7 The Fly (2/2)

'Marry,' he chuckles. 'Come let me tell you sometin'.'

* * *

When he is done telling, you can barely move; you have to sit on the floor again, to stop yourself from crumbling to pieces. Your ears are ringing hot, invaded by demons from h.e.l.l.

The man, taking advantage of your sudden silence and numbness, returns to your b.r.e.a.s.t.s, as if he owns them, roaming, frisking, removing everything in his way – blouse, bra, necklace . . . wrapper.

The man's words have had an anaesthetic effect on you – you do not feel whatever is happening to your body, whatever it is; it is as if you have been detached from yourself and whatever is happening is happening to someone else, a distant person you do not know.

When he is done on your body, he gives you this black pouch, presses it into your palm; there's powder in it.

'Put am for him food . . . fiam! – you go see, na like fly she go

fall.'

She is the fly.

You really shouldn't believe it, but you do; you can feel it in your gut, all the way up to your chest, deep in your heart; the solid feeling of belief, of confidence, that what you have heard is true.

On the way back home, in the back of the taxi, you suddenly begin to feel the medicine man's sharp, shoddy thrusts inside you, thrusts you hadn't felt while they were being administered; now they hit you hard, causing you to squeeze your eyes shut in pain, so much that the tears gathering at the back of your eyes cannot make it out, and they sting.

But it is the thrusts of the man's words that are more painful; they are the ones you try to shut out of your head as they penetrate deeper into the thick darkness behind your eyes, pounding your heart to a pulp.

How can she be the fly? Why couldn't it have been someone else, someone you didn't know, someone that was just a faceless name.

How could she have sent you to her babalawo to be killed by him?

Why did she want to marry your husband, of all the husbands in the world, why yours? Why did she even want to marry at all! Men were not for marrying, no!

The questions collide in your head, resulting in a cacophonous headache that is a sharp contrast to the serenity inside the cab and the driver's solemnity which matches the sedate speed at which he is moving.

You cannot believe that her babalawo spared your life; it is almost as if it is not your life anymore, as if yours had been taken by that revelation, and the one you had bought back with your body was someone else's, and you had to return it . . .

You chuckle.

It did not come from you.

You chuckle again, as if to be sure.

The driver looks at you in the mirror.

The chuckles just keep rolling off, in bits, from nowhere, piece after piece, paced like hiccups. You cannot stop.

You ask the driver to stop. He asks what the problem is.

Nothing.

He looks at you as if your small madness has started. He doesn't want a part of it, so he asks you for his fare as he parks. You

smile and hand him your handbag, 'Take everything.'

The air is cold outside. You are on the Third Mainland Bridge and it is that time of the night when the thick stream of traffic has petered out into a trickle of a few cars swis.h.i.+ng past.

The lagoon is black below, like the top of an office desk, or the bottom of a hole.

'Madam, hope no problem?' the driver asks.

In Lagos, n.o.body cares if there's a problem or not; as long as

it is not theirs, they're fine.

'I'm fine,' you answer, and sit on the floor, on the road. You smile up at the cabbie, sweetly, as if to rea.s.sure him.

'Madam, you no fine,' he says, insistent in his probing, like a dedicated lover.

You want to love him, but your heart is no longer in its place; it has folded up, shut down.

'I am fine.'

'Okay, make I carry you reach house.'

'Your house?'

The thought amuses you.

'No o! Your own house.'

'My house is no longer mine. I'm homeless . . . I do not have a house in this world anymore.'

The man is growing nervous, the poor man. He hadn't imagined his day would end like this, on such a sadly dramatic note.

'I am fine, darling. If I am not now, I will be tomorrow. Fine as feathers, honey.'

Your cackle unnerves him further, and he begins to retreat towards the taxi. You hear his final sigh of concession.

'Hey!' you call out as he starts his engine. 'Tell her I said

Happy Married Life!'

He sighs again, and quickly peels out.

* * *

Lagos, with its notoriety as an overpopulated city, is actually a lonely place at night. Lonely and cold.

The pouch in your bra is warm against your breast, how its owner's palms had felt before the numbness came. The powder is cold on your lips. Tasteless.

You lie on the cold floor, on your side, curl up into a semicircle and close your eyes.

It is almost hours later when you feel a heavy blanket over you. Perhaps it is the black night sky that has fallen over the earth.

Or death? Death, it would be warm like that, and heavy, and dark.

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