In Every Mirror She's Black

by Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström

  Brittany requested her baby instead and grabbed her beautiful girl with the dark-brown eyes. Maya looked up at her mother, as if trying to make out the blur that was Brittany’s face, before latching on to her breast hungrily.

  If Jonny thought their baby needed “protecting” with his wealth and privilege because she was going to be brown, then Maya needed maximum security upon her arrival. Besides taking Jonny’s nose and thin lips, she had tight, brown curls, the most intense brown eyes, and was barely two shades lighter than Brittany.

  When Brittany was discharged a few days later, they arrived home to Jonny’s sisters and Ragnar waiting for them with a fika spread of freshly baked buns, chocolate truffles, and a custom-­made cake with the words, “Välkommen hem, finaste Maya!”

  Both Svea and Antonia cooed over the baby. Ragnar also peered at Maya, mesmerized, before turning to Brittany and commenting on just how strong Brittany’s genes were.

  Brittany cut Ragnar a wordless glare that told him to fuck off.

  Sixteen

  MUNA

  Swedes were excellent at recycling, Muna noted.

  So excellent that they ate the same food at every celebration. Christmas, Easter, Midsummer, it didn’t matter. She was staring, once again, at meatballs, cured salmon, pickled herring, and prinskorv—prince sausages. Except, under the meatballs and prinskorv were small, handwritten notes with the word “HALAL.”

  Spånga-­Tensta municipality had organized a Swedish Midsummer buffet at the community center as well as set up a maypole on a nearby football field.

  “Muna!” It was Gunhild wearing a handmade wreath of wildflowers. “Here.” She handed Muna another wreath she was holding. “This is yours. I made it for you.”

  In the corner of the large meeting hall was a table where volunteers were teaching residents how to make their own flower wreaths. Girls and women milled around the table in excitement, grabbing various blooms to personalize their floral crowns and giggling when they put them on to assess their creations in mirrors. Muna observed them, noting how just wearing flowers on their heads instantly made them feel more beautiful.

  “Thank you.” Muna took the accessory and placed it atop the hijab she was wearing over a green summer frock. “How does it look?” Gunhild reached up to help her adjust it until it was sitting just right.

  “Perfect!” Gunhild said before turning toward the buffet. “Now let’s go eat something. I think there are more activities planned for later today.” Gunhild shuffled slower than the last time Muna had seen her. “Plus, we’re going to sing ‘Små grodorna.’ It’s my favorite part!”

  They both padded over to the Midsummer spread and joined a line of people holding paper plates in anticipation, many wearing flower wreaths over covered heads.

  Muna’s eyes swept across the room. She knew it well, having spent hours here with Khadiija, Ibraahin, and other Somali youth before the riots. Gunhild had broken the news to her that Khadiija was on trial. Muna had quietly absorbed the information, nodding with the same helplessness she felt when Ahmed’s residency had been denied.

  Ahmed… She saw his face every day, pinned to her magnetic board. In the boredom of her apartment, she often daydreamed about what life with Ahmed would have looked like. A Somali-­Kurdish relationship? Would they have been happy? How would he have taken care of her? Would he love her and only her? Or would he have taken another wife, which their faith permitted?

  She remembered the times when his eyes washed over her after telling her she was beautiful and she had turned away shyly. He often laughed at her bashfulness. She seemed to amuse him in a way she hadn’t fully understood. But whenever his full-­bodied laugh dropped, his face was hooded in pain again.

  “My dear Muna… I love your spirit. But I would rather go back home and die fighting for something than die here in paradise doing nothing and listening to birdsong.”

  The very birds he could name just by hearing their chirping. Right now, his voice still filled her heart. Its cadence and tone whenever he complained about something, mocked his enemies at the center, or flattered her in vain.

  Muna’s deepest fear was forgetting the sound of Ahmed’s voice.

  Her eyes wandered toward the entrance of the community center, and she froze when she saw a familiar handsome profile with that black rooster hairdo step in…Yagiz.

  He was wearing a fitted black T-­shirt and jeans, and his black handlebar moustache looked recently groomed. He swaggered in, looking around before landing on an acquaintance who walked over to give him a hug.

