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They put the market in the chimney on the day of Vivek Oji’s death.
***
If this story were a bunch of photographs, the old ones, rounded in the corners and stored in albums under the glass and lace mats of the central tables of the salons across the country, I would start with Vivek’s father, Chika. The first impression would be of him driving a bus to the village towards his mother; I would show him by moving an arm out the window, feeling the air pushing against his face and the breeze penetrating his smile.
Chika was twenty years old and as tall as her mother, two meters of red skin and tanline hair, teeth like polished bones. The women on the bus stared at him openly, his white blouse floating from his neck in a cloud, and they smiled and murmured to each other because it was beautiful. It had a look that had lived forever, characteristics that he passed on to Vivek: teeth, almond eyes, smooth skin, characteristics that died with Vivek.
The next photo on the pile would be that of Chika’s mother, Ahunna, sitting on her terrace when her son arrives, with a bowl of udara by her side. Ahunna’s packaging was tied around her waist, leaving her breasts bare and her skin redder than Chika’s, deeper and older, like a pot that had bled out when she lit up. He had fine wrinkles around his eyes, braided hair in tight braids and his left foot bandaged and minted on a stool.
[Back to the complaint of ‘The Death of Vivek Oji’. ]
“Mom! How simple!” cried Chika as he saw her climb the stairs of the terrace. “Are you all right? Why didn’t you send someone? »»
“There was no need to disturb you,” Ahunna replied, splitting open an udara and sucking out its flesh. The large compound of her village house stretched around them—old family land, a whole legacy in earth that she’d held on to ever since Chika’s father died several years ago. “I stepped on a stick when I was on the farm,” she explained, as her son sat down beside her. “Mary took me to the hospital. Everything is fine now.” She spat udara seeds from her mouth like small black bullets.
Mary was the wife of her brother Ekene, a complete, sweet woman with cheeks like little clouds. They had married a few months ago and Chika had noticed Mary floating in the hallway, with a white lace around her body and a veil hiding her mouth. Ekene waited for him at the altar, his spine serious and proud, his skin shining like rainy earth as opposed to the tared black of his suit. Chika had never noticed her brother so tender, the way his long hands trembled, love and pride boiled in his eyes. Mary had to bow her head to look at Ekene as they recited their vows (the men in their circle of relatives were still tall) and Chika had seen her throat bend, her face shining as her brother lifted her tul and kissed her. After the wedding, Ekene left the village and settled in the city, in the hustle and bustle of Owerri, so Mary stayed with Ahunna while Ekene was going to organize her new life. Chika looked at Mary from the veranda as she watered the lawn with hibiscus, her hair pulled up in a frayed bun, dressed in loose cotton and a faded floral print. He looked at home, like anything he could fall into, spinning through his hips, thighs and breasts.
His mother frowned. “Take care, ” he warned, as if he could read his thoughts. “She’s your brother’s wife.”
Chika’s face was on fire. “I don’t know what to talk about, Mom.”
Ahunna didn’t blink. “Go find your own wife, don’t start wahala in this space with this girl. Your brother will be here soon.
Chika reached out and took her hand. “I’m not starting anything, Mom.” She laughed but didn’t take her hand off. They sat like this, some other image, as the night crossed the veranda and the sky, and anything slowly boiling and burning in Chika, buzzing at the bottom of his throat. This before Vivek, before the fire, before Chika discovered how difficult it was to dig his own grave with his son’s bones.
***
When Ahunna’s wound healed, she left a scar on the foot of her foot, a dark brown spot in the form of a comfortable starfish. His son Ekene arrived here and took his wife to his new home in Owerri, a white bungalow with forest flames growing near the door and covered guavas near the fence, and Chika visited them. These would be the photos satisfied: Mary smiling in her kitchen; Mary weaving her hair with extensions and making a full throat song in the choir of her church; Mary and Chika kissing in the kitchen while she cooks. Ekene had no patience with talking women and he wasn’t the jealous type, so he didn’t care that his younger brother and wife were carried so well.
As for Chika, what boiled in him acquired a new heat every time he was near Mary. He sang, bubbling and burning where no one can see him. He joked with his circle of relatives saying that he simply liked being in a space with a woman, instead of being in his empty apartment, and Mary believed him, until one afternoon when he passed it while she was cooking and put her mouth on her back. of his neck. He turned around and started hitting him with the long wooden spoon he used to make garri.
“Are you angry?” screamed, burning garri stains spitting from his spoon and burning the forearms he had raised to block his blows. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m sorry!” He fell to his knees and bowed his head under his arms. “Biko, Mary, stop! I probably wouldn’t do it again, I swear!”
He paused, breathing with difficulty, with his face wounded. “What’s your problem, huh? Why do you have to take a look to ruin everything? Ekene and I are happy, you know what I mean? We’re happy.”
“I know what I’m saying. I know what I’m saying.” Chika rose slowly, on her knees at once, keeping her hands up and her eyes. “I know what I’m saying. I don’t need to ruin anything. Please forgive me.”
