CITY OF
SMOKE: SYNW BOOK OF THE MONTH (MAY 2020)
A REVIEW
BY ABUBAKAR SULEIMAN MUHD
Mujahid’s
collection contains five short stories centering on female experiences. In each
story we have a woman battling forces around her, pushing her into a marriage
without her consent, or aguishly attending to the demands of her duties. The
collection aptly captures the dominant issues of a typical northern home:
marriage and procreation on one hand, and loveless and arranged marriage on the
other. This is not only happening in the lower class strata but also in the
elite circle where the rich parents decide the fate of their children; the only
difference is that the children of the elite have a way of neutralizing the
marriage and living it under false pretense, funcuckolding and all.
It’s
difficult to know, but the woman’s consent that Islam gives to the women seems
to be only in theory in our society. What happened in the past was that some
women went into loveless marriage on the pronouncements of their parents. While
in the present, especially in elite and middle class circle, some women go into
marriage as chattels, as commodity in exchange for the debt that their parents
owe, or as some bond for some kind of material gain or business link. Stories
abound like this and I believe this is what gives integrity to Mujahid’s
stories.
Told
in second person point of view, the first story “Questions to the Mirror” is
about a nameless voice forced into an arranged marriage. She is in anguish and
pain. She stands before the mirror and shoots out questions to herself
regarding the possible options that she lacks.
If
her society considers that marriage is not only about physical growth, as it is
not only about biology as our people are wont to see, she would have been
spared the pain. Marriage involves chemistry, bonding, emotional attachment and
readiness. The woman and the man need to be psychologically ready for a happy
and successful marriage, but it seems all the people in the stories don’t
consider the feeling and opinion of the girl child.
Why
I seem to expend considerable energy railing against arranged marriage is
because some people want to corner me except that I stand arms akimbo and fight
them, though I am yet to see my end, lol. Nonetheless, it is not entirely bad
if the spouse is one that blink in your radar and one you will still marry if
you were to meet in Mars.
“First
Love” features an unnamed character whose parents are preparing to get her into
an arranged marriage. She has a lover who she plans to elope with but who
instead impregnates her and runs away to the city, leaving her in ruin and rubbles
of her life.
Each
woman in the collection has some burden to carry, from the family being
disturbed by the news of their son in Boko Haram conscription in “Leaving
Borno” to a woman who is forced into violence from antagonism and tension in
intermarriage between two different ethnic groups in “Dear Husband”, especially
in a polygamous home.“Wingless Bird” is about forced marriage and the faith in
bad luck that a woman can bring to a man. A woman is married to a man; there is
no love between them. She is married to him as an article in return of material
gain for her parents and the school fees of her siblings. Bad luck hits him as
per his business and the man blames the woman for his mishap.
All
in all, City of Smoke captures
matrimonial experiences of the female figures and their struggle in patriarchal
society that thinks the first female need is marriage. The book follows in the
footsteps of Zainab Alkali’s Cobwebs and Other Stories, that some matrimonial
homes are some state of bondage, that women are mostly pressured into marriage,
that they are infantilized and must serve as sex objects to their men. Back to
back they are faced with choicelessness. In Alkali’s work, however, the women
are depicted to have education as their liberation power.
One
deceitful thing about this book is that the title doesn’t rhyme with the
stories. I thought I would be encountering stories about burning and raging
inferno and terror of Boko Haram but it is predominantly about the matrimonial
battles. I don’t know why the collection is titled City of Smoke instead of
some name that goes way better, maybe Wingless Bird if I may suggest.
Abubakar
Suleiman Muhd
Abubakar Suleiman Muhd
writes from Kano Nigeria. He’s a graduate of English and Literary Studies from
Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
