The Death of Vivek Oji

by Akwaeke Emezi

  I wanted to stay empty, like the eagle in the proverb, left to perch, my bones filled with air pockets, but heaviness found me and I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t shake it off; I couldn’t transform it, evaporate or melt it. It was distinct from me, but it hooked itself into my body like a parasite. I couldn’t figure out if something was wrong with me or if this was just my life—if this was just how people felt, like concrete was dragging their flesh off their bones.

  The fugues were short absences that I became grateful for, small mercies. Like finally getting to rest after having your eyelids forced open for days. I hid them from my parents and grew out my hair, thinking that the weight dropping from my head would lighten the one inside of me. It worked—not by making anything lighter, no, but by making me feel more balanced, like one weight was pulling the other and the strain on me had been lessened. Perhaps I had just become the fulcrum, the point on which everything hinged, the turning. I don’t know. I just know that I hurt a little less with each inch of hair I refused to cut.

  Looking back, I really don’t know what I thought it was going to protect me from.

  Eleven

  Everyone knew that death entered with the upcoming elections. It was all anyone was talking about: if moving into civilian rule was a good idea, whether the military rulers could handle the country better. People argued in their homes and beer parlors; voices were raised, blows were thrown, and the violence sometimes escalated into bloody clashes on the roads. The day Chika brought Vivek home from university, they had run into traffic, cars crawling over potholes as people danced into the streets, whooping and singing.

  Chika leaned out of his window, irritated. “What’s all this?” he shouted at a boy who was crossing in front of the car, waving palm fronds and holding a bottle of malt in his other hand, brown foam spilling over his knuckles.

  The boy turned to him with a broad smile, his teeth catching sunlight.

  “Abacha don die!” he shouted back. “Abacha don die!” He dipped between two cars, narrowly missed being hit by an okada, and was lost in the growing press of people.

  Chika pulled back into the car and a hesitant smile spread over his face.

  “Thank God,” he murmured, and Vivek, who had been sleeping with his head thrown against the car seat, woke up and stared blearily around him. His hair was damp with sweat from the back of his neck. The collar of his T-shirt was darkened with it, as was the fabric under his arms.

  “What’s happening?” he asked.

  “Abacha is dead,” his father replied, swerving the car into the next lane and cutting in front of a bus. The driver shouted and made rude gestures.

  “So what happens now?” Vivek asked.

  “It’s a new day for Nigeria,” Chika replied. “A new day.” He smiled at his son and put a hand on his shoulder. “For all of us.”

  Perhaps he was right and it was a birth of sorts, but Chika had forgotten that births come with blood, and in the case of his son, they came with loss as well, birthdays and deathdays all tangled up in each other.

  A few weeks into Vivek’s return, as tensions arose between the police and a vigilante group, a seven o’clock curfew was imposed in Ngwa. Vivek had been taking long walks at night, and when his parents told him he’d have to stop, he lost his temper. “You’re keeping me in a cage!” he shouted. “You think I want to stay in this house every night like a prisoner? Is that why you brought me back?” He ran outside and refused to come back in after it got dark. He climbed the plumeria tree in their backyard, cradling himself in its broad branches.

  “Leave him there,” Chika said, disgusted. “Let him fall out and break his neck. Onye ara.”

  He slammed the back door behind him and refused to let Kavita go outside so she could beg Vivek to come indoors. “Beg him for what? I said let him sleep there with the chickens!”

  In the morning, Vivek was covered in mosquito bites and there was a splatter of yellowwhite chicken shit on his shoulder. After Chika left for work, Kavita boiled water for the boy to take a bath. She didn’t know what to say to him, so she said nothing. While he was bathing, she called Rhatha and invited her to come over with her daughters.

  “It’ll be good for the boy to have some company closer to his age,” Kavita said. Rhatha brought her signature cupcakes, complete with sugar dragonflies perched on top of the icing.

  Somto and Olunne came in matching blue jeans with floral cutouts and garish polyester blouses with draping sleeves. They smelled like bubblegum, and their hair was pulled tight into ponytails.

