The second contraction was slow coming, so she got up and swayed to Baby’s melody. She moved to the bedroom to search for her photo album among the sparse belongings she’d brought from Lagos. She slipped her favourite photos out of the album’s plastic sleeves and rested them against the windows to keep watch over her. A picture of Aunty Akuchi smiling in her kitchen, and a black and white one of her father leaning against his bicycle, dwarfed by a row of tall palm trees behind him, stood side by side against the small kitchen window over the sink. Against one of the living room windows, Kambirinachi placed a faded picture of her mother in a bright blue gele. By the other window, she put a picture of river Orisha Osun’s shrine, which she took at Oṣogbo sacred grove when she visited with Banji three years before. Leaning against the bedroom window above their bed was a picture of Banji on their wedding day; his smile was electric and yanked her back to that day in his family’s compound. She smiled at the memory just as the second contraction doubled her over again.
When it passed, she resumed her swaying. Her alive body was an intelligent creature that knew what it needed. She decided to trust it, to move however it desired. Time was a loyal friend. Time had always loved her, so it wound forward quickly, past the pain of the many many contractions that would eventually squeeze her babies out.
Banji returned home in the late afternoon to find Kambirinachi on her hands and knees on the kitchen floor. She was cushioned by a mound of towels and blankets, a plastic jug of cold water stood by her face, and by her side a few feet away, sat a large bowl of steaming water. Banji looked at his wife, stunned. It took a moment for the scene to arrange itself with meaning so that he could make sense of what he was seeing. The splotches of bloody fluid on the kitchen floor brought it all into clear focus.
“Kambi!” he cried out, dropping his satchel and rushing to her side. “Oya, oya, let’s go to the hospital.”
But she shook her head. Kambirinachi rose up from her arms so that she was squatting with the pile of towels between her open knees.
“Too late for that, Baba,” she croaked. “Jor wash your hands quick quick.”
Banji protested while obeying, too shocked to register that the hot water was burning his hands. He returned to Kambirinachi just as she was pulling Taiye out from between her bloodied thighs. The screeching newborn entered the world with her tiny hand clasping her sister’s. Too hesitant to separate them, Banji held Taiye, in awe, while Kambirinachi pulled out the rest of Kehinde.
“WHAT A FIERCE MAMA YOU ARE!” the nurse exclaimed.
They were back at King’s College Hospital, this time on the fourth floor, in the neonatal intensive care unit. Banji, panicked by the smallness of his newborn daughters and the bloodied state of his wife, called an ambulance moments after Kambirinachi pulled Kehinde out of her body.
The nurse was a heavyset brown man with an incredible smile that revealed his gold-capped upper incisors. “You did a great job bringing these little impatient ones here. They’re late preterm, but they’re looking good at nearly four pounds nine ounces each, which is quite normal. We’ll have to monitor them here for a couple weeks …”
Midway through the nurse’s words, Kambirinachi’s eyes closed without her consent, her body convulsed, and the machines to which she was tethered by tubes and wires emitted shrill beeps.
SHE AWOKE TO THE SOUND OF HER MEWLING INFANTS. They were alone in the whole ward, she knew this. Still, there was a considerable distance of white tiles and flickering fluorescent lights between them. She rushed toward her babies, who were swaddled together in a cot across the ward. She rushed to them and found them entangled. Rail thin, emaciated, like miniature skeletons carved from splotchy mahogany, raspy whimpers escaping their small crusty mouths.
She wailed something grotesque, picked her infants up gingerly, wept salty tears onto their gaunt faces.
Then she woke up again, in the hospital, with Banji sitting by her side.
His face lit up in relief at the sight of her.
“Oh God,” he said, standing up quickly. “Oh, thank God, she’s awake!”
The gold-toothed nurse came back through the privacy curtains.
“Where are my babies?” Kambirinachi croaked.
“Don’t worry, Mama, they are in the incubators, just down the hallway.” The nurse looked at her closely. “You can go visit them soon. How are you feeling?”
“I want to be with them.”
