Ayigya changed its face every year, from new food joints to home renovations by those who could afford them, but Charcoal Street remained the same, forever leading to the heart of the slums. My mother often said it would become a proper street the day the assemblyman remembered its existence. For now, it was the same stony road it had been since before I was born. 

A big, crumbling kiosk with ‘Mirakle Herbal’ written boldly on a placard in awful writing squatted at the mouth of Charcoal Street. It was the perfect silent herald, separating the slum proper from the rest of the town, the more city-like parts. The smell of pito and something nauseating lingered in the air. I hurried along. Mama often said that thieves slept there when they were not out stealing.

Crow and pigeon droppings flecked the uneven ground, not sparing the stone that pinned a dirty twenty Cedi note to an old newspaper. I hesitated. I wanted money to buy ice cream, but knowing Mama, she would refuse. What if a malicious spirit left it there to lure foolish girls like me into their schemes? Worse than that would be carrying a reputation as a girl thief. I looked around and sighed. There was nobody around, but if I picked it up and trouble followed, someone would be happy to share what they saw, down to the look on my face when I picked it up. I left the money behind.

The house I lived in, Bidie Fie—or Gidan Gawayi to those who preferred its Hausa name—loomed in the distance. It was old and unpainted, a typical Atta Kwame house in these parts. The roofing was weak and rusted, prone to lifting off the house each time it rained, as though it didn’t  want to be there. On countless occasions, tenants discussed contributing money for corrugated iron sheets, but it was just talk. Bidie Fie’s main gate was made of sickly wood and never shut properly. The house was so called because the old woman who lived at the entrance was the first to convince the landlord to allow her to sell charcoal in front of the house. Three more houses had followed suit, earning the street the name ‘Charcoal Street’.

My footsteps stalled when I reached the crowd gathered in front of the house. I suppressed an irritated groan. If I’d known there would be an event, I would’ve left school later or taken the circuitous route home. The scolding I would’ve received from Mama was better than having to speak to adults who would look too closely at me and comment on how I’d soon be ready for marriage.

Fixing my face so it betrayed nothing, I greeted the people I walked by, mostly women. The crowd was quiet, save for the whispers. They didn’t even look at me. I mentally pumped my fist in the air. A man sitting on a long bench in front of the communal kitchen called out to me. “My wife! How was school?” I ignored him and kept moving towards my family’s apartment.

Luckily, Mama wasn’t around to scold me for being too rude and stuck up. “He’s just playing with you,” she would’ve said. It was a joke only the adults seemed to understand, judging from the way almost every adult man and woman referred to a kid as their spouse. Still, I refused to accept that as reasoning for a man who was perhaps in his forties, calling me his wife when I hadn’t menstruated yet.

There was something sinister about it, though I couldn’t say. I knew better than to let someone hear my opinions. Nobody saw the way that man watched my budding breasts when he made his jokes. Mama slapped me once for refusing to laugh at the joke, saying I was embarrassing her.

***

The old metal gate to our apartment was unlocked, but Mama was nowhere to be found; neither was any of the six other women we shared the large compound with. Had Auntie Ami given birth already? I frowned. That couldn’t be it. Just last week, Mama was teasing her about how she had a month more to go.

Finally, hours later, Mama returned with our immediate neighbour. The sky was dark, and the adhan for Isha prayer went off in the distance. Whatever happened must have been serious—she ignored the smoky kitchen and cloying scent of my attempts at cooking rice. Mama hated it when children eavesdropped. The first time she caught me listening in on her conversation with Grandma instead of doing my homework, she made me write ‘I shall not gossip’ five hundred times. She said eavesdropping fell under the large umbrella of gossip, and gossip was akin to eating your neighbour’s flesh.

I greeted the neighbour, Auntie Sisi, smiling as a good girl should. Her response was half-hearted, and she didn’t tell me to avoid boys. Something was definitely wrong. I didn’t shut the living room door all the way, taking off my slippers so Mama wouldn’t hear if I fidgeted. Then, I listened. They spoke in hushed tones.

“Poor Ami,” Mama said.

Auntie Sisi scoffed. “It’s because she hasn’t tried to be a mother to that other boy.”

“Still,” Mama countered. “She doesn’t deserve this. That man is a pig.”

The conversation switched to the scarcity of tomatoes in the market and other stuff I had zero interest in. I struggled to fall asleep that night. My mind refused to let me, instead replaying the conversation over and over. Who were they talking about? What had happened to Auntie Ami?

The next morning was more of the same. People entered and left Auntie Ami’s apartment. Right before I left for school, Barkei entered with her mother, their eyes downcast. She was the most beautiful girl living on Charcoal Street. The radiance of her skin always made me think God had wanted to play a cruel joke by letting her be born there. Her grandfather followed, his body looking like it was ready to fall apart. He was an abrasive old man with a severe face, a constantly shorn head and flaccid grey beard.

I waited outside the house for Auntie Ami’s eldest, Zulfa, to join me. She didn’t look like her usual self. Her eyes looked dead, as though someone had gone in, plucked her joy, turned it to ash and forced her to swallow it. She paced while we waited for the other girl in our friend group, Asana. Her pacing almost drove me insane.

