The sky was clean, telling me that this was the best decision. Makonda
sat next to me as he should, holding my right hand, playing a part and taking
responsibility for something that wasn’t his. His family were all in the left
corner of the table making weird faces to try to intimidate me but I wasn’t
bothered. His mom looked exactly like him, strong traits with sad eyes, I
wonder if my child will resemble me one day. I looked at his dad; I envied him
for having his dad by his side, supporting his decision to marry a calculated
woman. Why did this man love me when my own family couldn’t love me?
I met Makonda in grade 8 when school was still something you go to sign
attendance and not something you really need to work hard for. I don’t know
why, but it was just easy talking to him, he wouldn’t say much, he would just
look at me and nod to everything I say. And funny enough, I always wanted an
easy love, something that I didn’t have to fight or waste myself on, and he
gave me that. I remember him standing outside my house wearing his old manly
sandals, I never asked him to do that but he just took it upon himself to do
that every day, the same way he offered his shoulders several times when Luzolo
was not online to pick up my calls. It’s crazy how everyone knew about me and
him and they allowed but looking back everything gets serious when you are
older, when we were young, it was pure, it wasn’t this immorality. Even more
unhinged was how I used to go to the cyber café every week to talk to Luzulo so
I could calm my heart and continue planning our so called wedding till he returned
from his journey abroad, and in that same place he killed me. Not that kind of
killing malaria does to distant family members every month, the kind of killing
that you wished you were really dead because you will be killed in every family
gathering when you see his handsome face looking at you without shame.
We were sixteen when it first happened, way before he started saying the
word ‘retard’ with a British accent. It was back then when he used to sell
yogurt for living. I didn’t know how to act around him, it was like I didn’t
know how to fight or accept the feeling. When you experience such, you don’t
know what to do with it. It took me a while to forgive myself for loving my
cousin but it felt like magic. I don’t know how it happened, if it was the
afternoons in the Laguna or the late nights playing cards.
They told me to not speak and just listen and I did. I wasn’t surprised
that I couldn’t talk on my own engagement because my whole life, I was told not
to speak at all. I wonder why I need languages at all. The first language I
learned was Mouchoirs, mother taught me that one. It’s funny how I learned to
talk with her but today we don’t talk much.
It was a sunny day, not the joyful ones. It was scorching hot, the ones
that if you move an inch, you would sweat instantly. I heard one voice only,
mom or what was left of her couldn’t even wine. I opened my broken window which
wouldn’t close at all and would enable the mosquitoes to live amongst us and I
saw them. Mom and dad. Mom was covering her face but still he was able to
destroy it. I leaned myself towards the other side, and jumped to the red sand
floor. I reached them; one of dad’s attempted slap reached my arm. I moved my body
in between them. She was released. She wasn’t crying, she acted like she
deserved it. I used my whole body to cover her. Dad was trying to cross me so
he could reach mom but no success. “No! Don’t you dare touch her again!” I
shouted. Everyone could hear me, the same way everyone could see what he did
but no one moved. Dad was sweating and looking around to see who was watching.
He wasn’t worried about the scene; he was enjoying the attention. He was proud
of beating up his wife until she couldn’t move, like he was setting some kind
of example.
My dad left. And mom decides to take me out of the house, sending me to
leave with aunt Geannete. I don’t hate my mother, she didn’t know better than
that. That’s what you do right? Your man leaves you because your daughter was
the only one to intervene in your near death experience and you dispose her,
like trash. If I didn’t experience a great amount of suffering, I would never
know better and know what was right or wrong. My mom was wrong.
The problem with my mother was that she was a fixer, she thought my dad
would change one day and become her prince charming. I remember growing up she
tried to fix my toes, they were all separated like a chicken’s toes or hands
saying goodbye. She bought me a one string sandals to try to glue them together
but it didn’t work. For her, the only way to fix her marriage was to take me
out of the picture, but still dad didn’t come back, because he could. That’s
the problem with men - power, being able to do whatever they want and whenever
they want. My grandma once said ‘people with power invented power’. There is
vanity in being allowed to do certain things without punishment. It took me
time to understand the meaning of the word “allowing” and when I did I was
amazed of how much men can get away with. Men cheat constantly, no one says
anything! They beat up women, no one says anything! They sleep with their
cousin, no one says anything!