  Muna’s eyes darted around. Where was Yasmiin?

  She stared at Yagiz again, who was talking animatedly. He was momentarily distracted by another Eritrean, this time a woman, who sashayed past both men before he continued gesticulating. Her eyes roamed over him as he talked with passion, a laugh breaking out sometimes.

  “Your turn.” Gunhild gently poked her to get her moving. Muna turned back to the buffet. She placed three meatballs on her paper plate, balancing it carefully once the meatballs started rolling around like pinballs. She added a few links of halal prinskorv made from lamb and slivers of cured salmon. She scanned the room for Yagiz once more. She saw him shake hands and pull the man into a half hug before continuing into the crowd, milling around and looking for more acquaintances.

  “Is he someone you know?” Gunhild startled her. Muna turned to find her turquoise eyes twinkling, her crow’s-­feet bunching up.

  “No, no,” Muna shook her head, almost too violently. Gunhild had never met Yagiz, and Yasmiin had never shared him with the older woman either. Muna realized Gunhild didn’t know who he was.

  “Well, he’s a very handsome man,” Gunhild said. “I don’t blame you for having a crush on him.”

  “What?” Muna’s eyes widened at Gunhild. “No, I don’t like that man.” Gunhild smiled as she speared boiled potatoes with a fork and placed them on her own plate.

  “My dear. I’ve been around a long time… I know a crush when I see it.”

  Muna turned away from Gunhild. She was wrong. Gunhild had to be wrong. She did not fancy Yagiz. Not in the way she was implying. She would never betray Ahmed that way. Never.

  Despite all that had happened between them, she still had her job. Yagiz was a good boss who paid her once her team leader, Azeez, turned in his weekly report.

  But he was a bad man who sold khat. He had been very aggressive with Yasmiin, and Muna wanted to know what he had done with her sister-­friend she hadn’t seen in months.

  Muna looked over her shoulder, searching for him once more in the crowd.

  KẸMI

  “Good God.”

  Malcolm stood, taking in the Midsummer maypole decorated with rings of wildflowers and blue and yellow ribbons flapping in a gentle breeze. Around the pole were about a hundred people jumping in circles, singing “Små grodorna.” The small frogs.

  “I swear…white people. They’ve got Black folk hopping around that pole like frogs too,” Malcolm continued. The crowd dancing before them was a mix of dashikis, turbans, hijabs, and jilbabs alongside traditional Swedish costumes and various levels of undress to match the summer heat.

  “What? Do you want them to crip walk around the damn pole instead?” Tobias retorted. José and Kemi burst out laughing while Malcolm shrugged off his dig.

  “Seriously, bro. Just relax and enjoy Midsummer, okay?” Tobias added.

  Tobias had brought them to Farsta strand south of town to enjoy one of Sweden’s most cherished festivities. Afterward, he was taking them over to Norsborg where his mother, Nancy, had invited them all for a true Gambian Midsummer. “Because you know Africans always have to be extra,” Tobias said, laughing it off.

  He was carrying a small cooler with drinks while Kemi cradled a bag of cardamom buns Tobias had baked the day before. José had a wicker basket lined with red-­and-­white ging
ham cloth packed with crackers, brie and blue cheeses, red grapes, and charcuterie. Nancy had promised to feed them properly after the festivities and had banned them from filling up on pickled herring beforehand.

  Spread out across picnic blankets on grass were about two hundred more people. After navigating the human minefield, they found a patch of grass they could squeeze on to spread out their picnic. Kemi turned to the dancing crowd once more as voices jubilantly singing off-­key filled the warm air. Her eyes roamed over them, zeroing in on seemingly odd couples, watching people hold hands and dance, wondering who were friends, or strangers, or just friends for two hours before returning to being strangers after the day’s festivities.

  “What are you looking at?” Tobias nipped at her ear. She leaned back into him, savoring his touch.

  “Hmm, nothing. I wish I could freeze this frame of happy people and file it away for those days when I feel like saying screw this all.”

  “Yet, there’s no place I would rather live right now,” he whispered. She turned to him, and he planted a quick kiss on her lips.

