Temper

by Nicky Drayden

  Chimwe flexes eir biceps and laughs. “Anyway, we’re in the presence of fairer company. Why don’t you introduce us to your ladies?”

  “They’ve seen a hundred mangy dogs this afternoon. I doubt they’ll be impressed by meeting two more.” Kasim says this, one of his sideways insults, one of his belligerent truths. He’d never dare call someone out of their name directly, but he marches right up to that line, and then spits upon it. It’s one of the things I love most about him.

  “Cute, cousin.” Chiso steps forward. “I’ve missed that about the comfy. Seeing all those bitch mongrels walking around, teats dragging along the ground. Always in heat. Poked so many times, she has no idea of who her pups’ father is.” Chiso pauses, barely long enough to insinuate that ey is segueing to a different topic. “And I’ve been meaning to ask, how is Auntie Daia doing these days, anyway?”

  And there it is. Ey’s calling Mother a promiscuous bitch, and us little fatherless bastards.

  Don’t let him get away with talking about Mother like that . . .

  Temper tightens my gut so hard, my vision goes misty.

  Kasim lays a hand on my shoulder, and my rage immediately ebbs into something manageable. He steps between my cousins and me, for the sake of all of us. “She’s doing great,” Kasim says. “Thanks for asking.”

  The cabbie rings the bell again. I look back, and Nkosazana is standing up in the rickshaw, hands on her hips. “Should I call the sanitation department?” she says. “Because it sounds like you guys are talking a lot of shit. I don’t want any of it landing on me, if you know what I mean.”

  The tension bends, but doesn’t break.

  “We’re leaving now,” Kasim calls back to Nkosazana, but his gaze remains set upon Chiso. “I wish I could say it was good to see you two,” he says to our cousins, so much earnestness in his voice.

  “Umph, the grace on this one,” Chiso says. “It’s almost no fun. Even with a mouth full of elephant shit, he pretends everything is right as spice.” And then ey flicks Kasim right in his teeth.

  Kasim’s smile stays genuine, and I swear his skin takes on a golden hue, like he’s glowing from within. He will not be pressured. His temper will not flare. He is the coal that refuses to become diamond, the sand that refuses to become glass. I, however, do not have an ounce of grace within me.

  “Touch my brother again and lose your fingers,” I snarl, even before the whisper has a chance to goad me. I may love or hate him depending on the time of day, and even though we never see eye to eye, blood is thicker than virtue, thicker than vice. I would die for Kasim. I would kill for him, too.

  Good boy.

  Both Chiso and Chimwe back up, like they’ve been spooked. Behind the fog of my temper, I wonder if they see something aglow within me, too.

  I hate holding Nkosazana’s compact while she primps. And compact is a misnomer. It’s a big-ass mirror. A portable vanity, is more like it.

  “You’re sure your mom won’t be home until later?” Nkosazana asks as she tousles her hair, combing her fingers through the roots as she flips her luxurious store-bought mane from side to side.

  “We’ll be lucky if she comes home at all,” I say. “Relax, we’ve got the place to ourselves.”

  Nkosazana bats her lashes, then dusts her cheeks with powder, relines her eyes with smoky gray kohl, and sets another layer of shimmery wax upon her lips. Enticing contours form before my eyes, but they fail to stir me like they once did. Once you know a magician’s secret, the veil of awe lifts, and you can never go back.

  Unless you find yourself another magician with a new trick.

  My eyes flick across our cramped living room to Ruda, who’s frowning at the contents of her glass of tinibru, probably wondering if this chalky mix of mashed yam, fermented star apples, and pungent spices could possibly taste as awful as it smells. I’m eager to get her alone so I can impress her with the bulging treasure I’ve got for her in my pants.

  Those little wu dollies, of course.

  When I’d poured their tinibru, I’d spiked hers and Nkosazana’s with the versa wu. Nkosazana took hers well, with a little coaxing and a pretty straw. But the wu won’t work unless they both drink up. Then their vices will reverse, and suddenly Ruda will have to tend to the flames of a new hotness erupting in her pants. Flames I will gladly help her to extinguish.

  “Maybe we can move this party to the bedroom?” Nkosazana says, tugging my eyes back to her. As she talks, I see the perfect facade, superimposed on the imperfect reality beneath. The narrowness of her beauty bores me, although bedding twins on the same night would stoke my vainglory quite nicely.