  “You girls have gotten so big!” said Kavita, as they hugged her hello. “I’m sure Vivek won’t even recognize you. How many years since you last saw him? Four? Five?”

  Somto brushed an imaginary crumb off her green blouse and smiled at Kavita. “Closer to six or seven years, Aunty. Before we left for boarding school.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s right. Well, come in, let me go and call Vivek.”

  “It’s okay, we remember where his room is,” Somto said. “Can we go and give him some cupcakes?” She looked at her mother first, then at Kavita for permission. Olunne’s eyes widened at her sister asking to go into a boy’s room, just by themselves, but she rallied and gave Kavita a quick smile, a shy flash of teeth.

  Kavita and Rhatha exchanged glances, then smiled back at the girls. “Down the corridor,” said Kavita, and watched as they traipsed off with the tray of covered cupcakes.

  “That’s friendly of them,” she noted.

  Rhatha waved a hand. “Oh, they heard he’s got such long hair now and wanted to see it for themselves. I think they’re halfway jealous.”

  Kavita blinked. “Over hair?”

  “Darling, you wouldn’t believe it. They’re obsessed with those Sunsilk advertisements and they quarrel over whose hair is longer all the time. It’s ridiculous.”

  “Oh, that’s right, they had to cut their hair for school, didn’t they?”

  “Yes, but it didn’t kill them.” Rhatha flapped a hand and sat next to Kavita, her face solicitous. “But tell me, darling, how are you? You must be worried sick about Vivek.”

  Kavita suppressed a sigh. Rhatha was a bit of a gossip, always spilling people’s business. If she hadn’t been one of the few whose children were around, Kavita might not even have asked her over. She wondered what rumors Rhatha had heard. “He’s doing all right,” she said. “We just wanted to give him a little break from school since he hasn’t been feeling well.”

  Rhatha leaned back in the sofa and regarded her. “You know,” she said, “Eloise was at the glass factory the other day when Vivek came to pick up Chika. She said he was looking quite run-down. It must have been serious if you pulled him out of school.”

  Kavita frowned. “Why was Eloise at the factory?”

  “She was picking up some sculptures. You know they did that program recently with the local artists, for her children’s ward? Their work is quite ugly, if you ask me, dreadful vases and whatnot. Chika was holding one for her. He didn’t tell you?”

  “Yes, I remember,” lied Kavita. “Of course, the sculpture.”

  “You should take Vivek to the teaching hospital if you need to get him checked out. Eloise is there a few times a week.”

  “I know. But he’s fine, really. He just needs some time. He was always sensitive, even as a child.”

  Rhatha nodded knowingly. “Nerves,” she said. “You always have to watch the sensitive ones. They wear out so easily, and the last thing you want is a nervous breakdown.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Kavita. “Better he have some time off now than break down at school.” She knew there was a chance Rhatha would run around and tell everyone Vivek was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but it was better than admitting that the breakdown had already happened.

  “I thought that military school would have toughened him up,” said Rhatha.<
br />
  “That’s what Chika was hoping when he sent him,” replied Kavita, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. The other Nigerwives knew the whole story—she’d vented to them about it years ago when Chika first made the decision, despite Kavita’s objection that the boy was too young to live so far away from them.

  To her surprise, the Nigerwives had supported Chika. “You have to allow him to raise his son the way he wants to,” they said. “We’re overprotective because this isn’t our country, but Chika knows what he’s doing. You trusted him enough to stay here instead of going back home, so trust him with your son.” So Kavita did; yet every holiday she waited with a tight chest until her son was back in her arms, safe and browned from the harsh sun.

  “I hear it’s so hot there you can use the water from the tap to make garri?” she’d asked him, during one of his first holidays back home.

  Vivek had laughed. “Yes, Amma. It’s Jos. You can grow strawberries up there.”

