That same night, as the man was taking out the garbage after frying sweet potatoes and egg sauce for a late dinner, he saw the big brown rat on his doorstep for the first time.
Part II
In a Family Way
The Swimming Pool
by Sarah Ladipo Manyika
Victoria Island
Luke Adewale, president and CEO of Competent Communications, died suddenly and unexpectedly after a tragic fall at his home residence on Friday. He was sixty years old, and expired after sustaining severe injuries. In addition to his dedication to his beloved wife, daughter, and the rest of his family, he was also an avid gardener, amateur swimmer, and self-made house designer. In his limited free time, he enjoyed evening strolls, table tennis, and watching sports, in particular Chelsea F.C. He was a dedicated and humble church member and was passionate about supporting causes that improved the lives of young girls and women. An ocean of condolences immediately began to pour in as soon as his passing was announced.
Speaking of oceans, Victoria Island is slipping into the Atlantic, but nobody wants to know. People have other, more pressing things to worry about. Take Mr. Adewale, for example, who, on his last day, while having breakfast, complains most vociferously about the neighbors. Would he have done so had he known that the next day these same neighbors would be wailing at the news of his death? But in that moment, as in every moment of his life, his own death fails to cross his mind. His audience, Mrs. Adewale, gently reminds him that where they live is still considered the crème de la crème of Lagos, which brings Mr. Adewale no comfort. He built his Victoria Island mansion in 1991, and deems every house constructed thereafter an encroachment — a mass of higgledy-piggledy dwellings conspiring to block his ocean view. So no, Victoria Island is not the crème de la crème. Not anymore.
“Listen,” he says, opening the sliding doors so that the wife might better hear the roar of the neighbor’s pneumatic drill and the drone of generators.
“Yes, dear. Please close it,” she sighs, slapping about her legs in expectation of mosquitoes let in from outside.
“You see what I mean?” he presses, impatiently kissing his teeth. “All of this random construction with no zoning laws, no building codes, and no thought for aesthetics! Is this the sort of legacy we want to leave for our children?” He believes he’s made his case, oblivious to the fact that his wife is bored with the topic and especially bored with him.
Mrs. Adewale finds her husband’s ramblings tiresome and pedantic, and the reference to children irritating. She sometimes wishes he’d just hurry up and die. He’s grown fat in recent years and prone to wheezing. One would think that in such a state... and yet the man lives on. Things might have been more tolerable if only she had someone to complain to, but her friends are jealous. They wonder why she isn’t content with her wealthy husband. Who cares if she’s never been able to bear the man a child, or that the inherited daughter from the man’s first marriage is trouble? The girl is away at boarding school most of the time, so what’s the problem? But never mind these friends. She’ll soon put all of this behind her.
The inheritance now joins them for breakfast, to which Mrs. Adewale reacts with her habitual withering glance, envious of the ease with which the girl wears her low-rise jeans and sequined tank top. It’s not a look meant for middle-aged women, but Mrs. Adewale has occasionally tried squeezing herself into such things, maddened that her youth and beauty are slipping away just when the new pastor has taken an interest in her. Why these sudden blotches on the face, the threads of gray hair, and worst of all, the deep fleshy rings encircling her neck like Indian bangles — dozens of them!
“Look at you!” Mr. Adewale exclaims, seeing how his daughter is dressed. “Who told you to dress like Jezebel?
“Go and change!” chimes Mrs. Adewale.
“Didn’t you hear your mother? Go and change!”
“She’s not my mother,” Tinuke mutters, seething at being shamed in front of the wicked witch.
“Go!” he shouts, loud enough for Cecilia to hear from the kitchen.
Cecilia lifts the frying pan off the stove and listens. She’s worked for this family long enough to know when to be quiet, but now that she’s decided to leave, she wonders why she bothers. She thinks again of the petroleum minister whose cook, the papers say, stole millions from the minister’s vault. What she intends to take is just pocket change in comparison.
“Cecilia!” Mr. Adewale calls.
“Saaah.” Cecilia hastily dries her hands against her apron and hurries to the breakfast room, straightening and pulling down her skirt as she goes.
“Where are my eggs?”
“Is coming, sah!”
“And toast? What’s taking you so long? Hurry up!” He claps his hands quickly.
“Sorry, sah. I’m coming just now.”
Cecilia scurries back to the kitchen, relights the burner, and starts frying the onions. She pauses for a moment, listening to make sure nobody’s coming, then spits into the bowl of eggs. She beats swiftly before pouring the eggs into the pan. While the omelet cooks, she serves the akara and cuts the toast into triangles. When everything is ready, she wipes her brow with two fingers and flicks the sweat onto her employer’s plate. Added seasoning for his coming up behind her yesterday and squeezing her breasts while she was removing a cake from the oven. She ought to have thrown the hot pan at his feet.
Mr. and Mrs. sit silently over the remains of breakfast. Beneath the table, Mrs. Adewale fingers the unwanted bulges that pad her waist, and with her other hand helps herself to a third piece of toast, regardless. Mr. Adewale momentarily returns to thoughts of his neighbors before drifting back to more pleasant thoughts of his current love — Nadia.
Upstairs in her bedroom, Tinuke throws herself onto her bed, and with muffled cries pounds the mattress with both fists. “I can’t take it, can’t take it!” she sobs, eventually sitting up. She unzips her jeans, flings them to one side and puts on a skirt, wipes the tears from her face, and stares at her seventeen-year-old self in the mirror. Just a few more weeks, she reminds herself. Just a few more weeks.
Mr. Adewale eyes his daughter, now back at the breakfast table, dressed in more sensible clothing. He reaches over to squeeze her shoulder, but she pulls away. Let her be then. He remembers her as a little girl, the way she used to sit on his lap and eat from his plate. He used to carry her around on his shoulders, play tickling games, and tell ijapa tales of the clever tortoise outwitting all the other animals of the forest. The stories made her laugh, and for a while she took to calling herself Ijapa, hiding behind furniture and then jumping out to shout, Boo! Not anymore though. Now she seems wary of him. Accuses him of being too strict. But if you were to see her ample breasts and the way her buttocks move so seductively in tight jeans... He sucks his teeth.
Everyone in the Adewale household understands that when it’s time for Mr. Adewale’s swimming lesson, they’re not allowed to watch, so they do. The gardeners peep through the purple bougainvillea by the side of the house, while Cecilia watches from the conservatory. They see him looking silly in his knee-length shorts tied with a drawstring that disappears beneath a bulging stomach. They watch as he lowers himself gingerly into the water, holding onto the handrails as though his life depends on it, until both feet are firmly planted in the shallow end. The water cuts him off below the chest, and he stands for some moments with arms held high above the water, shaking as he eyes the pool’s inflatable life buoy for reassurance. The gardeners laugh at the sight of the boss looking foolish, although it’s Nadia who interests them the most. When she stands in the shallow end, water glistens like jewels on her bare shoulders and swishes around her waist beneath her large breasts. The workers have heard that the latter may not be real, that Master may have paid for them to be just so. People with money can afford such things. Her skin is light and even lighter in places normally covered by clothes. When she swims, her long brown hair fans out behind her. She allows Master to cling to the edge and tells him to kick, but he has trouble with this maneuver and the goddess must hold him stable under his tummy. The gardeners laugh again, imagining what must be happening down there in the aquamarine pool. Cecilia looks on with disgust while Mrs. Adewale, herself a former mistress, observes in anger from the balcony of the upstairs bedroom.