I don’t think Wolfie realized the gift he gave me with that journal. Or with his kindness. He made me cups and cups of woody St. John’s wort tea, because he’d read somewhere that it was a natural antidepressant. Once, I was rummaging through his kitchen cabinet in search of some honey. I found it by his computer on the small dining table in the corner of the cramped kitchen. I sat down to check my email, and it was still logged in to his account. Everyone knows you mustn’t snoop, everyone knows, yet I did. And there sat an email from the head chef of Grégoire, a restaurant in Paris that Wolfie and Luca had prattled on about since I’d worked at Milas. Wolfie had visited the year before, and then sent a long and eager message asking about opportunities for an apprenticeship. Many months later, the chef was offering him one, to start in eight weeks. Wolfie had received the email over a month ago.
Simultaneously, joy—incredible amounts of it for him—and a deep dread for myself filled my body. The corners of my chest, the overgrown cuticles of my toes, every inch of me vibrated with that fight.
The next morning, before sunrise, I initiated sex. We’d barely touched since the miscarriage. Wolfie was gentler than usual, leaning his forehead against mine to kiss me over and over. He told me that he loved me and asked, with a catch in his voice, if I loved him too.
It had all happened so quickly between us, from nothing to everything in the span of a few months. I’d opened the door of myself to him so wide and so quickly, and now I was on the verge of closing it.
Afterward, as we lay tangled under the covers, I confessed that I’d read his email from Grégoire. “You have to take it.”
“Only if you come with me.”
“I can’t come with you, Wolfie.”
“Kehinde, please come with me,” he pleaded. “I can make you happy again.”
He took my hands in his and said the things you say when you’re afraid to let go. I said nothing. We held each other until I had to leave for school.
It wouldn’t have been right, if I’d gone with him. It just wouldn’t have been right.
Letter no. 59
January 3, 2011
On a train from Paris to London
Dear Kehinde,
Happy New Year!
I didn’t have any place to be, so I went to Paris for Christmas.
On Boxing Day, I left the place I was staying to explore. I was loitering around the Fontaine des Innocents. Just staring at the relief sculptures on each corner of the fountain, trying to hear only the water and just generally appear like I wasn’t lost. I failed because I definitely looked lost when I let a Romani woman read my palm for eight euros.
She told me some things about you and Mami, and she told me that I would see the “wolf that loved you.” To be fair, my French is only just fine, so I only understood “wolf” and “love” and “you.” But the things she said about you and Mami were too real, and I got scared. I gave her money and rushed away on the first bus that came by. It was just about to leave the stop when I saw this very pale white bloke with wild eyes. He saw me too and somehow got even paler. He started to run after the bus, so I pulled the thing for the next stop and got off to look for him.
We found each other, and he looked me up and down for a bit before calling me by your name, like a question. I told him that I was Taiye, and his head nearly exploded. He told me that you never told him we were twins. We shook hands, and he said that his name was Wolfie. I remembered the palm reader’s words and my head exploded.
We walked together and talked for a long time. He was very eager to share his time with me. I think he was having difficulty separating the two of us. At one point, we stopped at a tiny Syrian place for falafels, and while we were waiting for our food, he touched the scar on my chin and said, “Kehinde doesn’t have this.”
He told me about the miscarriage, and the depression.
I’m sorry. I’m just so sorry.
We went to the restaurant where he works. It’s a bit avant-garde (a bit pretentious, if you ask me), but the food is weird and fantastic, I can’t lie. He says he loves it, that he’s doing well and they like him, but he misses you all the time.
Wolfie has this warm energy. He seemed kind. I’m sorry that things didn’t work out between the two of you.
He invited me to a party at his restaurant on New Year’s Eve. The party was in a greenhouse on the rooftop of the restaurant. The whole place was draped in string lights, and there were trays of canapés everywhere. It felt posh and magical.
But yeah, it was special. Wolfie kissed me when we said goodbye, and I had to remind him that we—me and you—are different people. He was a bit drunk, confused. He started to cry when we hugged, and we held each other for a long time. He needed it, and I think I needed it too.
