My Sister, the Serial Killer

by Oyinkan Braithwaite

  A man enters the hospital and makes a beeline for the reception desk. He is short, but he makes up for that in girth. He barrels toward us, and I brace myself for the impact.

  “I have an appointment!”

  Yinka grits her teeth and offers him her best smile. “Good morning, sir, can I take your name?”

  He tosses her his name and she checks the files, thumbing through them slowly. You can’t rush Yinka, but she slows down intentionally when you push her buttons. Soon the man is tapping his fingers, then his feet. She raises her eyes and peers at him through her lashes, then lowers them again and continues her search. He starts to puff up his cheeks; he is about to explode. I consider stepping in and diffusing the situation, but a yelling from a patient might do Yinka some good, so I settle back into my seat and watch.

  My phone lights up and I glance at it. Ayoola. It is the third time she has called, but I am not in the mood to talk to her. Maybe she is reaching out because she has sent another man to his grave prematurely, or maybe she wants to know if I can buy eggs on the way home. Either way, I’m not picking up.

  “Ah, here it is,” Yinka cries, even though I have seen her examine that exact file twice and continue her search. He breathes out through his nostrils.

  “Sir, you are thirty minutes late for your appointment.”

  “Ehen?”

  It is her turn to breathe out.

  This morning is quieter than usual. From where we sit, we can see everyone in the waiting area. It is shaped like an arc, with the reception desk and sofas facing the entrance and a large-screen TV. If we dimmed the lights, we would have ourselves a personal cinema. The sofas are a rich burgundy color, but everything else is devoid of color. (The decorator was not trying to broaden anyone’s horizons.) If hospitals had a flag it would be white—the universal sign for surrender.

  A child runs out of the playroom to her mum and then runs back in. There is no one else waiting to be attended to except the man who is right now getting on Yinka’s nerves. She sweeps a curl of Monrovian hair from her eyes and stares at him.

  “Have you eaten today, sir?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, good. According to your chart, you haven’t had a blood sugar test in a while. Would you like to have one?”

  “Yes. Put it there. How much is it?” She tells him the price, and he hisses.

  “You are very foolish. Abeg, what do I need that for? You people will just be calling price anyhow, as if you are paying someone’s bill!”

  Yinka glances my way. I know she is checking if I am still there, still watching her. She is recalling that if she steps out of line she will be forced to listen to my well-rehearsed speech about the code and culture of St. Peter’s. She smiles through clenched teeth.

  “No blood sugar test it is then, sir. Please take a seat, and I will let you know when the doctor is ready to see you.”

  “You mean he is not free now?”

  “No. Unfortunately you are now”—she checks her watch—“forty minutes late, so you’ll have to wait till the doctor has a free appointment.”

  The man gives a terse shake of his head and then takes his seat, staring at the television. After a minute he asks us to change the channel. Yinka mutters a series of curses under her breath, masked only by the occasional sounds of delight from the child in the sunny playroom and the football commentary from the TV.

  DANCING

  There is music blasting from Ayoola’s room. She is listening to Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” It would be more appropriate to play Brymo or Lorde, something solemn or yearning, rather than the musical equivalent of a packet of M&M’S.

  I want to have a shower, to rinse the smell of the hospital’s disinfectant off my skin, but instead I open the door. She doesn’t sense my presence—she has her back to me and is thrusting her hips from side to side, her bare feet stroking the white fur rug as she steps this way and that. Her movements are in no way rhythmical; they are the movements of someone who has no audience and no self-consciousness to shackle them. Days ago, we gave a man to the sea, but here she is, dancing.

  I lean on the door frame and watch her, trying and failing to understand how her mind works. She remains as impenetrable to me as the elaborate “artwork” daubed across her walls. She used to have an artist friend, who painted the bold black strokes over the whitewash. It feels out of place in this dainty room with its white furniture and plush toys. He would have been better off painting an angel or a fairy. At the time, I could tell that he hoped his generous act and his artistic talents would secure him a place in her heart, or at the very least a place in her bed, but he was short and had teeth that were fighting for space in his mouth. So all it got him was a pat on the head and a can of Coke.

