The millet field was behind the house, behind the fence where the goats slept, behind the well with the rusty pulley. The millet was knee-high in April. The farmer knew every metre of the field because every metre he had ploughed with Ibrahim's ox, the Fulani neighbour who lent him the ox every year in February in exchange for three sacks of millet in November. Ibrahim had the ox. The farmer had the field. The arrangement had lasted seven years. Seven years of ox in February and millet in November, without paper, without signature, without either of them ever saying the word arrangement. The farmer kept a small bag of seeds in the right pocket of his jacket since the February sowing. He had not taken them out. The seeds were there the way the sowing was there: something that would come. The field waited. The goats slept. The pulley creaked when someone drew water from the well.

The captain arrived in March. A man with a list, like all men with lists who arrive after the raids. The captain said: the jihadists attacked three villages in the Djibo area. The government is asking for volunteers. The government provides the rifle. Training lasts two days. The farmer did not ask what training. He said yes because the neighbours said yes, because the village chief said yes, because the captain said that whoever did not say yes would be considered an accomplice of the jihadists. Accomplice was a word the farmer did not use. The farmer used words for millet, for rain, for the ox. Accomplice was a word from the list. The rifle was an AK-47 with a worn wooden stock. It weighed three kilos and three hundred grams. The farmer knew because he had weighed it on the market scale, the same scale where he weighed the millet. Millet sold at two hundred and twenty-five CFA francs per kilo. The rifle weighed the same as three kilos and three hundred grams of millet. Three hundred and twenty-five grams more than three kilos. Seven hundred and thirty-three CFA francs of difference. The farmer did the sums the way he did the sums with millet. So much per kilo. The rifle so much per kilo. The training had been one morning in the schoolyard. The captain showed how to load. How to aim. How to release the safety. He did not show how to come back. He did not show how to look the neighbour in the face afterwards. Ibrahim was not on the list of volunteers. Ibrahim was Fulani. The Fulani were not on the list. The Fulani were on the other list. The farmer had seen the two lists. He had not asked the difference. He did not need to ask. Ibrahim had lent him the ox in February. The ox came back with a rope mark on its neck because the farmer tied the rope tighter than Ibrahim. Ibrahim said nothing about the mark. Said nothing about the list. In the evening the farmer listened to the battery radio, the same religious station as always. The imam's voice spoke of protection. Of who protects whom. The farmer listened. The seeds were in his pocket. The rifle was leaning against the wall by the door. The door was the door of the house. The millet field was behind the house. Ibrahim's ox was in Ibrahim's enclosure. Ibrahim's enclosure was three hundred metres away.

The village was empty. The courtyard had a wall of raw bricks waist-high, a wooden door open, an aluminium pot on the fire. The fire was low. Embers. The rice inside the pot was still boiling. The water was murky. The rice was not ready. Whoever was cooking the rice had left before the rice was ready. The other VDP moved past the courtyard. The captain made a gesture with his hand. Forward. The farmer stayed in the courtyard. He did not move forward. He did not say: I am not moving forward. He said nothing. His body stopped. His feet stopped at the point where the ground of the courtyard was smooth, packed by years of footsteps, the footsteps of those who lived there and now were not. The pot boiled. The small bag of seeds fell from the right pocket of his jacket. The seeds fell into the ground of the courtyard. Small, round, yellow. Millet seeds in the ground of another. The farmer looked at the seeds on the ground. Looked at the pot. Looked at the open door where the others had passed.

He bent down. Picked up the seeds one by one. The ground of the courtyard was dry. The seeds were easy to see, yellow on the brown earth. He put them back in the pocket. The pocket was the same. The hand that put them back was not the same hand that had put them in the first time, in February, when the sowing was near and the rifle did not yet exist. The pot was no longer boiling. The fire had gone out. The rice was swollen. The farmer left the courtyard through the same door he had entered. The millet field was two hours' walk south. The rifle weighed three kilos and three hundred grams. The seeds weighed less. Much less.