Everyone in my family knew what happened between me and Luzolo but they
didn’t say anything. For them, he was just experiencing things, and what could
be better than using your own cousin as an object. The only rule was - I
couldn’t get pregnant. But I did. I guess we both did but I thought it was
okay, since we loved each other, right? How can the feeling vanish like that?
What happened abroad that changed Luzolo completely? Aunt Geannete said that
seeing things you never expected brings out shades of you that you didn’t know.
I remember the day I went with aunt Geannete to pick up Luzolo from the
airport, 11th May, 2016. He was coming out of the ‘arrives gate’
with his perfectly dark complexioned skin, wearing a different look, combined
with a different smell and also an accent. Other changes kept coming throughout
the days, he started calling traditional attires ‘African attire’, like he
wasn’t African. The changes kept becoming more disturbing and unbecoming. I
expected a rather positive change but not a change of plans, the plan was for
him to go study for four years, come back with a degree and get married, because
with a degree our incest wouldn’t be so immoral, it would be at least, shielded
by the academic enlightenment and western knowledge. But, it was like his new
life took away his soul, how come someone profoundly good became this, profane
and nebulous person, so mean.
“We can’t see each other anymore.” Luzolo announced.
“You know that’s impossible, right?” I teased him.
“You know it’s not right…it’s not…” He sounded sincere.
“Don’t!”. I made a sign for him to hush. I wanted him to spare me with
the legal connotations he learned abroad.
“Nafissa, I want us to be how we used to be…” He looked like he was
chewing gum but there was nothing in his mouth. It’s always what men want!
“Who are you?” I looked deep in his eyes trying to resuscitate the man I
once knew. How can people change so much and suddenly?
“I am your cousin.” He was cold, like the abroad weather gave him
immunity against anything warm, especially my love.
“I know.” I was crying but I was done begging him for his consent to a
forbidden act.
“This is not right! You know that! We need to do the right thing…we need
to be good…” He would always do that, bring values into the conversation and
make me look like the bad guy.
“For you to recognise good, you need to be good.” He needed to hear
that.
“You really want me to be this person?” He said in a way that looked he
was threatening me.
“What are you saying?” I was confused but not expecting what was coming
next. So naïve of me to think there would be a better option, a real and viable
one.
“Kill this baby!!! Kill this sick baby!!!I don’t want it! kill it before
I kill it myself.” I guess that’s what education does to you, you become these
academically sound, but vapid and evil person.
The flowers and curtains from the inside of the house started moving, it
looked like my esquizofernia was so high that I made it up but it was literally
moving. It was windy, I liked wind, it was peaceful. I looked over to Luzolo,
he seemed relieved that I would soon get married so he could live his perfect
life and enjoy the benefits of having a degree from abroad alone. Luzolo didn’t
want me and everything was about his wanting. Everything is about men, what
they feel, what they like, what they don’t want. I have seen so many times
women marrying men they don’t like just because people told them to. It’s like
we are these sensitive natured human beings but we can’t be moved by feelings.
Men marry who they love, who they want, they have the last say. We marry
whoever wants to marry us, even if we don’t feel anything for that person. This
wanting and allowance is the catalyst for corruption in Zenith and everywhere
else…
I was observing Makonda, his nose looked like a binoculars and he always
looked like he was an old picture of himself. Gosh! He was so unattractive!
Then I noticed there was no plates on the table which meant there would be no
food. My family was rude I learned that later in my life but what can you
expect from people who raised a woman beater? We always make excuses for people
you love. The same way I excused myself from realising Luzolo was evil. But I
can’t exonerate myself from being a mild sociopath. If you wonder how serial
killers become, that’s how you start, by forging pregnancy. You know I was
never good in school but how I managed to scheme this plan it takes some kind
of intelligence, I guess.
“Nafissa sweetheart, please pass me the salt.” I heard aunt Geannete’s
voice. She was calling me; she noticed my mind wasn’t here. The veranda was
long enough to accommodate the long table and the attending visitors. We sat
outside so we could witness what they brought. Over there, on the grass there
were standing two cows and six goats that looked hungry.
