My father looked up from his plate. “Mary, you can lend her a pair of scissors, abi?”
Aunty Kavita glared at him as she left the room, and my father sighed. “It was worth a try. Walking around looking like a prophet. Ridiculous.”
De Chika ignored him and unfolded a newspaper, a slice of bread and jam half eaten in front of him. I dipped akara into my bowl and ate it slowly. By the time I finished my breakfast, Vivek and his mother still hadn’t come out of the bedroom. De Chika finally noticed and asked me to check on them.
This time I knocked. “Come in,” called Aunty Kavita, and I pushed the door open. Vivek was sitting in the chair by the window and his mother was running a comb through his hair, now untangled and gleaming, draped over her wrist. He was holding an open container of coconut oil between his thighs and his eyes were half closed. “We’ve almost finished,” she said. “It took a long time to comb it properly.”
“I can imagine,” I said. My aunt smiled absently.
“I always wanted a girl, you know. After Vivek. So I could do her hair.”
“God works in mysterious ways,” I joked, and she actually laughed.
“Not exactly,” she said. “It’s not as if I can plait his hair.”
“You can plait it if you like,” Vivek said, without raising his eyelids.
“Tch!” His mother smacked his shoulder. “Your father would kill me!” She resumed her combing, moving through his hair in slow waves. At this point she was just doing it for the sake of doing it. “No,” she said, almost to herself. “We can’t plait it. I’ll just tie it back so it stops falling into your face. You know that drives your father crazy.” She ran the comb through a few more times, then packed his hair into one hand, smoothing it back from his temples and forehead before securing it with an elastic band at the nape of his neck, twisting it into a clumsy bun. “Manage it like that,” she said. “Your hair is so thick.”
He tilted his head back and smiled at her. “Daalụ,” he said, and she bent over to kiss his forehead.
“Come and eat some breakfast. Did you finish eating, Osita?”
“Yes, Aunty.”
She brushed off Vivek’s shirt as he stood up. “What do you want to eat, beta? There’s bread, and I brought some of the jam you used to like, and Aunty Mary made akamu but we might have to heat that up again.” He made a slight face at me as they left the room, his mother’s voice washing solicitous over him. I made a face back to indicate he was on his own, then followed them into the parlor.
“I’m not hungry, Amma.”
“No, you have to eat something. Let me heat up the akamu.” She went into the kitchen and Vivek sat down, both of our fathers eyeing him.
“You look better like that,” De Chika said. “With it tied back.”
I laughed a little. “Ah-ahn, Dede, it’s just hair.” Vivek smiled but we both cleared our faces when my father lowered his newspaper to glare at us.
De Chika turned to me. “How is Nsukka?”
“It’s going well. School is all right. “
“Your mother says you have a girlfriend there. You know, your father was your age when he got married.”
“Don’t mind that boy.” My father’s voice was derisive behind the pages of newsprint. “Play, play, play, that’s the only thing he knows. No real responsibility.”
“You have a girlfriend?” That was Vivek.
“It’s not serious,” I said.
“Your mother says it’s serious,” said De Chika.
“Chika, you and my wife gossip like old women.” My father shook his head. “Shouldn’t she be having those conversations with your wife?”
“Kavita doesn’t find these topics interesting. I do. If you don’t want to take an interest in your son’s life, that’s your own business.” De Chika grinned at my father; he always took a particular pleasure in irritating his senior brother. My father rolled his eyes and returned to his newspaper, but I knew he was still listening.
Aunty Kavita came back into the room with a plate of akara. “Eat this, the akamu is warming.” Vivek accepted the plate and started tearing the akara into little pieces, occasionally putting one into his mouth. His mother beamed at him and went back to the kitchen.
“So, is it serious?” Vivek asked.
I was starting to get annoyed. “It’s none of your business,” I said.
“You know I’ll be your best man at the wedding. I think it’s my business.”
“That’s a good point,” De Chika said.
I could tell he was happy to see Vivek talking. I didn’t want to ruin it. “I’m just getting to know her,” I said. “That’s all.”
It was all a lie. There was no girl in Nsukka. I’d made her up on a call with my mother once, and her happiness was too great for me to deflate it with the truth. Instead, I pretended to be private about it so I could avoid the questions. It allowed her imagination to construct the perfect daughter-in-law, and I didn’t have to talk about anything else; she could carry the whole conversation just based on that alone.
“What’s her name?” asked Vivek.
“Jesus Christ, Vivek. Mind your own business!”
My mother shouted at me from the kitchen. “Osita! Did you just take the Lord’s name in vain?!”
Vivek winked at me and I felt a surge of anger pierce through. “Sorry, Ma!” I called out, then I stood up. “I’m going out,” I said.
“Your cousin is visiting and you’re going out?” My father gave me one of his looks and I stared right back at him.
Vivek laughed. “It’s fine, Dede. Let him go. I’m irritating him.”
“Irri-what? My friend, if you don’t sit back down!”
Aunty Kavita walked into the room and gave Vivek a bowl of akamu with a spoon suspended in it. “Actually, Ekene, do you mind if I send Osita to run some errands for me? Mary and I want to do some cooking later in the day.”
My father glowered but allowed it, and I left the house with a shopping list and a chest full of relief.
At dinner, Vivek was subdued, eating his rice in small bites with his head bent. NEPA took light shortly after we ate, so I lit a kerosene lamp and went to my room to read a book. An hour later, Vivek came in, closing the door softly and kneeling beside the bed to light a mosquito coil. I kept my eyes on the page as the match rasped into fire, through the breath he released to extinguish it. The lamp made my book glow a dull orange that spread faintly to the walls. The rest of the room was halfway in shadows, swallowing Vivek in grayness as he pulled off his shirt and folded it, then took off his jeans and hung them in the wardrobe. I kept reading as he sprawled on the bed in his boxers and stared at the ceiling. Eventually his breathing settled. I put down the book and climbed into bed, leaning over to blow out the lamp. The room fell into black.