THE QUIET ROAD

I was born under that loudspeaker, and on the day it died, it finally told the truth about my husband. He was not my husband yet. That was the part Chairman Bigsound refused to understand. He had chosen our wedding hall before I agreed to marry him. He had chosen my aso-ebi, the gold lace my friends would be expected to buy so they could prove they loved me. He had picked a Saturday in December because, according to him, “people are more generous after harvest.” Then he selected our children. “Two boys, two girls,” he said beside the mango tree outside Quiet Road Girls’ School. His white agbada was so wide it seemed to arrive before the rest of him. “But the girls must not be too educated. Too much education makes a woman unhappy in her home.” Rainwater dripped from the classroom roof behind me. I held a blue bucket under the worst leak. Plok. Another drop landed inside. Twenty-six girls sat on mats, moving their books away from wet patches as if learning was a game of escaping small disasters. “What makes a woman unhappy,” I told him, “is a roof that leaks onto her pupils.” Chairman Bigsound smiled. “You are becoming difficult.” That sentence had followed my mother until it wore her down. She refused an early marriage, worked herself tired, and raised me to believe a woman could be more than what a man planned for her. People called her difficult until the day she died too exhausted to answer. Mariam, nine years old and barefoot, raised her hand. “Teacher Zuwaira, will the roof fall today?” “No,” I said. Above us, the zinc gave a long, doubtful creak. Deborah’s slate slipped from her lap and cracked on the cement. Chairman Bigsound looked into the classroom as if my girls were furniture placed there to improve his reputation. “You work too hard,” he said. “When we marry, you can rest. My wife will not sit under a tree arguing with rain.” “My school is not an argument.” “It is a project.” “It is twenty-six girls.” “It can be both.” Everything alive became a project when Chairman Bigsound wanted to own it. He owned Mega Mouth Sound & Events, the loudspeaker pole at Wahala Junction’s roundabout, and enough borrowed influence to make everyone call him Chairman. For eleven years, the loudspeaker had shouted across seven roads: weddings, burials, football scores, miracle medicines, political promises, and his favourite jingle. MEGA MOUTH SOUND & EVENTS! WE SHOUT FOR YOU! It was so loud that goats slept with one eye open. That afternoon, it announced my future. “GOOD PEOPLE OF WAHALA JUNCTION! VERY SOON, OUR BELOVED CHAIRMAN WILL JOIN HANDS WITH OUR BELOVED DAUGHTER, ZUWAIRA, TO BRING DEVELOPMENT TO QUIET ROAD!” My girls went still. Shaya, my nineteen-year-old brother, leaned against the wall with his cracked phone. He had been watching another young man beside a borrowed car, promising riches before sunset. “Zuwaira,” he said, “did you agree to that?” “No.” “Then why is the loudspeaker saying it?” “Because it does not know the difference between noise and truth.” Chairman Bigsound’s smile tightened. “People are excited. Do not embarrass me.” “I have not agreed to marry you.” “You have not refused properly.” I gripped the bucket. “What does that mean?” “It means a woman should not make permanent decisions while she is angry about temporary problems.” Plok. The next morning, three white SUVs arrived. They rolled through mud that had swallowed two okada tyres the previous week. Children ran behind them. Market women stopped selling tomatoes. Even goats watched. A blue banner hung over the first SUV: UNESCO PARTNERSHIP PROJECT EVERY GIRL CONNECTED. EVERY FUTURE BRIGHT. Chairman Bigsound walked beside the visitors with his careful smile for people with passports and thick folders. His two boys in yellow shirts stood near the loudspeaker pole, collecting money from okada riders. “Development meeting levy,” one said. “What development?” a rider asked. The boy tapped a wad of notes against his palm. “The development that is coming.” Nobody argued. In Wahala Junction, some questions cost more than transport fare. The visitors entered my school in sunglasses: two men, a woman in a cream suit, a photographer, a videographer, and a young man holding a black box like it contained a newborn child. “Good morning, Teacher Zuwaira,” the woman said. “We are pleased to support girls’ digital inclusion.” “Are they bringing books?” Deborah whispered. “Maybe a new roof,” Mariam said. The woman opened the black box. Inside was one tablet. One. For twenty-six girls. The tablet gleamed in our dim classroom, too clean for dusty mats. The programme officer gave it to Halima, thirteen years old, our quickest reader. “Touch it,” she told her. Halima touched the screen. The photographer raised his camera. “Good. More joy. Beautiful.” The girls crowded