The Rain-Caller’s Hands – a story by Samuel Kozah

The Rain-Caller’s Hands

The bowl sat in the shade of the compound wall. Clay, old, the rim darkened where hands held it. The water held still. Afternoon light fell flat and white across the compound floor, the red dust, the yam rows behind the fence where the furrows ran pale and cracked.

Third year. The women of the village no longer spoke about the harvest with urgency; their talk had settled into practical management.

Nkwatyak came out from the doorway and lowered himself onto the stool. The generator at Gashi’s shop two compounds east put a low drone across the heat. The rooster at the back of the compound crowed once, wrong hour, and stopped. Three plots over, a child’s voice rose and cut off.

His eyes held the road past the entrance.

His hands rested in his lap, the palms curved slightly upward, calluses from two decades of yam-work thick across the upper palms. His posture tipped forward from the waist toward the ground. His thumb pressed briefly to the inside of his left wrist and released.

The storage room at the compound’s back carried a gap in the zinc roof where two bolts rusted through. In the rains, water came through in a thin stream and struck the floor with a sound between a drip and a pour. The zinc sat silent now.

A woman passed the entrance carrying a jerry can on her head, the pace of someone for whom the weight was familiar. A boy appeared at the entrance behind her. Nine or ten, the leanness of the third year settled in his frame. He stood looking in at nothing. After a moment he moved on.

The mineral smell of water sitting in clay reached the stool once, faint. The air settled flat again.

From the direction of the church, the afternoon service pressed on the air, more collective breath than music, and the wind shifted and took it. The road past the entrance settled.

The water in the bowl held still.

*

The generator at Gashi’s shop was off. The church sat dark across the village. A different stillness held the compound, and Nkwatyak was still on the stool when Gwanzang came through the entrance.

His son’s sandals were chalked with road dust. He sat on the second stool without speaking. They faced the open dark past the compound wall. The village had gone to its night-quiet. A dog barked once from the far end and stopped. Gwanzang held his phone in both hands, the screen off, his thumbs resting loose against it.

A lantern moved along the road beyond the wall and disappeared between two houses. Two houses along, a woman called out.

Past the compound wall, a cricket called once and went still. Somewhere in the village, a door closed.

Minutes passed; Gwanzang shifted his grip on the phone, the screen staying off. The rooster at the back of the compound settled on its perch and the dark absorbed the sound of it.

Gwanzang said, his voice low: “Baba.” A breath. “What is the name of the rain, before it comes?”

The mineral smell of the water reached them once, faint, and the night air took it.

Nkwatyak rose and went inside. The bowl came back with him. When he bent to set it outside the door, the cord around his neck swung free of his shirt, a worn cross catching the dark for a moment, and settled back as he straightened. He sat.

Gwanzang’s eyes stayed on his father. After a long while he stood and pressed the phone into his pocket. He looked at his father once, briefly.

“Ka naan, Baba.”

He walked to the compound entrance and through it. One step onto the road, he stopped. Around him the village sat dark and still. He kept walking. His footsteps went down the road and were gone.

Nkwatyak stayed where he sat.

The bowl sat where he placed it. In the dark the water was invisible, present only as a mineral smell the night air carried briefly.

*

Morning came at the doorway, the thin dry-season gray, cooler and flatter than the day ahead. Nkwatyak’s eyes were reddened at the rims. He rose and came out.

The bowl sat where he left it.

Morning sounds held the compound: a woman’s voice two compounds over, indistinct; the generator at Gashi’s shop still off.

Nkwatyak settled onto the stool. His hands rested in his lap, the palms curved slightly upward, the fingers loose.

The morning deepened. Women moved along the road with jerry cans for the well two streets over. A truck passed on the far road toward Kafanchan, its sound falling away. The Kagoro Hills sat low in the morning haze to the north, pale and unchanged. On the road between the compound and the hills, two cows moved at their own pace, their shadows flat beside them.

He looked once to the hills. The road between the compound and the hills held nothing. Somewhere east, a child called and another answered and both went quiet.

The compound had its smaller sounds. A brief wind moved the storage room door, and the dry fence wire creaked once and settled.

Two plots east, a woman scattered grain for the chickens, her arm moving in the flat morning light.

An old woman came along the road toward the well, moving at her own pace. She passed the compound entrance. Her head stayed level, and her eyes held on Nkwatyak for two, three seconds before her stride carried her past. He watched until she turned at the path to the well and was gone.

A fly landed on the rim of the bowl and left. The road held its quiet after she passed.

The generator at Gashi’s shop started, and the rooster crowed at a different wrong hour and fell silent.

Midday came. The road past the entrance went quiet, shade covering the compound walls. The compound floor held the full heat of the day, the dust too dry to lift, and the generator ran on.

From the direction of Gwanzang’s church a hymn traveled on the air. One phrase, maybe two, then the wind took it. Nkwatyak did not turn his head.

The bowl sat. The water dropped a finger’s width, the waterline leaving a faint pale ring on the clay. A wasp circled the rim twice and flew off into the white afternoon.

The road past the entrance held its midday quiet. A man passed leading a goat on a short rope, neither of them moving with urgency. The goat’s hooves on the packed earth and gone.

A brief wind moved through the compound, lifting a small spiral of dust from near the center of the floor and setting it down. The bowl held its water. Two children passed on the road beyond the wall, their voices carrying into the compound.

A woman carrying firewood passed the entrance, her companion beside her, the two of them talking. Their voices went past and faded. Nkwatyak watched the road for a moment after they passed. Grain pounded somewhere east, two strokes and a rest, steady.

The compound held the afternoon. The generator ran. The church across the village made no sound at this hour. The fence wire settled along the back wall where the wind had moved it earlier, and did not move again.

The fingers of his right hand extended slightly against the fabric of his trousers. His palm turned upward. The fingers opened a degree. It stopped.

The rooster crowed a third time, distant.

Nkwatyak’s hand closed and settled flat against his thigh.

The sky held empty. The light stayed flat, the shadows stayed short, and across the village the church held its quiet. The Kagoro Hills sat at their distance, their color the color of the dust. A kite circled above them, barely visible. A child’s voice lifted briefly from somewhere east and went quiet. The yam rows caught no shade at this hour, their empty furrows the same pale red-brown from the entrance to the fence line.

On the far road, a truck headed back toward Kafanchan, its sound smaller going than it had been coming.

Evening came. The light shifted to something with less heat in it, the white of the afternoon going cooler along the compound wall.

The hills held still. On the road past the entrance, the last foot traffic of the day moved and was gone.

The old woman returned from the well, her bucket full, moving back along the road. Her eyes stayed on the road.

Both of Nkwatyak’s hands rested flat on his thighs, palms down, fingers still.

The water sat lower still, the pale ring on the clay wider now.

*

The generator at Gashi’s shop started again, and Nkwatyak rose from the stool and went inside.

The room held dark. An ache ran along his lower spine. He sat on the mat with his back against the wall. Voices from the road reached him briefly and were gone.

His hands rested in his lap, the room holding the day’s heat.

Rain came. The zinc roof reported it first, the compound floor outside the door a moment behind. The road went from dry sound to wet.

From the back of the compound, water through the gap in the zinc of the storage room, finding the floor.

Nkwatyak sat in the dark, his hands still.

A sound between a drip and a pour.

Samuel Kozah is a pharmacist and writer from Kaduna, Nigeria. His work has appeared in Brittle Paper. He is interested in the small disobediences of ordinary life, the things that continue when they should have stopped, the people who remain when they should have gone.