Mary shook her head. “You can’t stay here if that’s why you come.” Chika sought success to reach her, but her knuckles were tight around the spoon.
“I know, ” he said, keeping his voice comfortable.
“I’m joking, ” he said. “Don’t come back with this nonsense.”
Chika in the tears of rain in her eyes and lowered her hands.
“I can hear you. I swear from now on you’re just my sister. He felt his eyes on him as he searched for the keys to his car.” I’m going to do it. I’ll see you next week. Please, just today, okay? “
Maria doesn’t say anything. She only saw him leave, his hands relaxed as opposed to the wooden curve of care only when the door closed him.
***
For the following months, Chika stayed away from Owerri. He was assigned a task as an accountant at a glass factory in Ngwa, the town where he had moved when he left the village. The company’s doctor was Dr. Khatri, a pale Indian with gray hair on his siens. Sometimes Dr. Khatri brought his niece, Kavita, to help with the administrative work. The first time Chika met her, she went to see the doctor for a cough and Kavita was at the front table with folders piled around her, frowning as she flipped through them. She was a small woman with dark brown skin and a thick braid of black hair that exceeded her waist. That morning she wore an orange cotton dress; it looked like a blazing sunset, and Chika knew without delay that her story would end with her, that she would drown in her big liquid eyes and that this would be the ideal form. There was nothing boiling in him, only a strong and transparent exhalation, a weight of peace enveloping his heart. Kavita looked up and smiled at him, and Chika discovered the liver to ask him for lunch. This surprised any of them when he said yes, as did the affection that spread among them in the weeks that followed.
[Back to the complaint of ‘The Death of Vivek Oji’. ]
When the seriousness of his attendance became apparent, the doctor invited Chika to his home, where Kavita served them tea and small bowls of murukku. His wrists were sensitive and his black hair fell on his shoulders. Dr. Khatri told Chika how, after the death of his parents, Kavita came to his care and eventually accompanied him from India to Nigeria. “We’ve had them. Array Array circle of relatives disorders in Delhi,” he says. “By the caste of his father. It’s better to have a fresh start. Chika nodded. It’s the same explanation for why he chose not to live in the same city as any member of his family circle. The new beginnings were good; this separation where you can feel, where you can be informed of who you were apart from others. Photo: The young couple in the back garden after dinner, walking along a row of naked roses, Kavita gently spends her hands on the branches.
“I can’t wait for them to bloom, ” he said. “I used to hate the smell of roses when we lived in Delhi, but my uncle loves them, and now, he is, all they do is remind me of my home.”
Image: Chika’s hand covering hers, serrated leaves crushed her palms, a quiet kiss where her breaths get tangled.
***
Then Chika went to town and told her mother about Kavita. “I need you to meet her, ” he said, avoiding her eyes. Ahunna looked at him with his shoulders bent, the way he took his hands out of his wallet and put them back on. Children never change, he thought, no matter how much they grow up.
“Bring the girl, ” said Ahunna. “Nsogbu adịghị”. He peeled the yam again, sitting on a low stool of the palangana holding the tubers, throwing the bark into the lawn for his goats. Chika stood on her, a dizzying smile spread across her face.
“Yes, Ma,” he eventually said. “Daalụ.”
It was only then that, despite everything, he felt able to make a stop at Owerri, to give a percentage of the news with Mary and Ekene, now that he can move from home with his own conscience. He and Mary never talked about what had happened, of that moment of misplaced preference in a sweltering kitchen.
Three months later, Chika proposed to Kavita in the rose garden of her uncle’s house. At that time, the pink and red flowers filled the branches and the air was full of smell. Kavita smiled, holding back tears as she hugged her neck in clay and gave her a kiss yes. A few days later, families began arguing about the dowry. Chika tried to tell Dr. Khatri that it was the circle of relatives of the husband who had paid the bride’s price, but the old doctor was furious with the idea. “We arrived here from India with the dowry of Kavita! It’s his legacy. I can’t let her do without it like it’s a negative thing for us!”
“And I can’t settle for the courage of my wife’s father’s girlfriend!”
Listen to that word, Father, Dr. Khatri shouted, and his argument had hiccups. “She’s a woman to me, ” he says in a thick voice.
Ahunna looked up at the sky and entered. “Men like to shout too much. Let the dowries be canceled, and no one will pay anything. Dr. Khatri inhaled to protest, but raised her hand.” You can keep Kavita’s dowry for your children. I don’t need to hear from Pim about it anymore. “
So that’s what Array Kavita gives: a small collection of giant gold jewellery that her mother had brought to her own marriage, transmitted through women before her.
Photo: Chika with Kavita in her room, girlfriend, heavy necklaces and bracelets falling on her hands. “I don’t even know what to say. It’s like the treasure you read in the books. Kavita took them off and put them back in his box.” For our children, ” he reminded him, not knowing that there would only be one. “Let’s even be here.”