  She starts to sing; her voice is off-key. I clear my throat. “Ayoola.”

  She turns to me, still dancing; her smile spreads. “How was work?”

  “It was alright.”

  “Cool.” She shakes her hips and bends her knees. “I called you.”

  “I was busy.”

  “Wanted to come and take you out for lunch.”

  “Thanks, but I normally eat lunch at work.”

  “Okay o.”

  “Ayoola,” I begin again, gently.

  “Hmmm?”

  “Maybe I should take the knife.”

  She slows her movements, until all she is doing is swaying side to side with the occasional swing of her arm. “What?”

  “I said, maybe I should take the knife.”

  “Why?”

  “Well…you don’t need it.”

  She considers my words. It takes her the time it takes paper to burn.

  “No thanks. I think I’ll hold on to it.” She increases the tempo of her dance, whirling away from me. I decide to try a different approach. I pick up her iPod and turn the volume down. She faces me again and frowns. “What is it now?”

  “It’s not a good idea to have it, you know, in case the authorities ever come to the house to search. You could just toss it in the lagoon and reduce the risk of getting caught.”

  She crosses her arms and narrows her eyes. We stare at each other for a moment, then she sighs and drops her arms.

  “The knife is important to me, Korede. It is all I have left of him.”

  Perhaps if it were someone else at the receiving end of this show of sentimentality, her words would hold some weight. But she cannot fool me. It is a mystery how much feeling Ayoola is even capable of.

  I wonder where she keeps the knife. I never come across it, except in those moments when I am looking down at the bleeding body before me, and sometimes I don’t even see it then. For some reason, I cannot imagine her resorting to stabbing if that particular knife were not in her hand; almost as if it were the knife and not her that was doing the killing. But then, is that so hard to believe? Who is to say that an object does not come with its own agenda? Or that the collective agenda of its previous owners does not direct its purpose still?

  FATHER

  Ayoola inherited the knife from him (and by “inherited” I mean she took it from his possessions before his body was cold in the ground). It made sense that she would take it—it was the thing he was most proud of.

  He kept it sheathed and locked in a drawer, but he would bring it out whenever we had guests to show it off to. He would hold the nine-inch curved blade between his fingers, drawing the viewer’s attention to the black comma-like markings carved and printed in the pale bone hilt. The presentation usually came with a story.

  Sometimes, the knife was a gift from a university colleague—Tom, given to him for saving Tom’s life during a boating accident. At other times, he had wrenched the knife from the hand of a soldier who had tried to kill him with it. Finally—and his personal favorite—the knife was in recognition of a deal he had m
ade with a sheik. The deal was so successful that he was given the choice between the sheik’s daughter and the last knife made by a long-dead craftsman. The daughter had a lazy eye, so he took the knife.

  These stories were the closest things to bedtime tales we had. And we enjoyed the moment when he would bring out the knife with a flourish, his guests instinctively shrinking back. He always laughed, encouraging them to examine the weapon. As they oohed and aahed, he nodded, reveling in their admiration. Inevitably, someone would ask the question he was waiting for—“Where did you get it?”—and he would look at the knife as though seeing it for the first time, rotating it until it caught the light, before he launched into whichever tale he thought best for his audience.

  When the guests were gone he would polish the knife meticulously with a rag and a small bottle of rotor oil, cleaning away the memory of the hands that had touched it. I used to watch as he squeezed a few drops of oil out, gently rubbing it along the blade with his finger in soft circular motions. This was the only time I ever witnessed tenderness from him. He took his time, rarely taking note of my presence. When he got up to rinse the oil from the blade, I would take my leave. It was by no means the end of the cleaning regimen, but it seemed best to be gone before it was over, in case his mood shifted during the process.

