It is August. You feel the damp and the cold of the rains sliding into your body and wedging itself between your bones. The days go in long stretches and nights in short bursts, like little firecrackers, glorious but dying quickly. It suits you, this weather, you mumble each morning as you leave your apartment. You say it with quiet certainty even when you stand before teenagers, teaching them of an eternal father you did not believe was yours and his son who was a blur. You mumble the words over and over again as you walk the muddy streets that spray you with streams of red and brown. You hiss it when you mingle with this never-ending crowd of people moving, noses in the air, brisk steps, eyes distant like people under hypnosis.

The walls of your room are moulting. You observe it this morning as you drag your skirt over your hips. These walls, they had been a sullen witness and companion. They had stood there, solid and unbending to the batter of arms, legs and objects thrown, hauled and landed into smithereens or the screams and moans it had failed to stifle. It sucked these sounds; of anger, pleasure and grief, transporting them to every room in this building.

It used to be blue, the cyan hue it wore told you. It is shedding now, it’s skin bloating and falling off, like flakes of dry, dead skin. You share a history with these walls, you feel like they do. And before you clutch your bag and head to school, you smile at your ever-present, ever-supportive confidante.

#

You enter the school with light steps, slipping through people on the assembly ground to stand in front of the queue where teachers as young as you belong. The principal is on the podium, marshalling out instructions. His shirts and trousers are as always, starches so well they look like cardboard boxes. You are not listening to him, your ears are focused on the murmurs behind you, from your fellow teachers.

You don’t like them, and you will never. They smile and are nice, but you know the warmth is not in their eyes or their souls. You want the basicness of their lives; they want the enigma that is yours. You say little, they murmur, you do not smile and you work harder at your job than everyone else. “Ladies should always smile”, they joke, poking your belly in jest and giving little lectures. Lectures on how to be or not to be, prayers on your head during staff meetings for a husband and a subtle snobbery in their words and gestures when they complain of their husbands and children. Still, they say, they wish they had your freedom.

The principal is singing a martial song. The students march into their classes, hands flailing, legs thrown out in determination till they are out of the assembly hall. You greet everyone in a voice turned low enough to be respectful. Demure good mornings to the women in beaded lace tops, with bellies swaddled in rows and rows of George wrappers. Good morning Sirs, with your eyes fixed on their necks, to the men in isiagu outfits and then, to the ones like yourself, who have not “fixed themselves somewhere”, Kee ka I mee?  A cautious how are you? eyes focused on the floor because you don’t want to ignite hope. You don’t want anyone to share in the cavern that is your life.

It is Cultural Day and the festivities will begin at two in the afternoon. You don’t stay for long. After teaching the students, you excuse yourself and head to the church. You are not going to pray, you never do. You kneel in the small chapel with the aroma of incense that seeps into the curtains and chairs and never leaves. You clamp your eyes shut and clasp your hands and mumble threats. Prayers are too easy, so you don’t say them. They absolve you of this weight and fill this hole in your chest and something creates another hole and you pray, and it all goes in that familiar cycle. No! God only loves people like you to give you crosses to bear. So, you go to church to remind this God that sinners need punishment. You go through the scripted performance on Sundays to save you sometimes, from imploding, scattering into little bits to be flung far away from each other by fate.

As you step out of the dim chapel into the piercing sunlight of the afternoon, you feel your phone buzzing. It’s Mama.

‘Ugoo, aru adikwa?’

‘Yes, I am well’

‘Have you thought about it?’

Silence.

‘Nne, biko, forgive us whatever we’ve done to you. Things like this happen and God…

You switch off the phone, your teeth grinding against each other, your eyes burning. You wanted to escape this apology, that is why you came to this town famous for its anonymity. You walk home watching the children at street corners screaming, squealing and playing Oga or running half-clothed; chasing their rubber, dust-coated bicycle tires.

Later that night, you rise from your bed and rummage in your cupboard for your trophies. They are in a box, your souvenirs. You sit on the floor and look at each. You lay out the white sneakers and smile. There are rust-coloured stains on it, splatters on the laces, where his blood touched as he sat, bleeding out.

Okwudili, that one loved his sneakers more than life. You run your hands over the shoes, inhaling its musty smell and reminiscing. You had met him at your cousin’s wedding. He had walked up to you, stomach first, with a self-satisfied grin and a bawl for a voice. You took him in, seeing the familiar haughty tilt to his chin, just like your father’s. You said yes, you would go out with him. Mama held her breath and dreamt of trains of women in matching lace tops and expensive abada at your wedding. Papa nodded without conviction and told you to be safe.

