The Carnivorous City

by Toni Kan

  ‘And me, you,’ he replied and meant it.

  They had gone out for three years back at university and he remembered how Soni would tease him: ‘Bros, so you are going to fuck only one girl in this school?’

  They’d lived together for two years, then split after graduation, when she had gone abroad for her master’s. He had refused to marry her and become a British citizen.

  ‘You broke my heart so badly I am still picking up the pieces,’ she said. Calista had always been direct and open about her feelings.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I was too young and you were just too focused.’

  He held her gaze for a while. A smile danced around the edges of her full lips. She hadn’t changed much, even though age had given her face more character. She still had the dimple in one cheek, the twinkle in her eyes and the crow’s feet that appeared when she smiled. Her teeth were still as white and even as he remembered them, and deep in her eyes he could see that she still had it for him.

  ‘So, how many kids do you have now?’ he asked

  ‘None, yet. You?’

  ‘None. I haven’t found someone to marry me. You married?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nope. You used me up. You left nothing of value.’

  He heard her laugh and was transported to the University of Jos, to the cramped space he shared with Soni and one other student before he and Calista moved in together. It was a Friday morning and they were making love and for some reason she was having these multiple orgasms and she always had the giggles whenever she came. It went on and on and suddenly there was a banging on the door. Abel ignored it at first but the person was insistent, so he asked who it was.

  ‘It’s Rahman.’ His Muslim neighbour.

  ‘What’s up, Rahman?’ Abel asked. ‘You need the iron?’

  ‘No. It’s Ramadan and I am fasting, please.’

  They had stopped, but whenever either of them felt like making love they would say, ‘I am fasting, please.’ It became a sort of code.

  ‘So, what brings you to Lagos?’

  ‘My brother is missing.’

  ‘What, 9 Inches?’

  ‘Yes, the same one.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that. What happened?’

  He filled her in as fast as he could. He was tired of telling the story.

  ‘That’s so sad. I work for the Lagos State Government in the governor’s office. If you come by, I could introduce you to the CSO. Maybe he can help with the police. The police always need to be prodded, you know.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Abel said, wondering how, just sitting there and talking to her, it didn’t feel as if there had been a ten-year hiatus.

  ‘So, you came to see a movie?’ she asked.

  ‘No. I came to buy my drugs. My knuckles were hurting when I woke up this morning.’

  ‘Really, you still have those?’ She had seen him through more than a dozen episodes back in school.

  ‘Yes, but not as often as I used to. I haven’t had one in four years but I suspect the stress is finally getting to me.’

  ‘If you are free, we could drive down to my place. I stay at 1004. I can make you jollof rice and smoked fish.’

  ‘You still remember?’ he asked, and she smiled a knowing smile.

  They walked out together and drove to her place, Abel following her Kia Sportage SUV. She lived in one of the duplexes. The interior was simple, minimal but colourfully done up in pastels.

  ‘You want a drink while I cook?’ she called from the kitchen but Abel didn’t answer. Instead he walked up to her, enfolded her from behind and said ‘I thought you were fasting.’

  There was the briefest pause as her brows furrowed, then she smiled in remembrance as she turned to kiss him, standing on tiptoe like she used to. He kissed her back, his body responding to her like it hadn’t to anyone else in years.

  ‘Show me your bed,’ he said, nibbling on her ears, and she led him upstairs, like a lamb to its shearers.

  Lying naked afterwards, her head on his shoulders, her breath warm against his skin, Abel remembered the first time she had found him sick, curled up on the floor of his room, his knuckles aching, his body burning up.

  She had pulled him onto his mattress. He told her what the issue was and that even though he had felt the pains in his joints the day before, he didn’t have money to buy his drugs.

  ‘What are they called?’ she asked. ‘I can borrow some money from my cousin.’

  He gave her the names, and after making sure that he would be OK, she raced out of Village Hostels, took a bike to town and returned in less than an hour.

  ‘I’ve had it since I was five years old,’ he explained later, as the drugs brought relief.

