Renegade 2y3q24

RENEGADE

By Nneoma Udoyeh

Copyright 2021 Nneoma Udoyeh

Smashwords Edition

ISBN: 978-978-993-948-0

CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgement

Author’s Note

Chapter 1: Ije

Chapter 2:Nat

Chapter 3:Ije

Chapter 4: Nat

Chapter 5: Ije

Chapter 6: Nat

Chapter 7: Ije

Chapter 8: Nat

Chapter 9: Ije

Chapter 10: Nat

Chapter 11: Ije

Chapter 12: Nat

Chapter 13: Nat

Chapter 14:Ije

Chapter 15: Nat

Chapter 16: Ije

Chapter 17: Nat

Chapter 18: Ije

Chapter 19: Nat

Chapter 20: Ije

Chapter 21: Ije

Chapter 22: Ije

Chapter 23: Nat

Chapter 24: Ije

Chapter 25: Nat

Chapter 26: Ije

Chapter 27: Nat

Chapter 28: Ije

Chapter 29: Nat

Chapter 30: Ije

Chapter 31: Nat

Chapter 32: Ije

Chapter 33: Nat

Chapter 34: Ije

Epilogue

DEDICATION

To everyone making effort to do good with their imperfect existence.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

There’s a saying that goes, “writing a book is like eating an elephant.” In a book I once read, the author countered this saying with, “writing a book is like eating a whole herd of elephants.” After actually writing one, I can say that writing a book is like eating a whole herd of elephants, but without teeth or utensils. The upside for me however was that I didn’t have to eat the herd alone.

Before anyone else I must thank my parents: my mother, Mrs Ndirika Udoyeh, for being the force that pushed this book out of the pipeline when it started to take too long to be completed. Unarguably, I may never have finished writing Renegade if not for you. Thank you for seeing a vision that even I had a hard time seeing sometimes. My father, Mr Osita Udoyeh: Thank you for believing in me and never pushing too hard but still letting me know what you wanted me to do. I appreciate your effort and your way of showing faith in me.

My siblings. We’re an awfully weird bunch but we fit well together. Obi, Adaku, Uzoma, Kachi and Ralu. I’m hesitant to be all soft and touchy with you five here because it will be inked down forever and can be used as a tool for teasing me whenever you want. But know that I appreciate each and every one of you. I have no greater cheerleaders and I will be forever thankful for a system as strong as you lot.

My Mentor, Mrs Lilian Amah, thank you for guiding me on the steps to take throughout the writing process. Thank you for picking up calls that I made at the oddest times. If not for you, I would have been stranded at many points. Thank you for believing in my message and for wanting my voice to be heard.

My Principal, Rev Sr. Matilda Adeboye. I am immeasurably grateful for all that you went out of your way to do just to see this book to its completion. I am aware that in a different school, under a different principal, it might not have been possible. Only God has such perfect timing.

Mr Bankole, the last pages of this book were typed in your office. Thank you for encouraging me even when I was tired of working. There are few people on this earth with your personality and overall attitude to life.

My friends that were aware that this book was being written: Opara Chidinma, Odigbo Uloma, Quadri Toluwalase, Ikeyi Emmaline, Okafor Princess, Nwosu Tochukwu, Mbama Therese, and Ikeyi Nkechinyere. Thank you for pushing me to write even when I was unmotivated or doubtful. Thank you for the trips to the office when you could be doing something more fun with your time. I appreciate that you all complemented my weaknesses and did your part to make this possible.

With everything in me, I thank The Trinity. Thank you for the counsel, guidance and strength that you gave me throughout this project. The very existence of this book is your answer to one of my prayers.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

What makes me, a sixteen-year-old girl barely out of high school at the time of this book’s completion qualified to write a whole book? I’ll answer this frankly — absolutely nothing. But really, if all life’s decisions were made based on whether or not we are qualified to do certain things, a lot of people who are great today would have stood in one exact spot for what could have been their entire lives.

Yes! I finally get to write an Author’s Note because I finally finished this book. Credit to my procrastination and tendency to be unmotivated, this book, my brain child, is finally being held in your hands a lot later than what should have been. But there’s nothing like the right time anyway.

In the Acknowledgements, I did my best to thank everyone that I owe this book to, but frankly, doing a thorough job of that would be almost impossible. Sometimes, entire chapters were inspired by simple conversations that I partook in or overheard, or classes that I sat in in high school and things that fellow class mates contributed during said classes. Sometimes, even a single line from a song. Safe to say, this book was a product of not only imagining what I wanted to see ed across, but of what I saw or heard while all that imagining was going on.

Of course, there were things I had to read up a bit before they made their way into this book, but the most research I did was on a personality that inspired quite a few chapters: Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Thanks to Carlos Moore’s biography on him ‘Fela: This Bitch of a Life’, it wasn’t too hard to get a full view of his life story. I had to complement the reading with some studying of my own but it was definitely Carlos Moore’s book that gave me the bulk of what I needed. If you’re not a fan of the anti-hero, you’d be wondering this: Why Fela? But really, why

not? Anti-government people are my thing. But seriously I chose Fela because he wasn’t a saint. He wasn’t a perfect person. His record wasn’t spotless. He wasn’t someone that seemed distant from the average human. He wasn’t the kind of person that we’ll see doing something good and tell ourselves: “Hey, that’s great what he did but I’m just a regular person”. Fela was literally that. A regular person. But somehow a legend. But before he became the revolutionary that he was, he was like any other person. Ultimately, he learned what was important. I suppose that was what I intended to be a core message of this book. There’s no one that isn’t a regular person. It is what we do that breaks us out of that mold of ordinary.

Another core message of this book is its emphasis on the role of youths in change. The issue of the baton of leadership being handed down to the people that deserve it is something that should be addressed. Why is the generation before mine so eager to cling to power? This message is something that I delivered not just with the story’s plot, but also with the cover design.

I sent in a document containing what I wanted to the head of my publishing team from Tebeba Publishers and they definitely took a spin on the idea. I asked for a skull and flower mesh to symbolise the need for death of old customs (both in the political and social sense) and a rebirth of new ones. In the same vein, the skull was to represent the recycled faces that we keep seeing on the seat of power and the flowers were to represent my generation. The youth. All in danger of withering because we’re being told that we’re the leaders of a tomorrow that seems to never come. Well, the skull and flowers themed cover design came in along with two others. It struck me no doubt. It was the perfect depiction of what I wanted. At the same time, it wasn’t what I needed. To put it plainly, aside from the fact that it might have been slightly too gory, it was a bit too literal for my taste. The current design that sits on the face of this book was a more subtle depiction of what I asked for. A black mask doing the skull’s job, and colourful ones doing the job of the flowers. I guess that flexibility is something I learnt from the writing and publishing of this book; along with the fact that it is important to be open to the ideas of others — something I am still learning.

Another core concern this book tackles is one that I was hesitant to write on at first. The topic of homosexuality is definitely an almost no-go in a country like mine. I didn’t write on the issue of homophobia with just my country in mind, but every place where this issue exists. I must say that it was a bold move, but I must also it that it was one that I was unsure of initially. In the end, I decided that there was no point in spending all my time writing my book and only ing across half of my message because of something as irrelevant as a fear of how other people will receive it. Hence, I addressed what I felt needed to be addressed, especially as regards the way some people use their religion as a reason to dehumanise homosexuals. It’s bizarre really, because I think it should be abundantly clear to see that doing something like that is counter-productive. People aim to spread their message through condemnation and also hope that this condemnation will be what “changes the mind” of homosexuals by some illogical magic. It shouldn’t be so difficult to see that such a method wouldn’t exactly reap the results that religious homophobes hope for.

If you’re really observant you’d notice that I never outrightly mentioned the name of the country in which the book’s events are set even if the character’s names, some historical allusions, and other such giveaways would make it obvious. I did this because I believe that a lot of the things that this book focuses on are universal. That’s also one of the reasons the characters come from different places: To lay emphasis on the universality of the message.

All in all, Renegade has in many ways been a hell of a journey for me. I’ve learnt tons of new things. If it isn’t obvious enough from the way I sometimes used lessons to set off the events of some chapters, learning is something I genuinely love. This will most definitely not be my last book, but for now, it’s what I’m done with. Everything in this book is deliberate. Everything that could be a symbol is a symbol. Read it. Then read it again. My sincere hope is that it will never be done with you.

Chapter 1 Ije

"Alcohol doesn't make you do insane things you would never have done. It gives you the courage to do the things you always wanted to do but never had the balls to." Udo had told me this once, on a dry Saturday when he sat on the patio sipping from a glass of gin. I was seated comfortably on the ottoman beside him as I wrote on the scenery before us. But I was listening. As long as it was Udo talking, I would always be attentive. Even if from time to time he spoke on the most obscure things.

"I for instance," he continued in his deep baritone voice that rung through like music—the way he sounded when he was personally enjoying any one of his narratives—"have done every insane thing that I have ever sought out to do." He paused, taking a long swig from his drink. "But insanity, my lovely sister, is never full. Life is sporadic bursts of insanity believe it or not. But you Ije,"

He stopped for effect. Udo had that ability to talk about the littlest things like it was the biggest secret you could get hold of, and you were special because he was letting you in on it. He probably got it from Father. I suppose that's how he — Father— had managed to make his millions over the years. The way he looked at me during the drag of time made me want to laugh. A loud summer worthy guffaw that he had called pretty. I had to smother the giggles that threatened to come out with the back of my palm. He was taking this quite seriously, and I didn't want to ruin it, even if I could see the light in his eyes that let me know that he was holding back a laugh of his own.

''…you would do insane things when you're drunk because you have never tasted insanity in sobriety." He rubbed his palms like he had just revealed to me one of

life's deepest secrets. I suppose that in a way he had. "In summary, lightweights are people who haven't tasted life."

That was the conversation that ran through my head as Father's tipsy friends swayed out of the house on heel clad feet and ill-fleeting suits.

We always threw our New Year’s party in the fourth week of January rather than at the beginning. My father always said, “if you want something big, do it at its peak." Our New Year’s party was definitely always the biggest every year. I detested my father, but at the same time I couldn't but acknowledge his initiative.

I stood at a corner of the dimly lit room and watched as it emptied till it was only Udo and his best friend, Neso, remaining. Neso was awfully similar to Udo, not in looks but in personality. They both had a certain charismatic air that surrounded them and everything they did. They had a natural flamboyance in every movement they made. Every flick of the wrist and turn of the neck. It was always captivating. Unlike my father, they seemed innocently unaware of it.

They sat, talking as they always did, in a manner that suggested distance. A distance between them and the rest of the world; between their ideas and actions and that of other people, simply because, let's face it, the likes of Udo and Neso were hard to come across. They sipped from their mixture of Sherry and Coke, an insanely intoxicating mixture that seemed to have no effect on them.

They had tasted life.

As Neso rose to leave, his eyes roamed the room, searching as they always were. His head stopped in my direction and he smiled a dazzling white smile with one

of his front teeth chipped at a corner. He was an enigma to me. Living a life I could only dream of. Such irony. He grabbed his cane and walked out — hardly using it, leaving an air of mystery and life in his wake.

I walked over to Udo, taking a seat in the chair that Neso had occupied. Even in something as small as a piece of furniture that I owned, I felt out of place because he had sat in it. It was ridiculous, but I couldn't get over him. Well not him, his essence. I wasn't sure if I liked him per se, but I liked his personality, his charisma, his energy, and most of all his deficiency. Was that stupid? Should you like someone for the way their minds worked and not the way they looked? Or the fact that they had a pair of useless eyeballs but still seemed to see perfectly fine. Is that just as ill-placed? Just as shallow?

"You seem far away." Udo stated, as he sipped from his glass and scanned the now empty room, save for a cranberry red, suede heel that sat abandoned beside the large, brown, Italian, leather couch.

To think that my father's friends will be corporate enough to not get drunk out of their minds.

"I'm just enjoying this ostentatious evening that I'd rather be burning in the fire of Hades than be present for," I said my voice dripping with sarcasm — aside from the Hades part. That might as well be true. A little overstated but close enough to the truth.

Udo let out a low laugh.

"It's pretty much over," he said hardly hiding the relief in his voice. "Aside from

the vote of thanks Father is giving to his 'higher' guests."

I wonder how someone can arrive at a party fully aware that they are second class guests. If you weren't an investor or partner, you already knew what time to leave. Including family and friends. Father was definitely the ideal family guy.

“To stuck up fathers and…” he kept his arm suspended in the air, raising his glass. Eventually he shrugged, a light dancing in his eyes. “…a lack of an ending for our toast.” He stated comically.

I let out a small giggle.

I looked over at Neso's glass that sat abandoned on the table, my fingers inching towards it. An image of Neso drinking from the glass, raising it to his lips with ease, crossed my mind. I rose it to my lips. Imitating the foggy image of Neso that was etched in my memory as much as I could. I knocked back more than half its contents, slamming the glass on the table unceremoniously as the alcohol went straight to my head. I looked up in a haze to see Udo's bewildered eyes set on me.

"What?" I asked, probably with an inappropriate amount of levity. "You said to toast."

Udo blinked quickly as if finally snapping out of whatever trance he might have been in.

"Yes, I did," he said in disbelief "but I didn't think you'd actually do it."

I shrugged, continuing to sip from the glass even though I was a bit underage. Just a year actually.

"I've been full of surprises lately."

"That you have."

Adanma walked over to us, her face mirroring ours.

"You've finally arrived to us." Udo said. "Welcome to the 'I'd really like to get the hell out of here' club."

"More than anything." Adanma said, her voice like music. She was beautiful. Stunning actually, with her high cheek bones and dark eyes. Her thick hair shone with volume and her conservative curves made her all the more alluring. I was more than proud to call her my sister.

Ada took the cup from my hand and took a gulp. Her eyes widened in horror and disbelief as she glanced between Udo and me then back at the cup. She was teetotal.

"You let our little sister drink alcohol!" She exclaimed in utter disbelief. She was still trying to wrap her head around the prospect of me not being a teetotaler and

of Udo encouraging it.

"He didn't particularly coerce me into it," I quipped feeling the need not to let Udo into Adanma's kind of trouble. She was a pretty little thing at first glance but a bit of a tiger once you got to know her. "Drinking was all my idea."

She gawked at me in scepticism, her face one of raw incredulity.

"And why in heaven's name will you want to do that?"

I shrugged, thinking of the best way to answer the question. Something that Udo had once told me came to mind.

"At the cusp of drunkenness an inner strife is discovered which — if properly utilised — can make one capable of doing what one never realised." I did my best to sound philosophical. "That and the fact that the idea of drinking rain for the rest of my life doesn't really excite me."

I peaked at Udo with my side eye. The pride in his eyes was evident.

Adanma did her best to hold a faux scowl but I could see the ghost of a smile that played on her lips.

"Ije, I swear when you're talking and when you're silent it’s like two completely different people."

I laughed looking round at them, wanting to freeze the moment and stow it away forever. These were my people. A life without them couldn’t possibly exist.

Chapter 2 Nat

We were sitting on the damp soil at the foot of her tombstone, listening to the eerie stillness of the wind and watching with longing as the fireflies let out inconsistent sparks against the consistent mold of darkness and moonlight.

The alcohol buzzed in my system, making me feel numb and at the same time, sharpening my senses. The ground felt like it was vibrating, like the heartbeat of every creature that inhabited the soil was moving in sync and creating a steady symphony.

"Nat?" His voice tapped at the allaying motionlessness that currently engulfed us. The weakest I had ever heard it.

I looked over at him, not wanting to speak, respecting the cloud that mourning had plunged him into. Besides, that wasn't what he needed, if I were to speak, he wouldn't hear me. He wasn't here. He was in some place far away.

A place with walls fabricated from grief. Grief. Impenetrable yet fragile. Indestructible yet vulnerable. Like the air that surrounds us. You could never separate a single division of the air and break it, or bore through it and get to the other side. In that sense, air is invincible. Yet you are completely able to damage it. Raise a hand and drop it. In two seconds, you have changed the arrangement of the air around us, rippling it and ruining it.

Just like that.

Just as easily, he could be damaged right now. He probably already was.

"She was beautiful," he murmured, almost like he forgot anyone else was here. He let out a puff of cigarette smoke and for a moment focused on nothing but the grey fog that formed right in front of him, fusing with the atmosphere.

His eyes watered, a wet film forming over his irises.

I really wanted to believe it was the smoke.

"She was all I needed and she thought she wasn't enough," he let out a low laugh as full of mirth as darkness was light. "How ironic, I thought she was a lot more than I deserved."

He pressed his cigarette butt to his arm, wincing at the pain, I grabbed it and flung it aside. My eyes focused on the red circle that formed and the several faint others on his pale arm.

"But I didn't ever tell her that, did I?"

His eyes looked tired and tormented, like the image was burnt and iron pressed into every inch of his mind’s wall. He took a long swig out of the frosted vodka bottle, not even wincing as the liquid moved through the length of his neck.

He was numb inside and out.

"Sometimes I still see her you know," he whispered as he tilted his head slightly sideways and a tear slid down his left cheek. "On the couch, in the kitchen making my favorite breakfast, in the service home attending to people. That was her life’s work, you know?"

His eyes were directly leveled with her tombstone now, but I was sure he could see through the thick concrete. He was glancing into old memories that engulfed him tenderly first, then began to sting and squeeze until his consistent fair skin was ridden with long red scars.

Memories of his home, memories of his mother, and of course memories of his monster.

He lit another cigarette.

"It hurts more because I know she didn’t want to die. Not anytime soon. She would have loved to watch me do all the things I’d told her I want to spend my life doing.” His features hardened. “But him, he ruined that.”

I closed my eyes and spoke his name, trying to drag him out of his memories. The last thing I wanted was for him to relive that day.

He didn't even glance in my direction, his voice came out choked and strangled,

like the memories were crushing him, squeezing out his essence.

“He beat her so bad that day. And he knew she was already sick, didn’t he?” He put his head in his hands. “Sometimes I wonder how someone like her ended up with such a monster.”

He was whispering now, the way wind whispered against shattered glass. He looked tranquil yet agitated, like he was grateful for the pain that had ed but already dreading what was to come.

"But I'm happy you're not here to go through what you did. Sometimes on my behalf."

He stopped and inclined his head skyward, trying to get a reign on his emotions.

He didn't need to. I was here for him.

His hands went limp at his sides and he just stared at the tombstone. His lips, barely visible through the thick fog, forming his mother's name. I could hardly see but I was sure that's what he was doing, that's what he always did at times like this.

Benita Perez.

I could feel a shift in him. This wasn't the Carlos I had known all these years.

You could hardly put his name and sad in the same sentence. His mother’s death in many ways had changed him.

He fell to his knees and wailed, pounding on the ground and screaming until his throat was raw. I rushed to his front and dropped to my knees too, holding him tight and letting him cry.

I wanted to be close to him so he could feel something concrete. He needed to what reality was and what his imagination was. I would be his helper to divide the two.

"It's going to be okay, bro," I told him as patiently as I could. "Believe it or not one day it wouldn't hurt as much. Even if it does, I'd be there for you."

Eventually there was silence.

A silence more comfortable than that which had weighed heavily on us for the last three hours.

"Nat?" He called out to me; his voice less vulnerable but still as fragile.

"Yeah, bro?" I answered him, staring at the shadows that I felt, in some twisted yet lulling way, held life.

"You're the closest thing to family I have right now." His voice was pained and

strangled but raw and honest.

The sounds of nature had quietened and the effect of the alcohol had worn of. I no longer felt any vibration below my feet, only stillness. I missed the buzz that made reality seem far away.

"Promise me something." I said to him, as I raised my eyes skyward identifying constellations in the dark but illuminated sky.

"What?" He answered faintly. But somehow his voice echoed around me, carried by the wind that surrounded me.

"Please," I said to him, hearing the desperation in my voice and letting it be. "Don't die while you're still alive."

Chapter 3 Ije

A figment formed from my deluded, over-stimulated mind.

That's what I had decided to call what was going on before me.

A plethora of emotions hacked at my conscious as I watched the scene that played before me with veiled eyes, believing in my disbelief that this could be possible.

The night after the party, as Udo and Neso made their way back from one of the restaurants that they regularly had dinner in, they had been in an accident. The driver of the other vehicle that was in the collision had been under influence.

My feelings were numb to everything and everyone that wasn't Udo at this point. I couldn't even be angry at the other party, but by what the doctors had told me, he—whoever he was—was in a much better state.

Neso was in a wheelchair beside me, he was in a sorry state by the doctor’s report I had gone through about half an hour earlier, but he definitely didn't look it. Other than three parallel slits at the lower left corner of his neck and a bruise on his left cheek bone, he could for a light fever at worst.

We were positioned in front of the large transparent theatre glass at the other side of which Udo was undergoing surgery. His left lung had taken a huge blow and there was major fracture to his left leg. To top it all off, his spinal cord had been horribly damaged.

It was times like this that you realised that all the difficult events of your past you thought were life shattering were nothing but preparation.

Neso and I watched as the surgery progressed as hours melted into each other. Sense of time was meaningless and in a contradicting way we didn't want the surgery to be over. We watched as the steely determination on the surgeons faces morphed into something mournful and pitiful, like they were already telling us he was dead. We watched with hearts weighed down by trepidation and fear.

My gaze drifted to the ceiling and then back to the glass.

It had always been like this for me. I had always been an outsider looking in when it came to situations like this. People around me died all the time and I never imagined it could be me. My friend, Naomi, lost her twin sister two weeks ago. My cousin lost her mother, the one who was married into my family name and didn't have the actual blood in her but I was supposed to acknowledge as my aunt.

Death had never actually reached me. It may have come close through relatives and friends, but now I felt stupid for never acknowledging that I may not be immune to its scourge.

I might have known that my odds were stacked at a hundred to none right from

the time those six surgeons — the best hands that money could buy — clothed in blue from top to bottom on that horrific Sunday, waltzed into the theatre with too much belief in themselves.

I felt Neso's hand in mine, warm and tingly. When I looked over to him, his shaded eyes were still facing the transparent glass even if he couldn't see what was on the other side.

My grip on his hand tightened.

We were definitely going to do something really stupid in the near future.

But don't look at me — at the time I didn't know that yet.

*

The day of Udo's death was like any other day, for anyone who didn't know about it.

But for me, it felt tainted.

It was like the day had looked into stained glass and caught a glimpse of its reflection. Shapeless and amorphous.

It was the kind of day that you couldn't prepare for. One of those days that had a firm and strong timetable that just cannot be followed no matter how much you tried.

It felt like every event set for that day would fail and the memories of any plans that were made will fade into pale nothingness.

The day was stained and marred. In a way you didn't know nor understand, but felt. And sometimes the things that you were only able to feel without understanding were stronger, surer and less malleable. They were more unequivocal. You can't argue with them because you do not know the basis. You just feel.

The way you feel your spirituality.

The way you only feel breeze without being too sure what it’s made of.

The way you feel emotional pain without being able to deduce why you felt like you were being squeezed.

And I wondered if I would have felt the eerie garb that today wore if I never had the chance of knowing Udo.

I stared at the odd-looking fruit at the center table that my mum's friend, Aunt Mindy supplied. They were soft Japanese plums Aunt Mindy had brought in from Europe. Mother was quite the fruit fanatic and all the center, side, and

ornament tables, not to mention Father’s award shelf were stacked with bowls of odd looking, spiked, heart shaped, bristled, round, hard backed and oblong featured fruits.

This particular fruit was scarily fragile. Brightly coloured but pale and translucent.

I broke out of my reverie as the front door unlocked and my sister, Adanma, walked in. Her amber skin had lost its sheen and her eyes were puffy and swollen.

I dropped the fruit back on top of the pyramid-like pile of its peers and as I stood up and strode towards Ada, the happenings of the past days crashed down on me like a colossal weight. I embraced her and cried till it seemed like I would never stop and I had hiccupped so much that my chest was tight and knotted.

My mother ed in the hug and Father just stood there, watching. Like an outsider looking in. His hands were limp at his side and his face wore a mask of something that resembled sympathy rather than sorrow. Like he couldn't feel our pain, but he was awkwardly sorry that we were in pain.

I clung to Ada, thinking but at the same time not being able to put anything unto the canvas of my mind. Full of sorrow and empty of life, I looked at my father. Or maybe past him.

The fruit that I had placed at the top of the pyramid toppled down, and a sound like a slab of meat being flipped over on the butcher's table reverberated around the room as the plum made with the freshly polished hard wood floor.

That was when father began to cry.

Chapter 4 Nat

I woke up to bright white light that stung my eyes at the corners as my brain thumped a harsh rhythm against my skull.

My right arm had been slit with a jagged piece of glass and the pain throbbed and pulsed like there was a heartbeat buried in it. A clean sterling white bandage was wrapped around it in a way that I couldn't see the blood that I was sure was there. I was in a private hospital. The blinding white walls confirmed that. There were no chips at the corners and no inconsistent tones. The equipment looked well maintained and the furnishing had the sheen that suggested that they were accustomed to the harsh glow of electricity.

A second of confusion and a moment of clarity and the happenings of the night before (or maybe two nights, or however long I had been unconscious), came crashing down on me.

My brain was on overdrive.

Carlos.

The other car.

We could be convicted. We could be thrown in jail.

The middle-aged nurse with a dark mole at the side of the stubble on her chin walked in. She was sturdy and there was a heavy masculinity about her features. Her shoulders were broad and straight rather than sloping downward like a female's. Her jaw was firmly set with harsh angles and distinct curvature. She had hairy arms, hairy legs, hairy everything. I couldn't help but think that she would have been far better off if she was born a man.

"You're awake," she said, bored as she looked over some documents on her custom-made clipboard with the bright red and healthy cartoon heart branding of the hospital slapped unto the clipboards back.

She was Igbo. I could tell from the way the 'e' in her awake was strongly articulated. The thought of her being transgender crossed my mind for a brief second. Maybe she had missed a hormone appointment.

She looked at me with unmistakable apprehension and there was a sneer on her lips that wrinkled her large mole so that it looked like the dried prunes mother had after dinner. Confusion then guilt. That was what I felt as reality dawned on me. I had become a statistic. One of the many drunk drivers that caused accidents and took lives. The thought that the other enger could be dead crippled me for a long second and I shivered.

Even if I hadn’t been driving, I had let Carlos drive. At that moment I would have let him do whatever he wanted if it meant he wouldn't cry anymore.

"Someone will like to see you," the nurse said to me as she opened the hospital

room door to leave. A man in a wheelchair wheeled himself in and set himself a few inches beside me. There was a pair of dark shades sitting loosely on the bridge of his nose that covered his eyes completely. He had an easy demeanour. He gave off this ‘come hither’ vibe that made me calm, and relaxed.

"So, you're one of the lovely lads that killed my best friend." The words left his lips easily. Like music. Like a lullaby. Like a steady waterfall that burnt my insides and froze my heart for what seemed like a millennium. "Just one or two scratches on you from what I heard from your lovely nurse," he continued. There was a benign and dangerously genuine that smile played at his lips as he murmured to himself. "Fantastic."

He swirled in his chair to leave and I hesitated momentarily before calling out for him to wait.

He swirled again, wheeling a little closer this time.

I was fazed for a moment. Not sure what to say and regretting calling him back. It was awfully awkward.

I eventually settled for a limp, pathetic apology.

"I'm sorry." I whispered and then wished that I hadn't said anything.

He brushed off my apology, folded it neatly and tossed it in a furnace with a slight wave of his arm.

"We're not pressing charges," he said simply and I felt my heart fall.

"Why not?" I all but screamed. I deserved jail.

He took off his sunglasses and I was stunned to silence. Where his eyeballs should have been were two pinkish pulps of flesh with inconspicuous veins running through them.

"Horrid, isn't it?" He smiled lightly. But for the first time in the fifteen minutes I had known him, it was etched with something heavy. Regret.

"Three years ago, I was just like you and your troubled friend. My father is British and my mother is from her but I spent most of my time in England." For a moment it irked me that he had referred to Carlos as 'troubled'. But I let it go. Besides it wasn't a far cry from the truth. I wasn't surprised that he had spent time abroad. He had an underlying accent that he seemed to be struggling to suppress, but I could hear it in the way he pronounced 'Igbo' like there was a 'w' at the end and I couldn't hear some of his 't's'. His skin was the lightest caramel that I had ever seen but I could tell that it was somewhat darker than it once was from his lighter feet in the leather sandals he had on.

“Father and I decided to pay a visit to mum's hometown." He told the story with an undecipherable tone; something almost wistful but at the same time heavy. Like he had accomplished something from his stay. Found something beautiful — then maybe lost it.

