It was not only the striking beauty of Lamrat that made her a magnet of attention in the community of Mundo, but her amazing intelligence and brilliance which surpassed her beauty. Lamrat just finished her secondary school with iridescent result, good character and civility. On the Speech and Prize Giving Day, she received torrents of awards as rewards of her determination from dignitaries, teachers and parents. Every person that attended the event seriously attested that Lamrat's future would be brighter than the stars and the moon.
Though, Lamrat was just fourteen years old when she finished her secondary school, but many men were attracted to her: those that only wanted to relate with her, those who showed keen interest in tying the knot with her and those who wanted to put her through the immoral way. It was surprising how friends did not maladjust Lamrat's way of life; perhaps because her parents were caring and strict on her, or, as people used to say, God created her with self-discipline.
The ambition of this intelligent girl was to study medicine as she had been unfolding to her friends how annoying it was seeing men attending to women in hospitals, especially in the labour room. She always complained of the dearth of female doctors as a huge challenge to the womenfolks. So ready was Lamrat to step her legs into the university. Fortunately, her parents welcomed the idea and promised to take the full responsibility until she achieved her goals.
One fateful day that came with the cloud of bad luck which rained on Lamrat, the story of her life entirely took a different dimension. Alh. Tanko, an elderly, a renowned business man and a philanthropist came to Mato, Lamrat's father. The neighbours were taken aback to see an opulent car parked in front of Mato's house. On discovering that it was Alh.Tanko, news went round the community of a bad behaviour the man had.
The way he displayed utmost respect to Mato spoke so well of what brought him there. The man, almost at fifty, began his long sugarcoated sentences with one running into another. He warned that girls should not be sent to universities because of moral laxity; that higher institutions are theatres of moral destruction. He advised that Mato should give out the hands of his daugher in marriage instead of sending her to any school. Mato was just silently nodding his head while the man was talking. At the end, and, very shocking, the man smiled and said he came to ask the hands of Lamrat in marriage.
Within some weeks later, Mato consulted his friends; majority of them advised him to marry his daughter to the business man. On the other hand, few of them had told him not to do so because as rumours flew every nook and cranny, the man, though a philanthropist, was a woman taster. He married number of women gladly; after spending some months in the honeymoon, he sadly divorced them. But because only the minority had said this, Mato called it a mere rumour and went ahead with the preparation of the marriage.
That's the beginning of Lamrat's sorrowful story–happiness bided her farewell and misery relocated to her heart. It was not only the destruction of her precious dream, not the promise her father made to her which he subsequently threw away alone, but forcing her to accept a man who was a father to her as a husband. Shattered dream. Unused age. Wasted intelligence. Blocked brilliance.
Two weeks after the wedding, Lamrat had never rested for a day, she kept shedding bucket of tears; her face, without more, spelt sorrow. At fourteen, she was already married. She got pregnant for the man few months after the marriage. The appearance of the pregnancy worsened her condition. The man saw her so ugly now that he kept asking why he married her. The two dimples he used to appreciate on her cheeks now turned to depreciate her in his eyes. The fairness of her complexion turned like a faded rag to Alh.Tanko. He described her as a creature thrown at him by the hands of destiny.
Nine months later, Lamrat survived. She gave birth to a bouncing baby boy. Because of young age and a body not fully mature, her delivery nearly took her life. However, she, sadly, joined the train of women suffering from fistula. She was always wet; neighbours and relatives who came to welcome the newly born baby found the room smelling; they used to cover their noses. Lamrat could no longer control her urine; it came when it wanted, when it wanted and how it wanted. Everywhere smelled in her apartment.
This unfortunate development made Alh. Tanko left her away completely with a little baby and a disease which he was the cause for. Since the very day he left, he had never been seen again but rumours had it that he settled outside the state and married another young girl. As a result, she returned to her father's house who was aware of the seed he planted which poisoned his own daughter. He regretted his action and duly apologized while kneeling before her with teary eyes.
At fifteen years old, Lamrat, a once beautiful, intelligent, brilliant and visionary young girl who had her fellow women in heart, was subjected to endless sorrow and suffering. Her bouncing baby boy lost his life to the cold hands of death because of her severe sickness. Now, she was bereaved, a widow, a victim of fistula and short-sighted parenthood.
The following day, Lamrat body was found dead like a log in a mattress wet by her urine. She used to wake up very early to change and wear clean clothes, but she did not come out that day. Her mother called her name but the response was silence. She opened her door and got greeted by the smelling room and finally, she saw the innocent dead body of Lamrat. Close to her head was a remnant of insecticide and a letter she dropped to her parents.
"I can no longer withstand my condition, I have no reason to live in this sinful world. I died with with anger, disappointment and suffering my parents subjected me to. I forgive you Mummy and Daddy, but I do not know whether my God will forgive you for being the architect of my tragedy as a young girl."
Fiction
Written by Abdul Mutallib Muktar
03/07/2019.
abdulmutallib.muktar@gmail.com
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