Butterfly Fish (30 page)

Adesua, stunned by Filo's departure, continued to feel surprised for days after she found out Filo was really gone. How had she not seen it coming? Had Filo planned it? Fooling them all with that air of fragility. Filo who slipped her bracelets over the pain she had worn so openly, it had hurt to look at her sometimes. Five days after their Portuguese guests left, things were gradually returning to their normal state. Adesua sitting on the hard floor of her chamber, was thinking of the last time she had seen Filo with her sad, sombre smile that swum in her face. She never really looked at you but through you, not because you were of no interest but out of a bad habit she seemed incapable of breaking. Although Adesua admitted to herself that she felt betrayed, she knew she had no right to feel that way. But somehow a bond had formed between them that joined them together, in anticipation of a life of duty, disappointment and routine. Somehow, finding the strength nobody knew she possessed Filo had smashed it.

Adesua surprised by the anger brimming inside her stood and paced the wall on her left. There, she lifted the brass head from a dark wooden stand, thinking again of Filo's fixation with the thing. The air in the chamber seemed loaded with possibilities yet somehow she knew this was a bad sign. Terrible incidents seemed to find
the palace fertile ground. Sully walked into her head, she pictured him so clearly, tales dangling from the corner of his lips, holding an audience in the palm of his hand. A rush of fear attacked her body so suddenly; she wanted to cough it out. She wondered where Filo was and if she would finally find peace. She envied Filo's newly discovered freedom. The crickets started to talk, as if alerting each other to some discovery. Adesua began to vigorously polish the brass head with her hand, as presently that action alone seemed the answer to everything.

At the opposite end of the palace, Sully was also fighting the feeling of unease. He sat several steps away from his quarters, occasionally looking up to name a glimmering star. With each attempt he hoped to trick himself into believing all was well. But the apprehension stuck and as a result he had insisted on not seeing Adesua for a few days. He was a man who paid attention to the voice within and it was telling him to leave. Benin was cursed and he knew he should go before it mercilessly stripped him too. But not yet, it wasn't enough that he was witnessing its slow destruction from the perfect position. Or that he had watched Oba Odion oversee the beginning of the palace's collapse. He just had to be patient he told himself.

Oba Odion's decline, the blood leaking through the roof, Omotole's disfigured baby; these were more signs. The palace was revealing its secrets and one day he would stumble on what he had been waiting for. He let these thoughts drift from him like smoke while near his feet a tiny glow of colour pulled his gaze down. A small ladybird crawled around aimlessly. He realised he was so deep in thought he nearly crushed it. It appeared to be in some distress. It rolled onto its back and began to twitch its tiny, curled black legs. He watched, gripped by its short, jerky movements, which became increasingly pronounced, as if it was trying to reveal something. Then it stopped, perhaps fed up with the futile attempt of sharing whatever burden it carried. It rocked back over on its front, perhaps the
call of other bugs and crawly creatures luring it over. Sully watched it make its way till it disappeared out of sight. He closed his eyes tightly, wishing there were things he didn't know because knowing changed you. And once you acknowledged this you could never go back. It seemed, even the tiny creatures of the land knew this truth.

When your worst fear comes to life, a twisted, sweaty anticipation follows and hollowed out from the persistent rapping of the heart, it festers within. This Adesua and Sully discovered when they were yanked out from their reveries and thrown into a trial after the council had been informed of their affair. All they could do was stand to attention, watching as the repercussions of their actions lay within the creased folds of the council men's native wear. Waiting. The palace was agog with the news and it had spread like a disease. At the trial the councilmen were sombre, their appropriately grim expressions could have been hand drawn. There was an air of inevitability about the whole proceeding. Adesua pleaded with them, looking them in the eye when scrambling to answer some questions, then defiantly refusing to answer others and shaking fitfully as any hope she harboured dissolved in the space of breaths. She thought of Mama and Papa, how they would hang their heads in shame and what would become of them afterwards. But looming over all that was Sully, the way he stayed so still. As though he was a spectator in the whole thing, his chin poised unflinching, for all the blows. He refused to apologise, and a thin, cracked veil of shock came down as Sully, the man who could talk himself into and out of any situation, said nothing.

On that last day, there wasn't anything a soul could do to change the upside down face of their destiny. They were watched all night by a pack of sober guards in a rank, shabby out-building reserved for prisoners. When morning arrived, their hands were tied with thick, cutting rope that rubbed their skin raw as they were dragged on the journey they couldn't come back from, flanked on either side by six soldiers from Oba Odion's army. Adesua tried to not let her whimpers slip, attempting to catch them with her shocked, and flagging
tongue. On their way, death wasn't in the broken, gnarled branches scattered about, or the rough, prickly frowning bush plants nipping at her legs. Or even the ground; coughing pleas disguised in red dust as the stamp of feet moved on. No, death was in the sweet, sugarcane kisses she had shared with her lover. Sully baffled the soldiers; he was laughing to the heavens yet he would never hold a daughter in his arms, never travel with his family, to freely experience new lands the way his wandering feet loved. Never again would he watch Adesua fall asleep in his arms.