  I nod my head. “I’d love to.”

  I take her by the hand, and wink at Kasim as we slip away into our room with giggles. He rolls his eyes, and I catch a twinge of envy again. Envy of what? I wonder. But the look has disappeared from his face already, and he’s back to sipping his tinibru in that annoying way he does, pinky finger out, like he’s too sophisticated to let the reek get to him.

  One thing Kasim and I do share is our obsession with cleanliness. Not once has our mother had to tell us to clean up our room. Kasim’s need is driven by grace, and a need for his surroundings to reflect the calm of his mind. I see the bedroom as an intimate extension of self, an outward expression of ego. Beyond that, our tastes in decor are the opposite, but we coexist well.

  That said, his comment about being his own person, needing his own space, still stings though. I don’t know, maybe deep down I thought we’d be the kind of twins who shared a room as bachelors. Him on the top bunk, me on the bottom, chatting about how awful our bosses were, about the new dive in the city bowl that served the best chutney over braised beef, about the girls that came into and out of our lives and how no love could come close to touching what he and I shared.

  Nkosazana runs her finger along the chair rail that divides our halves of the room. I’d gone hungry for a month, and had sold my subsidized meal card at pennies on the djang to save up for the most luxurious golden-velvet wallpaper that lines the bottom half of the room. Kasim painted the upper half a crisp sky blue. The warm wood trim of our windows and doors ties everything together, though apparently I’d never noticed that I’d hung so many mirrors. Eleven? Really? In any case, we might not have much, but it’s a place we can be proud of.

  “So this is where the magic happens each morning? Where Auben Mtuze yawns and stretches and decides he’s going to be the most handsome man on campus.”

  “Every day, up at the crack of dawn.” I’d meant to say ass crack, the same way I always do, but the word had somehow skipped right over my tongue. “Two hundred pushups, three laps along the inside of the comfy wall, then I sneak through the gym’s service entrance for a good steam shower to open the pores . . .” I stop myself before I get into my daily preening rituals. I’ve already shared too much. I like to keep my tricks close to my chest.

  “Really? You always say you wake up looking this good.” She grins and lays a hand on my thigh, then leans in close for a kiss. I oblige. The fog of lechery stirs. I wait for it to fill me from toes to ears, pushing out all other thoughts in my head except those needed by a doting lover, but the fog doesn’t thicken, just swirls loosely, never rising above my shins. I grit my teeth and concentrate with all my might. My knees prickle, my thighs. It’s slow coming, but I’m getting there, and just when I manage to get the fog to rise to where I need it the most, a knock comes at the door.

  “Auben,” Kasim says through the door. “Ruda says she’s bored and wants to go.”

  “Well then act like a person and entertain her,” I say through gritted teeth, trying to maintain my concentration. It’s never been this difficult. Lechery has always been my go-to vice. Definitely my favorite.

  “Entertain her with what?” Kasim asks.

  “Talk to her, you dolt.”

  “About?”

  “I don’t know. Flowers or deep-fried desserts or ancient princesses from Nri. Keep changing subjects
until something interests her.”

  “Maybe I can talk to her about ant colonies?” Kasim whispers. “They have queens.”

  “No ants, no spiders, no crickets, no roaches.” Even my temper struggles to ignite, but the effort is enough to cause my fog to shrivel up and retreat down to my ankles. “Forty fatty fritters,” I mumble under my breath.

  “What?” Nkosazana says.

  “Nothing. Just something Kasim says when he’s frustrated.” Instead of dropping a couple of f-bombs like I would.

  “Even with all the grief you give him, you really love him, don’t you? Back there, with your cousins, you surprised me. You put your neck out for him.”

  “I didn’t do anything special. He’s my brother. You’d do the same for Ruda.”

  “I don’t know. I mean, sure I’d speak out, but nothing that would risk messing up this face.” Nkosazana smiles her flawless smile, and eases in for another kiss.

  I wince. Suddenly her saliva in my mouth tastes of soured milk. I try not to think about it, and make another attempt to get the fogs stirring, but she and Ruda literally share the same blood. Maybe the in utero crossover didn’t run as deeply between them like it does between Kasim and me, but still, that’s no excuse. I tug back.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks, cheeks flushed.

