I am standing beside the window, and I look down to see a group of people gathered, peering up and pointing. Tade rarely puts on the air conditioner and his window is usually open. He told me he likes to hear Lagos while he works—the never-ending car horns, the shouts of hawkers and tires screeching on the road. Now Lagos listens to him.
The little girl sniffs, and wipes away her mucus with the back of her hand. She waddles toward him. When she is older, she will remember him as her first love. She will think of how perfect his crooked nose was, and how soulful his eyes. But even if she forgets his face, his voice will stay with her in her dreams.
He scoops her into his arms and dries her tears with a tissue. He looks up at me expectantly and I shake myself out of my reverie. She doesn’t notice as I approach her with the needle. She doesn’t budge as I wipe her thigh with an alcohol swab. She tries to join him in song, her voice broken by the occasional sniff and hiccup. Her mother twists her wedding ring with her finger, as though contemplating taking it off. I consider passing her a tissue to catch the drool that threatens to spill from her mouth.
The little girl flinches as I inject the drug into her, but Tade’s grip on her is firm. It’s all over.
“Aren’t you a brave girl?” he says to her. She beams and this time is willing to collect her prize, a cherry-flavored lollipop.
“You are so good with kids,” her mother coos. “Do you have any of your own?”
“No, I don’t. One day, though.” He smiles at her, showing off his perfect teeth and creasing his eyes. She can be forgiven for believing that this smile is just for her, but it is the smile he gives to everyone. It is the smile he gives to me. She blushes.
“And you are not married?” (Madam, do you want two husbands?)
“No, no, I’m not.”
“I have a sister. She is very—”
“Dr. Otumu, here are the prescriptions.”
Tade looks up at me, confused by my abruptness. Later, he will tell me gently, always gently, that I shouldn’t cut patients off. They come to the hospital for healing and, sometimes, it’s not just their bodies that need attention.
RED
Yinka is painting her nails at the reception desk. Bunmi sees me coming and nudges her, but it is a pointless warning—Yinka will not stop on my account. She acknowledges my presence with a feline smile.
“Korede, those shoes are nice o!”
“Thanks.”
“The original must be very expensive.”
Bunmi chokes on the water she is sipping, but I won’t rise to the bait. Tade’s voice is still ringing in my body, calming me as it calmed the child. I ignore her and turn to Bunmi.
“I’m going to take my lunch break now.”
I head to the second floor with food in hand and knock on Tade’s office door, waiting for his rich voice to grant entry. Gimpe, another cleaner (with all these cleaners, you would think the hospital would be spotless), looks my way and gives me a friendly, knowing smile—showing off her high cheekbones. I refuse to return it; she knows nothing about me. I try to bury my nerves and give the door another gentle knock.
“Come in.”
I am not entering his office in my capacity as a nurse. My hands are holding a container of rice and ẹ̀fọ́. I can tell that the smell makes its way to him as soon as I walk in.
“To what do I owe this honor?”
“You rarely take advantage of your lunch break…so I thought I would bring lunch to you.”
He accepts the container from me, and peers inside, inhaling deeply. “You made this? It smells exquisite!”
“Here.” I hand him a fork and he digs in. He closes his eyes and sighs, and then opens them to smile at me.
“This is…Korede…men…you’re going to make someone an awesome wife.”
I’m sure the grin on my face is too big to be captured in a picture. I feel it all the way to my toes.
“I’m going to have to eat the rest of this later,” he tells me, “I need to finish this report.”
I stand up from the corner of the desk that I had made my temporary seat, and offer to stop by later for the Tupperware.
“Korede, seriously, thank you. You’re the best.”
* * *
—
There is a woman in the waiting room trying to calm a crying baby by rocking it back and forth, but the child won’t be hushed. It is irritating some of the other patients who are waiting in reception. It is irritating me. I head toward her with a rattle, on the off chance that it will distract the baby, just as the entrance doors open—
Ayoola walks in, and every head turns her way and stays there. I stop where I am, rattle in hand, trying to understand what is happening. She looks as though she has brought the sunshine in with her. She is wearing a bright yellow shirtdress that by no means hides her generous breasts. Her feet are in green, strappy heels that make up for what she lacks in height, and she is holding a white clutch, big enough to house a nine-inch weapon.
She smiles at me, and saunters in my direction. I hear a man mutter “Damn” under his breath.
“Ayoola, what are you doing here?” My voice is tight in my throat.
“It’s lunchtime!”
“And?”
She floats away not answering my question and heads toward the reception desk. Their eyes are fixed on her and she smiles her best smile. “You’re my sister’s friends?”
They open their mouths and shut them again.
“You’re Korede’s sister?” Yinka squeaks. I can see her trying to make the connection, measuring Ayoola’s looks against mine. The resemblance is there—we share the same mouth, the same eyes—but Ayoola looks like a Bratz doll and I resemble a voodoo figurine. Yinka, who is arguably the most attractive employee at St. Peter’s, with her cherub nose and wide lips, pales to the point of insignificance beside Ayoola. She knows it, too; she is twirling her expensive hair with her fingers and has pushed back her shoulders.
