FICTION

Enit'ayanfe Ayosojumi Akinsanya

 

                               CREDITS: KARAN SINGH

                              

                                   BLACK

They heard the thud before the scream. The first was the sound of a library shelf making a smack-down to the floor. The second gathered the night by its throat and curdled human blood. At first, time froze. Then, the sound of someone running.  They ran out and found her prostrate on the main entrance, just by the short hallway into the house, her head scattered like a piece of voodoo toy.

“Fimidara!” one of them screamed, fast-forwarded to her knees, her arms stretched as if to pack the bits of skull and make them whole again. 

“Don’t touch her, Setemi!” another shrieked.

“She is so dead,” yet another mumbled, patting her mouth as if to muffle the finality of her words.

They could all see it.

“But we were all inside, eating oranges and gisting. When did she leave?”

“Look. She came out to throw out her orange pulps.” 

“This is terrifying. Could she have tripped over this gutter–?”

“And have the concrete slab bash her head like this? Come on.”

“This was no accident. Someone killed her.”

“Of course, Bimitan. Isn’t that already obvious?”

“God Almighty. And she was supposed to go home this afternoon.”

“Look. Her head was definitely smashed apart with a club.”

“But this is past 10 already. And we’ve locked the gates!”

“Jesus. Could it be the cultists? Is this one of the cult killings? Dear Lord. I should have gone home when the strike began.”

“Silly! What business could Fimidara ever have with cultists?”

“Oh my God, what are we going to do? Who are we going to call? Are we calling the vigilante? Are we calling the police? Will they arrest us? Will they arrest everybody in this compound?”

“Kajola! Calm the fuck down!”

They scampered back inside, except one of them. It was unwise to remain outside in the cold glare, they reminded her. The fluorescent bulb, still blazing, sharpened the sets of their mouths. They murmured, grateful that the power company had not chosen the moment to cut power off.

The last girl shuffled in, holding something behind her. She zombied her way past them and their questioning eyes. Her own shimmered. Her feet stopped.

They called her. “Seteminikan.”

Seteminikan was huddled by the in-built wardrobe.

“I know the person.”

“You do?”

A shaking hand lifted a piece of cloth. They all leaned in to peer. It was a yellow-blue strip, looked like something ripped off a trouser leg. She had found it stuck to the green glass shards cemented into the fence, where the light from other apartments barely caressed it.

Bimitan covered her mouth. “Is this whose I am thinking?”

Their eyes held a common knowledge. They lost their words. And they held their heads, like women grieving.

13 Hours Earlier

People trickled through the Motion Ground, leaving a vast swinging emptiness, frustrating the “Psst! Broda, passport! Sister, your file here!” traders, who once thrived on the commerce of heavy student presence. One could not exactly hear a pin drop, but footfalls echoed, and perhaps that was why Fimidara jolted under the makeshift parasol on the concrete ring when Macaulay boomed in her ear from the back. 

“Jesus Christ!” She clutched her bag like a Bible, her eyes glowing saucers.

Macaulay held his hips and flung his head back. “Is that what you would say if it was truly the cultists?” he asked between gags. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

His cackles kept bouncing off the building walls for a little more while, like a screeching-bats scene from an exaggerated horror movie.

“Get out! You almost made me spill my drink.” Fimidara patted the floor and touched her chest three times. Her shoulders slowed their heaving, and she tucked a curl of her wig behind her ear. “You know the stories about cultists from town killing each other. Mac, one day you will kill me o!”

Beside her, further into the parasol, a spotted-skinned boy giggled, his thin pink lips pursed around a par fait straw. Fimidara shook her head and checked her wristwatch. Macaulay sat on the ring, next to the boy, and squinted into the horticultured trees flaring out of the middles of the other rings.

“Those ones are just dramatic fools,” he said. “They know their targets, and they won’t come into the campus.”

“Onto,” Fimidara stressed. “But you know, you never can tell. Those guys are wild. And this is even the perfect time for them to hunt down their own on campus, with everywhere quiet like this.”

Macaulay glared at the pale boy as if he was the one who had spoken. “There are no cultists on this campus.”

“Thank God for Afrika,” Fimidara said. “Thank God for the sacrifice.”

Macaulay leaned backward on his hands and mimed blowing smoke rings into the air. “Why are you thanking God for things humans did?” He mock-flicked off some ash onto the floor. Fimidara rolled her eyes at him and he laughed. “You sha want to force your Christianity down everybody’s throat.” His shoulders shook even harder. Two girls walking past glanced in their direction. He pursed his fingers and brought them to his lips for a deep drag. “Date me, Dara. Let’s take our friendship to the next level. I would accept Jesus just because of you.”

Fimidara sucked her teeth. “You have started talking nonsense again o. It’s not your fault. You wouldn’t have found me here.”

“Really?”

“Yes. It will take a lot, but I sha know I’m reaching Lagos this afternoon. Willy-nilly. I have nothing doing here.”

“Oh, your fellowship pastor has released you?”

Fimidara frowned. “We are not under bondage, dear. And I spoke to my unit head. She said I could sneak home and later pray for forgiveness.”

“So what’s keeping you?”

“Hello, I have a brother here. Tall, handsome, stammers a little bit. Remember?”

“Oh, that boy wey dey do like girl?” Macaulay’s smoke clouds were getting thicker, because he was now swatting at them. “You are waiting for him, okay, I get.” He glowered again at the boy. “Na your people now, Somidotun. Ndi Bobrisky. I always wonder why both of you have not dated yet.”

“Will you stop already?” Fimidara yawned. “And my own brother is not part of dem Bobrisky abeg. He has a girlfriend.”

Macaulay guffawed. “That one get babe? That one? Eweeee! You don’t mean it.”

“For real. He just bought her a ring. He planned to engage her today at their Sub-Group Farewell Hangout. That’s what’s keeping him.”

“KPK!” Macaulay turned to the boy again. “Then Somidotun can be the side chick.”

“You just need Jesus, Macaulay.”

“Jesus should rest. I’m not attracted to Bible gods. They are so unsexy.”

Fimidara typed furiously on her iPhone and patted her eyes. “Who told you Somidotun is gay, anyway?”

“Have you ever seen him with a girl?”