Then, the shoe and sneaker madness started. You noticed that he bought new pairs each week: sneakers, boots, shoes. Each one shinier, and costing more than the other. And he gave you a monologue when you asked, of the latest addition. He meant well, with his asking after your well-being and buying you gifts you didn’t need. Still, you felt stifled. A rock had lodged itself in your head and you began to plot and scheme at work while attending to customers. On those nights when you’d visit, as his body moved above yours, you stifled the screams rising in your throat.

You waited three months and finally struck. You knocked him out with one of your platform heels, heavy enough to stun but not kill, you had been practicing. You tied him to a chair and stuffed his mouth. You slit his wrist and then his throat with the kitchen knife you’d sharpened and carried in your bag. And as you watched him convulse, you study your incisions. They were perfect! you think. Maybe, you should have studied surgery instead. You watched him bleed out, eating his half-finished plate of rice. When his eyes rolled back, you slipped out of his house as deftly as you had slipped in, taking his sneakers with you.

The singlet belonged to him; the childhood crush you met after almost a decade of silence. ‘He’ll treat you well’, Mama had said, her voice heavy with hope, prodding.

‘You need to forget Okwudili. May God punish whoever did this to him’, she muttered when she saw you crying. Of course, the tears were not for him, but for the laughter that eluded you. You wanted joy, you wanted ecstasy and all you got was a numbing disgust. So, you went out with Chukwudi, to events and bookstores, always smiling, dressing appropriately for each occasion with smiles and bows and kindness wafting from you, to settle in the hearts of his father, mother and sisters.

‘O nwelu ezigbo obi, she has a good heart’, his mother said on those hot afternoons that you send everyone out of the kitchen and take charge. You smile when you hear this. Mothers always determine the lucky girl who gets their trophy son in the end. You are grateful.

‘Ada mmadu,’ his father hails when he sees you, displaying teeth as white as piano keys. Because you can bow low enough when greeting and don’t raise your voice. Because you defer to Chukwudi in conversations and always hint; that you would consider a job that gave you more time with the children after the marriage.

Children. You feel your womb clench in disgust at this thought, but you smile. Maybe, in this kind house with warm people, you will find peace.

Still, happiness ran through yours hands like water and on the eighth of June, you slipped two, not one tablet of his diabetes medication into his palm. It should have been your ‘day’. You had dressed up and gone to church, said your vows and waited till that moment after communion when he slumped and began to convulse. And as they said, you were made a widow while still in your wedding dress.

He had to go; you murmur to yourself. Chukwudi with the lean body and lips always frozen in that curve that could pass for a smile. Chukwudi who read a lot and filled your ears with long talks on American news, history and politics that made you wish you wore hearing aids. Aids that you could turn low to dull and silence his voice. He meant well, showing you books and taking you to book launches. You did not care though. The only books you read were not ‘literature’ to him; tales of murder, fear and monsters. Books on darkness and the comfort it brought. So, you let him rant sometimes when you did not read his books.

And when you were in bed with him, there was an unsettling urgency to his motions, like he was taking and giving nothing of himself. You dreaded those nights when he would invite you over. You went anyway, he was too good to be true and you should be grateful. You still could not help staring at that tilt to his chin, just like your father’s, haughty and defying, and staring at it on that hazy morning, you did not think twice as you handed him the tablets, two instead of one, a replacement for another.

After the burial, you burnt his clothes, taking only the singlet. You had bought it for him. He had worn it only once, complaining afterwards that vests were more comfortable and appropriate. And every week, on Sundays, after the incense-filled haze that is the mass at the church, you spray a little of his favourite cologne and cry into it. Sundays smell like Chukwudi.

You are hugging it to yourself and crying when you remember and find the cigarettes; a gold case and inbuilt lighter. You had gotten them off a stranger at a bar, four months after Chukwudi’s death. He had been nice, in his sharp jeans and t-shirt, speaking carefully, enunciating every word. You watch him in the dimness of the bar, the slow music weaving through the air as stick after stick disappeared between his fingers, each reduced to glowing ash. You loved his voice, the deep yet smooth sound of it. You watched your bottle of Star Radler sweat away as you listened to his voice and not what he said.

When he excused himself to use the restroom, you grabbed the case and slipped out of the bar. You were seeing a therapist then, a woman with a large afro and pinched features. You tell her everything, but not that you slit your boyfriend’s throat and overdosed your groom on your wedding day. You instead speak to her of the hollowness in your soul and how every man you are attracted to, has a haughty chin, like the one who birthed you. You tell her that you hope someday, you will find happiness in the bodies of these men. She consoles you, the fool! You act out your expected role; griever to the end. And so that night in the bar, you remember your next session and fold in this part of you, stifling the hunger to snuff out anything that hints at joy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR