The school at Oriire reopened on a Monday. They had repainted the outside wall green, the same green as before, and in the yard someone had cut the grass that in fifty-six days had grown knee-high.

Tunde arrived at half past seven, as he had for nine years. The road from Iresaadu was the same. There was the new checkpoint at the junction, with two young soldiers who checked his card and handed it back without a word.

Against the classroom wall, under the window, was Ojo's bicycle. Ojo taught mathematics. The bicycle stood in its place, where it always was, and the back tyre was full. Someone had pumped it up not long before. Tunde looked at it, then went in.

The classroom was in order. The desks in rows. The blackboard clean. On the sill the box of chalk, closed.

Twenty-two came, of the thirty-nine. The rest, in fact, arrived in the days that followed, except for those who did not arrive at all. The parents walked them as far as the gate and stayed there watching, on their feet, even after the children had gone in.

Tunde said good morning. The children said good morning back. A little girl in the front row held her schoolbag on her knees and would not set it down.

"Sit," said Tunde. They sat. The girl kept the bag.

He took the register. He called the roll looking at their faces, not the list, because the list still had all the names, and some names were better not spoken aloud in a full classroom. He called the ones present. Each said "present." Someone's voice came out small.

At the back of the class, hung on the wall, was the map of Nigeria. The rivers in blue. The Niger coming down from the northwest, the Benue meeting it from the east, the point where they touch marked with a small pencilled circle, made by him in May.

The last lesson had been that one. The fifteenth of May, third hour, the rivers. He had written the word confluence on the blackboard and was explaining what it meant when the men had come in from the yard.

Tunde opened the box. He took a piece of chalk. It was whole, not a stub: someone had put in new chalk.

He went to the blackboard. The class was watching him. Outside, beyond the window, you could see Ojo's bicycle with its full tyre and, further off, the parents standing at the gate.

He wrote the word confluence. His hand came out the same as in May, the same slant, as if nothing had come between.

"Where the Niger and the Benue meet," he said, "the water becomes one thing and changes its name. From there down it is called only Niger. But inside, for a stretch, you can still see two colours. The water of the one and the water of the other do not mix at once."

He turned to the map. He pointed to the pencilled circle. His hand, in any case, did not shake.

"Who remembers what the place is called?"

Silence. Then the girl in front, without raising her hand, said: "Lokoja."

"Lokoja," Tunde repeated. He wrote it under confluence. The line of chalk was straight.

He went on with the lesson of the rivers as if two days had passed and not two months. He explained the flood, the rainy season, why the towns on the banks flood in July. The children copied. The chalk wore down and whitened his fingers, and now and then he wiped them on his trousers, an old gesture, one the body made by itself.

In the forest, while they were holding them, they fed them once a day, garri and water, and Ojo, in the evening, to keep the little ones quiet, drew on the earth with a small stick. He drew the rivers. The Niger coming down, the Benue meeting it, the small circle where they touch. He told the children that the water of home was that one, that it was flowing even now, that it was waiting for them downstream. Then one morning Ojo was gone. In the end, it was better not to explain that to the children, now, in front of the map of the rivers.

"Teacher," said a big boy, in the back row, "and if they come back?"

Tunde set the chalk down on the ledge of the blackboard. "Now there's the checkpoint," he said. It was not an answer and he knew it. The boy nodded all the same, because sometimes any sentence at all, said in a steady voice, holds better than a true one.

Halfway through the morning a boy in the third row began to cry without a sound, looking at his desk. Tunde did not stop. He went on talking about the rivers, but lowered his voice, and moved a step toward that row, and stayed there while he explained, close by, until the boy stopped.

At break the children went out into the yard. Tunde stayed in the classroom. He cleaned the blackboard halfway, leaving the part with confluence and Lokoja, because the lesson was not finished.

From the window he saw a man go up to Ojo's bicycle. It was the caretaker. He moved it half a metre, to keep it more in the shade, and leaned it back against the wall with care, and checked the back tyre, pressing it with his thumb. Then he went away.

The bicycle stayed there, full, ready, leaning under the classroom window. In the end, it was the place where Ojo kept it. No one had taken it away. No one was taking it away.