“I am a girl. Bimitan is a girl. Setemi is a girl. Yiwola, Kajola–”

“Come on, Dara. I mean a girl that isn’t part of our group.”

“Well, true. But that’s just how Somi is. He doesn’t talk in class. He doesn’t even talk much in his hostel room. I recall the last time I went to see him.”

“Still doesn’t mean he shouldn’t chase the pussy.”

The boy’s eyes danced, frightened blanched orbs, blanched by nature.

“Leave Somi alone.” Fimidara swallowed her straw and pulled. “With weather like this sef, his chances are slim. The heat is making people stink already. That’s even people with melanin o.  Now imagine what it would do to someone like him.”

Macaulay sniffed the boy. “But–I don’t perceive any odor.”

“Of course, I don’t mean him, silly. I would never talk like that about him. I’m just saying people like him tend to have that issue. And it definitely has nothing to do with his being single. He’s just a boy living in his world. I would have said he is a church boy, but I don’t think he attends any.”

The boy laughed.

Macaulay blew invisible smoke in his face. “Somidotun is a heathen like me. We are both bound for hell.”

Fimidara sent a voicenote, repeating “Yinka” like a mother pulling her recalcitrant child’s ear. She dropped the phone on her lap and pulled from her drink. “This sun is so crazy. All my talcum has run down.”

“It’s indeed bad. Nobody said the mid-year was going to be like this. And that’s how it works these days. Intense sun during the day, then mad rain at night.”

“I hope it doesn’t rain though. The roads become something else.”

Macaulay chortled. “Do you expect to spend the night on the road?”

Someone yanked at his baseball cap, whose bill had been turned to the back.

“Okay. Only one girl in this entire school has enough chutzpah to do that with me.”

“Hello, bitches!” Kajola plopped down next to him and hooked an arm around his neck. Three more people found seats on the ring. All of them held banana shakes.

“But why are you so troublesome, K.?” Macaulay said, in what sounded like a private flirtation continued. “You want Daddy to spank you?”

Kajola placed a finger across his lips. “Shh. Tell me you missed me, too.”

“I missed you.” Macaulay looked around. “Hello, girls.”

“We are not girls,” Bimitan said. “We are ladies. We should be in second semester, part two, if not for the strike.”

“Ah, sorry. Ladies.”

“Vawulence!” Kajola cackled into his face.

“What kept you guys anyway?” Fimidara asked. “I left that house since past 6.”

Yiwola hoisted her palms. “Kajola was busy with her birthday preparations o.”

“Birthday girl. Na wa!”

Kajola preened. “Na me!”

“Babe,” Bimitan turned to Fimidara, “thought you would have left by now o.”

“I’m waiting for Yinka. I just texted him again. He should be here in half an hour.”

“Good. This is past 10 already, and I heard the traffic through Ibadan is mad.”

Kajola sneered in Fimidara’s direction. “So you are not going to wait for my photoshoot session at Pharmacy this afternoon.”

“No.”

“Oh, you’re traveling? Finally, thank God! I was beginning to think I didn’t love and honor my pastor enough,” Yiwola said, kissed her straw briefly. “Omo, you won’t believe this crazy sun has melted almost all my ice cubes.”

“Mine, too,” Bimitan said. “Hi, Somidotun.”

“Wait o,” Seteminikan said. “Did your pastor really allow you to go home?”

Fimidara fanned her dripping face with her palm. “My pastor didn’t approve o. I’m sneaking home with Yinka. Do you know I feel guilty?”

“Fimidara.” Seteminikan’s tone was thick. “You are the best sophomore student in your faculty. Not even department, the whole faculty. Your CGPA looks like you’ll be graduating in a few years with first class. You shouldn’t be thinking and behaving like this.”

Fimidara gripped her bag handles, projecting her knuckles. “There is nothing wrong with the way I am thinking, Setemi.” She raised her eyes. “It’s just an act of honor. You won’t understand.” 

Seteminikan adjusted her straw and pulled. She was already facing Macaulay. “I love your trousers, sweet boy.”

“Oh, I was thinking nobody would notice o!”

“Are you kidding?” Fimidara said. “E be like all these LGBT rainbow flags, all that yellow and blue.”

“Who would ever miss it?” Seteminikan said. “Hello there, Somidotun.”

The morning after that night

They had all given their statements. They had all been interrogated, except Seteminikan. Fimidara’s remains were at the mortuary and her parents summoned. Her brother, Yinka, looked betrayed when he saw his parents drive into the station compound, as if he had not expected them to acknowledge the police invitation, as if their coming now meant that Fimidara’s shattered head was real. Parents and son disappeared into the DPO’s office, then came out with a sergeant, the father sobbing, the mother holding him and dabbing her face with a soiled handkerchief, their son now looking bewildered, as if unsure how much he should allow himself to believe and express. Seteminikan avoided his eyes. They made for the car and, soon, were crawling out to the state hospital mortuary.

“Seteminikan Eluwole!” a corporal bellowed from the counter. His fat cheeks looked even puffier as he pronounced “Eluwole”, and one of the girls giggled.

“Here I am.”

“Follow that man.”

Seteminikan rose. She walked after a tall plain-clothes man into a dim room. The other girls followed her with round eyes, as though begging her not to reveal too much. The man shut the door and gestured her onto a bench placed against a table. She sat and felt the gnarled wood bite into her butt. An unwashed mustiness filled her nose. When she tried to prop her elbows on the table, it wobbled to the side.

“Act like I know nothing about this incident at all and that you have not written a statement,” the man said. He spoke with a tremolo that Seteminikan thought of as a well-used tool.

She nodded.

“How was the deceased to you?”

“She is–she was my best friend.”

“Where did this happen?”

“At our friend Kajola’s apartment. In Oduduwa Estate.” 

“Is that where all of you live?”

“No. She lives there–lived there–with Kajola.” 

“Why? Did she have accommodation issues? I mean Fimidara.”

“She did. She couldn’t get a bedspace slot early enough on her e-portal. I was able to, and I asked her to come live with me. People do these things all the time, squatting. But she said she was not cut out for the Aluta Continua spirit of the campus. So she and Kajola put money together and rented the apartment.”

“So why were all of you there last night? What was the occasion?”

