Temper: A Novel

by Nicky Drayden

  At another demonstration, a machinist pulls a cold can of tinibru out of an icebox. I am not impressed until he tips the box forward to show there is no ice block tucked inside, and says it is cooled by a machination called a condenser. On another table sits a teenaged girl, warm brown skin, oversized spectacles, hair dangling in greased twists. Or so it seems, until I take a closer look. Her head cocks, glassy eyes make contact with mine, rouged lips spread into a stiff, unnerving smile. Behind every movement, there is the whisper of gears. “You’ve been a naughty boy,” she says to me. Her hand rises to her mouth with a clunky stutter-stop, then she blows me a kiss.

  The room fills with the deep laughter of men and the sharp scent of arousal. The women suck their teeth like an orchestrated chorus, and the kigens exchange quick, irritated looks as they scrawl lecherous equations upon a tattered chalkboard. The ruckus stops cold when a silhouette dressed in ruddy brown robes enters the room and steps upon a makeshift stage. The twitchy light of electric lanterns touches the graceful features beneath a hood. Familiar features. The piercing eyes, the smooth skin impervious to the effects of serving innumerous scowls, the false calm upon her lips . . .

  I go chill all over. All my life, I’ve fantasized about a parent with a supersecretive life. Turns out I’d picked the wrong one.

  “Omehea!” Mother smolders.

  The clockwork girl’s master shuts her off with a flick of a switch. Her smile fades, and she slumps forward slightly.

  My mother sucks her teeth in that way I’ve come to identify as her utmost disappointment. “It’s enough that they accuse us of mental masturbation. Do we really need to give them more ammunition?”

  Omehea flushes. “She is not meant for dalliance, Enna Zeogwu. I was just having a little joke, I swear. All my energies are spent for the cause!”

  “This isn’t a time for jokes.” Mother’s browline goes razor sharp. I find myself cringing, even though it is not directed at me. “With the incident at the Sanctuary, faith has wedged its way back into the hearts of those who had forgotten. It won’t be long before secular teachings again come under attack.”

  “Maybe we should be the ones to attack,” someone says from behind me. “Between all of the sects in Mzansi, we’ve got sufficient numbers now. We should go on the offensive.”

  “And cause an eighth Holy War?” grates my mother. “Times have changed since The War of Masturbations. We’ve gained a solid foothold, and you’re right, we cannot allow ourselves to fall back into the debts of gods. But we’ve got our own schools, and we’re changing people’s way of thinking. There are plenty of nonviolent options. We should pursue those first.”

  “With all due respect, Enna Zeogwu, I think you’ve gone soft. These are not the words of the Enna we elected twenty years ago. Certainly, not the Enna who broke bottles on the heads of law officers and Men of Virtue!”

  My mother steps down from her stage, crosses the floor as if she’s floating upon it, and bears down on that poor sap who’d misspoken. Of all the things my mother is, soft is definitely not one of them. “You doubt my temper?” she asks the andy kigen, fingers wrapped at eir neck. “I’d kill a hundred times over, if that is what we decide to do. I have no qualms about killing.” She releases eir neck, and the andy kigen coughs something fierce. She waits for em to subside. “All I’m saying is just because we can attack the Sanctuary, doesn’t mean we should.”

  “And what would you say if it weren’t your boy that Gueye Okahim has taken under his wing?”

  “That does not factor into my decision. I will not hesitate to do whatever it takes to preserve the pursuit of knowledge. You don’t need to worry yourself about my—”

  The door flies open, and in stumbles a massive figure. Ey steps into the lantern light and everyone gasps. It is Rabe. “Icy Blue . . .” ey says with a wet gurgle, clenching entrails to eir splayed stomach. “He’s here.”

  All eyes fall wide and hot upon me, the imposter, though Mother’s are the only ones filled with disappointment instead of fright. She knows. Mothers always know.

  I take a deep breath, assess the scene. My first instinct is to flee, but then I see Rabe there, slumped and bleeding. So. Much. Blood. My mouth waters, my mind becomes a flurry. I shudder, fighting against my nature. Despite myself, my claws unseat themselves, palms become padded paws. A billion pricks against my skin become tawny fur. Erupting fangs scrape through the bone of my jaws.