  She had been worried that he’d be targeted for being Igbo, but her neighbor Osinachi had laughed when she heard that. “He looks Hausa,” she said. “Or even Fulani. He will be fine there. The boy doesn’t even hear Igbo like that.” Osinachi was an architect whose husband worked in Kuwait. She had lost her oldest child in a car accident years ago, and their surviving son, Tobechukwu, had grown up to be—as Osinachi put it—a bit of a tout, a troublemaker.

  “Kavita?” Her mind had been drifting, but Rhatha’s voice drew her back.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “I was saying that maybe the military school idea wasn’t the best. He might have had to repress his natural sensitivity, so it’s breaking out now.”

  Kavita barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. “How are your girls?” she asked instead, and Rhatha preened. The only thing she loved more than prying into other people’s lives was talking about her two darlings. She went off on a glowing monologue about how wonderfully the girls were doing with this time off, how they were exploring their artistic sides, how Somto’s swimming was bordering on extraordinary. Kavita smiled and nodded, tuning out most of Rhatha’s words. They had some tea and biscuits, and after an hour or two the girls came out of Vivek’s room carrying a tray still full of cupcakes.

  “We should have baked something else,” Olunne said. “I forgot he doesn’t like these.”

  “Isn’t he coming out?” asked Kavita, making to stand up.

  “No, Aunty,” said Somto. “He got very tired and he said he’s going to sleep for a while. But we had a nice time. Thank you.” She put the cupcakes on a side table. The mothers were expecting them to say more about Vivek, but it was as if somewhere within the walls of Vivek’s room, allegiances had shifted, unseen pacts had been made, and Somto and Olunne had stepped out carrying Vivek’s secrets in the elastic of their ponytails. It was clear they had no intention of sharing what had happened, so everyone sat awkwardly in the parlor for a bit until Rhatha took the girls home.

  Later that night, when Vivek came out for dinner, the table was tense. Chika was chewing his cowtail with aggressive crunches and Kavita could hear her cutlery ringing against her plate.

  “How was it having some friends over?” she asked Vivek.

  He looked up from his food and his face was calmer than it had been since he returned home. “It was nice,” he said. “Thank you for inviting them.” His voice was level and polite, and Chika glanced at him in surprise. After dinner, Vivek excused himself, washed the plates, then went to bed.

  “What happened to that one?” asked Chika.

  “I think he just needed some friends,” Kavita said. “He can’t be isolated all the time; it’s not good for him.”

  “Aren’t those girls much younger than him?”

  “Only by three or four years, Chika, come on. They played together all the time as children.”

  “They’re not really children anymore,” he noted, unfolding a newspaper, and Kavita swatted him on the arm.

  “Shut up,” she said. “He’s a good boy.” She didn’t ask Chika about Eloise’s visit to the factory. She didn’t care.

  “I still think we should take him to the village this weekend,” Chika said. “I talked to Mary about it. Osita will be there.”

  “Oh, good! I haven’t seen that boy in so long.”

  So that was how they came to take Vivek to the village house. Kavita combed his hair, and when they returned to Ngwa, Vivek started going out to visit Somto and Olunne more and more. If he stayed out past curfew, he just ended up spending the night at Rhatha’s house. His parents didn’t mind; they knew he was safe there, and the boy seemed to be doing better, so they were happy.

  One day, Kavita called Rhatha’s house to check on Vivek. “The boy isn’t here,” Rhatha said in her high and lilting voice. A spike of panic shot through Kavita’s chest.

  “What do you mean, he’s not there? He hasn’t come home yet.”

  “Oh, no, he’s fine. They’re over at Maja’s house.”

  Kavita frowned. “Really? Why?”

  Rhatha paused. “She does have a daughter their age, darling.”

  “Oh my God, yes, of course. I just . . . I didn’t know the children were friends.”

  “I don’t think they liked the girl very much when they were younger—Juju, that’s her name, yes? Well. They’re all as thick as thieves now.” Kavita could almost hear Rhatha shrug over the phone. “Children and their politics. Who can understand it?”

  Kavita laughed and got off the phone as quickly as possible, so she could call her friend.