around. One hand touched the tablet. Another hand touched that hand. Soon, the tablet was less a learning tool than a small silver excuse to photograph poverty from several angles. “Wonderful,” the photographer said. “This is community ownership.” Chairman Bigsound nodded as if he had invented children. “Will the tablet stay?” I asked. “Of course,” the programme officer said. “Can the girls use it today?” “After documentation.” “What documentation?” She smiled with only her teeth. “Monitoring.” They took fifty pictures. They filmed girls reading under the leaking roof. They filmed Mariam’s bare feet. They filmed me by the mango tree, then asked me to look hopeful. “Hopeful but resilient,” the cameraman said. “What is the difference?” He did not answer. After the last photograph, the young man lifted the tablet from Halima’s hands and returned it to the black box. Halima stared at him. “Sir, are you taking it home?” “For monitoring.” “When will it come back?” “Soon.” Soon was a road nobody in Wahala Junction had ever reached. The SUVs left before noon. Their tyres cut through the mud outside our gate. The banner stayed behind, tied crookedly to the mango tree. For three days, the girls asked about the tablet. On the fourth day, Halima did not come. On the fifth, her mother arrived carrying bean cakes on her head and worry in her face. “Teacher, Halima will not continue for now.” “For how long?” “She is going to Yola.” “Why?” “My sister has a connection. Girls can go to Lagos for work. Later, maybe Dubai.” My stomach turned cold. “Halima is thirteen.” “She will be with family.” “Does your sister know the people?” “She said it is connected to a UN travel program.” The lie was so large it almost looked official. “Please let me speak to Halima.” “She has already left.” I watched the road after her mother went, as if Halima might return because I had finally found the right words. She did not. Three more girls left that month. One helped her aunt sell food. One was withdrawn by her father, who said school had made her proud. One could no longer afford transport. Twenty-six became twenty-two. I wrote the truth in the project report: Four girls dropped out after promised support did not arrive. Two weeks later, my sentence came back corrected: Four girls transitioned into alternative pathways. Shaya read it over my shoulder. “Transitioned into alternative pathways,” he repeated. Then he laughed. “If I learn that oyibo English, I can also hammer.” “Shaya.” “I am serious. I will tell people their money has transitioned into another pathway.” “Do not joke about stealing.” “I am learning professional communication.” At Mama Hauwa’s stand, groundnut shells snapped in her metal bowl and charcoal smoke clung to her wrapper. Aunty Ngozi sat nearby, pretending to buy seasoning cubes while gathering news. “Halima has gone?” she asked. “Yes.” She lowered her voice. “Deborah’s sister stopped school last year. Now she does runs in Jalingo to pay rent. Certificate cannot buy rice.” “Do not say that in front of Deborah.” “I am not judging her. Hunger does not ask women what dream they had before it entered the room.” Mama Hauwa looked up. “Survive with dignity,” she said. That evening, Chairman Bigsound found me beneath the mango tree. “You cannot save every girl alone,” he said. “I am not asking to save them alone.” “You are asking the wrong people.” “Who are the right people?” He touched his gold watch. “Me.” He promised projects, visitors, a borehole proposal, and maybe a proper classroom. Then his smile changed. “People like certainty. They want to know their investment is protected.” “You want to marry me so you can own my school.” “I want to protect you.” “From what?” “Failure.” Wind pushed through the zinc roof. Somewhere at the roundabout, the loudspeaker began another campaign jingle. I stepped closer. “I will not marry a man to make my school eligible for its own future.” For a second, he looked ordinary. Then the loudspeaker coughed. Once. Twice. Music broke into a thin crackle. Chairman Bigsound turned toward the pole. “Not now,” he whispered. A sharp pop split the air. Smoke curled above the roundabout. “GOOD PEOPLE OF WAHALA JUNCTION, OUR GREAT CHAIRMAN—” Then the loudspeaker died. Silence fell hard enough for us to hear Mama Hauwa’s groundnut shells breaking in her bowl. Chairman Bigsound grabbed the microphone. “Can you hear me?” His own voice came out small. Almost polite. Almost nothing. Across the compound, twenty-two girls stepped from beneath the mango tree and looked at me. Mariam raised her hand. “Teacher Zuwaira, if the loudspeaker is dead, who will tell us what to do?” Before I could answer, a white SUV turned slowly onto Quiet Road. And beside Chairman Bigsound’s driver sat Mr. Peter Ayuba, holding a brown envelope against his chest.