The Carnivorous City

by Toni Kan

  Abel thought about it for a while then shook his head. ‘It won’t look good. What will I tell her, my auntie, people? All that big house and I have to go and rent a place. It would even seem as if I am already staking a claim on his money. No.’

  ‘Then it will happen someday. It would be easier if he were dead. In Africa, men have always married their brothers’ wives. But if he is not dead and he returns, there would be issues.’

  ‘I want him to return,’ Abel said, a wistful look on his face. He told her about how everyone he met told him how much Soni spoke about him, how much, it now appeared, his brother adored him.

  ‘I never knew. It feels as if I didn’t even know who he was. I would treat him a lot better if he came back.’

  ‘I always knew he liked you and respected you even though he tried to mask it with bravado,’ Calista said, pulling Abel on top of her. ‘I remember how he used to call me ‘The Coloniser of Abel.’ She nibbled his left ear, her warm breath fanning his neck.

  ‘Once, at a party, he had been drinking, and he came up to me and said, “Your pussy must be gold-plated, the way Abel is stuck to you.” We can’t all be dogs, I told him and he laughed that his big laugh and said, “We can’t all be saints, you mean. My brother gives everyone a bad conscience. He has always been the good son. I can never be like him. Everything good comes to him. Come, let us dance.” And he pulled me to the dance floor.’

  ‘Where was I?’

  ‘You were there, looking bored. I could never figure it out, why you couldn’t stand parties.’

  ‘Too many people, Calista. I have always liked to be alone.’ He told her about his job as a lecturer in Asaba where he taught English literature. ‘I always wanted to be a teacher. But right now, I am not even sure what I have become.’

  ‘You have become hard.’ She reached between his legs.

  ‘This woman; you will kill someone.’ He tickled her and sired happy giggles.

  —

  The house was in darkness when he got home. There was an outage and the generator wouldn’t come on. Ada was outside at the shed with Philo and the gateman was busy poking inside the generator.

  ‘When was it serviced last?’ Abel asked.

  ‘I can’t remember. Soni handles all these things,’ she said, a sob catching in her throat.

  ‘Let me see.’ Abel took the torch from the gateman. He checked the oil gauge; it was low. He knew some generators wouldn’t come on if there was no oil. ‘Is there engine oil in the house?’

  Ada wasn’t sure so he asked the gateman to go buy a gallon. While he was gone, Abel took out the spark plugs and cleaned them.

  With oil in the generator and the spark plugs cleaned he tried again. The generator rattled for a bit, caught and roared into life.

  ‘Thanks,’ Ada said touching him lightly on the shoulder.

  Inside, he took off his clothes, ran a bath, dropped a tablet of deliciously scented bath salts he found in Soni’s drawer and stepped in. He lay back in the tub and contemplated whether to turn on the whirlpool. He reached behind and switched it on. He needed to relax.

  He picked up the book he had left on the chair in the bathroom and tried to read, but somehow Sula’s story didn’t interest him. So, he shut his eyes and tried to blank out his thoughts. He wanted to switch off, forget where he was, try not to remember that his brother was missing; just soak and forget.

  ‘Are you OK? Abel?’

  Ada was sitting on the stool in the bathroom and staring at him.

  ‘I knocked and knocked and when you didn’t answer I came into the room. When I didn’t see you I came in here. Are you OK?’ she asked again.

  He realised that he had dozed off.

  ‘Yes. I just needed to soak and relax,’ he said, placing his hands over his crotch even though he knew she couldn’t see that far.

  ‘I need more than that now. I think I am going crazy.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Everything. But this night when the generator didn’t come on, I just lost it. What do I know about a generator? Soni always took care of all that. Imagine if you weren’t here. This is beginning to get to me. What did the police say today?’

  ‘I met with the DCP. I am not so sure he was happy to have received a call from the commissioner. But he has reassigned the case to a more senior and experienced officer. I like the new guy. He knew Soni too.’

  ‘Everyone knew Soni,’ she said but her mind was far away. ‘See, I don’t know how to say this but you know, your brother was involved with so many women, some of them married. You know that?’

  ‘Ada, what is this about?’

