‘I’m sorry,’ he said after a while, ‘about the baby’s death.’
‘Her name is Olamide,’ I screamed. I turned to face him, the other twenty names we had given my daughter ready to roll off my tongue. The doorway was empty; he was already gone.
On my first day back at work, I asked one of the girls to cut my hair. She refused, glaring at me as though I had asked her to chop my head off. All the girls refused to touch the scissors, even Iya Bolu refused.
‘But you are pregnant again,’ she said.
I cut the tresses myself and left the rest of my hair in low uneven chunks. The customers looked horrified. If it had been Akin who had died, they would not have been so shocked to see my hair chopped off. Why then were they staring as though I had lost my mind?
My car had been taken for servicing that day, so I dragged myself home after I closed the salon. My feet felt like lead. I did not want to go home to the empty cot that was still beside the bed I shared with Akin.
Akin was home when I got there. He was working at the dining table. He had dozens of white sheets spread out and was punching numbers into a calculator.
‘What happened to your hair?’ he asked, pushing the calculator away.
‘A bird chewed it off my head on my way home. What else could have happened?’
He went back to punching in his numbers.
I sat in an armchair with my back to the dining table.
‘How low do you want it cut?’ Akin asked.
‘Skin cut,’ I said, trying to work out candle wax from the rug with my big toe. There were several stains on it. It had not been swept in weeks.
Suddenly, I felt Akin’s hand on my head. He ran his hands through my shaggy hair, then I heard the sharp snips of a pair of scissors, tufts of hair fell across my face, sticking to my skin when they met with the tears falling silently down my cheeks. The tufts prickled my skin, but I did not pull them off my face. I would let them stay, all night, let my skin itch and itch until my face felt as if I had scrubbed it with a piece of raw yam.
‘Go and shower,’ he said when he was through.
I couldn’t stand up. Sobs tightened my chest, making it hard for me to breathe.
Akin knelt beside me and laid his head on my stomach, one hand clutching my dress, the other hanging limply over the edge of the armchair, still holding the scissors. He would never admit it, but I felt his tears that day, they plastered my dress to my belly and validated my grief. I threw my head back and I wept out loud. I cursed. I screamed. I cried. I apologised to my daughter, begged her to forgive my carelessness, pleaded with her to listen to me wherever she was. I cried throughout the night as hard as I could. I held my head and tried to cry out the pain. The next night I slept straight through. I did not dream of dead babies decomposing under the ground – I did not dream at all. For about six hours after I woke up, I thought my tears had washed my pain and guilt away. I did not know then that that was impossible.
21
Sesan was born on a Wednesday. I was at work when my waters broke and it was Iya Bolu who drove me to the hospital. Her husband had just bought a new second-hand car and she had finally inherited his old Mazda and was learning to drive. Her driving experience had been limited to driving from the salon to her house and back, but she refused to put the red ‘L’ sign in front of her number plates or anywhere on the car. I sat in the front seat and tried to give her driving tips in between contractions. I could have taken a taxi, but I let her drive me to the hospital. Perhaps because, on some level, I believed I deserved some punishment for what had happened to my daughter.
There were few people at Sesan’s naming ceremony. It was a small gathering that took place in our sitting room. Guests sat on dining chairs we had borrowed from our neighbours, ate Jollof rice, and went home an hour after the ceremony. Moomi did not even come. Her daughter Arinola, who now lived in Enugu, had also had a baby around that time and Moomi left for Enugu about a week before I gave birth to Sesan. No one travelled down from Lagos or Ife. There was no live band, no tarpaulin tent outside, no microphone, no DJ. There was no dancing.
Sesan’s middle name was Ige because he came feet first into this world. Those feet were good feet; there was no doubt in anyone’s mind after a few weeks that my son’s feet were as good as feet could get. Like all people with good feet, his arrival in our family was followed by all sorts of good things happening to us. For instance, Akin bought four plots of land for half the market value because the owner was swarming in debt and had to sell all his assets. That was not such a good thing for the poor man, but as with many things in life, sometimes one person’s good fortune is a direct consequence of another person’s ruin.
I was vigilant with Sesan. Akin thought I was becoming paranoid. He warned me that my son would grow up and never be able to marry because he would be over-attached to me. And I wondered how on earth Sesan could be over-attached to me when his life depended on him attaching his mouth to my breast. The way I saw it, the danger was in a child being under-attached or not attached at all. I was fully prepared to padlock Sesan’s wrist to my apron strings and drag him around for the rest of my life.
Sesan was a peaceful child. He cried only when he needed to eat and even then his cries were punctuated by polite pauses. Sometimes I would check on him in the middle of the night to find him wide awake in his cot, chortling with his hands and legs in the air, enjoying his own company, not demanding attention.
We bought a house on Imo Street, not far from the estate where we lived. It did not have a fence when we bought it, but we had one built before we moved in. It was higher than the roof and had rolls of barbed wire at the top. Armed robberies had become common across the country and fences were springing up all over town, some of them taller than the one that kept convicts in at the prison. Most neighbourhoods now employed at least one vigilante to walk the streets during the night, firing a shot from time to time to reassure residents. During the day burglars snuck into homes and took all they could before their victims returned. I began to leave the radio on whenever we were leaving home in order to give any would-be burglar the impression that there were people in the house. I observed that most people did the same and in many homes radios droned on non-stop until the stations shut down for the day.