"I had a flight for the next morning but for reasons that I can’t even , I got mad at my dad and did something stupid. Then I got in an accident just like this one. A man and his daughter were in the car. Her dad didn’t make it. Needless to say, I didn't go back to Britain. My father says it's because he feels closer to my mum but we both know it's some form of punishment. So, I schooled there and lived here. But I kind of like it really. And I still see the girl. Fourteen years old now. As a matter of fact, I would have been at her birthday party today if you hadn’t decided to drive into my best mates Bentley."

His expression flickered to one of shame and his sarcasm died as he tilted his head slightly to the side.

"But I'm no better."

"I was drunk. Just sixteen." He said not putting his glasses back on. I was tempted to ask him to. It took a lot of willpower to keep a look of indifference on my face. Even if he couldn't see me, it still felt rude to appear grossed out by someone else’s appearance. I was getting a bit nauseous.

"It was a form of stupid rebellion, you know?"

It didn't look like he was asking me. It was like he was talking to a mirror reflection of himself and seeing regret, retribution. "I was mad and the first thing I thought to do was steal my father’s car and get piss drunk. No one does that here you know, it's against cultural values and what not. The height of disrespect. I was the bratty child who messed up the way everyone expected him to."

"There was a sharp turn at the corner and the stoplight was blaring red but I

thought to myself: 'who's on the road at two in the morning?'" He let out a melancholic chuckle that chilled me.

"The car came into my line of sight when there was barely anything I could do, especially as a rookie driver." There was a look of distance and pain on his face, like he was reliving that day all over again. "There was a little girl at the backseat, she got out unharmed, but her dad," his voice croaked like if he had eyes, he would have been crying, "he died on impact."

"Me? A shard of glass nicked one eye and a piece of hot metal pocket picked the other. Someone died and I get a little makeover." He was coming back, the man that I had seen when he first wheeled himself into the room. "The girl, she visited me in my hospital room when she found out I was here. She even gave me these glasses. She had them on when she was in the car that night. They were her dad's," he examined them like he had never seen them before, I suppose he hadn't and still couldn't

"But you, you got out of that crash and lost nothing. You can see, you can hear, you can walk, you can taste, you can feel." He let out a sarcastic drawl. "Don't worry about the fact that we're not pressing charges, you wouldn't need a bloody jury. Sometimes you'd want to slit your own throat. I know I did and I can't see blip."

"But don't hurt yourself, just, be good to people. It's a lot better than devastating the people in your life that do care about you." He placed the shades back on his eyes and made to leave.

"And before I forget," he reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and placed an envelope at the foot of my hospital bed. "This is for you."

When he left I picked it up and examined it.

It was an invitation to the dead man's funeral.

Chapter 5 Ije

Life belongs to the living and those who live must be prepared for change. My Literature teacher had mentioned this once; right before I noticed it framed in the school hall, with the name of a man whose name I had never once heard prior to that moment typed in heavy font at the bottom left corner of the framework.

The word ‘prepared’ was funny to me. It made me mad in a way that I didn't understand but acknowledged. How does one prepare for death exactly? It wasn't like a wedding rehearsal or drama practice or studying for a final exam. It was what it was and it was death. But tenses couldn't be applied in death, could it? Death is, was and will continue to be. It cannot be paused; it is in a continuum. Like time, like your best or worst TV marathon, so is death. An ending and a beginning, a departing and arriving, not to be questioned, timed or constructed.

I screamed into my pillow.

It had been two weeks since his death. It had been two weeks since I had done something productive with my life. I glanced at the clock on the wall opposite my bed. It was 7:13am. I lay facing the ceiling and I saw a beautiful slideshow of memories neatly interwoven play in front of me. Udo laughing, Udo teaching me how to ride a bike, Udo learning how to drive, Udo crashing the car for the first time (many times came after that), Udo cooking, Udo throwing out what he cooked, Udo smiling in his blue winter jacket from when we took a trip to the United States last Christmas, Udo laughing some more.

The slide show sort of dissipated, crackled then disappeared. Like a gift from a faraway guardian. And I was laughing and crying and rolling over in my bed as the tears rolled down my cheeks in a state of absolute joy and hysteria. And for the first time since his death, I felt something that resembled happiness.

*

The little slideshow, as I had resolved to call it was what got me out of bed that morning and several mornings after that. Days melted into each other and the next week flew by. I found myself in bed the next Saturday, awake once again at 7:13am.

There was a light and hesitant knock on my door and I knew it was Mother. I raised a hand to knock on my bed post signifying that she could come in. The door opened revealing the short and thin frame of my mother. She was so normal. No stunning features, no curves, no alluring manner of speaking. She was bland to put it simply. Nothing was special about her. She didn't have a good heart or an intelligent brain and if she did, I didn't know about it.

But what she did have was an expansive chest that was in no way proportional to the rest of her body. It was probably more than ten percent of her body weight and seemed to propel her forward. Needless to say, it was a terrible mismatch to her awfully flat backside.

"Hello, Ije."

Those were the kinds of greetings mother gave me. Like I was a stranger. But in some ways, I suppose I was. We were indeed strangers to each other. She knew

nothing about me, but I was her daughter. How much does that really count for though? Father owns a grill and he knows nothing about grilling. But it’s a rather impressive display during Christmas when his friends came around. Of course, they never actually grilled anything but it was there. Representative of wealth and luxury and the ability to procure what you will never use as children are symbolic of fertility and… and what else really? Anyway, owning, rather having, children was still quite the feat in mother’s circle of friends and I wondered why she wouldn’t have more. Not that I was interested in any more siblings of course.

I put a small smile on my lips in reply, I almost couldn't contain the fact that I loathed her; and even if she had never outrightly said it, there was a way she interacted with me that made me know the feeling was mutual. But probably ten times more intense on her part. And I really didn't know why.

"I thought you might want to see your shrink before the funeral next week," she stated, fiddling with her robe. None of them ever quite fit.

Geez...I wonder why

I nodded. I wanted to see her too.

I had been meeting with my shrink, Nkem, as she had told me to refer to her, for nearly two years. My parents realised that my behavior was alarmingly antisocial. It had been that way for a while, but they had decided to do something about it considerably late. Nkem was their solution to the problem. And indeed, she had made me better at associating with people.

I could still my first meeting with her clear as day in the same booth

in the homey café she had singled out for us. I had taken an almost instant liking to her. She was something else. Something special. Even if it had taken me a good number of months to open up to her, I can never a day that I regretted it.

Mother placed a cold palm on my cheek, then she just left it there. Limp and feeble, like some awkward and failed attempt at affection.

I leaned back slightly and undetectably so that her cold palm fell to her side.

She made no efforts at 'comforting' me after that and left the room quietly and unceremoniously. The air felt cleaner.

*

The journey to the cafe was simple and practiced. The streets hadn't changed and the air was heavy with smoke and a pungent stench from the open gutters that made me blanch. I curtsied towards the lady that sold akara balls and she returned it with a broad grin that displayed her golden tooth.

I swiftly and cautiously crossed the intersection and then made my way over to the other side of the road to avoid the large leashless dog that was strutting confidently by its owner, pink tongue flopping about on full display.

I walked into the café with care to avoid the shrill ring of the overhead bell that caused everyone to look towards the door at the sound. From my position at the

door, I surveyed the brightly lit room and spotted Nkem, perusing a paper back at the secluded booth that we sat at for every appointment.

The familiarity was soothing.

I walked up to her and slid in, waiting for her to notice me.

One Missisi-

She looked up at me through her gold-framed glasses and pushed one of her thick braids out of her eyes. A toothpaste-advert worthy smile soon followed.

"Ije!" Sometimes I couldn't hide my shock at the fact that she was always genuinely excited to see me. "You're early."

I shrugged, giving her a sideways grin.

I was always happy to see her too.

She handed me a wrapped parcel and gestured for me to open it. I carefully undid the bow that held everything together and lifted out a white hard back book with gold vines running across the length of it.

I opened the first page and noticed the slip of transparent files over it. Same for the next and the next.

It was an album.

I looked up at her, smiling.

She held up a hand and lifted something else out of her bag, a Polaroid camera; white with the same patterns of the hardback. I all but screamed really, excited at the unexpected gift.

I slipped around the booth and gave her a hug that could crush her and she laughed a silvery laugh that I wished I could hear all the time.

“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” I wasn’t used to getting things without an occasion.

“Anything for you, Ijem.”

My heart warmed at that because I knew she meant it.

"How have you been?" She asked, fiddling with her hair again. "Met anyone?" She wiggled her eyebrows. But I knew that when she said anyone, she meant literally anyone.

I shook my head firmly.

"How about you?" I asked, attempting to wiggle my eyebrows the same way she did hers.

"Actually..." she began hesitantly. No way. "I did meet this special person."

I giggled in anticipation. Itching to hear who this person could be. As far as I knew, Nkem was in her thirties and single.

"Who?” I asked, eager to know and hating the suspense.

She leaned in and lowered her voice like she was about to divulge a secret larger than the Milky Way.

"Ije." We both laughed, and Nkem’s was so smooth and clean that it sent heads turning in our direction. Faces that we ignored. Nothing mattered because in these special moments we could be whatever and whoever we wanted. Never mind that Nkem was well into her thirties.

I stopped for a moment and observed her. The way the light hit her perfectly and her face morphed into something that belonged in a different time—a different world.

I lifted my camera and captured her.

The first photo for my album. And the only word that could perfectly describe the moment was serendipity.

Chapter 6 Nat

There was a dark wall. Or was it white? Or was there even colour? And there were vines like veins or were they veins like vines that seemed to stretch and stretch till I couldn’t imagine them going any further. They came for me as I ran from them till my legs were nonexistent and my lungs felt like they were ready to collapse in on themselves. And even then, I ran. But the vines– the veins— they were too fast. Too strong. Too determined to choke me that there wasn’t any other possible outcome than for it to happen. And when I squeezed out a final breath, I collapsed lifeless and at peace, in a sardonic and depressing kind of way. But even then, it seemed like I wasn’t destined for rest.

I woke up in a film of sweat, wheezing for air. My head felt like it had been stuffed full with cotton and even in a supposed to be familiar place like my childhood bedroom, I felt lost, drained, beaten.

Dreams like that had become the norm since the accident. My mother was beyond furious when she arrived to pick me up from the hospital, but, like always, on making eye with me, she could see my vulnerability. Unhesitant, she let her anger drown by the doting love she had for me. A love that I was aware that I didn’t deserve. At least not to enjoy on my own.

I heaved out of bed, padding to my bathroom with heavy steps. I held my side, feeling pain pulse from the healing but still bruised ribs. The wall of veins crossed my mind in a fleeting moment and I was reminded that a couple of bruised ribs was a small price to pay for my recklessness. I turned the handle of the leaky tap and splashed the cold water unto my face, pausing for a moment as I enjoyed the way the water felt against the inside of my long finger nails. Like

my hands were a water wheel and my nails were the beaters but not quite. I leaned back, examining myself momentarily in the bathroom mirror. I looked notably older. Tired and haggard like a musician trying to get his big break. My features drooped, and there was a faint crease in my forehead.

I placed my hands beneath the tap and in the way of the running water a final time, and raised the water to my face. I took a deep breath, pausing to examine the way the water made my eyebrows point a bit more sharply at the end and defined my eyes. My eyes. Of all my features, I was probably the proudest of them. Oddly coloured orbs that seemed to sparkle in a queer way that was both complimented and contrasted by the light. A mixture of a gold and brown hue that somehow dragged people in.

They were the eyes of an extrovert. Someone who could work a room. My mother told me that anyway; she said that I had got them from my father, and that he was like that and so was I. The idea that I resembled him in any respect appalled me.

I rolled my shoulders back as I exited the bathroom, stopping at my study desk and collapsing on the spinning chair that came with it. I swirled once and stopped the chair, placing my foot against the base of the desk. My eyes came in with the one thing that I had been avoiding all week. The invitation sat untouched at the upper left corner of my desk. I didn’t have to look at it to that today was the day. That probably explains why last night’s dream was particularly intense.

I reached for the crisp envelope and thumbed what seemed to be a family crest, vividly embossed at the front’s centre. So, I had not only been an accomplice in the murder of a man but of a man who came from money.

I heard my mother’s breathing at the doorway of my room before I saw the shadow of her feet through the crack below the door. I had been hiding the envelope from her, worried of what she will make me do. More worried that she will leave the choice to me, for me to do what I wanted to do or to disappoint her.

But how could one disappoint all that he had.

The door handle creaked and I raised my head to see my mother’s frame in the door way. She was stunning even at this time of the day, and she radiated a kindness that I was all too willing to receive. All too needy of. I could only smile. One that I was sure didn’t reach my eyes if it had even reached my lips.

She came in cautiously, worried for me. I could see it in her steps and in the rise and fall of her shoulders. I could see that she knew my current feelings. Despair, guilt, anguish. Feelings that I am not even in tune enough with to speak of even in my own head. Even to a silent reader I’m sure will keep my secrets. The secrets of my fragility. The secrets of my strength. Only as sturdy as sawdust on a wooden block on a windy day. Ready to be blown away. Predetermined to be blown away.

Because maybe in a certain sense, things that disappear so quickly might have never even been there.

She paused behind me and rested a dainty hand on my shoulder. Giving me a reassuring squeeze. And more than guilt of my recklessness, at that moment, I felt the weight of guilt that comes with keeping something that you do not deserve. Even if I had no say in the matter.

She leaned over me, extending her arm to gently take the cream envelope from my hand. She took out the card and looked over it, then placed it beside me in question.

“I’ll go” I cried out, hating the decision even before the words left my lips.

My mother crouched beside me, taking my face in her hands and giving me a smile of reassurance.

At that moment, you must believe when I say that I very much wanted to return her smile, to be strong for her as she was for me. But I could do nothing but cry. Tears that fell in unabashed streams down my face, causing the voices in my head to mock me for not even being able to hold up a façade that I felt I fit well into.

I had once heard that you are what you pretend to be.

I guess I was hoping that to be true.

Chapter 7 Ije

There was a light shower as we rolled unto the gravel flooring of the cemetery’s outskirts. I watched the rain as it slid down the rear window soundlessly, like in respect of the dead. My tears streamed down my face in a similar way, and truly I felt pathetic. I had cried for non-stop for the three days leading up to the funeral and I was sure that my eyes were barely open. But I was not ashamed of grief, and I was not in a hurry to stop. Not until I felt better. So possibly never.

But I really wondered if I was not going to be compensated for all this sorrow. If the God that we had just heard of at Udo’s wake saw my tears and felt my pain, I wondered why he wouldn’t take it away. Just place an invisible and sacred hand through me and close the gash that existed in my chest so that my will to live could stop spilling out.

I took the umbrella that mother had offered me and followed the small procession through the cemetery until we got to Udo’s gravestone. It was simple but elegant, much like Udo. It was large as well because Neso won’t have it any other way. Intricate carvings were made into the sides of the stone and spiraled all the way to the crown.

Udo

Son, Brother and Lover

1995-2020

The moon was beautiful.

I read it over and over and I couldn’t come to with the fact that that was all he got to be when he could have been so much more. He would have been a psychologist, a great one. Just a year away from having his PhD. He could have been an uncle or even a father if he wanted to be, and I at that moment ed how he had promised me the closest seat to him at his graduation.

I watched as the black, gold-plated casket was lowered into the ground and my feet momentarily faltered. I felt like my world had caved in on itself, crumbling into nothing.

I moved, hesitant, positioning myself at the edge of the 6-feet deep hole in the ground that Udo lay as my time came to release a fist-full of dirt over his casket. Tears trickled down my face, unable to release earth over Udo’s corpse for fear that the finality of the gesture would be too much for me to come to with. I wailed as I stood rooted to the spot and through my hysteria, I could see the faces of the people around me. All weighed-down and slacked by grief, and I wondered if they too saw Udo everywhere they went to the point that it drove them mad. If they too found it hard to leave their houses for fear that they would not be able to walk ten yards before running into a memory that once made their heart swell but now had the power to crush it. I decided then that I did not want these people to see my grief because they couldn’t possibly understand it. And we tend to mistreat things that we don’t understand.

I raised my arm over the casket and released my clenched fist as the dirt drizzled much like the rain that had begun to subside. I walked off deeper into the cemetery and was blanketed by an eerie calm that I appreciated but was not sure

I wanted. I read the eulogy on different stones of different sizes that revealed snippets of many lives. Some much fuller than Udo’s and many…much shorter.

There was a boy named Patrick that lived a mere 6 years but I imagined that he was his family’s laughter before he left. Aderinsola was twelve when her time came and I thought of her as her family’s joy. Roqeeb lived to be fifty-three years old but lost the battle to cancer after fighting for twenty-two years. I wondered if he had actually died at thirty-one or had made the most of the twenty-two years that came after his diagnosis. And if he hadn’t, I wondered also, if I would be like him.

I heard a twig snap behind me and I turned slowly…

Chapter 8 Nat

I watched the crumpled girl as she wailed, her umbrella falling beside her as she descended unto the damp earth. I watched the crumpled girl and, as odd as it may seem, I felt her pain. I felt it in my toes and in my chest and even in the soft skin that dangled at the tip of my ears. I felt it choking me, so much so that I almost thought that then and there, in the middle of a stranger’s funeral, I would suffocate and collapse and take the attention of the broken girl that was grieving dangerously close to the edge of a 6-feet deep hole. I imagined if by feeling this pain, I was in anyway lessening the burden that the girl’s heart carried, and I was suddenly hesitant, and surprised at my hesitance, to let the burden that pressed against my chest disappear.

As I watched her, although I had considered myself an absurdist for the better part of my life, seeing no meaning to life or our chaotic existence, I sincerely hoped that there was something after death and that she would believe that there was. Maybe the idea of the dead man, whoever he was to her, moving on to someplace rather than mixing in with the earth and dirt will do something to appease her. I thought about it so hard that the thought may have reached over to her and planted itself in her head. I hoped that it had.

I looked around the cemetery at the strange faces that surrounded me, and it seemed like the girl carried the mourning of a whole procession in her heart. I suddenly wished that everyone would disappear and leave her to grieve in solitude. Like something had suddenly clicked inside her head, she stood up straight and let go of the fist of soil that she had been desperately clutching unto.

I followed her as she wondered into the heart of the cemetery and came to a

large patch of fresh grass surrounded by trees. The sense of déjà vu I felt as I walked the familiar path was unmistakable and I immediately recognised the surroundings as belonging to the place I had been with Carlos on that not-sofaithful night when all this was set into motion. Carlos’ mother had been buried here too.

The girl walked slowly, placing one foot in front of the other like she was counting her steps.

1, 2…

She stroked grave stones as she walked, taking her time to read the epitaphs as she ed by each stone.

3, 4…

She traced the engravings with her thumb, reading the inscriptions with her fingers. She wasn’t blind, at least I didn’t think so, but she looked like her finger tips had eyes.

5, —

A twig snapped beneath my foot and it was like a spell had been broken. The faraway look that had been on her face disappeared as she looked up, her eyes meeting mine.

Even with the distance, I got a perfect view of the bright gold-brown orbs that took all the attention from the rest of her face. The sun caught them perfectly from where I stood and her face at that moment with her lips slightly parted – shocked at the presence of someone else during what should have been a private moment on public property – was more than picture worthy.

Her eyes distracted me still, and I took a few strides closer to get a clearer view. They were definitely one of a kind. A bit puffy from crying, but beautiful regardless. I stopped in my tracks when I noticed that she wasn’t too comfortable with being approached by a stranger in a secluded part of a cemetery. A stranger that scrutinised her like she was a piece of art.

“Hi.”

The greeting left my lips limply and I wished I had said something wittier. I wasn’t sure why, but the bored-with-life look on her face made me want to impress her. I noticed that her eyes were still wet with tears and thought against clever jokes

“Who was he to you?”

It wasn’t curiosity but concern — and guilt. A lot of guilt.

Her voice came out raspy and coarse like her throat had been scrubbed with sandpaper.

“My brother.”

I was silent for a moment. I had never had any siblings but I had loved people that I could never imagine losing. It wasn’t hard putting myself in her shoes, but I had heard that people don’t like it when others do that and make their situation seem less of an emotional burden because other people have carried it too.

“I can’t imagine how you feel.” I paused, waiting for her to reply. I wanted her to speak; just to hear her say anything. Maybe something that would let me know what she felt besides pain. Was she angry at who had caused this? By implication, was she angry at me?

She let out a breath and sat crisscross on the floor of the cemetery with her feet folded beneath her. The position seemed off. Even as a teary-eyed mess she had a certain poshness about her that made her sitting on grassy, earth-covered floor oddly wrong.

I dropped to the floor beside her regardless.

“It’s weird because I know that millions of people die every day but someone I know suddenly dies and I ask myself ‘why me?’” She played with her fingers, and I could tell immediately that talking about herself or how she felt was not something that she does often.

“What’s wrong with asking yourself that?” I lay back and carried the weight of my upper body on my elbows, looking up briefly to the sky. The rain had subsided but the sky was still dull. The rain clouds were mostly gone but you could tell that the sky was still sweeping the remains out.

“I should have been prepared for it.” She said, shaking her head as if to say that I could never possibly understand. “What’s the point of knowing something and not being ready for it? Like expecting guests but not getting anything ready for them.” She scrunched up her forehead at the last part and added, “I’m not a huge fan of guests though.”

I smiled a small smile. It’s funny because I could almost already tell.

“I don’t think death is the kind of guest you prepare for.” I sat up when I sighted a four-leaf clover somewhere in the grass. I uprooted it delicately, twirling it by the stem between my long fingers. “He comes unannounced and you’re forced to make room for him. Like my Uncle James or a military government.”

She looked focused. Like she was really imagining death walking up to her front door and wondering why she could never hear the footsteps.

“Who are you?” She asked the question slowly like it had just dawned on her that she had been conversing with a stranger for the last few minutes about feelings that she didn’t seem to have said out-loud before.

It probably just did.

“A friend of a friend who couldn’t make it but wanted to be here,” I answered, gazing at the sky like I wasn’t avoiding her eyes. It wasn’t a complete lie though. Carlos wanted to come but he couldn’t make it. The hospital wouldn’t let him out for another week.

She was silent for a moment as if contemplating my response.

“A friend of a friend of Udo?”

“Yes,” I replied, not missing a beat even if I was aware that she could have said the wrong name to set me up.

“Oh,” she said and sniffed reminding me that she had been crying not too long ago. “Any friend of Udo is a friend of mine then. But I’m not nearly as charismatic as he was.”

She placed her palm flat on the grass and seemed to enjoy the way it felt against her skin. She clenched and spread apart her fingers repeatedly, a small smile appearing on her face. I wondered what memories might be attached to the seemingly insignificant movement. Something about the way she sat, naïve and in awe of nothing but grass made me question what she had said about lacking charisma. I suspected that she just didn’t know herself enough. But I didn’t argue.

“Do you think you will be fine?” I asked the question cautiously, afraid to destroy the tranquil atmosphere that had blanketed us, but unwilling to leave without at least a bit of insight on how the girl whose life I had a hand in altering was feeling.

She breathed in deeply.

“Loss is a part of living.” She seemed to have something in mind as she spoke. She looked like she hadn’t completely imbibed what she said, but I was convinced that she would. “I’m determined not to die while I am still alive.”

She smiled somewhat forcefully, and I gave her a gentle one in return.

“Your brother would like that,” I said as I stood up, dusting grass off my pants. I extended a hand to help her up and she accepted it. Her palms were smooth and her fingernails were neat and nicely trimmed.

I handed her the four-leaf clover that I had found and she took it, hesitant, like she wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“Good luck with everything,” I said as I began to retreat. “Although I’m sure you’ll be fine without luck.”

As I departed from the secluded field, the girl getting further away, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was moving in the wrong direction.

Chapter 9 Ije

I stared at the clover for a long time. Recalling the way I felt in his presence, it wasn’t hard to believe that the stranger had known Udo, whether directly or indirectly.

*

It had been six days since the funeral and after hours of rumination I was convinced that continuing school at my old institution was not an option. I loathed the thought of “sympathetic” looks, and comments from people whose lips held condolences but whose eyes betrayed that they were, before anything else, happy that they were not in my situation. I thought carefully about how I would approach the matter with Father and after a botched trial run with my mother (it ended with comments about me being “an ungrateful little wench” because I was enrolled in one of the country’s best institutions, and unfeeling towards the friends — I had no idea what she was talking about — that I would leave behind), I decided that it would be best to leave the talking and convincing to one of the best negotiators I knew: Adanma.

Ada was willing to help. I spoke little as I always did when it came to her. It was not because there was nothing to say but because spoken word was a means of communication that was hardly ever necessary between us. Eyes, gestures, looks, mannerisms. Both of us had mastered the art of the other. If I had a longlost twin, it would be Ada. I imagine that she saw the desperation to be pulled out of school masked behind my bad jokes about mother saying that I didn’t care about my friends even if I didn’t have any real ones.

I lay on my bed waiting for Ada to return from Father’s study. I shut my eyes tight and hoped with all my heart that she would be successful. I was ready to give up anything to be saved from drooping stares and quiet whispers as I walked down the school halls. Almost more than I hated anything else, I hated pity. I didn’t want anyone’s sympathy, and I wasn’t interested in handouts.

My professors would use my first name like we’d been great friends for the longest time, and treat me like a special needs student.

“Ije, I heard what happened, I could give you an extension on your assignments if you need one.”

No. My heart might hurt but my brain works perfectly fine.

‘Friends’ will all want to resonate with my situation, and seem like the most caring students.

“Ije would you want to sit with us for lunch? We’re here if you need someone to talk to.”

No. I’m not any lonelier than I’ve always been. That’s a bit of a mistruth but I’ll be alright on my own regardless.

The nightmarish thoughts did much to seal my conviction that I most definitely needed out. I grappled with a scenario where I actually went on with life that

way and knew immediately that it wasn’t something that I could do.

I waited patiently for Ada to return.

*

It had been almost an hour when I heard the door knob turn and the door creak the prelude to good news. I knew when I saw Ada stand with her left knee bent, right hand holding her wrist, preparing to feign defeat, that she had indeed been successful. I shot out of bed, embracing her tightly as I wondered what I would do without her. I was sure the answer was nothing. As I stood still in her arms, breathing in her scent, I sent up a quick prayer to God, begging him to be satisfied with Udo and not take away anyone else that I loved.

Udo’s death had convinced me that regardless of age, nothing was far from us: success, failure, longevity, and unquestionably, death.

Chapter 10 Nat Aged 9

Dad rarely ever came home, and when he did, he rarely ever stayed long even if mum begged him to. Mum was so different then. He’d stay locked up in his study where no one was allowed to bother him — not even mum.

My friend, Zaki, told me that he and his dad were going to spend the weekend together on a father-son outing and then apologised because ‘he forgot that I didn’t have a dad’. I was immediately defensive. Of course, I had a dad, and it was dumb of him to think that I didn’t. His argument was that no one in school had ever seen him, not even on Bring Your Dad to School Day.

This conversation was in my head as I made my way to my dad’s study doors, struggling to swallow my fear with determination.

I would go out with my dad this afternoon like all my friends did with theirs and we would take pictures and I will show them all.

I placed a shaky hand on the door handle and drew in a deep breath. With considerable effort, I pushed open the heavy oak doors as softly as I could and crept behind one of my dad’s tall book shelves, deciding to wait there until I had gathered enough courage to show myself.

The smell of cigarette smoke wafted into my nostrils and I did my best to resist the urge to cough.

Then I heard his voice.

He was talking over the phone and I could hear the person on the other end quite distinctly.

“Did you take care of the ambitious journalist with the outrageous claims?”

My dad had the voice of a manipulator. Soft but gritty like wet clay.

“I… I did sir.”

The person my dad was speaking to seemed more afraid than I was. How had the idea of approaching my dad even come to me?

“His body?”

Perspiration ran down my back and my Regular Show T-shirt was soaked to the thread.

“It will never be found.”

My knees were shaking and I couldn’t believe my ears. I was afraid to even breathe. I was sure that this conversation was not meant for anyone’s ears. I would have ran but I found myself unable to move.

“And if it’s found?”

The man on the other end was silent.

“Have you heard of sulfuric acid?”

“No, Sir.”

“It’s an acid that disintegrates everything it comes in with, and it can do the same to a corpse. Right down to the teeth. That way, there's no body to find.”

There was silence for a long time.

“Sir are you sure that’s necessary?”