  ‘I have been thinking, you know, a jealous husband, boyfriend. I can imagine what he would do if he found me with another man. If this was about a woman, I would hate him. I always told him, don’t bring an STD into this house and don’t let one of your women embarrass me. That was all I asked for.’

  ‘I don’t think this is about a woman,’ Abel said reaching for the towel. ‘Could you turn around for a second?’

  He stepped out of the tub, pushed the knob to drain the water, and towelled himself dry before he joined Ada, who was sprawled on the couch in his room.

  ‘We used to make love here all the time,’ she said running her palm over the soft fabric of the couch. ‘Soni never liked making love on the bed. He said it wasn’t good for his nine inches.’

  Abel pulled on a pair of boxers and a T-shirt. He sat on the bed, placed a pillow between his legs to hide his rising erection, and settled down to listen. He could sense an urge in her to talk and unburden herself.

  ‘I am sure we conceived Zeal in the car or kitchen or the living room. Soni was always looking for the craziest spots.’

  She paused and then sat up.

  ‘Come sit beside me,’ she told him but Abel shook his head. He had a huge erection already.

  ‘Just talk, I want to listen.’

  ‘You know, when Zeal was born, he wanted him to be named Abel,’ she went on as if there had been no pause. ‘Did he tell you that?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, he never did.’

  ‘Well he did but I said no. I hated you then.’ She laughed. ‘I didn’t want my son reminding me of you every time I called or heard his name.’

  ‘Zeal is a lovely name,’ Abel told her.

  ‘Yes, it is.’ She leaned back into the couch and fell silent. Abel regarded her for a while, wondering what crazy thoughts were raging in her head.

  She was dressed in denim shorts and a fitted T-shirt that showed off her bosom. He watched her and was surprised to hear her snoring softly. She had fallen asleep. He waited a while, then went over to the couch and covered her with a duvet before climbing back into bed. When he woke up later that night, Ada was in his bed, her arms wrapped around him.

  —

  She was gone by the time he woke up the next morning and she made no mention of the previous night as they had breakfast together after dropping Zeal off at school. She was unusually quiet and he assumed that she was thinking about having spent the night curled up in his bed.

  After breakfast, Abel watched CNN then went upstairs to read and listen to music. He didn’t have anything planned for the day. He just wanted to laze and catch his breath.

  Santos sauntered into his room a little after 10am.

  ‘Bros wahala dey o,’ he said as he came to sit beside Abel on the couch.

  ‘Wetin happen?’ Abel asked, suddenly apprehensive. Lagos had that effect on him. It was a city always looking for ways to upset one’s plans, like a garden blooming with anxiety.

  Placing a finger to his lips, Santos whispered even though they were alone.

  ‘Today is Iyawo’s birthday. I just remembered now.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes. I saw it on her Facebook page and on her DP, see.’ He handed Abel his Blackberry.

  It really was Ada’s birthday. Abel handed the phone back to him.

  ‘Go and bring out the
car. We need to buy her cake and a gift.’

  He showered in a hurry and they drove out to Victoria Island. There was a cake shop behind the Zenith Bank branch on Ajose Adeogun, Santos told him, and they drove there. Abel bought a cake and then they drove to a gift shop on Sanusi Fafunwa where he picked up a birthday card.

  ‘What kind of gift do you think she would like?’ Abel asked.

  ‘Iyawo likes bags and dresses,’ he told Abel. ‘And I sabi where Sabato dey buy clothes for her.’

  It was to a nondescript shop, tucked in between two houses on Akin Adesola, almost adjacent to Adeola Odeku, that Santos led him. It was the kind of shop you would never walk into unless someone brought you. Its location was not susceptible to serendipity.

  The owner was a dark, heavily built woman of indeterminate age. Her clothing and gait suggested youthfulness, but her face was creased with lines etched by the passage of time and something that seemed like trauma. Abel could not put his finger on it but he surmised from her forced gaiety a need to keep up appearances as well as a stratagem for fleecing you.

  ‘Na my bros wife,’ Santos began. ‘Today is her birthday and Oga Sabato no dey. This is Sabato’s big bros.’

