Butterfly Fish

by Irenosen Okojie

  The bed of forks beneath us trembled; one came unstuck rising towards me. The water pulled Mrs Harris, lithe and free. She drew me along, anchoring me somehow through the dip of her shoulder, the flick of her feet, the curve of a turn. When we broke the shivering water, the remnants of our conversation sunk to the bottom to become tadpoles.

  “Shit! There’s a fish in the water.” A kid squealed.

  “Where?”

  “Behind you, no don’t move you’ll scare it!”

  Some teenagers scurried around trying to grab it.

  “No! There, there-aw. Get it.”

  The noise level increased, the lifeguard blew his whistle.

  “Who put the fish in the water?” he asked. “Where did it come from?”

  Sure enough I could see the fish and I thought it could see me. It shimmered in my direction. Mrs Harris and I exchanged glances. It was silver with purple fins. Its fins were sewing needles stuck together.

  Mrs Harris shook the water from her hair, “Quick, grab it before those crazy kids come down here.” Heat spread on my throat as if someone blew hot breaths there. I followed the wriggling fish, tracing it this way and that. I lunged at it, fumbled, the tail tipping my fingers. I tried again to catch it with clutches that limped to the finish like the slowest swimmers in a class. The fish was roughly two feet long and so shiny I was sure its skin was made of light. I stopped then, momentarily, throwing it with my stillness. It swam back towards me and my hands were poised in the water. I grabbed it, feeling its rough, lukewarm slippery skin. I pulled up and out, careful not to let it slide back into the water.

  “Got it,” I murmured.

  Mrs Harris smiled, she followed me up the steps and out onto the pale green floor. I heard the kids coming out of the pool, bits of their conversations trickled down.

  “What? I don’t know man, that lady’s got it.”

  The patter of footsteps grew closer. Mrs Harris and I knelt on the floor. We held the fish, a heartbeat between us. The blue light travelled across the ceiling and the scars on my wrists hummed the hymn that fish like to sing when the tide comes in. The fish stared at me; inside its filmy eye shuttered a mini camera lens. A crowd gathered around us. The fish’s mouth opened repeatedly. It trembled, then heaved and a worn, brass key slick with gut slime fell out of its mouth into my hand.

  “No way!” a voice chimed. “Did you see that? It just threw up a key, man.”

  “How did a key get inside it?” another voice chirped.

  I took my swimming hat off and put the key inside it. Heavy with the weight of water my released hair in two-strand twists slapped against my neck.

  The lifeguard ambled over. “Fess up. Which one of you clowns put the fish in the pool?”

  Voices became a chorus. “I didn’t put no key there.”

  “Yo, the bogie man did it!”

  “It was my Nan, boss; she came out of Holloway prison to do it.”

  Mrs Harris said awkwardly, “Can we get a container with some water for the fish?” She addressed the lifeguard. The fish trembled as if my hands gave electric shocks.

  “It’s dying!” I screamed. “It needs mouth to mouth resuscitation.” I bent down and placed my mouth on its hard lips that felt like the opening to a defective bottle. I blew breaths into its clammy mouth. I felt Mrs Harris’s entranced gaze.

  “Nasty, she’s kissing the fish man!”

  “This woman’s weird.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” The voices hovered above me, tiny planes with broken wings crashing down. Then everything went quiet, slowed down as though I’d gone temporarily deaf. I was vaguely aware of Mrs Harris grabbing my shoulder while I took deep breaths for the fish, its filmy eye replaced by my brown one. By the time the lifeguard pulled me off the fish the kids were stuck to the ceiling, the bed of forks had risen to the surface of water and the key was still in my hand.

  The fish didn’t make it. Outside the sports centre Mrs Harris and I sat in my beaten up, blue Volkswagen Golf. I turned on the engine and the car spluttered to life. We sat quietly, processing what just happened. It settled in our mouths, rich and thick. In the back seats lay a bent copy of Trace Magazine and two dirty frying pans, a sheet of crinkled foil between them. Gold sweet wrappers were stray lights on the floor. To the far left corner, my silver spacesuit costume sat like our third passenger.

  “What an incident!” she said finally.