My dad laughed manically. I knew then and there that I was fathered by a monster.

“If you want to make it in politics, you do everything you can to cover your tracks. And this is in your best interest. I don’t recall being the fall guy.”

The man on the other end struggled to get words out.

“Tha… tha… that doesn’t seem so fair, sir.”

“Fair?” My father laughed again – mirthlessly. “Politics is a dirty game my friend.”

I wet myself.

Chapter 11 Ije

Territoriality in animals is not a new discovery in the world of behavioural ecology; most prominent in the exhibition of territorial tendencies is the grey wolf. Wolf packs are widely noted for hostility towards non-pack . Confrontation with lone-wolves or non- have been recorded to end in death of the approaching party on a number of occasions. Wolves should not be stared down. You do not turn your back on a wolf as it can take the opportunity to flank you. But what do you do when you are flung into their territory; completely encircled by a family of ferocious canines?

That was how I felt standing in the doorway of my first class after I finally found it. Over thirty pairs of eyes looked up to scrutinise me. I could swear that someone sniffed the air even. I glanced at the faces of my to-be classmates and gulped. I heard someone knock their desk two swift times in tribute to my knock-knees. A soft chorus of callous laughter momentarily filled the air, dying down as quickly as it had arisen, in a manner that I had to it was uncharacteristically civil for a class of teenagers.

It still stung.

The teacher, a short door-knob of a man that resembled an extra-large big toe, spoke up. His voice seemed to come from a stuffy nose but was not of the nasally, high-pitched kind that you might be imagining. He shuffled through his desk that was mounted in papers. He retrieved a sterling white flat file that had a port photograph of mine attached to it with a paperclip.

The big-toe man squinted at the photograph through his thick rimmed spectacles then glanced over at me two or three times in alternation.

He read my name, or what he could make of it, off the file.

“Ije,” he said in a breath, dragging the last syllable.

I gave a polite smile.

“All staff have been informed that we have a new student,” he said as he dawdled towards me, wringing his stubby fingers, a benevolent smile on his face. He was like a big-toe-teddy-bear.

“Traditionally, maybe in any other school, an announcement like that would be made on the assembly,” he chimed as he raised a hand, smoothening his surprisingly crisp tie. “But, as you will soon find, Scholars Prep College is not like any other school.”

I maintained my polite smile, unsure of how to respond.

He continued to lecture me on Scholars Prep College assemblies.

“We have an assembly once a term and any general information is ed across via the intercom,” he effused.

I couldn’t help but notice how excited he got talking about an assembly. It seemed that the wolves that had been in the background of our conversation were a bit restless at the mention of it too. I heard whispers and caught a few murmurs.

“I wonder who’ll be there this term.”

“Will the new girl be allowed to attend?”

“Who does she know anyway?”

The last one had me slightly perplexed. Who I knew?

The interminable assembly lecture came to an end and I found myself seated beside a long-legged girl clad in a more than ironed uniform. Her hair was in elaborate cornrows that made her facial-features more pronounced. Her sharp, slit-like eyes gave her a look of constant scrutiny; always assessing and sizingup. I wasn’t sure why but I liked the air around her.

When the bell went for the end of the class, I remained seated, not exactly in a hurry to begin another blind navigation of the enormous school. When I eventually stood up, the girl with the calculating eyes fell into step beside me.

“I’m Remi, I’ll be your student-guide until you find your footing,” she informed me with a silky-smooth voice. She spoke and walked with a certain poise that

drew me to listen to her.

“Congratulations on getting enrolled into Scholars Prep College,” the corners of her mouth were slightly upturned; the look on her face told me that she knew something that I didn’t. “I can definitely assure you that there’s no high school like this anywhere else in the country.”

I took in the high ceilings, the ed lighting and the murals by notable artists that hung in the halls.

I definitely had never seen a school like it before.

“I suppose I should be honoured…,” I commented, embracing the hall with a sweep of my arm, “…but I honestly don’t know the first thing about Scholars Prep. I asked for a new school and I was enrolled here.”

Remi let out what should have been laughter, but it was too soft for me to be sure.

“No one ‘just gets enrolled’ into SPC,” we had continued walking and were in the quad bordered by four large and imposing buildings with a fountain at its centre. “You either have the right connections or you don’t. You’re in the right family or you’re not.” She paused, contemplating her last statement. “I suppose it isn’t so complicated.”

Hmm… “So, the mafia?”

She let out an actual laugh, it wasn’t too loud that heads turned in our direction but it was loud enough for me to put aside my suspicion that she came from royalty.

“That would have been better.” She said only half-joking.

She steered me into the nearest building, informing me that most of my classes would be happening there. It was the Zik building she said.

“So, what is this place?” I asked, not ready to let the conversation change direction completely.

“It’s proof that the conspiracy theory of everyone in government sending their children abroad is nothing but that: conspiracy.” She emphasised every syllable of the last word, for effect I suppose.

“Scholars Prep College is for the kids of governors, commissioners, and international representatives of the country.”

She looked bored talking about it, like she wasn’t particularly proud of the school, or being a part of it.

“It thrives on the godfatherism that exists in our government system because it’s the reason why everyone here can get a place in government if we so much as ask for it.” She looked disgusted at the thought. “At least Scholars Prep College

prepares us for leadership. It’s safe to say that 90% of the students here have parents that are wealthy failures in their role in serving society.”

I processed all that she had said. It was simple enough to understand, but I was positive that I knew no one in government. Thinking about it again, it was unlikely that my father didn’t.

“So, Scholars Prep College is prep school to becoming a full-fledged member of the legalised robbery squad?” I did little to hide my disgust.

Her smile at that moment told me that we would be great friends.

“Exactly that.”

Chapter 12 Nat

I saw her before I saw her.

My mind was far away as I peered out the end-to-end, floor-to-ceiling window that replaced what should have been the right wall of our physics classroom. I stared at the fountain at the center of the quad: an elaborate and aesthetically pleasing fixture that did well to control student traffic. The crystalline water droplets drizzled down the tiers and into the fountain’s basin then sprung-out again out of the water distribution. I had been thinking of her. The girl that I felt a familiarity with that I could hardly deny. We had just met yesterday. But at the same time the prospect of having known her for only a day seemed impossible.

I had been thinking of her. All the more reason why her emergence from the opposite building against the backdrops of the fountains’ soft water pellets seemed all the more surreal. I squinted, wanting to be a hundred percent sure that the girl was who I thought she was. Indeed, I was correct. She was walking beside a person I easily recognised to be Remi, a good friend of mine, like they were long-time friends.

Mr Soumya’s voice brought me back to the energetic lesson on waves. But as he rapped on, I grappled with the only question that piqued my interest at that moment.

Who does she know to be in a school like this?

And how soon could I meet her?

Oh.

Two questions then.

*

The hospital’s reception smelled strongly of bleach. The sensitive hairs in my nasal cavity stung and my eyes watered a little as I made my way to the receptionist’s desk. The last time I was here, I was told that Carlos wouldn’t be out for another two weeks. That was only five days ago but the hospital said nothing barred regular visits. I was shown to his ward by a middle-aged, heavyset nurse that looked vaguely like the same lady that had changed my bandages when I was still being held hostage by the hospital. The memory of her hard hands and impatient air made me shudder slightly.

She stopped me in front of Carlos’ hospital room door and I offered a polite thank you. She gave an unintelligible response.

Pushing the door open, the sight of Carlos’ emaciated form made my heart drop slightly. Tubes were connected to different parts of his body and the better part of him was swathed in bandages. I cursed myself for not visiting more often over the past few days but I was slightly relieved to observe that his condition was definitely not worsening. Nothing had been broken in the accident and his vital signs were steady. It could definitely have been a lot worse.

Carlos turned his head towards the door as much as he could without causing himself pain and I gave him a big smile.

“Happy to see me, aren’t you?” I said as I set myself gently on his hospital bed.

Carlos let out a small laugh and I could see him visibly relax.

“I think I was healing faster before you showed up,” he joked, his eyes sparkling with the life of youth.

Carlos had been very much like a brother to me. Many things I did now, I did because of him. He was in no way perfect, and he could be reckless beyond comprehension, but he was a genuinely good person and there was no way of discrediting that. He taught me to care for other people, and to look for good in others. When I met him all those years ago in the soup kitchen that his mum ran, I was a cynic at such a young age and had a horrible view of life. I victimised myself in every situation and felt that life had been unfair to me. Carlos was wise beyond his years and he taught me that life didn’t owe me anything.

*

In my mind, I was home, playing video games and watching television while munching on a bag of coconut chips. My air-conditioning was on full blast and I was wrapped in my favorite pale orange blanket.

“Nathaniel.”

My mum brought me out of my reverie and I was forced to pay attention to what she was saying. My mother disliked any form of rudeness or unnecessary attitude and I could tell that she was getting fed up with my bratty behaviour. I took note of our surroundings. We were parked in front of a small but neatly kept building that had only one floor but a lot of surrounding land for expansion. A rickety sign with the words ‘Come and Eat’ painted neatly on it hung conspicuously above the door frame. Shabbily dressed men and women, some with children, some without, were hurrying into the small building like their lives depended on it. I wondered what it would be like if the sign fell just as someone was using the door.

“You’re going to volunteer here until I say that you don’t need to anymore. Your Aunt Benita, my very good friend, runs this place and she’ll help me straighten you up. She has a kid your age too so you won’t be lonely.” My mum paused to look at me sternly then softly. “Do you understand me?”

I nodded in response, unwilling to give in. I didn’t want to work here and serve smelly people when I could be doing better things with my time. Who made a twelve-year-old volunteer anyway? Was that even still volunteering?

“I want to hear you say it.”

I sighed, accepting my fate. My mother could be as unbending as I was.

“I understand you.”

My mum walked me into the building. Inside was bustling with activity and the place was at full capacity. I detested the noise and the underlying odour of homeless people. I wanted to go home. We went through an inconspicuous door that led to a back room. Here, people scurried around, slicing, chopping, stirring pots and packing food. At a corner, a boy about my age was arranging the packaged food on a large tray.

A slender, pretty lady wiped her hands on her apron as she walked up to my mum. Beaming.

“Benita!” My mum exclaimed as Aunt Benita enveloped her in a hug.

I was sure they had seen each other at church the previous Sunday, but they acted like they hadn’t seen the other in ages.

“I see you brought our boy!” Aunt Benita laughed gesturing towards me. She made no move to pull my cheeks or pat my head because she knew I didn’t particularly appreciate that kind of affection. Aunt Benita respected people’s preferences. She was the only friend of my mother that I could stand. She was Cuban with black, curly hair and heavily tanned skin.

“Good afternoon Aunt Benita,” I greeted politely.

“Good afternoon Nat,” She responded with her usual cheerful air.

Aunt Benita and my mum spoke for a few minutes before my mum said that she had to leave for a meeting. On her way out, she gave me a look that told me to be good.

Aunt Benita looked at me for a moment. She smiled at me. It seemed to be a sad smile.

“It’s a shame you look so much like him.”

When my mother’s friend spoke like that, I always knew that it was about my father. I couldn’t even what he looked like. That’s how much I tried to forget him.

Like she had just realised what she said, Aunt Benita stood a bit straighter and ran a hand through her hair. She turned around quickly and called out to a boy she referred to as Carlos, the one that had been arranging food on a tray when I entered with my mum. She gestured for him to come over.

Carlos had his mother’s curly black hair and brown eyes. His skin tone was slightly lighter than hers but other than that he was her spitting image.

He grinned at me and waved like we knew each other.

Weirdo.

“Carlos, this is Nat.” Aunt Benita did the introductions. “You two will be working together. If I tell either you or Nat to do something, it’s the job of both of you.”

Aunt Benita didn’t ask Carlos or me if we had understood what she said. She went straight back to giving the other volunteers loud and clear instructions of what to do next. I wondered if my mum always felt the need to ask if I understood things because she didn’t trust me to be responsible.

“Let me show you what we have to do right now, Nat,” Carlos said to me as he moved, expecting me to follow behind him. I stood rooted to the spot.

“Why aren’t you coming along?” He looked genuinely concerned for a stranger, whereas I was set on giving him a hard time.

“I want to be anywhere but here.”

Carlos smiled at me like I reminded him of himself. I forgot momentarily that he couldn’t be more than a year older than me.

“I started coming here when I was nine,” he said as he took my hand leading me out of the back room. “I didn’t want to be here either. But my mum told me something that I would never forget.”

We were in the main cafeteria where over a hundred people were being served food. Every time food was placed in front of someone, the person will smile and

thank the server profusely, like they were worried that that the servers could take the food back.

“She told me that many of these people don’t want to be here either.” He gestured to the crowd of people. Different ages and genders, different faces and statures, all with different stories, unified by their common inability to cater for themselves and the people they loved. “But a ton of them don’t have food to eat and some don’t even have anywhere to go from here but they’ll have to leave eventually. She told me that unlike them I have a choice, and since I’m lucky enough to not be here as someone in need, I can choose to help people here as someone that serves people with the choice that I have.”

Carlos grinned boyishly.

“She also promised me a new toy if I worked really hard for a full month.”

I laughed genuinely at that.

“But I got better things than a toy. I made a lot of new friends who told me a lot of interesting stories that I never could have heard.” He dragged me over to a girl named Zara who wore a turban over her head, and around her shoulders. She was small and lean but she was firm on her feet when she stood up. She waved with excitement at Carlos and looked over at me. Carlos did the introductions.

“Zara this is Nat, our new friend.”

On a normal day, I would be quick to say that I had never said anything about being their friend, but there was something about Carlos’ easy nature and Zara’s notable boldness that made me want to identify with them.

I waved at Zara. It was the first time I had ever acknowledged someone before they acknowledged me. I was an arrogant twelve-year old. She waved back. It wasn’t as enthusiastic as the way she had greeted Carlos, but she gave me a small smile as well.

“Are you ready to work now?” Carlos asked me, already walking back to the kitchen. This time I followed.

*

I continued to volunteer there even after my mum said that I could stop. I had found a friend and brother in Carlos. When my dad sent the message that he would be changing my school and that I was to enroll at Scholars Prep College, I gave him the condition that Carlos must be enrolled too. He was stubborn about it at first, but I was as unbending as my mother. Aunt Benita was hesitant to let Carlos attend such an elitist school, but the world class education was something that she couldn’t up; especially since Carlos would be receiving it for free.

I wondered if the soup kitchen will ever be the same now that Aunt Benita was gone, but I was sure that Carlos would devote a lot of his time to ensuring that. No matter how painful it may be at first.

“The breaks were stuck, Nat.” Carlos said suddenly like it had been on his mind for so long. “I tried them and I honked repeatedly but the other car just…it didn’t

move.”

I replayed the scenario repeatedly in my head and that was something that I was able to come to a conclusion on as well. The other car didn’t move. But the question was why? Hadn’t the driver heard the honking and the sound of our car coming? He must have. Regardless, we made a poor decision driving intoxicated in the first place. And someone was dead because of us.

“She attends our school now.” I said before I could stop myself. “The sister of the man that died in the car crash.”

Carlos looked at me surprised.

“Have you spoken to her?”

“I spoke to her at the funeral.” I said as I thought back to our short but meaningful conversation. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. She seemed strong. But I didn’t tell her anything if that’s what you’re wondering. We will eventually, just not yet.”

Carlos clearly had his reservations but I’m sure he knew that I was doing it for him. He was already eighteen and if we told her while her wound was fresh and she decided to press charges, he would go straight to jail and I’ll get some time in juvy.

“How are you doing though?”

Carlos got that I wasn’t referring to his physical state. Regardless of all that happened, his mum, Aunt Benita, had still ed away barely three weeks ago.

Carlos laughed sardonically.

“A car accident definitely gives you a different experience of the grieving process.”

I gave him a look that told him that I really wanted to know how he was doing.

“I miss her, Nat.”

His eyes filled with tears and his breathing was ragged. In an instant, he seemed like a different person.

“Sometimes I feel like my heart would explode with grief, and other times I feel like it would suddenly stop one day.” He paused for a moment. “Is it possible to die of a broken heart?”

I took hold of a tubed hand and told him that he could cry as much as he needed to. I would have hugged him if I didn’t stand the risk of hurting him. His sobbing subsided and his breathing returned to normal. He had fallen asleep. I stood carefully to avoid waking him, and slipped out of his hospital room before the large nurse would stomp in and make a ruckus out of telling me to leave.

Chapter 13 Nat

The relief on Carlos’ face as I wheeled him down his ward and eventually out of the building was too great to go unnoticed. The day was bright and the sky was clear as if it was prepared for the occasion. I imagined the day waking up and getting ready for its performance. The world was definitely a wonder.

“You can officially cancel surviving a car crash off your bucket list.” I said to Carlos as I lifted him out of his wheel chair and assisted him into the backseat of the car where my mum was waiting.

I stirred the wheelchair to the rear of the car and placed it in the trunk. I jogged around to my mum in the front seat. Strapping on my seat belt, I gave my mother a kiss on the cheek. Then I mentally smacked myself for it. I should be more sensitive about mother-son affection now that Carlos had lost his.

My mum looked at Carlos through the rearview mirror and I was sure that all she could see was Aunt Benita. As Carlos aged, he had developed softer features and was a clear cut out of his mother. Her face was etched in his. And it mocked my mother’s mourning of her best friend. I imagined that it did something similar to Carlos.

“How are you feeling, dear?”

Carlos shifted, uncomfortable. He was always that way when anyone showed

concern for him.

“Better than I expected to feel.”

He leaned against the head rest and shut his eyes.

“Thank you for coming to get me.”

“It’s not a problem—" I started to respond when Carlos cut me off by opening one eye.

“I was talking to your mum.” I could see the laughter in his eyes as he spoke. “You don’t have a choice but to take care of me, Nat. Why would I thank you?”

My mum laughed out loud, and as she did some of the years she had aged in the past month rolled off her and she was almost recognisable. I relished the sight of my mother’s beautiful face and was proud of the struggle she had been through to be where she was today as a person. I was sure she wished she had done more to ensure that Aunt Benita experienced the same liberty she had in her marriage before she ed on.

I ed when I was green and didn’t understand certain things about my father. And I ed the moment that I did and how things had changed. It’s shocking really, how thin the line between love and hate is and how easily one can cross over.

Aunt Benita was in an abusive marriage until she died. My mum believes that even if she died of cancer, she was sure that the blows she sometimes received from her husband, and the bad psychological space the relationship put her in must have sped up her demise. It was shocking that Aunt Benita, someone I perceived to be strong willed and independent in all that she did, found it so hard to walk away from a marriage that made her life, and the life of her only child, Carlos, difficult. Evidence that affairs of the heart could never be understood with a rational brain. Our brains function with logic, and our hearts with uniquely tailored madness.

I was sure that my mother now blamed herself for not doing more to get her out of his house. He, Aunt Benita’s husband, was a raving alcoholic and hated my mother’s friendship with his wife. There were fights whenever Aunt Benita would get home and say that she had been out with my mum. And his drunk fits only got worse. It continued until Aunt Benita was hospitalised after a big fight. Her husband claimed she blacked out suddenly while she was making dinner. I that day clearly because the message came when my mum and I were on our way out to eat. After the phone call that came, as we were pulling out of our driveway, she held the steering wheel tighter and I could see nothing but fear in her eyes. The doctors had initially diagnosed that she had three years left, but she died in three months.

My mum had already said that Carlos would be moving in with us. She hadn’t needed to say it. Clearly there was no other way it could go. I wasn’t about to let his control-freak of a father shorten his life span as well.

I looked at Carlos, now asleep in the backseat and my resolve strengthened. I truly wanted what was best for him.

*

I wheeled Carlos up the walkway to our house. I waited for my mum to unlock the front door and I wheeled him into the living room. Against his will, I helped him up and lay him down on the sofa. I took a seat in an armchair to his left.

“Am I…” he struggled to speak and it caused me so much pain to watch someone that had only aspired to make the lives of others better suffer. “Am I going back to him?”

I laughed. Loudly and carelessly because I couldn’t help it. The thought was bizarre.

“You’ll go back to your father over my dead body, Carlos.” I said with an air of seriousness. “We’ve always been brothers, and now we live under the same roof.”

“My spare uniform is still here, isn’t it?”

I gave a smile.

“’Course it is. I guess we’ve both been looking forward to this day without realising.”

“Maybe under different circumstances.”

I let out an exhale. When I heard Aunt Benita’s husband was physically abusive,

and had hit Carlos as often as he had gotten in the way, I immediately suggested that he moved in with us. Aunt Benita had refused to leave her husband and I didn’t think that Carlos deserved to suffer for her poor judgement. Silly of me to think that Carlos would even consider doing that. Abandon his mother? Would I abandon mine?

“We’ll make the most of it.” I replied after a long pause.

“We’re going to get the rest of your things here before the end of the week,” I informed Carlos. “My mum decided it would be best to get a small crew to handle it even if your things might not be so much.”

The look on his face told me that he understood that by better I meant safer.

In case he was home.

Carlos smiled a grateful smile. No matter his joke in the car about me having no choice but to care for him, I knew that he was grateful for our friendship. Our brotherhood.

I got up to leave for the kitchen to get started on lunch.

From there, I heard my mum and Carlos laugh at something my mum had said when she ed him in the living room. I stopped to watch them through the open kitchen door and I could only smile. I was sure that things could only get better from here.

At least that was what I thought.

What I hoped.

Chapter 14 Ije

“Although responsible companies had already existed for more than a century before, the term Corporate Social Responsibility was officially coined in 1953 by American economist, Howard Bowen in his publication, Social Responsibilities of the Businessman. As such, Bowen is often referred to as the father of CSR.”

Mr. Wiseman, our Social Impact and Community Service course director began his class in this manner. It was my third week at Scholars Prep College and I had come to realise that the institution, although run by people of questionable moral standing, definitely put in place programs that were aimed at grooming its students to truly be great citizens and future leaders. My experience so far had definitely been exciting. The elitism was something rather prominent and the atmosphere was hardly inclusive but within the walls of the classroom, the sole reason why we were all here in the first place, everyone belonged.

Remi had of course been a great part of my experience of nearly a month. She had introduced me to a small circle of her friends. The only one I was able to form a connection with immediately was Ehizele, a small statured, intelligenteyed girl with thick black hair peppered with various shades of gold and brown.

Ehizele and Remi had both gotten me through the first few weeks during which I had gotten lost more times than can be counted on a single hand. Remi was more of an introvert than an extrovert, although she could be whatever the situation demanded. Ehizele, however, was a socialite with more people interested in her than she could be bothered about. Remi had irers as well, but she wasn’t forthcoming with handing out her time. She was big on loyalty and trust and was

convinced that few people in our school were good emotional investments.

And then there was the funeral boy. Nathan, Remi had called him. She spoke to him infrequently, mostly because he wasn’t regular at school, but it was easy to tell that they were great friends. Remi said skipping school was out of character for him and that he most likely had a good reason. Whatever it was, he was present in our Social Impact class now and was seated on the column to my right, three rows before mine. What’s more? I could feel him watching me. He seemed to be doing that all the time. Sometimes I felt like he had his eyes on me when he was speaking to Remi as well. More specifically, his eyes were always on mine. His gaze was piercing and I could never hold it. I would turn to my shoes, or develop an interest in one of the beautiful works of art that lined the school halls. Nathan, or Nat as Remi fondly called him, was an enigma to me. Sometimes, I wondered if he was the same person that had spoken to me in the cemetery all those weeks ago.

“However,” Mr. Wiseman’s voice boomed from the front of the classroom, louder than necessary, but fully regaining my attention, “I find it hardly appropriate that social responsibility should be reserved for businesses and firms.”

Mr. Wiseman paused for effect. If there’s anything I noticed about the teachers here, it was that they all had a knack for sustaining their students’ attention.

“As a matter of fact, students like you all take enough from the society to have to give back to it. Life should be about give and take — quid pro quo.”

The class let out a sigh that would have been inaudible but for the fact that we all let one out almost at the same time. Mr. Wiseman was good at his work, but he had a flair for giving group projects that took away more of our free time than

we were willing to spare.

“Yes, I love that excitement!” He exclaimed and laughed at what was supposed to be a joke.

“Anyway, what I want you to do is form groups of your choice, and at the end of the year, give a class presentation on what your group has been able to accomplish towards bettering the society. This is a completely independent project and I will not call upon any of you to give progress reports or mid-work papers. All I will be assessing you on is your final presentation and project report. Of course, you can choose to meet me for guidance or advice.”

Ehizele raised a hand.

“Yes?”

“Is a group supposed to contain a specific number of people?”

“Yes of course. No more than six and no less than four.”

“Thank you,” Ehizele said as she sat.

“As you all leave, consider the words of Margaret Mead: ‘never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.’”

Mr. Wiseman turned to switch off the projector, an indicator that we were free to leave.

“Who’ll be completing us?” Remi asked as we made our way to the door.

His face came to my mind quickly and I was going to suggest it when I heard his voice from behind us.

“I will.” He was looking at me again, then he turned to face Remi casually, like blatant staring was normal.

Remi contemplated the idea but clearly thought nothing against it. She looked over to Ehizele and me for our approval. Ehizele nodded, and I gave an awkward shrug with one shoulder.

Smooth.

“Where should we meet first?”

There was a short pause as we all thought it over. Nat spoke up.

“I suggest Kalakuta Republic, the small café that’s mainly occupied earlier in the day by workers that stop for a quick breakfast.”

It was the same café that I met with Nkem, my therapist turned friend.

“Remi you have my phone number, if you all decide on something else let me know.” With that, his 6-foot-2 frame sauntered out of the class ahead of us.

“I know the place, and I think it’ll be a good fit.” I said, hoping they’ll accept my suggestion.

I wasn’t a fan of new environments.

We all agreed to the location and Remi pulled out her phone to text Nathan there and then. Ehizele and I got notifications on our phones simultaneously, and pulled them out to find that we had both been added to a group chat created by Remi and dubbed ‘Kalakuta 4’.

As we left the classroom, Mr. Wiseman’s closing words reverberated in my head: a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens could change the world.

I suppose this is where the story really begins.

Chapter 15 Nat

Every time I came here, it was hard to believe that the structure in front of me was same as the one I had set my eyes on when I was twelve years old. The single-storey building that was once plunked in the center of a large expanse of land, was now an intimidating three-storey structure with a sporting area, skillsacquisition center and a boarding house. It was gratifying watching Aunt Benita’s dream blossom into what it was today. She had taken over thirty families off the street over the years and put their bread winners in one form of paid employment or the other, while giving the households a place to stay until they had saved enough to take care of their families independently.

Barring the flowery outcome, it was far from a seamless process. Very often, the mother or father of the family would be into drugs or raving alcoholics. Aunt Benita put such people off work so they could no longer fund their destructive pastimes. Some people straightened up, others were too deep in their addiction and Aunt Benita handed them over to bodies that dealt with rehabilitation.

I was happy that my Aunt had done all that she imagined and more before she left, but I couldn’t help but consider how much more she would have achieved if she had had a bit more time.

The children were already filing out from the left-wing of the building to the football court where they would have the sports lesson that I would teach. As I made my way to the pitch, I couldn’t help but feel Carlos’ absence more than I had over the past two weeks. During the weekdays, we worked in the kitchen after school and served the boarding house residents the way we always had, and

on weekends, we played different sports with the children. We always did it together.

From a distance, I caught sight of the turban-donning Zara leading the children out in a neat file. Hearing my footsteps against the gravel path, she looked up and smiled widely at me; a grin that told mostly of relief. The memory of my first encounter with Zara was fresh in my mind. I recalled my sulky self being dragged over to a gangly looking girl by a little Carlos who was much wiser than I was even then. Fast forward five years and Zara was halfway through her high school education, as brilliant as she was beautiful.

Zara was the first person in Aunt Benita’s service home to be enrolled in school. The idea was all Carlos’. He talked non-stop about the possibility of Zara getting educated the way he and I were. After a lot of persuasion, my mum and Aunt Benita agreed. At first, Aunt Benita didn’t consider the idea much because she couldn’t afford to. But eventually, when Armstrong Enterprises, a large company in the hospitality industry, took up the service home as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility, its companies found it easy to donate to the service home since it had gained some strong credibility. Needless to say, finance for putting the children in school stopped being a problem.

Zara rushed up to meet me, attempting at first to maintain a façade of righteous anger for having been left in the dark. Since the events of over a month ago, neither Carlos nor I had been to the service home.

“Where’s Carlos?”