  She greeted Abel with a smile as wide as a saucer and asked what he wanted. He told her a bag and a gown would be fine.

  ‘I have this lovely tan bag. A Burberry. It just arrived,’ She pulled open a drawer.

  Abel wasn’t sure what she meant by tan. The bag was light brown but he took it from her. ‘And the dress; I take it you know her size? Something black would be cool.’

  ‘Ada is a size twelve and I have the perfect LBD for her.’ She flicked through gowns on a rack and pulled out a black dress with a plunging neckline. It had a belt with a light brown – or what she called tan – cowry-shaped buckle.

  ‘They will go together,’ the shop owner said, smile in place and obviously pleased with herself. ‘And Ada has the shoes to go with them.’

  Abel almost screamed when she told him what the clothes cost.

  ‘I don’t have that much here but I will send Santos back to you with the balance. Is that OK?’

  The woman looked from Abel to Santos then smiled and said, ‘Sure; your brother and his wife are my big customers. I will expect Santos.’

  She wrote him a receipt, packed their purchases and had one of her girls carry them to the car.

  Abel couldn’t shake off the total amount. For a dress and a bag, he had spent three months’ salary.

  ‘Bros, you have to buy her champagne. Sabato no dey miss am o.’

  ‘I have run out of cash,’ Abel said.

  ‘I sabi one guy. We go collect then I go come back come square dem.’

  Abel waited in the car while Santos fetched two bottles of Moët & Chandon Rosé Impérial.

  ‘Na dis one madam and her friend like well well,’ he told Abel.

  Santos also had two bottles each of white and red wines.

  By the time they got home, three of Ada’s friends had arrived and Abel was happy when she shrieked and ran into his arms as Santos delivered the cake and card.

  Inside the card, he had inscribed a small poem:

  To Ada,

  Wife and Mother

  There shall be seasons of refreshing

  When we snatch joy from the fierce grip of pain

  In due season and more, we shall rejoice again

  Suffused with trilling laughter and joy unspoken

  Happy birthday, from Abel and Zeal.

  ‘Beautiful poem,’ Abel heard one of her friends say as he walked away.

  ‘Ada is so lucky. I can’t remember the last time a man wrote me a poem,’ another said.

  ‘Must have been in secondary school,’ said a third, and they all burst into laughter.

  —

  They dined at Villa Medici.

  Ada wore the black dress and it was beautiful. She inhabited it as if it had been made especially for her. Abel hadn’t noticed but it didn’t just have a plunging neckline; it also had a low back that slinked all the way down.

  She looked beautiful in it and Abel was thrilled to see all eyes turn to them as they walked in. His brother had indeed ‘gone to the market’, as one of his aunts loved to say, ‘with his eyes wide open’.

  They shared a bottle of 1990 Chianti with their meal. The antipasti was toasted bread with tomato, olives, mozzarella, meat, and balsamic vinegar in olive oil, while the main course was pasta, baked tomato and lamb chops.

  He had ordered the Chianti because he remembered that it was the drink of choice for Anthony Hopkins’ character in Silence of the Lambs and he’d always wondered what kind of drink it was and what it would taste like. Now he knew. And there was something else he was conscious of now. He was moving slowly but surely out of the realm of ‘what if’ and ‘how would it be’. These days, whatever he wished for that money could buy was instantly possible and imminently available. There were no what ifs. If he wanted it, he could have it.

  He had toyed many times with thoughts of moving money from Soni’s accounts into his. As things stood, everything was still in Soni’s name and available to him since he was next of kin, but if Soni’s body was found tomorrow, the balance would shift. Having died intestate, all he owned would revert to his widow. Where would that leave him? Penniless in his hovel in Asaba, and only if he still had a job to go back to. But every time the thought chanced upon him, Abel would push it aside because it seemed cheap, wicked and opportunistic. He was in Lagos to find his brother, he told himself. Not to amass wealth.

  The house was quiet and in partial darkness when they got home. Philo had stayed up and Abel could see that she had been watching a Nollywood movie on Africa Magic while she waited.

  ‘Come dance with me,’ Ada said, preceding him up the stairs, and he had difficulty peeling his eyes from her behind.

