The tires screeched as Yerima drove into the garage of his home in the quiet neighbourhood. He rolled down the drivers window before he turned off the car radio and turned off the engine. He stayed in the car a bit looking through the magazine he had bought on his way home. After sitting in the car for a few minutes he got out, the heat was becoming unbearable. He walked around the car and went up the front stairs where a large red flower pot was sitting and collecting dust. The white pebbles in the pot were not as full as they used to be, the neighbourhood kids that often play hide and seek behind the huge vase have been picking the pebbles one at a time. The rubber flower in it was old and sagging. He pushed the door open with his shoulder and went in. Skipping over the toy on the floor he walked to the cradle beside the sofa where the baby laid. Taking up the baby he looked around the quiet living room, noticing again the broken TV antenna that was yet to be fixed. The almanac on the wall showed the month of May. The brown sofas were matching with the brown carpet that was still littered with dry crumbs like it had been before he left in the morning.
In the kitchen Amma was standing at the sink looking out the window towards the mountains. From that window she could see the beautiful mountains that surrounded Biu town, they towered into the sky in the distance. Standing at the kitchen door and watching her, Yerima wondered what was on that mountain that always kept her transfixed. Carrying the baby in one hand he shook the rack, rattling the spoons to get her attention. She turned around.
“Sannu da zuwa,” she greeted in hausa language genuflecting a bit.
“You look worried,” Yerima said peering at her oval face. Her black eyes were clear as spring water in the morning and the silver ring in her small nose glittered.
“I fine Sir,” she replied genuflecting again.
“Have you fed the baby?” Yerima asked.
“Yes, I give him food,” she said. She came forward to take the baby from him. “Will you eat now?”
“Yes. Set the table.” Yerima turned around to leave. “And sweep the house, I don't pay you for nothing,” he added heading to his room.
#
Amma lighted the lantern and placed it on the table beside Yerima where he sat straining his eyes as he read the magazine after dinner. “Thank you,” he said looking up at her. She returned to sit on the sofa where she was feeding the baby with the bottle. When she was done, she rocked the baby to sleep standing by the window and looking into the night. There was nothing out there, except darkness and invisible crickets that chirped the night away in delight. “Why are you always looking out the window?” Yerima asked.
“The mountain sing,” Amma said turning to him.
“What?”
“Sing,” she repeated. Yerima stared at her blankly. He shook his head.
“Mountains don’t sing Amma.”
“No, they sing.”
Yerima shrug his shoulders. Amma was one weird nanny. There were times he thought of sending her back to her family. But in her fathers house, Amma had nothing to eat, nothing to wear. She’d never gone to school. Yerima had taken her as his sons nanny since his wife ran off with another man, leaving a year old baby behind. He consoled himself everyday that one day his wife would return, at least for the babys sake. Amma was a small distraction that kept him from worrying about a lot of things. She did silly things like chewing ice cubes from the freezer and throwing slices of raw sweet potatoes into her mouth and chewing them. She had a strange character of looking out the window towards the mountains, at night, at daytime, anytime. Yerima had come to accept that she had something special going on between her and the mountains. Something he didn't worry about.
#
The magazine beside the drivers seat kept flipping back and forth as the wind rushed at it through the car window. Driving on, Yerima turned the corner of the road towards the mountains which were surrounded by light savanna vegetation. It was a sunny day and the wind was dry, Yerima felt like a picnic would be ideal. This once, he would bring Amma closer to the mountains for a better view since she loved it so much. She would see for herself that mountains don't sing, or speak at all. They were just huge rocks and nothing more. They would have a picnic and be on their way home again.
When he told Amma that they would be going to the mountains, she got so excited. She hurriedly cooked some food which she put in a small red cooler. She prepared pap for the baby and carried extra napkins. She wore her best cloth and changed the ring in her nose to a finer one that outdid the former one in glitter. She would finally touch the mountains at which she had gazed on from afar for far too long a time.
As the car came to a stop a stone throw away from the foot of the mountains, Yerima alighted and scanned the deserted environment with his eyes. He looked through the window at Amma and the baby sitting in the backseat. “Wait here, I'll check if it's okay to come over,” he said. Amma nodded with a smile. Yerima walked up to a couple of men standing around a distance away from where they were. One was a tourist, the other a student collecting plant samples. The other two were indigenous men. They talked.
“What do you want?” One of the men asked.
“Here for a picnic,” Yerima answered. They stared at one another and chuckled softly.
“Here? There are parks and zoos in town, go there for your picnic, not here.”
“Why? Is there something wrong with the place?”
“No one just comes down here unless they must. People don't live near here. No one knows what the mountains hold. Go on now before you make the morning news.”
Yerima took steps back and hurried back to his car, when he got there, there was no one in it. Amma and the baby were not in the backseat. He returned to the men. “Did you see a lady carrying a baby around here?”
“What lady?”
“Amma, about 5 feet tall, dark skinned, oval face, ring in her nose. She has my son, a one year old baby.”
“No,” the men said. “Why don't you check around?” They suggested. Yerima frantically ran around the place where they were. The mountains were too wide, he couldn't go around it. He returned to the men panting. They joined him and looked, they got in his car and drove right round the mountains in the way they could. Amma and the baby were gone.
#
The next morning the newspaper had it on the headlines. The police were at Yerimas house, he was still in shock, utterly devastated. He curled up on a sofa like a frightened child, staring blankly.
“Sir, do you have any information about any strange occurrences that could be relating to this case?” The inspector asked him.
Yerima sat up, “Amma,” he mused, “she was always looking towards the mountains.” He bowed his head in realisation, “it seemed like she was hearing a distant call each time.” The inspector lifted his writing pad but didn't write anything. He looked at Yerima with pity instead.
“This is not the first case of disappearance around those mountains that we have had, the cases remain uncracked. But in one of them, the missing boy was found in a town one hundred kilometres from Biu town—crazy, an utter nutcase.”
#
Yerima stood at the kitchen window at evening and stared angrily at the mysterious mountains, dark and ever enchanting it stood magnificently in the distance. There was nothing he could do but gaze at it, the police had told him not to return there until the case was cracked. But standing at that window, suddenly he could see what Amma always saw, feel what she felt, hear what she heard. And then in the next minute he was starting the engine in the car, driving away slowly, down the road towards the mountains.
DoubleSpeak 