There was sincere concern in her voice. Zara had always been an upfront person, a stark contrast to Carlos who was bubbly but shy at the same time. It was always funny to watch Carlos and Zara talk to each other. Years ago, they were

inseparable best friends; now, they didn’t care for each other any less but with the disappearance of the innocence of childhood it was inadvertently awkward between the two.

“He just got out of the hospital. He’s at my house. He probably will be there for a while.”

The anger that she had attempted to maintain dissipated and all that remained in its place was pure unfiltered fear.

“Why? How long was he there?”

As we walked towards the children, I gave a quick narration of the events of just over a month ago that seemed to have occurred in a different lifetime. Needless to say, Zara was beyond shocked when I was finished.

She proceeded to give a well-deserved smack to the back of my head. She let out a rapid stream of incomprehensible Arabic, sighing as she pinched the bridge of her nose. She looked up at me.

Zara had always been the dramatic type.

“How could you both be so irresponsible?”

Her voice was softer now, and I could tell that she knew that we rarely made

poor decisions for no reason.

“Carlos was in a horrible place at the time. I should have been the person to make sure that he didn’t do anything that he would regret. But I didn’t.”

She stopped just short of the pitch where the children were growing restless.

“How is Carlos doing now?”

She looked at her feet when she mentioned him. I placed a hand on her shoulder.

“He’s alright really. He’s been getting better every day.”

She nodded and jogged down to the kids, smiling as much as she could despite the news she had received. I followed after her, her selflessness was always a marvel to see.

Everyone got in a circle for a quick warm up exercise. About fifteen minutes in, I felt dizzy. The smell of freshly cut grass that would have calmed me on any other day, made me feel nauseous. The ball was being kicked from person to person without warning. I tried to shake off the dizzy spell and focus. I caught sight of the ball being whizzed across the large circle and complemented Bola’s kick — or at least I thought I did, but I couldn’t be sure because my head felt like it was underwater and my voice sounded far away in my own ears.

I saw the ball coming towards me and readied myself to receive it. My limbs felt heavy and I could tell that all my movements were too slow. I braced myself for impact, sure that I was about to be hit by the fast-approaching projectile. None came.

I was on the ground and everything was dark.

*

The light that made its way into my barely open eyes stabbed like daggers. I blinked several times and forced myself to sit up. My ts ached from the effort. Looking around, I took in my surroundings. I was in my living room with a light coffee-coloured blanket draped over me. There was a wet rag beside a bowl of water at my feet.

My mother must be home.

Affirming my hunch, the door leading into the living room creaked open and my mum walked through the doorway with worry lines on her face.

“Thank goodness you’re awake, Nathan.”

She made to hug me but withdrew when I winced slightly.

“Are you alright? You’ve been unconscious for over an hour.”

I was alarmed. The happenings of earlier in the day came back to me but I couldn’t help but be worried as well. One moment I was fine and the next, I was on the ground, completely out of it. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before and I would be lying if I said it wasn’t cause for concern.

I looked at my mother again and saw the worry that was clearly written on her face and smiled in hopes of easing some of it.

“I think I’ve just been moving too fast lately,” I said not believing myself. “With Carlos in the hospital, I was worrying a lot and not eating enough. It would have been weird if I didn’t breakdown sooner.”

My mum didn’t look convinced. She suggested a trip to the hospital and I refused without room for argument. I had seen enough of that place to last me a decade.

I asked about Carlos and she told me that he had been asleep since Zara called and asked that she come pick me up. I nodded.

She threw her arms around me and I stroked her back, assuring her that everything will be fine.

I didn’t want to realize it then but I should have known, maybe from the dull throbbing in my arms, that everything wasn’t fine. Now that I think about the fear in my mother’s chocolate eyes as she looked at me that day, I can safely bet she knew it too.

Chapter 16 Ije

I watched people converse within the warm confines of Kalakuta. Anytime I stepped into the café, it always seemed like a different world where people were free to simply be. Perhaps, this homey appeal was what was primarily responsible for the café’s success.

Music that was odd to my ears played from speakers. I couldn’t make out the lyrics but it seemed to be the same kind of music all the time — maybe by the same artist. I wasn’t sure how I could tell but the tune, the melody, it all gave off the same energy. The songs had the same long interludes of instrumentals and seemingly simple lyrics that you could just tell were saying more than was apparent at face value.

The bell above the door of the café jingled and my eyes reverted towards the source of the sound. Nkem walked through the doorway, back straight and head up, in her usual confident fashion. She wore her hair — her crown as she liked to call it — natural, tied back so that the large bunny-tail-like bunch bounced behind her slightly as she walked. She looked perfect as usual, but there seemed to be something slightly off about her, like something had her worried. However, when she saw me she grinned.

Nkem walked over to my booth and slid in across from me.

I could feel the excitement reverberating off her in waves, distracting me from the fact that she had looked distraught a moment ago. Since I started at SPC, she

had wanted to know everything about my experience so far, but I kept telling her to wait until we met face to face. She agreed, albeit reluctantly. So far, I hadn’t divulged so much as the name of my new school.

“You have so much to tell me, Ije!”

I laughed at her child-like tendencies.

“I know, I know, and I’ll start right away.”

I went on to narrate how anxiety-inducing my first day was at first, right from walking through the hall, and how I had felt like an intruder in a tightly knit wolf-pack. I moved on to how exciting the classes were from day one. I told her about how everyone in my school, both teachers and students, seemed to share a sense of pride for being associated with it. I described SPC in all its beauty, from the archways, to the fountains and the imposing buildings that were all a tribute to modern and classic architecture.

When I was finished, her face had walked through a myriad of emotions, from sympathy, to awe, to excitement, and then more excitement.

“Did you make any new friends?”

I could tell that she wasn’t sure whether to ask the question or not but had gone ahead to anyway. I was never good at forming relationships with people. It was one of the reasons she was my therapist in the first place.

I was quiet for a while, and she stretched out her hand to hold mine, ready to tell me that it was okay. Then I smiled.

“I have,” I announced triumphantly, rather proud of myself.

Nkem was so happy about it that you’d think I had won the lottery.

“That’s great, Ije! How did you meet them?”

I sighed, trying to act like it wasn’t a big deal, but my lips betrayed me.

“I met Remi on the first day. She showed me around and told me a bit about the school.”

I wasn’t sure why, but I didn’t want to mention what Remi had said about the school being for children of people who knew the ins and outs of government and are one way or another involved in either domestic or international politics. From what I had observed so far, it could definitely be possible. People were hush about government scandals. Even the government teachers were hesitant about bringing up any atrocious occurrences in government.

“She’s slender and a bit taller than me, with cat-eyes and a stubborn chin. You’ll really like her. Ehizele is a bit like Remi, just more outgoing and inclined to befriending new people. They introduced me to some of their other friends but I’m not as close to any of them. They’re more like acquaintances.”

Nkem brushed imaginary dust off her sleeve.

“So, Remi and Ehizele. When can I meet them?”

I laughed in disbelief.

“We just became friends, Nkem!”

She reached out to hold my hand.

“It’s never too soon for me to get to know your friends, Ijem.”

I liked when Nkem called me ‘Ijem’ and not just ‘Ije’. I was sure I was glowing.

“We have a meeting here tomorrow though.”

Nkem straightened up in her sit, probably already devising a plan for how she’ll need to drop by at the right moment and time.

“What for?”

“We’re discussing a project for our social impact class.”

Somehow, Nkem could perceive that I wasn’t telling her everything.

“Just the three of you?”

I hesitated, not sure how to mention him.

“There’s someone else actually. His name is Nat.”

There was a pause.

“Nat as in…”

“Nathan. Nat as in Nathan.”

Something about Nkem’s composure shifted. I might have been imagining it.

“Nathan? Are you sure?”

“Of course, I am, Nkem.”

At least that’s the only name anyone called him. Including teachers.

“Alright. So, he’ll be there tomorrow?

I answered slowly, wondering what she was planning.

“With everyone else, yes.”

Nkem brightened up as if ing something.

“Yes, Ije, I got you some film for your camera,” she said as she shuffled through her bag.

If Nkem had to look for it, it probably wasn’t there. She was organised.

“I guess I forgot it at home, so I’ll bring it the next time we meet.”

She looked disappointed.

“I could follow you to get it right now if you want?”

I sensed the slightest sliver of hesitation.

“Alright. I’ll be in and out, and then we’ll drive down to the shop to make sure it’s the right kind.”

I inferred that she wanted me to stay in the car.

“No problem.”

But I decided that I didn’t want to.

*

The road to Nkem’s was much more familiar than it should have been considering the fact that I could count the number of times that I had been there on one hand. With one finger. For a grand total of one. I suppose the mind has a great affinity for details about people, and things associated to people dear to us.

Nkem’s car pulled into the driveway of her petite but well-kept home. She told me that she’d be back in no time and slipped out of the car.

I waited for a minute. Then two. Then five.

Surreptitiously, as though someone were watching, I slipped out of the car and pushed open the front door. The homeliness of Nkem’s place mixed in with a dash of modern class was easily noticed. Not noticed but felt. It was evident in the soft tones of the walls and the odd figurines and trinkets that sat gaily on high shelves against those walls. I could sense it in the plush carpets that had unique patterns dyed into them. And the mix was clear in the multi-colored ottoman that sat beside her sophisticated furniture.

A person’s home really did tell a lot about their personality.

“Nkem, I couldn’t sit still any —”

I took a turn into the living room and stopped short. I was sure it was him.

It had to be.

The height. The slender nose. The long fingers. The neatly kept sideburns. The perfect eyebrows, and the unrealistically long eye lashes that a male had no use for.

And I was sure that sitting-pretty underneath his closed eyelids would be those gold-brown orbs.

But at the same time, it couldn’t be him. The coincidence would be laughable.

His sleeping form was even more enigmatic than his alert and brooding one. I stood motionless at the entryway, still not fully coming to with the reality that the current circumstances attempted to paint.

Could Nat and Nkem be related in some way?

Like on cue, Nkem hurried into the living room looking uncharacteristically uneasy. She gave a forced smile, making a show of adjusting her already flawless hair.

“Ije, I asked you to wait in the car.”

Nkem gave me a tight smile that made me feel a bit bad for disobeying. Regardless, I turned back to my object of interest for the time being.

The body on the couch stirred and Nat sat up, groggy from sleep. It was then that I noticed the ever-faint dark circles beneath his eyes and his overall damp appearance.

Could he be sick?

He became more aware of his environment when he made eye- with me. Puzzlement flashed briefly in his eyes. Nat made to stand but could barely

manage to without leaning against a low-standing bookshelf. Nkem saw this as her cue to jump in.

“Ije, this is my son, Nathaniel. Nathaniel this is Ije, a very good friend of mine.”

Nat looked over at her quizzically. I could imagine his thoughts. It’s not completely normal to have ‘good friends’ a bit more than double your age. I appreciated the fact that she didn’t mention that she knew me first as a patient. But I couldn’t get over the fact that I never knew she had a child.

I guess everyone has their secrets.

But why?

Chapter 17 Nat

I could tell right away that my mother wasn’t telling me everything when she introduced Ije as a ‘good friend’. Friendships always start somewhere. Fortunately for her however, I was neither in the right physical nor mental state to ask questions.

After my mum dabbed down my whole body with a cold cloth earlier (though all my temperature readings were within the normal range), she told me she had an engagement that she couldn’t cancel. It seems to have been with Ije.

“I know his name,” Ije said still looking at me. “He goes to my school.”

“Oh.” My mother laughed almost uncomfortably. However close she and Ije were, she had clearly never mentioned me to her.

Ouch.

“Are you okay, Nathan?”

I looked over at Ije and saw genuine concern in her eyes. She has never called me Nathan. Always Nat like everyone else. But I preferred it to what should have been the more endearing nickname. Ije was looking at me like she wanted

to know what I was thinking. I wondered if that was how she felt when I stared at her.

“I’m alright,” I said casually, trying to sound better than I felt. “I experienced a few dizzy spells earlier and I’m still not myself.”

She cast a sweeping glance over me. The look in her eyes told me that she didn’t believe that all that was bothering me was a tiny dizzy spell.

“The meeting at Kalakuta is supposed to be tomorrow. Will you make it?”

I forced a smile. “Of course. Even if this illness were to be fatal, Remi would kill me first.”

She laughed lightly at that and it warmed me.

From the corner of my eyes, I noticed my mum observing our exchange quietly from the side: the look on her face, an emotion I couldn’t place, made me wonder what exactly was going through her mind.

Breaking out of her reverie, my mother stepped in, saying that Ije’s house was still a long drive away.

Ije followed my mum as she led her out of the living room and through the front door. As Ije left, I wondered if the last glance she threw my way counted as

evidence that she hadn’t wanted to leave as much as I, for reasons unknown to me, had wanted her to stay.

Chapter 18 Ije

As I made my way to Kalakuta on meeting day, I was a bit more than anxious. I could hardly the last time I had met a group of friends outside school, if ever. Adanma was almost more excited than I was when I told her the news, and made it a point of duty to ensure that I looked my best — even if we were only meeting for a school project.

The fact that my outfit was put together by Adanma gave me additional confidence as I walked the familiar road to Kalakuta. I thought over the events of the past day and recalled what Nkem had told me on the car ride to my place.

*

The air in the car was different from the way it was when we were driving to Nkem’s. It had been light and fresh and now it was jaded and marked, tainted by ink spilled from the jar of secrets.

“So, you have a son?”

Nkem made a show of looking in the rearview mirror before pulling out of the driveway to buy herself some time. As if she couldn’t do that seamlessly while blindfolded.

“Nkem, why didn’t you tell me?”

I struggled with why Nkem wouldn’t mention her son to me. Surely not because he wasn’t important enough to bring up. Different possibilities for why she never told me about him ran through my mind, but none seemed good enough. I took in a deep breath to think. Looking at Nkem’s side-profile. She was a beautiful woman, clear skinned and strong featured. She was wise for someone in her early thirties.

With a seventeen-year-old son.

Realisation crashed down on me like the pressure shower at the public swimming pool.

“You had him when you were really young, didn’t you?”

Nkem looked over at me and then pulled over at the side of the road. She sighed.

“When I was really young,” she said as she propped her head against the head rest.

The windows were wound down and I could hear the leaves of the trees that lined the roads rustle as the wind blew through the cages of their branches.

“Still, you should have told me. I wouldn’t have seen you differently.”

Even as I said this, I understood Nkem’s decision. I idolised her, and she knew it. She probably didn’t want my image of her being compromised.

“I know Ijem.” That glow again. “I’m sorry for not letting you know about Nathaniel earlier. Things are just…” she struggled for the right word, “…a bit more complicated than they appear.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but I was sure that she wasn’t ready to elaborate.

She apologised again and I reached out to hold the hand that lay open for me. The moment would have been perfect if I was able to shake the feeling that she was apologising for more than I knew.

*

I took out my phone to check the time as I opened the café door. I was five minutes early. As I looked up, I saw Ehizele and Remi waving with excitement in my direction. I failed in my attempt at suppressing a smile at their usual peppiness.

“Hi,” I said as I slid into the booth they were seated in, facing them.

“Hi, Ije,” they said almost at the same time.

Kalakuta Republic gave off its usual vibe, even on a slow Sunday morning. The usual music cut through the speakers, repetitive and powerful, like a trance inducing age-old chant. Art hung from the walls, including masks of some sort, with eyes that seemed to stare right back at you. Following you. Definitely Kalakuta gave off an odd aura. But it was the kind of odd that pulled people in, rather than drive them out.

“Nat would be here soon,” Remi said reading a text from her phone. “He’s coming with Carlos.”

I didn’t know who Carlos was, but I didn’t miss the way Ehizele sat up straighter at the mention of his name.

“Who’s Carlos?” I asked looking from Ehizele to Remi.

Ehizele answered.

“A good friend of Nat’s. His mother died so he hasn’t been in school for a while. Nat also mentioned that he was ill at some point.”

I nodded.

As if on cue, the café bell jingled to indicate the arrival of new customers. I noticed Nat first. He seemed to be in much better health than when I last saw him. His dark circles were nearly gone and he walked straighter and without

. It was almost like he was never sick to begin with.

Following after Nat as he walked down the centre aisle towards our booth was a fair-skinned boy that you could tell hadn’t been in the sun for a long time. He had a full head of curly, jet-black hair and a similar build to Nat’s. Maybe an inch or two shorter. I assumed he was Carlos.

Nat slid in beside me and Carlos followed after. Nat looked over at me and smiled. I guess whatever was bothering him must have scared Remi as much as he did.

“Alright. What’s the plan for this project? By the way, Carlos would be ing us if that’s okay. Since the grouping didn’t seem strict.”

It was Nat that had spoken. I was surprised. He didn’t seem like the type to initiate conversation.

Then again, he also hadn’t seemed like Nkem’s son.

“I was thinking something old school, but equally catching.”

I could almost see the wheels in Remi’s head turning as she spoke. Everything she did radiated energy in waves. And energy poured off her as she spoke.

“What was the best weapon for status-quo challenge in earlier time? The mid to

late 1900’s maybe?”

We looked to Ehizele as she asked the question. Intrigued as to where the conversation was going.

“Journalism,” I said.

“Music.”

It was Nat. The group looked at him. Perhaps hoping for some sort of elaboration.

Nat rubbed the nape of his neck and laughed in an uneasy fashion.

“It’s alright. I think Ije’s idea is more practicable anyway.”

Everyone seemed to agree. I gave myself a mental pat on the back for speaking up.

“So, Journalism. What do we write about? Mr. Wiseman said it has to give back to the society in some way.”

Ehizele made a good point. What do we do that not only impacts, but elicits

some sort of justice?

Nathan spoke first.

“This might be a bit dicey but how about something like that GreyWeb on Chirper, but with a more specific focus?”

I didn’t know much about the group, but I knew enough to be aware that it received a lot of backlash and had had its disabled a number of times.

“You mean the activist/hacktivist group?” Carlos said speaking up for the first time.

“Yes, that one.” Nathan and Remi said at the same time.

“But what’s our focus?” A good question from Ehizele. “And who’s our audience?”

The look on Nathan’s face told me trouble. But it was more intriguing than dissuading. Soon, as if suddenly understanding through some unspoken language, Remi had the look too. Then Carlos. Then Ehizele.

Safe to say that sitting in that booth on that Sunday afternoon, I felt stupid.

Then it clicked. We were in a school of children of government and country affairs personnel. Our story, our audience, our information source, they were all under one roof.

Unbelievable. It was hard to imagine that Nathan could be thinking what he was thinking. But more likely that he was than he was not. From what I could tell so far, he seemed like the daring type. Something as outrageous as this would be right up his alley.

“You people can’t be considering…”

I trailed off. It was…impossible.

“Considering? It seems like Nathan has his heart set, and I’m a goner for well thought out plans.”

Remi seemed decided.

“Ije, it would be thrilling. What better way to give back to the lives of our people than to unmask the evil of the vagabonds in power that oppress them?”

Ehizele attempted to cajole me, but surprisingly I didn’t think that it was even necessary. I was sold, as slow as I was to it it, to the idea of being part of a somewhat revolution. As if reading my thoughts, Carlos spoke next.

“So, we’ll be like the Bourgeois Militia of the French Revolution?” He said it with so much excitement that it was difficult to not get stirred myself.

“Just with less bloodshed.” Nathan said with a half-smile. “Unless of course, you want to be the Jean Paul-Marat of the whole ordeal?”

Remi and Ehizele laughed at what I guessed was supposed to be a joke.

What had I been learning in school before I got to SPC? Clearly not enough.

“But what kind of things should we write about exactly? It has to be original. Something you wouldn’t find in any other newspaper. Something that was never supposed to be brought to light in the first place. Or there’ll be no point.”

I found myself speaking before I had even formally agreed to be a part of it. I guess my mouth was tired of my mind thinking too much.

“Ije already making salient points, barely two minutes being on board,” Remi laughed.

“I’m a well of good ideas,” I said, making a show of sitting up straighter and jutting my chin out in mock pride.

A mischievous glint glimmered in Remi’s eyes.

“As you said, it would be information no one would find anywhere else. And I know just where to find such information.”

*

When Remi said that she “knew exactly where to find such information”, she hadn’t been kidding. The next day, Monday, after school, we were all gathered again in the same place. This time, Remi was later than the rest of us, and she sauntered in with a large but thin manila envelope in her hands.

Remi slid into the booth and looked around the table. She positioned the large envelope at the table’s centre. Immediately, all eyes moved to it and then to Remi. Remi looked at each of us, one at a time, her gaze shifting from one person to the other until the tension had reached a crescendo and Ehizele’s frustration got the better of her.

“Stop with the suspense, Remi!”

The outburst spoke the hearts of us all. Evening was slowly being dragged in and my attention moved to the long shadows that were being drawn on the path beside the café. It was a wonder how different things looked in the dark.

Remi sighed and picked up the envelope. Opening it, she carefully pulled out its content: a single A3-sized paper. She placed the paper on the envelope, aligning each of its vertices with caution like it was forged from a precious metal. The paper had no letter head but the write-up on it had a four-worded heading:

THE GOVERNMENT AND ARMS

We all looked to Remi. She raised her finger to her lips, signaling to us to hold our questions.

“Ije, pick it up and read it.”

I did as I was told, hesitating to pick the paper up off the table, only holding it at the edges, afraid to soil it with non-existent dirt.

I opened my mouth to begin.

“Not aloud!” Remi said sharply, throwing a gaze over her shoulder to quickly scan the café that was empty save for us and a couple that was seated in a secluded booth at the corner.

I nodded, beginning to read again. This time in my head.

My eyes took in the information faster than my mind could process it. At the conclusion of one line, I was in a hurry to get to the next even without digesting what the previous was about.

The information on the A3 paper was so obvious that it was hard to fathom. It

was like finding hard facts proving that rumours that were so rampant they had to be a lie, were indeed true.

I read on, the document named names of government people involved in a twobillion-dollar illegal arms acquisition scandal and gave evidence that the government had strong ties to terrorist sects in the country. There was backing as strong as source documents including bank statements and invoices that followed a timeline so specific that coincidence was out of the question.

I recognised some of the last names in the document from the news. I recognised others from my classmates at school. I imagined what I had in my hands being published for everyone to see and all I could think of was chaos.

I ed the document on to the person to my right, Carlos, without a word. When he was done, he did the same. I watched as the faces around the table changed as the document left the effect of a line of falling dominos.

Ehizele spoke first.

“Is this really all…true?”

We were all wondering the same thing.

“I have no reason to doubt my source.”

“Your source?” I asked, wondering if she would really leave us in the dark concerning something as important as this. A lot of this information could have been accessed illegally.

“My source.”

Her tone left no room for argument. Remi’s gift of sounding curt without coming off as rude was enviable.

“Are we really doing this?” Carlos asked, looking Remi right in the eye. Something unspoken ed between them. For some reason, I felt out of the loop.

I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t scared. I ed reading about journalists who were killed for speaking the truth and I got gooseflesh.

“Do you guys think this is a good idea? It might not be worth it. I mean, all this for an assignment?”

Nat chuckled. His face told me that nothing I said had amused him.

His voice was low, but his words cut deep.

“An assignment?” He looked at me like he opened his Christmas present and found out that he didn’t get what he wanted.

“The question of whether to go public with this information is not about an assignment. It’s about the followers whose lives are being taken by their leaders. It’s about the people that live in poverty because of fund misappropriation used to finance scandals like these.”

He had said only that but in my head, I heard, “Are you really that myopic, Ije? That sheltered?”

I turned my head to the window, suddenly ashamed of my ignorance and cowardice. But I wasn’t ignorant, was I? I watched and read the news. I was up to date with events. So, I was educated then. But I ed what Udo told me once, during one of our nights out on the terrace: the end goal of education was not knowledge but action. In that regard, until we do something with what we know, we are no better than the uneducated man.

No one spoke for a long time, unsure what turn the conversation should take from there.

Unsurprisingly, Ehizele broke the silence.

“I don’t think we have much of a choice. It’s a bigger crime to our people to have such knowledge and keep it to ourselves than anything we could possibly get in trouble for.”

Everyone seemed to agree. Remi looked over at me. Giving me the opportunity to speak up. Maybe redeem myself.

“Ehizele is right,” was all I said.

“It’s settled then.” Remi said placing the document into the envelope. “Should we make copies for distribution or should we have a website?”

“Both,” I found myself saying. “But not copies for distribution. We could stealthily place them in newsstands in school so that it’s difficult for it to be traced back to us.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. I was sure I saw a small smile on Nat’s face.

Nat gestured to Remi to hand him the envelope. Taking the document out, Nat placed it on the table. Retrieving a sharpie from his back pocket, he uncapped it.

Holding the marker above the paper for a second, he looked up at Remi.

“Make sure this is printed on the copies.”

In an ugly scrawl that was far from Nat’s hand, he wrote:

KSW

An immediate understanding enclosed each of us

Nat grinned.

“Old-school, right? So why not resurrect a legend?”

Chapter 19 Nat

Rain that we didn’t see coming travelled down the window of Carlos and I’s Uber along tangled paths. We had waited for Ije, Ehizele, and Remi to leave before we did for no reason in particular. We had gotten something to eat and talked for a while until Carlos started to appear visibly exhausted.

I looked over at Carlos, he seemed weak. It was expected since he hadn’t been out for a while, not to talk of being out for such a long stretch of time. I could tell that he did his best to hold out until the whole meeting was over, and I was happy that he had. It meant that he would be getting around on his own again soon enough. He was recovering smoothly from the accident and there was little more that I could ask for.

“Are you doing okay?”

He turned to face me, moving his attention from the tail lights in the night traffic that looked contorted in the rain.

Carlos smiled a smile that hadn’t changed in all the years I’d known him.

“I’m fine actually. A bit tired and a bit sore, but fine for the most part.”

There was a pregnant pause, like he had been thinking about what he was going to say next for a long time, but was still contemplating it.

“I think I’m ready to go back to school even. I really need to get my life back on track.”

I was sure Carlos had given this a lot of consideration. I would be happy if he resumed school again, but I wanted to be sure that that was what he wanted.

“You’re sure?”

“A hundred percent.”

We sank into a comfortable silence from there. I was drawing patterns on my window when Carlos spoke up again.

“I see us really doing something good with our publication.”

He was referring to the document that Remi had brought to the café.

“I’m sure you’re really excited about this. It’s definitely your type of thing.”

He gave me a look that told me that he knew more than he was going to say. I

appreciated that about him.

“It was especially nice to see Remi hasn’t changed.”

Remi. I knew Carlos would bring her up sooner or later. I had a crush on her for a long time. I knew he wouldn’t let that go quickly. She was amazing to the extent of being unreal. And she had been that way for as long as I could .

“Efficient and organised as ever, definitely.”

Carlos sighed, rolling his eyes.

“But you know that isn’t the direction I was stirring the conversation in, Nathaniel.”

He dragged my full name the way my mother did whenever I had done something wrong. I laughed at his attempt at an imitation.

“Then what did you mean, Carlos?”

I persisted in playing dumb, liking the way it annoyed him. Especially since Carlos rarely got riled up.

He scoffed half-heartedly.

“Does she still have your attention?”

I laughed aloud at the innocent way he had framed the question. The Uber driver gave me a look from the rear-view mirror.

Carlos reddened. He never really outgrew that shy part of him.

“It’s hard to say,” I said sobering up. “She’s the same Remi. Very flawless. Very prim. Very…shiny.”

Carlos raised a brow. I elaborated.

“Sometimes it’s hard to believe Remi is human. But she’s the same Remi. I’m the same too, but not quite. And as for whether or not I still like her… I don’t think so. Not in the same way anyway.”

Carlos paused, processing my thoughts. He was never one to speak carelessly.

“Is this because of a certain new girl?”

He laughed at the look I gave him.

“But seriously.”

I listened to the sound of traffic that whizzed by on a faster lane. The Uber driver cut into it.

“Ije.” The way I said her name sounded whimsical even in my ears.

I cleared my throat.

“I care about her—"

Carlos interrupted with a snort.

“That was obvious enough.”

I rolled my eyes at his interruption. It was annoying how much he knew me sometimes.

“As I was saying, I care about her but not in the way I want to — not romantically. It’s like I never want anything bad to happen to her, but that doesn’t have to mean I’m in love with her, right?”

I looked at Carlos and he stared back at me.

“Does that make sense?”

“Do you think it does?”

I laughed at myself. My thoughts had made a lot more sense when they were still in my head.

“I know you understand what I’m saying anyway.”

The Uber driver stuck his head out the window to yell at someone who had almost crashed into our car.

“But do you think you know her that well though?”

I rubbed my eyes with the heel of my palms and groaned.