“Yes, love,” Banji piped in, “but how do you feel now?”
“Fine.”
“You had a seizure,” the nurse said, “and then you passed out.”
“I’m fine. I want to be with my babies.”
“Of course, we’re just running a few tests.”
She turned to Banji and asked, “Baba, can we go home?”
“Of course,” he replied. “As soon as you’re discharged.”
“But can we go back home to Lagos?”
“As soon as I finish my course, then, yes, just a few more weeks. And by then the babies will be stronger, and you’ll be stronger …” Banji was looking at the nurse as he said this.
“We’ll need to run a few tests,” the nurse resumed. “And once we’re in the clear, then you can be with your babies, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Why did she have a seizure?” Banji asked.
“That’s what the tests will tell us.” The nurse placed a firm hand on Banji’s shoulder.
The doctors found nothing. Although the image of the emaciated twins was seared in Kambirinachi’s memory, she held and fed her infants, the ones who existed outside of her mind, in the same world as Banji. Within two weeks, they were discharged, and six weeks later, they were on a flight back to Lagos.
Taiye
WHAT WAS TAIYE AFRAID OF?
Though dull and lonesome, the rhythm of the life she’d found in Halifax was safe.
Safe from what exactly? Our Lady asked.
Taiye only replied, “You know.”
When she got home from the conference at the library, she drew herself a bath. Zora had made a ritual of baths, using Himalayan salts and dried rose petals and geranium and ylang-ylang oils, whispering blessings into the hot water with each drop. Taiye, however, used the least expensive lavender-scented Epsom salts she could find at the drugstore. She didn’t want to think of Zora—thoughts of her led to thoughts of Timi, pushing sadness to the surface.
Instead, after settling into the tub, she let her mind wander to thoughts of Professor Colette and her holy smoke scent.
“Of course she’s a prof,” Taiye said, a bubble of laughter escaping her.
And why does that matter? Our Lady asked.
“She’s likely too good for my bullshit,” Taiye replied. “Too smart.” She closed her eyes, slid under the surface of the perfumed water, and touched herself with no intention of climaxing but to feel fully in her body.
We all have our bullshit, baby.
INDEED, WE ALL HAVE OUR BULLSHIT. Although Taiye was still convinced she owned a disproportionate share of said bullshit, she found that immersing herself in any of her favourite vices provided some respite. Unfortunately, her favourite vices involved other people: their drugs, their bodies, their attention. So after her bath, she settled instead for immersing herself in a recipe using her new lard.
Something savoury, filling, crusty: empanadas!
For the dough, she scooped approximately four ounces of lard from the jar and melted it in the oven, and then left it out to cool slightly. She mixed the warm fat, a tablespoon of salt, a splash of vinegar, and two cups of lukewarm water in a large bowl. Gradually, she added six cups of flour, mixing it with firm hands to form a shaggy dough. She transferred the dough to the narrow flour-dusted Formica kitchen counter and sank her fingers into it, kneading until it became mostly smooth with no remaining dry spots. Then she let it rest and moved on to the filling. Taiye rifled through her small refrigerator and all the way to the back of the tiny freezer, where she found a Zip
loc bag of peeled and deveined shrimp and a small Tupperware of shito.
“Fuck, yes, shito!” she exclaimed to Our Lady.
Then she thinly sliced and sautéed an onion and four garlic cloves in fragrant olive oil and a bit of lard. While the alliums browned, she finely chopped the shrimp, along with some sad soft carrots she’d found in the vegetable crisper, and tossed it all into the sizzling pan. She used shito as a seasoning and waited until most of the shrimp had cooked to pink before setting the filling aside to cool.
The rest of the process was a simple matter of rolling out, cutting, and filling the dough, and then crimping the edges. Taiye fried the pockets in a deep pot she’d found at the Salvation Army, and when she set them aside to cool, she counted fourteen shito shrimp empanadas.
By the time she’d packed them up to share at school the next day, there were only eight left. They were delicious; she regretted nothing.