Before our new house stopped smelling of paint, the salon graduated from a five-dryer salon to a ten-dryer salon. After a short while, Akin and I saved enough money and bought the two-storey building housing my salon. Even though Sesan brought us so much good fortune, it was Olamide that I thought about at night before I drifted off to sleep. When I woke up in the mornings, before I opened my eyes, I could see her – alive and looking into my eyes while she suckled, like someone who had known me before time.
22
Shortly after we moved into our new home, Dotun lost his job in Lagos and moved in with us. He never really moved in, in the sense that a married man with four children never moves in with another family except when he is leaving his wife, he just showed up one day and did not go back to Lagos. He claimed that he needed time to sort out himself so that he could get another job.
The truth was that he had lost his job a year before coming to us and spent his savings on setting up a bakery that failed within a few months. He tried to get another job after that, but the only openings he could find were for security guards or messengers – positions he did not take because with his MBA he felt over-qualified. After walking the soles of his last pair of shoes off in Lagos, he sold his car, his wife’s car, borrowed some money and tried to resuscitate the bakery business. This time he was duped by some fraudsters in circumstances he claimed were too embarrassing to share. He told me all this first, before telling Akin.
He came to Ilesa to hide from his creditors. And even when Akin gave him part of our savings to pay off his creditors, he did not leave. During the first few weeks of his stay with us, Dotun must have had at least three cartons of the locally brewed Trophy lager. He did very little other than
eat meat out of my pot of stew and proclaim out of the blue how sexy I was as I tried to fix dinner before my husband returned from work.
He sang my praises every day, wearing at my patience, chipping away my defences until I realised what I thought was steel was actually plywood. If he had said I was beautiful, I would have resisted him. Akin said that all the time, with a tinge of awe that never went out of his voice as the years went by. Dotun, on the other hand, praised the perfect mound of my breast, the roundness of my buttocks and the seductiveness of my eyes.
‘I love it when you burn the stew,’ he said one day, eyeing me over a bottle of beer.
I was coming out of the kitchen. I had just incinerated a pot of vegetable stew that I was making to go with Akin’s rice that night.
Dotun placed the bottle by his feet. ‘Especially when you are upstairs when it happens. You run downstairs and when you run your breasts jiggle. And I keep thinking about you, that weekend I stopped over on my way to Abuja.’
I did not like to think about that weekend. It was about two months after Olamide had been born and Akin had to go on an emergency business trip to Lagos after his brother arrived. Dotun and I were home alone with Olamide the entire weekend. The house was not big enough to keep us from running into each other. We were having breakfast on Saturday when he reached across to push hair out of my face, then he touched my ear and did not let go. It was not quick and furtive like the first time; he did not finish too soon. I felt guilty enough to stay away from him for the rest of the weekend and I promised myself that it would never happen again.
‘I always think about that weekend,’ Dotun said.
My heart was beating faster as he spoke and I could feel my nipples tighten. I was grateful for the good things in life, such as the padded bra I was wearing that day. ‘Look, it’s not happening again.’
‘Don’t fight it,’ he said. ‘It’s normal for you to want it.’
I inched away, though I knew Dotun would never try to touch me. I would have to go to him; he would never seek me out. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Let me know when you are ready. I’m always ready,’ he said and picked up his beer again.
I told myself that it was the drink that made him so bold. He was partially drunk, his words were slurred.
It was good for me that he said it this way – as though getting into bed with him was just a business transaction. It helped me put things in perspective and doused the fire that was smouldering in the pit of my belly, and stemmed the wetness gathering between my legs.
I should have told him to stop speaking to me that way. To stop pointing out that my breasts were still remarkably firm after nursing two children. He would have stopped; at least he would have if I had threatened to tell Akin. But I did not want him to stop. I loved the way his words coursed into my ear, spreading warmth everywhere in my body. Instead of reporting the lewd remarks to Akin and demanding that Dotun be evicted from our home, I pretended to ignore them. At night, I played the words over in my mind, complete with the husky tone with which he said them, while Akin lay on his stomach beside me, snoring with his mouth open. I began to have reasons to head back home after dropping Sesan off at school.
My head felt heavy. The weight doubled with each step I took towards Dotun’s room, the room that once belonged to the child I did not give birth to, before it was passed on to Funmi. Dotun was sitting on the floor with his back to the door when I entered the room, writing an application letter. There were a dozen envelopes strewn across the floor, most were sealed and addressed. I did not know until then that he was making an effort to get work. I assumed that he drank beer and ate meat out of my pot all day. Akin had told me Dotun was staying just long enough to sort himself out.
I wondered why he talked to Akin about his grand schemes instead of the applications he seemed to write every day. I wanted to back out of the room. It felt as though I had stumbled on him doing something private and if I watched I would be drawn into some form of intimacy with him. He looked up. No backing out for me now. He swept the envelopes into a pile, but his gaze stayed on my face.