“That’s another thing. I don’t. But I feel like I do. When I met her at the funeral, it was like we’d always known each other. But I’m certain we’ve never met.”

Carlos glanced surreptitiously at the Uber driver. He had an earpiece in his ear and his focus was fully on the road. When Carlos spoke next, he lowered his

voice.

“I assume you haven’t told her anything being involved in the accident.”

That’s another thing that had been on my mind. But I was certain that if I did, she may never speak to me again. I was worried about that happening. I was terrified of the possibility even.

Carlos saw the turmoil on my face.

“Do you plan on telling her?”

“I…I don’t know.” I stuttered. It was something I rarely ever did.

“I’ve just been hoping that the right time will come and I’ll notice when it does.”

Carlos gave me a sympathetic look.

“You and I both know that there’s nothing like a ‘right time’. Especially not in situations like this.”

I knew Carlos was right, and I knew that I was a bad person for not coming clean

as soon as I could. Carlos offered to be there when I told her, but I knew it was something that I had to do on my own. He might have been involved, but we both knew that I was the best person to handle it. For obvious reasons.

“Things that are meant for us will be, Nathan. And things that are not?”

I completed the saying that Carlos and I had known for years.

“Aren’t for us.”

Chapter 20 Ije

The whole gang, Kalakuta 4 (now Kalakuta 5 thanks to Carlos), decided to meet at Kalakuta Republic for a bit of an early celebration of our first project. The feeling was a bit difficult to explain but the best I can say is that it was like standing in the glow that radiates success, without having reached success itself.

Since our first meeting in Kalakuta, my outlook on a lot of things had changed. I had begun to harbor a desire to be part of change. The feeling of doing something new is always tingly in a good way. The feeling of doing something new and liking it however, especially when said thing has political essence is downright heady.

The day seemed to share our sentiments. The sun was out but there was no heat. Only light and breeze. We had finalised our plans to make sure everything was set while in the café, and then we got something to eat. Now, in no hurry to leave, we stood, the five of us, loitering in the car park of Kalakuta, talking about nothing in particular and just enjoying the presence of one another. Nat and I were leaning against the rear of a black sedan when he took out his ear phones and connected them to his phone, offering me a bud. I took the white piece and inserted it in my ear, self-conscious. I wouldn’t normally share earphones and I wondered why I had accepted the offer. My thoughts were distracted by the music that filled my ears. The same hypnotic melody and heady instrumentals. The same simple but layered lyrics. It was unmistakably the music of Kalakuta.

“Who’s the artist?” I asked, taking the earpiece out of my ear.

The look on Nat’s face and slight drawing of his eyebrows told me he was surprised I had asked. But he answered anyway.

“Fela.”

The name definitely rang a bell. Udo was a fan and he told me about him from time to time. Little wonder Kalakuta’s music always got stuck in my head.

“My dad says he was a rebel.”

Nat looked at me with an unspoken question on his face.

“What do you say?”

I paused, pursing my lips.

“I don’t think I know enough about him to have an opinion.”

Nat looked genuinely impressed by my answer. I gave myself a mental high-five.

“He was a rebel though. But a rebel with a cause.”

Nat turned his attention away from me, and it seemed like he was done talking. I didn’t want the conversation to end just yet, so I prompted his audience.

“My dad also says he was out of his mind.”

Nat took his piece out of his ear and turned to face me.

“Not too hard to tell that your dad wasn’t much of a fan. Most government people weren’t anyway.”

I ed what Remi had told me about SPC when I first arrived and how I never followed up on the whole ‘children of people in government claim’. But what did my dad do? It seemed dumb to not know something like that, but I had just always assumed he was a business man of some sorts. I was going to mention that my dad wasn’t even in government (or at least that I didn’t think he was), when Nat spoke up.

“I wouldn’t lie though, towards his demise, he was slightly out of it. Anxiety and paranoia will do that to you.”

I was confused. What could a musician have to be paranoid about? The almost sad look on Nat’s face stopped me from asking.

“But he was successful, yes?”

Nat looked revived. Excited to speak about someone who seemed to inspire him in some way.

“Successful? He was the king of Afro-beat — the inventor even. He played in several countries and toured continents. Most importantly though, everything he wrote and all the words he sang were statements with substance. Regardless of how big he got, his of blackism and Pan-Africanism never dwindled.”

I had never seen Nathan look so animated. He seemed to burn with ion for this topic. And he wasn’t stopping. It genuinely looked like he had a Wikipedia folder in his brain on the subject of Fela.

“If he changed his message. The government would have gotten off his back, his life would have been easier. But he didn’t. Fela knew what he wanted for the people that weren’t ever there for him. He fought for people that never showed interest in his fight. Unavoidably, he was eventually spent. When he ed away from HIV, over a million people that were never there to back him up when he fought for them, marched to the place where he was to be buried. For seven straight hours.”

He looked angry about it. I was going to speak, but I didn’t want to interrupt his monologue. I had never heard him talk so much.

“That’s the thing with people. They’re never interested until it’s too late. A musician’s fan base will double after he dies. A sick person is never visited until he’s a corpse. Fela’s case was no different. Fela wasn’t a perfect human being, but who is really? It’s all about what we do with our imperfect existence. It’s always been about that. Fela did a lot with his.”

I sighed, straightening up. A small grey, ugly-looking bird flew down and settled on the hood of the car we were leaning against. I wasn’t a fan of birds but Udo always said they were the animals of freedom and owners of the sky. Their sudden movement always made me anxious.

“Is there ever really a safe way to do a good thing?” I asked the question with two things in mind, wondering if Nat would pick up on it.

“You mean, is it possible that Fela could have fought for his cause without putting his life on the line?”

Well, that was one of the things I had in mind. As for the second, I knew Nat wouldn’t mention it even if he knew what I was talking about

“Hmm.”

Nat drew in a breath, thinking deeply.

“Sometimes, the bigger the risk, the greater the end, but also the greater the loss. If you think about things like safety, or the easier way out, you begin to box yourself. With fear. With worry. And what you do becomes short-rationed too. Then your cause starts to look less important and less worth it. I’m sure Fela asked himself ‘why him?’, and if what he was doing was worth it many times. But he did the things that he did anyway. And at the end of the day, half the people that criticised him haven’t done anything for a cause that was beyond them.”

I smiled. “I’ll let my father know.”

Nat laughed lowly, and my heart swelled.

“You’re not really into politics, are you?”

He asked the question cautiously. I assumed he was referencing what I had said in the café the other day and how I hadn’t wanted to go public with the document.

“I know about politics, but I don’t get involved. I’m starting to think that’s worse.”

Nat pursed his lips, nodding. I wasn’t sure if he was nodding in understanding, or to affirm my statement about how not doing anything despite being knowledgeable enough to be aware that something should be done was worse. I continued talking anyway.

“I wasn’t interested because I always saw myself as just one person. It was always ‘how could I possibly do anything?’ not, ‘what could I possibly do?’ I’m starting to see things differently now though. I have you guys to thank for that.”

Nat gave me a genuine smile. It was as if I had just given him a huge compliment without realising it.

“You on the other hand, seem very interested in it. Politics I mean.”

Like some switch had been flipped, Nat’s features became more serious, almost somber. My words seemed to bring back a bad memory. It wasn’t the response I was expecting. Nat laughed mirthlessly. A melancholic sound that made the sunshine feel icy.

“I learnt to hate it from a very young age if that’s what you mean. I guess that’s why I love to know a lot about it. You’re no match against the things you know nothing about.”

His choice of words confused me.

“No match? You say it like people in politics are out to get you.”

He put his earphone back in his ear.

“Better not take chances.”

Chapter 21 Ije

“Loss has a way of defining human character.”

The day was like the outer side of an ice-cream cup on a hot day — cold and wet. The rain pitter-pattered against the transparent glass wall of my history class that looked over the quad. The sky was an angry grey and the tree danced a melancholy dance, their branches moving to the rhythm of the violent wind. And from my history teacher’s introduction, it was safe to say that the weather really complimented the day’s topic.

“Epicurus, a Hellenistic philosopher, coined a famous argument about death: ‘Death is nothing to us. When we are, death is not come, and when death is come, we are not.’ On the other hand, Aristotle’s dialogue Eudemus, reflects the Platonic view of the soul as imprisoned in the body and as capable of a happier life only when the body has been left behind. According to Aristotle, the dead are more blessed and happier than the living, and to die is to return to one's real home.”

Mr. Braimah, my history teacher, stood impressively at 6 ft. 3. He was one of the younger teachers at our school and the proud wielder of a PhD in Philosophy and Historical Studies. He had a strong jaw and an easy aura. In many ways, he reminded me of Neso. Today, his lesson was taking my memory to Udo.

“Of course, the philosophical view of these two that will sit better with you will likely depend on your current beliefs, but that’s not the focus of this class.”

Mr. Braimah made direct eye with me for a brief moment. But I suppose I could be imagining it.

“The essence of this lesson is to reveal to you the relationship between loss and everyone’s favourite subject: history.”

“A lot of people with indelible spaces in the textbook of time, either for good or bad, changed suddenly after the loss of someone important to them. Give me a known name and I’ll give you a quick back story.”

Hands went up all over the class. Mr. Braimah gave a pudgy, pock-faced boy I recognised as Abuchi the floor.

“Adolf Hitler.”

Mr. Braimah sighed dramatically.

“Hitler’s story is an especially sad one. Everyone knows Hitler, right?”

A chorus of affirmations bounced off the classroom walls.

“Yes.”

“Of course.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Of course. The propelling force behind the Second World War. The man that indirectly caused the death of seventy five million people. But that was the life of Old Hitler. Young Hitler is said to have been a popular student with good grades. Gifted in the arts. Amazing social skills. Until he changed irreversibly after the ing of his mother and then was ripped apart after the death of his brother and best-friend.”

The class was silent for a few beats. We took our time to let that sink in. But Mr. Braimah didn’t want the emotion to mellow out. He had a point to make.

“Yes! Another known name please?”

Another round of hands went up. Mr. Braimah gave audience to a very lightskinned, long-legged girl with a splash of freckles. Joelle. The best track athlete in the school.

“Ed Gein.”

Mr. Braimah made a face of disgust.

“Well, this is certainly a horrific one. If you’re not interested you can plug your ears.”

The class urged him to continue even if we all knew that he will.

“Edward Gein, also known as the Butcher of Plainfield, has a far from plain story.”

Mr. Braimah gave us time to appreciate his pun. When nothing came, he cleared his throat and continued.

“Mr. Gein is known now for his sordid crimes of murder and body snatching — nice way of saying that he exhumed graves and dug up corpses — which are unique particularly because he didn’t just exhume these corpses but made dainty household items such as baskets and bowls from their skulls and skin, and even wore the breasts of some of the women after skinning off their torsos. Regardless of his gag-worthy atrocities, Ed Gein was a delightful member of the society and was said by of his neighborhood after his conviction to have helped anyone that needed his help, until the death of his mother. A woman Gein ired more than anything.”

Mr. Braimah walked down the center aisle of the classroom with the attention of the entire class in his palm. He had set the foundation firmly for the rest of his lecture, and was ready to go in for the kill.

“The point of this horror story is to make you all completely aware of how, to a great extent, the lives of each and every one of us are historically intertwined. The saying, ‘history never ceases to repeat itself’, should never be taken lightly.

Tomorrow, you might lose someone dear to you — some of you already have. You might not start a world war, or wear the breasts of carcasses —”

The whole class laughed a bit at that.

“But you shouldn’t flush out a big chunk of your life mourning. the dead, don’t die with them.”

A heavy silence blanketed the whole class. Maybe it was something about Mr. Braimah’s tone, the way he controlled the tempo of his voice, but he could read out his details and move a crowd to tears. With only twenty minutes, he had got the whole class thinking.

I didn’t realise it at first, but my heart rate had picked up and my palms were sweaty. Images of Udo that I hadn’t allowed myself to think about in a while, filled my mind. I put my head on my desk and tapped my foot furiously against the floor. I heard Mr. Braimah dismiss the class from a faraway place and I could hear the slow footsteps of my classmates as they all filed out of the class, still recovering from the revelation of the lesson.

The classroom door clicked and then there was silence. Raising my head and breathing deeply, I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes and forced myself to be calm. Was that a panic attack? I hadn’t had one in a long time but the antsy feeling that came after was so familiar like it never stopped in the first place.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and I almost jumped.

Looking up, I saw Nat’s concerned face staring down at me. His gold-brown eyes were not as alive. They seemed mellow. Sad even.

“Are you okay?”

He straddled the seat in front of me and placed his elbow on my desk, resting his chin in his palm, telling me he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Him?” I knew he was referring to Udo. He was either smart, or I was obvious.

I nodded.

“I guess I haven’t let myself think of him enough. He’s probably mad about that and kicking my ass for it.”

Nathan smiled with his teeth. I had never seen him do that before, and for the first time, I observed a chip on his left incisor.

“I’d do the same if I were him.”

I laughed at that.

The overhead ceiling fans whirred, melting into the silence. No one spoke for a long time, but the silence wasn’t awkward. More than anything else, it was comforting.

“For what it’s worth, I think you’ve been doing a great job at being strong since he left. Udo will be really proud.”

Tears stung the corners of my eyes but I blinked them away.

“But you don’t have to be so strong all the time.”

It felt different knowing that he meant to ensure it.

The 11 o’clock bell went, signaling it was time for break. Standing, Nathan extended a hand to help me out of my seat; even if I didn’t need any help I took it anyway.

We both made our way through the crowded halls to our corner table at the cafeteria. Remi, Ehizele, and Carlos were already there waiting for us.

Remi gave us a curious look.

“I heard your history class ended early today. Where have you been?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that.

“We were talking.”

Nat shrugged when he said this. Like it was a normal thing. Oddly enough, it had felt like it was. Nat took a seat beside Carlos, patting his back in greeting. Ehizele couldn’t resist the opportunity to tease me.

“Talking?” She said, dragging the word and poking me in the sides.

“Yes. Talking.” I did my best to sound firm.

Remi and Carlos laughed at the two of us and Nathan tapped through his phone, completely oblivious.

“Anyway,” Remi called attention to herself, drumming her fingers against a much thicker envelope this time. One I hadn’t noticed earlier.

“It’s ready.”

We all became serious. Nathan looked up from what he had been doing, his phone completely forgotten. Remi took out an A3-sized paper with the same heading as last time, but this time the paper had a letter head. The name of our publication was printed in bronze in the upper left corner of the paper:

Kalakuta Times

Right beside a crest that I didn’t anyone deg. Remi could never disappoint.

The information on the page was arranged to appear more like a news report than the statement of events that was printed on the paper that was ed round earlier at Kalakuta.

Most prominent of all was the signature at the bottom of the page, printed just the way Nat had signed it. Just slightly enlarged.

“You could all stare gaping at this —” Remi wore a proud smile as she spoke. She really deserved to be proud of herself. “— or you could look at the information from the comfort of your phones.”

The rest of us were lost for a while, but Ehizele caught on pretty quickly.

“The website is finished already?” She exclaimed, almost jumping out of her seat.

“No way, Remi!” I shoved her playfully on the shoulder. “You didn’t even let us know that you had started working on it. We would have helped out.”

Everyone chorused in agreement.

“I didn’t intend to keep you all out of the loop.”

Remi appeared sheepish. She probably only just realised that she had done all the work herself.

“I started and finished in a hurricane of creative energy. Once I got started, I couldn’t stop.”

I smiled at her. We all understood her nature.

“Next time, you should let us know so you don’t over exert yourself.” Nat spoke up from across the table.

“Noted.”

Remi patted down her already perfect hair. What an Nkem move.

“So let’s see it.”

Carlos didn’t bother to contain his excitement anymore. Remi took out her phone and asked us to check the group chat for a link. We all did as she had said.

Carlos was the first to comment.

“This is amazing Remi!”

“It definitely is!”

I scrolled through the predominantly orange interface that was well complimented by a monochrome touch and a bit of green. Remi always said that people had it all wrong. Orange was the true colour of life and ion. Whether or not that was true, her design definitely gave the webpage a pulse.

“Any need for modifications?”

She couldn’t be serious.

“No way.” Nat said voicing my thoughts.

“It’s more than perfect as it is.” Ehizele continued to gush over Remi’s work.

“Definitely.”

“What’s next?”

The question was from Carlos but we had all been wondering the same thing.

Remi sat up straighter.

“The fun part.”

*

The difference in the atmosphere when I stepped into the hall at the end of my 7th period class, the one after our short break, was palpable. The air was abuzz. Most people had their noses in their phones and others had large, familiarlooking print-outs in their hands.

I saw a girl whom I recognised as Aisha, one of the people whose parents had been mentioned in the documents hurry to the girl’s bathroom in tears, her friends flanking either of her sides.

Not wanting to stand out, I took out my phone as well. Walking down the hall, I glanced up from my phone screen at intervals. Sighting a news stand, I took a copy of Kalakuta Times off it, iring it as I moved.

A voice came from the intercom, loud and distinct. It was the principal, Mr. Adewusi, asking that all students leave immediately. School was over for the day.

I made my way out into the quad with the crowd of bickering students. I caught snatches of the conversation.

“I never knew Aisha’s dad was a fraudster…”

“How did all these people get caught?”

“This is going to have a huge impact on SPC’s name…”

“I don’t think any of our parents or us are safe anymore…”

The last person was smart to think that. To know that.

From a distance, I saw Remi, Ehizele and Carlos waiting for me by the fountain. Nat fell into step beside me.

“That didn’t seem so bad.”

I felt like a criminal fleeing a crime scene as I hurried to keep up with his long strides. Noticing, he slowed down.

“I mean, there was hardly any clap-back.”

Nat smiled in anticipation.

“Trust me,” he said casually taking my hand, “this is just the beginning.”

Chapter 22 Ije

We — Carlos, Nat, Remi, Ehizele, and I— all volunteered at Carlos’ mum’s service home that day. Volunteering was fun. We played sports with the kids in the morning and served the boarders lunch in the afternoon. Nathan looked funny in an apron, but somehow the same apron looked natural on Carlos. Remi and Ehizele laughed at the way the hair net looked odd on me until they had to put on theirs. I wish I could say that I was the bigger person and didn’t comment when they did, but that would have been no fun.

After cleaning and washing up, we were all exhausted. We had told Kojo, who Carlos and Nat had introduced us to, that he and his volunteers could have a break that day. They volunteered every day of the week. It was a tedious task doing everything all on our own, but it was fulfilling as well.

At the end of the day, Ehizele suggested that we all get food and have a picnic at the national park. We agreed, and when we got there, we sat in the shade of a large Iroko tree to eat, enjoying the breeze and the feeling of the grass in between our toes.

We ate in silence, too tired for conversation until Remi exclaimed suddenly, looking up from the phone that she had been scrolling through.

“This is horrible!”

Ehizele hurried up to her to see what she had been looking at. When she did, she exclaimed as well.

“In a democratic country?”

“What is it?” Nat asked sitting up.

Carlos and I were equally interested.

“Did any of you hear of the Operation Ease the Traffic Campaign when it was first announced?” Remi asked, ready to let us know what was going on.

“The president announced it about a week ago I think,” Carlos said, not too sure.

“Yeah, you’re right. Last Thursday. With the aim of reducing congestion and its environmental and economic effects. That’s what they say anyway, but it’s likely because of a festival they have planned. They’re trying to solve the problem before the foreign guests arrive. They’re fixing the country not for the indigenes but the onlookers.”

Nat smiled at me proudly and I gave myself a pat on the back.

“Yes, that’s the one. The personnel responsible for enforcing it have been put on the streets with horsewhips and are delivering on the spot beatings with no room for trial. Dozens of people have already been horribly wounded by the beatings.

The officials are on a power trip.”

The disgust on Nat’s face was evident. Carlos’ mirrored his. I was almost speechless. It was deplorable that such could happen to the civilians that ought to be protected. It was an irreverent trampling on the laws that ought to reign supreme. I knew what had to be done.

“This seems like something Kalakuta should cover. A week of lambasting the government for neglect and poor execution, and its officials for being zombies that follow commands without thought.”

Everyone seemed shocked that those words had come from my mouth. To be fair, I was shocked as well. A few weeks ago, I was neutral towards government affairs, and now I was some sort of activist. It’s amazing what the right company does to you.

Remi broke into a smile. She liked the idea. She liked it a lot. And from the look on the faces of the others, they felt the same.

“Let’s do it.”

Chapter 23 Nat

For the first time in what seemed like forever, Carlos accompanied me to the service home. It was odd the way things felt out of place when they hadn’t been done in a long time. But it was comforting the way things were heartening when there was a time they had always been done.

Everything was perfect about the day. My best friend and brother was by my side and the finely cobbled path to the backdoor of the service home felt paved with gold. Carlos noticed my ecstasy and didn’t hesitate to bring it up.

“Could you be happier?”

I laughed, shoving him in the shoulder as we strolled up to the door. I took out my keys to open it even if I was sure Kojo, Aunt Benita’s good friend and righthand man in the running of the service home had already been there. Like I guessed, the door was open.

As we stepped into the building for the first time since everything tipped over, I felt a semblance of normalcy. I never thought I’d be so grateful for normal.

“I thought it’d be really hard coming here again. In some ways it is. But I feel closer to her at the same time. And it makes it worth it.”

I gave Carlos a sympathetic pat on the back and led the way into the back kitchen. As I had assumed, Kojo was already setting up for the afternoon.

Kojo was a burly man with a receding hairline and a barrel for a stomach. He had a deep canon-like voice and the clear eyes of a good man. He also happened to be the owner of Kalakuta Republic.

When he saw Carlos, he exclaimed, embracing him.

“Carlos!” Kojo laughed a rumble of a laugh that almost shook the utensils. His apron strings could barely go around him but his hands were callous from years of service and hard work.

“Kojo!” Carlos hugged Kojo back. They hadn’t seen each other in months.

“How are you doing my boy?” Kojo took Carlos by the shoulders and shook his frame, examining him.

“You’ve lost a bit of weight.”

Carlos had lost a lot of weight.

“But you look good as ever.”

Kojo’s Ghanaian accent was thick as ever too. After all the time he spent away from his country, it never even got a tad less pronounced.

Light but hurried footsteps approached the kitchen. A slender Zara stood in the doorway, beautiful as ever. Her turban draped around and about her head and shoulders.

I had been expecting her sooner.

“Carlos!”

Zara rushed into the kitchen and gave Carlos a light smack at the back of his head.

“You were sick and?” Zara was genuinely upset. “You weren’t paralyzed. You weren’t mute. You could have picked up the phone.”

Carlos reddened, ashamed of himself.

“You’re right Zara. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you.”

Zara continued to yell, inserting biting Arabic here and there. I was sure Carlos understood. When I first started to volunteer at the service home, she had been teaching him.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” Zara folded her arms, sticking out her chin defiantly. “I’m just angry that I had to do all your work while you were gone.”

Carlos smiled and I saw so much love in his face that I was almost envious that he had found someone to care so much about while he was still so young. My mum always told me that love was a difficult treasure. Hard to find. Hard to keep.

“I know,” Carlos said, already leading her out of the room so they could talk. “I’m sorry about that too.”

*

Everyone welcomed Carlos back for the rest of the day. Since the gang had called Kojo and told him to give the other volunteers time off, none of them had seen Carlos since his time away. He was everyone’s favourite. I had been too bratty as a child and too taciturn as a tween to garner as much affection as he had. Carlos had always been shy too, but in a more adorable way.

I was on my way to the storage room to get a new cloth that I could use to wipe down the tables when I felt the now familiar dizziness.

My vision was obstructed by black and white spots and the weight of my own body seemed to drag me down. I tried to blink away the dizzy spell, forcing myself to overcome the sudden fatigue.

I trudged into the dining area and hung the cloth on the back rest of one of the chairs. Pulling my weight. I made my way to the staff living area and collapsed on the couch, unconscious before my head hit the cushion.

*

I felt a hand on my shoulder prompt me into consciousness. The light that crept into my eyes stung and a headache hit me with full force. I tried to sit up but it was hard. Too hard. I stayed the way I was. Unable to move.

“Nathaniel?”

It was Carlos’ voice. He wasn’t yelling, but his words bounced around the wall of my skull, making it hard to think.

“Everything hurts.”

My voice was barely audible even to me. I hadn’t even parted my lips. But somehow, Carlos could make out what I was saying.

“1-10?”

He was asking me to rate the pain. His voice was frantic now and slightly raised.

I could hear many emotions in his voice, but the most pronounced was fear.

“Eleven.”

My eyes were half closed. I felt myself slipping out of consciousness, drowning in a pool of darkness.

“Nathan!”

The exclamation, the plea, was the last thing I heard before I completely lost touch with all that was around me.

*

I blinked furiously against the overdose of white light that I woke up to. From the sheets and the material of the mattress, I knew instantly that I was in a hospital.

Attempting to sit up, I groaned. The pain in my muscles had reduced but was there nonetheless. Regardless, I could at least hold my body up. Hearing my rustling, my mother rushed to my side. Once I caught sight of her red and swollen eyes, I wanted nothing more than to be unconscious again.

“Nathan?” She attempted to sound enthusiastic but her voice was weak from crying. The déjà vu was sickening. I hadn’t wanted to set foot in a hospital for a

long time after all that had happened mere months ago. And here I was once again. My mother crying over me.

“What’s wrong? Why are you crying? I’m fine I promise.”

It was my second blackout in two weeks. I couldn’t even believe myself. My mum tried to hold back a sob. I opened my arms to embrace her but she took my hands in hers instead.

“The doctor’s been here Nathan.” She hiccupped. “You’re not fine baby. Not yet.”

I didn’t want to hear anymore. I had to be okay. Everyone was dying. If I wasn’t fine who’d make sure that Carlos was fine? Who’d take care of my mum?

“What’s the problem?”

It was like there was a boulder wedged in my throat, making it hard to speak. I guess it’s like that when you’re asking about something you don’t really want to know.

“Leukemia.”

My mouth went sandpaper dry and I didn’t, couldn’t, speak for a long time. I didn’t know what to say. But I didn’t want to respond to a mother that had just

had to tell her son that he was dying with silence.

“Where’s Carlos? Does he know?”

My mum smiled a watery smile.

“No. He stepped out to get something for me to eat. I said I wasn’t hungry but he insisted. We’ve been here for a while.”

I wasn’t sure what to say and I felt lame for it. I was terrified about what the future held and all that could change. But I didn’t want to worry about that now. I didn’t want my mother to worry.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, tears pooling in my eyes. “I don’t want Carlos to know for now though. He just started being more like himself.”

My mum let out a loud sob, unable to suppress it. I opened my arms again and she didn’t hesitate to embrace me. I stroked her back as she trembled. Silent tears rolled down my cheeks.

I wondered if life would be different if we could see tragedy coming.

Chapter 24 Ije

It was always difficult to find the whole family gathered for dinner. Eating together became even more of a rarity after Udo ed. He had always been the one to mellow out all of our excesses and ease friction. Without him, it seemed impossible for all of us to be gathered in one place without getting at each other’s throats.

Today, however, we all sat around the table. My father was at the head, and my mum was in the left seat closest to him. Adanma sat at his right, and I sat beside her.

The food on the table was poised like decorative instruments. The frigid silence created no suitable atmosphere for eating. We all sat, back straight, like we were seated beneath the sword of Damocles. The sight of Udo’s empty spot made me sad. The sight of Neso’s made me even sadder because he could be here if he wanted to be.

My father took a forkful of his food, replacing the utensil when he did, to the right side of his plate.

“A memo was sent to parents the other day. It read that there’s been some rather incriminating propaganda going round in your school, Ije?”

Adanma looked at me curiously. I hadn’t told anyone anything of Kalakuta

Times or the Kalakuta 5.

I bristled. But I wasn’t sure if it was from anger or fear.

“I’m not aware of any news going round that has been confirmed as false.”

I was shocked at my boldness. From the look on Ada’s face, she was too. Mother looked absent as usual.

Father looked at me with a question on his face and an unspoken promise in his eyes. There was something almost threatening about his countenance.

“Next time something like this happens, I shouldn’t have to prompt you to bring it up.”

Father took a sip of his wine, smiling into his cup.

“There’ll be no next time anyway. Not at SPC at least.”

Panic began to bubble up inside me. I had no idea where Father was going with this, but I didn’t like the look of it so far.

Ada knew him well enough. She caught on quickly.

“You can’t possibly have plans of pulling Ije out, can you?”

She pushed back her chair, standing up. She was clever, but sometimes she could be reactive by nature.

