Butter Honey Pig Bread

by Francesca Ekwuyasi

  But don’t they say wanty wanty no get?

  Okay, I need to catch a bus back home. I haven’t been able to sleep properly in a while, need to try today.

  Mami is worried about you. Call her.

  Always,

  Me

  I’ve decided to force Taiye to talk to me, even if I have to read her letters out loud to get her attention. It’s now 10:30 a.m. I find her lying on the grass outside by her hive. She is wearing yellow shorts and the same black T-shirt she wore when we dropped Farouq off at the airport, reading a book whose title I cannot make out, and smoking.

  “Are you high?” I ask, startling her as I sit beside her.

  “Yeah, hundred percent.” She laughs.

  “Where do you find weed?”

  “This is from Star.” She offers me the joint, and then pulls it back with a wince.

  “Taiye, I want to talk about your letters.”

  She groans. “Oh, this girl, why do you just want to stress me?”

  “I just want to talk.”

  “Okay.” She sits up. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Well,” I pull out the letter I’ve just read, “here you mention your apparition buddy. I’m just curious about it.”

  “You think I’m crazy.”

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “It’s okay if you do.” Shaking her head, she takes a drag from the joint. “

  I don’t. I’m just curious. You mentioned it a few times.”

  “Did I?”

  “You did.”

  “How many letters have you read?”

  “A lot.”

  “You think you have an idea of who I am from them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you really want to know, Kehinde?”

  “Why did you send them so late?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I didn’t send them. This girl I was sleeping with did.”

  “Salomé?”

  Taiye winces again at the sound of that name. “No.” She shakes her head. “Banke.”

  “Oh …” The picture is taking shape now.

  “Yeah, she went through my things one day, thought she was doing me a favour.”

  “So, you never intended for me to read them?”

  “I mean … at first, maybe.” She exhales loudly. “I don’t know.”

  “Why did you write me so many letters when—”

  “When what?” she interrupts me.

  “When you could have called?”

  She throws her head back in joyless laughter that hurts to hear. “Are you delusional?”

  “What?”

  “How many letters are in that box?” She gestures at the box in my hands, and her joint goes out. She pulls out a lighter to reignite it. “You know how long I’ve been writing you? You know why?”

  “Well, I’m asking you why!” I feel my body tense, and my tone grows defensive.

  “Oh my God, Kehinde!” she exclaims. “Oh my God, you’re so—” She shakes her head and chews her bottom lip. “I started writing them the year I went to live with Aunty Yemisi, after you refused to come with me. You refused to answer my calls, my texts, my emails, remember?” Her voice is low and hard, it comes out of her mouth with thick plumes of smoke that she blows away from me. “I wrote those letters because I was so fucking lonely, Kehinde.” She stamps out her joint and gets up, saying, “Because you left me.”

  I try to scramble up with her, but my body is heavier, slower.

  “Remember how you left me first?” I retort, after I manage to stand up. I feel myself growing ugly, the rage inside me swelling and licking flames into my throat. I sneer and say, “You were there, and you let that disgusting man touch me!” I swear I shed some weight as these words tumble out of me.

  Taiye’s face breaks open. She nods, as if something she always suspected has just been confirmed. She walks back toward me and, her voice softened, says, “I couldn’t move, Kehinde. I tried, but I couldn’t move.”

  “And how about all the other times?” This fury seems insatiable. I am standing behind it, weeping. “When you used to crawl into Mami’s room at night, leaving me alone for that—that man to … do you know how many times? You have no idea!”

  Tears are glistening in streaks on Taiye’s dark face. She sobs, “I’m sorry, Kehinde. Forgive me. I’m sorry.”

  She reaches for me, but I cannot bear it. I step away.

  “If I could change it, I would let it happen to m—”

  “But you can’t! I’d never want it to happen to you, but why did it have to be me?”

  Kambirinachi

  KAMBIRINACHI MAKES HER WAY INTO THE KITCHEN after awakening from a deep and dreamless sleep. She shoos the cat off the counter, where she stations herself to grate some ginger for tea, when she hears her daughters’ raised voices coming from the backyard.