‘What is the matter? Se ko si?’ he asked.
‘I . . . nothing . . . well . . . nothing.’
He stood up. ‘There is nothing wrong? You’re in my room.’
‘I came to . . . came here to . . . How are the applications going? Has anybody answered you yet?’
He sat on the bed and held his head in his hands, staring at the pile of envelopes. He was quiet. It was my cue to take off my blouse or do whatever one did to say I’m ready to have sex with you again. I felt stupid. Why had I come in? What did I know about seducing a man? Even a willing one. I had been a virgin when I married Akin.
‘I was roped into a fraud at work, that’s why I got sacked. Word gets around about these things – no one will employ me now. Nobody.’ He spoke in a rush as though the words were burning his tongue.
I wished he had remained alone in his tortured world and said nothing. I did not want to know his secret pain or agony. I did not care and did not want to. I wanted just one thing from him.
‘I didn’t tell Brother mi. Don’t tell him, please. Don’t,’ he said.
I nodded.
‘I was not involved in the fraud. I was just stupid enough to authorise some of the documents involved. It was a woman that actually did it; I was sleeping with her.’ He looked up, his eyes were bleak and beseeching.
I nodded. Of course he was sleeping with a girl in his office; according to his wife, he was sleeping with every woman on their street.
He sighed. ‘My wife, she doesn’t believe me. Thinks I have money stashed somewhere. Some pretty girl waiting to spend it with me.’ He laughed. ‘I wish. Don’t tell Bros Akin. Please . . . don’t . . . don’t. Maybe I should tell him every –’ He lay back on the bed and covered his face with his hands. ‘I’m done for. I can’t run a business. Nobody will employ me. I’m finished.’
‘It will be OK,’ I said, hoping he would shut up, hoping I could leave the room before he bared more of his soul to me.
I sat beside him on the bed. ‘You graduated with a first class degree. You’ll figure something out.’
The laughter stopped. His heavy breathing punctuated the silence. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
My legs trembled as I left the room.
Sesan and I were about to leave the house for a communion service when I learnt about the Orkar coup. Though he had only just started walking, Sesan was firm on his feet and insisted on descending the stairs without my assistance. It was while I trailed him down the stairs that I heard the coup broadcast on the radio we now left on at all hours. Once it registered that the voice on the radio was announcing the overthrow of Babangida’s regime, I carried my son, shushed him when he protested, and rushed into the sitting room.
It wasn’t 8 a.m. yet. Akin was sleeping in upstairs and Dotun was in his room, probably hung over. So I was alone with Sesan while I listened to what was a repeat broadcast of the takeover speech. I nodded as the speaker reeled out accusations against Babangida’s government, but when he announced the expulsion of five northern states from the country, I was so shocked I decided to wait for the broadcast to be repeated again, just to be sure I’d heard him right.
I loosened my headscarf while the station played martial music; there was no point going to church now. There was a power cut before I’d finished folding the scarf. I sighed – it could be hours or days before electricity was restored; there was no predicting it any more.
I took Sesan upstairs and tried to remove his bow-tie. He was wailing his disagreement when Akin woke up.
‘What’s the matter with him?’
I released Sesan and he ran off to stand by Akin’s side of the bed.
‘Aren’t you going to church?’ Akin said, squinting at the wall clock. ‘It’s already nearly nine.’
‘They’ve toppled Babangida,’ I said. ‘There has been a coup.’
Akin shot up in bed.
‘Seriously?’
‘I listened to the broadcast before the lights went out.’
‘I told Dotun someone would take this man down. That Dele Giwa matter was too fishy.’ He swung his feet to the floor. ‘Nobody can prove it was him, but still. And didn’t he promise there would be elections this year and we would go back to a democracy? Where is the democracy now?’
‘That’s part of what these new ones are saying, that he would have made himself life president if they didn’t take over.’
‘Not possible in this Nigeria.’ Akin stood up and Sesan hugged one of his legs. ‘This is not some banana republic.’
‘There was one strange thing they said, though.’ I went over to Akin’s side and grabbed Sesan’s hand; he snivelled while I unbuttoned his shirt. ‘They said they are expelling some northern states from the federation – Sokoto, Borno, Kano – I can’t remember the others but there were more.’
‘They are doing what?’
‘I don’t even understand that part. It’s not possible, is it?’
The phone rang and we both jumped. We knew the pattern: once a coup took place, the lines would usually be down all day. Akin picked up the phone. I listened to his side of the conversation, and deciphered that his sister was on the other end of the line. They spoke for a while, and Akin assured her that he didn’t think there was any trouble in town and we were all fine. Almost immediately after he returned the phone to its cradle, it rang again. This time it was Ajoke, Dotun’s wife.
‘She wants us to pray.’ Akin said after he got off the phone with Ajoke. ‘There’s a face-off going on in Lagos; they can hear gunshots in their house.’
‘Oh my God, her children. Are they OK?’
‘Yes, but she is afraid. The gunshots are loud.’ Akin pressed a palm against his forehead. ‘I think they’ll be fine, though. There won’t be civilian casualties.’
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