“You had better watch your tone.”

Father arranged his napkin on his lap as he spoke. Anyone watching would have thought he was letting us know about how his day at work had gone. I wondered how our family was fake both within and outside the walls of our home.

“I’m the head of this house. I can do as I please.”

Mother got up, taking the untouched plates to the kitchen where she would pack the food up to give to Driver Yusuf. Whenever she cooked for a family dinner, food went to waste.

“You need to consider the effect another change of environment could have on Ije.”

Adanma was trying to calm down. She knew that yelling and directionless backand-forth would take her nowhere with Father. She was a good negotiator, but her earlier outburst was a costly mistake.

Adanma continued to argue my case. I listened, watching Father’s unmoving countenance and fearing that my time in SPC may really be cut short. The thought read along the lines of a tragic comedy. I had found something that interested me. Something that gave me purpose. And it was being pulled out from beneath my feet.

I thought of Nat and Remi and the entirety of Kalakuta 5, something I had really felt like a part of. I thought of Kalakuta Daily and the thrill I had felt when we released our first publication and deliberated over the second. I had felt purpose, like I knew what I would like to do for a long time. And when my ideas and contributions were implemented, I felt useful. I thought of the Operation Ease the Traffic campaign and the group’s intentions of doing something about it. I thought about not being a part of that and decided then and there that that wouldn’t be possible.

“I’m continuing at SPC.”

I looked Father straight in the eyes for the second time in one dinner. But I felt no fear. Just drive and motivation.

“You may not realise it, but SPC is the only good thing in my life that you have ever been a part of. And I will keep attending it.”

My Father looked like he had been slapped across the face.

“What makes you think…” I dropped my trump card. “…if you pull me out, I’ll tell everyone there that the reason I can’t attend is because my almighty Father cannot afford an SPC education. I hope the news spreads round your government

circles.”

Father looked at me, blinking repeatedly as he searched for words.

He isn’t denying anything. Could he really be in government?

I thanked Mother for the food as I left the table. Had I just blackmailed Father? It was unbelievable even to me. Especially to me. I wondered when I had become so different. But I knew it was the outcome of spending so much time with the assertive people Father wanted me to leave behind.

As I undressed, I wondered why Father was bothered by the anti-government propaganda in the first place. He shouldn’t be. Unless he had something to hide. I imagined Father’s name being in one of Remi’s documents and shivered.

I put on a more comfortable set of clothes and lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling. My thoughts were occupied with visions of a future fighting for the oppressed, voiceless and marginalised.

Nathan would say that no one was voiceless. Some people were just ignored to silence.

I was shocked about how differently I perceived the danger I was potentially putting myself in. I was giddy with thoughts of a future that I was once ready to run away from. I was unaware of how much danger that future was about to be in.

*

The sound of my door opening woke me up. Adanma approached my bed, taking a seat at its foot.

“I’m proud of you for speaking for yourself Ije.”

She embraced me. When she pulled back, her eyes were glassy.

“When Udo ed, it hurt, but I was particularly worried about you. You two had such a connection.”

Ada dabbed at her eyes and chuckled.

“I even envied you two sometimes. Anyway, I was worried that you’d completely fold. Clearly, you’re a lot stronger than I anticipated.”

She hugged me again, holding me tightly.

“I’m sorry for underestimating you.”

I stayed still for a while, not wanting the moment to end. I loved Ada just as much as I had loved Udo. I couldn’t imagine my life without either of them. In Udo’s case unfortunately, I didn’t have to imagine.

“It’s okay.” I spoke into Ada’s neck. “I underestimated myself for a long time too.”

A cool breeze that smelt of green and pine danced in through my bedroom window. I heard the sound of chirping birds. On another day, in a different space of time, the sound would have annoyed me. But today, perhaps because it was the backdrop of such a serene moment, it was almost pleasant.

Ada pulled away and I whined while she laughed at my childishness.

“I almost forgot; Neso is downstairs. He said that he’d like to see you. He’s in the outer living room. Dad almost didn’t let him in at all.”

I wasn’t sure how to act at the mention of Neso. It seemed like it had been so long since I last saw him. In reality it was only a few months. That really was a long time. It made it hard to believe that I saw him every day at some point in this same lifetime.

I wondered why he hadn’t shown his face all those months. He hadn’t even been at the funeral. I should have been angry, but Neso rarely ever did anything without a reason. He was organised and rational but still had a care-free air about him. It was one of the reasons for my long-term crush on him.

I rushed to my dressing table and took a look at myself. I had a sleep-line across my left cheek and my eyes were tired. My hair was a mess and my clothes were wrinkled. I groaned at my reflection.

Adanma laughed at me from her place on my bed. She had stretched out to make herself more comfortable.

“You’re still yet to grow out of your Neso-infatuation? I thought that boy you always mention would have cured it by now.”

She scrunched up her face to think.

“Nick...Nicholas...Nanven…?”

I knew she was talking about Nathan but I wasn’t going to help her in her quest to tease me. Besides I wasn’t sure what I felt for Nathan. There was a definite attraction, but not one I was willing to think about at the moment. It might have even been something platonic.

I ignored her and dedicated my time to fixing up my appearance since she had decided that she would be of no help. I had refused to get my hair relaxed when Ada had done so to hers. I had wanted to be like Nkem.

“Neso wouldn’t even be able to see you.”

“I don’t care.”

And I didn’t. He deserved the best.

Approving of the way I looked in the mirror, I gave my reflection a nod and hurried out of my room. I raced down the stairs, stopping at the landing to adjust my clothes and calm myself down so that I wouldn’t sound out of breath. It shouldn’t be so obvious that I was in a hurry to see him.

I took slow steps toward the door of the outer living room, wondering why Father hadn’t wanted him to come in. Taking a deep breath, I placed my hands on the door handle.

3…2…

“You can come in now Ije.”

I heard a smile in the voice that came from the other side of the door. Smooth and thick like new honey. Sheepishly, I opened the door a crack and then all the way, stepping in and shutting it behind me.

“You always do that,” I whined.

Being blind, Neso had what seemed like a sixth sense, but was really just a heightening of his other senses. Needless to say, it made him highly perceptive.

“Let a blind man have some fun.”

Neso said this playfully. He had never been interested in pity. I took a seat in the chair opposite him making myself comfortable.

“I’m in a new school now.”

With Neso, there was never a lull in conversation even if I was sometimes overly self-conscious and nervous, especially when I was younger. But he was nothing short of great company. Even when Udo was alive, he never treated me like a bothersome little sister, but as a needed person. It was only as I spoke to him now that I realised how much I had missed him.

“Smashing.”

His British accent was faint but still there.

“How has it been so far?”

I grinned. There was so much to tell.

“Fantastic.”

I launched into a narrative of all the things that I had experienced at SPC so far. I even mentioned the fact that it was a school for the children of government people. I nearly let the details of Kalakuta 5 slip. When that happened, I decided that I had been speaking for too long.

“You’re different, Ije.”

Neso looked at me, with an almost sad smile on his face. I assumed the emotion was nostalgia.

“You’re bolder now. I can sense it in the way you talk. Like you’re surer of yourself.”

Ironically, the statement made me feel self-conscious.

“I’ve been hearing that more often lately.”

I played with the hem of my top then reverted to twiddling my thumbs.

“I’m glad of it. Udo would have too.”

Something about hearing talk of Udo from Neso’s mouth made me a bit emotional. I felt the tightness in my chest and the heat in the back of my throat

that came before tears and forced it all down.

“Why weren’t you at the funeral?”

Neso clenched his jaw. Like he was stopping himself from saying more than he should.

“Because I couldn’t be.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“Couldn’t?”

Neso sighed.

“Your dad didn’t let me come. He had his reasons so don’t use your new found boldness to confront him alright?”

He said the last part with a smile on his face, but I could tell that it was forced. Regardless, I wouldn’t speak to Father about it if Neso didn’t want me to. Even if the anger that bubbled in my chest on finding out that he was absent from his best friend’s funeral because of Father almost burnt me.

The conversation shifted to a lighter topic. Eventually we were speaking about nothing in particular. In the end, Adanma had to come down to let me know that Father was asking if Neso had left.

I knew that Father and Neso were never friends. But this seemed ridiculous to me.

Neso laughed lightly.

“I wouldn’t remain where I’m not welcome. Ije you know you can meet me if you ever need anything. I’m happy I got to talk to you again.”

Neso let himself out into the evening that had bled into black night, cane in hand. Probably to meet his chauffeur along the way.

Ada squeezed my shoulder.

“He reminds you of him too, doesn’t he?”

I nodded.

“So much.”

Chapter 25 Nat

It had been six days since I got my diagnosis, and time, unlike they say, had healed nothing. I was sure that the way I had been feeling for the last few days — weak and defeated — was more a product of my mental state than my actual physical condition. I was exhausted by everything. I found it difficult to imagine a future with leukemia. I wondered for the second time in the space of four months, “Why me?”

Mum let me know that cancer runs in my dad’s side and that she had always been worried about it showing up in me. As I had suspected, she had had a pretty good clue about what might have been wrong with me right from my first blackout. But she wanted to hope for the best. Or hope the bad away. Needless to say, destiny wasn’t that easy to sway.

My hospital room felt smaller, like the walls were closing in on me. The beeping of my heart rate monitor had crossed the line that separated monotonous from maddening. A draft blew in from my hospital room window and I started to feel uncomfortable. My skin felt prickly and my fingers were beginning to tremble. I had never had a panic attack before and could never have guessed that a little isolation would be what will set one off for me.

Just when I thought I would really break down, I heard my hospital room door open. My mother stood in the door way, looking right at me, hand still around the door knob. She was smiling more than she had in a while. She immediately had my attention. An equally smiling Ije poked her head out from behind her. My trembling fingers began to still. After her came Carlos, hand in hand with Zara. Then Remi. Then Ehizele. Each held a bouquet of orange, green, and white

balloons. A silent tribute to Kalakuta Times.

I felt myself smile. Something I hadn’t done since I was diagnosed. Each person came up to drop the balloons at my bed side, giving me a hug as they did. I wondered how obvious it was that I had held Ije for longer.

“How are you feeling?”

She asked the question with genuine concern in her voice. Her eyes were large and sincere. Brilliant orbs with an endearing sheen.

“Better than I have in a while.”

And I really meant it.

“Nkem said you had a concussion. How? Did you fall?”

It was odd hearing my mum’s first name from someone who was the same age as I was. I looked over at my mum and she gave me a pointed look.

You said you weren’t ready for them to know.

My thoughts quickly moved to a good cover up story.

“I fell when I was with the kids at the service home the other day.” From the corner of my eyes, I noticed Zara give me a curious look. “I’ve been in and out of it since then.”

Carlos didn’t like the damp mood.

“I’m sure it’s because I wasn’t there with you.” Carlos sighed dramatically. “Couldn’t handle a few kids without me.”

I rolled my eyes at Carlos but was secretly thankful for the change in atmosphere.

Ije placed a soft palm on my head, applying light pressure.

“Does this hurt?”

I gave a reassuring smile.

“Hardly.”

Ije didn’t seem convinced that I was fine.

“Stop worrying,” I urged as I sat up. “How has school been since our last stunt? Anything new?”

My mum looked curiously from the sidelines, not fully understanding what I meant. Something she had said after reading the memo that went out to parents made me know that she might be more aware of my private life than I realised. And she seemed secretly proud of it.

“Nothing so different. Only that there’s a bounty on the head of the publishers of KT.”

There was a secret smile in her voice.

“We can’t deny the ingenuity of whoever is behind it,” Carlos commented.

There was a round of agreement. I think I even saw my mum smile at our antics.

We spent the next two hours discussing nothing in particular. Ehizele had ordered take out so they all sat in chairs around my bed, eating food I couldn’t have until the doctor let me know my advisable diet. But it was okay because they were all there. My mum was bent on me living a full life regardless of my health condition. That moment, one I couldn’t imagine never reliving, made me interested in doing the same.

Eventually, visiting hours were over and everyone had to leave. My mum offered to walk them to their Uber. Zara hung back. She approached my hospital bed,

clad nicely in a pair of cream chinos and a white top. The look on her face told me what she was going to say before she opened her mouth.

“You don’t have a concussion.”

I sighed. I wasn’t in the mood for confrontation but I knew that Zara could be unrelenting.

“I don’t. I have something much worse.”

I couldn’t look at her. My eyes were trained on the white door opposite my bed through which one of my life’s best memories had just walked out.

“Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Zara took a deep breath. Like she had known that I was lying but hoped that she was wrong.

“Carlos should be able to tell. I think he knows subconsciously. But he doesn’t want the fact that you might be horribly sick to be true. He’s in denial.”

We were both silent for a while. I contemplated what it would be like if I called everyone back and told them right now. I imagined only tears and pain. I was tired of all that.

The sound of my heart rate monitor started to irritate me again.

“What do you want me to do or say, Zara? I’m scared and I’m worried for him too. You’re not the only one who cares about him.”

I had started to raise my voice. Zara didn’t look scared. She just looked sorry for me.

“What is it?”

There was a stretch of quiet.

“Leukemia.”

Zara nodded. “How long have you known?”

“Three days longer than you have.”

Zara’s eyes got cloudy. When she spoke next, she sounded like she was struggling to speak. So unlike her. I let her take that in before I spoke again.

“I’ll tell everyone when I’m ready. For now, please just keep it a secret.”

Zara wiped her eyes, nodding.

I was tired of seeing tears.

“I’m worried about what Carlos would be like if he found out. I’m worried about keeping another secret from Ije. And I’m scared too. But somehow, I know that things will work out the way they’re meant to.”

Zara continued to stare at me.

“I’ll let them know before they find out.”

Zara squeezed my hand and looked at me meaningfully. It’s funny how no one is as strong as they appear.

The silence was deafening after she left.

Chapter 26 Ije

The piano wept a flood of tears and its keys bled a scarlet river. I watched as Neso played the second movement of Beethoven’s Eroica: Funeral March. In the music, I could see the face of grief. In the moment, I could see Beethoven’s new face: Neso’s. His fingers danced expertly over the keys, but his mind and his soul were far away. I watched as his body swayed in trance-like motions, like he willed to be carried by the melancholic tune to a place of euphoria. After seeing Nathan in the hospital, I needed someone I could talk to. Someone that didn’t know enough details to ask so many questions, but will be a good ear regardless. Adanma was staying over at a friend’s house, preparing for an interview for an internship opportunity she really wanted, so I had decided to visit Neso.

As I walked up the path to his front door (which his manservant let me know was open), and let myself in, it had seemed like a good idea to come and see Neso. Watching him now though, I immediately felt like an intruder, witnessing something that no one else was meant to be a part of. But I had been enchanted, rooted to the spot in a spell-like restraint. The notes had encircled my ankles, and weighed down on my feet so that I could not move even if I wanted to. In my mind’s eye, I could see a whole funeral procession before me, and I was forced to wonder who really had died between Neso and Udo. The maniacal movement of Neso’s upper-body as he became enchanted by his own music — the uncontrolled bobbing of his head, forward and backward as the pace got faster and more evocative — gripped my heart with grief, and I was not aware of the tear that slipped down my cheek.

Neso stopped suddenly and let out an animalistic wail. He reminded me of the wolves that I watched on National Geographic, and their response to the death of a member of their pack. He had lost the lustre that constantly surrounded him. He looked almost…defeated.

I took a few steps towards him but he sensed my presence before I had even mustered the courage to face him. As he turned, my heart rate quickened like it did whenever Neso was around. He didn’t have on the glasses that he normally wore to hide his maim from the world. I still found him beautiful.

I wondered what he thought of me.

Then I reminded myself that he was blind.

“Ije?” He called out, looking in my general direction but not particularly at me.

I wondered how he did that. How he could sense people and identify them without as much as a touch.

“How did you know it was me?” I asked, slightly excited by the thought that he had found something to attribute to me.

“You’re light on your feet,” he said, a ghost of a smile on his lips. I could have easily forgotten that he was the one breaking down before my eyes just a few moments ago.

“And you have a scent.”

He had gotten me a body care set by Arete for Christmas two years ago, and I had refused to use anything that wasn’t Arete’s Wave since then.

A memory with Neso and Udo came to mind at that moment.

*

I was in the living room, sprawled on the sofa as I watched re-runs of How to Get Away with Murder. When I saw them, I got up to ask how the little outing was. When I ed by Neso, saying “hi”, he hesitated, something he never did.

“Ije?”

I could tell that he hadn’t wanted it to sound like a question, but it had. Neso hated drawing attention to his disability. It’s ironic how I always thought him invincible.

I still do.

“Forgotten me so soon?” I teased, making light of the situation.

“Of course not,” he said, trying to sound casual.

“By the way, is that a new scent?” he asked as I retreated into the kitchen in search of something to eat. Neso and Udo had offered me a space in their outing but I had declined, too enraptured by Annalise Keating to move a muscle.

I turned to answer him, realising that he had followed me into the kitchen.

“Yes, it is,” I said non-committal, although I had hoped he liked it. My adoration for him caused me to want his approval. “Do you like it?”

I had given myself a mental pat on the back for not sounding hopeful.

“It’s alright,” he drew out his words like he was buying time for himself to think carefully about what he had to say. “But you should stick to the old one.”

*

It made more sense now. He wanted something that he could always with me. I liked Wave more than before now.

“Light on my feet?” I knew that he was probably referring to the vibration that he felt when I walked, but I wanted to hear him say it. He made even domestic physics sound like magic.

“The vibration when you walk,” he said, standing up from his seat at the piano and facing me a bit more directly, “it’s hardly there.”

I took a step.

“Did you feel or hear that?” there was a smile on my face like the air wasn’t almost too melancholic to breathe in just a moment ago.

He let out a low laugh.

“Like I said,” he retrieved his glasses from the music stand where he had placed it, “hardly there”.

He looked a bit uneasy.

“I would have had them on if I knew you were coming,” he said referring to his glasses. “I’m sorry about that.”

Did he think I was disgusted by it?

By him?

The contrast between reality and that presumption was ironic.

“Why would that be a problem?” I took a tentative step towards him. He stilled slightly, perceiving it.

He laughed a mirthless laugh.

“Could that be a rhetorical question?” he took a seat on the pneumatic bench of the piano. “If I take my glasses off in a public place for half a second, whispers follow almost automatically.”

I could hear him try to hide his pain under humour. I had never imagined that his disability could possibly be bothering him. He carried burdens like they were weightless.

Or at least he made them look like they were.

“It’s disgusting,” he said, spitting out the word like he meant more than he said. “Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t die instead of being condemned to live as a freak.”

My heart ached for him. I had never seen him like that before. Insecure and fragile and painfully helpless. I ed all the things he had said to and done for me while I was growing up. Vividly, I ed a family dinner we had had the night of Udo’s high school graduation.

*

The table was more than set, an array of dishes ran down its middle. Four different types of rice and more sauces than I had ever seen. Grilled fish, gizzard, fried chicken and roasted meat were neatly arranged in foil wrapped platters. I had to it that my mother had truly outdone herself. I was starving that day. The dress I had worn for the high school graduation ceremony was a figure-hugging number that made my fifteen-year-old self awfully self-conscious. In readiness, I had skipped breakfast and steered clear of the hors d’oeuvres that were served during the ceremony. I sat straight so that my mid-section wouldn’t squish and make me look pudgy. Luckily, Father was not interested in us staying for the graduation dinner. My stomach let out an embarrassing rumble on the drive back to the house. I wasn’t sure if anyone heard it but I had definitely seen Neso turn in my direction at the sound, a small smile on his lips.

Finally, I was home and ready to attend to my less than empty stomach. I dug in, piling my plate after everyone else had gotten their first serving. Father sat across from me at the other end of the table. I had not taken much notice of him or anyone else really. I was momentarily unbothered about anything that was not my food.

I felt eyes on me and I looked up to meet Father’s disapproving glare. I was ready to ignore him, but hoped strongly that he would not voice his thoughts.

I was an overly sensitive weakling then.

“You could pay more attention to your weight Ije,” he lowered his fork to his plate and wiped his serviette across his double chin.

Yes I should really pay more attention to my weight.

“You should have seen the way you jiggled throughout today,” he attempted to feign genuine concern but I could tell his true intent from the tone of his voice.

My father was a child.

“Why do you think I didn’t want us staying for the ceremony dinner?” He paused, letting out a low laugh. The rest of the table got quiet: all sideconversation seizing. The dread in the air was palpable. Mother told Ada to follow her to the kitchen to get the cake, molasses and marzipans that would be for dessert. Ada followed reluctantly, wanting to be there if I needed her. I could tell from the look on Udo’s face that he would have liked to tell him to keep his unsolicited opinion.

Udo parted his lips to speak.

Father beat him to it.

“It’s because I was embarrassed.” He laid emphasis on the last word, drawling out each syllable distinctly.

Hot tears threatened to spill out as I stood, my food forgotten.

“You don’t walk out on your father.” I laughed mirthlessly at the fact that he felt that he could call himself that.

I laughed at myself too.

Neso stood slowly, touching the table surface with hardly even the pads of his fingers.

“Should she be sorry for feeding herself?” He asked the question almost sincerely. I could hear the disguised anger that lay behind his words.

Udo called Neso’s name sternly. He had been kicked out of the house once because he couldn’t stand Father’s domineering and dogmatic attitude. Father didn’t like Neso. Then again, no dictator fancied a threat. Father called him an ill-mannered and ill-tempered boy. Neso definitely grew up with a different life and was raised with a different ideology. In his childhood home, giving your opinion was not rebellion and asking questions was not ‘playing smart’.

“You should watch your mouth when speaking to me young man,” Father threatened, rising to his feet.

Udo asked Neso to let it go, and he sat down begrudgingly. He turned his head my way and drew his eyebrows together, scrunching them up to show that he was apologetic.

Later that night, I saw a note on the floor of my room written in a beautiful copperplate hand.

Ije,

I was already going to tell you that you looked great today like every other day. I’m sure you already know my judgement is best.

Smitten to stupor,

Neso.

*

It would be hard if I had to plainly explain what Neso is to me. He was a brother, a friend, a confidant. But sometimes there are moments that make me think there could be something more. That we could be something more.

What I was sure of was that I wanted to be to him what he had always been to me. Quid pro quo, it would be hard to pay the debt I owe him, but I would be the friend that he needed now.

“Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t die instead of being condemned to live like a freak…”

How would my life be with Neso…dead?

It was impossible to picture.

I threw caution to the wind and took firm steps towards him, holding his face in between my hands.

“You’re the furthest thing from a freak,” I said to him emphatically; hoping that my conviction would be infectious.

His breathing slowed and I became more conscious of our position. Because he was seated on the piano-bench, I was a full head taller than him. I looked down at him, his nose was slender and slightly pointed, his lips were full and his lower lip was pinker than his upper-one. He had neatly trimmed facial hair and light sideburns. His skin tone was consistent and his dark olive skin was smooth as porcelain.

I ran my thumb along his left cheek and took off his glasses. My fingers lay on either side of his face, trembling as they grazed his sideburns.

A small smile tugged at the corners of his rose tainted mouth.

“Are you shaking for fear?” he asked, cocking his head slowly to the side. “Or could it be anticipation?”

I leaned in slowly, fleetingly I wondered if I should ask for permission. Deducing our growing proximity from the closeness of my warm breath, his smile faltered. Taking that as a negative sign, I pulled away, embarrassment eating at my insides.

I hugged my mid-section as I turned to back him. Suddenly feeling selfconscious. Pointless as that may be.

“Ije.” His voice came out like a plea. But what could he possibly be begging for? I wondered why I hadn’t already run straight out the door.

“Ije.”

His voice was firmer this time but still retained its characteristic softness. It was like he could feel me folding in and retreating to the wall behind which he had struggled so much to remove me from.

“I’m sorry.” The words poured from my lips before I could process them as I struggled to salvage some of my dignity. “I wouldn’t have actually —”

“Could you kiss me?” He cut me off and caught me off guard. “I understand that isn’t really the conventional question but I couldn’t exactly initiate a kiss between the two of us even if I wanted to.”

He gave a casual shrug of his left shoulder, but the hesitant smile on his lips betrayed that he was nervous.

I turned to face him.

“Kiss you?”

I pitifully feigned disinterest.

“Why would I want to do that?”

I took two steps closer. Sensing my movement, his smile grew.

“Forgive my paltry suggestion,” he said as he bent his head in mock-shame, “I’ve always been bad with ideas.”

I closed the space between us and lifted his head by his chin. My heart race picked up as I leaned in and whispered, “Forgiven”.

Our lips melded together. There was no testing-waters moment, nor was there juvenile hesitance. I felt five years older, and that feeling alone which was born out of nothing more than kissing an older, desirable man — a man that I desired — reminded me of how much of a child I really was.

Napoleon drew his sword to brawl. The combat from both parties was unrelenting as their swords clashed with ionate fervour, fighting for dominance. It seemed like neither Napoleon nor his opponent will ever give up — until Neso pulled away.

I smiled. Breathless. Delirious with joy. Until I saw the look on Neso’s face. It

was contorted with inexplicable anguish, pain, and, most hurtful of all, regret.

“I’m sorry.” I cringed at the apology. I wanted to cover my ears and run, but the second serving of embarrassment of the night had my knees knocking and kept me rooted to the spot.

“I needed to know,” he said as he tilted his head back and placed his hands on either side of his head, his face a canvas of frustration. “And now I know.”

He apologised over and over again, each I’m sorry grating away at my heart. I needed him to stop.

“It’s okay.” I let out a desperate attempt at an unperturbed laugh. “He was my brother and your best friend. It’s hardly appropriate.”

I was gesturing unnecessarily now like I did whenever I was uncomfortable. I doubt I had felt greater discomfort than I did at that moment.

He covered his face in what seemed to be exasperation. I wonder what he had to be frustrated about. I was the one who had just had her dignity smashed against the floor and trampled on.

He shook his head. “It’s not okay. It’s really not okay.”

“No it is,” I pressed. “You were great friends, I understand if —”

Neso burst.

“No we weren’t friends,” he wrung his fingers together and placed them behind his neck, looking skyward at the ed ceiling of his parents’ palatial home. But I could tell that he was looking far beyond that.

His next words came out in a cautious whisper.

“We were…lovers.”

The words knocked the oxygen out of my lungs. My vision began to spot but I willed myself to remain conscious.

Lovers?

My brother was homosexual?

The homosexuals that Pastor James condemned to eternal damnation just last Sunday…Udo had been one of them? Neso too?

It seemed hardly possible. Udo was perpetually swarmed by girls. I tried to recall exactly how many he had shown interest in. I drew up several blanks.

I placed a shaking hand over my mouth as the possibility of Neso’s claim dawned on me. I wanted to scream.

“We were lovers, and it’s possible…” Neso’s voice trailed off as he struggled around a lump in his throat. “It’s possible our love killed him.”

I didn’t want to hear anymore. I was on the floor with my head between my knees and my arms wrapped around my legs as Neso continued. As if in a trance, he ignored my pleas for silence. He felt I should know.

“We had been arguing a lot,” his voice was leveled but strained and I could tell that whatever he was about to say, he still hated himself for it. “It was after one of our dinners out and we were in the parking lot of the restaurant we had eaten at when Udo said we should separate.”

Neso inhaled sharply like the thought of the eternal separation that had resulted from whatever he was about to say caused him physical pain.

“I asked why, and he said that what we were doing was wrong and that God forbade it. I asked him if God forbade love and he told me that I knew that it wasn’t the same. I told him to tell me that he didn’t love me and he said that he hated that I was making doing the right thing so much harder than it needed to be.”

Neso struggled to continue, giving up on any attempt at composure.

“I told him that there had to be another way and he said that there was no compromising God’s law.”

Neso let out a laugh void of mirth.

“He was so good. He wanted to do everything right.” Neso’s tone turned bitter. “And where is he now?”

He continued his narrative with the same faraway look on his face. “I can’t lie. I felt the air in the car shift. He said his last words with unmistakable finality. Like he was referencing the end of a lot more than just our relationship. I should have pressed on, asked him more questions. But I was a coward and I didn’t want to be rejected twice.”

He placed his head in his hands.

“The car was moving slowly, I assumed that he was driving carefully because there was a lot on his mind. The car stopped all together and I could tell that it was at an odd angle. I think he was trying to make sure that I didn’t get hurt too badly.”

I released my head from in-between my knees as the realisation of what Neso was trying to say dawned on me. I began to sob uncontrollably.