“Kajola’s birthday is tomorrow, so we gathered to make plans overnight. It was also our movie night. One of us would pick a movie and we would all watch it on my laptop.” 

“Had you girls started watching the movie when it happened?”

“No. We had just had a late supper and were arguing. We were also sucking oranges. Fimidara had bought some.”

“What was the argument about?”

Seteminikan dipped her head. “Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. Who was better.”

An unclear expression flitted across the man’s face.

“So what stopped the argument?”

“Fimidara’s scream.”

“She screamed at you all to stop arguing?”

Seteminikan shook her head. “No. She finished her orange and went to the large shopping nylon they used as a dustbin. But she said it was too full and too dirty and that she had expected Kajola to empty it out that morning. Fimidara doesn’t–didn’t–like any form of untidiness. She left the room to go and throw the orange pulp onto the rubbish pile in front of the house. Then we heard noises. A heavy sound, and then her screams.”

“Wasn’t it too late in the night to go out of the house?”

Seteminikan nodded.

“So why did nobody stop her?”

She paused. “We didn’t think of it. It was not the first time we would go to the front door and throw something out. And we had locked the main gates. There was light. There was no danger. As far as we knew, she would unlock the front door, hurl the pulp across, lock the door and walk back in. And–” Her voice broke. “And we would begin the movie.”

“Were you the only ones in the building?”

“Yes, sir. The other tenants had all traveled to fend for themselves, since no one knows when the strike will be called off.”

“I see.” The man clasped his hands. “I gathered that she shouldn’t have been there last night.”

“No, sir, she shouldn’t.”

“Where was she supposed to have been?”

“Lagos. She and her brother were already on the bus home.”

The man went stiff. “Wait. You mean she was already on her way to Lagos?”

Seteminikan pushed her fists into her face. “Yes.”

“So why was she still in Ife?”

“You will not believe me, sir. Even I could not believe it until she showed me the messages and call history.”

“Try me.”

She peered into his eyes. Her fellowship pastor called her just as the bus was filling at the park to stay back in Ife for a few more days, her and her brother. The man ranted about how he had sent her streams of messages and asked her why she was ignoring them and being insolent to God’s mouthpiece. So they alighted, dragged their luggage from the back, and took a bike back from Mayfair.”

“Wow, wow, wow. So the fellowship pastor forbade them from going home.” 

She nodded.

“Do you know why? Did anybody mention a vision?” 

She chuckled. “Vision? It’s not that deep, inspector. She cooks and cleans–cooked and cleaned–for the pastor, who lives on campus. Her brother also withdraws–withdrew–from his account to feed pastor, then he would come to beg for garri at his sister’s place.”

“Ah, ah, ah. Was it a kind of penance? Did this pastor threaten them?”

“It wasn’t under duress, inspector. And that’s not even the sad part of it.” She paused. “Her brother had never struck me as bright, but Fimidara was the most brilliant girl I know. She was a star in her faculty and people were already talking of voting her president of faculty when the time came. She was easily intelligent yet she obeyed a pastor’s instruction to alight from a bus, not because of a vision or a prophecy, but because of ‘cooler ministry’.”

“Cooler what?” 

“House service to men and women of God. That’s what we call it on campus. It’s a glorified term for ‘holy housemaid’.” 

“This is very serious.”

Seteminikan pursed her lips.

“What is the name of her church? I mean the fellowship.”

“Beloved Life Word church.” 

“Is the pastor still around?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Do you know his name?”

“They call him Oga Akan.”

“Where are you from?”

Seteminikan tapped the table. “Here. Ile-Ife.”

“Did you plan to travel, perhaps to go visit friends outside the state?”

“No.”

“Do you know anyone else in your group who planned to travel yesterday but didn’t?”

She kneaded her temples with her thumbs. “Another person was Somidotun. And he did. He did not plan it, though. His dad called him and threatened to curse him if he did not come right home yesterday and, I think, help him at the carpentry shed or something like that. We learnt from Somidotun’s side of the conversation that he had been ordered to come home since the strike began, but he had disobeyed. When the call dropped, we urged him to leave. There was absolutely nothing he was doing in school anyway, plus his foodstuff had all but gone. So he went to his hostel and packed and left, minutes after Fimidara and her brother did.”

“Is that all, Seteminikan? Are you certain nobody in your group planned but couldn’t travel yesterday, apart from Fimidara?”

Seteminikan thought then of hate, how powerful it was, how hard and fast it could pulse through one’s skin and leave the base of one’s throat taut. She thought of vengeance and coincidence, how they mixed like the okun and osa waters from her childhood folktales, shattering the glass in which they clashed.

“Victory.” She breathed the name like a secret. “He came with a bag and talked about leaving for Ekiti. But he showed up at Oduduwa Estate. We were all going to get some Spaghetti when we ran into him. He tried to dodge from us, but Yiwola had already caught him. So he started laughing and walked up to us. He said he canceled his journey.”

“Did he come back to the house with you?” 

“No, he walked with us half of the way and turned back. Said he had to fix something.”

“Hmm.” The inspector held his jaw. “ ‘Turned back’ as in, left the neighborhood or still hung around?”

She paused, pretending to recollect. “I believe he hung around. We didn’t see him leave. And, according to him, the guys he had come to the estate to see were his friends. It must have been a sleepover.” 

“And who is this Victory?”

Seteminikan lodged her face into her palms; her chest heaved out a sigh. The gaze would now shift. “Fimidara’s ex-boyfriend.”

21 hours earlier

Victory and Munachi arrived at Motion Ground together. The group became antsy, as though they were now suddenly sitting on live coals. Munachi was notorious. His gait was slack with an amoral absence, his sentences usually black with menace.  Macaulay always said it to his face that he tried too hard to be American, and failed just as hard. Once, they came close to blows, but Victory intervened. And now, between them, a wrinkled disregard sizzled. They didn’t fight; they also didn’t play.  Maybe that was why everybody noticed right away that they were both wearing the same trouser material.

“Wow!” Bimitan said, swinging her long braids with a flourish. “Not the sworn enemies wearing andco.”

Yiwola giggled.

“Watch your mouth, Bimitan.” Macaulay stubbed out his mime cigarette. Sharp lines had appeared on his forehead.