  She knows.

  She walks out slowly to join them. She wa—

  Let me—

  She wants to hold them close to herself. The—

  Let me speak for myse—

  The way she did when they were sma—

  I will speak for myself.

  I want to keep them close to myself, to my chest, the way I did when they were small. When they believed in me and accepted my comfort.

  My sweet Taiye looks at me when I come through the door, but my Kehinde’s face is stone.

  I look at my daughters, this split ball of light. It’s painful what I’ve done to them, what I’ve allowed to be done to them. If I could undo it, if I must be honest—

  She wouldn’t undo their birthing, no, but the rest of the pain, yes.

  No child should ever suffer that. No child should have to eat that pain.

  “What’s going on, my loves?”

  Taiye

  TAIYE’S BEES ARE RESTLESS IN THE HIVE, buzzing louder and louder.

  Will they swarm? Is the oyin, the queen, okay?

  Coca-Cola cat walks in lazy circles at Taiye’s feet. Taiye wants to run. Every molecule in her body wants to escape this moment with her sister and their mother. There is a warm breeze rushing through the leaves above them.

  Neither she nor Kehinde has answered Mami’s question.

  “What’s going on?” Kambirinachi asks again.

  Taiye starts to speak, but Kehinde’s words are quicker.

  “What’s going on here is that my sister and I are revisiting the time when Uncle fucking Ernest repeatedly raped me. Night after night, while you two slept peacefully in the room down the hall!”

  Kehinde’s words are knives. Her face contorts in a vile sneer, but behind it is an echo of sadness, so much grief it will drown her.

  Taiye reaches toward her sister’s face to draw the sadness out, but Kehinde moves away. “Don’t touch me!” she shouts.

  Taiye tries her voice again. “Kehinde, I’m so sorry.”

  “You did nothing!”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Stop saying that!”

  “I can’t. It’s true, I failed you. And I’m sorry.”

  “Why didn’t you stop it?” Kehinde demands of our mother.

  “I didn’t know until it was too late. I’m sorry.” Kambirinachi says.

  “And you?” Her blazing eyes turn to Taiye. “You didn’t know either?”

  Kehinde

  TAIYE SHAKES HER HEAD SLOWLY AT ME. She stammers, “No, Kehinde, of course … I didn’t …”

  “You can’t tell me that!” I don’t mean to scream the way I do, but these words are tearing their way out of me. “How, Taiye?! How could you not?!”

  My breath is coming in short, rapid spurts. I inhale deeply in an attempt to regain control, but, but … I point sharply at her. “You were supposed to see me!”

  Kambirinachi

  MY KEHINDE IS A FRESH WOUND.

  My Taiye is shaking her head slowly. Her eyes don’t settle. They search and search for an answer, or a medi
cine.

  Baby’s song comes out of me in a hum, and Taiye’s eyes grow wide. She looks at me in horror.

  Taiye

  UHOW CAN A MEMORY BLOOM OPEN WITH PRISTINE CLARITY where it never lived previously? Taiye believes that she might be going mad. She remembers it vividly now: the fury in her belly, the decision to slit the drunk man’s throat, the hesitation, because—oh! It’s such a hideous thing to do. She remembers her mami’s hands guiding the knife away, then a sharp pain on her chin, and then a song—the same song that has haunted her for so long. Then the buoyant warmth and darkness of sleep.

  “I think I tried to kill him.” She rubs the scar on her chin. “Mami, what did you do?”

  Kambirinachi shakes her head and shrugs. “I couldn’t let you eat that darkness.”

  “And me?” Kehinde asks. She is crying freely, her body curved away from Taiye and her mother, one arm curled over her belly.

  “I didn’t know, Kehinde.” Kambirinachi is still shaking her head.

  “Mami, what song were you just humming?” Taiye’s hands shake; her mind spins. “Mami,” she raises her voice, “what is that song?”

  “What song, Taiye?” Kehinde asks, confusion knotting her brows tight.

  Surely, she didn’t hallucinate it, did she? Is she so stoned that she hears music where there is none?

