Speak No Evil

by Uzodinma Iweala

  Six years ago I didn’t know what I was doing, why I showed up, or how I even got here. Now I can answer at least one of those questions. I wait and press the doorbell again. No response. I knock on the door and it swings back from the seal. An alarm chimes sharply, startling me, then the house falls silent. Hello, I shout inside, Mr. Ikemadu, hello. I should turn back. I should leave this place immediately but my feet sink into a soft entry rug as I step into what looks like the movie set of an abandoned home. My steps creak across the wood floors as I pass a sitting room and dining room where the little light streaming through the drawn curtains captures floating dust that settles atop a large wood dining table. In the kitchen, a lopsided stack of dirty plates near the sink is a breeding ground for a swarm of flies. Stagnant water rests in the basin, covered by an oily yellow film. The trash stinks from its bin beneath the sink. I try to breathe through my mouth, but the smell is overwhelming. It owns the room. The paint on the ceiling bubbles where a leak has gone unattended and there are folded yellowed newspapers scattered across all surfaces, the place where mail once stood in stacks, the kitchen table where I once ate with Niru’s family. I bring my hand to my mouth. This is what I have done.

  I stand at the sink and look out to a backyard of full, green trees. Then I plunge my hands into the dirty water to search for the drain. It feels good to soak my hands in the filth, to root around for submerged cutlery and finally scoop away the leavings that clog the sink. The drain greedily sucks down water, leaving a yellow film clinging to silverware and burnt-bottomed pots. I begin to wash the plates in hot water. When I am finished, I empty a spray can of air freshener, cough and continue spraying until the scent of decay cowers under a nostril-widening lemon zest. We cleaned up the same way just before he drove me home that summer night. He was as efficient as a busboy in a restaurant, wiping the table with a damp cloth as he removed the place mats, as he handed me plates and saucers to scrape into the bin before ruthlessly rinsing them with the spray nozzle dangling from the faucet. If school doesn’t work out, you could always be a waiter, I smirked.

  I should leave before someone comes but I keep going. I have no idea what I am doing or when Niru’s father might return. I should really leave now, but I keep going. Niru never invited me upstairs and despite having crossed the threshold of breaking and entering, it still feels sacrilegious to set foot on the carpeted steps that lead up and away from the kitchen. I remove my shoes and place them neatly to one side. I climb the steps between framed faded pictures of people from another time, in another country. There is a large black-and-white photo of a man and woman who can only be Niru’s grandparents. They look uncomfortable in their fine Sunday clothes. Niru should be at rest now, hopefully at peace—permanently—beside their bones.

  The top floor is a madness of boxes and bags spilling from a hallway closet left half open to display a disorganized collection of bedsheets and towels. I hear the high whine and low voices of a television so I move in that direction. The master bedroom pulses as images from a cable news program flash across a flat-screen. The remote control sits on a nightstand near a cascade of crumpled tissues spilling onto half-finished plates of food on the floor near the bed. A framed picture of Niru as a toddler lies on the floor next to an empty prescription pill bottle. I have already crossed so many lines, but this violation feels absolute. In every faith, there is a part of the temple too sacred for all but the most faithful. I back out of the room and close the door.

  I have never been to Niru’s room but I have seen pictures on video chat, the trophies garnished with ribbons, a poster of Kendrick Lamar hung next to a bookshelf overfilled with science fiction novels and comics, a large goatskin drum tucked away in a corner next to his clarinet case. I stand at the threshold of his room and look at life suspended. I hesitate to move my feet from the white hallway carpet to the green carpet that covers the floor of his room. I can go no further. There is a line between decency and the real world. There was a line between me and him before I kissed him, before he pushed me against the wall, before the pop, pop, pop, pop.