  “What you said really bothers me.” I bite my tongue. My head spins. I’m pretty sure I’d meant to say “Nothing.” Eyes narrow. Auben Mtuze does not say “forty fatty fritters.” He doesn’t think eleven mirrors is excessive, and he definitely doesn’t have any sort of issue with getting it up. “You slipped us versa wu, didn’t you? Me and Kasim?”

  “Just a little bit in your tinibru. It will wear off soon. I have to know. Before we go any further, I want you to tell me that you love me.”

  Oh, the little she-devil. Bested at my own game. I hold the truth between my teeth. I don’t love her. I never have. Never will. She is just another accessory, one that looks good on my arm, and kisses even better. As soon as I open my mouth, the evening will be over. The truth will have her bolting out of the apartment, with Ruda tagging along behind. I can’t lie, but maybe I can channel my inner Kasim, and slip her a sideways truth.

  “Honestly, Nkosazana, if you walked out that door right now, I’d be devastated.” I smack my lips. I never thought the truth could taste so bitter.

  She smiles at this, but I can already tell my answer isn’t sufficient. “That’s so sweet. But I want to hear the actual words. Ruda says I’m a fool to have fallen for you, and that I can’t trust a word that slips off your forked tongue. But I know deep down, beneath the duplicity, you have real, true feelings for me.”

  “I’m not going to lie. I couldn’t if I wanted to,” I say, my mouth moving carefully around each syllable. Maybe I can still pull this off. But I have to make it believable. “Love is such a strong word, one I’m not ready to use. But I do know that all my heart will be in Nri this narrow season, aching for the smile of a certain rich, wonderful, amazing girl from Greater Bezile.”

  “You forgot beautiful,” Nkosazana says, bobbing her penciled-on brows.

  “I did,” I say, thinking of Ruda. Natural beauty. I don’t know how I’ve managed to go so long without seeing it. “You know, with this little plan of yours, I’m chaste now?”

  “Only for the next thirty minutes or so.” Her hand rubs over my doll-stuffed pocket. “Oh! Or maybe sooner.”

  I smile to myself, a little pang of vainglory tickling at my ego. Yes, even under the magic of versa wu, I am this good. “Don’t get excited yet,” I say to Nkosazana. “Those are just the wu dolls I stole to impress your sister—” I clap my hands over my mouth seconds too late.

  I cringe and cover my soft bits, waiting for her to enrage. Nkosazana is always keeping tallies—if I stared a second too long at a cute girl passing us in the hall, or if I talked too enthusiastically about how the lunch lady must like me since she’d piled an extra helping of mopane worms and onions on my tray (even though it was mostly onions), I could expect a knee to the groin or a punch in the chest. But neither of those things come. “I’m highly disappointed in you, Auben,” she says instead. Her eyes widen. “Why can’t I get angry at you?” Wider. “You slipped us versa wu, also? No, no, no. This is all in our heads . . . it has to be.”

  But if it’s not, that means both Nkosazana and I are chaste.

  Which means that . . .

  Nkosazana and I take a panicked look at each other and then rush to the bedroom door. Neither of us can open it fast enough. There they are, on the couch, half-naked. Kasim on top. More slobber migrating between their lips than I’ve ever seen in my life. Ruda’s fingers rub over the chimeral stripes on Kasim’s back—the dark brown of my skin embedded into the light brown of his. It is the only thing I have ever envied about him. They are regal, better even than mine, and I think quite highly of mine. And now Ruda is stroking them with such tenderness, when she should be stroking me. I catch a hint of her breasts peeking from beneath the press of Kasim’s chest.

  Finally, he comes up for a breath and looks me dead in the eyes. “I figured out a way to entertain her,” he says, my lecherous smile on his lips. It does not last long, however, because the very next second, the sound of metal on metal comes from the front door.

  “Mother’s home,” Kasim and I say simultaneously, with equal terror.

  This isn’t the first time Mother’s come home early to catch me up to no good. We assume our roles. I rush to the door to stall Mother, while Kasim herds the girls back into our room and down the fire escape. I’ve never seen them move so fast. In our frantic state, I almost forget that I am no longer armed with my lies. I smile wide as Mother steps into our home. I kiss her on the cheek, right as I hear the bedroom door shut.

