Butter Honey Pig Bread

by Francesca Ekwuyasi

ON ANOTHER DAY, during another monotonous week, Taiye took Our Lady’s advice and went to a free conference at the public library.

  Of course, Taiye thought, when she saw the woman from the tea shop and the ferry. The woman stood addressing the overflowing community room on the third floor of the public library. With all the seats occupied, many people stood against the white wall at the back of the room, and others sat on the carpeted floor at the front.

  As Taiye walked in, the woman said, “I just want to start by acknowledging that we are on unceded Mi’kmaq territory.” She pushed up the sleeves of her white button-down. “I would like to request a moment of silent reflection on the violence and injustice that Indigenous peoples have suffered historically and currently face in this country.”

  The woman’s voice was silver smoke; it carried through the crowded glass-walled community room, which fell silent at her request. After a long pause, punctuated by the rustling of shifting bodies, she continued. “I’d like to encourage us to put our time, money, and energy where are ethics lie. What I mean is that solidarity requires action. If we say that we are in solidarity with Indigenous people, then we must act in line with that. Over at the table is a donation box for the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre. Give them your money. Donate to the pipeline and railway protests. Join the movements.” This was met with head nods and murmurs of agreement from the room.

  “The students presenting today have shown incredible dedication, resilience, curiosity, and care in their research.” The woman couldn’t seem to keep still: she nodded as she spoke and her hands moved from the folded cuffs of her sleeves to the pockets of her tapered burgundy corduroy trousers and back again.

  “These papers have themes ranging from analyses of race and space in Nova Scotia to queering Indigeneity. From racism within queer spaces to gentrification of Black communities in Halifax, and many of the in-betweens.”

  Taiye stood at the back of the packed room, close to the door. She shrugged off her oversized jacket and leaned against the wall, but her shoulder hit a switch and turned off the flickering fluorescent lights above.

  “Shit, sorry,” she muttered to no one in particular and turned to flick the switch on again.

  Perhaps everyone turned to look at her. If Taiye had noticed, it might have incited a desire to shrivel up and disappear, but she only saw the woman’s eyes move to where she stood. And really, if she had to be honest, Taiye wanted to be seen by this woman. There was that gnaw again, deep in her belly. Taiye put her jacket back on.

  With her eyes still on Taiye, and an expression of amusement on her face, the woman continued. “We’re grateful to be hosted by the public library today. It’s an opportunity for many of our students to engage with the community outside of campus.” She took a sip of water from a glass on the stand before her.

  “We often talk about how the theories we engage with in the classroom and during research do not exist in a vacuum. No, they function and play out in communities, in our communities. So thank you very much for being here.”

  She ran a hand over her hair and chuckled. “I’ve talked for a million years now, so I’ll wrap up this introduction with a brief description of what to expect in terms of the conference format. The students will present their work according to the themes highlighted in the program, which you can find on your seat and in a stack at the table there.” She gestured to the back of the room.

  “Then there will be time for questions and discussion before we move to the next theme. Again, thank you very much for being here, and have an enlightening evening.”

  The room erupted in applause as a student took the woman’s place at the front of the room and said, “Thank you very much, Professor Colette.”

  Taiye’s eyebrows shot up. Of course, the woman who’d incited that visceral pull in her gut was a fucking professor.

  “And thank you to the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology for organizing this conference. My name is Amara Patrick, and I’ll start this presentation with a clip from a short doc titled Come from Away, Who Gets to Stay.” The student gestured to the white projection screen behind her. “This project is part of my research on Blackness and belonging in Nova Scotia.”

  Professor Colette walked toward Taiye, a faint smile on her face, and gestured toward Taiye’s right shoulder. Taiye looked at her shoulder, then back at the woman, muttered something incomprehensible, and regretted it immediately.

  “Just the light switch,” Professor Colette said to Taiye when she was close enough to be heard without having to raise her voice. Close enough for Taiye to smell the blend of incense-scented oils, she would later learn, the professor ritually applied to her temples, the back of her neck, and the scoops of her collarbones.

  “Yeah …” Taiye said, and turned to switch the lights off again, this time on purpose.

  “Thanks,” the professor whispered. “I didn’t get your name.”