A tear fell. They all assumed it was a tear of joy, it wasn’t. Luzolo
looked at me and then looked away translating that he didn’t care. Aunt
Geannete’s attempt to make me lucid failed, I went back to the land of torture,
where my memories reside and my predicament lay bare before me.
I sat in the three lines of the uncomfortable seat of the ‘Taxi Stop’,
waiting for him. He said he needed to take me somewhere. I got ready and was
dressed in the same dress that I wore at my uncle’s wedding where he told me
the first time he loved me. When you are poor like this, especially when you
have no future because you choose to stop going to school because you were
waiting on your cousin to come back and provide for you, you wear the same
thing to different occasions, it doesn’t matter.
He picked me up and held my hand. He was guiding me fast. We stopped at
the cyber café; it was all white with bad artist graffiti all over it. A blue
door was open. There was a guy so short that you could tell by just seeing him
sitting down in the front desk. He made a sign and pointed at the computers at
the back. Why would he propose here? I wondered. He sat me in a wooden chair
saying the same things the graffiti outside said. He didn’t sit. It looked like
I needed to sit to prepare myself for what was coming. He started playing with
the computer, goggling things. He wrote “osteogenesis imperfecta”. I wondered
what it was. A little toddler appeared on the screen and it looked like there
was something wrong with him.
“You can’t have this baby.” He desperately faced me.
“What are you saying?” I was juggling between looking at him and the
disabled baby on the screen.
“If you have this baby, he will be sick.” His voice was louder; he was
done pretending that he was taking this pregnancy lightly. His world was falling
apart.
The next day, I went back to the cyber café to find out more, to really
convince me not to have this baby. I never heard of the disease, we only knew
of malaria and HIV, they were like sisters. HIV would come slowly and then when
you are completely weak, malaria would finish you. I walked over to the guy who
worked at the desk and asked him to take an ID picture of me. I asked him to
take me only one picture, that’s all I could afford. People usually buy a pack
of six but I didn’t have money and I needed it more than ever for what I was
about to do.
Makonda kept looking at me to see if I was okay but I wasn’t. It was
getting dark but the conversation was no way near the end. I could hear
different voices but I wasn’t paying attention and they kept discussing me like
I wasn’t in the room. I concentrated on my thoughts. I looked over, there was
an empty seat. My cousin Antenor wasn’t with us anymore. I missed him; I
wondered what he would say seeing that I wasn’t going to marry for love. He was
someone who knew me and would easily see that I didn’t love Makonda. When you
fall in love early in your life, you get in touch with your feelings, knowing
who you love and who you don’t. And you only know you don’t love someone when
you have loved someone.
I went back on my thoughts. It was crowded; there was no formal queue,
people everywhere begging to be assisted. I saw the posters on the wall and I
scanned through them, trying to find where it says what are the requirements to
issue an identification card. They were asking for one picture and the birth
certificate. I had my birth certificate with me, it looked like I was born in
1960, since it appeared old, dirty and you barely could tell what was written.
I had everything but I was still contemplating my decision. It’s funny how I
only got my identity when I lost myself.
I was fine without an ID, until grade 10 you don’t need it and I guess I
didn’t need it at all since school was a retired topic for me. I sat next to a
light skinned kind but dusty guy without his right arm, just like Antenor. He
looked conformed and collected, like he was done with life. My arm touched his
half arm and I didn’t move. I didn’t want him to think I was disgusted by his
arm in any way. I had to train myself on that skill growing up with Antenor but
even though we coped with his loss, he didn’t.
Antenor was a good cousin; it was unfortunate what happened to him. A
taxi van stopped at Identification centre door. The line was so long that we
had to wait outside for our names to be called. A taxi driver who had his arm
out over the open window asked if we were getting in and we said no. Antenor
came to my mind again. That’s how it happened. He used to work as a ‘taxi
driver assistant’ or money collector, whatever you call it. He had the habit of
keeping his arm over the window and one day he lost it. It wasn’t a big deal
for us, being born in this land we are lacking something, an arm, a leg and
some people a heart.
“Nafissa Koffi.”