  Maja picked up almost immediately. “Yes, the children have been coming here,” she told Kavita, holding her phone to her ear with her shoulder as she rolled white stockings off her legs. “Rhatha’s girls, Vivek, even Ruby’s girl, Elizabeth. They all go to Juju’s room to watch movies and play music and whatever else they get up to.”

  “It’s strange that they’re suddenly so close,” Kavita said, and Maja laughed.

  “It’s cute,” she said. “It’s just like when they were little.”

  “You don’t think they’re . . . you know, up to something in there?”

  Maja paused as she unhooked the clasp of her uniform skirt. “Really, Kavita? Like what?”

  “I don’t know! Smoking or something. Drinking?”

  Maja exhaled. She tried to be patient with Kavita, she really did, considering the fact that Vivek was clearly having some kind of breakdown, but there were lines. “So you think they’d just be doing all that in our houses and none of us would notice? Because we’re what, that negligent with the children?”

  “Ah, no, that’s not what I meant.”

  “Kavita, stop being so neurotic, for goodness’ sake. The children are fine. They’re on holiday, and they’re staying indoors instead of being out there with all this wahala going on. Did you hear about the attack down on Ezekiel Street?”

  “What? There was an attack?”

  “Yes, the day before yesterday. The clinic there—armed robbers, they’re saying.”

  “During that riot?”

  “Mm-hmm. They broke the electric signboard, someone threw a stone at it, and later that night those robbers came back and attacked the clinic.”

  “Jesus. What’s there to steal from a clinic?”

  “Ask me. They think all these barren women overpay because they’re so desperate for children. I don’t know why they think there’d be any money there. Most of these patients just end up owing the doctors anyway.” She paused, then, more quietly: “I heard they raped some of the nurses.”

  “My God, Maja.”

  “Ruby was telling me about it. I’m tired of this country, Kavita. Brutality everywhere. I’m thinking of taking Juju and going.”

  “I thought you said Charles hid your passports.”

  Maja shrugged, even though Kavita couldn’
t see her, and started unbuttoning her shirt. “And so? I will find them somehow. Or go to the embassy and make a complaint. What am I staying here for, after the way Charles has treated me? Let me swallow my pride and ask my parents for help.”

  “Will you go back to the Philippines?”

  “I don’t even know.” Maja leaned against the wall, her shirt falling open. She was alone in her and Charles’s bedroom. They had told Juju he was away on a business trip, and he was, handling it all from a hotel in Onitsha. Maja wasn’t sure if he had taken his other family along with him. “Where else would we go?” Her voice was deflated.

  “I’m so sorry, Maja,” said Kavita. She knew that Maja wouldn’t leave Charles, not really. She was too afraid of him, too in love with him, too stubborn to admit that her marriage wasn’t what she kept telling her parents it was. Charles knew it, too. He’d spent years whispering into Maja’s ear that she would never make it on her own, just her and Juju, that they needed him, that her daughter needed a father.

  “Where are you going to go?” he’d said. “You know the kind of shame it will bring to your family if you don’t have a husband. It’s better you stay here and make it work, adapt to our customs. Welcome my second wife when she comes. Behave with some dignity and don’t embarrass me. It will be good for Juju to have a little brother in the house.” When Maja tried to argue back, he smiled patiently and twisted her wrist till it bruised. “I will give you some time,” he said. “I believe a family should live together. You hear? But I will give you some time.”

  Maja wished she was like Tammy, whose husband had done the same thing, gone and taken a second wife, except that Tammy had given him sons already. The man thought Tammy would ignore it, because he was rich and she and their children lived in a gorgeous house with lavish grounds. Instead, he’d come home one day to find the house empty and his children gone. Tammy took them back to Scotland and that was the end of it. She didn’t even shout. The other Nigerwives told that story with pride, but Maja knew her story wasn’t going to end like that. Charles had already warned her that he would come and find her wherever she went, so if she wanted to run, she had better leave his daughter behind. Maja didn’t quite understand why Juju meant so little, yet so much to him. Like property.