  “Taiye.”

  “Nice to meet you.” She nodded. “Enjoy the conference.”

  Taiye could only nod in return. Feeling foolish, she waited for the documentary to start before slipping out of the room.

  The walk home took an eternity. Halfway to Taiye’s place, Our Lady took her hand and asked, What are you afraid of?

  Kehinde

  TAIYE DOESN’T REMEMBER HOW SHE GOT THE SCAR ON HER CHIN, BUT I DO.

  It happened after our father’s death, when Uncle Ernest and Aunty Funke were with us, and she had stopped sleeping in my room. Taiye used to walk in her sleep, traipse down the stairs in an eerie daze. I discovered her one night, swaying slightly in the kitchen, eyes closed, a thin line of blood dripping down her chin. Our mother was before her, silhouetted by the cold light of the open fridge. She was gaunt, her thin body a curve made sinister by the glint of a small paring knife in her right hand. The blade was clean; it must have been a swift slice. Her eyes shifted, unfocused, as she muttered under her breath.

  Terror seized me, and I grabbed Taiye’s cold hand and led her out of the kitchen. Our mother gasped low and horrified as we rushed away.

  Our mother is insane.

  No, I should say this instead: I believe that our mother is insane and occasionally has moments of vibrant lucidity. In those small windows of clarity, she is tender. Outside of that, she dances between catatonic and grieving.

  There’s also the rage. The first time I witnessed it was after our father died, after the bad thing, but before we went to London. During that incident, Taiye woke me up by shaking my shoulders. I was still angry with her and started to turn away when I saw the glint of tears in her eyes.

  “What?” I asked.

  “It’s Mami.”

  Just then, I heard our mother screaming, and loud thumps, and crashing. We rushed downstairs and saw her smashing a dining chair against the door of the guest bedroom where Uncle Ernest and Aunty Funke had stayed. Her thin arms lifted the hefty chair above her head and crashed it against the door over and over, until there was nothing left but two splintered legs.

  Her face was a blur. It looked like her features had been rubbed by an eraser. Does that make sense? My mind still cannot comprehend it, but that is what I remember. I turned to Taiye to ask if she could see our mother’s face, but her eyes were shut tight and she was holding her breath.

  Sister Bisi rushed over to lead us back upstairs.

  God, there were so many nights like that, it just became normal.

  Now our mother is cooing at us as we prepare to head out for Isabella’s engagement party, smiling with a genuine light. It is infuriating.

  “Mami, you won’t come?” Taiye asks and ties her braids in a bun. I don’t know why she bothers; her braids will tumble down in a few moments, and she’ll be right back where she started. She is wearing an oversized kaftan in cream-coloured floral damask with gold embroidery on the hem and a low neckline that reveals lines and tendrils from what I can only guess is a chest tattoo. Her tight jeans are cuffed all the way up her shins. Her eyes ar
e lined in black kajal; otherwise, her face is bare.

  How she manages to make such a slapdash mismatched outfit seem chic, I’ll never know. She looks effortlessly cool, and I feel like an over-stuffed dumpling in my satin polka-dot dress, with balloon sleeves that are supposed to flatter my figure but only make me feel like a misshapen pillow. I must be getting my period soon; I’m just so irritable.

  Our mother is going on about how pretty we both look and how we mustn’t forget to take the zobo and isn’t it so lovely how Taiye put it in these beautiful carafes with the cork stoppers.

  “Okay, Mami.” Taiye kisses her on the cheek. “Rest well, call if you need anything, my ringer is on.”

  I lean in and hug her quickly before heading out with Taiye and Farouq. I try not to look at her face, but I catch a glimpse and am stung with shame at my inability to embrace her properly just now.

  We walk out into the breezy evening. Taiye holds two glass carafes of ruby-red zobo glinting in the light of the slowly setting sun, one bottle spiked with a floral gin and the other with white rum. I hold Farouq’s hand and a small purse with my phone and wallet.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask Taiye. I want to acknowledge the fact that she confided in me about her affair with Isabella.

  “I don’t really know,” she says. “But I’ll let you know if I need to duck out, yeah?”

  “For sure.”

