A Small Silence

by Jumoke Verissimo

  ‘Come and sit here,’ Ireti patted a spot on the bed for her. His eyes had remained on her all this time. She stirred from inspecting the room and moved to his side of the bed. She waited for him to touch her and twice she lifted her eyes with the hope that she would catch him staring, but his eyes remained fixed on the floor. The one time she kept eye contact, he was watching her with something close to pity.

  Desire stood up and began to strip until the only piece of clothing on her was her cotton panties. She leaned against him and raised his head to meet hers, but he turned his face away. She shook her head and walked to the other end of the room.

  ‘I’m ready,’ she said, folding her arm over her breasts.

  It took some seconds again before Ireti walked across the room to her. It was just a few metres wide, but his heavy breathing and the friction of his feet on the rubber carpet made the room seem like many kilometres from end to end. ‘Come,’ Desire felt like she was watching herself speak, and she wanted to see to the end of what this other version of her was up to.

  Ireti stood before her, his eyes fixed on what she thought was her groin—only to discover it was her navel.

  ‘That’s a neat cut. It’s like a button.’ He then looked away and stared again at his feet. Desire walked over to the mattress and lay on it. She faced upward, turning sometimes to look at his fluttering eyes, which he continued to avert from her as he struggled out of his clothes. He took off everything except his boxers.

  ‘Won’t you remove that one?’ she attempted a giggle, but her voice got caught in her throat.

  He stood in front of her again and cast a sheepish look at her. She could feel goose pimples rise on her arms.

  ‘What is it?’ she stammered.

  He said nothing and tugged at the boxers but did not remove them. She didn’t know what it was, but she could see he was fastened to the spot by fear, and just as suddenly, like someone who had received a quick reproach, he headed for the door. Desire sat on the bed. She felt nervous and waited for him to return. When he did not, after a few minutes, she considered going after him. Just then, he trudged into the room, the smell of cigarettes following him. He sat on the carpet.

  ‘What?’ this time Desire made sure her voice was firmer than earlier on. Ireti shook his head so uncontrollably that she sat up on the bed in haste.

  ‘What is it?’

  He just kept shaking his head and after a while he said in a voice that sounded like a father calming a troubled daughter, ‘You remind me of—’ He followed this with a long sigh, staring at her navel, ‘Stand up. Dress up.’

  Desire saw how he looked away anytime she tried to look into his eyes. She wondered if this timidity was genuine or just an act. She looked at him, now standing limp against the wall. His boxers had slipped down his waist a little and his hands were placed over his groin. He looked like a shy, young boy trying to hide his erection from the glare of girls. There was fear in his eyes.

  He started in a voice that came like a car failing to start, ‘I can’t do it to you,’ he looked into her eyes as he spoke, but kept his hands over his penis. She saw him struggling to hold back the tears. Desire clasped his hands within hers.

  ‘Why? It won’t stand, or point, or what?’ She stared at his lower abdomen to assure herself that what she saw was an erection, where his hands still covered his penis.

  ‘Are you afraid? Is it that you can’t do it with a woman, is it me, or what?’ She searched her mind for things she had read on impotence in men.

  He smiled. ‘You want to play doctor now, right?

  Desire pressed on, ‘Do you feel guilty that you’re cheating on your girlfriend?’

  ‘I am a politician, I am part of the student parliament. I can be with anyone I want, but…’

  Their eyes met, and he realised that his words seemed banal and tangential.

  They stood watching each other as their breathing became heavier.

  ‘Oh! You’re gay, and you think I’ll…’

  ‘I think you’ll what?’ he raised a brow. He angled his head and she felt his eyes settle on her. She felt there was more undressing to be done beyond her naked state. She lowered her head and her lips twitched.

  ‘Are you…’ she stopped talking and looked down at the mattress. She looked at his hands over his boxers and realised that he was hiding his inability to be aroused.

  ‘Not now.’