  The screen door creaks open, and Timi’s head pops through. “I’m sorry to interrupt. Is everyone okay?” he says, looking right at Taiye.

  “Do you mind?” Kehinde snaps.

  “Don’t talk to him like that,” Taiye retorts.

  “Oh!” Kehinde scoffs. “Sorry to attack your precious Timi.”

  “Kehinde, why are yo—”

  “It’s all good, T,” Timi says, cutting her off. He holds Taiye’s gaze and gives her a small smile. “I’ll be inside.”

  “I can’t do this.” Taiye backs away from her mother and sister. “I don’t know …” She shakes her head. “I’m too high for this.”

  “You’re always too high,” Kehinde says.

  “Whatever.” Taiye walks across the garden and back into the kitchen, leaving Kehinde alone with their mother.

  Kehinde

  MY RAGE SUBSIDES SLOWLY.

  I don’t want it to leave me yet.

  Underneath it … underneath it, I don’t know.

  I feel hollow … lighter.

  Kambirinachi

  TAIYE HAS GONE INTO THE HOUSE AND KEHI—

  Taiye has gone into the house and Kehinde will not look at me.

  She stands with her body turned away from me, as if I am the enemy. As if she needs to protect the life growing in her body from me. Perhaps I am the enemy.

  How can I fix this?

  The thing that my child experienced is unbearable. And yet she bore it.

  “How can I fix this?” I ask her.

  But she only shakes her head and starts to walk away from me.

  “Please, Kehinde,” I plead her name. “Please, Kehinde. Talk to me. Tell me what I can do to mend this.”

  Her back is turned to me, yet I can see that she is shuddering. Her voice is ragged when she says, “I don’t know, Mami. I want to forget.”

  I place a hand on her shoulder, and she does not flinch away from my touch. No, she turns around and rests her head against my chest. She lets me hold her.

  There is no forgetting, but this—this holding, these tears, this closeness, the way my wounded child is letting me comfort her—it means something.

  Taiye

  “YOU OKAY?” Timi asks when Taiye walks into the guest room. He is packing his suitcase for his flight back to Amsterdam at the end of the week.

  “Timz.” She collapses onto his unmade bed. “I think I’m a little bit—” She taps her temple.

  He chuckles, folds a light blue T-shirt in a tight square, and tucks it into his bag. “Aren’t we all a little bit …?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Oya, come and help me fold some of these.”

  “How did you even fit all these clothes in your bags?”

  “Magic.”

  “Makes sense.” She shrugs weakly.

  “Okay, so why do you think you’re crazy? What happened downstairs?”

  “You know what?” Taiye sighs. “I don’t actually know.” Then she takes a ragged breath and starts to cry.

  “Hey.” Timi puts his clothes down and wraps his arms around her. “Hey, talk to me.”

  Taiye lets her tears run their course. It’s a good and thorough cry, the kind that feels like a big stretch after a deep deep sleep.

  Then she really tells him.

  A WEEK LATER, Taiye drops Timi off to catch a 4:30 p.m. flight directly to Schiphol Airport. She kisses him softly on the lips and says, “Thank you, I love you, let’s see each other more often.”

  He replies, “Bitch, I love you too.” Then he adds, “Think about the food truck idea.”

  “Let’s talk about it properly,” she replies. “Call me when you land.”

  Taiye waits until Timi goes through customs and disappears through his gate. Then she heads back to the Island, stopping at the Falomo market. In the dirty shed behind the shop, where the chickens are kept, she points to a medium-sized brown hen with a large floppy comb and has it slaughtered and cleaned.

  Back at home, she rubs the chicken generously with salt and yaji she bought from the suya guys on Bourdillon. She stuffs and trusses the bird before sticking it in the oven to roast. Then she starts to peel a small yam because when you need to make amends with your pregnant twin sister, it’s best to have a meal prepared to accompany your apology.