  “Really?”

  “This is my home.”

  “Yes, I know,” Kemi said. “But do you truly feel like you belong? What was it like for you as a kid?”

  Tobias let out a sigh of frustration, and she knew this was a topic that required hours. He wasn’t going to get into it now. He’d only skim the surface. In that regard, Tobias was very Swedish. In fact, she’d yet to see semblances of his African side, and she hoped Nancy would give her a glimpse later that day. Kemi needed a more complete picture of the man she had now nested in so comfortably.

  “I belong in many ways,” Tobias said, glancing over bodies milling around them. “Growing up, though, I was definitely made to feel different. And the weird thing is, I don’t think it was intentional.”

  “Exclusion is always intentional,” Kemi said, her hand moving up to stroke his cheek.

  “I’m not so sure. Especially if everyone else looks the same—­blond hair and blue-­eyed—­and you already look different,” Tobias said. “I think it’s a lot more nuanced than that.”

  “And what does your sister, Tina, think?” she asked. Tobias smirked, pulling a grape from the bunch and popping it into his mouth.

  “You’ll find out when you meet her” was all he offered before reaching for another grape.

  * * *

  “Please don’t embarrass me… Please don’t embarrass me,” Malcolm begged José under his breath.

  The couple and Kemi were waiting behind Tobias, who was fumbling for keys to the apartment he shared with his mother. José knew his musical idol, Tina, was going to be there. He shifted on his feet. He rested his hands on his hips. He took deep breaths. He twirled back and forth. José was a bag of nerves that simply unraveled when Tina opened the door instead.

  “TINA WIKSTRÖM!” he screamed before biting his knuckles to contain himself.

  Tobias quickly introduced José to his sister in Swedish. Kemi watched Tina step forward and pull a jittery José into a hug. She shared the same coloring as Tobias, with brown freckles dotting her face. Thick, reddish-­brown locks twisted into a circular beehive crown sat on her head. A golden ring looped through her left nostril was the only jewelry she wore to accentuate the long, green batik gown she donned. Her amber-­brown eyes were several shades lighter than Tobias’s.

  “Oh my,” Malcolm said as he stepped in for his own hug. “I chose the wrong lifetime to be gay.”

  Tina giggled before turning to Kemi.

  “Finally.” Her thick lips curved into a smile, revealing one gold tooth. “Lovely to meet you, Kemi.” She stepped in for a hug, leaving Kemi with the lingering smell of incense and coconut. “Please, everyone, come in.” They all walked in to the sounds of old-­school Youssou N’Dour filling the air.

  The three-­bedroom apartment Tobias had grown up in and still shared with his mother was modest. From its eleventh-­floor perch, it looked over similar sand-­toned apartment blocks in their complex.

  As a single mom, Nancy had raised both Tobias and Tina with some financial support from the now-­deceased Lars Wikström, the state, and not much else. The space was lined with photos of all three of them at different ages. There were a few music awards from the Swedish equivalent of the Grammys—­Grammis—­which belonged to Tina. Photos of a younger Tobias at various swimming meets over the years. A couple from trips to Gambia. Kemi learned more about the family scanning those family photos than she had from Tobias telling her himself.

  “Look at you!”

  Nancy’s voice cut through as she came rolling out of the kitchen. She had shimmering, dark-­cocoa skin and was wearing low-­cropped hair with the same gap between her top teeth Tobias had inherited. She gathered Kemi into an embrace and then held her at arm’s length, assessing her.

  “A proper African girl with a solid body!”

  “Mamma!” Tobias scolded her. Nancy simply shrugged and pulled Kemi along with her toward the kitchen. Tobias followed them as if to chaperone their conversation.

  “Tobias and all his white girlfriends. Finally, he brings a Black one home.” She was the only Black woman Tobias had ever dated? Kemi pondered. She asked Nancy how so, and his mother simply laughed before answering, “Look, Tobias also had two loooong sambos—­long-­term partners—­for many years before he met you. Two blond Swedish girls. The type that just wake up, shake their hair, and go.”

  “Thank you, Nancy…but why are you telling me this?” Kemi asked defensively.