  Farouq squeezes my hand gently. I have my sister on one side and my husband on the other.

  “ANEMOIA” IS A WORD I FOUND A FEW YEARS AGO ON a website called the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. It means nostalgia for a time you’ve never known. I scribbled it in my journal, and in the years since, when I started taking my art practice seriously, I would write it all over my canvases before priming. Because even though I couldn’t taste the feeling at the time, I knew that I knew it, that I’d felt it before. I feel it again now, at Isabella’s engagement party. I taste its full-bodied flavour: pungent and salty. It is unmistakable. I’ve never been surrounded by old friends and family the way that Isabella is right now, but I feel nostalgic for this moment. I am watching, in slow motion, as Isabella—wrapped in a sheer coral maxi dress that shimmers as she moves, her Afro a glittering halo—laughs and playfully slaps Toki on the shoulder. Some familiar faces surround her, secondary school friends with whom I failed to keep in touch. Isabella kept in touch; she tended to the garden of her life and grew a community. A community that shows up to her engagement party and packs her backyard dense with swaying bodies. Perhaps this is what happens when you stay home instead of eagerly launching yourself into the diaspora and disappearing from everything that shaped you. You get a celebration, familiarity, home.

  Isabella spots us and exclaims, “Ibeji! The twins are here!” She hurries toward us, hugs us, and ushers us deeper into the celebration.

  Taiye’s body stiffens at Isabella’s touch; I sense it more than see it. She is cordial when she offers the spiked zobo and smiles politely at Isabella’s squeal of delight.

  “Isa, this is my husband, Farouq,” I say. Up close, I see that I didn’t imagine it—her hair is dusted with gold shimmer.

  “So lovely to meet you,” Isabella says. She waves Toki over.

  Tokunbo Pedro swam with us at Ikoyi Club when we were children. Unlike most other boys in our cohort, he wore Speedos instead of swimming trunks. When he wasn’t following Isabella around like a lost pet, he swam many laps to the deep end and back while the rest of us splashed around the shallow end playing Marco Polo. He was such a small-framed crusty-nosed boy; I remember towering tall over him until I left for Canada at eighteen.

  So I am stunned at the broad-shouldered polished mahogany heft of a man that walks toward us. Toki is all grown up.

  “Toks,” Isabella says, “remember the twins?” “Of course.” His voice is still slightly nasal, a remnant of the sniffly child that vied for Isabella’s attention, but more assured. He kisses Taiye and me on our cheeks with a distracted, “Long time, how far?” Then he offers Farouq a firm handshake.

  “Long time indeed.” I smile and attempt to locate something genuine in the smooth skin of his face, the shallow curve of his distant smile, his commanding demeanour. It’s not very difficult to spot a hardened person. Thickening one’s proverbial skin can only be a natural response to the causticity that life sometimes visits upon us. But there is a unique type of hardness, a single-minded drive to thrive through whatever the fuck, to tear through whoever, to get what you want, that levels everything so that nothing is sacred. Someone else might call it sharp, masculine, capable of getting anything done. But I knew Toki when we were children, and if you ask me, something happened between then and now that took some light away from him. Perhaps it’s just what happens when we grow up. Could he look at me and come to the same conclusion?

  “Please make yourselves at home,” he says coolly. “There is plenty to eat.”

  “Thank you,” Taiye says to a spot on his shoulder. “And congratulations,” she adds, and then walks away from us, toward the buffet table covered in platters of small chops and glistening pastries.

  Our eyes follow her until the silence teeters on awkward, so I say to Farouq with as much cheer as I can muster, “We grew up together,” gesturing to Toki and Isabella. “Toki has loved Isa from day one. It’s special to see them make it official.”

  Isabella rolls her eyes and forces a smile.

  “Congratulations,” Farouq chimes in. “My childhood crush spat on me and told me I was ugly, so I had to find a different chump to marry me!” He puts his arm around me and squeezes.

  Toki smiles. Isabella laughs and asks, “How long have you been married?”

  “Just over four years,” Farouq answers.

  “Any advice for us?” Isabella tilts her head to the right, and her eyes wander for the briefest moment. I imagine she’s looking for Taiye, who has moved farther into the heart of the party.