  I strapped my seatbelt in. “I know, the universe is speaking to me.”

  “The universe could indeed be communicating with you.”

  I swung my body to face her. “Seriously, that fish let me catch it. You saw what happened, it swam right to me.”

  “I saw you got lucky.”

  “What about the key?” I asked, pulling it out of my pocket, waving it at her.

  “Maybe it’s as random as a fish swallowing a key, magical.”

  I held up the brass object to the rear view mirror and reflected back at me wasn’t a key but a finger, a slender, tapered brown feminine finger. I slipped it back inside my pocket.

  “You think the pool has some sort of pipe in it?” I sunk back into the grey seat.

  Mrs Harris popped a piece of gum in her mouth, “Can’t say I’ve ever noticed. That was some sight, you giving a fish mouth to mouth!” Then she said, “You’re grieving but be careful, behaviour like that can get you thrown in the funny farm.”

  “It was reactive!”

  I looked out the window at the gaps between the leaves of the tree leaning to one side.

  As if addressing the wing mirror I said, “Whatever we come back as in the next life, it’s mandatory for you to be my swimming partner.”

  “Done deal”, she laughed. “RIP, fish.”

  I hit the gas, turned the wheel and steered the car forward. I watched the right wing mirror on my side. People dripped out of it onto the pavements with bits of glass embedded in their bodies. I placed my left hand on the lump of key in my pocket, felt its finger guise against my thigh. The fish, the finger and the people were in my head. Swimming at the speed of a bullet from one end to the other, if my head got sliced open they would fall out, bucking with afterlife.

  The Advantage of Nmebe Soup

  Adesua recalled the advice Mama Uwamusi had given her earlier that morning. The secret of good Nmebe soup is balance and employing a light touch. All the flavours combined must play their part for the overall taste. The wild tomatoes should be ripe but not overly so, the onions sparsely added, a small portion of peppers for the required burst of heat, a sprinkling of bitter leaf. All cooked in the juices of a tender fowl. All around her, people were milling to and from the various stalls, their raised voices an ever-increasing hum. She often wondered whether people who came to the market thought they were in competition so keen was each person to out-shout and out-talk the other.

  Apart from Adesua’s duty of cooking the soup, today was a special day for the bridal choice ceremony was to begin at The Royal Palace after the setting of the sun and the market was rife with gossip and high energy. The scent of peppered meats lingered in the air and children with small sugar cane sticks in their mouths, were roaming freely, happy to escape their mother’s heavy hands, their eager fingers quick to reach out and touch whatever caught their restless eyes.

  At the furthest stretch of the market next to Ijoma’s fish stand, Adesua saw a young boy eating watermelon who helped himself to another healthy sized piece whilst Ijoma’s back was turned, and was soon chased. There was a juggler dressed in red with multi-coloured pieces of string tied across his head and two sets of white feathers tucked near each of his ears. In the middle of the market, as well as various fruit and farm produce stalls was Esemuede the palm wine seller who was always remarkably merry. Next to him sat Ahere, the one armed beggar accompanied by his dog who was quick to imitate his master and stick a needy paw out at passers by. On the opposite side across from them was Emeka the tailor who sold some of the finest cloths and materials, all laid
out in an elaborate fashion to tempt the most disciplined of market visitors. Beside Emeka was the curious figure of Ehinome, the medicine man surrounded by bags of herbal remedies, each designed to resolve ailments such as back pain and bowel trouble.

  This was what she loved about market day, the familiar comfort of mayhem that surrounded her. The women with their generous hips and ample bosoms, chopping fish and slaughtering chickens, ignoring the sweat that glistened on their furrowed brows and the sheen it left on their taut skin. The men wielding produce in their powerful arms, jokingly exchanging banter across the amused heads of customers who would at times pass judgement and salute their chosen winner; smoke rising to the sky and the distinctive aroma of goat roasting, your stomach growling, mouth watering and tongue snaking across your lips in approval.

  It was during this moment of reverie that Adesua saw what she was destined to purchase on Emeka’s stall. It lay right at the very bottom under a weighty pile of displayed attire and she’d never have even noticed it had it not been for the left corner folded up, like a crooked finger beckoning her towards it.