I hope that you are doing better than he is.
All my love,
Taiye
Kambirinachi
IT WASN’T THAT BANJI’S FAMILY DIDN’T LIKE KAMBIRINACHI. Rather, they were concerned by how thoroughly she seemed to consume him. His older sisters, Folasade and Olayinka, joked that she’d charmed him with wild sex. His younger sister, Yemisi, resented that his attention was further divided to include another woman and thus diverted away from her even more. They watched with caution as this strange person magicked their brother into becoming the kind of man they’d all wished for him to be, the man he always almost was.
Before Kambirinachi, Banji was kind but never on time; he was generous but never on time; he listened attentively but, again, never on time. With his new lover, his internal clock shifted, or expanded. It grew to accommodate other people’s rhythms. You could say that he became more considerate. Quite simply, he considered Kambirinachi before himself. Dangerous, yes. But this also allowed him to consider his mother, sisters, friends, and colleagues with more generosity, too.
Their courtship was long. It took many months after they met in the lecture hall before Kambirinachi chose to sink herself into a life intertwined with a person outside of her blood and Kin. That sort of thing required sacrifice, and she wasn’t yet sure of the price. But she liked him. She liked him. In five months, he’d asked her to join him for lunch seven times; each time, she declined with a smile and a subtle shake of her head.
By the eighth time he asked, the harmattan semester was over, but having charmed Mrs Ijisakin, the intro to fine and applied arts lecturer, Kambirinachi had a set of keys to the second-floor studio. She was alone in the dim workroom, with its large burglar-proof windows, the sun streaming in vivid slits to spark floating dust particles alight. She’d set up a still life of bright green guavas, avocados, and mangoes whose colours danced between warm orange, red-yellow, and spotty green, mounted her canvas sketch pad on the wooden easel, and then perched herself on a tall stool. Damp paintbrush had just kissed eager canvas with its watercolour-tipped bristle when Banji knocked on the open door.
“Kambirinachi,” he said, sonorous voice rising to fill the room. “I don’t mean to disturb you.”
Kambirinachi put her paintbrush down and looked up at him, his lanky body framed in the doorway, round tortoiseshell glasses reflecting the light.
“Banji,” she said. “How far?”
He walked into the studio, and she nodded at his outfit—indigo adire button-up, long sleeves rolled up to his ashy elbows, hem tucked into ripped acid-wash jeans. “I like what you’re wearing,” she said.
The compliment startled Banji and spread a coy smile across his face, setting his pearly teeth in stark and gorgeous contrast to the deep dark of his face.
“Thank you,” he said with a nod. “I saw that you’ve been coming here to paint—”
“You’ve been watching me?”
“No, yes, a little bit,” he stammered. “I’m working at the agric department brooder house over the holiday, so I see you when you walk across campus sometimes.” He flung his hand behind him, gesturing toward the Agricultural and Environmental Engineering Department on the other side of the sprawling campus.
Kambirinachi picked up her brush and turned back to her canvas, but her skin sang, hyperaware of Banji’s gaze.
“I’m wondering,” he said, “if you’d like to join me for lunch after you finish painting.”
“Yes,” she said, without turning to face him. “Tell me where to find you.”
THEIR LUNCHES BECAME WEEKLY.
And after four months of these weekly dates, Aunty Akuchi asked to meet the person who stirred in Kambirinachi a desire to oil her skin and braid her hair with more attention than her aunt had ever witnessed. Kambirinachi suddenly started spending more than mere moments looking into the mirror. Instead of leaving her hair in its usual poof, she split parts in and anointed her scalp with fragrant Indian hemp hair pomade before weaving her dense coils into thin intricate braids.
Banji joined Kambirinachi, Akuchi, and Yusuf for supper. Yusuf hadn’t officially left his wife but had nonetheless become, more or less, a permanent fixture in Akuchi’s home.
Banji arrived two minutes and twenty seconds into King Sunny Adé’s “Ma Jaiye Oni.” Adaora had just led him into the living room when the slide guitar licked a slinky melody on the track.