  But you did not pull the trigger, Dr. Blake says. Repeat after me, I did not pull the trigger. She says, Meredith, I need you here with me now. I did not pull the trigger, I say, if only because I like her buzzed white hair and large black glasses. She makes me feel safe even if Mom and Dad forced me to see her. And breathe in, one, two, three, four, five she says, and release, she says. It’s driving me out of my mind, I tell her. All the time, everywhere he’s there watching me, waiting for me when I go to the bathroom in the night, when I turn a corner, when I’m sitting in the living room, when I run and I stretch and he should be there in real life, I can feel him, I can feel his eyes on me, I can feel him angry. What does it feel like to be watched, Dr. Blake asks. Oh my God, what the fuck, I want to scream at this doctor and her unending questions, what do you mean what does it feel like? I’m scared, I say, I’m really really scared. You think he’s coming for you? Well yes, I do, I’d come for me.

  But I’m not a monster, the police officer on television says to the heavyset black woman with voluminous curls. In the days after the shooting, it’s all television can talk about, all the Internet can tweet. Niru and I are the subject of online laments and cable insult wars. The officer’s eyes are afraid and he shifts from side to side in his seat. I saw what I saw. I saw a man attacking a young woman and I took appropriate action. She says, actually, this is a boy we are talking about, a teenager, a Harvard-bound black boy. She says, witnesses saw her run after him, that he left the venue before her. He says, I saw a young woman being assaulted and I intervened to stop it using what the department has deemed appropriate force. And you feel no remorse? A child is dead! But I’m not a monster, I’m not a monster, I’m just a police officer and a former veteran trying to do my best to keep our streets safe. There is the police chief on television, her blond hair in a bun stretching her shiny forehead, flanked by the mayor and some other officials of clear importance but little significance together in a small conference room arrayed against the cameras, the microphones and the invisible public beyond. They brandish words like tolerance and calm as if they are truncheons. There is no joy in this for anyone, she says and the officials nod their somber nods of affirmation.

  I am also not a monster. But he won’t leave me alone, he’s in my nightmares and in my daydreams. You need to let him go, Meredith, Dr. Blake says to me as I hide my face behind my hands and sink into the armchair in her office. He needs to let me go, I say back as I hold myself and rock against the air. He needs to leave me alone, I say when I can suddenly feel his presence. He comes to me in the shower in the rising steam when I am naked, between the white tiles and sliding glass. Kiss me I say, but he doesn’t kiss me and the hot water at our feet turns to blood so I scream, get it off me get it off me, and my parents come running with the things you say to people when you want them to be okay.

  The morning of graduation I cannot get out of bed. The school has told me not to come, has told all the students not to say anything to anyone about what has happened. No one has called me. They all think I’m toxic or damaged, or both. I cannot stop crying so Dad holds me while Mom stands in the doorway with her half-open mouth and palms against her chest. Dad rocks me and whispers to me. He sings a little song in my ear as he dries my naked body with a towel while Mom stands in the doorway. He carries me to my bed, rests my head on his knees and lets my tears and snot soak dark spots into his white trousers. He says I love you, while Mom stands in the doorway. She blames me, I tell Dr. Blake, for fucking it all up for them, from day one. She blames me.

  Breathe Meredith, with me, two, three, four, five, Dr. Blake says. I tell her, sometimes I can still feel him touching me, I can still feel his breath on my face and his face against my face, sometimes I can feel hands and sometimes. . . . Sometimes? Meredith, Dr. Blake asks as she always asks when I stop speaking. Sometimes I wish . . . What do you wish, Meredith? Sometimes I think . . . What do you think, Mere
dith? I think this would be easier if . . . Dr. Blake nods knowingly. It would be easier if he had raped you, she says. I look up like a cat caught knocking something valuable from a table. It’s perfectly normal to have these thoughts, Dr. Blake says. But I should have said something, I say, I should say something . . . I guess . . . You guess, Meredith? I guess . . .

