“A week!”
“O girl, welcome back to Lagos!” Isabella is stunning in a slim-cut navy blue skirt suit, her hair slicked back into a small poof at the base of her neck, makeup miraculously immaculate in this humidity. She says with what stinks of forced cheer, “I’m just heading to work, but your sister hasn’t been returning my calls, so I’m here, in person, to invite you all to my engagement party!”
“Congratulations!” I look at Taiye, who is attempting to mask a pained expression with a forced smile of her own. “Taiye didn’t tell me you had seen each other.”
“Well,” Isabella says, “it’s on Saturday at my mumsie’s place, starts at three. Actually, it starts at four thirty, but I’m telling people three because … well, you know.”
“Thank you so much for the invite. We’ll definitely be there,” I say.
“Perfect! I can’t wait to meet your husband!” Isabella yells, as she rushes back through the kitchen.
The silence is thick when I turn to face Taiye, who is pouring her attention back into her seedlings. I crouch to join her closer to the soil. “How can I help?” I ask, but she stays silent.
Just as I get up to leave, she says, “There’s a watering can by the fence. Can you please fill it with water?”
While I fill the green plastic container at the kitchen sink, I come up with things I must say to Taiye.
I’ve been reading your letters and I would like us to talk seriously.
I’m sorry I’ve been so unavailable. I’d like us to talk like sisters now.
So we both saw apparitions of each other. That’s fucking wild, no?
About Wolfie …
But when I go back out, Taiye is chewing the corner of her bottom lip. “So Isa and I have been sleeping together.”
I can only blink at her. “Ah … I didn’t know she was …” I start to say.
“Yeah, well … yeah, so I have a problem …” Abruptly she sits in the soil.
“I sometimes don’t know how to … say no … to myself or other people … other women.” She looks down at her palms as she continues, “I want to be different … better. Anyway, we’ve been fucking for a few months, and I told her it had to end because … yeah, she’s engaged.”
This may be the most truthful she’s been since I’ve come home.
“Anyway, I just wanted you to know …”
“Do you not want to go to her engagement party?”
“No, I mean, yeah, we should go. It’s only right.” She wrings her hands like a rag, rubs her cheek, and smears more dirt on her face.
I smile to ease her, and she mirrors me.
“Tell me about your bees,” I say.
And with a sigh of something I can only name as relief, she tells me. “Well, I wanted to plant a garden, something lush, with edible flowers. But, then, um, I got nervous that, like, nothing would grow.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just like, you know, that I’m cursed and nothing I plant would grow.”
“Well, that seems reasonable,” I joke.
She laughs and continues, “So I started reading books on gardening, learning about plants native to Lagos Island, plants that might thrive. Books and articles and podcasts of Nigerian gardening and urban farming. This one book, Organic Farming in Urban Jungles: Lagos Edition, had a chapter on beekeeping.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, it reminded me of someone I used to see … and also that bees are dope.” She shrugs.
“You’ve always been a bit obsessed with bees,” I chime in. “At least you were when we were small.”
“I was, wasn’t I?”
I nod, and we smile at each other.
I remember when her honeybee obsession started. One Saturday afternoon, after swimming lessons at Ikoyi Club, when Taiye and I were back home with our skin and braids still soaked with that astringent smell of chlorine, the peppery bite of suya on our tongues, our hands sticky with melted cotton candy. And our father came home with two plastic bottles filled with thick brown honey.
“Good honey from Abeokuta!” He smeared a spoonful on a soft slice of Senegalese bread.
The honey sank into our tongues, a deep earthy malt flavour that didn’t exist in the glass jars of imported honey we bought at Goodies Supermarket. Taiye took to ripping off hunks of bread and dipping them into a shallow bowl of honey that our father set on the dining table for us. Between mouthfuls, she asked about honey, about bees and their hives, about beekeepers. Do wasps make honey too? Do ants and cockroaches?
Our father answered all her questions with the sincere solemnity of a priest and plenty of laughter in his eyes. Then he placed a heavy volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica on the table in front of her, the entries for honey and bees marked with two yellow wooden rulers.