He said, “Good evening, ma” to Akuchi, “Evening, sir” to Yusuf, and prostrated in greeting, lying down with his chest to the carpeted floor: dọ̀bálẹ̀.
“Welcome o!” Akuchi smiled warmly and embraced him, and Yusuf shook his hand.
Supper was simple: ofada rice with palm oil stew and moi moi. Akuchi asked the usual questions: “Where are you from?” “Who are your people?” “What are you studying?” “What church do you attend?”
Banji answered graciously: Oṣogbo. Third of four children, only son. Father passed away four years ago, mother was an assistant lecturer in the biochemistry department at OAU, where he was in his second year of an accounting degree. Our Lady of Perpetual Light, right by the campus.
He was respectful and warm and honest. Akuchi liked him, but she was hesitant about the idea of Kambirinachi dating. The girl had until now shown no interest in romance, or sex, for that matter. Even when her classmates exchanged Valentine’s Day gifts or were caught kissing in empty classrooms, Kambirinachi had seemed entirely indifferent to the teenage iterations of love and attempts to tame their lust. Yet, that evening, it was clear to everyone present that the thing between Banji and Kambirinachi was heartier than any easily quenchable passion.
Late at night, after Banji had left and they’d cleaned up, after Adaora had gone to her room and Yusuf to sleep, Akuchi knocked quietly on Kambirinachi’s bedroom door and let herself in before she was invited.
It didn’t take much to rouse Kambirinachi from sleep; Akuchi simply had to say her name no louder than a whisper. When Kambirinachi sat up in the narrow bed, Akuchi flicked on the lamp on the night table and sat beside her.
“Aunty, is everything okay?” Kambirinachi asked, rubbing the remnants of sleep from her eyes.
“Yes, Kambi. I just wanted to talk to you about something …” Akuchi sank her full frame into the soft mattress and leaned her back against the wall. “You like that Yoruba boy, yes?”
Kambirinachi offered a small smile and nodded.
“He seems well trained,” Akuchi continued. “You must be careful, you know. You are a young woman now.”
“Yes, Aunty.”
Akuchi was silent for a while. The lamp dimmed and brightened, dimmed and brightened, making all the shadows in the room shrink and grow as if alive. Power had been on and off all day, and when it was on, the current ran low. Kambirinachi knew that there was a story coming, but her body was drooping into sleep again when her aunt’s voice pulled her out.
“You know I was married once,” Akuchi said finally. “A long time ago, before you were even born. My husband was a good man, but he wanted children and my body wouldn’t … cooperate. It was my fault anyway, because when I was a girl, one or two years younger than you are now—you’re eighteen?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, so I was about sixteen. I became pregnant, you know. I was sleeping with my first boyfriend, and yes, you know, the natural order of things, it just happens like that sometimes. But, em … my father, your grandfather—he had passed by the time you were born, may his soul rest in peace—he wouldn’t have stood for it, you know, he was very active in our church. It just … anyway, there was a nurse in the area who used to perform abortions … it was terrible, Kambi. So when I was married and ready to have children, my body was damaged from that … anyway … I just want you to know that you can tell me anything.”
Akuchi picked at a mole on her upper arm.
“Tomorrow I’m going to the pharmacist. I will buy some condoms and leave them here. You don’t have to, but you can tell me anything …”
She was no longer looking at Kambirinachi, instead fixing her eyes on a point on the wall across the room. Akuchi sat like that, not moving, barely breathing, tears rolling down her plump cheeks, until Kambirinachi placed a hand on her elbow. “Aunty, are you okay?”
“Yes, my dear.” Akuchi shook her head, as if to loosen the grip of her memories. She’d forgotten where she was.
“Yes,” she repeated. “Okay, sleep well.” Then she got up and left.
Kambirinachi did not sleep well.
She thought backward, thought of a young and terrified Akuchi. She felt the memory of her aunt’s pain slither under her own skin, and she finally understood why Yusuf seemed like a good fit for her—he didn’t require her to be a promise or potential for anything because he already had a family. Also, quite simply, Akuchi loved him.
