Ifelt heavy my whole life.
I always thought that death would be the heaviest thing of all, but it wasn’t, it really wasn’t. Life was like being dragged through concrete in circles, wet and setting concrete that dried with each rotation of my unwilling body. As a child, I was light. It didn’t matter too much; I slid through it, and maybe it even felt like a game, like I was just playing in mud, like nothing about that slipperiness would ever change, not really. But then I got bigger and it started drying on me and eventually I turned into an uneven block, chipping and sparking on the hard ground, tearing off into painful chunks.
I wanted to stay empty, like the eagle in the proverb, left to perch, my bones filled with air pockets, but heaviness found me and I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t shake it off; I couldn’t transform it, evaporate or melt it. It was distinct from me, but it hooked itself into my body like a parasite. I couldn’t figure out if something was wrong with me or if this was just my life—if this was just how people felt, like concrete was dragging their flesh off their bones.
The fugues were short absences that I became grateful for, small mercies. Like finally getting to rest after having your eyelids forced open for days. I hid them from my parents and grew out my hair, thinking that the weight dropping from my head would lighten the one inside of me. It worked—not by making anything lighter, no, but by making me feel more balanced, like one weight was pulling the other and the strain on me had been lessened. Perhaps I had just become the fulcrum, the point on which everything hinged, the turning. I don’t know. I just know that I hurt a little less with each inch of hair I refused to cut.
Looking back, I really don’t know what I thought it was going to protect me from.
Eleven
Everyone knew that death entered with the upcoming elections. It was all anyone was talking about: if moving into civilian rule was a good idea, whether the military rulers could handle the country better. People argued in their homes and beer parlors; voices were raised, blows were thrown, and the violence sometimes escalated into bloody clashes on the roads. The day Chika brought Vivek home from university, they had run into traffic, cars crawling over potholes as people danced into the streets, whooping and singing.
Chika leaned out of his window, irritated. “What’s all this?” he shouted at a boy who was crossing in front of the car, waving palm fronds and holding a bottle of malt in his other hand, brown foam spilling over his knuckles.
The boy turned to him with a broad smile, his teeth catching sunlight.
“Abacha don die!” he shouted back. “Abacha don die!” He dipped between two cars, narrowly missed being hit by an okada, and was lost in the growing press of people.
Chika pulled back into the car and a hesitant smile spread over his face.
“Thank God,” he murmured, and Vivek, who had been sleeping with his head thrown against the car seat, woke up and stared blearily around him. His hair was damp with sweat from the back of his neck. The collar of his T-shirt was darkened with it, as was the fabric under his arms.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“Abacha is dead,” his father replied, swerving the car into the next lane and cutting in front of a bus. The driver shouted and made rude gestures.
“So what happens now?” Vivek asked.
“It’s a new day for Nigeria,” Chika replied. “A new day.” He smiled at his son and put a hand on his shoulder. “For all of us.”
Perhaps he was right and it was a birth of sorts, but Chika had forgotten that births come with blood, and in the case of his son, they came with loss as well, birthdays and deathdays all tangled up in each other.
A few weeks into Vivek’s return, as tensions arose between the police and a vigilante group, a seven o’clock curfew was imposed in Ngwa. Vivek had been taking long walks at night, and when his parents told him he’d have to stop, he lost his temper. “You’re keeping me in a cage!” he shouted. “You think I want to stay in this house every night like a prisoner? Is that why you brought me back?” He ran outside and refused to come back in after it got dark. He climbed the plumeria tree in their backyard, cradling himself in its broad branches.
“Leave him there,” Chika said, disgusted. “Let him fall out and break his neck. Onye ara.”
He slammed the back door behind him and refused to let Kavita go outside so she could beg Vivek to come indoors. “Beg him for what? I said let him sleep there with the chickens!”
In the morning, Vivek was covered in mosquito bites and there was a splatter of yellowwhite chicken shit on his shoulder. After Chika left for work, Kavita boiled water for the boy to take a bath. She didn’t know what to say to him, so she said nothing. While he was bathing, she called Rhatha and invited her to come over with her daughters.
“It’ll be good for the boy to have some company closer to his age,” Kavita said. Rhatha brought her signature cupcakes, complete with sugar dragonflies perched on top of the icing.
Somto and Olunne came in matching blue jeans with floral cutouts and garish polyester blouses with draping sleeves. They smelled like bubblegum, and their hair was pulled tight into ponytails.
“You girls have gotten so big!” said Kavita, as they hugged her hello. “I’m sure Vivek won’t even recognize you. How many years since you last saw him? Four? Five?”
Somto brushed an imaginary crumb off her green blouse and smiled at Kavita. “Closer to six or seven years, Aunty. Before we left for boarding school.”
“Yes, yes, that’s right. Well, come in, let me go and call Vivek.”
“It’s okay, we remember where his room is,” Somto said. “Can we go and give him some cupcakes?” She looked at her mother first, then at Kavita for permission. Olunne’s eyes widened at her sister asking to go into a boy’s room, just by themselves, but she rallied and gave Kavita a quick smile, a shy flash of teeth.
Kavita and Rhatha exchanged glances, then smiled back at the girls. “Down the corridor,” said Kavita, and watched as they traipsed off with the tray of covered cupcakes.
“That’s friendly of them,” she noted.
Rhatha waved a hand. “Oh, they heard he’s got such long hair now and wanted to see it for themselves. I think they’re halfway jealous.”
Kavita blinked. “Over hair?”
“Darling, you wouldn’t believe it. They’re obsessed with those Sunsilk advertisements and they quarrel over whose hair is longer all the time. It’s ridiculous.”
“Oh, that’s right, they had to cut their hair for school, didn’t they?”
“Yes, but it didn’t kill them.” Rhatha flapped a hand and sat next to Kavita, her face solicitous. “But tell me, darling, how are you? You must be worried sick about Vivek.”
Kavita suppressed a sigh. Rhatha was a bit of a gossip, always spilling people’s business. If she hadn’t been one of the few whose children were around, Kavita might not even have asked her over. She wondered what rumors Rhatha had heard. “He’s doing all right,” she said. “We just wanted to give him a little break from school since he hasn’t been feeling well.”
Rhatha leaned back in the sofa and regarded her. “You know,” she said, “Eloise was at the glass factory the other day when Vivek came to pick up Chika. She said he was looking quite run-down. It must have been serious if you pulled him out of school.”
Kavita frowned. “Why was Eloise at the factory?”
“She was picking up some sculptures. You know they did that program recently with the local artists, for her children’s ward? Their work is quite ugly, if you ask me, dreadful vases and whatnot. Chika was holding one for her. He didn’t tell you?”
“Yes, I remember,” lied Kavita. “Of course, the sculpture.”
“You should take Vivek to the teaching hospital if you need to get him checked out. Eloise is there a few times a week.”
“I know. But he’s fine, really. He just needs some time. He was always sensitive, even as a child.”
Rhatha nodded knowingly. “Nerves,” she said. “You always have to watch the sensitive ones. They wear out so easily, and the last thing you want is a nervous breakdown.”
“Exactly,” agreed Kavita. “Better he have some time off now than break down at school.” She knew there was a chance Rhatha would run around and tell everyone Vivek was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but it was better than admitting that the breakdown had already happened.
“I thought that military school would have toughened him up,” said Rhatha.