Munachi sat on Somidotun’s other side. “What the hell is andco?” He was smiling but it looked like a grimace.

Silence.

“Okay, is no one going to answer him?” Victory said, still standing, a backpack clinging to his shoulders. “Not fair.”

Bimitan sighed. “It roughly means ‘uniform’, you know, an adaptation of ‘and company’.”

Munachi’s eyes tried to light up, but they looked killed, killed by years of ingesting hard drugs. “Aw! You mean like that old Nigerian show ‘Papa Ajasco and Company’? Aw, man, I ain’t even a comedian. How you gonna link me to that show because of the trousers I wore?”

Frustration soughed through the group like a small wind. 

Victory said, “Hey, buddy, they don’t mean that. They mean that you and Mac are wearing the same color and material of trousers.” 

“Aw!” Munachi leaned across Somidotun to peep down at Macaulay. “True, man! Like some asoebi shit, what the fuck, man?”

“Something like that, buddy.”

Bimitan rolled her eyes. “You know it’s not exactly the same thing. A family uniform worn at a family event is different.”

“You know what?” Victory balled his fist. “Why don’t you just start a fresh thesis on clothes? You could title it ‘The Disturbing Complexities of Yoruba Uniforms’. Stupid girl.”

“That was rude and uncalled for, Vic,” Seteminikan said. “Is that how you talk to your new girl?”

“Which new girl?” Fimidara sputtered into her cup. “Sorry, that almost ran up my nostrils.”

“Excuse me.” Victory rounded on her. “Is something the matter? Are you also asthmatic?”

“That was low, bro, so low,” Seteminikan said, shaking her head.

“Oh, it’s fine,” Bimitan said, inhaling deeply. “I’m not ashamed of my condition. Anyone who prays to have it can go ahead and try to mock me because of it.”

Victory looked away. “Well, at least my new girl is smart enough to know when an argument is dead.”

“Your love life is nonexistent, Vic, and we know it,” Fimidara said.

“What the fuck did you just say to me?” A bunched fist again, this time aimed at Fimidara’s throat.

“Guy, you wan’ hit her?” Macaulay asked, his voice a raspy rumble.

“Oh, you can talk,” Victory sneered. “Lover boy.”

Macaulay scoffed. “What? What does that even mean?”

“Just tell her to stay out of my business or else!”

“So what are you going to do, beat her?” Bimitan asked.

“Bimitan.” Macaulay again, a firm warning pressure.

“Yo, man!” Munachi called. “Calm down! There are better ways you gon deal with insult. You know that. We’ll talk about it. You strike once and bury the whole thing once, and that, mah niggur, that’s period. Nobody insult you no more.”

“You no fit touch one hair for my body, Americanah.” Fimidara slipped a rubber band on the ends of her wig to make a ponytail and allow some breeze. “Na mouth you just get.” She picked up her phone and typed again.

Munachi’s smile appeared again, twisted, painful.

“Why are you not sitting anyway?” Kajola said to Victory, her arm still curled around Macaulay.

“I’m going home.” Victory pulled at his straps. “Was walking past to the park when I saw you guys here.”

“Chai, this one everyone is going home,” Yiwola said.

“What would you have them do?” Kajola said. “Mac told me there is no light on campus. Imagine o. Water sef be like piss.”

Victory snorted. “They are just doing all that to drive students home.” 

“Like it’s that easy,” Bimitan said. 

“It is that easy,” Macaulay said. “You want to tell me that students still have a say when the whole union is filled with weak diplomats and ideologues?”

“Yeah, man,” Munachi said. “You see why we need a reform in the student government, yeah? The Aluta spirit is dying. Shit, man. We gotta have a bring-back of activists in the student union. Real activists. Now, ya talking.”

Macaulay grunted and looked away.

“Is this not the fifth strike since last semester anyway?” Yiwola groaned. “Chai, OAU, ‘Oba Adaniduro University’.”

“I don’t know why you are all complaining, though,” Victory said with a smirk. “Like you people staying on campus don’t enjoy the strikes. Look at the power cut on campus, for instance. People can finally fuck anyone and anywhere they want to.”

Yiwola covered her ears. “Oh my God, what was that?”

Victory glared from Macaulay to Kajola then to Fimidara. “Y'all are fucking anyway.”

“Guy.” Macaulay unhooked Kajola’s arm from his body, his eyes trained on Victory. “Come and be going to Ekiti.”

Victory laughed and beckoned to Munachi, who stood up slowly.

“I’m leaving. Safe journey to everyone.”

Fimidara raised a finger. “One more thing before you go, love. You still have that violent streak. Are you sure you are not part of the cult boys? I kept telling you, you need Jesus. Just be careful with the police on your way.”

Victory and Munachi doubled over, their shoulders vibrating. They hit their palms against each other’s and said, “This one choke o!” Victory faced her. “Don’t worry about me, church girl. Worry about yourself.” He gasped. “I almost didn’t see the afin o.” He walked over, hand outstretched. “Shake my hand, afin o j’eyo.”

Somidotun took the hand.

“How are you na?”

“I’m fine,” the boy mumbled.

Victory tightened his grip and lowered his voice. “You know this is your first year here. You had barely finished your matriculation ceremony before the strike hit. Look here, Ogba Femi is a wild campus. Almost everyone here, from student to alfa to professor to dean sef dey do jaz. Correct juju. I once heard that a fresher poisoned his roommate’s food. Angola Hall was agog that year. This is my seventh year here, a few carryovers and now an extra year. I have seen and heard a lot. Many people have run mad, disappeared. Watch how you roll with these stalites. Do you know that you afins are famous for being potent when it comes to jaz? Especially to boost money and academic wins. Just one limb or maybe your left ear would do. Personally sef, I for like sell you to one babalawo make hin take am do jaz for me make I comot for this Ogba Femi.”

Yiwola threw her head back and hollered. “Especially you afins that don’t see well during the day. It would be so easy to just bundle you somewhere and use.”

“That’s ridiculous, man!” Munachi looked furious. “You all should stop.”

Victory turned at him. “Bruh, wetin be your own? You dey chuk am prick? You be homo?”