  “Stay lucky,” Farouq says, and his eyes are smiling into mine.

  “That’s nonsense.” Isabella’s eyebrows shoot high up on her forehead. “Give us some concrete, useful adv—”

  “Please excuse me,” Toki interrupts. “I have to go welcome some other guests, but it was a pleasure to meet you.” He shakes Farouq’s hand. “And to see you again, welcome home,” he says to me. Then he leaves, and Isabella’s face becomes a wound.

  “Please don’t let us keep you.” I place a hand on her bare shoulder. “Go and do your hostess things, show off this stunning dress!”

  She forces another smile and says, “Okay … make yourselves at home.” Then she goes in the opposite direction from Toki.

  THE PARTY ROARS ON AS THE SKY DARKENS, lit by strings of soft orange fairy lights and torches that emit a light scent of citronella. Afro-electronic rhythms pulse through the warm night air. Farouq and I wander through the garden, squeezing between the impeccably dressed and heavily perfumed bodies of Isabella and Toki’s guests. We walk past the buffet table, grazing on peppered gizzards, crispy spring rolls, and charred skewers of chicken suya. We swat away mosquitoes and gleefully receive cold glasses of beer and malt when we reach the bar. I smile at all the people I recognize but feel shyness like a thick spider’s web, keeping me from initiating conversation. Most people are stylishly aloof and exude an air of profound disinterest in anyone who isn’t already comfortably situated in their circle—social and literal. I’m sweating through the satin of my dress, and my feet throb from standing in heels, so I take my sandals off. The grass feels warm and dry; memories of barefoot cartwheels in this very backyard flash through my mind. Swiftly followed by memories of Taiye bawling into her pillow the holiday when Isabella stopped talking to us.

  Farouq dances behind me, his arms encircling my waist. He is taking it all in stride, committed, as ever, to having a good time.

  “Ça va?” he says into my left ear, and his warm, alcohol-laced breath tickles me.

  “Ça va,” I say, just as I spot Taiye sitting cross
-legged on the grass by a moss-covered fence. She is on the periphery of a small circle of party guests, laughing along at something a slim light-skinned man is saying.

  I pull Farouq toward the group, and we sit by Taiye. She smiles at me, and her eyes are bloodshot sleepy slits. She takes my hand in her own. “This guy is funny,” she says, swats away a mosquito that is buzzing by my nose, and turns her attention back to him.

  “Na so I been tell this my friend, ‘O girl, if you get sense you go stop to dey wear pant go man house.’ But she no like to dey hear word,” the light-skinned man says, tugging on his right ear for emphasis.

  “This kind world where we dey,” he continues, with hand gestures I identify as femme only after I notice the black matte varnish on his nails, “these men dey use their girlfriend pant dey do juju, dem dey try teef person destiny.”

  The group carries on in riotous laughter, and I attempt to translate for Farouq between bouts of my own laughing.

  “He’s saying he has this friend, and he keeps trying to warn her to stop wearing underwear when she goes home with the men she’s fucking with because some men do juju with women’s undies.”

  “Juju?” asks Farouq.

  “Black magic,” I explain, “to bring them good fortune—no, more like to steal the women’s good fortune for their own.”

  “That’s a thing?” Farouq asks too loud so that the light-skinned man hears him and replies, “Yes ke, it is something o! Who oyimbo be dis?”

  “That’s my brother-in-law, Farouq,” Taiye says. “And my sister, Kehinde.” The whole group turns to look at us.

  “Ah, where dem come from?” He laughs. “I didn’t even see them sit down. Me, I’m Star.”

  “Good to meet you, Star,” Farouq says. “I want to hear more about this juju.” Juju in Farouq’s accent sounds like joojoo, and that’s enough to stoke more laughter.

  “Ah, Kehinde, your oyimbo bobo wan sabi do joojoo for you! Na to run now!” Star claps at his own joke and we all laugh.

  Isabella is here suddenly. “Dem no sabi now.” She laughs. Eyes bloodshot, perspiration darkening the soft coral of her dress along the neckline and armpits. She continues with a hiccup. “Na ajebutter dem be, posh girls, innit.” She sways before plopping herself on the grass beside Star.