  ‘At first they thought it was sickle cell, but my parents were both AA. It turned out that it was just some genetic glitch. There’s no cure, although the specialist who diagnosed it said attacks would get less frequent as I got older.’

  ‘Can you pass it on to our kids?’ she asked, straddling him.

  ‘It’s possible.’ He felt himself stir. ‘Won’t you let a sick guy rest?’

  ‘I will. Just relax; I’ll do all the work.’ She laughed as she took him in her hand.

  Lying there in her bed, he remembered how sick he used to get as a child. He couldn’t exert himself, which meant there was no football and before they finally found out what it was and what drugs they could use to suppress it, Abel lost two years of school, with Soni catching up to him. They had ended up finishing primary and secondary school as well as university at the same times.

  His ill health affected everything. He was weak, he didn’t have friends, he couldn’t drink beer, didn’t smoke and found it hard to get a girlfriend because he always felt self-conscious. What if the girl found him all contorted and sick? Would she stay? Would she come back?

  Calista had found him and she had come back and she had stayed. For that he was grateful.

  He eased up a bit and kissed her on the forehead.

  ‘What was that for?’ she asked, her eyes fluttering open.

  ‘For being you, my darling.’

  —

  He had six missed calls from Ada.

  He had left his phone in the car when they got to Calista’s and Ada had been calling. The house help had told her he was sick and she was worried when he didn’t come back on time. She had also sent a text message: Philo told me you were not feeling well and we are worried you haven’t come back. Did you have an attack? Soni told me about it. Please call.

  He didn’t call. He sent a message saying he was OK and on his way home.

  ‘Are you alright?’ she asked, jumping to her feet when he walked in.

  ‘I am good.’ Zeal ran straight into his arms.

  ‘So where did you go all this while?’

  ‘I went to get my drugs, then ran into an old friend and we went to her house.’

  ‘You were with a woman all this while and I have been worried out of my head,’ she snapped. Abel looked up, startled by her tone. She was standing there, tears in her eyes and a pained look on her face.

  ‘Ada, I forgot my phone in the car. I’m sorry.’ He reached out to touch her but she jumped back.

  ‘You and your brother – you guys won’t kill me. You hear? I haven’t found my husband and you want me to go looking for his brother. Please give me my son and you can go back to your lady friend.’

  She snatched Zeal out of his hands and ran upstairs while Abel stared open mouthed after her.

  He slept for a few hours. When he awoke, he washed his face and rinsed his mouth before walking downstairs. As he went down the winding staircase, lines from Eliot came to mind.

  And indeed there will be time

  To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare”

  Back at Unijos, he had a friend, Olu, who could recite the whole poem. They would go to the Law Faculty with its winding staircase and Olu would intone the lines with Abel jumping in on occasion as they walked all the way down, as if tracing Eliot�
��s trajectory.

  Downstairs at the house, the aroma of jollof rice filled his nostrils and made his stomach grumble. In the kitchen, Ada was stirring the rice in the pot.

  ‘Do you feel better?’ she asked, making it less awkward for him.

  She must have been swimming because she had on a silk robe. It was slightly parted at the top to reveal ample cleavage.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, then added, ‘I’m sorry about earlier …’

  ‘It’s OK.’ She raised a palm to stop him, her robe falling open some more. ‘I think I overreacted. Why don’t you wait by the deck? Zeal is playing in the pool. This should be ready in minutes. I’m sure you are hungry.’

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ Abel said and turned to go. He was crossing the living room when she called his name. ‘Yes, Ada?’

  ‘Red wine or beer?’ She stood framed against the door, looking ravishing with her half-open robe, dishevelled hair and pose.

  ‘Beer will do, with the food.’

  Zeal was pottering about in his own side of the pool with Philo keeping an eye on him.

  ‘Uncle Abel!’ he cried. Abel stooped beside him and sprayed water in his face. When the water hit him, Zeal laughed that same high-pitched laugh that Abel knew so well, right from when they were kids into adulthood. Soni laughed at the silliest things and at the most inappropriate times.