  “Mother, you’re home early,” I say carefully. I can’t mess up like I did with Nkosazana.

  Mother kicks off her boots, sets her work bag next to her slender and stately striped ebony writing desk by the living room window, then plucks diminutive yellow ribbons from her mussed hair and discards them into a glass jar that sits upon the window sill.

  “Where’s your shirt?” Mother says, taking a scant moment to look up at me as she glides gracefully to the kitchen as if she hadn’t been on her feet for the past ten hours. She stokes the coke coals in our cast iron stove, and the front grill alights with a devilish, red-orange grin. Then she tosses her hot comb onto a burner. “I won’t have you running around all narrow season looking like I can’t afford to have you properly clothed. And what’s with all the glasses? How many times must I tell you boys not to dirty up a cup every time you’re thirsty? I get paid to clean up after filthy sluggards all day, and you can bet your ass I’m not going to come home and do it for free.”

  “Yes, Mother,” I say, gathering up the glasses and rinsing them out in the sink. Our kitchen is small, and we stand shoulder to shoulder. She smells of orange blossoms and harsh cleaning chemicals, a scent I always long for, though it tickles my nose and stings my eyes in the most horrid way.

  “Where is that brother of yours anyway?”

  The truth shall set you free . . .

  “He’s . . .” in the bedroom, helping a couple of girls out of the apartment so that you won’t be angry and kick us out. Yes, we’d be free, but we’d be homeless, too. “. . . tidying up a big mess in the bedroom,” I say with a sigh.

  But Mother’s already lost interest. She’s beyond agitated, opening and slamming the cabinets, cussing under her breath as she looks for something. “I can’t believe she’s doing this to me. Again. Like I can afford to take time off from work! With two hours’ notice! If I end up losing my job over this, she’ll be paying our rent until I find something else, because there’s no way we’re moving in with them. No way!”

  “Aunt Cisse again?” I dare.

  “Of course it’s that inconsiderate sister of mine! Who else would it be? Your uncle’s traveling to important meetings all through the first week of the
narrow season, so she wants us all to come up tonight to celebrate. One of her big impressive dinners. Two full-time cooks, and she has the nerve to ask me to bring a dish! Go put on some clothes. Something nice.”

  I don’t waste time getting out of that room. Kasim’s alone now, sitting on the top bunk. I close the door behind me and lock it. Outside the still-open window, the girls’ rickshaw pulls away from our tenement block, and with it, all hopes of starting the narrow season with a little warmth. “Everything okay in here?” I ask, scrambling up onto the top bunk and sitting next to him.

  “Not really. Everything okay out there?”

  “Not really. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I’ve never lied to you, Auben. And I don’t want to start now.” From the tone in Kasim’s voice, I can tell his temper is running hot, and if it’s anything like mine, I don’t want to cross him.

  “And I don’t want to mess things up any more by telling the truth,” I say. We both laugh at this. “But I am sorry for being such a horrible brother.”

  “You’re not horrible,” Kasim says too fast. “Shit. So much for never lying to you. Okay, you’re horrible, but horrible in the best possible way.” He lays an arm over my shoulder, tugs me close, like I am his and he is glad to have me. I study him, the way his eyes beam off into a future of limitless possibilities, the comfort in his crooked smile, every imperfection masterfully placed—a reflection of the flaws of humankind. He is the magnificent one. Always has been. I’ve just been too cocky to see it.

  I hang my head, humbled to say the least. “Thanks, Kasim. I wish I could say I’d try harder . . .” But we both know that’d only last for as long as it takes the versa wu to wear off.

  “I’m ready to put an end to this awful day.”

  “Oh, yeah, about that. Mother says we’re going up to Greater Bezile tonight.”

  “Aunt Cisse’s place?”

  “Yep. She’s pretty pissed about it, so I’m sure it’ll be a lovely evening all around.”

  Kasim shivers, like a cool breeze has caught him by surprise. Or perhaps the sudden touch of a silken scarf across his skin. He leaps down, feet padding softly against the floor like he’s immune to gravity. He slings shirt after shirt out of our closet, until he holds up just the right one—deep red shweshwe print, gaudy rhinestones lining the collar and along either side of the button-down front, stiff black lace ruffling the bottom.