  Emeka smiled knowingly when she reached him.

  “Aha, I know what you want, it is the only one of its kind that I have,” he said smoothly removing the desired garment from its position and spreading it on the top where it truly belonged in all its glory. “You will be a vision in this; I have been waiting to sell it to the right person, a person who truly deserves it.”

  Adesua resisted the urge to laugh in response, knowing full well that Emeka would have sold it to a giant grasshopper had it presented him with a half decent offer. “It is beautiful,” she whispered, stroking the bold print of deep blue and orange angular lines that your eyes traced until you touched the outer edges kissed with gold.

  “My father will give you a week’s supply of farm produce in exchange for this cloth and the matching head dress,” Adesua said careful to keep a pleading expression on her face.

  “What? No, no, no,” Emeka responded, shaking his large head from side to side adamantly. “You want people to laugh and say Emeka is a fool. No, you will pay me like everybody else.”

  “But I am not trying to get out of paying sir, I am simply giving you another choice of payment, please I am like your daughter. I have nothing to wear for the king’s ceremony.”

  At last Emeka agreed, biting heavily into the chewing stick dangling from his mouth. He made a show of packing her item for her, folding and tying it so it rested neatly and addressing people walking past, “Let nobody say Emeka is not a kind man oh! Let nobody say Emeka does not have a heart that gives.” He gestured pulling at his ear lobe urging people to listen, instead they were only fleetingly distracted.

  “Thank you sir,” Adesua responded. “You will be well rewarded.”

  “Yes, just make sure your father is ready to give me what I am owed, I will pass by in a few days to collect my payment.”

  “Yes Papa Emeka.”

  “Be sure to tell him I am coming, I do not want to be a bearer of bad news.”

  It was only after she picked up her cloth and walked away that Adesua saw the monkey approaching. Before she could react it had jumped on her back, desperately clinging on. She tried to ply its wily brown body off her but it would not relent. It brought its pinched face close to hers and bared its teeth, grabbing at her hair and pulling tufts out, noisily screeching while her hair fell to the ground. It scratched her face and neck drawing blood and she felt a stinging burn on her skin. She screamed at the top of her voice, furiously flailing her arms about and hopping up and down, yet the stubborn animal remained there, boring its black eyes into hers, hissing and spitting angrily. She raised her palm in defence but it shot its head forward and bit her finger. By the time Emeka and a few others reached her, she lay in a heap; there was no hair on the ground, no marks on her body, and no blood.

  The monkey had vanished but momentarily Adesua had felt that there was nothing she could do to get that monkey off her back.

  It was a sign of things to come.

  Will

  The cat’s meow drew me outside. I recognised the neighbourhood rambler, black with a split white stripe down its back. It stood on a half smashed green bottle, back arched, body poised. Its amber gaze bore into mine and momentarily it looked like an artist’s sculpture: Cat on a Green Bottle.

  “Hey boy,” I cooed gently, tightening my dressing gown. “Get off that.” I bent down to shoo it off amazed it had at all managed to balance on the bottle. Smoke filled its eyes as it leapt off in a nifty trick. The bottle rolled towards my feet, and its jagged base stared down my fluffy slippers in an unequal stand off. The cat circled, tail upright like an antenna drawing an invisible line in the air before approaching the bottle again. It leaned low, stretched its neck, shot its tongue out and licked, deftly avoiding shards.

  I slapped my hands together. “Stop that! You’re a bad boy.” I ran indoors, grabbed the plastic bag that was a green tongue poking out of the kitchen drawer. By the time I re-emerged, the troublemaker had disappeared into the shrubbery separating my house from the neighbour’s. The sky was shedding one darkening blue to reveal another. I scooped up the bottle by its neck, sniffed. It smelled like palm wine. Fermented wine was a sharp scent that lingered; I wondered if the smell would remain in my nostrils throughout the rest of the day.

  The bottle slipped, nicked my finger. My blood became a small red tide that ebbed down settling on the jagged rim in a circular, bloody kiss. I dropped the broken bottle inside the green plastic bag and shoved it in my wheelie bin. I locked the door, checked the post hatch. It was empty. The cut throbbed and the blood drop began to grow into a red bulb. I looked at my finger, noticed the tiny piece of green glass grinning inside the wound.