  Taiye slices the yam in small rectangular chunks and fries them in fragrant coconut oil. She rips apart lettuce leaves and quarters ripe tomatoes to make a salad with soft-boiled eggs and ribbons of carrot and radishes. For dessert, she mashes overripe plantains with eggs, flour, and yeast for mosa to serve alongside fresh juicy mangoes.

  Then she searches for Kehinde.

  Kehinde

  IT’S BEEN ABOUT A WEEK since my outburst in the garden, and Taiye has been steering clear of me since.

  Mami and I, however, have spent some real time together. We went to Jakande Art Market to buy new waist beads, as I’ve rapidly outgrown my old ones. I picked five strands of translucent green, gold, and red beads long enough to encircle my expanding waistline twice, and Mami paid for them. She told me about my grandparents, about growing up in Abeokuta and Ife.

  Now that we’re home, she says, “I have to show you something!”

  She leads me to the large closet by her bed and pulls out a big battered red suitcase with frayed seams and a broken metal zipper. She struggles to unzip it, so I squat beside her to help. Inside, preserved between sheets of wax paper, are stacks of iridescent paintings: bright and expressive renderings of greenery, trees, still lifes, and many many portraits of Papa, Taiye, and me.

  I have no memories of her making art, but here they are, each piece with her sloppy signature: Kambirinachi Adejide.

  “Mami, these are incredible.”

  She nods. “Thank you.” She is beaming.

  “The style—the quality of the brush strokes, the treatment, the way you use light and negative space, I do this too.”

  This is where I got it. From her.

  She nods again. “I know.”

  “Thank you so much for showing these to me.”

  “You can keep some of them, if you want.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” She takes out one of Taiye and me asleep in each other’s arms. We look to be about six years old. Our faces are identical. “Especially this one.”

  I look at the painting for a long time. “Thank you,” I say again.

  “I love you very much, Kehinde,” she says. “Please remember this truth.”

  “I know,” I say. “I wish you’d talked to me about it, about what happened.”

  “I should have.” Kambirinachi shakes her head. “I failed. And I’m sorry,
my dear. You didn’t deserve it.”

  These words, my God … “Thank you, Mami.”

  I AM STILL IN MAMI’S ROOM, poring over her paintings, when Taiye knocks at the door.

  “Good evening, Mami,” she says. “Kehinde, may I speak to you for a moment?” Her tone is formal, and she seems sober. When I am silent, she adds, “Please?”

  Mami looks from me to her with a faint smile illuminating her face.

  I follow Taiye slowly, past Coca-Cola cat curled up smack in the middle of the staircase, to the kitchen, where the delicious smell of yaji and chicken greets us.

  And then I see the small feast that Taiye has prepared for us. A golden-brown roast chicken sits at the centre of the table, a bowl of salad, a platter of fried yams, a plate of mosa and thick mango slices.

  “How’s your tummy?” she asks. “I mean, does any of this make you want to vomit?”

  “No, it makes me hungry.”

  “Okay, good.” She arranges two place settings and says, “Please sit.”

  My mouth is watering.

  “Thigh, breast?” she asks.

  “All,” I joke, but she doesn’t smile. Instead, she carves a thigh, a large chunk of the breast, and a wing, and places them on my plate. After she serves herself, she sits, and I expect her to make the sign of the cross the way our father always did before meals, but she only looks at me with sad eyes.

  “What’s up, Taiye?” I ask.

  “We haven’t really spoken since the garden the other day.”

  “You’ve been avoiding me.” I don’t mean to be so short, yet the words jump out of me with sharpness.

  “Yeah.” She nods. “Kehinde, I want you to forgive me,” she says. “You don’t have to do it right now, but I really hope that you do eventually.”

  “I—”

  “Please let me finish.” She sniffs and spreads her palms open on either side of her plate. “I’m so sorry about what happened to you. I hate it, and it haunts me, and I wish it never happened.”

  She shakes her head, and then adds, “And it wasn’t my fault.”

  Tears slide slowly down her cheeks. “I was a child, too. I wanted to stop him, but I froze, and I’m sorry. I didn’t know, at least not entirely consciously, that he’d been doing that to you all along, and I’m sorry. I need you to forgive me.”