“What scent is that?” asks Bunmi. “It’s like…it’s really…”
Ayoola leans forward and whispers something into Bunmi’s ear, and then she straightens up. “It’s our little secret, okay?” She winks at Bunmi, and Bunmi’s usually impassive face lights up. I’ve had enough. I head toward the desk.
Just then, I hear Tade’s voice and my heart quickens. I grab Ayoola, dragging her toward the exit.
“Hey!”
“You have to go!”
“What? Why? Why are you being so—”
“What’s going…” Tade’s voice trails to nothing and the blood cools within my body. Ayoola frees herself from my grip, but it doesn’t matter; it’s too late anyway. His eyes settle on Ayoola and dilate. He adjusts his coat. “What’s going on?” he says again, his voice suddenly husky.
“I’m Korede’s sister,” she announces.
He looks from her to me, then back to her again. “I didn’t know you had a sister?” He is talking to me, but his eyes have not left hers.
Ayoola pouts. “I think she is ashamed of me.”
He smiles at her; it is a kind smile. “Of course not. Who could be? Sorry, I didn’t get your name.”
“Ayoola.” She puts out her hand, the way a queen would for her subjects.
He takes it and gives it a gentle squeeze. “I’m Tade.”
SCHOOL
I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I realized that Ayoola was beautiful and I was…not. But what I do know is that I was aware of my own inadequacies long before.
Secondary school can be cruel. The boys would write lists of those who had a figure eight—like a Coca-Cola bottle—and those who had a figure one—like a stick. They would draw pictures of girls and exaggerate their best or worst features and tack them on the school notice board for the world to see—at least until the teachers took the pictures down, teari
ng them from the pins, an act that left a little shred of paper stuck like a taunt.
When they drew me, it was with lips that could belong to a gorilla and eyes that seemed to push every other feature out of the way. I told myself boys were immature and dumb, so it didn’t matter that they didn’t want me; and it didn’t matter that some of them tried anyway because they assumed I’d be so grateful for the attention that I’d do whatever they wanted. I stayed away from all of them. I mocked girls for swooning over guys, judged them for kissing, and held them in contempt at every opportunity. I was above it all.
I was fooling no one.
Two years in, I was hardened and ready to protect my sister, who I was sure would receive the same treatment that I had. Maybe hers would be even worse. She would come to me each day weeping and I would wrap my arms around her and soothe her. It would be us against the world.
Rumor has it that she was asked out on her first day, by a boy in SS2. It was unprecedented. Boys in the senior classes didn’t notice juniors, and when they did, they rarely tried to make it official. She said no. But I received the message loud and clear.
STAIN
“I just thought we should spend lunchtime together.”
“No, you wanted to see where I work.”
“And what’s wrong with that, Korede?” my mother exclaims. “You’ve been working there for a year and your sister has never seen the place!” She is horrified by this, as she is by every injustice that she feels Ayoola suffers.
The house girl brings the stew out of the kitchen and sets it on the table. Ayoola leans forward and serves herself a bowlful. She has unwrapped the àmàlà and dipped it in the soup before my mother and I have finished serving ourselves.
We sit in our customary places at our rectangular table: my mother and I are seated on the left, Ayoola on the right. There used to be a chair at the head of the table, but I burnt it down to a crisp in a bonfire just outside our compound. We don’t talk about that. We don’t talk about him.
“Your aunty Taiwo called today,” Mum begins.
“Did she now?”
“Yes. She says she would like to hear from both of you more.” Mum pauses, waiting for some sort of response from one of us.
“Can you pass the okro, please?” I ask.
My mother passes the okro.
“So,” she pivots, seeing as her previous topic baited no one, “Ayoola said there is a cute doctor at your work.”
I drop the bowl of okro and it spills on the table—it is green and filmy, quickly seeping into the floral tablecloth.
“Korede!”
I dab at it with a cloth but I can barely hear her—my thoughts are eating my brain.
I can feel Ayoola’s eyes on me and I try to calm down. The house girl runs to clean the stain, but the water she uses makes the stain bigger than it was before.
HOME
I am staring at the painting that hangs above the piano nobody plays.
He commissioned it after he passed off a shipment of refurbished cars to a car dealership as brand-new—a painting of the house his dodgy deals had built. (Why have a painting of the house you live in, hanging inside said house?)
As a child I would go stand before it and wish myself inside. I imagined that our alternates were living within its watercolor walls. I dreamt that laughter and love lay beyond the green lawn, inside the white columns and the heavy oak door.
The painter even added a dog barking at a tree, as if he knew that we used to have one. She was soft and brown and she made the mistake of peeing in his office. We never saw her again. The painter could not have known this; and yet, there is a dog in the painting and sometimes I swear I could hear her bark.