A gale of laughter seized the place. Somidotun himself giggled. Seteminikan did not laugh, though, and Bimitan looked repulsed. “Ew,” she said. “I can’t imagine Munachi doing something like that with someone like Somi. Normal-normal, gays are disgusting, but the picture of that. All that patchy yellow skin, God abeg o.”

“No be juju be that?” Macaulay muttered.

“Guys, stop,” Fimidara said. “Now, Somi may have all those spots and pinkness, but it’s because he eats salt. Not because he doesn’t work on his skin.”

“But who said he doesn’t work on his skin?” Bimitan said. “All the pollution stuff has rubbed out the ozone layer. Even those of us with melanin can feel the sun like a continuous bite. Abeg abeg o. Like, he’s so prone to skin cancer. The least he could do is get a parasol or a small umbrella. Eeish.”

“Why don’t you get it for him?” Fimidara said. 

Victory peered into the boy’s eyes. “Just be careful around.” He slipped his hand out. He nodded at Munachi. “Let’s go, bruh.”

They walked away. And that was when Somidotun’s phone started ringing.

Back to the station

“Everybody knows how unscrupulous Munachi is. He used to cause trouble in student union meetings at the Amphitheatre before they kicked him out of the council. He once broke a bottle on someone’s head at New Buka and went scot-free. Just because he is an HOD’s son. And there is nothing he does that Victory does not involve himself in. I’m sure seeing Victory last night has a connection to how my friend died such a death.” She crumpled on the table, her shoulders vibrating.

The inspector reached out to rub her shoulder. “Take heart, my dear.”

She looked up through a fog of snot. “Inspector.”

“Yes?”

“The strip of cloth I presented at the counter definitely came from Munachi’s trouser. He threatened to do something to Fimidara that night, right in the presence of all of us. And I’m sure that was why Victory was there last night. Please, sir, don’t let my friend die in vain. She didn’t deserve such a horrible thing.”

“Don’t worry, Seteminikan. We will do our job. It is a special case and I am personally interested in it. We also owe it to the parents. The mother especially wants to know who killed her daughter.”

Seteminikan nodded, wiping her face. “Can I go back now?”

“Yes, you are free to go back now. Thank you, Seteminikan.”

Seteminikan got up.

“We will get to the bottom of this. One more request. You seem the wisest in your group. Can you convince them to at least leave that house and the vicinity for some time? We don’t know what other tricks lie up these guys’ sleeves, and if our hunch is correct, they are very dangerous. Go somewhere you and your girls can be safe, somewhere the guys don’t know. This will blow over soon and your lives can go back to normal.”

“I doubt it. I’ve lost my best friend. I’ve lost her for life.” She sniffled. “But don’t worry, sir. We know we have to leave that estate for now. My uncle is a captain in the army and he has a guest house in Moro. We can stay there for months if we want.”

“Very good.” The inspector paused. “I hope you also realize that none of you must leave Ife until the investigations are over?”

Seteminikan nodded. “I know, sir. I am a Law student. I am not a novice of the law.”

“Perfect.” The inspector smiled. “Now, leave the rest to us.”

The first time Somidotun walked in on his stepmother masturbating, he was nine years old, so being in Sagamu had always felt uncanny, like walking into a forest filled with nonhumans. To be in Sagamu was to watch his father drudge at piles of unyielding wood in his workshop, from morning to night, and then later go into a brawl with customers over unpaid or incomplete commissions. To be in Sagamu was to look on as his half-siblings bickered over who swept the house the previous day and who should wash the plates this morning. To be in Sagamu was to stretch out his antlers a bit further than when he did in Ile-Ife. Like today, when he walked into the bathroom without knocking and found his stepmother gliding and moaning, her thighs hitched from the tiles to an upturned Dulux bucket, a long object slipping in and out of her. Her back was turned to him, splashed against the netted aperture glass, rendering her a glorious silhouette, perverse, private, priceless. It would be the third time in his life. He did not know for how long he stood there in the door, watching, not knowing he was being watched, until he felt a double blow from behind, a smacking of fist each side of his face. The world rang for a moment, then lopsided, then blurred, then left him deaf for minutes. His father yanked him by the ear, turning the skin a furious crimson, and dragged him to the parlor, where his half-siblings gawked at him, blatant, blinking, as brown as their mother. He sensed rather than saw her wrap her lappa around her body and scamper after him and his father. When he managed to glimpse her, the long object had gone and she was watching him with a closed expression. His father raged and clapped, a restless thunder uprooting memories of his mother, the section of the wall behind him mottled a sickly green. “Your mother’s death must have loosed bolts inside your head. Is it a crime to remarry? I understand that she died when you were barely six years’ old, but is this how you still deal with it? You have been after my wife since you were a child! What kind of monstrosity is it?” 

Somidotun knew he was not shocked, that he had probably never even been shocked, still he said, “You keep working in the shed from morning to night. If a woman needs to be sexual, let her be. When last did you touch her?” And, as he watched the first real shock spread across his father’s face, he smiled and blessed Fred.

To be in Sagamu was to remember Fred with the consistency of blade running through his flesh, to feel the absence of Fred, to shape mounds out of his time with Fred. Fred, the ebony-skinned, the bespectacled. Fred, whose waist moved like butter sliding across a hot pan, whose voice lilted like birdsong. Fred was the only one who had treated his name with a flattering curiosity. “ ‘Renew me’. And it’s true. God used you to make me accept myself,” Fred had murmured into his neck. He had found this asseveration funny, since it was Fred who had renewed him instead. It was Fred who had seen him through unobstructed eyes, the only one who hadn’t called him “morning light” or “oyinbo mi”. It was Fred who had made him finally fall in love with his skin. They would sit in class next to each other after each JAMB lesson at the academy where they were both registered, grazing thighs, and Fred would nuzzle his neck and murmur, “Temi”, “mine”, a word that was not a possession but a declaration, an exuberant claim of a prize. And Somidotun would see himself awash in a new light. With Fred, he had unfurled, sunk his tentacles into Fred’s soul, drunk up his juices. With Fred, little things had mattered, tiny moments had become big, even necessary, and they did not leave him as feeble as he normally felt with his past crushes. One Friday night, he lied to his father about going to Power Night vigil at their church, and ended up in Fred’s bed instead. “I just want to sing Celine Dion and Whitney Houston to you all night long,” Fred said, breathing down his neck. And Somidotun held his gaze, his eyes on Fred’s lips. He reached up and traced the bottom lip with a finger. “Wait until we get married,” he said, and Fred tensed, a little, but tensing still. “In which Nigeria?” he asked. “Mine,” Somidotun replied. Electricity crackled in the air. He leaned toward Fred’s lips. Fred took his mouth, and eased his tongue through until the tips of their tongue tangled, and their lips sucked, moving to their own rhythm. Fred rolled down Somidotun’s panties, wrapped one of Somidotun’s legs around his own butt, and eased his lengthening dick into Somidotun’s crotch, a slanted smile on his face. Somidotun blurted a low cry. “Sing in lower octave, you bitch,” he said, lowering his head and taking Somidotun’s nipples in his mouth. And they laughed. In the morning, naked and entangled, they opened their eyes and shared a smile cluttered with unsaid words. And an uncommon force slipped into Somidotun’s body.