  Once, they had been given a ride by his father’s colleague, the vice principal admin. Soni and Abel were sitting in the back with the man’s daughter while his son sat in front. A song came on the radio and appeared to be one the man liked. He started singing along, but there was a problem. Each time the word ‘sunshine’ was sung, the man would say ‘sunchine’ and Soni would laugh. Abel would poke him in the ribs to stop but the more he poked him the more he laughed. Everyone was embarrassed, except for the man, who didn’t realise why Soni was laughing.

  When the song ended, he turned back to look at them and asked, ‘What was so funny?’ Any normal child would have shaken his head and said nothing or told some lie, but not Soni.

  ‘Because you kept saying “sunchine”’ Soni said, and burst into laughter.

  The man stepped on the brakes, pulled open the car door and threw them out.

  Their father was so upset with the man for letting his children trek home, they never spoke again, but it was Soni whom Abel blamed, even though no one else did.

  ‘He is an adult for God’s sake. He should control his temper,’ their mother had said as she fussed over Soni.

  ‘Carry me,’ Zeal cried as Abel straightened.

  ‘How long has he been here?’ he asked the help as he reached in to pull Zeal up.

  ‘Over one hour,’ she informed him as he swaddled Zeal in the towel she had provided.

  He set him on his lap as he took off his wet swimming gear, then tickled him as he dressed him in dry clothes.

  ‘If you stay in water too long you will become a fish,’ Abel told him.

  ‘I want to be a fish,’ he said pulling at Abel’s moustache. ‘It’s like Daddy’s.’ he said, and Ada, who was bringing the food, almost tripped.

  ‘He keeps referring to him these days. He has been doing that since Monday.’

  ‘It is good. A son should not forget his father,’ Abel said as he picked up his plate of steaming food. From as far back as he could remember, jollof rice and smoked fish had been his favourite meal. ‘I love jollof rice,’ he told Ada as he dug in.

  ‘I know, Soni told me. I cooked this as a peace offering,’ she said as she too began to eat.

  Abel hadn’t realised how hungry he was until he swallowed the first mouthful. After making love at Calista’s, they had lain in bed and drifted off to sleep, forgetting all about the food she had promised to make for him.

  ‘Is there anything Soni did not tell you?’

  ‘About you?’

  Abel nodded. He poured his beer and took a sip.

  ‘He talked about you all the time. I used to wonder what it was about you. I didn’t like you and if you were my brother I would have hated you because it seemed you set a pretty high standard.’

  ‘You hated me already,’ Abel blurted.

  ‘Yes, I know, and it wasn’t exactly my fault. You didn’t make it easy to like you.’

  ‘And now?’ he asked, treading softly, fishing to see whether what he felt and sensed was mutual.

  ‘And now what, Mr Dike?’ she asked, feigning seriousness even though her eyes were laughing.

  ‘You still hate me?’

  ‘Yes, hard enough to go half mad when I didn’t see you.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Please, stop saying sorry. I overreacted. I suppose I am getting, you know, used to you being around and I just panicked. And then to find out you were with another woman … I just, you know …’ She went back to her food.

  Abel changed the topic. ‘You know, when you talk about Soni like that, I find it hard to believe, sometimes. It’s as if you are talking about someone else, not the same Soni I grew up with. I always assumed I was the one trying to measure up to him. Everything came easy to him. Any time we moved to a new town or school people gravitated towards him. I always considered myself a failure. Yes, I wanted to be a vice principal, but see what I ended up as.’

  ‘You have something, you know? You talk to people and it’s like they have to listen. Soni used to say that every reprimand from you was like a whiplash.’

  ‘He did?’ She nodded. ‘And yet the idiot never listened to me.’

  ‘But he did. He almost didn’t marry me because he felt you disapproved.’

  ‘Now I know why you were pissed off with me.’

  ‘Yes, now you know,’ she laughed. ‘One day, he was talking to me and he said “See, I am here in Lagos trying to make it, you know, to be a wealthy man. But Abel, he is just content being a teacher. I don’t see him under any pressure. I want to be like that, you know, but I am wired differently.”’

