Taiye retrieved the chocolate caramel from the freezer and beat the thick mixture until beads of sweat formed along her hairline and rolled down, tickling the sides of her face. Until the caramel was just stiff enough to be spread without oozing down the sides of the cake. She iced the three layers with a large butter knife and assembled the dessert. Cake, caramel, a sprinkle of salt. Cake, caramel, a sprinkle of salt. Cake, caramel, a sprinkle of salt. She spread the rest of the caramel on the sides of the cake, and then she licked the bowl clean before leaving for the airport.
Kehinde
EXHAUSTION SHOULD BE STILL, spent, gently beckoning sleep—or better yet, just clocking out. Instead, it is churning inside me with unwelcome vigour. I know, I know, it is more than fatigue that is tugging at me.
The flight from Montreal to Lagos felt incredibly long. Stretched out even longer by the nine-and-a-half-hour layover in Frankfurt. Now I smell foul, like rotten onions or rotten eggs. Just general rot. And there’s this sharp throbbing in my temples that won’t go away, even though I’ve eaten a fistful of ibuprofen. I am not prepared for this, not prepared to see my sister, or our mother, for that matter. So much has gone unsaid for so long between us, Taiye and me, and Mami. We’ve been biting our tongues as if our silences will save us or freeze us in a time that required nothing more than just being. Together. More truthfully, I’ve been biting my tongue. Taiye tried, ever long-suffering. But even she gave up after enough time. Throughout our separation, daily calls turned biweekly, turned weekly, and then turned monthly. Eventually, the phone calls turned to monthly emails, turned to a letter now and then, turned to silence. Not that I blame her; I barely responded, and never honestly, and she knew.
We haven’t spoken properly in a very long time. Shit.
And there’s the box of letters.
Almost a year ago now Taiye sent me an orange shoebox filled with about ninety letters. Some date back as far as eleven years ago. Some are in sealed envelopes, some are on the backs of receipts and flyers, and others are folded pieces of loose-leaf paper. All handwritten. Her handwriting is the same as always: big looping lines and rounded letters. I started out by reading them slowly, one every few weeks. I haven’t gotten very far, and still, I feel apprehensive about delving into them.
The plane landed at noon Lagos time, and Taiye said she would collect us. After the slow wait for bags, and the even slower move through customs, I spot her among throngs of sweaty, expectant faces at Arrivals. Hers is my face, only narrower, peeking from between thin waist-length braids. Her skin is darker than I remember, burnt umber, shiny with oil and perspiration. I wave frantically to catch her attention, and her lips stretch into a smile that slightly calms the rapid thrumming in my chest. We tumble forward and catch each other in a fierce embrace. Her slim arms wind tightly around me. Her lean body is soft and hot against my own, and she has the same cocoa butter smell I remember. She pulls away, just as many smothered emotions begin to well up in my chest, so I cough to regain composure.
“Look at you,” Taiye says, and steps back. “You’re here.”
I’m here.
“And Farouq.” I pull at his arm. “He’s here, too.”
“I gathered.” She smiles. “You exist after all,” Taiye says, and hugs him.
The patch of sweat darkening the back of his grey T-shirt grows. The heat is thick.
“It’s good to finally meet you,” Taiye adds, looking him square in the face, no smile. I can sense Farouq’s uncertainty, but she means it. Intense and earnest as always.
“Likewise,” he responds, and looks at her with some type of restrained awe.
Taiye and I, we are identical. Almost. She’s always been thinner than me, even though as a child she ate and ate, everything, often. And she has this lure that draws people to her orbit; I don’t understand it. Our mother is the same. I am not jealous (anymore), and I am not worried—but only because I know where Taiye’s desires lie in that regard. I don’t want to feel threatened, because I trust Farouq. I do trust Farouq, but despite himself, he’s just a man.
We walk outside to find that the sky is too open; the sun pours down ferociously. Jesus Christ, I need ice water. I watch Farouq struggle to breathe in the humidity. The heat immediately coats him in a film of sweat that beads and rolls off his face and neck, catching in the beard he’s stubbornly refused to shave for weeks. I watch him decline help from the car hire driver and heave our suitcases into the boot of the silver Camry. It’s surreal to have him here; jarring to see him next to Taiye. Who is this man? Brown in Canada, oyimbo in Lagos. What is he doing here? And with me? I don’t want to think of my luck and spoil it.
Farouq. He says he loves me, he marries me, he travels to Lagos with me, and I’m terrified. The first time we touched it was innocent enough; his arm brushed my bare shoulder when he reached past me to collect a salted caramel cone from the ice cream man. It was a hot day; it was our first date. His arm brushed my shoulder, and it seared. I felt a swell and a rush inside my belly. I grabbed the hem of his T-shirt to keep him close to me, and I thought fiercely: Kiss me, kiss me. The way he looked at me eh, the way he looked at me. He didn’t kiss me then.
On our second date, in response to a dry joke I made about godlessness becoming his undoing, he said, “I’m petrified of God. I just don’t know that religion will save me from Her inevitable wrath.” He identified as a “spiritually open agnostic.” At this, all my years of Catholic indoctrination rushed to the surface. I had to stop short of shouting, “Lake of fire!”
Perhaps it’s God’s wrath that comes down in harsh rays to burn us now. I’m grateful for the air conditioning in the car. I am also thankful not to be alone with Taiye yet.
“I like your hair like that,” she says. “It suits you.”
Instinctively, I reach my hand to touch my hair, the only feature of mine in which I fail to find fault. It is dyed a light brown that is almost orange, and I have it in loose twists that frame my face and graze my shoulders.
“Thank you.” I smile.
“How was the flight?” she asks, looking at Farouq, who has been staring out the window and trying to make sense of the voracious beast that is Lagos.
“It was good, thanks,” he says, lifting his round wire-rimmed glasses to rub his eyes, bloodshot with exhaustion. “We had a long layover in Frankfurt, but it wasn’t too bad. Well, except for the shitty company.” He jerks his head in my direction, and I flick his arm.
“He thought the cabin crew were especially rude on the flight to Lagos.” Taiye’s eyes widen and her eyebrows shoot up. “Right? So you noticed, yeah?”
Her voice is my voice, husky and dulcet at once. But hers has a sweeter lilt, and when she speaks to Farouq, she enunciates her words and clips them like our cousins in London.
They go on about the shitty treatment that Nigerians receive on international flights, and I close my eyes and let myself sink into the cold leather seat.
WE’VE JUST GONE OVER THIRD MAINLAND BRIDGE and are on the Island. The driver takes us into the neighbourhood that is so familiar; the fences are still as high as ever and topped with razor-edged rolls of barbed wire or taut strands of electrical cords. Here, the road is conspicuously void of hawkers, thin children with meticulously piled pyramids of guguru and epa or Agege bread or glass boxes of fist-sized puff-puff balanced on their heads; they’d swarmed the car in the standstill traffic on the mainland. Their sweaty, sun-battered faces and dirty clothes slapped me with shame at how easy my life has been, despite my many woes. In Lagos, there is no bubble thick enough to protect you from the truth of your privilege or your disadvantage; you see it everywhere, every day. Culture is a way of life. I learned that in social studies in primary four, when Taiye and I sat beside each other and would scream and thrash if the teachers tried to separate us. What’s our culture? I feel far removed. Untethered. Alone in my head. Alone in a way that is separate from Farouq. I think what I’m trying to say is that I’m embarrassed at how affected I feel by the children selling snacks on the road, mortified that I’ve been privileged enough to forget.