  Once, when she thought he had gone out for the day, Ayoola entered his study and found his desk drawer unlocked. She took the knife out to look, smearing it with the chocolate she had just been eating. She was still in the room when he returned. He dragged her out by her hair, screaming. I turned up just in time to witness him fling her across the hallway.

  * * *

  —

  I am not surprised she took the knife. If I had thought of it first, I would have taken a hammer to it.

  KNIFE

  Maybe she keeps it under her queen-sized bed or in her chest of drawers? Perhaps it is hidden in the pile of clothes stuffed into her walk-in closet? Her eyes follow mine as they roam the bedroom.

  “You’re not thinking of sneaking in here and taking it, are you?”

  “I don’t understand why you need it. It’s dangerous to have it in the house. Give it to me, and I’ll take care of it.”

  She sighs and shakes her head.

  ÈFÓ

  I took almost nothing from my father, in terms of looks. When I look at my mother, I am looking at my future self, though I could not be any less like her if I tried.

  She is beached on the sofa in the downstairs living room, reading a Mills & Boon novel—a tale of the type of love she has never known. Beside her, in an armchair, Ayoola is hunched over, scrolling through her phone. I walk past them and reach for the adjoining door to the kitchen.

  “You are going to cook?” my mum asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Korede, teach your sister now. How will she look after her husband if she cannot cook?”

  Ayoola pouts but says nothing. She doesn’t mind being in the kitchen. She likes to sample everything she sets her eyes on.

  In our home, the house girl and I do most of the cooking; my mother cooks too, but not as much as she used to when he was alive. Ayoola, on the other hand—well, it’ll be interesting to see whether she can do anything more strenuous than putting bread in the toaster.

  “Sure,” I say, as Ayoola gets up to follow.

  The house girl has prepared everything that I will need and set it aside on the counter, already washed and chopped. I like her. She is neat and has a calm demeanor, but more important, she knows nothing about him. We let go of all our staff after he passed, for “practical” reasons. We went a year with no help, which is harder than it sounds in a house of this size.

  The chicken is already boiling. Ayoola opens the lid so the smell escapes, thick with fat and Maggi. “Mmm.” She sucks in the aroma and moistens her cherry lips. The house girl blushes. “You try o!”

  “Thank you, ma.”

  “Maybe I should help you taste if it is ready,” Ayoola suggests, smiling.

  “Maybe you could help by chopping the spinach.”

  Ayoola looks at all the prepped goods. “But it is already chopped na.”

  “I need more.” The house girl hurries to get another bushel of spinach, but I call her back. “No, let Ayoola do it.”

  Ayoola sighs theatrically but fetches the spinach from the pantry. She picks up a knife, and unwittingly I think of Femi slumped in the bathroom, his hand not far from where the wound was, as though he had tried to stop the blood loss. How long was it before he died? Her grip is loose and the blade is pointed downward. She chops the spinach quickly and roughly, wielding the knife like a child would, with no care toward what the finished product will look like. I am tempted to stop her. The house girl tries not to laugh. I suspect that Ayoola is going out of her way to frustrate me.

  I choose to ignore her and instead pour palm oil into a pot and add onions and peppers, which soon begin to fry.

  “Ayoola, are you watching?”

  “Mm-hmm,” she replies as she leans on the counter and types furiously on her phone with one hand. She is still gripping the kitchen knife with the other. I go over to her, remove her fingers from the hilt and take the knife from her possession. She blinks.

  “Please focus; after this we add the tàtàsé.”

  “Got it.”

  As soon as I turn my back, I hear the tapping sound of her keypad again. I am tempted to react, but I have left the palm oil for too long and it is beginning to spit and hiss at me. I reduce the heat of the flame and decide to forget about my sister for the time being. If she wants to learn, she will.

  “What are we making again?”

  Seriously?

  “Èfọ́,” the house girl replies.