The beauty of our home could never compare to the beauty of the painting, with its perpetual pink dawn and leaves that never withered, and its bushes, tinted with otherworldly shades of yellow and purple, ringing the garden. In the painting, the outside walls are always a crisp white, while in reality we have not been able to repaint them and they are now a bleached-out yellow.
When he died, I sold every other painting he had bought for the cash. It was no great loss. If I could have gotten rid of the house itself, I would have. But he had built our southern-style home from scratch, which meant no rent and no mortgage (besides, no one was interested in acquiring a home of that size, when the paperwork for the land it was built on was dubious at best). So instead of moving into a smaller apartment, we managed the maintenance costs of our grand, history-rich home as best we could.
I glance at the painting once more as I make the trip from bedroom to kitchen. There are no people in it, which is just as well. But if you squint, you can see a shadow through one of the windows that looks like it might be a woman.
“Your sister just wants to be around you, you know. You are her best friend.” It is my mother. She comes to stand beside me. Mother still talks about Ayoola as if she were a child, rather than a woman who rarely hears the word “no.” “What harm will it do if she comes to your workplace now and again?”
“It’s a hospital, Mum, not a park.”
“Eh, we have heard. You stare at that painting too much,” she says, changing the subject. I look away, and instead direct my eyes to the piano.
We should really have sold the piano, too. I swipe my finger across the lid, making a line in the dust. My mother sighs and walks away, because she knows I won’t be able to rest until there is not a speck of dust left on the piano’s surface. I head to the supply cabinet and grab a set of wipes. If only I could wipe away all our memories with it.
BREAK
“You didn’t tell me you have a sister.”
“Mm.”
“I mean, I know the school you went to and the name of your first boyfriend. I even know that you love to eat popcorn with syrup drizzled on it—”
“You really need to try it sometime.”
“—but I didn’t know you have a sister.”
“Well, you know now.”
I turn away from Tade and dispose of the needles on the metal tray. He could do it himself, but I like to find ways to make his work easier. He is hunched over his desk, scribbling on the page before him. No matter how quickly he writes, his handwriting is large and its loops connect letter to letter. It is neat and clear. The scratching sound of the pen stills, and he clears his throat.
“Is she seeing anyone?”
I think of Femi sleeping on the ocean bed, being nibbled at by fishes. “She is taking a break.”
“A break?”
“Yes. She isn’t going to be dating anyone for a while.”
“Why?”
“Her relationships tend to end badly.”
“Oh…guys can be jerks.” This sounds strange coming from a guy, but Tade has always been sensitive. “Do you think she would mind if you gave me her number?” I think of Tade, fish swimming by as he drifts down toward the ocean bed, toward Femi.
I place the syringe back on the tray carefully so I don’t accidentally stab myself with it.
“I’ll have to ask her,” I tell him, though I don’t intend to ask Ayoola anything. If he doesn’t see her, she will fade into the far reaches of his mind like a cold draft on an otherwise warm day.
FLAW
“So, you people share the same father and mother?”
“She told you she is my sister.”
“But is she your full sister? She looks kinda mixed.”
Yinka is really starting to piss me off. The sad thing is that her questions are neither the most obnoxious I have received in my lifetime nor the most uncommon. After all, Ayoola is short—her only flaw, if you consider that to be a flaw—whereas I am almost six feet tall; Ayoola’s skin is a color that sits comfortably between cream and caramel and I am the color of a Brazil nut, before it is peeled; she is made wholly of curves and I am co
mposed only of hard edges.
“Have you informed Dr. Imo that the X-ray is ready?” I snap.
“No, I—”
“Then I suggest you do that.”
I walk away from her before she has a chance to finish her excuse. Assibi is making the beds on the second floor and Mohammed is flirting with Gimpe right in front of me. They’re standing close to each other, his hand pressed on the wall as he leans toward her. He will have to wipe that spot down. Neither of them see me—his back is to me, and her eyes are cast down, lapping up the honeyed compliments he must be paying her. Can’t she smell him? Perhaps she can’t; Gimpe also gives off a rank smell. It is the smell of sweat, of unwashed hair, of cleaning products, of decomposed bodies under a bridge…
“Nurse Korede!”
I blink. The couple has vanished. Apparently I’ve been standing in the shadows for a while, lost in thought. Bunmi is looking at me quizzically. I wonder how many times she has called me. She is hard to read. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot going on in her frontal lobe.
“What is it?”
“Your sister is downstairs.”
“Excuse me?”
I don’t wait for her to repeat her statement and I don’t wait for the lift—I run down the stairs. But when I get to the reception area, Ayoola is nowhere to be seen and I am panting for breath. Perhaps my colleagues have sensed how much my sister’s presence here rattles me; maybe they are messing with me.
“Yinka, where is my sister?” I wheeze.
“Ayoola?”
“Yes. The only sister I have.”
My Sister, the Serial Killer Page 4