“DAMN, GIRL, YOU’RE THE REAL MVP FOR BRINGING THESE EMPANADAS.” Taiye’s classmate Ryan chewed loudly with bits of crust spewing out as he spoke.
“My pleasure,” Taiye replied, tying the belt of her white apron. They were standing at the doorway of their classroom kitchen, Ryan holding Taiye’s glass Tupperware of empanadas.
“What’s that seasoning …?” he asked, rubbing his thumb and forefinger as he tried to place the flavour he was relishing.
“Just whatever was in the shito.” Taiye shrugged. “I made it a while ago.”
“Fuck is that?” He said, laughter shaking his large body.
“What’s what?”
“Shido?”
Taiye laughed. “Shi-to. It’s a Ghanaian condiment: peppers, ginger, onions, and crayfish, all fried up.”
“Yo, that’s delicious!”
“Thank you.” Taiye smiled.
“Hey, what are you doing tonight?”
“No real plans. Might try out a pork belly recipe.”
“Sounds dope,” he said, handing the empanadas back to Taiye so he could tie his locs back and slip on a hairnet. “Also dope, my girlfriend is deejaying at the Odette tonight, and I’m trying to get a crowd going, posted it on the Facebook group.”
“I’m not on Facebook.”
“Oh yeah, no wonder! I’ve been wondering why you haven’t been coming to social stuff.”
“What’s the Odette?”
“It’s this gallery space by the waterfront, great for dancing, too.”
“Text me the info?”
“For sure!”
THE ODETTE, a small artist-run gallery and music venue on the waterfront, was a glass building, not unlike a large greenhouse. It sat slightly off the edge of the pier so that if you stood before the east-facing wall of glass, it seemed like you were moments from tipping into the ocean.
Taiye walked into the warm space, aglow with dim fairy lights hanging from the glass ceiling and lo-fi beats pulsing through massive speakers tucked in the front corners of the rooms, to find Ryan working the door.
“You came!” he exclaimed, embracing her in a sweaty bear hug.
“Thanks for inviting me.” Taiye squeezed him back. “What’s the cover?”
“Nothing for you, girl.” He waved her away. “Go get your dance on!”
She wriggled between warm flailing bodies until she was smack in the middle of the packed floor, and dance she did, with a measure of abandon. She swayed her body with her eyes closed, and time moved the way it always did whenever she got stoned—though she wasn’t stoned that night. She was bright-eyed, sober, thrilled, as if something good was waiting for her around the corner.
She opened her eyes and found herself looking past the people in front of her and down to the bar. And, of course, the professor was there. Taiye squeezed past bodies again until she was at the bar, where she smiled and nodded at Professor Colette.
“I’ve seen you around a lot lately,” the professor said, smiling back. Roguish in an oversized black jumpsuit and sipping water from a white plastic cup.
“Yeah,” Taiye agreed.
“Taiye, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m Salomé.”
“Herod’s daughter.”
“Yeah, stepdaughter.” She chuckled.
“You’re a prof, yeah?”
“Yeah, you?”
“Student.” She tilted her head toward the twinkling lights beyond the water. “Culinary program across the harbour.”
The volume of the music swelled after the drop of deep bass and a bored-looking woman beside Salomé tapped her shoulder and gestured toward the exit. Salomé nodded at the woman and shouted to Taiye, “I want to call you sometime, or text, whatever. What’s your number?”
“Give me your phone,” Taiye replied. She laughed at the brick of a phone—a relic from the early 2000s—that the woman handed over. Taiye fumbled with the tiny keypad and typed in her number. “Call me,” she said, handing the phone over.
“I will,” Salomé replied, and smiling, she headed out.
“HEY, THIS IS SALOMÉ, uh, from the Odette. I’m calling to … um … invite you to an event, uh, this Thursday at the North Memorial Library. It’s a monthly Black film series thing at seven p.m. Not school related at all, just a … uh … thing. Um, yeah, we’re watching Daouda Coulibaly’s Wùlu, it’s a Malian film, should be good, I’m rambling. Yeah, I hope you can make it, and … I’ll get off the phone now.”