  ‘Why is it not now?’ Desire did not look up when she said this to him. ‘Not even an erection. Is it that bad? Am I—’

  Ireti was silent but placed a middle finger on her lip to keep her from saying more. ‘It’s not you.’ He placed his right hand over a birthmark which was right under her navel. It was a scrap of lumpy flesh, as big as a peanut. For some reason, she thought of her mother’s birthmark. Desire turned her eyes away from the birthmark to a soiled piece of a rag wrapped around the cupboard at the extreme end of the room. She could not understand what was happening at that moment. He had acted so much like a playboy and was now playing an altar boy checking his actions before the priest.

  Desire looked up at Ireti’s face and said, ‘I thought you wanted it.’ She stopped as her voice shook when she spoke. The first feeling of shame came over her as she began to feel the weight of her actions.

  ‘You don’t want me, Desire.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Get dressed, oya—next time.’ Something in his eyes told her there was never going to be a next time.

  She sighed and sank to the ground, picking up her clothes, one after the other. Her shame multiplied and she regretted the words she had spoken to him in the class. She thought of Prof in that moment and felt shame descend on her all over again.

  Desire dressed and sat on the bed. She wished she had not come to see him. She tried to talk, but found she could not. ‘I’m alright. I came to you, right? I’m not sick, okay? I just want you to take me.’ Her voice sounded distant to her.

  Ireti sat by her side on the bed, scratched his head and faced the floor, ‘I don’t feel right about this.’

  She swayed from side to side. She had never done something like this in her life and the more she was rejected, the more she wanted the ground to swallow her. He was the first man she had undressed in front of, for sex. She had seen men unclothe her with their eyes many times and did not understand why this one was dressing her up with his.

  ‘Well. You know—’ he lifted his eyes from the floor and put on a T-shirt over his boxers.

  ‘I think it’s time to go home,’ he rubbed his hands together, trying to break up the moment.

  ‘There’s got to be some reason. Tell me something,’ she said, and then she felt more self-loathing and changed tack. ‘It is past seven.’

  ‘Or you can sleep here tonight. My friends and I would look for somewhere else to sleep.’

  ‘Seven is late? I think I should just go,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Do you want to talk? Just talk. We can undress and hold ourselves and just talk.’

  She looked at him and shook her head, slowly at first and then vigorously, his words irritating her more as she considered them. She covered her face with her hands and promptly pulled on her trousers, ‘I’ll leave now.’

  Before they stepped outside the room, he stopped her by the door and said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  Desire shook her head and as she felt the bile rise up her throat she asked, ‘Just like that? Who does that?’

  ‘Please…’

  Desire sighed, ‘You’re sorry?’ She turned towards the door and he changed the subject like they hadn’t seen each other naked just a few minutes earlier.

  ‘Why do you live so far away from school? It is like living in the dark. You never get to hear anything until you are in school the next day. So, is it, eh… independence? Solitude? Or circumstance?’

  Desire looked up at his face and shook her head but said nothing.

  ‘Talk to me. You know why I gave you my address? You didn’t look lik
e the words you spoke. I just feel something about you, and as you undressed, I saw it wasn’t sex.’

  ‘Mtssssh,’ she kissed her teeth and added, ‘Seer!’

  ‘I don’t want us to start with sex. I feel like something is about to be sacrificed.’ He stopped and laughed, ‘You know another girl won’t pass through this room without a whip from my big man here.’ He looked down at his groin as he spoke and laughed, ‘I don’t know, but I just…’

  ‘You just… feel sorry?’ Something in her gave as she spoke.

  She stayed silent until they got to where his friends sat outside, playing a game of draughts. Mr. Spittle-mouth was the first to notice them, ‘Now-now-now? You people have finished?’ he said with a laugh and added, ‘Babeee! Stay over now,’ he pleaded.

  ‘I live in Jakande Estate, in Abesan.’

  ‘Where’s Abesan?’

  ‘In Ipaja.’

  ‘Ipaja?’

  ‘I need to go. My roommate will be expecting me,’ she said to them.