Working for the British as a scout, sent to assess the lay of the land and the conditions of the palace he had failed. He had absconded, keeping the money and in the end had fallen in love with the king's beautiful new wife. Ironically had he stuck to his end of the treacherous bargain, he may have been left a rich, free man. They paused when they reached a clearing deep in the dense bush, the promise of Sully and Adesua's lives not yet realised shrank back from outlines mired in sin. One soldier untied Sully's hands and handed him a long metal instrument, it's curved, menacing head shaped as in a fit of surprise. They instructed him to dig a grave big enough for two. He stooped down, arching his back, sticking the metal thing into the ground, watching as it spat piles of earth, seeing Adesua trembling without even looking at her.

At that very moment, Oba Odion finally left his chamber. He was being chased by the boy he used to be, through the palace grounds and all the charred enclaves beyond it, while the spirit of Oba Anuje looked on and the ghost of his lost son Ogiso settled into the brass head, rattling it against the floor of Adesua's quarters.

Sully kept digging, while his back ached, he couldn't feel his arms and his legs were folding. He wanted to tell Adesua he was happy they had destroyed each other together with their love, to tell her that when she laughed, he wanted to keep seeing more of her playful side. He wanted to tell her it was a beautiful day to die. You could see small clusters of clouds slowly, steadily floating down, as though the sky was shedding bits of itself. And the air was sweet and
full of promise. And right there. There. In the far corner of himself, a headless hyena was pawing at the blood tears running down the stump of its neck, circling in on its body and him. The soldiers buried the two of them together alive, and just then, the sun God stepped out, stuffing bits of shredded, stolen moonbeam where he could. His golden rays searing through the thickened air and cutting it into slices he opened his mouth wide to swallow their cries.

Part 3

Modern London
&
Lagos 1950s

Scene

A baby with a white tongue sat in the middle of traffic. Naked, it crawled after an orange balloon fashioned into a dog. I watched the dog bounce, carried by a steady breeze, running my tongue over my dry mouth. The baby continued to edge forward as the traffic swirled. And the sky was so big and bright I had to somehow adjust my settings. I stood at the flickering traffic lights feeling jittery, anxiously waiting for somebody to scoop up the baby who so far hadn't cried. I waited for the artificial dog to bark. It didn't. A rising panic grew inside me. My left hand lay slack against my slick with sweat thigh. My right hand trembled. Everybody around seemed oblivious. A man in a Hawaiian shirt nibbled on a Mars bar, a ginger-haired woman pushing shopping bags in a pram that had seen better days laughed into her mobile phone, a lollipop lady sat crying on a bench beside the DLR station. The faulty traffic light only flashed wait. People crossed over regardless, drawing expletives from drivers who popped extra large heads out of dust covered windows before leaning back in to awkward embraces with their steering wheels.

A milk float with no driver appeared off the roundabout. It paused beside the station, empty bottles of milk jostling. The lollipop lady jumped in still crying as she drove away. The baby was closer now. I caught a glimpse of its wide smiling face as it moved determinedly towards an empty packet of Skittles lingering on the curb. A sharp
pain exploded in my chest. Sweat popped on my forehead. A feeling of familiarity crept in. I opened my mouth to call out but only growly guttural barks emerged. Distressed, I scanned the scene for the orange dog. I leapt at the curb to grab the baby but it was drooling into the Skittles packet at the back of the milk float, snaking through the bottles.

On the way home, I looked up at the same big sky wondering where I'd seen the baby before. Wondering if it would change its mode of travel and attach itself to the white vapour trail of the plane overhead, taking comfort in the distance of its heavy noise. The taut pain continued to spread through my body. My hand felt sticky and a stinging sensation registered. I pulled it out of my pocket watching the blood trickle. Unwittingly, I'd cut it on the gnarly cover of a sardine can left inside it. At the front door, I fished out a stone the size of a one pence coin and swallowed it. Seventy-two hours of insomnia and counting, a no-man's land where the gutted earth harboured versions of me growing, injured. Wild eyed.

Glass Feet Stoned

It was just after 8pm when I arrived at Mervyn's office. He was just leaving. He pulled the door closed, wine-coloured briefcase in hand, and then rotated his head to the right as I approached, as if he'd picked up a warning in the air I'd be coming. Black suit, red tie, polished black shoes, looking smart, a man you could trust. He smiled a genuine smile but I could see worry behind it.

“Princess, still don't know how to return people's phone calls.”

“You haven't been honest with me Mervyn.”

He stood still for a moment, gathering himself. As he blew air through his lips his chest rose and fell like a balloon beginning to deflate.

“Okay, let's go to mine where we can talk.”

“No.”

“Come on it's me; you telling me you can't come to my house now?”

We walked to a Caribbean restaurant a couple of streets down. All the way I said nothing, waiting. He brought out his chequered handkerchief to pat his forehead.

Other than a couple at the bar area the restaurant was virtually empty and smelled of spices. It had wooden floors, dim lights and colourful paintings. Reggae music played low and soft like a lover's stroke. You could see out onto the street from where we sat.
Mervyn's gaze loitered a little too long on the outside scene. He may have sensed what was coming, maybe not the exact nature of it, but he knew I meant business. Neither of us wanted to eat. He ordered vodka, I ordered water.

Tell me what happened.

He supressed an agitated sigh.

You know what your mother was like Joy.

No, tell me.