Taiye listened to the message four more times. She enjoyed that Salomé seemed nervous. She listened to the message again as she stood outside the building with the words HALIFAX NORTH MEMORIAL PUBLIC LIBRARY inscribed high on its red-brick walls. Taiye lost herself, despite her eagerness to see Salomé. She became stuck fast in the rigid jaw of her anxieties. It took Our Lady’s gentle nudging to encourage her to go inside. A few steps into the library lobby, she saw Salomé standing at the entrance of the Terry Symonds Auditorium. She wore a black ball cap with gold sunflowers embroidered along the rim, and the words DESTROY WHITE SUPREMACY across the front. A black T-shirt hung loosely around her boyish frame, and a smile curved her lips as she welcomed people into the auditorium.
“Hey, Salomé.” Taiye waved meekly. She couldn’t help the smile brightening her face.
“You came!” Salomé exclaimed. “Welcome, it, um, it should be good tonight.”
“Yeah.”
“I saved you a seat,” Salomé said, “in case you showed up … which you did … as you’re here.”
They both laughed, looking at each other and nodding, until Salomé said, “Let me show you.”
Taiye followed her to the front row of the small auditorium, which was filling up quickly.
“Taiye, this is my kid, Hachim.” Salomé placed her hands on the shoulders of a tall child with thick locs and the same brown eyes as his mother, the same kid from the ferry. He looked to be about eight or nine years old.
“Nice to meet you, Hachim.”
“You too.” Hachim’s smile was a mirror of Salomé’s. “Wha-what are your pro-pronouns?” he stuttered.
“My pronouns?”
“Yeah, m-mine are he/him and th-th-they/th-them.”
“Oh, I’m … uh, my pronouns are she/her.”
“Coo-cool, I’ll remem-remember that.” The kid had an undeniable sharpness, like sparks bouncing off his body in the quickness of his gestures.
“One of my favourite things about life right now,” Salomé said, as they settled into their seats—Taiye to her right in the last place on the row, and Hachim to her left— “is that my kid is obviously far better and more interesting than me.”
Taiye smelled the smoky fragrance on Salomé’s skin and noticed the slight bend in the prominent bridge of her nose—aquiline. Taiye wanted to trace her finger along that sloping line, wanted to do away with all the preamble of getting to know each other and be kissing already.
Our Lady scoffed, Calm down.
The film was brilliant and devastating, entrancing Taiye with its astute storytelling. It was a sk
ilfully executed roller coaster of a narrative that had Taiye quite literally perched on the edge of her plastic seat. Yet, even in the partial darkness of the auditorium, she was still acutely aware of Salomé’s warm body next to hers. She wanted to pause, magnify, and live in the split seconds when their arms brushed against each other.
And that was her principal vice, wasn’t it? Desiring to be entirely consumed by any and every moment that quenched the hungry howling loneliness that sat curled down down inside herself. If she could climb down the throat of an orgasm and rest, eternal, in its belly, and if she could sink into and be sealed beneath every delicious bite of every delightful thing—oh, how she would, she would, she would. But life pushes forth, persistently, the afterglow of even the most transcendent climax will fade; every tasty thing is digested and turns to shit. Mundanity is persistent. Periods must be dealt with, blood rots, dishes must be done, everything tarnishes and ends. It’s just that beginnings are so seductive, the promise of possibilities.
Taiye comforted herself with the hope that she was at the start of what she prayed would be a particularly delicious thing with Salomé. The credits rolled on the screen before her, but her eyes were fixed on the lines of Salomé’s angular profile. She didn’t avert her eyes when Salomé turned. Instead, she leaned in closer and whispered, “Probably weird timing on my part, but I’d like to take you out for a drink sometime, if you’re not terribly busy … or dinner, or whatever you’re into?”
Salomé’s big smile accentuated the dimple at the top of her right cheek. She chuckled and said, “I don’t drink, but I’m very into dinner … and whatever.”
Butter Honey Pig Bread Page 20