  ‘Tonight?’ Abel asked.

  ‘Yes, tonight. It’s my birthday, old man.’

  He had never been inside her room before. It was beautiful and done up in soft pink and lilac.

  One wall was covered entirely with paintings; small frames that looked no bigger than 12 x 10s, and they were all nude portraits by an artist whose work seemed familiar but whose name he could not see in the dim light. Most of them were merely stylised images with lines and highlighted bits; others were full frontals with highly realised depictions of the breasts and pubic region.

  ‘You like?’ she asked with a smile as she kicked off her shoes and inserted a disk into the CD player. A strong male voice he didn’t recognise filled the room.

  ‘Who is this?’ he asked as she fell into his arms.

  ‘Al Jarreau,’ she told him, her head on his shoulder. ‘Wait for the magic.’

  Abel could feel her warm breath on the nape of his neck and smell the whiff of the wine on it – delicious. He wanted to kiss her badly, ravenously, to peel the black dress off her body and make mad love to her. Instead he held her close, glad he could mask his erection, having traded his normal boxer shorts for new Y-fronts he had found in his brother’s closet.

  The song was on replay and after the third play, he told her he had to go to bed.

  Abel had just finished brushing his teeth and was settling into bed when he heard her sobbing, thick wracking sobs that wafted over the pause in the music and broke his heart into a million tiny shards. He grabbed a pillow and covered his ears to keep out the sound.

  —

  There was a text message from DSP Umannah on his phone when he woke up the next morning.

  We have made an arrest. Please come in as early as you can.

  Abel must have thought about that text a hundred times before he got to Panti. He was both anxious and elated. Would the arrested person lead them to Soni? Would they find him alive or dead? What would he do when Soni returned home? Pack up and move to Asaba, or move into the room Soni had prepared for him and play Uncle to Zeal while his blood boiled for Ada? Had he journeyed so far from Asaba that he would neve
r be able to retrace his steps? A million questions assailed his thoughts as he drove, his knuckles shiny as he held tight to the steering wheel. He didn’t tell Ada about the text message and he had asked Santos to wait for him at home while he ran a quick errand.

  ‘Bros, you wan go see your babe for 1004?’ Santos asked with a wink. Abel scowled and asked him to wash the X5.

  Umannah was drenched in sweat and he had blood on his sleeves when Abel got to the station.

  ‘False alarm, false alarm,’ he said and Abel thought he would fall.

  His emotions were in conflict; disappointment and what seemed, to his horror, like relief. He wanted his brother to be found or did he not? Things were not so black and white any more. He was moving slowly but inexorably (he realised with a shock that seemed like a violent kick to the small of the back), into a grey world of doubts and thoughts that he did not think he could allow to bud into words. He was getting to a point where he was not sure he could easily recognise himself if he bumped into himself in a dark alley.

  Abel flopped into the chair DSP Umannah offered him.

  ‘He came to the bank to cash your brother’s cheque. It was torn from one of the chequebooks Soni’s wife and accountant told us was missing. We had asked the bank to flag the cheque number series, so when he presented it we were alerted. We brought him in four days ago. At first he refused to talk but then we encouraged him to,’ Umannah said with a wink as he sat down.

  ‘He confessed someone gave him the chequebooks. From the figures in the stubs, they assumed the owner would be rich so they found a way to check the account balance. What they found made them greedier, and with the help of a lady in the bank, they were able to forge his signature. Anyway, we made more arrests last night and that was when I was confident enough to alert you. But after working on them all night and this morning, we realised what happened. The third person was among the first to chance upon your brother’s car. It was half inside the gutter. The cabin lights were on and music was playing. He said he thought the person was drunk and had fallen into the ditch. Of course, when he looked into the car and around the ditch he didn’t find anyone. He waited for a while, thinking that the car owner may have gone to get help and would come back. After a short while, when he didn’t see anyone, he looked inside the car again. That was when he saw the chequebook on the floor mat. He reached in and took it. The next day when he walked by and saw the car still there, he must have felt some remorse, so he called 911 and reported to the operator that a Jaguar was lying in the ditch.’