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There were cables and electronics everywhere. She was not a luddite but reading through manuals trying to assemble the kit with an upset stomach was hard. 

Her mobile phone rang and made a jump. She still was unfamiliar with the burner phone ring tone. 

Hello, her voice croaked unused to speaking. She sounded as anxious as the felt and tried to project a smile into her voice. 

Calm. 

You sound like you have a cold, the distant voice said. You haven't sent the money. 

The officers had been in to collect their token yesterday. She had been told that they would return, but not when or who exactly they were. 

I was waiting for you to send me the bank account number. 

The voice replied upset and testy. I told you I would get in contact. They have change their day. They cannot arrive today "alhamis" as planned. They will come on Monday. 

But we had a plan, she said as her stomach roiled. She felt dizzy. She reading the manual trying to put the electronic parts together. It was too much. She had put it off until the last moment. She thought she needed the time to recuperate. 

She could not deal the with pressure of being extorted as well as trying to put together the recording device. She wished she could call someone to help her. 

But there was no one she could trust and she needed to know it was done properly. 

She ran to the toilet and dry heaved. She sat on the toilet floor, with her head on the bowl. She ran the hot water tap and pushed the pail closer to catch the dripping hot water. 

She realised she was gritting her teeth and tried to breath. Her jaws ached. She thought of the pleasurable reasons in the past caused her jaw to ache and felt nothing. 

Sex was the last thing on her mind. It was her relief. Her only defiance. They could not stop her thoughts. She forced herself to think of the adventures she had in baths and came up with nothing. 

She wanted to lie down again. But she was running out her time. But was she? She could call and reschedule. 

She could lose her contact. It felt too much, her skull was caving in. 

You will feel better if you just get to it she said aloud to the empty bathroom. 

At least she had privacy, at least she was in her toilet in her room in her house . 

Even with the tapped phones and plain clothes guards around her compound. She consciously tried not to think about it. About what she had been through. 

It was worse for others, but it was worse for her as well. Maybe if she didn't know any better. If she didn't know another way of life. If she didn't know that there were parts of this world where what she was being put through was unimaginable. 

Was it worth it, is this worth it?

She poured lukewarm water over her head bending down to scoop water from the pail  she remembered the dormitory. Sharing a bucket  to conserve water.
There was an intimacy to the act a creation of a bond which translated different in the outside world. It was like being chose sisters, chosen friends, chosen family. A unit couple fulfilled without the carnal act. 
She was married off after junior secondary school to a minor grandson of a grand family. She hadn't complained and had seemed to sleepwalk into her new life. She may have been glad to go. Her independence in a way, the first time she was bought her own bed and furnishings. An apartment carved just for her for her husband's pleasure. But still hers. She was a second wife at sixteen, the senior wife not yet 21. They would be friends she had decided and she would thank her blessings her children would be married into a illustrious tradings clan whose wives were "matan kulle" to be seen by no man except their husband, brothers and sons.
To Duniya it had seemed a gilded cage but to her twin she was on her way to paradise. Marriage was half the religion. She was pleasing Allah. 
They gradually lost touch, even though they tried to hold on to the bond. There was nothing but dry sand and inane conversations. 
Duniya chased the world looking for a love that she could accept her twin had found a love that gave her acceptance. 
She was envious of her twins acceptance, to paraphrase Ovid, the harvest is always richer in another woman's field".

But today she needed her twin, she needed the protection of her conformity to smuggle herself out of the country. It would not be easy they had not spoken in years. She had cut her off because it hurt to look at her reflection and feel a deep sense of loss. 

They had meet in primary school, her fourth, her twins sixth. Her for bad behaviour, talking back to the teachers and having an opinion her twin because her father was in the Army and seemed to be deployed every few years. 

Later with age she came to understand about the drinking and indisciplined behaviour even for the Nigerian Army the insubordination was astounding. But they had a "God father", some shadowy person who seem to make things better and clean up her father's mess. 

There were rumours, especially after her father's death. He had been in a car accident it was said on the Kaduna Abuja highway. He may have been inebriated, if there was an alcohol limit he had redefined it. He had been like someone tormented Duniya's young uncle had told her once. He had "iska" some spirits that chased him. It could have been PTSD the things soldiers do in the name of following orders, under trained, ill equipped, an AK47 with no cartridge. The gruesome pictures of dead mutilated bodies span the WhatsApp groups, a sanitised version of reality. 

Duniya had never meet her twin's father. She had seen pictures of him and envied her twin's worship of her father. Duniya has studied pictures of the thin tall fair man with dark circles around his eyes haunted. 

She had seen the look before in secondary school in a quiet of the senior girl who eventually killed herself. She had been bullied merciless, called a witch for her Catholic faith and fair eyes in a stream of dark African hues. 

It was weird how the senior was hounded for being albino. To Duniya's young eyes it looked like the other senior girls where not only jealous of her looks but they wanted to be her. It seemed that another group a senior girls used her for "special errands" that the other prefects snickered about. That Duniya understood as sexual but turned away not wanting to bring attention to herself. Not that kind of attention anyway. 

She never told her twin her suspicions about her father and his loss of life. That was one acidic faux pas that would have expedited the demise of their friendship. 

Her twin was her crutch, she thought now. Her first codependence, a drug she would continue to search for until her middle age. 

"Iska" was a form of mental health in Duniya's mind. To her superstitious beliefs it was a possession by a mischievous spirit. What was more mischievous a spirit that one that made you hate yourself. 

It was not the flying wild or floor tumbles that was Iska, not the sitting in filth or spitting and attacking without provocation that was Iska. It was not behaving abnormal to societies norms that was Iska. 

Iska was the denial of self, bowing to others in spite of yourself. Iska was letting your mind go and submitting to the madness with open arms while outwardly fighting to keep sane for other's sake. 

The Godfather was known for his collection of "boys". He took care of them, the raised the ranks and did things. They were "special forces" married with more than one wives and tens of children. All taken care of. A band of brothers with no choice.

It occurred to Duniya that they could just as easily murder their Godfather. After all it was their occupation murder. The Godfather eventually died when Duniya was in her thirties but unlike Shakespeare's happy few,  the band of brothers did not. The were rumours of "godfathers" where the godfather had once stood. Not as powerful and worse in the insidious hurts to young men's soul. In the name of brotherhood,  Henry V was surely being facetious. 

It did not matter, these were not the thoughts she needed to be convince her twin to help her. She strained to think of happy memories that were not tarnished with cynicism nourished by life's bitter lessons. 

Where was the happy go lucky her, the one who did not know the fear at  the hands of her gaolers hands. The torment and torture was not as bad as the never knowing when when she would strike.

She had been bullied before, who hadn't as a child, a young person as an adult. By children, teachers, adults, institutions. Her worse bully was life and the gift it gave her. 

These thoughts would not do, she pulled out a burnt orange expensive material. Look the part. Look like success and money and power. What are the chances her story had reached her twin's ears. It may have reached her twin's husband's as he could be found in places of "shakatawa" away from his pious life. 

Traders had no morals someone should have coined. They go where the coin is battered always looking to make a deal and profit at almost any expense. 

She would meet at her twin's last child's school. There was an event, graduation end of year show and tell where parents and teachers mixed to discuss how well the year had begone. 

It was mostly attended by nannies and drivers in lieu of parents but she knew her twin or thought she did anyway. Her old twin would want to speak to the teacher her self not through a surrogate. She used to be that kind of woman. Duniya was banking on it.