RABIAT'S DIARY

DECEMBER 5

I smile after reading the letter Suleiman sent back, not because I find it funny but because I didn't know what else to do.

He's made me feel terribly guilty, I feel bad.

But what can I do?

Since guilt and unhappiness about the whole matter and how everthing happens that prevents me form being out and about I stay mostly at home.

When I tell Aisha the news of my coming back to her father's house on the phone when I visit a friend's house, she is overwhelmed.

Thrice in a month I go to the phone booth to call her since our phone line has been permanently dislocated because of some major electrical problem; father's mobile phone is always with him and he hardly stays at home ever since he ventured into politics a month ago.

I dont have a phone.

The night I am supposed to have my last sleep in my father's house Mohammed invades me in my sleep via a dream. I dreamt of my Kano arrival I saw Mohammed.

He comes to meet me at the door as I arrive Kano.

His face isn't showing any emotions he just opened the door to let me in and turned back into the house without saying anything to me, not even a word of welcome.

When I abruptly wake up I pray he would not be as I saw him in my dream.

I must stop worrying.

Worry is an enemy of a well- ordered mind.

The following day as I slam into my dependence I say bye to my independence once again.

Mother wishes me good luck and soon I am on my way to Kano, escorted by my aunties.

As early as the end of january, the daily course of our lives has assumed its settled direction, and we three Mohammed, Tani and I were as completely insolated in our own section as if the house we lived in had been a desert and the streets outside of the house seemed like the sea.

I could now on some leisure time begin to consider what my future plan of action should be, and I might arm myself more securely at he struggle for my sanity due to Mohammed and Tani' s atrocities.

I give up all hope of appealing to people, mostly my friend Labara and mother or Aunty Halima, for good counsel.

Since my love for Mohammed is not more in amount than my sense of reason, I thank God.

The outward changes brought about by psychological suffering are there for all to see again on me.

I have had my own observations.

They are not getting any better in previous months when I had been away.

If people had seen them together enjoying themselves, there would have been no cause for alarm, but now that I am back everything that happens is like it is being aired on the radio.

Just as there are meddlers in any marriage there are more in the mind.

The meddlers believe I don't know what they say or predict between Mohammed and I.

Sometimes Tani gets as much as she can of stories about me from my so-called friends.

The way she eyes me and hisses whenever she sees me confirms that. I even learn that she has got supporters too and has severally exchanged words with my supporters. Funny.