  Sometimes it’s easier to be the victim, this woman says so matter-of-fact with her skinny jeans and her white blouse, and Mom and Dad nod like they agree. She is a PR crisis specialist sent by Mom and Dad’s law school friend. I don’t like her. There will be no social media, she says. You will not post, you will not message, you will not log in to your accounts—Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Google Plus—then she smiles like her cheeks are connected to hooks set to a precisely calibrated timer. We will say nothing, if you feel like saying something, you will call me or you will text me. And Mom and Dad nod like they agree. Dad, Mom, I ask but they don’t say anything. Right now at least fifty percent of America thinks you were assaulted. That’s good, I mean important, we can exhale a little, their sympathies lie with you. From here, the best way forward is just not to say anything. And Mom and Dad don’t say anything. I’m not the victim, I shout, he is. Meredith, Mom says, this isn’t so simple. No one will—It seems pretty simple to me—Meredith, this stuff is too complicated for most people to—What’s so complicated about the fact that he didn’t assault me. I pushed him—You want to try to explain that to all those angry people out there? You think they—Mom, I plead, the police shot him. He wasn’t trying to rape me. Mom, I pushed him. It was just a fight. Nobody here is saying he’s a rapist, the woman cuts in, we’re just not saying anything, we are trying to draw as little attention to you and your parents as possible, there is nothing wrong with saying nothing. But they shot him, I say. They shot him, yes, the woman says, let them deal with that. Mom massages her temples with her fingertips. I shouldn’t have pushed him, I sniffle. Dad rubs my back.

  A phone rings and I jump. It is my phone. My phone is ringing. My mother. Niru’s dad could come home soon from wherever he has gone. I should leave.

  5

  Our house is empty now except for the air mattresses we sleep on and the miscellaneous items Mom has deemed too valuable to entrust even to bonded and insured movers. We stand in the kitchen with boxes of pizza and a bottle of wine. Mom and Dad flip a coin to see which one of them has to drive up. The other will fly to Boston to receive the truck. Mom loses. Dad says he has no problem driving, that Mom should take the flight to Boston and he will bring the car. No, I want to do it, Mom says. Their little protests are too cute and echo through rooms with bright lights that have nothing to illuminate. Meredith and I can take a little road trip. Right, sweetie? Her voice drifts from the kitchen through the house to find me. I don’t respond because five hours in a car with Mom sounds like four hours too many. When we get to New York, she will want to see where I live. They don’t know that I live with my boyfriend. They’ve known precious little about how I conduct myself since I left their house. I won’t live with him for much longer. I’m moving to Portland, Oregon, or Austin, Texas, or maybe even Mexico City—at least one of those places is the first stop. I just haven’t told anyone yet, especially not Mom and Dad who think I will take the bus or train to visit them every so often. Their laughter echoes through the house as they continue to flip the coin. With nothing of substance to absorb it, it bounces through these hollow rooms from wall to wall around me. There is no place I can’t hear it.

  My skin prickles. I am overcome with hate. They are good people for sure and they have always been good to me, which makes my emotions all the more confusing. They would say that everything they do, they do for me. They have paid for my educational pedigree. They will leave me an inheritance. If I want doors to open, they can open them for me. If I want assignments, the emails will come—willingly—because my father and my mother know people and the people they know always help their own. My boyfriend doesn’t understand my reluctance. You’re throwing away practical gold, he says. Just take one meeting, he says, just ask your dad for one introduction, it won’t kill you, that’s how this is done. It won’t kill me, but he will never know the true cost. Mom, Dad, I’m going for a walk, I shout into the house. If they hear me above their laughter they don’t say a word.

  The humid night is heavy with an almost thunderstorm that rumbles somewhere far away while streetlights shine upon the stillness. I walk towards the Rose Recreational Center and the baseball diamond at the end of O Street. In the daytime Little Leaguers chase balls and each other and in the early evenings packs of dogs chase balls and each other, but this late, it’s just me. I round the bases before exiting on P Street where I stop, tempted by the playground’s shivering swings, but I’m not a kid anymore even if some days I sit and wish I was a kid again.