  I am upon em. My arms surround em. Rabe struggles, but in this state, ey cannot fight me off. I hunch forward, membranous wings unfurl from my shoulder blades. I flap them, and in the next second, I’m crashing through the glass of the closest window, catching myself on the breeze.

  I hold my bounty tightly, get my bearing, and cross the city until I see what I am after. The hospital. I alight in the shadows, shift to my normal self. My normal human self. Rabe’s arm drapes heavily over me, so out of it now, mumbling about eir numerous sins, praying they are forgiven. Ey doesn’t pray to me, but Rabe is just as much mine as ey is Kasim’s. I understand Rabe’s vices, perhaps even more so than my brother. I am the root of Rabe’s vice.

  “Your sins are forgiven, but you aren’t going to die,” I whisper to em, as his eyes go dim, his body goes slack. “I can’t let you die.”

  I’m powerful, but apparently not powerful enough.

  “You’ve earned us three more demerits,” Chimwe says into my ear.

  My eyes are too heavy to lift, and the depths of my tear-stained pillow are too comforting to part from. “Well, you don’t have to worry about my getting any more,” I say, my voice like a rake through gravel. “Because I’m not moving from this bed ever again.”

  “I’m sure that will look great on your transcript.”

  “I’m serious. I’m not going to class. Not to the cafeteria. Not the library. Not home.” Especially not home. How can I face my mother? What could I tell her? I’ve killed now. Rabe’s blood is on my hands. Eir children have lost a parent. How can I right that? Even if I tried, I’d only end up making things worse. “I’m no good to anyone out there. It’s better if I lie low. Keep quiet. Do nothing.”

  “Great, so now you’ll just be no good to me.” My mattress gives as Chimwe takes a seat. I roll away from em, toward the cold cement wall. “You’re really a mess up there, aren’t you?” Eir knuckles rap softly against my temple. “You need me to hail your mother?”

  “No!” I shout, sitting bolt upright. “I’m fine. At least I will be.”

  “You wanna talk about it?” Ey seems sincere. And it’s not like I’ve got anyone else to turn to.

  “Everything I touch turns to shit,” I say. “That in and of itself is bad enough, but then I start comparing myself to Kasim . . . even the stuff he shits on comes out smelling like roses.”

  “Classic lesser twin syndrome,” Chimwe says with a nod. “You can’t fall victim to that. It’ll eat you up inside. Remember, Kasim’s human, just like the rest of us. He’s prone to vice, too. Everyone has their weaknesses. Even Chiso.” There’s something sinister brewing in Chimwe’s voice, and I like it quite a bit.

  “Go on . . .”

  Chimwe leans in with a grin. “So our first year at Gabadamosi, Chiso and I had Mzansi History together. You know how smart Chiso is, but eir brilliance is only rivaled by eir laziness. Ey’d wait to the last minute to do every assignment, then pull an all-nighter and come up with the best damned papers probably anyone has ever written. You could see it in Prof. Orji’s eyes, leaning forward on the edge of her seat during Chiso’s oral presentations. It was disgusting. Meanwhile, I spend weeks researching and fact-checking, my ass glued to a library chair every spare moment of my life, and Prof. Orji won’t even bother to look up from her desk to acknowledge me. It hurt knowing that no matter how hard I tried, I would never be seen as more than Chiso’s shadow. It hurt even more when Chiso waved eir perfect papers in my face, consoling me that maybe if I tried a little harder, I could be more like em . . .”

  “They
don’t understand,” I say. “It’s like we’re on the same planet, surrounded by the same people, but we’re living in two totally different worlds.”

  “Exactly.” Chimwe grabs my shoulders and stares me down, like I’ve tapped directly into eir mind. I see Uncle Pabio’s eccentricity peeking from behind those eyes. “I got fed up with Chiso and all eir holier than thou bullshit. So I decided to do something about it. We got our assignments for our final papers midway through the quarter, but like always, Chiso waited until the last minute to start it. Ey had to write a paper on Kalu Fagbare.”