Kambirinachi considered loving Banji in a way that didn’t make space for consequences. Foolish, maybe. Especially considering what the implications for a being like her might be. She sank her senses into the air beyond the air around her, sought out her Kin, her selves, to ask them, “What will be the cost?”
But, annoyed by her refusal to return home, her Kin turned away and continued to speak of and not to her. Loud enough for her to hear, they said, She is always choosing them. She will soon learn.
Four years after Kambirinachi dreamed him, the day after she graduated from OAU with a fine arts degree, Banji placed a plain gold band in her palm and covered it with his own. He held her hand this way, tight, with the ring between their palms, and said, “I want to learn to love you better every day. I want to marry you and have a family that is our own. Do you want this? Will you marry me?”
Kambirinachi ignored her Kin roaring inside herself and chose Banji’s voice to be her anchor. She smiled at him, so bright, so yielding.
She nodded her head: Yes.
Then she spoke it: “Yes.”
Taiye
LONG BEFORE SHE WOULD GO BACK HOME TO LAGOS, before her beehive, before the meals she would make to appease—more truthfully, avoid—her sister, there was a Sunday morning in South London, drowned in the wet sanguinity of spring, when Taiye woke up next to a girl she’d met late the previous night. The girl shared her MDMA with Taiye before they danced together at a tiny queer club with walls covered in mirrors and multicoloured neon lights, in the basement of a fried chicken place. They’d danced wildly, sweating and grinding their bodies against each other. In the mirror across the room, peeking from between other flailing bodies, Kehinde appeared, in a slow-motion ethereal surfacing. Even later that night, only moments before the girl started to undress her, Taiye scribbled a note to Kehinde on a receipt she found crumpled in her coat pocket.
The following morning, from the throbbing haze of a comedown, Taiye tumbled out of the unfamiliar bed and dressed quickly. If she rushed, she could make the ten a.m. Mass at Our Lady of La Salette and St. Joseph Church, which was two, maybe three, blocks away. She’d never been there before but had seen it on her inebriated saunter to the girl’s flat. Taiye thought she remembered the schedule posted in the glass-enclosed bulletin board, beside the arched marble doorway, announcing ten a.m. Sunday Mass. Or had it said 10:30? Either way, Taiye had to leave th
is stranger’s home.
The girl’s name was Eden—or Aida, or Aisha. And she was snoring lightly under a bright yellow duvet ripe with the musky scent of nag champa incense and sweat. Her hair was a short curly Afro, dyed a yellow-tinged blonde, with a tight undercut fade. Twin gold studs glittered in each nostril. She was from Cardiff and had moved to London the previous year to study painting at Slade.
It wasn’t a huge flat, not as small as Taiye’s attic studio but not much bigger. Unlike Taiye, however, Eden—or Aida, or Aisha—seemed to keep it immaculate so that the white walls and tiled floors appeared vast. Furniture was sparse, except for the pile of clothing on the floor beside the low platform bed, a worn red leather sofa, and a stack of sketchbooks by an empty easel near the bathroom door. Everything else must have been tucked away behind the white closet doors or was non-existent.
“Morning.” Eden—or Aida, or Aisha—sat up. She stretched, exposing pierced nipples and a triangle tattoo on her sternum between her small breasts. “You’re leaving?”
“Yeah, I just have to rush … somewhere.” Taiye smiled and said, “I had a good time last night.”
“Yeah, same. I’d hoped we could get breakfast or something.”
“That would be lovely, but … I left my number.” Taiye gestured toward the wall on the left side of the bed, where she’d posted a yellow sticky note with her name, phone number, and a colon and wobbly bracket for a smiley face.
The girl took the sticky note off the wall and smiled. “Cute.”
“Call me whenever. We can do this again, or something else …” Taiye kissed the girl on her hot, dry cheek and stood up to leave.
“There’s a great little café down the road called Poppy. They have a smoothie concoction, vitamin something. Helps with the comedown.” The girl yawned.
“Thank you.” Taiye smiled again.
“Just your friendly tip of the day.” The girl winked, the studs in her nose glinting in the cold morning light pouring in from the skylight above her bed.
Butter Honey Pig Bread Page 12