“I heard a honk from somewhere close by. I didn’t feel our car start to move

even then. Two seconds ed and Udo said that he was sorry. Then there was a short silence, quiet as the moment in the mind between thought and speech. Then there was the deafening sound of metal on metal. Had Udo always been so depressed by the reality of us? Was he ever actually happy? Had he always been disappointed in himself for not being able to romantically love anyone that wasn’t me?”

Neso paused. It was obvious that what he felt were the answers to these questions hurt him.

“One thing I’m sure of is that Udo could have avoided that car if he wanted to.”

It started to make sense. The words on Udo’s grave stone.

The stars were beautiful.

The night of the accident that led to his death, the stars had been beautiful.

I let out a strangled scream. I had heard enough. I slowly got to my feet and swayed. The room was spinning and my racing thoughts did little to help the situation. I felt about ready to throw up and then wash my ears with bleach.

Could Udo’s death really have been suicide? But I knew that Neso wouldn’t say that the person he loved preferred to die than to be with him unless it was true.

“I have to go.” I voiced out, already stumbling toward the door. My voice sounded far away in my ears and I felt like my head was underwater.

As I stumbled across the cobbled pathway leading out of Neso’s home, images of Udo flashed through my mind. Udo smiling as he took last year’s family Christmas photo. Udo teaching me how to ride a bicycle. Udo and I laughing in a heap as I fell for the hundredth time. All happy memories.

How could I have missed this? I recalled the way I had disregarded all the attendees at Udo’s funeral as fakes that knew little about who my brother was. It seemed that I was the same as them.

And Neso’s absence from the funeral and Father’s dislike of him. Could Father have known all along?

I wiped my tears with my sleeve as I pushed ed the gate, breaking into a sprint, wanting to put as much distance between myself and the palatial building as quickly as my legs will allow.

Chapter 27 Nat

It didn’t take much time for me to realise that I couldn’t hide an illness like mine for so long from someone who I had been living with. The medicine buffet was kind of a dead giveaway. When I told Carlos though, there were tears. He didn’t speak to me for the whole day that day. But he came to my room later in the night to let me know that he wasn’t mad at me, he was just a little shaken. And then he had laughed sadly and said that he hardly even had the right to be. He wasn’t the one with the disease.

Carlos was too selfless for his own good. I knew the whole thing was some sort of sickening déjà vu for him. But he chose to make it about me, saying that he’d me in any way he could when I told him I intended to live as full a life as possible.

It had been a week since I was discharged and I was sure I looked better than I had since my diagnosis. I felt better too. I meant it when I said that I’d do anything to live as normally and fully as I could against all odds.

I was tired really, of the daily routine. I’d get up early, eat a big and healthy breakfast, down tons of medication, exercise and then take a shower with nothing to do for the rest of the day. I was sick of it.

I had obeyed when my mum said she didn’t think I should resume school again for a while but I didn’t see the point anymore. If I was staying out of school, then where was the normal life I wanted? I was clearly strong enough, but I had

obliged because I knew her opinion was born out of love and concern. After a week doing nothing (although I must it that I had definitely gotten stronger because of the time I spent at home), and Carlos coming home to tell me that Ije hadn’t been in school for days, I was ready to go back.

I sat in the living room preparing for my mum to return from work so that I could let her know my mind. I had run it all by Carlos and he had said that I should go ahead if that was what I wanted but let her know how I feel tenderly.

So that was what I was going for — tender.

When my mum came in with a bag of groceries and saw me seated on the living room sofa doing nothing, I could tell that she knew something was up.

I took the bags from her and made to drop them in the kitchen. She followed me in.

I leant against the counter to face her and she sighed.

“What’s the problem, Nathan?”

I laughed quietly at how perceptive she was.

“What makes you think there’s a problem?”

She raised a quiet eyebrow at me.

“Alright I’ll get to the point.” I took a deep breath, gathering up courage to say what I needed to say. “I want to go back to school, mum. I need to go back.”

My mum looked unshaken. Like she was expecting me to say that sooner or later but had hoped it would be later.

“You don’t have too yet, dear.”

She stepped forward to hold my face in her hands and I noticed that she was already tearing up.

“I don’t have to, but I want to,” I gave her a pleading look. “I’ll do what the doctor says. I’ve already been doing just that.”

I gestured towards the medicine that lay on the kitchen counter. Carlos was about to walk in, possibly to get a snack from the fridge, but on sighting us, he turned on his heels like he never wanted anything.

Traitor.

“I know you want the best for me, but I can’t possibly stay here with no end in

sight.”

She nodded in understanding.

“How soon do you want to start?”

I didn’t miss a beat.

“Tomorrow.”

She looked like she had seen a ghost.

“Jesus Nat! What’s the hurry for?”

I wasn’t sure where the idea had come from, but I felt it. I just knew it.

“Aside from my desire to live as I should, I think…I think Ije needs me.”

My mum gave a sad smile, hugging me. She didn’t seem like she was willing to argue anymore. I was thankful for that. Arguing with her was never fun.

“So, I can go?”

She smiled at me.

“Whatever you want dear, just make sure that you always come back home.”

I felt it even then that I had made a promise I couldn’t keep.

Chapter 28 Ije

I hadn’t eaten or spoken to anyone for days. Not even Ada. She had done her best to get through to me while she could, but three days ago she left to begin her first internship in another state and it was much easier to ignore calls than aggressive knocking twenty-two hours a day.

Mother had done her best to be patient at first, calming Father down when I first refused to go to school. He remarked that I had better go to the school that I wanted to go so badly. Adding that I should even go on Sundays too if it were possible.

Mother’s patience had worn thin however, when I refused to let her know what the problem was after a week of useless moping and, as she put it, wasting the life God had given me. She eventually forced me out into the real world for the first time in days.

Remi and Ehizele barraged me with questions when they saw me. I hadn’t replied their texts or picked up their calls and I missed the weekly meet up in Kalakuta that we arranged to develop our Anti-Operation Ease the Traffic campaign.

I heard my friends’ many questions but couldn’t process them. Lately, I had been a shell of my old self. My life suddenly seemed like a lie and it had to happen just when I was starting to get in touch with people around me and how the greater aspects of society had an influence on them. Maybe even my overall

purpose. I just had to be slapped in the face so brutally.

Like a zombie, I made my way to my first class for the day, shrugging off Remi and Ehizele and brushing aside their concerned pleas.

When I realised that I had arrived just in time for history class, I was relieved. Being teleported to another space in time by Mr. Braimah was just what I needed to get my mind off things.

The class gradually filled up. Students trickled in until all the seats were occupied. From where I was seated, I noticed Nathan walk in. I couldn’t see his face so clearly but I was certain that it was him. He had noticed me too and I could tell, even with the distance, that he had so many questions.

Mr. Braimah walked into the class, his presence quietly demanding attention. I thought of how he had always reminded me of Neso and concluded that, regardless of what I now knew, he still did.

Mr. Braimah made a show of clearing his throat to silence the class even if, as usual, he had our undivided attention.

“Today,” he began his lesson with his usual theatrical gusto, “I will be taking you through a peculiar aspect of art history.”

Quiet murmurs resounded in the class. I assumed it ensued because no one was particularly excited about dates and numbers and equally wondered what aspect

of art history could be, as Mr. Braimah had put it, peculiar.

“In your biology class or perhaps another life sciences class that you may attend, you may have learnt of crops that have male and female flowers either on the same or different plant. Bisexual crops, correct?”

There were puzzled but affirmative responses.

“Now I’m going to introduce you to something new but intriguing that is in many ways related to that biology lesson that you had some time ago — androgynous art.”

The interest of the entire class had definitely been piqued. You could tell from the pin drop silence that everyone waited in anticipation for Mr. Braimah to speak.

Josephine Abubakar, the class know-it-all with a habit of pontificating, raised a hand.

“So, art with both male and female characteristics?”

She looked skeptical.

“Indeed Ms. Abubakar.”

Mr. Braimah stopped for a beat and the whir of the ceiling fans punctuated the silence.

“Of course, it is not entirely possible to evaluate the anatomy of a work of art,” Mr. Braimah earned himself a chuckle or two from his listeners “but some art detectives and historians have subjects that can’t be strictly classified as male or female.”

“An example?” Josephine Abubakar wasn’t convinced. She cocked a questioning brow. It was funny how she always knew a little under forty percent of what there was to know about things she argued about, but made out her argument to appear like she knew all and more. She always appeared like a fool in the end. But her head was stuck so far up her derriere that she couldn’t even see it. How could curt replies and ignorant remarks of ‘that’s what I know’ and ‘it’s just my opinion’ ever substitute real knowledge?

Sometimes some of the other students looked like they would like to smack her on the head for destroying the dream like montage created by Mr. Braimah in his classes. Today was one of those times.

“A prominent example is Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.”

Josephine cut in.

“Da Vinci? Wasn’t he a fag?”

She spat out the last word with venom. You could almost hear the whole class breathe in sharply at the same time.

Mr. Braimah winced at the word and I found myself doing the same.

“That word is rather offensive —”

Josephine snorted. I would say that her abrasive nature always got the best of her but it was her only nature.

“Makes no difference if you ask me. Call them fags or homosexuals, they’re all still condemned at the end of the day.” She gave a sick smile. “By our country’s law at least.”

Mr. Braimah asked her to sit and proceeded with his lecture. He was obviously annoyed by her disposition and the effect that it had had on the class’ atmosphere. Regardless, he did his best to salvage what he could of his lesson. He went on to narrate the foundation on which the theory of the Mona Lisa being androgynous had been birthed. But, for me anyway, the damage had already been done. Sorrow and anxiety that I had been struggling to suppress, fought to make its way out. It was like a dam that I had constructed to hold in my tears had cracked, and I stood a chance of bursting at the seams.

When the class finally ended, I made my way out blindly, the word ‘condemned’ ringing repeatedly in my ears.

Chapter 29 Nat

Let us love not in word or speech,

But in actions and truth.

I sensed her unease right from when we were in class. She looked distracted and her mind seemed far away. She appeared confused and her eyes held an aggressive sadness. I contemplated briefly if it was the right time to tell her about the accident since she already looked weighed down by something. I pushed the thought out of my mind as soon as I realised that it was more of my fear of destroying the relationship we had formed than my concern for her that was speaking. It was the same selfishness that had put me in this position in the first place.

I took in a deep breath and thought through what I would tell her. I stopped the mental drilling and settled for the truth. She deserved that much.

“Hey, Ije.”

I looked over her form and felt a deepening sadness that I was about to add to whatever it was that was making her upset. Like it had at the funeral, her pain reached into my chest and squeezed my heart and I wondered when and how I became so tethered to her, hating the thought of her hurt or me hurting her.

“Hi.”

Her voice was frail and almost inaudible. Her manner had always been mild but today she appeared almost ghost-like; a mere shell of her real self.

I ed what Remi told me in the hospital about how she hadn’t been in school for a long time. I thought to ask about it but I didn’t want to steer the conversation too far from what I really wanted to let her know about.

“Could we go out to the quad?”

She nodded and let me lead her out to the deserted quad. Break wasn’t for another period so everyone was seated in class where we should have been as well.

I let us get blanketed in the quiet sound of the fountain sprouting endless streams of crystalline water in what seemed to be an infinite cycle. The dry leaves rustled against the cobbled path and reminded us of simpler times when we went out of our way to crush them with little feet because we liked the sound it made — like chaff being thrown together in the wind.

I cleared my throat.

“I have something to tell you.”

She looked up briefly and something told me that she was struggling to hold herself together.

“I can tell it’s bad news. Go ahead.”

I twiddled my thumbs the way I hadn’t in a long time. I wished I could be bolder but equally remorseful — but I was frightened.

I was awfully terrified that she would never speak to me again, not only for having a hand in changing her life for the worse, but for being so late in telling her as well.

“I was in the other car. Carlos was in the driver’s seat. He tried the breaks but they didn’t work. We pushed the horn over and over again…but the car, your brother’s car — it didn’t move. Carlos was slightly drunk. We both were actually. Maybe if our heads weren’t fuzzy, we could have swerved just in time. I’m sorry. If I was more responsible, your brother would be here.”

I let everything out in a rush, feeling lame and useless.

I’m sorry? That was it?

I felt even more useless when I realised that an apology was really all I could do. Anything short of bringing her brother back from the dead would be useless anyway.

“It’s okay.”

She whispered the word like betrayal and pain were okay because she had become used to the feelings. I saw tears prick the corners of her eyes and I winced.

“It’s not okay.” I could hear the desperation in my voice. I wanted her to yell and scream at me. But she was hardly showing any emotions at all. “If I had been more careful, he could be here.”

It must have been something I said or the way I had said it, but Ije exploded. She broke down in a whirlwind of anger and despair, desperate for me to be silent. I looked at her, helpless as she lowered herself down unto the stone floor and held her arms round her knees, crumpled like the abandoned sketches of a great artist.

“He’s not here because he didn’t want to be here,” she wailed, burying her head in a space between her knees as she rocked slowly. “If he wanted to be here, he would have been. He didn’t even care about me enough to want to live, Nat.”

I sat on the floor beside her and held her against my form as she sobbed. I waited for her sobs to subside and fiddled with the tips of her ears, hoping it would make her feel better the way it always helped me.

I listened as she narrated the events that transpired when she paid her brother’s friend, who turned out to double as his lover, a visit. She didn’t spare any details and her voice was tinier, almost shy, when she told me of the kiss that had set the

confessions of that night in motion.

“So, he committed suicide and he was gay?”

I paused to look at her. I was sure she didn’t realise it, but she had an arm around my midsection and was toying with the hem of her blouse with the other. Her eyes still appeared hooded, and as she told the story, she seemed to look into the space of another time.

“How do you feel about that?”

She adjusted against me, tilting her head to the side as if deep in thought.

“The fact that he killed himself, or the fact that he was homosexual?”

“Let’s start with the suicide.”

Ije took in a shaky breath, readying herself to speak. As she did, I was filled with a glowing pride. Overtime, she was increasingly willing to express herself and was getting better and better at doing just that.

“On one hand, I’m mad at myself. I mean he was fighting so many worries. He was scared of our quick-to-criticize society, he was confused, he feared for his salvation. And he did it all on his own. He walked around with bricks on his back, and somehow I was so busy pitying myself that I hadn’t noticed.”

“And on the other hand?”

There was a pause. A pigeon flew off a tree branch and caused the trees to rustle. Another bird took its place and forced the branch to be still.

“On the other hand, I’m so mad at him. How could he not tell me anything? Why hadn’t he wanted my help?”

I thought about how she said she had rushed out of Neso’s house once he told her. I wondered what she would have done if Udo did tell her.

“And about the fact that he’s gay?”

“I… I don’t know. It’s plain wrong. Why did he even consider that?”

“Considered? What if it wasn’t a choice?”

“There’s always a choice Nat. And the Church says it’s wrong.”

“Why?”

“Because the Bible doesn’t permit it.”

“So, he knew how much society was against people like him even existing and all the hate he could potentially receive but he just chose to be gay anyway?”

“So…you it?”

I flashed a smile that I hoped hadn’t come off as patronising.

“I asked a question.”

“I don’t know the answer.”

There was a long pause before I finally spoke, choosing my words carefully.

“Ije, do you ever feel like you use your religion as an excuse to avoid thinking for yourself? I mean, do you ever use your Bible as an excuse to not question things because you have already been told the way they should be?”

Her eyebrows furrowed as she thought over the question in her mind.

“I’m not sure.” She averted her gaze. “I don’t know.”

She was fiddling her thumbs.

“So, you homosexuals?”

I sighed.

“There’s often a thin line between love and hate. People often say that they are neutral towards things. But the thing about feeling and thinking beings is that it’s often difficult to maintain a neutral ground on any given subject. We often favour something. We are either for or against. If someone says that they’re neutral, they’ll find that quiet reservation morphing into something more vocal and hateful, and then hate explodes into violence. And I know that isn’t the teaching of the church, but regardless, it’s the action of a lot of her followers.”

She was quiet for a while and I knew she had just been given a lot to take in. I also fell silent, giving her space to breathe.

She spoke up.

“But there are a lot of well-meaning Christians who genuinely want salvation for them, and are worried that their sexuality will stop them from gaining it.”

I could tell from her voice and the naked fear in her eyes that she was scared. Scared for Udo’s soul.

“And how do those Christians go about winning hearts to Jesus? For some of them, it’s with promises of a fiery place where there’ll be gnashing of teeth and an unquenchable flame. Burning, stigmatizing, and rioting against homosexuals. Let’s imagine that, as many homophobes say, sexuality was a mere choice and you were in their shoes. Would you change your mind and follow a God because his followers used violence and persecution to scare you into it?”

She gnawed her lower lip thoughtfully and I could tell that she was seeing certain things in a different light for the first time.

“I’m sure that violence and ostracization are far from what the church wants its followers to exhibit, but it should take some responsibility for its misconstrued teachings.”

Ije nodded, agreeing with me.

“So how do you suggest that the topic is approached by Christians?”

I was quiet for a moment and decided to choose honesty rather than feign omniscience.

“I don’t know for sure. You probably know this already but I’m not religious. My mum on the other hand, is a devout Christian. Religious or not, I do my best to model my life after hers. To be better every day. You don’t need to turn a soul to your religion to make the world better. It simply would be if everyone did things that made the next person want to be better. Carlos taught me that.”

The bell went and we both stood quickly to leave the quad before it got flooded by a swarm of students. We made our way to the brightly lit cafeteria which appeared even more illuminated because we were the only students in it.

Minutes after we stepped in, more and more students trickled in.

Ije and I made our way to our usual table.

She looked better in a way. More restive, but still conflicted.

“What about Udo?”

She looked like I had drawn her out of deep thought.

“What about him?”

“Do you think he’s any less of a person? That he’s any less impressive now that you know that he was homosexual?”

She smiled lightly.

“I really don’t”

Then her smile dimmed.

“But I don’t think he expected that.”

Chapter 30 Ije

This time, I was absolute in my resolve to not leave the house. Not even my room. The way I felt when I returned from school after my conversation with Nathan reminded me a lot about myself from five years ago, when I got my period for the first time. I had looked at the blood in terror as it streamed down my legs, while tears streamed down my cheeks.

Mother had put me in the bath, speaking to me as she washed me clean. The things she told me let down a curtain that had been up for my whole existence up until that moment. It was one of the only times Mother had shown motherly affection to me.

Perhaps when I returned from school that day, the same day that she had told me to leave the house, she had seen something of that disillusioned child that I was, and she let me to my room without a word. She even told Father not to bother me. I really didn’t need any distractions.

Since that day, I had been on a self-imposed retreat. Piecing apart myself to discover the things that I really stood for. On the third day of hard thinking and deep reflection, I felt purged but still somewhat restless. Like there had been a stone left unturned.

I was lying half-asleep on my bed when I heard the sudden movement of a bird in the tree by my bedroom window. The sound stirred me into full consciousness and I felt myself sit up right, ready to stand up. The fluorescent lights of my

digital clock gleamed 5:30. For someone with no intentions of going back to school just yet, it was awfully early. I made to return to my position on my bed but found myself unable to find a comfortable position. I kicked off my duvet in irritation, standing against my will. I washed my face and brushed my teeth, then ventured out of my room with no destination in mind.

Soon enough, I was surrounded by sheet covered furniture. I was in Udo’s room. The smell of dust hung lightly in the air and cobwebs formed in the corners of the ceiling. I felt guilt at myself for not taking out the time to keep his room impeccable — the way it would have been if he were home.

I uncovered his desk chair first. I spun it around and watched as the quick perambulation slowed to stunted whirs until the chair swiveled to a complete halt. I plunked down on the seat and tilted my head back, staring at the ceiling. I recalled the last time I had been in here vividly. I had been going through Udo’s drawers in search of loose notes that I could add to what I had saved up for Nkem’s birthday present. Udo had been out playing tennis with Neso and by my calculations I had few minutes to leave before I was caught in the act. I was in the middle of ransacking his bed side table when the door burst open. Udo was clad in white tennis shorts and a white polo, completely drenched in sweat. I could tell his eyes were wet from the tears that had probably come from his attempt to eat more pepper with his suya than Neso had. They got into silly contests like that all the time. Udo lost more often than he won.

I froze mid-search, sighting a small envelope with my name nicely written across the center when I did. Ignoring it, I shut the drawer close and spun to face him. Udo knew what I had been doing no doubt, rather than scold me, he smiled widely, approaching me to engulf me in a sweaty, sticky hug, much to my chagrin and against my will.

That had been almost two weeks before the accident but in the midst of the memory, the thought of the envelope stood out poignantly. With doubt, I stood

up and headed towards the drawer from the memory, then raised the white cloth that had been spread over it to protect it from dust. I held the cold knob of the drawer, hesitating for a second and feeling a single sweat line my brow. I tugged the drawer open. Instantly, as if by some invisible sixth sense, I knew that the envelope that sat in the drawer, seemingly untouched with my name printed on it, was the same as the one I had seen all those months ago.

With a trembling hand, I took it from its confines. If this was what I thought it was, there would be no sliver of doubt left in my mind that Udo’s death was a suicide. I retreated to the swivel-chair and opened the envelope with staggered breath. I clenched my laps together because the air in the room had made me pressed the way anticipation of any shape always did.

I took out the neatly folded letter and read:

My Dear Ije,

It’s hard to imagine a time when I would not know you the way I do now. Or have reason to think that I never knew you at all. I fear very much that I would make you feel like that soon. Without meaning to nor wanting to.

The reference to his sexuality made my heart hurt the way Father’s arm seemed to when he was checking his blood pressure. I didn’t wish that he had trusted me with that knowledge of him, but that I had been more trustworthy in the first place.

Things are often more complex than they appear.

Where had I heard those words before? It was from Nkem when she apologised for not mentioning Nathan.

Depending on when you are reading this, you may think of it as many things. But I beg you not to think too much. This is just a brother writing to his sister because she was on his mind.

I as children, even though we were five years apart and not very interested in the same things, we were a remarkable pair and Adanma was jealous of us.

I laughed aloud at that. It was the truth. Adanma had testified to it herself.

We are still that way. Even now as you read this. I the wind and you the water, as we devotedly chose for ourselves all those years ago. Yes, a remarkable pair. Doesn’t the Bible even begin with us both? Scurrying about together as though the yet to be created world were our playground.

Think of me all the time Ije. Whether I am with you or not. me the way you always had. Or the way you want to. The same way that air, either still or in motion, will always surround you — I am always with you. We were cut from the same cloth. If the source is the same, the substance is the same. One pea in a pod.

All my love,

Peace.

*

The letter was still clutched in my grasp when I made my way through the cemetery. There was a single line of clouds through the sky like a path had been made in it for someone to over. The sight was ethereal and calming. The clouds radiated a soft glow from its ends. It seemed like that was where the light that illuminated the entire sky gleamed from. From below, it appeared as if dawn was trying to force its way through the cracks.

For a path I had only walked once, the road to Udo’s grave was too familiar. I sat at its foot when I saw it, amazed at how different I felt from the way I did when I had seen it for the first time during the funeral. This time I felt restive, the remnant discontentment I had felt after my retreat slowly dissipated. Peace took the form of a child and sat cross-legged at the pit of my stomach. This time, I was ready to make it at home.

“Hi.”

I would have felt weird talking to a gravestone, but within me I knew that someone somewhere was listening. Maybe even whoever it was that had walked down the cloud-path in the sky.

“I wish we could speak under different circumstances but I suppose this will have to do.”

I chuckled, dewy-eyed. The tears were already forming but I wiped them away before they could make trails down my cheeks.

“I love you, Udo. I really do. But I don’t think you know because if you did you would have let me know the things you were scared to say.”

I hiccupped. This was harder than I imagined it will be.

“I was really angry at first. Then I was confused. Then I began to backpack grief wherever I went. But I think I’m moving ed that now. I’ve had a lot of help from a boy that reminds me a lot about you. And he’s Nkem’s son even!”

I was surprised and elated at the energy that was in my voice when I began to talk about Nathan. It was the first evidence in a while of the fact that I still had life in me.

I continued speaking to Udo, telling him about everything that had happened since he left. I told him about my new friends and how they made me better. I mentioned how I wished he had met each of them because I was so sure he would have loved them.

At the end of the narration, I felt lighter. Free even. Like I had just done something I should have done a long time ago. As I stood to leave, I read the words on Udo’s grave marker again. In the still dawn, a sudden strong wind blew, awakening the sleepy foliage. Yes, wind and water.

*

I saw the figure that stood against the gate of the cemetery a bit of a distance away and I was reluctant to advance further. The streets were deserted, credit to the time of the day, and no one was in the cemetery other than me, the unknown man, and hundreds of bodiless spirits. I was in great company.

I was contemplating using the back gate when the man by the gate pulled down his hood. And called my name.

The voice was unmistakable and I felt my body relax. I advanced to meet Carlos in his space by the gate.

“Did you know that I would be here?”

The question was justified. The coincidence was uncanny.

“No actually. I came to see my mother.”

I pursed my lip and nodded. For someone that had broken down uncountable times in the space of a few months, I was useless with condolences.

“I saw you as I was leaving and decided to wait up.”

“Thanks,” I said. And I really meant it. I had been thinking so much lately. Some human company would be good.

“No problem.”

Carlos looked over me. I had come with my backpack. He raised an eyebrow.

“Are you coming to school today?”

I tightened my hold on my bag’s straps. I nodded.

“Yes. I’ve been meaning to for a while actually. But I’m ready now.”

Carlos smiled genuinely.

“That’s great to hear.”

As quickly as it had lit up, his face became severe. The contrast to the usual Carlos was vivid.

“I guess Nathan should have told you about everything by now. Look, I’m so

sorry —”

I cut him off before he could go further. I had had enough of apologies and guilt.

“It’s okay really. I’m moving forward from that. You should too.”

Carlos smiled in gratitude. We began the walk to school in comfortable silence. With that silence, we had learnt more about each other than most do in a week of empty conversation.

*

As it turned out, Carlos and I didn’t go straight to school. We stopped at a café for breakfast after which we sat and spoke about our childhood. Carlos did most of the talking though, telling me about what he ed from his short time in Cuba before his mum got married to her boyfriend of the time and his stepfather insisted they moved here.

From what Carlos told me, his childhood had been difficult but formative. He had made the most of jagged puzzle pieces and had thankfully taken after his mother. Tender and jovial.

Eventually, when the sun had begun to blaze fiercely through the café windows, we knew we had overstayed. Reluctantly, we continued our walk to school eventually making it there after I avoided stepping in a pile of dog poop by a fifth of an inch. Carlos found my daze funny and laughed all the way to the

cafeteria where the whole school was at the time.

We had missed three hours of school.

We made our way to our usual table at the corner of the cafeteria. I was excited for all of us to be together again and knew that I will have many questions to answer. But I didn’t mind. As long as I had them as company.

As we got closer to the table, it became clear that something wasn’t right. Remi seemed to be holding a sobbing Ehizele to her shoulder. But that couldn’t be true. Ehizele never cried.

Carlos glanced at me as if in question like we weren’t approaching the table together. I shrugged, hesitant to find out what was bad enough to make Ehizele cry. Carlos began to hurry over to the table and I increased my pace as well. I sat at the other side of Ehizele. Nathan looked at me for the briefest moment. And we exchanged words with the second-long glance.

“What’s the matter?”

Carlos asked the question. There was urgency in his voice. He didn’t have to be particularly close to a person to be immensely moved by their tears. And he was close to Ehizele.

Remi let a short silence drag on before she spoke.

“The Operation Ease the Traffic officials. They beat her brother into the emergency room.”

I felt myself almost choke on the fact of Remi’s words as I picked up the phone that she had dropped at the centre of the table. The image of a battered body in a stretcher was displayed on the screen. I scolded myself for the sound that I made at the sight as Ehizele’s sobs got louder.

There was a grim silence after that. Nothing but Ehizele’s sobs and the background noise of the cafeteria. Carlos’ voice cut through the silence. I had never heard him sound so grave.

“Writing won’t be enough. We need to act.”

And so we planned.

Chapter 31 Nat

I felt a heavy bout of déjà vu as I stood across from my mother in the kitchen, asking her for the blessing to do something that she didn’t want me to do yet again. I had told her that I needed to speak with her and her face had changed, becoming guarded and precocious before I even uttered a word. I was expecting it. She must have already heard about the protest. Given our exclusive content that raised controversy like harmattan dust, Kalakuta Time’s popularity had risen to a fever pitch over the month since we started. Even if we unanimously agreed that the week of dragging the government in the mud over the poorly implemented government expedition was not going to be enough of a response for their negligence, it definitely served as a great forerunner to the announcement of the protest we had decided to organise. An announcement Ije handled nicely with a well-worded article that went up two days ago. With the article, we invited countrymen and women all over the state to come out of their houses and make their reservations known. We had been silent for too long.

