“You know, I think I’ll survive,” Taiye would tease her. “I might just pull through this time.”
She picked up the hot tray, hands now protected by a tattered dishrag, and put it on the counter. Then she wrapped the pieces of dried fish in sheets of old newspaper from the towering stack on the floor beside the fridge, tied it all together in a black plastic bag, and tossed the whole thing in the deep-freeze. She washed the fish smell off her hands and began whisking butter, eggs, honey, and vanilla extract in a large red ceramic bowl. She let Coca-Cola lick some of the sweet mixture off her fingers when the cat slunk back into the kitchen. Taiye poured in the dry ingredients and divided the batter among three springform pans. The smell of burnt fish wafted into her face when she opened the oven door. She supposed the cake would have a bit of a fishy flavour. Fishcake.
For the caramel, Taiye poured dark golden honey, corn syrup, and water into a saucepan before bringing it to a boil. She moved swiftly between the pan of browning caramel and a double boiler fashioned out of a stainless-steel pot and an orange ceramic bowl filled with chunks of milk chocolate. The bowl just barely fit over the pan, so Taiye had to be careful not to burn her hands on the steam shooting out in livid spurts whenever she moved it. She let the caramel cook down to a deep amber that brought to mind baba dudu—burnt sugar and coconut milk sweets their nanny, Sister Bisi, rewarded them for good behaviour when they were small. Taiye poured some condensed milk into the caramel, whisking until the mixture was near silken, and then added the glossy chocolate. She balanced the bowl in the freezer to cool.
WHILE THE CAKES BAKED, TAIYE BATHED. On her way to the bathroom, she tiptoed to her mother’s bedroom door to check on her again. Still asleep.
“Are you my shadow today?” she asked Coca-Cola, who trailed behind her.
She undressed, and the cat promptly lunged atop her clothes and blinked languidly at her. Taiye turned on the hot water, but it trickled out cold, so she let it run until it was tepid—as warm as it was going to get. She let it slowly fill the purple plastic basin, and then entered the tub bottom first, leaving her feet to dangle over the side. She flicked water at the cat, who flinched and widened her eyes before meowing a loud accusation. With a small blue plastic bowl, Taiye poured the lukewarm water from the basin over herself before she remembered the half-full bottle of Dettol sitting on the windowsill next to some liquid black soap that her mother had made. She lifted herself out of the tub, sat on its edge with her back to the cat, and stirred two capfuls of the pungent yellow-brown antiseptic liquid into the basin of water. Then she poured some black soap into her palm and rubbed until the grainy black liquid turned into a slippery white lather. Still seated on the edge of the tub, she rubbed soap into her skin, up her arms and shoulders. She stopped at her chest, her small breasts. Quite suddenly, there was a swell of want in her lower belly.
Perhaps in your life you’ve come across a force that matched and moved you. Maybe it changed you so profoundly that when you look back at the landscape of your life, you are struck by the indelible the mark it left. For Taiye, that force was a woman named Salomé.
Sometimes, though less and less often with the more time that passed between them, Taiye would become overwhelmed by a thorough thirst for Salomé. To be in her presence, to hear her voice, to be touched by her. Taiye touched her own self, firm and slow. She traced light circles around her dark nipples. Let her hands slide over her belly, across her hips. Traced the lines and dots tattooed on her left hip, zodiac constellations marking the birth months of the people she chose to love, spreading like geometric veins growing around her buttock and up her side. She moved her fingers between her legs, with thoughts of Salomé swirling on the brim of her mind. Salomé’s smell, the dark bronze ochre of her skin, her warmth.
Coca-Cola meowed, and Taiye stopped.
“You’re right,” she said.
It was no use, no good. Her memories turned on her. She winced at flashes of Salomé’s crying face and bloodshot eyes, her nose running.
Taiye pulled down her blue net sponge from where it hung on a hook by the frosted glass window, scrubbed her body quickly, and rinsed. She left the bathroom, but the longing never left her.
BY THE TIME TAIYE HAD RUBBED OIL INTO HER SKIN and pulled on a long-sleeved linen kaftan, the cakes were done, and her mother was awake. Taiye found Kambirinachi sitting on the kitchen counter, with a vacant smile on her face as she stirred milk into a white mug filled with hot cocoa. Coca-Cola was on the floor, batting at her swinging legs.
“Mami, good morning.” Taiye smiled and kissed her mother’s warm forehead.
Good morning, my love.” Kambirinachi beamed up at her daughter as she received her kiss.
“How did you sleep?” Taiye asked, removing the cakes from the oven. She placed them one by one on a tray and put them safely on top of the fridge, away from the cat.
“Dreamlessly,” Kambirinachi responded. “And you, my love?”
“Fitfully.”
“Oh, darling! What’s bothering you?”
Taiye shrugged, and then she smiled. “I’m making a triple-layer cake.” She made her eyebrows jump up and down. “Chocolate caramel.”
“Yes!” Kambirinachi clapped and squealed. “Let the deliciousness commence!”
Taiye made them a breakfast of fried plantains and eggs scrambled with onions, tomatoes, and peppers. They ate on a blue striped aso oke on the carpeted floor of the parlour.
“What time does your sister’s flight come in?” Kambirinachi asked, mid-chew.
“Twelve.”
“Uh-oh, cutting it close, are we?”
“It’s only after eight,” Taiye said. “I’ll finish making the cake and go.”
“Will you drive?”
“No, I organized with the car hire guy yesterday. He’ll pick me up.”
“Okay.” Kambirinachi smiled wide. “We’ll finally get to meet your brother-in-law!”
“Yeah, it’s about time.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Nothing.” Taiye shook her head. “I’m going to make jollof rice.” She knew that her mother knew she was being less than honest.
The ceiling fan whirred loud, spinning sluggishly, as if protesting the low power with which it was fed, half-heartedly stirring the heavy air around them. Taiye thought she should ask the gateman to turn on the generator so they could use the A/C when Kehinde and Farouq arrived.
TAIYE FETCHED THE COOLED CAKES from the top of the refrigerator and placed them on the counter by the window looking out into the backyard. Taiye had painstakingly cleared the overgrown mess. She’d spent many many hours on her knees, under a fierce and boastful sun, tension pouring out of her pores in pools of sweat, as she pulled weeds from the hard, clayey soil. She’d wanted a garden, alive with tomatoes, basil, and spinach, but she needed better soil.
She built the frame of a Langstroth hive—a vertical beehive—with salvaged wood from discarded furniture and a manual she’d printed off the first website that showed up in her search. The idea of keeping bees, with gorgeous raw honey as a reward, filled her with a delicate kind of optimism, a tender, pearlescent sort of threshold to joy. She’d thrown herself into home beekeeping; it only took eight months and many fuckups, but she’d achieved a considerable healthy hive. The garden, however, remained mostly bare but for tufts of parched grass and purple heart vines that wandered out of their pots by the fence and encroached on her garden beds.