In the weeks that followed, he saw the tall girl a few times. Once she was returning from the market with polythene bags filled with vegetables; another time she was going to the Mr. Biggs at the junction. Once she just seemed to be going for a walk, listening to a Discman in her handbag. Ebenezer decided she must live in the area because she was always walking, never on an okada or in a taxi. She looked like the kind of girl who just liked to walk everywhere. That’s probably why she’s so slim, he thought.

She usually wore sunglasses, and after that first day her hair was always tied up at the back of her head. Ebenezer could never figure out if it was weave-on or not. He even thought of asking Chisom, but by now she wouldn’t even let him touch her at night. “How are we supposed to have a child if you won’t even try?” he complained, but she ignored him. Ebenezer knew she wanted him to get checked out at the hospital, but the shame of it was too much, so they just continued like that. Chisom would have known if it was weave-on or not, sha. Her immediate junior sister was a hairdresser.

One afternoon, when there weren’t many customers around, he asked Mama Ben instead.

“Ah-ahn. How long have you been watching this girl?” She seemed a little disapproving, so he rushed to reassure her.

“Mba, it was one of the customers who was saying it. Me, I don’t even look at small girls like that. Resembling stockfish. I like proper women.” He gestured fullness with his hands and winked at her. She laughed, placated.

“Maybe the girl is from Niger,” she suggested. “One of those refugees who are always in the market.”

One of Mama Ben’s friends chimed in: “Haba now, those ones are beggars. I’ve seen the girl he’s talking about. She looks like she comes from a good family. And besides, she’s not fair enough to be one of them. It’s probably weave-on. Under it, I’m sure her hair must be like this.” She grabbed a tuft of her afro and tugged at it, laughing. Ebenezer laughed as well, his eyes meeting Mama Ben’s.

In recent weeks, Mama Ben had told him her name: Florence. He had also found out that she was a widow and had three children, not the four or five he’d previously thought. Her unmarried sister now lived with her, helping to take care of the children. He had even been to her house once, telling Chisom he was doing a house call for a customer in the evening. He hadn’t gone inside, had only escorted Mama Ben home and chatted for a bit. She knew her neighbors would talk, but she didn’t care. It wasn’t as if they knew he was married.

Ebenezer felt he was getting somewhere with her—he wasn’t sure where exactly, but he looked forward to it. He was eating rice and stew at her canteen on the day the market burned, savoring the goat meat when the first noises started coming from down the road. As Mama Ben and her customers stood in front of her canteen, peering down the street, sounds filtered toward them slowly, first shouts and then a few alarming screams. Some of the customers hurriedly finished their food and left, heading in the opposite direction from the commotion.

Mama Ben looked worried. “It sounds like one of those riots is starting,” she said. “Should I close?”

“Don’t you live in that direction?” Ebenezer asked.

“Yes, but I don’t want to be in the middle of it. You never know what will happen.”

“Wait here,” he said. He ran across the road and threw a tarpaulin over his work things, then came back to her. “Pack everything,” he said, as he stacked the plastic chairs and took them inside. Mama Ben tilted the tables on their sides and pushed them against the walls. They worked quickly, conscious of the noise growing louder. Ebenezer shoved empty bottles into their crates and dragged them to the back. The last thing he wanted was for convenient glass to be lying around like that. He’d once seen a man struck in the head by a broken bottle, separating scalp neatly from skull before blood filled the gap. It was the worst thing in his memory.

They both pulled down the metal protector, closed the inside doors, and sat there in the cramped space near the shelves of sweets and biscuits. Mama Ben looked scared but calm. There had been so many riots recently that it wasn’t much of a surprise to be caught in one.

“I wonder what caused it,” she said.

“Maybe the Muslim thing again,” he suggested. “You know how people can get about the Northerners.”

Mama Ben shook her head. “I don’t know why. They’re just people who came here to work, make small money for their families. Why must they always go and disturb them?”

Ebenezer shot her a look. “Because of what’s been happening in the North. Are we supposed to just fold our hands and watch how they’re treating our brothers and sisters?”

“But it’s not the ones here that are doing it. So why disturb them? If you want to disturb anyone, eh hehn—go to the North and look for their trouble there!”

Ebenezer shook his head. He didn’t feel like arguing with a woman over this matter.

“Besides,” she continued, “it was probably just a thief.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Is it not coming from the direction of the market? He probably stole something, and one of the traders shouted, and you know how it goes from there. Tire. Fuel.”

Ebenezer sat upright. The market, he thought. The noise was coming from the market. Chisom was still at the market.

“Chineke m ee,” he said, inhaling air in a short, shocked burst. “My wife is there.” He jumped up and started unlocking the door. Mama Ben grabbed his arm.

“They’re getting near!” she said. “Don’t open the door, abeg.”

“And what?” he snapped. “I should leave my wife in the middle of it and hide here with you like a woman?”

“You want to go into the riot? Are you mad? They will just finish you one time.”

“Hapu m aka!” He shook off her hand and lifted the protector, ignoring the screeching it made.

Behind him, Mama Ben cursed. “Don’t go oo! It’s better you stay here,” she warned. “I’m sure your wife is fine. Is it now that she will need you?”

Ebenezer stopped, then turned around and stared at Mama Ben. “What did you say?” She folded her arms stubbornly. He slammed the steel gate down behind him, staring at her in shock through the bars. “You are a wicked woman,” he said before he turned away.

“Ebenezer!” she shouted. “Ebenezer!”

He ignored her and stayed on the inside of the crude gutter at the edge of the road as he walked toward the market. In just the few minutes since the first shouts, he could see even from a distance, the scene had deteriorated into chaos. The road was full of cars and okadas with frantic passengers. One man wiped at his head with a handkerchief, stared down at the mess of blood in his hand, then locked eyes with Ebenezer for a moment as the motorcycle whizzed by. Ebenezer swallowed hard and started to jog. He was filled with guilt and shame for having been safely tucked away in Mama Ben’s stand without first thinking of his wife, out there at her stall in the market, with no metal protector to hide behind. He wondered if she had run when the chaos started, if she had hopped on an okada, whether he would see her from the side of the road. But he knew Chisom was stubborn, that she wouldn’t abandon her merchandise in the market, riot or not. It would be like throwing away money—it would make no sense to her. She probably would have delayed while trying to pack it up, and who knows what could have happened to her in that time? A stray bullet from one of the touts, or the police if they showed up. Jesus Christ, he thought, what if someone got hold of her in the middle of all this madness? What if she were raped? His mind jumped from that and landed on, What if someone raped her and she got pregnant? Nausea swirled through him and he started running. As he got closer to the market, he could see thin dark streams of smoke waving up into the sky. “Chineke, the market is on fire,” he whispered to himself, shocked into a halt. Now he was imagining Chisom burned to death, or just burned enough to survive, horribly disfigured, her face peeling off like those women up North who’d been attacked with acid. Ebenezer started running again. He had to save his wife. He couldn’t imagine losing her because he’d been with that woman, who had clearly wished evil on Chisom from the beginning. Who knew what she had put in his food? After all, he would normally never behave like that, going to another woman’s house. She must have done jazz on him. It had to be. But now he felt as if he’d broken her spell; now it would be okay. As long as he found Chisom.

As he was running, he passed a couple arguing on the side of the road. It was the tall girl with long hair. The man with her was holding her arm, shaking her till her hair fell in her eyes.

“We have to go now!” he was shouting. “Do you know what they’ll do to you?”