And sometimes that’s more than enough to begin again. Asterisk. Baraka’s farmland was generous but demanding just like life. Fertile soil, but it only yielded to the sweat of those who knew how to work it. When Azima arrived, there were no speeches, no warm welcomes. The wooden gate creaked shut behind her with a slow, almost solemn groan as if saying, “Here, a new time begins.

” But neither she nor Baraka knew what to do with that time. The house was simple but clean. The smell of toasted flour and firewood still burning in the stove gave off a strange sense of comfort. Azima, used to being treated with contempt, hesitated to fully step inside. She lingered in the doorway, her feet still outside like someone unsure whether they’re allowed to cross into a place they’ve never been invited. Baraka didn’t insist.

He simply pointed without a word to a side room. The door was slightly a jar. Inside a wooden bed covered with a faded blue sheet, a picture of fresh water and a straw mat folded in the corner. As Ima entered with short, dragging steps, she ran her fingers along the bed frame, scanning the room as if searching for traps.

There were no shouts, no orders, just silence. Dot. In those first days, the silence between them was like a third inhabitant of the house. Azima would wake early, wash the porch, sweep the yard, collect firewood, and do what she had always done. Work without asking, obey without knowing. Baraka, for his part, left for the fields before the sun was fully up, and only returned when the trees shadow stretched long across the ground.

They hardly looked at each other. She didn’t speak, neither did he, but there were gestures. One late afternoon, Baraka left a fresh loaf of bread on the table. It was still warm. He didn’t say it was for her, but he left the room and minutes later, Azima picked up a piece with trembling hands. She ate slowly like someone afraid it might be taken back.

The next day, the bread was there again. One morning, while Baraka was feeding the goats, he saw Azimma on her knees in the yard, scrubbing a pot until it shone. The sun hit her face, and she squinted, but didn’t stop. That scene, so ordinary, stirred something in him because she wasn’t just cleaning a pot. She was reclaiming her dignity one scrub at a time.

That night, he placed an extra blanket in her room. The weather was cooling and she had a light cough. She noticed but said nothing. She simply pulled the blanket up to her chin and for the second time fell asleep without tears. Over time, Azimma began to care for the house with more attention. The windows were always open, the clothes lined up neatly on the rope, and even wild flowers started to appear in clay pots on the porch.

Small touches no one teaches. Signs that a woman is turning a shelter into a home. Baraka noticed everything, but said nothing. He still left early, returned late, but now his gaze had softened. One day, arriving from the field, he saw the gate had been repaired. The wood had been sanded, tied with fresh cyil rope.

Azima was turned away. tending to the garden. He stood there for a moment just watching, then went inside without a word. Sometimes at dinner, the only sound was the spoon tapping against the plate. Other times, not even that. But on one of those silent nights, Azima murmured, “Thank you,” for the room dot so softly, it almost got lost in the wind outside.

But Baraka heard he didn’t reply with words. He got up, took a new candle, and placed it by her bedside. a small gesture, but it said, “I heard you. I see you.” The silence between them wasn’t empty. It was a process, a bridge. Slowly, Azima stopped walking with hunched shoulders. She started to look ahead, even if she still didn’t know where she was going.

And Baraka, who had never known how to care for anyone, was starting to learn that to welcome someone isn’t about pretty words or promises. It’s about opening the door and not closing it once the other steps in. There on that small farm lost between the brush and the whispers of the village, two souls were learning what it meant to begin again, even if they didn’t yet know what to call it.

Time in the village wasn’t measured by clocks, but by glances, and it only took Azimma lifting her head a little higher for the stairs to begin. Curious, sharp, restless, the older women, seated on the wooden benches around the square between one stitch and another, began weaving words with the same care they used to line up their threads, and once the words started flowing, the questions came laced with poison disguised as laughter.

Did you see? He took the girl into his house, asked the chattiest of them. Mama Jalia, a raspyvoiced woman who never let a single detail go unnoticed. I saw yes, right there in front of everyone, like buying a chicken at the market, replied another, shaking her head. Word is it wasn’t out of pity.