are. His tone on his blog was abrupt and cynical and he didn’t appear to suffer fools lightly. But as though at war with himself, his poetry was playful and romantic. He was…complex. The sort of man who shouldn’t have fallen under Ayoola’s spell.
In my dream, he leans back in his chair and asks me what I’m going to do.
“Do about what?”
“She’s not going to stop, you know.”
“She was defending herself.”
“You don’t really believe that,” he chides, shaking his head feebly.
He stands up and starts to walk away from me. I follow him, because what else can I do? I want to wake up, but I also want to see where Femi will take me. It turns out, he wants to visit the place where he died. We stare at his body, the utter helplessness of it all. Beside him, on the floor, is the knife she carries with her and spills blood with. She had hidden it before I got there, but in my dream I see it as clear as day.
He asks me if he could have done anything differently.
“You could have seen her for what she was.”
ICE CREAM
Her name is Peju.
She is hovering outside our compound and makes her move the moment I pull out of the gate. I don’t immediately recognize her, but I stick my head out of the window to see what she wants.
“What did you do to him?”
“Sorry?”
“Femi. What did you do to Femi?” I realize then who she is. I have seen her, too many times to count, on Instagram. She is the one who has been posting about Femi, the one who called Ayoola out on Snapchat. She has lost a lot of weight and her pretty eyes are red. I try to remain impassive.
“I can’t help you.”
“Can’t? Or won’t? I just want to know what happened to him.” I attempt to drive on, but she opens my door. “The worst thing is not knowing.” Her voice breaks.
I turn off the engine and climb out of the car. “I’m sorry, but—”
“Some people are saying he probably up and left the country, but he wouldn’t do that, and he wouldn’t worry us like this…If we knew…”
I feel a strong urge to confess to her, to tell her what happened to her brother so that she won’t have to go through life wondering. I think up the words in my head— Sorry, my sister stabbed him in the back and I masterminded throwing his body in the water. I think of how it would sound. I think of what would happen after.
“Look, I’m really—”
“Peju?”
Peju’s head snaps up to see my sister coming down the drive.
“What are you doing here?” Ayoola asks.
“You’re the one who saw him last. I know there is something you’re not saying. Tell me what happened to my brother.”
Ayoola is wearing dungarees—she is the only person I know who can still pull those off—and she is licking ice cream, probably from the parlor around the corner. She pauses the licking, not because she is moved by Peju’s words, but because she is aware that it is proper to pause whatever one is doing when in the presence of someone who is grieving. I spent three hours explaining that particular etiquette to her one Sunday afternoon.
“You think he is…dead?” asks Ayoola in a low soft voice.
Peju starts weeping. It is as though Ayoola’s question knocks down a dam that she has been doing her best to keep up. Her cries are deep and loud. She gulps in air and her body shudders. Ayoola takes another lick of the ice cream and then she pulls Peju into an embrace with her free arm. She rubs Peju’s back as she cries.
“It’ll be alright. It’ll be alright in the end,” Ayoola murmurs to her.
Does it matter who Peju is getting comfort from? What’s done is done. So what if it is only her brother’s killer who can talk candidly about the possibility of his death? Peju needed to be released from the crushing burden of hope that Femi could still be alive and Ayoola was the only one willing to do it.
Ayoola continues to pat Peju on her back as she stares resignedly at the ice cream, the one she can no longer lick, as it drip drips onto the road.
SECRET
“Korede, can I talk to you for a sec?”
I nod and follow Tade into his office. As soon as the door is shut, he beams at me. My face flushes and I cannot help