They called my name several times and every time I heard it sounded as
Antero was calling me and asking me not to send my child to where he was. I
started walking towards the doors, they were finally letting us in but we still
needed to wait another hour to submit our papers. It seemed as the universe was
making the process harder for me so I would give up. I thought about Luzolo again,
years ago when he started handling his documents to go abroad, I would
accompany him everywhere and the process was even harder. He once mentioned
that it was a way to test if he really wanted to go and I wish he gave up,
maybe today we could still be together.
There were glass walls everywhere, and you could see the officers
upstairs. I looked around at these entire people getting ID’s to start working
or something meaningful, not me. I knew exactly what I was doing. I needed my
name written in a small size yellowish card so I could get rid of something, so
someone else could live happily ever after.
He told me he was going to pay for the procedure, so I didn’t have to go
to an old house backyard and watch a witch with a weird name take care of me.
That was the least he could do, making sure I would go through it alive. He
choose a fancy clinic, the ones who give you tea and cookies while you wait to
do the unspeakable act. One of the requirements to perform this cannibal
procedure was an ID, so they could have a souvenir of an incest subscriber. I
wonder how can you go from sleeping with your own blood to kill your own blood.
What is next? You know when we are growing up and we see adults acting
remorselessly and you tell yourself I will never be like that. I am like that!
“Can you excuse us for a little bit?” I felt her hand on my hand. She
asked Makonda to take me somewhere. He nodded like always. I hopefully stood up
and followed Aunt Geanette to her flourish lively green garden.
“Are you okay?” She had her concerned ears holding her afro hair.
“I will be.” I really believed after I married him everything would be
alright, like this would fix all my wrong deeds. “Aunt, do you think I am a
good person?” I asked her, begging for salvation.
“You are a good person based on the things that make you happy!... and
this is not making you happy at all…” She scratched her scalp. Her roots were
fighting the relaxed end parts of her hair. “If you are not sure, don’t do it!”
My aunt was an understanding and forgiving person, and I am pretty sure those
traits didn’t come easy.
“I have no option.” I looked at Makonda, he was patiently talking to his
mother, maybe convincing her in some way that I was a good decision. I felt
sorry for him, he was going to deal with a heart he didn’t break.
“Gratitude is not love…” She said as she gave me her back and walked
back towards the table. I did the same and told myself I had to remember why I
was marrying him, that’s all. It felt like I was getting married to marriage
and not to him.
.I couldn’t sleep; I wasn’t ready for what I was going to do the next
day. It wasn’t the mosquitoes bothering me; it was my pain, my consciousness
and my baby. I left home at dawn and went to the one place that could give me
shelter. I still had another option that didn’t involve killing, just lying. I
knocked on the window; his window was not broken like mine or my soul. I
knocked again. I could hear him waking up. He wasn’t surprised to see me; we
have done it before, several rendezvous
where I needed to lay on him and open up about my anxiety towards Luzolo
changing.
He opened the door, no questions asked. But today we wouldn’t do the
same angelical laying down. His room was very small, the bed was right next to
the window and it smelled like old mangos. He grabbed my whole touched body,
helped me get in and I joined him in his bed. I started kissing him
aggressively forgetting that I wasn’t attracted by him at all. His mouth was
not even open, I opened his mouth with my mouth and I sucked his breathing out
of him. He wasn’t moving, like he was scared of hurting me but he wasn’t
stopping me either. I could smell both our smells joining each other, his grass
aroma gained through working tiring hours on the garden and my smell of shame.
His eyes were not closed; he was astounded at me and with what we were doing.
We kept doing it, and by doing it I made sure I had an evidence that my baby
was conceived morally.
That’s how we got here…that’s how I saved my baby. I looked around the
table, my family on one side, his family on the other side and my future family
inside of me. They were ready to leave and we were ready to mock his family.
While my family were inside gossiping about my future family, I stepped away
with Makonda, preventing him from hearing their atrocities but I also had
something to tell him.
It was already night, I could hear the annoying crickets sound and the
mosquitos coming to torture me for what I am doing to this man. I had to tell
him, he deserved to know.
“This baby is not yours.” I held Makonda’s hand and I panicky confessed.
“I know Nafissa. It’s ours…” He knew? I don’t know exactly what was
Makonda talking about but I knew that from that day on I was choosing to change
the narrative of accepting that the one who hurts you the most is the one you
love the most.
Lunga Izata
THE END
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