  Ayoola nods solemnly and angles her phone over the pot of simmering ẹ̀fọ́, just as I add the spinach.

  “Hey people, ẹ̀fọ́ loading!”

  For a moment, I am frozen, spinach still in hand. Could she really be uploading videos to Snapchat? Then I shake myself out of the trance. I grab the phone from her and hit delete, staining the screen with the oil on my hands.

  “Hey!”

  “Too soon, Ayoola. Way too soon.”

  #3

  “Femi makes three, you know. Three, and they label you a serial killer.”

  I whisper the words in case anyone were to pass Muhtar’s door. In case my words were to float through the two inches of wood and tickle the ears of a passerby. Aside from confiding in a comatose man, I take no risks. “Three,” I repeat to myself.

  Last night I couldn’t sleep, so I stopped counting backward and sat at my desk, turning on my laptop. I found myself typing “serial killer” into the Google search box at 3 a.m. There it was: three or more murders…serial killer.

  I rub my legs to rid them of the pins and needles that have set in. Is there any point in telling Ayoola what I have learned?

  “Somewhere, deep down, she must know, right?”

  I look at Muhtar. His beard has grown again. If it is not shaved at least once a fortnight, it gets knotted and threatens to cover half his face. Someone must have overlooked items in his care roster. Yinka is usually the culprit in matters such as these.

  The faint sound of whistling in the corridor, drawing nearer. Tade. When he is not singing, he is humming, and when he tires of that, he whistles. He is a walking music box. The sound of him lifts my spirits. I walk to the door and open it just as he is approaching. He smiles at me.

  I wave at him, then drop my hand, chastising myself for my eagerness. A smile would have been more than enough.

  “I should have known you’d be here.”

  He opens the file he is carrying, glances at it and then hands it over. It is Muhtar’s file. There is nothing of note in it. He hasn’t gotten better or worse. The time when they will make the call is dra
wing nearer. I twist my head to get another look at Muhtar. He is at peace, and I envy him that. Every time I close my eyes I see a dead man. I wonder what it would be like to see nothing again.

  “I know you care about him. I just want to make sure you’re prepared if…” His voice trails off.

  “He’s a patient, Tade.”

  “I know, I know. But there’s no shame in caring about another human being’s fate.”

  He touches my shoulder gently, a gesture of comfort. Muhtar will die eventually, but he won’t die in a pool of his own blood and he won’t be devoured by the saltwater crabs that thrive in the water below the third mainland bridge. His family will know his fate. Tade’s warm hand lingers on my shoulder, and I lean into it.

  “On a more positive note, rumor has it you are going to be promoted to head nurse!” he tells me, abruptly removing his hand. It’s not a huge surprise; the post has been vacant for some time and who else could fill it? Yinka? I’m much more concerned with the hand that no longer lingers on my shoulder.

  “Great,” I say, because that is what he’d expect me to say.

  “When you get it, we will celebrate.”

  “Cool.” I hope I sound nonchalant.

  SONG

  Tade has the smallest office of all the doctors, but I have never heard him complain. If it has even occurred to him that it may be unjust, he doesn’t show it.

  But today, the size of his office works to our advantage. At the sight of the needle, the little girl bolts for the door. Her legs are short, so she doesn’t get far. Her mother grabs her.

  “No!” cries the girl, kicking and scratching. She is like a wild chicken. Her mother grits her teeth and bears the pain. I wonder if this was what she imagined when she was posing for her pregnancy photo shoot and making merry at the baby shower.

  Tade dips his hand into the bowl of candy he keeps on his desk for his child patients, but she smacks away the proffered lollipop. His smile does not falter; he begins to sing. His voice fills up the room, submerging my brain. Everything stills. The child pauses, confused. She looks up at her mother, who is transfixed by the voice too. It doesn’t matter that he sings “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” We still have goosebumps. Is there anything more beautiful than a man with a voice like an ocean?