“You know, we always wait for you, and we don’t pace like that,” I said, glaring at her in mock annoyance. She looked at me absentmindedly, clutching the hem of her skirt. Her face shifted ever so slightly into despair. I hated myself for being cruel, even if jokingly. Whatever was going on likely affected her too.

Asana came along, a scowl forming when she saw Zulfa. She grabbed my hand and pulled me away, even though I was already a considerable distance from her.

“Don’t talk to her again,” she said, gesturing rudely at our friend. “Her father is a bad man.”

Zulfa’s face caved in, and she began to cry. She dropped onto a waist-high slab of concrete and buried her face in her hands. Asana dragged me away despite my protests.

***

Zulfa never made it to school, and by the end of the day, Asana had told anyone who would listen that her father was a bad man. By the end of the day, I knew the details of what had happened: Zulfa’s father raped Barkei, a girl only two years older than me. Asana said she heard he lured her to the ramshackle Mirakle Herbal kiosk. The families had agreed to settle it at home rather than have him arrested. For the sake of Mama Ami and their children, I didn’t know what to think.

Throughout the trotro ride home, I wondered if they’d make her marry him. I could bet my lunch money on her marriage prospects being the sole topic of discussion after the violation she had endured. Not how she felt, not how horrifying and alone the experience had been, but her worth as a girl of marriageable age by some people’s standards.

I remembered when a man living on Charcoal Street sent me on an errand and kissed me on the lips when I returned. He had ensured I could only deliver the food directly to his room. It’s a secret I’ll take with me to the grave. I earned the reputation as a disrespectful and lazy girl, as well as Mama’s immense displeasure at my refusal to go anywhere near that man. That day, I desperately wanted to die.

On the walk home, I pretended not to see the Mirakle Herbal kiosk. A tiny voice in my head suggested setting it ablaze. I imagined Barkei wishing she could slough off her skin and cut off her girl parts. Afterwards, she wouldn’t exist as a girl or a person at all, and if she didn’t exist, then it never happened. When I got home, there were no visitors. Auntie Ami was in the communal kitchen, winnowing corn and cassava flour. The house was quieter than usual,and the women’s jokes felt forced. Zulfa ignored me and walked away when I tried to speak to her. My face burned and tingled from shame, yet I couldn’t blame her.  

“Stay away from Zulfa’s father,” Mama said that evening when we were alone. “Stay away from his friends, stay away from his brothers who visit.”

“What about Zulfa?”

She looked lost in thought for a moment, then said, “She’s your friend.” I nodded, taking that as permission to talk to Zulfa again and mend our relationship, even if she didn’t want to. “Come here,” Mama added. “Lie down.” She touched my girl parts, and I yelped. “Shut up and stay still.” After a moment, she gestured for me to stand. “From now onwards, every day after school, I will inspect that place. Do you hear?”

I was confused, but I nodded anyway. “Mama, why don’t we leave here?” The question was sure to anger her, but I didn’t want to live on Charcoal Street any longer. I was terrified.

“And go where?” she retorted. She shook her head. “You don’t know anything.”

The next morning, I cornered Zulfa at our usual spot behind the house. She refused to stand close to me. “I don’t want to be friends with you, but I forgive you,” she said, meeting my eyes. There was tiredness etched into her face.

“Why?” When she said nothing, I opened my mouth to defend myself.  

“I don’t want any friends. I don’t want anybody.” She walked away.

In the days that followed, I obsessively thought about Barkei’s assault, often wondering if Auntie Ami was able to look her husband in the eye, if she could turn off her resentment like a water faucet. If it made her sick that she had shared her body with him for years, that her six children were half him.

***

Two weeks passed. The night was cold and serene in Bidie Fie, save for the feminine scream that tore into the compound from Auntie Ami’s apartment. Mama stilled for a moment, then threw on a boubou and hair scarf. She sprinted out.

“Stay indoors,” she ordered. I peeked through the window. Unable to see, I snuck out into the compound. Mama didn’t notice, because the house was chaotic. Auntie Ami wept, clutching at her belly.

“Ami, stop crying for the sake of the baby,” Mama said. She and the other women helped her onto an old raffia mat in the middle of the compound, while their husbands took turns entering the apartment. One of our neighbours ushered Auntie Ami’s children into her own apartment. I chanced a glance at Zulfa. Her eyes were red and swollen, and there was dried saliva at the sides of her mouth. Each man walked out of the apartment shaking his head.

Auntie Ami’s husband was buried at sunrise. She didn’t cry again. During the janaza, Mama stared incessantly at her, an inscrutable look in her eyes. Auntie Ami acknowledged Mama’s stares when all the sympathisers had left. No words were said, but the two women exchanged a strange look. It was equal parts painful and menacing, but maybe I just imagined it. Despite her heavy bump, her gait was freer, sharply contrasting the way she walked in the days following the assault. That evening, I told Mama again I wanted to leave Charcoal Street.

She scolded me. “What do you know?” I thought about how it was the only response I ever got, this assertion that I didn’t know much. It was probably because of my age. So, I never broached the subject again.

Perhaps Mama was right. I didn’t know anything, and there was no place like Charcoal Street.