  ‘Na wa-o! Why would you go to a far-far place like that to get accommodation?’

  Ireti took Desire’s arm from where it lay idly by her side and tucked it into his. Desire caught another friend wink at him and follow it with a shout of, ‘Ireti baba! Ghandiiiii! Ghandiiii Reloaded!’

  ‘Come visit soon,’ one of them said to her and the others fell about laughing.

  She removed her arm from his and walked swiftly ahead.

  At the bus stop, he said to her, ‘You’ll be fine. Sex is itself an anxiety. Sex cannot cure nervousness. It’s like trying to end your woes over a bottle of beer.’

  ‘Are you also a psychologist?’ She smiled, and trying to push away her shame she said, ‘I saw newspaper cut-outs of Prof Eni, the activist, in your room. Do you know him?’

  He ignored her question and pointed, ‘See that bike man wants to kill himself, who drives like that?’

  ‘What has that got to do with the question I asked you?’

  He tried to respond but he stammered for a while, before he said, ‘Well, it is a piece of paper.’

  ‘You look a lot like him. I was just wondering if you—’

  He interjected before she concluded her question, ‘You know why I didn’t… do it?’

  ‘Why?’ She tried to sound quite unconcerned.

  But she felt her anxiety must have shown as he lowered his voice further when he said, ‘My mum did not finish her university because she was impregnated in her second year, and it all appeared like history was about to repeat itself.’

  ‘I got some condoms!’ She lowered her voice as a passer-by looked at them. A car passed and she saw the deep hurt as its lights flashed from his face and tried to figure out what she saw in his eyes.

  ‘Well, that has passed now. Maybe another time. Meanwhile, you really think I look like Prof? People say I should meet him. I heard he is out of prison now. I don’t know how to. Everyone always says I look like him,’ and with a brief pause he said, ‘I’m just trying to put his life together. You know… find out what made him who he is and all that what-not.’

  ‘Is that all?’ she said, not fully convinced, but glad that he finally answered her question.

  ‘I keep staring at his picture all the time, trying to find the resemblance. Anyway, it’s good to look like him, you know, he is known for his integrity. I just want to know more, at least about the man I look like.’ He laughed, turning to face Desire and asked, ‘Seriously, how do you go to a man who never knew you all his life and say—“Hello, I’m the result of a one-night-stand you had years back”?’

  He became still and looked up at her face with both relief and a plea on his face. This was how she realised it was not something he wanted to say. Ireti turned away. Desire stared at him with her mouth wide open.

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘Please,’ he whispered. ‘You… Please,’ he said again, and she watched his face and the way it seemed as if his cheek was being pulled apart, yet he still managed a glint in his eyes as he spoke. ‘Please, don’t tell anyone. I don’t even know if I want to meet him—I want to, but then I don’t want to. You know that tired saying, of letting sleeping dogs lie. I want to heed it.’

  ‘Does he know?’

  ‘Please, don’t talk about it.’

  ‘Should we go back to the house and talk about it?’

  ‘No! I was just talking nonsense,’ he snapped.

  She turned away, a little disappointed at his words because in her head she was already thinking of sharing the news with Prof, wondering about his reaction and if it would end his decision to live in a dark room, or cause him to stop her from seeing him. With these thoughts in her head, she spotted an okada man making a sign to her asking if she wanted his services. She flagged him down and jumped onto the back of the motorcycle. Before the machine roared off into the night, she beckoned for Ireti to come closer. She left him with the words, ‘I will see to your father.’

  She tapped the okada man lightly on the shoulder, indicating he should move. She did not turn to see what Ireti’s face looked like, to say goodbye or see him wave, if he did. When she arrived at the estate, it was almost 11pm. She could not go to see Prof.

  15

  ‘Good to see you,’ Prof said as he opened the door for Desire. He tried to hide his excitement but found himself trembling. He spent the next few minutes thinking of how to steady his voice and make it tender, even though he wanted to scream at her for not coming to see him the previous night. He also felt like embracing her for coming back. Instead, he said to her, ‘It’s a little stuffy in here today, right?’