Most of the jewels remained in this box for the next two decades, rather than dark red velvet, precious stones and gold bows that glowed in the dark. There were times when Chika and Kavita were promoting one small piece or another, when things were difficult, but they sticked to the basics, making plans to use it to send their son, Vivek, to the United States. But when the jewels nevertheless came out of the box, it was Vivek’s hands that lifted them.
Picture: the boy, shirtless, striking necklaces opposite his chest, hanging them from his silver chain, cutting off his ears with gold earrings, his hair falling on his shoulders. She looks like a bride, half-naked, naked.
There’s a boy in this picture now. Your call is Osita. It’s as giant as Vivek, but wider on the shoulders, its skin is like a deep ground. He is the son of Ekene, born of Mary, and his eyes are narrow, his mouth complete beyond all belief. In this photo, Osita’s face is sculpted and dark with an alarm. He’s standing with his arms folded, the jaw opposite anything he can’t predict.
Vivek smiled at his cousin with golden droplets falling over his eyebrows. “Bhai, ” he said in a voice like a bell. “How do I look?”
Osita would have wished, much later, to have told Vivek the fact that he was so charming that it made the air around him opaque, which made Osita look forward to it. “Take it off, ” he slammed shut, his throat rough. “Put it back on before we get caught.”
Vivek ignored him and turned around. There was so much kindness trapped in her face that it hurt Osita’s eyes.
“I would Do Array,” he said, after Vivek’s funeral, “I would give to see him again, alive and covered in riches.”
***
The market they burned right after the roundabout of the moment if you pass through Chief Michael Road, after the deserted buildings of the workplace and the intersection with the vulcanizer, this little man with a sautomobile breaking his right cheek. He and his so-called Ebenezer had been running at this crossroads for as long as anyone can remember. Kavita brought him his circle of car relatives when they had to repair the tires. It is a silver-grey Peugeot 504, which Chika had purchased after years of operation in the glass factory, replacing the old ramshackle car he was using. As a child, Vivek placed a small palm opposite the car’s hot steel, swinging from one foot to the other as he watched Ebenezer work. The thick sautomobile opposite Ebenezer’s skin, a bright curdled red coming out of the brown of his face. When he smiled at Vivek, the sautomobile struggled with the fold of the skin and his mouth rose to one side.
“Little oga, ” he used to joke, while his hands moved keys and tubes of steel and forced air. Vivek laughed and hid his face in Kavita’s skirt. He young in the moment, alive. Kavita can simply drop the palm of your hand and it will fall on the back curve of your child’s skull, soft hair and warm skin underneath, the shape of bone shape. Years later, when he discovered the duration of the mendacity of his frame on his front porch, under 4 meters of akwete curtains in a red and black pattern, he said he would never forget, the back of his skull was damaged and leaked into his welcome carpet. Kavita still lifted her neck, pressed her cheek against hers and screamed. Her hair fell on her arms, damp, long and thick, and groaned.
“Beta!” he said. screamed, his voice sculpting the air. “Wake up, beta!”
One of Vivek’s feet turned to the side next to a fallen pot, the earth stretched around his ankle. Everything smelled of smoke. His shoeless feet revealed the scar on his left toe, a comfortable, dark brown starfish.
On the day Vivek was born, Chika had held the baby in his arms and stared at that scar. He’d seen it before—Kavita always commented on its shape whenever she rubbed Ahunna’s feet. Kavita had been without a mother for so long, her love for Ahunna was tactile and rich with childlike affection, a hundred thousand touches. They would sit together, read together, walk in the farm together, and Ahunna would give thanks that she’d given birth to two sons and been gifted two daughters. When Ekene and Mary had their child Osita, Ahunna had wept over his little face, singing to him in soft Igbo. She couldn’t wait for Chika and Kavita’s baby to arrive.
Now, a year later, and Chika felt something rise in him slowly as he held his newborn, like folds of poured cement that hardened by a bad concern, but ignored him. These things were just stories; they can’t be real. It was not until the next day that a village messenger arrived in Ngwa to tell Chika that Ahunna had died the day before, his center clinging to the threshold of his house, his body collapsing in his enclosure, the land received it. at ease of the face.
He has known, Chika said, while Kavita wept in pain, Vivek clinging to her chest. He knew. How else could this scar have entered the world in the flesh if it hadn’t disappeared in the first place? One thing can’t be in two positions at once. But still, he denied it for many years, as long as he could. Superstition, he says. It was a coincidence, the marks on his feet, and besides, Vivek was a boy and not a girl, so how to do it? Still. His mother was dead and his circle of relatives was private, and in the midst of it all he was a new baby.
That’s how Vivek was born, after death and pain. He marked it, you know, knocked it down like a tree. They took him to a space full of debilitating pain; his total life has been in mourning. Kavita never had another child. “That’s enough, ” he said. “Enough.”
Image: a space full of tears the day he left him, restored when he entered.
Image: your frame wrapped.
Picture: his father shattered, his mother gone mad. A dead foot with a deflated starfish spilled over its curve, the beginning and end of everything.
[Back to the complaint of ‘The Death of Vivek Oji’. ]
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