22 That Thing (2/2)

'You people have the same parents?' She did not answer.

'Then why does he make you do this?'

'Money.'

I had paid Lucky and he had a.s.sured me that I wouldn't have to pay the girl, since she wasn't a prost.i.tute, as he had claimed; she was just a girl he had arranged for me. I had asked him, out of casual curiosity in the business arrangement, how they would share the money. ”Fifty-fifty,” he said.

'So you people share the money equally,' I said.

She shook her head, almost like a reflex, then flinched, guilt and regret registering on her face; the guilt and regret of a person that has revealed too much of their joint business' trade secret. I noticed the reticence begin to steal across her mouth, tightening it. I tried one final question on her.

'So what does he do with all the money?'

Fresh tears erupted from her, from her throat, from the depths of her heart, consuming her face, rocking her b.r.e.a.s.t.s under the straining blouse.

'E dey send di money go village give papa and mama. Dem no

well . . .'

It could have been the sincere intensity of her tears or the tragic force of her story tugging at my heart that drew me into her; I just realized I had closed the gap between us, and my body was now upon hers in a funereal embrace, and I could smell the Pink Lady in her hair and the strawberry on her lips. Within such bodily proximity I was soon drawn into the field of her grief, sipping her tears as her face was now laid on my cheek, and her hair in my eyes, the gurgles and moans of her throat in my ear.

'Na you be di only man wey no do me anyhow,' she cried into my neck, her tears wetting my collar. 'Di only man wey no just . . . just do comot, wey ask my name, wey follow me talk like say I be persin . . .' I felt like a thief, as if I was stealing somebody's compliments.

* * *

I'm not sure at what point during the crying and mourning our clothes fell off and we fell into each other with a savagery neither of us thought we possessed.

But it all soon petered out into nothing, just sweat and regrets.

* * *

Driving home I wondered what Lili would say. I had stormed out of the house early in the morning in full fury; I'd driven off to a faraway bar, met a loud pimp who had arranged a girl for me, and it had all ended in nothing, emptiness; all the fury spent and limp.

Now here I was going back home with a total stranger, a sad hooker. What would I tell Lili. I didn't even know what I wanted to do with the girl yet. I just felt I had to show her to Lili; it was like a child taking a prize home to its mother. This strange sense of n.o.blesse oblige had just settled upon me as the gravity of Grace's misery sank in, and I felt I had to share it with my wife; a kind of doleful joy that comes with a hard-won prize.

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I couldn't even remember why we had been fighting; we usually just fought as a habit now. The morning's fight had been so fiery I'd had to duck out of the house to avoid an explosion, a conflagration that would have consumed the remnants of the matrimony and its occupants.

I just wanted to get away and drown in the alcoholic reprieve of a few beers; but when Lucky came with his mouth I became interested; the idea of talking to another woman, a total stranger, was appealing. Instead, I had been the one receiving the load of Grace's laments.

As I waited for the gate to be opened, I took my wedding band out of the glove box and slipped it on.

Grace's eyes bulged, then narrowed. 'You get wife?'

'Yes?' I nodded, my voice small, as if I wasn't sure I had, or I didn't want to have.

Her eyes bulged again, this time with the weight of great hurt. She had the look of someone hugely betrayed; as if she had been offered hope on the end of a string and had it s.n.a.t.c.hed from her just as she reached out to take it.

She opened the door and stepped out of the car.

My eyes followed her retreating behind down the street, until it rounded the corner with the rest of her and disappeared.

When my gaze returned to the gate it was open and Lili was standing by it, her own eyes on me. She came to the car. 'Did you f.u.c.k that thing?'

I winced, not at the thought, at the swear word – Lili never used it; it didn't suit her mouth the way it did Grace's. And Grace never used it to spite, to hurt sensibilities; she used it honestly.

Did I f.u.c.k that thing?

The way she said it I wished I had.

She was dressed to go out. She didn't wait for an answer; she went on her way, as if she had not left a question stinking in the air between us.

I cleared the air, 'No,' I answered. No, Grace was not that thing, an inanimate object men used to please themselves, which their wives turned self-righteous noses up at and looked down upon; she was human too, like them, all of them, all the people that called her a thing; she had blood, a heart, emotions, troubles, desires, strengths and weaknesses, sorrows, family. . .

It was our marriage that was that thing – a lifeless sc.r.a.p of discarded metal, cold, untouched for years, cast aside in a corner of our daily routines, gathering dust and rust. It was that thing.

I turned around and drove away from it.

Far away.

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