The afternoon a truck crushed Fred, crushing his glasses first before his face, the first thing Somidotun felt was a calm permanence. A feeling that should be sorrow, manageable, bearable, but wasn’t sorrow. A feeling that was guilt. An unforgiving, uncompassionate mangling of his spirit. They had been gathering snail shells, running up and down the street to see who would be the first and therefore be the one to make a snail necklace for the other, when the Tipper truck swung down the road on failed brakes and squelched Fred out of his life. Somidotun had seen the truck first and run, but only because he was sure Fred had also seen it and was running after him. But then he heard the bump, then the unearthly shriek and the wail of people. Somidotun stood there, snail shells clattering to the asphalt, and shivered. Fred had never, never sounded like that before, looked like that before, like a mutilated toy.

And that was when the flashes began, perjured angles of his life, his days dipping in and out of shadow and light. He would wake up each morning and not remember who he was the previous night, or what he did. In him was a maelstrom he could not label; it was as though he carried a raging, animated album, multiple people living inside him, a new person surging to the fore for a new day. Even his subsequent lovers sounded confused. It’s not you, Somi. It’s not about your skin at all. It’s just about me. He turned their words into wind-horses and rode them, gallantly. I love your blond hair, it’s so beautiful, but if only you weren’t so spotted, you know. He became better at dealing with people leaving his life, at stapling only the thinner parts of him to them, so that when they cut away, he would hardly feel it. 

Perhaps that was why, when Seteminikan called him the afternoon after he left Ife to tell him about Fimidara’s death, he first went blank, like skin tearing open, a plain white tissue just before the bloom of blood. He had been lying in bed, reading a Pacesetters novel, hoping he wouldn’t hear his father bellowing for him just yet from the carpentry shed. Now, he sat up, clutched the phone to his ear, and said, “You are lying.” 

“Why would I lie about something like that?”

“How? Was it an accident? Did she fall sick?” His heart was racing.

There was a pause from the other end. Then– “No. But they suspect Victory.”

“Victory? What happened?”

The line went dead.

“I can’t stand him anymore! Baba Tomiisin, you have to do something about this! How many times will it happen? Am I married to you or to your son? Why does he never knock to ask who is there before he walks in? I can’t take it anymore! It’s either I leave–”

She stopped. She stopped because he had come into the room. Then she sucked her teeth and flounced away, her buttocks jiggling in her loose lappa. He tore his eyes away from them and looked at his father. The afternoon blazed through the window. His half-siblings had not returned from school. On the radio, the federal government announced that all the students in ASUU universities should find some artisanship doing. A goat bleated past the window.

“Baba, I am returning.”

It was not a request, not an application for permission. His father gawped at him. He made as if to say something, but then decided against it. His shoulders slumped and he shrugged. “You have chosen to leave your own home. You are just being a foolish teenager.”

“It was never my home, Baba,” he said and turned.

My home died when Mama died. And when that truck killed Fred. 

He went into his room and pulled up his suitcase, still unpacked. He felt safer in Ile-Ife anyway, safe from all the memories that sought to suck him down. To live in Osun was to be wrapped in a leaf of quietude, because of the mountains that never spoke. In Ile-Ife, his skin took on a menace to others, something to run from, to discuss, to fetishize, but if he ignored the jibes thrown at him well enough, he was totally invisible.

Somidotun arrived at the end of Kajola’s birthday, which couldn’t hold as planned. Bimitan filled him in on how they had gone to Country Kitchen and had just a plate each and, thereafter, cut the cake. They planned to go mountaineering on campus the coming Sunday.

“Will you come?” Bimitan asked. It was as though Fimidara’s death had scraped away layers, had now made everybody matter on the same level.

“Yes,” Somidotun said.

Bimitan smiled and squeezed his shoulder. He was not used to them expecting “Yes” from him, to them expecting anything from him, so her reaction surprised him. The same way Seteminikan’s words had surprised him that afternoon at Motion Ground, just minutes after Fimidara and her brother said goodbye. 

“Somidotun is not antisocial. He just prefers a small circle of friends, and that’s us. I feel he’s just often misunderstood.”

“Well, all I know is that he lives in a different world, not ours,” Yiwola had said, rolling her banana-shakes cup down the floor. It stopped at the metal base of the bin-holder ahead.

“That’s nonsense,” Macaulay had said, then started whistling. He had pressed his thigh against Somidotun’s. Somidotun felt the heat, felt it numb his mind, felt Macaulay’s hand crawl into his thigh and rub slowly, printing his fingers into his flesh, because the fabric of Somidotun’s trousers was thin. Somidotun closed his thighs against the hand, closed his eyes, felt Macaulay’s hand envelop his balls, slide down the shaft, felt himself welcome it, welcome the swelling, the hardening, the lengthening. He gasped and glanced up to see if Kajola had seen them. She had not.

“Seriously,” Yiwola continued, “I heard that people like him don’t even die.”

“What do they do then?” Seteminikan asked.

“They disappear.”

Somidotun burst into laughter, partly because Macaulay’s finger was tickling his cap, partly because it was indeed hilarious. Macaulay slid out his hand and continued whistling. His eyes looked red.