“Read, Baby Two,” he said. “It’s all here for you.”
So she read about bees and honey, and talked about bees and honey, and looked for pictures of bees and honey. Our father even took us to Abeokuta to meet a beekeeper acquaintance of his, Kenneth Bello, an entomologist trained specially in breeding queen bees. Our mother stayed behind; she said that Abeokuta was a sore place for her and went, instead, to visit her aunt in Ife.
My memories of the beekeeper and his hives are murky with the scent of jealousy—yes, even then, I was jealous of our father’s attentiveness to Taiye. But with shining eyes, Taiye tells me now that she remembers everything. The beekeeper is still there—that is where she went to learn to finish building a hive of her own. When our father took us to Kenneth’s apiary all those years ago, the entomologist owned no more than six hives. Taiye remembers they were perched on a slight hill in spacious clusters under the mango, almond, and guava trees that bordered his small farm. When she went back, almost two decades after first gorging herself on honey from his hives, she found that the size of both his farm and apiary had more than tripled.
“It’s an outstanding operation,” she says, “with a training and apprenticeship centre, and a shop selling beekeeping supplies, raw honey, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, and beeswax. When I called the number on Kenneth’s website he didn’t remember who I was, but he said it would be better if I visited to talk in person.”
“You went?”
“I did.” She nods. “He recognized me, or rather, recognized Popsie’s features on my face. He was much nicer in person than on the phone. Gave me a quick tour of the apiary, asked where I was planning to keep my hive, mentioned that he’d suggested Popsie turn our house into hotel.
He talked about him a lot, told me that it was Popsie who loaned him money to buy his farm back in the day.”
Kenneth sent her back with wooden frames and wired wax foundations, a smoker with a replacement bellow, a hook end hive tool, bee brush, and frame grips. He promised to pay the house a visit in the following week with the remaining supplies and a nucleus colony.
“I asked how much I owed, but he refused to take my money. It took him over five weeks to make it to Lagos with a nucleus colony and fully set up my hive. It was all good, though, because it gave me plenty of time to build the rest of the hive and fit the frames. Mami was here when he showed up—there was some … tension.” She raises her eyebrows and smirks.
“What do you mean?”
“Mami had finally emerged from her room after many days of … well, not leaving her room. And we were out here listening to music when he came. They both seemed stunned to see each other, and then she rushed back inside after an awkward greeting.”
“What do you think that was about?”
“Fuck knows.” She shrugs. “Anyway sha, even with the delay, it was probably the only straightforward transaction I’ve had since I’ve been in Lagos.”
“For real?” I ask.
“For real,” she replies, swatting a fly away from her face. “Although, it was less of a transaction and more of a favour.”
“I can’t believe he hooked you up for free.”
“Babe, neither can I.�
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“You didn’t tell me about your bees, though.” I sit in the dirt beside her. “You just told me how you got the hive.”
“Oh yeah.” She laughs. “My bees are … tempestuous.”
“Like you,” I tease her.
She laughs. “Anyway, I’m pretty sure there’s a story with that Kenneth bloke, though.”
“Yeah? Has he been around since?”
“No, but there’s always a story when Mami is involved.”
3
Pig
Kambirinachi
THE SUN SWELLED MASSIVELY AND HUNG LOW on the day of the wedding. To the immense chagrin of Banji’s family, the ceremony was neither traditional nor Christian but a simple matter of signing a marriage contract at the local government office with his parents and Aunty Akuchi as witnesses. The whole time, Kambirinachi did her best to put aside thoughts of her mother, whose absence had grown into a bleak yawn of longing in her life.