  “Because he has been waiting for you all his life,” Nancy exclaimed. “A strong African woman like me!”

  “Mamma!” Tobias chided her once more before shaking his head, embarrassed by his mother.

  Kemi let Nancy’s words settle into a pile at her feet. She wasn’t sure what to do or how to parse them. Did she represent that hidden part of Tobias he so wanted to wear with pride but was being forced to choose between both cultures? To be fully Swedish, did he have to give up a part of himself that felt at odds with the culture he’d known all his life?

  Nancy immediately put Kemi to work. She helped Tobias and Tina set the table, with Tobias stealing kisses whenever they crossed paths during their tasks. They helped Nancy adorn the table with bowls of a heavy rice dish Tobias explained was benachin, grilled chicken thighs, fried fish, corn on the cob, and a spring salad loaded with tomatoes, cucumbers, and avocado. She had also boiled potatoes and laid out a jar of pickled herring, some meatballs, and prinskorv—­prince sausages.

  “In case you miss your Swedish food.” Nancy specifically turned to look at José, the fairest of them all, who could pass for white. José wore a questioning look at her statement. Malcolm shook his head and laughed. Kemi could see Tobias’s concerned look, and she moved to his side. Censoring his mother wasn’t needed, her touch told him. Tina finished off the table setting by placing a Swedish flag as its centerpiece.

  “Okay!” Nancy announced. “Everybody, sit.”

  “Do you have any special spots where you’d like each of us to sit?” Kemi asked. Nancy glanced at her, laughing before repeating, “Everybody sit!” with extra emphasis. Soon it was a cacophony of people passing dishes, cutlery clinking plates, and drinks being poured.

  “This is excellent, Nancy,” Kemi announced after a few bites of her benachin, which had pieces of roasted lamb in it. She tasted nutmeg and cumin in the mix.

  “I know it is.” Nancy revealed her gap-­toothed grin. “Now, you Nigerians and Ghanaians can finally shut up about which jollof rice is better. Our Gambian benachin is the original.”

  “Mamma!” It was Tobias again.

  “Well, Gambians need to publicly defend that title then,” Kemi challenged.

  “We have better things to do with our time than fighting over rice.” Nancy grabbed a chicken thigh and lifted it for a bite. Kemi chuckled, cat
ching Nancy’s smiling eyes, before turning to Tina.

  “Tina…” Kemi started. “If José’s reaction was any indication, I’m sitting before pop star greatness.”

  Tina took a sip of apple cider, amused. “That was in the past.”

  “Huge all over Scandinavia!” José chimed in before taking a bite of corn, his eyes never leaving Tina. “She even won Melodifestivalen once and represented Sweden at Eurovision!”

  “Yeah, but I do much more important work now,” Tina said, turning her attention to Kemi. “I run an organization for people who identify as Afro-­Swedish. A way of centering both our cultures.”

  “I see,” Kemi said. “Is identifying as Afro-­Swedish an issue? Tobias told me Sweden tries to make you one or the other, not necessarily both.”

  “Yeah,” Malcolm added. “I mean, back in the States, I’m African American. I’ve got friends who are Italian American, Jewish American, Iraqi American. Why can’t you be both? Here, I just call myself Afro-­Swedish because my mom is Swedish, but I am African American. Now it’s sounding complicated even for me,” he trailed off with a laugh.

  “That’s what my organization is working on.” Tina smiled.

  Kemi turned to study Tobias, who sat quietly.

  “It’s so intriguing. There’s still so much I’m trying to figure out here in Sweden…especially at work. How my colleagues perceive me as an independent Black woman. What my future career prospects are.”

  “Tobias told me all about you,” Tina said. “I think you’re a rarity here in Sweden.”

  “How so?” Kemi asked.

  “A Black woman who is a top-­level director at one of the most influential companies? Especially one who doesn’t speak fluent Swedish yet?”

  “And why is that rare?” Kemi asked defensively.

  “Sweden tackles one social problem at a time,” Tina said. “Right now, the priority seems to be gender equality for white women. We’re still waiting in line for our issues to be properly addressed.”

  “But that feels absurd,” Kemi said.