“That’s ridiculous,” Kajola said. She glanced at her watch. “Where is this photo guy abeg? He’s wasting my time. I should be at the salon, but no, here I am, listening to myths.”

“But I’m serious, guys,” Yiwola pressed. “Have you ever seen the obituary of an albino before?”

“Wo, Somi, don’t mind Yiwola and her nonsense talk,” Bimitan said. “See, me I have one fine, hot guy in my department o. He’s an albino, too, but not like you. This one is fresh. I doubt if his sunscreen creams are Nigerian-made; I’m sure he has them shipped in. Very fresh. He looks like a Caucasian. All the girls are on him like bees. But he doesn’t seem to see them. I could link you guys up, maybe he swings your way.”

“I’m not interested,” he said, his urge to laugh still pulsating, elusive as a sneeze.

“Oh, you guys should be friends since you are both albinos.”

Somidotun laughed then. He thought of his father complaining about how he didn’t have money to waste on expensive cream, how he forced him to use his Skin Light instead. He thought of the oversalted meals his stepmother made, meals he had no freedom to reject.

“Come to think of it,” Bimitan said, “I agree that albinos are eni orisa, spirits of a deity. I used to date one in secondary school. I wouldn’t let him kiss me, or even touch me at all. But what actually made me run was how he would shut his eyes in class and then open them and start writing out all the questions that would come out in the exam.”

“Jesu mi o,” Yiwola said, holding her head. 

“And he was always, always right!”

“That’s ridiculous,” Kajola said again.

It was the first thing she said when, that Sunday on the mountains as they laughed and ran and played games, they watched Yiwola plummet down a cliff and dash herself all over the rocks. Her own dying had a more aesthetic hint to it, because she looked like a red poster-color done by a versed artist, unlike Fimidara’s shattered skull, which made her look like an awkward papier-mâché at the hand of a reckless child. 

Dealing with Yiwola’s death had been bearable, but Seteminikan unraveled when Victory died. She ran from her uncle’s guest house to the police station and fell in a heap at the counter. “I lied! I lied!” she yelled, like ripping tangled zippers off a bag. The police had gone to find Victory’s corpse inside his house in AP. They found a bottle of Sniper next to his leg on the mattress. Froth at his mouth. They took his body with them, like an exhibit of guilt. But the coroner found struggle prints all over it, especially the lip, nose and throat area, as though someone had forced the poison into him. This raised eyebrows on it being a murder, rather than the suicide it looked like. The news reached the girls at the guest house, where they huddled bemoaning Yiwola’s accident, and that was when something finally snapped inside Seteminikan. She kept ululating at the police counter until the constables had to cock their guns to restrain her. They led her to the inspector. She told him about the simmering rivalry between Victory and Macaulay, and that she wasn’t sure it would help the case, but that rivalry existed all the same. Then she told him she had lied about the piece of cloth. That she had pressed it to her nose that night after she found it and the only smell she got was the one she could never have forgotten. 

“Little wonder our findings didn’t bring a match between Victory’s DNA and the fabric. Whose was it then?” the man asked.

“Macaulay’s.”

“And who is this Macaulay?”

Seteminikan held her jaws, a resigned woman for whom the truth was the main egress now. She moistened her lips to make them come apart and make her words clear.

“My ex-boyfriend, before he picked interest in Fimidara and left me.”

The inspector ordered that they lock her up at once, until their hands could close around Macaulay, the unexplored prime suspect.

Seteminikan was still in cell when the next horror wave hit her like a slap: Bimitan had choked to death in the guest house. Kajola brought the news on her third day at the police station, smelling of smoke, her scarf loosely wrapped around her head like a Muslim, snot billowing from her nose like an alien organism. “My birthday week is a tragedy! My birthday week is a tragedy!” she wailed and collapsed before the metal bars. Seteminikan fast-forwarded to her knees on the cold cell floor and banged the bars. “How? How!” Kajola, in a storm of fresh tears, told the story: they were bored and Bimitan suggested a hangout at the guest house. Everybody had come. They were frying dodo in the kitchen, the door open, while they played Whot in the parlor. Bimitan went to check on the plantains; then the door jammed against her in the kitchen and nobody could break it down quickly enough. The smoke got into her lungs and killed her.

“Her inhaler!” Seteminikan cried. “Why didn’t she go with her inhaler? And why did nobody stop her when you all bloody knew her condition! This story is not clear!”

“She insisted!” Kajola sprawled out on the floor. “You know how headstrong Bimitan could be. Plus none of us noticed when she left. It–it just happened in a flash. One time, she and Mac were throwing jibes at each other. The next moment, she was gone.” 

Seteminikan went stiff. Macaulay! No! It didn’t make sense. Would he really do such a thing to Bimitan? And why? She thrust her hand through the bar opening and grasped Kajola’s leg. “K.! Tell me everything you know! What exactly happened? What happened today?”

“I don’t know!” Kajola shrieked back. “All I know is Somi and I were playing Whot on the center table and Bimitan and Mac were teasing each other on the settee and–and he was talking about her inhaler, how terribly small it was, and how terribly named, ‘Flixotide’, and he yanked it from her hand and ran around the room, saying she should call him ‘Boss’ before he would release it to her. Then I got up to pee and–and, boom, Bimitan was banging the kitchen door and trying to call out for help.” The last word dissolved into extra syllables because she broke down again.

Seteminikan’s grip went slack around her ankle. She lowered herself to her haunches, lowered her voice. “That was no teasing, Kajola, that was a strategy. Mac knew what he was doing. And he did it when you got up to use the bathroom.”

Silence roamed the police cell for a while, pegging the secret on each corner like a tarpaulin sheet. 

Then Kajola spoke, “That’s ridiculous.”

Macaulay dragged Somidotun into his room after him and bolted the door. They were panting. Immediately the army sergeants beat the door down at the guest house and found Bimitan on the floor, her eyes rolled back to the whites, dense mists in the air, everyone coughing, Macaulay had grabbed Somidotun by the hand and they had sprinted away in the confusion, all the way down to Damico. He crashed into his foam now, chest heaving. Somidotun stood bent over by a wooden chair, above which shirts of many colors hung down from sloppy hangers, and supported his hands on his knees. 

“What was that for?” he said, still choking on his own breath.