Afterward, they drove the bumpy road to Banji’s family’s compound to celebrate. His family tried not to sully the party with their disappointment, at not only his choice to eschew a traditional ceremony but also his choice of bride. Again, it wasn’t that they didn’t like Kambirinachi; they were just concerned by her strangeness and the fact that her family constituted only a childless aunt in a relationship with a married man. The whole thing was quite shameful, really, but should the girl be punished for her lack of respectable family? She was beautiful—bewitching, actually. Massive eyes that beguiled merely by looking. She was trained well enough: greeted her elders, never waited to be asked before rushing to assist, generous with what little she seemed to have. Perhaps it was just that—the fact that she seemed to possess so little—that stoked their doubt.
Regardless, Kambirinachi was striking in her crimson, cream, and navy blue striped iro and buba, head crowned with an elaborately wrapped and fanned-out gold gele, as she clasped the lean kaftan-clad arm of her new husband. Her aunt Akuchi and Yusuf—“the woman’s shameless lover”—shared a table with Banji’s mother. A dozen rented plastic tables dotted the compound, decorated with indigo adire tablecloths gathered at the legs with pale pink satin ribbons tied into large bows that wilted in the heat. Each table held an offering of aromatic schnapps and kola nuts, and was occupied mainly by Banji’s family friends, many of whom eyed his unknown bride with awe and confusion.
Kambirinachi remained unfazed. With her gaze fixed on Banji, she hardly registered anyone else. They danced and danced and ate, and when they knelt at the feet of their elders to receive prayers of long life, prosperity, and fertility, she didn’t close her eyes as one ought. Instead, she kept them fixed on Banji’s knuckly hands clasped over her own.
THE YOUNG COUPLE spent their first night as husband and wife in the somewhat arbitrarily dubbed honeymoon hut at Apatala Village, a spacious compound lush with palm, coconut, mango, hibiscus, and almond trees. Among all the greenery, ten large thatched-roofed huts surrounded an artificial fish pond the size of a small swimming pool. Apatala Village was built to replicate a picturesque rural village experience for European travellers who desired just a taste and not a full meal of rural living in Ife. However, the taste was only a facade; the huts were air conditioned, their tiled floors covered in gorgeously patterned raffia mats. The only difference between the honeymoon hut and the other nine on the property was the bed—a lopsided heart covered in red satin bedding that made Kambirinachi burst into laughter upon first sight. Banji’s sisters had booked the place and Kambirinachi really couldn’t decipher if their choice was sincere—which would mean they had questionable taste—or cruel. Either way, once they were finally alone there was too much joy simmering beneath her skin to spare even a moment indulging thoughts of anything other than her husband and his beautiful body.
As soon as they set foot in the honeymoon hut, Banji became uncharacteristically shy. He averted his gaze and scratched his head, distractedly looking around from the cane furniture to the shiny sound system stacked against the wall across from the bed.
“Banji,” Kambirinachi said from where she was already perched on the bed.
“Mm-hmm?” he responded, avoiding her gaze.
“What music do they have?” she asked.
“Erm …” He fingered the collection of cassette tapes and vinyl records.
“Bob Marley, Manu Dibango, Angélique Kidjo, Ebenezer Obey, King Sunny Adé, Stevie Wonder … there’s plenty.”
“How about Manu Dibango?”
Banji pulled out the record Soul Makossa, placed it gingerly on the dusty turntable, and dropped the needle. By the time he turned around to face his bride, she was already dancing where she sat. With her eyes closed and shimmying her shoulders, she slowly unwound the gele from her head and let her thick braids tumble down her shoulders. Kambirinachi stood up and danced toward her husband, smiling the whole while, inviting him to dance with her. His shy smile widened, and he stepped in rhythm to Manu Dibango’s beat. The two of them, they danced toward and away from each other in turn. Until one of them—hard to say who—grabbed the other and planted a kiss on the lips.
Yes, they had kissed many times before, sloppy, impatient, but nothing like this, nothing that hinted at a much larger hunger. Kambirinachi took the reins. She undressed Banji slowly and requested that he do the same for her. They looked at each other for a long time, and by the time they kissed again, Banji had forgotten to be shy.
THE CLOUDS WERE INCONSOLABLE the Sunday that Kambirinachi and Banji moved to Lagos. But the weeping sky did not sway them. Neither did Akuchi’s pleas.