  ‘He told you that?’

  ‘Yes. He also said that you never needed to … how did he put it now? Swim against the currents because the currents flowed along with you.’

  ‘And do you believe him?’

  ‘Yes, I do. You look content, and contentment is important for happiness.’

  ‘I have my own issues, Ada, my own neuroses. The pig sweats but we don’t notice because of the hair.’

  ‘I wish we were all that hairy.’

  Abel laughed. ‘You are hairy enough,’ he said, pointing. Her robe had fallen open, her swimsuit had shifted and tufts of pubic hair were visible.

  ‘Onye ala!’ she cried, snapping her legs shut.

  O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?

  Lying in bed later that night, Abel thought about what she had told him. He had considered Soni a rival; someone he had to battle for everything: their parents’ love and affection, academic achievement, sporting prowess, friends, girls, right from when they were kids.

  It got worse after he lost two years to illness and they ended up as classmates. Abel was smarter, no doubt, but who needed smarts when you were kids?

  What he’d wanted most was to be a boy like Soni. Abel wanted to break a leg or an arm, stub a toe, sustain a cut; something that would require him coming to school with his hand in a sling, his foot in a cast or a plaster on his face. He hankered after a badge of courage, something that would mark him, scar him, show that he was a boy – for what was a boy without scars?

  Back then, a fracture was the coolest injury a boy could have. It signified boyhood because who ever heard of a girl with a fracture? A fracture required a cast and a cast meant people would beg to write or draw or inscribe something on it. As a moving billboard, you attracted everyone, especially the girls. But, most of all, a fracture meant one had been boy enough to break something.

  But for a child who played more in the library than on treetops, a fracture was not likely unless he hurled himself down the steps leading to the huge doors of their local Catholic church; a thought that occurred
to him many times.

  Soni had no such issues. Their parents spent a lot on plasters, slings and casts. As soon as one was healing, Soni was acquiring a fresh badge of courage. Abel couldn’t help but be impressed and jealous.

  It continued at the University of Jos, where Soni went about without boxers and, it seemed, a constant hard-on. Abel thought it was insane and stupid but the girls didn’t seem to mind. Soni ran through them like fire through hay and never forgot to leave his calling card above their beds: 9 inches was here.

  Abel still remembered the last time they’d had a fight. It was Easter and he had just been paid his first salary, a measly fifty-three thousand naira. He had planned to send his mother some money, then buy a bigger mattress, but a call came in from Lagos and messed everything up.

  Soni was in jail and had sent for him.

  Abel took the night bus from Onitsha and arrived Lagos the next morning. It was a Wednesday morning and Ojota, where the bus let him off, was a mess. It had rained the night before and the ground was soggy and unsightly. Bedlam did not begin to capture the situation. Cars were revving and people were shouting as if in competition: hawkers belting out their wares, conductors calling out their destinations, itinerant pastors preaching about repentance, hell and damnation. Abel hadn’t spent five minutes in the city and he was already feeling he had stayed too long. It seemed as if a million people had descended on Ojota with one purpose: to make him feel unwelcome.

  Soni was being held at Area F in Ikeja, so Abel boarded a bus at Ojota that would take him to Maryland. He alighted at the Mobil filling station and took another bus to Ikeja roundabout. They stopped at Unity bus stop to let off a female passenger. Two guys transporting metal roofing sheets were passing by as she stepped out of the bus. The edge of the sheets hit her, slicing off a piece of her forehead. Blood coursed down her face.

  The conductor pushed her back in the bus and they sped off to the General Hospital. By the time Abel got off, her white blouse was drenched with blood and she was already feeling faint.

  He took a bike to Area F and asked for the investigating police officer handling his brother’s case. His name was Sergeant Ilo. The policeman was in mufti and had on a tight, ill-fitting jacket. As Abel watched him shuffling papers in an exaggerated show of importance, he smiled to himself for the first time since he got his brother’s text message: if the policeman’s jacket was any tighter it would be a strait jacket.