“Will you shut up!” Macaulay shot up from the bed and thwacked a slap across his face. Crimson appeared beside Somidotun’s nose, almost coloring up his faded green eyes. “You wanted to stay back there? Do you know what the soldiers would have done to us? Locked us up, that is it!” He clutched his hips and paced around. “A girl died under our watch for fuck's sake. They would hold us responsible. Damn it!” He smashed a fist into an open palm. “We have to leave these premises until all of this dies down.” He looked up with a snarl. “Did you hear me, boy, did you?”

Somidotun stood holding his cheek. The tears washed out of him, as silver as his irises. Had he cried like this for Fred? He doubted it. He didn’t remember. He didn’t remember many things, where he was, who he was. He thought he was dreaming it, but Macaulay had come too close, his breathing on his face, his skin in his nose, heady, arousing. Macaulay was reaching out to his behind, squeezing his butt, gentle pressures of his hand, pulling him even closer. Macaulay was rolling up his shirt and taking full mouthfuls of his nipples, his tongue gliding across the plateau of his pale chest, his teeth biting softly. Somidotun felt his eyes closing. Macaulay’s lips were trailing upward, not-stealthy pressures pretending to be stealthy, punching delicate holes in his collarbone, pulling on the skin of his neck, the same skin Fred had worshipped. Somidotun thought of the word “sacrilege”. He tipped his throat back for the full closure of Macaulay’s mouth, and dug his hand into Macaulay’s jeans, down, down, until his fingers encircled Macaulay’s girth. He squeezed, gently.

“How does an albino dick look like?” Macaulay breathed into his neck. 

“What?” Somidotun's eyes flew open.

“I’ve always wondered, boy. Is your semen also going to be pale?”

“Maybe you will find out,” Somidotun mumbled, then careened his mouth towards Macaulay’s soft-looking lips. 

Macaulay gripped his arms and forced the hand cupping his balls out of his jeans. “Fuck you, guy. Step back! You think I’m a faggot like you?” He started cackling, pacing the room again, while Somidotun watched, stunned. “I actually need to warn you, boy. I wanted to call you lucky that you are in Nigeria. In Tanzania, they hunt people like you down. Sometimes people of your pigmentation are sold by their families for dollars and witchdoctors hack them to death because they believe their body parts bring luck in trade. But see! You are not safe here. You know boys are no longer smiling here in Nigeria. No job, no school, yet we need money to survive. Any superstition we have will be put to test. Forget education, forget intelligence–people are animals. There is something black in the air. Fucking black. Not just here, everywhere. People are breaking. People are dying. There is a killer somewhere. I don't know what's going on but I can feel it. It's just in the air. Somidotun, be careful. This killer may come for you next.” 

Somidotun dragged down his shirt and made for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I want to go to church.”

“You?” Macaulay snickered. “Church?”

“Yes.”

Macaulay shrugged. “O ya, go. I tried to save you.”

“You should come with me.”

“Me? I am not that foolish. Church walls won’t stop organ harvesters from getting to you, and I know better than to walk around after what happened.”

Somidotun unbolted the door and put his hand on the knob. “I will be back. I will knock three times, so you will know it is me.” 

He reached the church safely. The Faith Clinic service was in full swing, plastic white chairs piled high and pushed back, people thrashing about in the middle, stamping on the devil’s head on the church floors. He wondered why they had so much bile against the devil, which all humans caused for themselves. He had hardly believed his luck that day when, just as he was about to climb down the bus at the Gate and find the transit to Ibadan, then to Sagamu, he saw Fimidara and her brother, flying past on an okada, in the opposite direction from Mayfair where their bus to Lagos should be. He had decided to carry out his plan that very night, before he lost the opportunity. He had gone to Macaulay’s room around 6pm, surprising him, and Macaulay had let him suck his dick. But when he tried to climb it, Macaulay had stopped him. The rage had enclosed his heart, turned it turgid and platinum-coated. He waited until around past 9, when Macaulay was already snoring, before he tore off the bottom of the trousers Macaulay had worn that day. Then he hurried to Oduduwa Estate. He hadn’t expected to find all the girls. He saw them from afar, talking to Victory, so he hung back until the street was clear. He had planned to scale the wall into the compound and kill all the girls at once, but when he heard the front door open and saw Fimidara poking out her head, he knew he had to move quickly. She was the one who had called him smelly, who had patronized him. He clambered over the wall, deft, grateful for the burnt-out security light, which plunged half the compound into black. He stole across the compound, found a block of wood at the foot of the tank stand, and crept up to her side. Just one blow did it, but he hit her again to stop her screaming, until her head cracked open and silence fell. Then he ran for it, remembering to leave Macaulay’s trouser piece on the more obvious part of the wall that had glass shards stuck in it. He flung the club into the belly of the surrounding forest. He left for Sagamu on the first dawn bus. He was relieved when Seteminikan told him how the gaze was on Victory. He knew them that he had to come back and finish where he left off. Nearly all the other killings had been accidents. Easy-peasy. It had been easy to push Yiwola down the cliff in the swell of playing, knowing she would definitely be contorted by the rocks below, and just as easy–when Kajola left him to go to the bathroom and while Macaulay ran around–to seize the opportunity in the guesthouse to sneak after Bimitan and twist the kitchen door lock after her. In their next lives, they would kill people less with their words. Victory had been the most difficult and, perhaps, his only mistake. But he didn’t know when Victory would carry out his threat, if he would at all. Immediately Victory opened the door of his secluded house to let him in and turned his back, he had jumped on him, surprising him with his maddened strength, smashed Victory senseless with his fists, and pinioned his arms on the bed, where he forced half the Sniper down his throat, before locking the door on him and leaving.

And, tonight, because he was tired of the disrespect done to the body Fred had worshipped, he hoped Macaulay wouldn’t be difficult as well. That his strength would also startle Macaulay out of his wits and he would be able to plunge Macaulay’s long kitchen knife deep into the soft hollow of his throat.

                                      

Enit'ayanfe Ayosojumi Akinsanya is a young Nigerian writer. He was the first-place Winner of the 2022 intercontinental French Embassy Project Prize for Creative Nonfiction. You can find him @Ayomi_Osumare (Twitter).