  “The explorer.”

  “Yeah. Everyone knows the basics . . . sailed from Nri to Mzansi, established contact with the people here. The first celebration feast, the spreading of religion and writings, the introduction of the tonic that became tinibru, blah blah. Well, as soon as I saw Chiso’s assignment, I knew what I had to do. Each morning, as soon as the sun cracked, I was at the library on their typesetter, creating a detailed booklet on the secret life of Kalu Fagbare, penned by noted historian Igwe Jakande himself, to add authenticity. It was painstaking. It took me well over three hours to set the text for each page, and there were forty-eight pages altogether. My fingers were cramped and bloodied, and my grades suffered, but I pushed on, until two days before our presentations. I checked out every book in the library that even mentioned Kalu Fagbare, and left my creation in their place.”

  Chimwe stands. Ey has both my mother’s diligence and her grace. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always hated em a little less than Chiso. Ey goes to eir desk, pulls out a drawer, and retrieves a small locked box. Inside, the book, The Secret Life of Kalu Fagbare. Ey places it into my hands. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought it to be the real thing. Worn leather binding, yellowed pages. Illustrations even. Beautifully inked.

  “Did you draw these?” I ask. “They’re amazing.”

  Chimwe smiles.

  I flip to the middle and read a passage, detailing Fagbare’s involvement in losing both his ship and his mother to drunken Rashtra pirates in a wager gone wrong, his outlawing farting in public—a crime punishable by death—funding a brothel staffed by tamed apes, coordinating child fighting rings, burning books written by kigens, burning kigens, denouncing Grace and forcing everyone to pray to a sentient yam that he claimed lived in the crotch of his pants. People rubbed upon it during their prayers. There is an illustration of this, unfit for anyone to gaze upon. “You didn’t.”

  “I did.”

  “Ey didn’t.”

  “Mmm-hmmm. Chiso’s paper was brilliantly written, as always. But the silence that fell upon the class after ey read it, it was so thick, I thought I might have drowned. Prof. Orji . . . her jaw was hanging so low, it nearly hit her desk. How I managed to contain my laughter, I will never know.”

  I’m rocking back and forth, unable to contain my awe for Chimwe’s flawless execution of this duplicitous deed. I can’t help but wonder what kind of mischief we could have gotten into if we’d teamed up as kids. “So what happened next?”

  “Chiso failed the assignment, of course. Nearly failed the class. Probably would have gotten expelled if ey’d been one of us, but you know how that goes. Ey was outraged. Eir temper swelled like I’ve never seen. Chiso dragged both Prof. Orji and the headmistress to the library to point out the book, but of course by that time, it was long gone.” Chimwe takes the book back, locks it under key. Returns it to its resting spot deep in the drawer. “Chiso still has no idea it was me. And you’re the first person I’ve ever told.”

  “Wow. Now that’s wicked. And genius.” I thump my duplicity brand twice with my fist, and Chimwe does the same to eirs in an unspoken sign of solidarity. “Sooo . . . you trust me with such a secret?” I ask.

  “Sure. We’re roommates now. It’s us against our siblings. Besides, now you know what I’m capable of, so crossing me probably wouldn’t be in your best interest.”

  I laugh inside. If only Chimwe knew what I was capable of . . .

  Still, I revel in the moment. It feels so normal. Just two students, two cousins, hell, two friends chatting it up before class. Nobody killed anybody. Nobody’s the reincarnation of the devil. Nobody’s got a mother with a secret agenda or Grace for a brother. “Yeah, roommates. It won’t be so bad, right?”

  Chimwe shrugs. “It’ll probably be tedious and full of disappointment. Life’s hard, but it beats the alternative, right?”

  “Death.” The word slips coolly over my lips. My eyes twinge. I taste Rabe’s blood in my mouth, coarse and peppery, with vanilla undertones.

  “Shit, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. You were close to her, weren’t you? That counselor?”

  “The what, huh?”

  “The one that died yesterday. You didn’t hear? They found her in her office. Cold as stone. Mushea, Munane, Manusa, or something.”