  Life provides a graceful arc for the fortunate, Ms. McConnell used to say to us in class when our discussions veered off the subject of literature and into the murky slush of real-world problems illuminated in the books we read. My life has certainly been fortunate—with the obvious exception—and even then, I’m still alive. Most of its early stages are documented in leather-bound photo albums now in boxes rumbling northwards for their ultimate destination beneath the glass surface of Mom and Dad’s coffee table. Nobody looks at albums anymore. Now they are a novelty form of memory, a nod to the immutable past at a time when things are so awful that we seek solace in revisionist histories. I can’t forget completely, no matter how hard I have tried. Sometimes it works for a while. Some days this city doesn’t exist, Niru doesn’t exist and I am just me, separate, functional, independent and free. I feel like it’s a betrayal to want many more of such days and yet I want more.

  Ahead of me, Dupont Circle is a pulsing beacon of streetlamps orbited by red car lights. Water flows across the lip of its gigantic limestone chalice fountain set in the middle of a large stone bowl. The after-work crowd sits at its edges talking personal lives and politics as they always have, and always will. The rest bow their heads towards smart-phones and tap furiously as they grumble and navigate towards the intersections and Metro entrances. It all seems so very normal, like nothing ever happened here and yet this place was center stage for one of the largest impromptu protests this city has ever seen—courtesy of me—only I wasn’t there. I have seen the pictures though. Even years later it’s difficult to look at images of teenagers carrying placards with slogans like white lies cost black lives scrawled in Sharpie, or at pictures of the performance artists naked, with iron collars and thick chains running from neck to neck, knowing that you played a major, if not definitive, role in this half-remembered drama. Now people have other things to worry about, like health care and jobs. We have always had other things to worry about.

  But, do you really want to live in a world so closed, Ms. McConnell asked us in class when we read Invisible Man and nobody paid attention. I remember her red face as she held her place with the book closed around one finger. No seriously, you all want to sit here, laugh and not pay attention because you think none of this applies to you. Wake up, you live in America, she said. It’s not the sixties anymore, Rowan said. Ms. McConnell stood in the middle of the room red-faced, holding her book with one hand and her mouth with the other, holding her breath to regain some composure. Then she walked out of the classroom and the door slammed behind her. I looked at Niru for a long time but he didn’t return my gaze. I looked around the room at my classmates for some sign of fear or shame but they were all blanks. After a few moments, I walked across the room to the door, and looked out into an empty hallway awash in silence. The women’s bathroom was just around the corner a few steps away, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the room. I turned around to the thirteen other faces that looked at me asking what now. I looked at Niru who was texting someone. Don’t look at me, he mumbled, I’m invisible.

  I keep walking. I haven’t been this close to where it happened, since it happened, even if I have
searched for that alleyway again and again on Google Maps and street-viewed my way past the furniture shops and luxury apartment ground-level windows plastered with signs advertising thousands of square feet of prime retail space. In the daylight images, the stretch looks empty, manufactured and bored. The brick joints of the modern apartment buildings are too perfect for the restaurant with old western lettering advertising its “family owned” presence to the block and the boutique stores sandwiched between larger new retail outlets feel staged. But now, in the evening, when there are so many people, Fourteenth Street is alive. The thunderstorms still threaten but the cool air feels nice so people linger on the streets and on the outdoor patios. There are women in short shorts and tight, short skirts, revealing tops and made-up faces. There are groups of men who all look the same, awkward with shirts tucked into jeans or khakis that fall over boxy black or brown shoes. Some wear Converses or loafers and boat shoes with no socks. There are more police cars now parked and patrolling, but there are more police cars everywhere now for law and order, for national security. I make it to the intersection of Swann Street before I start to feel light-headed. There is nothing to stop me from continuing a few steps away from Fourteenth Street to the alley entrance but what am I supposed to do there? I have no wreaths, no flowers, no candles to light in his memory. I can’t even remember his face, his real face, not the yearbook snapshot they used on television and in newspapers, Niru perfectly posed, his body angled one way with a manufactured smile plastered on his face as he looks at the camera. No one remembers him now no matter how many bodies packed the street to call out against his unjust execution. His death stains have long been washed away. I stop where I stand. My feet refuse to carry me farther. I am so tired.