  I had a meeting planned with my mother’s old friend and solicitor Mervyn for later in the day. Mervyn and his family collected strays. He was the centre, a warm, pulsing nucleus people surrounded. You never knew who you’d see at their house; maybe a Jamaican cabbie with gambling debts needing an unlikely haven to lie low, or broken prostitutes with heroin babies needing rescuing, or a friend whose hands were disappearing, who needed help before his whole body vanished, reduced to a heap of clothes on a side road.

  I’d known him for as long as I could remember and it was hard to separate him from the things I associated with him. The smoothness of his bald head, like a crystal ball hiding the night, crumpled expensive suits, expressions of concern, large Cuban cigars dangling jauntily from the corner of his mouth. As a kid, I imagined he slept with one of those cigars firmly lodged between his lips, lit and burning with particles of the cases he’d taken home. I saw him tossing and turning without dropping that cigar, and winding curls of smoke twisting in the dark around him like flying white snakes.

  I used to play hide and seek with his sons as a kid. I hid so well behind the line of cushions on the soft, plum sofa I slipped into a world beneath where coins and old conversations hummed their approval. Mervyn was a great dad. I watched the way he threw his sons in the air as if they were the only suns allowed to set and rise back up with each catch and fling. In Mervyn’s home, the warmth and love was inescapable. Whenever I saw this, the well inside me deepened, lengthened. Only there was no water at the bottom, just stones thrown swallowed by silence. All this made me like Mervyn, even love him a little. I pictured my mother and me arriving in his life as two stray winds creating small havocs for Mervyn and his boy’s but that story she’d never told me.

  I caught the train from Elephant & Castle to Mervyn’s in Harlesden. In a fairly empty carriage, heads unconsciously bobbed to its rhythm. I coughed and the coloured train lines flattened. The train paused for breath frequently at main station stops, and at pits in-between, the ones left off the map. It squeaked and sputtered, its sounds creating a low, dark horizon on tracks were mice flew. It shuddered along.

  At Harlesden, I moved with the throng of people spilling out of the station like a language. I spotted a young wo
man stealing a bouquet of blue azaleas from a flower stall right behind the owner’s back. Her arms were outstretched, mischievous grin in tow. Her body was arched and she was dressed in a yellowy brown African wrapper. Braided in multiple single plaits, her hair looked neat. She stood tall and the lines of her body seemed familiar. Then, she looked right at me, and as if it was a signal of sorts, turned to run. Instinctively I followed. I chased her and the distance between us shook like a rickety, wooden bridge. She flew, dipped, turned and twisted. Her movements were rugged musical notes. She had moonshine on her back. I removed my rucksack from my shoulder, rummaged for Marpessa, soon solid in my hands. I pressed the power switch, watched it light red. I snapped away. Marpessa’s lens whirred the way cameras did when they spoke. Above us, pigeons flying drew another skyline with their beaks. They cooed at each other, grey wings spreading.

  I followed the young woman’s moving back. Follow, follow, follow, I muttered to myself, small beads of sweat springing up in my armpits like translucent crops. Marpessa’s frayed strap bit into my neck. The summer streets were fully occupied by clusters of people, their perspiration dripping along the pavements. I shoved Marpessa back into the rucksack. Ahead, my pied piper of sorts waited outside the inviting, yellow sign of Honey’s Caribbean takeaway.

  She’d paused, as though giving me an opportunity to close the gap between us. She sat on the steps outside, hand on her jaw, flowers beside her, wrapper riding up smooth, brown legs. Something about her on that stairway made the hairs on my arms stand to attention. I spotted moss growing on the stairs, green dreams of concrete she’d somehow commanded. I fished Marpessa out once more, snapped away.

  “Hey!” I said, “I’d like to photograph you some more.”

  She sprang up, shoved Marpessa away, grabbed her flowers and took off again. Past the laundrette with washing machines mid- cycle, the funeral home set in large green grounds, past rows of quaint shops sporting colourful window displays that shared one neon heartbeat they rotated during breaks.