Yes, I was sure my mum knew that I was about to ask her if I could go or let her know that I was going. It really depended on the direction the conversation took.

“No. Absolutely not.”

I sighed. I wasn’t surprised at her response. I had been expecting something of the sort.

“But you know this isn’t a matter of choice. I have to. History altering moments

like this are what I live for.” I lowered my voice. “You said that you wanted me to live normally. That’s what I’m dedicated to doing.”

My mum looked stuck between a rock and a hard place. She shut her eyes and placed a dainty hand on her temple. She was just at my shoulders if we were both standing straight. I definitely got my height genes from my father.

“It could be dangerous.”

I smiled at her.

“It’s a protest not a riot, mum. I’ll be fine.” Then I offered graciously, “Carlos will be there.”

Mum sighed again but this time her shoulders drooped as she did. I could sense her resolve weakening.

“Are you sure you’re strong enough for it? I can come too if you’re not sure.”

I hugged my mum and she let out a giggle of pleased surprise.

“I’ll be fine. You have work.”

She seemed disappointed. I mulled over it again. Who was I to stop anyone from contributing to a movement for change? Whether or not that was her main motive.

“But we plan for it to be three days long. You can make it on Saturday, right?”

Mum hesitated, smiling quietly. I had never spoken with direct implication that either I or the rest of the group was directly involved with Kalakuta Times. Even if I knew she had a pretty good idea about it.

“That’d be great, Nathan. I’ll be there.”

Mum walked past me to get a mug from the kitchen cabinet. She began to prepare a mug of Horlicks for me. At one time, it was all I ever drank. She was probably feeling a bit nostalgic.

Chapter 32 Ije

I was a bit restless with the thought of the organised protests sitting daintily in my skull. I picked up a book I had been reading at the time — a work of Markus Zusak’s — but I put it down again just as quickly. The words were swimming across the pages just like my thoughts and I was stuck on one paragraph for ten minutes.

I picked up my cell phone and tried Adanma’s number but it didn’t go through. I looked at the time and thought against calling Nkem. It was the weekend and she normally worked long hours. I decided that Ehizele and Remi weren’t the right company for the moment. They would be excited and bubbly in anticipation of tomorrow and wouldn’t understand my nerves. Carlos and Nathan seemed to me like my best option.

I put on my shoes before I could talk myself into retreating into my thoughts again. I left a note on the door handle of Father’s study where he was sure to find it and a copy of the note on the remote control where Mother could never miss it. She had a soap she was committed to that aired around this time every Thursday.

The evening was cool and it was a great idea to walk. I began the quiet journey, ambling on along the easy road to Nkem and Nat’s. As the scenery changed, the sky did as well, and I began to rethink my decision to walk after a quick calculation of the time it would be by the time I got there. I called an Uber.

The black Peugeot with a shaky bumper pulled up beside the landmark that I had

inserted. I looked over the number plate and dialed the number that had been presented as the driver’s even after seeing that everything matched. You really couldn’t be too careful.

I slid into the back seat and let my driver know that I hadn’t given the exact drop off point I would be stopping at but will direct him on the way. I sat alert. I could never be comfortable in a car that was driven by a stranger.

The driver’s head was bald and perfectly round. I imagined that it shone in the day time. I noticed a sinister tattoo creeping up the side of his neck and the rings that clenched the fingers that currently tapped against the steering wheel. The man attempted to make conversation but stopped trying after a few monosyllabic responses. I gave a few directions and made him stop a few minutes from Nat’s place. I paid him and made my way out of the car, too impatient to wait for the change.

Now that I was in the night’s air, alone and slightly more relaxed, my anxiety over tomorrow came back with full force. There must have been a crease on my forehead from thinking so hard because when Nathan opened the door for me, his features frowned.

“Are you okay?”

Not ‘what are you doing here?’ or ‘you didn’t call’. Just immediate genuine concern.

“My mind’s been all over the place honestly,” I said as I walked through the space he made for me. “Nkem isn’t home?”

He looked almost disappointed.

“No, but I’m sure you knew that.”

I laughed at his way of saying that he knew I had come to see him.

“I did.”

He gestured for me to let myself in properly and followed behind me as I made my way to the living room. I sat on the arm chair and he settled on the colourful ottoman that was somewhat to my right. Like a dog and his master. I laughed at the thought.

Nathan looked at me curiously but didn’t ask.

“Do you make a habit out of appearing unannounced in the homes of innocent boys?”

I was abashed at the reference to the Neso story I had told him. He sipped from a bottle of juice that I hadn’t noticed until then like he hadn’t said anything at all.

When I still didn’t speak, he burst laughing.

“Suddenly mute, Ije? I was kidding.”

He struggled to contain his fits, trying not to choke on his juice. I was glad to see him laughing, just not at my expense.

“Okay, I’ll be serious now.” He meant it, sitting straighter and composing himself. “You mentioned when you got here that your mind was all over the place?”

I was happy that I didn’t have to repeat it.

“So am I the only one?” I asked when I observed his easy demeanour. “The only one bothered by tomorrow I mean.”

Nathan smiled in a non-committal fashion.

“Who says? And if you were, why would it be a problem?”

Why couldn’t he just speak straight?

“That’s what it seems like. And I never said it was a problem. It’s just, things can go wrong you know? What if no one even shows up?”

Nathan snorted.

“Then this country would deserve what it gets. But that’s impossible.”

“You seem so sure.”

He raised an eyebrow, smiling softly.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” He looked at me meaningfully now. “You’re talking like you weren’t the one who wrote that announcement article. You should read it again. It could make the most apathetic of people become extremists. But where’s all that confidence now?”

I looked down, twiddling my thumbs, suddenly feeling like a disappointment. Where was that confidence now?

“It’s okay to be nervous, Ije, or to get cold feet.” He smiled with all his perfect teeth. “Besides, I’m here to remind you of the stuff you’re made of.”

He raised both thumbs, and with his cartoon like smile, I was reminded of a caricature image Udo had sketched once to portray an overly-excited Adanma with a bloated head. I laughed aloud and he ed in.

In the comfortable silence that followed after our laughter died down. I studied Nat’s features in the way that I always did. As usual, there was a familiarity in the way he looked. I had always pushed the thought aside, accepting that the familiarity I felt stemmed from his similarity to Nkem, but the feeling was particularly strong. Stronger still because of the moment it was dipped in.

“You’re very different from, but at the same time exactly like what I imagined you’d be when I met you again after that first time at the funeral.”

I could tell that he was particularly interested in hearing what this was about. Although he had always shown interest in what I had to say.

“How so?”

I elaborated. “You struck me as a literary picaresque.”

Nathan was quiet for a while then laughed when he got it.

“What makes you say?”

“Well, you’re not particularly dishonest, maybe just late in honesty,” it was my turn to tease him over past events. The look he gave me let me know that he didn’t find it as funny when he wasn’t doing the teasing. I tagged a light laugh on at the end of my statement to let him know that there were really no hard feelings. “But you’re definitely easy to like.”

He sat up straighter in mock arrogance. “Nothing I don’t already know.”

“You really shouldn’t let his ego grow.”

The voice was Carlos’ and it had come from the landing. He advanced to sit in the living room with us. Nathan kicked his shin lightly as he ed.

“It’s a good thing you came back to school, Ije,” Carlos started, apparently not done with talk of Nathan. “Nathan was worried sick. I had to convince him to give you your space and not call.”

Nathan didn’t bother denying. He sipped his juice like he could fade into the background. He didn’t seem embarrassed but he also didn’t appear unbothered. He was somewhere in-between.

“Thank you, Nathan,” I said genuinely touched. “I really appreciate it.”

He smiled softly at me and it reached his striking eyes.

“Are you all ready for a long day of protesting tomorrow?” Carlos asked, oddly energetic for the time of the night.

Nathan looked at me expectantly, waiting for my answer.

I smiled broadly.

“Ready for three long days actually.”

Chapter 33 Nat

It was early afternoon and the sun blazed as fiercely as the hearts of the protesters that were gathered under it. The air was charged and the buzz in the crowd could be felt from a distance. We organised the protest to begin at 1pm to give room for in-school youths like ourselves to participate wholly. But it was just past noon and the turnout was already huge. The five of us walked up the path to the start point of the protest — strategically chosen to be a couple dozen yards from Kalakuta Republic. Just so people don’t forget how this all started.

On arriving, we met with Kojo who was inside the café. He had been waiting for us to show up. We had spoken to him about the whole protest beforehand and he had willingly agreed to do most of the talking and rallying with the help of a new-looking silver megaphone. None of us was surprised at his readiness to serve. It was what Kojo was about—what made Kojo, Kojo.

We all got changed and headed out to the swarm of protesters that were gathered with energy to be released. Kojo raised his megaphone and began to rev up the crowd. Speaking of the things that tied all of us, strangers with similar heritage, together. Kojo’s voice was ionate and clear. His language was simple and he did not inject unnecessary vocabulary that would fit awkwardly in his speech to show superiority the way one of our country’s politicians would have. The crowd cheered when it was right to them and that seemed to be after almost every other sentence of Kojo’s. Easily, he had won the crowd over — not that they needed to be won over of course.

Kojo let everyone know how the march would go, emphasising the essence of the protest to be done peacefully, lest it becomes a riot, and the meaning will be

lost. We would have accomplished nothing than to mirror our government. Dormant half the time, and violent the other half. No room for reason or deliberation. And when there was deliberation, it dragged on to inactivity.

Understanding seemed to emanate from the crowd. We began our march in the sweltering heat of the day. Ije was at my right and Carlos on my left. Remi and Ehizele were at either end of the line. Ije’s excitement was palpable and innocent, her nerves from yesterday dissipated. We all ambled on, placards and posters in hand. Some displayed our different desires — peace, protection from our government, security. Others were less than subtle jabs in the sides of the big men. All in all, for the first time, they were expressions of wishes we were tired of keeping to ourselves when there was an entire institution above our heads with the responsibility of listening to said wishes.

I looked around the crowd and felt guilty for being late on utilising my privilege in the direction of something like this. I was pleased nevertheless that it had been late rather than never. I looked around the crowd at the faces that surrounded me. Some resembled old leather, beaten down and worn from wear. You could see the exhaustion that oozed from the visage of many of those who gathered that day. Through that exhaustion though, they had decided to express a part of themselves that was still alive. Still unbroken from betrayal by their own people, their own leaders.

Kojo continued to encourage the crowd as we marched on. He pointed out the places where our brothers and sisters had died or had been brutally injured by those who were to protect them. He started chants and led old songs that set the fire of the protesters ablaze. ittedly, like mum had foreseen, I sensed that I was getting tired faster than the people around me. Unwilling to stop in the middle of what I had had a hand in starting, I trudged on. Carlos must have noticed because he slowed down a bit and we fell behind the girls. He gave me a ive rub on the back letting me know that he was there for me. I was grateful but I didn’t have to say it because he already knew that.

Two hours later, we had done the rounds we had planned to do and we all came to a slow stop at our starting point some distance from Kalakuta. Sweat dripped from most of us and you could sense the tiredness in the air but it glowed with a feeling of fulfilment. The five of us, as well as some volunteers that worked at the service home, jogged down to the café to get the refreshments that Kojo had set aside for the protesters. We logged the large coolers to the open street and handed them out. I was surprised but pleased to see a few people from school even. They weren’t much compared to my school’s population, but given the type of school SPC was, even one student outside our circle showing up could count as a turn out. Of course, they didn’t accept any food though. That would be unheard of.

*

By the time most of the protesters had cleared off for the day after Kojo’s concluding speech reminding us that there would be two more days, all five of us had taken a seat in the café to cool off sipping cold fruit blends and munching warm biscuits. Kojo walked up to our table, telling one of his servers to bring us more to eat before we could refuse. He had already spent so much.

“You should eat like heroes,” he said.

“Thanks, Kojo,” I said along with the others.

He smiled benignly at us.

“You did well by putting together all this. I haven’t seen so much hope in one place in a long time.”

We definitely felt good too. But it would be wrong of us to take the credit for the courage and diligence of an entire throng of people.

“You did a great job too, Kojo. You really got all of us moving.”

Kojo laughed heartily and retreated to the backroom. We all looked at ourselves with quiet smiles on our faces. Too tired to make conversation. Too dizzy with hope to even speak.

Chapter 34 Ije

It was the second day of the protest and the five of us were in school for the half day that we had resigned to in order to avoid missing school completely. Even in SPC, there was a difference in the air. I said ‘hi’ to a girl I had noticed from the day before and surprisingly, she waved back. The halls were buzzing with conversation that was too similar to make anything out of. Apparently, there was an announcement to be made soon. It wasn’t difficult to guess what it would be about.

“Hi,” I greeted Remi enthusiastically as we linked arms and headed to our first class. Ehizele ed us on the way. Ehizele sat in the space beside me, and Remi sat behind us. Carlos and Nathan were at the other end of the class. It reminded me of the class that birthed Kalakuta Times.

Our Social Impact teacher leaned against the desk in front of us. His thoughts seemed far away even if it appeared like he was waiting for the class to fill up. When the class was ready, he still hadn’t spoken, affirming my hunch. It took the bell to get him back to reality.

He wasted no time.

“How many of you have heard about the ongoing protest?”

All hands were raised. It was breaking the internet.

“Things like that.” Mr Wiseman seemed so in awe that his normally eloquent self was struggling with a full sentence. “Things like that are what this class is about. That is impact.”

In our different places in class, the five of us smiled.

*

The big announcement came during lunch in the middle of a funny story that Carlos had been narrating to Remi, Ehizele, and me. Nathan hadn’t shown up yet.

Mr Adewusi’s voice came in over the intercom. Immediately, the cafeteria fell silent. The three of us shut up mid-laugh.

‘I’m sure you’re all aware of the public disruption that is currently ongoing…’

Disruption?

‘And scheduled to occur episodically until tomorrow…’

At least he had said something that was true.

‘This is to inform you that none of SPC’s stake holders, student or staff, is expected to partake in such a propaganda spreading campaign —”

Mr. Adewusi was suddenly cut off. There was confused silence for a minute until sound came from the intercom again. It was Fela’s voice that we heard over the intercom this time. He was singing Vagabonds in Power for the entire school to hear. I could imagine an enraged Mr. Adewusi wiggling about to find out who was behind it.

Nathan came in some time after that. He took a seat and sipped his apple juice, noncommittal. We all smiled to ourselves as we ate.

*

When we all ventured off to the protest start point, the first thing we noticed was that the crowd had significantly increased in size. And, Carlos pointed out, so had the number of people that showed up from our school. Nkem was there as well, as Nathan told us that she will be. We noticed her from a distance although her eyes were concealed by a pair of dark sunshades. Even in scorching heat, she still managed to look classy.

We planned for the protest to follow the same format that it had assumed yesterday. Everything seemed the same, even the sun had the same intensity. There was no indicator that anything would be different. However, tragedy never warns.

*

Rather than speak on his own, Kojo had let some of the crowd speak before the march began. He reminded them to keep it short: ‘if we all say all that pains us, we will never finish.’ He had made it out to seem like a joke so that no one would be offended.

Most of the people Kojo called up spoke sincerely from the wounds in their hearts. Others spoke like politicians. Regardless, after the last speaker, we all began our march in the usual fashion. Nathan was up in front with Kojo and Ehizele, Nkem hung back with Carlos, Remi and I.

“A few months ago, this would never have been your scene,” she said with a laugh. She was right. Adanma had said something similar when I told her about day one throughout last night.

“People change. I’m happy I did.”

She gave me a side hug and then cheered out with the crowd in response to something Kojo had said. She seemed to glance uneasily at Nathan from time to time.

I made out as much of Nathan as I could through the crowd. I couldn’t see more than his head and shoulders. But from the way he spoke to Kojo when Kojo lowered the megaphone, you could tell that he was all charged up. There was nothing for Nkem to worry about.

The crowd bent into a crossing bordered by trees. It was the spot of another one of the officials’ misdoings. Kojo was speaking into the megaphone when the crowd seemed to stop all at once. Since we were turning, half of us were ahead and the other half behind, yet to make the turn. The men on the sidelines said that they had heard rustling in the trees. A baby began to cry.

The first bullet whizzed over my head, missing my skull by a hair’s breadth, and then went through Nkem’s crown of hair. Nkem began to tremble, repeating mine and Nathan’s names in alternation. An old lady attempted to pull her from the crossfire and Nkem began to scream, resisting. Another lady ed to tame her.

Remi, Carlos and I exchanged looks, and then ran through the frantic crowd to see if we could find Kojo, Nathan, and Ehizele. My feet were heavy as I ran, like my body already knew that I was carrying it to something I wouldn’t want to see. We saw Nathan from a distance, he was on his feet and seemed fine. Kojo seemed alright as well. Ehizele was already hurrying towards us.

Kojo screamed for everyone to ensure that they had a child in hand as they ran. He was barking out commands and some people were doing their best to follow. An ebony-coloured man with vicious scarification on his face was hit in the calf. He went down immediately. Kojo hurried to help him up and out of the thicket, as the man groaned in pain. Nathan must have seen something because he moved suddenly, pushing Kojo aside and hitting the ground. Blood formed around his abdomen, dark and in excess. Pain coursed through me at the same time. If it was a sacrifice, it was a waste because Kojo still went down next. His eyes told me that there would be no need for an emergency room. They were the eyes of a good man. A dead good man.

*

After waiting two hours for Nathan to come out of surgery, Nkem had finally come out of shock. She could speak and had even drank water after much pleading on my part. All that was on her face now was a mask of pure unfiltered grief. Much like Carlos’ and mine. Ehizele and Remi’s parents had rushed to pick them up once the news of the shooting reached their ears. As a result, there was no one to offer reassurance to another. The silence was heavy and damp, like a blood-soaked cloth. We all sat, restless, but were in no hurry to get news. Carlos looked particularly pensive.

A smartly clad doctor walked up to us. He was tall and muscly with intelligent eyes adorned with horn rimmed glasses. The look on his face told us that there was more good news than bad news. That would do for now.

“The operation was a success and the worst is definitely behind us.” For the first time since the shooting, Nkem appeared like she was willing to live again. “He lost a lot of blood but, thankfully, his sister donated enough to supplement his.” The doctor gestured to me. “He owes you his life. “

I was confused. His sister?

I had donated blood but that was because he was O positive, same as me. No one else could give him blood. What did he mean by sister?

“Because of his leukemia, his recovery time will definitely be a bit more extended. But we should all just be thankful that he’s even alive.” The doctor adjusted his glasses. “He’ll need some time to rest before he can take visitors.”

After the doctor left, there was a stretch of silence. No one was sure where to

start. Nkem seemed to squirm under our gazes. Her voice was barely audible.

“Carlos, could you give me some time with Ije?”

Carlos stood up and said that he wanted to get some water even if there was a bottle of water at his feet.

Nkem pressed her temple and took a deep breath, eyes downturned. From the expression on Nkem’s face when she looked up, I could tell that she hadn’t wanted to have this conversation in the belly of a situation with a stomach ache. She seemed resolved however. Her eyes betrayed that she had seen this moment coming.

She tried to smile, but tears pooled in her eyes and made the sorry smile wet. I didn’t want to be smiled at. And I didn’t want her to cry either. Mothers always thought they could get away with emotional blackmail.

“Does everyone naturally believe I’m some type of idiot?”

My voice was shaking now. I had ventured out to sound angry and fierce but instead I sounded pained. The same way I felt. It really was pitiful how easy I was to lie to — or hide the truth from.

Nkem forced back her tears. I could tell that the conversation would be hard for her too. But I wasn’t in the mood for selflessness.

“Nathan doesn’t know either. Only your father, his wife, and me.”

I noticed the way she said ‘his wife’ and not, ‘your mum’.

I wished I had considered Mother a mother at least for a second. I would have had fun throwing it in Nkem’s face. But even in all my resentment, I couldn’t bring myself to tell a lie larger than the pint and a half of blood the doctors had extracted from me to put in my apparent brother.

Mother’s disdain for me began to make sense. She loathed me because I was the product of an extra-marital affair that had given Father just as many children as she had in one go. I would never have cast Nkem in the role of the other woman.

“Tell me. How did the lying start?”

Nkem’s face mirrored what it had looked like when she let me know that she had had Nathan when she was very young. It carried shame and guilt.

“I was seventeen at the time, you see. Things were hard. My mum had fallen helplessly sick. She was the breadwinner. My dad wasn’t one to work.”

Her eyes were glazed with the sheen of memories. Her hair was not flawless for once, but she made no movement to adjust it.

“I was ambitious. I wanted to go to the university. I didn’t want to be stuck in a

low paying job like my mother was, or be harangued to submission by fate like my dad. I needed to raise quick money.” Her tears were still sitting cross-legged in her eyes as they reddened. I wasn’t sure if she was consciously doing her best to stop them from falling or if that was what the tears had chosen for themselves, momentarily too lazy to make trails down blue faces. “I had a friend then, Bolanle. She didn’t have parents but she had enough for university and some to spare. I asked her how she did it. She told me that if I told her, I’d have to agree. I suppose not having boundaries to what I could do for what I wanted made me easy prey. She took me to the home of a lady that lived in affluence, Madam Karabo. She organised ‘entertainment’ for the parties of big men. She had a silver tooth and a wicked smile. The first time I met her, she had sized me up like fresh meat.

Nkem didn’t stop talking. I listened as she continued without pause, like she had told the story hundreds of times. But I knew that it was more like a box that had been stuffed full. Once you undid the lock, the content came spilling out.

“Bolanle convinced me that there was really nothing to it. She had been one of Madam Karabo’s girls for almost a year. ‘There was nothing to lose,’ she had said. I didn’t know that Bolanle had wanted out, and could only leave if she brought someone to replace her.”

Nkem’s face wore an expression of absolute self-loathing. I wondered if she would have to retell this story to Nathan.

“It was my very first run. The party had booked an entire high-profile hotel for their ‘meeting’. I walking in with the other girls and feeling so out of place. I moved awkwardly and hesitantly, like my body wasn’t even mine.”

What she said next filled in a gap I had almost forgotten was empty.

“Your father was a minister at the time, although he’s a puppet master now: our colloquial godfather. He was particularly interested in me and he let Madam Karabo know. He promised her a lot of money for me. He didn’t rape me. I hadn’t wanted to sleep with him but I didn’t revolt. I had heard from the other girls that some of these men beat up girls while drunk. I didn’t want to be beaten, and I hadn’t wanted to lose the money Madam Karabo promised. He had given me his phone number and asked that we meet again. I promised myself that I would never do anything with Madam Karabo again. My skin felt like it wasn’t mine and I wished I could peel it off.”

Nkem genuinely looked ready to vomit. I offered her the bottle of water that Carlos had left behind. She took it but did not drink.

“I found out that I was pregnant four weeks later. I felt like my life was well and truly over. Who could I tell? My mother’s heart couldn’t handle such news and even if it could, what would have been the use? I did something I never thought I would do: I phoned your father. He asked how I was sure it was his and I let him know that I had been a virgin when I met him. He was silent for a long time and asked me to send my details and to not call him again until the baby was born. Bolanle would later tell me that I was lucky. Men that took responsibility for their sperm were rare.”

It had started to feel like we were the only ones in the waiting area. There was something about Nkem’s voice that made the depressing narration feel like I had been there to witness it. She took a sip from the bottle and continued to speak.

“When you two were born. I told him that I had given birth to twins. He said that he could only take one. I looked at you both after you were born. I had met Benita by this time. It was one of the first blessings in a long time that I could recognise. She saw me when I was going for an antenatal care appointment.

When I came out of the doctor’s office, I don’t know why, but she walked up to me and took me out for lunch. I felt loved for the first time in a while and it had come from a total stranger.”

Nkem’s tears fell freely now. Perhaps tears that stemmed from self-loathing and raw hatred of one’s past were easier to control than those that came from a place of gratitude and indebtedness.

“You came out first and when they brought you two back to me, Nathan wouldn’t leave my arms meanwhile you let anyone carry you. I felt like you’d be alright. I hoped that I was making the right decision but there was really no guarantee either way. So I let him have you. I could barely take care of one child on my own, not to talk of two. But somehow it was still so hard to do.”

I was crying as well now. Nkem, my mother, had meant it all those weeks ago when she looked me in the eye and said that things were more complicated than they immediately appeared.

“With Benita’s help, I finished school and found a steady job that paid enough. And with your father’s contributions to Nathan’s upbringing, things were bearable. He came to see him sometimes. He would usually stay a day or two then go back to his old life. At first, with my naivety, I had wanted him to stay. Now, I’m worried he’d show up one day and try to take Nathan.”

With Udo’s death, that was a genuine concern. But Nathan would be eighteen soon, he couldn’t exactly be seized against his will. No matter how much my father may want him. In many ways though, that would be too much of a slap on Mother’s face to imagine. I wondered what I should call her now that I knew that she wasn’t ever my mother.

“When I found my feet and got properly settled, I set out to find a way to get in touch with you. I phoned your father and asked if it was possible and he said that that wasn’t what we had agreed on. It was difficult, but with some persistence and arm twisting he let me see you as your shrink.”

She smiled when she said that. Like after that she hadn’t needed any more gifts in her life time.

“I could see it in your eyes even then that you weren’t getting loved right. It broke my heart but there was little I could do. I tried to see you as much as I could. Call as frequently too. But I always felt like it wasn’t enough. “

Nkem dabbed at her eyes. Like she had spilled so many emotions on the floor and was trying not to cause another mess. But that was only one of the elephants in the room.

“And Nathan’s…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

“He was diagnosed a few weeks ago. That was what was wrong with him when you all came visiting. He said that he wasn’t ready to let you all know yet.”

I felt myself cave in. I had felt it even then that there was more to Nathan’s illness than he was letting us know. But I had wanted to believe that it was something minor and fleeting. I had heard the doctor say it but I couldn’t believe that it was real.

“So, he’s…my twin?”

My mouth felt like sandpaper made abrasive by sugar. A mix of joy and foreboding in my chest. It was easy to believe that Nathan and I were related. How I felt with him and the way I always felt tethered to him suddenly made sense. We were apart but never separated.

“Yes, he is, Ijem.”

Nkem smiled the smile of a mother who could finally be with both her children as a family. I found that I couldn’t remain angry at her for a matter that was grossly out of her control.

“And he’s dying.”

I had meant for it to be a question but it came out as a statement of fact.

“The doctors say that he has a chance at a full life. It’s chronic not acute so there’s hope if we are willing to him. We obviously are.”

It was nice to hear ‘we’. Like we were a team of some sort.

“We obviously are.”

My mum asked a question that seemed random to me. It wouldn’t have been if I had known better.

“Are you by any chance a fan of Horlicks?”

Epilogue

I did not die that day. Nor did I die the day after. Weeks after the shooting, amidst plans for Kojo’s funeral when I was finally regaining some of my strength, Ije and my mum, who they both informed me was our mum, came in to deliver the news to me. I was more shocked than anything else. But I wasn’t hurt and I did not feel betrayed by the secret. My Mum would never stop me from knowing anything unless she had to.

Actually, shock isn’t the best way to describe how I felt. I felt almost like I had been made fully aware of something I had always known subconsciously but was yet to affirm. I was grateful for Ije. Both literarily and literally, we completed each other. When she went to speak to Neso for the first time since his confession to learn more about the real him and hear him out properly, I had been her and, when I needed it, she had been mine.

Those days leading up to the burial of Kojo and the three others who had died in the shooting, she was my shoulder to cry on. I shed tears not only for Kojo, but for the significance of the entire shooting, and the degree to which it exposed the inefficacy of our leaders. I was always scared to stumble upon a revelation like that, and now that it had deposited itself before me, I wasn’t sure how to respond.

Ije told me of how Mr. Wiseman’s renewed hope in our last social impact class had quickly morphed into anguish in our next one. And why wouldn’t it? Hope for the country expressed through the political participation of its citizens had come at the same time as evidence of its absence expressed through the shootings. Remi had relayed exactly this in an article that went up on Kalakuta Times just days after. Of course, the government had denied any ties with the shootings, but the day was emblazoned on the hearts of the masses regardless.

Despite this, Kalakuta 5 refused to relent. We agreed that our fight for our country would be one to the death. In the same way that our leaders had decided to be renegades, traitors to their own people and to their country; we would renegade from the conventional behavior expected of us. One small step for man, one giant step for country.