  He wanted to ask her why she stayed away, yet he said, ‘You don’t have to keep coming here, you know.’ He stepped aside so she could come into the house, and he inhaled deeply as she glided quietly to her now regular chair. She sank into it with a thud and let out a deep breath.

  The silence between them seemed different. The air was stiffened with something unsaid, waiting to be spoken of. Prof began to hum Prince Nico Mbarga’s Sweet Mother and then faded into silence.

  ‘You must miss your mother.’

  There was a lot to say about her statement, but he decided not to respond.

  ‘I need to tell you something. I don’t know how you will take it, but it is important news.’

  A shriek from one of the flats split their conversation and Prof leapt up, then fell back into the chair.

  ‘Be calm,’ Desanya said to him.

  ‘I am being calm,’ he turned and whispered into the air, ‘you should not be here now.’ He looked towards Desire to see how she handled the noise but the darkness hid her expressions well.

  ‘Are you talking to me, Prof?’

  He grunted. He didn’t like how Desanya came around when Desire came to see him. The room became silent for a few minutes again and he decided that he needed to break it.

  ‘I don’t know but I think I have some crazy neighbours. I mean, every other night there is a scream or a cry or a shout or some sound that I can’t even place. I think this is close to someone’s bedroom.’

  ‘Hmmm.’

  Prof took this as assent. ‘I feel I need to remain here forever. To bury myself in this darkness and live here forever,’ he could hear his own voice, struggling to offer the right emotions. He wanted both Desire and Desanya to share his exact feelings of confusion as he spoke, but he realised he did not even know what they were as he talked. He stood up from the chair, paced the room up and down, his voice rising and falling as he felt like he was back in his past.

  ‘I feel there is something which brings me here to you—maybe to help you find the light again,’ she said with a chuckle.

  ‘You shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking darkness is bad. Sometimes having light is the problem. Darkness is a cypher. Things, potentials, are created in darkness—think of that Bible story in Genesis; the total darkness that engulfed the earth brought light. What brings darkness? Darkness welcomes light all the time. We can see in darkne
ss, only if we let our eyes master the dark.’

  Prof stopped talking, stopped walking around the room, and moved to sit on the edge of the chair she was in. The heat of her body warmed him, and he sensed how she stiffened in the chair. Every part of his body stirred into a readiness he had not known for a long time, and he placed his right hand on his groin and stroked the stirring gently. He stayed this way for a long time and when he felt her silence was lengthening indefinitely, he stood up and walked back to his own chair with his hands between his thighs, his teeth clenched. When he could no longer take the way his body shuddered, and the way the blood pumping in his heart rushed down between his legs, he said to her, ‘I want to use the toilet.’

  Desire thought of the many stories of Prof that she had heard. Many people talked about how his mother wielded a strong influence in his life. There was the widespread tale of how his mother dipped him in a pot of magic herbs as a child so that no harm would come to him. They said she carried more mystery than that of Anini, the notorious Benin armed robber who some romantically compared to Robin Hood, but who had more magic than flair. Anini stole from the rich and on the busiest of days, when the sweat of everyday people mingled with their tears, he would stand at the roundabout junction in Benin City to share money with those he saw as less fortunate. No one could tell how the stories started, but soon, one person told another; it became a legend passed on from one generation to another: how Anini had the power to disappear or become invisible anytime the police raided an area where he was carrying out a criminal operation. And so, Anini reigned as a myth for the seven years in which he was never caught. When he was eventually killed, the rumour mill also exonerated him. It explained that the charm he got from his powerful medicine man had not been recharged the previous night. For it to work, he needed to practice disappearing on a prostitute’s lap a day before he went on his mission—the charm would only work if the woman was a prostitute. Unfortunately, he could not rehearse that night because policemen were assigned to every prostitute joint in every hotel in Benin to trail his movements. Anini died with no word on his lips. He died smiling. And so is the legend told till this day.