  “Munashe?” The name scrapes over my lips. Not her.

  “That’s the one. I hear it was weird. She was still sitting at her desk, pen in hand.”

  I get light-headed, lose focus. I notice a patch of fur on the back of my hand and rub it away. There’s a knock at the door, but it feels so far away. Chimwe gives me a soft punch in the shoulder, then goes to answer it.

  I’d sworn I wouldn’t hurt her. I did everything in my power to protect her from my wrath, but I’d forgotten to protect her from the perils of my affection.

  . . . And if your heart stops cold,

  Then you’ve been kissed by Icy Blue.

  The childhood songs were true. My kiss, just a simple peck on the cheek. My kiss had killed her.

  “Auben?” comes my brother’s pained voice. Instantly, I am at the door’s threshold and upon him. My arms are wrapped as tightly around Kasim, as his are around me.

  “It’s true, isn’t it? About Munashe? I’m not dreaming?” I shudder and weep upon his shoulder.

  “There’s going to be a prayer vigil today.” He pulls back, suddenly a pained look on his face. His eyes move to his shoulder. Small holes dot his ciki where my tears had fallen. I dust at them futilely, trying my best not to fall completely apart. “It’s fine, it’s fine,” he says to me. “Just be at the school sanctuary this evening. I’m going to say a few things. I hope you do, too.”

  “I can’t,” I say, shaking my head.

  “Chimwe, can we get a moment alone?” Kasim asks.

  “You can pretend I’m not here, if you’d like. But this is my room, and I’m not going anywhere.” Chimwe rolls eir eyes, sits on eir bed, and takes to a textbook.

  “I heard you were out past curfew last night,” Kasim says to me, but there is oh so much more context within the depths of his glassy eyes. He saw. I’m not sure how, but those same eyes had filled Rabe’s soul when Grace was called upon.

  “I was.” I do not offer explanation. There is no need. “It won’t happen again, because I’m not leaving this room.” Memory of Munashe’s coy smile wrenches my heart. If this is what happens to the people I care most about, then what hope is there for the rest of the world?

  “It was a mistake. We all make mistakes.” Kasim’s hand touches my arm, and twists so my vice brands come into view. “Remember, you are not your vices. They do not control you. You are the one in control of your life.”

  I nod my head like an impish child.

  “Urges come and go, but you don’t have to give in to them. I’m not expecting perfection, but you could try a little harder. Be a little more like me,” Kasim adds.

  Chimwe clears eir throat and noisily flips a page. I shake my head. Kasim is not like Chiso. He says things, sure, but they aren’t meant to make me feel less than. He just doesn’t know what it’s like to walk a mile in my vice-trodden shoes. It’s not like he’s looking down on me. Except that he is looking down at me. Literally.

  “Kasim . . .” I utter through clenched teeth, nod at his feet. He’s hovering six inches above the ground.

  Kasim starts, looks embarrassed, then steps back down on
to solid ground. We both turn and look to Chimwe, mouth as wide as the textbook that’s fallen out of eir lap.

  “Whoa,” Chimwe mutters in a daze.

  The lies fall on me. They always have. My mind spins, and the falsehoods fly from my mouth. “Cool trick, huh? You remember how we used to play ‘levitate’ as kids. It’s all angles and point of view.”

  “Yeah, but he was a foot off the ground. I could see all the way underneath. You can’t fake that. You can’t.”

  Kasim’s hand presses at my chest, and he pushes past me into the room. “You didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Your eyes are tired from reading, that’s all.”

  Something fades behind Chimwe’s eyes, like a lantern gone dim. “I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary,” ey says. “My eyes are tired from reading, that’s all.”

  Kasim turns back to me. His face has gone queasy.

  “What did you do to em?” I whisper.

  “New trick.”

  Deep inside, my hackles rise at how easily he’d performed this ultimate act of deception on our own cousin. On our own sibling. “Have you used it on me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Have you tried?”

  “It only works on the weak-willed,” Kasim says. “Plus I hate using it. Gueye Okahim says that free will is the foundation of religion. Without free will, faith is meaningless.”

  “You’re quoting Gueye Okahim now?”