

"I didn't know but I said it. They smiled and looked happy so I guess I was right. Later when I was here I learned that Nigeria's main export . . ."

"Was pump oil."

"Yes." The two laughed, Mike guffawing, Linda tittering, hiding her mouth behind her right hand.

"After the interview I went back to work at the university and forgot about it. I did not think they would take me. I am small and ugly. So why would they? Then the letter came calling me back. When I came they asked me if I had a passport? Then they offered me a job."

"My father told me not to come. There are cannibals in Africa. I would be cooked in a big pot. I knew that was not true I but he had seen it in a movie. It worried him."

For a moment she concentrated on breaking up the earth with her hoe. Then, in a low voice her eyes on the hoe cutting through the earth, she continued. "He died a month before I came. People said my coming here broke his heart. They said I killed him. Maybe I did." She paused in her hoeing. Mike placed a hand on her right arm. She looked up at him. "There are a lot of blind, stupid people in the world," he said. "You don't have to listen to them." He resumed chopping the earth guided by Linda's critical eye.

✽✽✽

Linda opened the blue bag. A small gray kitten looked up at her. Mike wiggled a finger at the kitten. "I found it wandering in the market in Hadejia. It looked like it needed a home so I brought it here." Linda held it up. "What do you call it?" "Cat."

Linda frowned. "At home, in my language, Pangasinan, we call it pusa."

"Like puss?"

"Maybe. Come Pusa, have some milk."

Stroking the kitten Linda took it into the kitchen. Into a saucer she dripped some Carnation Concentrated milk. Bending down Linda placed the saucer on the floor. Pusa dipped her tongue in it.

✽✽✽

On the night that Linda first invited Mike into her bed she made clear one point. "You cannot stay here tonight. People will . . . talk."

"But it's almost eight o'clock."

"Then you leave. You can come tomorrow . . . maybe."

"But . . .? "

"What will they say of me if I let you stay the night? I will be laughed at."

"But you want me with you?"

"Yes, I do. I love you Mike but my name is all that I have. What we feel, this must remain between us, at least for now. My family must not know. Please, Mike."

She looked up at him her brown eyes pleading. Mike never could refuse those eyes.

✽✽✽

Just after eight-thirty Mike and Linda stepped out of the back door of Linda's house. Linda unlocked the back gate. They kissed. Then Mike stepped through the gate. He turned the ignition in the waiting Vespa. Taking a last look back at Linda, he turned onto the road. The maiguardi on duty roused himself from sleep to open the gate. Revving his motor Mike shot out onto the highway. He turned south towards Hadejia and soon disappeared in the dark.