Exordium

CHIDEZIRI

I know Daddy is angry before he comes out of the car. I knew he will be angry before he went out of the house with Tobi. Tobi had already seen his JAMB result before they left for the cyber cafe. His eyes grew wide for a second, then frantic, his thumb hurriedly swiping across his Samsung's screen. I knew then, that Tobi failed jamb. I can hear the sound of the front door as it is flung open. I can hear it slam against the wall and rebound, creaking shut, whining in disapproval. Another sound follows, swift and easily recognizable, sharp, precise and wind-cutting–a slap. It is discipled by a thud and a hollow echo. I imagine Tobi reeling from the blow, then catch himself–a palm pressed to his smarting cheek.

"Chideziri!" 

I shrink back into the wall at the coolest corner of the room. My heart is pounding in my chest like a war drum; so violently it hurts.

"Chideziri!"

I grasp at the small hope that he will stopping calling and forget i am here.

"Chideziri!" louder; angrier this time

I stand and move to the door, my feet feels numb brushing against the soft rug. My whole body screams at me in deafening protest. He's in my face the moment i enter the parlour, red spotted eyes flashing.

"Is it not you that i called?" 

"Is–is it not you that i called? " he punctuates each "is" with a swift swipe of his hand.

The sound of his palm hitting someone's face is distant, almost noiseless, until i realized it is my face. Until my jaw is stinging with the reverberating hurt of a bee's sting, until hot tears burn just below my eyes. I hold them back and look at him through my blurred water-soaked-glass-like vision. Tobi is not holding his cheek as i imagined, he is standing like a-soon-to-be-martyr; solemn, tall and noble. Defiance shines in his eyes, when he looks at me.

"The two of you are the biggest mistakes i ever made." Daddy is saying

"This is the second  time, the second time you are writing jamb from this house, if i pay for that non-sense with my money again, know that it is not me," he says. He beats his chest with the flat of his palm.

I am staring at Tobi as hard as i can because if i don't I'll cry, because if i entertain a thought other than this safe emptiness the scalding tears bubbling just below my throat will come up hot and itchy. Tobi stands as still as a statute. I try to gauge how he is feeling, but other than the raw red-ness of his eyes i might have as well been trying to interrogate concrete. When Daddy says he will no longer pay for Tobi's non-sense, Tobi' s face twitches, eyes flashing for one moment, then he is stone again; frigid and sculpture-like, with his mouth pursed in tight line, the bone in his clenched jaw bulging, and i know that he is struggling with all his might to stop himself from retorting that it was not Daddy's, but Mummy's money that paid for the non-sense. I know it because i have seen that look on his face as times as i have felt my heart hammering into my chest, more times than i can count. More times than i would like. 

Daddy knows it too, his glare becomes even more intense. 

"When i tell your mother that you have decided to make yourselves useless, she will not listen, let her continue spending this family's money anyhow."

"You," Daddy says, pointing a stubby caramel finger at Tobi.

 "Continue bringing shame to this family" he growls.

He stumps out of the parlour and up the stairs, his footsteps thumping the floor with transferred aggression. NEPA comes then, almost on cue. The soft hum of the fridge fills the silence and a gloss flirts from the bright yellow bulb above our heads onto the gleaming brown of the center table.The stinging in my throat does not allow me to cheer, but at least, electricity is a tuft of consolation in a jungle of hair. Tobi is staring at the white washed wall with intense scrutiny that walls don't deserve, gold light from the bulb paints a warm glitter on his skin. He walks past me, his movements precise and robotic, to the corridor and into our room. I am alone again, left with a  slowing heartbeat, and a familiar feeling of being lost.

When Mummy comes back Tobi says nothing about what happened. I didn't expect him to, but it didn't stop me from wishing he did. Maybe Mummy would've said or done something that would be different; different from a swift slap on the face. Instead she asked him if they went to the cyber café. He said "Yes" and nothing else. Somehow i felt as if she knew that Tobi failed, the exact same way she knew where all the cuts on my arm, crooked and lacerated, came from. She had even deeper cuts and huer bruises. It started again on a Saturday like this one when the house was silent with the coolness and subtlety only saturdays are known for. Coolness that was shattered by thuds and screeches from Daddy and Mummy's room. The door was locked, bolted from inside–a thing that rarely happened. Tobi pounded on the door until he couldn't anymore, until the whimpers died out, and i wondered in that terrible moment if Mummy died, if that unearthly  silence was finality. My heart thumped in my chest, and I felt an ancient and familiar terror return to reclaim me.

AMANDA

When the chicken is starting to turn golden-brown, Dad calls to say he won't make it home for Christmas. 

Aunty Seedy has the gas on and she's turning the pieces of meat again and again until they have crusted all over. The aroma of curry and meat fills the kitchen like a fog. 

I am seated cross-legged on top of the freezer in shorts and a singlets waiting for the food, waiting for Dad to come home. Only the occasional, Nne get me the knife, brings me down from my perch. 

When her phone starts ringing, that weird clock-like ringtone that I've had memorized since I was little, she tucks the hair falling into her face behind her ear, answers the call and leaves the kitchen, but not before saying, "Amie please watch that thing for me. Make sure it doesn't burn."

I am left wondering what to do about the chicken and the oil sizzling in the pan. An attempt to turn a piece over causes drops of oil to splatter. One touches my arm and I yelp in pain and back away from the pan. 

We never had to cook. Dad or I. Aunty Seedy like to make this joke that the utensils in the kitchen are just for show. The pan and spoon sparkle as though they were made yesterday, meanwhile we have had them for years. 

"Aunty!" I call out. When she doesn't answer, I go towards the sitting room. She's standing at the dining with her back to me, listening to whoever is on the other end of the call so intently she doesn't hear me call her again. 

"But brother—" She starts to say, but then she stops herself. A string of igbo words follow. A pause. Another string of words. 

"So what should I tell her?" 

I tiptoe away. By the time I enter the kitchen, it is full oF smoke and the aroma of chicken is gone. I rush towards the gas and turn it off. My eyes water from the smoke. 

A moment later, Aunty Seedy returns. She stops at the door and coughs. "Turn it off! Turn it off!"

"I have already done so." 

The food is more black than black and it sticks to the pan. Guilt wraps its fingers around me. But Aunty Seedy doesn't seem to care. She pushes the window open for smoke to escape. Golden Christmas sunlight rushes in. 

"It was your dad that called me." She begins, still facing the window. "He can't make it home today."

My chest deflates. 

"What did he say?"

"There is something he has to do before leaving Enugu. Something very important." 

She looks at me now, her normally hard eyes soft, maybe even sad. It doesn't suit her, those doleful eyes on such a fierce face. With Dad, it is always something important. Always. 

She loosen the ropes of the apron and takes it off, then she comes to me and wraps an arm around my shoulder. Together, we survey the damage. 

"Let's go out. I am sure there are still some places that aren't full. " She says. 

I didn't plan to go out. We didn't. But I let her take me by the hand and pull me out. Leaving the charred remains behind. Leaving the hope of dad coming home behind. 

Leaving Christmas behind. 

my ears in a steady assault, and could feel an old terror come to reclaim me.