“Won’t you consider waiting until tomorrow?” she asked, her eyebrows knotted in concern as she watched Banji pile their bags into his friend’s rusty tan van. “I’m worried about you people driving in all this rain.”
The downpour sounded like applause as it beat against the windows.
“Don’t worry, Ma.” Banji’s touched her shoulder with a damp hand. “We’ll be very careful.”
He meant to reassure her, but the rainwater soaked through his red T-shirt and did nothing to assuage her anxieties that they would veer off the dilapidated roads and into a ditch. Or face opportunistic robbers on the Lagos-Ojoo Expressway or collide with any number of drunken idiots driving in the wrong direction. Her imagination ran amok with countless possibilities that all ended with her niece hurt, or worse. In truth, in her deepest self, she was distraught to see the girl go.
But Banji had an interview on Monday at the accounting department of a microfinance company, a new business started by a middle-aged Austrian expat. It was a development project to appease his philanthropic wife’s guilt at their luxurious standard of living in such a politically turbulent country. During the fifteen years the Austrian couple had lived in Nigeria, one head of state was deposed after ruling for over eight years. The one who followed was assassinated just shy of two hundred days in office. The next one resigned after nearly four years. Then there was a break from military regimes, the dawn of a Second Republic. However, that lasted all of four years and ninety-one days before that president was deposed. And it was back to military rule.
The expat’s wife insisted that her husband hire young graduates and support the local economy, as apparently, their government would not be doing very much in their favour. Banji’s uncle did business with a man who did business with the expat, put in a good word for the boy, and scored him an interview. Banji would not be missing it, even if it started to rain shards of glass. He needed a stable job; he had a new wife to look after.
So, sheltered by the blue plastic awning that arched over the burglar-proof entrance to the house, Banji hugged Akuchi goodbye and stepped into the van to give the women some space.
Akuchi enveloped Kambirinachi in a snug embrace. She whispered a prayer over the girl and planted a kiss on her wet forehead.
“Go well, eh, my dear,” she said. “Please call me as soon as you reach Lagos.”
“Yes, Ma.” Kambirinachi sniffled before
joining Banji in the van.
They had already driven through the gates of Akuchi’s compound before she asked him to stop. She hopped out into the rain and ran across the gravel driveway, back into her aunt’s arms, and said over and over, “Thank you, I love you, thank you.”
THE RAINFALL WANED TO A DRIZZLE and then climbed to a torrential deluge several times during the five-and-a-half-hour drive to Lagos Island. With a soft hand on Banji’s bony knee, Kambirinachi watched the view change from the greenness and open-skyness of Ife—which she hadn’t left since her mother abandoned her there seven years ago—to the grey muddiness of the expressway. Then she slowly fell asleep with her head against the window. She didn’t wake up until they were in Yaba. She blinked the sleep out of her dry eyes just as they drove past the worn blue gates of her old secondary school. Memories of her former schoolmates flooded her mind. Memories of Mercy were most vibrant.
She’d never told Banji much about her life before they met. Nothing about all of her misfortunes being a punishment for her choosing to live in this realm and abandon her Kin. Nothing about the way their voices sometimes plagued her—rare occurrences these days, but still. Moreover, when Banji asked about her mother, in those early days of their courtship, Kambirinachi said simply, “The grief from my father’s death was too much for her. It, maybe, broke her.”
Nothing about the fear that her mother blamed her, that she knew, somehow somehow, that his death was Kambirinachi’s doing.
The traffic from Yaba to Surulere, their final destination for the day, was incessant, as was the rain again. They would stay with Banji’s childhood friend Toyosi Awosika. Toyosi was halfway through her year with the national youth service corps and living in a sizable two-bedroom flat in a newly renovated complex rented by trusting parents who believed she was subletting the spare bedroom to a fellow corper to supplement her meagre service corps allowance. In truth, she was seeing a secretive married man who preferred that the place remain a private sanctuary for their trysts, so he paid for her to keep the room unoccupied.
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